Maggie knocked on Michonne (and Rick's!) door, bringing some unexpected cargo.
Michonne looked at her in surprise as Maggie held out a six pack of beer.
The young Mrs. Rhea smiled, and laughed as she explained herself. "Glenn and Daryl came across these on their last run. I can't really use them, but seeing as it seems you have some celebrating to do..or some more celebrating.."
Michonne laughed, welcomed Maggie in, and accepted the drinks. "How thoughtful," she laughed. "I suppose Rick and I are the news of the day..." she looked over her shoulder as she casually set the drinks down on the living room table.
"Hey..it sure beats taking a death toll any day.." Maggie sighed, then changed back to her happy mood. "I just wanted to let you know...it's a good thing. It is probably the best thing to happen to Rick since..well, since I can remember."
"The others..do they feel this way?" Michonne questioned as she sat down. Then she looked at Maggie, who had sat down herself on the couch. "I'd offer you one, but..."
Maggie grinned and patted her stomach. "It's good. I'm good. And yes..from what I hear everyone's thrilled for him. And for you. You two..you make sense."
Michonne took a drink as she processed this conversation.
"But what we really want to know..what I really want to know...how was it?"
Their eyes met, and they both started laughing hysterically. "Maggie! You're a married woman!"
"Exactly! I have to live vicariously through you...marriage changes things, you know?" Maggie replied as she opened a bottle of water for herself.
"Looks like Glenn's still got a little something in him," Michonne responded in between quick drinks.
"Are you blushing?" Maggie teased.
"I thought my tan hid it, but yes, I do blush now and then."
More fits of laughter, and it grew quiet. Just for a minute.
"Well," Michonne started. "I honestly can say I've never really thought about being with a white boy...but once you've gone Rick, you never go back.
And so the conversation went on, between hints of innuendo, moments of reflections among the two females about the good things that were happening for them, and they both were just glad to have a break from the hardships of reality, while their men were on another food run.
"Rick...he's had it rough, you know," Maggie started, looking at the wall.
Michonne nodded.
"He...he wasn't always like what you've seen. I mean.." Maggie thought for a minute. "I know you first met him at the prison. Things were bad for him. Lori..."
"I've heard stories," Michonne sighed.
"She wasn't all bad, you know. She was just...confused. I mean, she thought Rick had died, but that was before I came to know them. I remember when I first got to meet them...I was at my daddy's farm. Beth was there...my step mom, some help. Otis." Maggie closed her eyes for a second. "Life was much different, even after all the...after the invasion started. Somehow, we'd been sheltered. I think my daddy saw but didn't want to see, so he made sure we didn't see. We just went on our days the best we could...and then Rick found our farm..."
Michonne, now feeling the effects of several beers, just listened.
"Carl..he'd been shot. On accident, by Otis I believe. Our farm hand. Anyways they found our farm, and my daddy, well, he was a veterinarian, and he had been a good Christian man. Not a perfect one. But he tried to help.
"And then Carl got better," Maggie went on. "But the whole time...well, the reason they were in the area to begin with was because of Sophia. Carol's..Carol's little girl."
"Did you get to meet Sophia?" Michonne questioned.
Maggie looked down, and that told her friend all she needed to know. "We saw her...My daddy's helpers had been gathering walkers in our barn. Thought they were still people, sick people. One day we opened the barn...and Sophia...She was in there. Carol...I didn't know her too well. She was different back then. She wasn't what you see now. But that day I saw a mother grieving for her little girl. One day she was a mom and then that day came and...that changed everything for her."
Michonne took a deep breath, and closed her eyes. Thoughts of her own young son came to her mind. What had started out as happy lighthearted banter had now taken on a decidedly different turn.
Just then the silence was broken by the sound of knocking at the door. Maggie answered, and it turned out, it was Carol, offering some cookies.
"Carol.." Maggie looked at her. "Michonne and I were just...we were talking. We have some beer. Not me," she sighed wearily. "Come in...we'd like it if you came in and sat with us for a bit. Take a break from the cooking. Have a beer."
Carol looked around and smiled forcefully. "No thank you. I have got some cleaning to do..you never leave a mess after you cook, you know..."
Michonne came around the corner. "Carol, that can wait. We've all been covered head to toe in walker blood and guts. Anything you got going on in your kitchen worse than that?"
Maggie eyed Carol carefully, waiting for her response. "I guess not. You have a beer, you say?" she sighed and sat down across from Michonne and Maggie.
Carol readily accepted the drink, and for a few minutes no one knew quite what to say.
"Do you and Glenn have any names picked out?" Michonne casually threw out the question that the whole group was wondering by then.
Maggie shook her head. "Maybe Beth if it's a girl, Hershel if it's a boy. Glenn says as long as it's healthy...wow...that's an answer people from..before all this...would have given."
Michonne nodded. "nice to know there's still something to hold on to."
"I think you two are foolish to bring a child into this world," Carol muttered, tossing back another drink.
Both of the other females in that room just glared at her.
"Carol," Michonne started. "I get why you'd feel that way. I really do...but this is different."
"Is it?" Carol glared. "Did it work out any better for your sister or your father than it did for Sophia?"
Maggie tried to bite her lip, but some things just needed to be said. "Carol, I was there when...at the barn. I felt bad, I still do. I cannot even imagine...especially now that Glenn and I are having a baby. This child isn't even here yet but I feel so much fear..I mean, we've gotten used to living a certain way. But I won't live out my life and miss out just because of fear. I have to believe this world cannot take everything from me."
"The minute you think that that's the minute you lose everything you have," Carol sniffed.
"That's enough," Michonne admonished.
"You think I'm lying?" Carol questioned. "It's only by a miracle that Judith is still.."
At the mention of Rick's daughter's name, Michonne instantly found herself tensing up.
Carol went on. "We have enough trouble fighting off the people, not to mention the herds. You think you can keep a baby from crying in the middle of an attack of a pack of those things? Jessie thought she could keep Sam quiet, and he wasn't even an infant for goodness' sake."
Maggie looked at Michonne, then took a deep breath, wondering how to address Carol's concern...it was a valid argument. "I know that, but.."
"You think this will be different? How are you different than Jessie? I'm sure she had every intention of protecting Sam but...things just don't work out the way we want them to," Carol sighed.
It was getting harder for Michonne to bite her lip, but she sat quietly, taking Maggie's lead.
"I know you and Sam.." Maggie started, but Carol wouldn't hear any of it.
"You don't know what you're talking about."
"I know Sam came around to you," Michonne added. "Jessie told Rick. She knew he trusted you."
Carol stood up, and they all thought she would leave. But Carol looked out the window, sighing.
It had been quite some time since Maggie had seen Carol's emotions get the better of her.
"It's okay to feel sad," Maggie sighed. "I feel sad that my daddy won't get to meet his grand baby. I feel sad that Beth won't be around to sing lullabies to her niece or nephew. I feel so sad thinking about them sometimes that I just..."
Michonne looked on and was startled by what Maggie revealed next. "At the farm, when Lori found out she was pregnant with Judith..she had Glenn go get her some pills."
"Pills?" Michonne questioned.
Maggie looked down. "Morning after pills...she was going to...anyways it doesn't matter. She didn't, or at least wasn't successful. Judith is alive, and she makes Rick happy."
Michonne smiled and nodded.
"Glenn told me about that...Glenn was mad, and I was mad at Lori for putting Glenn in a situation where he could have lost his life trying to clean up her situation.." Maggie continued. "I like to say I understand..but things, they have a way of changing. I was...I delivered Judith," she looked down at the floor, tears forming in her eyes.
Both Carol and Michonne watched on, both setting aside their difficult emotions of the moment to really listen to Maggie's tale.
"I didn't want to...Carol, you remember, my daddy, he was training you to deliver the baby...but it was at the prison, and there was a breech or something..we couldn't find you..."
Carol nodded, still looking down at the floor.
"I didn't want to...I didn't want to have to deliver the baby," Maggie went on. "Carl, he was there."
Michonne, hearing the name of not only Rick's son, but as a young male she'd come to have a special bond with, said nothing. Her heart sank after hearing more of what Carl had been through.
"It was clear pretty quickly that Lori..she wouldn't make it. She was so brave...braver than I could be. She told Carl stuff..I didn't want to listen, I felt like an intruder, you know?" Maggie's eyes met Michonne's. "But Lori..I know you didn't know her. Rick and Lori, they had their problems, their differences. But she loved Carl. She...she loved him, and she loved her baby. I do believe in her own way she loved Rick, too. Just..things were complicated."
Carol wiped her eyes. For a few months now, really beginning with her shared ordeal with the Wolf with Morgan, their conversations, losing Sam...ever so often, for the first time in a really long time, Carol found herself fighting back tears. Tears that she'd thought she'd long outgrown. For the longest time, even before the outbreak, when she was married to Ed, and then...well, with her journey from losing Sophia on the highway to finding her daughter in the barn...Carol had just assumed she'd run all out of a lifetime of tears. It turned out, she hadn't.
Even Michonne, whom was quite weary of letting anyone see the real woman she'd been trying to suppress, her soft side, shared in the other two females' tears.
"I'm sorry I said anything.." Carol finally spoke up after drowning the rest of her beer. "I thought you have to forget in order to survive. I used to think about Sophia, every day. Now here at Alexandria, now that we have mirrors..sometimes, most of the time, really, I avoid them. When I do catch a glimpse of myself all I can think of is that Sophia wouldn't know me now. I think that I don't know me anymore."
Michonne took the lead, and just took hold of Carol's hand. Maggie took the other, and while words were hard to express at that moment, the feelings, well, they were all on the same page.
Michonne and Carol, they had been mothers, had borne children, had lost them.
Maggie was carrying a child inside of her at that very moment, and though the world had turned them all into more, sometimes worse, but very much different people than they each had started out to be...their shared bond of motherhood was equal to to the bonds they felt with their fellow survivors.
"I had a son too," Michonne whispered through her tears.
Carol and Maggie both were surprised. "Does Rick know?"
"Not unless Carl told him. Carl's the only one who knows."
"Maybe someday you and Rick can..." Carol shocked even herself by suggesting that they could or should bring a child into the world.
Michonne half smiled. "I have Carl and Judith. They need me."
Maggie smiled, and Carol nodded. "It takes a special someone to love another person's child," she sighed, and Maggie knew exactly whom Carol was referring to, and why she thought that about him.
"Daryl was really good to you, he really tried hard to find her," Maggie acknowledged.
"I don't know what I would have done if he...I was weak back then. I couldn't even look for her myself. I didn't even know how to handle a gun."
"Well that has certainly changed," Michonne blurted out, and the three found themselves in a much needed break with laughter.
"You and Daryl..you ever think about.." Maggie asked, and Michonne raised her eyebrow at Carol.
"Daryl?" Carol chortled. "He's like..."
Just then their conversation came to an abrupt stop. Rick, followed by none other than Glenn and Daryl, walked in. A slightly bemused look came across Rick's face as he saw the empty beer bottles, the tear stained faces of the three females he considered among his most cherished friends on earth.
"I finally tracked down some toothpaste. I don't suppose there's any more of that where that came from," Rick grinned and nodded at the beer bottles.
"Nope. Maggie couldn't join us, but Carol and I sure enjoyed ourselves," Michonne smiled.
Maggie ran to embrace Glenn. "I'm really glad you're back," she sighed as she held tightly to her husband.
Glenn looked at Rick. "I think we missed something," he smiled wearily, returning his wife's embrace.
"I see you made it back," Michonne approached Rick. "I may not be able to offer you a beer, but I'm sure I can think of some way to thank you for your efforts..."
"On that note," Carol stood up, laughing. She turned and smiled at her female companions for that evening. And to everyone's surprise, she walked up and kissed Daryl on the cheek. "Come back home soon. I found a bar of chocolate I'd been hiding. I made you some cookies..some real chocolate chunk cookies." And she walked away without looking back. If she had, she'd have seen a very confused Daryl (as well as a very embarrassed Daryl) watching her.
"What was all that about?" Rick asked as he hugged Michonne.
"It's okay. It's all good."
"Come on, Maggie. I think these two need their privacy," Glenn grinned at Rick.
Maggie winked at Michonne, and then she followed her husband back to their place.
"Go on," Rick nodded at Daryl. "you have a cookie waiting on you."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Daryl scoffed, unsure of what to make of everything.
"You're a smart man. You'll figure it out," Rick patted his friend on the shoulder before closing the door after him.
As Michonne and Rick, Maggie and Glenn, and Daryl and Carol settled in their makeshift houses for the evening, they were all just so grateful to have survived another day, that just that evening, they sat back and counted their blessings.
Rick had Carl, Judith, and Michonne. His friends, and the soon to be friends from Alexandria (now that he was slowly warming up to the idea of expanding his family).
Maggie and Glenn cuddled up on their couch, with him resting his hand on her pregnant tummy and they tossed around baby names.
Daryl and Carol, well, they didn't say much to each other. But they really didn't need to. As promised, she delivered her secret batch of cookies just for Daryl, and they took in the solitude that their shared living quarters offered.
It had been said that ignorance was bliss...and that saying had never been truer for their circle of family and friends.
That night was the calm before the storm..the deadliest storm they would ever encounter. A storm going by the name of Negan.
In less than twelve hours, Negan would claim one of the lives of this little group of unofficial but generally recognized as leaders of "Rick's group".
In less than twelve hours, the loss of a member would hit so hard, that life for none of them, none of their fellow survivors, none of the other Alexandrians...none of it would ever be the same.
And the lights of the homes in Alexandria compound slowly turned off one by one for the night, with the brightest light remaining lit only long enough for its pretense to be felt when its light was dimmed forever.
The end.