AN: So here's a little bit more to advance in our story. I might have something else out tonight, but I'm not making any promises.
I hope you enjoy. Let me know what you think!
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"Naked baby headed in your direction," Michonne called out. She heard the squeal and a moment later Tyreese appeared in the doorway with Angelica in his arms, wrapped in a towel, and laughing.
"Are you done with the pizza or you think you want more?" Tyreese asked.
Michonne shook her head, finishing with Celine's bath.
"I'm done, but this time could you put it in a Ziploc bag? When you just throw the whole box in the fridge then the pizza's all nasty tomorrow," Michonne said.
"Got it," Tyreese said. "Ziploc bag…no nasty pizza. Does she need a bottle?"
Michonne shook her head.
"I'm running on full so I'm just going to feed her. The jar on the second shelf is fresh from this morning, though. Could you make Angie's sippy cup?" Michonne asked.
Tyreese tipped the little girl up who had calmed down in his arms now and he kissed her forehead.
"Yeah, I'll bring it to the nursery," he said.
Michonne stood up and got Celine out of the tub, wrapping her in a towel to take her into the nursery. As she passed through the bathroom door and into the hallway she leaned in to Tyreese and he planted a soft kiss on her lips before putting Anjelica down to follow after her to get pajamas.
A little bit later Michonne sat in the rocking chair holding Celine while she fed her and Tyreese sat in the floor, Angelica in his lap with her sippy cup, and read her bedtime stories.
Michonne couldn't believe the man. She'd have thought he was some kind of hallucination but she wasn't on any drugs that she could say was causing it. It seemed that he was just perfect. Well…not perfect exactly…he had his faults…but he was perfect enough.
When Celine had lost interest in eating, Michonne burped her and rocked her until Tyreese had finished the story that he was reading. He glanced up at her and she nodded, letting him know that she was ready to put the girls down when he was.
Michonne got out the rocker and put Celine, who was already well on her way to being passed out, down in crib. She stood there a moment, bent over the railing, her hand on the little girl's chest. The ritual was one that she'd had to practice since the girl was a newborn. Going down wasn't her favorite thing in the world, but somehow she was fooled by the presence of a hand and some pressure into believing that you weren't actually suggesting she sleep on her own.
Anjelica was much less finicky about the whole ordeal. She liked her bedtime routine and she liked it to be done exactly the same way every night, but so long as it wasn't disturbed at all she went down without a single issue. Michonne feared a little of her obsessive nature had come through in the girl, but she supposed she could have inherited worse things.
When the girls were settled, both Michonne and Tyreese crept out of the nursery and no one so much as dared to exhale until they were in the hall and the door was quietly clicked closed. Michonne went straight into the bedroom and Tyreese went to lock up and check to make sure everything in the kitchen was turned off.
When he came into the bedroom, stripping down quickly to his underwear and folding up the pajamas he'd been wearing after work to put them on the dresser for the next day, Michonne couldn't help but smile at him.
"What?" He asked, glancing at her.
"Nothing," she said. "Just thinking how wonderful you are."
Tyreese glanced at the shirt in his hands.
"I'm wonderful because I'm folding my shirt up the way you asked me to? Or are you referring to my many other magnificent character qualities?" Tyreese asked.
Michonne snickered.
"I was mostly referring to your modesty," Michonne teased.
"Oh…well that's one of my strongest points," Tyreese teased back. He crossed the room and crawled into bed, waiting patiently for Michonne to finish her beauty rituals and make her way to bed.
When Michonne crawled under the covers, Tyreese's hand caught the side of her face before she was even settled and pulled her to him for a kiss. It was typical of him…it had become their ritual. It had taken, admittedly, a little adjusting on her part to get used to a new bedtime ritual, but now she had settled into it and it was comfortable and repeatable. The soft kiss when she got in bed. Then they'd talk about their days. Then the option was always open for a little something more that either could suggest before they called it a night until one of the girls woke them…or on some rare occasions…they actually got to sleep until morning.
"So tell me what's bothering you," Tyreese said immediately.
Michonne sighed and looked at him, rolling her eyes and he chuckled in response.
"Yeah…well, I figured as much," he said. "What's going on now in my stories, as my grandmother used to say?"
Michonne sighed again.
"Let's see…I talked to Andrea and it seems that Merle paid a visit to his darling baby brother but they talked alone in the bedroom. No one knows what the hell went on in there. Merle's still not being even halfway decent to Andrea. Then apparently Daryl decides that he thinks he needs to take Hershel Greene up on some offer he made when Daryl started working for him to let him stay in some over the garage apartment there so he and Carol can think about things," Michonne said.
Tyreese was quiet for a moment and Michonne knew he was processing things.
"Good," he said after a moment.
"Good?" Michonne said. "Did you hear a word I just said?"
Tyreese nodded.
"I did, Michonne, and I think it's as good as it's going to get," Tyreese said.
Michonne hoped her facial expression conveyed what she was trying to say to him in the moment without using words.
Tyreese chuckled at it and that was not the response that she was going for.
"Don't kill me," Tyreese said. "I'm going to say this in the nicest way possible…one of the things that I love most about you is that you will bend over backwards to help people. You're loyal and you love people and I know that you want to go around throwing fairy dust over the heads of every damn person you meet, but the truth of the matter is that those four are one big massive train wreck. It's only worse because somehow fate decided they should find each other. Every one of them is emotionally stunted, Michonne. You've led the horses to water but now if they drink it, or they stand in it, or they piss in it…they've got to make that call."
"He's going to move out, Tyreese," Michonne said. "He's going to go and move into some little apartment by himself on Hershel's farm…and Carol? She's just going to live in the house with Andrea and a baby and wonder if he's coming back? Honestly I don't even care what happens to Merle…"
Tyreese chuckled at her again and wrapped his arm around her shoulder, pulling her against him.
"Carol's going to do some changing because one way or another she's on her way to having a kid, whether Daryl's there or not. He's going to live on Hershel's farm…fine…you know he's just going to realize that he misses her. Maybe they've got to keep doing some kind of exotic dance to realize what the hell they really want. You can't change that, and they're the ones that have to figure it out," Tyreese said. "As for Andrea…she'll figure her shit out and she's there for Carol if Daryl doesn't decide to come back. Merle…well…Merle's hanging onto life but that's about it. I've been trying to figure out how to make therapy a part of the job requirement."
Now it was Michonne's turn to laugh. She snuggled down against Tyreese.
"If any of them went to therapy I think the doctor would run screaming," Michonne said.
"You're probably right," Tyreese responded. "And that's why you are not equipped to try to fix all four of them. Between that and this whole secret detective thing you've got going on with Philip Blake you're going to run yourself into the ground."
Tyreese leaned over and kissed the side of her head.
"And I'm not going to allow that. You're already too worked up over this and it's something you can't change. We're engaged and you won't even wear your rings or talk to me about how and when you want to do it because you're too worried about hurting someone's feelings," Tyreese said. "Well you're hurting mine."
"Don't do that," Michonne said. "Please don't."
"I'm just saying, Michonne, that if us being engaged hurts someone else's feelings because they can't figure out what to do with what they've got, then that's their problem. You not letting us be happy makes as much sense as someone refusing to drive their car because it's nicer than someone else's who refuses to upgrade with money they have in their hands," Tyreese said. "Andrea and Merle may or may not ever work a single damn thing out…Carol and Daryl might not either…but do we have to live the rest of our lives trying not to show them that we're not as ass backwards as they are?"
Michonne sighed. She knew what he was saying was true. They were happy together and he'd asked her to marry him, and she'd more than happily accepted.
Except she didn't feel good about telling Andrea and Carol…and they were really the only friends she had that were worth a damn in her opinion. She'd never been great at making friends…at least not real friends. The other people that wanted to call her a friend were often only in it for what she might be able to do for them when they wanted something or needed something from her. She didn't want to alienate either of the two women because she was happy and she was getting married and both of them seemed to be trapped in relationships that just didn't work out.
"You're right," Michonne said.
"I'm always right," Tyreese responded. "You've got to stop worrying. Wish your little birdies good luck and kick them out of the nest. They'll fall or they'll fly, but it's time to let them try one or the other."
"I know, but it's so frustrating," Michonne said. "I feel like if I could get them in a room and get them to really listen to me then I could solve this all."
"It's not that simple," Tyreese said. "You could talk until you can't breath, Michonne, but until they work out what they've got to work out for themselves they'll just end up right back where they are now."
Michonne knew it was right. There wasn't any fixing Merle and Andrea until anyone could figure out how to get Merle to wake up. Michonne and Andrea had done their best with Daryl and Carol, but it seemed like if they were left unattended for too long they figured out how to break out of their playpen and cause trouble. As much as Michonne wanted to just sit them all down like unruly toddlers and lay down the law for every last one of them, there just wasn't anything that could be done until they decided to clean up their own messes.
She really hated, though, thinking about how hard it was going to be for her to just sit back and watch what might very well happen.
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"So what's going on?" Michonne asked, appearing in the doorway to the petitioned off little office area of the law office.
Carol swiveled around in her chair a little surprised. She'd figured Michonne might emerge from hiding soon since she wasn't booked for anything until later, but she hadn't really been expecting her at that exact moment.
Carol sighed and leaned back in her chair, bobbing a little with the springs.
"Daryl left," she said. She shrugged a little. "He packed most of his things…not all of them…and then this morning when he was leaving for work he took the stuff out to the truck, he kissed me goodbye, and he told me that we had to figure things out."
Carol wasn't going to cry now. She'd already done that and frankly at the moment she was wondering if she was too dehydrated to cry. She'd done too much of it in the past couple of days, perhaps, and now her tear ducts were protesting.
"And you just let him go? Just like that?" Michonne asked.
"What was I supposed to do, Michonne? Hog tie him? I asked him to stay. I offered to keep sleeping on the couch until we figured it out or we worked through it or we got over it…or whatever is supposed to happen. I'm the one that screwed this up," Carol said. "If Daryl needs some space then I've got to give that to him."
"And what are you going to do?" Michonne asked.
Carol snickered at her.
"I'm going to keep answering your phones and making your appointments. I'm going to keep doing the hair courses with Andrea and working at Lula's on Saturday and at the Watering Hole on Friday and Saturday nights when Loretta needs me," Carol said. "I'm going to give Daryl his space and I'm going to keep going."
Carol shrugged.
"I don't know what you want me to do," Carol said.
Michonne sighed.
"I don't want you to do anything," Michonne said. "I guess you're doing what you can do. You've got to just keep going, I guess. Are you going to try to talk to him?"
Carol nodded. She really didn't know what was happening. She wasn't sure that Daryl knew. It wasn't that they really considered this being some kind of break up. It hadn't really happened that way. After she'd told him she'd marry him and he'd said he didn't know if he was ready…it had become strange. She'd tried to take care of him, but he didn't really want her to take care of him and he didn't really need it. Within a day he was perfectly fine other than the fact that his wrist still needed to heal and he was pissed that he'd damaged the truck and really didn't want to pay to get any of it done.
Daryl had talked to Merle, but Carol didn't really know what happened there. Merle had basically walked right past her and gone to the bedroom to hide and talk to Daryl and then we'd he'd left he'd just left.
And Daryl was being nice to her. It wasn't that they were engaged in some kind of epic battle where they hated each other. He'd been very calm when he'd told her that he thought he was moving to the little apartment. He'd told her that he planned to come back, but that he needed to get things straight in his head. He'd told her to let him know if she needed anything.
And she'd asked him to stay. She'd begged him to stay. But there wasn't anything else to be done. If he needed his space, then she had to give it to him. She'd been the one that had ruined everything. She'd let Ed influence her into ruining everything. He'd won again. But she couldn't force Daryl to stay and she couldn't even blame him if he didn't come back.
All she knew now was she just had to keep going. There wasn't any other option. She had to keep going and hope that he was going to get what he needed to get straightened out all done and he'd be back. She hoped he let her make it up to him, somehow. She hoped she got a chance not to be a dumbass and to tell him that she'd marry him. But he didn't want to marry her now, and she didn't have the right to push him after she'd been the first to tell him no.
"Of course I'm going to talk to him…I mean when I see him," Carol said. "But I'm not going to try to make him come back. He needs space and I need to give it to him. I did this, Michonne. I was the one that told him I didn't want to marry him and made him feel like I don't trust him. I'm not going to manipulate him into coming back. He can come back whenever he wants, just as freely as he walked out the door this morning."
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"Can I ask what happened, Daryl?" Hershel asked.
Hershel had led Daryl into the tiny apartment space they'd built above their garage for farmhands. For all intents and purposes it had everything a house had and everything that Daryl needed. He dropped the two bags onto the floor and looked around.
Apparently Miss Jo had come up there and cleaned it because it smelled like cleaner and there were fresh flowers on the tiny table.
"Ya can ask if ya want," Daryl said. "But with all due respect I don't want ta talk about it right now. Maybe later, but for the time being I'd just as soon keep it ta myself."
Hershel had been wearing the same concerned face since Daryl had asked him if the offer of the small space still remained. Daryl knew that he'd eventually talk to the old man, but for the time being he just didn't want to try to talk about it.
He couldn't stay in the house right now. Carol wasn't crying around him but she was crying. He could hear it at night, whether or not she knew it, and her eyes were constantly red. He didn't want her to feel, though, like she wasn't welcome in her own house. That wasn't his intention.
He needed some space to figure out if this was really going to work. He knew that he wanted it to work, but just because he wanted something didn't mean it would happen. Merle had come by, given him hell about wrecking the truck, and then he'd kind of told Merle what happened, trying to sugar coat the damn situation as much as he could. And Merle hadn't been any damn help. He'd told him to get the hell out of Dodge and leave her the fuck alone.
Merle had done nothing but reinforce what those voices in his head told him. She would one day find something better and be done with him. She didn't think he was good enough for her.
So Daryl didn't really know what he was doing, but he knew that he needed some space and he wasn't going to get that by forcing her to sleep on the couch while he took the bedroom and they cohabitated while simultaneously trying to avoid each other somewhat.
He needed to figure out if he was going to be comfortable marrying her or if he was always going to think that she was marrying him just to placate him, and maybe she needed to figure out if she really wanted to marry him or not. He'd tried to tell himself that the best case scenario was he got out here, got on his own, and he suddenly realized that he'd do absolutely anything to marry her because he absolutely, positively had to do it…no matter what the hell kind of trouble might come. Then he'd go back, like she'd told him he could, and he'd marry her and some damn way he'd learn not to worry that she was going to tell him to get the hell out of her life one day. Worst case scenario was that she confirmed his fears and found someone else…in which case…well at least he didn't marry her to have her tell him to get the hell out of her life.
Daryl was the one that was getting out right now. He was the one that had made that decision and he was the one that was laying down the rules. At least Merle couldn't say she was holding the reins on this one.
Thankfully neither of them was mad anymore. Daryl wasn't mad at Carol. He was hurt and he was confused as hell about what he wanted and what she wanted and if any of it was ever going to really work, but he wasn't angry. She said she wasn't angry, and she didn't seem angry. She was sorry and she seemed sad, but she wasn't angry.
So they'd parted this morning peacefully. Daryl had kissed her on his way out the door and she'd followed him out like she did every damn morning, standing under the carport while he loaded the back of the banged up pickup truck.
They hadn't parted with anger and neither of them took this to be some kind of final damn thing. Daryl knew that it might be, but that wasn't what the hell he was trying to see it as. They were just going to take the time they were trying to spend apart by sleeping in separate rooms and they were going to figure out what the hell they really wanted to do. Then he'd head back and they'd sit down and put their cards on the table.
Daryl glanced at Hershel, realizing he was chewing on his cuticle, and shook his head at the old man's face.
"Don't worry 'bout it, Hershel," Daryl said. "Ain't nothin' ta talk about right now. I'ma get on ta work. Maybe we'll talk later."
Daryl pushed by the old man and let himself down the narrow stairwell. He couldn't do everything that his position as a farmhand demanded, thanks to his decision to fuck up his wrist, but he could still work and he had damn well better get on it.
At least he thought better when he was working, so that was a bonus, since he had a whole lot of shit to think about and the sooner he got on that the sooner he figured out what the hell was going to come of his life.