Michonne didn't get halfway across the street before she met up with Aaron, who had strange news for her.
"Maggie dropped Herschel off with me. She said she had to leave Alexandria alone and she couldn't say why. Do you know what's going on?" he asked.
"Shit!" Michonne snapped.
"I take it you do?"
Michonne looked around and then motioned for Aaron to head back to his house. Inside, Herschel and Gracie were playing old video games. Michonne kept her voice down.
"Maggie told me that she thought she knew Beta."
Aaron's eyes widened!
"How?" he asked.
"She said that she thinks he was a man she was married to. Only now that I think about it, she never said anything about being divorced from him either."
"Maggie probably assumed he was dead." Aaron said, glancing over at Herschel to make sure he couldn't hear.
"Aaron, my talk with Maggie turned into something else. She wanted to find Beta and bring him back here and do to him, what we did to Negan."
"No." was Aaron's immediate response.
"Oh I agree. And the council will as well. But I guess she has no plans to ask the council first. Once she brings him to the gates, someone will probably want to let him in here and give him a chance, just based on Maggie's word. We can't let that happen!" Michonne stressed.
"You said Maggie 'thought' she had been married to him? Meaning she isn't sure?"
"No, it didn't sound like it. She said, you said, you saw a wine colored mark on his eye when you stabbed him in the head. That's what she's going on."
Aaron gave Michonne a blank look.
"I never said any such thing. He had his Whisperer mask on and I don't care what he looks like underneath." Aaron scoffed.
Michonne didn't know what to think now. Maggie didn't usually lie, with the exception of what Darryl and her pulled on Rick the day he…
"Okay," Michonne said, "then we have to assume that she knew who Beta was before we headed to the campsite. Even before that. But we can't let her bring him back here."
"I'm worried about Maggie! You saw what we were dealing with! Why does she think she'll get any better treatment from him than we did? He's clearly lost his mind." Aaron stressed.
Michonne could not help but think about Rick. If Rick was Beta and was crazy and living at some campsite, she would've liked to have believed that he would recognize her in some way.
"I'll get Darryl. And I'm afraid we're going to need Negan—again." Michonne said.
"About him—I heard about what he's been saying about RJ and you. What are you going to do?" Aaron asked.
"I've made a deal with Negan on that. Either he will leave or he won't."
"What does that mean?" Aaron asked.
"Aaron, I can't say the words without throwing up. At least not right now." Michonne told him, just as Darryl walked into the house and joined them.
"Hey. What's going on?" Darryl asked.
"Maggie is gone. She thinks she might have been married to Beta and wants to bring him here to live." Michonne told him. Darryl shook his head slightly.
"Has everyone here lost their damned mind? What do you mean Maggie was married to him? When?" Darryl asked in a demanding tone.
"Before Glenn, I guess. She said she gave Herschel a lot of trouble as a teenager."
"Did Beth know him?" Darryl asked.
"Beth?" Aaron asked.
"She was Maggie's sister." Michonne said softly. "No, Darryl, she didn't say anything about Beth knowing him. Look, she's gone and we need to find her. We can't let her near him."
"And we can't let her bring him back here. I'll go get Negan." Aaron said, glancing back at Gracie and Herschel before leaving the house. Michonne eyed Darryl. Something was wrong.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Negan told Carol that the two of us were married."
Michonne shook her head angrily!
"I don't think Rick envisioned us putting up with this. We have to do something. How did Carol take it when you told her the truth?" Michonne asked.
"I didn't." Darryl admitted. "I couldn't do it."
"Oh." Michonne said, feeling peculiar but not knowing why.
"You set Negan straight?" Darryl asked.
"Yes. Of course it didn't do any good."
"What do you mean?" Darryl asked.
Michonne sighed.
"He said that Rosita can back up his story about the two of us. He wants to ask Virgil and Eugene to do a paternity test."
"You're shitting me!"
"Darryl, I am scared. I told him that if the tests proved that he was not RJ's father, then he had to leave. He agreed."
"And if he is?" Darryl asked.
"He wants us to be a family. And he wants me to be a wife to him. I guess I could drink before a sex act or something."
Darryl looked at the kids before speaking.
"He comes with us to find Maggie but he doesn't come back. We need to do what Maggie and I wanted to do, years ago. This is over, Michonne."
Michonne said nothing.
"Michonne?"
"Darryl, he's been running his mouth all over Alexandria. If we kill him, RJ could grow up thinking I murdered his father. RJ is Rick's. The tests will prove that and he will leave."
"He's fucking with our lives here. Carol thinks that Henry was our son. If she talks to Zeke…" Darryl trailed off.
Michonne folded her arms.
"Let me deal with him. He wants something now. Maybe we can use it to keep him in line."
"You mean use RJ?" Darryl asked.
"No. Not RJ." she said and turned as Aaron came back into the house.
"Negan is on board. I didn't tell him why Maggie was going after Beta."
"Yes. Let's keep that quiet." Michonne suggested.
"Are you up to this with your leg?" Darryl asked.
"I have to be." was her response.
But of course, Negan himself could not keep quiet on the trip. Eugene and Aaron were in the car/wagon, while Michonne and Negan rode on horseback. Darryl was up ahead on his motorcycle.
"So does someone want to tell me why Maggie thought she could take Beta on herself?" Negan asked, looking at all of them.
No one said anything.
"Oh I'm sorry, did everyone lose their hearing? I guess so. That means I can say what I want: Eugene, is Rosita sexing you up in return for taking care of her baby?"
Aaron gave Negan a dirty look!
"What the hell is the matter with you? You just can't keep quiet for two seconds, can you? Just shut up!" Aaron hissed.
"Or what? Seriously, Aaron, are you going to stop riding around in that half assed buggy and make me shut up?" Negan asked in return.
Michonne stopped her horse and looked over at him.
"Could you just cooperate? This one time?"
Negan looked at her, before looking around at everyone else.
"I just want to know what the fuck is going on! Does that sound unreasonable? Maggie just decides that she can do what we were unable to? Why?"
"Because Maggie has a former marital tie to the said killer." Eugene said in his usual way. Negan's eyes grew huge!
"Damnit, Eugene!" Aaron yelled. Darryl heard that and circled back around towards them. Negan looked at Michonne.
"You knew this?" he asked her.
"She told me about it. I thought she was going to ask for permission to bring him here." Michonne answered, unsure as to why she felt she owed him any explanation about it.
"Bring him to Alexandria? Why?" Negan asked. Darryl got off of his bike and walked over to them.
"Because Maggie thinks he can be saved like you were." Darryl replied.
"Like I was? I'm offended as shit! I was never like that! And all I was doing was protecting my shit! Maggie wants to bring him back to Alexandria and then what? Where is the Jolly Green Fuck supposed to live?"
"He's not coming back." Michonne told him.
"So the plan is to kill him, even if Maggie doesn't want that?" Negan asked.
Darryl said nothing and Negan knew that WAS the plan!
"Okay. I'm fine with that but we still don't know how to kill him so he will stay dead." Negan told them.
"I have an idea." Darryl said. "He may not die but he can be knocked unconscious. Let's just chain him to the bottom of one of the lakes. He'll drown and that's the end of it."
Michonne gaped at Darryl! That was the first time she was hearing this! She looked at Aaron who gave her an answering WTF look! Eugene, however, appeared to be thinking…
"That could work if the said item that is holding him down is heavy enough. We knock him out, take him in a row boat, wrap a chain around his neck along with a boulder…it could work." Eugene said.
Negan nodded.
"I like it. But Maggie won't. Not if he's her husband. What do we do about her?" he asked.
"Let's just see what we're dealing with when we find her." Michonne said. She had a feeling though, that Darryl had all of the answers here and she decided that they were going to follow his lead.
Maggie bent down and found an old sign for a place called 'Camp Forest Green'. Sensing she was on the right path, she spotted a long dirt road and walked down it. At the end of it was a barricade and a sign that said 'KEEP OUT'. Maggie hoisted herself over the barricade and continued walking until she came to a clearing with a wooden dock and two, two story cabins that were some distance from one another. Maggie dropped the backpack she had brought along with her and called out.
"BRIAN! BRIAN, IT'S MAGGIE!"
A walker came out of an outdoor restroom and growled! She was a blonde woman with an axe in her face. Maggie swallowed, unable to believe that Brian…Beta, was capable of this type of violence! He had been her first lover and he had been so gentle. How could that man, the man she knew, do something like this? How? How could he have been part of the Whisperers?
Maggie put the woman out of her hell with a knife to the forehead, before pulling it out of her and looking around. She decided to call for him by his new name.
"BETA!" she yelled.
The screen door to a house directly behind her, opened and Beta stepped out. He tilted his head slightly before slowly taking off his Whisperer mask.
He had no birthmarks or maladies on his face at all.
"Maggie?" he whispered.
Maggie smiled wanly. She had been right! She slowly walked up to him.
"You can't stay here. I want to take you to my people." she told him, reaching for one of his hands.
But Beta snatched it away!
"What are you doing here?" he asked, his eyes glittering with suspicion.
"I want you to come back with me." Maggie said. Beta's response to that was to grab her by the throat!
"LET GO OF ME!" Maggie rasped and stared into his eyes, willing him to let her go. Beta slowly released her throat.
"You should not have come." he told her. Maggie noted that two walkers approached and almost nodded to Beta, before stumbling off elsewhere.
"I had to. Those people that you have hurt…the people that you fought off earlier, are my friends. They are coming back to kill you." Maggie said quietly while rubbing her throat.
Beta almost snarled!
"Negan is your friend?!"
"No." Maggie said, giving him a hard look. "He is not. He murdered my husband while I was pregnant…"
"I am your husband! You have no other!" Beta hissed.
"Stop it!" Maggie suddenly snapped. "I am trying to help you! You can't stay out here doing things! Let me help you!"
It was at that point that Darryl fired an arrow into Beta's skull from a wooded enclosure! Beta dropped to the ground and Aaron and Eugene hurried over to a row boat they had spotted. There was a huge boulder near it!
"We've got the boat and the chain! We just have to get him into it!" Aaron called out. Maggie gave Darryl a look of pure horror!
"What is this? What are you planning?" she asked Darryl.
"I could ask you the same thing." Darryl said before his eyes left hers and he looked around. They had split up. Michonne and Negan should have been here by now. Where the hell were they?
Where they were, was the wrong camp, though they did not know it at first. Michonne and Negan pulled back the same gate that they had the first time they were there, and found that they were in a vastly different looking camp! A dead walker was at the bottom of some porch stairs. An overturned wheelchair was next to him and a machete was in his face.
"Maggie's gotta be around here somewhere." Michonne muttered.
"They should have met us here by now." Negan murmured, referring to Darryl, Aaron and Eugene. Michonne half turned to look at him.
"This isn't the same place." she said.
"I know. You know when my people used to scavenge…"
"You mean rob people."
"You say 'rob', I say 'scavenge'," Negan said almost dismissively, "they never found any place like this. Let's check the house. That other place had fresh supplies."
They slowly climbed the steps and headed for the door. Michonne could not get it out of her head, that it seemed crazy that they would take the same road, to the same camp, split up and find a completely different place! One in which Darryl, Aaron, Eugene, Maggie and Beta were absent from.
Something was wrong.
She stopped and turned to Negan.
"Let's get out of here." she said. "This is not the same place. No one is here."
"Well maybe that's a good thing." Negan said, lowering his rifle and sitting down at a table that was on the porch.
"Let's just go." Michonne repeated. But Negan wasn't budging.
"I saw Darryl kiss you. I know he wants something with you because I heard him tell Maggie before you returned. What do you plan to do about it?" Negan asked in a hard tone.
"You want to talk about something like that, now? Let's go."
"I'm not leaving until you tell me what your plans are with that fuck!"
"Is that why you told Carol that she and Darryl were married? What is the matter with you? You once said you were married! How could any woman put up with your nonsense!" Michonne scoffed.
Negan's answer to that was to stand up, close the distance between them and pull her to him for a kiss, his lips searing hers possessively! Michonne could do nothing but kiss him back, though that had not been her intention. Her intention had been to push him away and slap him. Or slap him and push him away. Her mind was muddled in that moment and something akin to a whirlpool of electric heat began to burn throughout her body.
When Negan finally pulled his mouth from hers, he stared into her eyes. Michonne stared back and then behind him. A dart gun was being fired at the back of his neck and…
Negan suddenly let go of her and slumped down onto the porch! Before Michonne could react, a dart went into her neck and she joined Negan in a heap on the porch.
The man who shot Negan and the woman who shot Michonne revealed themselves to be Dwight and Sherry. Dwight stared down at Michonne in confusion.
"I don't know what the hell that was, but the last time I saw her, she was with Rick Grimes." Dwight told his wife.
Sherry glared down at Negan's unconscious form.
"If I had to guess, I'd say Rick is no longer around. And it's probably because of Negan." she said.