AN: On a reread of the previous chapter, I found out that Maggie is magical and can be in two places at once. What a special girl! Whoops. Sorry about that. Maggie went with Glenn and Michonne took the other women with her (meaning it should have been *Brenda* that went with her)…that's how we shall proceed from here. Sorry again.
On another note, thank you for your reviews. It's very interesting to see people's reactions and to know that you're invested in the story. It's also funny to see what people get hung up on or to see them notice things that I really didn't even think about when I wrote them. LOL
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When Rick had gotten back to the house, it had been pretty obvious that there had been some kind of fight. He hadn't said anything, but Rachel had gone with him to clean up his face. Carol had a pretty good suspicion that it had been Daryl. She wondered how long it would be before Daryl would get back, needing her to clean up whatever he had suffered in the altercation. It must have been Rick that started the fight. Daryl didn't have a violent bone in his body when he wasn't provoked.
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"Ok, there's another one. Everyone get back." Michonne said, looking at the Walker ambling toward them. "Alright, Beth, here's your chance. Remember, no hesitation. Go to it and don't think about it, just take it down." Michonne took out her katana and stood behind Beth, just in case. Beth froze. As it got closer, she flinched and Michonne cleaved its skull. "You hesitated." She said, frowning.
"I'm sorry…" Beth said. She was almost in tears. They'd been doing this for a while and so far out of the pile that they'd taken out already, Beth hadn't killed a single one.
Michonne wasn't mad at Beth. She understood that up close Walker encounters weren't the most comfortable experience in the world, but the more you did it, the less it bothered you.
"You have to just not think about it." Michonne said. "Think about them as what they are. They're completely stupid animated piles of rotting flesh. You're smarter than they are and you're quicker than they are. All you have to do is whack them with a hatchet and you're home free."
"They could bite me." Beth said. "Or scratch me first." She looked absolutely terrified.
"Not if you get to them first." Michonne said.
Sasha and Brenda wandered off to take care of some more Walkers, confident that Beth would be safe as long as she was with Michonne.
Michonne thought about it a little longer. She had to figure out a way to motivate Beth. She had confidence that Beth could do this, but she needed something that outweighed her fear. She needed something that would keep her from hesitating. Something that would drive her to kill Walkers. Michonne considered her own drive. Her first kills were with a kitchen knife, before she'd found her katana. The very first ones had been driven by the need to get to her little girls. Her need to get out of that situation and get to them. Alone she had killed Walkers out of necessity to survive, but also out of anger…anger for what they had done to her daughters. She had killed them to protect Andrea…now she killed them to protect her family. She was motivated by loss, by what she had lost and by what she couldn't stand to lose now.
"Who do you love most in the group, Beth?" Michonne asked. Beth looked confused for a moment, then thoughtful.
"Maggie, I guess." She stuttered.
"What would your life be like if you didn't have Maggie anymore?" Michonne asked.
The look that crossed Beth's face hurt Michonne a little, but she could tell that she'd struck something.
"I don't know." Beth said. "I never thought about it before."
Michonne hated to dig around in fresh wounds, but she knew the stronger the reaction she got from Beth, the stronger the fire would be that would fuel her to face her fear.
"What about your father? Do you wish that you could have saved him?" Michonne asked.
Beth looked struck. "Well of course I do." There were tears welling up in her eyes.
"What if you saw Beth in the same situation? Would you want to save her?" Michonne prodded. She tried to keep her face as blank as possible, not ready yet to let Beth know that she was truly sorry for what she was putting her through right now.
Beth looked a little confused. "Of course I would." She said.
"Every one of these nasty assholes has the potential to take Maggie away from you. Every one that you hesitate to kill has the potential to kill Maggie. Every hesitation on your part means the possibility that you never see Maggie again, and that you have to see her go through what your father went through. But everyone you kill is a step toward saving Maggie. It's your effort to protect her and to make sure that nothing happens to her." Michonne said.
There was another Walker that was coming, drawn by their conversation no doubt.
"Give me the hatchet." Michonne said, holding out her hand. Beth handed it to her. "Like this, Beth." Michonne ran at the Walker and slammed the hatchet through its skull, letting it crumple in front of her as she yanked the hatchet back out. She walked back to Beth and handed her the hatchet.
"There's another over there." Michonne said pointing at another Walker that was coming to join the party. "That one's yours. I want you to go kill it, not for yourself. Go kill it for Maggie."
Beth hesitated a moment, staying back, but finally ran forward, taking down the Walker. When she turned around, panting, and walked back, there were tears in her eyes. Michonne didn't say anything at first. She put an arm around and pulled her to her, feeling Beth squeeze her.
"Good job." Michonne said softly.
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The gate was now securely chained. The streets had been cleared of Walkers, and they felt fairly certain that the place was secure. When Tyreese and Daryl had returned back to the house, Carol had cleaned up Daryl's face, the worst of which was a busted lip, but Daryl hadn't offered to tell her what had happened. Rick had gone straight upstairs and hadn't come back down since. Carol and Rachel ventured out shortly after Daryl and Tyreese returned to go and find water, and both were happy that the walk had been an uneventful walk with so few Walker encounters that Rachel could carry two buckets easily and Carol could carry one, and Carol was still able to take down the Walkers they saw without even putting the bucket down. It wasn't as far as they had first thought either, so they were pleased with that.
Daryl had decided that they would not burn Walkers tonight. He wanted to get that place they saw fixed before he chanced a fire the size that they would need. The women had piled up the Walkers they'd killed and the piles were large enough that he thought it best to wait, even though he was fairly certain Walkers couldn't get into the fence on that corner. He had, however, allowed Carol to start a small fire to make dinner and was currently keeping watch while she cooked it.
"So what happened?" Carol asked him.
Carol was the first who had asked him that. Michonne had started to ask him, but he'd seen it on her face that she had a pretty good idea and would just wait until later for him to tell her the story.
"Nothin'." Daryl said. "I just told Rick to get his shit together."
"With your fist? Something had to happen, Daryl. It's not like you to punch people in the face. If it were, you'd have punched him in the face more than a few times by now." Carol said. She knew about violent men, and Daryl wasn't a violent man.
"It don't matter, Carol. I did what I had to do, that's all." Daryl said.
Carol left it alone. Daryl wasn't going to talk about it unless he wanted to talk about it and it was pretty obvious he didn't want to talk about it.
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The air at dinner was tense. Rick was brooding and Daryl was quiet. Everyone was quiet. None of them quite knew what to say or how to get the conversation going.
"So what's the plan for tomorrow?" Tyreese asked Daryl finally.
"Tomorrow Glenn and Maggie get to go back to town. We need quite a few things to patch that place up and add a little extra security to the fence. I think this place is pretty much clear except for all the shut ins. That means that we can start cleaning out the houses, see how many shut in Walkers we got. All the other hands can do that." Daryl said.
"How are we going to go about houses?" Sasha asked. "Any particular order you think we should go in?"
"I figure we use this house as headquarters."
"Headquarters for what?" Rick asked. Everyone seemed a little shocked that he was speaking to Daryl.
"Headquarters for everything, Rick. Common space. We'll leave the living room for anytime we need a group meeting and we can use the rest of the house as storage. Carol can set up a space, if she wants to, to do rations." Daryl said.
"That would be good. I'll clean the kitchen out and use it. Then everyone can bring their boxes once a week and I'll pack them. That can also be where everyone drops off their laundry." Carol said. She was getting excited. It looked like Daryl had been right. The place already felt safe, and it was going to be better than the prison.
"So then tomorrow we clean out houses for everyone. I'd say let's keep them all on this street, but other than that it doesn't really matter. We'll eventually clear out and loot all the houses, but it ain't gotta be a race. We just gotta get enough to live in right now. There's lots to choose from so everybody can have one if they want it." Daryl said.
"It's so exciting!" Maggie said. "We're all going to have our own houses. It'll be like a neighborhood."
"We're all going to have our own beds, that's even better. We'll have couches and chairs, and our own kitchens for things like midnight snacks." Glenn added.
"We can even start cooking our own meals." Rachel said.
"I really don't mind cooking for everyone." Carol said. For a moment it struck her, the idea of all of them living in their own little houses. For so long they'd just shared one space that it was going to seem strange not seeing everyone's face at all hours of the day and night. It was a little exciting, but also a little sad.
"If you want to keep cooking for me, I'm fine with that." Michonne said. "I like not having to worry about what I'm going to eat, it's just there for me."
Carol smiled at her. "I'll keep cooking and whoever wants it can eat it. If anyone wants to cook for their house, just swing by and I'll get you what you need." It looked like she might not loose mealtime altogether. Rachel had seemed like the only one interested in cooking their own meals. Everyone else looked satisfied when she said that she'd continue to cook.
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"Do you want to tell me what happened with Rick?" Michonne asked when they were in bed.
"Not really." Daryl said. "There ain't much to tell. Rick was being an ass."
"So you mean Rick was being Rick and you socked him in the face for it?" Michonne said.
Daryl snickered. "He said some shit about you gettin' tore up by Walkers and I don't know, I just got so pissed I couldn't take it anymore. I just sorta snapped." Daryl said.
"Well of course you did. You like me enough that you don't want to see me get torn up by Walkers." Michonne said.
"You know I don't just like you, 'Chonne." Daryl said, his voice changing octaves a little. "I love you."
Michonne smiled. "I know, Daryl. I was just teasing you. I love you too." She kissed him.
"We're gonna have our own place tomorrow, 'Chonne…our own house." Daryl said.
"Yep, we sure are." Michonne said.
"I didn't even have a house before all this." Daryl said.
"Where did you live?" Michonne asked.
"I lived in a trashy ass single wide on some land my uncle owned." Daryl said. Michonne laughed, trying to picture Daryl in his "trashy ass single wide". "I'm serious, 'Chonne. Damn thing was like a metal shoebox and it smelled like skunk and cat piss." Michonne laughed again.
"Well, our house won't smell like skunk and cat piss, it'll just smell as delightful as everything else around here does." She said. The truth was they had gotten used to the smell around them. You were only aware of it when it was particularly bad, like when you were near a bunch of Walkers or when you burned Walkers.
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Carol had been listening to them talk, snuggled up with Judith on her pallet. She was sad now. She realized how long it had been since she'd heard silence at night when she was trying to sleep. In the prison there were always voices, in the barns and houses on the way here there had always been voices, and here she was already used to falling asleep listening to the end of the day chatting of Daryl and Michonne and the muffled conversations taking place outside their room. She realized that tomorrow night, after they'd cleaned out all the houses, shared conversation while they burned Walkers, and shared dinner together, they'd all be going off to their houses to start their new lives…the lives that they would live for this era…and there would be no more conversations to lull her to sleep like a bedtime story.