"Mama"
Michonne smiled to herself as Judith toddled around the nursery in the afternoon light, her short, chubby legs wobbling as she seemed to ricochet from one plane to another. Judith was babbling and screeching all the while, elated at the newfound freedom she was beginning to master. Having a belly full of sugary applesauce aided this process considerably. Michonne was awaiting Judith's inevitable, looming sugar crash when she'd likely be asleep before even being put in her crib.
Sitting with her back against the wall, her hands on her drawn-up knees, watching Judith as she bumbled and babbled, Michonne was struck with the bitter, stinging blow of recollection.
Andre.
Even now, his name was like a vesper echoing throughout the corridors of her memory, those darkened halls into which she never allowed herself to long wander. Monsters were there, pain was there, regret was there. Dread washed over her at the thought of opening those doors, and yet…
She couldn't help but think now of little Peanut as he repeated this same process, though he wasn't quite as vocal as Judith while he did it. Andre had been a bit more contemplative, measuring his steps, whilst Judith seemingly wanted to announce her mastery of this to anyone within earshot. Andre was calm and deliberate in this process while Judith drove forward in a torrent of babble and giggling. Andre didn't do that until much later. The happy, smiling little philosopher had set his inner wheels turning as his world changed.
Michonne found herself thinking of Botticelli's angels when she saw the smile and delight on Judith's little face; she had the same light in her eyes, the same cherubic features, and the same subtle hint of mischief beneath it all. She was steadying herself on her crib, grinning at Michonne who smiled back at her.
Judith always smiled when Michonne went to pick her up and that dribbling grin always made her day just a bit brighter. Her blue eyes always glimmered with recognition and when she saw Michonne, Judith always seemed to be that much happier. She always reached up with those little arms when Michonne bent to her, knowing she would be held and cradled. When she was, Judith was more than happy to play with Michonne's dreadlocks, delighting in the texture as much as Michonne loved the texture of Judith's downy, dark-blonde locks.
Judith reached out imploringly to Michonne and let loose a stream of excited babble.
"Oh, of course, sweetie," she replied with a grin, "That's very exciting!"
She knew this process and though this moment was one of warmth, there was darkness here too. It skulked just beneath the light of the sun, away from the light of contentment, like a cadaver drifting beneath the water of a seemingly serene lake.
Darkness was everywhere now, even amidst a day as beautiful and bright as this, hidden beneath the smile of a happy little girl, that inky blackness encroached with its own baleful, capricious hand. That hand had stretched out and, with as much indifference as a man might swat a fly, had dragged Andre from her. It took Mike and Terry, it greedily swallowed so many lives… So many corpses littered the pathways of this world now, the same as her memory; was there anything in this life now but death?
She shook that thought away. The old, nihilistic Michonne had risen to the surface just then, that creature which had been grown by that darkness, nurtured by it, and was dependent upon it. No, that wasn't her. Not anymore. That Michonne had been dragged, shackled, by the new into those unlit corridors of memory, left to thrash and gibber in the darkness. Though there was a small, dead hand that threatened reach up through the gloom, to release the old Michonne from that prison.
Andre.
"When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you," Michonne said softly, "Friedrich Nietzsche said that, and I believe he was correct. I think I stared too long, baby girl."
Judith eyed Michonne inquisitively. She was attuned to Michonne in a way that was only comparable to Rick; she understood that a shadow had fallen over her.
Judith made a plaintive noise while her eyes held Michonne's intently, seemingly searching her for an answer to which Judith did not yet know the question. When Michonne smiled at her, the inquisitive look faded from Judith's eyes.
"What are you ladies getting into up here?" The voice came from the hall.
Rick. Michonne's heart leapt in her chest, jolting her away from her gaze back into the dark. Her Rick. He'd ever had that effect, and now, more so than ever. When she curled against him at night, naked and warm and loved, she thought nightmares impossible. Uneasy dreams came as they are wont to, but true nightmares aren't borne of sleep; they're borne of wakefulness.
Rick appeared in the doorway, dressed in jeans and a passably-clean t-shirt. Michonne caught a waft of his cologne and her senses were instantly transported a night not long ago when the entirety of his body was new to her, when one bedroom and moonlight were all that existed. She looked up at him and smiled wanly, a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.
Judith giggled and ran to her father, hugging his leg. He caressed her hair, feeling Michonne's hand snake into his free one. He looked down at her with an inquisitive expression very similar to the way Judith had.
"What is it?" He asked softly.
Michonne struggled with it, not knowing what to tell him or even how. She wanted to tell him, but the words simply wouldn't come, those words she needed to say stilled by a small hand of a lost little boy who she'd loved more than life.
"I was just thinking about the past," she said, kissing his hand, "So many damn ghosts…"
Even those words felt, to her, like a betrayal of Andre. His smile was burnt into her memory.
Rick bent and scooped Judith into his other arm, never taking his hand from Michonne's. Judith leaned against her father with a slight yawn, resting her head against his chest. The applesauce had worn off.
"Too many," he said, squeezing her hand reassuringly as he could, though he knew there was more to this than she was saying, "Everyone living now is haunted."
That word struck home.That is precisely what she was, both by the ghosts of those she loved and by the specter of a monster she'd once been.
Haunted.
Michonne stood and Rick helped her to her feet. She touched Judith's hair as she rested against Rick. Michonne could see the way Judith's eyes shined as her nap encroached.
"She doesn't really have a middle setting, does she," she said, "She has 'play' and 'off'."
Rick chuckled. "You're very right. What do you think, baby girl? Is it naptime?"
Judith responded by burying her face in his shirt.
"Okay, then. Off to bed with you, young lady."
Rick moved towards her crib, carrying the steadily-fading Judith. As he laid Judith into her crib, her little eyes fell on Michonne, and she smiled as she stretched out a tiny hand towards her.
Such a tiny hand, like the hand that threatened the lock on the inner prison door and the darkness that lay behind it.
Judith's fingers stretched towards Michonne. Then she spoke.
"Mumm-muh," she said.
Rick gasped, looking down at his daughter. Michonne's hands shot to her face, covering her mouth, feeling her stomach hollowing out. Her eyes were afire. All else was silence.
"Mumm-muh!" Judith happily declared.
Rick turned to Michonne, his vision blurred by his tears. His mouth was agape, the core of his being alight with joy and pride, though when he looked to Michonne's face, it all changed. Tears were spilling out of her eyes and her shoulders hitched as she buried her face in her hands.
The lock had come undone.
It all came out now. All of it.
The torrent rushed through her like a wave of fetid poison and broken glass, the grief rending and sundering and crushing all things. Joy and love and hate and death and regret and darkness.
Michonne buried her face in her hands and sobbed, sinking to her knees.
Rick went to her immediately, falling to his knees and wrapping his arms around her. Michonne buried her face in his chest as her body was wracked with the sobs, with white-hot grief that touched every strand of her being, turning every variance and aspect of her existence into a form of bloodletting.
She wailed against Rick's chest as he stroked her hair, her body quavering, surrendering entirely to this agonizing release. It was as though centuries of poison, hot, viscous and tarry, were spilling out of her.
Rick was crying himself, his tears falling into the bed of her hair. He knew. This wasn't just about the baby who'd just recognized her mother, about her saying that first word, the first of countless words. No. This was a variance of Michonne he hadn't seen, one she'd taken such pains to hide, but now, in this moment, no longer could. There was wholeness here, and he could feel something flowing away from her as her body was wracked with sobs. He could almost smell it. A primal aspect of him rose to the surface in all its hatred, revulsion, and indignation. This Primal Aspect hated this new thing which had emerged from the woman he loved, hated it for hurting her, for making her cry, and the Primal Aspect wanted nothing more than to crush and rend and maim and kill.
Don't you hurt her. Don't you fucking dare.
"Michonne," he said in a whimper, his voice broken and tenuous, "Oh, baby. Please… Please just tell me."
He buried his face in her hair, holding her, letting her quiver against him.
Her face in the warmth of Rick, enfolded in his arms, she let it all spill out of her. She'd lost control of her body now, her muscles moving of their own accord, and she pitched forward into him. Her strength was gone. Everything that had kept her alive and breathing was changing and shifting, becoming something else. No more rigidity, no more facades, no more places to hide. Not from herself, not from Rick, not from Andre.
Rick held her for some time as her sobs slowed, as the heat radiating from her slowly cooled. The Primal Aspect receded with a foreboding snarl.
Nothing hurts her. Nothing. I will not abide it. I'll drown the world in blood before I allow it.
As the grief ebbed slowly away, they became human again, themselves again.
No more pain. Not for her. Never for her.
Then it was gone, padding away back into the dark.
Judith watched on and whimpered, afraid for mommy and daddy, helpless at mommy's tears. Judith didn't want those. No. Not those. Happy mommy. Mommy's arms. This hurt. She sniffled.
Michonne finally pried her face from Rick's wet shirt, looking up at his red, swollen eyes with her own. He caressed her face, gently wiping away her tears.
"Rick," she gasped, fighting another wave of impending sobs, the last vestiges of a long-buried sadness that lay spread her consciousness like a bed of wet thorns, "I need to tell you."
He kissed her tenderly, enfolding her with his arms. She breathed in the scent of him, the certainty of him. She basked in the warmth and radiance of the love she could feel in him as it threaded his body with each beat of his heart. He would always belong to her, much as she'd always belong to him.
The first steps into forever always begin in grief.
"I need to tell you about Andre. I need to tell you about my son."
Sometime later, Rick and Michonne lay on the couch downstairs as Judith slumbered above them. Michonne lay with her back to Rick, between his legs, as the fading light of the sun washed over them. His hands were around her midsection and she'd interlocked her fingers with his. There had been more tears for both of them, confessions and regret and the bloodletting of self-loathing, that constant friend who never fails you as it continually cuts pieces of you away in ragged, bleeding strips.
They'd been silent for a time, holding each other, Michonne resting her head against him.
"Now you know," she said, squeezing his hands, "I'm sorry it took me so long to tell you. I told Carl about Andre a while ago, but this was different. I needed this. I needed you."
Rick pulled her tighter against him, kissing the top of her head.
"I understand," he said, wondering how long Carl had known, admiring his son for his discretion and loving Michonne all the more for the trust she'd placed in him, "Telling me was very different from telling him. You're something to him I couldn't be and it's the same for Judith."
Her name made Michonne sniffle. She still couldn't shake the word from her consciousness.
Mumm-muh.
"I was a mother before all this," she said, "I was what passed for a wife, I guess. Mike was… He was an amazing man. Handsome, intelligent, but we were a rollercoaster. He was a good father until he wasn't. Until he just…gave up. I think maybe he wanted to die. Some part of him always did. But… that took Andre too."
She suddenly thought of Friedrich Nietzsche again, about the "will to nothingness" about which he so often wrote.
One must take care when he fights monsters, lest he become a monster himself.
"You're everything to me," she said, "You. Carl and Judith. Everything that's good in me now is you."
"That's not true," Rick said, "You're a good woman. Don't matter if we're here or not. You're still who you are and who you've always been, Michonne."
She searched her mind for the screaming, hungry, greedy darkness that had always been there. She looked for that woman, that woman born of blood and shadow and the will to nothingness.
She wasn't there anymore.
The door was opened, the lock broken, but the cell was empty. Andre had opened the door, let the beast out, and she'd escaped. No, not escaped.
She'd fallen away. In tears and grief and regret, she'd fallen away. She simply ceased to be. She was gone. Finally and truly, she was gone. Andre had let her out so she could die.
Mercy.
"Without you," Rick said, "I wouldn't be here. How many times have you saved me? I wouldn't even be sane. I'd be chasing ghosts. I'm just… Without you, I don't think I'd be anything. I wouldn't be any better than the Walkers."
Michonne understood then, what it was that she had. She'd grown together with him, bound to Rick in such a way that without one, the other couldn't be anything. It was as though each beat of her heart was contingent on the beat of his. It wasn't because she was dependent on him, no, it was because they were no longer truly distinguishable as two people. She smiled softly to herself, attempting to discern where she ended and he began.
"I love you, Rick," she said, "I've never loved anyone the way I love you. I couldn't."
"I love you, Michonne," he said, holding her tight, "I never thought I'd have this. I never thought I deserved it. I don't even know what to call it. Don't have a name for it."
She considered it for a moment, though this moment was brief. "Forever," she said softly.
"Yeah," he said, resting his face against her hair, "I can get behind that."
The smile that spread across her face destroyed all remnants of her grief, and her aching soul seemed to slacken with both relief and joy, finally casting off the last remnants of the other Michonne.
"Carl and Judith… They really couldn't ask for a better mama."
Michonne smiled, tracing his fingers with hers, feeling safe, warm, and loved, finally stripped of that darkness that had so long comforted and, at once, poisoned her. She was alive again. She could breathe. She could live. That darkness had shaped her, molded her, was finally no longer necessary. That darkness, more to the point, was no longer welcome. This new life and love would not allot for that darkness. Finally, at long last, she could be free of it. She could be whole.
I love you, Andre.
"Mama isn't going anywhere," she said, kissing his hands.
Mama.