Just Like Her
Daryl stared down at the small baby in his arms, tears falling from his eyes as Maggie shook her head. Beth was gone, all he had now was this little thing, crying and wailing. He fell to the ground and held her close, rocked her until she stopped crying. When she opened those eyes and looked at him he had to shut his. She had Beth's eyes.
She was three now, long blonde hair that curled down her back and over her shoulders, storm grey baby blues and a smile from heaven. She ran over to him as he came back from a hunt and held her arms up. Daryl smiled and lifted her, carrying her back to camp with him, his bag of spoils over his shoulder. She wrapped her cubby little arms around his neck and rested her head against his….just like Beth used to do.
When she was eight, and talking back he noticed it more. The things that came out of her mouth had her mamma written all over it. He was trying to tuck her in one night and she just sat back up and looked him in the eyes. "Tell me a story."
He shook his head. "I don't know any baby girl."
"Make one up." Beth had said that exact same thing to him one night while they were lying under the stars. He sighed and sat beside her and did the best he could Beth had always been the better story teller.
When she was eighteen, that's when it hit him. She was her mother's daughter. She looked just like Beth, carried herself the same way, the same pretty blue eyes and pale blonde hair, the same fire that had made him fall in love with Beth. She had the same hope in her too, the same ability to see the good in everyone, in every situation. They were short on food and winter was coming quickly, they needed to find somewhere to hide out. She just looked at him as he complained with Rick. "Daddy, you just gotta have a little faith," she told him. That had stopped him in his tracks. He could remember Beth saying the same thing to him, after they'd lost the prison, right around the time he'd fallen in love with her. He just nodded his head and hugged her when she kissed his cheek. He watched her walk off with Carl, this was a young man's game now, his baby girl, Carl, and Judith ran things around camp, they listened to their elders on everything, but they did all of the heavy lifting, all of the grunt work.
He watched her walk over to the truck and climb in. She was going to be fine. She was strong, and tough, and she had her family and friends to back her up. She was going to make one hell of a woman for a man one day, just like her mother.