Michonne watched blankly as her lunch floated before her.

She was in the cramped restroom of the Harrison pharmacy, a place she would forever associate with panic, so it seemed grossly fitting she'd end up back there, throwing her guts up until she was sure there was nothing left inside her. She was approaching her second trimester and still threw up every day, something her doctor told her happened to a handful of millions of pregnant women, because of course.

Michonne hauled herself up, flushed the toilet with her foot, and went to go wash her hands and gurgle water in her mouth. The girl that looked back at her in the mirror had fat around her face, swollen lips, and watery eyes. She turned to the side and lifted up her shirt. Her bump was prominent now, and bought with it tiny stretch marks that webbed their way around her hips. She was changing in none of the ways she ever thought she would.

She wondered if she'd ever recover. If when she got to Boston Rick would take one look at her and know, and know she'd lied, and if that would be the end of them.

There was a tentative knock on the door. "Michonne, are you ok? Do you need water?"

Michonne pulled her shirt down. "Yes, please. And a bottle of mouthwash."

The last few weeks had been a whirlwind for her, between telling her parents, and after they'd barely processed it, telling them she wouldn't be keeping the baby. There were tears and there was yelling but in the end it was the same – she was pregnant, there would be no Harvard until there was a baby, and there would be no baby because of Harvard.

Anele and Aneni were excited until Michonne explained to them that their new niece or nephew wouldn't be sticking around.

Anele crinkled her nose in thought. "What's the point of having a baby if you aren't going to keep it?"

Her twin nodded, and then looked at their older sister for answers.

"Well it's not always that simple," Michonne explained patiently. "Not everyone has what it takes to take care of a baby. Sometimes they don't have money, or they know they can't be a good Mommy."

"But Mich, we have money, and you would be a good Mommy. You take care of us pretty good. Except when you don't let us get cookies. Actually, maybe you shouldn't be a Mommy after all."

Michonne and Andrea threw themselves into adoption agencies, poring over phone books and splitting their time equally between the pharmacy and the library. Michonne wanted to pick the very best one, because if she wasn't going to take care of this baby, she could at least guarantee them somewhat of a good life, even if it meant staying up all night worrying over what that life might entail.

"I can't imagine my life without my parents," she confided in Andrea one day while they waited for a specialist to return their call. "Handing off this kid without knowing what could be, what their life might be like…it's eating at me."

Andrea nodded sympathetically. "No one said it'd be easy. I mean, of course you're gonna feel like an asshole, but the fact that you're even doing this shows how much you care. Maybe that's enough."

Michonne didn't know what to say to that, but she didn't expect Andrea to be a sage source of advice on a topic like this, so she let it go.

She sometimes wondered what Rick would say. Knowing how he was, he'd probably want her to keep the baby. There would be some way, some loophole, some chance. She missed that optimism. Andrea's bluntness was appreciated, but it sometimes clashed with Michonne's realistic to pessimistic tendencies.

She missed her best friend. She still expected to hear his signature knock on the door at seven o' five sharp. She kept their conversations on the phone short and sweet, for both their sake, but she would later comb through what they'd said for hours, thinking of how she could work a pregnancy reveal in some way. "Oh, I knew you would do good on that project! I'm pregnant, by the way."

Sometimes she would call just to hear his voice, and one of them would talk until the other fell asleep, just like when they were kids. She savored everything – the dorky pictures he sent her, the texts, the letters.

The first time Andrea saw a proper picture of Rick, she over poured her coffee.

"Crap," she muttered, while Michonne smirked and handed her napkins. "That is a face that makes you spill coffee. I mean, damn."

Michonne laughed. "I'll make sure to let him know you think he has a nice face."

"Don't stop there. Tell him I want to lick the side of it."

Michonne laughed again, this time almost choking on her water. "Andrea!"

Andrea shrugged. "He's really good looking, Mich. I would've gone to Boston pregnant and all, just to see that face every day. I mean, how have you not had his tongue down your throat yet?"

"Ordinarily, best friends don't make-out."

"I'd make an exception."

"Oh, I bet you would."


4 MONTHS AFTER LEAVING FOR BOSTON

A FRAT PARTY

(MOST OF WHICH RICK STOOD AWKWARDLY IN A CORNER OF)

"It's Rick, right? Rick Grimes?"

Rick nodded, though he was only half-listening. He was thinking of the essay due at 11: 00 P.M, and how it was approaching 10: 00 P.M and he was at a party he didn't want to be in in the first place. The girl in front of him seemed nice enough, pretty, kind, a little chatty. She'd rambled for ten straight minutes without asking his name.

"Yeah, it – it's Rick. What was your name again?"

"Katherine, but my friends call me Kat. What did you say your major was again?"

"I didn't. You were – "

"That's right! I was talking about how much I hate my roomie. I mean it's not that I don't like her, it's just that she's always touching my things…"

Rick shifted uncomfortably. He felt a clap on his back. Shane, smelling faintly of alcohol, grinning from ear to ear. "Hey, man. I see you met my girl Kat."

Kat stopped mid-rant to greet him. Shane winked at her before rounding on Rick, keeping his voice low. "Hey, man, a bunch of us were gonna go out to a different party. Wanna come?"

Rick rubbed the back of his neck. He didn't like this party, so he sincerely doubted he'd enjoy the next. "Don't think so. I have an essay due later. You go, though. Have your fun. Don't forget to give whoever you're screwing back their lacy thongs."

Shane chuckled. "Slicky dick Rick, you are somethin' else. I know at least four girls here, not including Kat, who want to screw you, and you'd rather go to the dorms to do what? To write an essay?"

"Yeah," Rick said confusedly, ignoring what he'd said about the girls. "That's kinda what we're here for."

"Right, but you're here, and there are vulnerable girls with nice tits and firm asses and you're dodging them like they're the plague."

Rick sighed, looking into his cup. Sometimes he thought Shane wanted him to get laid more than he actually wanted to get laid. Of course he noticed all the girls who came up to him, smelling strongly of perfume, batting their lashes, finding excuses to touch his arm and laugh at everything he said. He'd be an idiot not to.

"Is it Michonne?"

Rick's head snapped up at the mention of her name. "What?"

"Michonne," Shane grinned again, a hint of malice on his face. "The girl you're always on the phone with. The one you write letters to. You hung up on her?"

Something feathered in Rick's jaw. It was a fair inquiry, but something about hearing Shane talk about Michonne didn't sit right with him. "You don't know anything about that."

"Don't I? You talk to her in this low voice and you never want to show me what you write. I've seen pictures of her, Rick. It's ok to have jungle fever. Happens to the best of us."

Rick blinked, inching his head slightly to the right as he squinted at Shane. "Jungle fever? Scuse' me?"

Shane lifted his hands to placate himself, seeing his friends tense and thinking twice. "I'm just playin', man. What I mean is – you're here. You got into Harvard. It'd be a shame not to fuck a few pretty girls, at least."

Rick downed his drink, crinkled it, and threw it into the nearest trash can. He turned for the door, barely giving Shane a glance behind his shoulder. "Like I said, give them back their underwear. I'm sick of finding those things lying around the room."

He ended up back in the dorms. His essay only needed a bit of polishing, and he'd sent it in with thirty minutes to spare. That gave him plenty of time to stare at the ceiling.

He was hung up on Michonne, though not in the way Shane would've liked to think. She was supposed to be there with him, and she wasn't, and it bothered him. That was perfectly normal.

But he'd never thought of it in the context of his dating life. Girls approached him but it never went beyond simple conversations. Never mind that he hadn't had sex in almost five months. Women just weren't his priority right then, he told himself. And that was fine.

Well, one was.


The first time Michonne felt her baby move, she held her breath.

She'd been sitting in the library with Andrea, fresh from a meeting with her adoption specialist, and she felt it. A flutter, barely there, but it was something. She stiffened and held her breath.

Andrea, sitting across the table from her, didn't notice, engrossed in some erotic romance novel.

Michonne stood up. "I have to pee."

Andrea grunted, flickering her eyes toward her friend. "Do you want me to come with?"

Michonne shook her head and then made a beeline for the restroom. Thankfully, it was empty. She lifted her shirt to reveal her swollen belly, running her fingers over the taut skin. The baby was so quiet, she had started to worry despite countless reassurances from her Doctor that everything was fine.

But now that she knew they were moving in there, alive and kicking, she was more than relieved.

She was glad.

It was one of the only times she remembered being happy during this entire ordeal. Her pregnancy was wrought with so much bad, from the conception to the general discomfort she felt every day. She'd smiled when she heard the heartbeat and saw the ultrasound pictures, but she'd had yet to experience the actual joy of being pregnant, and chalked it up to having to give the baby up.

It was ironic coming to this realization in a public restroom, a place she'd dreaded since the first pregnancy test showed up positive.

But somehow this moment was potent. The baby had moved. She was growing life inside her. She would be someone's mother, even when she gave them away she'd have the marks, even when they grew up without knowing her face, she'd know theirs. They'd moved inside her once upon a time, and it was both beautiful and terrifying.