A/N: And we're back! I'm honestly kind of overwhelmed by the love you guys have shown lately. I truly did not expect this response, given the presence of Jessie and slow Richonne action, so this has been truly awesome, you guys.
Really quickly, ttgranger, thank you for such insightful feedback! You really made me smile, because a lot of what you said is precisely what I've been hoping to convey. I mean, not that I want Rick to come off as unlikeable, but it's dope as hell that you're still reading despite (or because of) it. And it makes sense - I've been writing this Rick with shades of my favorite TV character, Don Draper, who is deeply flawed and often very unlikeable, lol. So it made me laugh when you said that. There are some other things you mentioned that are spot on, but I don't wanna give away future events. So hopefully they're addressed in the next few chapters and then we can talk about it! Anyway, thank you again. So much. Thank you all! It's my favorite thing to hear from y'all.
Lots of Jessie in this chapter, unfortunately, which I did not enjoy writing, given the latest filming spoilers. But there's also some Richonne, and maybe a little something you didn't see coming? I hope you enjoy! -Ash
Chapter 8: Knot
It was midnight, and Michonne was lying in her empty bed, doing her best to empty her head and find sleep. But every time she closed her eyes, thoughts of Rick came crashing through, refusing to allow her any solace. Perhaps it was because he was gone on his mission to find a doctor, and she simply wasn't used to being home without him. Perhaps it was because they'd practically been attached at the hip for two days straight, so it was difficult to get the picture of him out of her head. But the real problem seemed to be that she could not stop envisioning the dream he told her about.
It was her own fault, she knew. She demanded that he tell her every dirty detail, and now they were all swirling around in her brain, making a mess. The thought of Rick touching her had crossed her mind once or twice – when they shamelessly flirted with one another, or when she knew he was staring at her ass. She would imagine him holding it with both hands while she rode him. But they were always just flashes of images. Nothing long enough to warrant a true fantasy. But now? All she could picture was Rick fingering her teasingly, while she laid naked in that very bed, writhing to the feel of him. She imagined pulling his hard dick from his pants, how it would fit in her hands, how it would taste.
"Fuck," Michonne whispered to herself. She turned from her side to her back, running her hand along her thigh, where her fresh bandage was. She thought of how it felt to have Rick's hands on that thigh, and the stupid flutter it gave her the first few times he'd done it.
Their time at Alexandria had changed so much about their relationship, and it was manifesting itself as she laid there, thinking about him. And she wasn't sure what had caused the shift, which made it all the more confusing. They had been close for so long, but suddenly, she had begun to feel things. Emptiness when they were apart. Pangs of jealousy when she thought of him and Jessie. And now, knowing that he'd pictured her naked was a huge turn on. It was all so strange.
Before she knew it, her eyes had closed and she was seeing Rick's face, all while her hand inched to the left, making its way inside her panties. She wasted no time using her index and middle fingers to softly massage her clit; envisioning Rick licking his lips as he watched her, as he touched her himself. Her head pressed against the headboard, she began to breathe heavier as she continued downward, dipping her fingers into her warm, wet center. Her mouth was agape as she stroked herself towards an orgasm, Rick's face on her mind, his name on her lips. She moaned out quietly in response to her self-pleasure, but she had to bite her bottom lip to keep from saying his name out loud.
Her fingers were fully immersed in her own wetness, and she was right on the verge of a climax, when the static of the walkie-talkie on her nightstand shook her out of her fantasy. Especially when it was followed by the sound of Rick's voice.
"Open the gates!" he was yelling.
Michonne could tell something was wrong by the tone of his voice, and immediately stopped what she was doing. "Fuck," she whimpered once more, feeling the entire moment slipping away from her. It had been months since her last self-induced orgasm, and of course, once she was finally in the vicinity of one, it seemed that more danger was looming.
With a sigh, she pulled out of bed, glad to know that her friend was home safely, at least. She grabbed the walkie with her clean hand as she began to hobble towards the bathroom. "Rick?" she asked into the radio, even though she knew it was him.
"Michonne." He spoke her name as though it were the answer to her question. "Are Carl and Judith okay?"
"They're fine," she promised, still confused by the tone of his voice. "Is Aaron with you? Did you find a doctor?"
"Yes and yes," he replied quickly. But then there was a long pause before he spoke again. "I need Lysol," he added cryptically.
She frowned, knowing that was the code phrase for her to switch to Channel 4 on the transmitter. It was just for a select few people, so she knew something was likely very wrong. She did exactly that as she closed the door to the bathroom and took a seat on the closed toilet. "I'm here."
"Are Carol and Daryl with you?"
"They're in their rooms."
"Well I need you to get them and wait for me in the living room," he instructed. "I'll be there in a few minutes."
"Rick," she called out to him firmly. "What is going on?"
Another long pause before he came back over the radio, his voice lower than before. "There's a herd headed this way."
Jessie sat at her kitchen table, staring out of her back window at the dreary day, a bottle of wine as her only companion. Her mind was racing as Ron came strolling into the house, his head covered by his hoodie, and his hands in his pockets. She watched in surprise as he sat down across from her with a loud sigh.
"You okay?" she quirked an eyebrow at him curiously.
"Yup."
She pulled her wine bottle from between them and poured herself another glass as she spoke, still staring at him suspiciously. "How was class?"
He shrugged and sat back in his chair. "I didn't go."
"Why the hell not?" she demanded, immediately sitting up a little straighter as she frowned at him.
"Because I can't," he stated evenly. "I can't sit there with them anymore. Pretending things are fine. Pretending I don't hate them."
"Them?"
"Carl," he said. "Enid. And their stupid jokes, and their stupid laughing, and their stupid study groups."
"You know you're the one isolating yourself from them, right?"
He looked up at her with a nod. "It just doesn't feel fun anymore. It all feels dumb."
Jessie sighed heavily and downed some of her wine before speaking again. "I know that the world shifted for you after your father died," she said softly. "And maybe it doesn't feel right to have happy moments yet. Maybe it'll take some time. But Enid and Carl, specifically, know exactly what you're going through. Enid lost both her parents, and she can still find a way to smile," she reminded him. "So all I've been trying to say is, maybe don't shut them out. Maybe they can show you something that I can't."
"Well I don't think you can show me anything," he muttered back, "so that's a good bet."
"Hey," she snapped at him, harshening her tone. "Don't be cruel."
"You've been practically comatose for the past three days and you're trying to give me advice about shutting people out?" His demeanor was no longer calm and he had pushed back from the table. "Are you kidding me?"
"I'm not kidding you," she retorted, looking down at her unstable hands. "I want you to be better than me. I'm not... I don't always do things right-"
"That's an understatement."
"But no one gave me a handbook to say, 'Hey, here's what you do in this situation.' Everything is fucked up, and I know you see that. I know you feel that. So please don't judge me for how I handle my pain."
"Mom, I've never judged you," Ron said as sincerely as he knew how. "Not when Dad was doing whatever and you couldn't walk away. Even when Dad was still here and you started acting like Rick was your magical savior. But I just don't think you've seen anything clearly since he walked into those gates." He dug into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out the gun he'd taken from her emergency stash at the start of the weekend. He placed it on the table and watched as her face slowly transformed to shock. "I've had that for three days now," he revealed, his tone expressing his disappointment and disapproval. "It took me all of three minutes to find."
"Ron-"
He leaned in close, demanding her gaze. "You have to wake up, Mom. You have to."
"I know," she answered in a whisper.
He opened his mouth to continue chiding her, but quickly realized that she had agreed with him. "What?"
"You're right," she maintained, nodding. Her eyes began to water and she blinked them out before wiping them away. "I got caught up in some silly fantasy world where knights in shining armor exist. And they don't. And I know that now."
"You do..."
"We have to take care of ourselves," she submitted with a light sniffle. She remembered when she tried to tell that to Rick, and he wouldn't listen. When he said he could take care of her. She exhaled heavily, feeling sick at the thought of how silly she was to believe such a thing. "I'm trying to get there."
He stared at his mother in confusion and surprise, wondering how it came to pass that she was suddenly so enlightened. "What happened to change your mind?"
"I dunno," she shrugged sadly. "I just... opened my eyes, I guess." She slid the gun from the table and opened the bullet chamber to see if it was still empty. "You still shouldn't have taken this."
"I shouldn't have," he agreed. "I just thought it would scare you. But then it turned out you didn't even notice."
"Jesus, I get it. I'm a horrible mother," she acknowledged with a small sarcastic smile. "You don't have to twist the knife."
"You're not a horrible mother," he said, looking her in the eye again. "Dad wasn't even a horrible father-."
"The jury's still out on that," she cut in with a scoff.
"No, you're right," he reconsidered quickly. "I try to remember the good stuff, but… what he did to you, he did to us. And I understand why you didn't grieve him the way I wanted to."
Her worried expression fell into one of relief at her son's words. "You do?"
"Don't get me wrong," he appended, holding up his hand. "I still don't think Rick is good for you. I wish he would just go away, honestly. But I get why you thought you needed him."
She took his hand into hers, resting them both on the tabletop and she smiled. "So it sounds like we both woke up."
He was about to respond, when a knock at the door interrupted them, and he only looked down glumly. It was the first time in weeks that they'd shared a moment of understanding, and now it was being intruded on, most likely by Rick, he figured.
Jessie went to answer, a bit surprised to find Carol on her doorstep. She also halfway expected it to be Rick. "Hey," she greeted her next-door neighbor with a polite smile.
"Hey, Jessie," Carol returned shortly. "Ordinarily, I'd stand here and make small talk, and I'd use cryptic language so as not to scare you. But I think you've seen enough to warrant me cutting right to the chase," she began to explain.
Jessie's eyebrows knitted in confusion, but also intrigue. "Okay…"
"There's a herd of walkers headed straight for Alexandria. We've spent most of today trying to redirect them, but with the size of this herd, it's just… too dangerous. So the Safe Zone goes into lockdown tonight." Her tone was so even and calm, it was almost alarming. "Minimal light, minimal noise, no movement outside the gates. You and your boys should report to my house by eight." Carol handed her a piece of paper containing a survival checklist of sorts. "Bring everything you can on that list."
"Really?" Jessie accepted the paper, perusing it as she quietly wondered why she was being invited to Rick's house. Given what she'd seen a few days prior, it just didn't make sense. "Rick is back, I take it?"
"He got back last night."
"Is this an invite from him?"
Carol stared back at her blankly. "It's a mandate from him," she clarified. "Half the neighborhood will be there."
"Oh." She was taken aback by Carol's direct tone, but nodded. "He's probably not even gonna be there," she realized.
"Jessie, this is about saving your life. Saving your kids' lives. I'm not here as cupid."
Jessie immediately covered her face in embarrassment, shaking her head at how silly she was being. "I'm so sorry," she replied holding her reddened cheeks. "I don't know what's wrong with me."
"You like him," Carol said softly. "I get it."
"I'm acting like an idiot, though."
"You shouldn't let it distract you," she agreed. "Rick isn't going anywhere."
She felt her eyes sting with tears, knowing that that wasn't true. "You sure about that?" she smiled back at Carol sadly.
"He's not gonna die," she rolled her eyes. "Not from a few hundred walkers on our doorstep."
"That's not what I mean." Jessie began to stare at the ground as she crossed her arms over her chest. "I just get the feeling... he's just not that into me."
Carol's annoyed frown quickly turned to confusion when she realized that Jessie was really sad about something here. "What makes you say that?"
"Just… stuff I've noticed," she nodded, looking up at her. "There's been an aloofness there for a while. I dunno. It was never quite the same after Pete died," she had to admit, "but now it just feels... cold. I dunno if it's guilt, or... maybe I said something. Maybe I didn't do enough. But I feel like I've been trying to hold on to him and he's just slipping through my grasp." She shook her head as she thought of him with Michonne on their back porch a few days before. "Maybe I've been holding onto something I never had in the first place."
"Maybe," Carol said, halfway wondering what had happened so suddenly. It didn't sound like Rick had broken anything off. "Maybe he just wanted to give you some time after Pete."
"I thought so, too. But I keep trying to drop hints that I'm okay, and he just keeps… inching further away from me."
"Well," she sighed, her sympathy beginning to run dry at that point. "Men rarely take the time to end things. They just ignore you until you insist on a declaration of hate," she prophesized. "Is that what you want?"
She shook her head, still wiping her eyes. "I didn't ask for any of this."
"Well you got it," Carol shot back. "If you feel that raw about it, maybe tell him how you feel. Maybe not. But you need to move forward, Jessie."
She scoffed at Carol's flippancy about her situation. "It's so simple when it's someone else's life."
Carol sighed heavily, now officially annoyed by her lack of a problem here. "It's simple when the answer is staring you in the face. You don't have to like it, but you do have to accept it. Whatever it is that you've realized, whatever it is that's making you feel like this," she gestured, "you let it go. You cry your tears, you dry your eyes, and you move forward."
Jessie stared back at Carol for a few seconds, recalling how Rick said she'd started in a place similar to her own. She wasn't sure what that meant, but she wanted to ask now. "Is that what you did?" she wondered.
Carol didn't hesitate to answer, "Yes."
Once again startled by her bluntness, Jessie just nodded back in understanding.
"I've started over a few times," she added, softening her tone. "This is always the hardest part."
She exhaled sharply as she placed her hand on her doorknob, ready to go back inside now. "I guess I'll see you at eight then."
"Good."
Darkness had just fallen over the city as Rick was finally able to take a break from being leader and simply settle into a corner of his crowded home. With twenty people roaming around his house, all of the seating had been taken, so he and Judith, along with their dinner for the night, took a spot on the floor. He chose to sit just behind the dining table, where Carl was with Michonne, and some of the other neighborhood kids, putting a puzzle together. It made him smile when Michonne suggested it, because it was the perfect thing to keep them occupied and quiet. He loved that she was always thinking ahead.
It didn't take long for Carl to notice his father and sister just a few feet away. "You don't wanna help us, Dad?"
"I'm all right," he declined with a smirk as he fed Judith a piece of a cracker. He was just happy to sit down, finally. "I could use a mental break right about now."
"Suit yourself," he shrugged. He made a silly face at Judith when she turned in the direction of his voice, then added, "You'd probably just slow us down anyway."
Michonne looked up at him, trying not to laugh at the insult. But the fact was, Rick was terribly slow at just about anything recreational, and they all knew it.
"What's that supposed to mean," Rick argued, his face contorting to a frown.
"It just means you're slow," Carl shot back playfully. "Not like, mentally slow. But whenever we play a game, you take forever."
"That is not true."
Michonne turned back to give him a look of disbelief. "That's a hundred percent true, and you know it."
Rick gazed at her for a beat, smiling, but offended by her stance against him. "So y'all are just gonna gang up on me now? That's how it is?"
"That is exactly how it is," she grinned.
Carl continued to sort through his puzzle pieces as he added, "We're just telling the truth, Dad."
"I'll have you know that I'm actually very good at puzzles."
"Is that why it takes you an hour to pull out a Jenga block?" Michonne teased.
"That is such an exaggeration," he chuckled, shaking his head at the pile-on. "You're the one that takes nineteen minutes to decide whether you wanna buy a property."
"That was one time!" she defended in a harsh whisper. "And Park Place is serious business."
"That was a really long time," Carl had to agree, nodding at Michonne. "Like, Dad fell asleep, woke up, and you were still thinking about it."
"Listen. We were talking about your dad."
"And now we're talking about you," Rick shot back, taking a bite of his food. "It's all fun and games until you get thrown under the bus, right?"
She turned back to him, her eyes relaying her lack of amusement. "You're an idiot," she remarked factually. The rest of the table laughed at their banter, while Rick went back to his dinner with Judith, and Michonne continued to put the tiny pieces of their puzzle together. She glanced at everyone's progress, surprised to see that Ron had quietly constructed a large corner of the image of The White House. "And Ron is over there just making us all look bad," she joked.
The teenager looked up at her, startled by the fact that he was being addressed. "I've just done this one before."
"That's cheating," Sam declared, frowning at his older brother.
"You did it by yourself?" Michonne questioned, impressed if he had.
"It gets really boring around here," he shrugged, smiling shyly. "Before you guys moved in here, we would just hang out in your attic, trying not to die of boredom."
Carl and Enid looked at one another knowingly - knowing that they had been out in the wild, just trying not to die. But neither of them said anything while Michonne was the one to answer him.
"So we took your clubhouse," she realized, sliding part of her section of the puzzle to the middle of the table. "That sucks."
"It did suck," Enid confirmed, glancing at Ron now. "It was our way to get away."
"We mostly just read," Mikey inserted into the conversation with a nod. "Remember, we were gonna start writing our own comic book?"
"We actually did start," Ron remembered with a small smile. "And then Deanna said we couldn't have any more paper."
Michonne chuckled, but she hated that something constructive for them had been snatched away. These kids needed something normal in their lives. She knew Carl did, anyway. "Well. Y'all aren't gonna be running through my house all the time," she started off, smiling jokingly at the small group. "But if you want, we can set up some hours for the clubhouse, and you can use it at those times, specifically."
The four teenagers looked at her in surprise, Carl speaking for all of them. "Really?"
"Why not," she shrugged. "No one else is using it."
"That would be awesome," Mikey nodded happily.
"It would," Ron agreed, though less enthusiastically. "Thanks, Michonne."
Enid turned towards Carl's dad, the new leader of Alexandria, for all intents and purposes. "Is that okay with you, Mr. Grimes?"
Rick looked up from his daughter with a shrug and a smile. "I don't make the rules in this house," he had to admit.
He also had to admit, to himself, that he was enjoying listening and watching Michonne interact with the kids. He shouldn't have been surprised how good she was with them, considering how well she and Carl got along, but it made him smile all the same, seeing how they all responded to her. He thought it would be a feat to convince a bunch of teenagers to do a puzzle in the first place, but as he sat there watching her, he realized they probably just gravitated toward her.
"I'm gonna let you guys in on a little secret," Michonne began to whisper, pretending she really did have a secret to share. "Mr. Grimes is really just a big old softy."
"I can hear you, you know," he called out to her.
"He's trying to act hard right now, but he's basically a teddy bear. I got this tiny little cut on my leg," she said, pointing to her stab wound, "he melted like an ice cream cone the second he saw it."
"You almost died, Michonne."
She playfully waved off his assessment of the situation and shook her head at the kids. "So sensitive."
They all laughed, and he couldn't help but do so either, his eyes fixated on the back of her as she moved her puzzle pieces across the table. Those shoulders, drawing him in again, contracting every time she shifted.
His gaze was so transfixed on her, he hadn't noticed Jessie had been staring at him since he sat down; that she was now walking towards him purposefully. In fact, it wasn't until she was hovering directly over him that he remembered anyone else was even in the room. He looked up at her, both startled and confused by her sudden appearance. "Hey."
"Hey," she answered flatly. "Can we talk?"
"Sure." He began to move over so that she could have a space against the wall.
"Somewhere private," she countered, glancing around the crowded room. "I don't want... everyone to hear this."
He nodded, quickly standing from his spot to oblige her request. He knew the entire bottom floor of his home was filled with people, so he led her upstairs, where things were empty and much quieter. They continued into his room, where he gestured for Jessie to take a seat on his bed, while he placed Judith in her crib, and then joined his friend.
"Everything okay?" he wondered, having noticed the odd expression on her face.
"I don't know," she admitted with a shaky sigh. "I kept debating with myself whether to even bring this up, but it's... it's festering, and it's driving me crazy."
Rick gave her a look of concern, genuinely clueless as to what she was referring to. "What happened?"
"Nothing happened," she said as if that were supposed to explain everything to him. "Nothing is happening."
"I don't understand."
Jessie sneered in annoyance, seeing that he was going to make their conversation as difficult as possible. "Of course you don't," she mumbled. She exhaled again, and tried to look him in the eye. "What were you thinking when you kissed me at Deanna's house?" When she noticed that he looked more baffled than before, she added, "And I don't mean 'What were you thinking' as in, 'Are you crazy?' I'm asking genuinely. What was on your mind at that moment?"
"I don't know," he shrugged, avoiding her stare. "I'd had a lot to drink. I wasn't thinking at all, really."
"So was I silly to think that there was some hint of attraction there? Was that all in my head?"
"No," he answered quickly. "There was something there. Something I was never quite able to define..."
"I thought so," she nodded, running her hand over her face. "After your fight with Pete, it feels like I've been watching it… decay."
"A lot happened since that kiss, Jessie. I mean, everything with Pete, with Reg. Morgan showing up." He shook his head at the thought of everything they'd been through in just a few short weeks. "I haven't... I was in some sort of state when we first got here. It felt like a dream or somethin'. I dunno. But I had to wake up." He hung his head in something akin to shame. "That fight..."
"That fight was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for me."
Rick looked up at her, realizing that the gossip folks weren't the only ones that thought he was fighting for Jessie. She thought so, too. And he wasn't sure how to tell her that that wasn't necessarily the case. "It was... that wasn't my best moment."
She nodded. "So you walked away from that and realized you didn't want me anymore, I guess."
"I realized I'd gone about a lot of things the wrong way," he replied, attempting to be more diplomatic. "I enjoy you," he appended. "I think you're sweet. I think there's a lot I can teach you. I think there's still a lot to learn about you. And somewhere down the line, maybe that translates into something more, but... it doesn't feel right to try and build something on such a rocky foundation right now." He shook his head again, feeling sad, feeling lost. He felt like he was breaking up with someone he was never dating in the first place. "I thought that went without saying," he went on, "but I guess I should've said it."
"Somewhere down the line..." She looked up at the ceiling now, trying to catch her tears from falling. But she couldn't stop the lump in her throat that had formed when she thought of what she'd learned in the previous few days. "How is that even possible," she posed in a wobbly voice, "when you're in love with someone else?"
Rick gave her that look again - the one that said he had no idea what she was talking about. "I lost my wife nearly a year ago," he submitted hoarsely. "There's still some grief there, I guess, but-"
"I'm not talking about your wife, Rick."
"Then what the hell are you talking about?"
She turned to him, studying the puzzled expression on his face, and then it dawned on her. "You don't even know," she marveled. Her tears fell hard then, because she knew this wasn't about deception, or him being too afraid to say the words. It was just plain bad luck that she figured it out before he did.
"Know what?" he pressed.
"I'm talking about Michonne," she said softly, almost feeling sorry for him now.
"Jessie…"
"You do this thing," she started to explain, her eyes flitting to the floor now. "You stare at her for way too long, and then you look away, like maybe you're worried she'll catch you. You did it just a few minutes ago," she pointed towards the door. "I saw it a few days ago too, and I swear, I never meant to watch you," she sniffled. "In fact, I was about to say hi, but I realized I was intruding on something. And I saw it, and I remember thinking to myself, 'I wish I had someone that looked at me like that.'" She chuckled ruefully, but tears were still streaming down her cheeks. "And it's weird. It's kind of heartbreaking, because I foolishly thought, at some point, it would be you. God knows Pete never did," she scoffed. "But… I saw you two on your back deck, and I dunno… It's funny how you can watch two people from afar, and just their mannerisms tell you they're in love. The way you held her. The way you made each other laugh." She sniffled again, covering her face with her hands as she recalled every minute detail of their conversation. "You looked at her like she was the sun," she remembered. "And she looked back at you like you were the stars. And I dunno, maybe you just kept missing each other; maybe you both thought the other was looking at the ground, but… it was clear as day to me. And I just felt so incredibly stupid for not seeing it before then." She glanced back at Rick, tears blurring her vision, but she could still make out the look of panic taking over his face. "Tell me I'm wrong," she said.
"You're wrong," he shot back without thinking. "I don't even know what you're talking about."
"You do," she whispered. "I'm not an idiot, Rick. I know what I saw. And I know how fucking bad it felt to see it, so please don't sit here and deny it."
"I'm not…" He let out a deep sigh, feeling lost for words at the moment. "I don't know what you think you saw, but… that's not," he shook his head, beginning to stammer out his incoherent thoughts. "M-michonne and I are very close. Maybe it's – maybe it's easy to mistake it for something else. But we're not in love."
"Fine," she sighed disbelievingly. "Maybe you're crazy, maybe I am. But I don't wanna be a third wheel in whatever you two have. It is obviously much deeper than whatever the hell you and I were doing."
"Jessie, we just met," he said quietly. "There's no reason we can't be close, too."
"There is a reason. And… she's downstairs right now." She wiped her face again, but kept her expression hidden. "I would like it if we could be friends at some point. But I think it's silly to pretend this can go anywhere else."
"Maybe so," he nodded sadly. He hated that he'd done anything to make her cry; especially when he hadn't really done anything. "I'm still always here if you need me."
"I appreciate that." She swallowed hard, and glanced around the room she had spent the night in just a few days prior. She should've known then that things weren't what they seemed, that he was just being nice; but she supposed her expectations had gotten the best of her. "Do you mind if I just sit here for a minute?" she grimaced. "I don't wanna be around a bunch of people right now."
"Of course," he nodded. He looked around the room, exhaling sharply. "Do you want me to stay?"
"No."
Rick wasn't sure what else to say. Whether there was anything else to say. The entire conversation had blindsided him, and his head was spinning, his stomach in knots. "I'll be downstairs then," he said.
He quickly disappeared from the room, but was slow to make his way back to the group. His mind was a mess of thoughts, all of them about Michonne and what Jessie said about her. The idea of being in love with her had never once crossed his mind. Did he care about her? Sure? Did he love her? Yes. She was someone he considered family. He was closer to her than anyone. But in love? That just wasn't possible. Was it?
Once he made it back to the living room, he found Michonne still engaged in her puzzle with the kids, but he managed to catch her eye, swallowing visibly when he did. She tilted her head at him curiously when she noted the strange look on his face. He looked scared, and it made her wonder where he'd been for the past five minutes.
"You okay?" she mouthed to him when he didn't stop looking at her.
Rick nodded back nervously, but he was fairly certain that that wasn't true. In fact, he was very much not okay.
