A/N: Okay, this story is supposed to be about Daryl and Beth as well as Rick and Lori but I can't seem to write a chapter based on Rick and Lori alone so I'm throwing in bits and pieces of their story into the Bethyl chapters.

I hope y'all enjoy and if you've read my stories before, then you know that not everything is as it seems.

Enjoy and Review!

Wife Swap
Chapter 6

"To be honest with you, Beth, I'm not sure why you got so mad at Daryl over somethin' Merle said. I mean, I get it but you know how Merle is," Maggie said as she and Beth put fresh sheets on the bed in her guest room.

"There's a lot more to it than that, Mags."

"Really? Like what?"

Beth sighed, let go of the sheet, and sat down on the bed. "Because we had a fight before he left."

"That's why you were stayin' with Mama and Daddy," Maggie interrupted. "What did y'all fight about?

"Well, we had found out that I was pregnant not long before that. It wasn't like I tried to trap him or anythin', he knew we had been tryin' but when we went to a doctor's appointment a few days before and they did an ultrasound, I guess it freaked him out. He kept his distance from me and then he just blurted out that he and Rick were carryin' Carl to Talladega. I wasn't mad that he was goin' with them or anythin' like that, I was mad because I felt like he was runnin' again. I felt like he was running' out on me again and I didn't know if he'd come back."

"And then Merle told you he was cheatin' on you and that pissed you off?"

"Yeah," Beth nodded and Maggie sat down next to her and put her arm around her shoulders.

"That's not all is it, Bethie?"

She shook her head and laid it on her sister's shoulder and started crying. "It's not. Maggie, it's really not. I don't understand why he doesn't want kids with me. Am I that horrible?"

"Of course you're not, Bethie. You know every bit of what Daryl went through with his father, maybe he's scared he'll be just like him and I don't blame him a bit for that. Daryl's a good man, yes, but take a good look at Merle. He was a good man, too, but under the right circumstances, he became his father. You saw what he was like with Carol, how much he loved her, and he went out and screwed it all up. So, are you finally goin' to tell me the truth about why Daryl broke up with you and left that time?"

Beth wiped her eyes but kept her head on Maggie's shoulder and muttered, "I don't want to talk about that."

"Okay." Maggie said, rubbing her hand over Beth's arm. "You lost the baby in that accident?"

Beth nodded.

"How far along were you?"

"I was far enough," Beth mumbled. "We didn't tell anyone the first couple of months and I really didn't even tell Mama and Daddy, they just kind of knew. But I was far enough along that we had a little memorial for the baby, we even named him Jamie. Mama and Daddy and the doctor were the only ones who knew besides us and we've never told anyone else, or at least I haven't."

"Oh Bethie. I wish you would have told me this before. You shouldn't have kept this to yourself."

"You were busy, Maggie. You were always busy."

Daryl sat down on the edge of their bed and let out a deep, ragged breath.

He didn't need Maggie or the doc to tell him what was wrong with his marriage. He knew what it was.

It was him.

He had lied when he told Beth he would give her whatever she wanted, he had made himself believe that lie for a while and he had wanted it to be true, he really did, but he couldn't do it.

Whatever she wanted. That was much easier said than done.

He twisted the gold band around his finger then slipped it off like he did every night and stood up, going to the little book shelf Beth had put in the corner of their room, he pulled out a photo album and tossed it onto the bed.

"You signed the papers?" Lori asked incredulously.

"Yeah, I did. Judy's my daughter, she always will be no matter what but if this makes her legally mine, then I'm for it."

Lori smiled and placed a hand over Rick's on top of the papers.

"Thank you, Rick," she whispered.

"I didn't do this for you, Lori. I did it for me and for Judy."

She pulled her hand away from his and nodded. "Fair enough. I completely understand."

"No you don't," Rick shook his head. "I did this for me and Judy, not for you, but that doesn't mean I don't want to try to work things out. I'm not givin' up on us."

"Do you really think we can do that?" Lori asked. "Do you really think we can save our marriage?"

"Yeah, I do. I know it's not goin' to be easy and we may not be able to work out our problems but I'm willin' to give it all I've got if you are. We won't be just savin' our marriage, Lori, we'll be savin' our family."

Lori wiped her eyes and smiled again. "Why did you change your mind about us?"

He shrugged and looked down. "Daryl and Beth. What they're goin' through, they've given up and I see that and I don't think they should, I don't think we should either. They love each other probably more than you and I have ever loved each other so to see them where they are now, I can't let that be us, Lori. We may have our problems but we have two kids who need us and despite all of the shit that's happened, I do still love you."

"Beth finally get to sleep?" Glenn asked when Maggie crawled into bed.

"Yeah." Maggie said and shifted around until she was comfortable. "I didn't realize things were this bad between them. If I had of known, I would have been there for her more and I would have tried a lot harder and sooner to get them to work it out and maybe they would be at home, together and they would be happy."

"You have no way of knowin' that. I'm sure we don't know everything and we can't jump into their problems based on what little bit we do know, Maggie. I get that you want to help them, I want to help them too, but this is their battle. We can give advice and be there for them but it's theirs to fix. She should be at their house with him, talkin' about their marriage instead of goin' their separate ways."

Maggie turned her head to look at Glenn and frowned. "I hope like hell you're not tellin' me I should kick my sister out and not try to help her."

"No! No, Maggie. That's not what I'm sayin' at all. I just think they should spend time together instead of runnin' from each other. It's pretty clear that seein' a marriage counselor isn't workin' for them. If we could just get them alone together, maybe they can talk and figure out how to work it out."

"And just how do you think we'll be able to get them alone together?" Maggie asked curiously.

Glenn shook his head. "I have no idea."

Daryl groaned and turned off the alarm on his phone before it went off.

He sat up in bed, grabbed the bottle of whiskey off of the nightstand and drank what was left then he tossed the empty whiskey bottle onto the floor next to the bed. He had absolutely no intentions of leaving the house so what would it hurt if he started his drinking early?

Not a damn thing, that's what.

He had managed to roll out of bed and stumbled into the bathroom to splash cold water on his face when there was a knock at the door.

He cussed under his breath and hoped that whoever the hell it was would leave but the knocking continued.

He walked as fast as he could without falling and swung the front door open.

"What tha fuck do ya want?" He growled out before his eyes fully focused on who was standing before him.

"Good morning to you, too. Are you going to invite me in?"

He didn't protest, just stepped aside.

"Did Beth call ya, Carol?" He asked.

"No, she didn't call me. Rick and Maggie both did but they only did it because they love you both and they're concerned about you."

Daryl rubbed both of his hands over his face and resisted the urge to walk out of the room.

"Daryl, you can forget about runnin' from me. I'm not Beth, I will hunt you down and drag your ass back here if I have to. You can't keep runnin' from her and you problems."

"I ain't runnin'," he growled.

"Really? Have you forgotten that I was married to your brother? He may have liked the thrill of the fight but he hated confrontation. He always ran and I've watched you do that for so many years now, I can't stand by and watch you continue to hurt not only Beth, but yourself."

He shook his head and started towards the kitchen. "You don't know shit 'bout me an' Beth."

"That may be true but I know enough to know that you're headin' down the same path as Merle but I also know you don't want to lose Beth." She took a seat at the kitchen table and watched him pull a bottle of whiskey from the cabinet. "How much have you had to drink this mornin'?"

"Ain't had enough," he mumbled and took a sip straight from the bottle.

Carol stood and walked over to him, took the bottle from his hand and began pouring it down the sink. "You've had enough. Now, have a seat and listen to every word I'm about to say."

She was ready to wait as long as it took for him to comply but he surprised her by immediately sitting down and facing her as she went to the cabinet, took down the rest of the bottles of alcohol and started pouring them in the sink.

"I know where a lot of your problems are comin' from," she began. "Merle was the same way before we had Sophia and after we had her. A huge difference between my marriage to Merle and your marriage to Beth is that she loves so much, she's willin' to give up on havin' a baby if it means she can spend the rest of her life with you. I'm sure she'll always have that in the back of her mind but she gets it, she gets you. You see, Daryl, I thought a baby would change Merle, make him see that he was a better man than your dad. At first, he proved me right and then for some reason I'll never be able to understand, he through it all away. He walked out on us and showed me that all of the things he always told me he was were true but you're not like him, Daryl. I know how much you love Beth, I know you've made promises you had all intentions of keepin' but when the time came, you ran. Sure, you've always came back to her, that's somethin' your brother never did, but you're still afraid of your past and how that might affect your future and let me tell you right now, as long as you live with that fear, it will affect your future in a very bad way. I suggest you talk to Beth, tell her you don't want kids if that's really how you feel, and let her decide if she's still willin' to make that sacrifice to be with you because I bet she is but she's not the only one who needs to make sacrifices. You just need to believe that you're a good man, a better man than your brother and dad."

He was starin' down at the table now, tears prickling the corners of his eyes but he couldn't let Carol see that. He couldn't let her see that she was wrong, Beth was wrong, he wasn't a good man. He every bit as much a Dixon as his dad and Merle were.

Carol finished with emptying the bottles and left Daryl sitting there to think over what she had said.

She remembered very well how badly Merle spoke of Beth and she never quite understood why he did that and she never quite understood why Daryl didn't bother to defend his wife and tell his brother to shut up but they were Dixon's and she knew they each had their own ways of dealing with things.

"Where are you headed off to this early?" Maggie asked while trying to hide her smile with her coffee cup.

Beth looked at her sister, shrugged and tried to fight back her tears as she walked out of the house.

Today was a new day and if things went the way she hoped they would, it would be a new start but of course she wasn't getting her hopes up too high. There was always a chance that this new start would come back to bite her in the ass.

As soon as the front shut, Glenn stepped into the living room and leaned over the back of the couch to kiss Maggie's cheek.

"So genius," Maggie said. "Do you think this plan you dreamt up will work?"

"I don't know if it will. Did you talk to your Mama and Daddy?"

"Sure did and they're goin' to go along with it." Maggie smiled to herself and let out a small laugh.

"What?" Glenn asked.

She laughed again. "My main concern with this little plan of yours is that you won't be able to keep your mouth shut about it."

"Hey, I'm not that bad at keepin' secrets."

Maggie rolled her eyes. "Alright, if you say so."

It had been two hours since Carol had stopped by and Daryl was packing up a bag to get the hell out of Dodge before she sent the whole damn cavalry after him.

Yeah, he blamed himself for everything that was going wrong in their marriage but part of him started to think that it wasn't fair he take all of the blame for it. She was part of it. She should own up to her share of their problems.

That was another reason he wanted to get away for a while. He didn't want to sit here thinking about her and all of the shit they were going through. He knew if he did, he would lose his mind and his temper and that always ended with him doing something he would regret.

After his bag was packed, he threw it into the back seat of his truck then went to the garage to grab his tent, a cooler, and his crossbow.

He was loading the rest of that stuff into the bed of the truck when a car came flying down the driveway.

"Fuck," he mumbled when none other than Hershel Greene himself stepped out of the car with Mama and Glenn following.

His stomach dropped at the feeling that something had to have happened to Beth for all of them to be here.

"What tha hell's wrong?" He shouted in panic. "Where's Beth?"

"Calm down, son," Hershel spoke. "She's fine. We got a call from Maggie a little while ago. They were on their way to Macon to go shoppin' and they had an accident somewhere close to Yatesville. Maggie said they were both fine but Beth was really shook up. We were on our way to pick them up and thought you might want to come with us."

He shut the door to his truck and nodded. "Yeah. 'Course I want ta go with y'all."

When he got in the backseat of the car with Glenn, he got the feeling that something wasn't right but he didn't know what. It felt like they weren't telling him everything which made him worry.

He had spent most of the morning being pissed at her and himself and now, something had happened and he felt like a dumbass for the way he had been acting.

Beth sighed and turned the radio down. "Maggie, when you said you wanted to have brunch, this is not what I thought it would be. I had plans, things I needed to get done today."

"Bethie, whats more important, helpin' your sister pick out something for her husband for their anniversary or goin' to see a lawyer?"

Beth's head snapped up and her eyes were big.

"That's right, Elizabeth. I've told you before, I'm your big sister and I know everythin'. I knew last night when we were talkin' that you had already made your mind up. You didn't want to tell Daryl, I get it, but you do need to eventually. This will be a big change for both of you if you go through with it. So what will it be? Shoppin' with your favorite sister or seein' a divorce lawyer?"

"Mag…Maggie, it's not what you think. I wasn't goin' to file for a divorce. I just wanted some advice."

Maggie nodded but didn't bother to look over at Beth so they settled into what would be a very long, silent, and uncomfortable car ride.

"Hey Maggie, you missed the turn," Beth said a few minutes later.

"No I didn't," Maggie shrugged. "I'm takin' a short cut."

Beth leaned back in the seat and put her hand over her mouth in an attempt to hide the fact that she wanted to burst out crying.

Maggie kept driving on and though Beth knew they weren't headed to Macon like Maggie had said they were, she kept quiet about. For all she knew Maggie had plans other than just shopping and this was a little stop on their way.

When they pulled up to their destination, Maggie put the car in park and turned to her sister and asked "So? What do you think?"

Beth stared out the windshield with her mouth slightly open then she looked at her sister. "When you said you wanted to go shoppin' for an anniversary gift, I wasn't thinkin' you were goin' to go this big on his gift."

Maggie smiled and unbuckled her seat belt. "C'mon, let's go inside and take a look around."

Both girls hurried out of the car and inside.

"Did you really buy Glenn a house?" Beth asked.

Maggie snorted. "Hell no. I'm only rentin' this for a week."

"Seems kind of expensive," Beth mumbled.

"It really wasn't. All of these little cabins up here may not look it but they are actually pretty cheap, especially if you get one of the packages they offer."

Daryl leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands for most of the ride. He was afraid all of the alcohol he had consumed earlier that morning was about to make an appearance right on the floorboards in front of him.

"That's Maggie's car," Mama gasped a while later.

Daryl quickly jerked his head up, regretting that move as soon as he did, and tried to open the door before they came to a stop.

When he was able to get the door open, he got out and leaned against the car.

"Maggie's car looks fine, thought y'all said they was in an accident," he managed to get out.

Mama put her and on his arm and gave it a gentle rub. "Sweetie, that's what Maggie said. She didn't go in to specifics about what happened. Let's go see if we can find them around here somewhere." She leaned in closer to her son in law and whispered, "Maybe takin' a little walk and gettin' some fresh air will help with all that whiskey you've been drinkin'."

He let Mama lead him around the yard and into the little cabin. His eyes immediately fell on Beth sitting on the couch next to Maggie.

"Tha hell is this?" he asked. "Y'all look like ain't nothin' happened."

Beth furrowed her brow and Maggie patted her knee and stood up.

"Nothin' happened," Maggie shrugged and tossed him a key. "This place all yours for a week. There's a little store down the road for necessities but y'all won't have a car so you'll have to walk. After y'all spend a week here alone with each other and try to work out whatever problems y'all have, then y'all can make the decision to stay married or get divorced. Consider this a vacation from your normal life." She then turned to Beth and pointed her finger at her. "I want y'all to really talk and I fully expect you to tell Daryl what you planned on doin' today."

Beth and Daryl stood there dumbfounded as Maggie and Mama walked out of the cabin and they heard both cars crank up.

They stared at each other for a few moments before Daryl found the courage to speak.

"What was you plannin' on doin' today?"

She took a tentative step towards him. "I….I was goin' to meet with a lawyer today to see what our option are."

He scoffed. "Are you fuckin' kiddin' me? You was gon' see a lawyer ta see what our options are? You want a divorce, right? Maybe we should stop them 'fore they get too far gone an' we can go see this lawyer a yers together. Fuck! Why didn't ya tell me this last night?"

She clenched her hands at her sides and fought back the urge to slap him.

"I wasn't goin' to file for a divorce, Daryl!" She shouted. "I would if that's what you wanted but that's not what I was goin' to do, not yet anyway."

"Oh yeah, that makes me feel so much fuckin' better, Beth!"

"Daryl, listen to me, I don't want to divorce you. I just wanted to know what our options would be right now!"

"Our option 'bout what? We either get divorced or we don't! There ain't no third, hidden option fer us!"

She couldn't fight it any longer, she drew back and slapped him though it wasn't nearly as hard as she wanted to.

"You said you didn't want kids, Daryl. I was goin' to try to make you happy!"

A/N: Thanks for reading this new chapter! Please leave a review and any thoughts y'all may have! ;)

A/N: I'm adding this little note here after receiving some "Guest" reviews. I very much appreciate ALL reviews no matter who they are from but I wish there was some way I could contact the "Guest" reviewers so we could discuss what exactly it is y'all are confused about. BUT, since I can't do that, I'm hoping this will clear some things up so here we go...

Beth and Daryl have been together for years before they actually got married and several of the incidents that are mentioned in this could have happened during that time. Without giving anything away, I can confirm that Daryl did in fact leave Beth sometime BEFORE they were married.

There's more that I could try to explain in this note but I would really rather not because everything will eventually be revealed in the story if you choose to continue reading.

And as for Beth being pregnant and seeing a lawyer, we don't know what's going on there yet but you are all free to take a guess. Maybe the "options" Beth was talking about was divorce, a legal separation, or something else. We don't know yet.

I hope I have cleared up some things and if not, then please feel free to contact me without being anonymous so we can discuss it.

Thank y'all so much!