You guys are so sweet with all of your encouragement! I really appreciate all the feedback on that last chapter. You guys totally wanted them to do it. :)

And this is the last installment of this tiny little short story. And "epilogue" if you will. I hope you enjoy it.


The soothing sound of running water pulled Rick from his already light state of sleep. He blinked his eyes open slowly as realization began to set in. It was still dark outside, so they hadn't slept until morning, or late morning anyway. Maybe she hadn't slept at all he thought, as he pulled his arm from under the sheet and squinted at his watch.

2:02 AM

Rick sat up in the small motel bed and started to scan the floor for his clothes. He didn't want Michonne to come out of the bathroom to find him there, still naked. He wasn't sure how much she'd appreciate that. He wasn't sure how she felt about any of what just happened at all. And that made him feel a little nervous.

He had stood up and pulled his boxers from the floor and started to put them on when he heard the water shut off. He pulled them up over his hips quickly and sat back down on the edge of the bed.

The bathroom door opened and the smell of clean permeated the small room as she emerged from the bathroom.

He looked up at her. She was wearing a pair of black yoga shorts and a faded black Pink Floyd t-shirt – the hem of which just barely fell over her belly button. She had her dreadlocks pulled back into a lose ponytail so that her entire face was on display. He liked her hair this way. Her face was unhidden, unguarded. He smiled to himself a little.

She stood there, leaning against the door jam with her arms folded over her chest. "I didn't mean to wake you… I just wanted to clean up…" She started softly.

He shook his head. "No worries." His face was then the display of mild amusement as he asked, "Floyd fan?"

Her chin dropped as she looked down at her shirt briefly and then back up at him. She smirked, "I dabble…"

He chuckled to himself. "Never would have guessed it." He drawled.

"Really?" She asked now intrigued.

"Really." He followed up quickly.

They fell into silence as they each tried weighing the situation, getting a better grasp on each other, hell, figure out what to even say next.

He noticed, after awhile, that her smile slowly began to recede from her face and she seemed to be deep in thought.

He didn't push her into telling him what was wrong. He only held her gaze and eventually she looked back at him. "I don't know what I'm going to do." She offered honestly.

He sighed heavily and nodded in understanding. He knew the conversation needed to be had. He'd give anything to skip this part. He hadn't even been good at opening up to a woman he had been married to for twelve years. "We'll figure it out." He replied simply and waited on bated breath for a chastisement.

She looked at him curiously, her eyebrows' low in the center of her forehead. "We'll …..as in…. you and I?" She pointed to him and then herself. "You're willing to stick around for this?" She asked him, part of her teasing part of her seriously wanting to know.

He stared at her for a minute, his mouth open slightly as he tried to find words to push out of it. He felt a little unsure of his own sureness, but decided to go with it anyway. "If that's what you want." He didn't want to put her off. But he wanted to make certain that she understood that he had no desire to leave her to scramble on her own. He watched her closely, watched as her shoulders fell as she released her tense posture and moved towards him. She plopped down on the bed beside him and fixed her eyes on the floor. "Rick… I…" She began.

"Michonne –" he cut her off. "I'm sorry." He said quickly. "I'm not very good at this, but I'm tryin'. I was never great at expressing myself so I'm sorry if I'm not saying the right thing here." He explained.

She gazed at him and then placed a tentative hand against his lean bicep. "No. Listen," She made sure he was looking directly at her. "I'm not expecting anything to come out of this. Not saying that it didn't mean anything because it meant everything. But I'm not expecting anything from you. You're not saying or doing anything wrong, ok?"

Rick swallowed hard and his eyes flitted away from hers briefly, but the sound of her voice brought them right back to her. "I've never felt this strongly before in such a short period of time. I don't even know you," She said realizing it truly in that very moment that she really didn't know anything about him. "I know nothing about you…" Her voice teetered on the edge of panic.

"The last thing that I wanted to do was complicate things for you…" He said quietly from beside her.

She felt a pang of something in the center of her chest in response to his sincerity. "Rick," She sighed. "I'm the complication, ok?" She stood up from the bed but didn't move away from him. She folded her arms back over her chest. "I could be pregnant. With Mike's child. The man currently sitting in jail. The man you arrested just yesterday - which, by the way, was only the second time we've ever met." She rambled.

"Technically, my partner arrested him."

His words brought her fidgeting to a halt. She looked at him in disbelief but couldn't help the teasing tone that seeped through her words. "You are something else, you know that right?"

He smiled but remained silent, sure that she wasn't finished yet.

"And you… you have a girlfriend." She started to pace again.

Rick ran and hand over his face and then scratched at his stubble. "Look, I'm not going to pretend that the circumstances that we find ourselves in aren't shitty. We shouldn't have done this, bottom line. Pick a reason out of a thousand why we shouldn't have. But we did, and I don't regret it, Michonne. I'd do it again. Hell, I wanna do it again." He stared up at her hoping that his words were getting through to her on some level – any level. "If you want me to go, I'll go. It'll be easy to chalk it up to attraction, lust and one hell of a bad decision. But I'm willin' to take the difficult route if you are." He said laying it all out there for her to take it or leave it.

Michonne nodded and sat down next to him for the second time. She positioned herself so that her entire body was facing him. One leg was on the bed tucked under her bottom and her other was over the edge, her bare food planted on the floor. "This is crazy. You know that right?"

He shifted his body so that he was facing her completely now as well. "No," He responded softly while he placed a hand on her thigh and rubbed his thumb against her smooth skin there. "This is right."