AN: Here we go, another little chapter moving us on.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Michonne was taking over Carol's duties for a few days, but she'd at least convinced the woman to come with day old Isaac and rest on the couch in headquarters so that she could keep her company when everyone was out of the space, since the house was often like a railway station with traffic and and back out again in a matter of moments.
"Is he eating?" Michonne asked, stopping what she was doing a moment to come over and watch Carol doting on the baby who was trying for his meal with a very intense look on his face.
"Yes," Carol said. She laughed softly. "That's apparently his eating face…he looks so…angry."
"He looks like Tyreese when he's giving you that 'what the hell are you doing?' expression that he has," Michonne said. "I've gotten that a few times…"
Carol laughed.
"Me too, now that you mention it," she said. "He's perfect, Michonne…I mean I know that every mother says that…but I've checked him over, every little part. He's absolutely perfect."
Michonne smiled and nodded.
"Of course he is," Michonne said. "We knew he would be. Now you've just got to worry about Jude worrying you to death about him."
Both of the girls had a very real interest in Isaac. They had a real and intense need to hold him, one that they'd both missed with Zeb, and Carol somewhat indulged them by holding him for them but letting them pretend that they were holding him.
Michonne thought, though, that it wouldn't be too long that they weren't satisfied with that. They were going to want to be mobile with the poor thing.
She and Carol both had spent most of the day telling both of them that they had to leave him alone, for just a little while…they had to let him eat, let him rest.
And Michonne laughed to herself every time she thought of Muh's predictions that Hope would one day fall in love with Isaac…because it would be funny, if she was lucky enough to live that long, to tell Hope how infatuated she was with him when he was just a brand new baby…a brand new baby that by merit of his tiny form made Michonne realize all the more how fast her own babies were growing up.
Muh came shuffling in after a few moments, bringing with her the strong, wafting smell of a freshly burning fire.
She brought the pot she'd been outside roasting over her tiny fire and went about fixing the liquid from it into one of the mugs that she had claimed in her collection of dishes.
Michonne stayed out of her way for the time being. She figured that what she was doing to get lunch ready…the lunch that Rachel had offered to cook when it got closer to time for the group to start expecting food…could wait just a bit.
Michonne sat down on the couch, moving Carol's legs and then putting them across her lap to give the woman permission to rest again instead of drawing them up in the small space that was left to her, and then she asked to hold the baby who was done eating and likely only awake for a moment.
Carol gently passed him over to Michonne and she took the opportunity to cuddle him a little while his concerned face from eating relaxed into one more suited for sleeping.
After a few moments, Muh came over carrying the mug that she'd just made and handed it to Carol.
"This is hot," she said, as though the steam rolling off the mystery beverage might not be enough to make this evident. "Drink it…it's good for you."
Carol accepted the mug without any question and then Muh came over, hovering close to Michonne for a moment before reaching her arms out.
"Give me Isaac," Muh said. "His Muh would like to nuss him while she can."
Michonne obliged the woman and passed her the baby, watching as the woman smiled her toothless smile and then carried the tiny boy over to a chair not too far from them to sit with him and rock him, despite the fact that the chair was stationary.
"You can't leave us," Michonne said, half teasing and half sincere. "We need you here too much."
Muh looked at her, the toothless grin returned, and then she turned her attention back to the baby.
"You have little need of an old diddy woman," Muh responded. "And I must go…it's time for me to begin my next journey and I'm excited for it. This has been a good one. The next will be even better."
Michonne tried to remind herself not to frown. She tried to remind herself that Muh was happy about this, even if none of them were.
"What about your…medicines? We need them," Michonne said.
Muh glanced at her only a fraction of a moment before she returned her attention to the infant.
"There is little that I know that I have not taught Haralee," Muh said. "She will care for you and teach you everything that you are willing to learn. It is simple to teach anyone who has an open mind and a closed mouth. You will not need me."
Michonne realized this wasn't something she was going to win. Whether or not Muh's time drawing near in the next few days was something that she imagined or something that she knew to be fact, she was determined that it was time for her to go.
"What about Haralee?" Michonne asked finally. "Have you decided who she will stay with?"
Muh hummed in the affirmative.
"I have already spoken with Glenn and Maggie…she will be no problem for them and they will be good for her. They will care for her well, I think, until she is old enough to care for herself," Muh said.
"We'll all take care of her," Michonne offered. "I can promise you that…we'll do whatever we can for her. I think they'll be good parents to her, but she'll be special to all of us."
"As it should be," Muh responded. "As you all should be. Along our journeys in life we are given people not that they should care for us or that we should care for them…but that we should all care for each other. Your coming togethers should always mirror the tightest of embraces…it is impossible to give without receiving…and it is impossible to take without giving. So it should be with every person you meet."
Michonne glanced over at Carol who was drinking the warm beverage, eyelids heavy. It wouldn't be long before they tucked Isaac in next to her and let both of them take a nap.
When she glanced back at Muh, the woman was watching her in a way that almost made her feel uncomfortable for a moment simply because she felt like this woman had the uncanny ability to see straight into her soul if it were possible.
"You're troubled by my leaving," Muh said. "You should not be…I must go on my journey, and you must go on a journey of your own. You have many more miles to go, and you will go them without me. If you have loved me, as I have loved you, you will forever take a piece of me with you…and I shall leave a piece of my spirit with Isaac, a piece I have already entrusted him with, to take because he is the last life that I am to bring into this world of so many that I have welcomed on the start of their long lives."
"Will the trip go well?" Michonne asked, swallowing the unusually large lump that had invited itself into her throat without permission.
Muh's lips raised up in a soft smile and she nodded.
"It will…it will go as well as any ever has," Muh responded.
Michonne nodded her head, not seeking clarification that she knew by now she wasn't likely to get from a statement such as that.
"What will do without your…magic?" She asked, smiling softly at the old woman and feeling immediately a little silly for asking the question that gnawed at her in an odd sort of way.
Muh smiled softly at her again and then the smile broke into a laugh, a throaty, husky laugh.
"My child," Muh said, "I have no more magic than you have…there is no such silliness as magic."
Muh sat forward a little, the baby obviously lulled to sleep in her arms despite the fact that her laugh had probably shaken him.
"Believe in yourself as you have believed in me," Muh said. "Believe in your man…in your children…in your companions. Each of you can hear and see and sense things that even you are not aware of. Believe in that and you have all the magic that this old body has ever had. There is no such thing as magic, Michonne, there is only belief in what is and what can be."
Michonne wanted to respond, but she found that at the moment she couldn't. She couldn't speak. She felt as though she'd literally been struck dumb at the moment. All she could do was nod her head and watch as the old woman got up.
In the interval of time that had passed, Carol had put the mug on the floor, the contents probably gone as was ordered, and she was asleep, her head tipped to the side.
Muh came over and arranged Carol's arms to nest Isaac down in them in such a manner that neither of them woke.
Then the old woman looked at Michonne for a moment and moved to put her hand on her shoulder. She didn't say anything, she simply offered Michonne the soft smile that she'd worn before and squeezed her shoulder where her bony fingers rested.
Then she nodded her head, the smile fading as she worked her gums in the familiar manner that she had.
"It will be a fine journey," Muh said confidently. "And you will see many things."
Michonne offered the woman a soft smile and realized that she'd gained her voicebox again from wherever it had gone for a short amount of time.
"Are you talking about the trip, or my life now?" Michonne asked.
Muh smiled again and winked at her.
"Perhaps I speak of both," Muh said.
She removed her hand from Michonne's shoulder and straightened up to her full and unimpressive height.
"I have things I must do now," Muh said. "You will find me when it is time to eat?"
Michonne nodded.
Muh smiled.
"Very good…I wish to request for dinner some of the peaches that we have? The sweet ones in the jars?" Muh asked.
Michonne chuckled to herself.
The peaches were such a preferred dessert of the woman that the rest of them had actually taken to not eating them so that they might last her for however long she remained with them.
"I've already got a jar out for you," Michonne said.
Muh smiled again and nodded before she shuffled out of the back of the house, down into her yard…from there, Michonne didn't know where she went. She would appear again, at just the right moment…she always did.
Michonne sat for a moment after the woman's disappearance, and then she eased out of her position, careful not to wake Carol. She fixed the blanket that they'd brought down there around her and then she returned, thinking over what Muh had said, to getting things ready for lunch because everyone, soon enough, would come looking for something to eat and for at least a few days Michonne was the one that they were expecting to fulfill all of their most basic requirements.