A State of Crisis
Snippets of conversations, interactions, to create a picture of Rick and Michonne in AU. Snapshots. Mere Glimpses. All done in hindsight with no true reference of time. Proceed with Caution.
...
"Tell me that ain't..."
"It is."
"Friend, when did this shit happen?" Shane had a look of surprise on his face. He halted in his tracks.
"A couple of weeks ago," Rick stated flatly the lie he had prepared just then, unable to keep his feet moving forward when Shane abruptly stopped walking.
"Now you are telling me this shit, and you expect me to believe it? I don't think it is good to lie outside of a church." Shane narrowed his eyes on to Rick who leveled his eyes away from meeting.
"There is nothing to tell." Rick began to pay careful attention to the church steps and then the parking lot where a white Mercedes pulled in and parked. Michonne had arrived like she said she would.
"Man, the shit it took for you to get over her... How long has it been?"
Rick did not respond to his childhood, college friend who was also his co-worker at the sheriff's department.
Daryl strode up looking uncomfortable with the aspect of actually venturing inside of a church. He wanted to support Carl who he considered family.
Michonne was approaching, and Shane watched her shorten the distance to where they stood.
"Are we going in or we going to listen to them from out here?" Daryl asked ready to make his way up the church steps.
"Rick and Michonne are back in contact with each other," Shane said as a matter of fact that caused Daryl to pause and look from Rick to the parking lot based on Shane tipping his head in the direction of Michonnes approach.
"What the hell?" Daryl couldn't believe what he was hearing and seeing. Daryl was full aware of that relationship. It wasn't good to see Rick in a way about her and how he was too stubborn to do anything about it. Rick wouldn't make it right then, and he knew it would be right twelve years later.
...
Deanna was a renowned couples therapist. She even had a radio show that featured on the weekends that was very popular. All of her spare time went into getting her book finalized, and her gratitude towards Rick and Lori for participating along with Mike and Michonne did not go unremarked. Deanna knew she had to change the names of the characters in the book. Her gut told her it would be an instant best seller. Two couples both trying to save their marriage. They were desperate to do so, and she felt she could help. She was determined to help them to re-bond, and the only way to do that was to get everything out in the open, each held naked and draped in their truth.
...
"Oh, my God Rick! I got the job. I got the job! Management level." Lori was ecstatic.
"That's good. That's real good Lori." Rick was surprised by the news, and he felt her excitement, and he returned it in kind by softly kissing his wife of nine years on the lips.
"I am so excited to have something to look forward to outside the home." Lori squealed. "The pay is great, and we can finally move out of this neighborhood."
Rick chuckled, "Eventually. Don't you want to at least have some time on the job first, to make sure it is a good fit?"
...
I hated living in that house. I hated the neighborhood. It was like everyone around me had no ambition. I wanted more and Rick was fucking content at being Deputy Sheriff with his childhood friend Shane. I didn't even tell Rick I applied. I didn't say to him I was looking for a job, that I no longer wanted to be a housewife that took care of a raggedy home that had seen better days during a long ago era.
...
"Michonne...don't you walk away from me. Don't you think I should have some input on you taking a hiatus from the law firm?"
"I am tired of neither of us having time for Andre. He is nine years old now, and I am no longer going to disappoint him when he expects one of his parents to show up to his football games. Take him to soccer practice or at least pick him up. It shouldn't be the neighborhood good mother of the year to do it when I am more than capable of keeping house and taking care of Andre."
"It was your fucking idea."
"Andre is here. Now fucking deal or leave. I am not going to keep going through this shit with you Mike."
"Why is it so easy for you to say that? To tell me I have a choice? I didn't have a choice when you decided to keep the baby, but now I have a choice to suck it up or abandon my son, give up our marriage...Fuck you Michonne."
...
"They have a hiking trail and a very extensive jogging trail in this community. You will certainly find the amenities to your liking, Mr. Grimes. I really would like to welcome you to Alexandria Commons or will you be in Alexandria Estates?" The cute blonde sales representative kept smiling dreamily at Rick in the sales office.
"Why do you keep doing that?" Lori asked her tone brusque. Lori leaned in closer to get the name on the badge, "Jessie Anderson."
"I'm sorry, doing what?" Jessie feigned ignorance.
"Always directing your response to my husband? We are here together. It is certainly not his pay that would get us in this community." Lori snapped.
...
" We have been in this neighborhood two months now, Carl. How do you like us living here versus where we were?"
"Better than where we were before, and I also have a new best friend?"
"Oh yeah?"
"His name is Andre. He likes the same stuff that I do."
"He likes comic books?"
"More than that Dad. He loves sports and singing."
"Really?"
"He asked me to join the Church Choir with him."
"Church?"
"Church Choir. He has just convinced his mom, and I am hoping to convince you to let me or I will have his Mom come over to do it. She can be pretty persuasive. Andre gets it from his mother."
"Where do they live?"
"In the more expensive part of this community. Alexandria Estates."
...
"Rick! Stop, this is serious; I want to go to law school. I want to become a lawyer. I don't want to move to King's County because you woke up this morning with an epiphany that you want to go into law enforcement. I am not playing with you."
"Then where does that leave us Michonne?"
Michonne threw the keys that hit Rick in the face she was so mad.
...
"Lori, I wanted, to begin with, you. I want you to tell me just a little bit about yourself. About your marriage. About your family. Begin wherever you would like. If anything is unclear, I will ask questions."
"All of this is going into your book?"
"Only things that will be enlightening. So how about you begin wherever you consider the beginning?"
"I met Rick after he came out of a bad break up. We dated for a few months. I got pregnant, and we were married. He just joined the sheriff's department. Rookie. I had a son...we had a boy name Carl, and he's 12 years old right now. I was a stay at home mother for the first nine years of his life. Money was tight. We lived in a manufactured home in the beginning and then we moved to my dream community Alexandria Commons. Everything seems like it just happened. It was life."
Do you believe that things just happen or that we set the stage for things to begin?"
"I have never given it much thought if you are putting it like that."
"Were you happy?"
"In the beginning yes. I would say I was happy the first seven years of our marriage and then it was work. We had to make a conscience effort to make it work. To be together."
"Why do you feel that? Why was that something you felt or that you would call work?"
"I was in love with Rick. I thought Rick was my soulmate until he told me he wasn't. Until he said that I wasn't his soulmate."
"How did that make you feel?"
"It hurt."
...
"Soul mate? Do I believe in a soulmate?"
"Do you? Do you think you have ever met your soul mate?" Deanna asked Rick.
"I have met my soul mate." Rick conceded.
"What was that like?"
"Is this necessary to discuss?"
"Why do you find it unnecessary?"
"I met Lori. I married Lori. I eventually loved Lori the way she deserved to be loved. I was prepared to spend my life with Lori and that eventually..."
"Eventually she would what?"
Silence.
"What are you thinking Rick?"
"She...Lori...I had told Lori that she wasn't my soul mate and that I wasn't her's. I told her that the whole soul mate shit didn't matter because after being married as long as we had...It just didn't matter because we were married and planned to be married until one of us croaked."
"She said, you told her she was not your soul mate."
"Lori and I would still sometimes argue about it. I know I hurt her with that."
"Truth hurts, more than a lie," Deanna stated as she held Rick's eye contact until he eventually looked away.
...
A/N: I have been lost reading other fanfiction and failed to keep up with my own. This story is intended to be an exercise on the brain. Think of it as cards on a table in no logical order or puzzle pieces that will or may snap into another one and another one where eventually you will get the picture and then maybe not. If it makes your head hurt don't proceed it may get worse. Nothing new but the retelling of the same thing...Meaning taking pieces from all my stories and meshing them here.
I am updating The Check as well as Two Islands , The Cat and The Mouse.