May 10th 2011

Kyangwali Refugee Camp, Uganda

Rick waited anxiously outside of Nyokato Mongala's tent as a gaggle of women discussed things just inside the mouth of it. He watched as they stood deciding on the formalities of this odd request while the woman in question lay sick within, largely unaware, he imagined, that she was the topic of such intense negotiation.

Nyokato Mongala…

It was a nice name he'd decided overnight while his unquiet mind darted from issue to issue allowing no moment to sleep. It was lyrical, although not in the way most Westerners thought of the word. Not as if it rolled easily off his Southern tongue and soared upward. But in a way that sounded like rhythm, like soft, melodic percussion when said repeatedly by the native speakers of her language. As he lay in his tent the night before, he practiced saying it again and again, moving his lips silently to form the letters correctly as he'd heard them. He wanted to say it right. He owed her that much at least, he decided. But he intended to do far more than the least. If she could somehow point him and his wayward group in the right direction, he'd already made peace within himself, that he'd do anything she asked. What that might be, he had no idea but, if she asked it….

...Nyokato Mongala.

He tried it again now, along with a whole sentence in Lingala that Michonne had taught him long ago, pacing. He looked at his watch again, marshaling his reserve of patience with the process of negotiating an early morning audience with the elderly woman. He meant no disrespect but he was about a minute off of bursting in there himself, custom be damned, welcomed or not. It was only his years of observing Michonne's own subtle use of persuasion and diplomacy to grease wheels that kept him from following his impulse.

Ms. Mongala's niece, Merveille, was extremely protective of her octogenarian aunt, which Rick could certainly understand. Given the circumstances that led to them being in the camp in the first place, he was aware that questions, particularly the ones coming from any officials would be viewed with suspicion. But just because he was sympathetic and deeply respectful, it didn't mean that at that moment Rick was at all willing to take no for an answer. Michonne's safety and getting some clue that could lead to her location was all he could spare room in his mind for. Luckily, it seemed the same was also true for Maggie and Amy, who took the lead in negotiating and had been talking for fifteen minutes with the young woman about gaining access to her aunt.

He stood there, arms akimbo, favoring one leg heavily and tapping his index finger impatiently against the rough-patterned grooves worn into his leather belt. He was going stir crazy. He considered again just pleading his case directly to Merveille. The woman looked easy enough: plainly dressed, pretty in an unassuming way, fine-boned and slight but with small, keen eyes that suggested that perhaps looks were deceiving. But given the over twenty minutes they'd already spent talking with her, it occurred to Rick that there was something deeper going on.

Maggie turned to him then, as she had been periodically, to shrug and wordlessly plead for just a little more patience on his part. It had worked at defusing him the first four times. Now, it almost made him angrier. He reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose. Michonne and Maggie were his paragons, where calm, perfect composure was concerned– a trait he would have sworn was the province of women alone, if not for their colleagues Aaron and Gabriel. Still, Rick knew if even Maggie, ever understanding yet resolute, was ready to figuratively throw up her hands then this endeavor was near failure.

He walked closer within the small perimeter he'd unwittingly created around Nyokato's tent with his constant movement. Curious neighbors had stood at a distance watching the developments unfold. He and they perked up as Merveille turned away and went back into her tent. Maggie came out of the entryway and met him halfway.

"What's the problem?" He'd thought finding the previously nameless woman who could lead them in the right direction was going to be the challenge of this part of their journey. Obviously, he was wrong.

Maggie shrugged again before letting her arms fall heavily to her sides. "Trust. They just got here a month ago, she doesn't know who she can trust yet."

"The niece, Merveille?" He asked, confirming the impression that he'd gotten of her.

To his surprise, Maggie shook her head, "No, old Mrs. Mongala, I think."

She sighed deeply, actually throwing up her hands then and looking forlornly at something far down the long aisle of anonymous tents. Rick put a hand on Maggie's shoulder, squeezing it and bending slightly to catch her eyes. Her eyebrows were furrowed and her expression darkened in frustration. This experience seemed like it was physically aging her as they spoke. Even the shoulder he held was like granite beneath his fingers. He'd forgotten momentarily that Maggie had as much, possibly more, riding on this than he did.

"It's okay." He said in deference to her valiant effort, not because he actually felt that way.

Maggie shook her head again, clearly struggling with some undeclared emotion. Yet Rick understood completely. On the one hand, they needed to find Michonne. On the other, finding her more concretely implicated Shane in her disappearance and further indicted them for their ignorance. For all his seething animosity toward his best friend and relentless drive to uncover Michonne's whereabouts, he felt troublesomely ambivalent about aspects of this whole endeavor.

"I'm gonna try," He announced, letting his hand drop to his side. Maggie opened her mouth to voice an objection that he left behind as he moved past her. He walked purposefully to the tent just as Amy, Lady and Mathilde emerged from the mouth of it.

"Rick?" Amy said surprised as if she didn't expect to see him there where she'd left him a half hour ago. "What are you doing?"

"I'm going to try myself." He said pushing past her. "I have to."

She held up a hand to his chest, "She's gonna be afraid of you, Rick."

"Of me?" He repeated bewildered. "She doesn't know me."

Suddenly, it came back to him. The distrustful way the woman had looked at him that night Michonne introduced them. The way Michonne had had to tactfully send him on his way to have a conversation with her.

But why?

As he said before, he had never set eyes on Nyokato Mongala before that night. At the time, he shrugged her reaction off. It wasn't worth being upset over. And given the atrocities some members of the camps had endured, an aversion to men in general or armed military or both was pretty much par for the course. He'd learned long ago not to take that personally. But now this somehow felt different. This somehow felt personal.

"You told her we need to locate Ariane? That Michonne was missing?" He asked, turning to Mathilde to ensure that nothing had been lost in translation.

The woman nodded, her face grim, "Yes sir."

"Then, I have to try, please..." He said again to the three women as if it could make a difference. Amy looked at Lady, who seemed to understand, if not the words, then the sentiment, the sheer desperation that shaded the words. She shrugged at Amy. Acquiescence or no, that was all the go-ahead Rick required.

The tent wasn't big but it was organized in a way that suggested an actual home, with an obvious living space separated from its sleeping quarters. It was drearily lit by a small, most likely illegal kerosene lamp that cast long, wavy shadows across the room. Rick could make out Merveille's back as she kneeled facing away from him. Dimly, he could also discern the foot of a small camp-issued cot against the far wall. He pushed cautiously through the mosquito netting and entered more fully.

"Rick!" Maggie said more urgently from right behind him.

He paused and looked back to see a trio of concerned faces standing at the entryway. And then one that was only mildly intrigued...Lady. They regarded each other briefly. Then she chirped brightly to Mathilde, who translated with a crooked smile to Maggie, "She said, 'go ahead and let him. Mundele always think they can do anything anyway. Maybe, for once, he's right'."

Rick reddened, knowing that that was what most Congolese called oblivious and obnoxious White people. Was he being obnoxious and ridiculous to think he could add anything of value to the conversation? In that second, without ever having spoken to her directly, Rick could see very clearly what Michonne might have liked about the woman. She was confident and had no issue with speaking her mind. As he watched, Lady continued to observe him with an obvious primary interest in seeing how this would all play out.

Why did he believe he could plead their case better than either Amy or Maggie had already spent thirty minutes doing?

"I'm sorry," He said to Maggie with a sigh but without being sorry in the least. "I have to try. If I upset her, I'll leave. That's it."

Merveille must have heard the masculine voice behind her because she turned then and suddenly got to her feet. Rick raised his hands defensively, palms out. Her brows knitted together in irritation.

"Wait, wait, I just want five minutes of her time."

Mathilde translated from a foot behind him, seemingly reticent to reenter the tent fully. Merveille's eyes narrowed, annoyance written on her face. She spoke rapidly, clearly galled by the intrusion. She put herself fully between her aunt and Rick. And despite being nearly twice her size, Rick felt the warning in her stance.

"Tell her, this is serious. Our friend Michonne might die." Rick didn't want to use those words in front of Maggie, had refrained from using those words because of the implication. Still, it felt like the only thing that might make a difference...and as the hours ticked by, as much as he was loath to admit it, it seemed more and more like the truth.

"She was snatched right off the street. No one has seen her in five days," He spoke quickly but Mathilde was able to keep up with him, relaying his words to Merveille. "We think that she might have been taken by Pop Negan's men. We think your aunt might be the only person who knows where he is, where she is."

Merveille's eyes widened when the name came through the chaos of Rick and Mathilde's competing narration. He realized then that Maggie had somehow managed to leave some part of that out. No doubt to keep from frightening her too much.

She shook her head adamantly.

"My aunt cannot help you." She said through Mathilde.

"I have to find her." He declared.

"We have to find her." He corrected himself, realizing yet again that he had to stop acting as if this wasn't a coalition effort.

He wasn't in this alone. It wasn't only him that was restless in their desire to get Michonne back. Maggie was as well, so was Amy. Even Carter, despite his torrent of bullshit, had looked haunted when Rick saw him earlier that morning.

Rick went on calmly despite Merveille's continued objection, "I think you already know, if we're right, she's in danger. I think my friend to–"

"If you're right, she's already dead," Mathilde spoke over his statement then, automatically repeating Merveille's harsh words.

Rick reflexively looked behind himself at Mathilde, still standing unobtrusively at the entrance of the tent as if she weren't right in the midst and a crucial component of the conversation. She looked stricken as if she would have liked to snatch the statement right out of the air between them if she could.

He looked back at Merveille, stunned by her callousness but now prepared to take another, much less patient and cordial tack. Thankfully, in that moment, there was movement and soft whispering from behind her. Merveille returned to her aunt's side. Rick stood there, paused as if in mid-thought, waiting to resume their argument. Because at that point, there could be no illusion their exchange was anything but.

Mathilde moved in closer to Rick, to see if she could soak up some of the conversation happening quietly between the woman and her aunt.

"She's telling her, 'it's not worth the risk'," Mathilde said under her breath, leaning into Rick's side. "Saying, 'it's best not to get involved'."

Rick thought to interject but Mathilde grasped his forearm.

"I have 'aunties' like this," Mathilde whispered with a reassuring nod. "Just wait."

Another minute of indecipherable whispering followed, then Merveille gave a frustrated sigh and rose to her feet. When she looked at him, Rick could see his victory written in the exasperation and trepidation warring for supremacy on her face. "She will speak with you."

She stood to the side and let Rick and Mathilde pass. They walked to the edge of the curtain separating the small cots from the rest of the space. Rick noticed the small outline of another figure lying in the cot beside Ms. Mongala. The head of a child peeked out from amongst a mound of rags used as bedding.

"What's this?" Rick whispered urgently to Mathilde.

"There's been an outbreak of dysentery in the camp for the past month. It's been largely contained, but it hit the very old and the very young the hardest."

Rick felt particularly callous that this hadn't even been on his radar. He approached Ms. Mongala kneeling beside her cot as Mathilde stood behind him.

"Mboté," He used a polite greeting. Rick introduced himself in the Lingala that Michonne had taught him long ago and that he'd spent the past night practicing before careering through a plea for her aid that he got from a translation book. Mathilde opened her mouth then closed it as he tore through the phrasing without her help.

"Please stop," Ms. Mongala surprised him by interrupting him mid-sentence. "I also speak English, French or Swahili, if you prefer. But not whatever that, you're saying, is.

"I taught children at L'école Belge de Goma for many years." She spoke in a hoarse whisper but Rick could still hear the teasing in her tone, "...and your Lingala still hurts my ears."

Rick glanced up at Mathilde to see if she agreed and saw only her pursing her lips and covering them with her fingertips. He smiled despite himself, shaking his head slightly, "Mrs. Mongala–"

"You pronounce that much, much better, but it's Nyokato, if you please. Madam Mongala is now and forever my mother. May God rest her soul."

Mathilde tapped Rick's shoulder lightly to signal her exit to him. Even if he wasn't entirely certain what was going to happen, Nyokato, inexplicably, seemed to have a good grasp on things.

"Okay, Nyokato," he began taking a breath. "I'm Rick Grimes. I'm Michonne's friend. Do you remember me?"

The old woman shifted on the cot, turning herself so that she faced him, her eyes squinting to make him out in the poor lighting. Rick reached over on his hands and knees and carefully pulled the heavy lamp over toward them. His boot tips scraped against the dirt floor and the oil sloshed inside the lamp canister loudly, giving the space the noxious odor of kerosene. The older woman watched him with interest, her eyes following his movements, though she didn't move.

"Do you remember?" He asked again, once the lamp was sufficiently close.

"Hmmm," Nyokato raised her head up from the pillow and peered at him blankly.

"Better yet, do you even remember Michonne? The UN worker? She visited a month ago?" Nyokato continued to stare. "Michonne?"

"See, she doesn't know what you're talking about," Merveille spoke up suddenly from the corner of the room, startling Rick because he'd forgotten she was still there. He didn't bother to remark on the fact that her English was suddenly as good as her aunt's.

"She originally met you in your village with Maggie?" Rick continued undeterred, pointing at the entrance to the tent as if to illustrate. "The brunette girl outside?"

Nyokato watched him talk, her eyes fixated on his lips, but offered no reply.

Rick sat back on his heels trying to figure another way to engage her. A minute ago she had seemed as sharp as a tack and now Nyokato silently worked her lips over her gums not unlike a cow ruminating over cud.

"It's important that we find her."

Rick chose to plug on as if the woman hadn't abruptly gone senile in the last five minutes. "As I told your niece, she's gone missing. We think she's been taken to wherever it is that Negan is based. I hoped you might know where that is."

"Why?" Merveille interjected urgently.

"Because," He sighed at the question, but kept his attention and his eyes on the aunt, not the niece. "Ariane lives there too, I think."

"You think?" Merveille repeated scornfully, sounding to Rick's ears exactly like a female Carter Embry.

"We know Ariane is his wife."

"And so? That has nothing to do with us."

"I think it does and I think your aunt knows what I'm asking her." He spoke to Merveille but refused to look at her, still trying to engage Nyokato. "It was Ariane that Michonne and Maggie came to your village with and it was her they were trying to help that got them in trouble with Pop Negan."

He struggled to keep the strange and inexplicable resentment he always felt whenever he thought about that whole situation out of his voice.

"Ariane and her family were our neighbors, nothing mo–"

"Describe her for me." The old woman relented finally, interrupting them both as if they weren't arguing.

Rick sighed again deeply, putting his hands on his thighs. He squeezed them to keep from shouting at someone. "She's about 5'8", your complexion–"

"Is that the best you can do?" Nyokato asked.

Rick stopped short. He did not have time for continued game-playing. If this was what Maggie and Amy had faced earlier, a furtive contest of wills they'd both been ill-equipped to win, he could suddenly understand their frustrated resignation.

Rick ran an exasperated hand through his moist hair. The early morning's dense humidity and the tent's lack of adequate ventilation conspired to plaster his hair to his forehead. The first rainfall of the day couldn't come soon enough to dispel some of the heavy, near claustrophobic warmth enveloping him.

"I don't think I understand. I was describing her."

"I am an old woman and you were describing nearly a hundred women I've met at this camp in the past week alone. You want to refresh my memory?"

At least her wits were back...He thought. Although he was fairly certain they hadn't gone anywhere in the first place.

Rick bit down on his lower lip to curb his tongue, "Yes."

"Then describe her."

He told himself he'd do anything to get Michonne back, but now it was clear to him that he'd had no idea what that actually meant.

He blew out a heavy breath and hung his head. Though nearly every part of him hummed with impatience at Nyokato's request and a thousand disparate thoughts in the meantime fought for primacy, Rick surprised even himself by being able to answer the old woman's question thoughtfully.

"She's my friend of many years."

"You said that already."

Before opening his mouth again, he took a beat to pray for forbearance. In her slyly cunning way, Nyokato suddenly reminded Rick of the older women he'd known all his life at home in Georgia. Southern belles, the lot of them, sweet as peach cobbler, all 'dah-lin's" and "sugahs" until you crossed them. None more so than his adoptive Gran'ma Jean before the dementia set in. The fleeting recollection of Shane's grandmother set Rick's teeth on edge but focused his thoughts.

"Well, first off, there aren't a hundred women like Michonne in this camp," Rick spoke shortly as if he were admonishing Nyokato for her mistake. "...or anywhere else for that matter."

And to his surprise, the woman's eyes brightened as if that had been precisely what she was waiting for. He continued, encouraged.

"She's kind, patient and soft-spoken but tough. So strong...scary strong and brave that I worry for her all the time, not just when it's my job to. But she's sweet too and far too trusting of people she doesn't know. I warn her constantly about that, but she says I don't trust enough. And she's got such a dry sense of humor; she joking half the time she's talking but most people wouldn't know it. The other half of the time, she's got this great big laugh and a bigger smile. All teeth. She'll give you anything she has and not ask for anything in return but that you do the same for someone else."

He knew he was rambling but it was his first opportunity to say all the things that had been rattling around in his brain for so long. And the old woman just sat silently listening.

"Michonne's biggest flaw, I think, is that she's always been loyal to a fault. Which is why she might be in the trouble she's in right now. She thought she knew something. Something that would hurt me, hurt our friends but she wouldn't share it because I think she thought she was protecting me. And protecting that girl out there that you met, Maggie. That's how you and she met. She thinks of everyone before herself. She took Ariane back home, at great personal risk and cost… and now here we are."

He looked up at Nyokato finally from the place his mind's eye had wandered thinking of Michonne to find her nodding encouragingly.

"It's my job, it's been my job for the last seven-plus years, to keep her safe and, well, right now, for the past five days–shit, let's be honest, since before I even met you last month, since that day you met her in your village– I've been failing at my job, spectacularly."

Rick looked away then. And a single tear, composed of his anxiety and abject frustration with the many dead ends of his search and given form by his fear for her well-being, slid from the corner of his eye over his cheek. He rubbed it away roughly with his shoulder to his head, embarrassed that the old woman had to see it.

"I don't believe that. You are doing what you can. I'd guess you always do." Nyokato's soft, wrinkled hand reached out from beneath her sheet and covered his then.

"Oh, yes that's right, of course, you," She declared loudly enough for her niece to overhear while nodding vigorously at him as if she was just remembering him.

He doubted that.

"She had said you weren't like the other one. I remember now...I remember her. Michonne, you said her name was? Yes. You came to collect her the night we met. She made you wait."

The other one? Rick wanted to ask but didn't dare derail her now that Nyokato had finally decided to acknowledge him.

He exhaled the breath he felt like he'd been holding since he got up that morning. "Yes."

"Meri," Nyokato announced, summoning her niece. "We are going to help RickGrimes find the mademoiselle. I'm going to tell you both what I know. And then you and he are going to go find a map."


Rick exited the tent to see the crowd had expanded to many of Nyokato's numerous neighbors that he didn't know and five anxious faces that he did. They could have all been standing outside an operating room awaiting a prognosis, their expressions were so dour and apprehensive. Maggie and Amy looked at him expectantly and when he finally smiled in confirmation they clasped hands and laughed. As Rick approached them, he paused briefly to thank Lady in exceedingly poor Swahili.

The woman nodded and smiled very obviously impressed by his persuasiveness.

"What's the verdict?" Carter, having just joined them minutes earlier, asked walking up to him. He surprised Rick by handing him a metal mug filled with steaming hot coffee.

"Thanks." Rick nodded, taking the cup and having a quick sip. He grimaced as Carter shrugged unapologetically. It was the same swill that one could find in every Armed Forces canteen from Kisangani to Okinawa. Still, Rick appreciated the unexpected peace-offering. "You got a couple Z-packs?"

Carter's face was a question mark but in a moment he called to his second, Barnes, anyway. "You didn't answer my question."

Carter took the heavy duffel Barnes carried from him and rifled through the contents before handing a small stack of Azithromycin blister packs to Rick.

"We're headed into the jungle." Rick finally answered Carter, handing the stainless-steel coffee cup back to him with one hand and taking the antibiotics from him with the other.

"Yes, thanks. That's really specific," Carter called after him with a mildly amused expression as Rick walked away from him without elaborating. Carter sighed loudly, overturning Rick's cup to empty it and passing it off to Barnes. Rick walked back to the tent flap just as Merveille was exiting.

"Thank your aunt again for helping us. I'm sorry about your little girl," He discreetly placed the packs in her hands. "Give some of these to them, stash the rest and then come meet us by the Medecins sans Frontieres intake office." He instructed her quietly as she stared at the items dumbfounded.

Rick walked away then feeling ready, finally, to rally his group. Feeling, at last, as if he had some small idea of what he was doing and where he was going.

...but he had more than just an 'idea' of where he was going. If Nyokato's information was accurate, they could reach Negan's camp by nightfall. He prayed for Michonne's sake and his own that she was there. And he prayed for the sake of everyone there that she was unharmed.