for a prompt by Tumblr user sammxhill:
"I don't understand why you have to go!" Beth cried in a whisper, as desperate as he was not to wake up their son.
Hershel had only just now fallen asleep and Daryl honestly couldn't remember the last time he had done that. The medic here in Alexandria said their baby was completely healthy but Daryl had never known one baby could cry so much.
"We all got jobs to do right? That's what you always say." Daryl whispered back as he grabbed the newest quiver of arrows he had made and slung it over his back.
"Don't use my words as an excuse to keep leaving us!" Beth crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. The effect was dampened by her wildly frizzed hair and the fact that it looked like she hadn't slept in 36 hours but it was still pretty intimidating.
"I gotta go Beth." Daryl said with a shrug as he grabbed his crossbow, focusing on it so that he wouldn't have to look at her.
Beth seemed ready to stamp her foot in anger. "No! No you don't!" in her anger she forgot to keep her voice down and Daryl made frantic gestures for her to be quiet as Hershel began to fuss in his crib. "You want to go! You'd use any excuse to leave us!"
Hershel let out a cry as the sound of his mother's voice woke him. Daryl sighed and made to put his bow down and grab their son but Beth got there first. She scooped their baby boy up in her arms and turned to glare at him again.
Daryl fought for the words to explain it, how even after three months he was still scared to be a father(of becoming his father), but he could see Beth wasn't in the mood to hear anything.
"I'll be back tonight." he said calmly, trying to make her feel better but Beth only snorted and shook her head.
"And then you'll leave tomorrow." she turned her head away from him and began to blink rapidly and Daryl took a step forward to hold her, to touch her, to do something. Hershel made a small noise then and Daryl looked down at his son and very nearly stumbled when he saw the look in his small blue eyes.
Daryl had never thought babies could foster such an expression but there, shining out of his son's eyes, was a look he was all to familiar with. It was a look of disgust and hatred. It was the look Daryl had only ever used for his own father and seeing it in his son's eyes felt like a punch to the gut.
He tripped, catching himself on the back of the couch as his family glared at him. He had been trying so hard not to become his father, had doing that made it happen anyway? Was leaving them so often, even if it was for the good of the group, just the same as how often his father had left his mother? If he kept leaving now, would it just start everything else?
"Well?" Beth finally asked, breaking the silent tension (and his inner monologue) in the room. "Don't you have somewhere to be?"
Daryl shook his head as he approached his family. Maybe staying wouldn't stop him from becoming his father but it would be a start. He owed it to them to at least try. He pulled them into his arms, with the gentlest touch he could manage. Beth tensed under his touch at first but she relaxed as Daryl whispered.
"They can find someone else to go." he pulled back so that he could look down at them. "I can't keep leaving you two."
Beth smiled softly and Daryl looked down in her arms to see his son. The look in his eyes now was one Daryl had never given his own father and he felt his chest unclench a bit at the sight. Maybe he could do this after all.