Chill: At the prison

There's a chill in the air that infiltrates the entire prison. When it's this cold Michonne finds it difficult to sleep. In fact she finds it difficult to sleep anyway, but the frigid temperatures make it even more so. She feels antsy, like a lion trapped in a cage. She feels like she should be out there, hunting for the Governor. She would be except Daryl had gotten injured in their last run, and she'd had to bring him back. And inclement weather had forced her to stay in the prison, rather than run back out as soon as she got him to Hershel's care. But she would be gone as soon as the weather cleared up.

She has a candle burning. She knows she shouldn't waste the wax, especially considering all the trouble they'd gone through experimenting with making their own candles using the fat they'd gotten from the first pig Rick had slaughtered, but she couldn't deal with staring at the darkness of her cell at night.

The light alerts Rick to the fact that she is awake, and he taps on the bars to her cell, Judith in his arms. "What are you doing up?" he asks, when she looks up at him.

"Couldn't sleep."

"Me neither. This one's got a runny nose, but no fever, thankfully."

Michonne avoids looking at Judith, and Rick notices. Michonne feels a tightening in her stomach, and fears that he will ask her about it, but he doesn't. Instead he asks her if it's all right for him to sit on her bed. She shrugs, so he sits down and settles Judith on his lap, and looks around at how she's decorated her cell. "Zach's got this game where he tries to figure out what everyone was before the Turn," he starts. "He pegged me for a cop, right away. But it's got me wondering about you. You never told me what you did before."

"You never asked."

He looked at the multi-colored cat sculpture she had acquired when they had gone back to King County and found Morgan. "Every time we clear a house you take a look at the art, and if you see something you like, and it's easy enough to carry, you bring it back." He notices she also has got a postcard of Van Gogh's Sunflowers, a tattered poster of a famous Japanese ukiyo-e, and the patterned quilt on her bed is full of vibrant colors and designs that he associates with her style and taste. "Were you an artist?"

Michonne laughs. "That's a good guess. I like art. But my boyfriend was the artist. I supported him as the director of Human Resources for a utility company in Atlanta. Glamourous stuff, I know, but it paid the bills."

"Wow, I certainly never pictured you with an office job."

"If you asked me what it was I did exactly, I couldn't tell you, it was that exciting."

"That's a shame. I would have thought someone like you would have pursued her dreams."

"Someone like me?" she asks incredulously. "So tell me, officer friendly, did you always dream you'd be a cop?"

"I didn't say it was my dream. And I'm not like you. I don't have your confidence. I just did it because my best friend wanted to, and I like shooting stuff," he explains lamely.

Michonne tilts her head back and laughs out loud. "Well, it suits you," she admits when her laughter has died down.

"Well, I have to say, I don't think that desk job suited you. You are better suited as a governor-tracking, art-collecting samurai warrior princess."

"I'm all that, am I?" She chuckles self-consciously. Then she lets out a loud sigh. "I haven't been doing so well with the tracking part so far, though."

"You know he's probably dead. He has nothing to go back to, no security, no people, limited weapons—all things that people need to survive. You don't have to go back out there."

"I can't just stay here!" She gets up and begins to pace anxiously. "As long as he's out there, we are in danger. That's a loose end we can't have."

"Are you sure you can't stay here because of him…or because of me, and what I did?"

"I told you I understand why you had to think about making a deal with the Governor."

"I'm not just talking about that. From the moment you got here I treated you with distrust. I assaulted you, I threatened to turn you out, when all you were doing was trying to protect yourself. You'll never know how sorry I feel—"

"I know that everything you did was for the protection of your people, and let's face it, I'm not one of your people."

"Carl says you're one of us, and I agree. Since then you've proven yourself to be trustworthy and an ally in our fight against this world. You belong here! Not gallivanting all over the state chasing some ghost!" His outburst, though not overly loud startles Judith, and she begins to cry. He gently pats her back, and make shushing noises to get her to quiet down.

Michonne admires the way Rick handles his daughter. She has seen how brutally he could use his hands, but with Judith he is gentle and comforting. She admires that he would do anything to protect his children, and he had. Not for the first time Michonne wonders what her life would have been like if Mike had been more like Rick. Nonetheless, the sound of Judith's crying, profoundly affects her. She feels her heartbeat quicken, and the her skin feels tight and warm.

"I think you should leave. I'm tired," Michonne finally states, not acknowledging anything Rick had just said.

Rick wants to groan with frustration, but instead just nods his head, and stands up to leave. But before he walks out he turns around to give her one last parting look. "Will you at least thing about what I had to say? You belong here with us."

"I'll probably leave in the morning. If the weather is good."

Rick clenches his jaw in disapproval, but realizes there is nothing more he can say to change her mind. "Fine," he lets out through clenched teeth, but he doesn't say anymore.

He has never prayed more for bad weather, and is happy when he is greeted with the sound of cold rain pelting against the prison windows with the first light of day.

Blazing: After the prison

It's mid-October, and the heat has finally, finally let up. Rick finds the cool breeze refreshing, but when he looks at Michonne he sees that the skin on her arms has become covered with gooseflesh. He takes off his jacket and wraps it around her, rubbing her arms up and down with his hands to warm her up. "You can't be cold already," he gently teases her.

She lets her teeth chatter dramatically, and he grins at her as she laughs. "Anything colder than 70 degrees is too cold for me."

"How did you ever survive winter time?"

Michonne gets a distant look on her face, and Rick imagines that she's thinking about winters past, and he wonders who she spent them snuggled up with. He tries to fight down the surge of jealousy he feels at the thought.

She's so quiet that he doesn't think she's going to respond, but she surprises him when she says, "Fireplaces."

"Fireplaces?"

"I used to run the fireplace every chance we got. As soon as the leaves started changing colors I would put a log on, and get it blazing. Mike—that was my boyfriend—" she explains, "thought I was just being picky by insisting we find an apartment with a fireplace when we moved to the city, but when I told him why it was so important to me, he gave in."

Michonne has never really opened up to him as much before, and he doesn't want her to stop talking. "Why was it so important to you?" he prompts her to continue.

"Because it was what my dad used to do. And he would always tell me how important it was to have a fireplace because 'even if the power goes out, you can still keep warm, and you can still cook.'" She lowers her voice to imitate her dad, and Rick can see the love she had for him in her sad smile.

"That's good advice," Rick agrees.

Michonne nods. Rick wonders if she would say any more about her dad, but is afraid the conversation is causing her pain. They don't often talk about the Before…they hardly even talk about the people they had lost After, like Andrea, Hershel, and Judith.

"I named my son after him. Andre Anthony. My father was Anthony."

Rick's eyes come up and he stares at her in shock. Her face is contorted with a frown, but she doesn't meet his eyes. Though there is a part of him that isn't surprised. The way she is with Carl, how naturally maternal she is, it speaks of her experience. And the way she had been with Judith, how sometimes she had not looked at the girl, and avoided touching her, it spoke of a deep loss. Deep down he had known, of course he had, but he hadn't had the heart to ask her about it.

He continues to look at her, but she doesn't look up. "That's a good name," he says to try to get her to make eye contact.

She nods, and then she finally looks up at him, and he can see the tears in her eyes, and he feels his throat constricting.

"I don't know why I'm telling you this now," she finally says, her voice thick with unshed tears. "But suddenly, randomly I just start thinking about him…them…my family…" As the tears begin to fall, she tries to wipe them away with the backs of her hands. "And I usually just bury my memories deep inside, and for a long time it was easy to do. I was just surviving. But now…you make me feel…I feel safe with you….I feel like my life has purpose now, taking care of Carl…and you…and I guess, when you start to feel again, you don't get to feel only the good emotions, but the bad ones, too. But there are good memories, too…so many good memories." She pauses a bit to try to get her emotions under control, and smiles at Rick embarrassed at her outpouring of emotion.

Seeing her struggle for composure Rick immediately draws her into his arms and pulls her flush against him in a warm embrace. "It's okay to cry, you know," he tells her, when she continues to try to wipe her tears away. So she stops and gives in to her emotions and soaks is t-shirt as he draws soothing circles on her back with his hands. They stand like that for long moments supporting each other, and when Michonne pulls away to look at him she sees that his face is also wet with tears.

Wrap

"I found this for you." He holds out a long swath of material, and when Michonne looks at it, she sees that it's a scarf to match the men's jacket she had found the other day and had been wearing ever since.

She takes it, and quickly wraps it around her neck. She attributes the warmth she feels to the extra fabric protecting her from the cold, and not the pleasure she feels that he has given her such a thoughtful gift. "Thank you," she says smiling.

He smiles back. "Wouldn't wantcha getting too cold now the season's changed."

"You know me. I'm always cold." She deftly repositions the scarf so her neck is completely covered and stylishly arranged, and asks him, "What do you think? How do I look?"

His eyes slowly move down her face to her neck and then lower still. Then he quickly looks back up and meets her gaze. His cheeks look slightly redder than they were before. Michonne feels heat rise to her own cheeks, and she knows it all has to do with the way he's looking at her.

Snuggle

"Your son stole all the covers," Michonne says as Rick gets into bed beside her. She is freezing; Carl is fast asleep beside her, and has cocooned himself underneath both the well-worn and somewhat moth-eaten blankets that they had found in the last house they had cleared the day before.

"You could have taken one from him." Rick smiles because he knows she would never have done it. Carl is like a son to her, and like any mother, she would rather sacrifice her own comfort for his. He spoons her, and his heat permeates through her clothes.

She immediately feels warmer, and lets out a big sigh of contentment. "How come you're so warm?"

"I guess I just run hot," he replies, and wraps his arms around her pulling her closer. They snuggle a bit, until Michonne stops shivering. "Are you warm enough now?"

"Mm-hmm," she mumbles sleepily. She knows that danger is their constant companion, and that the sense of security she feels is false, but she allows herself to give into it, just for a little while. She knows that Rick will protect them.