AN: Here we go, another little chapter.
I just wanted to say that with real life obligations and things, I'm not going to be able to update as often as I have in the past little bit, but I'm going to update as frequently as possible. I'm not disappearing, I just have life getting in the way from time to time.
I hope you enjoy the chapter! Let me know what you think!
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"Isaac asleep?" Tyreese asked as Carol came back in the bedroom and shed her bathrobe with a heavy sigh. He smiled to himself. Underneath she was wearing the "foolish" and "impractical" gown that Michonne had given him to give to her.
She twisted her neck, obviously trying to loosen a crick in it and he waved her over so that she sat on the edge of the bed near him. He abandoned his books for the moment and moved to rub at her neck and shoulders while she leaned into him, seeking more of the comfort.
"For a while," she said. "Poor baby. Teething isn't being good to him."
Tyreese laughed to himself. Isaac was being more than clear to them all that he didn't like the feeling of the little razor like teeth finding their way to the surface, but he was making it even more known to Carol since he was insisting on trying to teeth on parts of her body that were delicate at best at the moment.
"You know what Dick had to say to me?" Tyreese asked. "When I told him about the surgery that Alice is doing?"
"Dick?" Carol asked. "Let me guess…Dick probably said it would make you a pussy?"
Tyreese hummed at her and moved away from his position to drop his books into a pile on the floor beside his side of the bed.
"Not quite," he said. "He said that I was fucking up. Apparently, if I do this, then I won't be able to find any pussy that would want me. You know…in case I was looking for more…because it's going to come down to who can procreate and who can't. Who can…fuck to save the species."
Carol peeled back the blankets on her side of the bed and got under them without responding.
"Are you looking for someone else?" She asked.
Tyreese gave her the look that she should know well by now. He knew she had a lot of insecurities, more than he could probably ever hope to overcome, but he knew that she also knew how he felt about her occasional bout of concern that he was going to decide that the best thing he could do was try…even within the community itself…to find something better for himself.
"What?" She asked, cocking an eyebrow at him, a mischievous smile playing at her lips. "If you're looking to…sew your wild oats…I don't want to get in the way. You know? I'm sure that I'll be fine with Isaac and Judith."
Tyreese rolled his eyes at her and shook his head before he bothered to get himself under the covers. He moved to kiss her and rubbed his hand over the soft silk of the nightgown that puddled over the hint of a belly that she would still insist wasn't there, or wasn't what it seemed to be.
"I think I've done all the sewing that I'm going to do," Tyreese said, knowing now that she was teasing with him, even if some of the teasing was rooted in insecurity. "You're showing more this time than you were with Isaac."
Carol put her hand over his.
"It's just extra weight," she offered.
"Right," Tyreese said. "Of course…clearly it's coming from the excess of food that we're all eating. Just take it for what it is, Carol. You're showing. The baby's growing. It's healthy. These are all good things. Stop trying to fight them and fight with me."
She sighed at his tone of voice and frowned slightly, threading her fingers in with his now.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I just…keep remembering how much Ed hated when I was pregnant with Sophia and now? I feel like I just had Isaac."
Tyreese chuckled.
"And I had nothing to do with it," he said. "So you should feel entirely guilty about everything," he muttered.
But he was used to, at this point, fighting with Ed's ghost. He couldn't hold it against her because he knew that she did her share of fighting with Lizzie's ghost when things got to overwhelming him…especially in the late hours of the night when his thoughts weren't his own to control.
"You're really not mad about it all?" Carol asked. "Promise?"
Tyreese laughed and pulled her to him, kissing her.
"Promise," he said. "If I'm mad at all? I'm mad because you're fighting me on this. It's hard to know how long we ever get to be happy about things. Let's not waste any of it, alright?"
Carol hummed at him.
"I think happy has about thirty minutes to an hour if we're counting time until your son decides that he needs to wake the household up because his mouth hurts," Carol said. "So if we're not wasting any of it then I'm just going to throw out there that I expect to get at least a thirty minute nap."
Tyreese smiled at her.
"Well then you better scoot on over here," he responded. "Stop wasting time."
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"I think it's sweet!" Michonne said.
"There ain't nothin' sweet about lettin' some damn body neuter your ass!" Daryl declared.
Michonne could smell that they were on the verge of a fight. Fights didn't happen often between her and Daryl. Both of them pretty much agreed that there simply wasn't much that was worth fighting over these days. Everything was too precarious to bother with the nonsense of going to bed angry that had once been such a prevalent part of relationships.
"It's not being neutered!" Michonne responded. "It's an operation to keep accidents from happening."
"Michonne, it's letting her take his damn nuts!" Daryl responded. "Tyreese has gone crazy enough to hand his nuts right on over to Carol and she's up an' said he oughta let someone chop 'em off!"
Michonne leaned against the wall, her arms crossed across her chest, keeping her distance from her husband at the moment.
Tyreese wasn't hiding, at all, what he'd chosen to do. And that was the key word…he'd chosen to do it. According to Carol it had been Tyreese that had come up with the idea. According to Carol, she had simply said that she might see about Alice tying her tubes if it was possible and safe enough so that she, like Sadie, wouldn't have to worry about these things happening again. She and Tyreese were happy about their new addition, but it was an accident plain and clear.
And Michonne thought that what Tyreese was doing was beautiful and wonderful. And it wasn't an act that she thought was really too much to ask from a man that loved you.
"It's not cutting his balls off," Michonne said. "You know, if you weren't so hell bent and determined against it, you'd probably get a lot more sex. Think about it…they'll be able to do it whenever they want, however they want, and they won't have to worry at all about another surprise."
"Catch is," Daryl said, "that they ain't gonna be doin' shit once he ain't got no damn nuts! You lost your mind, 'Chonne, if you think I'm going to let some woman castrate my ass."
"That isn't how it works!" Michonne protested. "That isn't how it works at all. Everything still works, Daryl. It's just that you're…shooting blanks. It's exactly the same except that there are none of your little guys getting out to go after what I've got to put us in the position of having another baby."
Daryl sighed heavily, his chest heaving a little with his annoyance.
"And what if we want another baby, 'Chonne?" Daryl asked.
Michonne shook her head.
"I don't want another baby, Daryl," Michonne said. "I don't…I'm happy with Hope and Zeb. They're beautiful and they're wonderful and we've been so lucky. Maybe I don't want to test fate."
"Maybe I do want another one," Daryl said. "Maybe I wouldn't mind us havin' another one an' maybe you gonna change your mind, huh? They wonderful…don't you want more wonderful?"
Michonne shook her head.
"No! I don't! Because what if we're looking for more wonderful and something terrible happens?" Michonne threw back at him. "What if we try again and we're just too greedy…and then we have to deal with that."
"Carol's older'n you is and they're havin' another one," Daryl said.
"And it was an accident," Michonne said. "It happened. We're not talking about things that just happen, Daryl, we're talking about making some kind of conscious decision not to use this…and this is hands down the best kind of birth control that we can have…and that means that we're making a decision to try to have another baby."
"What if you change your mind, 'Chonne?" Daryl asked. "What if you want another baby? What if…right after something like that gets done…you decide that Zeb's so big and so growed up and you want us to have more? We got a lotta love, 'Chonne…we got enough for lotsa kids."
"And we're bound to come up on more children that need love," Michonne said. "We're bound to come up on children without parents. There are ways we could end up with more children if that's what we feel like we really need. But…I don't know if I want to try it again, Daryl. I like the idea of being done. I've had four babies, Daryl. I've been to the mat four times. I'm tired and I don't want that anymore. I like the idea, now, of watching my children grow up and become independent."
"You might not feel that way once we're all settled in and things get quiet, 'Chonne," Daryl said. "'Cause you changed your mind with Zeb. I don't think you're convinced."
"And I don't think you're really as concerned about my feelings here as you're putting on to be," Michonne responded shortly. "I think you're more concerned about you right now and what you want. You want more kids, you don't want to have a vasectomy. You're not even thinking about me having the kids. Do you know how much it puts you through to carry a baby to term? To deliver it? To feed it afterwards? It's a lot, Daryl, and everyone around here seems to just dismiss it as nothing…carry on and no one act like it's anything."
Daryl growled at her and shifted in his spot sitting on the bed.
"That's how the hell you wanted everyone to act!" He responded. "Hell! When you was pregnant with Zeb you didn't want no one helping you with nothin'! So now? No one thinks they gotta help with nothing. Bein' pregnant ain't nothin' but a thing, like havin' some kinda mosquito bite or something. That's what you told everyone to think about it. That's even how you wanted me to act about it."
Michonne sucked her teeth. Maybe she'd been guilty of some of that, she wasn't going to argue one way or the other. She'd only really noticed how the community acted now that they knew about Carol this time around.
And she'd seen that there were only a few congratulations offered and they were mostly from other women. She'd seen that no one was offering to do their chores and some of Carol's to lighten her load. She'd noticed that, even with this knowledge, she'd been the only one to say anything when everyone kept Carol up and serving them throughout the meal instead of letting her sit down and eat her food with any peace at all.
And Michonne realized that, even though she'd known it before, she really didn't want to have another baby. She didn't want to do that, not feeling older than she had the last time because she was older, and be left without any real support from the people around her other than a few halfhearted words of congratulations.
"'Chonne, you get pregnant and you want me to tell everyone you can't do nothin'…hell…we got enough hands around here to get by," Daryl said. "But you gotta be the one to decide what you want. I can't let you do every damn thing you please and then on the other hand be expected to tell you that you can't do nothin' but put your feet up."
"I'm sorry," Michonne responded back, not liking his tone of voice at the moment. "I could see how all of this could be such an inconvenience for you. Maybe the best thing that you could do would be to decide to have the surgery and then I won't get pregnant and then you won't even have to worry about this conundrum that you seem to have stumbled into."
Daryl just stared at her.
Conundrum…she'd probably lost him at conundrum. '
His brow furrowed deeply at her and then he drifted into annoyance or anger, it was difficult to tell which.
"You know what?" Daryl said sharply, the question clearly rhetorical. "Whatever…'Chonne…you don't want no more kids, then I guess you done made the decision. But I don't wanta go and have no surgery to get my balls cut wide damn open when we're stressin' to find a damn bottle of expired rubbin' alcohol. I ain't even fightin' with you about this shit…you wanna be hardheaded about it, then you be hardheaded about it."
"Me?!" Michonne responded, straightening up her position. "I'm not the one being hardheaded about it! You're the one that seems to have found a way to get your head firmly lodged up your ass tonight!"
"I'm goin' ta sleep, 'Chonne," Daryl responded, flopping down dramatically against the bed and then crawling into his spot, hugging his pillow to him with a huff.
"You think you're going to sleep in our bed?" Michonne asked. "You think we're sleeping together?"
"You don't like it, there's a couch downstairs, 'Chonne," Daryl responded. "You ain't pregnant…you don't get no more dibs on the bed than I do…'specially not and you was the one come in here talkin' about hackin' off my balls like it's the best damn idea you had in the last twenty years."
Michonne growled loudly.
"That isn't even what this is about!" She said, stomping her foot without even thinking about it.
"Night, 'Chonne," Daryl responded.
She could tell that the discussion was over for Daryl, at least for the night. And maybe it was better that way. Maybe this was simply one of those things that he needed time to process. Maybe this was simply one of those things that he needed to think about or mull over while he worked. Maybe he'd talk to Tyreese and get a different perspective on things. Or, just maybe, he'd simply wake up in the morning with a new attitude on the whole set of issues at hand.
And maybe she would too.
Michonne sighed, still annoyed but determined to sleep and got into the bed herself. She blew out the lamp and adjusted her positon, keeping her distance from Daryl as though there were the contintental divide between them instead of simply the bed.
"You sleepin' in here?" He asked, his voice low.
"It's my bed," Michonne responded. "You're not pregnant either. You don't get any dibs on it."
"Fine by me," he growled in the darkness. "You just keep ya feet on your side."
"Fine by me," Michonne responded. "You just don't think you can roll over here looking to cuddle in the middle of the night."
"Wouldn't dream of it," Daryl responded.
Michonne hummed at him and closed her eyes.
"Chonne?" Daryl asked a moment later. "I still love ya."
Michonne tried not to laugh to herself. She was still annoyed and she didn't want to give off the impression that she wasn't.
"I still love you too," she responded. "But I don't like you very much right now."
"Makes two of us," Daryl responded in something of a pouty tone.
And when the silence fell between them again, Michonne knew it would be the last silence of the night. She closed her eyes and decided to try to sleep. Her children would be up in the morning, unaware that their parents had been arguing over whether or not they'd ever be blessed with another sibling, and both of them had work to do.
Things would work themselves out. They always did.