Grey Furniture
The group unanimously decided that Rick should be the one to keep the house they'd been squatting in. Rick announced that Michonne felt they should live in groups, that they'd all figure out how to split themselves, and that he, Carl, Judith, and Michonne would be living together. He said that part right away, in case anyone thought Michonne was available.
Michonne looked behind her and easily found Carl. He was smiling.
Everyone went house-hunting that day. Michonne went with Noah, Tara, and Sasha to see where they would be. That night, Daryl was the last to leave Rick and Michonne's house. Michonne stayed inside with Carl and Judith while Rick walked Daryl out.
"So you're livin' with Michonne," Daryl said.
"Yeah," Rick said.
"That's nice."
Rick looked at him and waited for something more. He dreaded something more. He hadn't expected anyone to yank his chain about the arrangement, although he had felt a little self-conscious announcing to the entire group that he and Michonne were going to live together. He'd felt like they could all tell that he wouldn't have liked it if she'd chosen to live with anyone else.
"What? I just said that's nice," Daryl said, shrugging, and he went down the porch steps. "Good night and sweet dreams," he bid, and he headed next door to his own house.
Rick wished he could say something back, but he went inside instead.
The first night without the rest of the group was hard.
Michonne couldn't sleep, because it was too quiet. She could hear Judith fretting two doors down, but the house was still too quiet. Now this part was like Woodbury. The silence inside of the house was too much, so she listened for noises outside, a cricket, anything. But in Alexandria, outside was quiet, too. But it was better than the silence inside of the house.
Rick couldn't sleep because he wasn't used to the place. He was on a bed, not a prison cot, or a bed thrown together, but an actual bed with a frame, a box, and a mattress. It even had a headboard. And the pillows were nice. Except he couldn't relax enough to sleep. He thought about Carl, and Judith, and Michonne. Michonne was at the end of the hall. He was in the first room, nearest to the stairs, and Carl was in the middle. Michonne was a little too far away.
Carl couldn't sleep, because he wasn't comfortable. His ears were fine-tuned for the shuffling and breaking of leaves. His ears were tuned in for the approach of a walker.
Judith fretted, too. It got so bad that Rick had to get up and take her out of the crib.
Outside of his door, Michonne hovered and listened. Finally, she shook her head at herself and knocked.
Rick shushed Judith as he went to the door. "Who is it?"
"Me," Michonne answered.
Of course. Who else could it have been? Either Michonne or Carl. Rick forced himself to relax, and he opened the door.
"I don't mean to make a situation worse," Michonne apologized, referring to the noise she'd created with her knock, "But I was listening to her, and I wanted to make sure she was alright."
"Yeah, I think she senses the change. She knows something's different," Rick said as he looked at his daughter, although he quietly noted that Michonne had chosen to sleep with her hair down. She always tied it up when they were outside.
"I think she does know," Michonne said, and she raised her knuckles to stroke Judith's ear, then the back of her head, because Judith kept turning her head.
"Shhh," Rick soothed as he cradled her head with his cheek. "It's okay."
"It's okay, Judy," Michonne said.
"You want her?" Rick asked.
Michonne nodded and readily took Judith when Rick offered her.
"Shhh," Michonne soothed as she took up Rick's method of rocking side to side.
Rick didn't always ask her if she wanted to hold Judith. Sometimes he just handed her over. Their relationship had warmed up enough that sometimes he just felt that she wanted to hold Judith, so he gave her to her. Although, he realized now that Michonne has never taken Judith from him, nor has she ever asked to hold her. He wanted her to do both.
The very first time he'd asked her if she wanted to hold Judith, he'd asked just like he'd done just now. You want her? It wasn't until recently, the few days they'd stayed at the church, that he wondered why he phrased the question like that: you want her? instead of you wanna hold her?
He liked to hear her say yes. Bottom line. He liked hearing her affirmative desire to hold his kid. He wasn't going to think about the implication behind you want her? though.
The door next to Rick's opened, and Michonne turned in its direction.
"Is she okay?" Carl asked as he joined them.
"Carl, what are you doing up?" Rick asked, stepping out into the hallway at the same time that Michonne backed up to give him room.
"I can't sleep," Carl said.
"Neither can she," Michonne said. "Neither can I, so join the club."
"Okay, since none of us can sleep, why don't we go downstairs until Judith falls asleep?" Rick suggested.
Michonne moved toward the stairs and then stopped herself. "My sword," she said as she turned to Rick, and she immediately regretted saying it. "Not that I should need it."
"I'll get it," Rick said. He grabbed two guns when he passed by his room, too.
Holding Judith with one arm, Michonne climbed into the round, grey loveseat and sat down.
"Maybe the crib's messing her up the way the bed's messing me up," Carl suggested when Rick joined them.
Rick stopped mid depositing the weapons on the coffee table and sitting down. "I think you're right," he said as he resumed what he was doing. "The bed's messing me up, too."
He had the couch to himself. Carl had taken the chair opposite Michonne.
"What about you?" Carl asked Michonne.
"I'm very sleepy," Michonne said as she rubbed Judith's small calves. "But the house is too quiet. I can't."
"Yeah. The darkness is different, too," Carl said as he picked at the chair's arm. "It's likeā¦.weirder. Smaller. More intense. I don't know."
"Makes it hard to keep your eyes closed?" Michonne asked.
"Yeah, pretty much," Carl answered, his eyes on the spot of the chair that he was picking.
"We'll get used to it," Rick said as he stretched out on the couch, his head near Carl, Michonne and Judith in his line of sight. "We just have to give it time."
Michonne smiled at him, silently teasing well listen to you.
Rick smiled at her before looking at the ceiling.
"If I had room to complain, I'd say something about these chairs," Michonne said.
Judith kicked her fussing up a notch, and Michonne shushed her and kissed her shoulder.
"Mine feels comfortable," Carl said.
"It's not comfort; it's aesthetics. Grey furniture?"
"You gonna complain to Jessie?" Rick asked, amused.
"If the situation could be helped," Michonne answered.
"I said we didn't have to take this house. We could've looked around."
"Yes, but then I thought about what looking around meant. It's a beautiful shade of grey. I just would never have grey furniture."
"Our chairs were like a dark brown, right dad?" Carl asked.
"Yeah," Rick said as he turned his head up at Carl, happy that he still remembered. "Lori's uncle bought 'em for us as a wedding present. They lasted pretty good."
"Nice wedding present," Michonne said, impressed. "Dark brown, I would do."
"They were super comfortable," Carl said.
"You should know. You dirtied them often enough," Rick deadpanned, his eyes on Michonne.
Michonne tightened her lips in amusement.
"It was never that bad," Carl told Michonne.
She almost said something about Andre, but she stopped herself. She stopped herself. Maybe if it was just her and Carl.
"I think I'll take the word of the person who had to clean up after you," she said instead.
Rick wanted to say that Lori did most of the cleaning up, but he let it go. Unfortunately, Carl didn't.
"Mom cleaned up after me," he said, his eyes soft with glee. "She made me clean sometimes, but she mostly did it."
"Nah, I would've made you scoop every crumb until you learned," Michonne said.
She was smiling when she turned her attention to Rick, but Rick wanted to say that he was always at work. That was why Lori cleaned up most of Carl's messes. But that was a whole can of worms, one that reminded him of his last conversation with Lori before he got shot and woke up to a world gone to shit. He hadn't paid his family enough attention. He'd paid attention to Carl, yes, he always tried with him, tried not to disappoint him too much, because Lori was always telling him that he was letting the boy down. He paid attention to Lori. He loved Lori. But them as a family: somewhere the unit itself broke down. He somehow always found himself unable to attend family insert the rest.
The one thing the death of civilization had done was reignite the spark between him and Lori. And even that had been tainted.
He didn't much like thinking about where he and Lori would've ended up had the world not gone to shit. Yet the destination came to him anyway.
It was a while before they realized that Judith wasn't fussing anymore. Michonne was the first to notice and by that time Carl's eyes had drooped closed, so she shared the moment with Rick only.
She raised her eyebrows to acknowledge that they'd succeeded. Rick got up and began gently and painstakingly peeling Judith off of her. He paused when Judith frowned, both of them dreading the worst. Rick took the risk and kept going until he turned her to face him and put her on his shoulder.
"I think we can go," he said quietly.
His eyes had gotten very heavy, and Michonne had been close to nodding off herself.
Michonne started to stand, but she looked at Carl. "He doesn't like his room," she told Rick. "He's scared of the dark."
Rick looked at his teenage son and sighed quietly. He needed this place to work out.
"We can sleep down here," Michonne said when he returned his attention to her.
"You can take the couch with Judith," he said.
"No. If Carl's right and the crib bothers her, then she needs to sleep how she's used to: your hand barricading her," she said with a petite smile.
"Yeah, you're right," he said, matching her smile with his own. "We can leave the hallway light on for Carl in the future."
Michonne nodded in agreement.
Rick took the couch with Judith, shielding her between the couch and his body. The position wouldn't allow him to watch Michonne fall asleep, something he'd done a couple of times on the outside.
He raised his head and looked down the couch to where she was. "Good night."
"Good night," Michonne returned.
She settled into the loveseat and watched for the moment when Rick's breathing evened out, something she'd done a couple of times on the outside.
