Michonne could have called him. In fact, that's what she normally would have done. It would have made more sense than driving all the way out to the development that where the houses were springing up out of the ground almost magically.
She pretended that there were a lot of reasons that she made the drive. She made the drive because she was interested in seeing the progress of the small neighborhood. She was fascinated by the fact that a well-trained, well organized construction crew could make buildings almost appear overnight where there was nothing but the red clay before.
She pretended it was because she was bored in her office. There wasn't that much to do and she could only spend so much time going over and over the same cases again before she'd all but memorized each and every detail. And there were even fewer of those to flip through now that Merle Dixon wasn't her problem. So instead of spending the extra time in her office that she would have spent rereading Merle Dixon's many life accomplishments, Michonne could spend that time on a short drive out to a small housing development.
She'd even reasoned that going home wouldn't make much sense. There was no one there and her husband had her girls until eight tonight. He was taking them, with her ex mother in law, to see some kind of show. Michonne thought it was silly. Anjelica might be mildly interested in about the first ten minutes of some performance, but after that she would have had her fill. And Celine? Celine had few interests that lasted long enough for her to realize she was bored with them. Her mother in law did things like that, though, and Michonne tried to ignore it. The woman was old and she was the only grandmother that the girls would know, and so she was letting him keep the girls longer than he normally would have.
Michonne also planned later to stop by Lula's as Carol's shift was ending and buy her dinner. She hoped that Carol might feel like keeping her company for a little while. So she had used the time that still had to pass as yet another excuse to make the drive over the phone call.
They were all good reasons, after all. They were all good, solid reasons that she should drive out to the housing development and tell Tyreese Scott in person that Ed Peletier had changed his mind about his case against Merle. It seemed that Ed had become aware, somehow, that his manhood might be in question if he continued to have fights with new-to-town arrivals like the Dixons when they'd essentially caused no one else any harm.
Merle Dixon was a man who liked his substances and, as such, he had found his way on the wrong side of the law more than once. He was obviously a man that was too proud to stand down if challenged, as well. Apparently, he was also a man that felt a certain respect for women. Michonne imagined, from meeting him, that the respect wasn't one that led him to speak to them with any sort of gentility, but it was one that kept him from thinking the actions of a man like Ed Peletier should go unanswered for.
His brother, who Michonne knew relatively less about, apparently shared the same feelings on the subject of men like Ed Peletier. The boy had brawled, flat out, in the streets of Sweet Junction with the man and apparently hadn't hung his head at all when he informed Rick Grimes of what he had done, why he had done it, and that he was willing to hold down any bench in the Sweet Junction jail for however long they deemed necessary.
Ed Peletier didn't know how to handle men like that. The only kind of men that Ed Peletier knew how to handle were men like himself. Men who would turn a blind eye to his actions because women deserved whatever treatment they got from men who beat their own insecurities out on the faces of women who couldn't stop them.
And somehow, someone had drummed it into Ed's head that if he were to press charges against the Dixons it would hurt him more than it would help him. It would draw attention, not so much to the fact that he was wrongly attacked by men that didn't know that the law clearly stated that you couldn't beat a man in public because of your feelings about his actions, but more to the fact that their convictions against him confirmed him for what he was. So the charges were dropped.
Michonne stopped her car in the same driveway that she'd stopped it in before. She hadn't called ahead this time, so she suspected that Tyreese Scott would not expect to see her wandering around the job site.
She got out of the car and looked around, treading carefully so as to not end up sprawled on the ground thanks to the societal belief that women should walk around on shoes with stilts attached to them just to prove that they were women.
She found Merle Dixon quickly and approached him, calling out to get his attention over the noise of the workers. Merle looked up, hearing his name, and observed her for a minute, mopping at his head with a rag. Finally, he walked toward her, his face more of curiosity than anything else.
"Wee-eell, sweetcheeks, ya a long way from tha jail today," Merle drawled. "What can ole Merle do fer ya?" He approached her, and then gestured toward a large orange water cooler, obviously indicating that he wished to step over there. Michonne followed his gesture and walked with him, watching as he filled a cup with water from the cooler and drank the contents in one long gulp.
"I came to tell you that I won't be representing you…at least not right now. Ed Peletier has decided not to press charges against you for assault and battery," Michonne said. She watched Merle as he refilled the cup and drank the contents of the second one much in the same manner as he had the first. When he was done, he nodded a little and smiled at her.
"Well glory be," he said. "Reckon that means I ain't gon' get ta spend no more time in that fine 'stablishment ya town's built for people like me. Unless I see ole Ed again, that is."
"Mr. Dixon," Michonne said, "I'd advise you not to start anymore trouble with Ed Peletier. Your record isn't exactly clean and he may not have the same change of heart the next time that he had this time."
"I ain't gon' say I'll seek him out," Merle said, "but I ain't gon' turn away from him. Not if I see him sniffin' 'round my place. Ya see, he done put his hands on another woman that he weren't married to, an' the way I see it is I owe him for that'n."
"You're referring to Andrea?" Michonne asked. She'd heard about the altercation. Everyone in Sweet Junction had heard about it. Everyone in Sweet Junction also knew that Merle and Andrea were together, and Michonne could imagine that the man, given his feelings toward Ed, might also be one of those charming men that was fiercely protective of anything that he deemed to be his.
Merle didn't respond to her, he just stared at her and mopped the back of his neck again, setting his jaw.
"Mr. Dixon, I know about that incident, and Ed was reprimanded for it. If you retaliate for it, though, it will be you that pays the price for it," Michonne said. She was starting to get a little annoyed. She really wouldn't care, in a parallel universe, if they were let Ed and Merle duke it out until death…very likely Ed's, but legally she couldn't let Merle believe that this was a good move for him. She had no real affections for the rugged redneck, but she didn't want to see anyone do time over a man like Ed Peletier.
Merle didn't respond. He refilled his cup, drank down the contents one last time and nodded slightly at her.
"I'd love ta chat with a princess like yaself for a while longer," Merle said finally, "but I got me a job ta do an' I don't reckon the boss man's payin' me ta flap my jaws. If'n ya ain't got nothin' else ta tell me then I'm gonna get back ta that cement 'fore it gets hard."
Michonne realized that Merle wasn't going to continue the conversation with her at this time, and she honestly didn't know if she had the patience to continue it with him. She bid him a good day and watched as he walked back to where he was before, leaving her by the bright orange water cooler.
"Is everything alright?" She heard a voice behind her say. She turned around and Tyreese was standing there, sweaty and dirty, but every bit as impressive as she remembered him, and she remembered him often.
"Fine," she said, realizing the word didn't come out as fluidly as she had hoped. "I came to talk to Merle Dixon, and to speak with you."
Tyreese wrinkled his brow a bit in question.
"Did you want to talk here or would you like to step into one of the houses?" He asked.
Michonne really wanted to talk to the man somewhere besides the dirty construction site. She'd like to talk to him somewhere where she could sit down and not struggle to stand on uneven ground. She wondered, for a brief moment, what he looked like when he hadn't spent his entire day soaked in sweat and enveloped in the dust that seemed to be everywhere this time of year, especially with the lack of rain. That wasn't going to happen, though, and realistically she had very little to tell him. Forcing him to walk to one of the houses just to say that she didn't need his testimony anymore would borderline on insanity.
"It's fine here," Michonne said. Tyreese smiled at her and reached around her to get another cup and fill it from the same cooler.
"Thirsty?" He asked. Michonne shook her head. She imagined the only reason that the men were drinking the water was purely for hydration. She didn't imagine anything in this heat retained even a hint of coolness.
"Ed Peletier dropped the charges against Merle," Michonne said. "I came to tell him that, and I came to tell you that, although I appreciate your willingness, as of right now we won't need you to testify as a character witness on Merle's behalf."
Tyreese drank the water and nodded his head a little.
"I'm glad he dropped the charges," Tyreese said. "It seems this Ed fellow is not well liked in Sweet Junction."
Michonne cocked her head to the side. Tyreese was a self-proclaimed new comer to the town and she couldn't imagine how he would know too much about Ed.
Tyreese chuckled a little, apparently at her expression, and she tried to wipe her face clean of the curiosity that he'd piqued.
"I was in town the other day," Tyreese said. "I took Sasha to get some lunch and when we left we saw two men fighting. Come to find out, at least what I heard from some of the bystanders, it was this Ed fellow fighting with a young man. I helped the young man, but I didn't really know what was going on. Looked like the boy had the intention of killing the man, though."
Michonne nodded slowly.
"Daryl Dixon," she said with a sigh.
Tyreese raised his eyebrow a little.
"Any relation to Merle or is Dixon a popular last name in Sweet Junction?" Tyreese asked.
Michonne shook her head.
"No, they're brothers," she said.
"Brothers with the same vendetta," Tyreese said. "This place really is like a movie town."
Michonne snickered at the thought.
"It's as real as any other place, I suppose," Michonne said. "Ed's…well…he has a reputation. He has a fancy for mistreating his wife. It would appear that Dixons don't appreciate that."
Tyreese nodded.
"Not hard to understand why, is it?" He asked. Michonne shook her head.
"I guess the Dixons just prefer the old timey way of dealing with things, you know? Fists speak louder than court orders," Michonne said with a sigh.
Tyreese smiled again.
"Well, at the risk of offending such a lovely upholder of the law, sometimes they do," Tyreese said.
Michonne felt heat rise in her face at the thought that the man in front of her, probably without thinking about it, had called her lovely. She tried to hide it, though, and put it out of her mind. He'd mentioned someone named Sasha, and Michonne could imagine that she was likely the woman that shared his little dollhouse and mothered Timmy, his possibly fictional child.
"Well," she said, trying to get control of herself, "I suppose I need to be going now. I've got…" she paused, realizing she really didn't have anything to do. What was she going to do? She was going to sit in Lula's and pretend to be going over documents until Carol got off work. "I've got to meet someone," she finished.
Tyreese nodded at her.
"It was nice to see you again," Tyreese said. "Maybe one of these days we'll run into each other when it doesn't have to do with Merle Dixon or Ed Peletier."
Michonne smiled in spite of herself.
"Maybe we will," she said. "It's a small world."
She took her leave of Tyreese and headed toward her car, a little ashamed at the fluttery feeling she felt in her stomach over the man. She was too old to be thinking this way, and too mature for such girlish antics.
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111 111
Carol had not expected Michonne to meet her as her shift was ending, but Michonne had camped out in one of the booths at Lula's and she stayed there until Carol had untied her apron, gathered up her tips, and joined her, bringing their drinks when she came. She'd at least save Donna a couple of trips waiting on them.
They'd eaten dinner and Carol had listened as Michonne unloaded on her all the details of her day. Apparently Ed had dropped charges against Merle, Michonne had seen her Adonis again, and Michonne had also spoken to Ed's lawyer to see about speeding up the divorce since now they had even more evidence against Ed.
Carol could barely listen to her, though. She was distracted by the fact that she'd agreed, though she wasn't entirely sure how, to spend the night with Michonne. On the one hand, she was grateful for the well needed break from Daryl. She would have probably cried if he'd come to the apartment begging for her to let him in so that he could continue what they'd been doing. On the other hand, though, she realized that if she just disappeared without telling him so much as where she was going for the night, he might very well misinterpret her absence.
She insisted, then, that when they left the restaurant they'd pass back by her apartment long enough for her to gather a few things. When they got there, Michonne stood in the hall waiting while Carol unlocked the door. She hadn't examined the apartment, and she hoped that it wasn't too obvious what she'd spent her day off doing. She let Michonne in and the woman waited near the door for her while she went around and quickly threw some things into a plastic grocery bag that she'd need for an overnight stay.
When they left, Carol crossed the hall and knocked on the door to the Dixon's apartment. Andrea opened the door and stood there a moment, staring at Carol.
"I'm going to spend the night at Michonne's house," Carol said. "Could you tell Merle or DARYL that I'm there and if they could keep an eye on things, that would be nice?"
Andrea nodded at her slowly, staring at her like she had sprouted antenna. Carol sighed and hoped that Andrea could muddle through enough to realize that she wanted her to give the message to Daryl that she was fine, simply gone for the night with a friend…a girl friend…and that he wouldn't jump to any conclusions about her.
"Thank you," Carol said. "Just please let Merle and DARYL know that, OK?"
Andrea nodded again, her facial expression unchanging. Carol took her plastic bag, then, and followed Michonne to the car. She didn't speak much on the ride to the house, wondering whether or not Andrea had caught on to her, hopefully, subtle message.
When they got to Michonne's house, Carol followed Michonne inside and dropped the plastic bag of her belongings by the door. Michonne wandered through the house ahead of her, unbuttoning her jacket, her heels in her hand where she'd shucked them off immediately upon passing through the door.
"Would you like a glass of wine?" Michonne called from her bedroom.
"Sure," Carol called. "Where are the girls?"
"Still with Dean," Michonne called back. "He and his mother have taken the girls to some kind of show." Michonne reappeared then, in her bathrobe. "It's supposed to be for little kids, so I imagine his girlfriend will be thoroughly entertained."
Carol giggled and followed Michonne into the kitchen where she watched her digging through her drawers in search, presumably, of the corkscrew.
"So you got to see your Adonis today," Carol said, "was he everything you remembered?"
"And more," Michonne said, working the cork out of the bottle now. "He's married though, or at least involved. He saw you the day that Daryl beat the shit out of Ed. Apparently he helped Daryl or something?"
Carol thought back. She vaguely remembered someone breaking up the fight, but she'd been too wrapped up in the moment to pay much attention. Now that she knew it was Michonne's Adonis, she wished she'd focused a little more.
"I don't remember," Carol said, apologetically. "How do you know he's married?"
"He took some woman to lunch that day, that's when he saw you," Michonne said. She shrugged a little and poured two glasses of wine, passing one to Carol. "It's not like it matters anyway. I only need him for fantasies in the long run. He'd probably end up being more trouble than he's worth in the flesh."
Carol blushed.
"Are you saying you fantasize about him?" Carol asked. She felt her cheeks burn and realized that Michonne was the only girlfriend she'd ever had that she ended up talking about things like this with. Michonne didn't seem embarrassed about anything, though, and Carol had to admit that though it made her blush, she liked talking about things with Michonne.
Michonne smiled at her. She took a sip of wine.
"Surely you should know that just because you're not doing it with someone else doesn't mean that you give it up completely?" Michonne said, raising her eyebrow at Carol and smiling when Carol blushed a little more.
Carol didn't respond.
"So, you're apparently not going to tell me on your own," Michonne said, "so I'm going to have to come out and ask it. Who's put that sway in your step?"
Carol almost spat out the wine she had in her mouth.
"Michonne!" She said, coughing. Michonne laughed at her and leaned against the counter.
"Come on, Carol. You're walking like you're a full time employee of the Pony Express right now. Who is it?" Michonne asked.
Carol had hoped it wasn't so obvious. She had been doing her best to disguise her discomfort. She knew, though, that she wasn't escaping Michonne's stare and Michonne had her as a captive audience now.
"Daryl," Carol said quietly. Michonne raised her eyebrows, smirking.
"Carol Ann!" She said. "You're doing the nasty with the Dixon boy? And here I was thinking you were little miss innocent."
Carol leaned on the other side of the counter and buried her face in her hands.
"Is it that obvious? Really?" Carol asked through her hands.
"Honey, the only way it wouldn't be obvious would be if you could still tie your horse up outside the saloon. I almost told you to leave your spurs at the door." Michonne teased.
"Oh my God!" Carol moaned. "I've been trying to hide it, but I'm dying."
"That well-endowed?" Michonne asked. "Or just that many hours making up for lost time?"
Carol looked at her now, and immediately wished she could erase the image of Michonne's face from her mind.
"Don't play shy now," Michonne urged. She took another sip of wine. "Spill the details."
"We're not supposed to talk about this," Carol said.
"Says who?" Michonne asked. "Do you see your grandmother here?"
Carol sighed.
"Well…he's a lot bigger than Ed," Carol said.
Michonne nodded, smiling.
"I figured Ed was about like this," Michonne said, holding her pinky up. Carol laughed at her.
"You're too nice," Carol said. Michonne chuckled. "But Daryl was a virgin, and let's just say that he's trying to make up for all the times he didn't do anything before. I thought it would go on like that for just a little while and then he'd get tired, but he's like the Energizer Bunny."
"Well is it at least good?" Michonne asked.
"Sometimes," Carol admitted. "But the last few times it was more of me trying to go to my happy place."
Michonne laughed again and shook her head. She refilled her wine glass and traced her finger around the top of the glass.
"If you had told me a few years ago that Carol Ann McAlister would be in my kitchen confessing to me that her hoo ha was sore, I'd never have believed," Michonne said.
Carol nearly choked on her wine again. Her eyes were watering now simply from trying to hold back her laughter.
"I'm officially mortified," Carol said.
Michonne smiled.
"Don't be that way," she said. "I'm just teasing you. Just tell him that you need a couple of days to recover. You'll be back before you know it."
"So you don't think I'm a horrible person for doing this? I mean I am cheating on Ed," Carol said.
Michonne shook her head.
"You're not a horrible person, and I would have cheated on Ed a long time ago. Just make sure you keep it under the covers for a while. We're going to speed this divorce up, but we don't want Ed having any ammunition. In the meantime, I've got an ice pack in the freezer you can take to bed with you later," Michonne said. "Might cool things down a bit."
"Are you serious?" Carol asked. "An ice pack?"
Michonne nodded. She picked up her wine glass and started toward the living room.
"Those girls didn't come out of my pocket," she called.
Carol laughed and took her own wine glass, following Michonne to the living room to wait for Dean to get back with the girls in question.