spygrrl99 - I really feel for Rick on the show, tbh. He's going through hell, the poor man. I just wanna wrap him up and make a bundle out of him.
JackAndHoney - I plan on it. Reading!Merle is somehow even better than regular!Merle.
rebecca taylor - Thank you! Very kind of you to say so! ^_^
Brazen Hussy - Me too! How fantastic is that? Smart Merle...yay!
skittletitz - Ugh, insomnia...I get it sometimes, it sucks and I know how lonesome you get at four in the morning with no one to chat with or nothing to do.
MollyMayhem84 - Mmm sunshine...with sprinkles...
Surplus Imagination - Yeah, I imagine Merle was typical big mean brother, but I'm sure it was done with love.
HGRHfan35 - I know. People are so gossip-y...I'd imagine it'd be worse when TV and the internet no longer exists...I'm sure that's the only entertainment they have...XD Aw, bless your little romance starved heart.
Lilone1776 - *looks around wildly as well* Hey, a nickle!
Violeta27 - LOL! 'He and God are the only one's having 'relations' now tehe' You know I love you, girl, but goddamned that almost made me pee a little...
Axelrocks - I bet you don't know who has the big mouth...^_^
AFishNamedSushi - Oh God, I love the idea of Merle just putting up porn pics on the wall by his nest and the Lt. going behind him and pasting little kittens clipped out of magazines over the naughty bits. I didn't know that about the South, I do enjoy little tidbits of information like that though, so thanks. ^_^
GG - Yeah, I'm not sure what's going to happen on the show, but there will be no killing children in my work...if I can help it. I'm sure everyone's thinking the same way.
Well, here's another chapter that's mildly unimpressive. But it's from Michonne's POV...so...I hope I did her justice...I probably just mangled her terribly. I am so ashamed...
Chapter Thirty-Eight: Ramasser
**Michonne**
They were only taking a few on the supply run, but Michonne made damned sure she was one of them.
It wasn't that she didn't like the convent, the nuns were nice enough and she didn't get a rapist vibe from that Cajun soldier, but she couldn't stand just sitting around and looping the wall was going to drive her insane.
She made sure out of the three of them in the cab of the truck, she was seated by the door. Being stuck between that redneck brother of Merle Dixon's and the weird Cajun wasn't good for anyone's health, so she needed an out if she had to take one.
A town, one down from the next one over to the West had a home improvement store off the beaten path. It was a jewel of untouched lumber where they were hoping to pick up everything needed for walling up the hole left by the down back gate, while Rick took two others with him on a run for ammo and all other things on the list.
It wasn't until they were halfway into town that Michonne noticed Merle had hitched a ride in the back of the truck.
She wondered, then, if his brother and the soldier knew they had a stowaway.
Didn't matter. If she got lucky enough she would be the one that would put the miserable snake down.
Cautiously approaching the lumberyard from the north, they pulled the truck right up to the secured gates and Michonne hopped out with the bolt cutters to cut the chain.
She snipped the link efficiently and opened the gate for the truck, eyes watching the street around them for threats.
Merle hopped out of the back of the truck before it could move and approached her slowly.
She eyed him quietly.
"You have the prettiest skin I've ever seen for your kind," he stated with a small grin.
There was something about Merle she didn't like that went beyond his obvious sleazy appeal, something hidden that she had yet to decipher. It was almost like he was somehow hell bent on getting the world pissed at him. She never liked giving people what they wanted without due quid pro quo.
Calmly, she began to close the gate behind the truck, ignoring Merle as he leered at her.
Moving across the lumberyard after the truck, she kept a wary eye out for the things that hunted them. Just because the gates were secured didn't mean they were safe.
"We got off on the wrong foot, that's all," Merle said moving up beside her. "I ain't your enemy no more."
"But you were at one time, right?"
"Yeah, but you were mine too, just remember that."
"Your logic is twisted."
"Therefore invalid, right?" Merle teased. "Okay, I'll admit I have one hell of an ass kicking coming to me…but if I let you get a few swings in, can we call it a truce?"
She whistled low to Daryl in the truck, spotting cinder blocks tucked away behind some plywood.
Motioning towards them, she moved across the yard to get in position to help, Merle behind her.
"I mean, you want to kill me, right? Why not just get your rage out by slugging me a few times? Free throw style?" He went on.
Grabbing a cinder block, she turned to look at the oldest Dixon. "Can I have something in my hands?" She inquired, pointedly shifting the block in her hands. "Free throw style?"
Merle grinned and backed up a little. "Okay, not ready for peace talks…I get you."
..-~-..
..-~-..
They loaded the cinder blocks and plywood quickly, efficiently, which was how Michonne liked things, but she couldn't shake Merle's smug grin everywhere she looked, it seemed.
If he kept looking at her like a wolf the entire time, she felt they would be picking his teeth off the ground before the day was over.
"We should take a peek inside," the Cajun suggested. "Find some makeshift weapons, maybe some other supplies to repair buildings with."
The soldier was another man she couldn't figure out. He was too easy-going, surrounded by killers and walkers, the man took things, absorbed them like a sponge, before spitting them out in a plethora array of casual conversation and jokes.
No one these days operated without some stress, but the man seemed to deflect the stress like it was just a Sunday afternoon in the park for him.
Then there was Merle's brother.
He played things too close to the chest. Couldn't read him properly, what motivated him, what drove him, how he thought or operated. Behind sharp, smoky blue eyes he was an enigma.
From what she overheard around the convent grounds he had a thing with Carol, the short haired woman who brought them food and water in the infirmary and seemed so sweet to everyone.
But the woman had a bit of an edge that Michonne respected. She wasn't out to prove herself, but Michonne firmly believed the woman could very well handle herself.
She proved that the night of the walker invasion, while Michonne and that boy Carl held the cots against the window against the walkers, Carol had calmly disposed of them with a metal rod she popped out of one of the bed's frames.
That was the very same woman who cleaned up the mess the next morning with shy grins and playful comments cast in Andrea's direction.
Maybe the youngest Dixon brother had better sense than his big brother, because if Michonne were in the market for someone, she'd want someone she could come home to and curl up with. Someone who could heal her from the wounds the world outside the convent walls inflicted, but someone who could also handle themselves and this was what the youngest Dixon found for himself, apparently.
"Couldn't hurt," Daryl said. "We're here, may as well take a quick tour."
The Cajun beamed that crooked grin of his.
If Michonne were a weaker woman his grin would charm her, but she still couldn't figure him out, so it only seemed to put her on edge even more, like she was waiting for that crooked grin of his to morph into something nasty and vile. Maybe she was just paranoid after all those months of living by the grace of God.
"Someone have the keys or do I have to drop in Mission Impossible style from the roof?" The soldier asked as they eyed the back door into the main building.
"We'd probably be better off breaking the glass doors out front." Merle stated.
"Yeah, but there are uggies out there, I like it back here better." The Lieutenant teased.
"Come on, dumb ass," Daryl stated. "You're getting handfed living in that convent. Time to get back to reality."
..-~-..
..-~-..
Pulling the truck around to the front of the store, the four of them hopped out cautiously, there was no walker in sight, most of them probably picked up and wandered off with the big herd they got the other night, but that didn't mean there wasn't strays wandering about.
Moving to the doors, they tried them on the off chance someone left the building open.
No such luck, which meant it was probably clear of walkers too.
The Lieutenant used the butt end of his rifle to smash a glass door and tapped the shards of glass out of the frame, before motioning Daryl inside.
"Chicken shit," Daryl muttered, stepping into the building cautiously.
The Lieutenant waited for everyone to climb inside, grinning widely. "I've got your backs."
They peered around for the first few minutes, letting their eyes adjust to the dark.
Michonne sniffed the air, trying to catch the scent of death.
It smelled sweet like pine wood and musty like a hardware store, but not the rotting flesh scent of a dead man walking.
Still, she moved her hand to her katana, resting it on the tsuka, fingers grazing the braided material, prepared for a battle at any moment.
"Let's keep together," Daryl ordered.
"Wedge position, Merle, bring up the rear," the Lieutenant added.
"Why me?"
"Because if you lead us no one will see past your big head," the Cajun shot back playfully.
"Up your ass with a rubber mallet, gator-baiter." Merle growled.
Pushing through the throng of men, Michonne grabbed hold of a nearby shelving unit and dragged it towards the open door behind them. If the store was walker free, she didn't want to risk having one sneak in while they were shopping.
Daryl helped her, pushing the unit in front of the open door.
With their hole secured, the Lieutenant and Michonne grabbed baskets to fill with things they might need, Merle taking a cart.
"How come the man with one hand has to push the cart?" He grumbled.
"Shut up and push the cart," Michonne snarled.
"Can't we go to the Piggly Wiggly just once without fighting, kids?" The Lieutenant cooed.
Stopping in front of a tall display in the main aisle of garden tools, they loaded a few into the cart, mostly spades, a few deadly looking edgers and a garden weasel.
"What are you going to do with that?" Merle snapped at the Cajun as the soldier dropped the pronged thing into the cart. "Aerate the biters to death?"
"That's for the girls, not killing."
"Those nuns have you whipped like a little houseboy."
"Why? Because I want to save them wearing out their knees?"
Merle's eyes lit up at the open innuendo the soldier left hanging.
"I bet they have some seeds here," Michonne pointed out, breaking off what she was sure was going to be a comment she would have to kick the redneck's ass for.
Daryl nodded. "We might have better luck than Rick's group finding them. Let's split up, get done faster that way."
..-~-..
..-~-..
Down the aisle with the garden supplies, they found a whole bunch of seeds, most of which the Cajun stuffed into his pockets like a chipmunk saving up for winter, which Michonne supposed he was.
She put a few packets in her basket, they were relatively light and well-kept seeds lasted a few years, couldn't hurt to get the nuns stocked up on them.
"So, where you from, Michonne?" The Cajun boy put a French twist on her name that almost brought a smile to her lips.
"Somewhere else."
"Yeah, me too."
He tossed a few gardening gloves in his basket as they ambled down the aisle. Stopping at bags of onions, he reached out and squeezed them to test if they were still good to plant. The first few crunched into nothing in his hand, but he dug through the bags and found a few that still seemed like they might grow.
"You know, I heard you're not with any group in particular," he went on.
"So?"
"I'm just saying we wouldn't kick you out if you wanted to stay on at the convent after all this mess with the Governor is over." He explained.
Nothing came to her mind in ways of a response to his proposal. She wasn't really prepared for anyone to invite her to stay anywhere and wasn't sure if she wanted to anyways. Things were easier when it was just her.
She decided to ignore his invitation for the moment, focusing on gathering things.
"I'm actually hoping Rick and his group stay on with us," the Lieutenant went on. "I like having them with us at the convent, they're good people. I think they make the sisters feel better, like there's hope for us."
Stopping, the Cajun eyed her for a moment, grinning slightly.
He was handsome enough, she supposed, youthful, though she doubted he was under the age of thirty. Maybe forty if she had to guess, but his age wasn't apparent in anything but the way he moved. His long legs moved gracefully enough, but there was a bit of age to the way he knelt or stooped at times. Being that he was a soldier, a marine nonetheless, she assumed he was in top physical form, but couldn't see him being as bulky as the layers he wore made him seem.
"You don't talk much, do you?" He asked, hooking the basket on his arm, freeing up a hand to tug at the ring on his pinkie finger.
"I have nothing important to say." She replied.
"Yeah, I don't either, but I talk a lot. It doesn't bother you, does it?"
She studied him hard for a moment. She hated chatty people, but his sort of chatter wasn't annoying in the least, it was almost friendly, comforting. "No."
He beamed at her. "My Mamere always said I could talk the ears off a deaf man. Course she was bitten by a bat and at the time we thought she might have been rabid."
Michonne blinked at his story, before a small scoff-like laugh escaped her. The fleeting smile she flashed didn't last long at all, but it was enough to widen the soldier's already impossibly wide grin.
"Like that one, huh?" He teased her a little. "Well, I'll tell you the whole story later, yeah? It ends with her drinking a box of red wine and climbing onto the roof of our house trying to fly at the moon."
He stopped at an end display of plastic signs and after a moment of studying them quietly, taking in the display with sharp grey eyes, he picked up one that read 'No Trespassing' and dropped it in his basket.
Michonne thought it was odd, but let it slide.
..-~-..
..-~-..
They met Daryl and Merle in the main aisle again. The two men had cleared out half of the hedge trimmers to make weapons with, a small generator in case they needed and a spotlight stand for emergency nighttime activities.
Daryl was wheeling a wheel barrel for them to mix the cement for the wall, a bag of mix on the bottom of the cart. The wheel barrel had a few trowels and things in the bottom of it for repairing the damage to the convent, a bag of nails and some hammers for repairing some of the wooden buildings where windows had been smashed.
As they reached the door where they had secured themselves in, Michonne peered out.
"Walkers," Daryl said from her side, eyeing the same handful of undead she spotted. There wasn't enough of them to warrant panic.
"I say we throw the Cajun out there and drive off while they're feasting," Merle stated.
"Thanks, Merle. It's good to know you have my back."
Drawing her katana, Michone shoved the shelf out of the way enough for her to move through the mass of spilled items and slip through the open door, heading for the nearest thing.
Behind her she heard the others follow, leaving their plundered goods until the coast was clear.
The Cajun Dialect
Ramasser – To gather, to pick up or to harvest.