Really nervous posting this as its my first fic EVER written. Gahhh! I love the interactions between Carl and Michonne almost as much as I love Richonne. There just simply have not been enough of them in the show. This'll be the first part of a small series of one shots. This is the seed for something else. Also…I'm pretty awful with punctuation and this has not been beta'd, my sincere apologies! Please give me feedback on what/how I can improve! Seriously.

I do not own these characters.

It was a dreary day and it had been raining on and off for the better part of the morning. It was a perfect day for napping, for Judith at least. Michonne took advantage of the mostly deserted house to clean up a little. It may be the apocalypse with walking corpses roaming the world, but Michonne refused let the house become a part of the outside world. In here, it would be home.

As she finished sweeping the entryway, she heard hurried steps coming up the porch to the door. Carl walked inside, dripping water, and trailing mud, looking like a swamp creature. It was all over him and she spotted a particularly large clump stuck on the side of his head. Michonne chuckled and put a hand up to stop him from moving further into the house.

"Nope. You hold it right there. Wha –"

"Michonne –"

"What happened? Why does it look like you've been rolling around in a mud pit? I thought you and your dad were just checking the pump."

"We were," he shrugged, "we did." The grin on his face said there was more to it than that.

She nodded with a laugh and gave a wave of her hand urging him to continue as if to say "and…"

"We kind of got into a mud fight."

Michonne laughed, "kind of?" and he chuckled and took a step forward and so did she.

"Nuh uh, where do you think you're going creature from the black lagoon?"

"Upstairs to shower" he said through a laugh

"and trail mud all through this house? No sir, you take those boots and socks off before you go anywhere." One second passed, then two, then three and she still stood there. He blinked at her and she smiled and raised an eyebrow at him.

"Michonne, co –"

"Come on nothing, you want to go anywhere, you take off those boots and socks."

"but I'm cold an-"

"I guess you'd better hurry up then, huh?"

He half sighed and half laughed as he gave in and started to remove his boots.

"Who won?"

He paused, looked up at her and pointed to himself with a wide grin. She laughed and her eyes twinkled with love and a slightly silly sense of pride as she said " good".

He placed his boots and socks to the side of the door and looked at her, his hands out and to each side asking without words if he was good to go. She stepped out of the way to let him pass. She watched him make his way towards the steps and just as he reached a muddy hand out to grab the banister she called out, "you'd best not be getting mud all over!"

He retracted his hand, turned slightly to look at her and said,"okay Mom" With a slight roll of his eyes.

She felt a pang -a jolt- of what, she didn't quite know in that moment. Pain? Elation? Fear? Love? All of those things. It was a slip, she knew, and as she looked in his eyes; so much like his father's, he smiled shyly at her and then turned back to continue up the steps, his hands at his sides as he climbed the stairs. That smile still on his face and the twinkle in his eye told her that maybe - he meant it. She felt the moisture in her eyes and she let out a slow breath

Her thoughts were interrupted by heavy steps on the porch. She blinked back the tears, smiled, and prepared her self to face a bigger, more muddied, blue eyed mud creature.