AN: In response to the baby's name I've seen people who liked it and people who didn't. I actually hung on the name for a while. While I admit it's cliché, I also considered the sources. It's Beth (and I feel the name would be something that Beth would offer up as a possibility because it's cliché) who suggests it and Daryl (who named his dog "Dog" so "Baby" could have been in the cards) who accepts it. I think it works. Anyway, it is what it is.
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111 111111111111111111111111
"Has she eaten yet?" Carol asked, coming into the room dragging the crib. Daryl got up and helped her move it into room and put it beside the mattresses.
"Let me help you." Daryl said loudly. "Since nobody around here seems to have any manners." He said loudly again.
"Its fine, Daryl. I do things all the time without expecting people to help me.
"Not yet." Michonne said. "She hasn't asked for anything yet." The baby was lying on the bed next to her, sleeping.
"She'll ask for it when she's ready." Carol said, smiling at her.
"I know." Michonne said.
"You might want to try to get a little sleep while she's sleeping, and Daryl you need to go find yourself something to keep you busy so you don't fall asleep." Carol said.
Hope had made her much anticipated debut, but now it was morning and no one had really had much sleep. Carol was determined to keep them awake. The only ones she was allowing to sleep were Carl, Hershel, and Michonne. Sasha and Tyreese were sleeping too, but since they'd been saddled with the night watch it was normal for them to be sleeping. They'd practically become nocturnal.
"I was gonna stay with 'Chonne." Daryl said.
"Carol's right, Daryl. I could use a few minutes of sleep." Michonne said. Daryl looked annoyed. "We'll still be here, Daryl. We're not going anywhere." She added.
"Fine, I'll go find something to do." He said, leaving the cell reluctantly.
"I'll bring you something to eat when you're ready, just let me know." Carol said. "I figured I'd make you some soup."
"Sounds good, but I'm not really hungry right now." Michonne said, gently placing the baby in the crib next to her. "And Carol, thanks for helping me today."
Carol smiled. "Technically it was last night and you did most of the work yourself, but you're more than welcome."
Carol left the cell and Michonne put her head down, trying to sleep.
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111 11
When Rick came into kitchen, Carol was sitting in one of the chairs and" Maggie was circling around behind her, with a bottle of rubbing alcohol in her hand, dabbing at her arms.
"Ouch…ouch….ouch…" Carol kept saying, sucking air in through her teeth.
"I'm sorry, but you're scratched up pretty good." Maggie said.
"What?" Rick asked. "Scratched? When the hell did you get scratched and why didn't you tell me?" Carol could hear the rise in his voice, and since she felt like her arms were on fire, she was really not in the mood to deal with Rick.
"Not Walker scratched." Carol said.
"Michonne tore her up pretty good." Maggie said. "There, I think I got all of 'em." She said. Carol stood and shook her arms.
Rick was just standing there.
"Can I help you with something, Rick?" Carol asked, sounding annoyed and still flapping her arms.
"Where's Hershel?" Rick asked.
"I don't know, Rick. I think he was taking a nap." Carol said.
"Well, I need to talk to him." Rick said. He stood there for a minute longer and then turned around.
1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
Rick hadn't seen Hershel until dinner time. He hadn't originally planned to have this conversation in front of all of the group. The problem with conversations with the group was that everyone felt they could throw in their opinions about things and that all their opinions should be equally weighed. The women, especially, tended to be sentimental and sentimental wasn't going to get them anywhere. Rick knew talking about his decision to move on was going to be difficult for a lot of them, but it was something.
"Hershel," Rick asked, "how long do you think it's going to be before Michonne could be ready to travel?"
Daryl wasn't surprised by Rick's question. He knew that Rick was brooding about when it would be possible to move the group. He could tell by everyone else's expression, though, that the thought hadn't really occurred to them. They were comfortable here, and they were pretty safe.
"I can't say exactly Rick. I think for her to be back to her old self it would take probably six months." Hershel said. He took another forkful of food.
"Be realistic, Hershel." Rick said.
"I am being realistic." Hershel said. "Even if she bounces back quickly, she's not physically what she used to be. She doesn't have the same stamina that she had then and that won't come back over night."
"Hershel's right." Carol said. "Her body's gone through a lot of changes and she hasn't exactly been working out like she used to."
"Her katana's been our cell since we killed the Governor." Daryl said.
"Look, we don't have six months. We're going to need supplies before that time is over. We need to get going as soon as we possibly can." Rick said.
"We can make other runs." Maggie offered.
"If we make other runs we use more gas. We're not finding tons of gas. It makes more sense to use that gas moving on. We're more likely to get farther and find more gas if we move on. Your father can't travel on foot, Maggie, not realistically." Rick said.
"Ugh, do we really have to talk about this right now?" Glenn asked. He was so tired he couldn't stand it and Carol kept thumping him on the back of the ear to keep him awake.
"I think Glenn's right." Carol said. "Even if it's something we need to discuss, it would be better if everyone got some sleep before we talked about it."
"And Michonne needs to be part of the discussion too." Daryl said.
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111 11111111111111111111111
Daryl found Rick in the watchtower later. He was tired, but he still wanted to talk to him. Rick had gotten up from the table in an obviously irritable mood, and Daryl thought it might be best to try to talk him down a little in private before he took it back to the group.
"Look, Rick, it ain't that anybody's sayin' we ain't gonna move on…it's just that we might not be movin' on as soon as you'd like." Daryl tried to explain.
"Daryl, I don't think you're getting me here. Michonne isn't the only factor we've got to think about here. We don't know what we're going to find when we move on. We don't know how long it's going to take us to get somewhere where we can actually find what we need and find a new place to hole up for a while. We need to try to get to that place before it gets too cold or we could all freeze to death. Hershel can't travel on foot, and you know it. He wouldn't make it three days on foot. We can't keep wasting gas on runs just because everyone wants to play house. If we keep making longer runs, we will run out of gas before the winter is over, run out of supplies, and then our only choice is to go on walking, completely open to all the dangers. That's not safe for anyone. I'm trying to keep this group alive, Daryl, the whole group."
"If we leave too soon and she ain't ready, then she ain't gonna be able to be much help in fightin' anything and she may not even be able to defend herself good." Daryl said.
"Beth can't defend herself, Hershel can barely defend himself, Maggie's and Carol's abilities are questionable at times, Rachel isn't exactly a fighter, and we don't even know what the two kids we hauled in here can do…she'll be in good company and she can get stronger as we travel." Rick said. "No matter what, we're taking chances, Daryl. If we stay here we're actually just setting the odds to be more against us later."
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111 1111
"I'm really too tired to talk about this, Daryl." Michonne said after Daryl had insisted on recounting to her everything that Rick had said.
"But what do you think about it, Michonne?" Daryl asked.
"Daryl, what I think is that the baby is sleeping, and she won't be for too long, and I need to sleep. Can we please talk about this later?"
Daryl sighed. "Yeah, 'Chonne, go to sleep." Daryl was tired too. His head was screaming at him that he needed to sleep, but he had so much on his mind. At about this time the night before he had been in bed with Michonne in their cell, his hand still on her belly, just peacefully sleeping. Now he had a tiny, fragile baby girl and was worried about soon he'd have to take her out there into the world that they had barely survived. He also worried that if Michonne were reduced to the status of Beth, as far as defending herself, he wasn't going to be able to take care of all three of them, and that thought made him feel dizzy and sick.
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111 11111111111
"You know, I hate to say this…" Michonne said. She was sitting with Carol while Carol did the laundry. "But Rick is right."
Carol considered Michonne's comment. Michonne had recounted to her everything that Daryl had told her about his conversation with Rick. Carol knew they had to move on, they'd known all along that the prison was just temporary, but she really hated the thought of going back out there. For her it was more about enjoying feeling safe. Out there you were never safe and you spent every day, all day, worrying that another member of the group wasn't going to make it through that day. You spent all your time worrying about who would be next. Carol had to admit that there had been times when she'd wished that she was next, just to be done with the worry and the heartbreak when they finally did lose someone.
"When do you think is a good time to go?" Carol asked.
"I don't know." Michonne confessed. "I mean I was the healthiest I've ever been when I got pregnant. I should bounce back quicker than I did in the past. I can start working with my katana soon. I don't know how long it's going to take me to build up to what I was, but I know it only took me a couple of weeks when I first started using it to be able to use it for a while without feeling like my muscles were screaming. I just got better the more I used it."
Carol didn't respond. Michonne searched the yard with her eyes, finally finding Daryl roaming around. He was taking Hope for a walk, he said.
"He never puts her down." Michonne said. Carol looked up at her and followed her line of vision, but she already knew that she was talking about Daryl.
It was true. Michonne felt like she only really held Hope to feed her or change her diaper. The rest of the time Daryl wanted to be holding her. He actually looked sad whenever it was time for Michonne to feed her, and he'd wait patiently until she was done for Michonne to burp her and give her back to him. He wouldn't pick her up yet, though. He would wait for Michonne to pick her up and put her in his arms and he seldom changed her position at all once Michonne settled her in. He also wouldn't change her diaper, and it had less to do with any aversion to the chore and more to do with the fact that he was wildly terrified that he would accidentally poke her with a pin or would hurt her by lifting her up.
"She's a good baby." Carol said. "She hardly ever cries unless she's hungry or needs to be changed."
"What would she have to cry about? Her daddy is constantly entertaining her." Michonne said.
"I think it's sweet." Carol said. She had known that Daryl was going to be excited about the baby, but she hadn't imagined that he was going to be this excited about her. He had gotten mad at her because she had suggested that he put Hope in her crib to sleep during dinner instead of trying to insist on holding her at the table while she slept.
Carol knew why Daryl and Michonne had disagreed a little when they were discussing what Rick had said. She'd spent enough time around them both at this point that she felt she could read them pretty well. Though they seemed to fit together almost flawlessly, Carol recognized that there were fundamental differences in the two of them and even though it was actually those difference that made them work so well as a couple, in this case the differences were making it a little more difficult for each of them to fully understand or accept the other.
Michonne was a very practical person, and very much a "just go ahead and do it if it needs to be done" kind of person. She knew that Rick was right about the need to move on sooner rather than later, and she accepted it. Her response was that if she had to do it, then she just had to do it, and do it the best that she could. It wasn't that wasn't concerned about the risks, but she saw the risks as something she couldn't get around, so she'd just have to face them. Carol imagined that whatever happened to Michonne's child before had probably been the cause of Michonne's attitude toward life. If she felt anything like Carol did when she had lost Sophia, then she felt like she'd already walked through Hell. They all responded to those things differently, and Michonne had tried to harden herself and keep both eyes on the road, so to speak.
Daryl was different. Daryl wasn't as good as Michonne was at putting feelings aside when he had to face a challenge. Even though Daryl knew that Rick was right about the need to move on as quickly as possible, Daryl was rejecting it because he was afraid of what the future held. Daryl had changed a lot over the course of the last year. He'd become a much happier person than Carol had known him to be before, and he was afraid of losing that happiness. It wasn't that Daryl actually had any huge argument against what Rick had said, but he understood that moving on was risking his family, and that was something he'd never dealt with before. He didn't know how to deal with it, so the only thing that he could do was try to reject it.
Michonne heard Hope start to wail and saw Daryl heading back toward them. She started unbuttoning her shirt, looking around for the blanket she had brought out with her.
"Back of the chair." Carol said.
Michonne wasn't particularly modest, but she had done her best to try to stay covered when she realized a few days ago that Carl seemed particularly interested in what she was doing, though he hadn't said anything. She knew that Rick had already had to have quite the conversation with Carl about the birds and the bees, due to the limited privacy of the prison, but she wasn't sure that she wanted to be his first exposure to breasts, although, if they were moving on she was sure that worse things would happen to push him toward growing up even more. There wasn't a lot of innocence to be had anymore.
"Boy, she's got some lungs." Daryl said, as he approached. "Just woke up and decided she was starving." He leaned down and let Michonne gently lift the baby out of his arms. He sat down on the ground next to her and watched her feed Hope. It was a nice day outside and he was enjoying it. He really hated the idea of leaving the prison, even though he knew they had to. He also knew they would be doing it relatively soon, since they were going to discuss it that night and Michonne had already told him that she was going to tell the group that she agreed with Rick. Daryl felt like the group, hearing that Michonne was not only OK with the plan but supported it, would probably end up not fighting it too much. He wasn't mad at her, but they had kind of argued about it a little bit. He hoped she wasn't too angry with him. Daryl slid a little closer to Michonne's chair.
Michonne knew Daryl was fretting about the argument. It hadn't even been what she would consider a serious argument. It had more or less just been that each of them had stated how they felt and it turned out that the way they felt wasn't exactly the same. Actually, Michonne thought, they did feel the same way about it, but she was just quicker at accepting that fear for the future or not, they had to go. She also understood that Daryl was going to be a little slower in accepting it.
Michonne nudged Daryl with her foot and he looked up at her. She winked at him and smiled. Daryl grinned back at her.