AN: Here you go! Another little chapter. As you'll be able to tell by the time you read, this one is a Carol/Michonne/Muh chapter, but the next one is a little Dixonne happy time/quality time chapter…
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Michonne figured that Daryl might start looking for her after a while, but she still had time. He would be occupied with the work that everyone was doing for the better part of the early day…even though he didn't like to consider himself any kind of "boss" around the community, he was still a leader of sorts, and everyone liked to get his opinions on things.
For the time being, Michonne had agreed to stay with Carol. They'd found Muh, quietly explained to the little woman that they needed her for a few moments, and Michonne had checked in to make sure that Zeb was fine with his multiple caretakers, Hope still being passed between Beau and Daryl.
And now, Michonne was sitting in the floor in Carol's room, listening to Muh assure her that everything was, in fact, as it should be and Isaac should be growing just as he pleased.
Michonne had never exactly seen Carol as stirred up as she was right now either. She knew that her friend had a slight tendency to overreact, and she suspected that was where Judith and Hope got their particular brand of dramatics from, but right now Carol was strung tight, even for Carol.
Muh was humorous, almost, as she sat on the bed beside Carol who was now dressed but no less flustered than before, working her jaw in an expression of concern. Something, by merit of her eyebrows, though, showed that she was only faking concern the same way that one might put on a serious face to listen to the complaints of an irate toddler suffering some great injustice.
"I don't think you understand," Carol said for at least the fourth time…in fact, she'd said it enough that Michonne was beginning to think maybe no one had the capability to understand. "I had problems with Sophia…it was a difficult pregnancy…it was a difficult delivery…I wasn't supposed to have any more children…"
Michonne, feeling almost like she'd been rewarded with television again, glanced back at Muh to see how the tiny woman would handle the newest attempt to explain what she'd already dismissed a few times. She chewed her lip, feeling the snort of humor rising up in her might not be appropriate at the moment.
Muh nodded her head slightly, still working her jaws, the fake look of concern still on her face.
"You will have Isaac…he will be well," Muh said calmly and straight to the point.
Carol looked at Michonne like she was expecting back up or something. Michonne simply shrugged at her. She was with the little woman…she'd called this in the air, and every last ounce of belief that it was silly to put merit into anything the little woman said had flown right out of the window for Michonne.
Carol started to protest again, but Muh cut her off, digging around in the folds of the dress she was wearing, a dress far too large for her despite the fact that there were others, which she declined, offered to her at the same time that might have fit much better. She came up with the small pouch that she always wore, tied around her waist with a type of string belt, and picked it open with her fingertips.
Michonne eased forward then, crawling across the floor to get closer. The things that Muh did, particularly when she was proving a point about anything…be it something as simple as methods for starting fires when it was too damp to get them to catch or something as complicated as tending the snakebite that Jimmy had suffered when he wasn't paying attention in the area where they used the bathroom…were fascinating to watch in Michonne's opinion.
The little woman dumped out the contents of the tiny pouch. Michonne had never examined them very carefully. She wasn't positive that you were allowed to touch them if not given explicit directions from Muh. She suspected, though, just from inspecting them with her eyes, that some were stones while others appeared to be pieces of bones, probably having once belonged to squirrels or birds.
Muh pushed around the bones with her fingertip, working her jaws as she did, and Carol and Michonne both watched her in silence. When she was done playing with her trinkets, she left them where they lie and smiled at Carol.
"Isaac will be a strong man…a broad man…like his father. And you will see him grow to be a fine young man. Stop worrying him now, as you'll do him no good that way," Muh said.
Michonne couldn't help but smile. For some reason, when Muh spoke about certain things, her voice took on a quality that would cause you to almost shiver, but it wasn't a bad shiver. It brought with it a type of calm…something with promise to it.
"A fine young man…" Muh mumbled.
Michonne, now having edged her way almost between the two women, looked at Muh, tipping her head to the side.
"What about Hope? Zeb? Do you know anything about them?" Michonne asked. It was worth a shot…at this point, anything was worth a shot.
Muh looked at Michonne a moment and smiled her toothless smile. She collected up her trinkets in her hand and spilled them on the bed beside her once more, poking around in the with her fingertip.
"Zeb will be a fine young man…lean and slow to anger," Muh said. She looked at the bones a moment more and looked back at Michonne, her expression soft and comforting. "Hope will be a kindred soul…full of life and fire. She will love a man…a fine young man…with a mother who worries too much."
Michonne smiled softly and cut her eyes at Carol whose face was still somewhat drawn up in worry, though not as dramatically as before.
Without saying anything more, Muh collected up her trinkets and returned the pouch to its customary location. She got up from the bed with less effort than it might have cost someone half her age and turned, nodding her head in the direction of both of them before she left.
"I must go…there are things to see to," Muh said. "I will see about the midday meal…"
And without waiting for any kind of response, she slipped out of the room, and presumably, out of the house.
Michonne couldn't hide her smile for the moment. In her mind she was allowing herself to imagine a future where her son was an even tempered man and her daughter was fiery, lively woman in love with a fine young man. Whether or not such a world existed was impossible to tell, but the dream of it was nice to hold onto for a time.
"That woman is a witch…" Carol said. "She cursed me…"
Michonne chuckled. Carol's voice was calmer now and her statement had only been partially sincere. She was slowly coming around.
"I don't know if she's a witch…" Michonne offered. Stella thought she was a witch, while Junior and Jimmy spouted off their supposedly vast (but obviously anything but) knowledge of voodoo and insisted she was into voodoo. "She could be a witch…or a shaman…or a healer, like she says…I don't know what she is, but she didn't curse you. I know how babies are made, and I know you're not innocent."
Carol chuckled a little.
"You're really sold on this, aren't you?" Carol asked.
Michonne shrugged.
"She called this…and even you've insisted there was no way it could happen," Michonne said. "But look at it this way, she's predicting that her so called death day will come after Isaac is born, right?"
Carol nodded.
"You would think, then, if she were behind all of this she'd want you to not be pregnant…or want this not to be Isaac. She lives longer if that's the case," Michonne said.
Carol sighed and nodded without any real enthusiasm behind the gesture.
"And of all the predictions that she makes," Michonne continued, feeling that it was her opening for the moment to make the argument that she'd made for herself out loud, "she hasn't predicted anything terrible. She's not running around and telling us that everything is darkness and gloom and everyone is going to suffer some terrible death…she's the most positive person that I've ever met, even from before all of this madness."
Carol sighed again.
"Well that's true…" she admitted.
And it was. Michonne had heard different people talk about things that Muh had said to them, advice she'd given, wisdom she'd imparted. She'd made predictions or spoke about things she saw, or whatever was the case with how the woman acquired her information…but almost everything she said carried with it an overall tone of positivity.
The world was no different than it had always been. There would be life and there would be death, but there'd always been a healthy dose of both…and for everyone who lived, there must be someone who died. Her messages about death were always as positive as those about life, to the point that it became difficult, at times, to tell the difference between them since both for her were joyous and wondrous events. Death, according to Muh, was simply the beginning of a new life, and it was so wonderful and so full of potential, that it made it difficult, in her presence, to remember why it felt like such a horrible thing.
And honestly, even if every word the woman uttered was a complete and total lie, it was a lie that brought comfort and it was a welcomed contrast to the negativity that sometimes had a way of seeping in and pulling everyone down.
Even though Michonne could, if she chose to, dwell on the heartaches she'd already suffered, and the children that she'd already lost, and even though she could allow herself to get caught up in the contemplation of all the dreadful things that might happen to Zeb or Hope in a world that seemed so far beyond their control, it was much more desirable to hold onto the images that she had right now of her beautiful children growing into even more beautiful adults who might find, for themselves, all the happiness in the world.
Michonne hummed to herself, snapping herself out of the daydream that she'd begun to swim in and turned to Carol who was lost in her own contemplation at the moment.
"You need to tell Ty," Michonne said. "Before anyone else gets wind…but Sadie already knows."
Sadie had guessed it, just as Michonne had. Granted, both of them believed in Muh's predictions and both were waiting on it, but the habitual food poisoning over food that made neither of them sick had pretty much made them both convinced that Isaac was making his presence known.
Carol nodded her head again.
"I guess I better go and find him," she admitted. "I hope he's not going to be too upset."
Michonne chuckled and got to her feet, almost scolding herself for having a harder time getting up than Muh had appeared to have.
"I think Tyreese is going to be something," Michonne responded, "but upset wasn't the first word that came to mind."
Carol smiled softly, the first genuine smile of the day, and got up to join Michonne.
"I'm going to hope that you've got whatever seeing power Muh has," Carol said, "and that your prediction is right."
Michonne nodded her head.
"It will be," she said. "But I don't think I'm going to run out and get myself a bag of bird bones just yet."
Carol laughed then and Michonne didn't hold her own laughter back any longer over the thought of it.
They started through the house and down the stairs before Michonne spoke again.
"You know," she said, "you and Ty…you ought to spend the evening together…take some time off. When I get back I'll check on dinner and bring you some plates over. We can keep an eye on Jude."
"That would be nice," Carol remarked. "But where are you going?"
"Checking traps," Michonne responded. "And we're probably going to pay a little visit to the love nest…"
Michonne let her voice rise up at the end.
The "love nest," as they had all begun to refer to the spot, was something of a crow's nest built in a tree not too far down from where they got water. Brenda and Stella had stumbled across the rudimentary structure one day when they'd wandered a little far south of their usual spot and happened to notice it looming above them.
Nobody quite knew how it got there, but someone had built it. It was a nicely built structure, despite its simplicity, and several of them had their silent beliefs that Beau and Libby were behind it, though both of them were keeping quiet about it if that were the case. Since its discovery, it had become a sort of "get away" for couples to retreat to. It was outside the community and offered the feeling, almost, of going away on vacation, but it was high enough up that even though you might draw a few curious Walkers to wander around and growl at you below, they had no way of reaching you while you were up on the platform.
Also, since its discovery, the place had become nicer. Someone had built it up a little, providing short "privacy walls" around the perimeter of the platform. Someone else had added short boards nailed to the tree from part of the way up that served as a ladder for anyone not adept in climbing trees without low branches. And someone else had even thought to at least bring a couple of the more worn and less desirable blankets out there…which somehow made their way back to the community to be washed on occasion…to provide a little padding against the wood.
"Mmm…" Carol hummed. "Be careful…there's something in the water," she said.
Michonne snickered.
"Maybe in your water," she said. "Me? I'm up to date on the birth control…"
"I thought I was," Carol muttered. She gently smacked Michonne between the shoulder blades as they reached the door and Michonne turned back to look at her. "You were supposed to help me keep up with that…"
Michonne smiled.
"Whoops," she said, pulling the door open and stepping out on the porch. Carol didn't say anything else to her, and when they both descended the porch steps, Michonne waved at Carol and started off to check on the kids before rounding Daryl up so that they could trip down through the woods to check traps and spend a little time together.
Michonne was feeling light and optimistic…and a trip through the woods with Daryl might be just what she needed to really put some sunshine in the day.