AN: Here we go, another little chapter. I hope to have the next one to you before too long.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
Michonne thought that everyone was doing a pretty good job of keeping up appearances. They were doing a good job of working through their day and making it look like, or at least so she hoped, that the early hours weren't plagued with the knowledge that something was set in motion other than their normal ins and outs.
She and Sadie saw off Daryl, Rick, and Carl as they went on their run…though by the time that they left they'd changed the story to be one of a hunting expedition…not really too far-fetched…and then Michonne made her way down to work on sanding boards with Tyreese who had opted to stay as far out of Mercedes' line of vision as possible since he wasn't doing as good a job as everyone else at pretending that there was absolutely nothing happening that was out of the ordinary.
Michonne sat in one of the chairs they'd brought down there, sanding boards, close enough to Tyreese that if she'd moved a board too quickly or without precision, she might have hit him with it…and vice versa.
"We've come up with some pretty stupid plans in our time together," Tyreese mumbled at her as he ground the sand paper over the wood surface, "but I have to say I think this is the dumbest…"
Michonne kept her voice low to avoid being overheard, although by this point she was pretty sure that Mercedes was the only person in the community who wasn't aware of what was going on…at least the only person who had the consciousness to understand such things.
"Nothing's going to happen, Ty," she reassured him. "Daryl's going to make sure that nothing happens…what were we going to do anyway?"
She had to admit that maybe the colder part of her…maybe the part of her that had already been driven to being ruthless or hard or whatever someone might have used to explain it…would have been fine with simply killing the girl on nothing more than suspicion and reasonable doubt. But the other part of her felt that the girl deserved some type of trial…something at least. Any one of them, after all, could have been judged to harshly if they were judged entirely on some happening or another in their lives.
Tyreese rolled his eyes toward her. There was anger and frustration on his face, playing at all his features, but she didn't mistake it for being directed at her. It was simply something he felt about the situation…something he felt about the worst case scenarios that had probably kept him up all night.
"We should just kill her and be done with it," Tyreese said, shaking his head at his own thoughts. "It's horrible…it's terrible…but it's not worth the risk to me and no one…not one single person here…believes that she's not going to try something out there."
He broke off, sanding with a fury and then he stopped suddenly and spoke again.
"No one believes she's innocent…there's no one to point the blame at anyone else," Tyreese said. "We make a decision as a whole."
Michonne chewed the inside of her lip a little and let her eyes fall. She could understand everything that he was going through right now and she couldn't hold anything he felt against him even if she'd been inclined to do so, which she wasn't.
"It's going to be fine," she offered.
They sanded in silence for a little while as the time ticked by. They were giving the group that went out time to take their places in the designated area that where they would be expecting Carol and Mercedes on their outing.
When time was apparently up, though, Michonne glanced up to see Carol walking toward them, a basket hanging in her hand, looking lighter than Michonne thought she might have been for the task at hand.
"Mercedes and I…we're about to go look for mushrooms," Carol said. She came up beside Tyreese and he dropped one hand from his work, wrapping it around her waist and pulling her into him. She rubbed her fingers across the back of his neck. "Michonne…Mark is up at headquarters with the children. I asked Rachel to start lunch soon…but if I'm not back…can you make sure that everything gets going?"
"Yeah," Michonne confirmed with a nod of her head. "I got it…"
After Carol had pulled away from Tyreese, kissing him quickly, and disappeared back in the direction of the front of the community, Michonne went back to sanding boards and watching Tyreese out of the corner of her eye as he put all his frustration into the work he was doing. She considered, for a moment, that her time might better be served, instead of sanding, feeding him boards to sand while he worked with all the speed and determination of a conveyer belt.
When she was sure that they'd been gone for a while, Michonne got up from her position, patted Tyreese on the shoulder as she walked by him, and went toward headquarters to find the children and to watch them playing.
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
Daryl wiped his brow with his forearm. The last thing he needed was sweat to get into his eyes and mess up his vision. From where he was…since their placement had been the least specific thing about the plan…he was going to be doing well to hit the target with much precision if Mercedes went for anything, and he didn't need outside elements messing up his ability to make his shot.
It felt like they'd been out there hours…days even. Daryl knew that it hadn't, realistically, been all that long, but there was something about waiting for something to happen that lengthened time or slowed it down. They were almost literally watching a pot for the water to boil and it was taking its time.
Carol was down there, in the area they'd told her to be in, and she was bent over, purposefully keeping her back to Mercedes like they'd requested, looking for whatever it was that they were supposed to be finding in the leaves and undergrowth.
Now they were just waiting on Mercedes to make a move. They were waiting on something definitive. But at the moment she was simply wandering around Carol…not really looking for what they were supposed to be searching out, but not exactly being a threatening presence either.
From where Daryl was perched, in one of Beau's hunting perches, he couldn't have seen Rick if he tried. He could have caught a glance of Carl with enough effort, but that would have required him swinging his eyes away from the scene taking place below him and he wasn't going to dare to do that.
Rick, though, had chosen the best of the placements available to them…though he hadn't known it then…and Daryl hoped he was on his toes.
Their goal here was simple…catch Mercedes going in for the kill and take her out without allowing her more than a harmless swipe or so at Carol. The goal, also, was to avoid shooting Carol if there was any confusion in whatever might go down.
Daryl kept reminding himself, as the time ticked on and Carol pantomimed her search…putting something in her basket, though he had no idea what and didn't really care…that he needed to focus to see the exact moment when something happened…and he hoped that they got no unexpected Walkers showing up to mess up the moment.
When he saw it happen, though, it almost surprised him even though he'd been watching for it and looking for it. When Mercedes went in, she went in quicker than he'd expected to, her elaborate dance before having been nothing more than what Daryl had suspected it was…circling her prey.
As soon as the fight below him broke out between the two women he lined up the best shot he could get with his angle and let his arrow go, abandoning his cover then to come in close enough to seal the deal if it hadn't been closed by the other arrow and cracking of the pistol that had come at almost the same moment as his own attack.
1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
"Get in, Mama!" Hope squealed at Michonne.
Michonne sat on the ground in Muh's yard beside the plastic wading pool that Hope and Judith, both naked as the day they were born, were playing in. The other children were more interested in whatever it was that Muh was doing…sitting by a fire that was hardly large enough that it couldn't be stomped out in a second…burning things and having a conversation with whatever voices in her head it was with whom she regularly communicated.
The children knew not to get too close to the fire…but the old woman never seemed to mind their presence, even if they were using her as a human jungle gym of sorts.
And Mark sat nearby on the back porch steps of the house, watching over the whole scene in the silence that they were all guarding while they waited…no one exactly sure how they'd know the moment that their waiting was done.
Now that Mercedes was gone outside of the community, though, there was little need to pretend that there was nothing going on. The wheel had been set into motion and there was no use in keeping up the appearance that everyone knew about the plan that was put into play.
"I'm in, I'm in," Michonne declared to Hope, putting her hand in the water of the pool so that technically she wasn't lying.
"No! All the way in…" Judith declared, catching her by the wrist and acting like she had the ability to pull Michonne into the pool. "Come on…all in…come on…"
Michonne chuckled in spite of the heaviness of the situation around them.
"Jude…if I get all in that pool there isn't going to be room for either of you," Michonne said. "I'm all in as much as I need to be."
Her conversation with the kids was cut short when the sound of a pistol crack echoed through the distance. Michonne felt her heart skip a beat for a moment and she got up, wiping her hand on her pants and ignoring the protest of the two girls.
Mark had hit his feet too and they needed no verbal communication as she slipped past him to let him know that she was leaving the kids with him.
As Michonne made her way toward the gates, expecting to find others there waiting as well, she didn't know how she was supposed to feel about things.
Because there was no real way to see this as being a "good" day.
Maybe the best thing that could have happened at all would have been if Mercedes had tried nothing. It wouldn't truly be a good thing, though, because Michonne was certain that she could never entirely shake her suspicions of the girls, and after having put such an elaborate plan into play, she wasn't sure that they could all come back from it, welcome the girl back from some kind of mushroom search or whatever it was, and pretend that everything was fine and it was normal and they were going to keep her around with open arms and open hearts.
Even if she'd done nothing at all and their speculation had been wrong, they were too far from that point for things to go like that, and Michonne knew it.
Besides…the gunfire had been a pretty clear indication that something had happened. Rick would have never fired the gun for anything less than an attempt to take Mercedes down…he wouldn't have risked calling up Walkers or alerting passerbys who hadn't already noticed their noise and smoke to their presence.
Something had happened.
Which meant that the happiest thing that could come out of it was if Carol wasn't hurt. At least, then, they'd lost no one that they hadn't somewhat expected to lose when the whole thing took place. If she returned, unscathed by the attack that would have warranted the gunfire, then that meant that they could be happy about that.
But it felt wrong to think of even being happy about anything when there was a young girl who had been killed…and they would wait to dig a grave for her and give her the most respectful burial that they could.
Because even if she was crazy…it really wasn't her fault. Whether she'd come into the madness around them like that or she'd been driven to it, it was the world that they lived in now that drove people to their limits.
And it couldn't be a happy thing because, in the back of everyone's mind, was the realization and the reminder of the fact that they'd come to such a place that they couldn't trust anyone on face value anymore. They had to be weary…because even if there were still great hoards of good people in the world, there were also people who could be completely terrible, even if they seemed too young to be so.
And it couldn't be a good day when it was also a day that reminded them all that they had become the type of people who, whether they saw themselves as good or bad, took the liberty of robbing people of their lives for the sins that they might commit, given the opportunity.
Michonne felt heavy hearted and heavy chested as she neared the gates and spotted Lisette, Sadie, and Maggie all standing there…all three watching the outside to see what might happen.
"See anything?" Michonne called.
Maggie turned toward her and shook her head.
"Not yet," she said. "I heard the gunshot…Sadie was with me…"
Michonne got in close with them and looked out the gates but she couldn't see anything either. Of course, they had less ground to cover to get there than anyone coming from their designated area would have to cover.
"I've been waiting since just after they left," Lisette said, offering Michonne something of a sad and insincere smile. "I offered to guard the gates…"
Michonne put her arm around the woman and stood resting and waiting close enough to her that their hips brushed together when either of them adjusted their weight. She knew that Lisette wasn't necessarily sad about what they'd chosen to do about Mercedes…she thought it was a necessary evil too and had confirmed it early this morning when Michonne had filled her in, in private, on what was going to happen. But like Michonne, and most probably like everyone else in the community, that didn't mean that it was something that exactly lifted her spirits.