You can't do anything.
You…It all worked out for you. Can't you see that?
You can't help me.
It all worked out for you.
These words pinged to Michonne's mind after Sasha said them that day outside of the walls. It was a sudden thought that confronted her in her most content of times: playing a game of solitaire with Rick and Carl on the floor of the house, chatting with Maggie about, well, everything, outside on the porch after a long day of duties, brushing Judith's peaceful face for the last time before she left her in her crib to sleep.
It all worked out for you.
Did it really?
It did. But it didn't for a long time.
There was this sinking feeling in Michonne, a pulling need to talk to her and reach through all of the anger Sasha was feeling. After all, she'd been there. She knows the path she's on very well. Seeing the mirror of what she was like before the prison, before Andrea and the others, was scary and sobering. The distance between her past self and now was made clear in Sasha. Though she said she couldn't help, she at least wanted to try.
It was a good thing they hadn't had the chance to talk for a while, gave things a chance to cool down. They'd been far too busy with their duties to catch a break for one another. Or perhaps Sasha had been avoiding her, waking up in the wee hours just to steal away to that tower, spending the night more times rather than not. Every now and then whilst moving from house to house for the occasional call, Michonne would look up to the tower to see Sasha, the lone resident, watching. Determined to get an audience with her, she managed to switch shifts with Rick as constable so she could confront her up in her tower.
Whilst walking toward the tower, she mentally debated with herself on if she should go up. With hesitant hands she began to make her way up the ladder and into Sasha's makeshift home.
"Sasha," A voice called as it carries up the ladder. The sudden thickening in the air created upon Sasha's realization that the voice belonged to Michonne was tangible. Sasha's scoff, audible. "Do you have a couple of minutes to talk?" Michonne makes her way toward her, rubbing her tense fingertips on the palms of her hands.
"We already did our talking out there in those woods, Michonne." Sasha said nonchalantly, never taking her eye off her viewfinder and her hand off that trigger.
"Well, I didn't want to just leave things there. Listen, I know you have to make it okay your own way. I just can't stand around to see you get hurt, or worse, over you being so- "
"So what?" Sasha turns away from the window, putting her gun at her side, giving Michonne her full attention.
The quickness in Michonne's voice is lessened, "So… so blindly angry." It's okay to be angry. Believe me it is. But what you did out there was careless. It'll get you killed."
Michonne gazes onto Sasha's features. She can make out which ones favor Tyrese. Instantly, she's taken back to that moment where she talked to him about how being angry how the way the world was now, it destroys you.
"I told you then and I'm telling you now.I had it. I would have been fine." Sasha dismissed.
Michonne breathed, searching for eye contact, "Until you're not fine."
A sarcastic smile appears on her face, a laugh escapes Sasha's lips, "You know, you walk around here like you got it all figured out. You've got this," She motions to the house across the street that they all shared. " a little suburban community. You dragged us all out here and I guess you got what you wanted. Congratulations. But don't go dragging everybody else into your pipe dreams. It can't be home for all of us."
She was right; this was what Michonne had been hoping for. For her, this community surely was her dream come true, and it scared her. There were things to work on, definitely, but she couldn't understand why Sasha didn't at least appreciate being somewhere much safer than what's behind those walls. Slightly annoyed she countered, "Is being in here really worse than staying out there, Sasha? We're trying here."
The frustration in the sniper builds, "You really think this is real? That places like this exist? Can last? Look at Woodbury. Like I said, it all worked out for you, so you can't even see."
"What do you mean it worked out for me?" Michonne's eyes were widened at her accusations.
She tilted her neck, as if to examine her even more. " I've heard about you from the others. Yeah, you wandered around for a couple of months before the prison, we all did. But it's alright now because you fell right into Rick and Carl, created a good old nuclear family. You've got your own little slice of pie right here at the end of the world, even got a bouncing baby girl." Sasha's eyes were crazed. With her voice low and sure she said "But I'm here to tell you, just like I told Noah. It's not real. None of this is real, it's all going to go to hell soon enough and I don't wanna be around when it does. You gotta step up and realize what world we're in."
Michonne had heard enough to be livid, but she wasn't. She knew it was the hurt talk, deflecting. "You're saying that because you're angry, you know you don't mean that about Noah. And you don't know my story either, Sasha. We're talking about you here."
Mockingly Sasha snipped, "I'd rather talk about you right now, Michonne. Tell me, since you're so mysterious. What have you lost? Who have you done terrible things to, huh? Who did you tell that they wouldn't make-"
"I had a son."
Her words were piercing and silencing, a bullet that traveled and broke the glass in the windows of Sasha's eyes. Embarrassment and shock lay there behind, exposed her. You could reach right into her.
Michonne continued "A boyfriend… a camp. I had." It was eerie to see, Michonne recalling one her worst moments, with such barren life to it. With great caution, she continued. All Sasha could muster was to stare.
"Walkers overrun the whole thing when I was out on a run. My boyfriend and his best friend were too high to notice my baby had been eaten alive." she choked and the tears follow. "I was angry. I was gone... In a panic I carried those two on my back, literally. Cut their mouth and arms so they couldn't infect me. I thought that was what I deserved."
There was such a loud silence to the place for a while, you could swear it would never end. Sasha's jaw unhinged, her eyes were glassed over at her story, cross at herself for assuming. "Michonne... How come you never told anybody?"
"Nobody ever asked… that's what I used to say. But really it was just painful." Michonne floats around the area, picking at puckered paint of the walls. "Maybe I was still torturing myself, felt like… keeping it to myself would punish me more. But the thing was …I didn't deserve it. "She cranes her neck to meet Sasha's eyesight, "You don't deserve it. To torment yourself over what happened with Noah, Tyrese... Bob. You have to keep moving, for them."
Sasha walks over to the widow seal to sit on the corner, places her elbows on her thighs. "I'm… I'm just so tired of trying to find a way out of this. How do I even begin? How could I even try to be normal again… myself again." There was such grief in her voice.
Michonne reaches out a hand to touch Sasha's shaking shoulders and finds a place to sit by her side. "There is a way out. But, I will tell you, just like I had those two walkers on my back, you have a past to deal with. You can't go avoiding it because the more you ignore it, it eats back at you. 'Til there's nothing left. From there…You just do it somehow. One day you wake up and you've come out on the other side."
More silence followed those words for a bit, they were so comfortable in it. To be exposed to somebody, their bare hearts lingering around another, was something that they cherished.
"There you go again." Sasha chuckled a bit through the tears. "Making things sound easy." She looked up at Michonne from the corner of her eyes a little smile tugging at the side of her mouth.
"The first time I held Judith," Michonne rolls her head back with a slight smile, "it felt like holding a bag of hot coals. It was torture. Now, I'm feeding her, holding her… loving her. It toke me so long to get here, and honestly, I'm not sure if I'm there yet. Wherever there is. I'm not sure if I'll ever be. But I'm on my way. 'Cause I keep fighting. Can I ask you…do you want to keep fighting?"
"I do… I don't know why. But I do." Sasha shook her head, a bittersweet look on her face.
"That's the first step out. The reasons to fight, they come. "
That moment was so long ago. The pain of what was before… It still hurts, but not as much. She's in no need to guard her home, her life, her heart. Everybody is safe and okay, and Sasha is okay. Beside her, she can feel the warmth of another radiating. She does not worry that they will turn one day, nobody does anymore. She lies in bed and as her eyes open, she realizes she's there. She's made it. She's on the other side.
xxxx
A/N: This was an idea that I got while listening to "Bag Lady" by Erykah Badu about a month ago. I really wanted to explore Sasha and Michonne's relationship in depth especially around the end of season 5. There was so much mystery to this scene that I wanted to flesh out.
Songs on rotation:
"Hello" Adele
"Bag Lady" Erykah Badu
"Miss Celie's Blues" from The Color Purple soundtrack
Thank you so much reading, I really appreciate it!