AN: Thank you to those of you who take the time to review. It really does make my day to see what you have to say and know that you're behind the story (or even that you're not so much on board). For those of you who like the story, I hope not to let you down in the future.
Also, for those of you who like Beau, I'm glad to hear that you do. He's an OC that I've been working out in my mind for a while now, so I was glad to finally unveil him and bring him out to play.
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After breakfast, everyone went about their business and Carol started washing dishes. To her surprised, Beau hung around headquarters, close to where she was, and watched her for a few minutes.
"You need help?" He asked finally.
"If you want to help, I won't turn you down," Carol said, smiling at him.
Beau took a seat next to Carol and started helping with the dishes. Carol smiled at him. Cleaned up he wasn't a bad looking boy. She had no idea how old he was, and she doubted that he knew that either.
"Do you shave, Beau?" Carol asked, noticing some signs of a beard on the boy.
"No ma'am, at least not recently," Beau said. "I did a couple a' times but I ain't had no razor in a while."
"You don't have a much of a beard," she said.
"Never have growed one," he said. "My uncle used to say that a man's beard was a sign of his masculinity. He used to tease me somethin' awful, and my lil' brother too 'cause we ain't never growed much worth lookin' at."
Carol smiled at him again.
"You've been out there on your own for a while," Carol said. "I guess that's more of a sign of masculinity than facial hair. Would you like to shave? I can get you a razor."
Beau smiled and dried the last of the dishes.
"I'd like that," Beau said. "Thank you, ma'am."
"You can call me Carol," Carol said. "You could stand a haircut too, Beau. I'll take care of that after dinner tonight."
Beau looked at her for a minute. He hadn't really been sure if he was going to stay or not with the group. He hadn't been invited, and he wasn't sure how things worked around here with invitations into their "family".
"You are going to stay, aren't you?" Carol asked, seeing an unsure look register on the boy's face.
"I didn't know if I was gonna stay or not," Beau said.
Carol liked Beau, and she'd decided already that she was keeping him there if she could. He could be an asset to the community, and he was a good kid. Besides, he didn't have anyone else, he might as well stay there.
"Of course you're going to stay," Carol said matter-of-factly. You've got to go hunting today."
Beau smiled at her.
"I guess I'm stayin' then," he said.
Beau had spent the night in what used to be Tyreese's room, and he'd liked sleeping in a house, under a roof. Since he'd left North Carolina he'd been wandering, and since he'd stopped nearby he'd been sleeping in a nest that he'd fashioned for himself up in a tree, having discovered that was the safest way to sleep these days.
Carol collected up the dishes and got up, Beau pulling slightly on her arm.
"You better go find Daryl, let him know you're ready to go when he is," Carol said.
"OK," Beau said. He paused for a minute. "Can I tell you somethin'?" He asked.
"Sure," she said.
"You remind me a lil' bit a' my ma," Beau said.
Carol smiled at him.
"She must have been a good woman to raise such a nice young man," Carol said. "Now you get on and go find Daryl."
Beau nodded and trotted off toward the rabbit pens, having seen Daryl and Tyreese head in that direction earlier.
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They had discovered that they had three females and two males. Tyreese had checked them out when he was putting them in the cage. Now both of the men were just staring at the rabbits.
"Why you ain't gon' eat those rabbits?" Beau asked, coming up.
"'Cause these little fuckers are going to fuck for their lives an' make us more to eat, that way we don't run out," Daryl said.
"What if they don't like each other?" Beau asked.
"Then we'll eat the ones that don't wanna cooperate," Daryl said.
"Carol told me to tell you that I'm ready to go huntin' when you are," Beau said. "She said I was stayin'."
"Oh, did she now?" Daryl asked. He looked at Tyreese and Tyreese just smiled, shrugging a little. "Well, I reckon we better get out there if we're gonna bring somethin' home. Did you have anything else you needed to get from wherever you were stayin'?" Daryl asked. The boy had picked up a green duffel bag before he'd heaved up the deer the night before, but he hadn't had anything else.
"No, I got all my stuff," Beau said.
"Lemme see what you got for huntin' and fightin'," Daryl said. He followed Beau down to the house that he was sharing currently with Sasha and Jimmy. The boy brought the duffel bag into the living room. Daryl noticed it wasn't just an everyday bag. It was an Army rucksack, but he didn't say anything about it. He opened it up and started taking things out. Daryl picked up each of the items and looked at them as Beau laid them on the floor. From the looks of it, most of what the boy had was tools. "A tomahawk?" Daryl asked.
"Yeah," Beau said.
Daryl chuckled. "What the hell you doin' with a tomahawk?"
"After we got run out our land, we passed near Cherokee," Beau said. "We run up with a little group from outta there an' we travelled with 'em for a while. One of the boys in the group gave me the tomahawk an' showed me how to use it."
Daryl put the tomahawk down. Among the other weapons there was a nice hunting knife, a longbow and arrows, and a slingshot. Beau carried no guns and no ammunition aside from the arrows. Daryl picked up the bow and looked at it, slowly realizing it was handmade.
"D'ya get this from them too?" He asked.
"No, I made that." Beau said. "I made the arrows too, and that slingshot."
Daryl just looked at him for a minute.
"I like to whittle a little," Beau said. "It's good for passin' the time. I made a bunch more, but each time I made one I got better at it, so I just kept the better one and left the other." He felt like he needed to explain with the way that Daryl was looking at him.
Daryl examined the arrows. They were well made.
"So you hunt with a bow and arrow?" Daryl asked.
Beau nodded. "I like your crossbow," he offered. "I bet it's better than my bow."
"What good is your slingshot?" Daryl asked. He picked it up and examined it. It was well made, but he couldn't see it being able to take down a Walker or anything of substantial size.
"What'cha think I got them squirrels with?" Beau asked.
Daryl chuckled. "Alright, Beau, get whatever you're taking with you and meet me headquarters," he said. He'd already told the others to meet him there over breakfast, and he was sure that whoever was going would be gathering soon.
When Daryl got to headquarters, there was quite the crowd gathered together.
"All y'all goin'?" He asked, looking at the crowd.
"No," Beth responded, "we were just talking until you got down here." She quickly kissed Junior and walked off with Sasha following her.
Stella was standing in front of him with Junior, Jimmy, and Carl.
"You goin'?" He asked.
Stella nodded her head enthusiastically and smiled.
"You hunt?" Daryl asked her.
"No," she said, "I'm going to fish."
"You gotta bait your own hook," Daryl said.
Stella giggled. "That's fine," she said, "I've been baiting my hook since I was little. I used to go fishing with my grandfather all the time."
"Fine, I don't care," Daryl said.
"Can I hunt with you and Beau?" Carl asked, watching Beau walk up behind Daryl.
"Not yet," Daryl said. "You gotta be able to hunt with somethin' besides guns before you're ready for that. We can't be out in the middle of the woods shootin' at stuff," Daryl said.
Carl's face sunk.
"I could make you a bow," Beau offered, overhearing Daryl's speech to the boy.
"Really?" Carl asked.
"Yeah, no problem," Beau said. "You can practice with it 'til you get good at it, and then you can hunt with us. I wanna get my hands on one of those crossbows, one day," Beau said.
"I could get a crossbow," Carl said.
"You just learn to use the bow first," Daryl said, scruffing Carl's hair. "Then we'll see if you get something with as much power as a crossbow."
Carl scrunched up his face at Daryl and Daryl chuckled at him.
"Fine, let's get to it," Daryl said, going for his rabbit traps. "Get your poles, this train's 'bout to roll out."
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Maggie found Michonne sitting on her porch, mending clothes for Carol. Michonne didn't mind helping with mending, as long as she had the right to say at any time that she was tired of the activity, and Carol had given her that right with anything she chose to help with.
"Did you do something bad?" Maggie asked, mounting the porch steps. She'd been assigned mending a few times, but it was only when she'd done something that really got under Carol's skin.
Michonne looked up for a minute, taking a moment to process what Maggie had just said. Everyone knew that generally Carol reserved mending as a punishment, and it would sound odd for Michonne to admit that she liked it better than some of the other options available to her.
"Yeah," she said, "I got pregnant." She smiled.
Maggie chuckled and sat down across from her in the swing, kicking back for a moment and letting the swing sail forward.
"So," Maggie said, "Glenn and I are thinking on going on a trial run to one of the neighborhoods nearby, just to see what we could get if we put our door to door plan into action. We figured if we had some kind of statistics to show Daryl about what we could get on a run like that, we would be able to decide if it's actually a worthwhile thing to do. Do you know of a nearby neighborhood that would be a good rich people neighborhood to hit up, you know, like this one?"
Michonne thought about it for a few minutes.
"I do, actually, there's another wealthy neighborhood that's not too terribly far from that little store that we were in, you remember where that is?" Michonne asked, putting down her mending for the moment.
"Yeah, I don't think I'm ever going to forget that," Maggie said.
"Well, if you keep going beyond that store, and you turn left on a street that was Palmetto or Pine or something," Michonne paused. "I don't know, it's just after the street and it's some kind of tree, you should run right into the place."
"And you think they were probably like the people who lived here and didn't know what to do with their money?" Maggie asked.
"Yeah, they were a very wealthy neighborhood, but it wasn't a gated community, so you'll need to be extra careful. You won't have any kind of protection from fences," Michonne warned.
"We're going to be as careful as we can, of course. I think Sasha and Dominique are going with us," Maggie said.
"Sasha's good, I've never fought with Dominique before," Michonne said.
"I guess we'll find out what he's capable of," Maggie said. She started to get up.
"Wait," Michonne said, "I wanted to talk to you a minute and lately it's hard to catch you or Glenn. You're always out on runs."
"Sure," Maggie said, sitting down again and kicking off to swing again. "What is it?"
"Has Beth talked to you about moving in with Sasha?" Michonne asked.
"She mentioned something about it, why?" Maggie drew her knees up in the swing and wrapped her arms around them, a normal sitting stance for her.
"I think you should let her move in there, or at least let Junior spend the night at your house if he wants to." Michonne said.
Maggie raised her eyebrows at Michonne and then looked away for a minute.
"They're just kids," Maggie said.
"They're not kids, though, both of them would be legal adults, if that even mattered anymore," Michonne said.
"Well they both seem like kids to me," Maggie said.
"By that logic you and Glenn both seem like kids to me," Michonne said.
Maggie looked at her and absentmindedly scratched her forehead.
"I'm just saying that your dad didn't get in the way of you and Glenn. Tyreese has backed off of Sasha and Jimmy. Beth and Junior are the only two around here that are having to deal with someone breathing down their necks. Maybe you should just think about it, try to think how you would feel if the roles were reversed and you had Beth breathing down your neck and making you feel like you couldn't be alone with Glenn," Michonne said.
"I'll think about it," Maggie said. "Is that it?"
Michonne smiled at her.
"That's it, good luck on your run," Michonne said.
Maggie didn't say anything, she just got up and dismounted the porch steps. Michonne went back to her mending.
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Tyreese and Carol accompanied Chelsea out for water. Beth had taken most of what they had at the community to go down and water the fields, and Carol knew they'd need more water for baths and such. Tyreese was carrying one bucket, and each of the women walking just in front of him had two buckets. He was trying to keep sweeping the area constantly, being the only one carrying his weapon to protect them against Walkers. Luckily since Rick and Rachel had cleared the area around the gates pretty quickly, he'd only had to respond to three or four Walkers.
His other concerns were the hunters. He hoped that Daryl and Beau would check carefully before hearing them rumbling through the underbrush, not talking so as to not scare away any possible game for them, and wouldn't accidentally put an arrow into any of them. That was going to be one of the only problems they had with so much coming and going, it was likely that they all crossed each other's paths a little more often than they wanted to.
When they reached the water they could hear quiet chatter. They filled their buckets and paused, silent, trying to identify if the voices belonged to some of their own or if they'd encountered someone new.
After a few minutes they heard a familiar giggle.
"Stella," Carol whispered.
She started back toward the community and Chelsea followed suit.
Tyreese thought about it. They really needed to sit down and have a whole group discussion about what they wanted to do in the case that they did encounter others. He thought he'd bring it up to Daryl for an after dinner meeting. They needed a policy on new people. Taking in Beau, one boy alone in the woods, was one thing, but if they encountered another group they needed to have an idea about what the entire community might want.
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Daryl's group got back before the run group returned. Tyreese took the three rabbits that Daryl brought and took them out back to put them in the pen with the others. Daryl had gotten two females and one male. Tyreese thought he'd be happy about that. The more females they had, the more they would produce.
Daryl was also thrilled because he and Beau had managed to come upon a flock of turkeys in the area and got two of them. Each one of them carried one of the large birds with the others filing into the community behind them carrying strings of fish.
"Nice birds," Rick said to Daryl once he had shut the gate.
"There's more of 'em too, man, we just got two before the others caught on and made a run for it," Daryl said, grinning.
Carol watched as Junior and Jimmy went off with the fish to clean and Carl tailed after Beau and Daryl to clean the turkeys.
When they reappeared with everything ready to either be hung up or go in the pot, Carol had already prepared everything to fry fish and told Daryl that she'd take the fish off his hands, hoping for a little more time to think about what to do with the turkey. She wasn't sure how the smoked turkey would be put to use later, but she would figure it out. What was important was that they were going to have a good dinner tonight, and slowly they were stocking up on meat for future meals.
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Over dinner Maggie and Glenn reported on their run, which had brought in quite a bit of supplies, enough to think there might be something to their plan of doing neighborhood cleanouts. In the amount of time that they'd been gone, the four of them had brought back several assorted boxes of supplies as well as two cans full of gas.
Daryl had to admit that the idea didn't look half bad now, as long as they stayed lucky and didn't get overrun by herds or run into any hostile others.
"Hey dad," Carl said when there was a lull in the conversation, "Beau said he'd make me a bow and some arrows to practice with and Daryl said I can hunt with them."
Rick looked at Daryl.
"I mean if that's OK with you, man, I just thought the kid outta know how to hunt," Daryl said.
"That's fine with me," Rick said, "but I don't want him shooting arrows in the direction of anyone, and I don't want him to have sharp arrows until he knows what he's doing."
"Don't worry," Beau said, "I can make him some practice arrows, they won't hurt nothin'. I can work with him. I was younger than him when I started using one, it won't be hard for him to learn."
Carl was grinning at Beau, and Rick nodded his acceptance of the plan. It really wasn't a bad idea to teach Carl to hunt. Rick had no doubt that Daryl would have Judith and Hope both out there hunting as soon as he could.
"Beau," Daryl started after a minute, "that rucksack belong to you or you picked it up on the way?"
"That was my pa's," Beau said. "He died when I was young. I was livin' with my ma an' my two brothers and sisters on my grandpa's land. My grandpa died when I was a baby and my grandma died not long after my pa. She thought it weren't right for no ma to outlive her young'uns, and she sorta just gave up. When the Nasties kinda took over they run us out. We all got what we could, but it weren't much an' we left with my uncle. My sisters got overtook by the Nasties an' my ma tried to save 'em." He paused a minute. There was a look of sadness on his face, but it was a look of sadness that had been worked through many times over. It wasn't the kind that would overwhelm him any longer. "After that we was headed for Atlanta, but we never made it there. When I was all that was left, I figured I'd just sorta ramble, you know, 'til I found me a good place."
"Have you been in the area long?" Maggie asked, wondering about the group that the two men had mentioned.
"Not too long," Beau said. "I reckon I been nestin' near here for 'bout two months maybe?"
"And you haven't run into any other groups?" Glenn asked, sensing what Maggie was getting at.
"No, I mean I seen other people, but I ain't interacted with 'em," Beau said. He was quiet for a few minutes. Then he nodded his head as though he was agreeing with someone, though no one had spoken. "It weren't no Nasty that killed my uncle," he said. "We run up on some people and one 'a there men shot my uncle quick as look at 'em, so since then I try not to talk to nobody. I wouldn'ta talked to Daryl if'n I coulda got that rabbit out the trap 'fore he caught me."
The group was quiet, all of them acknowledging the significance of his words.
Tyreese spoke up after a minute.
"That brings me to something that I was going to save until after dinner, but now seems as good a time as any to discuss it," he said, "what do we do if we run up on another group?"
"What'cha mean?" Daryl asked.
"Well, I know we said if we run up on people that we know aren't trustworthy then we tell them to move on or we kill them," Tyreese responded, "but what if we run up on another group that seems peaceful? Do we leave them alone and in peace? Do we invite them back here? What do we do?"
Everyone seemed to be considering his question.
"If they're good people, I guess they should come back here," Glenn said.
"The more people we have, the quicker we've got to move on," Daryl said.
"I agree," Maggie said, "if we get too many people to support we're not going to be able to stay as long, and we don't want to have to move on too soon because of others."
"More numbers does mean more security when we do move on, though," Rick offered.
"If you weren't taking in newcomers, then we wouldn't be here and who knows what would have happened to us," Dominique said, a little sadness to his voice.
"That was different," Daryl said, "they already knowed you."
"But you didn't know us when you took us in," Junior said.
"And we even came with that asshole," Jimmy added, glancing in Carol's direction and deciding not to repeat Earl's name. "But you took us in and you gave us a home."
Beau sat there, trying to figure out exactly how everyone fit together again. Now it was quite clear that none of them had started this together. Why had they taken him in?
"I'm mighty glad you let me stay," Beau said, "and I'd hate to think that if'n I'da had my brothers with me you mighta not let me stay."
Daryl thought about it. They had reached one of those points where he didn't have an answer for the group. He hated to take on any substantial amount of people, but he also hated to turn people away if they were good people. He tried to weigh it out in his mind, he didn't want to move on anytime soon because he wanted Michonne to have as much time as she needed to recover after the baby came. He could easily admit to himself that he was most concerned about that. A certain amount of people wouldn't be that much of a problem, but how do you tell the group when they've reached the limit?
"If it's a small group, or one or two people, we let them join us," Carol offered. "If it's a group comparable to our own then they should be fine on their own. Beau, you were out there alone. No one should have to do this alone."
Daryl was suddenly thankful for Carol's input, seeming that she could read his mind.
"So how many is too many to accept?" Tyreese questioned.
"Five," Maggie offered. "If they're bringing five people we'll accept them, but anything over that has a good chance on their own."
The group seemed to think about it for a while, and eventually all nodded agreement. It wasn't a perfect plan, and like all their plans could stand some tweaking later, but for now they had some rough criteria for the groups they might encounter.