It was hot, hotter than usual for the time of year. They had all expected the heat, but they weren't sure if there wasn't some sort of heat wave going on. It felt like the dog days and unless they'd lost track of time entirely it was far too early for that.
Michonne was thankful for once that she wasn't more pregnant than she already was, and she was also glad that they'd all agreed to take it a little easy until some of the heat lifted. They were sticking to just taking care of what had to be done, and the rest of the time they dedicated to trying not to puddle to death.
Mostly they stayed outside simply because it was cooler outside than it was in their houses. They went in to sleep, but the hope of a breeze outside was greater than the hope of one drifting through the windows, which were all raised. Right now they were missing air conditioning, ice, and even things as simple as the cool weather that they'd been happy to see go.
Michonne was currently occupying one of the lawn chairs that they'd rounded up and sitting in front of headquarters with Carol and Mark. Judith and Hope were playing in the yard, and Michonne had lost track of Daryl sometime earlier. He'd been in the back playing with his rabbits, as she liked to think of it. It his plan had been successful, and the rabbits were indeed beginning to multiply. They were at least going to have plenty of rabbit meat, and he was serious about getting as many as possible. She and Carol had often joked that he and Tyreese sat back there and sang love songs to the long eared creatures trying to inspire them to mate.
"I can remember my grandmother," Carol said while they were sitting there, "and she'd sit around on her old porch with this old woman that was her neighbor, and they'd just sit and rock and talk about how hot it was all summer long. I wondered why anyone would spend their time doing that, and look at us now." She paused. Michonne smiled at her. "I'm my grandmother!"
"I know what you mean," Michonne said. "I can also remember all those annoying conversations about needing the rain. When I was growing up, no matter what, if I complained about the rain my father would always say 'we need the rain,' and I could never figure out why it was all that important." She sighed, stretching her back. "Now we need the rain for the crops, I understand it."
"Are we turning into old ladies, Michonne?" Carol asked.
"Why do I get left out of this?" Mark teased. "I've said at least a dozen phrases I never thought I'd utter since all this started."
"Do you want to be an old lady with us, Mark?" Carol asked.
Michonne snorted.
"No, I'm not old enough for it just yet," Mark said.
"We'd all jump at the chance to be old these days," Michonne said.
"Depends on the day and I feel like I'm not that far away from it," Carol said.
"Girl, you need a new attitude about that," Mark said. "If you tell yourself you're old, you'll feel old, it just works that way. It's the power of the mind. Tell yourself you are what you want to be, and you'll be it."
Carol laughed.
"Self-help at the end of the world, book on tape, recited by Mark," she said.
Michonne snickered.
"Keep laughing, smart ass," Mark said, tipping his head back on his chair. "The first thing you could use is a makeover."
"You told me you owned a furniture store and that you were a volunteer EMT, were you also a stylist or something?" Carol asked smirking at him.
Mark rolled his head toward her.
"I'm a gay man, and no self-respecting gay man isn't at least a little bit of a stylist. Besides, anyone could tell you that your little orphan Annie hairstyle could use some work," Mark said.
Carol scoffed. If she'd had anything to throw at him, she would have.
"I don't think I've hardly even looked at my hair in ages," Carol said.
"And it looks like it," Mark commented.
Michonne sat back, smiling at the two of them bantering back and forth. She wondered how long this would go on. They had all day, there wasn't much else happening. It was free entertainment for her.
"I don't know about you, Mark, but my blow dryer hasn't been working lately. Someone forgot to pay the electricity bill at our house, power's been out since we moved in," Carol countered.
"I admit," Mark said, "that you've got hair like Sadie's and therefore it's somewhat unmanageable, but I could make it better, or at least try to, if you're interested, and if you were nice to me."
Carol cocked an eyebrow at him. "Nice to you? What do you want? A foot massage and a strawberry daiquiri?"
Mark looked like he was considering it a moment. "The daiquiri feels nice. I really don't like people touching my feet, though."
Michonne laughed and both of them looked at her. She tried to get it under control.
"If you want to do something to my hair, Mark, I don't care, but I've lived with it all my life. I know it's a mess," Carol said.
"Do you have scissors?" Mark asked.
"In headquarters," Carol answered.
"I can look at your household and tell there's not a brush or a comb to be found," Mark said. "I'll go get mine. You ladies stay put."
Mark got up from his chair and started toward his house. Carol and Michonne looked at each other. Both of them were smiling, and both were curious to see what Mark was up to.
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Mark came and went without explanation and Sadie watched him from the porch as he headed back down to headquarters. Mark liked conversation, and Sadie didn't blame him for that. She had liked conversation too, when it was a lot easier for her to chat with others without having to be focused on them at all times.
She saw Beau approaching, wood clasped in one hand and knife in the other, but his walk was calm, so she knew there was no problem. He was just coming to visit, and he visited often. She smiled when he came around and mounted the porch steps instead of climbing over the railing like she'd asked him to do.
He sat in the chair next to her without a word and went to work at what he was doing. Sadie fanned herself and regarded him. He was carving something, she could see that clearly now, but it wasn't anywhere near finished. She brushed his arm and he looked at her.
"What are you making?" She asked.
Beau looked at the piece of wood in his hand for a second as though he'd never seen it before. He shrugged slightly.
"An angel," he said, looking at Sadie. He showed her what he had done so far. "I made one, he explained for Dominique's grave. Didn't seem right he ain't had nothin' there ta show he was lost. We ain't had no body, but that ain't mean we couldn't have no kinda headstone. I carved a D into it an' Tyreese liked it so much that I made him one for Sasha. Then they told me they had others that could use markin', so I reckon I'm makin' markers for them now. I didn't know 'em, but if they belonged here, then they oughta get somethin'."
Sadie smiled. Most everyone here was so nice, so gentle. They called themselves a family and she understood what they meant by it. Since they'd arrived, they'd treated her and Mark as though they were family. Maybe they were cousins that they'd never met before at first, but slowly they'd become more and more comfortable with them. Sadie had entirely forgiven Daryl, who had apologized numerous times for injuring her. She'd grown to really like Carol and Michonne, Carl was enjoying sign language immensely and she loved having someone that she could chat with, even just about little things, in a way that was easy and familiar for her.
And then there was Beau. Sadie knew that Beau liked her, and she was flattered. He was a handsome young man, though she wasn't sure exactly how old he was. She could tell that he would only become more handsome as he aged, and Beau was a young man that was as likely to survive this as anyone was. He might be young, and maybe he wasn't very educated, but Sadie could easily tell that he was a smart young man in all the ways that mattered these days.
Sadie felt conflicted about Beau. She liked him being around her. She enjoyed his company. He talked a lot, but he was very conscious about talking to her directly, making sure that she understood, and he was always curious to hear whatever she had to say. Part of her felt like if she'd been younger, she would have wanted to pursue something with him. She'd have egged him on a little.
She was confident, now, that Beau had no idea what he was doing with females. None at all. He hadn't even picked up on the fact that glances were often cast his way from both Chelsea and Stella. Sadie didn't want to flatter herself into thinking it was because this was like some fairytale and he only had eyes for her. Granted, she could clearly see that he was trying to get closer to her, but she could also tell that he was fumbling.
Sadie didn't truly want a relationship with Beau, though, at least not a romantic one. The part of her that did want it was perhaps just the lonely part of her, the part that missed her husband, and missed the way he'd made her feel. Beau, though, was too young for her, or she was too old for him.
If there was a chance that they were going to make it for a long time, something Sadie hadn't imagined could ever be true only a month ago, Beau deserved someone his age. He deserved someone that he could spend the rest of his life with, and even better if that was to be a long life. Sadie knew that much. If there were anything between them, if Beau did actually feel something for her like she'd felt for her husband, she wouldn't want him to suffer losing that simply because she was too old to continue along beside him.
Still, she didn't have the heart to turn him away or force him toward the girls that she deemed more appropriate for him. Even though she didn't want a romantic relationship with him, she wanted something with Beau, even if it was just a friendship of sorts.
"That's sweet of you," she said, watching him whittle away at the angel. It was quickly taking shape in his hands. She could see the details starting to emerge.
"It's nothin'," Beau said, smiling his crooked smile.
"How did you learn to do it?" Sadie asked.
Beau shrugged. "I started doin' it when I was young. I started with the bars of soap in the house. I carved little animals out of 'em, cats, dogs, whatever I wanted to carve."
"Can you do anything?" Sadie asked.
Beau shrugged again. "I don't know, he said. I reckon I could." He stopped talking for a moment and then chuckled.
"What?" Sadie asked.
"Man, my ma, she used ta get so mad 'bout them soap bars. She'd gather up all the little shavin's an' she'd run 'em up under hot water, clumpin' 'em together. Then she'd make me use that soap, these real ugly lookin' big ole balls a' soap. Everyone else got to use the animals. Used ta be funny watchin' 'em melt, most of 'em lost their heads first. There'd be a whole headless zoo just sittin' up there in the soap tray," Beau said.
Sadie laughed in response. She could tell by Beau's face that he was far away for a moment, in another world, another place and time. It was a place that she went often as well. A nice place to visit every now and again.
"Did you make horses?" she asked.
Beau nodded.
"An' I could make a lotta elephants an' lions an' mess," he said. "If I could see it in my head, I could make it."
"What about giraffes?" Sadie asked.
Beau shrugged. "I don't know, I ain't never tried ta make one. Never had a bar a' soap big enough I reckon. When I started with wood I was makin' weapons. I wanted a sling shot, but my ma said I couldn't have one on account a' she thought I'd shoot birds an' stuff we wasn't gonna eat. I told her I wasn't gonna do that, but she was just that way. So I made my own. After that it was other things. I ain't made no animals ner nothin' outta wood, 'til I made them angels."
Sadie nodded her understanding and Beau went back to his whittling, his face covered in that far away expression. He stayed that way for a while, until Carl approached them, greeting Sadie in sign with a smile and then asking Beau to join him for something they "needed" him for.
Sadie could see Beau hesitating a minute and she urged him to go with Carl and do whatever it was the boy was obviously excited about. Beau smiled at her and slipped over the rail, forgetting her request that he use the steps. She watched the two of them jog off and then glanced at the seat next to her. The knife and the unfinished angel lie in the seat. He'd be back for them, that much was sure.
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Mark had been tediously picking Carol for a while now, but Michonne had to admit that his finished result was quite impressive. The longer Carol's hair had gotten, the more she'd just let it do whatever it was going to do, much like the approach that they had so far taken with the girls' hair, but Mark had been meticulous enough to secure some kind of pins and had trimmed it here, trimmed it there, and pinned in various places.
Carol protested most of the time, insisting that Mark, who was trying to make sense of the mess of curls and tangles, was ripping all her out, but Michonne knew she'd been really enjoying it. It wasn't often that anyone around there got pampered.
Michonne's attention was drawn by Daryl and Tyreese, coming toward them. Both seemed a little awkward, thought Michonne couldn't put her finger on why. It was normal for Daryl, but for Tyreese it seemed a little off.
"Well don't you look pretty!" Tyreese proclaimed. He walked over to Carol and lifted her chin, bending down to kiss her.
"You like it?" She asked grinning.
Tyreese smiled back at her. "I do, I like it a lot. I can see those pretty blue eyes without fighting for it," he said.
Michonne smiled at both of them, and noticed that Mark stood back, looking a little proud of himself. Daryl had disappeared for a moment, but she felt him lurking just behind her.
Tyreese trailed his finger down the neck of Carol's tank top.
"It's almost going to make me hate doing this," he said. Michonne noticed him shift something in his hand, and she might have figured out what it was, if she hadn't been distracted by water pouring down over her body and puddling in her lap. Carol shrieked at the same time and Michonne noticed her shirt was soaking wet. Both Daryl and Tyreese were cackling.
Water balloons, Michonne realized, gaining her feet suddenly. She realized that Carl and Beau were howling not far off, each of them pushing a wheelbarrow. The rest of the community was gathering around. Somehow they'd called them all together in one way or another and now there were two wheelbarrows full of water balloons.
Before Michonne could think any more about it, another made impact with her, exploding water all over her.
"That's not fair!" Carol yelled, holding up her arms just as another made contact with her. "We're unarmed."
Michonne laughed and made a run for one of the wheelbarrows. Everyone was pelting everyone else in the soggy confusion.
Daryl caught Michonne around the arms, hugging her to him.
"Careful, woman, don't slip out here an' hurt my baby," he said.
In one move she swung around and pressed against him, looking up at him. He kissed her before she could go in for the kiss that she'd been planning. She felt her back soaking, pelted either by direct fire or by simply being in the crossfire of the other cackling members of her group.
Even Maggie and Seth had joined in, though neither were close to being rehabilitated from their injuries. The best thing about this battle was that if you were hit, the worst it meant was that you might be a little cleaner at the end.
The water, though not cool by any means, felt good, and Michonne smiled when she heard Judith and Hope both cackling. She glanced over, one of Daryl's arms still hooked around her, and saw Carl bursting balloons above their heads, the water raining down on them.
The water balloon battle hadn't lasted long. Like most battles they ran out of ammunition long before they thought they would. The street was soaked, most of the people were fairly wet, and there was a mess of exploded balloons to be collected. Their little attack also meant an impromptu water run, but it was all worth it. The smiles and excited faces were everywhere. No one had lost this battle. Everyone had won. There were no casualties, no injuries, no tears, and no bloodshed. All there was now were wet people that would be soon dried by the heat surrounding them and laughter and camaraderie.
Michonne suddenly felt wonderful. Daryl's arm was still protectively wrapped around her and she tipped her head back, laughing like so many of the others around her. She felt Daryl slip his other arm around her, pulling her into him and rocking with her. For at least a minute, she felt like life was good, maybe even better than they'd all thought it could be.