The silence was the worst.

Rick sucked in a shaky breath and closed his teary, sleep-deprived eyes, slowly exhaling. Painful losses had become so common, before one had registered, someone else was gone. Such was the world they lived in, but somehow they had managed to remain intact, until now.

He and Michonne had arrived at Hilltop, and after an influx of embraces and words of heartfelt condolences, they had made it to their room, to the loud, crushing, suffocating silence that had invaded their bubble from the moment that hushed pop changed their world forever.

Michonne walked over to the bed and sat while he hovered about the door. "Rick, I need you to talk to me," she said.

He swallowed the knot that had become a permanent fixture in his throat from the moment Carl had lifted his shirt and shown them the mark that had sealed his fate. Rick's grief overwhelmed him, but Michonne's - hers intensified the ache that weighted his heart like a boulder. He wanted to hold her, he so desperately needed to, but it seemed the tick of every second brought him closer to the breached dam within him that would unleash a torrent of tears he wouldn't be able to stop, and that she didn't need. He couldn't risk it. He had to be strong to keep her strong, and that meant being there, being close, but giving her space. "Michonne, please, I…"

"No. Did we not just put our –" She choked back a sob. "Are we going to pretend it didn't happen?"

His heart clenched from the tears streaming from soulful brown eyes. "I wish I could." He reached for the doorknob, needing an escape. "I'm going to take a shower."

Michonne raced over and slammed the door shut. "Don't you dare leave this room, Rick Grimes! We are going to talk about this." She sighed deeply, her shoulders slumped. "Are you punishing me?"

"What?" He shook his head, forcing himself not to crack from the heartbreak in her eyes. "No," he croaked out.

"I was resting, and then I left. If I had kept my eyes on him –"

"What? What would've happened?" Rick backed against the door. "He wouldn't have gone off in search of Siddiq and gotten bit by that walker? No. Carl wasn't a baby. He made a choice. You did nothing wrong, and you have to know that."

"Then why are you closing me off? I loved him, too. I am feeling this pain, too."

"I know you did. I know you are." Rick moved to the bed and she followed. How could he explain what he was feeling when he didn't want to feel it or own it. "I'm sorry. All this hurts so much."

"I know. I never thought I'd feel this hurt again."

Rick blinked. "Again?"

She nodded. The touch of her hand closing around his the comforting balm his anguished spirit so desperately needed. The balm he would always need but feared he wouldn't always have. And what was this 'again'? "I had a son, Rick," she said. "When he was three he was – I lost him."

"Michonne." Rick kissed her hand and held it to his chest, the depth of her pain so much clearer. When they'd gone to King County for guns and ran into Morgan he'd suspected something from her knowledge about cribs, but not this. "I'm sorry."

"Carl was the only person I'd ever told about Andre. The only one."

"Carl?" Rick expelled a breath and retreated to the window, looking out but not really seeing. "Okay."

"Please, don't feel slighted." She turned on the bed to face him and he met her gaze. "It was after the prison fell when we thought Judith was gone. He was so lost and down. I told him when we went on that run together."

"You shared a lot with Carl."

"We shared a lot with each other. He wasn't just my friend, Rick. He felt like he was mine." She sniffled. "I couldn't have loved him more if he was my own," she said, crying softy. "He was my own."

"I know." Rick nodded. "I know." The cracks in his internal dam were spreading, bringing him to the cusp of total collapse, but her confession had opened the door, and he had to ask. "Michonne, am I enough?"

As if a switch flipped, her sobs ceased. "What?"

"I know how special the connection you had with Carl was. I can't lie, there were times I felt like an outsider around you two, but I never felt slighted or belittled by it. It was beautiful to witness. To hear about this secret you two shared, I... I love you, Michonne, I love you with my whole heart and I have for so long, and I need you, but with Carl go—" Rick cleared his throat. "With him not here anymore, there's a part of me, and I hate it's there, but there's a part that's afraid you'll need to take another break now. And if you do, I need to prepare myself."

"Rick." She groaned and stalked over to him, holding his face. A gamut of contradicting emotions swirled in her eyes. "I honestly don't know if I should kiss you or kick you. You are more than enough, and you always have been. I love you, too, and I am not going anywhere. Carl is –Carl was a very special young man. He brought happiness and joy back into my life, but even more than that, he brought the love of my life there, too. He might've been the bridge that brought me to you, but when I crossed over, the bridge retracted on our side. There is no going back for me, Rick, not ever. I told you long ago that I was done taking breaks. My life is with you and Judith, and Carl will always be…" Her voice wavered and tears refreshed. "He'll always be with us, but now I have to accept him just being in our hearts."

"Our hearts." Rick's throat constricted and eyes burned violently. He exhaled sharply. Then again, and again. "Just our hearts. Just…" The events of the last hours flashed in his mind like the living nightmare they'd been. The bite mark, Carl's feverish last moments, the gunshot, and his burial. Carl's burial. They had buried Carl. They had buried his son. "Oh, God. He's gone, Michonne. Carl's gone."

The dam broke, bringing Rick to his knees with the rush of grief. His anguished cries filled the room, evaporating the quiet that had been haunting him all day, as he and Michonne held tightly to each other and grieved their son.

Author's Note: This was a one shot that I had to get off of my chest. It was cathartic. I hate with everything in me that Carl is gone. And this is the one and only story I'll write with him as such.