AN: As I said before, chapters are probably going to be shorter and more episodic than they have been from time to time. I'm just trying to keep things progressing, along with my other fics, so that we can make our way toward the close of this part of our journey together. So here's another little piece to our story.
I hope you enjoy.
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"You know you should probably go and put her down before Zeb wakes her up," Michonne said. She was lying on her side on the bed with Zeb lying next to her. Daryl was leaning against the back of the bed on his side with Hope asleep in his arms.
Hope had insisted before bedtime on coming to see "Bebe"…still refusing to even try to call Zeb by his name, but she'd lost interest in the baby quickly and taken a much greater interest in having Daryl hold her. He hadn't really thought she was going to fall asleep, but there she was, limp in his arms, and breathing steadily, her little eyes twitching from time to time behind her eyelids.
"Can't she sleep in here with us, just for the night?" Daryl asked.
Michonne sighed.
"Daryl, if we let her sleep in here she's not going to sleep well. As soon as Zeb starts crying he's going to wake her up, and then she's up every two hours with him and we've got to get both of them back to sleep before he starts again. She'll rest better in her bed where it's quiet," Michonne said.
Daryl knew that Michonne was right. Zeb put his sister's memory to shame for being the most opinionated baby that Daryl had ever known. Zeb let you know the split second that something wasn't to his liking and he kept crying, normally, for at least three or four minutes after you fixed the issue as sort of a way to cement in your memory the grave injustice you'd done to him by letting him be hungry or letting his diaper be dirty. There was no way that Hope would sleep through any of Zeb's alarms for food if she was in the room.
He just didn't want to put her down, though. She was sleeping so peacefully curled against his chest, and Daryl, though he wouldn't want to admit it, was having a sort of sentimental moment. He didn't care, really, that his brother would have given him hell for it either. He couldn't help but notice how big Hope was, and the fact was really driven home because of how tiny her little brother was.
Daryl had never really believed that he'd have the children in his imagination. They'd been fun to think about, but he hadn't actually indulged himself enough to really thing that one day they'd be made of flesh and blood. Then, when Hope had been born, everything had been in turmoil. Everything seemed so dire, so hard to navigate. Daryl had been terrified every single step of the way that his little girl, who was actually real, was going to be ripped away from him before he even got to know her well.
Now, though, things seemed different. The Walkers were out there, the threats were still out there, and people like the Governor, or maybe even worse, existed. Still, no matter how dangerous it might still be, it was easy to forget that sometimes.
Maybe he was just lulled into a false comfort, but for now Daryl could see that his daughter was growing, right before his eyes, and she was, in his opinion, very far removed from what she had been when she was Zeb's age.
And just for tonight, bathed in the light from the lamp that burned on the bedside table, Daryl didn't fear that his daughter wouldn't grow up, he feared that she would grow up too quickly. He could almost say that he missed, in anticipation, the moments just like this one where she let herself fall completely into abandon, curled in his arms. He knew, too, that one day the same days would come for his son.
He'd be happy to see them grow, and be thrilled to know that they were becoming everything that they could be and that they were surviving this world, whatever it may be like in five years or ten years or however long the world even continued, but he felt like part of him would be sad to know that they were no longer the tiny little beings that he could wrap in his arms and protect from anything that tried to threaten them.
"Is something wrong, Daryl?" Michonne asked. Her voice was a little groggy and he glanced over at her. She was apparently dozing in and out of sleep, waiting for when Zeb would next inform her that he'd like to eat.
"Huh?" Daryl asked.
"Are you alright? You look like something's wrong," Michonne said.
Daryl shook his head. He was sure that Michonne would probably understand the feelings that he was having, but he didn't feel like sharing them at the moment.
"I'm fine," Daryl said. "Just thinkin' how pretty Hope is right now."
Michonne smiled at him.
"She is pretty," Michonne said. "You really should put her down before long, though. I don't know how much longer your son is going to let her sleep in here."
Daryl watched as Michonne leaned up a little, pressing at her breasts with her finger tips.
"It's not going to be too long," she said.
Daryl nodded his understanding. He wasn't sure how she did it exactly, but Michonne was pretty fair at guessing when Zeb was going to wake up during the night. She almost always called it.
Daryl slid off the bed gently, careful not to wake Hope, and crossed around to Michonne's side of the bed. So as to not wake her, Michonne kissed her fingertips and pressed the kiss to the sleeping girl as Daryl dipped down a little to let her see her. He eased out of the room after that and slipped into the nursery where he could hear Judith sleeping. Her breathing was raspy and Carol had already commented earlier that evening that she was going to get Muh to look at the girl because she was afraid she was starting to get sick.
Daryl eased Hope into her crib and she stirred a little before settling. He wrapped her blanket around her and brushed her curls back from her forehead a little.
Just as he was leaving the nursery and closing the door behind him as quietly as possible, he heard his son howling. He'd made the move just in time or he'd be trying to quiet Hope down right now, and she wasn't an easy one to deal with when her sleep was interrupted.
Daryl came back into the bedroom to find Michonne already rolling their son into position and trying to convince him to stop crying long enough to take what he wanted.
Daryl smiled to himself.
He'd miss these moments with his children, he was sure of that, but he also realized he'd miss them a lot more when his children were sleeping peacefully than when they were screaming about something to beat the band.
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Beau had only been working the nails lose for about four minutes when he heard Libby's footsteps bounding down the staircase behind him. He hear the thunk of the wood as she tossed another piece into the fireplace.
"What the hell ya think ya doin'?" Libby asked from behind him.
Beau didn't look up from what he was doing. He didn't think he was doing anything. He knew exactly what was happening and if she paid attention to it for about two more minutes she'd know exactly what he was doing too. He continued working until he'd wrenched the nail out of the board, silently giving Libby credit for her hammering abilities. If anything else needed building he was going to suggest that to Tyreese that they put Libby on hammering duty.
"Beau!" Libby called.
"What?" Beau asked, not taking his attention from the next nail that he'd moved to.
"I asked ya a question," Libby said. "Now what the hell ya think ya doin'?"
"I'm takin' this stuff down," Beau said. "We don't need it an' it's gettin' ta be a right big pain in the ass, Libby. Takes forever ta get stuff in an' out that window an' Carol won't even come in here so I gotta pass her the dirty clothes out the window every time they've got a mind ta do the washin'. Ain't no need in havin' it 'cause it ain't doin' nothin'."
"What if some a' them things come through?" Libby asked. Beau didn't turn around because he didn't need to. He knew by now exactly how he would find her. She'd be standing there, at least if not one of her hands cocked up on her hips.
"Then they come through, Libby," Beau said. "Don't reckon these boards gon' do nothin' ta slow 'em down. Not if'n they got the mind ta open the door. They can figure that out they just as soon climb through the window. 'Sides, ya know good as me that if they come through we gon' be out there like we was last time, fightin' for what we're worth an' not back here cowerin' behind some half rotted boards. Throw that one in the fire," Beau said, tossing the now free board in the direction of the fireplace.
"What about Emma? Jacob? Sam? What the gon' do if we leave 'em in here ta fight them things an' then they get in here with 'em?" Libby asked.
Beau moved to the next nail down and started trying to work it out of the board. He'd have to remember to get all the nails up off the floor before someone stepped on one and it went through their shoe. It wasn't an injury that was lethal by any means, but it didn't mean it wouldn't hurt for a spell.
"Emma's big enough she ought ta be out there trainin' with Sadie," Beau responded. "Can't keep 'em all shut up forever an' Emma ain't no tiny thing. I swear Carol'll have Jude out there fightin' Walkers 'fore you ever even let Emma near one."
"I ain't lettin' my sister get chewed up by one a' those things for no damn reason, Beau!" Libby responded.
Beau chuckled. The girl could get fired up quicker than anyone he'd ever met before.
"Then let her start trainin' with Sadie," Beau said. "She oughta learn an' Sadie's a good one ta teach her how ta hold her own. Ya don't get on with it soon an' we gon' move on an' then she's gonna get chewed up 'cause she ain't knowed how ta take care a' herself."
Beau freed the board and tossed it in the general direction that he'd thrown the first. He continued downward, working his way toward the floor while Libby stood somewhere behind him and continued the argument.
"I reckon ya gonna say Sam an' Jacob need ta be runnin' 'round with knives then, fightin' off the damn things too?" Libby asked.
Beau chuckled.
"I don't reckon Sam's ready for it just now. Only 'cause he ain't stable enough on his feet the whole time an' he'd be fell down an' stabbed himself without meanin' to, but Jacob's already learnin' with me how ta use weapons an' it ain't a day too early," Beau said.
"He's just a little boy," Libby argued.
"When I was his age I was already better at doin' a whole lotta stuff than he is. Ain't nothin' but'cha tryin' ta baby him way too much. Boy's gotta grow up, an' he best be gettin' on it," Beau said. "Don't never know when somethin' might happen an' he might need ta use what he's got."
Beau expected Libby to keep arguing. That's how Libby was. Once she got started, she wasn't one to give up. For some people arguing was something they did at a sprint. They started, everything blew up, and then it was over. The whole thing was done and it was time to come down off their rampage. Libby, though, she saw arguing as a distance run. She could keep on going. Beau figured that she could probably argue most people into just giving in, no matter what they were arguing about.
Normally Beau avoided most arguments with Libby. The things that she got all fired up about weren't that important to him, so he just let her have her way. There wasn't any use in spending all your time bickering back and forth about something that wasn't going to make a difference.
This, though, on several levels did make a difference.
The practicality of having the door available to them to do what doors did was just obvious to Beau. He would have had no problem living in a cave somewhere or having some kind of hole to slip in and out of if that was the only available option, or even if it was the best available option, but given their current circumstances in the community it just didn't make sense to leave Libby's blockage intact any longer.
Walkers didn't get into the community…not often at least…and when they had gotten in, it wasn't on their own. There was no Walker that Beau had seen yet that was capable of breaking down a door on its own. They lacked the ability to reason ways to best go about it, so a Walker on its own was simply stopped by a barrier. A number of Walkers, perhaps, had the ability to break down a door, but that was more due to luck and sheer force of numbers than anything else, and any number of Walkers capable of busting down the door to the house could also bust through the wooden barrier. It might slow them down, maybe even considerably, but it wouldn't stop them.
Beau was also adamant in what he'd said about Emma and Jacob, and the same would eventually extend to Sam. Emma wasn't that much younger than Carl, but she'd been fairly sheltered by Libby…at least as far as anyone could be sheltered these days. She needed to know about Walkers and she needed practice killing them. If she ended up, through whatever turn of events, out there on her own just as Beau had been, or even if she ended up in Libby's shoes, she would be as good as dead.
Beau knew that you couldn't prevent death. He was level headed enough to know that death happened and it happened each and every day, but it seemed stupid to die for no reason at all simply because you weren't prepared to handle something that you could have easily taken care of given the correct resources. Teaching the kids, and teaching them young, how to handle weapons and how to kill Walkers was only reasonable.
Sadie was good at that kind of thing too. Beau's crush on the woman had begun to fade. He still considered her one of the most beautiful women that he'd ever seen in his life, but he respected the fact that she didn't want to have a relationship with him like so many of the people in the community had. She was interested, so it seemed, in Rick, and Beau respected her wishes. As a result, he'd lost to some degree his attraction to her. That didn't mean, though, that he'd lost his respect for her as a reliable comrade with admirable skills. One of those skills happened to be that the woman was in her element with Walkers…human attackers not so much…but Walkers didn't get the best of Sadie very easily. Beau thought, then, that it would be a good idea to get her working with the children and teaching them, under her protection, how to have the same level of confidence in their skills that she had.
Beau finished, finally, wrenching free the final board from the door. He turned around, realizing that Libby had been silent for far too long, and saw that she was gone. He was, as far as he could tell, alone in the lower level of the house.
Beau went about on his hands and knees for a moment and gathered up all the nails that he'd pulled loose from the boards. He got up and tossed them into the fireplace. He knew they wouldn't go anywhere, but it wasn't like it mattered and at least there no one was likely to step on them. They'd simply end up in the ash bucket for Carol to sort through later when she was making lye.
Beau wedged a few of the boards that he'd removed into the fireplace so that they would burn. The others he piled with the wood that they had stacked up on the floor for heating the house later. Satisfied that the area was as clean as it was going to be, and the door was now fully functional again, Beau laid Tyreese's hammer on the mantle to take with him the next time he passed back to the barn where Tyreese kept his tools.
He turned and mounted the steps of the house two at a time in search of Libby. He figured she might be sore that he tore the boards down and might need to do his best to try to soothe things over before she spent the rest of the day, or even a few days, not talking to him.
Emma was in the room that Jacob and Sam shared and she was entertaining them with some of the toys and books that Carol had brought over there for them. Beau nodded at her when he interrupted them by opening the door, but he quickly closed it and slipped into the other room, the small one, that Emma and Libby typically occupied.
Libby was sitting on her bed unravelling, one string at a time, a small section of her blanket.
"Ya shouldn't do that," Beau said. "Gonna get cold if ya keep unwindin' ya blanket like a ninny."
Libby looked at him. Anger and hurt were painted all over her face and her cheeks were bright red, almost matching the tangled mess of hair that was beginning to gain some length since Mark had hacked at it with scissors upon her arrival to the community.
"I can't believe ya'd throw 'em out there like that," Libby said. "I thought ya cared about 'em…I guess I was wrong."
Beau cocked his head to the side a little.
"What'cha talkin' 'bout?" Beau asked. Sometimes Libby didn't make all that much sense to him. He wasn't sure if it was because she was a girl and he didn't understand girls, or if he just wasn't always thinking about the same things that she was thinking about.
"Emma, Sam, Jacob…" Libby said. "They're all I got left, Beau. I thought'cha cared about 'em but now ya just want ta throw 'em out ta Walkers an' tell 'em ta fend for themselves when they ain't never done that shit before. They ain't even growed up yet."
Beau snickered a little.
"I reckon that when all of us started goin' after Walkers we ain't never done that shit before, Libby," Beau said. "Had ta be a first time for everyone, didn't they? Difference is that they got a chance ta learn how ta do it from people who know what they doin'. Beats the hell outta trial and error, don't it? That's what lost me my family an' it's what lost you yours. It cost a lotta people them that they cared about, but it don't gotta be that way."
"I don't want to lose them too, Beau," Libby said.
Beau shook his head.
"I don't want nothin' ta happen neither. That's why they gotta learn ta take care a' themselves. We ain't in no kinda world where ya can stand around an' hope that someone's gonna save ya. Ya gotta learn ta save yourself. Ain't no easy lesson, but it's one they gotta learn. For their own good," Beau said.
Libby sat silently for a minute and then she looked at Beau, nodding her head slightly.
"I guess you're right," she said. "I reckon they oughta learn before they gotta just do it."
"Especially if we gonna move on with the rest a' the group when they go," Beau said. "Much as ya might wanta look out for 'em, can't neither one a' us be in all places at the same time."
Libby nodded again.
"I'm gonna talk ta Sadie then," Libby said. "See if she can't work with Emma some…and maybe Jacob."
Beau nodded.
"That's a good idea," he said. "Reckon I'ma go now. My turn ta feed the animals in the barn an' we don't need nobody gettin' cranky in there an' tryin' ta tear the place down."
"I'll walk with ya," Libby said. "At least as far as headquarters."
Beau left the room and started down the stairs to wait for Libby at the bottom. He heard her tell Emma that she was leaving and they should head down to dinner before too long. Finally, Libby appeared, much calmer, at the top of the stairs and Beau watched her as she made her way to the bottom, joining him. Just as she reached him, she looped her arm through his.
"Reckon we can walk out the door this time," she said, giving him a slight smile.
"Almost like civilized folks," Beau teased, smiling at her and tugging her by the arm she had curled around his toward the door to get on with their chores.