AN: Here we go, another small chapter here. Plenty more to come.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Even though Michonne knew she was pushing it, she was hoping to get their lives back to normal as soon as possible, or at least back to what they had come to consider normal. The night before had been strange with so many people missing from dinner. They had either come to carry plates back to their homes like squirrels hiding nuts, or they'd had plates delivered to them by other friendly squirrels. She and Daryl, along with the children, had eaten dinner with only Lisette, Malachi, Jimmy, Junior, and Calista for company.
Aside from Carol and Rachel, who had an explanation for their reclusive nature because Rachel still hadn't regained consciousness and Carol was being held captive in the clinic under observation, no one else really had a concrete reason for their seclusion. Still, everyone seemed to be caught up in some strange type of solitary mourning. They seemed angry and withdrawn from each other. It didn't feel comfortable, and it didn't feel like home.
And Michonne craved the normalcy that was momentarily lost.
She craved it enough to try and restore it herself, especially after her second morning of getting both the girls and Zeb ready and out the door to play without more help than what little bit her stiff and healing husband could offer.
And, at this point, she was really ready to go door to door seeking to drag people out of their caves if that's what it took.
Michonne found Tyreese not too long after the sun had started its arc upward into the sky. He was alone when she found him, working in the barn, moving around boxes that had come in off the truck that Dick had brought back from his scavenging trip to the farm.
"You're not with Carol?" Michonne asked, realizing even as the words escaped her lips that it was one of those stupid questions that people asked without thinking…clearly he wasn't with Carol because Carol was still in the clinic and Tyreese, as plain as the nose on her face, was rearranging cardboard boxes in the barn.
If he caught onto the fact that it was a stupid question, though, he didn't let her know it. He stopped what he was doing, lifted his shirt to wipe his head, and then shook his head at her, humming in the negative.
"I was there last night," he said.
In the nature of their exchange, Michonne didn't point out that this was a stupid statement. He hadn't slept at the house, as evidenced by the fact that Judith had slept curled against her all night, so she hoped he had stayed with Carol.
"Left out this morning early," Tyreese added. "I haven't eaten yet. Don't really feel like it."
Michonne sat down on one of the overturned buckets in the barn and offered some hay from the floor to the Jenny that was nosing at her through the stall door.
"You need to eat," Michonne said. "I don't think you starving yourself is going to make anything around here any better than it is."
Tyreese pretended to be busy doing something with one of the horses. Michonne knew he was pretending, though, because he was really doing little more than scratching the animal that was very likely to bite him if he wasn't careful.
"I thought everything is fine with Carol," Michonne said. "Babies OK?"
Tyreese stopped fooling with the horse when the animal kicked the back of its stall as a way of announcing that, just like always, it didn't really care for great excesses of human touch and affection. He wiped his hands on his pants and walked over to where she was, taking his own seat on a bucket.
The doctor was in session, apparently.
"Alice did an ultrasound," Tyreese said. "She…uh…says she's not good at them, but we've got two spines and two heartbeats. That much we could see. They appear to be fine. We've got at least four, maybe five months, before they come."
Michonne shrugged and then she smiled.
"So what are you out here snorting and stomping around the barn for?" Michonne asked. "You should be thrilled. You should be…building some cribs or rallying everyone who can work to keep going. Why are you hiding in the barn, Ty?"
Tyreese sucked in his bottom lip and held it for a moment with contemplation. He finally shook his head at her and then scratched at it in a nervous kind of movement.
"It just gets you thinking, Michonne," Tyreese said. "I just start thinking. I told Carol that I was gonna keep her and Isaac safe. We weren't doing anything. We were just supposed to be gathering up some food. Now? Now Isaac's got a long road of healing ahead of him and I can't even stand to look at her…I can't stand to look at my wife's face because I don't want to see how damn angry she probably is with me. How…disappointed…"
Michonne crossed her legs and rested her elbow on her knee, putting her face in her hand. She shook her head slightly and sighed to herself.
"The only thing I want to do is slam your head, as hard as I can, against Carol's head," Michonne offered. "You better get over that or the next thing you know she's going to be coming to me wanting to talk about how she doesn't know what she's done to upset you. The last thing going through her mind right now, and I guarantee you this beyond a shadow of a doubt, is that she's disappointed…or angry…or whatever…with you."
"We can't take care of Isaac," Tyreese said. "I couldn't take care of Julie. I had no business even getting involved with Carol…"
Michonne held up her hand at him. It was clear that he was going through some kind of crisis, and they all went through them from time to time, but it was one that he needed to get some kind of grasp on as quickly as possible.
"Stop!" She commanded. "Tyreese, listen to yourself right now. You're losing it and you need to get a good hold on it soon. Talk to Melodye, do what you've got to do, but do not take this to Carol. What happened with Julie? It doesn't mean that you're not cut out for being a father. Just like Sophia doesn't mean Carol can't be a mother…look at how many of us have been there! But if you take this to Carol, like you are now, it's going to destroy her and that's not what you want. Because you're going to get over whatever this is and you're going to wish that you hadn't even started to say what you were going to say to me."
Michonne got up from her bucket, suddenly feeling like she needed to find Melodye. She needed counseling, and not even for her own problems.
"If you don't get your shit together," she said, "then those men might be dead, but we let them win anyway. Don't let them win, Ty. You're bigger than that."
Michonne stomped out of the barn, leaving him there with his thoughts, and went in search of the pixie-like blonde that she was hoping had some magic fairy dust of hope and optimism to spread over all of them.
It wasn't too hard to find her, either. She was stuck on laundry duty, alone apparently.
"Can I talk to you?" Michonne called out at the woman.
Melodye stopped what she was doing, visibly shivering a little from the chill of the water. It wouldn't be too long before they were forced into heating it to do the washing, proof that they were going to get caught by winter if they didn't pull themselves up by their boot straps and get their lives back in order.
"Can I help with something?" Melodye asked.
"You were a psychiatrist?" Michonne asked the frail framed blonde.
She got a wide eyed nod from the woman and reminded herself that her frustration wasn't directed at this woman and she shouldn't take it out on her. Melodye didn't know her well and wouldn't know how to sort out her moods accordingly.
"Can I ask you something?" Michonne asked. "Why are you doing laundry when we've got…crazy people by the handfuls running around here?"
Melodye laughed in response to that. She wrung out the garment that she'd been washing when Michonne interrupted her and came up on the shore near Michonne, still nearly a foot shorter than her, and dropped the garment into the basket of apparently clean clothes there.
She shook her head at Michonne.
"You can't force people to ask you for help," Melodye said. "And…from what I hear, you're the go-to expert on everyone around here. I tried to talk to Sadie and she said that she would talk to you. I tried to talk to Carol and she practically acted like she didn't have the ability to understand English. To be honest, I thought that you were doing a better job of things than I could. You can't help people if they won't let you."
Michonne, all of a sudden, felt like she wanted to cry.
"These are my people," Michonne said. "They're…my friends and they're my family. I want to help them, but this isn't my job. I don't know what I'm doing."
Melodye furrowed her brow in concern.
"So what do you want me to do?" Melodye asked.
"I want you to help them," Michonne offered. "I want you to do whatever it is that you need to do. Say whatever it is that you need to say, but I want them…back to work. I want them back to feeling like they've got a purpose. Back to feeling like there's something here and like…there's something we're working toward. I just talked to Tyreese…"
"And?" Melodye asked.
"And this man who was…on top of the world four days ago. This man, who was literally singing while he was working because he thought everything in his life was perfect, is hiding out in a barn and saying crazy things about maybe it's all one big mistake," Michonne said. "That's not OK."
Melodye shook her head.
"It's a tragedy," she said. "But sometimes, after something like this has happened, people need their time to work through their feelings. It doesn't mean that everyone's not going to get over it, it just means that they need time to get there."
Michonne shook her head.
"You know as well as me that time isn't always something that we have an abundance of," Michonne said. "I'm going to need something better than that from you."
Melodye laughed.
"Are you always this abrasive?" Melodye asked, raising an eyebrow at Michonne.
"You have no idea," Michonne responded. "Now, your partner's come through for us as much as she can. Are you going to help?"
Melodye stared at her and Michonne stared back. This woman had no idea what she was getting into if she wanted to enter into some kind of staring contest.
"What do you want me to do?" Melodye asked. "If people aren't comfortable with sharing with me, what do you want me to do?"
Michonne chewed her lip.
In all fairness, maybe it did take a little time for everyone around here to get nice and warm and comfortable with each other. And maybe it didn't help that Melodye wasn't exactly the most outgoing person in the world. She seemed nice, but she was content to be on the outside of everything. She hadn't exactly elbowed her way into the crowd.
"I know everyone here," Michonne said.
"I know you do," Melodye said. "You're like the undisputed first lady. Even I know that."
"I know everyone," Michonne responded, ignoring Melodye's statement. "And I can get you in with them and I can tell you what you need to know. You just figure out how to fix them and get this place back to what it was."
Melodye hummed.
"I can try," she said. "But I can't promise anything. I'm not a magician."
"Fair enough," Michonne offered.
"What about you?" Melodye asked. "You don't need anything from me?"
"You fix them, and I'm just fine," Michonne said. "I might be crazy, and my husband might be too, but we do alright. Fix my family. The rest will take care of itself."
Michonne turned to go in search of Calista so she could put the girl, and most likely Jimmy since he did anything that Calista asked of him, to work on laundry for the time being.
"Where are you going?" Melodye called out to her.
"To get you some replacements," Michonne said. "You have loads of work to do, but it isn't going to be in the laundry department."
