All war must be just the killing of strangers against whom you feel no personal animosity; strangers whom, in other circumstances, you would help if you found them in trouble, and who would help you if you needed it - Mark Twain
Seven Months Since The Turn
Day 213
Michonne kept her steps light and quiet on the forest ground, eyes and ears waiting for any sudden movement, any cracking branch, any rustling in the distance.
It must be early spring, she thought. Since the Turn, it was a bit more difficult to track the months, but the obvious variations in the seasons helped.
The air was still cool and morning frost was still present in the pale brown grass, but the cold was not as biting as it had been in the midst of winter. The trees had not grown their leaves back quite yet. They were still bare and gloomy, but they would flourish again soon.
Michonne was glad that the cold weather would soon be behind her. Spring meant change. New beginnings.
A time to leave a chapter of her life behind and begin a new one.
She stayed a few paces behind Daryl as they hiked. He whistled quietly, nearly in tune with the old fallen leaves crunching beneath their feet. She recalled their conversation earlier that day; how close she'd come to nearly blurting out a bit of her past. She hadn't meant to at all; especially not to Daryl. She wasn't ready to confide in anyone about it yet.
Michonne stopped in her tracks, a branch cracking beneath her foot. Daryl didn't seem to notice.
"Pst!," she hissed at him, instinctively ducking down for cover. Daryl stopped and turned to face her, suddenly alert. "Listen," she told him. Daryl concentrated for a moment, then scowled.
"I don't hear nothin'," he said. "You're always hearin' shit that ain't there." Michonne glared at him. It bothered her a bit that he knew that. Living in close proximity to someone for nearly a month made it difficult to hide a secret like that.
"I can hear a stream. And splashing. Don't you hear that?" she asked. He was the tracker, not her. He must've had something on his mind if he missed it. Daryl frowned.
"Well, shit, Michonne. You're good." He cracked a smile and drew his crossbow, a look of excitement on his dirty face. "It's prolly a deer or somethin'. Hell yeah, some venison would be good tonight." With a beckoning motion of his hand and a finger to his lips, he headed towards the sound of the water.
Michonne followed, unable to decide whether to draw her sword or unholster her glock. She didn't think it was a deer or any kind of creature at all. It sounded like a person.
Great, she thought. I don't wanna deal with this today.
Daryl ducked suddenly and stepped behind a thick pine tree. Michonne did the same, pressing her back against the rough bark of another tree a few feet away. He pointed and Michonne glanced in the direction of his finger, peeking past the tree into a stream several feet away.
The source of all the noise she'd heard was a man, standing naked in the shin-deep water of a clear stream, cleaning his dirty body in the cool water. Michonne stared as he cupped his hands in the water and splashed his face, scrubbing vigorously at his thick brown beard. He sighed loudly and tilted his head back, content and at peace with the world though most of his body was exposed.
His wet, rich chocolate curls clung to his neck and face, water dripping from his locks and falling onto his chest, clinging to the sprigs of hair that covered his pecs. He cupped more water in his hands, cleaning his stomach and then... he began to touch himself, sighing as he did so, his eyes closing with a soft flutter of long lashes. He was thick and swollen despite the nippy air.
Michonne's face grew hot and her throat went dry. She swallowed hard, ducking back behind the tree and pressing her body against it as she exhaled the long breath she had been holding.
How long did I ogle him? she wondered. She couldn't believe she had just witnessed such a thing; a completely naked man bathing and touching himself in a stream in the middle of the forest. Had she hallucinated it?
"Enjoy the show?," Daryl whispered, his low voice startling her from her thoughts, clarifying that indeed, the man was there.
Michonne locked eyes with Daryl for a moment. She couldn't read his expression. His mouth formed a straight line, his lips tight as he glared back at her, his cheeks red beneath layers of dirt and grime. She broke their eye contact. She didn't have time to decipher his expression or talk to him about anything. She needed to find out who the hell this was before they passed.
She slipped her glock 9mm from its holster on her hip and aimed it as she dashed forward, revealing herself to the naked mystery man as he bathed. His eyes widened and he started towards the bank of the stream, reaching toward his dirty clothing where it lay cast aside on the rocks. A stainless steel six-inch Colt Python was placed carefully on top, glimmering in the sunlight, waiting to be needed.
"Don't even think about it!" Michonne shouted. She racked the slide of the glock, chambering a round into the barrel and lining her sights up. "Put your hands up. Who are you?" The naked man closed his fist and set his jaw, no longer reaching for his reliable old friend, instead turning to face her, his nakedness and obvious agitation on full display.
Michonne didn't notice that Daryl had finally crept from his hiding spot behind the pine tree, his crossbow aimed, now standing at her side. The naked man smirked a bit, moving a hand again.
"Don't move!" Daryl warned. "You'll have a lot more to worry about if you don't listen to her."
Michonne kept her face straight, glaring down the sights of her gun, waiting for him to try anything.
Now that she was closer to him, she noticed the blood all over his chin and neck, hidden behind his long, wet curls, stuck to his skin beneath his bushy beard, covering the denim button-down shirt resting on the riverside stones.
No wonder he was bathing, she thought.
"I asked you who you are. Answer me. Why are you covered in blood? Have you been bitten?" Perhaps she'd put him out of his misery if she needed to; maybe even if he didn't want it. She didn't need a walker following them if he turned, making unnecessary noise, attracting others.
And if he wasn't bitten, she didn't want a stranger following them either. She'd have to get the point across to him that they weren't looking for any company.
Trust no one, she reminded herself. Daryl had been the only exception to that rule.
The naked man turned towards Michonne and stared into her eyes, blinking slowly just once, his set mouth full of unspoken words and his earnest gaze leaving her wondering what secrets lie behind his oceanic stare. A silver watch he was wearing caught the sunlight and winked at her.
Her heartbeat quickened, now at a frantic pace in her heaving chest . She could hear its thumping in her ears and feel it in her throat. She wanted to look away but she stared back at him instead, adjusting her grip on the glock with sweaty hands.
She tried not to let her eyes wander and she failed miserably. She looked him up and down, starting from his intense azure eyes and plump pink lips. A drop of water rested in his cupids bow, hidden beneath his facial hair and caught the sunlight, glistening, smiling at her.
Blood dotted his chin beneath his full bottom lip. His beard was overgrown, unattended to for months perhaps. She could tell he'd spent a lot of time in the sun. His face and arms were tanned and golden brown, the rest of his skin much paler in comparison.
His skin flushed red as Michonne eyed every inch of him; every patch of hair that dusted his torso. He reached down slowly and covered his manhood with both hands, smiling crookedly, admiring her in return. She blinked and opened her mouth to speak, but Daryl spoke for her.
"She asked you a question," Daryl said. "You bit?"
At last, the naked mystery man spoke, with a tilt of his head like a curious puppy and a southern drawl dripping from his tongue.
"No, I'm not bit. Just bloody," he confessed, meeting Daryl's eyes. "It'd be great if you let me put my damn clothes on. I'm not looking for any trouble." He looked back at Michonne and smiled.
"Why're you bloody then?" Michonne asked, ignoring his charm. Daryl had lowered his crossbow, then raised it again. He didn't see this man as a threat. She could tell. She would usually feel the same, but her paranoia clouded her intuition for a moment.
That's the way the world worked now. Every chance encounter with another being was unpredictable and could turn into an all out war for her. A war against other people. A war against the walkers. Who was she to trust?
People weren't just strangers anymore, forced into awkward, polite conversation, still trying to be a civil society. The apocalypse paved the way for every kind of monster to make himself known; set a path of destruction before them with no consequences for their actions. She couldn't risk it.
It had been different when she met Daryl. There was no threat to her. He'd needed her.
But this was a stranger. A stranger that reached for his gun the very second they met. And she wouldn't hesitate to kill a stranger.
"I had to kill a man in a cabin about a mile and a half back that way" He nodded behind him, toward the west. "You caught me off guard. Felt like getting this blood off me and my clothes."
She deepened her scowl and straightened her back. She couldn't read him. She knew not everything was always black and white. People weren't all good or all bad. But she couldn't decipher this man. All she could do was stare.
"Why?," she asked, assessing him.
He continued, explaining himself.
"He crept in while I was sleepin'. I woke up to a knife in my face. Had to wrestle a bit with him. Used his knife to slit his throat. I don't kill the living unless it's necessary in the form of self-defense, though, in case you were wondering. So if you don't mind, I'd love to put on my clothes and head out. I've got stuff to do. You can put your gun down now." He seemed to be getting annoyed.
Michonne reluctantly held her hand up to Daryl and he lowered his crossbow.
"Sorry man, Michonne don't like meetin' strangers. We ain't come across anyone for awhile now," Daryl explained. Michonne holstered her glock and glared at him.
Did he really need to tell this guy my name? Should I just leave this man here? Will he follow us?
She watched him scurry up the bank, his wet body shining, his bottom in full view. She averted her eyes as he pulled on his dirty clothes and she noticed Daryl staring at her again. He rolled his eyes.
Once the man was dressed, he sat down on a nearby rock and slipped a pair of dark worn cowboy boots on, standing and throwing on his gunbelt. He opened the cylinder of his revolver, checking its capacity casually and snapping it back into place with ease and familiarity, as if he'd done it countless times before. He holstered it on his gunbelt, his hand resting on the grip, one hip cocked as he turned to face them.
"Can't say I've ever experienced that before," he said, chuckling and adjusting his gunbelt. He met Michonne's eyes again. "So. Michonne." Her name melted in his mouth. He rolled his tongue around it. She blinked her big brown eyes at him. She liked the way her name sounded on his lips, the way he said it. She was furious with herself as she admired his southern swagger; the way he carried himself, the way he walked and talked. "You headed southeast?" he asked, throwing on a thin camel jacket and pulling a black duffel bag over his broad shoulders. Michonne scowled.
"None of your business," she said. She wanted to get the hell away from him. He smiled at her and she melted, angered at her femininity for making itself known to her, displaying its obvious upset about being ignored for so long by sending a swarm of butterflies to flutter in her stomach.
"Well, I'm Rick," he said. "I'm headed southeast as well. Remembered this stream was here so I came back to clean up." He shifted in his boots after an long, awkward silence, tilting his head to the side and eyeing them from across the stream.
Daryl crossed the water in a few steps and came up on the bank next to him.
"I'm Daryl. Didn't mean to interrupt your bath." Daryl blushed and looked away. "You ain't seem to mind though." Rick smirked.
"It's fine. I'll get over it," he glanced at Michonne and her scowl deepened.
"Michonne don't much like comin' across strangers," he said again. "We've had our bad experiences."
"I understand," Rick said. "Haven't we all? Can't be too careful nowadays."
Michonne breathed an exaggerated sigh, reaching back and placing a hand on her sword. She was still on the other side of the stream, reluctant to join them; to get any closer to him.
"Then why'd you reach for your gun?" she asked. "I don't know you and I needed to have the upper hand." Rick narrowed his eyes, appearing to be a bit peeved.
"It's just a reflex. I didn't mean to scare ya," he said.
"You don't scare me," Michonne stated matter-of-factly, placing her hands on her hips. "You really think you scare me?" She looked heavenward, as though waiting for something to appear from there. Patience, perhaps. "Let's go, Daryl."
She crossed the stream as quickly as she could, wading through the shin-deep water and rushing ashore. She tugged at Daryl's backpack, beckoning him to follow her and continue their journey. Turning to face Rick, she looked into his bright blue eyes, studying him, assessing him, waiting for him to try anything.
"I can't stop you from heading in the same direction as us but… if you get near me, if I even think for a second you're going to try anything, I'll kill you."
She turned her back to him, her dreads flying around her scowling face, and walked away, dead-set on keeping herself focused on the task at hand... and not the glorious naked man with the sexy southern accent she had just met.