AN: Here you go, another chapter.

This one is a little different, but we needed a check in. This is primarily a Tyreese/Michonne chapter.

I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!

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Carol finished up entering all the dates that she needed to enter into the computer so that the law office wouldn't be confused with any of the clients that would trickle in expecting consultation for mostly what added up to be one silly dispute or another.

Then she stopped by Michonne's office, holding the paper copy of Michonne's appointment book for the day. Michonne had the door closed, so Carol knocked softly to inform her friend of her presence.

"Come in," Michonne called back after a moment.

Carol opened the door and slipped into the dimly lit office. Michonne was standing behind her desk, buttoning her jacket, her briefcase open on the desk in front of her.

Carol wasn't sure, but she wondered if something was off with her friend today. Michonne didn't have the same nature about her that she normally did. It was almost as if she were sick or something, though Carol hardly knew Michonne to ever get sick. She hardly knew anything to affect Michonne at all. She could have been convinced the woman was some sort of superhuman given very little evidence.

"You're all set for tomorrow," Carol said softly, walking forward and putting the book on Michonne's desk. Michonne offered her a half smile and reached out, flipping the book around and moving it to its customary spot.

Carol shifted her weight.

"You've got a couple of things early in the morning, but there's not too much after that," Carol said. "Miles Peterson called again about the problem with his father's will."

Michonne sighed loudly.

"There's no problem with that will beyond the fact that he doesn't like what it says," she grumbled. She looked at Carol, rolling her eyes. "The old man is dead. He's not coming back to handle the squabbling between those two men. They're grown men anyway. You'd think they could handle their mess together."

Carol snickered.

"Sometimes grown ups need a little help too," Carol offered lightly.

"Yeah…well…I've got enough children to deal with at home," Michonne said. She closed her brief case and reached over, switching off the little lamp on her desk before straightening up and looking at Carol.

Carol thought she looked tired.

"Are you ready to go?" Michonne asked.

Carol nodded.

"Just need to put my coat on," Carol said, smiling. She paused a moment, wondering if she should ask what was wrong or not. Finally she decided that she should. "Is everything alright?"

Michonne looked at her blankly, her lawyer's poker face shining through, for a moment and then she nodded. Another sigh escaping her, though not nearly as loudly as before.

"Yeah…everything's fine," Michonne said.

"You seem tired…" Carol said, hesitating.

Michonne chuckled and nodded.

"Maybe I am…" she said. "I'm going to pick up the girls…have some dinner. Maybe it'll be an early night."

Michonne smiled then and Carol had no other choice but to accept that her friend's fatigue was probably work related or something like that. Carol returned the smile and nodded slightly, not sure how to exit gracefully to go get her coat and purse.

Carol turned and headed back to the little space she occupied and she was putting on her coat when Michonne walked up behind her, joining her.

"What are you doing tonight?" Michonne asked. "Exciting plans?"

Carol turned quickly and shrugged.

"We bought the paint for the nursery," she said. "I guess Andrea and I are going to start on that."

"Did you get the masks like I told you?" Michonne asked, cocking an eyebrow at Carol.

Carol smiled.

"Yes, mom, we got the masks," Carol teased.

Michonne nodded.

"Well if anyone's going on a ladder, make sure you put Andrea up there. You shouldn't be trying to climb up and down a ladder," Michonne said.

Carol knew that Michonne's maternal streak was about a mile wide, though she tried to hide it and pretend that she was barely even maternal enough to handle the two girls that were her heart and soul.

"Don't worry," Carol said. "I think that there'd be more than enough people around to pull me off the ladder the moment I got up there if I was dumb enough to try it."

They started out the office then and Carol wrapped her arms around herself in a hug while she stood to the side and waited for Michonne to lock up. It was cold. She would have dared to say that it was colder at the moment than it had been all winter and she wouldn't have been surprised if they didn't get one of their sparse snowfalls soon.

"Do you know anyone who's selling a car?" Carol asked when Michonne had locked the door and they were headed slowly through the parking lot. "We're asking any and every one."

Michonne thought a moment and shook her head.

"Not right off," she responded. "Not one worth buying at least. I'll keep an eye out."

Carol nodded and thanked her.

As they reached their cars, Michonne stopped by hers and fumbled for her keys. Carol already had hers in her hand. Michonne waited, once the keys were found, staring at Carol and Carol knew it was her cue to get in the truck. Michonne refused to so much as get in her car until Carol was in the truck. She was nervous, though she wouldn't admit that's what it was, that Ed was around, and apparently Michonne thought he wouldn't try anything with her standing there but that if she so much as got in to crank her car against the cold, he might magically appear and sweep Carol away or something.

Carol decided not to tease her for the action today. She went and got into the truck, leaving the door propped open.

"Get some rest tonight, OK?" Carol said.

Michonne nodded, opening her own door.

"Do you want me to bring you some dinner or something?" Carol asked, wrinkling her brow.

Michonne looked at her and chuckled.

"Who's being mom now?" Michonne asked.

The fact that she was teasing made Carol feel a little better and made her a little more content to chock the sullen demeanor of the woman up to being work related stress or something of the like.

"Just looking out for you," Carol said.

"Go home…paint your nursery," Michonne said. "I expect a full report in the morning of how the lavender nursery goes over with the Dixons."

Carol smiled. Neither of the men had seen the paint color yet, and if she and Andrea painted the room unassisted, they wouldn't see it until it was done. She wasn't sure how either of them would respond to the pastel room when it was done.

Carol waved at Michonne, bid her goodnight, and closed the truck door, locking it. She waited until Michonne was in her car and then she pulled out, knowing full well that Michonne wouldn't move from her spot until she saw that she was on the road.

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When Tyreese got to the house, he opened the door as quietly as possible, even willing his keys not to make a rattling sound. He knew he was late. He was very late, in fact. He knew that the girls would be sleeping by now and he wasn't sure if Michonne would be or not. The lights were on, but she knew he'd be out late…he'd left her three messages…and she may have simply left the lights on so that he wasn't coming in to a completely darkened house.

Tyreese slipped inside and put his keys back in his coat pocket knowing that the weather wouldn't warm enough for him not to need the coat for the next day. Inside the door he closed it and locked it, shucked off his shoes in the corner designated for them, and hung his coat on the hook also designated for him.

Everything in his home was ship shape. Everything had a place and everything was in its place.

Michonne had never been tested for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and she insisted that she didn't have it. Tyreese didn't know if, in fact, she did, but he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she at least had some of the symptoms.

And when he'd first moved into the house, he'd wondered if he could adjust to it. He wasn't a messy person, but he wasn't as methodical, organized, or even as predictable as Michonne was. Everything in her life had a schedule. She was so much driven by schedules, in fact, that her children seemed to adhere to strict routines naturally and without any question. Tyreese didn't know if they'd genetically been wired that way, or if it was a learned trait, but both of the girls were fussy if anything in their schedules got interrupted.

Breakfast and mornings had a certain schedule…the only deviation was allowed on weekends, and the girls seemed to understand that the prolonged wearing of their pajamas signaled the weekend schedule, which was more relaxed, but a schedule nonetheless.

Mealtimes were a marvel and bath and bedtime routines could almost be timed to the second with both girls almost becoming traumatized if you reached for the wrong bottle in the wrong order when pampering them and getting them ready for bed.

Tyreese thought that if law hadn't been Michonne's chosen profession, she might have enjoyed the military lifestyle.

For as difficult as he'd thought it might be, at first, to adjust to Michonne and her ways, Tyreese hadn't found it difficult at all and he actually had begun to find the predictable and settled routines almost calming. Perhaps that's why Michonne liked them so much…perhaps that's why the girls needed them.

Far from being boring, as he'd thought a lifestyle like that might be, it made everything feel stable and secure.

But tonight he was late. He'd won out on a job, having given the lowest bid because it was more than doable on what he proposed, to demolish and rebuild the row houses in the "poor" part of town. Tyreese had been down there and he wanted to help the people, so he was willing to take a lower personal profit to do what he could. Living conditions currently were below standard, in his opinion, and the people he met there deserved better than that. The town council was helping with some government funds to bring some relief to the people, and everyone he'd met there was more than appreciative at the thought of having homes where the roof didn't look like it would cave if they caught even the soft aftershocks of some significant hurricane hitting the coast.

So he'd spent all day in the new office that he was setting up…the new little building he'd acquired but had yet to make anything presentable…trying to get his ducks in a row so that he could get a crew out there. His business was growing in Sweet Junction, and he had to stay on top of it.

But he'd been sure to call a few times and leave a couple of messages. Michonne never minded when he was late, but he tried to be respectful enough to at least let her know where he was and what he was doing…common courtesy in his opinion, so that his absence didn't do anything to interrupt that careful routine by which she lived.

Tyreese passed down the little entrance hall and into the living room, half expecting the space to be empty and simply waiting on him to switch off the lights.

When he came in, though, he was surprised to see Michonne on the couch, a half-gallon of ice cream wrapped in a towel in her lap, watching a black and white movie on television with the sound off and the closed caption on.

Ice cream, especially in such large quantities, signaled a bad day. Michonne self-medicated with sweets more than anything. If everything in life was grand, she treated herself to something after dinner…a taste here or there…but if she was bothered by something, she could consume more sugar in a few hours than a small country in a few days.

Tyreese frowned, wondering if he should interrupt the movie she was watching.

"Sorry I'm late," he offered, hoping that his tardiness wasn't the cause of the ice cream massacre that was taking place.

Michonne lolled her head in his direction a little before going back to the food that was almost soup consistency at this point.

"S' fine," she slurred, swallowing down what was in her mouth. "There's a plate for you in the microwave if you're hungry."

Tyreese nodded slightly.

Something was off…something was very, very off. If he hadn't known any better, he'd have thought Michonne was on the verge of tears, and tears were rarely her thing. She got mad more often than she cried.

"What's wrong?" Tyreese asked, finally. He moved toward her, sitting on the couch beside her.

Michonne froze in her move to eat the ice cream, but she didn't look at him.

"I need to talk to you," she said.

"Ok…" Tyreese responded.

Michonne was quiet for a moment and then she shook her head softly.

"I can't marry you," she said.

Tyreese might have panicked at the words, and he might have thought it was some sort of irrational thought or moment, but Michonne rarely had irrational moments…at least not entirely irrational ones…and he was sure there was something more to this.

"Do I get to ask why not?" Tyreese asked.

Michonne sucked her bottom lip in a second, still staring into space rather than looking at him.

"Because…" she said, "I can't…do to you what I do to everyone else, Ty. I won't do it to you."

Tyreese chuckled to himself then. Perhaps he was going to be blessed with his first crazy moment with Michonne. He'd wondered if the time would ever come.

"What are you not going to do to me?" Tyreese asked.

Michonne sighed.

"I'm not going to drive you crazy," Michonne said. "I…" she paused. "I have always driven people crazy. They can't handle me, and I'm not going to drive you crazy."

Tyreese sighed. Yep. He'd been waiting to see if she'd ever come undone…and it looked like if she wasn't undone, the edges were at least a little frayed.

"What happened?" Tyreese asked. "I know that something happened, and I'm not letting you decide not to drive me crazy until you tell me what's wrong."

Michonne looked at him then, sniffling a little and a tear rolled down her cheek. He almost marveled at the fact that he could simultaneously tell that she wanted to be distraught about something, but she had it as under control as she possibly could.

"I got a call today…got some papers," Michonne said. "Dean signed away his parental rights to the girls."

Tyreese was only somewhat struck by the news. In his opinion, Dean Williams only had parental rights or parental anything in theory. For as much time as he spent with the girls and for as close as he was with them, he might as well be a stranger. Anjelica didn't really even care for him and would push at him when he tried to hold her and turn her face away from him if he dared to try to kiss her.

Tyreese didn't say anything, though.

"Just like that," Michonne said. "He hates me so much that he…" she shook her head and shrugged a little. "He hates me enough that he's declaring he's not even their father. I drove him crazy…and he cheated on me because he hated me for it…and now my girls don't even have a father."

Michonne turned on the cushion some to face Tyreese.

"How do I tell my girls that I drove their father crazy? That I drove him away and he doesn't even want to know them?" Michonne asked.

Tyreese chuckled softly and raised his eyebrows at her.

"So you think that I'm going to do the same thing? Or what do you think that you marrying me is going to do to me, exactly?" He asked, ignoring the topic of Dean for the moment.

Michonne shook her head and shrugged a little.

"You're going to get tired of it. You're going to get tired of me. And you're a good man. I don't want you to feel bad about leaving," Michonne said. "It's not your fault, but I'm not good for people, and I don't want…I just don't want to do that to my girls."

Tyreese returned to raising his eyebrows at her.

"You don't want me to leave? Michonne…I'm not leaving. I don't want to leave. And those little girls? They're not mine, but if they were I don't know how I could love them any more than I do now," Tyreese said. Michonne just stared at him and he felt his chest ache. The pain that he could see in her eyes, whether or not she was trying to hide it elsewhere, was enough to make it hard to breath. "I was working tonight and I looked at my clock at nine o'clock and I felt sad," Tyreese said, letting his voice drop off for a second before continuing, "because I was supposed to be at home reading 'Fox in Socks' but instead I was stuck in a cold, tin, office building finishing up paperwork. So if you don't want to marry me, then you don't have to…but don't do it in the name of saving me."

Michonne frowned deeply at him.

"Dean begged me to have Anjelica," Michonne said. "He begged even. He was so excited about her…he wanted kids. But something changed when she was actually born. I drove him crazy with the routines and the books…I just wanted to do it right."

Tyreese shook his head and rubbed his face. Dean Williams was a man that he cared very little for. He'd met him quite a few times picking up and dropping off the girls and as far as Tyreese could tell he was one of those men that was eternally trapped in the mentality of a fourteen year old. He wasn't entirely surprised that Dean was the way he was, that he'd done the things he'd done, or that he'd continue to do them until the day he died an aged man with the mentality of a teenage boy.

What surprised him most, sometimes, was that Michonne had ever ended up with Dean Williams, and the only way that he'd made it make any sense to himself was to think that Dean had been different then, and Michonne had been different then. They'd both been different, and now they had grown so far apart that they almost didn't even belong in the same solar system.

Tyreese reached out and gathered up the melting tub of ice cream in Michonne's lap. He moved it to the floor, towel and all, steadying it for a second to make sure that it wouldn't tip. He took one of her cold hands in his.

"Dean liked the idea of children," Tyreese said. "But he didn't like children. They're a lot different in theory and in practice. I always thought that I wouldn't ever want children…and I'm the one that's tried to talk you into us having one of our own. People change. It doesn't mean that they always change for the bad."

Michonne nodded her head to indicate that she was listening, but the frown on her face deepened.

Tyreese sighed.

"Don't make me guilty of Dean's sins…don't make any man guilty of his sins," Tyreese said. "It's not a man thing…it's a Dean thing. And it's not a Michonne thing either." He said, shaking his head. "And the girls? Marry me and I'll adopt them," he paused but couldn't get a read on her feelings. When she was determined to put on her poker face, she did it well. "When they're older…we'll tell them about Dean…but we can explain to them that there's a difference when it comes to family. There's family that's blood, and then there's…well…there's just your family."

Michonne didn't respond, but her face lightened a little. Tyreese reached over and caught her around the shoulders, pulling her toward his chest and she hugged him. He sat there a moment and rubbed her back, wishing he could do more, but he knew she was just going to have to process yet another one of the crummy moves by Dean.

Tyreese pulled away and sighed. He gathered up her melted ice cream and offered it to her.

"Why don't you take this," he said, "and go take a hot bath? Relax? I'll eat and then I'll come in there and we'll talk about this some more if you want, or we can wait until tomorrow."

Michonne shook her head.

"I don't want it," she said, refusing the ice cream.

Tyreese chuckled lightly.

"See? Now I know you're upset," he said. "Fine, I'll put it back in the freezer…but how about that bath?"

Michonne got up and Tyreese took to his feet too, catching her hand and squeezing it in his as she passed by him.

"I'm sorry," she said, glancing back over her shoulder at him.

He smiled and shook his head.

"Go take your bath," he said. "I'll bring you those silk pajamas you like so much."

Michonne nodded, a half smile coming to her face and started out the living room.

"Michonne?" Tyreese called, just as she reached the door frame.

Michonne stopped, her hand going to the doorframe. She hesitated a moment before she glanced back over her shoulder at him.

"What?" She asked.

Tyreese smiled again.

"Take your bath time to think more on those bridesmaid dresses you were deciding between," Tyreese said. "You don't want to put that off until the last minute."

Michonne didn't respond to him, but he was pretty sure he saw the hint of a smile there. At least she didn't refuse him again…so he assumed that her crisis had passed. She turned and started down the hall toward the bathroom and he made his way into the kitchen, returning the ice cream to the freezer where it would gain a somewhat solid state again over time. Then he heated up the dinner that was waiting on him in the microwave and ate standing at the counter while he gave her some time to soak out her frustrations with a man who'd never been smart enough to appreciate what he had.