Thanks for all the wonderful reviews! It motivates me to write more and more. I hope you enjoy reading this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it.

These guys are having the longest day ever. Let's find out what else could possibly go wrong.

Chapter Six: The Mountains

"Apocalypse is a frame of mind." – Jim Butcher

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The summer of the year she turned eighteen, Michonne toured the Caribbean Islands with her family. They had just finished a hike through the Valley of Desolation in Dominica when Winnie, her mother said, "When the world ends, this is where I'd like to be when it happens." Winnie's dark eyes had pensively taken in the water of Titou Gorge below them. "It'll be just me, the mountains, the rainforest and the water. Dye mon, gen mon."

"If the world ends, wouldn't everybody be gone?" Sasha, always the skeptic, had asked. "Why would you be here? You think you'll be the last woman standing?"

"I think it's possible for the world to end without the human race ending. The world ends when the social order ends." she had answered. "I think we'd all still be here. Don't you?"

"I think that makes perfect sense." Michonne always admired her mother's intuitive and romantic worldview. It was something she strived to achieve herself and she always wanted to raise her children in the laid-back and unconventional way her parents raised her and her sister. Michonne had spent most of her childhood and teenage years traveling the world with her anthropologist mother and wildlife photographer father.

Sasha had rolled her eyes when her sister agreed with their mother, as she often did. "Always with the philosophical hippie ideals."

Winnie pushed her sunglasses over her head, shooting Sasha a playful scowl. "Don't you ever think about how this will all end? What happens then? Do we just continue in a lost and empty world? Or does it end when we end?"

"Don't know and don't care to know." Sasha took a few steps backward as she prepared to dive into the gorge below where their father, David was swimming with their younger brother Amare. She bounded toward the edge before dropping in the emerald water below.

Winnie had glanced back at her other, more indulgent daughter. "At least you understand me. I managed to pass something on." The fascinating woman had put a hand on her hip, swaying slightly. "Chou-chou, when you have your children make sure you let them keep their minds open."

That moment replayed in Michonne's mind as she regarded the shambolic traffic jam they found themselves in. People were standing outside their cars conversing, others were yelling and panicked. There was no way they were getting to the city on that particular road on that particular night. She glanced at Rick's frustrated face and observed Carl's innocent confusion.

Here they were at the end of the world while the inhabitants of the world lived on to face the forces that were attempting to destroy them. She supposed her mother's wish was a practical one. If she was standing in the middle of a rainforest on an island like Dominica, she doubted she would be dealing with problems like these. Her mother had an interesting way of always being right.

The driver's door of Shane's car flew open as he stepped out, marching his way towards them. "We're gonna be here a while." He looked over his shoulder. "I'm gonna go talk to some people. See what the hold up is."

"I'll come," Rick said removing his seatbelt. He met Michonne's eyes, tilting his head in Carl's direction. "You're okay with…?"

"Yeah, go ahead," she said, shooing him away.

"Traffic?" Carl asked after his father left.

"Looks like it," she answered. "Both sides of the road are blocked though." It looked like they were going to be stuck for a while unless they turned around and somehow maneuvered their way out before even more cars were behind them.

Rick and Shane were in deep conversation with an older man with a rifle standing outside an RV that was parked next to Shane's car. He gestured around wildly as he offered them what little information he had. A few other people joined into their conversation and Michonne was desperate to find out what was going on.

"Can we go outside?" Carl asked, leaning between the seats to look at Michonne with pleading eyes. "Shane's car is right in front of ours. I want to say hi to Sophia."

"Yeah," Michonne said, unbuckling her seatbelt. "I was getting tired of sitting anyway. Come on."

They slowly strolled toward the black Jeep Wrangler. "Hey Carol. How's it going?"

"We're holding up," the woman said, running her hand through her daughter's hair. The little girl was huddled beside her mother with her head resting on her shoulder. Seeing them reunited was a heartwarming sight.

"So it looks like we're going to be stuck here for a while." Michonne leaned against the passenger side of the Wrangler. She still felt a little weightless from her earlier fainting spell. She attempted to inconspicuously assess Rick's interactions with the other evacuees. A blonde woman had joined the conversation and was pointing something out on a map while they all looked over her shoulder.

"Yeah, " Carol sighed, sitting up straighter. "I should probably get out and stretch my legs." She lightly nudged Sophia. "Come on honey."

Carol and Sophia moved to stand outside the car and Carl immediately initiated a game of 'I spy' with Sophia. Michonne watched as Carol stood with her arms around herself, staring blankly into the trees surrounding the highway. The woman looked as if she was barely holding it together. Michonne knew that whatever had happened to lead to her murdering her husband was seriously affecting her. She worried about the woman's mental stability.

She looked up to find Rick slowly approaching her, meeting her questioning eyes as he shook his head disappointedly. "Things are getting a little rowdy and it doesn't look like there's a way out. I heard there was an accident down a few miles down."

"Great," she said with a defeated sigh. "This long ass day just keeps getting better and better."

A blood-curling scream echoed through the night. "They're here! They're going to eat us," a woman who was standing about ten cars down flailing her arms yelled. Just as she turned to run towards the edge of the road a walker, which seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, descended upon her.

People stared in horror as it bit through her face, her skin gruesomely stretching away as it consumed her. A blonde burly man who had been in a hostile confrontation with another traveler pulled out his gun and started firing haphazardly, completely missing the woman and the walker and striking a bystander instead.

People started screaming as they ducked to avoid flying bullets. A choir of snarling sounds started grew closer, as screams grew louder. Walkers emerged from the wooded areas on the roadside and from the direction of the source of the traffic jam.

"We need to get out," Rick yelled, running towards Carl and scooping him up. The people nearest to them quickly began to act. "Get back in your cars! I know where we can go."

Shane ushered Carol and Sophia back into his vehicle, while the older man who had been standing with two blonde women, scurried into his RV.

Rick opened the back door of the Cherokee, throwing in a sobbing Carl in the back as he and Michonne hopped into the front. He threw the car in reverse, dexterously maneuvering around the car behind him as he turned the jeep to face the opposite direction.

"Where?"

"I have an idea of where we are. We can head to the woods to wait this out. There should be some pretty good areas that people use for hiking and camping," he said as he sped down the mostly vacant highway.

They drove in silence for what felt like forever when Rick suddenly pulled off the main road, following a dirt path through the woods driving upwards along the winding hills for about a mile. He kept driving until they arrived at a clearing with some flat land. The headlights of vehicles that managed to make it out of the walker-filled highway engulfed the dark clearing.

"What's going to happen to us?" Carl asked in a small voice from the backseat.

"We're going to be fine," Rick gritted out. It sounded as if he was trying to convince himself of that more than anyone else. His knuckles grew paler as his hands tightened on the steering wheel. "We're fine."

Michonne placed a comforting hand over his, willing him to remain calm for the sake of Carl. The boy was already petrified and seeing his father break his optimistic exterior would only serve to exacerbate his fears. Rick loosened his grip, took a deep breath and gave Michonne a grateful look.

Michonne peered out of her window, spotting Shane's Jeep Wrangler, the RV and two other vehicles she remembered from the traffic jam. "We're all here," she whispered, mostly to herself.

~TNB~

Sixteen people made it off the traffic jammed highway that night. Sixteen people in five vehicles managed to maneuver themselves out of a situation that would have inevitably led to them lying mangled in the streets among the snarling vacant eyed dead.

At first, nobody moved. They all sat in their respective cars, petrified with fear and hopelessness as the severity of their current situation weighed on each individual mind. It was Rick who finally moved to get out of his car to make a proper assessment and a plan for moving forward. It was in his nature. He needed to keep trying and moving things forward. Although he was troubled by their situation he still had a sliver of hope and optimism within him.

Once people grew slightly more comfortable, Michonne moved around the small group acquainting herself with their fellow refugees. She learned that the man with the RV was named Dale and he was travelling with a blonde woman named Andrea and a young man named Glenn. She also met a small family of three. The father, Morgan, was traveling with his wife Jenny and son Duane. Morales drove the final vehicle with his wife and two young daughters.

"Some friends of ours were back there," he told Michonne. "They were good people. Their car was in front of us. When we escaped we thought they would be right behind us."

The group had decided that the best course of action was to use the vehicles to form a semi-circular barrier around the group and they would then set up camp for the night. Although they believed the likelihood to be slim, they agreed to take shifts keeping watch in case more of the dead ones approached. They wouldn't fare well in a surprise attack.

Rick, an avid camper, had the frame of mind to pack two large tents, so they got to work on pitching the tents collecting sleeping bags, securing weapons and creating comfortable places to sleep.

"What if they come here?" Carl glanced nervously at the large trees that surrounded them, as if expecting a walker to step out from behind one of them. He handed Michonne a pole with trembling hands.

"We're pretty far away," Michonne said, leaning down slightly to look him in the eye. "I think we're safe. This is almost like blanket fort 2.0, just without the blankets and we're outside." She looked over to where Dale was standing, talking to Rick. "And you're surrounded by people who will do whatever they can to protect you."

His eyes drifted to her katana, where it leaned against the car behind her. "Will you use that again if they come?"

Without looking, she knew what he was talking about. She sighed as she assembled the tent pole. "If I have to, I will. I'd do anything to protect us."

"I wish I knew how to…you know," he mumbled. "They ate that woman's face. I'm scared."

She placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. "And that's okay. I get scared too. We'll get through this together though."

Rick approached them, his brow furrowed in concentration. "How's the tent pitching going?" he asked absently.

"Great," Michonne answered. "It's been a while since I've camped, but I still have the hang of things. Plus Carl's a great helper. Right Carl?"

Carl took a deep, calming breath, nodding his head and putting on a brave face. "Right."

Rick joined them in assembling the tent and the three quickly finished their task. It was decided that Rick and Carl would take one while Sophia and her mother shared the other. The rest of the inhabitants made makeshift sleeping areas within the vehicles, while they assigned watch shifts.

After most of the people drifted to a resting position, Michonne grabbed her katana and propped herself up on the hood of the Jeep Cherokee, leaning back against the windshield. She looked up at the stars, thinking about her family and how the world was probably treating them in that moment. She understood and wished for Winnie's dream for the end. She already found one of the woman's requirements.

"I hope you're not planning to sleep there." She looked to her left to find Rick slowly approaching her. She scooted a little to the left, making space for him as he climbed next to her, lying back as well.

"It's nice to have more people around," he said. "Everyone seems nice enough."

"It is nice," she answered. She looked over at the RV, which was two cars down. Dale Horvath was seated on the roof with his hunting rifle as he cautiously surveyed their surroundings. "My mom used to say that wherever there are many, nothing goes wrong." She smiled as she was filled with nostalgia. "It's a saying she picked up when we lived in Tanzania. Panapo wengi hapaharibiki neno."

Rick shot her an amused look. "Is there anything you can't do?"

"Sing."

He raised his brow. "Are you genuinely a bad singer or do you just have ridiculously high standards?"

"I sound like a drowning cat," she giggled. "There's a lot I can't do actually. You'll find out soon enough. I can't dance either."

"Well we have that in common." They lay in silence for a few more minutes, staring up at the sky. "You never did tell me why a city girl like you chose our tiny town to move to. It doesn't seem like your style."

"I wasn't always a city girl," she said. "I spent a good portion of my childhood as a travelling child. I've been to every continent except Antarctica. My family settled in New York City and then Atlanta when I was a teenager and…I liked it. I loved travelling and being with my parents, but I liked the stability. It was what we needed at the time. I've lived there ever since."

"Why did you travel so much," he asked, genuinely interested. "Did your parents have one of those interesting jobs? Diplomat? Ambassador?"

"Wildlife photographer and an anthropologist slash historian," she explained. "My parents tried to work around each other's schedules. My siblings and I had an unusual upbringing. We were also homeschooled until we left Tanzania to come back to the states."

"Wow. That's quite a life," he said. "I've only been to two other states besides Georgia and I've only been on a plane once. Worst experience of my life."

Her eyes darted to him in surprise. She sat up slightly, leaning her head against her palm as she looked down at him. "You're kidding. Only two? And I love planes."

"I'm not," he chuckled. "That's small town life I guess."

"Did you always live in King County? Your family is somewhere else."

"I've always lived there," he said. "My parents moved to Florida after they retired. My mom wanted a change of scenery. Before my divorce, we'd drive down to see them in the summer. We called it Grimes family road trips. I…I hope they're okay." She could hear the sadness in his voice.

"I wish the world was whole again," she whispered, taking in their dark surroundings and silently praying the walkers wouldn't find them. They were so far away from where civilization used to be. She thought of her parents and her last conversation with each of them.

"It will be." His voice was confident. "We'll see our families again."

Michonne scanned Rick's profile as he stared up at the starry sky. It didn't escape her notice that he was an attractive man and something about him drew her in. She wasn't sure what that something was but it was there. She felt the fluttering in her stomach and was hyperaware of his fingers lying a few inches away from her. Her hand tingled as his slowly moved to grab her own, linking their fingers between them. She scooted closer until mere inches separated them, their bodies slightly curled around each other. Neither one uttered a word, basking in the small comfort of the other's presence.

In that moment, they knew something was shifting between them.

At the other end of the small makeshift camp, Shane Walsh stood in the shadows near his car, taking in the sight of his best friend and the woman who was now inexplicably a part of his life. "Some things never change," he mumbled, placing his shotgun over his shoulder as he disappeared into the darkness.

So they made a camp and we learned a little about Michonne's past. We're also meeting some more characters. I can't wait to post the next chapter. So many interesting interactions that I can't wait to write.

I hope you all enjoyed. Review and let me know what you think!