AN: Hi everyone! So, I'm thinking that we've got about five more chapters to go here, give or take one or two, depending on how it flows out.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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"Sadie!" Michonne called out before she realized how ridiculous the effort to get Sadie's attention by shouting really was. She put down the box that she was holding and leaned far enough into the wagon that they were loading up, now covered with a pretty well constructed tarp that Carol and Muh had sewn for it so that it matched the other wagons under the temporary sheds they had built to house them through the rest of the winter. One she was in far enough, she stretched her arm out and scratched at Sadie's ankle, the only place she could reach.
When the woman jumped, nearly toppling over in the crowded wagon, MIchonne also realized scratching someone might not be the best way to get their attention either.
"Sorry," Michonne said when Sadie looked at her, hand over her chest and eyes wide.
"It's OK," Sadie declared.
"How much room is left in here? In the back?" Michonne asked.
Sadie looked around the space she occupied and then wagged her hand back and forth at Michonne.
"A little…" she said, although with some hesitation.
"Enough for about four more boxes?" Michonne asked.
Sadie hissed and shook her head.
"Better in the others…room for the children," Sadie said.
Michonne nodded her head.
The wagons were all being used to haul their supplies, and that was it. They had three good sized wagons and at this point that's all their stock could pull and still be expected to cover at least a little ground each day.
Most of them would travel on foot around the wagons, but they were leaving room and some free weight for putting all of the children in one wagon to ride with Emma and Haralee responsible for keeping them as quiet and satisfied during the journey as possible.
"Fine," Michonne said. "I think this is it for things to go anyway. We can't take anything else. When you finish…pull the flap down. We're done here."
Michonne gestured as much of the words that she could in sign language while she spoke and Sadie nodded at her, offering a smile, before she turned back to arranging things like she'd been doing before Michonne had very nearly given her heart failure.
Michonne made her way down to one of the other wagons carrying the box that she heaved up again. The other boxes she was going to load into the wagon that she now knew had reached maximum capacity had somehow made their way, by other workers no doubt, farther down the line and hers was the last to go.
"That the last of it?" Lisette called out to Michonne as she walked toward the wagon that she hoped would hold her box.
"That's the last I have," Michonne said.
She brought the box and slid it onto the floor of the wagon and Lisette, already inside toddled around to keep from falling over one thing or another and found space for it.
"Will it hold?" Michonne asked. "Or do we need more straps?"
Lisette hummed and looked around.
"I'd say…just to be sure? We let Daryl and Beau do another run through and strap down anything they don't think is secure. But for now, until we're moving? It's good," Lisette offered.
Michonne offered a hand out to the woman when she was done moving things around and Lisette took it, dropping to the ground beside Michonne with a grunt when her feet connected with the hard ground.
"Are we done here?" Lisette asked.
Michonne nodded.
"It appears so," Michonne responded. "Now up to headquarters…make sure they don't need anything there to get dinner ready."
Lisette smiled and started to direct her feet in that direction, keeping step almost perfectly beside Michonne.
"And to see if we get a baby?" Lisette asked.
Michonne chuckled and shook her head.
"He's not coming today," Michonne insisted. "I told you…Muh said soon, but she didn't say today."
"Do you really think she's going to know the exact day he comes?" Lisette asked, raising an eyebrow at Michonne.
"I don't know," Michonne admitted. "I guess that I just have this feeling that she's going to just…maybe get up at breakfast or something and announce that today he's coming."
Lisette laughed and shook her head.
That might not be how it happened at all, but that was how Michonne had decided that it might happen, or maybe that's how it should happen.
"Has Muh ever said how long after Isaac is born is supposed to be her death day?" Lisette asked, purposefully scuffing her feet a little as she walked as though the action were entertaining to her.
Michonne shook her head.
"Not exactly," she said. "She usually just says that he'll be the last baby that she delivers and that he'll let her know when it's time for her death day. She hasn't said, though, who Haralee is going to go to, so she hasn't started making any final preparations or anything that I know of."
"Mmm…" Lisette hummed. "And who do you think will get Haralee? Or who do you think should?"
Michonne sighed and shook her head.
"I think that anyone would take her," Michonne said. "I mean I don't think she's exactly going to be a problem for anyone. And, well, there are a lot of people who would do just fine with raising her from here. She's hardly a baby. I don't know who Muh will choose, though."
Lisette nodded her head.
"Do you have anyone in particular in mind?" Michonne asked.
Lisette shook her head and laughed lightly to herself.
"No…honestly I don't," she said. "I think that all of the children are, at least to some degree, community raised. I mean they have their parents, and those are their primary care givers…but you can't say that everyone else doesn't have some bearing on what they'll become. Just the fact that half the little ones already speak some sign language shows that."
And Michonne knew it was true, and it wasn't anything that bothered her. The community was working to raise all of the children as a group. They had their parents, who they were closest to clearly, and then they had other people who were, perhaps, closer to them than those who had less interaction with them, but at the end of the day everyone brought something to the table here and there and offered it to "the future generation" as they called them.
And it was a good thing more than it was a bad thing. At least, by learning what they could from everyone, Michonne felt that the children would have more to help them when they were older and they were no longer in the shadows of the adults around them…or maybe even when they were the only ones that remained.
"You're right," Michonne said. "No matter who Muh chooses, Haralee will get a little something from everyone. Just like everybody else."
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"No! He's not coming because he's never coming," Carol protested. She was trying to sound genuinely annoyed with both Michonne and Lisette's playful pestering, but she was failing at it because she couldn't hide the amusement on her face as well as she thought she might.
"Don't fuss with him," Muh declared from where she was sitting, working away at something that Michonne couldn't identify. It was most probably something disgusting that she was going to force someone to eat or drink and Michonne's only hope was that it wasn't something that was for her. "He shall come when he's ready. He'll be here not one moment early and not one moment late."
"That's my new philosophy on when I have to do anything," Lisette declared, picking through a bowl of stew that she'd served herself to cool before the dinner crowd began to dribble in and start demanding food.
"He'll be here soon," Michonne said. "You've already dropped significantly and you're waddling worse than any duck I've ever seen."
Carol just made a face at her, but Lisette laughed to herself.
"He'll be here alright," Lisette said. "All twenty pounds of him."
Michonne snickered and shot a look at Lisette, not missing Carol's facial expression.
"Fine," Carol said. "Both of you…keep it up and I'll ban both of you from coming when he's born."
Michonne laughed and clucked at Carol.
"Don't be that way," she said, shaking her head insincerely. "You know the teasing stops when the labor starts. We're just getting in the last little bit of it that we can."
"I didn't tease you this much," Carol said, putting on a forced pout. "And it's not fair…there are two of you."
Michonne laughed and shook her head.
"Don't even play innocent," she said, pointing her finger at Carol. "You teased me enough for two people. Don't be mad because you're getting your just rewards."
When the door swung open a moment later, it brought with it a loud enough din of voices and laughing and everything else that it sounded like the door had just opened to a crowded convention center instead of to a small group of people crowding around, knocking mud off their shoes, and hauling themselves and the children they'd brought over from Mark and Sadie's house inside to start asking for the food that would still be too hot to eat for at least ten minutes once it was served.
Michonne left her spot at the table, preparing already for the rush and the crowd, and found her way through the people toward Daryl who was coming in last, Zeb riding on his hip.
"Hey," Daryl said when she reached him, tugging her arm to pull her next to him and out of the stream of people, "wagons got loaded?"
Michonne nodded and leaned, kissing Zeb's cheek and making the growling noise near his ear that always made the little boy laugh like it was the most hilarious thing he could possibly hear in his life.
"We did," she said. "Nothing else is going on those wagons…but at least we don't have to worry about them until we're ready to roll out. Lisette thinks you and Beau should do another run through, though. Just make sure that everything's strapped down."
Daryl nodded and passed her the little boy that was reaching for her and making his own version of the growling sound.
"Yeah, we figured as much," he said. "Gonna go through too an' just check to make sure that everything's holding up under the weight."
"The mules and horses?" Michonne asked.
Daryl and several of the others had spent the time that Michonne and her group had spent loading the roughly built wagons putting together the best thrown together barns that they could out of extra houses. Their design was rough, but it didn't matter at this point so long as there was enough room for the animal, it couldn't hurt itself, and it could keep it out of the cold that was already settling in with a vengeance.
"They all got shelter," Daryl said. "At least for now…Ty thinks it'll hold enough to get us through the roughest parts."
Michonne nodded her understanding and turned her attention to Zeb for a moment, untangling her hair from his grasp.
"We're all set," she said.
"We are," Daryl said, nodding his head. "We about as set as we gonna be. Could leave tomorrow if we had a mind to."
Michonne smiled softly.
It still brought a sadness over her to think of leaving, but the idea that they'd made much better progress than they'd thought…that they'd really discovered how well they all worked together after so much time of learning each other's rhythms…and that they were essentially prepared for the journey that lie ahead of them brought her some comfort that once they found this magical dream land that they talked about, they wouldn't have any trouble at all building it into everything that they wanted it to be.
"Hungry?" She asked, glancing toward the line and noticing that with Rachel and Lisette handing out bowls the rush was almost done and everyone was beginning to settle down for their meal.
"Starvin'," Daryl responded.
"Let's eat," Michonne said, gesturing with a quick jerk of her head toward the place where Daryl was already headed in anticipation of a warm, well-earned meal to fill up his stomach and ward off the chill of having been outside all day.