Author's Notes/Warning/Etc at the end
Michonne slipped through the C-Block door and pulled the door to behind her, closing the crisp darkness of the yard away from the candle-lit warmth inside the concrete walls. She settled the sword down her back and the rifle sling over her shoulder and picked her way down the steps. The outer mesh door cried out in a long-suffering groan and shut with a resounding clank. She tugged the gate twice to make sure it caught, and then stuffed her hands in her jeans.
Winter had lain thick over the countryside for its appointed time, dusting the trees with ash and keeping the grass on the brown side of growth. There had been days – they had come thickest in the short and muddy days after late winter – when all of them had flirted with misery and despair, each after their own fashion. Rick had grown terse again, and Carl fault-finding and impossible to please. Maggie and Glenn had fought over everything from the day of the week to a shirt dropped on the floor. Daryl had taken to disappearing for days – even when he had been inside the walls of the Tombs, it had been as though he were absent. Michonne herself had found her mind growing quiet and still, and spending long hours contemplating the sheathed sword, as though the varnished wood had held all the wisdom of the ages, rather than simply a length of damasked steel.
But equinox had come, finally, and with it warmer days. Spring – long kept crouched and waiting for its moment - finally sprung, dropping a green veil on the landscape. And so in late March, dawn opened on one of those days when Michonne didn't have to work very hard to appreciate the good fortune that lay draped over the Tombs, over their home, for going on a hundred entire days.
Michonne ran down the list as she made her way to take her shift on guard, idling along and kicking at the rocks on the gravel road in the halflight before true dawn. No one sick. No one bit. Plenty of food. Plenty of ammo. No strangers.
If it kept up, it would be a very good day.
Dew still hung on the fence like silver leaf, and the crescent moon lay on her back as if to catch any falling stars as Michonne climbed to the top of Tower One and slapped hands with Carl. He was waiting on her, his rifle slung and his bundle of books dangling from one hand.
"Quiet?" she asked as she unslung her own weapon. If it had been otherwise, he'd have said so right off, but she asked anyway, just to make conversation.
The young man shrugged, the faintest breath of a beard shadowing the edge of his jaw. "Two walkers wandered up, went down the fence. I'll tell Dad before I lie down." He hesitated at the top of the stairs. "How are the babies?"
She smiled. "All good." Carl smiled back in relief, tugged his hat further down in the John Wayne salute he'd picked up from God knew where, and pattered his way down the stairs, leaving the trap door open.
Michonne walked through the morning checks by rote – water jug still full, half box of ammunition, binos, the set of brightly colored sheets they used as signal flags. A slow, thorough scan of the western half of the fences showed them as empty as Carl had promised.
And there, that was fifteen whole minutes gone from a quarter-day watch. She sighed and left the sword leaning in a corner, along with the rifle, and indulged in a long set of stretches, lunges, and single-armed push-ups until she had shrugged off the chill from the walk out to the tower. The morning air was still brisk enough to make Michonne wish for a jacket, but she settled for letting the black and yellow flannel button-top hang loose over her undershirt.
Breakfast sat warm in her stomach. Birds sang in the trees at the edge of the Clear – one or two at first, then half a dozen at once. She folded her legs under her and settled in to wait.
If she wanted to, she could think back months, years – a thousand days – past, to her life and apartment and family in Atlanta, before. She could name the things she had lost – a son, a lover, a life of comfort and ease. If she wanted.
Today, now, all she cared to do was sit and watch the sunrise pour gold over her home, listen to the birds chatter, and feel her breasts grow heavy with milk again.
Slowly, the Tombs kicked into post-breakfast activity, as the sun crept higher, and the shadow of the Fence grew distinct and sharp, and then slowly pulled back to the gravel gap. The people of the other block straggled out, over on their side of the fields. Sasha Williams raised a hand to Michonne, and Michonne returned it, feeling her face crease in a smile as she did. C Block made their way out a few minutes later, but in a tighter bunch, nearly a dozen people moving with a purpose, tools slung over their shoulders and a covered bucket of water toted between Rick and Glenn. They made a knot at the edge of the appointed field, the one scheduled to be planted in peas and collards – assuming they got the waterline laid - and stood there as Hershel swung his crutches wide and caught up.
Michonne kept reminding herself to watch out, not in, but with walkers as scarce as they had been the last few months, the work crew was far more captivating.
Like everything anymore, getting started took time. They were still working out the rough spots, still learning to let people take their time and do things their own way, so long as they had time and nothing trying to kill them. It hurt Rick and Maggie the most, letting go, and there were still quarrels on a weekly basis. But it was better than the start of the winter, better still than the year before, when Andrea and Daryl's brother had died.
Now the work crew had stacked their digging tools and started a bucket brigade to shift the long white pipes from the storage garage, and Maggie and Glenn were erecting a shade top at the edge of the gravel. They unpacked the playpen – patched now on one side, and nowhere near as clean as when Michonne and Carl had hauled the thing back from King County – and dropped two black haired toddlers into the soft-sided box.
"Hey, baby," Michonne whispered, even though there was no way that Andy was going to hear her. In the playpen, Andy sat and stared about as Teddy immediately seized one of the rag toys. Beth – her shirt straining over the arc of her belly – set a folded chair by the playpen and opened a bag of mending.
Michonne thought of Andrea, and what her friend would have said about minding babies and sewing clothes. Nothing complimentary, Michonne thought. Damn, girl, wish you had lived to see this.
Then Daryl finally came around the corner of the building, a tool box in each hand and a backpack frame on his back. Glenn stepped forward take the red tool box, his body dipping as Daryl let the weight slip from his fingers. Glenn motioned at the baby-shed, but Daryl shook his head and waved at the guard tower. As he bent to drop the other tool box, a thin, cranky wail began. Michonne felt her tits tighten. Right on time. Maggie called out to Daryl, her voice merry and teasing.
Michonne couldn't catch Daryl's words, but the gist of it was frustrated and cranky. Glenn, Maggie, and Beth all laughed as Daryl shrugged the babypack higher on his shoulders and started for the base of Tower One.
By the time he reached the top of the stairs, she was already leaking milk into her undershirt.
"Gimme," Michonne said, and Daryl obediently unslung his backpack and peeled the baby out of its carrier.
"Damn, 'Chonne," he said, as Michonne settled into the corner, "wish women would take off their clothes for me half as fast as they do for this baby."
"Shut – ah, yeah, there you go – up, you un-civilized brute," she crooned. The little girl's pink face contorted above her gaping mouth as she rooted blindly for the teat. Michonne bent a little and guided the baby's mouth to her breast. The rising wail abruptly ceased as she latched on. "There, isn't that good?"
The baby's response was quiet but definitive – she liked milk. "You're just as bad as your daddy, little Daryl Jr." Michonne ran a hand over her head. The baby's hair was long enough now that the ends of it curled over the edges of her ears. When she'd been born, the baby had sported a full head of dark hair. "Oh," Carol had said, when they'd laid the baby, still wet and smashed-looking, in her arms. "Sophia was the same way." Carol had sat there a long moment, just looking at the bundled infant, her body sweat soaked and on the verge of being shocky.
"Y'sure?" Daryl had asked, back against the wall and his arms around Carol, still holding her upright. He had peered over Carol's shoulder at the new pink thing squirming in her arms. "Chone's baby, and Maggie's, they was bald." He'd pressed a kiss to Carol's sweat-slick shoulder. "Maybe she was baking too long."
"Yes,"Carol said with a sigh. "Just like Sophia. Just…just a bit smaller." She ran a trembling hand over the baby's head, staring at the new thing with weary amazement. For a moment, Michonne had looked at them all – at Maggie and old Rosemary McLeod, who sat by the door and blinked her faded eyes, at Carol and her husband her new baby – and thought, it's really going to be all right.
"Patricia," Hershel said, his attention at the juncture of Carol's thighs, "could I have another pair of towels?"
"I got it," Maggie said, just as she had all night, every time Hershel or the midwife had asked for something. She'd levered herself to her feet and was gone before her father could thank her. Michonne had wrung out the washcloth and wiped at Carol's face again. The older woman had breathed again, a gusty sigh, and winced at whatever Hershel was doing.
"Ow," Carol said, quietly. Daryl's arm tightened around her.
"Y'okay?" He asked, one hand easing up to wipe at the hair plastered to her temple. Carol nodded.
"Of course she is," Hershel said, with such confidence that even Michonne believed him. "The bleeding is already slowing. You'll be fine," he said, and patted Carol's arm. But then he had asked to look at the baby again, and held it for Patricia to examine.
When he passed the little girl back to Carol, he'd stood, wavered a moment on his short leg, and motioned for Patricia to follow him from the cell.
Maggie stayed to sit with Carol, and so did Rosemary, but Michonne slipped out of the room after Hershel. She found him in a low-voiced conversation with Patricia at the bottom of the stairs. "What's wrong?"
The old man looked at Patricia, and back at Michonne. "The baby's small, and the color's not good."
"The RH thing?"
Patricia shrugged. "Carol's A-neg, with a history of miscarriage. It could be." She ran a hand through her hair, and Michonne was struck again by just how very young the midwife was. "It could be a lot of things. I don't like how much blood she lost."
"Me neither."
Three days later, out on the yard, Carol's legs went out from under her, and when Michonne and Glenn had lifted her, her face had been pale as paper and sweat stained her shirt. "Get Hershel," Michonne had snapped, and Glenn had run.
They'd had enough penicillin, still, at what Hershel said was three times the normal, un-expired and non-heat stressed dose. By morning, Carol's color was better, and she sat up and drank a little soup.
But when she'd gone to feed the still nameless baby, the little thing had tried to suckle but gave up and went back to crying, letting Carol's nipple fall out of her mouth.
Carol had fumbled, trying to move the baby to the other breast. The baby went on crying. Michonne looked up to see Maggie in the cell door, Teddy on her hip. Maggie had looked at Michonne, then at the crying baby, at Carol's shaking hands. Maggie had handed Teddy to Michonne and slipped her shirt off her shoulder. "Here, Carol, let me hold her."
The baby had slipped easily out of Carol's weak grip, shaking her head, screaming in fury. But when Maggie brought the baby's mouth up to her full breast, the baby had latched on almost immediately.
Carol had closed her eyes, tears leaking down her face like rain. Michonne had crowded close on the bunk and put an arm around Carol's shoulders, thinking, we will lose her now, and the fucking unfairness of it all blocked Michonne's throat so that she could scarcely breathe.
Now Daryl settled onto the tower bench, facing out with the rifle over his knees, as his daughter fed hungrily. From time to time, his eyes slid away from the short grass outside the Fence and over to Michonne's dark breast.
"Hey. Quit staring at the girls."
Daryl blinked and went scarlet. He jerked his eyes over to the fenceline. "Sorry. Didn't mean…"
Michonne traced the baby's ear, feeling the soft skin under her fingertips. "Oh, it's all right." He hadn't been looking at her tit, but at the baby nursing at it. She shifted a bit, let her back settle a bit more and considered the child again. "Lauren Rita-Jo. Are you sure you want to inflict that on this poor innocent baby?"
Daryl shrugged. "Carol wants it." His eyes cut back to the baby, then away. "Fine by me."
The baby kept on suckling. "She's a lot heavier now. Is she eating more at night?"
That brought out a slow, helpless smile from Daryl. "She takes longer, if that's what you mean. Dunno if she's actually eating or just wants people awake to cuddle with her."
"Pretty soon she'll be able to make do with solid food, won't need topping up."
Daryl shrugged again. "Whatever works." He let the silence play out, and then said, like he had twice or three times before. "'Preciate this. Both of us do. You an' Maggie both."
Michonne felt her mouth smile. "No problem." Movement at the corner of her eye caught her attention, and she leaned over to look at the still-empty fence. Then she shifted her focus, recognizing the figure moving slowly down the roadway. Carol, still wrapt in a jacket, but walking steadily on her own.
"Hey, there's your momma, wave hey." The baby let go of the nipple and began to fuss again. "What's up, girl, that one empty?" She looked at Daryl. "Well, she's still interested. It'll be a few minutes."
He nodded, already standing. "Right back," he threw over his shoulder, and bounded down the steps. Michonne shrugged at her undershirt straps and shifted the baby to the other side, twisting on her rump to keep an eye on the Clear leading up to the barriers at the gate.
It wasn't as quick as all that, because Carol still wasn't moving that fast, and she was further delayed by having to stop walking in order to tell Daryl off. Their voices carried up the stairwell ahead of them, faint runnels of fond bickering and relieved bitching.
"- like I can't carry a damn baby up and down the steps on my own, woman. No need –"
"Take your hovering nonsense and go stuff it, Daryl Dixon. I'm fine." There was a pause, their footsteps falling still, and Michonne could hear Carol's heavy breathing.
Then, just as Daryl said, "Carol,…"Carol's boots rang on the steps again. Five steps, six, and then Carol's head peeked up through the opening.
"Hey," Carol said, and sat with a sigh on the edge of the trap door. "How are you?"
"Good," Michonne said, and that was all she had time for. At the sound of Carol's voice, the baby lost all interest in nursing and began to fuss. Tucking her back in the wrap, Michonne passed the girl to Carol, who took the baby back readily. "Good morning again," Carol said, smiling down at the milk-flecked face. "Your tummy all full now?"
"She's growing like a weed."
"Yes. Thank you." Carol looked down the dark stairs and said, "Hold on." She swung her feet out and slid against the wall. "Good watch so far?" she asked, as Daryl climbed the rest of the way out of the stairs.
"Quiet." Michonne watched Daryl crouch down next to Carol, both of them staring at the baby. "You know she's got his nose, right?"
Carol looked up, the pixie grin back on her face for the first time in what seemed like months. "Oh, she's a Daryl Junior, for sure."
"Nuthin' wrong w'm'nose," Daryl groused. Both women ignored him. In Carol's arms, the baby was sleeping already.
Reluctantly, Michonne rose and stepped back to the open door to scan the fenceline. "You going to be back here on time today, Daryl, or are you gonna owe me another extra hour?"
"Jesus Christ. It was just that one time." He leaned over and pulled the babypack to him, shaking it open and holding it out for Carol to tuck the baby inside. "I got it," he said, even though Carol hadn't made any motion to take the baby back from him. "She don' weigh no more'n a'bitty baby possum. I could carry her all day."
Carol snorted, her eyes following the babypack as Daryl slung it on his back. To Michonne, she said, "You have a good watch. Let us know if you need anything." Clinging to the edge of the trap opening, she started down the stairs, Daryl watching her as she went.
"You crowd me again, and you'll get an elbow where you don't like it," Carol's voice floated back up out of the stairwell. Daryl rolled his eyes.
"Want the door shut?" he asked, one broken-knuckled hand on the heavy door handle.
"Leave it open," Michonne said. Daryl gave her a quick look of gratitude and then followed Carol down the ladder.
Down in the field, Daryl walked with Carol to the shade shelter, lending her a hand to settle down on the blanket before unslinging the babypack and handing little Daryl-Jr over to her mother. Beth rose to her feet, her hands going automatically to the small of her back in a motion that Michonne knew well. She waved at the building and walked off, probably to manage the part of pregnancy that all of them called peeing for two.
Daryl stayed under the tent, crouched beside Carol, his eyes only on her, and the infant in her arms.
Michonne forced herself to look away and scan the fenceline. When she looked back, Daryl had come to his feet. He hovered at the edge of the shade, clearly torn between staying with Carol and going on to help with the waterline.
It was much too far to hear, but Michonne could mark when Carol had come to the end of tolerating Daryl's presence, and waved him on to the work in progress.
He went – not without a backward glance, but he went.
A single walker wandered out of the woodline south of the pig pen and made it halfway across the Clear before a bolting rabbit distracted it into staggering back to the trees.
Michonne took another swig of water and brought the glasses to bear on the fence. Still clear. She checked her watch – another four and a half hours to go – and lifted the binos again. Daryl had kept his shirt on, but the rest of the men had stripped down to boots, belts and jeans. She let her eyes rest on Rick's shoulders, on the dark hair of his chest and the thin line down his belly.
It is going to be a very good day, she thought to herself.
/end/
Characters/Rating/Setting: Michonne, Daryl, Carol. Caryl AU. Teen. Set three years after the end of the world, and two years after the Governor's second attack on the prison never happened. Warnings for: Dixon mouth. Women having babies and suckling them. Babies. Horrible names for babies.