The Good Life - Chapter Nine

Michonne woke early Christmas morning. She was intensely aware of the changes in her body from beginning a sexual relationship with Rick. She’d found some spermicide in the supply room and put it to good use the night before. She and Rick were going to have to be more responsible and use the condoms they had a healthy supply of. She wanted a child with him but not right away. They needed some time to just be together and in love.

Thoughts of last night made her smile. When she and Rick first had sex it hadn’t lasted long. She understood the reasons why and she knew Rick hadn’t been happy with how it had all happened. He’d certainly made up for it and then some last night. He’d taken time to drive her crazy, first with his mouth and fingers, then with his body. He’d been an animal, giving it to her hard and rough like she’d asked him to. Just the memory moistened her. The ghost of penetration could be felt as she got up, not sore but tender, and went to use the bathroom and shower.

It was her turn to cook breakfast. She left Rick asleep and went down to brew coffee. She plugged in the tree and then looked out of the window. A smile tugged at her lips. Snow was still falling but not with the same intensity as the night before. There was easily three feet of fresh powder on the ground. It truly looked and felt like Christmas.

Family began to trickle down as she checked on the breakfast casserole she’d made. She set to work buttering toast as Rosita came in looking ridiculously cute in a pair of Bugs Bunny pajamas and matching slippers.

“What a racket last night,” she said, making Michonne’s face flush.

“Sorry,” she said. She supposed she had cut loose but she hadn’t meant to disturb anyone.

“Oooh! Do tell,” she said, sipping her coffee.

“You weren’t talking about me?”

“Maggie and Glenn.”

“Oh.”

Rosita grinned at Michonne. “So... It happened, huh?”

Michonne nodded and the two women broke into fits of giggling.

“What’s so funny?” Abraham asked, coming in wearing plaid pajamas.

“Nothing,” the women chorused innocently.

He mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like ‘women’ under his breath.

“What did you just say?” Rosita demanded.

“Nothing.”

“Smart ass.”

“Yes, Dear,” he wisely replied, and sipped his coffee.

As soon as breakfast was eaten they filed into the living room. Judith was fascinated by the tree. Everyone took down their stockings and pulled out the candy. Michonne passed Carl a pair of Japanese tanto she’d found.

“Oooh, cool!”

“We’ll train in the evenings if your father doesn’t object.”

“Not at all. The more skills he had the better. Here.”

He gave Michonne a beautifully wicked-looking  hunting knife. She strapped it to her boot and decided she liked the feel of it.

“Thank you, Baby,” she said to Rick, making Carl laugh at hearing her refer to his father as ‘Baby’.

Glenn gave Tara a book he thought she’d enjoy. Sasha gave Daryl a poem written on beautiful parchment. He gave her an ornately carved hairpin that had her smiling. It really was artfully carved.

“Is this what you’ve been working on in the den? Oh, Baby, thank you.”

Abe and Rosita have each other guns before they handed out small wax paper sacks they’d stuffed with chocolate chip cookies and seven layer bars.

“I got something for the whole family,” Daryl said. “Hang on.”

Sasha was grinning so it was obvious she knew what it was. A minute later Daryl came downstairs and Carl’s eyes all but popped out of his head.

“Oh my God! A puppy!”

The puppy was chubby and fuzzy and just adorable. Red and white fuzzy fur gave it a rounded, babyish look.

“It’s a Husky!” Carl said excitedly. “What’s his name?”

“I like Tundra,” said Daryl.

“Hey Tundra! Hey boy!”

Tundra became so excited at all the attention he peed all over Daryl, who had to leave while Glenn gave Maggie a pair of boots.

As soon as Daryl returned Maggie handed Glenn a box.

“This will have special meaning for all of us,” said Maggie.

Glenn pulled open the box and pulled the paper back before going pale. “Oh... Wow...”

Everyone was silent until Glenn held up the stick from a pregnancy test.

“Maggie!” he said, with wide eyes full of joy and wonder. “We’re having a baby!”

Once again the room erupted into cheers as Glenn pulled Maggie into his arms and kissed her.

...

It was the sound of gunfire that propelled Daryl Dixon up the slippery steps of tower one.

He’d emerged from the cozy warmth of the house to bring Tundra some kibble before they got ready to eat dinner. Though he had a comfy dog house with a sealed entrance, hay to line the floor and warm blankets, the pup still complained about not being allowed to live indoors. Carl and Sasha didn’t care for it either but the general consensus was the house was for humans. Besides, Rick wasn't comfortable with an animal around Judith and Maggie wasn't keen to have a dog slobbering on her baby when he or she was born.

Now Daryl stood with the binoculars to his eyes scanning for the source of the noise. He saw almost immediately who had been responsible for the loud pop that had broken the peaceful silence. A woman and two children were on the road. The woman had collapsed and the children knelt beside her.

A man wasn’t far off. Daryl didn’t know if he’d shot the woman and collapsed or if it was the other way around. He picked up the radio.

“Rick, gunshot.”

A few moments later the door of the house opened. Rick had a radio to his mouth. “What do you see?”

“Man, woman, both down. Two kids kneeling over the woman.”

He saw Rick nod and a couple minutes later he emerged from the house with Abraham and Sasha.

“Where are you going” Daryl asked her.

“I’m gonna open the gate.”

He could see her smile and shake her head.

From his place in the tower Daryl watched Rick and Abraham climb onto the snowmobiles they’d pulled close to the house with sleds attached. He was glad they’d done so now.

He guided them to the people on the road. Sasha had joined him on the tower and now had her sniper rifle out and trained on the strangers lest this prove to be some kind of trap. They’d been isolated in the house for give days now, enjoying the safety and plays of hay, electricity, hot and cold water, good food and comfy beds. They’d gotten lax on security. For all they knew someone had scoped the place out and this was the start of an assault.

Michonne, Glenn, Rosita, and Tara emerged, armed and dressed to spend time in the cold. Michonne want for tower two and Rosita went for tower three while Glenn took up a place by the gate. Now they had to wait.

It didn’t take long for Rick and Abraham to load up the newcomers onto the sleds and start back to the house.

...

Michonne and Maggie stripped the unconscious woman naked and lowered her into the warm tub of water. It wasn’t difficult. She was a slight woman at the best of times but now she was basically skin stretched over bones. They needed to warm her body temperature. She was incredibly ripe with body odor. It was the same as they’d been when they first arrived. They used soap to scrub her body and wash her hair, hoping the warm water and jostling would rouse her.

“She’s skin and bones,” Maggie said sympathetically.

“If we could wake her up we could feed her something hot,” said Michonne. “Rosita has some leftover chicken noodle soup she’s heating up.”

They’d dressed her and put her on the bed when she finally awoke. She panicked at the sight of strangers looming over her. She struggled weakly and was quickly tired out and breathless.

“Blake! Li!” she panted pitifully, looking around the room, undoubtedly worried for her children.

“The kids are fine,” Michonne assured her.

“Where are they?”

“With the leader of our group and the man you were with,” Maggie told her.

She looked so small and fearful. “Don’t trust him,” she said weakly, and then fainted.

...

Michonne looked to Maggie, who said, “We won’t have to worry about Rick trusting a stranger. Still, I want to talk to talk to him.”

“I’ve got her,” Maggie said.

Michonne headed downstairs to the living room where she saw Abraham was finishing up work stitching a bullet wound in the man’s calf. The children literally held on to one another, watching everyone with wide, fearful eyes. They made Michonne think of abused dogs that she’d seen rescued at the shelter she liked to volunteer.

Michonne leaned in to whisper to Rick in a whisper only he could hear.

“She woke up and asked about the kids, Jack and Li. She says not to trust this man.”

He nodded. He didn’t need the woman upstairs to tell him not to trust this man. He had no intentions of doing so. It was interesting, though, to know the woman feared this man.

The man before him was grizzled but large. He had kept himself in shape. He looked to be about fifty years old but he had surprisingly little gray in his wild beard and hair.

“What happened out there” Rick asked.

“We got separated. I came out to look for her and she mistook me for a rotter. Luckily y’all came along when you did.”

What’s your relationship to the woman and children?”

He looked exasperated at the questions. “It’s complicated.”

Rick rested his hand on his gun and stared the man in the eye. “I’m smart and I’ve got time.”

The man considered Rick, then Abraham, and finally Michonne. They were armed but he wasn’t. They weren’t wounded. He was. The likelihood he could blow them off seemed slim so he answered.

“Their mother and the woman upstairs are half sisters. I’m the father of the kids’ mother.”

 “She close by?”

“Dead,” the man answered. He spoke of his daughter without any emotion whatsoever. “Got herself bit six months ago.”

Rick looked at the children. They seemed as fearful of their alleged grandfather as they did of the strangers who’d saved them in the woods.

Rick thought the boy looked to be about twelve and the girl was a year or two older. They were biracial kids. Both had bronze skin and hair made of fat corkscrew curls. It was a tangled mess at the moment and their skin was grimy. Rick felt sorry for them. He knew the struggle they’d been through out there and he was loathe to even consider sending them back out to it.

A thought entered his head. This is what he and Michonne’s children could possibly look like someday, if they were to have children together. That thought made him smile.

“The woman upstairs. Her name?”

“Kyla.”

“The children?” Rick asked.

“Jackson and Aaliyah. We call them Jack and Li.”

Rick looked over at Tara, who stood behind the kids. “Tara, take the kids upstairs to their aunt.”

“I’d rather keep my eye on them,” the man said.

“They’ll be fine,” Michonne answered, for their benefit, not his.

“I wasn’t talking to you, woman,” the man said coolly. He eyed Michonne with resentment while she looked at him with disdain.

“I didn’t need your permission to speak, old man,” she replied, equally as cool in tone.

His eyes went back to Rick. “Is that how you run this place? Letting women call the shots and speak out of turn?”

Now that the kids were gone Rick could speak freely.

“Your name?”

He sighed. “Joe.”

Rick smiled and shared a glance with Michonne. “You don’t say,” he said.

“Why?”

“I once killed a man named Joe. I ripped his throat out with my teeth.”

Joe sized Rick up. He looked openly skeptical when he said, “Did you now?”

“I had my beard on then. I look meaner with my beard but I’ll tell you…I’m just as mean without it. Tell me why the woman upstairs shot you and told my woman you can’t be trusted.”

“She don’t like me,” Joe said, as though that explained everything.

“I can’t begin to imagine why. Charming devil like you,” Michonne said dryly, knowing that just talking to the old man would piss him off.

“I don’t like you either but so far you haven’t given me a legitimate reason to shoot you,” Rick said, trying not to grin at Michonne’s sense of humor.

“She’s headstrong. Don’t like being kept in her place and made to be a real, normal, woman.”

“You rape her?” Rick asked, wondering what Joe meant by ‘normal.’

“No.”

“So why shoot you?” Rick asked, starting to sound impatient.

Maybe Joe saw something in Rick’s eyes, the something that meant he had what it took to rip a man’s throat out with his teeth, because he squirmed in his seat.

“I was taking her back to her man,” he said.

“She was running?” Abraham asked.

“She brought those kids out into this cold and knew they could die in it. They were safe at home with our people.”

“If they’re safe why are they so skinny?” asked Michonne.

“That’s her and her man’s business,” he caged.

“Abe, lock him in the den. Cuff him to the couch. We’ll come in and feed you soon enough.”

“You’re holding me hostage?” Joe said, looking surprised.

“I sure as hell ain’t gonna let you run around free.”

“I ain’t done nothing to deserve being locked up.”

Rick nodded. “That’s right, and you ain’t gonna get the chance to, either.”

Abraham reached for Joe but he swatted him away. Rick pulled his Colt Python and aimed it level and stead between Joe’s eyes.

“I will kill you.”

Again, Joe must have seen something in Rick’s eyes because he quieted down and allowed Abraham to pull him to  his feet and steer him toward the den. He watched as Abraham patted him down, removing a knife, before cuffing him to the couch. They secured the window and then left him alone in the room.

“Carl,” Rick said, coming out into the hall.

Carl still sat on the steps that led to the second floor. “Yeah?”

“Keep guard,” he said, and handed his gun to his son. “We’ll be back soon. If he manages to get lose and he comes out of that room, shoot to kill.”

“Okay.”

Rick lamented having to put a gun back in Carl’s hand but they had to do what needed done. Life in Christmas paradise was over. Real life had found them again.

…

Rick called an impromptu meeting with the others, sans Maggie since she was tending to Kyla and the kids, and held it in a nearby empty bedroom that had been fitted with two sets of bunk beds.

“What do you think?” he asked Michonne.

“He’s rotten. That woman and the kids are being abused,” she answered.

“He claims they have a safe place but the woman and kids are filthy and starved,” Rick noted.

“I noticed he’s neither of those things,” said Abraham. “Well fed, clean, looks like he gets regular exercise too.”

“Think he’s holding them captive?” asked Glenn.

“Claims he’s taking her back to her man,” Michonne said. “A man she obviously doesn’t want anything to do with. The man hates women.”

“Really hates women,” Abraham agreed.

“Kids say anything?” Rick asked Tara.

“They’re too scared to talk, poor things,” she said.

Maggie knocked on the door and leaned into the room. “She’s awake.”

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