The first time I saw her I stared.
I won't lie and say it was because I recognized how beautiful she was or how strong she looked with that sword strapped to her back or just how stupid she looked standing out there in a sea of walkers with a bleeding wound. At the time, I couldn't trust my mind.
I couldn't trust my ears; I couldn't trust my eyes.
Seeing this strong woman outside our gates seemingly delivering the one thing that would keep my daughter alive, the baby that Lori died to bring into the world, seemed too good to be true.
I couldn't trust my eyes.
Now I feel as if I'm right back in that moment. I can't trust my eyes, as I watch the bat whistle through the air and make impact with her right arm. She doesn't cry out, she just reaches out with her left hand to try to steady herself. The blood shines off the barbed wire as the bat connects with her back.
She coughs, grunts at the next blows follow quickly, left shoulder, left flank, chest. She brings her arms up to shield herself, the right one not coming up farther than halfway.
Back then I'd had to trust Carl's eyes, as he turned to ask me if we should help I knew that he could see her too, that she was real. And its Carl's screams that I trust again. He's seeing this. It's not just a figment of my mind.
"Stop. STOP!" I yell at Negan and lurch to my feet. The bullet rips through my arm as I instinctively dodge it.
"Hold fire!" He spits at someone behind me. He swings the bat up and points it right at my face.
"Thought I told you to stay on your knees."
"Would you? If someone was killing a member of your family would you stay on your knees?!" It's out before I'm able to reign it in. Just a few days ago I told someone I didn't take chances anymore. Life always seems to make a liar out of me.
Negan looks at me for a beat before he laughs. He turns and looks at his men surrounding us.
"I like you. " he says. "You're loyal. I can respect that." He looks at me for a long beat and turns.
"Take 'em home." The saviors move in pulling my people up from the ground throwing them into the backs of trucks. I look at Maggie, white as a sheet and Michonne, motionless on the ground.
"We need a doctor." Negan glances back at me, I pull away from the savior that's tried to grab me.
"We need a doctor."
He considers.
"John," he says and a tall dark skinned man steps forward. "See that a doctor is sent to Alexandria. " he drags out the name.
"Named after Alexander the Great." He says, looping his finger through his belt loops.
"He too was undefeated in battle for a very long time. " He takes another step toward me and we are nose to nose. I stare into his dark eyes, trying to decipher just what kind of lunatic I'm working with this time, what kind of crazy I will have to destroy. Because I will. I will destroy him and I will take pleasure in his death for that he's done to Michonne.
"That is until his hubris was his undoing. He was poisoned from the inside. " he whispers.
I frown, I don't care what he's talking about. I need to get my people home. But I stare back. Right into his dark eyes and I'd like to say I could see into his soul our something equally ridiculous. But all I can see is a man.
A man who has no idea what he's gotten himself into. A man who doesn't know the horrors that I've seen, that I've done. But he will. He must see my lack of focus because he motions with his hand and I'm dragged into the back of a van. Right before the door closes I see Darryl leaned against the back wall and Sasha and Carl bent over Michonne.
"Carl?" I say as soon as my eyes adjust.
"I'm okay Dad, Michonne—" his voice cracks as he grips a torn piece of her shirt.
I try not to look at her, not directly. I can't afford to fall apart until I know that we're all safe. She would know that. She often knows what I'm thinking, what I'm doing even before I do. She would want me to get us home.
"Sasha?"
"She's breathing." She says, "It's shallow, but she's still breathing." She has her fingers pressed into Michonne's throat, monitoring her heartbeat.
"Okay," I say, not able to say anything else. My mind is moving at an alarming speed, something I've come to recognize since the world went to shit. Moving through scenarios, calculating possibilities, trying to figure out if a person is going to try to kill me or not. I've had to hone my senses when it comes to these things and I'd thought I'd gotten pretty good at it. But once again this life has taught me that I don't know anything. I guess Negan was right, my hubris has made me comfortable where I shouldn't have been.
It doesn't take long for the van to slow, the crunch of the gravel of the roads giving way to the sound of asphalt right outside Alexandria's gates. The doors are wrenched open, and I open my left eye. I've kept it closed since I was thrust into the van. It doesn't need any time to adjust to the flood of light from one of the Savior's flashlights. I step out on my own. I search for the other van and watch as Glenn emerges supporting most of Maggie's weight. Abraham, Tara and Eugene emerge after them.
I turn my back to Negan, reach over and carefully lift Michonne from the bed of the truck. Carl arranges her arms so that they're not dangling and lifts the strap of her katana over his head.
A gunshot rings out.
Eugene slumps to the ground as Negan steps out of the shadows from behind me. Shocked distraught noises cut the silence after a moment. And I've lost another one.
"I told you, I had to kill one of you. Just to get my point across." Negan says, his voice low. "Now all you have to do is follow through on our deal."
"Dad—" Carl's voice brings me back, breaks me out of the stupor
"Can we go now?" I ask, trying to keep my voice even. I can't let him know I'm affected. I have a feeling that's just what he is looking for.
"We'll give you a couple hours to get settled." He says as he swings the wire covered bat up to his shoulder. "I'll even send a few men over to pick up our first payment. As a sign of good will and all."
As soon as everyone is inside the gates we find Alexandria in a panic. Darryl's been shot, Maggie is even paler than she was before and I'm carrying -. I don't think her name. I can't.
Glenn moves with Maggie toward the infirmary, Abraham's got Eugene, bringing the body inside the gates and Tara and Sasha are helping to keep Daryl upright. He's bobbing and weaving like he's drunk a whole gallon of that cabin moonshine he's always talking about and surly enough to try to push them away. He'll be okay.
"Daryl let them help you to the infirmary." Carl barks and for a moment I don't even recognize his voice. Its no longer the voice of a child, my child, it's the voice of a man. "Make sure the gate is secured—" He continues to dole out orders and miraculously everyone does his bidding. I'm walking, then running, pushing the door to the infirmary open and Rosita's already waiting for me. I lay her down on the bed and it's the first time I take a look at her.
She's—broken. Weak. Those words are some that I would never associate with Michonne. She's always been solid, always been untouchable and unflappable in her conviction. The only time I'd ever seen her hurt—physically, was that first day. I remember digging my finger into the wound at her thigh and instead of shrinking away like I'd anticipated she'd come at me. She never shrank away from pain.
Her head is bleeding, her locs matted with thick rich blood. Her beautiful face is swollen and almost unrecognizable, both of her eyes shut. Her right arm hangs awkwardly off the side of the bed and she doesn't stir when Rosita lays it on the mattress.
"I—I need help." Rosita's voice trembles as she looks down at Michonne, and my heart drops. She's going to die. She's going to die She's going to die. She's dying. "RICK." I raise my hand to press my thumb and forefingers into my eyes before I look at her. "Get Tara."
I nod, or at least I think I do, and the next moment Tara's running through the door and following Rosita's orders. I step to the window, and my mind wanders. I remember the last time I felt like this. The last time I stood in this very room trying to bring my mind around to believing that I someone I loved was about to die.
Then Michonne had taken care of me. She'd taken care of Carl, holding his hand and reading him those stupid comic books that he liked. She'd taken care of Judith, feeding her and keeping her entertained and feeling loved while I was incapable. While I was losing my mind. Now it's Michonne and there's no one to take care of things while I fall apart.
I walk out of the main room and into the bathroom to splash some water on my face. My skin is pale, my eyes too wide, my dark hair hangs damp with sweat in front of my eyes. I lean down and splash the cold water over my face and neck, smoothing my hair back into some semblance of tamed. I take a deep breath and rest my hands on my hips, instinctively reaching for my colt, but it's not there.
When I get back into the infirmary, the doctor's leaning over Michonne, shining a light into her eyes.
"How is she?" my voice is rough, the sound squeezed through my gritted teeth. He sighs and looks up for a second.
"Her pulse is steady. I've given her some pain relief so she won't be waking up anytime soon—" he trails off.
"How-is-she?" I don't have time for being gentle. I need to know. I need to know if she's—
"She took a couple of really hard blows to the head. There's a laceration on the right side, but that looks like the worst of the wounds. Her hair protected her skull pretty good. But that's not to say—" He pauses. "There's no telling if she will recover. The brain is fragile. She could have a subdural hematoma—a bleed between the skull and the brain and honestly that would kill her. She may just have a concussion. There's no way to tell, we just don't have the equipment."
I nod and look down at her lying so still in the bed. Her arm is wrapped up, the cuts on her face taped together, gauze wrapped around her head.
"The arm's broken, but that will be the least of your worries."
"So what do we do?" I ask, already knowing the answer. It's always the same.
"Wait." Rosita says, I'd forgotten she was there. "If she wakes up—When she wakes up, then we'll go from there."
I nod and take a seat on the stool that Tara passes to me. I take Michonne's hand in mine, her skin just as soft as it's always been and kiss the back of it. I don't care if they're still watching, or if they're still there, she's the only person in the room for me.
"Rick why don't you let me take a look at your arm?" Rosita asks, and I ignore her.
I lean forward, closer to her ear. "Chonne, I'm here. I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere." I tell her.
It reminds me of the day she told me she was staying. She was done taking breaks, she'd said. I'd been so happy to see her on the other side of that door when she'd found us, it was just like the first time all over again. I couldn't believe my eyes. She'd brought back Carl's laughter and my hope. She'd brought me back. The man I used to be back before the world went to shit and the dead rose again. The man who could smile easily and laugh without irony. The man who wasn't haunted by the faces of the people that I'd killed or the people that I'd failed to save. When it was just me and her I could be Rick Grimes, ordinary man, unsure and too cautious. I didn't have to be the leader, the man making all the decisions, holding everyone's lives in my hands.
And before I can hold it back, it's pouring out of me. Everything that I'd meant to say. Words that I'd thought I'd had plenty of time to say.
"I love you." I breathe. "I think I've loved you for a very long time. First as the woman who saved my starving child, and then the one who was my son's best friend when I couldn't be. I loved you as my friend, as my confidant. I loved you as the woman who saved my life. I loved you as my rock, who I could look to when I was unsure. I love you now as the woman who holds my heart. I'm in love with you."
"I'm pretty simple man, plain. I pale in comparison to you, and I know it. You'd be able to come up with a prettier, fancier way to say it, but I love you. I need you. I always have, and I didn't tell you because I was scared." My voice hitches, and I clear it shocked to feel that my face is wet.
"You know what I'm scared of now 'Chonne? I'm scared of you leavin' without knowin' just how much I love you."
