A/N: Hi! I always wished they would've let Michonne be pissed at Rick for deciding to give her to the Governor, even if she understood, so I used that as a jump off point to this story. It's 10 chapters long and is complete, and updates will be posted Mondays and Saturdays. I hope you like it!
The Only Person in the World
Michonne Warren stood in the middle of the road and watched Merle Dixon drive off. Where he was headed, she wasn't sure. Was he making an escape, or would he have the gall to return to The Governor empty-handed? She couldn't hazard a guess where Merle was concern. Because although she pegged him as not that bright, she was still surprised that he'd let her go. He, of all people, had taken mercy on her and let her go. And here she thought she'd been talking in vain when she'd been trying to appeal to his decent side.
The car disappeared beyond her line of sight, and she was left staring at a long stretch of empty road. How appropriate.
She turned around and looked at the empty, leaf-strewn stretch of road behind her. Where she'd come from.
The katana was weightless in her hand. She squeezed the scabbard as a mean of forcing herself to focus on the subject that was most important: not Merle's fate, not the fact that she was still alive, but what she was going to do next.
Returning to the prison was out of the question.
Right?
Right.
There was still the matter of persuading Andrea to extract herself from the Governor's clutches. But there was a whole group of people aware of Andrea's location now. A competent group. Andrea's people. As much as she wanted to rescue Andrea, she couldn't ignore the fact that she herself was both a target and a pawn. A target for the Governor and a pawn for Rick. Disposable.
Her upper lip curled involuntarily. What she wouldn't give to run Rick Grimes through right now. Straight through the heart. Or the neck.
She'd told Merle that a truly evil man doesn't regret his despicable decisions. They don't weigh on him. He remains light as a feather.
She pictured that to be Rick right now. Light as a feather, thinking Merle was handing her over to the Governor to do with as he pleased in exchange for the safety of his people at the prison.
Yeah. It was clear now that she hadn't settled long enough to get a proper read on Rick Grimes, and she would love nothing more than to slice his ass from here to Sunday.
Stepping away from her thoughts for a moment, she realized that she needed to get off the road. But to go where?
The motel, of course. The answer came annoyingly quick to her.
She walked over to her left and disappeared into the woods.
She was careful as she walked, ears alert, eyes alert.
Rick's face barged into her mind's eye, and she scoffed. It was practically a growl. His confused, curious face the first time she'd seen him at the fence. His slow walk to her. Him standing there doing nothing, even when the walkers, walkers, his group called them, even when the walkers started to swarm her.
As she'd faded on the ground, she'd hoped that none of the gunshots she was hearing were aimed for her.
Then he'd grabbed her wound. She didn't blame him for that. Especially since she'd slapped the shit out of him in response. Twice, in quick succession, slap slap, the second harder than the first, and then Daryl had pointed his crossbow at her while yelling at her to stop and the boy, Carl, had raised his gun, and Rick had told them both to hold it.
Keep your hands off me. That's all you gotta do.
She'd been speaking to all of them, including Hershel.
But she didn't blame Rick for grabbing her wound, didn't blame him for taking her katana hostage afterward, and she didn't blame him for later pointing a gun at her. She'd been as much a stranger to him as he was to her.
But that was all in the past, at least she'd thought so. They'd zeroed in on common goals: ward off the Governor to keep the prison and save Andrea. And she'd relaxed enough to turn her back. And gotten bopped over the head and kidnapped for her troubles.
Fuck them.
She hadn't settled anyway. She hadn't thought about things beyond getting Andrea away from Woodbury and defeating the Governor. But now the decision had been made for her: she couldn't stay. She wanted the best for Andrea, but she wasn't going to get killed for her, especially if the decision to die would not be hers.
Outsider.
That was what Merle had called her. That was what she was. An outsider, passing through, like a season. She'd been a season in Andrea's life, a connector. She'd connected her to her group, and now they could go after her and carry out the rest.
Besides, she apparently had a bounty on her head. That should be her biggest worry.
The Governor had people. What the hell was she going to do against people? A damn militia.
She sighed, and she realized then that she was loudly crushing the leaves under her feet. She'd gotten distracted, lost in her thoughts. Stupid. Very stupid.
She stood still and listened, gave the illusion of looking straight ahead while staying alert for the slightest movement in her peripheral vision.
Satisfied that there was nothing, she continued forward.
If Rick had agreed to give her to the Governor, then the Governor was waiting for her. And when she didn't show up, he would come looking for her.
She stopped walking and turned in the direction Merle had driven off.
She could take the fight to him. He wanted her. She could show up, the deadliest iteration of be careful what you wish for.
But she needed to put more thought into it than that. Showing up had worked once, but she wasn't going to count on it working twice.
She would take the fight to him. But she needed to prepare.
But which did Philip want more, her or the prison?
Hell, a man like him? Both. And she was not going to spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder.
The best thing for her would be for him to attack the prison to blow Rick's head off for Merle's failure to turn up with her. That would buy her the time she needed.
So she should probably be heading in the opposite direction, in the direction Merle had driven, in Woodbury's direction.
But she couldn't go empty-handed. She needed to regroup. She needed supplies.
But even as she soldiered on toward the motel where Merle had secured their ride, she knew: she didn't know the first thing about hot-wiring a car. Which meant she couldn't take too many supplies with her.
She stopped walking.
"Fuck."
When she got closer to the motel, she became even more alert. She and Merle had driven away in a car, but she'd kept her eyes trained to every opening in the woods that could serve as a marker.
Just as she expected, she saw the eight walkers that had been drawn by the sound of the car alarm earlier. She could've avoided them, but she wanted the exercise, and she needed to let out her frustration. Since banging her head against a wall wasn't an option, she went at the walkers. She made her way through all eight.
Staring at them on the ground, dismembered or otherwise cut open, she pretended they were Rick.
One was still moving. The head was off the body, but it was still snarling and snapping its jaw. She walked up to it and raised her sword.
"Hey!" a male voice yelled as it approached. "Where's my brother?"
She didn't look up. The severed head could be Daryl Dixon. She drove the katana through it and then looked at him. Maybe it was her stormy mood, but the resemblance between him and his brother couldn't be more pronounced at the moment.
Daryl's eyes briefly fell to the katana. "You kill him?" he asked, his tone more subdued.
She was flattered. "He let me go. He had a conscience," she said, her tone measured as she slowly tilted her head.
Whereas she'd wondered where Merle was driving off to, Daryl experienced no such indecisiveness. His narrow eyes widened for a second as a lightbulb turned on, and then he said, "Don't let anyone come after me," and rushed past her.
She slowly turned to watch him go. How presumptuous. How fucking presumptuous.
She raised the katana and flicked the excess blood off. She would still have to sheath it with the leftover blood. She hated doing that. It was a personal pet peeve. It always made her wonder how dirty the inside of the scabbard was.
Grimacing, she put the sword away and finally draped it across her body.
She watched Daryl run off. To his death, probably. She was willing to put money on Merle's side in a confrontation with the Governor, but she wasn't sure about Daryl.
Oh well. More bumps on the Governor's road to get to her. She wasn't going to complain.
Don't let anyone come after him. He thought she was going back? He must be as delusional as Rick.
She rolled her eyes at her joke about Rick's mental health, because she was not in the mood to laugh. Turning, she trucked on toward the motel.
Where does the only person in the world go?
Where does the loneliest person in the world go?
These were the thoughts that hounded her as she walked up to the motel. Rummaging through the rooms and the front office didn't help. The thoughts still nipped at her.
Where does the only person in the world go? Where does the loneliest person in the world go?
She took the chair from the writing desk in the room she was in and sat on the side of the wall where the door opened. Sunlight streamed into the two double-bed room.
Where does the only person in the world go?
She was floored that she was even asking herself these questions. It said something about her that she did not want to acknowledge. She was out. She was out of the emotional quicksand, and she was facing the world.
She could really do with seeing Mike right about now.
She let her head fall slowly against the wall behind her. Now why'd she have to go and think that?
She'd stopped seeing Mike shortly after she'd found Andrea. Andrea, who'd pulled a gun on her.
"Oh fuck," she said, grimacing as she stood from the chair, because she knew where her thoughts were going. That feeling. That fucking feeling.
You need me. She'd said those words to Rick in Woodbury. She'd been bloody and battered, but she'd been victorious. Only she'd felt everything but victorious. She'd felt like she'd lost. Andrea, her friend, whom she'd cared for and nursed for eight months, had pulled a gun on her in defense of a man she barely knew. The conviction and distrust in Andrea's eyes, both aimed at her, had sliced her heart in half. She might as well have discharged the gun.
She'd walked out of the room and out of the house feeling completely dejected. Worthless. She'd wanted to open Andrea's eyes, to show her. Instead it was her eyes that had been pried open.
So when Rick had pulled his gun on her, mere minutes later, she hadn't even flinched. She hadn't been capable.
You need me. She hadn't believed those words one bit.
And now her thoughts ran rampant. Who needed her now? To whom was she vital?
Mike didn't need her anymore.
She closed her eyes and put her fingers against them.
Mike didn't even exist anymore. She'd cut him and Terry down in a quick act of survival. They'd let her down while they were alive, and then they'd had the nerve to be moaning, and hissing, and shaking their shackles when there were violence-thirsty men looking for her. She'd cut them down.
Andre didn't need her anymore.
She pushed at her eyeballs.
No one needed her.
No one cared. No one gave a fuck.
She was almost hand-delivered to her death today.
She could still die.
No one gave a fuck. She would not be missed.
"Holy shit," she breathed harshly, her chest tight as she dropped her hands and opened her eyes. She willed her thoughts to stop. She tried to steer them.
Since when had she wanted to be needed? Wanting to be needed was weak. It was weak! It was weak!
She didn't belong to anyone, and she was okay with that.
She was absolutely not okay with that.
Some invisible essence, Time, maybe, wrenched the control of her thoughts away from her.
She hadn't belonged to anyone since Mike and Andre. That fact hadn't bothered her until now. For the first time since she'd lost her baby, she was truly on her own. Even trauma and grief had abandoned her, and now her heart was open to these...fucking emotions.
The end of the world was too conducive to navel-gazing. It was quiet. Not enough distractions.
Shoulders drooping, she slowly walked to one of the beds and softly sat down, her small body feeling smaller now, like it took up very, very little space.
What she wouldn't give to see Mike right now.