…

Sometimes, Daryl couldn't believe this was his life now.

It didn't make sense that a man like him, old and gruff and dirty and every other thing that fell into that category, a man who'd never had a shred of luck or a pure, good thing in his shitty existence had somehow managed to end up with somebody like Beth.

…

He doesn't know what he did to deserve her; Lord knows he has a list full of regrets that should send her and any other person with a lick of sense to their name running from him, but by some fucking miracle from a god he don't believe in, none of those things matter to her.

She doesn't care that he's a Dixon.

Doesn't care that his bastard father drank himself to death after tormenting his sons for almost twenty years. Doesn't care that his brother's a drug addict who's always pushing pills and getting into bad shit when he's not locked up or out of the state. Doesn't care when he takes her to his place for the first time and it's plain as day that he's never had anything close to the beautiful life of comfort filled with love she'd grown up in.

She doesn't even give him a chance to apologize or feel sorry for himself over it.

"The places, and the people," she'd told him while they stood on the front porch steps, using her arms to signal his beaten down house before one of her hands wrapped around the heart-shaped silver locket that hanged from her neck; the same one that carried a picture of her long deceased mother and brother inside. "They don't define who we were, or who we are. Only we can do that."

Daryl had hesitated, hating the thought of having someone as good as Beth inside the house where so much hurt had been done to him and to every other person who'd ever stepped foot in it: a place where nothing good had ever happened and which he'd spent half his life wanting to burn down. If he was superstitious he'd say the damned place was haunted, destined to bring out the worst in people and corrupt them to the core.

He didn't want that for her. He'd rather lose her before he ever let Beth turn into a newer version of every other Dixon woman in history, all those who'd checked out of life either doped up or drowned in a bottle.

"Ya' don't belong here," he'd tried to explain, rubbing the back of his neck to ease the tension bunching up in his shoulders. "Too much bad shit's happened in there for someone like ya to even think 'bout it."

Beth hadn't relented. "Those bad memories, we can change them. We can make better ones and wipe out all the bad stuff."

"Don't know if that much bad can be wiped out."

"Then we'll fix it up and sell it," she'd answered, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her cheek on his chest. "We can find a new house that'll be just ours and we can fill it with all the memories we want. You and me, we're gonna have a beautiful life."

She'd looked at him with her big blue eyes then, full of trust and faith and love for him, and Daryl believed her.

And this woman, because that's what she was and not some little girl that everyone tried to make her out to be, had taken his world and flipped it upside down.

…

They'd had that conversation over a year ago.

Beth hadn't even been nineteen yet and she'd still been living in her Daddy's farm. They'd both known they weren't quite ready to start living together yet and neither had wanted to rush into anything.

It wasn't that they doubted they loved each other and wanted to have a life together.

No.

It'd been that both knew that it took more than just Love to make a relationship work. This was the first adult relationship that she'd ever had and Daryl couldn't remember ever having anything close to being called a commitment in his own life.

All he'd ever known was how to be on his own. He'd never had to worry about somebody waiting for him at home or about checking in just to reassure them that he was safe and alive and missing them. He was used to being able to come and go as he pleased. If he was pissed he'd take his bike and crossbow and disappear into the woods for days until he was feeling settled again. Or maybe he'd go to Martinez' bar and drink until he was shit-faced, only to stumble back through his door and crash onto his bed with the morning light's rays.

He didn't know how to spend all his time with somebody: how to deal with all the bad memories he carried without lashing out and releasing all his pent up anger onto the closest person nearby unless he checked out of the real world for days at a time.

Daryl couldn't do that to Beth.

He wouldn't have her sitting alone at home, worried out of her mind for him while he was off doing something stupid or coming back just to be a dick. As much as he'd wanted her next to him, he knew he had to put in the work to try and better himself before he dragged her into something that would only hurt them both in the end.

Beth's own situation had been the opposite.

She'd been the baby in a family that embodied everything the Dixons were not.

She was the southern belle whose family worked together to run their farm and went to Sunday morning mass, where she sang in the choir. She was the sweet and pretty girl who rode horses and baked cookies and planted gardens and played the piano. She loved kids and writing in her journal and she had a way of making her presence feel like a gift.

But she was also the girl who'd lost her mom and brother when she was sixteen. She was the girl who'd slit her wrist and tried to take her life because of the same thing. She was the girl who'd felt alone ever since, and she was only thing her Daddy had left after her older sister had taken off instead of helping her family heal. She was the girl who was afraid of breaking even more of her father's heart when she'd eventually leave home and the Greene patriarch would be alone.

Daryl understood because Beth was like his own personal ray of sunshine, all brightness and warmth and bringing a light into his life that he'd never had before, so he could only imagine what she meant to the man who'd loved and protected her since the day she was born.

Beth couldn't do that to her father. She couldn't just leave home without trying to prove to her Daddy first that she was moving on to a life with a man who loved her and would cherish her the way she deserved. That she was building her own home with a man who would take care of her and make her happy even when her heart hurt. That he didn't have to spend his days worried over the well-being of his little girl.

So they'd taken their time and done things right.

Daryl had swallowed down his pride and asked Beth for help looking for books on treating victims of child abuse. They'd sat down with a highlighter and half a dozen books that she'd ordered online and arrived by mail in discrete brown packaging and they'd helped each other be better. He'd gone to meet her father and stayed over for dinner and didn't make a single smartass comment as Hershel Greene had stared him down and asked him about his intentions towards his daughter. He'd kept coming back until the man was satisfied that he loved her and wasn't using her as some sort of sick game.

Beth held him when he was angry and listened when he started yelling and she was never afraid of yelling right back and setting him straight when he was being an ass or trying to push her around.

It wasn't until they were both confident that they were ready that she moved in.

Together, they'd learned how to be happy.

…

The house was unrecognizable.

It used to be that it would cause shame.

The windows were always dirty with a thick layer of soot from not being properly washed in years and the grass was always overgrown and dried up and full of weeds and dandelions. There were always dozens of unfinished cigarette butts and a couple of beer bottles scattered throughout the yard. The chain around the beaten up, black front gate was always locked up tight and the light on the porch was always off, warning everyone to stay the fuck away.

Never, in the past thirty-somethin' years that this house had belonged to a Dixon, had there been Christmas lights hanging from the roof.

The house wasn't in a good neighborhood.

Shit, it wasn't even on a decent street.

Will Dixon had made sure that his house was as far away and isolated as possible. The single-floor structure sat at the end of an empty street and the lot next to it had been abandoned since long before they'd moved in. The nearest house was nearly a quarter mile down the road and the backyard bordered the edge of the woods. It'd been a good place for the deadbeat to stash his drugs and bring his bints and the woods had served as a damn-straight flawless escape route whenever things went to shit for him.

The place looking pretty had never been a high priority.

And that wasn't the only thing that'd changed.

The front gate had a fresh coat of shiny black paint that they'd spent their Saturday morning working on. The grass is manageable and instead of bottles and cigarettes there are now dividers set firmly in place along the borders of the yard, forming the outline of what would undoubtedly be a full-blown garden come spring. Even the fucking windows had been scrubbed down and now he's pretty damn sure that if Merle ever came back around he'd start yelling about how his baby brother either lost his mind or sold the house while he was gone.

He makes his way towards the front door, reaching for the keys inside his jean's right pocket and grinning when the second step on the porch still creaks under the strain of his weight, a little reminder that this place wasn't the quite perfect yet, but was getting damn close to it. There's still things he has to fix, but they're so small in comparison to all the changes they've made and all the work they've put in that Daryl's almost tempted to just let them be. Some things were just part of the package and didn't need to be fixed. They gave the house character and made it unique.

He takes a step inside, looks around the room, and can't stop the laugh that rumbles out of his lungs.

Because there's a tree in his living room.

There is a fucking Christmas tree in the corner of his living room.

The same tree that he and Beth had picked out from Dale's tree lot and tied to the back of his pickup truck.

The thing is nearly six-feet tall and it's decorated with red and golden ornaments and a pearl-tinted ribbon wrapped around it. Little white doves are hanging from it and instead of a star there's a carefully placed angel at the top. Underneath it there's about a dozen neatly-wrapped presents in different shapes and sizes, and every single one of them has a shiny bow and a small card attached that Beth had agonized over until she was certain that it was sitting just right.

The tree is right by the window, where Merle's favorite recliner had sat for the past fifteen years and where his brother had spent more nights sleeping off his benders than anybody could remember. The couch was different, too. It wasn't new or like one of those expensive as shit ones he'd seen in magazines and in fancy furniture stores but it was long and clean and the big brown cushions had quickly become one of his favorite places to relax as Beth curled her body against his and cuddled into him.

"I didn't hear ya come in."

She's smiling at him, just like she always is, and walking towards him so she can greet him properly with a kiss. Her face lights up like he's the best thing she's ever seen and even though Daryl knows he'll never really understand what he'd done to deserve it, he's sworn to himself that he'll do everything in his power to never lose that gift.

"You're losing your touch, woman," he teases her, pulling her closer until she's clinging to his neck and wrapping her legs around him.

"No way," Beth laughs, leaning forwards until their foreheads are briefly touching and then leaning back so he can watch her grin. "I think you were just using your super stealthy hunter moves to try and steal some muffins outta the kitchen."

"Ya caught me," he deadpans.

Her smile turns wicked. "You might want to watch the pastries, babe. All that butter and flour will go straight to your hips."

It takes him a second to catch on to her meaning.

"Are ya implyin' I'm getting fat?" he asks incredulously.

"All I'm saying is that it's real easy to see that you love my home cooking and baking."

Daryl scowls, settling them both down onto the couch with Beth firmly draped across his lap and his hands on her hips. "Girl, you ain't never had no complaints 'bout me before."

"Well, duh," she retorts, completely with an eye roll and a little shrug of her shoulders. "That's because I'd love you even if ya looked like Saint Nick."

He doesn't hesitate.

Daryl flips them over and now her back is pressed against the soft cushions as his hips keep her pinned in place. Pure instinct has her spreading her legs to accommodate his waist and his ego fills with pride when one of his hands caresses the length of her thigh and goosebumps spread across her skin.

"Ya were sayin'?" he trails off, grinning at the same time that is hips grind down against hers and his need for her manifests inside his jeans. He's holding the rest of his weight off of her, waiting to see just what his playful lover had planned up her sleeve.

"This here is cheating," she mock pouts. "Keep it up and I'm hidin' one of your gifts."

He pulls back, arching his eyebrows before he remembers the little surprise he'd run into while looking for a box of bolts last week. "Are we talking about that little box you've got tucked away at the top of the bedroom closet?"

Beth's eyes widen and the bright and fierce blush that spreads across her cheeks is enough to make him seriously contemplate leaving his place between her thighs for a few seconds, just enough time to see what the hell his little minx had done to invoke such an instant and visible reaction.

"Please tell me you haven't opened it."

"I didn't," he shakes his head, knowing by the gleam that's returned to her gaze that whatever it is will surely throw him for a loop. "You seriously ain't gonna let me see what it is, yet?"

The smile she gives him lets Daryl know her gift will surely land them in every Naughty list in existence.

"Let's just say that you're about to have a very merry Christmas, Mr. Dixon."

He doesn't doubt her for a second.

…

AN: Hey everybody!

Sorry for the delay. This chapter gave me absolutely hell, but I think I finally got it to something that served Daryl and Beth justice. I hope you all like it as well. I really wanted to establish how they'd worked on themselves before actually living together because that gives me the ability to write them as couple who is in a comfortable and understanding relationship, like I did at the end of the chapter.

I'm also writing another story called "High & Low" in which the opposite happens, and it's a little bit more mature than this one but I think you guys might like it.

Anyways, don't forget to review!

Thanks for reading!