Red ~ TWD (Daryl Dixon)

Hush, Hush Baby

Daryl POV

I'd been standing by the bed for half an hour staring down at my kids who were sleeping in a small crib right next to their momma. 

Kids.

Shit, I had kids, as in plural.

I'd imagined my life going a lot of different ways, but not once, not ever, had I ever dreamed it would end up like this.  I figured the best I could hope for was working a dead-end job in a no name town with no real friends or family to call my own. 

Now I had a wife and two kids.  A family.  It blew my damn mind.

Red mumbled something in her sleep, her hand reaching out and grabbing the edge of the crib the twins were in.  Her shoulders only relaxed after she pulled them a little closer. 

My heart swelled so big I had no idea how it fit in my chest.  When I met Red I didn't think I had the capacity to love someone, not the way they deserved to be loved, but staring down at the woman who'd made me a father, who'd made me whole, I felt a love so fierce, so deep, it may as well have been etched into my DNA.  I would burn down the world to keep my family safe.

The door creaked open, and my head snapped to the side, hand reaching for the gun strapped to my waist.  Merle's ugly ass face came into view and I released the breath I was holding, eyes immediately dropping down to the three most important people in my world.

"She finally sleeping?"  I nodded, biting my thumbnail, eyes straying to my exhausted wife.  Her hair was wild around her, face still a little too pale for my liking, but she was finally resting.  "Firecracker is a goddamn warrior princess, and I don't mean maybe."

"Yeah."

That was putting it mildly.  I didn't have words to explain what she'd endured, how she'd suffered through the birth of not one, but two children.  It was the scariest and most amazing thing I'd ever seen.

Merle stopped on the other side of her bed, eyes darting between Red and the babies.  "I know I talk a lot of shit 'bout women bein' the weaker sex, but what she just did was some mythic shit lil' brother."

I couldn't help myself.  I laughed.  My brother was a lot of things, most of 'em, not good, but when it came to Red and now the twins he was the brother I always wanted.  Hell, he was finally the man he was meant to be all along.

"Thought she was gonna give 'ol Sid a craniotomy for a second there."

I snorted, "Sorry I missed that part."

Merle should've known better than to have a weapon on him.  Red had a nose for sniffin' out weapons like a fuckin' blood hound. 

One of the babies wailed, and I bent down, picking her up before she woke Red.  Her huge green eyes stared up at me as she settled into my arms.

"Shh now, don't want ya wakin' up yur momma," I cooed, my voice sounding strange to my own ears.  She wiggled, the pink hat almost falling off her impossibly small head.  With one hand I pulled it down, smiling down at her.  "Did ya know babies came with hats?"

I had no idea where the hell the clothes had come from.  One minute they were naked as the day they were born, and the next they were clad in yellow and green outfits, complete with matching hats.  Some days we weren't even sure where our next meal might come from, but somehow my kids already had hats.

"Darndest thing I ever saw," my brother mused, coming over to look at his niece.  "Hot damn, she looks just like Firecracker.  It's like the two of ya cloned 'em instead of doing the nasty."

"Yur a dumb son of a bitch," I chuckled. 

"They got names?"

"Yeah."  My daughter gurgled incoherently at me, and I found it hard to breathe.  "This is Aniya Haley Dixon."