Rick couldn't understand why his heart, dormant in the cage of his ribs, suddenly decided to awake and thump against the bars, a clenched fist relentless with the amount of hits it threw.
As he stumbled towards the fence, legs weaker than they were when he had had his first encounter with the zombies, Rick squinted his eyes and turned his head, believing that if he changed his point of view just a little, the sunrays would not hit the vapour in the sky the right way and the image of her in front of him would disappear.
Inwardly, he scoffed at the thought, remembering the fact that was how rainbows were formed. However, it was the only thing he could think of as the greatest excuse for what he was seeing.
It was her in the flesh.
Bloodied and bruised.
He kept walking and flashed his eyes over her body, to the toning of her arms and her scruffy clothes and her locked hair and her backpack and the samuri beside it, seemingly one with her. Then, finally, to her hands where she held a basket full of baby formula.
Rick wanted to smirk, to laugh at the irony, because after all this time she was still his saviour, even when she didn't mean to be.
Building up the smallest amount of courage he had, he looked up at her fully, taking all of her in and the air from his lungs seemed to disappear.
His hands shook like an earthquake and he couldn't help but open his lips slightly, as if going to ask a question.
In fact he wanted to ask a question.
But, he knew he was just a man, with unstable emotions and with a mouth not fast enough and a stomach not tough enough to ask the questions and recieve the answers.
Their eyes met.
Hers were harder than his own.
He gulped.
Unlike the ones he had known before all this, the ones that imitated the dewy delight of a spring morning, the ones that mimicked the feeling of finally finally feeling the warmth of the summer sun, these were dark. Cold. As if they had experienced just as much loss as he had.
Zombies growled around her and rocked the fence, but she didn't move. She stood flawlessly, lips parted, breathing heavy, her chest rising and falling to the beat of the world around her. He watched her press a hand to her thigh, her face wincing, closing off the look between them.
Rick focused on her bloody hand, watched it raise back to the fence, it was a plea to come inside.
He wanted to allow it, to go outside straight away and allow her to come in. To finally be her saviour. But he had seen a lot, the people he had known, the person he had known so well - Shane - had changed and he'd grew with him.
This... well this had ended much earlier and Rick was sure, he didn't know who she was anymore.
Whilst he contemplated in his head, the growls of the zombies increased and he watched her stumble backwards, limping slightly. Looking at her surroundings, Rick watched as the intensity of her eyes increased whilst she seemed to calculate just how many zombies were now aware of her presense and how long she in fact had left within herself to fight.
Pulling out her samuri sword, Rick glanced at the definition of her muscles and watched on to see her run her blade through a zombies skull. He watched her stumble back again, the swiftness of her actions untouchable.
Come on Rick, COME ON! He thought to himself. We need that baby formula ... and her, a smaller, more afraid part of him added.
Luckily enough the voice of Carl rung like a light in the darkness, "Should we help her?"
Carl had noticed the pasty white his father had turned and he was not sure why, his father was not such a man to be afraid, he was brave... too brave to be scared by this woman who was stumbling in front of them.
Rick scanned the amount of zombies before them and pondered on how they would exactly rescue her without any injuries. We can do it.
He started to run to where he had placed his gun before all this had occured and glanced back to watch Michonne fighting off another zombie, the louder groans and moans showing that they were in fact hungrier... angrier moreso. Just before he turned away from her, pressing his heels deeper into the ground hoping that he could reach the gun fast enough, the hard outer shell started cracking just enough for him to see what she held inside... fear.
She had always said she never wanted to die. Peter Pan had been the number one thing they watched every time she came over.
Grabbing the gun, he signalled for Daryl and Hershall unable to speak whilst the lactic acid built up in his legs. Despite it all, he ran back, and returned just in time to watch her stumble and fall, her eyes fluttering and all the fight leaving her body so her body became limp.
Before Rick could fire a shot, Carl fired two and got rid of the zombies that threatened to take her life away with one single bite.
"Carl!" Rick said and recieved the keys for the gate in return. "Shit." He said as he opened it and watched what was in front of him.
He knew she had always been a storm, messy and beautiful, but she sure brought a lot of shit in her wake.
Rick blasted a shot then a few more, watching out for Carl behind him who fired some more. He was unable to savour this moment, there had only been one time he had touched her skin and it was simply because she had asked him to in a daze of feelings they agreed would never happen again.
Looking around again, he shot one more zombie and made sure Carl picked up the basket.
He kicked away her Samuri sword, afraid that if she regained consciousnous she would attack him in an instance, bewildered at the sight of him once again as he was sure it was just as daunting to her, seeing each other after all this time.
"Has she been bit?" Hershal questioned behind him.
Rick bent down and hesitated, looking at her like this, like the last time he had seen her, eyes closed and lips parted. But this time, she was less peaceful, she was covered in blood and he didn't know her.
He ran her fingers over her body, under her clothes, checking for bites. Running them over her thigh he found a slick coverage of blood. Scanning his surroundings, he turned around to Hershel, "Gunshot."
Picking her up and throwing her over his shoulder, he walked back towards the gate.
Once closed he looked at Hershel, who seemed to be waiting for what he was about to say.
"It's her Hershal. It's Michonne."