"So, when're you gonna tell daddy?"

Beth looks next to her at her older sister, both of their hands and arms working together to fold all the laundry. "Tell daddy what?"

Maggie smiles, slow and calculated. "Oh, y'know… that you're with Daryl?"

Beth flushes; her stomach heaving violently. "What're you talkin' about?"

Maggie snorts and drops the sheets back into her lap, hands clenched around the fabric and the band of her ring startling under the high afternoon sun. "Don't, Beth. I'm your big sister, I can see it. You two been dancin' 'round each other for weeks. Been a flush in your face you only get when you're in love." She pauses and grins harder. "An' when you're gettin' good sex."

"Maggie!"

"What?" Her sister laughs. "Am I wrong?"

With a burning face, Beth shakes her head. "Ain't you bothered?" She dares to ask.

Maggie's smile fades a little and there's a more serious quality to her voice. "I was, an' I was kinda mad too, for a while." She stops and looks at the sheet in her lap before she starts folding it again. "But I didn't know why, 'cause I know Daryl, an' he would'a never done somethin' like this. You gotta be special to him Bethy, 'cause I don't think it sits right on that man's conscience."

Beth frowns and resumes folding too. "How'd you know?"

"I watched you two," Maggie replies with a little nod. "I saw the way you look at each other, but he looks terrified by you too, Beth. Like he don't wanna be that guy but he can't stay away."

Beth smoothers a smile, hugging the sheet to her chest and stopping once more. "He said he loves me, Mags."

Her sister smiles at her, the sun warming her whole face. "You say it back?"

The smile struggles now as Beth shakes her head. "I wanted to, words just wouldn't come outta my mouth."

"Why not?"

Beth shrugs, finishing the sheet and putting it aside. "Scared. Look at what we live in. Scared to even love you an' daddy, let alone everyone else, an' not that much. You blame me?"

Maggie shakes her head but she's still smiling when she says, "it's worth it, Beth. Every terrifying second of it."

Beth bites down on her lip and nods, her decision made.

She has to tell him.

Why is she so beautiful?

Daryl nearly turns his face away from the sight of Beth coming down the corridor, straight towards where he's standing at the library doors. It's been nearly a week since he told her he loves her, buried deep inside her and spilling his cum until it flooded her pussy and dribbled down her inner thighs.

Nearly a week of staring at this goddess he's fallen in love with and wondering what the hell he did to ever deserve her. Sometimes, when she looks this stunning, caught in a ray of sunshine or a beam of the moonlight, he wonders what evil atrocity he did in a past life to deserve the agony he feels when he looks upon her shining blue eyes.

From day one he wanted to touch her. Lay his hands and lips upon her flesh, but he had no rights, not one because she was ethereal; mystical. He was just a human, a brain and heart and lungs all clumped together in a useless, scarred sack of meat. Her beauty wasn't the only reason for his pathetic resistance to not lay a finger on her.

The biggest reason, he thought for a long time, was the most obvious one. Daryl was pretty sure he was just convenient to her. Fingers and a cock to get her off, fuck her until she was screaming and biting down on the palm of her own hand. Surely, Beth Greene didn't want a man his age to touch her beautiful, unmarked flesh?

Surely, she didn't want a man with his rough, ruined hands and calloused fingers to stroke her skin? But he didn't mind or rather, he learned to live with the idea because he was just so damn happy to be allowed the privilege of gazing upon her nakedness. Not just her body or her bare cunt, but the raw ecstasy on her face and in her eyes, wide and honest.

When she sees him, she hurries and it makes something like excitement explode through him, except her face is twisted and scared and that makes his throat close tight and his head rush with blood, wondering who the fuck he has to kill.

"What's wrong?" Daryl whispers quickly, his voice hoarse.

Beth shakes her head, looking around for any prying ears. "Nothin'. Listen," she cuts in before he can speak, her voice rushed and urgent. "I have to tell you somethin', soon an' I will, but first, I need you to get me summin'. Please, Daryl."

There's a frown on his face but he nods quickly, pulling her closer with his hand on her lower back. "'Course girl, tell me, what is it?"

She lowers her voice and rests her hands on his stomach, her heart pounding against her ribcage. "A… a pregnancy test."

He blinks and then he laughs a little under his breath, the tension leaving his eyes. "Jesus, girl, scared me half to fuckin' death. Maggie an' Glenn slipped up again, huh? Told chinaman to be more careful."

It's possible her heart might crawl up out of her throat when she murmurs, "s'for me, Daryl."

He stares at her and all she can do is stare back, rooted still with terror.

"Oh."

He's messed up.

He's messed up so bad.

How the fuck could he ever excuse cumming in her?

He's a fucking prick and he knows it. There's no way she's going to want to have his baby, no fucking way and he'll have no rights to tell her otherwise, no matter how much he would like to see a child stretching her belly. Yeah, it's not something he really thought about, it's not something he truly wants to do, not in this world.

Raising a child? Fucking stupid. Suicide is a better word. It could go wrong in a thousand and one different ways that would tear his heart from his fucking chest. Lori… just thinking of Lori… Rick's face when Maggie came out with Judith in her arms and blood all over her, Carl's traumatised eyes as he told his dad that he'd shot his own fucking ma.

No, Daryl wouldn't survive that. If he lost her; if he lost the baby; if he lost both. God, no, he can't. There's no way on this fucking Earth. He'd lose it, just like Rick and it would be a karmic fucking joke because Daryl was the one who thought Rick needed to get his ass back into fucking gear but he would finally know exactly what Rick's insanity felt like.

So yeah, he knows it's damn stupid to want it. He knows the risks and the cons and everything that could happen if it all went wrong, but he can't stop himself from wanting it. Except he knows it's one sided because Beth's face was as white as a ghost when she told him that it was her who needed the test.

So, he goes out first thing. Doesn't tell anyone anything, doesn't take anyone with him and doesn't answer everyone's confused questions, even though he feels bad for worrying them, especially Carol. There's no other way to do it though because he has no fucking clue what to tell them.

I might have knocked up the seventeen-year-old girl I'm in love with, who hasn't said it back and who certainly don't want no Dixon baby in her belly.

He doubts that's going to go down well, especially not with her daddy, who would beat Daryl's ass with one leg as good as if he still had two. So when he goes, he doesn't just pick up a bagful of pregnancy tests, he picks up pills too. Same ones Glenn told him about when Lori had the same, painstaking reality check thoughts as he's having now.

When he goes back, he empties the bag on Beth's bed and she looks up at him with huge eyes. "There's gotta be like fifty boxes there, Daryl."

"Gotta know, right?" He says hoarsely, struggling to even fucking breathe.

The fact of the matter is: he's terrified. Scared that she is and scared that she isn't because she'll want to get rid of it and it's going to break his fucking heart but he can't say shit because it's all his fault. He cum without asking her and he said sorry after but now she's missed a period and his child is probably starting to grow inside her.

Daryl's not sure what outcome will be worse. To know there's something in there she plans to kill, something that's part him and her or finding out there was never anything there to begin with, but being left with the knowledge that he wanted there to be.

He wants it so bad.

Beth sighs and picks up three with a wobbly smile. "This should do it." When she makes to leave he goes to follow and she stops. "You're gonna come with me?"

Daryl frowns. "Why wouldn't I? S'my baby, Beth."

She flushes and it's not so much an embarrassed blush but almost… pleased. "I meant seein' me pee."

He snorts. "Afta all the times I been in your pussy? Had my tongue in there? You really care that I'm gonna see you do somethin' every other human does?"

Beth's mouth opens but she sighs, giving in. "Suppose you're right. C'mon."

Again, he follows her, walking to the toilet with no one stopping them. She still looks uncomfortable so he doesn't directly stare at her, but he hears her jeans and the rustling as she pisses on the three sticks separately. After she washes her hands, she comes to stand next to him and lays the sticks out on the counter, face down.

"How long we gotta wait?" He murmurs.

She looks up at him and he startles when her fingers loop into his. "Couple minutes."

A terrified silence descends upon them after that and in those compressed minutes Daryl watches several different outcomes behind his eyelids. Fucking finally, Beth takes a deep shuddering breath, squeezes his hand and reaches forward to flip all of the tests over, one by one in rapid succession.

They take a combined step forward and the wind sails right out of him when he sees only one line on all of the sticks.

Together they mutter, "negative."

Daryl's heart flips at Beth's tortured voice like she's holding back tears and his eyes swing around to her, finding a crystallised tear upon her cheek. "Shit, girl. What's wrong? Ain't you happy?"

She glances up at him, her eyeballs practically glass and downright mesmerising. "I should be. This isn't normal, right? Wantin' a baby in this mess?"

Fuck, he has no words and he's trying so hard but they're blown out of the water when on a hiccupping sob, Beth says, "I love you, Daryl. I really love you."

The world crashes in around him and he doesn't mean to but he squeezes her hand so hard. He thought this was going to be a one-way thing. Him loving her and wanting her to be pregnant, but now she's blown his world apart because with her words and her tears she's told him how much she wants the same things as he does.

No one's ever told him they love him. Not his dad, not Merle, not anybody. Maybe his ma, when he was young, but it's too fickle and flimsy, like a dream. This though… this is real. This is solid. It's something he's secretly always wanted and yet, it terrifies him because he knows she means it.

There's no way she can fake that look in her eye, that raw honesty shining up at him. But even knowing how truthful she's being, it still takes so much sluggish time to try and wrap his head around the fact that she actually wants him. He's wanted her for so long and he's had her, but he never thought she felt that way, not once.

There's no words for him, so he just stares, until somehow, he churns something between his teeth, something hoarse and disbelieving. "But… why? You're… you're you, girl an' I'm me. Dirty fuckin' Dixon."

Beth smiles and even with tears running down her face she stretches on her tiptoes and kisses him, pulling away after a moment to speak against his lips. "I've loved you for so long, I was just so scared."

He understands fear. He understands the fear of someone's perfection because that's how he feels about her, all the damn time. "You ain't sayin' it 'cause I did? Or 'cause of this?"

He expects her to be mad at the accusation, but she's so fucking patient with him that she just shakes her head. "I'm tellin' you 'cause you deserve to know. You're the best man I ever met, an' you deserve to know."

There are no words, for women like Beth Greene.