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Chapter Text

The noise from the encroaching horde of walkers threatened to turn into that all too familiar sharp ringing in his ears. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t get to anyone. Glenn wasn’t responding. Neither was Tobin. Daryl was out of range, and he didn’t know how far ahead Michonne was. He was stuck. And the only ones getting anywhere, getting anything done was the herd. They approached the RV, slow, steady, and unimpeded by anything. His gunshots had drawn them, and now he was stuck.

What was it that Glenn had said? He could’ve sworn he’d been listening and walking at the same time, but now he couldn’t remember.

He looked up from the dashboard and made direct eye contact with a starving, emaciated male walker. He slowly slid out of the driver’s seat and sat close to the corpses. Out of sight. The walkers would be flush against the RV any minute now.

He was losing time. And he couldn’t communicate with anyone, and the plan was falling apart. He wasn’t holding up his end.

Had Morgan held up his? Had he gotten back in time to tell everyone that the rehearsal had gone live?

He needed to know. He needed to know that Morgan was preparing the others just in case. He needed to know that Carol was ready to handle it. Maggie, Rosita.

Carl.

He needed to get back to Carl. And Judy. He needed to know that Michonne had made it.

He blinked at the ceiling to keep the tears at bay, his chest cavity tight, the RV a little smaller and hotter than before.

He looked at the dead bodies inches away from him.

What if he died here? He didn’t know how, but what if? What if he completely failed everyone, his children, his family, Michonne? How the hell was he going to look them in the eye if this failed? He very easily ignored the Alexandrians. Very easily. They were walking corpses themselves, worse than the walking dead, sad as it was. Annoying as it was. But how could he face himself?

He needed Michonne to make it back. He needed her to get ahead and warn the others. His mind drifted to the full container of applesauce he’d pulled off of one of the attackers, and he snatched it back. He couldn’t go there. Not there.

What had he said to Michonne last? He’d told her to run. Her and Glenn. He’d told her to make it no matter what. Was she making it?

His heartbeat slowed when he remembered how exhausted she had grown of making it. There had been nothing heartwarming about that conversation, about her apprehension and fear. But the memory of her voice brought him a degree of comfort just the same.

When would he see her next? What had she looked like the last time he’d seen her? Had he really taken a good look? He remembered her face: expression as urgent as his. He remembered her voice: tone as urgent as his.

He needed to see her again. He could not rot here. She wouldn’t. She was pushing on and doing her part, and he needed to do his. The people he’d killed----

The RV shook as the walkers walked into it, but his heart didn’t jump.

The people he’d killed outside the RV hadn’t turned yet. He needed the walkers to get to them before they did. Feed and move on.

That wouldn’t help the fact that he was losing time, but he would get out. He just had to wait. And keep his mind from running amok with grim possibilities in the meantime.

He sat up straighter and gripped the walkie-talkie with both hands. He’d told the others that running home would be for their peace of mind, not necessarily for the safety of their loved ones. Where they were now, outside, they had the power to guarantee everyone’s safety.

That had made complete sense a couple of minutes ago. Now he couldn’t reach anyone or hear anyone and all he wanted to do was run towards Alexandria to catch up with Michonne. Cute off from everyone and without any indication of how they were coming along, all he wanted was the peace of mind.

He brought his knees together and laid his head down, closing his eyes, shoulders tight with tension. Everyone had heard his little spiel except for Michonne. She didn’t have a walkie-talkie, because the way he’d designed the plan, they were going to stick together. No need for radio when she’d be right by his side.

He wanted to hear her voice now. He wanted her to tell him something, anything. He pictured her running home, strong legs eating ground, leading, alert, having more hope for the people she was carrying on her shoulders than he did.

And he pictured her, after she’d cut down the threat in front of her and had a quick moment of peace, he pictured her thinking of him, hoping he’d make it, having complete faith that she would see him again. That he would make it so.

He opened his eyes and lifted his head. He dropped his shoulders. He spread his legs apart and rested his forearms on them, fingers twitching.

He just had to wait.

Chapter Text

Rick rounded the corner of the Alexandria Safe Zone's primitive graveyard and found Michonne sitting on the ground at the far end, one leg crossed over the other, the katana on her other side, her gloves on her lap.

Michonne almost rolled her eyes when she saw Rick. The fact that he was here meant that her minutes of solace were over. The huddle was finished.

Rick saw her shoulders drop, but it didn't break his stride.

"How'd you know I was here?" Michonne asked as he took a seat next to her.

Rick grunted when his butt hit the dirt. "You weren't at the meeting. I figured you wouldn't still be at the house, not the way you looked. This," he said as he looked at the graveyard, chuckling at the incredulity of what he was about to say, "This is the only real place for privacy. Especially right now."

"Is it ironic that I'm sitting here?" Michonne asked as she looked at an Alexandrian corpse that was waiting to be put underground. "I lost two of them."

Rick hoped she wouldn't say it. He hoped she would not say that he was right.

Michonne continued, "Hell, I might lose three. Depends on if Denise can pull a miracle. And the way she looked when Heath and I brought Scott in….Apparently she lost her last patient, so." She shrugged and exhaled a laugh, shaking her head.

"What happened?" Rick asked hoarsely as he looked at her.

Michonne leaned her head against the wall and exhaled again. "We came across some walkers, so Sturgess panicked and ran off, but not before he fired his gun, missed, and hit Scott in the leg."

The disgust was plain to see on her face. She understood fear. She could not stand fear-induced stupidity.

"We came across him later. He was a meal," she continued.

Rick inhaled and nodded for her to go on.

"Annie, she….she wanted to give up. She wanted to sacrifice herself for us. So did Scott. But I said we were continuing on. We got cornered inside this pet store, and we tried to wait it out, but then we had to move. And they were on us as soon as we left the building. Annie tripped, fell."

She nodded to herself, her eyes back in the moment, and Rick understood that Annie lost her life.

Michonne was quiet, but Rick knew there was more. It was all over her face. "What happened?" he asked again, softer this time, more worried this time.

"There was….this man. David. He got bit. The back of his right shoulder. Odd place. He knew what it meant, but he continued with us. He wanted to make it home. I told him….I told him we would make it home. And I actually believed it. He had a wife here, Betsy. Told me about how….he met her after all of this started. He was inhuman, a thing, roaming and surviving. Aaron found him, but Betsy brought him back. Then they fell in love and got married. He wanted to make it back to her, die in her arms. At some point when we were trapped in the pet store, he realized that wasn't going to happen. He started writing her a note on a piece of paper. A goodbye letter. He handed it to me, but I made him keep it. Wrote on my arm instead that he'd make it home and showed it to him."

Michonne handed Rick her arm, and he held it.

The message was smeared. There was half of an m and an e.

"I really….believed...that I was going to get him home."

She took her arm back.

"We got caught by walkers again. And I mean caught. We were trying to jump this fence, and they got a hold of my leg, and they got a hold of his, and they had a good hold."

Rick's heart seized. She was sitting next to him, obviously fine, if only physically, but the image of walkers pulling on her made his heart seize nonetheless.

"I held on, as much as I could, and I really wondered….for the first time in a long time, I really wondered if I could….hold on. I don't know what would've happened. But with David's wound, his strength waning,...they got him. They pulled him down. And I went over the fence. And the note,….it died with him."

Michonne lowered her head and closed her eyes.

"I'm….I'm so sorry," Rick said.

Michonne opened her eyes. For the first time since he'd sat, she looked at him. "Do you think he knew something I didn't?" she asked with a faint smile. "Do you think he knew….that he was gonna die before we got home? That he had a feeling, a gut instinct, and me….I….I trampled over that in my need to show these people that we were a good thing in their lives, and I…."

Her eyes watered, and her throat tensed, and Rick looped his arm over her shoulder and shifted to bring her close. He brought his other hand to her hair and held her.

Michonne didn't let herself sob, but she closed her eyes and pressed her face into Rick's shirt. His dirty, grimy shirt.

"I'm sorry," he said, snuggling his cheek against her hair. "I don't think-"

Michonne lifted her head, but she kept her body angled toward him.

Rick retrieved his arm from around her shoulder. "Your hope isn't a bad thing, Michonne. I don't want you to ever lose it. Again," he amended. "Your hope, and belief, and faith helped me get out of a very bad situation. It made me get up and make a run for it when I realized that sitting and waiting wasn't gonna work out. It kept me running and carried me back here. I didn't falter until I saw you. You saw me, I just dropped to the ground."

Michonne chuckled at the way he said it, the lightest she's felt since that damn horn sounded.

She moved closer to him, not that she had much room to move, since she was already angled toward him. But she needed to be closer to his presence. She needed his aura.

Rick looked at her hand on the ground between them. He picked it up and slowly laced their fingers together, a thin layer of dirt between their palms. Michonne smiled, her heart unexpectedly skipping a beat. Rick looked up. Her face was the face he'd hoped to see again.

"I….I don't know if people get an inkling when their time is coming," he said. "Especially after this started, I never thought about it. I'd like to think so. I'd like to think some people know. I'd like to have an idea when my time comes."

The words shocked Michonne. When my time comes. "I…." she tried, leaning away from him. She felt a fresh wave of tears rise behind her eyes.

"Hey," Rick said, searching her eyes. "That's not gonna be any time soon."

Michonne nodded, trying to forget the words, trying to make them stop echoing in her ears. "I've never heard you say something like that."

"I know. I'm sorry. I'm-I'm not trying to make you go there." Rick sighed. "I shouldn't have said anything."

That made Michonne smile. "I've also never heard you take anything back. You don't misspeak."

"I did just now. I take it back."

She smiled. She inhaled slowly and shifted so that her back was completely against the wall again. Rick picked up their hands and moved closer so that their shoulders, hips, and thighs touched. He set their hands on his thigh.

"I thought I was gonna have to deliver some bad news. I prepared myself for it. I asked for Betsy, and they said she was dead, killed in the attack. So there you go. She never has to know and neither does David."

"I'm sorry," Rick said.

"I know," she responded, looking at him again. "How's your hand?"

"It's fine," Rick said, looking at his bandage. "I'll survive."

"Good," she said pointedly, and it was his turn to smile.

"I'm not leaving you, Michonne," he declared. He hadn't known that he was ready to make such a declaration, but he made it, and he felt good in the aftermath. Especially when she looked at him like that.

"You better not. Ever."

She tried not to think about the possibility that Glenn might have left Maggie.

"Did David make you think about you?" Rick asked. "Where you were?"

"Yeah," she answered softly, grateful for his intuition. "It's funny that that was his story. Sasha recently told me that it worked out for me. I still don't know if that was an insult. But she's right. It did work out for me. I met people. Andrea, you, and Carl each brought a piece of me back until I was whole again. Until I was me again, changed, but….me."

"I did that?" Rick asked, taken aback.

"Yeah," Michonne answered, frowning.

"What do you mean yeah like I should've known, like I should be walking around here like, 'yeah, I did that. That was me.'"

Michonne laughed. She had no idea why he was ridiculous all of a sudden, but she loved it. She appreciated it. "Yes, Rick, you brought me back."

Rick gazed at her, floored by the revelation. "Wow. I had no idea."

She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. She had no idea what to say. He looked like she'd just given him something very precious.

"I'm glad I could help," he said. Then he winced internally. That sounded so lame. "You brought me back. Well, not back. I don't know if it's about being back for me. I don't know-"

He stopped, frustrated that he couldn't structure his thoughts.

"I have never seen you speechless," Michonne said, amused.

"Stop," he deadpanned. "What I'm saying is….you made me feel safe. And….I don't think I had that, not even before the world ended," he realized.

That captured Michonne's attention.

"You made me feel safe during a time when….all I wanted, mentally, was to be strong, to be present, for Carl, for everyone else. To keep morale up. You made me feel like it was okay to be gone for a little while, to lose it, to just...succumb to the weight. I've felt strong; I've felt capable. I've felt like I was doing the right thing. But I didn't feel safe until I met you. And after the thing with Joe….the way I killed him...what came out of me….when I was sure I was becoming a thing. I looked at you and said I was okay, and I didn't even believe it, more like desperately hoped it, but you looked at me, and you said-"

He faltered, his eyes watering. "You give me a lot of room, Michonne," he said, nodding. "I didn't have that. And then I met you. So,….you make me feel safe."

Michonne let go of his hand and pulled him into a hug. "Glad I could help," she said, smiling over his shoulder. She felt his body shake with laughter, and that made her feel good. She was incredibly flattered by his revelation, more so because it seemed like it was a revelation to him, too.

"I had no idea," she said earnestly as she let him go.

Rick nodded. "Now you do. So you can't go anywhere either."

"I promise."

They faced forward and slowly exhaled in sync, both feeling much better about the day, if only for now, if only until they left this plot of land. They'd each given the other something to carry with them always, something to pull out and remember when things seemed dire.

A small smile played on Rick's lips. It got larger when Michonne laced their fingers together again and placed their hands on her lap.

"Do you think it'll be just us here?" she asked. "Eventually? Do you think they'll die off one by one until we're the only ones left?"

Rick looked at the corpse. Aaron said it was a bloodbath. Carol said the ones who made it didn't do so because they rose up and fought. Except for Jessie and Aaron, but he didn't count Aaron.

He turned from the corpse to look at Michonne. When he had her attention, he answered. "Yes. They're not getting it, and there is no learning curve. People came through and massacred this place. Their friends and neighbors are gone, but they were still standing in that huddle looking lost as ever, weak as ever, blaming me. Aaron had to step in. They're not getting it, and they're not getting that there's no time for breaks. They're gonna die. I wish it was different. So do they, but they're so busy wishin' that they don't realize what's breathin' down their necks until it's too late."

Michonne exhaled and relaxed her shoulders. She would've been surprised if he'd said something different. And having lost two people, maybe three, she was too downtrodden to care. Hell, at this moment, she thought he was right. "Let's hope Heath didn't overhear that. You know he came out the side of his neck with me earlier?"

"What?" Rick asked, partly because he wanted to know what she was talking about, mostly because he'd never heard her talk like that before.

"At the pet store. He was making these snide little comments all along, but I kept letting it go until finally I had to ask. He overheard you telling Glenn and me to keep going if any of them became too much trouble. He thought I was waiting for the opportunity to cut and run. Glenn, too, I guess. I set him ramrod straight. He had the nerve to tell me he knows what it's like out there. Can you believe it? I shut him up real quick. The nerve."

"I would've loved to see that," Rick said smiling.

Michonne rolled her eyes, but she couldn't suppress her smile.

"Don't listen to them," she said. "I mean, you didn't exactly put your best foot forward when we got here, but none of this is your fault. You're not the one who pulled the wool over their eyes, and you're sure as hell not the one keeping it there. That's their doing."

If she didn't know any better, she'd think he looked proud of himself, proud because she'd told him not to listen to the Alexandrians. The way his chest jutted out was unmistakeable. He was definitely proud.

"Come on," she said, bouncing his hand over hers. "We don't get breaks. We need to head back."

"Five more minutes," Rick countered.

Michonne didn't protest. In fact, she settled in. She leaned her head toward him, and he followed after her, meeting her halfway. They sat there, resting their heads against each other, totally relaxed, soaking in the sun, until five minutes passed.

Michonne gathered her gloves and stood. She tucked the gloves under her armpit and wiped her hands against each other to get rid of the dirt, and then she wiped them on her pants. She grabbed her katana and slung it across her body and waited for Rick, who was slower to get up.

"Are you okay?" he asked when he was up and wiping his hands.

"A little bit," she shrugged. "Thanks to you. Thank you."

Rick nodded, wanting to say something more, wondering if he should say it.

"Ready to head back?" she asked. His back was to the exit, and he didn't look ready to lead the way.

"Uh, I just…." He shifted his weight from one leg to the other.

"There we go with the speechlessness again," she said, amused. "Must be something about today."

Rick smiled. She didn't know how right she was. "Today, I thought I wouldn't see you again. I was trapped alone in that RV, and all I could think about was you, Carl, and Judith. I ran home, not knowing if I'd find you here, not knowing how long I'd have to wait. I just….knew I had to get here."

"I'm here," she affirmed quietly.

"Yeah," he replied reverently. And she was the one who opened the gate. "Today's a very really long day," he said.

Michonne nodded. "It's going in the record book. And sun's not going down yet. And it can't. Not until Glenn and the others come back."

Rick nodded his agreement. It was no longer appropriate to kiss her, now was it? She was thinking about their friends who were still MIA.

"Come on," he urged. He turned for the exit and wondered when he'd get another chance.

"Rick?" Michonne called out.

Rick stopped in his tracks to give her his attention.

"Today has been a very long day," she said, feeling it in every muscle in her body. Her stomach was a bundle of nerves now, because she knew what she was about to do. "I thought about you, too. When I was stuck," she elaborated as she walked to him, "And I wondered if I'd make it over the fence or if the walkers would wear me out. You popped into my head," she said, stopping in front of him. "Your strength, your….I just suddenly wondered where you were, what you were doing. I knew you were making it work. I knew you were powering on. That's what you do. And next thing I knew, I was hoisting myself over."

Rick was mesmerized by her face, her voice.

Michonne went for it. She's stood face to face with him more times than she could remember. The first time they stood this close was on the first day they met, and he'd been too scared and impatient to be kind to her, and she'd wondered if she really had any use for him where getting to the Governor was concerned.

Today, she brought them closer than ever and kissed him, placing her hand at the nape of his neck to anchor him.

His quick and thorough response overwhelmed her.

Her soft lips on his was like a shot of adrenaline for Rick. He grabbed her waist and mashed their pelvises together, surprised by the kiss and afraid that it was fleeting. Michonne inhaled, and it was all Rick Grimes. She staggered back, because he leaned into her so heavily, and her nerves morphed into a million butterflies that disbanded all over her body. Her mind went blank and then reactivated with thoughts of him and only him. His hands under the katana, all over her back, squeezing her flesh.

She dropped the gloves and ran her hand over his hair, grabbing a nice chunk at the bottom.

Rick didn't realize how much he wanted her until he had her, and the longer he had her, holding him, pushing against him, matching his hunger and thirst, the more he wanted her.

"Excuse me!"

Michonne and Rick stopped kissing but didn't let go. They frowned at each other, both confused as to why the other sounded like that.

"Hello! Have you had enough or should I just leave?"

Rick spun around and Michonne backed up.

"Jessie?" Rick frowned. He was in a serious haze. A Michonne haze.

"Shit," Michonne said, realizing how this looked. Most of her brain was still fogged over. She bent down to pick up her gloves.

Jessie didn't know where the hell to begin. "Jessie? Are you serious? In the middle of all this? Here?!"

"Calm down," Rick said.

"No. Jesus, I mean, I understand that you're used to this, but my God. People died today. I knew all of them! There's a corpse right here!"

She'd been holding it together since the attack, but this was about to drive her to tears. She could feel it.

She'd dragged a dead body pretty much across town, a body that she had killed when she'd thought she was about to lose her oldest. She'd dragged it to the cemetery, only to see one heavy makeout session between Rick and Michonne when she turned around to grab one of the nearby shovels. She'd been shocked silent, almost traumatized by the contrast between the horror of the day and their hot passion. She found her voice when it occurred to her that they weren't going to stop any time soon.

"People are scared out of their minds and mourning, and this is what you're doing?" she asked Rick.

Michonne realized that the entirety of her reaction was toward Rick, actually. Perhaps that had to do with the whole blaming him thing.

Rick didn't address her question. He saw that she was standing next to a wolf. "Jessie, we don't bury killers inside the wall," he said, his hands on his hips.

Jessie shook her head to clear it, realizing that he was talking about something completely different. "We don't-Um, the wall is surrounded by roamers right now, so what do you want me to do, leave her to rot in the sun?"

Michonne put her gloves on and noted the attitude.

"We're gonna leave her out until the roads clear up," Rick said, heading toward the body. He licked his lips, still feeling Michonne's.

He grabbed the dead woman by her legs and began to drag her further down. "We'll start a pile over here."

Jessie didn't know what to say. She'd been looking forward to the burial. It would have given her something to do, something to focus on.

Michonne waited for Rick. He took her hand, and they headed out of the graveyard.

Once on the other side, Rick turned to her. Michonne widened her eyes to say that was something.

Rick smiled. "I didn't think there was much to say."

"No, there definitely wasn't," Michonne agreed. She bit her lip, feeling a little giddy and quietly chiding herself for it. "It is what it is."

"Is it bad that I'm annoyed at these people walking around, because I can't kiss you again?"

Michonne smiled. "Depends on who you ask."

"I'm askin' you," he said, lowering his voice.

Michonne's smile widened, the butterflies acting up again. Her skin broke out in goosebumps, and she shivered.

"That's very interesting," Rick murmured.

"Hush," she chided, embarrassed. "No, it's not bad. But please control and don't go biting anyone's head off."

Rick smiled. "You wanna help with cleanup?"

He sounded like he was asking her to help him clear off a dining table, not drag dead bodies across hot asphalt. He almost started to swing their hands even.

"I'm a little drained, but I'll help," Michonne said. She almost sounded flattered by the invitation.

"No," Rick decided. "Go back to the house and just….hang out. Rest. You've had a lot to deal with. I've got people. Keep things quiet, draw the blinds, and we're waiting for them to get bored and move on," he said of the walkers.

"Okay. If anything changes with Scott, or Glenn, send word. I'll see you later. I see what you mean about the not being able to kiss thing," she admitted.

Rick cocked his head to say see?

Michonne chuckled and went off. Rick watched her, wishing he could follow. But he needed to be accessible to the Alexandrians. He needed to show his face.

Chapter Text

Michonne stripped out of her clothes and went for a shower. She expected to be interrupted at any moment. She waited for someone to burst in and tell her that some crisis was happening, perhaps the Alexandrians had started to kill each other in their panic, and she’d have to run out in the middle of her shower, throw some clothes on her wet body, and go fight.

But she soaked under the large, square showerhead, her muscles relaxing under the hot water, and nothing happened. No one rushed in to get her. No one needed her.

She felt brand new when she stepped out of the spacious glass shower stall. The only thing that could’ve made her feel newer was washing her hair. But considering the only thing separating Alexandria from total mayhem was a wall, she figured that she might need the therapy of washing her hair at a later time. Maybe soon. So she’d covered her hair with a plastic bag and focused on the rest of her body.

She walked from the bathroom to her bedroom and took off the plastic bag. She put it in its designated bowl and set about lotioning her body.

When she was done and dressed, she lay in bed. The room was deceptively dark, the drawn curtains making it seem later than it was. For the first time since she’d looked up at an empty sky, she allowed herself to think about Glenn. She couldn’t imagine that he was gone. In a bind, maybe, and maybe it was the kiss with Rick turning her thoughts rosy, but she could not bring herself to think the worst. And she was thankful for that, considering there was no way to get to him at the moment.

A soft knock at the door brought her out of her thoughts. She sat up and moved the pillow so that it supported her lower back, and she folded her legs. She was elated to see her two favorite faces.

“She’s fussy,” Carl announced as he toted Judith into the room.

Judith reached for Michonne, and Michonne happily took her. The baby still fussed, but it was at a much lower volume as she lay her head on Michonne’s shoulder.

“Oh,” Carl deadpanned.

“I haven’t really gotten to hold her since I came back,” Michonne said as she rubbed Judith’s back in circles.

“Apparently, she had a big problem with that,” Carl said.

His mild condescension piqued Michonne’s interest. He never complained about anything concerning his baby sister. “Is something wrong?” she asked.

Carl locked eyes with her and sighed. “Enid left.”

“Wait, left what? When?”

“She left here. Before the walkers came, which means I have no idea if she ran into them or if she went off in the opposite direction. She left right after the wolves attacked. She doesn’t think this place can be protected.”

Michonne blinked, shocked. She saw the desperation in Carl’s eyes and knew that this was eating at him.

“We can’t get to her,” she said, a warning in her tone.

“I wanted to try.”

“Carl.”

“But then I realized it was a bad idea,” he said, clearly hating the realization.

“Come here. Sit,” Michonne said.

He sat on her side of the bed and stared glumly at the floor.

“I’m sorry,” Michonne said, leaning toward him. “It sucks. I promise you that as soon as the herd moves on, we will go out, and we’ll track her.”

“Or she could be part of the herd,” Carl said softly. “She could be pawing at the wall right now, completely mindless. I didn’t even get a chance to talk to her, to tell her why leaving was so much worse than staying.”

“What do you mean?” Michonne asked.

“She left a note,” he said, looking into her eyes for the first time. “Just a note,” he repeated, shrugging helplessly.

“This is eating at you,” Michonne observed. “Enid was out there before, so if she chose to go back, I….I want you to consider, and possibly accept, the fact that there may not have been any changing her mind. Even when we go out after the roads clear up, and we find her, she may not want to come back.”

“Why would you choose not knowing where you’re gonna sleep every night, and risking someone sneaking up on you and robbing you or worse when you do sleep, over a house, a bed, and people?” he asked, frustrated.

“I don’t know,” Michonne admitted. “It sounds strange, but being in here might scare her more than being out there. Think of it like Daryl choosing to go scouting.”

“But Daryl at least realizes that having a bed and consistent supply of food is a pretty good setup.”

“Think of it like an extreme version of what Daryl’s doing,” Michonne amended.

Carl shook his head. “She doesn’t even have that much experience. She was on her own after her parents, but….it wasn’t anything like what we went through. I don’t know if she’s ready to permanently be on her own. Who the hell just wants to be on their own? Look at how far Morgan came to find dad,” he said, getting agitated again.

“I’m really sorry,” Michonne said warmly. “But I promise you that we will go find her. And we’ll see if she keeps her choice. Carl, at the end of the day, you cannot stop her from doing what she thinks is best for her, no matter how much it worries or scares you. Just like I can’t stop you from figuring out a way to risk your life by leaving to go find her.”

“I told you I’m not gonna go, and I’m not,” he promised.

“Good, because I cannot handle anyone else being on the other side of that wall right now.”

Carl nodded. He felt a little better. He trusted Michonne to keep her promise. If circumstances made it so that she couldn’t go look for Enid with him, he would ask Morgan. He would not ask his dad, because he knew that he had bigger priorities right now.

“Can I hang out in here?” he asked Michonne.

Michonne smiled. “Yes.”

He slid his shoes off and crawled across the bed to lay on the other side.

“Here,” Michonne said, sliding him the pillow she’d been using as a backrest.

“No, you can keep it,” Carl said, not wanting to impose on her.

“Take it,” Michonne insisted, raising her eyebrows.

Smiling, he took it without further protest.

“Do you have your knife?” Michonne asked.

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

“How long you think this is gonna take?”

“No idea,” she answered.

Judith popped her head up and smiled wide.

“Hi,” Michonne said, drawing out the word and succumbing to the baby’s infectious smile. “You ready to play? You good now?”

Judith laughed loudly, and then watched Michonne with a smile, her eyes bright and excited.

Carl watched them, content. He hadn’t been worried about his dad and Michonne until Morgan had told him that the rehearsal had gone awry. And he hadn’t realized that he’d been worried about Michonne as much as he was worried about his dad until she’d come home. He’d become downright anxious when he’d learned that his dad wasn’t with her. Thankfully, his father had come home less than twenty minutes later.

He hated the thought of Enid out there by herself, if she was even still by herself, but when he really thought about it, he’d rather go out there with Michonne than go alone. Or with Ron, who didn’t know a damn thing.

At nightfall, Rick decided to stop by Jessie’s place before he headed home. He decided that it wasn’t smart to not say anything about what she’d seen in the cemetery, considering how indignant she’d been.

He found her in her garage, no need to continue on to the front door. He almost asked her why she was standing in the dark, until he remembered the directions he’d given out earlier. Then he saw that she was caressing a shirt.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

Jessie gasped and spun to face him, her ponytail cutting through the air. “Jesus.”

“Sorry,” he said, frowning. He’d never perceived himself as light on his feet.

“No, no, sorry,” she said, swiping strands of her hair out of the way. “I should’ve heard you. I---I should be on high alert. I just….” her eyes drifted to the flannel shirt in her hands.

“I heard you killed a walker earlier,” Rick said, figuring that might be one thing weighing on her mind.

She laughed, though she was clearly tense. “First a human, then a walker. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?”

“Jessie,….I think you did good today. Especially compared to everyone else.”

“Yeah, but….because of everyone else, I feel like what I’m doing won’t matter. We’re sitting ducks right now, and I feel like we wouldn’t be if most of your people weren’t out there. Which is ridiculous, because we have more than enough people to be able to do something here.”

“It’s slow going,” Rick said noncommittally as he placed his hands on his hips.

“And how do you feel about that?” Jessie asked. “I heard about the walker attack yesterday afternoon, where you let Carter, Sturgess, and the others fend for themselves until Michonne, Daryl, and the new guy stepped in?”

She was emotional, and she hated it. She felt like having a very good cry, but for some reason the tears refused to fall. They crowded behind her eyes, so she was stuck on an annoying precipice.

“They could’ve died, Rick,” she insisted when he only blinked at her.

“Carter and Sturgess still died,” Rick reasoned. “It wasn’t right then, but it happened. I could’ve run in and done it for them, and then I did run in and do it for them, along with Morgan, and Michonne, and Daryl, and they still died. They can’t become paralyzed the moment they see walkers.”

“It’s a normal, human reaction,” she said, raising her voice.

Rick frowned. “Jessie, what are we talk about? I heard about what you said earlier. Now you’re sayin’ something different?”

Jessie closed her eyes and calmed herself. “Tonight’s…..I don’t know why I’m thinking about him right now,” she said, gesturing with Pete’s shirt before she dropped it in the box next to her and crossed her arms. “I don’t know why, after the very scary day I’ve had, I don’t know why, when I can’t get Sam to come downstairs, I don’t know why, when I don’t even know how long it’ll be until those walls come down.”

“They won’t come down,” Rick assured her.

“It’s not like he ever made me feel safe. But while thinking about him just now, I actually thought….God help me, but I actually thought: I used to have someone to push in front of me and the kids if something ever happened. I could’ve pushed Pete, just let them have him. Now it’s just me, and, sure, I did good today, but my kids,….they aren’t ready.”

“You’re gonna teach them,” he reminded her. “They’ll get there.”

She nodded, but she looked like she didn’t believe it.

“I wanted to talk to you about what you saw earlier,” Rick said.

“That’s none of my business.”

“I don’t think it deserves an explanation,” Rick assured her. “But I do understand how it looked. And….the last thing I need right now is bad press.”

“Bad---did you just say bad press?”

“I meant that as a figure of speech.”

“Wow.”

“Jessie---listen, I’m not here to argue, debate, or even explain, like I said. I’m here to give you some perspective. Some context. Michonne was having a bad day---”

“So was everyone els---!”

“No, she was having a bad day. And that’s it. That’s the context; that is all you need to know. Because that was all that mattered in that moment. It wasn’t about being disrespectful; it wasn’t about anybody who lost their lives today; it was about her….and me. And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t….”

“Go around spreading rumors?” Jessie guessed. “Rick, you really think that’s the kind of person I am?”

“I’m just…not leaving this stone unturned. You saw us, and you were right to feel what you felt and react the way you did, based on the day you had. And what you saw us doing was based on the day we had. And I’m asking you to respect that.”

Jessie was going to answer; she was going to say something, really, but then she noticed someone standing behind Rick.

“Michonne?” she frowned.

Rick looked behind him, and sure enough….

“Sorry to interrupt,” Michonne said casually as she walked into the ongoing conversation. “I wanted to come see you, Jessie, but then I saw you had company.” She passed Rick so that she stood closer to Jessie than he did.

“If you’re here to do due diligence,” Jessie began tiredly as she uncrossed her arms, “Rick beat you to it.”

“Oh, he was better than me on that one; I wasn’t even thinking about it. I’m here to talk to you about your son.”

“Ron?”

“Yes,” Michonne answered.

Jessie straightened her spine. She has never had a conversation with Michonne, but she’s seen her around, and she knew that she was someone to reckon with. She’d come out of nowhere and knocked Rick out with a rock, for God’s sake. And then showed up the next night to defend his continued stay in Alexandria.

“Tell him to stay away from Carl,” Michonne said in her usual measured tone.

“Excuse me?”

“Carl told me about the fight they had today.”

“Did he tell you he started it?”

“He did.”

“What fight?” Rick asked behind Michonne. “I saw Ron earlier, and he didn’t say anything about a fight. He told me about Enid leaving and Carl wantin’ to go after her.”

“That’s when the fight happened,” Michonne said, obsidian eyes on Jessie. “Nothing major, more like a shoving match---”

“Yeah, where Carl shoved him to the ground,” Jessie said to Rick, as if Michonne was purposely leaving that part out.

“This isn’t about what happened today,” Michonne said. “This is about you telling your son to stay away from Carl. I’ve already told Carl---”

“Good, because from where I’m standing, he’s the dangerous one,” Jessie said.

Michonne involuntarily took a step toward her, and Rick took two steps toward Michonne.

Michonne inhaled a calming breath and set her shoulders. “I understand. Carl has….done a lot. But I don’t know anything about Ron, Jessie, aside from the fact that he’s very angry right now, and grieving, and grew up in a house where violence was the norm.”

“Excuse me?” Jessie balked, her eyes wide as saucers.

“Michonne,” Rick cautioned.

“I’m sorry, but we are living in a world where people will literally kill for a bed, isn’t that right, Rick?” Michonne asked, cocking her head to acknowledge him without looking at him. “I don’t want to have to say this, but I do have to consider it. People are panicking, and they don’t know what to do, which means they are liable to do anything. I.don’t.know.Ron. Which makes him unpredictable. So for as long as he feels the way he feels and for as long as he’s going through what he’s going through, please tell him to stay away from Carl unless he’s asking for help or helping.”

With that, Michonne pivoted on her right foot and left.

Rick stood alone with Jessie, and he didn’t know what the hell to say to her.

Jessie hugged herself, shocked, offended, and extremely hurt.

Rick wondered if he should apologize. Michonne’s words were cruel, but he wasn’t comfortable speaking on them yet, because she clearly knew more than he did.

His lower jaw moved up and down as he tried to force himself to say something. Nothing came out. So he backed up and left, an uncomfortable apology on his face as Jessie’s eyes plead for him to say something.

In the street, he caught up with Michonne as she headed home. “That was harsh,” he said as he walked next to her.

“I’m scared, Rick,” Michonne said as she stopped to face him. “Carl told me about that fight earlier, and it stuck with me, and....yes, he started it. Ron was telling him not to go out, and he touched him, and Carl pushed him off. He overreacted, and it turned into a fight. But something about it makes me uncomfortable. I don’t like the thought of Ron being near him, and I cannot handle any surprises right now. Not right now.”

“Okay, okay,” Rick soothed as he pulled her into a hug. After Ron had told him about Carl wanting to go after Enid, he’d looked for the first person he trusted. He’d found Morgan and asked him to get word to Michonne about Carl, just to make sure he was staying put.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Rick told her now. “Everything’s gonna be okay.”

“You really believe that?” Michonne asked on his shoulder.

When Rick remained silent, Michonne pulled her head back to look at him.

“I wanna believe it,” he admitted, nodding. “I can’t not. Part of me wants to be realistic, but most of me is clingin’ desperately to the idea that they’re all okay out there. Especially Glenn. He should’ve been back by now, don’t you think?”

“Not necessarily,” Michonne answered. “We got ahead of the herd, but they caught up. He might be stuck.”

“It doesn’t help that he’s with Nicholas,” he said with a degree of venom. “I just….I feel like I’m in denial, and that cannot be good. If he’s gone, then I need to believe it; I need to accept it, because if I wait for the reality to smack me in the face….”

“There’s nothing wrong with hoping,” Michonne said.

“I feel like I don’t have the luxury for that, Michonne. I can’t be….down there in the dumps with everyone else when reality hits. I need to be ready to do the next thing.”

Michonne’s heart broke for him. She secured her arms around his neck and said, “What you need to do is hope that your friend is okay. I understand wanting to be ready. I understand not wanting to be put out of commission when the loss hits. I understand wondering if hope is actually denial. But you can’t trample on it when it comes up. Let yourself feel it, Rick.”

Rick shook his head, struggling.

“Hey,” Michonne urged.

Her irises absorbed and reflected the night, but Rick still found them, and his thoughts settled.

“Baby steps, hmm?” Michonne suggested.

He exhaled his anxiety and nodded. He touched his forehead to hers and closed his eyes. “Let’s go home.”

“Who’s on watch?” Michonne asked as they resumed the way home.

“Rosita, then Spencer,” he answered as he took her hand.

The contact made Michonne smile, and she closed the distance between them. She even allowed herself to wonder if Rick holding her hand would become a regular thing. She wanted it to be.

“I felt you move behind me after Jessie made that comment about Carl being dangerous,” she said. “Were you honestly gonna stop me?” she frowned.

“Yes,” Rick answered.

Michonne immediately widened the distance between, but she didn’t let go of his hand.

“I killed the husband who was abusing her, which some people think was a little over the top, if Carter was any indication, only for you to come along and beat the breaks off her? Talk about bad press.”

Michonne pursed her lips and raised her chin. She was going to ignore Rick’s valid point.

“I am gonna have to say something to her, you know,” he said.

“Do what you want, Rick,” Michonne said as she erased the space between them again. “Just don’t undermine what I said.”

“I won’t,” Rick promised. He kissed her hair, and they continued home to the sound of starving walkers.

Chapter Text

“You’re so dirty,” Michonne said quietly as they reached the second floor landing, the candlelight from the downstairs kitchen, which Carol was using, fading behind them. “I can’t believe I hugged you,” she continued as she tried to shake Rick’s hand off of hers.

Rick tightened his hold. “Since when did you have standards?”

“I’ve always had standards, Rick Grimes. I was just missing the amenities for a good while.”

“That was an important while. For all of us,” Rick deadpanned.

Michonne snorted. They had all done their best on the personal hygiene front after leaving Father Gabriel’s church, but soap, water, and deodorant had been in extremely short supply. Everyone had had to shove self-consciousness to the back of their minds and comfort themselves with the fact that they didn’t smell worse than anyone else. She’d had to let go of all self-consciousness, because, after they had escaped from Terminus, Rick began requesting that she sleep with him and the kids, he and she encasing Carl and Judith.

As they approached Rick’s bedroom entrance, he let go of her hand and made eye contact with her to make sure they were on the same page about why. Michonne nodded and let him go in, and she leaned against the threshold.

Carl was holding an opened Hardy Boys book near the oil lamp next to his side of the bed.

“That’ll ruin your eyes,” Rick said quietly, so as to not wake Judith.

“I’m not really reading,” Carl returned, just as quiet. He turned his attention from the book and to his father. “I’m kind of just looking at it. But the next time someone goes on a run, can they stop by a library? I read one of these already, and they’re good, but there are only, like, six in total here, so….”

He looked at Michonne, knowing that she’d understand that he would breeze through five books, especially five books that he was interested in.

“We’ll get you more,” Michonne said with a small smile. She wasn’t quite sure what to make of the fact that he was so easily talking about the future.

Rick didn’t know what to make of it either. “Ron told me about Enid. I’m sorry.”

“Michonne said she’ll go with me to look for her once the herd goes away,” Carl said, wondering if his father would disapprove.

But Rick simply nodded at him and at Michonne. “Are you ready for what you might find? Or not find?” he asked Carl.

“Well, part of me thinks she might be in the herd out there, so I guess,” Carl answered, shrugging one shoulder.

“I’m really sorry,” Rick said, squeezing his little boy’s shoulder. “Carl, is….is Enid special?”

Carl’s mouth fell open, and he fidgeted on the bed. He hadn’t expected such a question.

Amused, Michonne took the pause in conversation as her cue to leave. She would get the details from Rick later.

“Um,” Carl started, dreading what his dad would have to say. “It’s kind of weird.”

“Weird how?” Rick asked, his heart turning to mush at the realization that his son had a crush.

“She’s kind of…..” Carl barely thought it was worth saying. “She’s Ron’s girlfriend. Officially. But I don’t even know why they’re together.”

Rick rolled his eyes and chuckled.

“I’m serious. Like, I don’t get it. We almost kissed,” Carl justified, his stomach hugging itself at the memory. “We were standing really close to each other.”

“When was this?” Rick asked, interested.

Carl’s face started to go slack before he caught himself. “We were just standing really close,” he fibbed, wiping his free hand on his pants. “But she’s cool. She’s going through a lot, still, not big on the talking or explaining. And she’s kind of….stubborn. Actually, she’s very stubborn. But she’s cool.”

Rick nodded, a big smile on his face. But he knew that he had to say some mature adult stuff. So he sat down next to Carl.

“First of all, I’m….I’m happy that you have a crush. It makes me a little nervous, but I’m happy that you’re experiencing this. It can be pretty horrible. Most of the time it’s nothing. Most crushes don’t go anywhere: you just admire from afar, and then you move on. It’s not any of your business why she and Ron are together. You don’t need to get it. Unless he’s horrible to her. Is he horrible to her?”

“No,” Carl shrugged.

“Then it’s not your business until they’re no longer together,” he said. “And as for y’all getting real close and almost kissing,” he shrugged. “I mean, it sounds nice, but you should hope she likes you enough to break up with Ron before she starts kissing you. That’s what you should want. You don’t wanna be a secret.”

Carl shrugged again. “For all I know, she’s dead.”

“I know. But what I’m saying is a good thing to carry with you, no matter the girl.”

Carl nodded.

“Now. Michonne said you started a fight.”

Carl sighed. He did not want a lecture.

“Carl, why did you put your hands on him? You know----”

“I just got really frustrated. And he didn’t just stop me, dad, he grabbed me.”

Rick frowned disapprovingly.

“I know, I know,” Carl conceded. “I still shouldn’t have reacted like that. He had a point. I just hate it. I feel like I’m sitting here doing nothing.”

“That’s because you are,” Rick said. “You don’t have a choice. Trust me, we’re all chomping at the bit, wishing we weren’t stuck pretending we’re invisible, but that’s just the way it is right now. I’m all for you defending yourself, Carl, but I don’t support you starting stuff. Control yourself.”

“Yes,” Carl submitted.

“You’ve got Michonne worked up.”

“What do you mean?”

“She doesn’t trust Ron. She wants you to stay away from him.”

“Oh, I know, and I will.”

“Well, she went over to Jessie’s a couple of minutes ago and told her to tell Ron to stay away from you. Almost pulled a page out of your book and jumped on her.”

“Are you serious?” Carl asked with a jubilant smile.

Rick warned him with a look.

“No, I’m just saying. Mrs. Anderson is fine. But Michonne almost fought her?”

“Almost,” Rick said, egging him on this time. He wasn’t afraid to admit to himself that Michonne being ready to take Jessie to the mat over her comment about Carl made her even more attractive to him.

He watched Carl not even bother to control his smile. He shook his head. “You don’t think she can do any wrong, do you?” he deadpanned.

“No,” Carl shrugged, shaking his head for emphasis. “Are you jealous?” he teased. He remembered how critical he’d once been of his dad.

“Jealous of what?” Rick asked. “But listen, she’s serious about this. She’s worried about your safety, so do what she says, okay?”

“Okay, but, dad, Ron can’t do anything. He’s missing his dad, and he’s mad about it,” Carl said.

“You never know,” Rick cautioned. “Don’t let what happened today go to your head.”

Carl nodded.

A couple of minutes later, Rick was in his blue towel and leaning against the sink in the bathroom. He’d turned the light on, because there weren’t any windows. He was going to take a shower, but he’d gotten caught up in his thoughts.

It’s not your business until they’re no longer together.

He believed that wholeheartedly. It was the best way for Carl to protect his heart and to keep his integrity.

But he couldn’t help thinking about one decision he’d made where Jessie was concerned when he’d been talking to Carl. While Carl, Enid, and Ron weren’t an exact mirror of him, Jessie, and Pete, he was conscious of the fact that he hadn’t lived his advice. Jessie had needed to get away from Pete. The only things keeping her tethered to him had been fear and a lack of support. Pete had needed to be stopped, although jumping to murder from the get go was….over the top, but he didn’t have any regrets about that.

But kissing Jessie had been completely unnecessary. He knew, because had Pete seen him do it at the party, it wouldn’t have gone over well, and Pete would’ve been in the right. He’d inserted himself into their relationship, driven by more than a desire for Jessie and her kids to be safe from harm.

He’d had a crush. It was a relief to name it. It had felt intense and all-consuming, but one bullet in Pete’s skull, and he was over it, as if the loud sound of the ammunition firing off had jolted him out of it. He wanted Jessie to be able to take care of herself and her kids, and she wanted the same thing since she’d taken initiative and gone to Rosita for lessons, but talking to her and seeing her didn’t feel intense anymore. He was no longer consumed. He saw that she was beautiful, but it didn’t mean anything to him anymore. She paled in comparison to the second reason why he hadn’t stepped in the shower stall yet.

He had no idea how he’d gone from wishing with all he had left that he’d get to see Michonne again in the RV to kissing her in bright daylight. She’d kissed him, to be exact. Michonne had come up to him and kissed him, and he would replay the moment over and over again until he fell asleep, just like he’d replayed it intermittently while he’d been moving dead bodies and when he’d been on watch.

He turned to face the mirror now and found an uncontrollable grin on his face. She was a very good kisser. A talented kisser. She was breathtakingly beautiful. There were times when he spoke to her, and he looked directly into her eyes, and his mouth disconnected from his brain, and he only hoped that his words kept making sense. Beautiful. Sometimes she spoke to him, and she looked directly into his eyes, and he got lost and hoped that when it was time for him to speak he’d say something pertaining to what she was talking about. Beautiful. Her looks have distracted him in the middle of a thought. She was never the same kind of beautiful. It depended on the day, the sun, how she was moving, what someone was saying, how the moon shone on this particular night, how close he was standing to her, the width of her smile. There were degrees to her beauty, and it constantly wowed him.

He wanted to end the day on a good note. He wanted her to get in the shower with him.

It was crazy, and she probably wouldn’t go for it, but he was legitimately thinking about playing up his wound, say that he would have a hard time showering by himself, and ask her to help him. That way, she would get in the shower with him and things would go from there. It was crazy. But he would at least have fun asking.

But would he actually ask?

He looked at his image in the mirror. He looked beat up, literally and figuratively. Would she really say yes to this face?

Only one way to find out.

He took a deep breath for courage and released it.

His heart was in his stomach when he approached Michonne’s slightly opened door. Candlelight filtered through the crack.

Michonne almost jumped when he knocked. She knew it was him, because she was sitting in bed, not yet in her pajamas, hoping he’d stop by before he turned in. If only to say goodnight.

He hadn’t been barefoot and wearing only a towel in her hope, though. It took too long before she dragged her eyes back up. He was smiling, and she wanted to kick herself for being so obvious.

“Hi,” Rick said.

“Hi,” she responded in the most normal tone that she could muster.

“I’m on my way to take a shower, and I was hoping you’d….help me out. My hand’s bothering me real bad,” he said, showing her the cut for emphasis, “It’s gonna be kind of hard for me to take care of things by myself.”

Michonne’s lips spread into an incredulous smile. She wondered if she was hearing him right. “Are you serious? Are you serious? You’re asking me to help you shower? Are you crazy? Your right hand looks perfectly fine to me, and you are right-handed.”

“Doesn’t seem doable where I’m standing,” Rick countered.

“I’m positive you’ll do fine. It’ll be easier than you think.”

Rick folded his lips and nodded. She was shutting him down. At least he’d tried. “I’ll let you know,” he said as he backed away. He turned and headed for the bathroom.

Michonne closed the door behind him and leaned against it. She was still smiling. She felt giddy. Rick Grimes had shown up at her door in a towel to ask her to help him take a shower. He had such nerve!

She liked it. It made her feel stupidly gooey inside.

She heard the shower start.

She left the door and began a slow walk to her bed. Maybe she’d spoken too soon. He was hurt. Maybe his injury was worse than it appeared.

“It’s not worse than it appears,” she griped out loud. The man had been grinning, for God’s sake. He would do fine on his own.

Still. Maybe she could act like she believed him.

He would not buy that.

God, she was weak. She’d been so obvious when she’d looked at his chest. And then he’d offered her the chance to see everything. Everything.

And she’d said no. And she’d smiled as she’d said it! Was something wrong with her?

She slowly turned and sat on her bed.

The shower was still going. He was probably washing away. Or struggling to wash.

And here she was. Missing out on his nakedness. He had offered.

Now she wondered what she’d been thinking. It had sounded nice to turn him down. It had seemed cute at the time. Banter. Ha ha. But now what? Rick was naked. And wet! And she was in her room. Dry. Well....mostly dry.

She exhaled, closed her eyes, and lifted her head to the ceiling, her locs caressing her cheeks as they fell back.

If she joined him in the shower, then he’d be seeing her naked, too. Not that she minded. At all. She very much wanted Rick to see her naked. But she’d be going back on her word. She would appear weak, brought down by White skin, some of it tanned, some of it pale, all of it accented by candlelight. And he’d been barefoot!

Her window of opportunity was closing.

Rick set the soap down and began rubbing the washcloth on his left arm. Not every Alexandrian believed in using a washcloth, so there had been some left in the pantry. Michonne had brought them home on their third day. Not everyone in their family used them, but he personally had had to throw away the first one he’d used, he’d been so damn overdue for an exfoliation. His hands hadn’t done a thorough enough job during the first two days.

So, Michonne had turned him down. He was disappointed, but he was also happy. He would high-five himself if it wouldn’t be completely embarrassing. He’d sounded so nonchalant and playful when asking her, not at all like his heart had stopped beating. And she’d smiled, the skin beneath her eyes crinkling, her bottom lip stretching into what he liked to think of as a V. She hadn’t been making fun of him; she’d been entertained. And that was good enough, considering how out there his proposal had been.

He heard the bathroom door close, and he stopped moving. The fog was working it’s way over the glass, but he saw Michonne clearly. Excitement rushed through his bloodstream, and he waited with bated breath. It would be the cruelest joke if she’d only come in to retrieve something.

But she continued toward the shower stall.

He moved to the door.

Michonne opened the door and looked him straight in the eyes. Deliberately, she said, “I’ll give you a hand.”

Rick’s mind went straight to the gutter. Oh, how he hoped.

He backed up to make space for her to walk in.

Michonne closed the door behind her. She kept her eyes on Rick’s. She would not give him the satisfaction. She was a grown woman. She’d had a lucrative career once, and she’d pushed a human being out of her vagina. No King County Deputy was going to reduce her to a hormonal mess.

She held her hand out for the washcloth.

Rick could tell she was trying to keep this strictly platonic, and he sincerely hoped that she failed. She reduced the distance between them and started to scrub his body.

He figured that she was committed to the platonic thing, because while she’d changed out of the jeans she’d been wearing, she’d opted for khaki shorts. She was completely dressed, save for her bare feet.

He was a little embarrassed to be the only one naked, but he was more excited about her derailing from these little precautions she was taking.

Staring at his eyes, unable to stop the glint in hers because she was only human, Michonne moved her hand down to wash his pelvis.

She found his shit-eating grin annoyingly attractive.

She closed her eyes and went down on one knee. Keeping her head down, she began to wash his legs.

Rick mentally cursed.

Michonne scrubbed his inner thighs and realized that her hand didn’t touch his dick. At all. He was hard. His dick had risen, and all she had to do was look up, and she would be in heaven. And she could take him there, too.

Her resolve wobbled. All she had to do was look up!

Her scrubbing slowed, and Rick wondered if this was the moment. Because he desperately wanted her to touch his dick.

Annoyingly, she resumed scrubbing.

“Turn,” Michonne instructed.

Rick dropped his head back in exasperation and did as she said.

She washed his calves and worked her way up. She looked at his ass. She damn sure looked at his ass. Small and firm, looking like it could handle a good smack. Or several.

If he looked behind him, she was done for.

Thankfully, he didn’t. She continued moving up and scrubbed his shoulder blades, then the back of his neck, and his ears.

“All done,” she announced, proud of herself.

She was horny.

“I need to wash my hair,” Rick said as he moved under the water to rinse himself.

He turned around, and Michonne quickly looked at the wall behind him, irrationally thinking that his dick had moved up to his face. She was very horny.

Rick could ask her if she was alright. But he wouldn’t. He could ask if she was going to keep her clothes on during the entire shower. But he was not going to give her the satisfaction. She wanted to hold out. He could hold out, too.

Feeling silly for her overreaction, Michonne returned her gaze to him and handed him the washcloth.

Rick wrung it out and hung it on the glass. “Are you gonna help me with my hair?”

“I’m here,” she said smoothly, with just a smidge of defensiveness. She was so fucking horny, and she didn’t know why he wasn’t touching her.

Rick looked thoroughly amused, and her heart sped up. Part of her wanted to run from the stall, most of her hoped that he had something up his sleeve.

Rick handed her the shampoo and turned around.

As Michonne pushed the thickened liquid out, she continued to wonder why the hell he wasn’t asking her to take her clothes off. He was clearly turned on. If the lack of a limp dick wasn’t already an indication, the heaviness in his eyes would have been. Yet, he wasn’t touching her. If he succeeded in displaying as much self control as she, she was going to leave this bathroom incredibly irritated.

She extended her arm over his shoulder to hand him the shampoo bottle, and she commenced washing his hair. She made two half fists with her hands and rubbed the back of her bent fingers over his scalp, effectively giving him a massage as she scrubbed. She was rewarded with a full body shiver from him.

Rick closed his eyes and told himself to hold on. It was almost over.

He didn’t realize that his breathing had become loud and shallow. When she moved to the top of his head, he got on his knees to make it easier for her. “Where….where did you learn to do that?” he asked.

“Mike,” she answered, happy that her skill was appreciated. “The first time I let him wash my hair, he did it just like this, and let me tell you: that was the first time I thought about giving him the whole nine: the rest of my life, a baby, everything.”

“Jesus,” Rick whispered. His scalp tickled, her movements stimulating the blood beneath the surface.

Michonne moved her hands down to massage the back of his neck with her thumbs. Truth be told, she’s been wanting to give him a good massage since she’d watched him walk out of Grady Memorial Hospital, so his reaction was beyond gratifying. His reaction was also making her nipples hard.

“Rinse,” she said abruptly, wrenching herself out of the sensual haze.

It took Rick a second to hear what she’d said. He’d been fantasizing about her moving on to his shoulders. But she’d said rinse.

Frustrated, he stood and stepped under the water.

Michonne took the opportunity to reorient herself. How much longer did she have to suffer in this stall?  

“Thank you,” Rick said as he turned to face her under the water.

“Don’t forget your face,” she said, with more than a little attitude. “And your privates.”

“Thanks. I got the rest,” Rick said, unable to believe his own ears.

Michonne almost dropped her head in shock, but she remembered her dignity. She visibly swallowed. “Fine. Great. I’ll leave you to it.”

Rick nodded.

Michonne stared at him. “Great,” she announced again, and she turned toward the door. Well, it was more like a twitch. She twitched toward the door.

Michonne slowly stepped out of the shower, completely aware of every inch of skin on her body, waiting for Rick to pull her back. He didn’t.

Rick quickly pulled the door closed before he did something that would signal her victory.

Michonne’s eyes almost popped out of her head when the door closed behind her. The nerve!

She didn’t leave the bathroom. She leaned against the sink and waited for him to finish. When he stepped out, wrapped in that stupid blue towel and pitching a damn tent, she was glaring daggers at him.

But all wasn’t lost. He could still do something. He couldn’t possibly want to go to bed horny.

Rick wondered why the hell she was still in the bathroom. He knew she’d stayed. He could see her as she gave him privacy to finish up, but her being here stretched his resolve thin. The front of her tank top was mostly wet, and her feet: she had cute toes. And she was angry, which made him happy, but it also coaxed his libido.

“Are you alright?” he asked, putting on his best concerned face.

Michonne couldn’t figure what the hell to say. He really was going to hold out on her. “I’m fine,” she said, her lips barely moving.

Rick nodded and headed for the door. He would come back to brush his teeth. He was not going to spend another second near her.

Michonne watched in disbelief as he opened the door. “You’re a jerk, you know that?” she blurted.

“Excuse me?” Rick asked, surprised by the turn-around.

“You are a jerk,” Michonne repeated as she crossed her arms. He could’ve taken her clothes off.

“You’re the jerk,” Rick argued. She could’ve taken her clothes off.

Michonne narrowed her eyes at him as he crossed into the hallway. She hurried out behind him, intent on dragging him back to finish what they’d started and not noticing that he’d turned his body at an odd angle.

Rick tried to say something to stop her, but it was too late.

As soon as Michonne popped out of the bathroom, she saw Carol standing by Rick’s door.

Carol looked back at Carl, who was distracted, and quickly walked away from the room and towards Rick and Michonne.

“Uh,” she said, looking between the two but trying not to be weird about it. “I wanted to talk to you about the attack earlier, how Morgan handled it, specifically,” she said to Rick.

“Right,” Rick said, feeling completely exposed.

Carol looked at Michonne and wished she could think of something to say. “So,” she said slowly to Rick. “Come see me when you’re done? I mean, when you’re ready. You know.”

“I was just, um,” Michonne tried. “I was helping him shower. Because his hand is busted. He needed help.”

“Right,” Carol said slowly. “Sure,” she said, her voice high pitched. She turned and left, because it was not going to get any better.

Her face warm, Michonne turned to Rick. “So,” she began slowly, in the same fashion as Carol. “Goodnight, and I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah. Goodnight,” Rick mimicked.

“Call me if you need….I don’t know.” She left him and hurried off to her room, her heart fluttering.

Rick watched her go, elated. All things considered, the day had ended on a good note.

Chapter Text

The following day, Michonne was ready to join the public in waiting. Truthfully, she wanted to stay in her room and close her eyes until the walkers disappeared and Glenn showed up, but she was a constable. She needed to be seen. Her uncertainty had to take a backseat to everyone else's.

She was brushing her teeth in the bathroom when Rick walked in with a knock on the door. It was the first time she'd seen him since the night before, and her heart took notice. Like her, he was showered and ready to start the day.

"Mornin'," Rick greeted with a smile that put his dimples on display.

Michonne spat out the toothpaste. "Good morning."

"Sleep okay last night?"

"That's how you wanna start this Wednesday?" she asked, grinning.

"It's a normal question," Rick said with a shrug of his shoulder.

"I slept just fine." She'd had to get up twice to wipe herself. She had refrained from getting herself off, because, the way she saw it, Rick owed her, and she had complete faith that he was going to make it good. She would wait.

"You?" she asked.

"Fine," Rick shrugged again, both shoulders this time. Taking care of himself had been out of the question with his son lying next to him. He'd fallen asleep with torrid thoughts of venturing into Michonne's room. He'd woken up with a mild hard on. He still had it.

"So listen," he began as Michonne finished up. "I wanna have a meeting with Morgan this morning. Me, you, him, and Carol. She's positive that he let a couple of those wolves go yesterday."

"What?" Michonne asked, bent over the sink to gather water in her hands.

"Yeah, and if it's true, and Carol's not in the habit of seeing things, if it's true then we got a real problem. I know he's got this new….philosophy, but if it involves downplaying very real threats and letting them go….."

He sighed. "When I was in the RV, a couple of people attacked me. Five in total. Two of them had the W on their foreheads, so I'm guessing the other three did, too."

"This is bad, Rick," Michonne said as she turned to him.

"I know. But we'll listen to what he has to say, and then we'll decide. Since Carol saw him, I want her there to say her peace."

Michonne nodded. "How soon is this? I was going to talk to Maggie."

"She's got first watch, so you'll find her at the wall. We can meet here half an hour from now. I've gotta go check on the wall. I need to talk to Jessie about last night, and I need to let Morgan know about the meeting."

"Okay," Michonne nodded.

They fell silent, and thoughts of their sensual jockeying in the shower stall filled their heads. The sultry gleam in their eyes gave the direction of their thoughts away.

"What did you get from Carl?" Michonne asked. "Anything juicy?"

"He has a crush," Rick announced with an understated smile. "It's equal part great and something I don't wanna deal with. What does it say about me that I'm kind of glad she's gone? I mean I hope she's safe, but…." he sighed.

"It says you're a daddy," Michonne said affectionately.

"I don't want him to be a teenager."

"I don't think I want him to grow up, period," Michonne shared. "His head used to reach just above my hip and suddenly yesterday he was sprawled out on my bed all long and taller. I don't know when it happened."

"This means he's gonna need me less and less, you know," Rick groused as he rested his butt against the sink.

"That's not true," Michonne said, moving closer to him without realizing it. "He's gonna need you now more than ever and not just for the things dealing with the heart."

"He's gonna become more and more independant."

"That's a good thing," Michonne said. She knew that he knew this. She also completely understood why the reality of Carl growing up made him glum. It saddened her, too. "You still have Judith," she reminded him quietly.

Rick nodded. He still had Michonne, too. She didn't say it, but he could not imagine her going anywhere. Still, he asked. "What about you?"

"I still have Judith, too," she said, teasing him.

"Do I still have you?"

The direct question made Michonne's heart beat just a little bit stronger. She nodded, her throat unable to work for a moment. "Yes."

Relieved, Rick straightened from the sink and kissed her. She tasted fresh, like a brand new day, like a better day. The more they kissed, the more he felt that they weren't close enough. He wanted them to be closer. Just like the first time, just like yesterday, he wanted more of her.

His lips were soft and sturdy against hers. He moved with confidence. He knew how to kiss her, and just like the first time, just like yesterday, Michonne's thoughts evaporated. It had been a long, long time since anything was meaningful enough to make her stop thinking.

She found herself against the sink, and she didn't know how it happened. Rick broke the kiss for just a second to close the door, and it was a second that he would regret.

"Rick," Michonne said as he walked purposefully back to her. "We have things to do."

"So?"

He grabbed her face and gave her a searing kiss that once again scrambled her thoughts.

"I don't know how you do that," she said dreamily.

"I'm tryna do more of that."

He kissed her slowly, eliciting delicate moans from her, moans that made his body warm with desire.

His body was hard against hers, and one part in particular was getting harder. She was tempted, so, so tempted.

When he grabbed a hearty handful of her ass, she knew that she needed to either cut it off or go all-in.

She dragged her mouth from his, and he chased after it.

"We have a meeting-" she began as she turned her face to give him her cheek.

Rick didn't falter. He kissed her cheek, moved back to her earlobe, and then went down her neck, all the while squeezing her ass.

Michonne felt herself drowning in the attention. "In less than thirty minutes," she whispered.

Rick knew he had her.

"No," Michonne said suddenly as she slid out of his embrace, his strong, warm embrace that had her body charged and ready to go. "No. No," she repeated, positively scurrying around the bathroom as he stalked after her.

"Is this about last night?" Rick asked, his neck a little flushed from their kissing session.

"No, this is about responsibilities," Michonne answered. She was impressed with herself, because she didn't know where the hell her words were coming from. She was talking, but she was picturing how easily Rick's dick could slide into her right now, her vagina was so damn slick.

"Things are not good right now," she continued. "We can't be locked away in a bathroom. Although, this is a great time to remind you that you had a chance last night, and you chose otherwise."

"So this is payback."

"This is a reminder."

"Okay," Rick nodded as he rubbed his jaw. "Okay."

"Don't make this into a thing," she warned.

"I don't know what you mean. You started it last night, which was fine, but you're continuing it now."

"I'm not continuing anything," she said earnestly. The last thing she wanted was for him to deny her when she really wanted it. "We're not alone. I know Tara came by, and she's downstairs with Carl."

"I'm positive we can keep it down, but you know what? You're right."

"Rick," Michonne called as he walked past her.

"No, you're right. I mean it. We're not alone, and we can't spend all day in here. Do me a favor: grab a radio from the armory when you head out."

He turned for the door again and left.

Michonne shook her head and sighed.

One of the first things Michonne saw when she stepped outside was the names on the wall. That had her wanting to retreat inside. Moreover, it had her wishing she'd taken things all the way with Rick.

She wasn't sure what the morning had turned into. It had started off great. They had started off great. Then it had gone downhill. She wasn't sure how serious it was, but she knew that something was wrong with the communication.

He wasn't pissed. He couldn't be. She'd seen disappointment on his face, though. And a tiny bit of anger.

Anger was strong. Irritation, maybe. Irritation.

He wasn't unjustified. She knew what she could've done to him in that bathroom. She could've given him a chance to prove that he could be quiet.

She liked the anticipation, however. She liked the waiting, especially at a time like this. She liked having something to look forward to, something that she knew would make her feel good if things got worse. She had a feeling that that was where the communication problem came in. He probably thought that she just wanted to play games. And he clearly didn't feel like playing.

Hands on his hips, Rick exhaled loudly as he waited for Jessie to answer the door. His morning had gone from fun, to hot, to stale, thanks to whatever Michonne was doing. He wanted them to be together in that way. Spending one night without her after their fun time in the shower was enough for him to decide that they should go there. Especially with things being so uncertain right now. They weren't guaranteed anything. What was supposed to be a haven has turned into a prison that was keeping them from finding out the fate of their friends. He wanted to make the most of their attraction before anything else went wrong and forced them apart again. But she seemed to be hesitating, leading him to think that there was more to her showing up to the shower fully clothed last night than simply wanting to foreplay who would give in first. He was ready to succumb, but she wasn't.

He was in no mood to talk to Jessie or hold anyone's hand, so he was getting her off his to-do list first.

Jessie opened the door. Rick noted that she didn't ask who it was. There was a vicious attack just yesterday-

That wasn't why he was here.

"Good morning," Jessie said, her face hard.

She was still mad about last night. Rick hoped he could get through the conversation without making it worse. "Good morning," he replied, trying to relax his own face. "I wanted to talk to you about last night."

Jessie waited.

"What was said: I don't think there was any other way to say it. It's not a personal judgement on you. We just want to make sure-"

"We?"

"We," he affirmed. "There is no difference between Michonne and me when it comes to the kids. Her instincts are my instincts and vice versa. What she thinks is what I think. I wanna make sure you take what she said seriously. We're just being cautious."

Jessie nodded stiffly. "You might wanna give Carol the memo," she said as she pushed the door open wider and disappeared into the house. It wasn't long before she came back with Judith. "She dropped this off early this morning."

Rick cocked his head, curious as to whose child she was calling a this. Nevertheless, he took his daughter back. Judith smiled at him.

"You can leave now."

"Jessie."

"I spoke to Ron, okay? Before breakfast, too. Great start to the morning. I hope you don't mind that I couldn't find it in me to tell my son that some stranger thinks he's dangerous. I told him that after what Carl did yesterday I don't think it's a good idea that he hangs around him. Of course, he threw my choice to hang around you in my face. I told him that I don't think Carl has the self control his father has."

Rick wasn't sure if that was a shot at Carl, him, or both. He decided to pay it no mind.

"He's fifteen, so we'll have to see how well he does at listening to me," Jessie said.

"If you'd spent any time out there, you'd understand where we're coming from."

"Right. The great out there. You know, you say that enough it'll get played out. You know what's stupid, Rick? You know what's really, really stupid? I looked forward to you coming back yesterday. My entire community got wrecked. People that I knew died. They were gutted. Literally. I hid in a closet with my son, hoping that nothing happened to us. I killed someone, stabbed a woman to death. Everything is changing, and I wanted to talk to you about it. Because you know what it's like, and you could-make me feel better about it, say something encouraging. I wanted you to know that I was getting it. That I'd made it. But the first chance you got, you-Like you said: after the day you had, you wanted something else, and from someone else."

"Jessie, there isn't someone else. You and I didn't have something so special that you can stand here now and talk about me wanting someone else. I didn't think I needed to elaborate last night, because I didn't think I needed to give you that much of an explanation, and apparently I was wrong, so let me tell you: after the day I had yesterday, where everything went wrong, and people died, and things looked hopeless, and I didn't know where half my family was, I needed my friend. I needed the person who, just thinking about her gave me the strength to get out of a very bad situation. I needed the person that I trust with everything.

Including my sanity," he said quietly, dangerously. "She isn't someone else. She is Michonne. She's the woman that I love. And she's the only person I wanted to be near after the bullshit morning I had yesterday. She's the only person I wanted to listen to."

Jessie felt that the last part was a special jab for her. She guessed that she shouldn't be surprised since she'd apparently belittled his relationship with the woman that he loves. She found the whole thing stupid, not to mention her feelings were hurt. "I had no idea you were in love, Rick," she said quietly, stiffly.

"You don't know the first thing about me. You don't know how long Michonne and I have known each other or how much we've known each other, but here you stand: talkin'."

"And what were we? You gonna stand here and tell me that was all in my head? Where was your love for Michonne when you were chasing after me?"

Rick let the chasing accusation fly rather than call it for the exaggeration that it was. He said, "It wasn't in your head. I know now what we were, what you were. It was a crush. I had a crush."

Jessie slowly lifted her head, in shock. "A crush," she whispered. "You killed my husband."

Rick remained silent. He was surprised. He was also deciding how to answer. Should he call her out outright for the hypocrisy? The late outrage? Say that Pete deserved to die? He settled on, "Do you prefer that I didn't?"

"I would prefer that my son not be angry right now, because he's missing his father."

Rick nodded. He had a feeling that she was just reaching for something to say. "I didn't kill him for you, not that way. I didn't kill him so that we could move forward. With Deanna's husband dying on the ground and confirmation that I was beyond right about him being dangerous, what we had was the furthest thing from my mind when I aimed. You should find someone to talk to about yesterday," he continued. "I do know how hard it is. But between last night and now, I think we've established that that person can't be me. I'll make sure you find someone."

With that, Rick left her porch.

Jessie slammed the door shut and locked it. She wanted to open it just to slam it again. She covered her face with her hands and mentally went over what just happened. "Asshole."

As Rick walked away from Jessie's house, he mulled over one key thing that he had said to her.

Jessie had said that she'd had no idea that he was in love.

Neither had he. Yet when challenged, the words had slid easily off of his tongue. He loved Michonne.

He stopped walking and looked at Judith to share his epiphany.

Judith looked at him. "Mm?"

They were on the same page. Rick continued walking, heading toward one end of the wall to begin his inspection.

He loved Michonne. He was in love with Michonne. He looked at Judith, a sappy smile gracing his lips. Judith smiled back at him, thoroughly enjoying her daddy's rare happy face.

It was easy to think about it all of a sudden: he loved Michonne.

When had he fallen? No specific event jumped out at him. He's been drawn to her since the beginning, attracted to her since the beginning. He knew of two turning points in their relationship, as far as his feelings were concerned. He'd realized the difference that she made in his life when she'd shown up at the house that he and Carl had been holing up in after they'd lost the prison. He'd seen her face, crying and smiling outside, and he'd been shocked, shocked and happy, and irrationally, he'd thought it irrational after, he'd seen her and thought that that meant Judith was alive. The hope she'd brought with her in that moment had been swift and potent, and his physical and emotional pain had ceased. She'd stepped inside the house, and he'd watched her and Carl hug, and him being drawn to her had begun to transform into him being attached to her.

The second time was in the RV, yesterday, and he was realizing the full extent of it now. She had been one of the people he'd wished to see again if he could have a do-over before the last minutes of his life. He'd wished to see his son, his daughter, and her. He'd gone over the last things he'd said to her, how she'd looked the last time he'd seen her.

He had wished that he could see her again. He knew why now.

In the RV, he had wanted her to appear like she had at the house so that he could hear her voice one last time. He had wanted her to tell him something, anything.

He realized now that he'd wanted her to magically appear, because he'd wanted to tell her something, too. And it wasn't just anything.

Chapter Text

Michonne opened the door to the armory and stepped inside.

"Hi," Olivia greeted her breathlessly.

"Hi," Michonne responded, unnerved by how Olivia was looking at her. "Are you okay?"

"Uh, yeah. I'm a little jumpy. I heard the door open, and I thought…."

Michonne nodded. "They're gone. It's okay."

"The Wolves," Olivia said. "I'd call the name obnoxious if…."

If they hadn't successfully massacred almost half the town.

"I feel a little silly being in here at a time like this. Well, I guess scared is more accurate. The bad people are gone, but the undead ones are right outside."

"The wall is holding," Michonne assured her quietly.

Olivia nodded. "Can I help you with something?" she asked, the pitch of her voice going up.

"I need to check out a radio."

"Is something about to happen?" Olivia asked as she moved to the clipboard that held the armory's log.

"No, I just need it so Rick and I can keep in touch during the day. We learned our lesson from yesterday."

"Oh my God, I'm so sorry," Olivia said suddenly as she handed Michonne the clipboard. "Your people are missing."

"They're out there," Michonne countered.

"Right. I just meant….I meant here I am talking about my fear, and you…."

"It's not as bad as what you're going through," Michonne said. "Not that there's a comparison to be made, but….we at least know they're out there. We're waiting for them to walk through the gate." Michonne tried very hard not to doubt her own words. "You know, we're not going through anything different. We shouldn't be. The relationships are different, but this is our community. All of us. This is one community. We've all lost."

Olivia stared at Michonne for a beat and then twitched her mouth into a quick smile, here one second, gone the next.

Michonne handed Olivia the clipboard and effectively broke the tension. Olivia stepped aside to retrieve the last radio, and Michonne slowly exhaled through her nose. She'd made a nice attempt, but Rick and Carol weren't the only ones operating with an us versus them mentality. In Olivia's case, Michonne wasn't sure if the woman blamed Rick and, by extension his entire group, for Pete's downfall, for Reg's death, or….everything that's gone sideways in the extremely short time since.

Michonne chose not to address the issue. She needed to think about the best way to approach it, so she simply took the radio when Olivia offered it, said thank you, and left.

As she made her way to Maggie's post, Michonne took in the mostly empty streets of Alexandria. It was still early morning, but she had a feeling that a time change wouldn't make a difference. They haven't lived in Alexandria long, but she decided then and there that it was a strange place. She knew how long the community had been up and running. Yet, there was no sense of community. She saw eye to eye with Rick on that one. She couldn't imagine her group surviving an attack and then retreating to their individual corners.

Maybe it was because the surviving Alexandrians had no ownership over the fact that they were still alive. They were alive thanks to Carol, Rosita, Maggie, and Morgan. And Aaron, from what she'd heard. And Jessie.

Deanna's welcome party was the only time she'd seen most of the town gathered together. Everyone mostly kept to themselves and mostly kept inside when they weren't carrying out their responsibilities.

She came upon Maggie's post and put thoughts of bridging the unsustainable gap in Alexandria out of her mind. This was going to be her first real conversation with Maggie since she'd broken the news about Glenn to her yesterday. Maggie faced away from her, so she couldn't get a preview of the depth of her emotions.

She climbed the ladder and joined Maggie. She was distracted for a second by the horde of walkers on the other side of the wall. Suddenly, it was hard to believe they were all that safe.

"You get used to it," Maggie said quietly. "I think the vantage point, looking down on 'em, makes 'em appear closer than they are. Or not. I dunno."

Michonne inhaled and slowly released her breath. It was less than twenty-four hours ago that a herd had been trying to pull her down to devour her. Maybe this same exact herd. Her thoughts went to Glenn.

"How are you?" she asked Maggie and immediately regretted the way she'd phrased the question. "I mean….how are you holding up?"

Maggie smiled. "I'm okay. I'm waiting. Watching. I'm hopeful," she said as she turned her attention back to the sky. "But also….prepared."

Michonne wanted to tell her that she can't think like that, but what right did she have? "He'll make it," she said instead.

Maggie returned her attention to Michonne, her face falling. "You don't sound convinced."

Michonne's words stuck in her throat, but she forced herself to speak. "That's not what I meant."

Maggie turned so that she fully faced her. She was trying very hard to hold on to her hope. She vacillated between knowing he was alive and making peace with him being dead. She'd go five minutes convinced that she'd done the right thing by erasing his name from that memorial and spend the next five wondering if she should've left his name there, because she was most likely going to have to put it back anyway.

If Michonne, the last person to see him alive, believed he was dead, it would be a devastating blow.

She wasn't sure that she'd ever seen Michonne struggle to get her words out. Michonne was always so sure, so strong, quiet but intense when she was convinced about something. She'd been with her father when he'd been murdered. On the road, after reuniting at Terminus and with Beth's fate up in the air, she'd told Michonne that her being next to her father during his last moments comforted her. He hadn't been at the mercy of the Governor alone.

And now, once again, Michonne may have played an important part during the last moments of someone else she loved.

"You think he's dead?" Maggie asked, her heart suspended in her throat, threatening to cut off her oxygen.

"No," Michonne answered quickly, shaking her head. "No."

But Michonne's wide doe eyes was ramping up Maggie's trepidation. "Tell me the truth," she plead.

"Maggie….I could've….I could've gone instead of him. I offered. I offered." Tears welled in Michonne's eyes. "I should've….I should've convinced him. He came up with the idea, and I said I'd do it instead. He said no, and that was the end of it. He could've been here. He could be here right now."

"Yeah, but then….then you'd be out there," Maggie said.

"I'd know where I was," Michonne said.

"But we wouldn't," Maggie pointed out. "We wouldn't know. Carl would be standing up here instead of me. One's not a better option than the other, Michonne. I wouldn't wish what I'm feeling right now on Carl or anyone else."

Michonne couldn't help but think about the last time Maggie had felt like this. Beth had been missing. And the worst possibility had become reality.

Maggie smiled sympathetically when she realized that Michonne's hesitation to speak was about guilt and not a belief that Glenn was dead. "We've been here before," she said. "You thinking there was something you could've done to make the outcome better. You said it yourself: he said no, and that was the end of it. You know Glenn. That's how it is with all of us. If it's our idea, we're gonna be the one to follow through. We're not putting it on someone else. I promise you he's not out there wishing he'd let you do it instead. Just like I know for a fact that my father never once hoped you'd be the one-"

"I know," Michonne cut her off sadly.

Maggie erased the space between them and hugged her, squeezed her and rubbed her back. It felt good to focus on someone else's pain. It made her feel useful, more put together.

"I'm watching, too," Michonne shared, all of her hope and fear for Glenn in her voice.

Maggie closed her eyes to keep her tears from spilling. When she felt that Michonne had calmed down, she ended the hug. "I tried to go after him yesterday," she revealed.

"What? How?"

"I wasn't sure how at first. I just knew that I was gonna get out of here and go find him, retrace your steps. Aaron figured out my intention and offered to help."

"Why didn't you get one of us?" Michonne asked.

"I….there was so much going on here. We had people missing, people dead, people panicking. I didn't want one of y'all to talk me out of it. Or be with me when I found his body, if that was what I found. I knew you or Rick would offer to go, and y'all had just gotten back from your own version of hell. There's a passage in the sewers that leads outside of Alexandria. Aaron showed me. We didn't make it out. The exit was blocked with walkers. My mind was working so fast; I was so determined, and I was thinking about how everything had turned upside down in the blink of an eye. It almost cost me my life. A walker came out of nowhere, surprised me. Aaron saved me. There was no way out, so….I had to adjust my thinking. I had to….My mind is split, Michonne. One minute I'm convinced he's alive, and the next I'm coaching myself to be okay with him being gone. I can't settle."

"I think that's normal after all you've been through," Michonne said.

Maggie nodded. There was more that she wanted to say, something else that she wanted to say. She wondered how Michonne would react. "I'm pregnant," she announced.

Michonne paused. She couldn't have been more surprised if Glenn appeared behind Maggie right now. She wasn't even sure she'd heard right. "What?"

"I'm pregnant," Maggie repeated, her nervousness giving way to a spark of elation. "Glenn and I….we're expecting."

Michonne still didn't trust her ears. "Um…uh….does he know?"

"Yes," Maggie answered with a smile. "So trust me, he is fighting tooth and nail to come back."

"How….I mean I know how…."

After all, Maggie and Glenn regularly disappeared to spend time alone. They were a small group, and Glenn and Maggie were one of the few couples, so it was hard not to notice, especially since they'd no longer had the large space and, thus, privacy that the prison had offered.

"It wasn't an accident," Maggie revealed.

That shocked Michonne all over again.

"You're probably thinking that's irresponsible. You're probably right. I mean look at what's happening now," Maggie said, speaking quicker than normal. "It was something we'd first discussed at the prison. He'd brought it up. I shut it down, saying it was irresponsible," she explained. She chuckled sarcastically at how her stance had evolved. "He was disappointed. Why couldn't we be a normal couple who just wanted to grow its family? But he agreed. He understood. Then the prison fell. And I lost my dad, and I thought I lost him, and Beth, and….Suddenly I was alone. Suddenly I had nothing to show for it. I was determined to find him again. And when I did…."

Goosebumps erupted on her skin as she remembered the poignant moment.

"He had this picture of me. He'd taken it at the watchtower back at the prison. After we found each other, I told him he didn't need it, because we'd never be apart again. Bold words. Arrogant words. I mean we lose so much, why intentionally throw something away, right? That picture could be helping him right now."

"This is different," Michonne reminded her softly. "He knows where you are. He just needs to get to you."

"I had another reason for telling him that," Maggie continued. "The moment I saw him again….I wanted…..I wanted something more. I wanted to grow our family. I wanted, just in case, I wanted proof. I wanted proof of how much we loved each other, how strongly we loved each other. Just in case, I wanted to continue loving him. I wanted this other person who had his eyes, or his smile, or his mannerisms, maybe his personality. I wanted a little reminder. And vice versa. If something happened to me, I wanted him to still have a part of me. I wanted him to have a reason to keep going. I wanted him to….still have a person to love.

I didn't know how he was going to react to my saying I wanna have a baby now. I figured that after all that had happened since that conversation, he was probably more convinced than ever that we'd made the right choice. I was right. He was scared to try and create a life, literally a brand new life, and bring it into all this chaos. But….he ultimately agreed. It took about a day, but he agreed: he wanted something more. He wanted a reminder. Just in case. So we started trying. We stopped preventing a pregnancy. After we lost Beth, we were convinced that we were doing the right thing.

I didn't have any symptoms, but when Rick said we were staying here, I decided to do a pregnancy test. And it was positive."

The emotions on Maggie's face, the tears in her eyes, it all moved Michonne. She didn't have any questions. She couldn't, not after hearing all of that. She just wanted the best for them, for Maggie, Glenn, and their baby. "You're having a baby," she whispered, a smile blooming on her face.

Maggie smiled. "Yes."

Michonne stepped forward and hugged her tight. "I don't think it's irresponsible. I think it's what you both need. I think it's your decision. I think it's amazing."

Maggie was relieved to have Michonne's support and understanding. She didn't know how it would go with the rest of the family, but she at least had Michonne on her side.

"It'll be a burden to the group," she said as they ended the hug. "But we'll try to handle it ourselves as much as possible."

"Are you crazy?" Michonne asked. "It won't be a burden. It'll be a change."

"You weren't here when Lori went through her pregnancy. There was definitely some resentment and judgment. I know. I was one of the judgmental ones. Granted, her situation was different, what with the whole affair with Shane and the question about the baby's paternity, but-you do know about that, right? I figured Rick…."

"I do know," Michonne confirmed with a demure smile.

"I remember thinking for a while that she was so stupid for putting herself in that situation."

"People mature," Michonne offered with a little shrug.

Maggie smiled, and then she turned pensive. "You know those thoughts I keep having? One of them is…..I wonder if it was the stress of this world that made Lori….that made things happen the way they did, all of the moving around, traveling, looking for a place to stay, figuring Andrea had died, or if she just had your run of the mill complications. This baby's growing inside me. Guess which option I prefer."

"Things are different," Michonne said. "We have a place."

Maggie slowly looked down at the walkers. They threatened to unravel everything. She had to steel herself for that, too, in addition to steeling herself for the possibility of Glenn being dead.

"We're going to fight to keep it," Michonne said confidently, easily guessing Maggie's train of thought. "I promise you that."

Maggie looked at her and nodded. "Don't tell anyone, okay? I want Glenn to be here before I tell anyone else."

Michonne smiled. "Your secret's safe with me."

Chapter Text

Rick and Judith's inspection of the wall was uneventful so far, which was good. Rick had a little pep in his step. The morning was clearer and sharper, because he was in love with Michonne. And he was going to tell her. He just had to find a good time. That was a tall order, considering the ravenous dead at their door.

"Morgan," he called, slowing his walk as he saw the tranquil man.

"Morning," Morgan greeted as he paused his practice session.

"Morning," Rick replied. "We haven't talked about yesterday. We should. A little later, okay? About fifteen minutes."

"Okay," Morgan replied, unease seeping into him. Nevertheless, he waved at Judith.

"Say good morning," Rick prompted his daughter. He picked up one of her hands and waved. He nodded at Morgan and continued along the wall.

He eventually came upon what might be a problem. Blood was seeping into a portion of the wall. It was a tiny breech, but a breech nonetheless. He thanked God for his foresight of inspecting the wall and hoped he wouldn't find any more breeches.

Judith reached for the blood, and Rick quickly grabbed her hand. "Don't touch," he admonished. "That's nasty blood. Don't touch."

"Mmm," Judith murmured, upset as she strained to pull her hand from her dad's.

Rick let her hand go and continued along the wall, extra vigilant now. "We might have to do something about that hole," he said to his co-inspector.

He came upon the lookout post, and his stomach giddily somersaulted when he saw Michonne up there. He smiled, short of breath all of a sudden.

Michonne turned from Maggie, ready to head down, and she was surprised when she saw Rick standing a little ways away. He seemed to be looking directly at her, but he was too far away for her to read his expression.

She climbed down, and Rick met her at the bottom of the ladder.

"Hi," he greeted her reverently.

Michonne didn't know what to make of how he was looking at her. Gone was the irritation that had followed him out of the bathroom earlier this morning. "How is the inspection going?" she asked.

"Good," Rick answered. "There's one spot we'll have to watch. A tiny hole. Walker blood's seeping through it. We'll take care of it," he added when she began to look worried. "How did it go up there?"

"Pretty good," Michonne answered, smiling as she remembered Maggie's great news. "We're both watching, waiting for Glenn."

She remembered then what Maggie had said. If she was the one who hadn't made it back, Carl would be vigilantly watching for a sign that she was still alive. She wondered if Rick would be watching with him, alert and waiting, somewhere between hopeful and hopeless.

"Have you spoken to Jessie yet?" she asked.

"Yeah," Rick sighed. "That's where I linked up with my inspection partner. We have to talk to Carol about letting Jessie watch her. That can't happen anymore. It went about as well as you'd expect. She was offended, which is understandable. She was angry. But she spoke to Ron this morning, told him that she didn't want him around Carl after the fight yesterday."

"Good," Michonne said as she crossed her arms.

Rick nodded his head to the right, a sign of his dubiousness.

"What?" Michonne asked.

"I don't think she's taking it as seriously as she should."

Michonne was silent for a beat. "That's perfectly fine," she said evenly.

It sent chills down Rick's spine. Because her eyes promised the most severe form of violence. He heard her clearly. If her gut was right, and Ron hurt Carl, she would make him pay. And it would be on Jessie.

"I'm gonna talk to Maggie," Rick said, staring deep into her eyes to tell her he was behind her one hundred percent.

"Okay," Michonne said as she took Judith from him, his support making her smile. "We need to talk, too. About this morning."

Rick nodded just as Judith began to protest the switch. She wanted to stay with her dad, so she reached for him.

"He'll meet us at the house. He'll meet us at the house," Michonne said to console her.

Rick didn't want to talk about this morning. No reason would be good enough to make him okay with Michonne not wanting to sleep with him. "I spoke to Morgan. We're meeting in fifteen minutes."

"Okay," Michonne answered. And then, just to make him a little malleable for their private conversation later, she slid her gloved hand behind his neck and gave him a full kiss on the lips.

Judith took the opportunity to grab Rick's shirt in hopes of him taking her back.

Michonne ended the kiss too quickly for Rick's liking, and he felt a fresh regret for the lack of consummation earlier.

"I'll join you real soon, okay?" he reassured Judith as he pried her hands off of him.

Judith's whimper evolved into a full-blown crying fit, and Michonne shushed her as they walked away.

Rick watched them for a bit, and then he climbed the ladder to check on Maggie.

He told Maggie about his hope for Glenn and how it was at war with his leadership. He needed to be prepared for everything, especially the worst. He needed to be prepared to support Maggie and help her be okay. But he also wanted Glenn to come back.

He was surprised and relieved when she shared that she, too, went back and forth between optimism and realism.

"He needs us to cling to the former," Maggie said.

"I know," Rick replied huskily. "So maybe we don't wait for him to come back. Him, Daryl, Abraham, Sasha, maybe we don't wait for them to come back. We can start figuring out how to draw the walkers away. We have some food and water to last us a while, and the walls are holding. We can take our time. Really think this through. Do it right. Clear it so they can...they can walk right in."

Maggie smiled. "I saw Judith in the house the other day. She's starting to….she's starting to look like Lori."

"Yeah, she is," Rick replied affectionately. "It was a shock when I saw it, seemed to happen overnight."

"It made me happy," Maggie shared.

"Me, too." Rick then squeezed her shoulder and said, "It's gonna be okay. Don't stay up here too long."

"Yeah."

Rick headed for the ladder, and Maggie wondered if she should tell him about her pregnancy. Michonne had perked right up when she'd told her. The news had infused her with that precious optimism.

She could tell Rick, and it would be the jolt he needs to remain hopeful. That would help her in the end, because Michonne and Rick could remind her of the bright side when she started to drift to the shadows.

But Rick was dealing with so much. Her pregnancy could be the last thing he wanted to hear. That was one of the reasons that she and Glenn had decided that he wouldn't even be the first person they told, that they would test the news out on someone else first. The last thing she needed right now was for anyone to react to her pregnancy like it was anything but a good thing.

So she let him leave.

On the way back to the house, Rick saw Father Gabriel, who was putting up flyers. He knew it couldn't be anything worthwhile. Sure enough, when he got close to the sheet of paper, he saw an invitation to a prayer circle that Father Gabriel was hosting after noon. He ripped the paper down and crumpled it.

He felt Father Gabriel stop behind him, but he continued toward the house.

Despite his reaction to the sign, he was sure the prayer circle would help some of the Alexandrians. They seemed like the type. They would pray instead of taking up a weapon to fight.

The good Father's idea gave him one, too. He would ask Michonne to hold a weapons training. That way, none of the Alexandrians could say he didn't try to prepare them.

Or maybe he should ask Maggie, distract her from worrying about Glenn for a bit. She'd see right through it, though.

"Rick! Hey, Rick," Ron called as he caught up with him.

"Good morning," Rick greeted as he faced him.

"Morning. I'm ready," Ron said, opening his arms and letting them drop at his sides.

Rick frowned.

"You said you'd show me how to shoot yesterday, remember?"

"Right, I did. Listen. I don't think that's a good idea anymore. Your mom told me she asked Rosita to teach her to shoot. She told me she'd teach both you and Ron. I don't wanna take that away from her."

"You're a better shooter than my mom, no matter how many lessons she takes. I think that's a fair assessment."

"It isn't when you take into account the fact that I used to be a deputy, and your mom's just starting out. She could end up a better shooter than me one day," he said, smiling affably to sell it.

"Right," Ron deadpanned. "So this doesn't have anything to do with her telling me to stay away from Carl this morning."

"This has to do with what I think is best."

"You guys are making a big deal out of nothing. It was a little fight. Neither of us even got hurt, and he started it. I was just trying to help."

"I know, and Carl's been told to keep his distance. Things are too up in the air right now for us to be worrying about the two of you. Just wait 'till this thing passes, and we can go back to normal. I have to go. I have a meeting."

Ron's lip curled in disgust as he watched Rick walk away. He's never hated anyone so much. He'd hated his dad often, but this was different. Everything out of Rick's mouth irritated the hell out of him. Rick spoke like he knew everything, like everything he said, every idea he had made perfect sense. And Carl was an annoying extension of him. He could so easily imagine Carl growing up to be just like Rick.

He didn't know what the hell was going on, but he needed to get his hands on a gun and soon. He understood his mom overreacting. She was barely keeping it together even though she was trying. But he was sure that Carl has dealt with worse than a stupid fight that he started, so why was Rick freaking out?

Probably to appease his mom. Frustrated, he went home.

Rick decided that he'd ask Rosita to do the training. Jessie, at least, was familiar with her, so she would help the others be at ease.

When he arrived at the house, Judith was no longer crying, but he went to her playpen anyway. "I'm back," he announced.

His heart melted when her face lit up, and she got on her hands and knees to crawl to the edge of the playpen. "Come here," he said as he scooped her up. "You wanna be part of the meeting? You can."

"Carol's here," Michonne announced as she came out of the kitchen.

"Morgan's right behind me," Rick said.

Right on cue, Morgan opened the front door and walked in.

The four adults sat at the small breakfast table, and Rick perched Judith on his lap. Michonne sat on his right, Carol on his left but sitting closer to Morgan, and Morgan sat directly across from him.

"What's going on?" Morgan asked. When Rick said they should talk, he'd expected a one-on-one conversation, not a committee.

Rick's stomach was in knots. He did not want things to go south with Morgan. That just wasn't an option. He cleared his throat and began. "When I was coming back, I tried to cut off the herd with the RV. Lead the walkers away. But five of those people with the Ws on their foreheads, they stopped me. They tried to kill me, shot up the RV. Now, Carol says she saw you, that you wouldn't kill those people. Did you let any of them go?"

Morgan slowly inhaled. He looked directly at Rick, very aware of Michonne, very aware of Carol. "Yes, I did," he answered. "I didn't want to kill five people I didn't have to kill."

"They burned people alive," Carol reminded him.

"Yeah," Morgan answered as he spared her a glance. "Why didn't you kill me, Rick? Back in King County. I pulled a knife on you, stabbed you. So why didn't you kill me? Was it 'cause I saved you before?"

"Because I knew who you were," Rick said emphatically.

"Back there, I would have killed you as soon as look at you. And I tried. But you, you let me live, and then I was there to help Aaron and Daryl. See, if I….if I wasn't there...if they'd died...maybe those wolves wouldn't have been able to come back here. I don't know what's right anymore. 'Cause I did want to kill those men. I seen what they did, what they keep doing.

I knew I could end it. But I also know that people can change. 'Cause everyone sitting here has. All life is precious. And that idea, that idea changed me. It brought me back, and it keeps me living."

The other three were quiet as they absorbed his passionate reasoning. Michonne was the first to speak. "I don't know if it can be that easy."

"It's not easy," Morgan assured her. "And I've thought about letting the idea go. But I don't want to."

"You may have to," Carol said.

"Things aren't as simple as those four words," Michonne said. "All life is precious. Things were never that simple. The world has never, ever worked that way. People have never worked that way."

"Do you think I don't belong here?" Morgan asked the three.

"Making it now," Rick spoke up, "Do you really think you can do that without getting blood on your hands?"

Morgan smiled ruefully. "I have blood on my hands. My hands are dripping with blood. I didn't….I didn't stay holed up after you left, Rick. I went out. And I got blood on my hands. Those simple four words?" he asked of Michonne, "I was at the complete opposite end of the spectrum. So, if you've decided something, let me know, and I'll be on my way. Or take your time, if you need to, but let me know."

The meeting was adjourned on that note. Morgan left, because he still needed to figure out how to get his prisoner the medical help that he needed.

"So?" Carol asked her fellow jury members.

"I don't know," Rick admitted.

"His philosophy is dangerous," Carol said. "You can't go around saying all life is precious. Not everyone changes back. Not everyone is lost. Some people are just evil, and some people deserve to die. He let those five go, and they almost killed you. You spare someone's life, and they may not see that as a gift. They may see it as an opportunity. Michonne," she prodded.

"The philosophy brought him back," Michonne said. "That's a tough thing to fight. The problem is that he hasn't found a middle ground. He's just gone to the opposite extreme. You're right that it's dangerous."

"He's not back," Rick countered. "He's….desperately hanging on. The good thing is that he wanted to kill them. He does get it. He just doesn't trust himself to kill. We lose it in different ways, and we come back in different ways," he said, thinking of himself and Michonne. "I don't want to take his progress away from him. I just gotta figure something out, because he can't stay like this. It just might get him killed."

Carol inwardly deflated. So Morgan was not going to be given the boot. He was a threat, and she didn't have the patience to hold his hand. If he was what coming back looked like, then she wanted no part of it.

Four impatient knocks sounded on the door, and she wondered if Morgan had already screwed up again.

Frowning, Michonne got up to find out what was going on. Jessie was on the other side of the door. "What is it?" she asked, frown still in place.

"Is Rick here?" Jessie demanded.

Michonne almost rolled her eyes. "Rick!" she turned her head to call into the house, "Jessie's here for you."

Michonne didn't leave.

Rick came to the door alone, having passed Judith to Carol. "Everything okay?" he asked.

"Ron came home and told me that you'd promised to teach him how to shoot, and now you've changed your mind."

"I didn't promise," Rick said, splitting hairs. "I told him I would, but after everything, I think it would be better if you taught him. That was your original plan. I wanted to help out, but-"

"No. No, no, no, no, no. You told him you would, so you will. You don't get to just back out. You have a responsibility."

"A responsibility?" Rick and Michonne asked simultaneously.

"That's right, a responsibility. You don't get to just let us go. You are going to be there until we can stand on our own."

"There are plenty of people around to teach your son to shoot," Michonne said as she put a hand on her hips. "Unfortunately, most of them are on the other side of the wall right now."

"I can't think of a better teacher for Ron than the man who's been leading more than ten people to survival for over a year," Jessie said.

Michonne did roll her eyes then, smiling and shaking her head at Jessie's ludicrousness.

"Oh, please do roll your eyes," Jessie said. "Your lover killed my husband-"

"My lover?" Michonne asked merrily.

"My life and my kids' lives are in his hands until we know everything we need to know to survive. Consider us part of the extended family. You're going to teach Ron what you promised him so I can have one less thing to worry about."

"Goodbye, Jessie," Michonne said as she made Rick back up.

"Excuse me-"

Michonne closed the door in Jessie's face and locked it. She shook her head when Jessie tried turning the handle. Turning to Rick with mirthful eyes, she said, "Oh, you're gonna have to tell me what the hell that was about. You weren't kidding when you said she was angry, but I'm sensing a little something more."

"This isn't over, Rick!" Jessie yelled from the other side of the door. "I'll show you bad press! You kill my husband and then refuse to teach my son how to protect himself. How do you think that sounds?!"

"Don't have a fucking cow, Jessie. We'll do the job of preparing your son for you," Michonne said, raising her voice so Jessie would hear.

"Rick will do it," Jessie insisted.

"Shut the fuck up," Michonne said quietly. To Rick, she said, "We tell her we don't want her kid around Carl, because we think he's dangerous, so she storms here wanting you to teach him to shoot a gun. You're right: she's not taking this seriously at all."

Jessie was officially on Rick's last nerve. No one had ever tried to corner him before.

"What the hell is happening?" Carol asked as she came from the kitchen with Judith.

"Carol," Rick said as he went to her. "Jessie can't watch Judith anymore."

"What happened?" Carol asked as Michonne joined Rick.

"It's her oldest: Ron," Rick answered. "He and Carl got into a fight yesterday. Not a big deal on the surface, but we don't feel comfortable with Ron being around Carl, not while he's still grievin' his dad, not while he's carryin' around so much anger."

"It's coming from me," Michonne said. "I don't have a good feeling about him."

"Okay," Carol said quietly as she looked between them. "Sure. Noted."

"Any ideas about how I should approach this?" Rick asked Michonne.

"Just keep a close eye on him."

Chapter Text

While Rick stepped out of the house again to get Ron's shooting lesson over and done with, Michonne went to the infirmary to visit Scott. His infection was healing, and he was in good spirits. Irrationally, Michonne was still afraid of him doing a back slide and dying. He and Heath were the two that made it back with her, but because of how many people she'd started out with and lost, Scott's condition had her on edge.

When she was leaving the infirmary, she saw Denise's medical notes, her copious medical notes. She resisted staring at them. She strongly hoped that nothing horrible happened in the foreseeable future, because it didn't seem like Denise was confident enough to handle anything more serious than an infection, no matter how life-threatening that infection.

On her way back to the house, she spied Rick teaching Ron how to handle a gun. Carl was present, so she paused. It was the perfect opportunity for her to observe Ron.

She observed Ron paying avid attention to Rick's instructions, but whenever Carl spoke, Ron looked at him a little too long for her liking.

She expelled a quick breath through her mouth. Maybe she was overreacting. Carol had looked more hesitant than worried when she'd told her about her bad feeling.

Rick trusted her, but that didn't mean what she was feeling was right. But she wanted to trust her instincts, because-

"Looks like we had the same idea," Jessie intruded.

Michonne jumped. She was immediately disturbed by her reaction. And then she was annoyed that Jessie of all people had caused it.

"How's it going?" Jessie asked of the training, her arms crossed.

Michonne didn't answer, choosing instead to return her attention to the scene. Rick was looking her way. Noticing Rick's distraction, Ron and Carl looked her way, too.

Rick resumed what he was doing and gave Ron the handgun. When Ron pointed the weapon, Michonne's heartbeat ratcheted up.

"I hope you're here for Carl and not scrutinizing Ron," Jessie said testily.

"Don't you have another child? How's he doing?" Michonne snapped.

Jessie's reaction let her know she'd hit a nerve, and that gave her enough satisfaction to walk away.

Seventeen minutes later, Michonne was staring down her street. It was speckled with dried blood from the wolves' attack. Her thoughts were yo-yo'ing between the past and the present.

"Where are you?" Rick's voice crackled over the radio.

Michonne abandoned her thoughts for the moment and unhooked the radio from her jeans. Pressing the button, she answered, "At the house. On the porch."

"Are you okay?" Rick asked, her reserved tone piquing his interest. "You looked troubled while you were watching us earlier."

"I'm fine."

"Don't lie to me."

"I'm not lying," she said with a small smile. "You're on your way here, aren't you? I'm not withholding. I'm waiting for us to be face to face."

"I'm not on my way yet," Rick said. "I just finished with Ron. I'm looking for Rosita. I'm gonna have her do a weapons and walker-fighting training for anyone who wants to join. I'm gonna help her go door to door. I already told Jessie about it and suggested she have Ron join."

"And?" Michonne asked.

"She said she'd talk to him."

"Since you won't be personally teaching it, she may not see the value in it for him," Michonne deadpanned. "Speaking of which, how did the training go?"

"Fine," Rick responded. "Jessie stayed until the end. She never budged from where she stood. Ron wanted me to give him the handgun so he could get used to carrying it around."

"He must be as crazy as his mother," Michonne marveled.

Rick chuckled. "I nixed the idea. Jessie wants me to tell you that she doesn't want to have a problem with you. She just doesn't appreciate what you're insinuating about her son," he reported mechanically.

His tone lightened her mood for a fraction of a second. She loved how completely he was on her side. "I wouldn't have a problem with her either if she'd just get it. I understand her defensiveness, but that understanding stops at Carl's safety. If there's even a reason to worry," she added quietly.

"Talk to me," Rick gently probed.

"I'd rather you be here. The better for you to hug me after you tell me how ridiculous I'm being."

Just like that, the pep came back to Rick's step. She wanted him to hug her. "I'll make this go as fast as possible," he promised.

Michonne smiled fondly and realized then the degree to which she wanted a hug from him. She wanted his strong arms wrapped around her. She wanted to press herself against his hard body and squeeze the parts that were soft.

She's experienced worse moments than this since meeting Rick. This didn't even ping on the radar. Yet those moments had never left her wanting a hug from Rick.

Well, that wasn't true. She has wanted a hug and more from Rick at different moments when the world seemed determined to break their group. But she always controlled herself and her thoughts. But now she'd just talked about him hugging her as if it was par for the course with them. As if they've exchanged a thousand hugs before.

When he finally made his way to the house, she came to a realization.

Rick was walking to the house, his steps even, sure, and just a little tense, just a little worried. His holster swayed on his thigh, and his arms didn't swing much at his sides. But what captured her attention were his eyes. His eyes were trained on hers, and they were examining her emotions, looking for a crack or a wound, already asking her if she was okay, already telling her that everything would be alright, that they'd resolve whatever it was.

He was already hugging her.

They have exchanged a thousand hugs before.

The realization that they've been comforting each other long before their bodies were involved led her to a stunning revelation. She was in love with him. She was wholly, completely, and irreversibly in love with him.

It felt so right, so, so right, like some great, intricate puzzle that has been sitting there and waiting for her to put in the final piece.

She jogged off the porch before he reached the stairs and propelled herself into his arms. He lifted her off the ground, and she never wanted to touch earth again.

Rick was now confused on top of worried, but he hugged her as tight as he could without hurting her. "It's okay," he said, sounding every bit of perplexed.

Michonne chuckled. The sound was so light that it sounded strange to her ears. She wondered if it had really come from her.

"What's the matter?" Rick asked as he set her down.

"Nothing," Michonne answered breathily. She smiled when his confusion deepened. He was the most handsome man she'd ever laid eyes on. It wasn't the first time she'd had such a thought, but this was….different. It ran much, much deeper. He was the most handsome man she'd ever laid eyes on.

"It's not nothin'," Rick disagreed. "You said you were waiting for me to get here."

"Right," Michonne said, giving her head a shake to clear it. She felt like she'd never done this before. "Uh. Come on."

She turned back toward the porch, back straight like a soldier.

She begged herself to remain a functioning adult.

They got onto the porch, and Rick's gaze was avidly trained on her. Michonne had never actively liked him looking at her, but she did now. She liked him looking at her.

"Michonne," Rick called.

Right. She was supposed to talk. "Yeah. Um. I'm just going through something. I'm kind of…doubting how I feel about Ron. Maybe Carl's not in danger. Maybe I'm displacing my worry about Glenn onto him in some weird attempt to…I don't know…not focus on Glenn."

"What's makin' you feel this way?" Rick asked.

"It was after I told Carol that the bad feeling about Ron was coming from me. She didn't look particularly worried, not that she needed to, but what I said kept echoing in my head. It's coming from me. It sounded stupid, empty. I'm feeling...self-conscious," she admitted, hating the emotion.

"Jessie might be right," she continued. "Maybe nothing will happen. But it's a feeling. Fear, mostly trepidation, and this incredible sense that I can stop it if I just…pay attention. If I just make sure he's okay, if I say something. It's different from when I met the Governor and knew something was off. This is…deeper. I haven't felt like this since…"

"Andre," Rick finished for her.

At the mention of her late son's name, Michonne's trepidation about Carl suddenly increased. "I got it very, very wrong last time."

"You ignored your instinct last time," Rick reminded her. "It's not the same thing."

"Still," she argued, digging in. "That's all supposed to be dead. What, maternal instincts? I mean that's what we're really talking about here. I didn't use them right last time, and suddenly I'm feeling something about another child, and I'm supposed to…trust what I feel? I couldn't get it right for my own. I failed him spectacularly, Rick, you know that."

"Michonne," he started, his heart aching for her.

"I may be wrong about this one," Michonne maintained. "Saying what I felt, outside of the heat of the moment with Jessie last night and to someone who wasn't you or Carl, it made me…question the validity of it."

"I trust you," Rick said as he cupped her cheek. He didn't say it with any hard emphasis. He simply said it, quietly, a fact. The conviction was in his eyes, sky blue oceans of faith. "I want you to trust yourself. Especially with Carl. You aren't wrong. Even if nothing happens. I ever tell you about how paranoid I was about him growing into a cold, heartless person?"

"No, but he did," Michonne said.

"Look at him now. He's better than me. He's compassionate and patient, whereas I've run out of both. I trust your gut. And I want you to trust it, too. I need it. Carl needs it. Okay? Your instincts aren't dead. Maternal instincts...there's nothing to deride. They're there. And they're protecting Carl."

Michonne nodded, her brown eyes shimmering with tears.

"You're being ridiculous," he said lovingly.

Michonne smiled and happily tucked herself into his arms. She was doubting her capability to keep a child safe, alive, but Rick believed that her maternal instincts were still working and still sharp, so she needed to believe it, too.

She'd made the costly mistake of ignoring her instincts once. She couldn't let her shaky confidence make her ignore them a second time.

Bad feeling or good feeling, she hasn't ignored her instincts since that awful day. They had driven her to take Andrea under her wing after she'd saved her, which had in turn led her to Rick, Carl, and Judith. Her instincts had led her to Alexandria. And now, just maybe, they would keep Carl safe.

The soft wind carried the fetid stench of the walkers across Alexandria. Nevertheless, Michonne was in a better mood, not tip top shape, but her confidence had increased thanks to Rick's heartfelt and reassuring words.

She was resting her forearms on the porch rail while Rick was inside the house, making her a glass of lemonade in an attempt to further make her feel better. He had certainly put a smile on her face.

"Here we go," Rick announced as he closed the front door behind him.

Michonne straightened and waited for him to join her.

"I should tell you that I was always put in charge of making the lemonade when the station had our Back to School Barbecue," he said as he handed her the full glass.

"You told me that before you went inside," Michonne reminded him.

"It bears repeating. You'll see why."

She shook her head and then took a cautionary sip.

"That's insulting," Rick complained.

"Mmm." She took a large sip. "Mmmm. This is really good." She took large gulp. "Mmm-hmm. The sugar. My dad would love you. My God, this really reminds me of him."

"I told you," Rick said smugly. He was also very pleased with the posthumous approval of her dad. "How you feelin'?" he asked.

"Better," she answered.

They were in their own little bubble, staring deep into each other's eyes, both wondering if their powerful new emotion was obvious to the other, because neither could imagine how the other could miss it.

They were so focused on themselves and their shiny discovery that they did miss how potently it was reflected by the other.

Rick was the first to break eye contact. "So…" He cleared his throat and turned to copy Michonne's earlier position, leaning his forearms on the porch railing, his heart thump, thump, thumping. "I've been trying to formulate something since my conversation with Maggie."

"Okay," Michonne prodded as she, too, faced the street and rested her free hand on the railing. She drank more of the lemonade in an effort to cool herself down from the short gazing session with Rick.

"If we can somehow get outside the walls, get back to our cars at the quarry, we could use them to draw the walkers away," Rick said.

Michonne quickly mulled over the idea and saw merit in it. It would certainly save them all from the waiting. "We'll set up more watch points, coordinate the shooting of guns and flares so we can draw them out in different directions."

Rick nodded, proud of how fast she was. This was one of the endless things that attracted him to her. "We'd need to get all our people on it: Carl, Tara, Carol, maybe Morgan, give him something to do. Maybe Maggie, give her something to do. Rosita's doing the training, so I don't know about pulling her," he said.

Michonne waited for him to continue, but he was finished. "What about everybody else?"

"Well, let's just keep this to our own for now," Rick said as he straightened his posture and faced her.

"Really?" Michonne asked, her incredulity subtle but no less apparent to him.

"Look, if we had time to bring the people along, sure, but we haven't had a chance to catch our breath."

"Really?" It was then that Michonne realized that he'd straightened in preparation for a disagreement, because he knew that she was going to disagree with him. She was flattered by how well he knew her.

Nevertheless, his insistence on upholding the Us versus Them dynamic made her sigh. "We're in here together," she reminded him. "We're catching our breath right now. Anything else is just excuses."

Rick felt it happening again. There it was. She was disagreeing with him, frowning at him. And what was going through his mind was that she was astonishingly beautiful. Her looks were distracting him. His brain was disconnecting from his mouth. His eyes dipped down to her supple brown lips, further down to her perky breasts, and then back up to her stern eyes. Beautiful.

He pinched his own eyes in a surreptitious attempt to force himself to focus on the discussion at him and not on how good she looked.

"Yesterday you asked me if I thought it would eventually be just us in here. I told you these people were incompetent and useless, and you agreed. Now you think I'm wrong?"

"I was having an off moment yesterday," Michonne said. "We can't do everything ourselves, Rick."

"So you wanna involve them and speed up the process of it being just us in here?"

"No, but you know what? All of us were thrown into the fire and had to figure out how to get the hell out before we burned up. Morgan gave you some tips and walked you through it, sure, but you still had to strap up and go out there on your own. They'll never buy in if we keep doing things for them."

"We involved them already, and most of them died off," Rick countered. "And I got to come back to the rest of 'em looking at me like it's my fault, like the walkers outside are my fault, and the wolves were my fault, like I caused all of this. It's lookin' like these people really do need their hands held, Michonne."

"And you're gonna do that," Michonne said flatly.

"Not anytime soon. They wanna be babysat. I'll happily oblige. They can sit their asses here like a bunch of babies while we take care of everything."

"Which means we take all the risks, and we end up trapped outside the walls. Why don't you tell me about Jessie?"

"What?" Rick asked, feeling like someone just pulled the rug out from under him.

"This isn't me being petty. I'm really trying to understand. You don't have the highest opinion of these people. You have never hidden that fact. As a matter of fact, the longer we're here, the more obvious you make your disdain."

"Disdain?" Rick questioned, his eyes turned to slits.

"I asked you about Jessie."

Rick exhaled swiftly and bit his bottom lip. His eyes drifted down to the floorboard.

"You two had something," Michonne surmised. She didn't feel two ways about the prospect. Some distance had crept up between her and Rick after they'd arrived in Alexandria, but she couldn't fathom that it had been wide enough for him to have had something serious with a complete stranger without her knowing about it. So what he said next was exactly what she expected to hear.

"Barely," Rick replied as he made eye contact with her again. "It was a crush, an attraction. I don't know where it came from, but we both felt it."

"It always comes from somewhere," Michonne said.

Rick held her patient eyes. He inhaled, his chest slowly puffing out, and he exhaled. "I don't feel safe here," he admitted.

It was the last thing Michonne expected him to say.

"I slept better outside, and that's because despite the wall, and the houses, and the food supply, and the plumbing, we have one giant weakness here: the people. The people can cause us to lose this place. People are the most valuable thing we've always had, and this bunch?" he asked, throwing his arm toward the street. "I don't trust 'em. I can't turn my back on 'em. I can't trust 'em to protect anyone that I know. I came here, and I watched, and it didn't take me long to figure out what we were dealing with. Don't get me wrong, it's better than coming in here and finding out they're a bunch of monsters, but...while I was realizin' that this wasn't going to be the haven that I thought, the one that I needed, Jessie...she was the one thing that felt familiar," he said, unable to keep looking at her eyes with that admission.

"She was the one thing that, I don't know," he sighed. "It was a connection," he said, looking in her eyes again. "I looked at her, and I saw what I used to have, what I could have again. Carol told me the situation she was in, and then…I killed Pete, and just like that it was over. Like the connection was never there. It was just gone."

Michonne nodded, comforted by that. "So that's how you managed to not see her as a baby like the rest of them," she said as she set the empty cup on the railing.

"Barely," Rick said again with a light chuckle. "I was more concerned about helping her get away from Pete. I never thought about the fact that she wasn't like us. It never occurred to me. It was...never important to me."

Michonne nodded. She crossed her arms and then wished she hadn't, because it was the sign of a sudden insecurity. She was reminded of the question that had popped into her head after her talk with Maggie. If she was the one outside of the walls right now, her fate uncertain, would Rick be steadfastly looking at the sky for a sign of her return?

"What about what you could have?" she asked. "That's pretty...that's pretty powerful."

"No, it's not. Nothing's powerful about wantin' something that...doesn't take into account reality. That's not powerful. That's delusional. What I do have? That's powerful. That's more powerful than anything I could've dreamed up."

"What do you have?" she asked quietly, feeling like she was suspended in mid-air.

"You," Rick replied.

Her entire face relaxed when she smiled. She rolled her eyes, because she didn't quite want him to know that his answer was everything.

"I'm serious," Rick said as he erased the space between them. "You're everything."

"Okay, that's eerie," she said.

"What?" he asked as he set his hands on her waist.

"Nothing," she answered as she slowly shook her head.

He kissed her tenderly and took away all ambiguity, and she lifted higher and higher. They kissed patiently, him enjoying the sweetness of her mouth from the lemonade, and they explored what it felt like to share such an intimate caress with the person they loved.

When they parted, they were ready to go farther. Michonne ran her fingers down his stubble and kissed the left side of his jaw.

It was then that someone cleared their throat.

"Deanna," Rick saw over Michonne's head.

"Hi," Deanna said as she climbed the steps. "I waited for you to finish, but it looks like you're not done yet, so."

Michonne separated from Rick and put her hand over her lips, her back to Deanna. Here we go again, caught making out in the middle of a crisis.

"We were just, uh..." Rick had no idea where he could take this.

"Please, don't bother," Deanna said, a gracious smile on her lips and excitement in her eyes. "This is a good thing, a great thing, and it makes me feel even better about this," she said as she thrust the long, folded papers forward.

Michonne turned so that Rick and Deanna were on either side of her. She was surprised by Deanna's reaction, nay complete support, but she also wanted to see what she was talking about.

"What's that?" Rick asked.

"Plans for the expansion," Deanna answered.

"We got a few other things on our plate right now," Rick said.

Michonne took the plans from Deanna, because Rick obviously wasn't going to.

"These are for what Alexandria can be after this," Deanna explained. "Because one way or another, there's gonna be an after this. And what I just interrupted is a great indication of that. Especially where you're concerned, Rick. Take a look at them and tell me what you think," she said to Michonne.

With that, Deanna left, her gracious smile now one of unshakeable confidence.

"She's been talking to me like she knows something I don't lately," Rick commented as he watched her go. "It's unsettling."

Smiling, Michonne turned to the railing and moved the cup down.

"We don't have time for this," Rick said when he realized that she was going to open the plans.

"Yes, we do," Michonne said matter-of-factly as she looked at him. "Because I want there to be an after. I want you to have this place. I want you to relax. I want to build these people up so that you can feel safe."

Turning to face him, she placed her hand at the nape of his neck. "This place doesn't work if you're out there. I can't be in here if you're out there. Okay? I want this place for all of us, including you. Especially you."

Rick nodded, although the thought of relaxing and letting his guard down-

"Baby steps," Michonne said.

He nodded again, smiling this time, because she'd guessed where his thoughts were headed.

"You do have to try," Michonne continued. "You have to invest, and yes I said disdain earlier, because it's true, Rick. Don't act like it's not."

Rick rolled his eyes and sighed, a silent acknowledgement of said truth.

"Well guess what? It's obvious to them. Now I know you'll say you don't care, but that doesn't help. It only encourages them to think what they think about you and keep up their side of the Us versus Them crap."

"You like them?" Rick asked of the Alexandrians.

Michonne exhaled. "That's not what it's about. It's about us being able to work together, and guess what else? Now that I know they make you feel unsafe, they really don't have a choice but to get it together, because it makes no sense why you should feel better sleeping out there than in here."

She let him go and went back to the plans.

"You said we needed to talk about this morning," Rick said as he embraced her from behind. Her protectiveness was turning him on. He kissed her shoulder in hopes of pulling her thoughts in the same direction as his.

Sure enough, Michonne shivered as soon as his lips touched her skin. "You really don't want me to look at these plans, do you?"

"I'm just tryna keep us on track," he said. He let her go and moved to stand beside her. He leaned on the railing, his back to the street, and he crossed his arms. "We got this plan to carry out, if we can figure out a way to get past the herd, and I need to go do something about the hole in the wall."

Michonne took in his expansive forehead, his sturdy nose that's gone through way too much, and his pink lips that were full enough for her to have fun with.

Rick recognized what she was doing, because he'd done it to her so often: she was checking him out.

"Come on," Michonne said as she backed away from the railing and offered him her hand.

Rick uncrossed his arms and grabbed her hand.

"Let's go back to the scene of the crime."