AN: Here we go, another little chapter.

I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!

111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

When Rick finally got tired of sitting downstairs in the cabin and watching Carl play cards with Junior, neither of them apparently caring that a third of the deck was made out of paper cards they'd written with a magic marker so they could easily see through them, Rick took his leave of the two of them and made his way up to the bedroom.

The lamp in the bedroom was burning low, as it always did. It wasn't fair to say that Sadie was afraid of the dark, at least not in the same way that a small child with no reason to fear the darkness of their room was, but it disoriented her and she had a tendency to panic when the lamp would run out of oil of burn itself down at night. As a result, Rick tried to make sure that it was always full and that the wick was always left long enough to keep a flame going at least until morning.

Rick cranked the wick out just enough to allow for the extra hours, showering the room in a little more brightness than before, and then he undressed and washed himself off with the cold bath water that was leftover from the day before.

It wasn't like he'd really done a thing all day to need to bathe really, but he did it out of the practices that they were making into habits now.

They created habits for the comfort they gave. They created habits because having habits made sense out of the chaos in some simple way. That's really what all their lives boiled down to now…a series of habits. Each of them, depending on their role or roles in the community, had a number of habits that all linked together to make days tick by and get work done. The habits made the days predictable, and predictability was something that was soothing and comforting to everyone.

And that was probably why, when something like what had happened to them occurred, the shattering of their predictable life was even more devastating.

Rick walked over to the bed once he'd finished bathing, air drying despite the chill in the room, and leaned over Sadie.

He'd always heard that people looked younger when they slept, but for Sadie, at least, he knew it was true. He wasn't sure how old she was, and he wasn't sure how old he was, but he knew that she had crossed well over the line of forty five, yet when she slept? When she slept he could almost imagine what she would have looked like when she was barely old enough to be considered an adult.

It was even true now with the bruises and cuts that covered the vast majority of her face, leaving her almost looking like she was wearing some kind of Halloween make up.

Rick returned to the bowl of water and came back with the wet cloth. He dabbed at her lip with it, where it was split and still bled if she wasn't mindful of it. A trail of the blood had run down and dried on her face and he wiped at that, apparently waking her in the process because she started violently and barely muffled the scream that would have followed if her eyes hadn't found him in the light of the room.

"I'm sorry," he said, slowly, leaning over her. He signed it and after a moment her eyes were less wide and she nodded.

She reached and caught his wrist just as he went back to cleaning her face.

"What are you doing?" She asked, furrowing her brows.

"You were bleeding," he said. "Again."

Now that she'd lifted her head up he realized there was blood all over her pillowcase. She'd likely stirred up a few more cuts since she'd gone to bed.

"I'm just cleaning it up," he said.

She let go of his wrist as a way to say that he was permitted to do it and he continued to mop at the dried blood he could find, almost like some kind of game since it blended in places with the terrible bruises, until he was satisfied that her face was as clean as it was likely to be.

He got up to return the rag to the bowl and stood there for a moment before he turned around again.

They'd had the biggest fight of their relationship.

Ironically enough, it seemed that the fight had been coming for some time, but it simply had to travel on the heels of the almost disaster.

Sadie had threatened to end things over "a look" that he said he was giving her. It was a look that he hadn't even realized he was giving her, but once they'd fought it out he was certain that she was probably right and it was probably there, even if he didn't think about it.

Because the look, she said, was a disapproving look. To Sadie it was the look that said he wanted to control her. To Sadie it was the look that said that he wanted to tell her to stay in the house "barefoot and pregnant" and out of trouble. To Sadie it was the look that said that he wanted to clip her wings and keep her caged up somewhere to look at and to play with when he wanted…but never to really let out so that she could live.

That's what Sadie said that his look meant to her.

What he thought the look meant was a little different. What he thought it meant was that he wanted her to avoid trouble if he could. He wanted her to stay inside and protected, but not because he had some desire to clip her wings. He wanted her to stay closed away from things because he wanted her to be safe. He wanted to keep her from getting herself killed.

And he'd, without realizing it, taken out his fear of her getting killed or maimed by simply ignoring her after the attack that had threatened to do just that.

But he had to change this, and she'd let him know that very clearly. He had to change his thoughts on things and allow her to do what she was going to do…which apparently meant putting herself out there just as much as anyone else…or she was going to solve the problem for him by removing herself entirely from the equation for him.

Rick flinched out of surprise when he felt the warmth of her skin against his back as she leaned into him. He hadn't heard her get out of the bed. It was as easy to sneak up on him, these days, as it was on her.

He turned around and she slid her arms around his body as he did so, until she was standing in front of him and still half embracing him.

He sighed.

"I really do love you," he said.

She offered him a half smile that threatened to crack the busted lip again and nodded her head gently.

"I know you do," she said. "I love you too. Promise." She added the final word as something of an afterthought and signed it when she said it.

Rick stood there a moment staring at her while she stared back at him, her blue eyes softer than usual and showing her fatigue for the moment. He shook his head finally and smiled to himself.

"How did I ever end up with you?" He asked. "You're…bossy and you're…opinionated…and you're hot-tempered…and you're…"

He stopped talking, resting his hands on her shoulders as he searched for other adjectives to describe her and fought the smile that was threatening to take over his face at the fact that she was smiling at him with her lip curled slightly in amusement.

"And you're short!" Rick said, laughing. "You're very, very…short…and I never liked women like you before."

Sadie stepped back a half step and looked wholly offended except for the slight curl of a smile.

"You don't like short women?!" She protested, probably louder than she intended to be.

Rick laughed and shook his head.

"No," he said. "Not like you. Never a single soul like you…"

She smiled and, in response, she lifted up on her toes and puckered her lips at him. Rick leaned down to kiss her and she grinned when he pulled away, wiping at the mix of saliva and blood he'd gained from the kiss.

"I'm short," she said. "But…I get the job done."

He nodded.

"You do," he said. He sighed. "How can you…get so mad…at someone you love so much?"

Sadie's smile dropped to sincerity.

"Because love and hate aren't as different as people thing," Sadie said. She shook her head slightly at Rick. "They come from the same place. The devil was God's favorite angel."

Rick raised his eyebrows at her now, mimicking her expression for asking a question.

"Are you the devil?" He asked.

She smiled and held her finger and thumb an inch apart.

"Just a little one," she said. "A short one."

He shook his head at her, amused.

"Hate me if you have to," Sadie said. "Sometimes…And…sometimes I'll hate you. But…love me more…and I'll love you forever."

Rick craned his neck, thoughts of their earlier conversation coming back to him. They'd hashed and rehashed everything. They'd called up ghosts and exorcised demons. There wasn't a sacred rock left untouched at this point. And he'd confessed his fears and heard hers, even if neither of them normally cared to take them out, dust them off, and show them around.

"And if forever isn't long enough?" Rick asked, raising his eyebrows at her again. "For you or me?"

"Has to be," she responded. "It's what we have."

1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

"Look," Libby said, thrusting one of the onesies she had at Michonne. "I like this one the best. Carol give us a lot of 'em, though. I thought she was just gonna say here's one or two, but she give us a whole damn box of 'em."

Michonne chuckled to herself. Tyreese and Carol had packed up a box to serve as a type of "care package" for Beau and Libby, since they were the last two in the community to have inherited the items they had around for newborns.

"That's cute," Michonne said. "I like that. I think Zeb had that one too."

Michonne was feeding the baby while Libby sat with her. Beau was around but had stepped out of the room for a moment to help Alice with something. They were hovering around the small baby, hoping to take him home with them within a few days.

Alice thought he might be ready to go with them, too. His little eyes weren't healed yet, but that would take time. The sores on his body were looking a little better, though they clearly weren't healed yet, and all signs pointed to the fact that under the right conditions the small fellow might actually get better and grow.

They were still uncertain as to whether or not, bandages removed, he'd ever see. Time would tell them that, but right now there was no way of knowing. They were uncertain, too, if he could hear, but Alice thought that time would tell them that too.

For the moment, though, he was at least interacting with Michonne in that he was requesting his milk and he was eating it without crying like he doubted she would give him what he wanted. He was also flexing his toes at them and drawing his knees up, and he was curling his fingers around anything placed into his hand. He was showing, if nothing else, signs of actually being alive inside his frail and still broken little body.

"Does he have a name?" Michonne asked.

"Me an' Beau just been callin' him baby," Libby said. "That ain't no real proper name, but we can't think a' nothin' that he might like. Beau said he ain't never been no good at namin' nothin' and I ain't never had no baby to name."

Michonne nodded slightly as she considered what Libby had said. It was a fair thing to say. Most parents, before their first child, hadn't ever had a baby to name before.

"Do you like anything?" Michonne asked.

"Reckon anything'll do," Libby commented. "Whatta you like?"

Michonne didn't like naming children any more than Beau and Libby did. It wasn't an easy thing to do to look a child and declare that this was the name, and in some ways the identity, that they were going to be stuck with for the rest of their life.

But then, if she didn't help them, the child might very well end up being called "baby" for the rest of his life.

"Something complicated or something simple?" Michonne asked.

Libby shrugged.

"Both, I reckon," Libby said. "Somethin' like Zeb, ya know? Somethin' where he's got two names. Like me…like when I was good, I was Libby, but when my Mama got mad? I was Olivia an' I knowed I was in trouble."

Michonne laughed.

"I think Zeb feels the same way," she commented. "Let me think on it?"

Libby shrugged.

"Ain't no hurry," she said. "He ain't protested one bit to bein' called baby, so I don't guess he's gonna be pissed if he's gotta wait another day or two to have a real name."

Michonne laughed and moved the infant to see if he would release her or continue sucking, since it was difficult to tell, wrapped up as he was, whether or not he wasn't interested in eating more or if he'd simply drifted off for a moment.

"I think he'll be alright," Michonne said. "Between us all, we'll come up with a good name for him. Something he can be proud of."