a/n: title and lyrics are from the song "Before it Rains" by Juliet Simms!
Tell me you love me with the stars in your eyes
My God, I feel alive
You made your way through the darkness and into my dreams
I swear, now I believe
Rick could almost believe everything was okay.
Upstairs, Carl was bouncing a rubber ball against the wall. Thump, thump it went, on and on, never ending.
One room over, Judith turned over in her sleep, cooing absentmindedly. He watched her on a baby monitor only a few feet away.
In his bed, Michonne slept peacefully, her locks splayed all around her head and stark against the white of his pillowcase.
In the peace of the night, Rick could close his eyes and think about the future - his future with Michonne. His comrade, his right-hand-woman. Who he already, even before tonight, could not think about life without. She was Carl's best friend. She was the closest thing to a mother Judith had. She was family already, even before… this.
Rick smoothed his thumb over the curve where her back met her hips. She fell asleep with a hand resting over his heart, but in her sleep it snaked its way over his chest and curled up on the other side of his rib cage.
"What are you thinking about?"
Rick blinked out of his reverie and eyed the woman next to him: her eyes still shut, her face still smooth and relaxed. He smiled at her, and it was as if there were birds fluttering inside his chest, desperate to be free.
"I was thinking… you're already family," he admitted.
Michonne peaked one dark eye open, and her lips cracked in a grin. Long eyelashes fluttered against her cheek in the dim bedroom light. "Carl actually told me that earlier today."
A smile widening on Rick's face, he wrapped his arm around her waist fully and brought her towards him, turning on his side as he did so that the two stared straight into one another's eyes. "How long should we wait before we tell everyone?" he asked her, and she shrugged.
"Give it a week," she muttered, "and Abraham will already have figured it out, and once he knows, everyone will know."