forthedog | (no subject)

Entry tags:

andrea,
darrow

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It's still cold, the wind still shouldering its way through bare trees, and the ground still hard. All the grass is still brown and dead, and muddy in patches from so many days of snow and freezing and thaw. It's been a long winter, longer than any others he remembers since the Realm. Long and cold and dark.

But right now he's in the yard at the side of the house, in the sun, and it's warm on his back.

It's late morning, the girls in school and Neil at work, and he knows he could go back to work as well, but he's taking the time. Everything is back to the way it was, except it's not. Everything is different. He's different.

Born again. He laughs silently and rocks back on his heels, bending over a small notebook in which he's jotting down things to buy. Rocks for borders. Seeds and bulbs. Maybe a sapling or two, some fruit trees. Fertilizer. Stakes and some lattices for frames. Tools. He wants flowering things, things that will attract butterflies and hummingbirds. He might even get a feeder. He's always sort of wanted one.

And dawnflowers. He definitely needs some of those.

He has a lot of work to do.

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For all that she knows this is different, what happened to Mike is not the same thing that happened to Spike, it's still been hard for her to wrap her head around. She's had this idea of what it means to be a vampire for so long that seeing something else suddenly happen, something that doesn't fit what she knows, it's all been a little confusing. And she doesn't know how Spike feels, but she can't help but be a little jealous on his behalf, that Mike gets to go back to who he used to be and Spike can't.

Not that she would ever wish being stuck upon Mike. She's extremely grateful that he's been able to find a way to... do whatever it is he's done. She's still not entirely clear on the details. What she knows is that Mike is back and when she comes into the yard, he's standing in the sun. For a second, she just stands and watches him, her head tilted slightly, smiling.

A few days ago he would have been able to smell her - the combination of familiar flowing life and the unique scent that is her, that he already knew very well. But he doesn't smell her at all. He smells wet soil and the possibility of growing things, and when he hears her he turns and sends her smile right back to her.

"Hey, you."

"Hey," she says, coming further into the yard once he sees her, taking care not to step on anything. "Nice to see you out in the daylight again." She still thinks they would have adjusted, all of them, but at the same time she's glad no one has to find out. She's glad there isn't that possibility of maybe things not working out quite so well. She's glad Mike can be there for his daughters the way he wants to be. That feels important, it feels much bigger than anything else.

"Nice to be out." He brushes off his hands, tilting his head back and closing his eyes for the briefest of moments. It feels new, even though it's something he's had since the day he was born.

"I'm planning the garden." He slides the notebook under one arm and steps forward, gesturing at the ground around them. "Thought I'd have some vegetables over there. Maybe even some corn. Flowers too, but I figure... We got the land, why not grow some stuff we can eat?"

"Make sure you grow enough to share," she says as she comes forward, looking at what he's explaining to her, the way he's laying it out. "I miss having garden fresh vegetables and there's not much in the way of room in that apartment." It's not crowded, exactly, but there's not much spare space either.

And if she grows through with what she's been considering, there will be even less space eventually, though that plan has been put aside for now, while Mike recovers, while the scientist checking out the virus for her recovers, too.

"You could do a window box," he points out. "It's not hard, I could show you. I was experimenting with it a little back on the island, before..." He trails off and shrugs, giving her half a smile. How many times has he died, now?

"But yeah, of course we'll share. Maybe even get in on that farmer's market, fuck knows we could use the extra money."

"Yeah, but if you grow it and share with me, I don't have to do any of the work," she points out with a grin, leaning closer to get a look at what he's doing. She feels weirdly relieved, kind of giddy in a way, and she wraps her arms around herself, still smiling.

"God, don't even talk about money," she says, rolling her eyes. "A part time salary isn't exactly great for going to school and taking care of a kid." She has Jesse's money, but she's made sure to keep that for Clementine, set aside in an account for her.

He pauses, looks back at her. God knows, he and Neil aren't flush, but now that he has his job situation sorted, things are looking brighter. Less tight.

"You know if you ever needed help or anything... You could just tell me, right? I don't just mean veggies."

Andrea doesn't have a problem asking for help, but she smiles and shakes her head. "We're okay," she says. "We'll be even better than okay once I'm working full time, but we're fine. We have three Darrow allowances going into one apartment, there's just not a lot of wiggle room when it comes to outside activities."

Which is fine, it's not like she has a lot of free time lately anyway. "Two more months and I'll be done."

"That's exciting." He starts walking, moving at an idle stroll, trusting her to follow him. "We should have a party for that."

Ahead of them is the big tree, the spreading branches where he intends to build the house for the girls - bare now, but soon there will be buds sprouting. He looks up at it, feeling something warm swelling inside him.

"Glad I'll be there for it. Probably."

Andrea's not big on parties, but she thinks a graduation party might be kind of nice as long as it stays small. There are certain people she'd want to be there, people she's come to love and trust in Darrow, but she feels more comfortable in small groups after everything that's happened over the past several years.

"Probably?" she asks, looking over at him with her eyebrows lifted. "Why only probably?"

"Because I almost burned to death about twenty four hours ago, a couple weeks after catching a killer vampire virus," he replies evenly, passing a hand over the trunk of the tree. "You think I should be assuming anything right now?"

"For a guy who was nearly burned to a crisp, you look pretty good," she replies, glancing over at him with a smile. It's scary, all the things that have happened to him over the past few weeks, there's no sense pretending it's not, but she's glad he's here and he's alive. In the end, that's the important thing. That's the thing that matters. "A little optimism never killed anyone."

"Yeah, well, I clean up pretty nice." He stays where he is for a few seconds, feeling the roughness of the bark, imagining the life under it. He can't smell blood anymore, can't feel the heat of living things in the air, but it's like some of the sensitivity has remained somehow, the virus leaving traces behind.

Everything living is so precious, so delicate.

Taking that life means so much.

"I'm not a pessimist. I'm just a realist. It's actually pretty fucking cheerful, good shit does happen." He turns to her and smiles. "I got at least some shit taken care of before I got a really heavy tan."

"Yeah?" she asks, eyebrows lifted, looking over at him curiously. "What kind of shit?" It's probably been a little unfair of her, the way she's stayed at the edges of this, choosing to take a less active role. In reality, though, so little of this has to do with her, even if Mike is her friend, and she hasn't wanted to push her own opinion too hard on anyone more directly involved.

"The ones who did this to me. I tracked 'em, killed four of 'em." His smile widens slightly, pleased as he steps back past the tree in the direction of the little slope down to the lake. An imperfect job, but done well enough that thinking about it gives him a certain amount of pleasure.

"There's one left. I'll find him. He knows I'm coming now, but... That just makes it more interesting, doesn't it?"

She thinks of the Hunters and the moment it had changed. The moment they'd realized they were becoming the hunted instead and she smiles a little, following Mike down toward the lake.

"It does," she agrees. She's not interested in violence for the sake of violence, but when it's deserved, when it's owed, there's certainly something satisfying in having someone know it's coming for them.

He bends, picks up a stone, tosses it the few yards between them and the water. There's still no dock - but that's something else he'll do now.

"I dunno what Neil would think about that. He might be gun-shy now." He pauses, considering. "We haven't really talked about it. He was pissed off at me for getting myself bit."

"Well, I can't really blame him," she says with a soft laugh. As much as she understands what Mike is saying, she understands how Neil feels, too. She remembers how furious she'd been with Dale when he'd wandered off to die alone after being bitten the second time. Like he was somehow saving her from something when, really, he was just being stupid.

"I mean, he needs to be able to count on you to be around for your girls, right?" she asks, shrugging a little. "I get it."

"I know, I don't blame him either. They already lost a father once, I'm not exactly looking to do that to 'em again. Not if I can help it."

He looks down at his hands, mottled with scars, and sighs. "But I... This whole thing, some shit is clearer now. More than it used to be. What I do, I used to think it would be easy to just... stop. If I needed to. Now I'm not so sure." He turns back to her, wondering how much of this she'll understand. "Part of me needs it. The killing. Not even the killing, that part isn't even so important anymore. I'm getting that... balance is more important. And it's harder. Harder than I thought it would be."

"To find balance?" Andrea asks, looking at Mike look down at his hands. She follows his gaze for a moment, then looks back up as her shoulder lift in another deep shrug. It's not something she understands, because as good as she is at killing, she likes knowing she doesn't need it to survive. For awhile she thought she might, but she doesn't. She likes being more than the woman Rick helped shaped her into and while she'll never forget that woman, she's enjoyed adding to her.

"Balance with what?" she asks. "Hunting? Killing? Or just the urge to take something apart? I'm not completely following here, you'll have to explain it to me."

"I know. I'm sorry, I suck at explaining this." He laughs slightly. "I'm still figuring it out myself."

He pauses, bending and fingering another stone, feeling its smoothness. Letting its curve be a guide. "I mean, balance between... the part of me that needs to destroy everything and the part of me that needs to be able to keep from doing that."

He throws the stone and lets out a breath. "I've done horrible things. I've done things I could never suffer enough to pay for, shit I could never justify. I used to be terrified of that part of me. Then, down there in the ash, all that shit I was afraid of - shit that probably wasn't even all real - showed up, and the only way we made it outta there was because I called a truce. You see? I made a deal with it. I became it. But the only way that deal holds is if I keep it in balance."

He sighs and passes a hand over his face. "I didn't want Neil to cure me. If it weren't for the girls, I might not have let him. I did it because I saw what I might turn into, and it was just too dangerous. I can't let things... swing so far over to that side again. So." He drops his hand away and smiles ruefully. "Sorry, I still don't think that made any fucking sense."

"No, it does," she says and she's thinking of Rick again, of all the ways he and Mike are alike. The qualities they share. She remembers too clearly what it was like to watch Rick beat Thomas nearly to death. The things he and Tyrese had done to each other at first, before they'd made peace and come to recognize their similarities. She doesn't know anyone who's struggled as much to find that balance as Mike except for Rick.

"I mean, it's never been a problem for me, I'm happy to not have to shoot anyone or anything in the face anymore," she says honestly. "But Rick... whenever things were going well, he seemed to be at a loss. He couldn't stand not having something to fight and when it finally happened, he'd just let it go. It was like he couldn't control himself."

But he'd found that balance eventually. If he hadn't, she wouldn't have fallen in love with him.

"He ever figure it out?" He's curious, though he's not looking for any answers.That balance...It's been saved. Maintained. It's a fight he might have to have again, but for now he's won.

But someone else... It might be good to know.

Edited 2014-03-16 04:12 (UTC)

"Yeah, he had to. Eventually. For Carl. For me. For all of us, really, we looked to him to be our leader and it's kind of hard to follow a crazy man you don't trust," she says with a laugh. But there are still conflicting memories there, the things he'd done surrounding Glenn's death and a war he'd been trying to fight that she still doesn't completely understand. For the most part, she tries not to worry about it much, because she knows it's another life. She might have memories of it, but it's not the life she's had here and this is the one she considers her real life.

"But I don't think it was ever easy for him," she continues. "I think having Carl relying on him helped a lot."

"Kids help. The girls..." They're not all of what's kept him together. But he remembers when Eostre left, when he had wanted to lie down and die, holding the girls. Feeling his own heart continuing to beat.

"I'm still human 'cause of them. And Neil. Lisbeth." He steps closer to her, smiles. "You."

"I was about to get offended that I was left off the list," she says with a smile, ducking her head briefly. Mike isn't Rick, he'll never be to her what Rick was, and that's fine. That's better. She loves Rick in one way and she loves Mike in another, but she can't deny their similarities and she knows it's at least partly why she'd found herself drawn to Mike in the first place.

"It's good to have people," she says, looking up again. "People keep you grounded."

"People are all that do." In his experience. He can see himself coming unmoored so easily. Has come so close to that. Always, there's someone holding him down in the end.

"Got no idea what I did to deserve so many of 'em, but here we are."

"I don't know if it's ever been about deserving," she says with a shrug. "Not that I think you don't, but I'm just not sure that's quite how it works." There are people all over this city, she's sure, who deserve a real family and who might never have that. She's thinking of Ellie and Clementine, girls who've lost everything and while she tries to do what she can, she knows she'll never be able to take away the pain of Clementine losing her parents.

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