Author's Note: I never meant to take this long between chapters but I thank you for your patience and sticking with me. You guys don't know how much it means to me.
Alone again. Unlike the beginning of their relationship, this time it brought discomfort, and hers was palpable. She was unsure of what to say or what to do which always brought about amusing nervous tics like rolling her neck and shoulders or what she was doing at the moment, playing with her fingers.
"Do you want another piece of cake?" She asked.
And there was the changing of subject. He shook his head. "No. I'll take some for Carl if that's okay."
"Yeah. Good idea." She headed to the kitchen. "I know he'll be happy to leave the infirmary in the morning."
"No happier than Denise. He's driving her crazy." He followed her but stopped on the other side of the counter and watched her cut a few slices and place them in a container.
She chuckled. "Sounds like Carl when he's sick."
He watched as she turned on the faucet and waited for the water to get hot. She hated running the dishwasher for a few dishes but she hated leaving them overnight waiting for a full load so she washed by hand when there were only few things.
He thought back to when Carl caught the chicken pox from Nate Pike, his buddy down the street who was also responsible for Carl's lice when he used Carl's comb one day. Michonne never liked that kid from that day forward. She changed her schedule around so she could work from home to care for Carl. She didn't bitch about it. Just told him not to worry and handled it. They watched action movies, Carl introduced her to comic books, and ate whatever he wanted as long as dinner was healthy.
"Hey." She called out. "Where were you just now?"
"Thinking of when Carl had the chicken pox."
She laughed. "Good times."
"You spoiled him so bad he asked if he could get them again."
He joined her in the kitchen and grabbed a towel from the side of the sink. "I'll dry."
"Thanks."
This was something they never did together. Clean together. After the third time, he asked where something went they switched places. Rick doing the washing and Michonne drying and putting them away.
When they finished, he leaned back against the counter. "I didn't know Sasha could cook like that."
Michonne nodded. "She's a cool chick. Did you know she used to go whitewater rafting every year and skydiving? And she belonged to a gun and rifle club?"
"No, I didn't know that." There was so much he didn't know about Sasha and it embarrassed him that Michonne had known her for less than a month and knew more about her than he did. Sasha was one of his people. He depended on her but he didn't know her other than how she helped keep the group safe. He wanted to justify that and claim he was focused on survival but there was a lot of downtime at the prison. Honestly, he never felt shit from the old world mattered much unless it was a survival skill. As far as her shooting skills, he figured she learned to shoot by taking out walkers like Carol.
"I can see myself being friends with her back in the day."
"Maybe you guys can be friends here." He wasn't trying to create a hierarchy of pain because most people had seen bad shit but he couldn't imagine any of these people seeing more than his group. The Governor, cannibals, what happened at Grady Memorial. It was hard to connect with people when you felt they could never understand you or the choices you were forced to make. Since they stepped foot in this community, they felt judged. He knew some of them thought he was a monster. Michonne was different. She was out there before she found Alexandria and she mentioned a few things. Not everything she'd experienced. He wanted to know all she had been through but didn't know if he could handle it. One time she told him about a guy at her office getting a little too hands on so he looked him up and paid him a visit. That pissed her off more than the jerk which pissed Rick off. It was the first in a long line of fiery arguments and it was like they never recovered.
"So, um, why did you come over tonight?" She left the kitchen, glass in hand containing the last of her whiskey and sat on the couch.
It had been hours since he knocked on her door and at first he couldn't remember. Their last conversation threw him for a loop. She said a lot but what really shook him to the core was that she felt isolated in his house. His house? He cringed. He really was an ass about the house thing. How could he not see it? He always thought himself a good guy with blurred moral lines when the world changed but maybe he was an asshole before things got complicated.
"You said you wanted us to be friends." He sat next to her. "You think that's possible? I mean, I want it… for Carl. He still cares about you. It would be hard for him to see you every day and pretend. It's not fair to him."
"Do you want it for yourself, Rick? I think that's the wild card. I think Carl and I will be fine. It's us that's the problem. Do you want to be friends?"
"I'm not sure that's possible." He saw the disappointment on her face and he took no pleasure in hurting her. At least, not anymore. He looked down at his hands. "My whole world stopped without you."
"Rick."
He closed his eyes. "So fast you became embedded in every part of my life. You reminded me I wasn't just Carl's provider but his role model. Me as a man, as a sheriff's deputy. Everything. So everything seemed to fall apart when you left."
"Sorry."
"Stop saying sorry. I know you're sorry. It just doesn't change things. I don't that anything will make it better. When we were headed this way from Georgia, I couldn't admit it before but I thought about you. I wondered if you were still alive. If you still thought about me."
"Every day."
He looked doubtful.
"Stay here." She ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time.
What was the expectation here? What did he want from her? From yet another conversation? He wasn't sure anything could come of this latest talk. When she returned, she was in a T-shirt and boxers and carrying a shoe box. She placed it in her lap. "Sometimes, this was the only thing that kept me going out there. Especially when I was alone."
There were pictures and newspaper clippings. One of Carl in his baseball uniform and one of him when he received a citation for bravery. When she picked up a picture he saw a sliver of gold.
"Is, is this your wedding ring?"
"Yes."
He grabbed it. Held it in his hand. He remembered the day he slid it on her finger. He wouldn't call it a ceremony. It was them and Carl at the courthouse. His favorite judge — Judge Theodore — presided over the ceremony. The ceremony was first thing in the morning; afterward they dropped Carl off at school and went home and fucked each other's brains out.
"I hope you know how happy I was the day you put this on my finger." She touched the ring then placed her hand over his.
"I can't believe you kept this stuff." You don't really know your spouse until they leave. Not before the marriage, not during just when they leave. He had never known her to be sentimental but here she was with her wedding ring, newspaper clippings, old family photographs, and a token from the state fair.
"This was my life. What was once the happiest time in my life. I kept it in a Ziploc bag before I came here because I didn't want them to get ruined."
"I fucked up," he whispered.
She squeezed his hand. "We fucked up."
His first wife always wanted to talk. Didn't much matter what they said. She simply wanted to talk and talk and talk. It was never ending. With Michonne, he thought it was better. He was happy she didn't want to talk all the time. But when she did, it was deep as fuck, deeper than he'd ever done in his life and that was infinitely harder. In some ways being with Michonne was easy and in other ways it was the hardest he ever had to work for the love of a woman. He never thought he lived up to what she needed, what she wanted.
"I felt like I knew you but I didn't. Why not?"
She pulled back, but he grabbed hold of her hand, forcing her to remain close. She always wanted distance when she was uncomfortable.
"I don't want to talk about this," she said.
"Well, I do." He always capitulated for her. Not this time. Not in this life. He could no longer.
"I was always insecure about being with you. Everything I did." She pointed at her keepsakes.
"Why?"
"I knew you never dated anyone like me." She shrugged. "And we got married I wondered if maybe one day you'd wake up and the allure would wear off. The neighbors and your friends, they were polite enough, but I always waited on their real feelings to surface if I said something they didn't like."
"My friends weren't like that."
She looked at him and smirked. "That's a conversation for another day."
"What else?"
"I felt inadequate. I was always afraid that I would mess everything up. I felt like my heart was this small," she said, her thumb and forefinger about an inch apart. "And yours was ten times the size of mine and you still had love overflowing."
"Michonne."
"And obviously you felt that way because you thought you embarrassed me and that I didn't think you were good enough or something. So I didn't love you like you needed me to."
"That was my shit. That's not on you."
"Our marriage was about feeling. How we made each other feel and for a long time those feelings were good."
He nodded. "And when those feelings weren't so good we let them fester under the surface and they became more intense, worse than they needed to be." That's what happened to two of his friends. He should have known better. He was always telling them to make it work. Well, he learned it was easier said than done.
"I wish this is how we lived our lives when we were together," she said as she placed everything back in the shoe box. "Communicated like the world was about to end."
Rick took the box out of her hand and placed it on the coffee table. His mind, his doubts, the wall around his heart all took a back seat as his mouth crashed against hers. He could taste the bourbon on her mouth mixing with the sweet cake in his own. The kiss was intense, each grappling for control. His hands in her hair, her with his shirt in her grasp as she fell back and took him with her. He reached under her shirt, surprised to find that when she changed, she kept on her bra. She gasped when he squeezed her breast, then moaned when he ran his thumb over her satin-clad nipple. It didn't take long for it to harden. She hooked one of her legs around him and began to grind. It felt so good.
Out there he never thought about sex and he got used to not having it. It always seemed like he'd be the teacher having sex with a student if he crossed that line with anyone in their ever-changing group. But since going on that run with Michonne, he couldn't get it out of his mind. He was like an unexperienced teenager trying to get in her pants and get his dick wet.
As difficult as it was to stop — to get what he wanted, to feel what he wanted — he had to. He sat up and yanked her boxers and panties off and tossed them on the floor. He placed one of her feet on the floor and tossed the other leg across the back of the couch. There she was before him, his for the taking. He removed his shirt, lay between her legs, and used his fingers to spread her open. If he wasn't so fucking hard he'd laugh at the look on her face. She was even more eager than he was.
"Rick."
He licked his lips and held eye contact as he licked her. She held her breath with her bottom lip trapped between her teeth. He had every intention of watching her reaction but soon pleasure overtook him and he closed his eyes and buried his face between her thighs. His excitement caused discomfort, and he'd have to come out of his jeans soon. When she gripped his hair and lifted her ass off the couch and screamed, he knew the time had come for more. She was wiggling out of her T-shirt when he stopped her.
"No. The right way this time." He nodded toward the stairs. He wanted a bed. He wanted to look down at her as he entered her. He wanted to play with her breasts while she rode him. Wanted their bodies against each other while he was inside of her. Her leg tossed over his shoulder.
He followed her to her bedroom, aided by two night lights along the way, and watched as she lit a few candles and placed them on the nightstands and the dresser in the corner. Their shadows bounced off the walls as they removed their clothes. Their eyes focused on each other. He always loved to watch her strip down.
"This isn't why I came," he said as he stepped out of his jeans.
"But it's why you stayed." She tossed her bra to the floor.
He forgot how amazing her body looked by the soft glow of candlelight. One night early in their relationship while Carl was away for the summer she must have had a hundred candles lit around his bedroom. She did a little striptease for him and gave him his first lap dance. They were so caught up, once he was inside her it was hard to pull out, they almost burned the house down. He tried to calculate how many strokes he could get in before they lost the house.
"Hey. What's wrong?"
"I was thinking about that night you lit all those candles and the wind blew the curtain into a flame."
"Put your memories on ice. You can have the real thing right now. Looks like you're ready."
They kept their eyes on each other as they climbed on the bed. She took the lead, straddling him as he fell onto his back. His hands grabbed her bare ass, and he squeezed. Her nipples brushed against his chest while her tongue swirled in his mouth. She reached between them and stroked him. He attempted to roll them over, but she stopped him.
"I got this," she moaned into his mouth. She took his hands and pinned them above his head against the bed.
This never got old. Her taking control, uninhibited, confident in what she wanted. As she kissed on his neck, she lost focus on her grip and he took the opportunity to reach between them and rub his dick up and down her opening. Before he could enter her she slid down his body, kissing and licking along the way, until she took his dick in her mouth. He never had the words to tell her how amazing she was at this; she always thought his praise was effusive. He gripped her hair, the same as she did to him downstairs, and tried not to be as aggressive as she was when it was his mouth doing all the work. As amazing as she still was — and for a moment he wondered if someone else received the pleasure since she left him — that's not how he wanted the moment to end. He pulled her up and rolled them over. He groaned at the feel of being inside her again. She placed her hands on his face and pulled him down for a kiss. Their moans, groans, and gasps entered each other's mouths as they kissed, their bodies rocking against each other, this time not fast, but slow and intentional.
Michonne woke up in a light sweat. She was hot. It had been a long time since she shared a bed with a man. Like her own, Rick's body seemed to run warmer than the average. When they slept in the same bed, it meant lowering the AC. The small clock on the nightstand read 12:15. The candles still flickered, and she took a moment to take him in while he slept. He always had such a peaceful look on his face. Often she'd watch him and his little quirks like the way his nose would sometimes twitch or the little sigh of contentment. It was like the purity of watching a baby sleep.
She eased out of the bed, careful not to disturb him. He had been out there going through hell, uninterrupted sleep didn't exist out there so disrupting his sleep was the last thing she wanted to do. She was just happy he felt comfortable enough, trusted her enough to fall asleep in her presence. She opened the window and stood before it naked enjoying the breeze then went to the bathroom taking a moment to stare at her reflection in the mirror and when she returned Rick was gathering his clothes.
"You're leaving?" She stood in the doorway.
"This was a mistake."
"Why?"
He diverted his eyes from naked body, but not before admiring her. "Being with you isn't a good idea."
"Once upon a time it was a good idea, right?" When he didn't answer she continued. "Why do you believe that?"
"This isn't an argument from the past. This is about now. I don't know how to handle this. I don't know what this is. I don't know how to be your friend and nothing else."
She walked over and stood before him and watched as he struggled not to take in her naked body. "You think you could fall in love with me again?"
"Who said I ever stopped?" His response was immediate.
"Then—"
"It's not that easy."
She pulled him back in bed. "Okay, what's the problem?"
"I don't know how to love you and still keep my distance."
"That's not how love works."
"I can't see you every day and not think about what we were to each other. Can you?"
"And I can't see you every day and be angry. What do you want? Let's start with that. That's easy."
"Sometimes easy questions have complicated answers. Answers you may not want to hear."
He stared at her for what seemed like a lifetime. Just stared in her eyes. Not saying anything. When she went to speak, because the silence was too much when it felt like an indictment on her, he pressed his finger against her lips. She never took his forgiveness or civility for granted. He made her work for it since he arrived, enough that it pissed her off a little but she always knew there was pain. What she didn't know about was his insecurities in their marriage.
"Peace," he finally said. "I want peace. I'm tired, Michonne."
She could hear it in his voice, see it on his face. She sympathized, but she knew Rick could never find peace because he would always take on another's problems and pain as his mission to fix. She ran her fingers through his hair, scratching his scalp with her fingernails and watched as his eyes closed. She didn't want to stand in the way of the peace he wanted, that his sanity probably depended on. He would get no conflict from her unless she felt she needed to intercede for the sake of the community.
"Come on," she whispered. She flipped the pillows over to the cool side and fell back on the bed. His head was on her chest as she cradled him, rubbing his back and playing with his hair. It reminded her of those hard shifts when he saw something horrible like a child dying in a car accident. She would make him tea though he always wanted a stiff drink which she didn't think was smart while in a dark mood. She would join him for a hot shower, washing his hair and bathing him, taking care of him like he was the surviving spouse or devastated parent. Then she'd hold him in bed until he would finally fall asleep.
"What do you want?" He asked.
"I want my family back." She said it before she could think and it was the truth, even if she wasn't sure if she could love him now that he had suffered more pain and loss.
"Wow."
She chuckled. "Go big or go home, right?"
"Such a Michonne answer. It's like when you pretend to find the genie and you can have any wish and most people say to be rich or beautiful or famous. You're the one that says world peace."
They laughed. She loved how their laughter mixed like a perfect harmony. Sometimes she truly felt they were meant to be.
"You know, Sasha said something. That it's possible we're still married." When he said nothing she lifted his head and made him look at her. "That doesn't surprise you?"
"No. Two days before the world lost its mind my lawyer said he hadn't received the papers back. I thought you were playing an angle, saying you sent them but hadn't. So yeah, it makes sense. I guess we're still married."
"Those papers," she said with a sigh. "They were like a punch in the gut. I didn't see it coming. There I was still hoping you'd want to come up after they found a new sheriff and we could get back to being what we used to be, then I get those papers." When she said it aloud it was crazy. How could they pick up where they left off? There was no way to forget all the horrible things they said to each other and the horrible ways they made each other feel.
She had just stopped herself from crying every day. She cried in the shower in the morning. Then she held it in all day while at the office until she made it to her car. On her commute home she'd cry again. After some time she finally put herself back together to venture out and explore her new surroundings. And with one envelope her world crumbled again, and she was back to never leaving her home unless it was necessary.
"I should have warned you. I'm sorry."
"It was like you gave up on me. On us. I know this sounds crazy since I was the one who moved but I never wanted a divorce."
"I was angry. The way I saw it, you deserted Carl and me for greener pastures. A big life in a big city."
"I'm sorry."
"I know it's more complicated than that and that it was hard for you." He sat up and swung his feet around and onto the floor. His head hung down in his hands. "I don't know what we're doing right now. What are we doing? Pretending we're what we used to be? Pretending everything is okay? This, having sex, the cuddling, reminiscing about the good times, just makes it more difficult. Neither one of us should get comfortable with this. Maybe we were never as good together as we thought. How, with all the feelings and things between us we never knew?"
"That's not true." She shook her head. "I think we just got too comfortable too soon," she said. "We felt like we knew each other with the way we connected."
In fairness, they did know a lot about each other. They knew how they felt about a lot of things. Trouble was, they knew the good things, what made them happy and what made most people upset. But those Rick-specific and Michonne-specific non-negotiables… not quite. It was the feelings. They loved passionately, and they fought passionately.
"I think our marriage aged in dog years but we still had some growing to do before getting to where we didn't need to talk, because we still had so much to learn."
"Agreed."
"Maybe if we had done more talking than other things we would have saved each other a lot of pain."
She resisted the urge to ask him what he meant because if it meant what she thought it did — that they shouldn't have married — it would hurt too much. And it was something she didn't think she could unpack and understand, not tonight. Tonight she was vulnerable. Tonight she wanted to feel what she once felt with him. Even if it was temporary.
"I loved those other things," she whispered.
He didn't say it but she knew he did too. She crawled behind him, placing kisses on his back. "Don't leave. Not right now. It'll be morning soon. Let's finish out tonight together." She wrapped her arms around him, loving the feel of her hands against his bare chest. "Leaving now instead of in a few hours won't change what happened here tonight. You're tired. Let's sleep."
He stood, and she felt empty and cold when he left her arms. He looked at her and she felt dispirited and exposed, and not because she was still naked. He saw her naked body countless times, and she always enjoyed the look on his face when he did, but somehow, at this moment her nakedness felt judged instead of admired. She hated how insecure she felt when he was upset with her now that she knew just how much she hurt him.
He climbed in bed and covered her body with his. His weight always made her feel safe and loved. She spread her legs so he could sink down against her; the closer the better. In his eyes, she looked for an answer but she didn't see it. Maybe it would be visible with the clarity of daylight and clothes.
"I meant to tell you a long time ago you need a new pair of boots."
Rick attempted to laugh, but it was more like a grunt. He turned his head slightly to acknowledge her but didn't make eye contact as he sat on the edge of the bed shoving his feet into his boots. "Next time I'm at the mall I'll grab a pair," he said. There was more grunting as he shoved his feet in his boots. These days everyth8ing took more effort than it used to. His boots had a lot of miles on them and were so worn down he could feel the heat of the asphalt through them. He could probably find what he needed in Alexandria to resole them. It was a skill his grandfather taught him; he was certain he'd never need to use. He remembered that conversation like it was yesterday, telling his grandfather it was pointless because he could just buy a new pair. And what would you do if you couldn't buy a pair, his grandfather asked. The older generation, people like his grandfather, like Herschel, had the skills, wisdom, and the moral compass to survive this world. Too bad strong bodies were wasted on the young and destructive.
"Sorry. Didn't mean to wake you."
"It's okay. Reminds me of back home, you heading out for your shift before the sun came up."
She would make coffee and keep him company as he got ready for his shift. It was nice. He never imagined the two people who shared their first cup of coffee of the day together and went over their schedules to make sure they were on the same page would go from that to a failed marriage. And not just a failed marriage, but one that crashed and burn into something so toxic he imagined hazmat suits were needed to clean up the remains. Those early days she kept talking about were nice, but she had to stop doing that. Thinking about the good times like that was all there was to their story.
He looked around. "Where's my shirt?"
"You took it off downstairs," she said with a yawn. "I've got the chills. I forgot to close the window last night."
He hadn't noticed the temperature. They worked up a sweat then drifted off to sleep. He shut the window and drew the curtains. "Well, um, I'll see you around."
She was lying on her back, hair splayed all around her head and the sheet covering one half of her body. A single toned leg was outside the sheet and one of her breasts was exposed, the nipple hard. The frustrating part of it all was she wasn't trying to be desirable. She was lying there but tempting him all the same. She had always been that way whether half asleep, drenched in sweat after a run, or angry.
She extended her arm and reached for him. When he was close enough, she grabbed his arm, and he allowed her to pull him down for a kiss on the lips he quickly ended by standing up. She had said it didn't matter if he stayed a few more hours. He feared she was wrong. This little bubble they had been in for the last twelve hours would burst and when it did, what would be the outcome? He cleared his throat. "Bye."
Once downstairs he grabbed his shirt from the floor and finished getting dressed, buttoning his shirt as the stared at the couch, replaying what happened on it the night before. On that run, last night on the couch, her taking control, him taking control, her giving, him giving, in the bed, on the floor, against the wall — that was never a problem. He heard footsteps upstairs and headed for the door.
The sun barely pierced the sky when he left Michonne's place. He didn't mean to spend the night but after the sex it felt good to hold her in his arms, to feel her hands roam his body, to feel the soft kisses she peppered his skin with from head to toe. Then after their midnight talk he initiated the sex so he wouldn't have to talk about his feelings anymore. Because those feelings — he wasn't sure if they were real, a result of the sex, or a combination of both.
It just made things messy, having sex when their issues felt so unresolved. He couldn't pretend there wasn't still pain. Anytime he saw her, the first moment started as a flutter in his stomach then rose to a sharp ache in his chest and then like bile in his throat. He didn't even know what resolved would look like. Did they go back to being husband and wife or separated but friendly? They were still dealing with the past; it was too soon to know what he wanted for the future. He closed the door behind him but before he could release the doorknob he heard a voice.
"Do you think that's a good idea?"
As if his head wasn't already filled with doubt and frustration. He wasn't sure why it so often felt like he was between a rock and a hard place with Carol and Michonne. His hung head hung and sighed before quickly descending the stairs of Michonne's brownstone so Carol would keep her voice down. Despite his indifference to her opinion at the moment, he asked anyway. "What?"
"Spending time with her," she said as she nodded her head toward Michonne's door.
He ignored her tone. The way she said spending time when she really meant fucking. "I told you before, there's nothing to worry about."
"She's not who you think she is."
Rick laughed. Here she was telling him he didn't know his wife. He was tempted to tell her the truth about Michonne just to see the look on her face. "She's exactly who I know her to be. She's just not what you think her to be."
"And what's that?"
"Clueless." Rick walked to lead her away from Michonne's place. "She's not a bad person for seeing through your act. You were pretending, and she figured it out. Don't hold it against her for being smart. Let it go."
He found it funny, Carol commenting on someone not being what they seemed as she stood there in one of those sweater sets and khaki pants like a new-age Joan Cleaver with a Ruger in the small of her back. He'd seen her go through so many changes. Caterpillars turned into butterflies but a human being's metamorphosis was different, the change not so linear. It was up and down, zigzag, regression after progression. The woman he met outside Atlanta differed from the woman who arrived at the prison who differed from the woman he kicked out of the prison. And now? He wasn't sure who she was. Sometimes, when she was deep into her lie, he wondered if she knew who she was pretending to be and who she was hiding. But he didn't fault her for it. Everyone was trying to find their way in a world where societal norms no longer existed. They all had their share of missteps that saw them cross lines they never knew existed. He killed many people, and he knew why he did it — to protect his family. Whether he agreed, that's all she was doing.
"These people are—"
"Some of them are clueless." He could admit. "Some of them are unprepared. Some of them walk around thinking the world is like it once was." He knew most of these people thought the only danger the world presented was the walkers. They never ran across the real evil out there.
"Exactly. They're dangerous."
"Their unpreparedness is. Not them. There is a difference."
She placed her hand on his arm, pulling just slightly, and they both stopped. "She really got to you. Only took one night. Impressive." She smoothed the front of her sweater. "I thought you cared about Jessie. There was something there between the two of you."
"I saw someone who needed help."
"And she still does. Pete won't stop just because they aren't living together. You know that."
"Why don't you pay him a visit?" He leaned in a little, cocked his head to the side and studied her. "What's this about? Me being the one to put Pete down? Because you can do that. Why drag me into it?"
"I bake casseroles, Rick."
"And you were in charge of story time but you still managed to kill Karen and David."
He stunned her and even she couldn't pretend otherwise. He held his head down, this time out of embarrassment. Carol regretted what she did back at the prison and he threw it in her face. He placed his hand on her shoulder and squeezed. "I know you're looking out for us. I'm okay. I know what I'm doing. I have to go; Carl's leaving the infirmary today. I have to get ready."
He headed back to the house. He risked getting them kicked out. He was sleeping with his ex. He set in motion this plan to take over the community that Carol seemed determined to see through to the end. He told Carol he knew what he was doing, but that wasn't true at all.