entrancelogs | ° Open re-arrival

Who: Michonne, possibly you
Where: Roof, Grounds
When: April 17th
Rating: R for mentions of violence and most importantly, death of a child.
Summary: Michonne's back. Again. Tell a friend.
The Story:

[ She's back. And for the first time in all of the coming and going she's done in the three years she's been in Wonderland, this is the first time she's not pissed at leaving in the middle of something. As she stands on the rooftop, holding a letter in one hand and a walkie-talkie in the other it's the blink of an eye and slow realization when her setting has changed. Alexandria becomes Wonderland, the smell of the dead is almost startlingly gone, and the memory of everything she's built in this place comes back.

I don't want you to be sad after this.

Closing her eyes, she drops her chin to her chest and lets out a breath as her eyes move over Carl's letter to Negan. It wasn't going to work. It was never going to work, hoping that his words might inspire some kind of truce. But she had to try, for him. She had to try and make it right. Staring out at Wonderland, she lets herself have a single fleeting thought, that Carl could come here. That he could come here and have a life and be a kid for a little while. But every time he does show up, he leaves in a matter of days or weeks. Still, she'd do a lot to see him again, to say the things she didn't because she couldn't believe she was losing another child. She'd vowed never to get close again, and yet somehow there'd been Carl and Judith and Rick, and here she is: carrying Carl's letters in her back pocket, grieving when he told her not to.

You're gonna have to be strong for dad. For Judith.

The rooftops of Wonderland have always seemed busy, so when she hears the door open behind her, she takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. Folding the letter carefully, she tucks it into her back pocket with her own letter and then stands and waits for whoever's arrived to either join her or go do their own thing. Her walkie-talkie is still in her hand, the static lightly hissing.

For yourself.

Later, on the grounds, she sits by the garden she made last summer, the beautiful dahlias a reminder of everyone she's lost both here, gone to their own worlds, and at home. With the letter Carl wrote for her out now, in her hands, she reads it over and over again, face tense and tears right there at the rim of her eyes but not falling. When the letter drops, she looks at the flowers, speaking, not to anyone, just to Carl. ]

We're going. We're going now to make it better. I'm here right now, but there? We're ending it with Negan. And I promise - I promise you - Judith has me. She'll always have me. World's gonna look good. I'll fight for it, for you. For her. We can be how we were. We will be.

[ She doesn't realize it, if anyone overhears, and she goes back to the letter in her hands. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[It's funny, really, how often he comes up here now to find that someone else had the same idea. It isn't too unusual to find more than one person up here, separate and silent in their own thoughts.

Dan is up here for the relative peace and quiet. What he finds is Michonne.]

Oh, hey.

[They cross paths enough that he noticed she was gone, but he couldn't have said for how long. He glances over his shoulder, back inside the mansion, but decides on heading over to her instead.]

... Y' okay?

[ A variety of responses runs through her head as she tries to decide what she wants to say. The walkie-talkie at her side is still hissing static of a world gone now, frozen until she gets back. She finally takes a breath and turns off the useless device before looking at Dan. And still, she doesn't know what she's going to say. She never used to worry about it, a woman of few words. Now, she feels like she owes him something. He's one of the people who cares. ]

Tryin' to stop a war I know I can't. Now I'm here again. Same shit the last two times I left an' came back. Only this time there's a war coming here, too. I've had about enough.

[He smiles, though it's tight and without humour.]

We got a sayin' back home. 'War never changes'.

[They could have stood here in silence and it wouldn't have fazed him in the slightest. From his perspective, Michonne owes him nothing, and he's only lucky to be one of the people that she'll give the time of day to.]

Guess it's true wherever y' go. Can't say I ain't had enough of it, too.

[ She lets out a heavy breath and rubs her forehead for a second before shaking her head. ]

I'm just tired, I guess. Been a hell of a twenty-four hours for me.

[ Looking at the walkie-talkie, she puts it down so she can brace her hands on the ledge of the roof and lean forward, almost like she's stretching. But she's trying not to scream in sheer frustration at Negan's last words to her. ]

You know anyone who comes and goes here once a year? If this place is gonna send me home that often, it could at least send me to a point where shit isn't in the air.

[He thinks about it, but in the end just shakes his head slightly. In the whole time he's been here, he's never been sent home once. What does that say about him, he wonders.]

Don't know why it sends some a' us home an' some not. Don't know why it lets some a' us go an' keeps others behind.

[Dan frowns then, not looking at her, leaning beside her with his hands braced against the ledge.]

Y' wanna get a drink?

[ Michonne lets out a heavy breath and sighs, nodding. ]

Yeah. Drink sounds good. Somethin' strong.

[ She turns to go with him, letting him lead the way since he offered. ]

Never have anythin' else. [Not around here, anyway. When Wonderland calls for a drink, it really calls for a drink. Dan's put away enough in the past month or so that he's not really proud of it, but what else is a guy to do when he never really developed proper coping mechanisms for dealing with loss.

He holds the door to let her off the roof, then shoves his hands into his pockets while they walk to the bar.]

Weird buzz in the place these days. Recognise it. Wish I didn't.

Exact same buzz I left behind.

[ She sits and goes for Jack Daniel's. She isn't picky. And she doesn't drink often, but when she does, she means it. ]

But this time, this time I'm back and even with all the shit about to hit the fan here, I don't mind it. Not right now.

[ The unknown, she means. ]

There's a consistency to the inconsistency at least.

[He'll have the same. Whiskey is usually his drink of choice in any case, and he's had far more of it over the last month or so than any sane person really should.

Well, he's had his reasons.]

Heh, guess yer right. Still couldn't say if this war thing is gonna come off. Could all be blusterin'.

For all we fuckin' know it'll be the card game War. There's no way to really know what the hell she's gonna do until she does it, so. I'm not training, I'm not doing anything other than my normal prep when we know shit's about to hit the fan. A go-bag, my katana. If it's not enough, it's not enough. But I don't think what everyone thinks is gonna happen, will happen.

[ If she's wrong, well. She still has a fourth life to spare. She'll go down fighting if she has to. ]

Been pickin' up on some conditionin', but I've been lettin' it slip lately.

[A lot of things had happened, and he'd done the unusual thing of shutting himself away for a couple of weeks.] Other 'n that? Jus' business as usual. Been caught up in wars before. Ain't nothin' y' can really do that's gonna be 'enough'.

True enough.

[ She agrees with that and nods. ]

Gettin' pretty sick of being caught up in someone's ego trip, gotta say.

[He snorts abruptly, clearing his throat after it as if the sudden reaction embarrassed him.]

Story a' my fuckin' life, Michonne.

[Some of it had been his own fault, but a lot of it? A lot of it had been him being in the wrong place at the wrong time and never knowing when to call it quits.]

Well hell, that’s why we’re friends, Dan. Two damn peas in a fucked up pod.

[ She gives him a sidelong smile, one that actually reaches her eyes this time. ]

[He finds that he manages to smile right back, and it actually feels good to be able to summon the expression and mean it. It's been a hell of a month, and it doesn't seem that things are going to get any easier going forward.

Lightly, he claps his hand against the back of her shoulder.]

Y'no what, yer right. An' 'm honoured.

[ It's good, to know she's built relationships here, that she has friends, a family she's made her own. And now she has to go let the core of that family know she's here again. ]

I have people inside waiting on me to come back. Better go see to that. Don't be a stranger, now.

° Open re-arrival

roof;

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