AN: Not a heavy Michonne/Daryl chapter, but that happens from time to time…no worries, they have lots of time together in the future.
Sorry to those of you who are only in it for them, you'll just have to deal with this chapter and know that your favorite love birds are still safe and sound and very much the darling couple you've come to expect them to be.
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"I'm telling you," Glenn said, following Maggie through the bookstore with Sasha close behind him, "she's pregnant."
"How do you know that, Glenn?" Maggie asked, stopping at a shelf and pulling several of the books in front of her into a bag. She was the one filling the bags, Sasha and Glenn were more or less just following her around, carrying things and killing the few Walkers that they'd encountered inside the store. Apparently at the end of the world bookstores weren't picked over because they'd found the place pretty much untouched.
"You've got the list, you tell me she's not," Glenn said. "She was all secretive about it too, so she doesn't want to talk about it."
"Well, if she is, maybe she doesn't want anyone to know yet," Maggie said. "What's a doula?"
"I don't know," Glenn said, "but she said it would be wherever the rest of the baby books were."
"Yeah, but we're getting all kinds of medical books," Maggie said, "unless she said she was pregnant, then we don't know if she actually is or if she's just reading up on everything she can think of right now."
"Yeah, but she stressed farm books and baby books. The rest she just added later as "whatever you can find'," Glenn continued. "We know why the farm books are pretty urgent to her, and there's only one real possible explanation as to why baby books are urgent right now."
"Well, Tyreese hasn't said anything," Sasha said. She'd just been listening to the two of them discuss it since Glenn had brought it up in the truck on the way over.
"Maybe he doesn't know yet," Glenn said, "maybe she's waiting to tell him too."
Maggie thought about it for a few minutes. The thought of imagining Carol pregnant was one that she couldn't really wrap her mind around. Carol was the birth control pusher around the community. It just didn't seem likely to Maggie that Carol would let herself slip through the cracks.
"Well, I just don't think we ought to go jumping to conclusions until she says something else about it," Maggie said. "If she is and she hasn't said anything, then she's got her reasons to keep it to herself, and I don't think she'd appreciate you blabbing it all over the place. If I can keep it quiet, you can keep it quiet."
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It was almost lunchtime when the truck return from the run. It had been a short run set up by Carol so that she could make plans for what they would need for future runs to bring their gardening plans into action as soon as it was time to begin planting.
Junior had luckily grown up on a farm, so Carol was counting on him for some assistance, but she felt like she needed more information before she'd be able feel confident about the decisions that she was going to have to make about their future food supply. She'd also requested books about canning and storing food, as well as books about birth, midwives, doulas, and anything else they could find regarding pregnancy and birth, in case Daryl and Michonne decided to go through with their plan.
She had informed Daryl at breakfast that she was sending Glenn, Maggie, and Sasha on the run and then she had pulled Glenn to the side, providing him with a list as well as explaining to him what she wanted. He hadn't said anything, simply nodding his understanding and collecting his crew.
Carol left the food cooking and followed the truck to where Glenn parked it. All three of them spilled out, and Glenn got two full bags of books out of the back.
"Did you get everything?" Carol asked.
"We got all that we could," Glenn said. Maggie and Sasha had headed off in the opposite direction without saying anything.
Carol reached to take the bags from him.
"Thank you," she said.
Glenn pulled the bags away from her. "I've got it," he said, "I'll carry them. They're pretty heavy. Where do you want me to put them for you?"
"Oh," Carol said, "um, just put them in our living room, I guess. I need to sort through them anyway."
"No problem," Glenn said, heading toward their house with the two bags of books draped over his shoulders.
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For the amount of work they were doing, and for the type of work it was, the group was remarkably jovial. Jimmy had led everyone working on busting up the street in a riveting round of "I've Been Working on the Railroad" that had turned into a round that they kept repeating over and over. Michonne had been alternating every little while between hoeing and destruction, and she knew that the hoeing crew was also having their fun, though "Old McDonald Had a Farm" was the song that Rachel had apparently recommended.
When they broke for lunch, everyone brought their laughter and levity with them. The group approached, half suspecting the lunch break, and then later hearing Carol's bell the closer they got. Carol smiled at them all, and walked back over to one of the fires she had going, the one she was using for cooking, the other was heating the water she needed for the laundry she'd start after everyone was fed and back to work.
Michonne approached Carol first.
"Where's Hope?" Michonne asked. "I think I'm going to let her eat first."
Carol wrapped a rag around the handle of one of the pots. "Inside with Beth, but before you feed her, could you pump some for cereal?"
"Sure, I don't mind," Michonne said.
Carol heaved up one of the pots and started after Michonne, in the direction of the kitchen. When she put it down, she turned around, surprised to find that Glenn was bringing in the other. She gave him a puzzled look.
"I just thought I'd bring it in as I was coming," Glenn said, half smiling. "Those pots are heavy, you shouldn't have to be lugging them around all day." He put it down next to the first one, glanced a moment at Michonne who was not even attempting to hide what she was doing, and slipped back out the kitchen and toward the dining room.
"He's such a funny kid, sometimes," Carol said, smiling.
"That he is," Michonne said.
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Glenn watched Carol and he watched Tyreese. If Carol was pregnant, she didn't look pregnant, at least not yet. Still, it had taken a while for Lori to look pregnant, and it had taken a while for Michonne to look pregnant, so he didn't suspect that Carol would be any different. Tyreese didn't know yet. It was pretty obvious. He couldn't know, because he wasn't acting right if he did know.
Carol and Tyreese were their own kind of couple. If you hadn't known they were together, you probably wouldn't have suspected it. You would have thought they were good friends, but little else. Tyreese did things for Carol, and they smiled at each other a lot, but that was about it. Every now and again, if you timed it just right, you would catch a quick kiss between them, or a moment when Carol would catch his hand or he'd touch her shoulder, but they weren't very affectionate. Glenn wouldn't be positive that they were in a relationship at all if Maggie hadn't told him about catching them in the kitchen once, or if he himself hadn't seen them leaving Carol's house, early in the morning, snuggled together until Tyreese walked Carol down to headquarters to get breakfast going.
Now Carol might be pregnant. Glenn hadn't thought about it until today, but Carol was always carrying something, and it was usually something heavy. You could catch her hauling wood, hauling pots around, hauling buckets around, or hauling boxes around, but she almost always had her hands full. Even when she wasn't hauling things around, she was handing out plates of food or carrying around piles of dishes. Glenn just didn't think that Tyreese would let her keep doing all of that if he knew.
It really wasn't fair of Carol to keep it to herself, he thought. He'd be hurt if Maggie was pregnant and didn't tell him. He'd want to take care of her, and he was pretty sure that Tyreese would feel the same. He could see how she might not want the entire group to know right away, but she should at least tell him.
Glenn was frustrated. He wasn't sure what he should do, but he felt like he should do something.
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Tyreese had asked Carol what she knew about smoking and drying meat and she'd admitted that she knew very little about it. He had a small amount of knowledge. His grandfather had a couple of smokehouses and he'd spent a few summers with him when he was younger, but what he remembered was pretty limited. Carol had told him the night before that she was sending Glenn and Maggie on a book run, and that she would try to find out all she could. She'd specially requested some books on smoking and drying meat.
Now he was trying to figure out how he wanted to frame the smokehouse, and what would be the best way to go about this. He could remember the structures on his grandfather's farm, the ones that his father and grandfather had built together, but the memory was one clouded by time.
Glenn was sort of awkwardly hanging around him, so he finally got his attention.
"Glenn, come here," he called out to the kid.
"You need something?" Glenn asked.
"Those books you got today, did you find anything about smoking and drying meat?" Tyreese asked. He was hoping for some illustrations or some insight into his construction before he got to work actually trying to make it happen.
Glenn scratched his head a little. "We got something about everything that Carol was worried about, but I don't know exactly what all we got. Maggie got most of the books," Glenn said.
"Where are the books?" Tyreese asked.
"I'll show you. I put them in the living room for Carol to go through," Glenn said. Tyreese followed him back to Carol's house where there were two large sacks packed full of books.
"There's a lot of stuff here," Glenn said. He was a little nervous now. When they went through the sacks they'd see all the books they got on babies and on birth. Tyreese was sure to figure out what was going on. On the one hand, Glenn was relieved that he wasn't going to be involved in letting Tyreese know what was going on, but on the other he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to be part of Tyreese figuring it out. "We got all the stuff she wanted to read about."
Tyreese started digging through the bags, sorting the books into piles as he went. There were books on canning. Carol had told him that she knew how to can, and had done it many times, but wanted to refresh her memory. There were books on farming, and Tyreese knew that she was worried about the upcoming task ahead of them of planting. Junior had a little insight into farming, as did Maggie, but Carol was worried that should they plant the wrong things, or plant them at the wrong time or in the wrong manner, people would blame her for the failed harvest. There were lots of medical guides about home remedies and basic medical diagnosis and first aid. Carol had become, somehow, their doctor, though she had admitted to him that all she knew about medicine before this whole thing started had involved Neosporin and Band-Aids. He continued digging through the bags, the various piles growing. There was one guide on smoking meat, but he continued on to see what the other bag held.
There were a good number of books in the second bag on birth, on midwives, on pregnancy. Tyreese piled them up, curious. Everyone in the community was on birth control, he knew that, so he wasn't sure why there were so many of them. While he was stacking these, it was obvious that Glenn was nervous.
"So are you going to tell me why you're nervous?" Tyreese asked him finally.
"What?" Glenn asked. He tried to act calm, but even he realized that his voice had changed a little.
"I spend most of my time around Daryl and Michonne," Tyreese started, "I've picked up pretty good on how to read people."
"I'm not nervous, I mean, not really. There's a lot of stuff there, did you find what you wanted?" Glenn asked.
"Not yet, at least not exactly, and yes there's a lot of stuff here, but Carol has a lot of stuff on her plate. I don't think everyone realizes how much Carol has to think about," Tyreese said.
"So you knew, already?" Glenn asked. Tyreese didn't seem troubled by all the books that he was piling up, so maybe Glenn had read it wrong. Maybe he did know and just didn't think it mattered all that much.
"Knew what?" Tyreese asked, half interested. He was starting to hit the part of the bag that most interested him, and was thumbing through a book to see if there were any illustrations.
"About the baby?" Glenn asked.
Tyreese stopped thumbing through the book and Glenn wished he hadn't said anything. Tyreese didn't say anything, but he was still for a minute, and then he went back to flipping through books, not saying anything. Glenn wasn't really sure what to do. He wasn't sure now whether Tyreese knew or not, but it was clear that he wasn't going to respond. He just sat there thumbing through books until he found something that apparently was what he wanted. He got up and started out the house. Glenn followed him.
"I can help you," Glenn said, following him back to the place they'd been before where Tyreese had been trying to figure out how to frame a smoke house. Tyreese handed Glenn the book.
"Read through the structure part of this," Tyreese said, handing the book roughly to Glenn. "I'll be back in a few minutes."
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"Hey," Tyreese called as he came upon Carol, scrubbing clothes, "you got something you need to tell me about?"
"What?" Carol asked.
"I asked if you need to tell me about something. I don't get how you can talk to Glenn and not bother to talk to me about things first!" Tyreese said. He didn't realize the frustration in his voice and stance until he noticed Carol backing away from him, drawing up a little in the process. She was sitting down and didn't have far to go. As soon as he saw it, he tried to calm himself. "Don't back away from me," Tyreese said, softening his voice and trying to soften his face.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Carol said, her voice trembling a little.
Tyreese reached a hand out to her, meaning to pull her to her feet and she flinched a little. He bent down and took her arm, pulling gently on it and letting his hand slide down it until he got to her hand.
"Come here," he said.
Carol slowly got up, letting him help her.
"Carol, are you pregnant?" Tyreese asked. "I won't be mad if you are, but you should at least have told me about it before you…" Tyreese couldn't finish because Carol interrupted him.
"No, no, of course not!" She said. "Where would you get such an idea?"
"Glenn…" Tyreese said.
Carol looked confused for a moment and then her face softened into a smile. She reached her hand up to Tyreese's neck and pulled him to her. He kissed her, her lips soft on his.
"I'm not pregnant," she said, pulling away finally. "I wouldn't want to be, not that it has anything to do with you, but I just wouldn't want to try to do that. I mean, I had some problems, and things could be different now, but…"
This time Tyreese interrupted her by kissing her again, this time more deeply than her own kiss had been. When they pulled apart, Tyreese felt the need to explain.
"I went through the books that they got for you today. I wanted to see if I could find some information on that smoke house before I tried to build it," he explained.
Carol understood completely. Glenn had drawn his own conclusions from the books that she'd requested.
"The books aren't for me," Carol said, "or not exactly. Michonne and Daryl are talking about maybe having a second baby. I just wanted the chance to read about it in case they decide to go through with it. I don't really know what I'm doing, and I wanted to know more before I'm supposed to be the one with all the answers."
Tyreese kissed Carol again. He smiled at her. He looked relieved.
"I wouldn't be mad if you were pregnant, but I have to admit that I'm glad you're not," he said.
"I'm glad I'm not too, believe me!" Carol said.
"Promise me that if you were, you would tell me," Tyreese said.
"I promise. I'd tell you as soon as I knew," she said. He hugged her to him, rubbing her back for a minute.
"I had better go set Glenn straight, before anyone else gets the wrong idea," Tyreese said.