AN: Here we go, this is just a light little character development chapter to keep us moving along.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
1111111111111111111111111111111111111111
When Lisette first stepped through the door for the first night she'd been invited to one of their "super top secret" gatherings that everyone knew about, she probably had no idea why Hope and Judith ran at her and stopped short, standing side by side, giggling at her and only getting worse when they looked at each other.
"Lisette…isn't it amazing? Glenn found Hope and Judith invisible magical cloaks so we can't tell who is who…" Michonne offered quickly to ease Lisette's confusion.
Lisette smiled then and quickly bent down to be closer to eye level with the girls, looking back and forth between them with a concerned look on her face.
"How are you going to sort this out?" She asked.
She reached out, tickling Hope who tried to back away, laughing.
"Jude? Is that you?" Lisette asked.
"No!" Hope squealed. "I'm Hope…"
But she dissolved into laughter quickly and Judith did too, abandoning Lisette then to go back to the game that they were playing.
"Babies?" Lisette asked, looking over the small group then. Only Glenn and Maggie had come to join them for the evening and they'd tucked Lela in to sleep for a little while in the crib for Isaac.
"Upstairs," Michonne offered. "Old man Zeb was having no part of staying up. He had a fit because we suggested it."
Lisette made a face in sympathy for the little boy that wasn't present and took Daryl's suggestion, made by patting the couch, that she should sit.
"That's where these two are headed soon," Tyreese announced. "Like in a few minutes…Hope gets to break in her big girl bed tonight."
"That's right," Daryl echoed. "We found her one an' she was nice enough ta give her crib on over ta Isaac…we moved it today."
"Getting everything ready?" Lisette asked, glancing around the room.
"Something like that," Carol said. "We thought it might be a good idea to start getting her used to it earlier rather than later."
Daryl got up from the couch and scooped Judith up, who tried to skirt him, and hung her over his shoulder while she squealed at him.
"Come on, Hope…time for bed…" Daryl declared.
Hope, apparently deciding the game was fun right up until she might not get put to bed by her father, ran at him and crashed into his leg. If he hadn't been anticipating it enough to reach out and catch the banister near him, he might have toppled with the impact.
"Daddy!" Hope squealed. "I'm Hope!"
Daryl chuckled and put Judith down, turning around picking Hope up.
"So ya is! We gon' have to find a safe place for these capes you got…don't wanna lose these things," Daryl declared.
He brought Hope over and held her out airplane style so that Michonne could kiss her goodnight, and then he started up the stairs with her. Tyreese took the move as his signal to get Judith and got up from his position, pushing the little girl in Carol's direction and waiting as she crawled up in the chair with Carol to get her goodnight kisses before he picked her up and followed after Daryl.
"Those two are a mess," Lisette declared with a laugh once the sounds of getting ready for bed ensued above them along with a hearty dose of shushing because Lela and Zeb might not want to be woken up by two girls who were still a little too hyper for their own good.
"They are," Michonne agreed.
"How much longer do you have?" Lisette asked, directing her question in Carol's direction.
Carol made a face.
"Muh says…about ten weeks, I guess," Carol said.
"That long?" Glenn asked.
"Did you have plans?" Carol asked, laughing softly at how quickly he'd asked the question and the face that he'd chosen to accompany it.
Glenn shook his head.
"No…I mean it's just that…you're huge…I just thought that…" Glenn started, obviously realizing he'd already put his foot in his mouth because he looked toward Michonne like she might save him from him the mess he was making at the moment.
Michonne shook her head at him.
"She's not huge," Michonne declared. "It's just how she's carrying…all in front and low…it just makes her look bigger than she is."
"This is such a comfortable conversation," Carol declared.
Lisette laughed.
"We'll just say it's not nice to call anyone huge," Lisette said. "Although…when I was carrying Calista…I felt huge…like a whale…"
Michonne hummed her agreement at about the same time that Carol did. She didn't know if there was a woman who'd ever made it through a pregnancy and didn't have the feeling, at least at some point, that she deserved to be in some kind of side show.
"I just hate the whole no more bending over like a normal person thing," Carol said.
"You do the super graceful side sweep," Michonne said with a snicker.
"The squat," Carol said.
"Or…" Lisette said, raising up a finger, "you get really creative and combine the two…"
She stood up to illustrate her point, dissolving all of them into laughter at her simulation of the stunt.
"Except you actually do that pretty well," Carol said. She shook her head at Lisette. "When I do it…it's not that graceful."
Lisette chuckled and sat back down on the couch.
"I've actually gotten to the point that I'm using the kids," Carol said. "It's like fetch…they think it's a game and it's really just because I can't bring myself to go after whatever it is that I dropped."
Michonne hummed her agreement again.
"That moment where you drop it and you try to decide how much it's really worth to you," Michonne declared, nodding her head at her own statement.
"How about you two?" Lisette asked, directing her attention toward Glenn and Maggie since they were simply watching the exchange instead of joining in at the moment. "Any plans for a little brother or sister for Lela?"
Both of them looked at each other like they were trying to silently have the conversation on the topic and finally it was Maggie who offered a half shrug to the woman on the couch.
"We've talked about it," Maggie said. "But honestly we're hoping to wait…if we have any at all…until after the move. We don't want to complicate the move…"
"And even then," Glenn interjected, "we're not sure yet…if it happens, it happens, but I don't think we can really say we're planning it."
"Neither were we," Carol said.
Michonne sighed, stifling a bit of an ironic laugh.
"I really think Daryl and I might be the only people left on Earth that planned to have a child," Michonne said.
"You planned Hope and Zeb?" Lisette asked.
"Mmmm…" Michonne hummed. "We planned Zeb…"
Lisette nodded her head knowingly. She obviously didn't need all the details to be able to put two and two together.
"Hope came…" she started but didn't finish.
"Just after we got married," Michonne said. "I was…oh I don't know…we already knew about Hope well in advance before we got married."
At least she could tell there was no judgment on Lisette's face as the woman nodded.
"So all of you are married…like officially married?" Lisette asked.
"My father married us," Maggie said. "Me and Glenn…Daryl and Michonne…"
Lisette looked at Carol and she shook her head.
"Tyreese and I say we're married," Carol said. "But…I don't know that we really are."
Michonne interjected quickly.
"They got married in a…private ceremony," Michonne offered. "But I think…"
She paused a moment, but continued just after, momentarily distracted by Tyreese and Daryl coming down the stairs.
"I think that it doesn't really matter anymore," Michonne said. "If you want to say you're married, then you say you're married. No one's disputing it."
"That's why I asked," Lisette offered. "It just seems like…since you said that you weren't together before all this happened…it just seems like it doesn't really matter anymore."
"What don't matter?" Daryl asked, pushing himself into the seat he had occupied before between Michonne and the arm of the couch. She edged over just enough for him to slide into place and snuggled into him when he dropped an arm around her shoulder.
"Doesn't matter if you're married or not…officially," Michonne responded.
"It does matter if you're married," Daryl said, appearing somewhat offended and Michonne realized he had likely missed part of the conversation and therefore might misunderstand what they were talking about.
She shook her head at him.
"We're talking about it doesn't matter how you got married," Michonne said. "If you did it in some public ceremony like we did or you did it…in private…like Carol and Ty."
Daryl glanced toward the chair where Carol was sitting and where Tyreese sat on the floor on a cusion, by her legs, rubbing her foot that was in his lap.
"Hell…guess they just about as married as we are," Daryl said.
"And that's the point," Michonne said, playfully poking Daryl in the thigh with her fingertip and inciting him to reach over and squeeze at the point just above her knee that he knew would make her squirm.
"Where is Calista tonight?" Michonne asked after a moment.
They'd extended the invitation to come over to quite a few people, actually, since their super top secret gatherings were rarely actually secret, but it didn't appear that too many people were taking them up on the offer.
"She is with Jimmy," Lisette said, raising her eyebrows. "They are…hanging out…whatever that means."
"Uh oh!" Maggie teased. "What kind of hanging out?"
A smile spread across Lisette's face at the teasing. She shrugged and pursed her lips, shaking her head slowly from side to side.
"I don't know all that," Lisette said, "but I did tell her that I would ring her neck if she tried making me a grandma right now…so I know what they're not doing if that boy doesn't want me to run him all over this place."
Everyone laughed at that and it took them all some time to regain their composure…because, of course, that had been exactly what they were teasing might be taking place.
"Well," Maggie offered, being one of the first to get complete control over the light laughter that kept rolling up in one or two short bursts from one person or another, "maybe they'll wait…like we are…until we get to wherever we're going."
"There better not be any maybe about it," Lisette said. "I'm telling you…if any of you see me chasing that boy around just keep going on with your business because there's no need in trying to stop me."
Michonne laughed again. She could tell that Lisette was teasing…but she wasn't teasing. It was the kind of joke that everyone makes from time to time when they're exaggerating, perhaps, for the humor of it all, but there's no doubt that they mean something of what they're saying.
"I can't say as I blame you," Michonne said. "I try to imagine what it'll be like when Hope's grown and starts…talking to Isaac…"
Michonne cut her eyes at Carol because they both still joked about Muh's prediction that Hope and Isaac might find each other as something more than friends.
Daryl scoffed.
"Hope ain't messin' with no lil' boys…she's just a baby," he declared.
"But she won't be forever," Tyreese offered. "And neither will Judith…one of these days, it's going to happen."
Daryl chuckled and shook his head.
"You best keep a leash on your boy or I'ma put an arrow in his ass," Daryl declared, pointing his finger at Tyreese, though he couldn't entirely keep the smile off his face.
"You will not!" Carol declared, rubbing at her belly. "And can we let him get born before you start blaming him for corrupting your daughter?"
Tyreese chuckled and tapped her on the knee so that she looked at him. He shook his head at her.
"Get born? It's like I've never met you before…" He teased.
"It was a slip of the tongue," Carol said apologetically and Tyreese chuckled.
"You're saying all this," Glenn spoke up, "and I'm just worried that Lela's going to be like Maggie…and then I'm worried about the poor boy that she sets her sights on…"
He'd begun somewhat moving away from Maggie, but it wasn't quick enough to avoid the punch she aimed for his arm, and it left him laughing and rubbing at the spot while everyone else enjoyed the thought that Lela, like Maggie, might be the pursuer instead of the pursued.
"See," Lisette declared, shifting around and very obviously making herself more comfortable, evidenced by the fact that she unapologetically kicked her shoes to the floor and pulled her feet up on the couch cushion beside her, "this is what I missed...most of all, since the whole thing happened…this is what I missed."
"There's plenty of this to go around," Michonne informed her. "We're here at least once a week…the doors always open and admission is free."