A/N:

So, I promise I have not forgotten bout the second final part of 'Ready, willing, but … never Abel,' but I just really needed to get this out first. I've really struggled to accept what the writers did with Carl. I seriously cannot believe, it's actually a thing that they actually did!? It's irritated me profoundly, especially in regard to how important Carl's been in the forming and building of Richonne in the first place. Anyways, this is likely the only canon fic I'll be writing that references Carl's demise in any way, because in my mind Carl is alive and that's my canon, anything else is AU to me. I'm just doing this to clear my palette and to take the sting out of what the writers did – also to give you something, while I finish off my other fic.

I own nothing but the words, the rest is all Kirkman's and AMC's and absolutely no infringement is intended.

Apologies for any errors.

Enjoy!

"You should have told me." Michonne whispered into the dark nest of hair beneath her chin. "You should have told me."

Carl's response was slow, a tangible shift in his demeanour Michonne hated. It was a sign, an indication of Carl's slow descent into not being her Carl anymore. His responses were taking longer and longer, as the night wore on, and every stutter or slur of his words made something in Michonne's chest pull away and break apart. He was fading in and out of consciousness, but every time he woke up, Michonne was with him, whispering quiet words into his hair. Telling him she was with him, that she was there and that she would be until the end. Both of them knew that although she hadn't brought him into the world, she would be the one to take him out of it. To end the beginning of the next bit, to stop him from becoming the monster he had wrongly believed himself to be.

Carl lifted his hand up to rest it on top of the Michonne's wrist, halting her nervous movements, as she'd adjusted his clothing and made sure he was comfortable – like she'd always done and would 'til the end. "There was nothing you could have done."

Michonne rolled her eyes, as if she was exasperated by what he'd just said, when in reality the action was simply to save him seeing her eye well up. She didn't want him worrying about her, he had to save his strength, to last as long as possible. Maybe there was a way he could make it, maybe they'd—

"I would have known" Michonne insisted.

"I didn't … I didn't want … to make you sad … again."

Inhaling, Michonne responded gently, as held him tighter. "You can't stop that. I love you. By definition, it was always going to make me sad to know—" she stopped there.

She had needed to pause, to take a breath. She hadn't reached acceptance yet. She wasn't ready, she hadn't thought she'd ever need to be prepared for a day, like the one she was currently living though. Not again.

Pulling him even tighter into her embrace, Michonne breathed her boy in.

Carl smelt like smoke and moss, and the overwhelming stench of sewer sludge, but still, Michonne huffed his scent in like it was the best thing she'd ever breathed in.

Breathing.

It was getting as hard for her as it was for Carl, the longer she watched him fade. "I don't know what I'm going to do now. What—how do I …"

Carl turned slightly, in the attempt to catch Michonne's eye and the moment he'd caught sight of her he'd smiled like, she was the sun, and he had never looked so much like his father.

"You're not alone this time. You have Judy and dad now. You're not alone and … I'm glad, because it means, dad's not alone either. I need him to be okay. I need you both to be." He winced as he turned back around and Michonne's eyes refilled at the sight.

She'd been trying not to cry around him, but after the first hour that had been proven to be impossible, so she'd instead settled for simply not crying too hard around him. Michonne knew she had to save her real sobbing for later … for after. So for now, she only allowed stray tears to fall, into Carl's already damp hair. His fever had already set in, and his temperature spikes meant his body was continuously being drenched in sweat.

Throughout it all though, Michonne hadn't stopped talking to him. From the beginning, since she and Rick found him, she hasn't stopped talking to him. She couldn't stop trying to tell him everything.

Everything, she's always meant to say, but never gotten the chance to.

"I love you so much. You mean so much to me. I need you to know that. I need you to hear it. You … you and Andre were the best sons—"

That was as far as Michonne had gotten, before she caught sight of Rick and Judith standing at the opposite side of the tunnel.

The family and what remained of the Alexandrians, had all helped to move Carl to a much quieter end of their temporary underground lodgings. Michonne had wanted him further away from the draft that had been coming in from above and Rick had obliged her requests despite knowing, Carl likely couldn't feel anything through the scorching heat his skin had been giving off.

Rick stood watching the other halves of his world. He watched the woman who had saved him and his family from the first day she'd stumbled up to his gates, press reverent kisses to the top of his son's head. The son he'd found and fought for, the son who'd saved the love of his life's life, when Rick hadn't been able to. When Rick had'nt wanted to enough.

He stood in that moment, watching the woman who years ago had trusted nobody and wanted no one to care for, and son who in the years before had been angry and mistrusting himself, holding each other; saying goodbye and he felt woozy. He wasn't sure he'd still be standing, if it wasn't for the blessed fact that it all felt so unbelievably surreal.

Rick Grimes, was in a sewer, surrounded by what remained of his family, waiting to say goodbye to his son, waiting for the light to leave his boy's eye, aware that as soon as that moment came, he would have to take his daughter away, before she could witness her mother putting her only brother down.

And, he would be lying if he said, he wasn't eternally grateful for his role, so he wouldn't have to bear witness either.

Rick couldn't believe any of it was real, he was so sure he was dreaming, that any minute now he was going to wake up, to find it had all been a bad dream, he was sure of it. That's why he could stand there, watching them, clutching his baby girl's fingers – mostly at peace.

He knew he was going to wake up.

'This is all just a bad dream. This isn't real.'

Michonne could see Rick had likely been there a while and at any other time, it would have worried her that she hadn't heard him approach. She was someone who was always aware of her surroundings, at the very least she had always been aware of him.

But, now? Now, she couldn't find it in herself to care. She didn't want to either. She just wanted to care for Carl, he was all her mind could focus on at that moment.

She felt stuck, like a training wheel on a rock, or a kite on a branch. She just couldn't move passed it – she couldn't believe that this was where they were. This was their lives.

Michonne couldn't comprehend how they'd gotten here, how quickly their world had splintered apart. None of it made any sense. Carl was a survivor, he was strong, he was a fighter. He was everything Andre was too young to be, but still he didn't get to grow up? To become the man they had been moulding him to be? A bite, was what got him? Not a gun. Not a bat. Not a cannibal. Not bad men on the road. Not the governor. Not Negan.

But … a bite? Being good? Helping a stranger?

Where was the fairness in that? Where was the karmic justice? Surely, they were due a win?

It all felt so pointless, like an avoidable grief that didn't need to happen. She could have gotten to keep this one. This one could have made it. He should have.

Michonne was livid, she hadn't been there to stop it from happening, and flashbacks of Andre and Mike, were making themselves known. Tormenting her in the ways they had done years before.

Michonne, tried to defuse her rage, not wanting the now sleeping Carl, to feel the sonar waves of it. Instead, she threw a brief glance in Rick's direction and although it was brief, she could see how hollow he'd looked. Hollow and empty, but not yet broken. And, she was silently, perhaps even selfishly relieved by that. And, she allowed herself a private moment, to feel some degree of reassurance in the knowledge he was still here. He was still standing. She'd dodged that bullet a little longer.

Michonne wasn't sure she had it in her to pull Rick back together this time. To mend him, especially when it felt as if she was shattering apart herself.

She felt like a rucksack of broken bottles again. Underneath her anger, Michonne was disappointed in herself. She'd trusted the life they'd all built together. She had believed – however foolishly – that she was finished burying her children. She was furious with herself now for being so naive.

Michonne couldn't look at Judith, as she stood next to Rick holding two of his fingers, as he stroked her chubby palm.

The little girl had stood watching the scene before her, with uncomprehending eyes. She'd simply stared on innocently, as Michonne had curled her body further around Carl's trembling form.

Judith didn't understand what she was seeing, she couldn't identify what was happening in the current situation, but like all children, she could feel the terrifying shift that was taking place.

She could sense the starkness in the air that surrounded her primary family members. She could feel the fear radiating off her mother and father, and it made her whimper. Judith tried to pull away from her father to go to Michonne. The only mother she'd ever known, and the only one in that moment, she recognised to make her feel safe.

But as the movement caught the corner of her eye, Michonne recoiled away, shifting herself impossibly closer to Carl's unconscious form. Closing her eyes, her constricting throat only barely managed to break out a low 'no.'

When Judith had tried to pull away again, Michonne had refused to look at her. An action that'd caused Judith to become more anxious. She began to whine, pulling harder at the hold her father now had on her.

She appeared like most children, who when scared wanted their mothers. But, Judith couldn't understand why her mother didn't want her too.

Rick who had until this point been quiet, could sense the oncoming storm that was Judith's tantrum, and so he too tried to also appeal to Michonne's ordinarily reasonable nature. "Michonne?"

Michonne shook her head, as if trying to rebuff the pleas she knew were coming. "No."

"Michonne. Please. If she starts cryin' they might hear us down here."

Breathing in a sharp breath, that communicated her resurging irritation, she bit out. "Then. Take. Her. To. Someone. Else."

Michonne stroked her hand across Carls forehead, smoothing the thick mop out of his closed lashes. Her voice was calmer when she spoke again. "The tunnel is full enough of people who can take her."

"Michonne!" Rick tried again.

"I SAID NO!" Michonne yelled, in doing so she'd startled Carl awake and caused everyone in a nearby vicinity to jump, most of them nervous that the sound would travel, but more of them alarmed by Michonne raising her voice at all. No one had ever heard her do that before. Especially not Rick, Judith or Carl.

Not knowing how to venture in this new terrain of emotions, Rick decided not to push her any further.

"Ok. Ok. I'll take her to—"

Michonne didn't even let him finish.

"Yeah, you do that."

Rick swallowed the slight burn her dismissal had caused and began pulling Judith alongside him. But, his normally happy little girl, was apparently also deeply frustrated with how things were going, so she dropped to her knees, refusing to let Rick walk her any further away from her goal. Quickly, Judith's eyes had begun to slowly fill and glaze over.

Rick could see what was about to happen, so he let go of her hand to try to pull her into his arms, but Judith was quicker and within seconds she'd shuffled away from him, getting to her feet before stumble-running to her mother and brother.

As soon as she'd reached them, Judith had forced herself into her mother's lap, inveigling her way into the middle of their embrace.

Michonne had tensed at first, trying to push back all of her instincts, the ones telling her to cradle the little girl she now loved with her entire being. But, she knew she couldn't. For hours, she'd been vowing to herself that Carl was going to be the last child she loved and buried.

She refused to lose her little girl too and if that meant pushing her away and keeping her at a distance … well, then that was just the way it was going to have to be. It would save everyone the pain later down the line.

She couldn't allow herself to be caught out like this again.

"Rick!" she ground out, looking as lost with the situation as he did.

Rick's eyes shone. "I don't—she won't—she doesn't want me."

"She's two. She doesn't know what she wants. Take her. Please." Michonne's voice had broken further with every vowel she'd spoken, and Rick's heart had throbbed harshly in his chest at the sound.

"Alright."

But, just as Rick came closer and leaned forward to pick Judith up, the little girl had reached out too, and placed her tiny little hand on Michonne's cheek, "ma-ma?"

Michonne took a deep breath refusing to respond, so Judith tried again. "ma-ma! Ma-ma lookit!"

The offended lilt present within the tiny tone, at another time would have made Michonne smile, but all her smiles were gone now, and she wasn't sure she would ever get them back after a hit like this.

When Michonne did find it within herself to make eye contact with Judith, the little girl, just like her brothers before her, had immediately given Michonne one of the purest smiles she had ever received.

And, that was it, that was the final blow that caused the final of Michonne's walls to crumble and her sobs broke free. When Judith wrapped her tiny arms around Michonne's neck and patted her on the back like she was known to do when Judith was upset, Michonne cried harder.

Quickly Michonne had felt Rick's arms wrapping around all three of them and she'd allowed herself a moment to feel a moment of comfort, before all their lives changed, before it stopped being the four of them. Before they dwindled down to three.

"It's gonna be alright." Rick whispered into her hair

Michonne shook her head against his collarbone. "No. It's not. It won't ever be again."

Rick pulled back, running his thumb along her eye, wiping at the wetness he found there. "It will. It has to. I don't know how and I—I can't tell you when … but, it's gonna be alright."

Reality was splintered for Rick, but he kept dancing the line. Juggling what he thought, with what he believed. But, it was getting harder to pretend, looking into the three faces around him, he could feel the realness of the situation now. He was sitting in it. It was gazing at him with a tired smile. Carl.

"How do we come back from this?" Michonne looked up at Rick as he caressed her face, for once asking him for the answers. She'd watched as tears began to fill his eyes too.

The smile he'd given her was a poor imitation of what it should have been, it was broken and sad. "We're the ones who live, right?"

Michonne pulled back at hearing those words. She hated those words now. "If this is the cost … then I don't want to. Why are we trying if we're losing everyone we love in the process? I want to live with my family. What are we pushing for, if we end up alive and alone? I don't want that."

Rick's heart dropped, as he heard the defeat in her voice. "You can't give up on me now, sweetheart. We gotta keep going."

As Michonne looked at him, her expression read to him as a mixture of sadness and anger. "For what?"

Rick allowed his expression to match hers. "For her." He nodded down at the small girl who was looking up at him, while her cheek rested against her mother's clavicle.

Scoffing, Michonne turned to gaze to the opposing wall in front of them, taking a moment to take in its cracks and areas of damp, before she said what she needed to say next. "I don't have a great track record with keeping my children alive. Maybe it's better if—"

It was Ricks turn to interrupt now. "Please don't! Please don't finish that sentence. I see where you're goin' with it. What you're tryin' to do. I can see you trying to pull away. Don't leave me yet, stay with me. Please. I'm—I'm tryin', I'm fightin' to hold on, but I can't do this without you. If we do go down, let's go down together. Please. I'm beggin' you, please just—"

The rising panic in Rick's voice, pulled Michonne back some. She could see the realisation of their reality hitting him. Seeing him losing his grip on the reigns, forced her to step back in. It was automatic. It's what they've always done. They keep each other afloat. When one began to drown, the other began to swim harder. Hard enough for the both of them. One, pulling the other along, until they were both back above water. She wasn't certain they'd both make it this time, but for him she would try. She would always try, when it came down to it.

Michonne shifted Judith to the side she was cradling Carl on, allowing the little girl to rest easily between the two of them. Once her other arm was free, Michonne pulled Rick towards her, but as soon as she did he fragmented apart. She held him as his body shook. Feeling the weight of their new truth finally striking him down.

It was his turn now and she knew despite her own fears, she'd be at his side throughout it all, whatever the 'all' might be.

"Ok. Ok, I—don't—ok. Shh" She held him now as he let go, and Judith pressed harder into her mother's neck, beginning to whimper again, likely alarmed by all the crying her usually stoic parents were doing.

After a few minutes Rick pulled back a little, wiping his eyes as Michonne did the same. Just as her mouth opened to calm and settle the littlest of the four of them, Carl got there first, though his voice was held more gravel to it than it typically did.

"It's ok Judy. Don't cry. Everything's gonna be okay. Don't cry, okay?"

Judith simply watched him with unconvinced eyes and it made Carl smile, as he could recognise his own signature 'dubious' expression within her own.

"Carl—" Rick crocked out.

"I know dad. I wrote you a letter. You guys and Enid. Can—can you give it to her? It's in my room."

Rick's eyes filled again, mostly at already knowing what his son's letters were likely to read. "Of course, son. Of course, we can."

Carl sighed, and the breath he took appeared take a lot out of him – something both Rick and Michonne spotted. "She's gonna hate me."

Rick frowned, "why would she—"

"I didn't get to say bye, I didn't get to tell her face to face that I …"

"She knows." Michonne reassured him, seeing the energy he was losing and the distress that was building in his slim frame.

Carl nodded, allowing himself to be soothed by her words, his eye closed again before opening seconds later, as if remembering something critical. "Do you?"

Michonne paused, confused by his random questioning. "Do I what?"

"Do you know?" Carl frowned.

"How you feel about Enid? Yeah of course I—"

Carl shook his head, sighing with only a small puff of air. "No! How I feel about you. Do you know?"

When Michonne said nothing he carried on. "I didn't think I'd feel this feeling again, that I'd feel safe. And I tried not to, dad even told me not. But, I've always felt safe with you and I'm really grateful I got to have you as my mom for a moment. Even … even if it was only for a short one. Shorter than I wanted." Carl closed his eye to stop it from stinging, "I'm really glad Judy has you though. And, I just want – no – I need you to know, that I love you."

Michonne's voice struggled to work after Carl's speech, so Rick answered for her. "She loves you too."

Carl rolled his eye "I know that dad. I've always known that. She's told me before, I just hadn't gotten 'round to sayin' it back yet. So … I'm saying it now. I love you." Carl looked at Michonne smiling softly, "I needed you to hear it from me."

"Told you before? When was this?" Rick asked.

Carl smirked "That's between me and Michonne."

Rick couldn't help the chuckle that slipped from him, as he tried to memorise the smug look on Carl's face, while ignoring his son's more strained features. "Yeahh. Yeah, I suppose it is."

"Don't worry dad. She knows you love her too."

"Carl!" Rick and Michonne gasped in unison.

Carl smiled up at them, and for a moment both of them felt complete, safe and at peace. "What? It's cool. It's gonna be alright. I promise."

"Yeah" Rick grinned

"It is." Michonne smiled back.

Maybe she was wrong, Michonne thought. Maybe, there were still some smiles left inside her.

Maybe somehow, it's gonna be alright.

It was still the four of them.

Maybe they'd all be fine …

Once again, thank you for reading!

The final part of 'Ready, willing, but … never Abel' will be up very soon. I'm at the editing stage at the moment, but I do have four assignments to submit within the next two weeks, so I'm working on it in between bouts of working, but it is coming and I'm so grateful to all of you that asked for more!

Side note: I'm thinking of maybe starting a compilation of one-shot and drabble prompts, would that be something you guys would be into?

If so and there's any prompts you guys have (they may not be as long as these other fics, but) please feel free to message me on here or on tumblr.

I'll try my best to fill them.

Naomi