AN: Here we go, another little chapter. Plenty more in the works and I hope to have them out to you soon!
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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"What I can't believe is you just offerin' yaself up like that!" Daryl declared. "Now you got 'Chonne fightin' with me because she thinks it's the best damn thing in the world!"
Tyreese laughed, but Daryl didn't think it was funny at all. Michonne had been speaking to him, and she hadn't exactly told either of his kids that he was an asshole this morning, but it was clear that it was going to turn into some kind of battle of wills. Which one of them was going to be the one to give? That was the question in all of this.
"Listen, man," Tyreese responded, helping Daryl smooth over some of the concrete they were spreading in the foundation slabs of the houses they were planning to build for adding additional homes to the community, "this doesn't have anything to do with you or Michonne. It has to do with me and Carol making a decision about what's best for us."
"You're sayin' you were really in on some plan to get your nuts cut off?" Daryl asked.
Tyreese laughed again. This wasn't much of a laughing matter in Daryl's opinion, but apparently Tyreese thought it was almost hysterical.
"It isn't like that," he said. "I looked into it a long time ago…back when it wasn't even a normal thing to do. It's a simple operation. Everything works, everything's intact. Nothing gets removed, it just gets disconnected. Lizzie and I thought it was a good plan when we had all the kids we wanted, but cancer decided we weren't ever going to get more than Julie so I never had it done."
Tyreese stopped working for a moment to mop at the sweat running into his eyes and Daryl took the opportunity to do the same.
"Look…you think Sadie's less of a woman because she got her tubes tied?" Tyreese asked.
"I don't know shit about what Sadie can or can't do," Daryl responded.
"You hear Rick complaining too much?" Tyreese asked.
Rick liked to tell stories as much as any of them did when they dared to talk about the women in their lives and figured that none of them might catch wind of the conversations. Daryl didn't respond to Tyreese though.
"It's the same thing," Tyreese said, getting back to work.
"Except this is your nuts and those are important to making everything else work," Daryl said. "What about getting some awful infection? You even thought about that?"
"Odds of me getting an infection from that are no worse than the odds of Carol getting an infection from tearing when the baby's born," Tyreese commented. "No more than the odds Michonne had. We live in a world where shit like that can happen so we're as careful as we can be…but Daryl nothing like that comes with guarantees. You know it as good as I do."
"And you two ain't gonna want no more kids?" Daryl asked. "I mean…hell right now you got more'n anyone else if you have this one."
Tyreese laughed again and shook his head.
"No…hell no," Tyreese said. "If this was where we were before? If we had some kind of specialist obstetrician or whatever? Sure? Why not? We might have five children if we could, but it isn't safe. We wouldn't have tried this if it weren't an accident. Carol's had trouble before. As much as I believe that any of the trouble she had with Ed was probably owing to the lifestyle he made her accustomed to…hell, I know things can happen. That's why I'm doing this. I don't want things to happen."
"I wouldn't mind havin' another kid," Daryl admitted. "Hell, I wouldn't mind havin' two more even. We do this and there ain't no chance in that."
Tyreese didn't respond to Daryl while they finished smoothing out the slab. When he was finally satisfied with it, he sat back on the ground and mopped at his face while Daryl gathered together supplies to move to the next place that was waiting on their abilities.
"You've got two kids," Tyreese said. "Two healthy kids. And Michonne? She's doing good. She's…able bodied, she's strong. You could probably have more, but if she doesn't want them? The last thing you want to do is have it hanging between the two of you that you forced her into having a kid that she didn't want to have. I mean…I only know from my side of the house, but they go through a lot to have them. Maybe you want to think about that?"
"Maybe I just don't like what the hell you instituted as the right thing to do in the situation," Daryl said. "Now it's like can't none of us get away with it."
"None of us, who?" Tyreese asked. "As far as I can tell it's only you and Michonne who are even having this discussion and your arguments behind it sound like hers. Something could happen…you're right, it could. It could happen to her if she tries to have a kid or if she accidentally gets pregnant or it could happen to you if you have the surgery and something goes wrong. What else? You're keeping your junk, man, but if that stresses you the hell out then why not tell her you want to wait to see what happens to me?"
Tyreese stopped talking and laughed to himself again.
"Tell you what, I invite you to sit in your room, when everything's healed up, and listen for yourself to see how things are going," Tyreese said. "You're probably going to be able to hear damn near everything over all the sex you're not going to be having because you've pissed Michonne off so badly."
Daryl flung one of the wet, dirty rags in Tyreese's direction as a response and left him there while he carried what he could over to the next place they were expected to work together.
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Sadie turned when she felt the familiar sensation of a tap on her shoulder, the universal way to get her attention when there was no immediate crisis, and realized whoever had tapped her had moved away quickly. She lowered the hammer she was using to drive nails in and turned her head in the opposite direction, not knowing who to expect but assuming it was a joke.
And it was, because Carl was standing there with a grin on his face. He held a bottle of water up.
Thirsty? He asked.
Sadie smiled and climbed off the step stool she was using to make her tall enough to reach the heights that most of the men could reach simply by standing flatfooted. She pulled off the safety goggles that kept her from losing the one sense she'd come to rely on more than anything and tucked them under her arm so that she could accept the water and quench the thirst that they worked up while working on construction.
"Where are you working?" She asked, not bothering to try to sign around her full hands.
Construction on barns. Carl responded.
Sadie nodded. They were repairing one barn, building another, and building two smoke houses and a storage shed. In addition they were starting on six small houses that followed a very compacted floor plan that Glenn had designed. Sadie was part of the team framing up one of the houses that already had a foundation in place.
"Where's your Dad?" Sadie asked.
Barns. Carl responded.
Sadie nodded again.
Carl was older than her own children would have been at this point, but it didn't matter. In him she could still see something of a son. And, in a lot of ways, he seemed to need her to see him like that. Whether or not he was arguably grown, even if he might not be of some kind of once mythical legal age, Carl still liked some kind of nurturing from her.
And because of that, she couldn't remember the last time that she'd missed a night going into his room to check on him and tell him to have a good night. It wasn't much, but he seemed to expect it.
And she enjoyed it.
Dad wants to move into one of the small houses with you. For privacy. They're not very big. Carl said.
Sadie furrowed her brow at him. There was a change in his facial expression. He was expressing, without meaning to or not, some kind of dislike for this idea.
Sadie shrugged at him, intending to spur him on into saying more about why he did or did not approve of this plan. As far as she knew, Rick seemed to believe that the housing they were building was expected to be more for the established small families so that the larger families, or those still figuring out their living arrangements in the new world, could live in the cabins.
Sadie had wanted to remain in the cabin. She'd thought that, ideally, they could live in one of them with Mark close by so that it wasn't so much like Paul was a part time kid that had to go between the two of them in different homes. Whatever way the housing went, though, it wasn't like there was that much distance to be put between anyone, so she could make do with any of the situations.
When Carl didn't continue speaking, Sadie stretched her hand out and bumped Carl on the shoulder. She shrugged again, furrowing her brow.
"What?" She asked. "What's wrong?"
He shook his head at her and she bumped him again, forcing a smile at him.
"Tell me," she insisted.
There's not much room. With you two? And Paul? Carl responded.
Sadie sucked in a breath and nodded her head.
He was worried that there wasn't room for him. And, truthfully, Sadie hadn't looked carefully enough at the floor plans they were putting together to know if there would be room for extra people or not. She was only doing what she was told and then moving to the next project that she was assigned to. Nothing that they gave her to do in these situations required her to be too aware of things like that.
"Hey," she said. "Don't worry. I'll talk to your Dad. We'll probably stay in the cabin. Wherever we stay? You're staying too. As long as you want."
It doesn't matter. He responded, shaking his head, but he looked a little relieved.
"Matters to me," Sadie said. She offered him the emptied water bottle. "Thanks for the water. I'll talk to your Dad, tonight."
He smiled at her and thanked her with a quick sign. She nodded at him and put her goggles back on.
"Better get back to work," she said, looking around. "They'll be watching us. They'll want to know why we're not being productive."
Carl laughed at her and nodded again before he walked off, stepping around the others who were working and apparently not paying any attention to their conversation or the fact that she'd stopped driving nails for the moment. Sadie watched him go for a moment before she turned back to driving he nails designated for her.
She'd talk to Rick and he'd talk to Daryl. Their family…extended, blended, or whatever it might be…would end up under the same roof, even if they had to negotiate building a larger house for them to inhabit instead of one of the cabins.