Author's Notes: So this is it, the last one. Thank you for sticking with it through the good and the bad! It's pretty flufftastic. Sorry! I have plenty of other things lined up! Find me on Twitter/Tumblr under SepticLovebite.
TWDTWDTWD
He didn't really know when he regarded them as his family. Not just as the Robinson group, which they'd been known to the outsiders as for years. Sure, they were all his family, really. He'd known them eight years, after all. Lived and worked with them. But Carol, Katie and Joe, they were his proper family. The ones he'd lay down and die for.
The first time he ever looked after them alone, perhaps? They'd been at Fort Robinson for a few months, all residing in one larger lodge, when Lori went in to labour. He knew that the day would come and he knew that labour wasn't exactly going to occur in the middle of the day and everything would be back to normal come dinner, but he hadn't really thought about it.
Carol had gone to help Hershel with the birth when Lori's waters broke during dinner, without even looking to see if he would be alright with the two grubby brats stuffing their faces with mashed potato. Eventually, the excitement cleared the table and he was left alone with the two of them.
He drew the line at changing Joe's diaper. He called Maggie for that one and he wasn't ashamed of it. He was getting used to doing things for them. He could make a bottle now and he'd even gotten up to do the night feeds before, when Carol was sick once. He was even used to putting Katie to bed, because when Carol did it, it was an endless circle of bed time stories and getting up for glasses of water. He just dumped her in the bed and shut the door and it never, ever failed to work. Ok, so he tucked her in and let her kiss him goodnight, but that was his and Katie's secret and he would take that one to the grave.
When Carol came down to the kitchen at breakfast time, the sound of a newborn squalling upstairs, she looked exhausted but pleased.
"It's a girl." She announced, slumping in the chair next to him, watching him push tiny pieces of canned fruit into Joe's mouth.
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Maybe it was after the first winter in Fort Robinson, when everyone finally moved out of the large communal cabin and he didn't even bat an eyelid when it came to moving into the three bedroom lodge a few feet away.
"Hey man, am I dreaming, or are you actually clutching a box of teddy bears?" Glenn asked, as he worked on screwing the frames of a cot together. Carol and Daryl were the first to move into a lodge of their own, mostly, he suspected because of the absolute certainty that one of the children would have woken the rest of the them up before dawn.
"Shut up, asshole." He growled, slamming the box onto the floor by Glenn's feet. There was no real defence for it, he was pussy whipped by a three year old. Katie was the biggest drama queen he'd ever met and she followed Daryl everywhere. He was getting used to it. He learnt that there was only one escape and that was to go hunting everyday. Those few hours that were his alone, were enough to stave off any irritation with her constant company.
"She's right there!" Glenn protested, gesturing behind him, where Katie stood in the doorway watching the pair. "She called me an asshole last week and I'm pretty sure she knows how to use the word "fuck" now."
Daryl shrugged. He didn't really give a shit if she did swear. Really, what did it fucking matter? Carol nagged on him about it all the time and he did try to rein it in front of her, but it was damned hard to change the habits of a lifetime in just a few months.
"Whatever, you are an asshole." He told Glenn, as he left the room to fetch another box. He nudged Katie in front of him, for her to move with him back to the main house. It was pretty quiet around there, but the children were never left alone outside for even a moment. "Come on kid, we got to get the rest o' your crap." Why the hell did the kids have so much shit? Seriously, they had twice as many bags of clothes as he did and theirs were smaller. And a fuck ton of toys. He got that they needed stuff to keep them quiet, but did Katie need a whole shelf of colouring books? She usually spent all of three seconds scribbling with one colour, usually blue, and then claimed it was a picture of a horse or some shit.
What made it worse, was that Carol stuck them everywhere, making appreciative noises about them. They were like fucking wallpaper. They were blue scribbles, for Christ's sake. He would never understand it.
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He was pretty sure that he almost lost his family when they'd just made their three year anniversary at Fort Robinson. He couldn't even remember what started off the bad mood that had plagued him for days, maybe he was just feeling like crap. Both the kids were crotchety as fuck and it was wearing both him and Carol down.
Carl had been winding Joe up for days, pushing him to call Daryl Daddy. Daryl had always made a point of having them call him by his name only. Yeah, okay, he would admit they were his kids, even if they weren't his by blood, but they weren't calling him Daddy. It just freaked him out. They called Carol Momma and that was just fine. Katie was six, going on seven and she had had the talk about her biological parents. There were no secrets.
Joe was only three, maybe closer to four, although they were never really sure when his birthday was and he had only started coming out of his shell. He'd always followed Carol around before now, never leaving her side.
Carl was a little shit, both he and Carol had both had words with him about it, but the kid was relentless. Eventually the sound of Joe following him around chanting Daddy over and over had Daryl completely flipping out, screaming at him to shut up.
Joe had burst into tears. Hysterical sobs that he could hardly breathe through and Daryl had never felt like such a low piece of shit as he did then. Carol overheard and he had never in his life seen her so angry. She had never screamed at him before, hardly ever raised her voice and never lost her temper with him.
"Get out." She hissed at him, scooping the little boy up and clutching him close.
"Oh, for fuck's sake. No. Give him here." He held his hands out to take the child and Joe recoiled into Carol's chest.
"I mean it, Daryl. You can't pick and choose when you want kids." She brushed past him into their bedroom, slamming the door shut.
He didn't know what to do. How to fix this. So even though he was ashamed of it afterward, he ran. He took off into the safety of the forest, taking his anger out on any creature who dared step into his eyeline. He ran the argument over in his head so many times that he hadn't even noticed that it was dark.
She wanted him gone. That's what she said. He always wondered when she would tire of him. He was bad tempered and stubborn, he knew that. He tried to rein in it, but he was never going to be Mr Happy-Fucking-Go-Lucky. He didn't do as much with the children as Rick did with his kids or Glenn did with his new baby, but it never felt natural. He wasn't doing a good job of parenting.
So he hunted and protected, but these days there were hardly a need for him in Carol's life. Walkers were thin on the ground now, at least in Nebraska. Their group's number had swollen to almost 50 people. She didn't need him. Not really.
When the moon was at the highest point in the sky, he'd had enough. Fine, if she didn't want him, that was her decision. But she wasn't taking Katie and Joe from him. He wasn't fucking perfect, but he was trying. He would do better.
When he got back to the cabin, he'd expected it to be in darkness but there was a lamp burning in the sitting room. She sat in the darkest corner, in the ratty chair he sat at to clean his weapons, blanket wrapped around her feet.
He said nothing as he set his bow and his string of game by the door, tugging his jacket and boots off. She finally looked up to him as he crossed the room, eyes dark.
"I thought the worst." She said finally, voice hardly more than a whisper.
"You think I can't handle what ever is in the forest?" He sneered out at her.
"That is hardly the worst that could happen. I thought you had left us."
"You don't get to tell me when I get to go. They're mine too."
"I wasn't telling you to leave...Christ, I was angry, Daryl! I was trying to comfort our child!"
He recoiled at that, taking a step backwards.
"Katie sobbed herself to sleep tonight, because she thought you were never coming home. And I had to promise her you would but I didn't know if I believed that." She was crying now, wiping the wetness away angrily.
"I'm sorry. I fucked up. It won't happen again. I'm tryin', I swear."
She nodded once, turning her head away and he took that as the best he would get from her, for tonight at least. It was more than he deserved.
He turned to the children's room, the two were huddled in the one bed and Joe turned to the door when he heard it open.
"Hey, little man." He whispered, crouching at the edge of the bed. Joe said nothing, his eyes were ringed with red, lashes sticking together with tears. "I shouldn'a shouted at ya today. I was wrong." He reached out to touch the little boy, squeezing his hand lightly. Finally, Joe responded, clutching him back.
Katie stirred at the noise, sitting up, rubbing her eyes. "You're back!"
"Yeah, Daddy's home."
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Carol didn't mind that they never put a label on what they were, even though they'd been whatever they were for over six years. She was too old to be a "girlfriend", "partner" seemed so formal. She overheard him call her his "old lady" once, but she shot that one down pretty quick. She was only 48 or so and she tried her damnedest not to feel even that old.
He was her Daryl. She was his Carol. Marriage did not hold any value in this world anymore. Still, it was lovely to watch Maggie and Glenn walk down the aisle, even if it were more than a blessing than anything else. Officiated by Rick, with Beth as Maid of Honour, Katie as Bridesmaid and Maggie and Glenn's little one Rose as flowergirl, it was more an excuse for a good party than anything else.
"Do ya mind that we ain't done that? Got hitched?" He murmured to her at the end of the night, as she tucked Joe into the bed, fully dressed. It was past midnight and the children had run riots all evening, lasting right up until the music stopped playing.
"Not at all. It doesn't change anything, does it?" Carol kicked off her shoes, new high heels found especially for the day, her feet had forgotten how painful they were, it had been so many years.
"I ain't good at that kinda fuss." He told her, voice low, almost apologetic. It was funny almost, after that many years he still felt he had to explain himself to her, apologise for being who he was. Like she didn't know every little quirk or habit, his likes and dislikes as if they were her own traits. Just six years, yet she knew this man inside and out.
"I don't need that kind of fuss either." She reassured him, slipping off her dress, a red sheath that she hadn't even picked herself. Maggie had been the one in charge of the run for the clothes. Daryl had gone with the group and she suspected he'd picked the dress for her, not that he would ever admit it.
She slid into the bed and he joined her seconds later, turning the lamp down low. She turned on her side so her back was to him and he shuffled closer to her, hip touching the small of her back.
"Do you want that kinda fuss?" He whispered into the darkness, so soft she barely heard him. She twisted around to face him, but he was staring resolutely at the ceiling, hands clasped over his stomach.
"No. I'm happy." She told him, reaching out to clasp his hand in hers. "It's just a ceremony and a ring."
Still, when he tossed something shiny at her a couple of months later, she caught it and couldn't stop the grin that spread across her face. A gold band. A perfect fit.
"I ain't good with ceremony, but I'm good with a ring. You?" He asked, hand fiddling with the knife at his hip.
All she could do was nod, eyes shining. She placed a kiss on his cheek as she passed him, hollering out to the kids about tidying up their bedrooms.
When two more survivors came to their group seeking shelter, she introduced herself as Carol Dixon and the name slid off her tongue so easily, not even Lori noticed that she had said it at first. He came into the room as she was dishing out dinner for the refugees, saying nothing to them, as was his way with new people and she introduced him as her husband and he only looked at her, one eyebrow raised, but saying nothing.
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He finally got to take Katie out hunting when she was nine. She'd been nagging him since she got old enough to realise where he went each morning. He in turn had been nagging Carol to let him take her since she got old enough to know when to zip the lip around him so that he could tolerate her in the forest for hours on end.
It was Joe that had the potential to be a hunter, really, not Katie. Like they were as babies, she was the loud one, whilst Joe was content to sit quietly by himself. But Carol forbade it, claiming him to be too young. Still, he would make Katie the best hunteress he could, fashioning her a bow of her own, which she wore proudly around their camp.
After a couple of months, she could shoot an arrow pretty well, although she was loud as hell, even when she wasn't talking. She was fearless, unafraid with being left alone among the trees, as he went to stalk their dinner. She had seen a Walker stray into their land, watched him kill it without fear, despite there being so few of them in the area now.
Still, he couldn't deny that the day he heard her shriek "Daddy!" at the top of her lungs wasn't one of the most terrifying days of his life. He ran as fast as he could, crossbow raised, towards the sound of her voice.
"I swear kid, I don't want to hurt ya, honest! I just want to rest!" The man was younger than him, late twenties maybe, dirty and skinny and fucking terrified of his kid. His little girl, who stood firm, bow and arrow poised at his head. He was so fucking proud of her.
"Get the fuck away from my kid." He growled at the man, shoving him backwards.
"Dad, I got it." She looked at him, head cocked and he resisted laughing at her. "He's lookin' for our place."
"Fuckin' interrogate him or what?" He asked her, gesturing for the stranger to walk head of them. He seemed relieved that he wasn't in instant danger of death.
She just shook her head, rolling her eyes in that sarcastic way of hers, weapon still trailing the man. "We better not tell Momma how this went down, Daddy." She told him solemnly and he nodded his head in agreement. Some things were best kept between fathers and daughters.
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He was always hostile to new people in their group. They'd been fairly lucky so far, there hadn't been any major incidents with "bad" individuals and Carol knew it was partly due to Daryl's suspicious nature. Still, when the Johnson family from neighbouring Kansas made their way to Fort Robinson, he was only openly rude to their youngest child, 12 year old Jacob.
Jacob was particularly interested in 11 year old Katie, who strode around camp like she owned the place, frequently gutting their dinner on an old picnic bench in front of the other youngsters, taking pleasure in their squeamish reaction.
Watching Daryl stalk around her like a bodyguard, growling at the young boy anytime he strayed too close was funny to watch but eventually she had to intervene, for everyone's sake.
"You can't watch over her all the time. He's just a boy." She told him, watching him on the floor with 8 year old Joe, who was concentrating on drawing an eagle. Daryl was on his belly with the child, giving him direction on how to make it as realistic as possible.
It was not easy for him, to sit and enjoy this kind of interaction. Joe did not enjoy hunting like Katie did, despite his natural talent and she knew Daryl could not understand it. Still, he tried to engage with him, to encourage the boy in whatever he wanted to do.
"Kid's got an eye on him that I don't like." He told her firmly.
"He is 12. He's harmless and Katie is more interested in chasing rabbits. He's just curious. How many pre-teens do you know that can slice up a deer without flinching?" She asked him, slumping back into the armchair by the fire.
"I could." He told her and she looked at him pointedly.
"All he wants to do is tap ass, Momma." Joe looked up from his drawing to face her, stating this as though it were fact.
"Don't say things like that, Joe!" She chided him, reaching out to cuff him softly across the back of his head. "And you!" The tap she gave Daryl was nowhere near as soft. "Don't teach him things like that. They are children."
The front door was wrenched open then, Katie flying through and slamming it shut with so much force the whole room shook.
"You are so embarrassin'!" She shouted, finger pointed in his direction. "Mom, he told Jacob Johnson that if he came near me, he'd tie his dick in a knot! Now he won't go fruit pickin' with me!"
She didn't wait for a suitable response to that before storming to her bedroom, slamming the door behind her.
Carol couldn't even work up a suitable chastisment for Daryl, looking at him briefly before heading to Katie's room.
"Same goes for you kid, no women." He warned his youngest, who'd returned to the ardous task of colouring his drawing.
"I'm eight." Joe told him, not even looking up from his work.
"I don't care. No girls until ya thirty eight. They're all batshit crazy anyway, look atcha sister." Daryl warned.
Joe nodded knowingly.
It took an hour of coaxing, but finally Katie and Carol returned to the sitting room and Joe handed Katie a sheet of paper for her to start her own drawing. She took it willingly enough, unusual for her because she often described anything her little brother did as childish. Daryl pulled himself off the floor to join Carol on the couch, watching the two as they scribbled peacefully.
He couldn't remember when he first thought of them as family. Then he realised it didn't even matter. He loved them, they loved him. And that was enough.