Walking out towards the field three days later, Andrea reflects.
Her talk with Michonne has seemed to really relieve the tension building inside of her, and she's able to breathe and fully appreciate the fresh air blowing softly through the grass once she gets outside. At least, before she has to get into gear alongside Glenn, Maggie, Hershel, Rick and Karen. The plan for today was to prepare a section of the yard to make way for a vegetable garden, and Andrea had volunteered herself while Michonne was on a supply mission with Daryl to scope out the surrounding properties and whatever useful items they might still hold. She feels like she's getting stronger each and every day; physically, emotionally and mentally. Her experience with Philip still occasionally finds its way into the forefront of her mind, but it's no longer draining like it was mere days ago. With Michonne by her side at night, the nightmares seem to lessen, and Andrea was able to actually sleep last night through.
The good night's sleep was proving useful right now, as Andrea immersed herself in the demanding physical work of digging. Currently she's working alongside Glenn, who's been surprisingly quiet for the most part.
After a solid half hour of working at the dirt, trying to form an area for the garden, Andrea finds herself needing to take a five minute break. She sets down her shovel and moves over to where her canteen is sitting, and notices out of the corner of her eye Glenn doing the same. She takes a greedy gulp at first, but tries to pace herself a little more after the initial sip, not wanting to get sick. Glenn waits until she's finished drinking and then speaks up.
"So, uh, this is going to sound a little weird, but I noticed your cell still has the single bunks in it, but the top bunk's never been used," he starts off, garnering a strange look from the blonde woman. He rushes on to add, "I mean, it's pretty tight with two people on a single bed – I would know – and I can help you do the same thing to your bed that we did to Maggie's and mine. To get more space."
Andrea's a little taken aback by the offer, because of the randomness of it, but in the end gives him a smile.
"That would actually help a lot." He gives her a happy little nod, and returns to his work. Andrea takes a final sip and does the same.
At midday, when the sun is high in the sky, everyone decides that it's time to go inside and seek relief from the harsh sunrays. They can return to it later, when the day has cooled down considerably. Andrea sticks with Glenn and Maggie throughout lunch, and then once that's been finished, Glenn turns to her.
"Ready to fix up your bed?"
"Sure," she replies, and follows him to the supply room where most of their scavenged tools are. He grabs the two hacksaws that are there along with a metal file and they walk side by side up to her room. Once there, they take off the mattresses and the bed sheets, before he hands her a hacksaw. It takes them a little over forty minutes to be able to cut off the top bunk and cut the legs of it to the right height so it fits nicely next to the lower one. When that task is finished, Glenn takes the hacksaws away and leaves Andrea with the file so she can make the sharply cut metal blunter to avoid any injuries. It doesn't take her too long to complete and fix it all up again, and she wanders back down to the storage room to put the file away before moving to find where the others were. She finds Carol and Beth in the communal dining area, trying to entertain Judith. Carol spots her spying from the doorway and leaves the entertaining to a more than competent Beth as she approaches Andrea.
"Hey stranger," Carol greets the other woman, eyes taking in the relaxed stance she holds. "How are you going?"
The subtle concern and overt friendliness has Andrea drawing nearer with an affectionate smile.
"Much better," she replies, finding it easy to be honest with the woman that she'd instantly connected with from the very start. "Michonne has been helping, a lot actually." The mischievous twinkle Andrea's spotted several times over the past month makes a return in Carol's eyes, and she braces herself when she senses the other woman is finally going to comment on her relationship with Michonne.
"Oh, 'helping', is that what the kids are calling it these days?" Carol has one eyebrow cocked up with a smug grin and Andrea resists the initial urge to splutter, instead shaking her head and setting a soft laughter free.
"You're not even that much older than me, you can't say that."
Carol just shrugs her shoulder indifferently, and slowly her grin fades as a serious expression of contemplation takes over and she studies Andrea.
"It's been a while since you've been like this. Happy," she comments, grey eyes locked on the blonde's. "Ever since…" she trails off, but Andrea can easily guess that she was about to say Amy's death. Her own face settles into a more neutral expression at the reminder of her sister, the ever-present anguish spiking and letting itself be known.
"I didn't think I would ever feel like this," Andrea reveals, eyes falling to the ground. "That life would go on and I'd actually feel like I was happy. Not just surviving. Not just trying to get through to the next day. But actually looking forward to waking up and working towards something. She's given me hope, that we can see this through. I don't think I'd be able to cope if I lost her, I wouldn't be able to go through that again, but I don't feel like that's all we have left for us. I feel like… we have a chance." And it was true. Andrea felt hopeful, truly optimistic for the future. She raises her eyes back up to the other woman, who's smiling at her softly, clearly pleased for her.
"You ready to go back out?" Carol changes the subject, apparently satisfied that that topic's been covered. "I'll come with, help out." Andrea happily acquiesces, and they go to the kitchen briefly to grab canteens before making their way outside with the others to continue work on the yard.
The day is almost at an end when Michonne strides through the door, followed closely by Daryl who immediately goes to the people serving dinner. Michonne makes her way over to where Andrea is sitting with Glenn and Maggie and, after the barest moment of hesitation, leans down and pecks Andrea on the lips, squeezing her shoulder in greeting before sitting down beside her, very obviously trying to avoid looking at anyone to gauge their reactions by tucking into the bread and soup that Andrea had saved for her. Andrea has no problem glancing at the other two at the table, but Glenn and Maggie only give her a sweet smile that has her grinning in giddiness.
"How'd it go?" Andrea prompts, finally allowing herself to start eating her own soup. Michonne nods slowly, clearly savouring the taste before swallowing and sending a soft smile Andrea's way.
"Good. A lot of the properties around here were farms, so there's more than enough that we can use to build a garden here. Rick says we'll take the cars around tomorrow and collect what we managed to find."
"That's great," Andrea enthuses, bringing a smile from Michonne. "So there weren't too many walkers?"
"A few, but they were easy to take care of. Nothing we couldn't handle."
They continue talking, huddled together and slowly forgetting that others were in the room until Maggie laughed at something that Beth said, who had joined them sometime after the two women had finished their dinner. It startles them out of their own little world and back amongst the group, to find that the rest had also finished their dinner and were in the process of locating the small collection of board games some of the Woodbury residents had brought with them.
It's at this point of the night that Michonne would retire to their bedroom and leave Andrea to talk with the others for a small amount of time before she too felt it was time to go to bed. But Michonne didn't budge this time, only returning a small smile to the questioning look Andrea sent her way. They end up being roped into a game of Scrabble with Beth and Maggie, and Beth, somewhat unsurprisingly, manages to beat all three of them with a rather large lead.
Andrea catches herself yawning in the midst of the Greene sisters' good natured bickering over the results of the game, and grins coyly when Michonne raises her eyebrow. She moves to stand up, and says goodnight to the victorious Beth and playfully-resentful Maggie, before being followed upstairs by Michonne.