They fought together, they cried together, and that day they laughed together; but it was sometimes in the midst of laughter when they were reminded the most of what they had to lose.
It was late afternoon, and the streets of Alexandria were deserted as thick sheets of rain pounded the concrete. Many of the residents had gathered inside Carol's house, summoned to an impromptu afternoon feast of freshly baked cookies. They took comfort in the notion that it was the thunderstorm that drove them inside that day, as opposed to the horrors beyond the gates.
A few houses down, a woman stood alone by a window, shivering as she watched the thunderstorm outside. She made a solitary figure in the abandoned room, darkened by the bleak grey shade of the turbid skies. The faint glow of orange light emanating from the other house reminded her of where she should have been, but it soon faded, dimmed by the blur of water droplets cascading rapidly over the glass. Soon her view beyond the mullions was completely obscured, so her arms reached outwards and unfastened the window lock, lifting it open.
She inhaled deeply, relishing the metallic redolence of the wet soil unearthed by the rain as it seeped into the ground. A faint smile arched her lips as a soft breeze sprinkled her face with water. She closed her eyes, taking comfort in the soothing sounds of the turbulent weather.
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…
Her mind wondered, and it was not long before guilt stubbornly pulled her consciousness back to the house a few doors down, where less than a quarter of an hour earlier she had contributed to the merry guffaws and games which occupied the others as they scoffed down acorn cookies.
She should have stayed.
She should have tried harder to force the muscles of her face to curve her lips into a smile she did not feel. The recent period of relative stability had been the fountain of a cautious optimism for the Alexandrians, and her absence would bring them discomfort, because they had grown accustomed to the regularity of her presence. It was a contrived effort on her part to ensure the ubiquity of her presence as a member of a community she so desperately wanted, be it as a constable, a neighbour, a friend, a mother, a lover…
The image of a handsome dark-haired man with blue eyes formed in her mind. In a fresh memory those blue eyes swirled vividly with questions and concern as she had flashed him a sad smile just before she quietly slipped away.
She should have tried harder.
Behind her she heard the door open, and immediately she knew it was him before he even said her name.
"Michonne?"
She usually loved the way her name drooled from his lips, but on this occasion her heart ached at the uncertainty wavering his voice. A brief flash of lightening illuminated the room, and a clap of thunder soon followed. It was strange how she suddenly felt cold, noticing for the first time how wet she really was. She immediately reached out to the window again, forcing it shut.
She had left Carol's house in the middle of a storm, and her jeans and tank top had been completely drenched. Goosebumps festered along her arms, and a slow succession of water dripped from her hair. She began to shiver, stunned by a chill she had been impervious to until he had uttered her name.
"Michonne?" He repeated, his voice tentative.
She did not turn to face him, cowering in a feverish flush of embarrassment as her senses returned to her.
Rick.
She stood wet and alone by the window of her old room, while the people she loved remained a few houses down, thriving in a closeness she could not engage with that day. And now the man she loved had discovered her withdrawn and despondent in a room that they did not share, a room where he did not make love to her every night and hold her heart to his, where he fell asleep in her arms telling her how much he loved her.
She should have tried harder.
She opened her mouth to say his name, but something tugged at her throat, and she swallowed instead. She heard him slowly approach behind her. Still she could not turn to face him, and a silent tear escaped her eye.
His hand found her shoulder, and she tensed despite the warmth radiating from their tips.
"What are you doing here?" He asked, and whatever tugged at her throat tugged also at her chest.
He was concerned.
And he was hurt.
He was hurt because she had come back to where she had started when they had first arrived there. To her old room. She could understand how it must have looked, or how he must have felt, but she did not know how to express that this was not about him.
Instead, she simply shook her head, wishing that he had not followed her. She did not want Rick to see her like that. It was a side to her he did not often see simply because it was a side she chose not to display. They did not know how much they burdened her each time they spoke to her with that look in their eyes - that expectation that she would somehow handle it because that was who she was. They were done taking breaks and they had adjusted, but it did not mean that the sadness of their losses was completely gone. So it was at least once a week where she would go to her deserted old room, staring away into nothingness until the encumbrance of emotion dissipated into the mundanity of the view. Only in her old room could she allow those feelings space, refusing to contaminate the happiness of the room down the hall she shared with the man who held her shoulder.
She heard him sigh behind her, and then his arms were around her. In response she folded her arms conversely over his, finally relaxing her shoulders and settling into his arms. He hugged her so tightly that she could no longer shiver, and soon the warmth of his body arrested her need to do so. They stood there in silence; breathing together, watching the rain together.
She closed her eyes, trying to focus on the sound the water splashing against the concrete outside.
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…
His presence mitigated her sorrow, but it would never banish it completely, and she had come to accept that nothing ever could. It would forever be a low hum in the background of their new lives, one she occasionally felt compelled to succumb to if she wanted to maintain the sanity to even participate in their new lives. She felt him kiss her cheek and wipe away her tear, but that simple act only encouraged her vision to blur with more.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
She shook her head, sniffing.
He nodded slowly in response, squeezing her tighter.
A long silence followed.
Eventually, he spoke, whispering in her ear. "Come back to our room?"
It was the way he said it which broke her heart. He was uncertain – scared, that she would not come back to him. They were in love, but still uncertain.
And there it was, the provenance of her sadness. The fact that one of the strongest bonds she had experienced in her life, was no longer enough in this new world, one in which certainty resided only in the imminence of the threats outside the walls. Love was not enough... Love had not saved her son.
Finally she opened her eyes and turned to face him.
And she wished she hadn't, because she saw it in his eyes too – the expectation that she would get through it because she was strong. She knew he didn't mean to, and she doubted whether he was aware that he even did it. He was the leader, and he needed the woman he loved to be strong. He wanted the woman he loved to be strong, and she wished she could live up to the version of herself she saw in his eyes; she wished she did not falter so often that she had to retreat to her old room.
But she nodded.
Not because she felt she was strong, but because she loved him. And in that moment it dawned on her that being strong was not about feeling strong, but being there for the ones she loved even when she felt weak.
She smiled.
Rick cautiously smiled back, but she was smiling more to herself than to him. It was because she loved, that she was powerful.
She took his hand in hers and squeezed it.
"Let's go back to our room," she echoed.
But he shook his head, and it was her turn to feel insecure when he let her go and simply left the room. Her smile returned when he re-entered less than a minute later with a large yellow towel. Her heart swelled with appreciation, and this time the smile that arched her lips reached the corners of her face.
"No," he said, cocooning her within the towel and hugging her tightly. "Let's watch the rain together." He swept back the locks from her face, and pressed his cheek against her own. Turning towards the window, he locked her firmly in his arms, just as rumble of thunder shook the floorboards beneath them. "Let's watch the rain…together," he repeated.
A brittle hope warmed her heart, as she finally understood that the woman she saw in his eyes was the person she was when she was with him.
The hurt would perhaps never truly vanish, but she decided that she would never again cry alone.