Alright, so I know that Christmas was actually yesterday but I wasn’t able to finish this until last night so I’m posting this the day after… but it’s better late than never, right??? :D Anyway, Merry Christmas to everyone and if you don’t celebrate it, I hope you all have a very happy and safe holiday season~! I hope you enjoy this little holiday one-shot I wrote last minute, and please do let me know what you thought on it! 

Reader attempts to make a handmade paper book for Judith for Christmas but it doesn’t go so well. Daryl comes in to help her and they make the perfect little gift for Judith.

Post-Season 9; Alexandria

It was early morning, the sun hadn’t even risen yet but the white sheet that laid on the ground made it much brighter than it was supposed to be. It made Alexandria seem colder than it was, but at the same time, it brought more joy to the community. It was winter, but this year it was different. In previous years, it was icy and bone-chillingly cold, but there would only be a light dusting of snow. This year though, Alexandria had become a winter wonderland. The children had never seen this before, it was their first actual snowfall. That’s what gave you the idea to let the kids also experience their first Christmas. It was the perfect way to bring up the mood of the community and so when you brought it up to Michonne, she agreed to it as well; she believed that they all needed this kind of distraction. 

This was the reason you were awake at this ungodly hour, sitting at the small table inside you and Daryl’s shared room, trying to make the gift you were planning to give to Judith as Daryl stayed asleep on the bed with Dog laying by his side. Today was the day that Michonne had arranged to be the Christmas get-together and since it was your idea, you should have had enough time to prepare the gift, but Daryl was only able to find the last part of the materials you needed just the night before. You had gifts for everyone else, keeping the little trinkets you found on runs in the last few years proved to be useful now. However, you wanted to put something together for Judith. You’d taken notice that she loved to write in her journal and so you came up with the brilliant idea of giving her a handmade paper journal.

Unfortunately, now that you had the materials and equipment laid out in front of you, it was proving to be less than a brilliant idea. You had paper that you had already shredded up, water to soak the paper in, two wooden frames Daryl had made for this project, two pieces of netting from a window, and finally, the blender that Daryl found for you the night before. You knew what to do, or at least you thought you knew how to make the paper but you were drawing a blank after the first step of shredding the paper and soaking it. 

A small chuckle takes your attention from the things on the table as you look up and see Daryl giving you a teasing smirk and Dog had moved from beside him to lay on his chest, “ya havin’ trouble?”

“What gave that away?” you scoff.

“Nothin’,” he says, sitting up on the bed to look at you, his smirk still there, “jus’ ya sittin’ there, starin’ at that pile o’ somethin’. Thought ya said ya done this before?”

“I have…” you sigh, “but that was at least more than twenty years ago.”

“Wan’ me to try an’ help?” Daryl offers, he then gets up when he sees you nod with pleading eyes.

He makes his way over to the table with Dog trailing behind him. When Daryl sits down in the chair next to you, Dog obediently sits himself down in between the two of you. You smile down at Dog and give him a gentle pet on the head, making him wag his tail in delight. When you look back up at Daryl, you aren’t able to contain your smile. He was concentrating, you could see how the gears were turning in his head on how to make this work. You always loved watching him work, whether it was on his bike or making things like his arrows and simple arts and crafts like this seemed to have the same effect on you. This man sitting in front of you as he analysed the materials was just so damn handsome. 

“Ya sure this’s all ya need?” Daryl questions after a moment of looking everything over.

“Yeah, I think so, the basics anyway. I’ve seen people use colored tissue paper and glitter to make it prettier, but it’s not like we have an art store,” you say.

Daryl chuckles softly then nods, “a’right…”

It was like Daryl had put together all the steps in his head while he was analysing everything because after close to fifteen minutes, he had just finished the first sheet to Judith’s gift. You had watched him throughout the entire process and were staring at him in awe at how good he was at, well… everything. 

“You knew how to make it before, didn’t you?” you accuse, eyeing him playfully. 

“Nah, never did, jus’ seen it done when I was a kid,” Daryl says, then he chuckles at the look on your face, cluing in that you still didn’t exactly know the process, “I’ll show ya how to do it, step by step, we need more sheets to make lil’ asskicker a book.”

You smile at him, grateful for him being there for you. If it weren’t for him, you’d just be in a mess of wet paper pulp with no idea what to do next. After the course of the next hour, you and Daryl had been able to make close to thirty sheets, now all you needed to do was bind them together with ribbon. 

“C’mon,” Daryl says as he gets up from the chair, he tugs at your arm gently, “ya should get some sleep.”

“But we still need to bind these together,” you say, furrowing your brows together in confusion as you didn’t think Daryl would forget such a crucial step; you were giving Judith a book, not just sheets of paper. 

“I know, but we gotta let ‘em dry, we do it now they’ll just crumble,” Daryl explains, he tugs at your arm again, “sleep for a few hours then we’ll bind ‘em up, can’t have ya fallin’ asleep on all the kids.”

You smile, chuckling, as you give in and get up from the chair and follow Daryl to the bed where Dog had already been laying. He’d grown bored after the forth sheet in and decided to wait for you two on the bed. Dog gets up when he sees the two of you making your way to the bed and he takes up his spot on the corner of the bed as per usual. Daryl lays down first, his hand never letting go of yours even when you lay down beside him. His hand only leaves yours to hold you in his embrace as you snuggle into his chest, you can already feel yourself falling into a deep slumber.

“We have to get up in time to bind the pages…” you mumble, your eyelids getting heavier by the second. 

“We will,” Daryl says, pressing a soft kiss on your forehead just before you fall asleep.

—

Once the sun had come up, you and Daryl got up to finish off Judith’s present. Now, it was just past noon and the house smelled like a bakery as Carol was busy all morning making cookies and other goodies for the kids. The two of you make your way down the stairs and greet Carol in the kitchen, Judith and RJ were just finishing up their lunch with Michonne seated with them at the dining table. 

“Good morning Uncle Daryl, good morning Auntie Y/N!” Judith and RJ both greet with grins on their faces. 

“Good morning, lovelies,” you smile sweetly at them as you and Daryl sit down. 

“I thought ya’d both be runnin’ around with the other kids outside,” Daryl says, a teasing smile on his face as Judith playfully rolls her eyes.

“Mommy said that-that we can’t go to the snowball fight if we don’t finish our lunch,” RJ reveals, making the others chuckle. 

“Can we go get ready now?” Judith chimes in, “we cleared our plates like you asked us to.”

Michonne smiles at her children and nods, “okay.”

“Judith! RJ!” You call out when the kids are about to leave the dining table, you glance at Daryl and he nods at you, “come back for a second, it won’t take long.”

The siblings nod and make their way to stand in front of you. Reaching into the pocket of your hoodie, you take out a blue and green yoyo and hand it to RJ. He holds the toy in his hands and examines his curiously before grinning up at you. 

“Merry Christmas, RJ.” you say.

“What do you say?” Michonne says behind her kids, a warm smile plastered on her lips. 

“Thank you,” the boy says as he takes a step towards you for a hug. 

You kiss the top of his head and then chuckle as he runs away with his new toy, leaving Judith waiting patiently for her turn. Daryl reaches behind you to get the book you two had made together, he’d swiftly tucked it between you and the seat of your chair so it was hidden from Judith’s eyes. 

“This one’s for you,” Daryl says as he hands her the book, “Merry Christmas.” 

The grins on your faces grow when you see Judith’s eyes light up at the sight of the book. Daryl had the idea to have you personalise the front cover with Judith’s name written in cursive and decorate it with the few dried flowers you had sitting on your window sill. Judith stares at the book in awe, unable to take her eyes off her gift. 

“I love it,” Judith says, finally looking up at you and Daryl, “thank you!”

She tackles Daryl in a hug causing him to chuckle as he hugs her back. She then turns to hug you as well and you whisper into her ear to ask her to team up with you during the snowball fight so you two can beat Daryl. Judith has a sly smile on her face when she pulls back from the hug and nods at you making Daryl arch his brow in curiosity. 

“What was that?” he asks after Judith runs away to get ready for the snowball fight the kids were all promised.

You smile mischievously at Daryl and shrug, not intending to tell him about your little plan with Judith to ambush him. Of course, he had to find that out the hard way when RJ and Gracie also joined your team and he was fighting a losing battle. He still had Dog by his side, but he didn’t help much since all he seemed to want to do was catch the snowballs with his mouth and eat them. By the end of the battle, Daryl was soaked in melted snow and slush, clearly indicating that he was the one who was defeated. The children had run back to the house as Carol had announced that the cookies were ready and you made your way over to Daryl.

“Are you okay?” you say, a sheepish grin on your face.

“Tha’ what ya planned with lil’ asskicker?” he asks, eyeing you playfully as he pats the snow off his poncho. 

“It was the safest move if I wanted to win,” you chuckle, “lil’ asskicker kicked your ass.”

“Yeah, she did,” Daryl smiles softly at that.

“Come on, let’s get you cleaned up before you get sick,” you say, leading him back towards the house. 

Daryl takes off his boots and drenched poncho when you’re both back at your shared room, hanging his poncho on a chair by the table to dry. He then proceeds to change into some dry clothes. You busy yourself with trying to towel dry Dog’s fur and you let out a giggle when he shakes to get rid of the dampness on his fur. Once Dog deems himself dry enough, he skips over towards Daryl and puts his paw on his owner’s knee who’s now sitting on the bed. 

“Good Dog,” he says as he pets him.

You make your way to sit down beside Daryl on the bed and Dog shifts himself so that he can be easily pet by both of you. 

“You’re such an attention seeker, aren’t you?” you chuckle at Dog as you gently scratched him behind the ears, “aren’t you?”

Dog responds by putting his paw that was originally on Daryl’s knee onto yours, his tail wagging happily. 

“Yeah, he is,” Daryl smiles and then wraps his arm around your waist, kissing your temple gently. 

You giggle at his affection then lean to the side to reach for the drawer of the nightstand you and Daryl kept by the bed. You open the drawer and pull out a small wooden box and hand it over to Daryl, earning a confused look as he takes it.

“Wha’s this?” he asks.

“You didn’t think I’d leave you out, did you?” you say. 

Daryl chuckles softly then proceeds to open the box. Inside was a wooden coin with a single arrow and a dagger that resembled one of Daryl’s carved into it, both carvings crossing to create an artistic ‘X’. On the other side of the coin was the letter ‘D’. Daryl carefully takes the coin out of the box and stares at it in awe, knowing that it had your craftsmanship written all over it. Dog sniffs curiously at the item but then lays down at your feet when he figures out that it’s not food. 

“Ya made this for me?” he asks, his eyes never leaving the coin.

You nod shyly and lean into him, your cheek resting on his shoulder, “Hilde, one of the women from the Hilltop, she showed me how to make these a while back.”

Daryl hums at the information. You bite your lips nervously, you were afraid that he wouldn’t like it since it wouldn’t be deemed as a useful gift, it was just for decoration. 

“Do you… like it?” you ask, your voice shy.

“Are ya kiddin’?” he says, finally looking at you, “I love it.”

You grin at his words just before he presses a deep but gentle kiss to your lips. He pulls back a bit, tucking your loose hair behind your ear. 

“‘M sorry…” he mutters, “couldn’t find ya anythin’ good… wanted to but…”

“Hey, shh… it’s okay,” you’re quick to shut down his apology, “you don’t have to get me anything, you’re all I need.” 

“Still… I feel bad,” Daryl says as he hides his face in the crook of your neck.

“You say that like you don’t give me anything, you’ve given me lots of things whenever you find them on your runs,” you reason with him, you hated it whenever he guilt-tripped himself, “if you really want to give me something though… you could give me that red rag you’ve kept for all these years.”

“Wha’?” Daryl says as he pulls away to look at you, “that old thing’s fallin’ apart, ain’ much of a gift.”

“I’ll just hold on to it until you find me my actual Christmas gift,” you say with a cheeky grin. 

“A’right,” Daryl chuckles then kisses your lips once more, “I love ya.”

“I love you, too.” you say, kissing him back. 

That night, you would all have a festive dinner with everyone who had become your family over the years. Things haven’t always been as peaceful as this but nights like tonight were a blessing. You were surrounded by people who loved and cared about one another, happily celebrating Christmas, a holiday most of you had forgotten about. You hoped with all your heart that Christmas would be a yearly tradition for you all, with or without the snow. 

—

I honestly didn’t really know how to end this one haha I hope it’s good enough though! Happy holidays and stay safe everyone!!! ❤❤❤

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