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Chapter Twenty-Eight. Baby.

"She is so beautiful, Maggie," Beth said quietly as she looked at her sleeping niece in Maggie's arms as they sat on the couch in the living room.

"She is, isn't she?" Maggie smiled proudly as she looked down at her newborn daughter. Her complete surprise of a daughter.

She and Glenn had talked about having children but they had never actually agreed on it and certainly hadn't been trying but one month, Maggie realized she was pregnant and a few months after that, Margaret Kimberly Rhee was born. Maggie hadn't been sure about naming their baby after her but Glenn said that if people could do it for their sons, they could do it for their daughters, too, and the baby already looked like a Margaret.

A few days in this new world and the name had already been shortened to Meg.

"I never got why you wanted this, to be honest," Maggie said, lifting her eyes and turning her head to Beth. "I always thought you were maybe crazy. Giving up so much of your life and being as young as you were when you had Hunter… and you and Daryl were always worried about money and working all of the time…" Maggie trailed off and Beth gave her a soft smile. "But I get it now," Maggie said quietly and her eyes dropped down to Meg. She had trouble looking away from her for too long.

Beth kept smiling as she watched her sister and her niece. She knew Maggie had been happy for her every time she had gotten pregnant but she also knew that Maggie was silently asking her, "Is this what you really want?" And even though Beth had her own moments where she stopped and thought of how her life could have been, she knew Maggie thought that about her far more often. Beth knew Maggie looked at her and wondered if she was truly happy being married and having kids and staying in their small town when she could have gone off and performed her music. She knew that sometimes, Maggie just didn't get it.

When she married Daryl, it had been such a strain on the sisters and it led them to not talking with one another for over a year. But eventually, Maggie swallowed her pride and apologized and admitted that Daryl Dixon was a good man. And now, it was hard to believe that she had ever hated her brother-in-law the way their relationship was now with one another. She had even said in passing more than once that she wished Glenn could do half of the things Daryl could.

But even happy for her sister and her marriage and for as much as she loved her nephews and niece, Beth knew that Maggie still looked at Beth sometimes and wondered what the hell she was doing. It seemed as if Maggie always forgot that the two sisters were two very different people.

Hearing the back door open, Beth stood up and went towards the kitchen to remind them to be a bit quieter than they usually were. Daryl and Glenn and the three kids had gone out into the woods and when Beth came into the kitchen, she saw that Daryl was telling them all to take off their shoes in a hushed voice and all of the kids were being quiet as they took off their shoes and left them on the mat on the floor next to the door.

"Hey," Beth smiled at them. "Get anything good?"

"Is Meg awake?" Hunter asked eagerly.

"Not yet," Beth shook her head. "And don't wake her either!" She called out after him a quiet voice as he raced from the kitchen to go see his cousin and Glenn was on his heels, eager to see his wife and daughter after being gone for nearly an hour.

Hunter had been so excited to get a cousin. Merle didn't have any children and neither did Shawn and he had a brother and a sister but he wanted a cousin, too. Beth would tell stories of herself when she was a young girl, growing up with her siblings and cousins and how much fun they had had together and even though he had wanted his cousin to be a boy, it didn't matter in the end. Hunter was just happy that he finally had one and he couldn't wait already until Meg was a little older.

"Look, mom," Luke said, holding up Daryl's flannel shirt that he had taken off, and setting it on the counter and spreading it open, Beth saw that they had picked what had to be over two pounds of blackberries. She also saw the blackberry juice stained on Abby's chin. "Dad said you could bake a pie with these."

Beth looked at Daryl with a raised eyebrow and an amused smile. "Oh, he did, did he?" She asked with a slight laugh in her voice. "Well, we'll see what I can do." She went to the sink and wet a dishtowel before kneeling down in front of Abby, cleaning away the blackberries she had clearly already eaten in the woods. She looked up to Daryl. "What do you think about having another one?" She asked.

Daryl smirked, going to the sink for a glass of water. "Was startin' to wonder when you would ask me that."

She stood up and Abby left the kitchen, scampering off to look at her new cousin, too, and Beth and Daryl were left alone in the kitchen. Beth came to the sink where Daryl still stood and she washed off the dishtowel, looking at him. Daryl leaned against the counter, looking at her, too, as he drained the water from the glass.

"Is four kids really that crazy?" She then wondered.

"Yeah," he answered with hesitation. He set the now empty glass down on the counter and exhaled a quiet breath. "Beth…" he said her name softly but nothing was said past that and Beth knew already the words he was thinking.

"Three is enough," she agreed. "And for the first time since we got married, we're in a comfortable spot. Having a fourth would strain that," she said every thought he had in his head and he watched her, not moving a muscle. "We have a good life and it fits three kids. What would we do with four? It would send everything into upheaval and we would adjust, of course, and we would make it because we always make it, but, four kids is a lot and four changes everything and we don't need four kids."

Daryl just kept looking at her and Beth stood there, looking at him, silently asking him with her eyes to say something to everything she just had.

"I don't wan' another kid," Daryl said, staring straight into her eyes as he did.

"Me, neither," Beth shook her head. "I just… I think about it sometimes."

"Why?" He asked and he was watching her so closely, Beth almost wanted to shift under the scrutiny.

Beth shrugged as if she didn't know but Daryl kept looking at her and he knew that she knew exactly why but for some reason, she didn't want to say it. He just stood there and waited and she sighed softly. "The kids are getting older and one of these days, I'm going to blink and they won't need me anymore."

It took a moment for her words to register in his mind and then he shook his head as if it would help the words settle more quickly but even after that they did, he still had no idea what the hell she was talking about.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Daryl couldn't help but frown.

She looked embarrassed now – as if she hadn't meant to actually say that out loud. Daryl looked at her and he wondered, too, why she had said that and he began wondering if it was something he should have already known about her. But that was the thing with Beth. No matter how long they had been together and no matter how much they had gone through together, this girl of his liked to keep him guessing. He knew that she would always be keeping him on his toes.

"What about me?" He then asked and Beth's eyes flew back to him. "You forgot about me," he pointed out to her.

"You?" She echoed.

"The guy you're married to," he said, his lips almost wanting to twitch in a smile and it looked as if Beth wanted to smile, too, but she kept looking at him, clearly not understanding what he was getting at. "Those kids are idiots if they grow up and think they don't need their mama anymore and I don't know 'bout you but I wasn' thinkin' we were raisin' idiots. How many times a week does your brother call your mama?" Daryl asked her.

"That's different," Beth argued weakly and Daryl smirked because he knew it wasn't.

"'s that really why you wan' another baby?" Daryl asked, looking at her closely.

Beth exhaled a soft sigh. "Seeing Maggie and Meg… just makes me miss holding a baby of our own. I'm being silly."

Daryl thought maybe a little but he wasn't going to tell her that. Instead, he dropped his arms from having them folded across his chest and he reached out for her, one of his fingers hooking through the belt loop on her jeans and pulling her closer to him. Beth stood with her body pressed to his but her head pulled back so she could look into his face.

"I know I can always hold Kyle," she said and Daryl smirked again. "Can I hold you?"

"You better," he said in a low voice and she laughed softly and blushed and she moved into him, wrapping her arms around his neck and his arms wound around her waist, holding her close.

"Beth!" Maggie suddenly called from the living room. "Meg had an accident and I can't tell if this is pee or poo on me! I need you! Glenn, stop it!"

Daryl snickered in her hair and Beth let out a quiet groan.

His hands squeezed her hips and he turned his head so his lips could rest at the corner of her jaw. And Beth hugged him tightly for another moment and when she did slip away from him, she seemed to do so reluctantly. She gave him a small smile and he watched her closely because no one could read Beth better than him and he had to make sure that everything she had just said was what she really felt. Because if it wasn't, if she really did want another kid, Maggie could take care of Meg on her own because he would keep Beth in that kitchen so they could talk this out.

But Beth looked at him and gave him a smile. It was small but it was genuine and he squeezed her hips one more time.

"I'll get Maggie and Meg cleaned up and then I guess I'm baking a pie?" She teased.

Daryl just smiled and she pushed herself on her toes and pressed a kiss to his lips.

…

They had people over that afternoon for Sunday dinner for a full house. Hershel and Annette, Shawn and Rosita – still dating, much to Annette's delight – Merle, the Grimes family, Caesar Martinez and his family, Dale and Hattie, Carol – newly, and finally, divorced from her husband, and Sophia, Luke's best friend, Molly, and Sasha in from Savannah.

Daryl had killed a couple of chickens and Luke and Hunter had helped him clean them and they had roasted them all afternoon and Beth and Abby had picked fresh vegetables from the garden and there were two blackberry pies for dessert.

This time, Daryl didn't complain about the dinner party or having so many people in the house at once. They sat at the dining room table with the kitchen table pulled out to add to the length of it so there was room for everyone to sit. Daryl sat with Abby on his lap, listening as everyone talked around them, all conversations over-lapping, creating some sort of constant buzz in the air. Abby leaned back against his chest as he held the plate of pie and they shared the piece between the two of them.

Beth sat beside him and she nudged his leg with hers underneath the table. Daryl looked at her and she casually tilted her head to the side, towards the end of the table. Daryl looked and saw Merle and Carol sitting next to one another, Carol saying something to Merle and Merle laughing in that loud, boisterous way of his. Daryl smirked and Beth smiled, watching them for another moment before turning her attention back to the conversation with Lori and Glenn.

Daryl didn't know how long everyone stayed. For once, he wasn't looking at the clock and wishing to kick everyone out again. Everyone was all there to see the new baby and for some reason, they liked coming over to their house and there was something deep in Daryl's gut that actually liked having them there. He liked that he lived in a house where everyone liked being at. He couldn't really believe that he liked that.

There was a big game of Monopoly being played on the floor with the kids. Luke, Hunter, Molly, Sophia, Judith, Caesar's two children, and even Carl though he had said minutes before it began that he was too old to play a board game. Abby sat with Luke and would move his top hat for him every time it was his turn to roll the dice. The adults were sitting around, drinking coffee, continuing their conversations from dinner and Daryl sat with Rick, only listening to the man with one ear as he watched the kids with one eye and watched Beth with the other.

She sat with Maggie and held Meg in her arms, smiling and making silly faces to the baby, and then as if knowing that he was watching her, Beth lifted her eyes and looked at him from across the room and smiled at him. He smiled a little at her in return and kept watching her as she held her niece and laughed with her sister.

Daryl had to admit.

Beth looked really good with a baby in her arms.

…

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