AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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News travelled so quickly in Alexandria that as soon as Michonne had seen Daryl storming off—because there was no other word for the way he was walking —toward the back of the community, she was practically already being hit with the first wave of gossip.
It had taken her a moment to come up with a reason to dismiss Judith and RJ into the care of Angela, who Michonne knew pretty well and who happened to be coming close by on her way toward her home, but Judith had gone without argument and taken her brother with her—and Angela had been happy to have the children to entertain for a bit.
Michonne got enough of the story from supposed onlookers to understand the gist of things. There had been a fight and, if the stories were correct, it was a hell of a fight—the kind that, according to some, ended relationships.
Michonne knew Daryl and Carol both better than that. A simple fight wasn't going to break the two of them up, no matter how much they might have let their tongues get away from them.
Daryl had been hard to locate at first. Michonne had wandered around the community, in the general direction of where he'd gone, until she saw him coming down the porch steps of one of the houses where someone lived. He was readjusting an item in his toolbelt—which he usually wore when he was working—and he was scowling to the point that Michonne figured whoever he'd just helped might have feared that he'd been on the point of murdering them.
"Can I talk to you, Dixon?" Michonne called out.
Daryl looked over his shoulder and glared at her, for a second, like he might turn on her and attack. He softened only slightly and his shoulders hung forward.
"You here to tell me I'm an asshole or an idiot?"
"Only if that's what you think I should do," Michonne offered. "Come on—just a minute. I won't keep you too long if you've got important things to do."
"Not a damn thing I do is important," Daryl grumbled. "Woman called me in to fix her sink—weren't a damn thing wrong with it. She was talkin' about she thought it was damp down there. There's water or there ain't. I'll never fuckin' know how it is that some of these assholes got this damn far an' some others didn't."
"One group after another," Michonne said, ignoring his grumbling and overall surly attitude. "You know as well as I do that some of these people have hardly ever been without some form of protection. But—correct me if I'm wrong…I don't think that's what's got you so angry."
Michonne gestured to the front steps of a house where nobody lived. Daryl sat down hard, practically like a body collapsing, and lit a cigarette.
"He ain't fuckin' wrong, and that's what pisses me the hell off," Daryl growled.
"Who?"
"Who the hell do you think? Fuckin' Ole King Cole who come to town leadin' his merry band of idiots."
Michonne swallowed back her amusement.
"What is he not wrong about?"
"Maybe I don't have any business tryin' to do what the fuck I'm doin'," Daryl said. "Maybe I'm just a fuckin' Wildman like he says. Maybe I should've had the good damn sense to leave her there in the Kingdom. Let him take care of everything. I drag her ass here an' put her in a basement like that's gonna solve everything."
Michonne hummed at him. She didn't need a detailed map to figure out where they were exactly.
"Maybe you are just a Wildman," Michonne said.
Daryl made a noise at her and looked at her in surprise. She smiled to herself.
"You don't fully believe it yourself or you wouldn't look surprised to hear me agree with you," Michonne said. "Look, Daryl—you've never sugarcoated shit for me. Not since we were looking for the Governor. And I won't sugarcoat shit for you. Maybe you are just a Wildman. We're all a little wild, though, wouldn't you agree?"
"Not his Majesty," Daryl said.
"Everybody has their thing," Michonne said with a shrug.
"She was better off with him," Daryl said.
"You don't believe that anymore than you believe a single other word that's come out of your mouth," Michonne said. "You don't believe it anymore than I believed Andrea deserved what happened to her when I said it that time and you called me on my bullshit."
"You were hurtin'," Daryl said.
"And you're scared," Michonne challenged. Daryl glared at her with false warning on his features. He wanted to silently threaten her, but he didn't mean it. He wanted her to tend his wounds, but that didn't mean he wasn't afraid it was going to hurt. "She loves you," Michonne said, softening her tone. "She loves you so very much. Anyone can see it. And that's enough. That makes you enough."
"I don't know how to take care of her," Daryl said.
Michonne laughed to herself.
"Carol doesn't need to be taken care of," Michonne said. "She's anything but helpless. I think, when the baby's born, she'll accept some help during the birth, but I don't believe she even needs that. She'll just accept it because she wants to. She doesn't need anything, but that doesn't mean she doesn't like to be babied and cared for just a little."
Daryl frowned at her and Michonne's stomach tightened. He'd been there for her, in his own way, whenever she needed him. There was a sadness in Daryl that ran so deep that Michonne often just wanted to take him on her knee and hold him, just like she would RJ, and assure him that everything was going to be alright and the monsters weren't real—and the real ones couldn't get to him.
"The happiest I've ever seen you has been since you got here," Michonne said. She smiled at him, softly. "Since you—had a wife you love, and a baby on the way, and…a purpose, Daryl. A promise for so much—life. So why are you sitting here with me, on this porch step, looking like your whole world is ending and talking about—about abandoning your wife to some other man?"
"What if she'd be happier?" Daryl asked.
"Don't bullshit me. Do you really think she'd be happier?"
"He made her queen of the whole Kingdom," Daryl said. "I knocked her up in a tent and dragged her around until I told her we were gonna live in your basement."
Michonne laughed.
"He made up a persona. Created a fairy tale to distract people because they were having a hard time coping with a difficult reality. He made himself their king, and he made her their queen. He gave her something to distract her from reality."
"You're suckin' at makin' me feel better, 'Chonne," Daryl offered.
"My point is—you gave her reality. And you made her happy with reality. I think that's worth a lot more than making someone happy with fantasy, don't you think? At some point, the fantasy has to break. It's not real. The reality, though? That's always there. Carol left the Kingdom, Daryl. I think she made her choice pretty clear."
"Ezekiel's an asshole."
"Maybe he is," Michonne said with a laugh. "Maybe he isn't. Maybe—you're both destined to think that about the other until the smoke clears. He's probably dealing with some things himself. After all, she left his whole fantasy kingdom and chose, instead, to get knocked up in the woods and move to a friend's basement. That's got to sting the ego at least a little."
Daryl laughed to himself, and Michonne felt slightly accomplished.
"She wouldn't come look at houses with me," Daryl said. "I wanted to get her outta the basement 'fore the baby came. And you know as good as I do that snow's comin' soon. Could be as early as tomorrow—cold as it is. Might stay 'til fuckin' March or April. I wouldn't mind movin' 'fore we're ass deep in it."
"I kind of like you in the basement," Michonne said. "And I was hoping to get my hands on that baby soon without having to trudge through ass deep snow to get there. Still—did you explain how you feel?"
"Shouldn't have to," Daryl said. "I wanted her to look at houses for me. She oughta know I want what's good for her."
Michonne laughed to herself.
"She's been nesting pretty hard in that basement," Michonne said. "Siddiq says it's six to eight weeks, and then we've got a brand-new little Dixon around here. I know from experience that she's probably really wanting to just feel cozy and secure right now, and she actually has the potential to feel that way. So, if you want to uproot her again, maybe you owe it to her to at least explain why."
"Nobody wants to live in a basement, and I shouldn't have to explain everything I wanna do if I'm doin' it for a good reason."
Michonne sighed and stood up. She patted Daryl on the shoulder.
"If you're feeling a little threatened, and you've got some things to work out, that's OK. If you're feeling scared about everything—and about what comes next? That's OK. But it's not really fair to blame Carol for your feelings. Did you say anything you think you really, really aren't going to be able to take back with more than an apology?"
He somewhat frowned at her and shook his head.
"I don't think so," he said.
Michonne nodded her understanding.
"Then, you finish—smoking or thinking about whatever you've got to think about. Then, you'll both do what married couples have done since the dawn of time. You'll talk it out. It was a fight, Daryl, and it had to happen someday. Don't look like the world is ending."
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"It's instinct," Michonne insisted, running smooth circles over Carol's back with her palm.
"Instinct," Carol echoed with an ironic and insincere laugh that sounded soggy. "To—say I'd just go shack up with someone? Call me a…whore?"
"Did he say whore?" Michonne asked.
"He meant it."
Michonne laughed to herself.
"When anger's involved, we're all better off not putting meaning into each other's words," Michonne said. "But whether he said it or not, you know he didn't mean it. That was defensiveness."
"Against me in the fight he started?"
"It was defensiveness that started the fight," Michonne said.
"What are you talking about?" Carol asked. At least she'd stopped crying. She was looking at Michonne like she was certifiably insane, but she was doing it with a damp face that was drying instead of growing increasingly wetter.
"We're all animals," Michonne said. "And it's pretty clear that every year we're just becoming more so. Maybe it's a little better in here, but…I'm under no impression that your instincts wouldn't drive you to actually bite someone if they tried to attack you and harm your baby."
"Bite them? I'd kill them," Carol said.
She recoiled a little, ever so slightly, from her own words because there was an element of absolute truth to the statement. It wasn't the hyperbole that they might have once used. Carol would, without even the hesitation that might have once played into such a scenario, kill in the event that she felt the child she carried was truly threatened. Still, even though they all knew they had changed and the world around them had changed to necessitate—and even to simply allow—that kind of shift, it was still shocking to sometimes really sit with that knowledge.
Michonne hummed her agreement with Carol's words.
"That's your instinct. Your mother's instinct. Your animal instinct. Daryl's got animal instincts as well. And he's got a lot going on right now that, frankly, Daryl hasn't learned how to navigate just yet. Right now? He's in super-protective mode like you are. He's in provider mode. But he's also feeling a little threatened. And any animal, when threatened, is a dangerous and irrational creature."
"Nothing is threatening him," Carol said.
"Your ex-husband is in the habitat," Michonne said with a snort. "And two males in the same habitat can get as tricky as two females." Michonne winked at Carol and Carol laughed to herself. At least she was lightening up a little.
"We get along fine," Carol said.
"It's a little different. And, more than likely, they'll get along fine, too, someday. For now, though, there are a few bruised egos. And you and I both know that bruised egos seem to hurt most men worse than broken bones or fatal gut wounds."
"I didn't do anything to make him feel threatened."
"You didn't have to," Michonne said. "Nature handled it for you. She usually does when it comes to jealousy and insecurity."
"I don't want to leave the basement," Carol said. "It's safer with you here. With all of us here. And I don't want to go—all the way across the community. With the snow coming? I hardly have anything for the baby, and I certainly don't have anything warm enough to want to take her out in the snow."
"There's a house two doors down," Michonne said. "It's a lot smaller than this one. Nobody's living there. There's a fireplace in the living room and, maybe, in one of the bedrooms. It's not quite the same as having us all under one roof, but if you needed me? I'd hear you. And—you wouldn't have to take the baby out in the snow."
Michonne offered her the best reassuring smile she could as the large tears welling up in Carol's eyes slipped out. Michonne brushed them away and, without thinking about it, pressed a kiss to her forehead.
"I know you're scared," Michonne assured her. "More scared than you've dared to admit to anyone. I was terrified. In fact, terrified didn't even begin to cover it. I still am. Some days more than others. Forgive yourself for that fear. Especially right now. It's all part of the instinct that's helped you survive. It'll help her survive."
Carol mopped at her face with her fingers.
"Thanks," she breathed out.
"Think about giving him this," Michonne said. "Stroking his ego just a little."
"I do…"
"A little more," Michonne said, emphasizing "more." She smiled at Carol. "He's just a man, and they're so—delicate."
Carol laughed to herself. She nodded her head.
"He's got to apologize," Carol said. "I can't budge on that."
"I don't think you'll have to," Michonne said. She reached her hand and delicately rested it on Carol's belly. The baby was either frantic or into acrobatics. Michonne gently rubbed her hand in the same circles she'd used on Carol's back to try to relax the baby as well. Carol showed her approval by sitting back, her hands behind her and bracing herself on the bed. She closed her eyes, and Michonne wondered if it was intentional. She accepted the gesture for all the affection that she knew it conveyed. Michonne intentionally softened her tone to be even more soothing than before. "Maybe you'll love the house. And we'll have time to fix it up before she comes. I'll help you get it so that you can feel good there. Safe and comfortable—and warm. And we'll check out storage. We'll find plenty of things for her—to keep her warm. She already knows that Auntie Michonne will brave the snow to snuggle her a little." Michonne winked at Carol when Carol opened her eyes to her. "Stroke his ego. Take care of him a little and let him take care of you. I miss having that opportunity."
"I'm sorry…" Carol offered.
"Don't be," Michonne said. "Now—go wash your face. Meet me upstairs. I'll warm up a little milk for her. If my guess is right, Daryl should be here soon."