Chapter 3

"I'm not ah, real old, am I?"

"Not terribly." She said smiling sweetly. "You still make my toes curl."

"That's what I live for." He said smiling back. "I want to hear more of your dream. You're better than books on tape and cozier."

"Hold on just a sec."

Michonne hopped out of bed, grabbed her robe and ran out of the room and down the stairs. When she came back up, she tossed Rick an apple.

"All this talking makes me hungry, and its 4 a.m."

"I know." Rick said biting into the apple. "Keep talking Doc."

Michonne froze in place and looked at Rick.

"Is this helping you?"

"I think it is." He said smiling embarrassingly.

She nodded as tears filled her eyes and she climbed back into bed.

She cleared her throat and started. This part of her dream was particularly difficult because it was about Carl.

"Carl had been at the Hilltop for a while, and he came home for a visit. The two of you were distant, and had been since he left." She wiped her eyes and sniffed. "Before he left, the two of you barely talked about it. You didn't want him to go, but you didn't know how to get him to stay. Carl had always been with you, but it was time he found out who he was."

"Hey Dad."

Rick smiled as he walked down the stairs to see his son home.

"What a nice surprise. How are you?" Rick said hugging Carl.

"Good. I wanted to come see everyone. Where are the boys and Judith?"

"In school." Michonne said going into the kitchen. "Are you hungry?"

"Yes, but I want to talk to Dad first."

"Oh? What about?"

"I've had a few things on my mind and I can't shake them."

"I'll leave you two alone." Michonne said heading upstairs.

"No, this involves you too Michonne." Carl said sitting down at the dining room table.

Rick looked at Michonne and the two of them joined him.

"Anything wrong?" Rick said sitting down.

"I've had some questions about what happened at the prison and why we left. I know the governor attacked us, but all I remember is fighting back, and then you finding me and we left."

Rick looked at Michonne and then back at Carl.

"You don't remember?" Michonne asked sitting forward in the chair.

"I do, but there are pieces missing."

Rick had that fear since Carl had his eye shot out. Maybe this was some delayed reaction to the trauma.

Rick cleared his throat and looked down at his hands.

"The governor rolled up to the prison with a tank. He had captured Hershel and Michonne while they were out past the fence. We all saw what he did to Hershel, and I went out there. We got in a fight…"

"And the governor nearly killed your dad." Michonne finished for Rick. "You were angry at your dad at that time. You thought he should have been more like the governor, and people wouldn't have died, but that's not who he is. You felt your father should have killed the governor when he had a chance to."

"You did son, but I understand how you felt. The truth is, I never wanted to be the leader. I'm a family man. I just wanted to take care of you and your mother, but Shane made that impossible. This world takes a certain type of person to live in it. You can be either too soft or too hard. Both of those types can't survive. The soft people are too weak and cling to what was and it clouds their thinking and the horrors of this world are too much for them, and the ones that are too hard, they're just stupid. They have delusions and see themselves dictating over everyone. The governor and Negan were like that. They attack the weak to enslave them, and seek to destroy anyone who could possible oppose them."

"Like you." Carl said clasping his hands together in front of him.

"Yeah. Michonne said the governor attacked a National Guard post and killed everyone and took their artillery. He blew up the prison with the tank and broke the fences and the walls."

"How did it make you feel having two kids you had to protect?"

"I don't understand what you mean."

"Do you regret having us?"

"Do you think I could have done better without you? Do you think we'd still have the prison if you and your sister were never born?"

"Dad I heard what you said to Daryl when those men Daryl had been with attacked us on the road…"

"That I stay alive for you, and would do anything for you?" Rick frowned as he looked at his son, but Carl was a different and special person, forged in the fire of an apocalypse. There had been no time to instill certain values in him, so his questions were reasonable and valid.

"From the moment I woke up in the hospital, things changed very quickly for me. I had to learn things that didn't make sense to me, but I did it for you. You're my son and I love you more than I love myself, because it's my job to care for you, and it's a job that's never been a job to me, it has been a privilege. I wanted you before you were born Carl, and I'm sorry for everything you've missed out on, the childhood that you were robbed of, and what you've had to put up with just because you're my son." Rick stood up to stop from sobbing all over the table. He decided to leave and went out to the porch. He put his hands on the rail looking out at nothing. He quietly cried for Carl's destroyed childhood, and for whatever damage he'd done to him because his father was Rick Grimes.

"Dad?" Carl said standing next to him. Carl was crying too.

Rick put his arms around his son.

"I'm sorry too Dad. I'm not angry, and I don't blame you." Carl stepped back. "Being on my own I can see now some of what you had to go through. It couldn't have been easy being you, the decisions you've had to make. You did what you did to keep everyone safe, and I could see how I only made it harder for you when I blamed you for not being a harder person. If you had been harder, you wouldn't have been my dad. I'm sorry Dad. I really just wanted to see from your point of view. From my point of view, I couldn't have asked for a better father. In my eyes, you are the same Dad who used to pick me up from school in the squad car. All my friends were jealous."

Rick smiled sadly through his tears.

"You are who you had to become. You didn't change from one man into a completely different one. You added what you needed to, and my Dad is still there." Carl pointed a finger at his father's chest. "You didn't turn into a badass, you've always been a badass."

Rick tried in vain not to cry anymore. He smiled and hugged his son again.

"I'll take that. Thank you son."

Michonne stood in the opened doorway with tears streaming down her face. Rick glanced over at her and held out an arm for her to join them.

Rick sat in the bed leaning forward looking down at the bed covers.

"Your dream showed you that?" He said still looking down.

"Yeah. I believe it, don't you?"

"I want to." Rick said getting up. "I'm going to take a shower and go out for a while."

Michonne knew Rick was upset. Maybe telling him about her dream wasn't such a good idea. She heard the water in the shower and shower door close. She got up and went into the bathroom. She opened the shower door.

"Rick?"

He was standing under the showerhead letting the warm water fall on his head. He turned to her and smiled running a hand over his head to push his hair back. She half expected him to be sobbing, but he wasn't. He took a step and grabbed her arm pulling her in with him.

"I was hoping you would join me."

"You could have asked me to."

"Where's the spontaneity in that?"

She smiled at him and looking in his eyes saw something new.

"Thank you for your dream." He said claiming her lips with his own.

"You know there's more, right?" She said between kisses.

"Good thing we're taking a break then." He said as he slowly backed her against the shower wall.