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Milton's Historical Logs #93
Friday, July 25, 2014
Tonight we celebrate the Lieutenant's upcoming marriage to Grace with a bachelor party. Supposedly there will be karaoke and Mrs. Douglas has volunteered to strip (confirmation most definitely needed.)
I have been tasked with set up. The excess power from my solar cells will be put into this night and since there's a bit of a breeze, I'm going to try to get my wind turbine working to give us some extra juice, but it's not big nor is it very powerful, I could only attach it to the precarious cross at the top of the church in order to get proper wind over the trees.
Rick has offered to help me with set up. I accepted. The man seems to be floating about looking for a place. He most certainly isn't interested in leadership anymore, not even interested in giving anyone advice or orders.
But he's good at helping, follows orders, does what he's told, keeps quiet and works hard.
I do sometimes wish he would come back to us completely though. Despite the fact that I fear I am a ghost among my own people, I often worry about them to the appropriate degree anyone would. We're stronger as a whole and if one person is weak, we all feel the effects.
I'm afraid I don't possess the social skill it would take to bring Rick back to us completely. Maybe the Lieutenant or Carol, though Daryl and even Merle seem to be coming along fine in their social skills.
Merle, surprisingly enough, has become one of our most reliable people. Only just the other day he approached me and we held a fairly amiable chat, which for Merle was a huge step. I actually found him to be smarter than I gave him credit. When we were at Woodbury together I had merely thought him to be a brute. The muscle of Philip's schemes, but I was mistaken then as I have been these past few months.
Andrea has been worrying me lately. She's been talking to people, filling them with doubt and worry over our leadership and our future. I'm not saying that we shouldn't worry that we don't have someone to tell us exactly where we are heading, I only wish she wouldn't do it in such a subversive manner. It could only cause turmoil and possibly even revolt.
Since I'm not a seditionist, I will gladly make a note of it to Carol or possibly Grace, the two women seem to be the ones to go to for things like this.
Current home population: 396 (Both Kowalski's and O'Hara and his men still present.)
Current away population: 3 (Daryl, Glenn and Merle went out for supplies.)
Current forecast: 60º, Partly Sunny
Current mood: Busy
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**Michonne**
Inside the church was cool and deliciously dark, the only light coming through the stained glass, throwing colours onto the freshly scrubbed floor.
The lush red carpet had been removed due to fire damage, leaving the aisle somehow bare looking.
Rick stood at the front of the church quietly unrolling an extension cord, his back to her.
"Where's Milton?" She asked. "I thought he was on set up."
The man angled his head to her. "I don't know. Stepped out."
Michonne hummed and took a seat in one of the pews, her katana sheath clunking against the wood.
Rick worked on quietly, he walked with a somewhat stalled gait, his one leg dragging only a little.
"You know if we really wanted to," Milton burst into the church from the back door, arms full of electrical equipment, "we could harvest a lot of wind power, if we could only get up over those trees. Build a—" he stopped mid-sentence, spying her sitting amongst them and dropped his equipment onto the floor. "I'll be right back."
The blond man hustled from the church like a mouse scurrying along the floorboards of a room, causing Michonne to grin.
Rick angled his face to her again.
She shrugged. "What? A little cat and mouse never hurt nobody."
"He know you're only playing?" Rick demanded.
"Who said I was playing?"
The man fell silent again, kneeling to sort through the equipment.
Michonne moved to help him, knowing how he still had a few mobility issues. She hated to see the man in such a state. He used to be pretty damned impressive, lanky, with wolf eyes and a real commanding presence. Now he was hollow, like his skin was parchment and nothing resided beneath it.
"I think he's cute," she said. "For a white boy."
Rick didn't say anything, just continued to sort through the wires and cords and adapters Milton had brought.
"Having settled here, maybe a woman's natural instinct is to settle her heart too," she suggested.
Rick still didn't say anything.
She narrowed her eyes at him, deciding that if he was going to play the quiet game, she wouldn't ruin the moment by chatting any further.
They worked together quietly, before Milton returned, this time he was struggling under the weight of an amp, Daryl following behind with a speaker.
"You found a machine then?" Michonne greeted, helping Milton with the amp.
Daryl nodded. "Yeah. Got everything, even found some booze."
She beamed. "The Lieutenant'll be happy."
"I hope so, moving these speakers on my own was a real bitch," Daryl said.
Michonne didn't miss the quiet, studious look Daryl gave Rick, nor did she miss the way Rick quietly wandered away and out into the growing dusk.
"He needs snap out of it," Daryl growled.
Michonne sighed. "He's been beat."
"Rick ain't ever beat."
"When Agamemnon took from Achilles the maiden Brisbeis, the great warrior sulked in his tent for days," Milton said from his place on the floor behind the speaker.
"So?" Daryl demanded.
"It took the death of his beloved brother-in-arms Patroclus to ignite the fire of war inside Achilles chest," Milton went on.
"But re-joining the war ultimately meant the end of Achilles," Michonne pointed out with a cat-like smirk. "Don't think that's what we want for Rick."
Milton poked his head up above the speaker like one of those moles in a whack-a-mole game and adjusted his glasses. "Well, it wouldn't have been a Greek tragedy if everyone had lived. There must always be a death in a story, otherwise it's a fairytale."
She beamed, noticing Daryl beside them looking mildly irritated, she began, "the story of Achilles is from the Iliad."
"I know what the fuck it's from," the man snarled. "I just don't know what the hell Homer has to do with Rick acting like a goddamned dog hiding under the porch licking his neuter wounds."
Michonne looked Daryl up and down appreciatively. She often forgot, due to his scruffy, unwashed, backwoods look, that the man had more brains than he knew what to do with.
Behind them Milton slowly ducked back down and returned to work.
"He'll come around," she said after a moment.
Daryl grunted in disgust and tore off to get more of the equipment.
Michonne was about to approach Milton, hoping to maybe stoop over and blow down the back of his neck just to tease him a little, when the back door opened and Grace stepped in quietly. The woman moving softly across the floor of her ruined and once again restored sanctuary.
Michonne had to admire how small, how doll-like the woman was, so dainty and petite, yet she could command an army with a word if she truly wanted. Hers wasn't a solid strength like Carol's, but an almost mystical one.
Somewhere deep in her mind, Michonne liked to imagine Grace was a fairy Queen, while Carol was earthly, more like a nymph Queen. To be honest, she would give either woman her complete allegiance if they only asked.
"So the silly Cajun is going through with this so called 'stag' party, is he?" She asked Michonne in her soft, Southern belle tone.
"I think it'll do everyone good," Michonne said.
"I heard rumours, through the ever present grapevine, that Mrs. Douglas is going to…well for lack of a better term, dance the dance of the seven veils," Grace went on.
Michonne smiled. "I've heard those rumours too."
Grace looked about at her church.
The Lieutenant had almost single handedly restored it himself and while it was cobbled together here and there, it wasn't entirely offensive.
"Hmm," Grace said. "Could use some decoration."
"You don't mind having a stag party here?" Michonne asked.
The woman shrugged. "I want everyone here to be happy, to forget the world if only for one night." She looked up at the covered wooden planks over head.
Michonne too had wondered when the Lieutenant first opened the church back up, why he had put in a second floor overhead, why he had cut off the mezzanine from the area below, but the man had said it was for structure safety reasons.
Of course, that didn't explain the padlock or the door he had put in at the bottom of the stairs.
Grace touched a hand to the base of her throat. "I suppose I should throw something for the women," she murmured. "Though, it may not be so much fun as this…"
Michonne wondered why Grace sounded so desolate, like she had just been informed she was dying or something. It worried her.
"Are you alright?" She asked.
"I was sitting in my office, going over the scriptures, but my mind was wandering," Grace explained. "I need a dress, I don't want to look like a slob, but…at my age wearing a wedding gown just seems silly. I'm much too old to be yearning for such girlish dreams and desires."
"You're having a baby soon," Michonne pointed out. "You can't be that old."
"Oh, a miracle child, I'm sure."
Taking Grace by the arm, Michonne lead the woman to a pew and out of the way of Daryl who was bringing in another speaker. "Maybe," she said once they were seated, "God extended your youth for this purpose. Because he knew one day a man would come along who loved you like this, who would complete your life like this."
Grace scoffed. "Michonne, I don't think you're one for flowery prose. No, my life was complete enough without Lafayette and this child."
Michonne was quiet, unsure how to respond to that.
"Not to say I'm not happy, I am. I'm…perhaps I'm only a little scared. I've never been married to a mortal man before." Grace patted her hand companionably. "I come from a long line of housewives and I mean, the frilly dress, apron, pearl necklace, high heels to cook a roast, kind of housewife and…I feel like I need to be this kind of woman for Fayette, but…well I'm not, am I? To be honest, I've always been the odd duck."
"Well," she began, "I think the Lieutenant is a bit of an odd duck too, isn't he?"
Grace laughed softly.
"And I think it's because you're an odd duck that he loves you," Michonne finished.
"Oh, you're so kind to say, Michonne. Only, I sometimes feel like, maybe I'm too cruel, too hard on Lafayette. This is, I suppose, what frightens me most. That maybe I'll wear him down, that he'll lose that spark of his that I love so much. Maybe all my nagging and lecturing will—"
"No," Michonne cut her off. "I think even as we speak, you two are falling into a wonderful rhythm. He knows you lecture him, it's why he pushes you and not to be crass, but I think he kind of likes when you're strict."
The woman laughed again. "Oh, good Lord!"
"And I think he loves you so much he doesn't see these supposed faults you find in yourself. And you love him very much too, don't you?"
Grace smiled. "I don't think I could love anyone, blasphemous as it is, I don't think I could love even my Lord more than I love him. I find myself happiest when I hear him, safest when I'm in his arms, strongest when I know he's near." The woman paused, eyes falling on a spot in the middle distance. "Maybe he does complete my life somehow. He's certainly made it more interesting. Before him there was routine and duty and everything was the same and I was on a quiet and calm path to old age, then death. This all, despite the things outside our gate, this has been a wonderful bump on that journey to the end." The woman inhaled deeply and nodded. "So, yes, we need more decoration in here. Make it a celebration." She stood up and thanked Michonne, before walking out.
Sitting on the pew, Michonne thought of Grace's words, her mind yearning for that connection, that string that had been cut, separating them. She felt like she had been free floating without that anchor and had just fallen back down to earth.
And there was Milton, quietly working, glasses shoved up into his blond hair, face screwed up in concentration, dimples sweetly making an appearance.
Smiling sadly, she stood up and headed towards him, easing down at his side. "Can I help you with anything?"
"Not now," he said. "But I'll need to do a soundcheck when this is all set up, I'll need someone to stand around and let me know how it reverbs in this church."
Michonne nodded. "Sure." She paused, eyeing his cute dimples and his adorable face, before she leaned in a kissed him chastely on the cheek, scraping her lips on his stubble. It amazed her that such a boyishly cute thing like Milton had stubble, it was like she almost forgot he was actually a man under all that rabbit fluff. "You do good work around here, Milt." She said.
He turned astonished, wide eyes on her. "Thank you."
She smiled and patted his shoulder, before standing up and heading back to her pew to wait until she was needed.
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Claire Randall Fraser - I kind of agree. I think they should be our next solid bromance.
vickih - Thank you for the bit about Annie's part. I wasn't sure I wanted to include it, but then I thought it'd be a nice change. I actually looked up children's essays and read a few to get a feeling for it. Kids, they sure have no real filters or rhymes to their writing.
auntheddy - Same. I also wish more Glenn would happen on the show. I miss Glenn. He's such a beautiful, strong, geeky, cutie.
Ciao Bella - Yes, Rick chapter soon. It's so hard, I want to have a little bit of everyone, but I think some may think it'll drag on. I managed to get some Rick in this one...
itis3 - Danke.
Brazen Hussy - To the untrained eye that may be how it seemed, but to covert operatives in foreign countries it was actually a signal that the cheese is in the pocket and it's time to move Aunt Agatha from the freezer. You feel me? I'm just doing my duty here. I'm serving my country. I'm saving lives, man. I'm...okay I was warning people. But some people have delicate sensibilities. They can't handle full Merle like we can.
Yazzy x - Oh, Daryl's gift is going to be pretty cool, I hope you'll like it!