Richonne Head Canon Bingo
46. (Free Space) Do they get along with their in-laws?
"It looks like the town little league team is going to the national championship game," Michonne said, holding up the newspaper and folding it over so Rebeccah could see the picture.
"Oh, isn't that something. Those kids will have so many memories." She smiled to herself, her eyes looking as if they were watching a movie playing on the far wall of the room.
Rick had brightened Carl's old room up a little for his mother when he went to college, clearing out some of the clutter and bringing in some of her houseplants to line the window sill, but his posters still hung on the walls. Across the room hung a framed picture of the Atlanta Braves roster from a few years ago, and Michonne wondered if Rebeccah was able to distinguish between the story she was hearing and the professional players she was looking at.
It was like that now for her, the present and the past, reality and stories she heard, blending like a double exposed photo in her mind. Sometimes she thought Carl was Rick, confused as to which time of her life she was living, and she would often look at Judith as if she was supposed to recognize her, but she didn't want to admit she didn't. She always recognized Michonne, though. Even during the times that she couldn't place how she fit into the rest of the picture she was seeing; she always knew her name and knew that she was a friend.
Rick said it was because she was so beautiful even a broken mind couldn't forget her face. He was always saying things like that. The right thing. The words that would help her focus on the good times, even when the rest was so hard. He knew exactly how to explain Rebeccah's struggle to their kids, so that they never felt slighted when she called them by the wrong name, or asked them questions that were really meant for whomever she was seeing in her head when she spoke to them: a friend who had passed, or a child that had long since grown into an adult. Even when his mother would call him by his father's name, bringing up old grievances from their fifty years of marriage, Rick would play along, apologizing on his father's behalf and gently moving her to a simpler subject.
Michonne was having a harder time. She didn't want to lean on Rick; it was his mother whose body was following her mind's slow path to the end, but she felt it as if it were her own. She'd already buried her own mother years ago and Rebeccah had filled a void for her. They had a close relationship and the thought of saying goodbye was breaking her in two. Rick seemed to understand that, letting her come to him for comfort when it should have been the other way around, but Michonne got the feeling that keeping everyone else afloat was his own way of dealing with it. It was just another time that their needs fit so perfectly together.
"Would you get me some tea, dear?" Rebeccah asked quietly, the private path she was forging through her muddled mind seemingly tiring her.
"Of course," Michonne answered. She stood from the chair they had pulled next to her bed and placed her hand over her mother-in-law's, with a comforting squeeze.
"Michonne," Rebeccah said, wrapping her frail fingers around her hand. "I've always loved you for what you did for my boys. Don't think I don't feel you doing the same for me now."
Michonne's bottom lip began to quiver and she forced herself to nod an acknowledgement before bending to place a kiss on the woman's forehead and turning to go. As soon as she closed the door behind her, the tears rushed forward, advancing down her cheeks like an army she was powerless to stop. She brought the back of her hand to her eyes, wiping as she walked down the hallway, onto the staircase and right into Rick, startling herself.
"Hey," he whispered, placing his hands on her shoulders and tilting his head to meet her bleary gaze. "What's wrong?"
"I just...thank you," she croaked out.
"Me? For what?"
"For her. For this. I know we're going to lose her, but I'm just so grateful to have ever had her."
He wrapped his arms around her shoulders, tucking her head under his chin, and let out a long sigh. She could feel the tightness in his chest from his attempt to hold in his own reaction, until eventually the warm trail of his tears fell onto her face and mixed with her own. He sank down onto the stairs, pulling her with him and they sat, quietly considering all the woman upstairs meant to them. Finally, he wiped his own eyes then brushed the hair from her face, kissing her forehead. "She loves you, too. You're the one she knows, 'cause you're the heart of us. She can feel us all through you. I'm not good at any of this, getting through to her. I just hope I told her enough when her mind was right. But you, you can still tell her now, so thank you, for saying what I can't."
She held onto him tighter, whispering into his shirt, damp with her tears. "We're so lucky for everything we have. We have to remember that, when she's gone."
He tipped her chin toward him, finding her lips this time. "I remember it every day."
(A/N for anyone who has read Right Where We're Supposed To Be, this is the same universe.)