Sadie's POV
"You don't ooown me…" I sang along, to myself, with the Joan Jett record I had put on as background noise while I worked on some recently needed adjustments to my motorcycle. "I'm not just one of yoour many toys, you don't ooown me. Don't say I can't- "
The faint sound of Alex's small, yet somehow increasingly irritated voice, as if he'd been yelling for me for some time now, was suddenly distracting me.
I chuckled as I put out the cigarette I'd been smoking and got up to open the door that led into the house from the garage.
"Mommyyyy!" He repeated.
"I'm right here!" I reassured him with another chuckle, as I scooped the now 3 year old into my arms. "Mommy's right here, she's just been right out there." I pointed towards the garage doorway. "See?"
Considerably dissatisfied with my explanation, he just tugged at the front of my shirt.
"Mommy, come see." He urged.
"Alright, alright." I chuckled again, setting him down and wondering how the hell Gareth was sleeping through all of this. "...following you."
He, very excitedly, led me into the dining room, right to a wall that had gradually been collecting carved lines where I had been incrementally measuring Alex's height with my knife for the past few months.
He ran up to it and reached his little arm up and over the highest marked line, which was now a few inches below the top of his head.
I couldn't figure out what the point of reaching his hands above both his head and the mark was, but he was just as excited nonetheless.
"Mommy, I'm taller now!" He beamed
"You are, aren't you?" I answered, getting down to his level and placing my thumb near where his head had reached. "In fact, I think you might be getting a little too tall."
He giggled at the joke, as I reached for the knife that I would use to mark the new line.
"Ohh, you think I'm joking." I teased, carving the line after he'd moved away. "Why don't you go find Daddy, and see what he thinks?"
"Daddy sleeping." He giggled, emphasizing sleeping, as if he hadn't woken us both up at like 5 this morning.
"Well, go get him anyway. I think he'd like to know too." I chuckled.
—
"Like to know what?" Gareth yawned when he finally came downstairs.
I looked up, toward the stairs, with a chuckle. "Well, what happened to you watching someone while I work on the bike this morning, for starters...oh wait, that's what I wanted to know." I teased him.
"I'm getting to it." He chuckled, sneaking around to kiss the side of my neck when he came down. "What time is it, anyway?"
"Past morning." I teased, without even looking at my watch.
He glanced at a nearby wall clock and chuckled. "Whoops."
"Yeah, whoops." I mocked playfully. "You get a pass today though, you probably needed it."
"Mmm.." He chuckled. "Is that so?"
"Looks like it." I chuckled back.
"Daddyyyy!" Alex whined.
"Wha-aaat?" Gareth teased back, scooping him up.
"I taller now." He held his hand over his head again.
"I see that." Gareth chuckled. "That's so cool."
Alex giggled at that.
Gareth chuckled again. "So, how's the bike going?"
"Oh, it's going." I chuckled back. "Should be good enough to make it up to Hilltop in a couple hours or so."
"I see. You want me to get out of your way then?"
"Immediately." I teased. "Your sleeping all day has been quite the distraction for me."
"Very funny." He chuckled. "Tell you what, Jett could probably use a walk. Why don't I take Alex with me, and give you a little more you time?"
"Momma not coming?" Alex's, now quieter voice, chimed in.
I chuckled as I stroked my hand through that soft, brown hair of his.
"You are gonna have Momma to yourself all day, when we go see Aunt Maggie at Hilltop, right?"
He nodded his head excitedly.
"That's right, so you have fun with Daddy and Jett for a while, okay?"
"Yeah!" He cheered.
"Yeah?" Gareth asked him. "Wanna go get his leash?"
He nodded even more excitedly.
"Go get it then." Gareth chuckled, setting him back down. "Go, go go!"
Alex ran off excitedly, just ahead of Gareth.
Gareth kissed me before he turned to go follow him.
"See you in a bit."
"Have fun." I called after them both.
By the time they were back, I had just finished testing the side car I had secured for Alex and was pulling back up into the garage with the bike.
The sound of Alex's voice, yelling "Mommy, mommy!" could be heard, likely as soon as he set foot in the door, followed by the sound of Jett's jangling collar as he tried to keep up.
"We're baaack!" Gareth called, just as the two had made their way to the garage.
"Gee, you could've fooled me!" I teased, scooping Alex up into my arms as I redirected my attention to him. "Hey, stranger! How was your walk with Daddy?"
"And Jeeeett!" He giggled
"Oh, right. And Jett." I joked. "..my bad."
He giggled again at that. "It was fun, Momma!"
"That's good!"
"Yeah, yeah. I know, I knew it as soon as I said it." Gareth chuckled when he finally caught up.
"Oh. Did you, now?" I teased with a smirk, setting Alex back down to play with Jett.
"I might've."
I snickered softly at that as I slipped my hand around to the back of his neck to pull him closer to kiss him.
I looked back down at Alex. "You ready to go see Aunt Maggie, Bud?"
"Yeah!"
"Yeah? Wanna race to the garage?"
He just giggled and ran ahead without me.
Wh- well, hey now! That's not fair!" I laughed as I followed closely behind him.
-—
—
When he got to the bike, he stopped almost dead in his tracks, as if h'd just realized that the car he was used to riding in wasn't there.
"Momma, where the car go?"
I laughed to myself at his innocence. "The car is out front where Mommy and daddy left it last time we went somewhere." I picked him up and secured him into the new sidecar addition. "You get to ride riiight next to Momma this time, how's that?"
"Yeah!" He cheered, particularly excitedly.
An overly enthusiastic "Yeah!" seemed to be his new favorite go to answer for "yes" these days.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah!" He cheered, somehow more enthusiastically.
"Alright." I chuckled, looking back over at Gareth. "We won't be out too long."
"I'll be here."
"It's Sadie, open the gate!" I heard a certain familiar voice instruct over a walkie belonging to one of the guys on watch when I rode up.
Another guy, who I recognized to be one of the Saviors who'd surrendered and who Maggie had allowed to stick around for some reason, opened the gate as instructed, allowing me to ride on through the gate.
"Hey, Sadie!" He greeted.
I nodded as I lifted Alex up, out of the sidecar. "Savior."
"It's uh, Alden, actually." He smiled when he saw Alex. "'Sup, lil dude!"
Alex gave a little smile, though still clung cautiously to me.
"Uh, I actually don't care." I scoffed, holding Alex a little closer as I glanced around.
"Maggie around? I thought I heard her over one of the walkies."
"Well, you have a good ear." He chuckled nervously. "..and yeah, I think she's in her office. Over at the Barrington house."
"Thanks."
When we found her, she showed us out to one of the balcony areas so that we could talk outside.
"...Well, leave it to you to figure out how to get a 3 year old here on a motorcycle." She marveled with a chuckle when I told her about the ride up.
"I'm a big boy now!" Alex declared, reaching his little hands up toward Maggie.
"Do you wanna trade?" She laughed, holding baby Hershel out for me to take.
"Have at it." I chuckled, taking him and adjusting him more comfortably in my arms, while she lifted Alex up from the ground.
"I can see that!" She said cheerfully. "How are you?"
This earned a giggle from him. "Good!"
"Good." She chuckled.
Meanwhile, little Hershel was cooing happily in my arms, yet seemed to be looking rather curiously at me.
"I know, I'd be confused too, if I had an old man's name." I cooed to him. "Oh, yes I would!"
"Sadie…" Maggie warned.
"What?" I asked with a snicker.
"It was my father's name." She reminded me.
"Exactly." I teased. "Case in point."
Maggie rolled her eyes, clearly trying not to laugh.
Alex decided to interject, before either of us could say anything else
"I wanna hold the baby." He said it in the most pitiful, pleading voice, while reaching out to me from Maggie's arms. "Can I hold the baby, momma?"
"Don't ask me, he's not my baby." I laughed, looking over at Maggie.
"Please, Aunt Maggie?" He whined.
She looked over at me and then at Alex in her arms.
"...you know, I don't see why not." She finally decided, setting him back down into a nearby chair. "You have to be extra gentle though, can you do that?"
He nodded eagerly.
I handed Hershel back to her, as we both watched Alex fidget in the new chair til he was seated to his liking.
It didn't hit me until I had actually witnessed my son's more than eager reaction to another, even smaller, child and was watching Maggie show him how to properly hold the little one just what the sight….and the idea of him being around another child really meant to me.
"Look, Mommy!" He declared eagerly. "I think he likes me."
I smiled back at him. "Well, what's not to like about you?"
He shrugged his little shoulders, something that he had likely picked up from me and which had given Gareth and I a good laugh the first time we'd seen him do it.
Maggie laughed at the little gesture. "Careful, though."
I, fairly discreetly...or so I thought, wiped a small tear from my eye.
Maggie apparently caught it, though, and looked curiously at me. "You okay?"
"Hmm? Oh, yeah. Of course?"
"You s- " She started to ask, til she was interrupted by Hershel starting to get fussy.
"Uh oh!" Alex blurted out.
"Uh oh." I laughed as Maggie rushed to carefully lift Hershel back up into her arms to soothe him. "It's okay, bud. He just wants his momma."
"Ohhh.." He said, seeming to accept that.
I smiled back at him, leaning over to pick him up. "Come here, you."
He smiled even wider and hugged me back when he was in my arms.
I turned to look over at Maggie once she had calmed Hershel back down a little.
"So, what'd you wanna talk to me about?"
"I just thought we could catch up a little..." She answered, coming over to place Hershel down into the little playpen she had brought out here for him.
She gently stroked the top of his little head. "Don't go runnin off, now."
She smiled at him just before coming back to sit across from the chair she'd set out for me. "...and I wanted to ask you something."
I took some of the toys I'd brought for Alex out of my backpack and got him settled with them before I sat down in the chair near him. "I'm listening…"
She sat across from me and sighed, as if she were mulling over just how she was about to pitch whatever she had to pitch to me.
"..Well, Daryl wants to do a run into the city…" she finally said.
And THERE it is.
"...those of us who are going are leaving at Dawn."
"And you want me to go?" I asked with a scoff.
"And Gareth, if he's up for it. We can take all the help we can get."
I nodded, still suspicious of where this was heading. "And who all is going?"
"Well, Daryl, obviously." She reaffirmed. "..me, hopefully you and/or Gareth, Michonne, Ezekiel, Tyra, Alden, Carol, Anne, to name a few…"
The last name caught me off guard "Who the hell's Anne, again?"
"Jadis…...she goes by Anne now." She explained.
I scoffed. "..this is the set up to a bad joke, right? A woman asks a former cannibal and her husband to go on a run with a Savior, her mother in law's murderer and her boyfriend, a king, and the woman who threw a fucking abomination of a dead one at her and took her husband captive, stripped him and still repeatedly hits on him? No thanks."
"You can just say no, Sadie." She sighed. "..I already went into this knowing Sasha definitely won't go if you're there and that I'd only get one of you in on this. I'll just tell her you're not going, she can take your place."
Feeling the weight of the obvious disappointment in her voice when she said that, I let out a sigh. "...Well then, why did you want me to go in the first place." I chuckled a little. "..the former cannibal over the woman whose boyfriend's leg the former cannibal ate?"
"Do you really need me to tell you that you're one of the best out there?" She let slip a little chuckle. "Besides, Daryl also has something he wants to talk to you about."
"Daryl does?" I scoffed.
"Yeah….must be pretty important."
I let out a heavy sigh as I shook my head to myself.
"...I'll think about it, alright?"
She half smiled at that. "That's all I ask.
She turned her head at the sound of Hershel starting to fuss from his playpen and glanced at her watch with a chuckle. "Sounds like someone's ready for a nap. I'll be right back."
"We'll be here." I chuckled.