Author's note: Thank you very much to everyone who is following along!
Michonne looked at Daryl and saw the confusion she was feeling reflected on his face. Dog? What dog?
"We ain't got no dog" he said in an irritated voice.
"Let her go, I won't ask again!" the woman said.
"I done toldja we ain't got no fuc…"
Michonne interrupted him with a hand on his arm and a 'let me handle this' look.
"Hi there" she said in a calm but slightly raised voice, so the other woman could hear her from their ducking-behind-the-counter position. "I'm Michonne and my friend is Daryl. We're not here to hurt you… or your dog" she quickly added the last part. "The thing is, we don't see any dogs. Tell us what you want us to do."
After a few seconds, the voice responded "Alright. She's probably hiding under the couch because of you. Just… move around to the side of the island, the one closest to the hall, and she should come when I call. Don't spook her!"
"We won't, don't worry" Michonne said reassuringly.
She turned to Darryl, who was giving her a 'let's cut this bullshit and take her out now' look, to which she responded with a 'calm down and bear with me' one. She tugged at his vest and he rolled his eyes before following her as instructed, letting out an exasperated sigh.
"Alright, we moved."
"Come here Elie, it's OK, come with me" the woman said encouragingly. "Good, Elie, just come on over" she added in a voice one tends to use with a toddler.
They heard four small paws scuffle across the kitchen floor, the sound of two kisses and then "Eleanor Rigby, I've told you to always stay close! Go, downstairs, and wait for me there." The words 'downstairs' and 'wait' were carefully enunciated.
Daryl rolled his eyes again and gave Michonne a "Really!?" look, to which she, again, responded with a 'calm down and bear with me' one.
"OK, you can go now." The woman seemed to be addressing them again, her tone of voice completely transformed to a level one. "There are a couple of water bottles and some protein bars in the cabinet next to the fridge, you can take those. Bye."
"Wait" Michonne said, "we want to get a better idea of this area. Can you give us any information? Do you perhaps have maps? We just want to talk; we won't hurt you. Or Elie" she added in an attempt to improve their chances.
There was silence for a while. When they started thinking the woman had left, she said "Oh, alright" sounding like someone who has given in against their better judgement. "Go sit on the couch."
Daryl shot Michonne a 'please let me take her out' look, but, for the third time, she responded with a 'calm down and bear with me' one. He was getting tired of that look. He muttered a complaint that included a few choice words and followed her to the damn couch. At least they weren't asked to drop their weapons. Which, now he thought about it, was so unbelievably stupid it was making him fell uneasy.
"Elie, come back up" they heard before the woman finally showed herself, coming through a doorway located at the corner of the kitchen, a tiny dog with short fur trotting behind. Honestly, in Daryl's mind this didn't even count as a dog.
She was in her mid-twenties, like the two men they had seen earlier, was about 5'6", had long black hair arranged in a braid and was so pale it looked like she hadn't seen the sun in years. She was dressed in what might very well be the least appropriate piece of clothing for an apocalypse: a short flowy white dress. And she was barefoot. And she had a purse! How the hell had this idiot sneaked up on them?
She grabbed the water bottles and protein bars and put everything on the coffee table, motioning for them to help themselves. She then took what looked to be four baby monitors out of the purse and propped them up in front of her before flopping on the other couch, gun still in hand but not pointed at them. The 'dog' settled beside her.
"No maps in the house that I know of. You can check the study if you want. But only after the boys return. In the meantime, what do you want to know?" she said in a 'let's get this over with' tone.
"Where are we exactly?" Michonne asked.
"We're in middle-of-nowhere, Meriwether County, Georgia. The closest thing even resembling an actual town would probably be Senoia, 15 to 20 miles north I'd say. If you don't blink, you might see Alvaton and Haralson on your way there."
"Is it just you and them two boys?" Daryl asked.
"And Elie."
"Right… and you, um, four been here since the turn?"
"The turn?"
"Yeah, you know, when everythin' went to hell?"
"Yes, we've been here since the turn, as you call it. This was my house, still is I suppose, and they were staying for a few days. Not sure about things going to hell, though."
"What do you mean 'not sure'? Didja not go outside?"
"I have, on occasion." She was now using a matter-of-fact tone. "Jonathan and Lucas go out whenever they feel it's necessary but I'm mostly OK with what we've got here. As for things going to hell, I've heard this before but, from what I've seen, what they tell me and what the news showed in the beginning, it's just a different kind of fucked up world from before; no more, no less. People who think of it as being worse do so because they're part of the group that got the short end of the stick this time around. The four of us don't fall into that group at the moment. It'll happen if we can't get more stuff after what we have here ends, but we still have some time before that happens. We'll just have to wait and see how things go." She seemed completely unperturbed by any of what she was saying.
"You're not serious?" Michonne asked.
"I am." Her voice had progressed to monotonous, she almost looked bored. "Not having food, water, shelter? No electricity? No access to doctors or medication? Living in fear of being harmed? Watching people die every other day? That has always been true for much, if not most, of the population. Last statistic I remember, around half of the world lived on under $6 per day. That's 3.5 billion people, 1 billion of which had to make do with less than $2 per day. Forget living, you can barely call that surviving, if at all. Now, don't get me wrong, I was as much a part of the problem as anyone else, probably more so, sitting around having long discussions about the injustices of the world all the while living in a six-bedroom house full of things I don't even use and doing nothing whatsoever to fix the problem; just donating a couple hundred dollars of my parents' money and a couple hours of my time twice a year to try and trick my brain into not feeling guilty. Oh, and before? You couldn't just walk into stores and houses to look for what you needed, like we do now; there was no settling somewhere to start growing food."
It looked like she had finished, but, after a few seconds, she added "Don't worry, though, in a few centuries the world will be right back to the same kind of crap we were used to. Either that or we'll go extinct. With any luck, it will be the second option." This time she did finish and started examining one of the baby monitors.
Michonne sat there at a complete loss for words, Daryl looking like he was in the same situation. That was probably not a bad thing, though, since the woman seemed to have more than enough for 10 people.
Michonne was also having trouble figuring out how she was feeling. Sad because of the reality the woman had described? Ashamed because some of what she'd said hit a little too close to the mark for comfort? Angry at the other's self-righteousness? Annoyed because of the woman's self-pity? Looking at Daryl's face she saw that anger was winning his internal battle, so she moved to calm him, but they got sidetracked by the sounds of people at the front door.
"Jonathan? Lucas? I'm in the living room. Everything's OK, don't be alarmed, but we have two guests."
Next thing anyone new they heard a loud thud before the white guy with dark hair came running into the room and went straight for the woman. "Marissa! What happened? Are you OK?" he asked while hugging her.
"Calm down Jonathan, I'm fine" she said, then turned to the other guy, presumably Lucas, who had just sat by her other side, and added "I did say everything was OK, right? I didn't imagine it?" He gave her a reproachful look and squeezed her hand.
When both men seemed satisfied that she was indeed fine, they turned their attention to Michonne and Daryl.
"Who are you? What do you want here?" Jonathan asked scowling. Lucas was also looking none too happy.
Michonne gave Daryl's arm a calming pat and took upon herself the role of spokesperson, which left him fuming. When was he going to be allowed to speak?
"My name is Michonne and this is Daryl. We're just looking for information about the area, we got separated from our group and are trying to find them. We didn't know the house was occupied, so we came in to see if there were maps, and maybe a place to stay the night."
"Not exactly close to being night yet." Lucas observed.
"And how did you end up here with them?" Jonathan asked Marissa. "Did you come upstairs by yourself again?" he asked reprovingly.
"I… yes. I'm not useless, you know. I cornered them in the kitchen. Well, not cornered really, but they had to duck behind the island."
Lucas cast an appraising look at Michonne and Daryl before turning back to her "How the hell did you manage that?"
She shrugged and said "They had Elie. Or so I thought."
Michonne would have to excuse him, but Daryl had finally had enough. "I hate to interrupt, but do you have any fucking maps or not?"
The three idiots looked over as if they were surprised he could talk, for which he couldn't exactly blame them, what with Michonne never letting him speak.
Marissa recovered first and answered, "Like I said, you'd have to check the study."
Now Lucas was the one who seemed to have had enough. He turned to Daryl and Michonne saying "Stay here. Or go if you want. In any case, we'll be right back." He stood and walked off to the kitchen area. Jonathan got up, put all the baby monitors and the gun in the purse, offered a hand to the girl, who took it, and they followed their friend, pocket-sized dog bringing up the rear.
"These people are fuckin' idiots!" Daryl said to Michonne.
"That's the understatement of the year. But they don't strike me as being dangerous. Did you get that from them?"
"I dunno. Maybe they're not really idiots, they're just pretendin'. I mean, you think anyone this stupid would still be alive? It'd have to be a goddamn miracle."
"I know. Although they are out of the way and don't seem to get out much. Which in turn raises the question of where their food and water is coming from."
Their conversation was interrupted by the return of the others.
Jonathan looked at Marissa and asked, "Are you sure?"
She shrugged and said "Why not? They could have killed me a thousand times over if they wanted."
This had both men looking at her in frustration. Lucas stopped Jonathan before he even started to speak, muttering "We'll talk about this later." He turned to Michonne and Daryl and said "We live downstairs, in the basement apartment, and we have a couple of maps there. You are welcome to come look at them, and to stay the night, if you want. We'll go back to the kitchen while you discuss it, you have 5 minutes."
Michonne wasn't getting a danger vibe from these people. Unbelievably stupid, wholly unprepared and just plain weird? Sure. But not dangerous.
Daryl hated to admit it, but he felt confused. These idiots behaved so differently from what he was used to that he was having a hard time reading them. They seemed harmless enough, although the mere idea of being locked with them in a basement was already driving him crazy, so maybe they weren't so harmless after all.
They looked at each other and she shrugged, giving him a 'let's try it' look. He hesitated, but ended up nodding in agreement, figuring the two of them were more than capable of taking down the others if it came to it, or if they got unbearably annoying.
"OK, we'll take you up on your offer, thanks." Michonne said. They grabbed their bags from the hall closet and followed the other four down to the basement.
Author's note: I hope you enjoyed! Please let me know what you think :)
