I went a little longer between updates than I had hoped to, but life got in the way and the story kept wanting to take a different path from what I had originally planned...so I stopped fighting it and went with it. This was supposed to be the final installment, but it just didn't feel like it was over yet. It's going to veer away from what I thought could realistically happen to straight up wishful thinking, but that's more fun anyway. Thank you for reading, as always! I really appreciate the reviews-knowing people are out there enjoying the work makes it worth it! cakebythepound, you had me blushing, thank you so much for your kind words!

Chapter 3, Night 1

Her bedroom door was ajar, but the lights were off when he finally made his way back upstairs after taking a few minutes to speak with Morgan. He stepped into small opening and peaked his head in to see Michonne lying under the blanket on the far side of her bed with her back to the door.

"Michonne?" he whispered.

"I'm awake," she called out as she rolled onto her other side to face him.

He stepped in, then quietly closed the door behind him and walked toward the center of her room. He looked down at the katana that was occupying the empty space beside her in bed, and gently pushed it closer to her to make room for himself. He took a seat on the edge and faced her, one leg bent and resting on the bed and the other still planted on the floor. He looked at her with her hands clasped under her head resting on the pillow, and sighed.

"You OK?"

"I just got into an argument with the second coming of buddha, so I'm gonna have to say no..." she said wryly.

He bit his lower lip, holding back a smile. Laughing felt off limits tonight, especially at the expense of his friend downstairs regardless of where they stood now.

"You don't have to fight my battles for me. Especially if you don't agree with what I did tonight," he said gently.

"You weren't wrong, Rick."

"But I wasn't right?"

She sighed and lifted herself to a seated position, letting her back rest against the headboard. "I don't know...maybe it could have been handled differently, but it's done. And it was done under Deanna's order. If you're at peace with it, then I wouldn't look back...anyway, I don't even think that's what that was all about," she said as she gestured to the area downstairs.

"Then what was it about?"

"You don't need your gun? I don't need my sword?" she said as she looked away from him and out the window closest to her, frustration with herself growing with each word she said. "Thinking we could change just like that when we walked through those gates...that could have gotten you hurt tonight, maybe even the kids..."

"Yeah, I needed to hear that, though. I was going too far the other way."

She turned her head away from the window to look at him again. He sat looking back at her, eyes clear and soft, body still and relaxed. She felt her lower lip start to tremble slightly, so she took a deep breath and pressed her lips together trying to stop it. Relief. She recognized the feeling washing over her as she sat there looking at Rick. He was coming back after days of distance and disconnect. It had started that afternoon, but their too brief conversation and ensuing events made the connection feel tenuous until now. Everything about the past few days felt so wrong, and she still didn't completely understand it.

"Why did we fall apart now?" she wondered aloud, unsure for a moment whether she was just thinking it or actually said it until she saw Rick react with a wounded look.

"I thought we already established that I went crazy and fucked up. It's on me," he said trying to make light of what happened.

"I'm serious. Why now? We've had every reason to before and now that we finally have something to work with, we broke down. We've always been...we're better than that. It can't happen again."

Her words alone made him feel as if he was being scolded, but the pain on her face and urgency in her voice led him to believe that that wasn't her intention.

"Again," he repeated gently as he stood up and re-positioned himself so that he was sitting next to her against the headboard, his legs stretched out on front of him. She watched him settle in and finally nodded when he turned his head to look at her.

"I never meant to keep it from you. I just didn't know you well enough at the beginning, and then once I did, there was never the time." She had her head turned toward him, but her eyes were looking at a spot just past him as she started seeing scenes from her past play out in her mind.

"I'm here now, if you're ready."

She took a deep breath and began to feel her eyes well up. She had lived with this pain every day for the past two years, and it was a part of her now. It had gone from sharp and all consuming to this constant ache that she could finally bear and sometimes even ignore for a few moments at a time.

"My boyfriend and I had a son...his name was Andre and he was three when this all happened. We made it out of Atlanta with one of our friends right at the start and ended up in a camp where things were good for a while. We had supplies, we were safe, we were making it...after a couple of weeks, things started to deteriorate, though. Morale was low, supplies were running out, there was a series of breaches and we started to lose people. Mike got...scared, hopeless. I tried so hard to fix us. I thought that my will to live could carry all of us through until he got better. I was going on runs and looking out for them, but he wasn't getting better, he was...distracted and I couldn't do it alone. I couldn't keep it all together and I lost them."

"How?" he choked out quietly.

"Walkers got to them. I was coming back from a run and I was too late," she said as she breathed in and wiped the tears from her eyes trying to regain her composure.

He moved his arm behind her head and around her shoulder, then pulled her against his chest. Her head tucked just under his chin and he brought his other arm around her letting it rest on the back of her head. Her story wasn't really a surprise to him. The Michonne he met early on was so clearly wounded and guarded. He knew she had to have experienced something horrific, but he never pressed. Not because he wasn't curious or didn't care, but because he knew from his own struggles that sometimes you needed to be able to push it out of your mind to carry on through another day. Hearing her story only confirmed the worst things he could have imagined, and his heart ached for her. What pierced through him, though, was the realization of how personal this fight was to her. She was close to him and his children, and he trusted her to no end with them. They needed her. What he never considered was how much she needed them, as well.

Her tears finally slowed to a stop and she was lulled into a calm, quiet place, likely from relief mixed with exhaustion both physical and emotional. She thought back to another time when she would have felt self-conscious about that display of emotion in front of anyone, but this was part of opening up and living now.

"You are so strong," he finally whispered out loud, "but there was no way you could have changed that outcome by yourself. No one can do it alone. I definitely can't, and I'm so grateful to you that I don't have to." His chin remained resting on her head and he rubbed her arm lightly as he spoke. She took some comfort in his words, anyone could have said them, but from a man she knew had the utmost capability to survive, it actually meant something.

"We just have to find our balance again. We know what it takes," she said reassuring herself and him.

"We will."

She pulled herself out of his arms and leaned back against the headboard again giving him a sheepish smile. She had no regrets about sharing her past, but this level of openness and affection was brand new to them and she was hit with the slight awkwardness of the shift once she came face to face with him again. She could tell he felt it too because he wore his own sheepish grin for a moment before he averted his eyes and focused on the katana between them. She looked down at the sword, as well, which was a sobering reminder of the new threat beyond the walls.

"We've gotta do something about these wolves."

He chuckled quietly and looked at his watch. "At three-thirty in the morning."

"We can't afford to wait around for them, Rick." He sighed and looked away from her, a feeling of déjà vu accompanied this argument.

"You're right. And we will do something, but some asshole kept you awake all last night and most of tonight. You're no good to anyone if you're tired and off your game."

"Rick, I'm fine. If we start planning now, we can leave first thing-"

"Sleep. I'll keep watch, just like the old days." She just stared at him and wordlessly surrendered by sinking down to her pillow. He stared back at her waiting for her next challenge, but she stayed quiet and closed her eyes. He watched her until her breathing finally slowed and he knew she was sleeping before he carefully got out of bed. He dragged the bench at the end of her bed over to the window facing the gate. He knew Sasha was in the tower on watch, but he decided to keep watch over his home as well that night.