AN: So this was just a fluffy little bit that was requested. Of course, the end of the season didn't exactly leave me with many fluffy feels, so I had to just sort of "ignore" a great deal for the "snapshot" type moment.
I've still got a lot of work to play around with this couple before I can say I feel confident writing them (it's mostly Rick that's hard for me, sometimes), but I hope you enjoy this for what it's worth.
I own nothing from the Walking Dead.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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"If that's how much I can trust you with a secret..." Michonne said. She let the words hang. She let them trail off. Taken without the fact that she could barely close her lips around the smile she was having a hard time controlling, Rick might have thought she was actually offended.
He'd been playfully chasing her around the bed for at least ten minutes, though, and he knew she wasn't really bothered at all about his confession about coming clean to Morgan, on her behalf, about the missing protein bar. It was just a way to prolong the game. It was a way to escape, for however much time they could, from the rest of the world around them.
"Was it a secret, Michonne?" Rick asked. She raised her eyebrows at him. She ran her tongue quickly over her lips to dampen them. The motion helped to wipe away the smile a little more.
"It was only you and me there," Michonne said. "Carl. It wasn't just a secret...it was a family secret!" Her eyes went wide at her own statement. It was clear that she hadn't thought about it before and hadn't planned to say it until she'd simply just said it. The smile reappeared again, smaller than before, and showed her pleasure with the statement. The discovery made his faux-betrayal all the more dramatic, especially since she was growing, every day, more and more pleased with the concept of their little family. "Our first family secret!" Michonne added. "And you told it! You're a snitch!"
Rick laughed to himself. He doubted her eyes, at that moment, could get any wider.
"Morgan already knew," Rick said. She shook her head at him and pursed her lips—an effort once again to rid herself of the smile, but all it really did was make Rick want to actually catch her this time and capture her bottom lip between his teeth. He nodded. "He did," Rick insisted. "When I told him? He wasn't even surprised. He said he knew that you did."
Michonne adamantly shook her head again. Once again, she'd conquered the smile that was torturing her lips while she tried to pretend that this discussion was of the upmost serious content.
"He asked me and I told him that I didn't take it," Michonne said. "And you snitched to him that I did take it and, what's worse, you made me out to be a liar. A thief and a liar."
Rick chuckled.
"You know, I don't remember you defending yourself so much when we were there," Rick said. "When you ate the protein bar and I said something to you about eating his food."
"He tried to kill us," Michonne said. "The least he could do was feed us after we survived." She held her finger up to him like she might stop him from saying something he had no intention of saying. "And—his mat did say welcome. If he was so concerned about someone taking his food, he shouldn't have been so..."
"Warm and welcoming?" Rick asked when she paused a moment to search for words.
She nodded her acceptance of his suggestion for a way to finish the statement that she hadn't fully worked out for herself. Rick shook his head at her. He wasn't trying, nearly as hard as she was, to hide the humor in all of this.
"I can see where the axe coming straight at your head could leave some doubt over whether or not he wanted us there," Rick pointed out.
"People used to have alarms," Michonne said, "but it didn't mean that you never expected guests."
Rick hummed his agreement.
"When he gets back, I guess you're just going to have to point that out to him," Rick said. "Tell him that—that it really wasn't theft. It was just accepting what you saw as a gift."
"Willingly and freely given," Michonne pointed out, nodding her head. "He had every opportunity to wake up and ask that I leave the peanut butter one for him."
Giving up the game, Rick lunged the distance of the bed, all that separated them, and caught Michonne. She wasn't trying, of course, to escape him or he'd probably have missed. He wrapped an arm around her and she dissolved into the laughter that she'd been trying to contain as he dragged her body toward him.
Her laughter, honestly, was one of the things that Rick found most beautiful about her. When he'd met her, he might have told anyone they were crazy if they'd suggested that would be one of the things he'd learn to love most about her. Back then? There hadn't been any laughter. She'd hardly ever even come close to cracking a smile. Now? When Michonne laughed, she did it with her whole heart. All of her spirit showed through. She would tip her head back, her mouth opened wide enough that he could have counted her teeth if he'd been so inclined, and she'd laugh loudly and heartily.
Michonne laughed like she meant it. When she laughed, she did it like everything was right in the world.
And it made Rick feel, honestly, like everything was.
Everything around them was threatening to crumble. It was threatening to cave in on itself in decay and destruction. But it just seemed like it had to be alright when she laughed, especially if he was the one to induce such an emotion in her.
Rick readjusted her as best he could and she took over from there, somewhat rooting her body into the mattress until she was comfortable. He loomed over her and she smiled at him, waiting to see what he might do next or what he might say.
"You know," he said. "If you wanted to make it better? Make amends? I know you have that stash—I know there's at least one protein bar in there that you could offer to Morgan. Replace what you took."
Michonne furrowed her brow at him.
"I guess you're telling people about my stash too, now?" Michonne asked.
Rick shook his head.
"Never," he said.
Michonne pushed herself up slightly to perch on her elbow.
"You are! That's why my Twix bar was missing!" Michonne declared.
Rick snorted.
"That would be my son's handiwork," Rick teased. "Our son," Rick added. He watched for a change in her features—something to show that she disapproved, but she didn't give him anything of the sort.
"You're still a snitch," she said, this time much more softly and with much less of the enthusiasm that she'd put behind it before.
Rick simply hummed at her, giving in to agree with her for the time being.
"A snitch who—loves you," Rick offered.
She raised her eyebrows and cut her eyes at him. He playfully gouged her side and she twisted into him to stop the tickling.
"You're not going to say it back?" He asked.
"I would," she said. "But—you'd probably just run and tell everybody."
Rick laughed to himself.
"Just like the protein bar," he responded, "I think everybody already knows."