Title: With You
Author: bana05
Rating: T+
Characters/Pairings: Richonne
Spoilers: Up to 06x12
Disclaimer: The Walking Dead ain't mine.
Summary: The last time Michonne had been with someone, she'd been alone. This time, the rules have certainly changed.
Author's notes: Joke's on me! I've gone a grip without writing fic, and now here's one for a show I've primarily watched through gifs and character tags. Lulz! Nevertheless, I hope you all enjoy and please forgive errors!

She heard the crunch of his footsteps upon the asphalt behind her, but she didn't stop her forward march to nowhere. She didn't want to talk to Rick, not now, not about what he wanted to discuss, because now was simply not the time.

"Michonne."

She ignored her name, the steel and determination in the two syllables he clipped out, far different from the honey and dew he'd employed in the early-morning darkness.

Fucking Jesus.

She and Rick had promised each other they would talk after they'd gotten their first round out of the way, a round that had lasted all of five minutes because things had been at the surface for far too long for her (them?) and he'd come as soon as she'd sunk down on his cock. She'd taken a little longer to go over, too stubborn to capitulate to the maelstrom of emotions inside of her. Rick had just lain there, still panting from the power of his release, but he'd helped her along. A rough palm sliding up her thigh, a callused thumb upon her nub, his hooded eyes refusing to let her look away from him and what was weaving between them.

"Now," he'd demanded, his voice hoarse from his own cathartic groan.

She'd sighed and shuddered and hummed, her body falling upon him in time with the adagio arpeggio of her pleasure. Her ass still tingled from his congratulatory squeeze, his soothing caress.

"Really gonna do this now?"

Fuck a Rick with her katana.

She stopped at the incredulity in his tone, glowering at the empty road ahead while adjusting the rifle in her hold. They were on mission, one that he'd advocated for with her support, and they needed to remain focused. They were looking for stragglers, for walkers, for Saviors, for anything that would put this very suspect plan to murder an entire compound on its ass before they could even implement it. Dead leaves skittered along the road's double yellow line, and one settled at her feet. It fluttered against her right boot's toe before continuing on its way. She followed its progress with her eyes, her familiar scowl grooved into her face, and she wondered what the hell was wrong with her she felt slightly jealous of the thing.

The crunching behind her stopped, but she could feel Rick's presence at her back, overwhelming, overpowering. Awareness slithered down her spine and she bent her head in respect of it. He hadn't reached out and touched her; hadn't, really, since they'd returned to Alexandria yesterday afternoon, and they both knew that was on her.

"I thought…" Rick paused and let out a breath, then stepped closer so he was pressed directly against her back. "I thought we were good?"

Doubt didn't sound right coming from his mouth, especially not where she was concerned. She clenched her jaw and closed her eyes tight against that and the panic whirring inside of her. She couldn't speak right now. Her throat was too thick, and he'd hear her anxiety. Bad enough he could read her like a damn Dr. Seuss book; worse he'd insist on fixing whatever was bothering her; catastrophic that her freak-out had to happen on the cusp of a massacre instead of during a breakfast of waffles with a watchful, bemused Carl and a happily syrupy Judith. Except now, everyone knew her business (thank you, Jesus) and Rick was rolling right along like the world hadn't shifted on its axis yet again. And she had been, too, until she'd seen Maggie and Glenn's ultrasound, and she'd realized the rules had changed yet again. This wasn't some ordinary mission. This wasn't some run for more supplies or a walker herd they needed to dispatch. Going on the offensive like this, no matter how necessary, meant courting a world of hurt and trouble. And going courting without all of the intangibles accounted for almost guaranteed some fuckery would go down.

Granted, Michonne never not thought of all the contingencies she could, but generally she didn't have time to dwell on "what ifs?" because the battle usually came to them, not the other way around. And while she'd always had something to lose from the moment she'd met Andrea, then joined Rick and his group, the devastation of that loss was something she'd been able to calculate and mitigate, at least theoretically. Now, though…she shuddered just remembering the taste she'd gotten the night Carl had been shot and Rick had gone on his suicide mission that, thankfully, hadn't panned out. She'd chosen to stay with Carl, to help Denise stabilize him enough so she could help his father, but her heart had vacillated between her throat and her feet the entire time. She'd retched after the battle had ended, gripping the commode so tightly she thought she'd crack the porcelain, but she'd settled herself enough to tend to Baby Judith and stand sentry just in case Rick had needed her.

Thankfully, everything had turned all right in the end, less Carl's right eye. They'd been lucky; her grandmother would've called it blessed once upon a time, but one couldn't enjoy a blessing without some tribulation to go with it. She wasn't Job, though. She had a limit to the calamities she could bear.

"Michonne, I need you to talk to me. You stalkin' away from me makes me nervous. You agreed to the plan, gave me your nod before we loaded up the cars. If somethin's pricklin' you now, you gotta tell me. Our family's lives are at stake."

She bent her head forward, bringing a trembling hand to the bridge of her nose. Damn it! Telling Rick not to be concerned for her would be as futile as telling the sun not to rise in the east. She had to put on her Big Girl britches and accede to his request, because his focus on her was drawing it away from where it needed to be: annihilation of the Saviors and getting them all out of this alive and whole.

Michonne laid the rifle down on the road carefully and took a deep breath. Her eyes stung when his hands immediately settled on her shoulders. She didn't lean into him but she didn't pull away, and Rick buried his nose into her locs at the back of her head.

"We'll win," he said. "You said so yourself, remember?"

She nodded. "There's such a thing as Pyrrhic victories, Rick." She licked her lips and turned her head so she could see him out of the corner of her eye. "What if a win means…?"

"We all go home with a deal that will guarantee food for us for months?" Rick suggested, squeezing her shoulders. "That's why we're here, ain't it?"

"What if we all don't go home?" Michonne whispered. "I know that's always a risk, but we didn't ever go asking for fights. The Governor had, and look what happened to him."

"You put a blade through his chest," Rick said dryly. "I got a first-row seat to that and everything."

She turned fully and frowned at him. "He sliced Hershel's neck open with my sword, then he shot tanks at our home. Confidence can be a slippery slope into hubris, Rick. What if this is some big-ass trap that we walked right into? Gregory gets us to kill each other off and—?"

Rick cupped her face in his hands. They were warm, large, strong, and very gentle upon her. He held her as if she were precious, which made her eyes sting even more, and she licked her lips again. It helped distract her from the urge to cry.

"You're not dyin' today, Michonne."

She squinted at him. "You can't guarantee that."

"The fuck I can't. You're not dying."

"And I suppose you aren't dying, either?"

Rick shook his head and kissed her forehead. "I know I can be painfully slow on the uptake at times, but the universe owes me a solid."

"You have a solid," Michonne reminded him sharply. "Carl, alive. Judith, alive. You have your family."

He pulled back and arched an eyebrow at her. "And why are you talkin' as if you ain't an integral part of that?"

She pursed her lips, blinking rapidly because she could feel that emotional squall starting to brew again. They were all integral to his family's survival. If it hadn't been for Tyreese and Carol, Judy wouldn't even be with them now. They all saved each other; that was the only way they could win, after all. Yet saving sometimes meant sacrifice, and Rick wasn't above putting hierarchies in place beyond Judith or Carl. She couldn't let him not let her do what she might need to do for them, for him—

Rick scoffed and stepped away from her, turning his back to her and placing his fists on cocked hips. His shoulders hunched over, visibly rising and falling as he tried to marshal himself. Michonne let him do this, knowing she'd thrown him with her lack of an answer and her sudden dread. She would've been fine if he hadn't followed her. She would've compartmentalized this and been ready to go, resolving something within herself so she could get the job done. But they'd moved up a level, and the one below had fallen away. There was no going back, which was why this way forward really, in truth, terrified her.

"That day, months ago, when I'd confessed to you about taking the guns, do you remember what you said to me?" Rick asked, his voice low and precisely controlled.

Michonne inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly. "I said I was with you."

"Yes, you did," Rick said. He faced her now, his hands still on his hips, his expression firm and fierce. "That goes both ways, you know. I'm with you, too, and I'm a clingy son of a bitch."

Now she did smile, and a few tears slipped from her eyes. "Rick."

He shuffled his boot along a yellow line and nodded at the road. "I know I can be stubborn, tyrannical, merciless when it comes to my family. My boy and my baby girl—ain't nothin' on this earth I wouldn't do for 'em. You saw," he said gruffly, looking at her through his lashes.

Michonne nodded, brushing away the tears. The Claimers. Terminus. Jessie. Carl and Judith were paramount to all else, which was why Michonne needed to say what she was about to say.

"They will always be the right choice," she said quietly, gripping the strap of her katana that lay across her chest. "I guarantee it. They will always be the right choice."

He nodded as well, continuously, as if he were one of those bobble head dolls that had been popular back in the day. "That's why we're doing this, and that's why we're not dying today, because I'm gonna do everything I can to make sure we get back home to our family. Now, I gave you your space last night because I could sense you needed it. A lot of changes were happening at once, and you needed to process everything. But I didn't give you that space for you to figure out a scenario where I'd be okay with you not being here. There's no scenario where that could happen."

Michonne rolled her eyes, aware he was aware he was being dead serious, yet illogical, and being quite at peace with both. "We may not all come home."

"As long as you do, I'll be all right," Rick said plainly, shrugging. "If you're okay, I'm okay, no matter what happens."

He said it so nonchalantly, as if it were that simple for him. For all of his gray actions, he could be starkly black and white. And suddenly, they were back on the train tracks to Terminus, his beard and the collar of the very jacket he currently wore stained with the savagery of another's blood. She'd never felt safer in that moment. So to honor that, she got to the crux of her dilemma.

"I won't be okay if something happens to you."

It was the first selfish thing she'd ever voiced to him, where she couldn't hide behind Carl or Judith or the welfare of the others. This was about her. She was terrified of whom she would become if Rick didn't survive. She'd become a monster after Andre and Mike's deaths, yet even then she'd harbored a dollop of resignation that something horrific would happen once the world had gone to shit. Mike and Terry had spiraled deeper and deeper into despair and Andre could only adapt so much. Rick, on the other hand, didn't know the meaning of the word "quit." If she should lose him…

He approached her and grasped her chin with strong fingers. He bent forward until they were nose to nose. The smell of stale coffee on his breath filled her nostrils.

"I'd rend the earth if something happened to you," he said quietly. He vibrated with that vow, and Michonne cupped his dear face in her hands. The ferocity in his eyes was something she'd never seen in Mike's after the turn. Rick didn't see their demise as an inevitability like Mike had, but rather as an impossibility. And despite how completely unrealistic that was, some of her long-buried anguish abated in the wake of Rick's fortitude, yielding to a renewed faith.

"So we don't make something happen," she said, another callback to their defining conversation after his stint in "lockup." She grazed the pads of her fingers along his bearded cheeks, comforted by gentle roughness.

Rick squeezed her chin and let a thumb brush along her cheek. "We make a home, a family. We make love. We make plans to live, not vague somethings with the off chance we die."

"We go home," she reiterated.

He nodded. "All of us. We go home."

She kissed him with a quiet intensity that she felt double back to her. "You are my home."

His crooked grin gladdened her heart and buoyed her spirit. "That means you'll come back to me."

"As long as there's breath in my body."

He hugged her, causing the katana scabbard to dig into her spine, but she didn't care. She slipped her arms around his neck in return, mindful of the rifle he had strapped behind him.

His lips pressed against her temple. "You are the breath of my body."

Michonne closed her eyes and slid her fingers into his hair. They stood in each other's embrace, syncing breaths and heartbeats, until she had finally corralled her misgivings into fuel she could use for the mission. They would not fail. They would win.

No other option would be acceptable.