It'd been a little over an hour now since the funereal proceedings had come to a close, for him anyway. They'd buried Beth the youngest Greene and the person whose undying hope and faith was rivaled only by that of her late father, Hershel. Gabriel gave a beautiful sermon for the fallen songbird and when it came time to pass the gauntlet, for everyone else to share some of their fonder memories of Beth and further immortalize her memory, no one could. He'd tried. He had tried his hardest. But one regrettable look in Maggie's direction and another in Daryl's and suddenly he just couldn't.
He was supposed to be the fearless leader; he was supposed to be able to carry on through the toughest of times. Instead he found he was crippled by his emotions, rendered unable to speak. All this time he was trying his damnedest to stay strong for everyone else but the relentless loss of the ones he loved, the ones that were too good for this world, was weighing on him now more than ever. How much more could they all collectively take? How many more blows could they suffer from before they broke completely and irreversibly?
He'd stepped up to speak and half way through the words had died on the tip of his tongue. The memory of being in that hallway and watching Dawn accidentally embed a bullet into Beth's skull came flooding back. It was almost like he could still feel her blood coating his skin, the unexpected splatter of the crimson liquid. Could still see the way her body fell limp and lifeless to the cold linoleum floor, a river of blood pooling sickeningly around her upper body and the gun that had taken her away. He could even still hear the gunshot ring loud and true, reverberating against the walls of the corridor. In that moment disbelief, rage, and strangulating grief had coursed through him at an alarming rate and he could've laid waste to every single one of those people. He could've but he didn't. And maybe he regretted that, too.
The only thing he knew for certain was that it had all happened so fast, so, so fast. And thinking about it combined with the weight of the situation had caused him to lose his nerve. He'd gone eerily silent and he could feel everyone's eyes on him, expectant but not judgmental. Tears had welled up in his cobalt eyes and he hadn't even realized it until he searched for Michonne in the small crowd. She was his safe haven, equivalent to imagining everyone in their underwear, a calming technique he'd taken to utilizing but when he found her he was met with a version of her that was distorted by the tears that were threatening to spill.
No one said anything nor did they make any move to extend comfort but she did, she came up and saved him from himself. She'd escorted him away from the event, hand in his leading him away from it all, and had taken him to a secluded area away from prying eyes where the grass had grown well above knee level and was the softest green he'd ever laid eyes on. She'd even sat with him in the tall grassy area for what he could only imagine was a good bit of time. There was no pushing, no probing, just comfortable silence. It was like she knew that he simply needed to be. Not speak, just be; at least for the time being.
And just being with her, near her, always caused this wave of tranquility to settle over him like a blanket. She had to know that otherwise she wouldn't have given him the reprieve he so desperately needed. He knew she could be quiet but the Michonne he'd gotten to know over the past couple of months was vastly different from the enigmatic chick that had hobbled up to the fence of the prison. She wasn't afraid to talk to him, she wasn't afraid to investigate and feel out a situation, but she knew. She had impeccable intuition.
After their time together had passed she'd left without so much as a word and he felt the sudden loss of her presence more than he'd thought he might. And she stayed away from him for a while undoubtedly making her rounds. Seeing about Maggie was probably high on her list. The two had grown unbelievably close back at the prison and watching her interact with the eldest Greene always warmed his heart, but he wasn't sure what it would do to him now if he bared witness to it. Before she came back to him he knew her final stops might include Daryl but would certainly include Carl and Judy.
She shouldn't have to check on his children when he was here, present, able to do so himself but he didn't think he could, if he were being honest. Not at the given time. He didn't want Carl to see him so disheveled; he needed to pull himself together before he could comfort him. And Beth had told him once that Judy was incredibly good at picking up on other people's emotions. Beth had told him that. Beth. She didn't even get to see Judy one last time before she was taken from them. He wondered if she'd seen the bloodied car seat as well. If she'd thought that Judith was gone just as he had...
He never heard Michonne approaching but from his peripheral view he could see her reclaim her seat beside him and could feel her warm brown eyes burning a hole into the side of his face. It was time to talk about it.
Rick turned his head just enough to be able to get a glimpse of her, but he couldn't look at her directly. Not at the given time, her gaze was just too intense. "I don't know what happened back there. I should've been able to do that–"
"Don't do that." When she cut him off in the middle of his berating, voice firm and uncompromising, he couldn't help looking at her fully. Her face was devoid of anything other than empathy and maybe even a hint of underlying sorrow. Whether it was sorrow for him and the way he was handling this or sorrow for the overall situation he didn't know, but the safest bet was a mixture of the two.
"Don't do what?" The look on her face aside he had no idea what she meant in uttering those three words and as much as he wracked his brain for what he could've done wrong he couldn't find the problem.
"Don't beat yourself up for being human, Rick." He hadn't been expecting that, that much was obvious to her. The perplexed expression he'd been wearing just seconds ago melded into one of conclusive understanding and he nodded resolutely.
"Alright, but–"
"No buts. You said alright let's leave it at that." She was ready to move on from the undue self loathing and skip straight to the comfort but it was clear that he wasn't. Not in the slightest.
"They needed me, Michonne. Maggie, Daryl. They needed me to step up when they couldn't and I let them down."
His entire body felt rigid and tightly wound, it was like he was a windup doll ready to break apart at any moment. At some point he'd maneuvered his body so that he was facing her completely but his eyes had fallen to focus on the grass that was being crushed under their weight. The inability to look at her now was nearly overpowering him so he'd decided the tall grass was an easier focal point.
"Rick, you're the leader but no one expects you to carry more than you can handle. And, yes, you're an incredible man but even incredible men break. Having a moment of weakness does not mean you're weak. You have to know you're the strongest man I've ever known and your kind of strength is such a rare thing in this world. So Superman has kryptonite and Rick Grimes feels with his whole heart. There is nothing wrong with that."
"But I didn't just let them down. I let her down. I let Beth down." The tears were coming back again, he could feel the sting of them pricking at the corners of his bright blue eyes. "She was right there. She was with us and then she wasn't."
For some reason he felt like it was safe, like it was genuinely okay to gaze up at her then and he did. Their eyes locked and he wondered if she can see all the tiny cracks on the surface of his soul. If she could see him for the unbearably broken man that he truly was. His eyes fell shut as he continued and the tears finally escaped, cascading down his face in transparent rivulets against his cheeks, searing his flesh.
"She — she came. She walked down the corridor and I pulled her into me. I kissed her forehead." His eyebrows began to knot as he recounted what had taken place from memory. "I kissed her forehead and wrapped my arm around her. I was so glad she was alive, that she was back with us where she belonged. And then I sent her on her way to the others, away from those people."
Rick's fingers were working on uprooting the grass subconsciously, voice shaky and uncertain as he admitted everything to Michonne with eyes shut tight. It was like watching him relive the moment over again. She hadn't been there and she was glad she hadn't been this time around. It hurt enough having to tell Maggie and then watch as her feet gave out from beneath her, body hitting the unforgiving pavement, because it was all too much. It hurt enough having been the one to relay a message that turned out be untrue. And it had hurt to be forced to be mere inches away from Hershel, the patriarch of the Greene family, when he'd died. That had nearly sent her back over the edge so she couldn't have been there again, but she knew to some degree what he was feeling, what was going through his mind. The guilt, the shame, the blame.
"The lady, Dawn, she –– she said the deal wasn't done unless she got either Noah or Beth back. I moved to argue and Noah, he was ready to go back if it meant Beth could walk out. So he's — he's going back and 'wait!' she says," The breaths he's inhaling are ragged and shaking him to the core and he knew he must've looked like a fool but he couldn't stop, not for the life of him. "Because she wants to say goodbye to him. She hugs him tight and that's okay, she's still okay. But then Dawn says something that's too low for me to hear from the distance I'm at and the next thing I know Beth is confronting her."
He shook his head and opened his eyes finally to peer into Michonne's. Pained didn't even begin to explain his expression as he stared at her for a good long while, silent. He didn't have to tell her what else happened because she knew but he hung his head low and rattled in another deep breath preparing himself.
"She pulls them from out of nowhere. The surgical scissors. Jams them into Dawn's shoulder and then its over. I feel her blood on my skin, warm, wet. And it's really over. I failed her. I didn't just fail Maggie and Daryl just then, I failed Beth back at Grady Memorial and that's something I'm gonna have to live with for the rest of my life. Why did I let her go back over there? Why?"
He didn't know what he was expecting in terms of a response but when he felt Michonne's index finger come to rest underneath his chin and lift his head up he knew that was definitely not it. And he half expected her to give him some heartfelt speech to make the pain go away for a moment but he was met with the feel of her beautifully full lips pressing into his and all he could think to do initially was to stay stock still.
But she showed no signs of it being accidental and no signs of planning to pull away as she continued moving her lips against his, determined. That was all it took, really. A moment of clarity and understanding was all it took for his quaking hands to come up and cup her face, holding her in place as he threw himself wholeheartedly into the act. Because thinking about how amazing and soft her lips feel slanted over his pushed the horrid thoughts to the furthest recesses of his tired mind and it was, he realized, the best thing she could've done for him.
The kiss wasn't sweet or tentative; it didn't speak to the idea that this was their first time engaging in such an intimate act. Instead it was sloppy, it was rough, it was passionate. It was all teeth and tongue and pent up emotion, their mouths engaging in a dance that both were trying to lead. And he relished every second of it; he hadn't gotten the chance to be so carefree and engrossed in an act like this in a very long time. He could feel her slender fingers tangle themselves in his unruly curls and the other set come to rest on his shoulder, giving a light, affectionate squeeze as the kiss began to wind down. It had become deliberately slower, almost loving as though in the last seconds Michonne were trying to channel all that she felt for him into it. When she finally did pull away from the kiss, much to his dismay, he gave her few gentle pecks but he didn't push for anymore than that. The moment had come to a close but he could appreciate it for what it was and he appreciated her for giving to him what he didn't even know he needed. She always had the uncanny ability to understand what he needed better than he did and he loved that about her.
Rick lowered his hands, that had regained their steadiness, from her face and wrapped his arms around her waist in a tender embrace, pulling her as close to him as physically possible. She accepted the contact without any hesitation allowing him to pull her onto his lap in one fell swoop. And once she was close enough he moved to bury his face against her neck, hiding away from the world in the place he felt safest, with her. After a few short moments she felt the wet warmth of what she knew to be tears against her skin, it didn't take much longer to feel his entire body shaking lightly with the silent sobs and low inhalations of broken breaths and this time she didn't pull him up for another kiss. That wasn't the sort of closeness he need right now, he had decided what he needed for himself and she was more than willing to give it to him. Because for as much as he needed to be held she found she craved the closeness as well. So she simply let him weep as she stroked his hair, smoothing it down and trying to reign in her own emotions for the broken man in her arms.