Michonne wanted to throw up, and not just because of the constant bumps as the truck made its way through the woods, driving straight over every rock and root and hole in its path. It wasn't the smell of blood, either, though that wasn't helping her stomach any. She was surprised that still affected her, after all this time.
The sound of laughter coming from the front seat rang in her ears, and her stomach churned. She swallowed hard. Their situation was bad enough. Her friends certainly wouldn't appreciate her getting sick in these tight quarters.
She chanced a look around. Glenn was beside her, looking ragged and worn. His arms were around his knees, and he kept rubbing at his wrists. The ropes that had bound them in the woods left chafing marks on them both. Michonne felt her own sting, but she forced herself not to think about it. The gag had been worse anyway.
Beside him sat Rosita. Despite the tear streaks on her cheeks, she looked the best of the four of them. Not a huge accomplishment, though, Michonne admitted, given her own dirty, disheveled appearance. She met Rosita's eyes for half a second and the younger girl nodded, her gaze steely, before she leaned her head back against the truck's rough metal wall.
Out of the corner of her eye, Michonne saw Daryl, looking paler than he had the last time she'd checked on him. The scent of blood came from him, though she couldn't see the bullet wound. One of their captors had unceremoniously thrown a blanket over his shoulders, as if concerned about him going into shock. Then you shouldn't have shot him, she thought warily.
She couldn't look at Daryl for long. Though there were no similarities, she couldn't help but think of Anton each time she did.
He'd been such a good boy, from the moment he was born. He was a surprise, of course. She wasn't married. She thought Mike might propose when she told him she was pregnant, and she'd been both disappointed and relieved when he didn't.
They'd met through Mike's friend, Terry, a month after she'd moved out of Atlanta. She'd gotten a job as an assistant chef at a prominent steak house an hour outside the city, and moved in with a college friend who was dating Terry at the time. He invited them both to a party at his place on evening, where he'd introduced her to Mike. They hit it off immediately, and spent three years in an on-again, off-again relationship before finally moving in together. Then came Anton.
She smiled despite herself. He'd always been able to make her smile, even when she and Mike were fighting, or after her dad died. Anton had been the bright light of her life. And when the world went to hell, her only goal was to keep that light shining.
Tears filled her eyes and she blinked them away. She should have known better to trust Mike and Terry with her baby. She should have kept him with her at all times. She shouldn't have gone to the camp, where there were so many people she didn't know, so many people who could harm him. She was smarter now. Now, she could protect him. She was a completely different person.
She'd become that person too late.
Behind her, a man laughed, jolting her out of her thoughts. She was so damn sick of them laughing.
She wondered what those men had been, before. Had they always been like that, lurking in the corner, in the shadows, savoring the news stories of murder and destruction? Or had they been her mailman, or her accountant, and had something pushed them over the edge? She squirmed a little at the idea. If she hadn't found Rick's group, might that have been her?
She stopped living after Anton's death. She moved by putting one foot in front of another, ate because she knew logically she needed food, and slept when she could no longer tolerate the heartache she felt when she was awake. The only thing that made her feel anything was killing walkers, as if each decapitation was retribution for her son's life. She'd talked to Denise a little bit before her death, and the psychologist had said that, on a deeper level, Michonne was trying to make the world safer for other children by eliminating the source of the danger. Michonne had nodded politely, but knew she was wrong. There had been no altruistic motives; she'd killed walkers because it felt good.
She'd kept Mike and Terry for reasons she still didn't know. She told herself they were good protection - better in death than they had been in life. She wasn't sure if she believed that or not, and she wasn't sure what any other explanation would say about her.
Andrew was the first reminder that she was human. A much needed reminder that Michonne cared about something besides herself. Andrea had made her smile, not like Anton had, but it was still something. She'd given her someone to look after again. And when she'd died, she proved to Michonne that her heart could break more than once. She couldn't blame herself entirely for her friend's death, though. Andrea had been a grown woman. She'd made choices, and they were poor ones. Michonne had tried, and she'd failed, but that death wasn't all on her.
Rick's group was something else entirely. With them, she was not only caring for people, but they cared for her back. There was Hershel, the kindly old man who played Grandfather to them all; his daughters, Beth, the sweetheart, and Maggie, the love-struck girl who reminded Michonne a bit of herself; and Maggie's boyfriend and later husband, Glenn, the optimist who kept them all in good spirits. Carol was quiet but competent and kind, and Daryl was quiet but a great hunting and scouting partner. Tyreese and his sister, Sasha, were hardly ever seen apart, their devotion to each other touching, and Bob's shy glances towards Sasha were sweet. And Rick and Carl and Judith…
Carl wormed his way into her heart first, with his love for comic books and treats, and his unspoken need for a mother. Her maternal instincts never disappeared, she discovered when talking to Carl. They'd just been dormant for a while.
It was harder with Judith. She was so small and so vulnerable, it was hard to imagine how she'd survive in this world. The thought of loving someone so innocent and losing them all over again hurt, and it took some time before Michonne allowed herself to hold her. Once she did, though, she knew Judith would live. She wouldn't allow her to do anything otherwise.
Neither would Rick, who loved that baby despite the questions about her conception. Learning about Lori and Shane, and watching Rick care for Judith anyway, might have been when Michonne fell in love with him. She didn't realize it then, of course. She didn't really realize it until he handed her some breath mints on a couch - not usually a good sign, she noted wryly.
She was so glad she hadn't married Mike. She hadn't felt like this with Mike.
Not that she and Rick were married. They had barely started….dating. Were they dating? Was dating a "thing" still, or was it just assumed that after all this time, living together and fighting and surviving, that they could skip the dating and be…a what?
A 'nothing,' if things don't improve soon, she thought, forcing her thoughts again to the situation on hand.
Whatever they were, Rick was her family. They were all her family.
"I love you guys." The words left Michonne's mouth before she had a chance to think about it.
"We know," Rosita mumbled, pushing a stray lock of hair out of her face.
Glenn nodded but didn't say anything. He had the most to lose if something happened. With Maggie and the baby.
"We ain't dying," Daryl said quietly. He knew her too well.
You are, Michonne thought, but she didn't respond. Daryl didn't think he was dying. Maybe he wasn't. Others had been shot. Others had been hurt. They'd always survived.
Tonight felt different, though. She hadn't felt like this since the Governor had her and Hershel on their knees outside the Prison's gates. Someone was going to die tonight. She didn't know who or how, but she knew instinctively that it was going to happen.
This knowledge was almost unfathomable to her. Their group survived. They always did. Even when Alexandria had been overrun, she'd never truly believed they would die. They'd been together so long, and succeeded over such impossible odds, it didn't seem possible for a horde of walkers to tear them apart now.
When had her mindset changed? When had she stopped worrying that should would die? Because she didn't worry about it anymore, she realized. Living had become a given. She would live. Rick, Carl, Judith - they would live. Daryl and Carol and Glenn and Maggie and Rosita and Abraham and Eugene and Sasha - they would all live. Everyone else was a brief moment in her life. The othersneeded her family's protection. Her family would survive.
When had she become invincible?
The truck hit a bump and Michonne tumbled forward. She felt three sets of hands on her shoulders, and smiled.
"I'm alright," she mumbled, trying to regain whatever dignity she had left, held hostage and squatting in the back of a moving truck going through the woods.
The others nodded and it grew quiet again, except for another bark of laughter up front. She grit her teeth, and saw all three of her friends do the same.
"When the truck stops," Rosita whispered suddenly. "We have to fight. Or we'll die."
Michonne blinked in surprise at having her thoughts said aloud. "We don't have any weapons."
"Didn't at Terminus either," Daryl pointed out, his voice low.
"We got gassed at Terminus," Glenn whispered, and Daryl shrugged.
"We made it out."
"I have a weapon." Rosita reached down in her shirt and pulled out a small, slim knife. She smiled cheekily. "The morons didn't do a very thorough check."
Daryl and Glenn actually chuckled at that, but Michonne shook her head. "It won't be enough," she said quietly.
"But it's something-"
"It's something that will get us all killed." Michonne fought to keep her voice low. "We have no idea where we are, or how many of them are out there. All we know is there are four of us, and Daryl can barely stand" - Daryl made a sort of half-hearted objection to that - "and we have one pocket knife." Michonne sighed. "We can't fight them off."
The others stared at her in disbelief and she closed her eyes. "Pride comes before the fall," she muttered. And fallen they had.
But they would rise again.
Those of them that survived.
This was my first venture at writing Michonne. Hopefully she didn't sound too defeatist. She's not; she's just a realist, and I think she would recognize that their situation in the finale could be defined as "not good." The idea for her being a chef comes from her dream/flashback in season 4, when she's cooking and suddenly pulls out her katana instead of a cooking knife.
So I know who I think died in the finale (whose cliffhanger I loathed, by the way, but that's irrelevant). What are your predictions? Read and review and let me know! And, as always, I own nothing.