Title: Family

Spoilers: Episode 5X15 – "Try"

Summary: Michonne feels her family is falling apart.

A/N: Thanks for the feedback everyone! I hope you enjoy Part2. All rights to The Walking Dead. The lyrics belong to Portishead from the song "Western Eyes."

They have values of a certain taste
The innocent they can hardly wait
To crucify, invalidating
Turning to dishonesty
With western eyes and serpents breath
They lay their own conscience to rest
But then they lie and then they dare to be
Hidden heroes candidly

Rick didn't remember much about the first night he got crazy drunk. It was something to do with a dare, a beer bong tournament, and shots of vodka stolen from Shane's father liquor cabinet. But the morning after was seared into his memory. He'd never felt so sick and miserable in his life. His head felt like the size of a semi-truck. He could barely lift it to puke in the trash can his mother had placed next to his bed with a shake of her head. He vowed to never get drunk again, but the next weekend he and Shane were back at it.

When Rick woke up for a few confusing seconds he thought he was 19 again trying to recover from another hangover. It took him a few minutes to get his bearings. He realized he was lying on an old army cot in the spare room of the makeshift Constable's station. His next thoughts were of Carl and Judith. He jumped up to go find his children, but immediately sank back down on the cot when a wave of dizziness hit him.

"I wouldn't do that if I was you." Rick heard a low voice coming from the door. He didn't have to open his eyes to know who was there.

"Michonne," He said in a hoarse whisper.

"You put on quite to show out there." Rick was able to open his eyes enough to see her black pants clad legs walk up to the cot.

"Carl? Judith?" He asked as he placed a hand over his closed eyes to shield himself from the overhead light.

"Both fine. They're at Carol's house."

Rick tried to sit up, but his body protested. He fell back down onto the cot.

"Did I kill him?"

"No."

"Who gave me the sucker punch? One of Deanna's minions?," He sneered, "Tobin? Spencer?"

"It was me," She said.

Rick forgot about his aching head and sat up so fast his head started to swim. He leaned back against the wall and kept his legs on the floor. Michonne sat next to him with her arms crossed, refusing to look at him. She was barely containing her disappointment.

"What...why...?" He could barely get his thoughts together.

"Did you know Sasha has been spending nearly 24 hours a day hunting Walkers? She's not sleeping and barely eating."

"What does this have to..." Rick started to say, but Michonne cut him off.

"Did you know Carl has been sneaking off into the woods to chase after a girl? Did you know that even though Tara is in stable condition no one knows if or when she'll wake up," Michonne voice was getting louder as she went on, "Did you fucking know losing Noah only a short time after losing Bob, Beth and Tyreese is devastating us or do you not care about your family anymore?"

"Don't do this Michonne. All I ever do is make sure y'all are safe. The thangs I said out there were to protect y'all. I'm trying to keep this community safe!" He said. He was starting to simmer with the same rage he had earlier.

"And you're doing a great job at it right now." Michonne said sarcastically. "I don't know what's going on with you but your actions could get us all kicked out. Do you want Judith back out there with nothing to eat?"

Rick stared at the white wall in front of him, refusing to concede to her point. "I wasn't wrong about what I said out there."

"No. No you weren't. I've been having the same thoughts, but your delivery was downright scary. No one is going to listen to the crazy man ranting in the street."

"So you hit me?" He asked with hurt dripping in voice.

"I had to. I didn't think you'd stop any other way. You could have hurt someone with the way you were waving your gun around." She paused for a moment. "You almost hurt Carl when you threw him off of you." Michonne finally looked at Rick and saw his eyes get glassy.

"I would never hurt my son." He said barely above a whisper.

"But you could have." Michonne shook her head.

The tension was thick in the air of the small room. That sat a part in silence each lost in their thoughts.

"He's beating Jessie." Rick finally said.

Michonne nodded her head and looked up at the ceiling. "Then he needed to be dealt with, but from what Glenn told me and from what I observed it seemed to be much more than Officer Grimes trying to save the day."

"Jessie needed my help."

"Then why didn't you come to me? I could have helped too. This is not the Old West. We are supposed to be partners."

"There was no time. I was talking to Jessie and Pete came home. It just happened. I tried to get him to come quietly, but he wanted a fight."

"He wasn't the only one."

"What I'm supposed just stand there and watch as some man beats Lori!" Rick yelled.

"Do you hear yourself? Did you hear it? You just called her Lori." Michonne said quietly.

Rick leaned forward with hands covering his face. His sobs were silent, but she saw how his back moved up and down in rhythm with his tears.

"Did you ever grieve for her?" Michonne asked after his crying subsided.

Rick sat up again and wiped his nose with his bandaged hand. "If seeing visions of her everywhere and talking to her on the phone doesn't count as grieving then no. Too much was going on. You showed up. We had to rescue Glenn and Maggie. The war with the Governor. It all just happened so fast. So I just put Lori out of my mind. I hadn't thought about her at length until we first arrived here."

Rick turned his head slightly so he could look at Michonne. Her gaze was back on the ceiling.

"I was horrible to her the last few months of her life." He said. "I could barely look at her. I couldn't get the image of how she looked at me after I told her I killed Shane out of my head. After she died, I just kept thinking if I would have taken one of the multiple olive branches she tried to hand me then maybe...maybe things would have been different. Maybe I could have saved her." He sniffed and shook his head. "She would have loved it here. This is what she wanted. Somewhere safe for us. For Carl. And now I'm here and she can't be."

"Is that why you fixated on Jessie? Were trying to recreate your perfect family?" Michonne said.

Rick let out a humorless laugh. "We were never perfect. Even before everything started. Our marriage was barely holding on." He sighed. "Godamnit Michonne what's wrong with me?"

"You're crazy." Michonne deadpanned.

This time Rick's laugh held a tinge of humor."I guess it takes one to know one."

"Exactly. I know better than anyone what it feels like to second guess your actions thinking of a way to save those you love. But it doesn't help anything. It's torture. No matter what you did differently, Rick, you wouldn't have been able to save her. Your gun or your machete could never combat child birth."

"Yeah..." Rick drawled out slowly, "Your boyfriend you used to talk to. Thinking of ways you could have saved him doesn't haunt you anymore?"

"A lot about that day will always haunt me," She said while trying to keep images of Andre's lifeless body out of her head, "But I can't let it bring me down again. Look it's no secret that all of us are fucked up. Me and you probably moreso than most, but that doesn't mean things can't change. That we can't change," She shook her head, "I was out in the woods today with Sasha and Rosita and felt such a rush when we took on a herd of Walkers."

Rick's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Are you okay? Did you get hurt?" He asked with concern.

Michonne lifted up her hand to stop his questioning. "I'm fine. The point is that we were out there on our own for so long and went through one battle after another. Fighting for survival is embedded in our DNA now. We just have to find a way to balance that with knowing when we have a good thing going on," She waved her hand around, "And this community is a good thing. We just have to teach them how to stay safe because we know better than anyone that utopia has an expiration date."

Rick just sighed and closed his eyes again. They sat in silence again for a few minutes. Some of the earlier tension started to dissipate.

Michonne finally stood up. "I need to go talk to Deanna. Plead your case. I'll make things right." She turned to walk away but stopped when Rick grabbed her hand. She looked back at bruised eyes staring intently at her.

"We're okay right?" He asked.

"Yeah everyone is meeting at Glenn and Maggie's later to discuss next steps and to work on helping Sasha. We'll figure it out." She said.

"No, I don't mean everyone else. I mean you and me. I need us to be okay," Rick squeezed her hand, "I can't do this without you Michonne. I just..just really need us to be okay." He held her gaze looking like he was of verge of tears again. She gave his hand a tiny squeeze back.

"We will be." She said. They stared at each other a few more moments before she dropped his hand and left the room.