PSA: I use this account as a secondary account so I can link people to my stories who, for whatever reason, have problems with reading on AO3. This is NOT a Richonne story; if I didn't make that clear enough I'm sorry. It never even occurred to me that this would turn into a thing.

Those of you who read on AO3 will know that over there you can have a pairing tag (with / in between the names) and a list of people who appear in your story. Fan Fiction Net is more limited in only allowing you to tag four characters. I had no idea that it's considered a pairing when you use those tags, which frankly makes no sense to me. But all right, I'll take Michonne off the list.

-.-

"We've got to move, Sara."

Michonne looked down at the little doctor, curled up on herself against the trunk of a fallen tree. All she could see was the woman's dark mop of short hair, tangled and sweaty, small twigs and leaves stuck to it. Michonne sighed and turned her head restlessly, peering into the underbrush through which they'd come mere minutes ago. Was something moving in there? Was that a moan she could hear?

She stretched out a hand. "Can you get up? I'll help you, c'mon."

The face that finally turned up to her looked translucent in the dusky light. The expression on the pale features was barely discernible, Sara's eyes the same disconcerting blank they'd been all day. Finally she nodded and began to push herself up stiffly, using the trunk for leverage. Finally upright she staggered. Michonne quickly grabbed the other woman's upper arm.

Sara barely seemed to notice someone else was with her. She cradled her belly with both arms, the bulge like a dark shadow emerging from her slender frame.

"Let's go," Michonne whispered. The approaching moans were definitely growing louder.

They set off down the well-concealed path Michonne had so often traveled with Daryl in recent months. She thought longingly of the hunter. If he were here with them now Sara would be his to protect, and Michonne could concentrate on getting them away. But the reality was starkly different. It seemed to be her fate to have sick and vulnerable women thrust upon her, with the universe sitting back and watching how she fared.

When Michonne found Sara, hiding in the middle of a cluster of low, prickly shrubs, the little doctor didn't want to come away. "Daryl said to go and hide here. He didn't want me to help." She motioned vaguely at the ruins of the prison, staring at the smoke curling greasily in the distance. Her voice was full of detached disbelief.

No, Michonne thought wryly, of course he didn't want his six months pregnant girl in the fray of violence, bullets flying everywhere.She peered closely at the other woman's face.

Shock. Just great.

Aloud Michonne said, "They're all gone. I checked. There's only the dead left, and some of them will be here soon." Fleeing the wreck of their home she had spotted the largest group of shambling corpses she'd ever seen make their way down the road by the prison, drawn, no doubt, by the din of the battle.

"Daryl will come. Or Rick." Sara frantically scanned the surrounding trees.

"Maybe," Michonne sighed. "But all they'll find is another ambling corpse. Let's go, Sara. We're running out of time."

Sara nodded, her face oddly blank. She let Michonne lead her away into the woods. As they stumbled along over roots and slipping on wet fall leaves Michonne's mind bleakly wandered back.

From where they were standing now it was clear as glass. The fall of the prison had been inevitable. Their efforts to ward off this foregone conclusion looked laughably feeble in hindsight. They should've left weeks ago, Michonne was sure. She had even suggested it a few times, as the negotiations with that crazy man from Woodbury dragged on. But she'd understood the others, then and now. Why Rick in particular had been adamant that they had to make a stand.

Sara's pregnancy was folly. The specter of Lori had been haunting the prison, and even Michonne, who had never known Rick's wife, thought of her end only with a shudder. And even if the pregnant woman lived, how could they keep a second infant safe? A baby would weaken them. Michonne had dwelled on it for weeks, but she had kept those thoughts to herself.

It was impossible, anyway, to be upset with the little doctor. In the early weeks of her pregnancy Sara had flourished, and her happiness had been a homing beacon in an increasingly bleak world. Every time Rick came back to the cell block, pale and exhausted from another fruitless meeting with the Governor, or sweaty from dealing with the steadily growing number of walkers outside their gates, his face invariably lit up as soon as he saw Sara.

Watching Daryl, lean and dirty from one disappointing foraging trip after another, make a beeline for his girl and wrap her in his arms, his face alight with love, gave the others hope that maybe trying to build a new world was not entirely without point.

As Sara's belly grew the hope they all tried to feed so desperately had shifted, their efforts had doubled. The prayers they sent to a deity in which hardly any of them believed anymore suddenly sounded urgent. "Please, let us be safe here, for the children." The effort of mere survival was replaced, for many, by a future worth believing in.

Utter folly.

Michonne had known it then, but she had prayed along with everyone else. She'd even gone out to do what none of the others dared, just to give them a fighting chance. Her trap, at the abandoned factory where negotiations were planned with the Governor, worked as planned. She had killed every single one of his men – only, the Governor hadn't been with them. The men she'd killed had been a vanguard, and Michonne had barely escaped with her life when Philip Blake had shown up with his main fighting force.

That had been mere days ago, and it was all unimportant now. For here she was, once again, in the wilderness without protection, water or food, and once again a helpless creature was hers to protect.

But, Michonne realized while she helped Sara negotiate some jagged rocks as they clambered up a steep gorge, she didn't really mind. She was guarding Daryl's and Rick's precious little doctor - and the hope that their baby still symbolized. She was protecting a piece of the future, the little ray of hope that wouldn't die.