May 7th 2011

Location Unknown, DRC

The air was different this morning. Michonne could feel it.

From her cell, she heard the frenzied talking, the men were abuzz. DaDa was coming. It had taken a while for her to establish the ins and outs of the place where she was being held captive. No one but Ariane and Mama Oné, the medicine woman and apparently Ngangabouka's first wife, had been allowed entry. On her second full day there, she'd come to realize that they were not in the main Savior compound. And she'd learned that from Mama Onè.

Ngangabouka, apparently, was smart enough to create numerous different outposts. Lesser regional compounds where he generally kept a small complement of soldiers and a smaller harem of women prepared for his visits. She was surprised to learn the location of his main base of operations remained a complete mystery even to some of his own men.

*Because he doesn't trust anyone.* Mama Oné had explained in French when she asked. *And with good reason.*

Michonne gave the woman a tepid smile in response. She wasn't at all what Michonne had expected when she arrived in her cell the evening before. Statuesque, slim and beautiful, she was hardly the big bosomed, grandmotherly figure her name implied. With her head wrapped in a colorful scarf and adorned in bright fabric, she looked like one of the smartly dressed business women who owned the stores Michonne frequented in Kisangani, not the "wife" of a warlord.

When she came into her cell that night, Oné's face had been a cold mask that went with her icy beauty. She stared around the room briefly before her eyes settled on Michonne. Walking up to her, she gently cupped Michonne's face in her palms, turning her head left and right to inspect the damage her husband's minions had done. The stony veneer of her face cracked giving way to a warmer look of concern. Oné tsked with irritation as she inspected her. Until that moment, Michonne had not given a thought to how she must have appeared but the other woman's face did not indicate good things.

*Little Bird asked me to help you but I wasn't sure I would...until now.* Oné's voice was husky, in a smokily seductive way that matched her appearance.

*Why?* Michonne asked despite knowing she shouldn't be looking a gift horse in the mouth.

Oné smiled unexpectedly. It was quite pleasant, Michonne found. But there were teeth missing on the sides of her mouth that you wouldn't notice if she kept a straight face. Somehow without asking, Michonne knew that was Ngangabouka's doing. An inventive punishment for some perceived crime.

*Because I choose to.* She answered simply. The smile slipping off her face as quickly as it had appeared.

Michonne remained silent knowing that nothing would come of antagonizing the one ally it seemed she and Ariane had.

*Get to the corner bucket and pee on this.* Mama Oné said roughly and loudly, clearly for the benefit of the sentry outside.

She tossed what looked like a tampon in its wrapper to Michonne, who caught it awkwardly.

Michonne looked down into her hands and saw it was actually a pregnancy test. Her eyes widened in panic.

*Don't look at me. Do it. Now.* Oné ordered. She glared at her harshly but then as Michonne watched, with her back fully to the door she brought one slender finger to her full lips and closed one eye in a slow, pronounced wink. *Do not make me have to call someone in to make you squat. Do it.*

Despite knowing now that it was part of some plan she and Ariane had cooked up, Michonne was terrified. She did as instructed and turned the soiled stick back over to Oné, who then wrapped it in a small rag.

*Good Girl.* The woman said tucking the rag into the folds of her garment before pulling out another one surreptitiously. *François, get in here.*

The young sentry that stood stone-faced at the door came in quickly.

*Go give this to your boss.* She said in Swahili, handing the replacement test to the young man, who clearly did not want to take it.

*I'm not supposed to leave my post.* The young man objected clearly disgusted by the idea of handling the used test.

*I have instructions to present this to him immediately.*

*Then why don't you go take it to him, Woman?* He retorted.

Oné spun on her heel and struck François across the face so quickly both he and Michonne were stunned. The crack of her hand against his flesh resounded through the room and into the hallway. *Excuse me?*

His jaw tightened and he glared at both her and Michonne but soon enough, he obediently took the test from her hand and excused himself.

Mama Oné looked behind her then back at Michonne. *It's fine. We have a pregnant mare in the back pasture,* She said.

Once she was sure he was well away, Michonne turned pleadingly to Oné.

*Now that he's gone, you could let me go.*

Oné's face stilled, losing the softness it had had a moment before. *No.*

*You could say I overpowered you and then escaped.*

*No.* The woman answered again simply. *He is not an idiot and only an idiot would believe that.*

Oné flexed her fingers and closed them into a fist as if to illustrate her point. Despite her superior size and build however, Michonne was fairly certain with the self-defense techniques she'd learned from Rick and Shane, she could take her.

*Even if you did, you'd never make it off the compound.* Oné said calmly as if she could read Michonne's thoughts as she was having them.

Michonne felt the tears pooling and burning at the back of her eyes but she refused to let them fall. She wouldn't risk harming Oné on the off chance she could make some sort of get away.

*I could try.* She said futilely nonetheless.

"No." Oné said firmly, glancing quickly behind herself.

*Why are you even helping me then? If you won't help me get away from here, why help me at all?* Michonne lashed out even though she promised herself she wouldn't. She moved toward the cell doors even as Oné stood between her and them. She contemplated rushing her and she knew that the woman knew it as well.

"Listen to me, I do not care about you, but I would not lie. Not now. You will not make it. Even if you make it past me. Be smart. Be patient." Oné had switched suddenly to a crisp English.

"Patient? You're talking about my life! Someone wants me dead. Sooner rather than later."

"I have just given you eight months to figure things out."

"You've given me eight days! Seven really. I don't know how you think this is going to work. Why are you even doing this?"

Oné walked to the cell door and pushed it open moving to the side so Michonne could see what lay beyond in the hallway. Another sentry stood in François' place.

"Because, I was not put on this planet to do everything that man says. And if I can occasionally complicate his life, I will," She continued in English to make sure the sentry didn't understand. "For the little bird, and for my daughter Lucille."

In that moment, she realized she was to be a pawn in whatever interpersonal struggle Oné was having with Ngangabouka. To her credit, Ariane had been smart enough to tap into that. But Michonne wasn't comfortable leaving her fate up to the spiteful nature of Ngangabouka's wives.


Hours later, Michonne lay at the heavy door listening at its base for the sounds she could hear coming under it. In the fifteen hours since her conversation with Oné she'd spent at least ten of them like that. She realized the woman was right. If she was to be saved, she'd have to do it herself, using nothing but her smarts. Under those circumstances, she had not yet worked out her plan but she needed time. Time a fake pregnancy could give her, but the first order of business was to be working out a means of escape from that cell. She would determine where and how she would get away from there. She listened to the soldiers' foot-falls and for the way their voices echoed as they moved down the halls looking for patterns. She listened for ambient noises too, whether she could detect water running or hear wind flowing through corridors. It was a tedious, brain-numbing exercise but forced her to concentrate on things besides her impending death.

She scrambled back to her pallet when she heard someone coming, turning to face the wall as the door swung open.

"Doctor Pritchard," The voice behind her said jovially and Michonne's whole body clenched in terror.

Turning slowly as he entered the cell, Michonne looked at Dwight.

She nearly recoiled in revulsion. He was not the man she had met months earlier. His face was a horror. Where once there had been smooth, nut-brown skin covering his rodent-like narrow face, he was now covered in pink, raw burns. One whole half of his face was given over to melted angry flesh. The fire had charred one nostril and drawn out the eye and the corner of his mouth in such a way that liquid constantly seeped from them.

Michonne blinked multiple times trying to adjust to the grotesquery of his new visage. This is what Nyokato was referring to when she'd said Dwight was angry about his punishment. For burning Ariane's mother alive, he'd been burned alive as well. Michonne had heard that DaDa had very peculiar ideas of justice, and yet she'd still had no clue.

Seeming to read her thoughts through her expression, Dwight lashed out angrily. He grabbed Michonne off her pallet by a handful of her locs, wrenching her to her feet in front of him. Michonne cried out, slapping him across the face. He hissed in pain before reaching back and punching her. The blow seemed to contain all his pent up rage as it connecting with her bottom lip and jaw. It was only the fact that her chin was slightly elevated that prevented Michonne from losing teeth in that blow. As it was it sent her flying back into the wall behind her, with such force she blacked out briefly. If she wasn't concussed from her previous assault she was sure to be now.

*Enough!* A woman's voice declared in French.

*Don't touch me!* Someone demanded and then there was a scuffle and labored grunts.

When Michonne opened her eyes again, to her surprise, the sentry François that was usually posted at her door was standing inside holding Dwight back by his arms. Beside him stood Ariane, who bent quickly then to help Michonne back to her feet.

"Are you alright?" She asked holding Michonne steady by her elbow. She draped her arm around Michonne's shoulders.

It was an odd mirror image of how they first met.

Michonne nodded shakily as copious amounts of blood dribbled out of her mouth and down from her badly split lip as her jaw began to swell and her skin of her cheek tightened.

*You get out now!* Ariane directed forcefully.

Michonne had noticed in the day and a half she'd been there that the men deferred to Ariane and Mama Oné. It made her wonder at the organizational structure of the compound. It was clear neither of them had the power to order her release but short of that, they seemed to have the run of the place.

*Bitches.* Dwight spat as the sentry dragged him out. He shot daggers at Michonne and Ariane.

"He found out?" Michonne whispered as they watched him go down the hall.

"I had to tell," Ariane admitted. "If I had lied to DaDa, my punishment would have been worse than his."

"It's okay Ane, I understand," Michonne said patting Ariane's hand consolingly.

"It was a good thing too because Maggie's boyfriend told DaDa he saw me at your big mission place. He told DaDa everything. Luckily, he already knew. He thought it was funny."

"What? Wait, Shane? You know Shane?" Michonne had difficulty grasping both parts of that story. "And funny, why funny?"

"I do not know him," Ariane clarified. "I told DaDa Maggie was my friend. I told him how I had met her when he and her boyfriend went fishing at Lake Kivu and —"

"When they did what?" Michonne pulled herself out of Ariane's arms so they could look at each other face to face. "Has Maggie met Ngangabouka?"

"Oh, not that she knows of, no. Not that I know of either, not directly," Ariane explained. "Her boyfriend, Shane? He brought her to Kivu to see the market and speak to the refugee people and he went to the lake to fish."

Michonne sighed with relief while still bewildered. Knowing Shane and Rick, just as Michonne did, Maggie would have had no reason to question that arrangement. Fishing was one of their favorite pastimes when they were on leave. It was not unlike them to take off with a local guide for a long weekend of beer, fishing and as Michonne liked to call it, "boy bonding time". Knowing that, even without Rick there as his fishing buddy, there would have been nothing to arouse suspicion in Maggie. She'd willingly spend a few hours alone in town speaking with the locals to allow her boyfriend a chance to do his thing. Still, Michonne shuddered at how close that meant her friend had come to meeting a madman. Her blood boiled at the idea that Shane could have brought her anywhere near him.

"I had seen him before, seen him waiting in the market, seen him with DaDa and Dwight but he did not know me," Ariane explained. "Then I met Maggie in the market at my mother's stall. Whenever they would meet, DaDa would bring me along so that I could see my mother and the other women of my village...to visit with them. I didn't know she was with DaDa's man until after, when I came to the mission place and met you."

DaDa's man. Michonne's ears rang. It was Shane. Shane was the American Nyokato had been telling her about. Shane was the one with Rick's accent that she saw occasionally in the Market. The more things fell into place the more sickened Michonne felt. It had all been right in front of her face and yet somehow she'd managed not to see it. The feeling that if she could only have put two and two together faster she might have been able to save her own life gripped her.

Still, she didn't lose focus. It was Shane— the bastard— who left her in this position. He, who had marked her for death with his co-conspirators. But why?

"...DaDa thought it was funny that you had made a fool of Dwight. He does not think Dwight is very smart anyway but he is loyal," Ariane continued her story as Michonne only half-listened. "He does not mind that I am friends with Maggie as long as he thinks I do not tell her anything."

Michonne looked at Ariane. The young woman was playing a very dangerous game on both sides. Carrying information to Maggie while pretending that she wasn't, had jeopardized not only her and her family but Maggie as well.

"I do not really know anything," Ariane said as if reading Michonne's face. "DaDa is very careful. Mama Onè is the only one he trusts. I tell Maggie little things so that she will want to see me again."

Suddenly, she looked like a child again to Michonne, craving attention and a connection to someone, desperate to appear important.

"I know that is bad," She admitted.

"You're feeding Maggie lies," Michonne said out loud unintentionally.

Ariane's expression darkened. "I do not! I have only told her the truth. It is just nothing that she can use or tell to the mission-people."

It was an incredibly savvy statement. Michonne realized either Ariane was learning more than she would care to admit at her husband's feet or Ngangabouka was not yet aware of how clever and cunning his youngest wife was. Either way, Michonne understood suddenly that for all her help, Ariane may be someone to be weary of. Her face sobered as she watched Michonne watch her.

"Come now. He is here." The innocent look Michonne had frequently seen fell away from the girl's visage. "We can't keep him waiting. He doesn't like that."