What Future Is There

AN: This is a fanfiction. Therefore the characters and plot, though somewhat related, do not follow those of the television show nor the comic in their entirety. I have made it to conform to my own imagination. If characters being different from the comic, and show bother you, then this may not be the story for you. Some spelling and grammatical errors will probably occur. Sorry.

Daryl leaned against the wall, and took another swig of his beer. When he was on his first he had thought it tasted like warm piss, but the more he drank, the more he didn't mind the taste. Tonight was a night to celebrate, or at least a night to forget. Maggie and Glenn had gone on one of the best runs that they'd ever had in one of the surrounding towns and brought back a delivery van full of everything imaginable, including enough alcohol to flood the prison. Tyreese and Sasha had taken watch and now everyone was sitting in, what Daryl could only call the living room, drinking beer and chatting. There was a lot of laughing going on, more than he'd heard in ages. More than he'd heard since this whole thing started.

Michonne sat by herself against a far wall, her knees drawn up to her chest, staring out in front of her, occasionally taking a drink from the bottle that she held loosely in her hands. Daryl had noticed that for as little as he was interacting with the group tonight, she was doing even less.

Michonne was the kind of woman that fascinated Daryl, but frightened him too. He knew how to hold his own around many of the brainless chatterboxes that he had dated before this whole thing started. He even knew how to handle the other women that had come through the group, but he didn't know how to handle Michonne.

Michonne sipped on her beer, taking it slow. She was on her second one and already she felt like her head was a little lighter than she wanted it to be. Everyone was in such high spirits tonight. It was as though they had already drank to a point where for a moment they were experiencing the thrill of complete, drunken oblivion. As much as she wanted to experience that oblivion, to be able to forget all that had happened, all that had been lost, and the fact that a madman still lurked somewhere wanting to kill her, and probably to kill all of them, she knew that the alcohol wouldn't do it. She'd forget for a while, but then she'd just wake up with a headache.

Everyone else was willing to take the chance, and she envied them a little. Daryl seemed like the only one that wasn't joining in on the storytelling and laughing at the silliness they so seldom indulged in. He was sitting on the other side of the room, obviously doing his share of drinking, but not really looking as joyful as the rest. Maybe he, like herself, just wasn't able to get past the reality of it all, even for a night. She'd been watching him out of the corner of her eye, and seen him watching her. Sometimes he made her nervous when he watched her like that, like maybe he could read her mind.

"How about you, Michonne?" When she heard her name, Michonne looked up. She really had no idea what was going on in the room.

"What?" She asked.

"How about you?" Maggie asked again. "What do you miss the most?"

Daryl had been following the game they were playing. What did you miss the most? Of course, all the answers so far had been the silly things they missed. They missed delivery pizza. They missed the Super Bowl. They missed listening to the radio in the car. They missed ice cream. This wasn't the real game of "What do you miss the most?", it was the happy game they wanted to play. No one was really telling the truth. I miss my loved ones. I miss going to bed at night and not really believing that I might die tomorrow. I miss talking about the future. No one talked about the future now. It didn't exist. All that was really left was "now".

The question struck Michonne. She was first moved by the fact that she'd been invited to join the conversation. She wasn't exactly actively participating. Then she was struck by the overwhelming possibilities of answers. My daughters. I miss my daughters. She looked at the faces of the people who she was coming to know as her group. This band of misfits that was trying so hard to form some kind of family in the midst of all of this and she knew that tonight was about forgetting. She decided against answering truthfully. Something simple would do for tonight.

"Bubble baths." She said.

"Yes!" Rachel shouted. She was one of the newest in the group. She had come with Tyreese and Sasha seeking refuge from the madman. She was also Rick's new arm candy, glued to him at all times. "I used to love soaking in the tub for hours!" She was also obviously very drunk, Michonne thought.

Daryl was a little taken aback by Michonne's response. Not because she had been nice to the group and let them have their fun by throwing them something trivial, but because she had chosen bubble baths, which seemed like something very feminine. It seemed like something so very not like Michonne. He looked at her for a minute, trying to see past the person he'd come to regard as a respectable Walker killer and all around bad ass, and also the most preferred person to go on a run with him. He tried to imagine the Michonne from before, the kind of woman who would have taken bubble baths, and it reminded him that they had all been different before the world went to hell and that he knew nothing about her.

He let his eyes linger a moment on her. He was picturing her first, in a bathtub with a book, covered in bubbles and relaxing somewhere, and then his mind drifted to picturing her naked. She had a nice body, and a pretty face. For a moment he thought that he wouldn't mind seeing her naked.

Then her eyes met his as she took a drink of her beer, and he shook the thought out of his head. It was just the beer. He blushed a little at the thought, and decided he would go to bed. He'd be more clear-headed than most of them when he woke up, so he could take morning watch.

"Umm...night, y'all." He said, rising to his feet. As he walked away he could hear the echoing of everyone telling him goodnight, and when he lie down in bed he could still hear them laughing and talking. As he closed his eyes, he tried to get the image of Michonne that he had created for himself out of his mind.

For a moment Michonne wasn't sure of what to make of the situation. When she glanced at Daryl, he had been looking at her, but it wasn't just the hazy out of focus look that he usually wore when he was just thinking about other things and his eyes settled on someone. He had been looking at her very intently, like he might have been trying to look through her or inside of her. And then, when he realized she was looking at him, he had nervously left the room.

She had mentioned bubble baths. Was he thinking about her? She dismissed the idea. Probably not. She'd never heard Daryl voice his opinions on her skin tone, but knowing Merle she couldn't imagine that two brothers could have grown up with very different perspectives.

Michonne yawned. It was getting late and she was on morning watch. She should probably go to bed. The three beers that she drank had left her head swimming enough for one night. She stood up and quietly went to her cell, fairly certain that no one would notice she was gone. After all, the only one that had been watching her all night was already asleep.