AN: So I just thought that I would let everyone still reading know that I'm diving into a complicated work schedule which means updates will be only as frequent as I can make them (and that's not that often, I'm sure) and they will likely be a little shorter than they are sometimes. This is especially true as I'm learning what my new schedule is going to be like.
I just didn't want you to think I've run away. More notes at the end about the future of our story.
I hope you enjoy. This is somewhat of a Rick-centric chapter.
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
Rick had convinced Judith that she wanted to spend the morning with him after she'd finished breakfast. It really hadn't been all that difficult to convince her since he was using the animals as bait, but she'd agreed and he'd swung her up on his shoulders and carried her down to the barns.
Rick stood to the side and leaned against the door frame of the barn while Judith went around, talking to all the animals that allowed her to pet them. Rick watched her, amazed at how big she was getting, how well she was speaking. She was growing up and she was looking more and more like Lori every day, especially now that she was beginning, although slightly, to lose her baby appearance and take on more the look of a young girl.
Rick realized that when he looked at Judith, he thought of Lori, just like when he looked at Carl, but that was really the only time these days that he let his mind drift to Lori. It wasn't that he'd forgotten her, or that he'd made any effort to forget her…it was more that he'd finally moved on. She had been an important part of his life. The first woman that he'd ever loved, and the only woman that he'd loved so far, but he was beginning to think that she may not be the last.
Rick knew that he was taken with Sadie. He didn't want to venture to say that it was anything more. Physically they'd had nothing more than a few chaste kisses and one make out session that probably only romantically ranked them as clumsy teenagers. But there was a lot more to her than that and there was a lot more to what he was beginning to feel about her than that.
Sadie was, as surprising as he found it, someone he enjoyed having conversations with. There wasn't any judgment with Sadie, no matter what he wanted to say to her. She simply accepted it, tried to help him if he presented a problem, and then moved on.
Rick wondered, too, if one thing he liked about Sadie was that she challenged him. He felt like at every turn she always had some question for him to answer about himself, some challenge as to what he wanted out of the life that they might find out there, and she never seemed to let him get away with any halfhearted answers.
She helped him with Carl and Judith too, and his feelings on both of them. Carl was growing up, and that was the simple truth of the matter. The boy was beginning to look at Rick less and less for the same kind of guidance that he once had and Rick was starting to feel more like an onlooker in his son's life. Carl was becoming a man. He wanted to be Rick's friend more than he wanted to receive fatherly lectures, and Sadie was urging Rick to let Carl spread his wings. She told him that one day, if he was lucky, he'd be navigating this world on his own, and it was better to let him start practicing flying solo when Rick was still around to catch him, than to try to shelter him until he simply couldn't any longer.
With Judith there was more for him to deal with. He'd accepted that he would never be for Judith more than a dear uncle at best, but that didn't mean that guilt didn't gnaw at him from time to time for not having been what he meant to be. Sadie was good at helping him through the guilt, at least until it reared its head again, and pushing him not to give into it. Instead, she pushed him toward trying to find what he could have with Judith instead of regretting what he had lost.
Rick snickered at Judith now who was on her hands and knees crawling around in one of the fenced off areas that they had fixed for the pigs. She was going to be filthy, but that wasn't nothing unusual, and he knew that Carol wouldn't mind him bringing her back like this.
"It's big piggy!" Judith squealed, wrapping her arms around one of the pigs that was complacent enough to lie there while she crawled around it, hugging it.
"That is a big piggy, Judith," Rick said. "Did you make sure your chickens were happy today?"
Judith loved all the animals. Most of the kids seemed to love them all. And as a result, they'd quickly domesticated a good number of them, even it was against their will. The two boys that Libby and Beau seemed to be trying to bring up together were rough and tumble. The oldest being a good bit older than Judith, and the youngest being around her age. Jacob was the oldest and was quite good at catching the animals, even when they didn't want to be caught. He'd take the scratches and the bites that came with the job, as long as it resulted in having a chicken or a pig to pet.
Judith and the others reaped the rewards of Jacob's sacrifices because once he domesticated the creatures, they were free to be mauled by the likes of the other children. Judith's favorites were the chickens, so when Rick mentioned them, she immediately lost interest in her pig.
"We get eggs!" She called at him, standing up and wiping her knees off with her hands in a manner that was almost too ladylike for a little girl who had been crawling around in dirty hay after a pig.
"Come on out," Rick said, holding his hand down toward her. "We'll go see if there are eggs."
Judith crawled back between the wooden slats that served to fence off the area and accepted Rick's hand. He didn't even look to see whatever it was that squished between their two hands because he wasn't certain that he wanted to know. He walked her over to the still unfinished hanging coops that they were building and lifted her up so that she could look in, bending back the wire door. The chickens in the coops were far more interested, almost any time the door was opened, to run the through the available wire network and escape capture than they were to protect any of the nests and they scattered in a flurry of feathers and squawks. The rooster was leashed outside for the moment, so Judith was able to carefully examine the nests without bother.
"Any eggs?" Rick asked her, already spying two. He doubted there were more than that anywhere in there given the fact that the women would have cleaned out the nests earlier.
"Oh yes," Judith said, somewhat dramatically. Rick offered her one of the baskets hanging nearby and she carefully put the two eggs in there, having some kind of little conversation with each of them as she transferred them from one location to the other. Rick supposed he could take them to headquarters and the women could use them when they wanted them.
"That all the eggs?" He asked.
Judith searched around but finally nodded, wrapping her arms around him and letting him take her out the coop. She yawned a little and scrubbed her face against his. He smiled at the act. He gathered up her basket with the two eggs and twisted the wire door shut again so that the captive birds could feel they were secure from the prying eyes and hands of anyone that would bother their wire sanctuary.
"Come on," he said, kissing her forehead. "Let's go down and see if anyone needs us."
He put her down and she ran ahead of him. He closed the barn door and walked a few feet behind her, carrying the basket with the two eggs. Judith seemed pleased, and the morning might have gone off without a hitch at all, except that as they got close to headquarters Judith stumbled over her feet and spilled to the ground.
Even from a distance Rick knew the fall had been no major incident. He approached her, helped her up, and saw that she had no other markings besides a very, very tiny scrape on her palm. Unfortunately, Judith had decided in this instant that the scrape was nearly life threatening and her howling probably indicated to the community that something akin to a Walker attack was taking place.
Rick scooped her up, balancing her against his hip, but the magic was broken. He was not soothing at all. Through her howling all she wanted was Mama, and he knew he wasn't going to be able to fix this. As he got to headquarters, the howling had intensified to an almost gagging cry and Rick was trying not to smile at the dramatics taking place. Carol came out of the house they'd established as headquarters and Rick lowered Judith to the ground so that she could run to her, holding out her palm, and receive the correct form of comfort for the injuries she'd sustained.
Carol kneeled down and Judith wrapped her arms around her, still crying.
"What happened?" Carol asked, looking confused. Rick finally smiled then.
"Judith stumbled," he said. "Scraped her hand."
Carol pushed the little girl off of her enough to wipe at her face and Judith stuck her hand right in her face.
"Is it really bad?" Carol asked Judith, who was beginning to calm down a little.
Judith nodded, moaning pathetically and confirming that the fall had indeed been tragic.
"Well we're going to have to clean that up," Carol said. She looked at Rick and winked.
"I hold you!" Judith declared, wrapping her arms around Carol again. Carol chuckled.
"I think it might be nap time, too," Carol said. Judith pulled away then, shaking her head, the cry now more one that she was maintaining out of her own interest more than really one dedicated to the real pain and suffering she'd already endured.
"No! It's not naptime!" Judith cried out.
Carol nodded her head.
"I wasn't talking about you," she said. "It's my nap time. Can you hold me and put me down for a nap after we clean your hand up? Please?"
Judith looked like she was considering and then nodded. Carol got up and Rick realized where Judith had come across the habit of dusting her knees off like she did, though Judith didn't seem to really understand why she was doing it since she'd immediately crawl back on the ground again. Judith took Carol's hand and Carol walked toward Rick before heading off in the direction of their house.
"She's fine," Carol said. "She just gets touchy when it's nap time and Hope went down at least forty minutes ago, so I'm sure Jude's feeling it."
"I understand," he said. "She did find two eggs." He held up the basket. "I'll put them inside."
Carol nodded at him.
"Can you say bye bye to Rick?" Carol asked Judith. "Thank him for taking you to get eggs?"
Judith waved at him, but he could tell he wasn't getting much more than that at the moment. He reached over and patted her head before walking toward headquarters, leaving Carol to take Judith and be put down for a nap.
1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
Rick found Daryl and Tyreese holding down one of the porches on a house they didn't use and watching some sort of spectacle, though he wasn't entirely sure what was going on. He mounted the porch steps and sat down on the floor of the porch next to Daryl.
"Have you got any idea where Carl is?" Rick asked.
Daryl looked at him, chewing something that he and Tyreese were eating out of a metal bowl.
"Figured ya knew," Daryl said. "Beau took him out doin' some kinda target practice or huntin' or somethin'. Took him an' that kid Jacob."
"Beau took Carl and a five year old outside the community?" Rick asked.
Daryl shrugged.
"He was takin' the kid and since he and Libby is as just as good as raisin' them young'uns I couldn't exactly say nothin' to him. Carl just went with 'em," Daryl said.
Rick sighed.
"Don't worry about it too much," Tyreese said, sucking his fingers. "There are hardly any Walkers out there and Sadie had Stella kill off what was around the fence line this morning during their practice or whatever you want to call it."
Rick turned his attention briefly to the spectacle the two men were watching. He didn't know what was going on, but Sadie and Rachel looked like they were fighting. Michonne was standing nearby and every now and again she paced a few steps.
"What's going on here?" Rick asked, realizing that even if it annoyed him that Carl had left without telling him, he couldn't exactly go running after Beau. He wasn't likely to find the boy if Beau didn't want to be found, and Carl was picking up, more and more, Beau's ability to slip around unseen.
"Your new girlfriend is whippin' your old girlfriend's ass, that's what's happenin'," Daryl said with a chuckle.
Rick had no idea what Daryl was talking about.
"Are they really fighting?" Rick asked, looking back at the women.
"No," Tyreese said. "Well…yes and no. They're really making contact with one another, but it's part of Sadie's hand to hand combat training. She whipped up on Stella for a while earlier and now she's rolling Rachel around. Probably isn't going to last too much longer though, you can tell she's getting tired and Rachel will roll her soon."
Tyreese leaned over, offering Rick the bowl. Rick looked at it and wrinkled his nose.
"What is that?" He asked.
"Don't know," Tyreese said. "Muh gave it to us. Tastes a little like sauerkraut. Not too bad. It's supposed to cleanse something or align something or whatever. We figured it wasn't half bad and we don't have popcorn."
Rick chuckled but refused any of whatever the two men were eating. He didn't think the little old woman was likely to poison anyone, but that didn't mean that he wanted to eat things that were unidentified. He wasn't sure that she would be above feeding them things that he had no interest in ever saying he'd tried.
"What's Michonne doing?" Rick asked.
"Mostly tryin' ta test my patience," Daryl said. "Zeb ain't been here a week an' she's been circling 'round the two of them like she's wantin' to get in on it. I ain't lettin' her tangle up with nobody, not yet."
Rick chuckled.
"So that's what you're doing here? Making sure Michonne doesn't try to fight with Sadie?" Rick asked.
"Not really," Tyreese answered. "Daryl's on Zeb duty and I suggested we watch this instead of sit around in the house.
"Where's the baby?" Rick asked, looking around.
"Down in my shirt," Daryl responded.
Rick looked at him and realized the jacket he was wearing did look a little lumpy.
"Muh packed him in there," Daryl said. "He's sleepin' and it's warm in there. She said he liked hearin' my heartbeat."
"So you let the old woman burrow around in your clothes and then you ate her mystery food?" Rick asked.
Daryl shrugged and took more of the mystery dish.
"Food ain't half bad and I reckon if 'Chonne let her pull the baby outta her, I can at least let her dig around in my shirt for a bit," Daryl said. He sucked his fingers clean and looked down into the cavern of his own clothes. "He looks happy in there so I ain't complainin'."
"That kid lets you know real quick when he isn't happy," Tyreese said.
They sat there for a bit. Sadie and Rachel had finished whatever fight it was they were having, and now both of them were standing and talking to Michonne a few feet away from the men.
"So Sadie's workin' on trainin' us for attacks, how likely do ya think some attacks are?" Daryl asked Rick after a bit.
Rick shrugged.
"Between all three groups we've made contact with about eight other groups in the area, all relatively small. The others don't consider themselves stabilized groups. They claim to only be holding up for winter where they are," Rick said. "I've only met a few but I know Jeremiah's group is doing some trading with two of the groups that are headed for the coast. They came from farther west and basically want to swap out furs for food with him."
Daryl chuckled.
"We fur traders now?" Daryl asked.
Rick shrugged.
"I guess if you're going to eat it, you might as well wear it," Rick said. "We've got those deer hides and rabbit hides stored up in one of the smokehouses."
"True," Daryl said. "But we ain't done nothin' with 'em yet."
"Yet is probably the key word," Tyreese said. "We're already doing things we never thought we'd be doing when this whole things started. Wearing hide and fur is probably somewhere down the line."
"I'd rather have it than not have it, honestly," Rick said. "We still haven't decided for sure where we go from here. If we're going west like Jeremiah's group then winter is going to get harsher."
"If we go anywhere but south winter is going to get harsher," Daryl said. "I ain't opposed to wearin' fur and shit, don't get me wrong, I just think it's funny that we swappin' furs and all that."
"The times they are a' changing," Tyreese said with a chuckle.
The men were interrupted when Michonne and Sadie walked over a few minutes later.
"Ya oughtta sit down," Daryl said to Michonne.
"I'm fine," she said, easing down to sit on the step. "How's Zeb?"
"Sleepin' like he was earlier. He keeps wigglin' a little, but then he settles back down," Daryl said.
"You're a good kangaroo," Michonne said. Daryl chuckled at her.
"I just can't do nothin' when he starts fussin' for food," Daryl said. "How'd ya trainin' go?" Daryl asked, tapping Sadie who was swiping at her face with her shirt.
"Good," she said, panting.
"Ya ain't freezin'?" Daryl asked. She had slowly shucked off most of her layers while she'd been out there and it was cold enough that you couldn't afford to be too shy on clothes.
Sadie shook her head.
"Sweaty," she said. She turned to Rick. "I didn't think I'd say this, but there aren't enough Walkers." She laughed and shrugged. "I took Stella out to practice and we found maybe ten. We were hunting them."
She laughed again and Rick couldn't help but laugh at her.
"We never thought we'd be going hunting for Walkers, either," Rick said.
"It's the cold," Daryl offered. "Keeps 'em hunkered down somewhere."
"It's a good thing, too," Michonne said. "At least they're easier to keep thinned out when you can only find a dozen or so that you're looking for. I'm getting in on the training soon. Get back in shape." She nudged Sadie and Sadie smiled at her.
"I'm going," Sadie said. "I smell like a Walker."
She waved and then jogged off from them, gathering up her discarded clothes from the lawn and then starting in the direction of headquarters. Rick let his eyes trail after her. When he looked back at his comrades sitting around the porch, he realized they were all looking at him.
"What?" He asked, chuckling a little at the facial expressions of Daryl, Michonne, and Tyreese.
"Ya hit that yet?" Daryl asked.
Michonne playfully swatted his leg and he laughed.
Rick felt his face burn red now that the three of them were laughing.
"You don't have to answer that, Rick," Michonne said. Rick nodded a little.
"Yeah, not 'til she's gone ya don't," Daryl said. Michonne swatted him again.
"Is this the kind of stuff you want your son sitting around talking about?" Michonne teased.
"Sure is," Daryl said.
Michonne pulled herself up from the step.
"Give me my child. I'm leaving you men to do whatever it is that you do. I don't want to hear any more of it," Michonne said.
Daryl wrestled the baby free from his shirt and passed him to Michonne who quickly wrapped him up in her coat. She started to walk away.
"Go ahead," Tyreese called. "Get out of here. We know you ladies never talk about any of these things."
Michonne laughed as she walked off.
Rick stood up then.
"As much as I would love to entertain both of you, I'm not talking about Sadie that way," he said.
"That means ya ain't," Daryl said.
Rick shook his head and tried not to laugh at the two men.
"You know, I remember when neither of you were either," Rick said. He had intended to go, but now he was leaning against the railing. "We all have our dry spells."
"Winter's gon' be awful cold, Rick," Daryl teased.
"Worse than women," Rick said, turning and walking away. He ignored the cackling of the two men sitting on the porch behind him. He felt like his time with Sadie would eventually come, but the last thing he really wanted to do was rush it too much and risk having her give him the same kind of "let you down easy" speech she gave Beau. He didn't know what she'd really said, but the speech itself had almost become the stuff of legends in the community, and he wanted to avoid pushing her to that point. Even if it meant that Tyreese and Daryl…both of whom conveniently forgot their own relationship beginnings from time to time…saw fit to give him a hard time about it.
1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
AN: OK, so if you're still with me, I'm glad and I hope you're enjoying the story. The exciting news is that I have actually seen all the way to the end of this fic and know when and where it's going to end. We've still got a little way to go, though, so it's not something that's immediate. At least that lets me know, though, what kind of development still needs to be done and what kind of wrap up we're headed for.
There are two sequels being planned. The first is already somewhat in the works. It will take place after a time jump and be a little different in formatting from this one, but it will contain some familiar faces and maybe even a few new ones. I'll tell you more about that, though, when we reach the end here.
I just thought I'd let you know that we've still got a way to go, but there is a definitive end in sight for this little leg of our journey! I hope you're still enjoying!