Song for this chapter: Alive by Sia (I had nothing else to offer.)
Nea Pov:
There she was. My aunt Michonne in the flesh, alive, and breathing. How could it be? I questioned to myself. Everyone in my family was dead. People considered associates, family, teachers, and school administers were all gone. Most of them had become one of the Dead, the Walkers.
She stood in the doorway staring at me as if I were a ghost. A stranger that seemed so familiar. Slowly she stepped into the house and approached me, my ears caught the clicking sound of Rick shutting the door, but I paid him no attention. My sight was only focused on my last living relative.
As aunt Michonne moved towards me, I began blinking heavily suddenly feeling nervous from the unexpected reunion. She never spoke back, she only watched as if she questioned my very existence.
Michonne touched the right side of my face, and I flinched from the unexpected, uncomfortable situation.
"And it's really you?" Aunt Michonne asked, and my normally dry eyes became flooded with tears. I simply nodded finding it too difficult to speak. I went from being nervous to emotional in the matter of seconds making me aware it had been too long since I had any association with people.
Her question brought me back to the all the trauma I faced in the past four years. Every year brought a new loss, and in the past year my life had become nothing but survival and loneliness. I fought back the tears while the intrusive painful memories threatened to escape the dark, depths of my mind where I vowed to bury them.
Family had always been my weakness, which is why I hated being around them growing up. Little did I know, how I would regret taking people that loved me more than anything for granted.
The shock on aunt Michonne's face began to fade, and it was replaced by a look of sorrow. Sorrow for me and her. Grief for everything that we both probably loss, just to find each other four years after the apocalypse.
Aunt Michonne pulled me into a tight embrace, and I felt like I was suffocating. My heart rate had slowed, but my mental anguish remained.
Tears fell down my rough cheeks and onto the top of Michonne's shirt. She patted me on the back gently attempting to soothe my distress.
There was so much lost time between us. How long had it been? Since I saw her, heard her voice, or believed she was alive. A poor attempt at measuring time would lead me to say seven years. Seven long years separated us. My father Ruben had no contact with my aunt Michonne for three years before the apocalypse occurred, and after the apocalypse happened she never crossed my mind.
"I'm sorry," I apologized ending the hug. Aunt Michonne wiped away the fresh tears on my face, and she appeared calmer. One of us had to be.
"Don't be," she assured me placing her hands on both sides of my face. A sad, insincere smile spread across my dark brown, oval shaped face.
I sniffled. "It's just I thought you were dead. I mean I know you're are a survivor, but after being out on my own for so long I started to lose hope."
"You were alone?" She asked.
"Yes," I answered faster than I should have, I predicted where the conversation was leading.
"For how long?"
"About a year."
"And Ruben?"
My eyes burned with tears at the sound of my father's name, but this time I refused to allow them to escape. Something inside me turned cold, and the shield I had built around myself prevented me from expressing my anguish.
"He's dead…and mother and Nora is dead also," I confirmed, and aunt Michonne nodded like part of her already knew.
I watched as the tears brimmed in her eyes, and she no longer made eye contact. Michonne's eyes fell to the floor in a poor attempt to suppress her emotions, and I was aware it was my turn to comfort her.
I hugged my aunt Michonne for a second time, as we embraced each other I drifted my gaze to Rick, who was not standing far behind Michonne.
He glared at me momentarily appearing focused. We watched each other not blinking or softening our expressions. It was obvious I was an uninvited guest. I could tell by just looking at him that Rick was the kind of man you had to work overtime to gain his respect, a job I would have to take on unwillingly.
After several seconds Rick settled on doing the right thing and quickly turned his head away. Although Rick's body language still proved he was disturbed. He rubbed the rough hairs on his chin gazing down at the floor. It must have felt awkward for someone close to him to be upset, and he wasn't able to console her. The frown upon Rick's said a thousand words. My presence was troubling him, and I understood how everything was hard to fathom.
My observation of Rick was abruptly interrupted by the sound of loud wailing. I knew it didn't come from aunt Michonne even though I still broke away from her.
The wailing sounded like a baby crying, and then I heard footsteps.
"Is that a baby crying?" I questioned even though it was pretty obvious. Who would be insane enough to have a baby in our devastated world?
"That's Rick's daughter Judith," aunt Michonne informed me.
"She's not yours?" I asked aunt Michonne.
"No," Rick and aunt Michonne blurted out in unison.
If the situation was not so serious their abrupt answer would have been
"Would you like to meet her?" Aunt Michonne questioned, and I was rendered speechless once again.
"Um… sure," I replied nervously trying my best not to be rude.
Aunt Michonne and I walked up the stairs and into Judith's nursery. There was a wooden crib on the right side of the relatively empty room, and beside the crib was Carl cradling his wailing baby sister on his hip.
"Carl let Nea hold Judith," Michonne smiled at Carl, and he slowly approached me.
A negative air congested the room, Carl clearly did not want me there, and he definitely didn't want me to touch his baby sister.
"I don't know if this is a good idea," I doubted wanting to run out of the room.
"She's a baby Nea. You'll be fine," aunt Michonne attempted to calm me, but my fears were not nearly soothed. What if I dropped her?
Carl was several inches away, and I froze. How was I supposed to hold a baby? I had never held a baby or taken care of a child before. I was never like the other girls who I attended school with. They were always eager to hold babies, learn how to cook, and babysit children. They were getting prepared for a family one day. Most of them had maternal instincts. Me, I didn't know the first thing about being maternal.
Judith. The little stranger wined, and Carl and Michonne did their best to coo her before he handed her over. When Carl was close enough to hand her over, I looked into my aunt Michonne's eyes needing permission to sign away my unaffectionate rights.
Aunt Michonne nodded in encouragement, and I held out my arms to grasp onto the tiny creature. Carl seemed pissed about something. His frown was similar to Ricks, showing there was something plaguing his mind, and I assumed a least part of his problem was me.
Carl glared at me as he handed over Judith, and when I was younger I would have crumbled at his glare. The close proximity, the hatred in his eyes would have made want to crawl into a hole and die, but he couldn't break me.
After all life makes you hard, so I ignored his closeness fixing my eyes on Judith. I grabbed her waist lifting her with both hands, and I placed her onto my right hip.
Her warmth was the first thing I noticed. Judith's skin was so warm, she smelled like fresh powder scented soap. A soft pillow, cushion came to mind after I made contact with her delicate skin. The little girl was similar to a bouquet of sweet scented flowers, innocent and pure. Not tainted by our cruel world. She unaware what it felt like to suffer. Judith oblivious to pain and death. How can something be so innocent? So clueless? The puzzling questions led me to one conclusion, Judith's existence was a miracle.
I was so memorized by her, I didn't realize she had stopped crying. Judith studied me as if she wondered who or want I was, I thought the same thing about her honestly. We were both completely clueless.
"She stopped crying," My aunt Michonne pointed out.
"I wonder why. I've never even held a child before."
"Maybe you have the magic touch," aunt Michonne joked placing a hand on my shoulder.
"I guess I do."
"Ok that's enough," Carl said all of sudden.
"Come here Judith," he voiced to his baby sister. He treated more like Judith more like a puppy than a baby.
He took Judith off my hip, and placed her back into her crib.
"Judith usually takes a nap around this time," Carl explained, yet I was still confused.
Aunt Michonne didn't say anything. There was an awkward silence between the three of us while Carl's one eye switched from aunt Michonne and me.
"I'm going to go visit Enid," Carl addressed to aunt Michonne, then he brushed past me practically storming out of the room.
I was curious who put fire ants in his pants.
"What's his problem?"
"He's a teenage boy. And he is a lot like his father, so it might take a while before they get used to you. I'll talk to Rick later about you staying here."
"Ok, I understand, thanks aunt Michonne for being so trusting. You don't know what I went through out there."
"And's that's not important right now. What we need to focus on is finding a room for you to sleep in tonight. We have one more room available, but it's the attic."
"That's fine. I've slept in way worse places than an attic. I have gotten to the point where as long as I have somewhere to rest my head, I will sleep underground."
"Well you don't have to worry about that anymore," aunt Michonne made known, but I wasn't so sure.
After being on my own for so long and experiencing a lot of lost time with aunt Michonne, I suddenly realized that I had forgotten the importance of having a home.
AN: Hello… it's me, and today is my birthday! Yay! I can't believe I'm two decades old. If only Ouat Neverland existed I would've escape their when I was 17.
It has been way too long since I updated this and last night after my b day dinner, I deleted this chapter and made a few changes, so I hope it's an improvement. I read each and every one of the reviews, and thank you so much for the feedback. I try to take whatever you say into consideration because I want this story to be entertaining and well written.
Also don't worry about the dullness of this chapter I am slowly but surely mapping a plot for this story, and in the future chapters I will definitely try to switch to other POV's. (pssss… maybe Rick or Michonne.) So keep the feedback coming!
Quick Question: Does anyone watch Supernatural?