A/N: Paisley2, I grimaced when Carol called the Alexandrians children. She and Rick were just so intense about the people's weakness, and it was like can y'all chill? Carl felt the same way, but you didn't see him being condescending and extra. Smh.

Happy Sunday and enjoy! And btw, you guys should check out Fans of Fiction Ep 1 on Youtube. They're reviewing the first chapters of fanfics and rec'ing them, and this fic is the first one featured! It's both weird and cool to hear my fic read out loud, lol.


Build

That night, Rick had an easier time falling asleep. Michonne was a soft, slender weight under him; her laughter rang in his ears; her smile lit up his mind; her breath fanned his ear as he suckled the skin at the base of her neck; she ran her foot up his legs under the table, and his family shared a nice meal.

He didn't know he'd fallen asleep until he dreamed of a dead Noah. He sat like Bob, and looked like Beth, and smiled like Tyreese.

He shot up in bed, his heart racing. Disoriented, he tried to remember where he was. He saw a sliver of light under his closed door, but the room was too dark.

He fumbled for the light on his bedside table, and then he sat against the headboard, trying to calm himself. He realized then that he'd sweated through his shirt.

He looked over at the crib, and Judith was peacefully asleep.

Rick squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his fingers against them.

He tried to relax; he tried to tell himself it was a just dream, but Noah was dead, and he'd been laughing heartily with his family at the dinner table.

He moved the covers aside and stood. He was sure that he couldn't sleep anymore.

He walked around the bed to turn off the light, and then he left the room. He checked on Carl, who didn't shut his door completely, because he needed the hallway's light.

The boy was sleeping so soundly that he didn't sense the opening of the door like Rick knew he normally would. He'd had a great time at dinner.

Rick put the door back the way Carl had it, and then he looked down the hallway at Michonne's door.

He wanted to go downstairs. He was going to go downstairs. He could deal with this alone, sit by himself until he worked it out. But he couldn't remember the last time he'd done that. He wanted to talk to Michonne.

He walked to her door and hesitated.

Michonne was asleep when he knocked. She wasn't in deep, so it didn't take her long to wake, but when she did open her eyes, she realized that this was the fastest she'd fallen asleep since she'd arrived in Alexandria.

The person at her door knocked a second time, and then it turned insistent. She knew then that it was Rick.

She left her covers and moved in the dark.

"Rick," she said, squinting as she opened the door.

"Hi," Rick said, feeling some of his anxiety instantly melt away.

Michonne took in his wet shirt.

"Uh," Rick said, looking down at himself. "We need to talk. Can we talk?"

"Yeah, sure," Michonne said, wondering if this had to do with their afternoon makeout session but sensing that it was about something on the opposite end of the feel-good spectrum.

What he said next confirmed her pessimistic suspicion.

"I dreamt about Noah."

Michonne's hand slid down the door. "Come on."

She lightly touched the inside of his elbow, and he backed up. She stepped out of her room, and they went downstairs to the living room.

Rick turned on the light while Michonne sat on the couch and crossed her legs in front of her. When Rick sat next to her, his eyes caught on the dinner table.

The table was cleared off, every plate and silverware washed. He could hear himself, Michonne, and Carl, laughing and chuckling and poking fun at each other. He heard Judith babbling loudly to join in the fun.

"We were laughing," Michonne said, reading his mind.

Rick lowered his head.

"We were having a good time. I don't think we forgot. But we had a good time. What we were doing under the table, what we did in my room, cooking together like that, telling stories: think it'll happen again tomorrow?"

Rick was looking at her, and she was looking sideways at him with that small smile that always made him feel like she knew a lot more about him than she was letting on.

But for the first time, he saw dejection behind the smile. The light in her eyes, the one that had brightened the dinner table, it was gone now. It was then that he remembered the mood she'd been in before he'd put it at a standstill with a kiss that had stretched on and on.

"This place is a mirage," Michonne said, her tiny smile falling like Rick knew it would. "Nothing that happens here is real. We have to remember that."

"Pete, the surgeon who's taking care of Tara? He abuses his wife. Jesse," Rick said.

"What?" Michonne asked slowly.

"Carol told me earlier."

"Before you came home," Michonne realized. Before he'd come home and scrambled her thoughts.

"Ever since we got here, I've been looking for a way out," he confessed. "I thought I was just preparing, in case something went wrong, but I've been looking for a way out. I hid a gun, not too far from the community. I let Carol steal a couple from the armory."

"Smart," Michonne said, subdued. "This place is gonna fall."

Rick was taken aback and disturbed by how sure she sounded. "It's not gonna fall," he said, turning on the couch to face her.

"They'll get picked off one by one by walkers, and the rest will happily run away while it happens, and then they'll get eaten by walkers on the other side."

"It's not gonna fall," Rick insisted, his eyes hard on her face as if he could will her to believe otherwise.

"You've been hiding guns, waiting for it to fall," Michonne reminded him. "Or looking for a way out, whichever" she said, shrugging.

"Because I saw these people for what they are. They survived, but they aren't survivors. And I'm right."

He grabbed her hand and squeezed, which made her look at him.

"I wanna give you this place," he said. "I wanna give it to Carl, and I want to give it to Judith. But it has to be my way, I know that now. That's the only way we're gonna have it. I need more control; we're not here to protect them or to help Deanna. We're here to live. And the only way that's gonna happen is if we make this place into something we recognize.

We could've lost Noah and Glenn. What if the walkers had attacked Carl and Enid, and she'd left him? What if that's what she was taught before or what she learned here? To run. What if Abraham had gotten overwhelmed out there? No, these people can't be around my family. Not as they are now. We can make this happen."

Michonne parted her lips, moved by his words. "When did you become an optimist?"

"When you needed one," he answered.

Michonne smiled demurely and lowered her eyes.

Rick cupped her cheek and turned her face to him. He kissed her square on the lips, and he lingered, indulging in how she felt.

"Rick," she whispered when they separated.

"Not everything that happens here is a mirage," he said softly.

Michonne opened her eyes. She almost averted her gaze. His eyes looked especially brilliant this close to hers.

She knew he was talking about them. She knew he was talking about everything that had happened today, everything that's happened between them since their first night in the house. He and she: they weren't a mirage.

"We can't," she whispered. "It's dangerous." She removed his hand from her face. "Even if we fortify this place, fortify the people, the outside is….it's right there. It took Noah."

Rick lowered his eyes and inhaled. "Michonne," he began, even though he wasn't sure how much he wanted to say.

"Rick, I don't think we should-"

Michonne cut herself off. She wasn't looking at him; she couldn't bring herself to, but she cut herself off. Maybe she was hoping he would convince her.

If their stay in Alexandria was temporary, then they had no business exploring anything, not with their lips, not with their hands, not with their eyes, and not with their feet.

"Michonne," Rick said again. He lifted his eyes to look at her, and she lifted her eyes to look at him, and he knew what her decision was.

"So we're roommates?" he asked. The thought frustrated him.

"We're friends," she said. "We're close. We're what we were before."

"We aren't what we were before," he said. When she lowered her eyes, he knew she agreed. "What we were before was waiting for this. And now we have it."

"This isn't what we thought it would be," Michonne said, raising her eyes to look at him. "It's not what I-it's not what I thought it would be, as stupid as that sounds. I don't even know if I really thought we could stop fighting, but….I don't think I expected any of us to die here. I know I didn't. Which is monumentally stupid."

She was afraid. Rick knew this. He was afraid, too, but faced with her fear, his completely disappeared. He thought about Carl. Even though he hasn't worked up the courage to say anything to Michonne, he was brave enough to say it in his heart. He'd been brave enough to say it to him. He viewed Michonne as his mother.

And Michonne. She had trudged past a long-held fear yesterday and talked to him about her baby boy.

Rick decided that he could be as brave as them. He owed it to himself, to Carl, Judith, and what he wanted to have with Michonne.

"I want to build with you," he said.

"Rick, please," Michonne protested, her stomach quivering.

"I want to build a life with you."

"Rick," she said. She escaped from the couch and went to the other side of the coffee table.

"Listen to me," Rick implored, getting up from his seat.

"No," Michonne said as she turned to face him. "Don't say anything. Don't-don't say these things."

"I know you're scared," Rick said as he walked around the table. "We're all scared. We're all scared to move forward."

"I don't-I don't want to-I can't label anything," she said. "It's bad enough with Carl."

Rick swallowed. "So we're roommates."

Michonne felt caged. She didn't want to be roommates. She didn't want to act like the kiss hadn't happened or like she didn't want more. She didn't want to act like she didn't want to touch him whenever she wanted.

But she was afraid to seal the deal, to label him and the kids. She didn't want to claim them, because it would make losing them that much more soul-shattering. She'd gotten a taste when the prison fell. Bob, Beth, and Tyreese's deaths were recent reminders. Noah's death screamed that it would never stop.

"We're not promised anything, Rick," she said, tearing up. "Like I said: we can't forget that. It's bad enough losing the others. If something happened to you or the kids-"

Her voice broke, and she couldn't continue.

"Let's say this place does fall," Rick said as he lessened the distance between them. "It won't, not without us fighting, but let's say it does. Do you really want to go back out there without tryin' anything? Because this is what we were waiting for, right? Everything was too chaotic before; we were out in the open; no privacy; we couldn't sit still long enough to even talk about….this. Do you really want to go back out there without tryin'?"

Michonne wanted to say yes. She had a good counter argument, but her tongue wasn't working. Here they were, in actual sleep clothes as opposed to the same clothes they spent the day in, like they'd grown used to on the outside. Nice living room. Nice house. Paved street. Less than stellar townspeople.

Rick knew that he needed to step it up a notch. She'd taken a huge step by laying her son to rest the day before. He needed to match her. He needed to tell her how ready he was to nurture with her. If she still didn't want it; if it was more than fear and she was just plain uncomfortable, or if her fear was just that great, then he didn't know what else he could do except leave her alone and give it time.

"I love you," he confessed. He suddenly felt like he was on the edge of a precipice, heart in the pit of his stomach, but he didn't turn back. He couldn't. Come what may…

"I love you, and I want you to try with me. I think….I think we can make it work. You and me. I just want you to try. I know it's scary. It's terrifyin'. I'm scared, too. I'd put it out of my mind that this would ever happen again. But it has happened, with you, and I want to do somethin' about it. I can do something about it now."

He waited, unable to feel his body. The only part of him that was working were his eyes. He watched her, and he waited.

And then he lost his nerve. He couldn't remain silent while she figured out how to tell him no. "I know the situation ain't perfect-"

"Rick," Michonne cut him off, his nervousness making her smile.

"I want you to try," he said again.

Michonne stepped closer to him and framed his face with her hands. She smoothed her hands up and down, enjoying the feel of his stubble. She couldn't say no now. She couldn't say anything but yes. Because he was right. Things moved fast on the outside. She would kick herself if she let this opportunity pass her by. She was sure that they could build something on the outside if Alexandria fell. But the point was that they were talking about doing so here and now, something they'd never done before.

She couldn't resist him with his heart laid out before her and his I love you eradicating her defenses.

"I will try," she promised softly. "Because I love you, too." Her breath rushed out of her. It was out there now. He'd heard it. She'd labeled it and claimed him.

Rick was having a little trouble breathing, too. He didn't know how, but in the time since he'd fallen for her, he had never once thought about her saying the three words to him. But she had, and he'd heard them, and they buoyed him. Nearly everything sounded beautiful coming from her mouth, but of all the words he's heard her say since they met, these three, in that order, were downright sublime.

He kissed her, and this kiss was calmer than the ones they'd shared at sunlight. They explored a different kind of passion, a more intimate kind, but it ran just as deep. They took their time, gone was the escapism from the afternoon.

"You're a really good kisser," Michonne sighed after they separated for the third time.

"So are you," Rick rasped. The afternoon dalliance had been a kind of isolated incident, too early to say for sure, but now he felt comfortable saying, if only in his mind, that Michonne had an affinity for sucking his lips, especially his bottom lip.

Sure enough, she bit his bottom lip now and ran her tongue along it. She suckled on it, and then she deepened the kiss. The way she used her tongue in a kiss was largely responsible for the tent being pitched in his pajama bottoms.

"Come on," he said.

He pulled her back to the couch. He finally took off his shirt, because it was too wet, and then he moved in to kiss her.

Michonne started off slow, edging her way to it, but eventually she was running her hands all over his naked chest, his shoulders, and half of his back.

Rick wasn't shy in his exploration either, taking many opportunities to make her squirm by lavishing her neck with kisses, snaking his hands past her tank top to touch the smooth skin of her back, and running his hands down her arms. Her skin came alive with goosebumps from the attention.

Michonne sighed. "I can do this all night." Rick shivered in response to her words, and she licked her lips. "So can you, I'm guessing."

"You're guessin' right," Rick said.

He fingered one of the straps of her tank top, and then he pulled it down and placed a hard kiss on her shoulder.

"Tell me something," Michonne said lazily while he worked his way from her shoulder to her neck. "You've been stealing and hiding guns with Carol, and you had the nerve to have a problem with me having secrets in this house?"

"It's not the same," Rick said immediately, leaving her neck.

"Really," Michonne said, raising expectant eyebrows.

"One is a lot more personal than the other," Rick said confidently. "You have to agree with that."

"Do I?"

"It felt like you were shutting me out, and it didn't feel good. I thought I was finding out that I'm just some guy you've been helping."

"How could you ever think that?" Michonne asked, her brows knitting.

Rick twitched his mouth as he tried to form his answer. "It was an irrational fear," he said, remembering Carl's fear of Michonne leaving them. "I thought I was finding out that you don't feel as comfortable with me as I do with you. That you don't feel like you can tell me everything. And that was….it hurt."

Michonne smiled and lifted her hand to caress his face. "I love you."

"I love you, too."

"It wasn't about you; it was about me. Do you see where we are right now? What we're doing? Part of me knew, subconsciously, that telling you about Andre would be….opening….a whole bunch of new doors. With you. And I wasn't ready."

"We're gonna live here," he promised. "But first I need to make sure that every single person in this town is able and willing to defend you if need be."

"And if they can't?" Michonne asked, thinking, for one, of Jessie. An abusive husband could explain why she was sensitive about the vandalized owl sculpture, but she and a couple of people in town could simply be unable to fight. "I'd actually feel more comfortable if you'd curated this group. Not that I've ever seen you turn someone away for being unable to fight, but…." she shook her head. "I don't know. I think they might be too settled here. Fighting means risking death, and these….casserole-making, secret recipe-trading, socializing people might not want to take that risk."

"They don't have a choice," Rick said. "I'm talking to Deanna about it. Tomorrow. I'll tell her about Pete, too."

Michonne nodded. She tried to predict how that was going to go and came up short.

Rick smoothed his hand down the arm with the displaced strap. "I'm happy you told me about Andre."

Michonne smiled, her heart warming when she thought about the dream she'd had the night before, where she'd taken Andre on her run, confident that she was going to meet Rick. She knew that Rick would have protected him. "I'm happy I told you, too. I'm happy you know. I wish I had a picture to show you. He favored me."

Rick smiled. "I know he was beautiful."

Michonne's heart swelled with love for him, and she went in for a brain-fogging kiss.