Chapter 11, Night 3

"Hey!"

Michonne looked down from her post to see Aaron, looking well and unscathed from all outward appearances, standing in their yard waving her down.

"What's going on?" she called out to him.

"We need to talk. Come meet me around front."

She nodded and rushed into her bedroom through the window. She looked to her bed where Carl was sleeping beside his sister. He'd only fallen asleep thirty minutes or so ago after what was proving to be an eventful night which made her hate herself for what she was about to do. She knelt by the bedside so that she was face to face with him and gently rubbed his arm.

"Carl," she whispered. He woke more easily than she thought he would causing her to believe that he probably hadn't really been sleeping at all. "Hey, I need to head out for a bit. I'm not sure how long I'll be gone."

"I'll take watch," he responded, already propped on his elbows and working his way out of bed.

"Thank you," she said as she stood up. "I won't be far if you need me." She turned and raced down the stairs, a mixture of adrenaline and fear propelling her toward the door and on to the porch where she found Aaron waiting for her.

"What happened?" she asked with urgency. He looked nervous to her; then again, he was skittish at baseline.

"We were attacked," he said. Her eyes widened at the incongruity between his choice of words and the calm she observed outside. "Three of the wolves scaled the wall behind my house. Eric fired a warning shot, then they dropped off the wall and started to run back into the woods. He got one in the leg, but they kept running."

"Where's Rick?" she asked unsure why he hadn't come back to tell her this information himself.

"He, uh...he and Daryl took off after them." She looked out toward the street for a moment, then back at Aaron.

"Did he say anything before he left?"

"Not really. They just looked at each other and said let's go. Then he told me to let you know," he said apologetically knowing it wasn't a satisfying answer.

"Which way did they go?"

"They left on foot out of gate by my place and ran into the woods in the same direction the men came from."

"He's calling their bluff," she said to herself.

"What?"

"They only sent three men to take our community? And you scared them off just like that? Without even putting up a fight? That's a half-assed attempt considering we know what they're capable of..."

"So they were just trying to draw us out…" Aaron pieced together. She nodded affirmatively. "Are you sure Rick and Daryl get that?"

"Positive." She couldn't help but laugh to herself. She was certain Rick got it because he wrote the damn book on it. "They're coming back for us, so we need to be ready. Who's in the tower?"

"Spencer, I think."

"OK. Good. I need you to go next door and get Maggie and Sasha. We need our best shooters posted at your place and mine to cover the corners. While you're there, tell the rest of my group to meet here as soon as possible," she said pointing to her porch.

"Got it," Aaron said.

"After that, can you and Eric go door to door and alert everyone? People need to get with their assigned groups and stay inside. They shouldn't be out here."

"I'm on it."

"Thank you," she said sincerely before she turned to head back inside to give Carl a quick update.

xxxxx

"You sure it's the best play for us to be out here? Feels like we should be back home, ready to fight," Daryl said as he knelt next to Rick behind some brush on the side of the road outside of the walls.

"Never can be completely sure, but if a group of them comes back on foot, I know our people can take them. If they come for our walls with one of their trucks, at least we have a shot at slowing them down or stopping them altogether before they can do any damage. They're comin' regardless."

"They could come from any direction," Daryl countered.

"They could, but with trucks that size, they're gonna have to come in on a cleared road. Michonne and I looked over the maps earlier. There's four roads leading to the community. All visible from our look outs. We should see them before they hit. I'm just hoping they'll come through this way since it's the farthest from the tower."

"You and 'Chonne come up with this plan before hand?"

"Not exactly."

Daryl chuckled, "So y'all psychic or some shit?"

"Nah, you know 'Chonne," he teased Daryl for using a nickname he didn't even know she had, "she probably had this shit figured out before we did."

"Yeah, you're woman's a bad ass for sure," Daryl said more seriously. Rick just shook his head in amusement and kept his mouth shut and his eyes on the road.

All of a sudden, the sound of gun shots rang out from the community. Both men instinctively stood and braced their weapons. Daryl started toward the community, but Rick stayed planted.

"Come on man, let's go!" Daryl shouted to Rick.

"Hold up. Just listen out for a second. Could just be a few men, another distraction," Rick stood listening with his hand on his gun. The shots continued and he could hear yelling in the distance, but couldn't make out the individual voices. The gun shots and yelling were quickly drowned out, though, by a loud crash. "Shit," Rick muttered as he and Daryl looked at each other knowing that one of The Wolves' trucks had made its way into their walls.

They broke out into a sprint back to the community and saw Sasha perched on Aaron's roof shooting into the community as they arrived at the gates.

"Sasha, which way?" Rick shouted.

"They broke through by the church!" she yelled back.

Daryl and Rick rounded the perimeter until they found the breach in the wall where the large semi-truck had backed into the community. It was riddled with bullets and two men were slumped in their seats in the cab of the truck with fatal head shots. Rick yelled up to Spencer to alert him to their presence then quickly made his way through the break in the wall to find at least 40 walkers moving toward the center of the community and just as many already put down and scattered on the streets. Maggie, Sasha, and Spencer were taking out walkers on the periphery from their perches atop the community while Michonne and the rest of their group were lined up in formation in the center working their way through the small herd. Daryl and Rick made their way around the walkers, taking out the strays that lunged for them along the way, until they joined the formation.

"Glad you guys made it back," she shouted to Rick and Daryl over the moans of walkers and sounds of her group members' exertion from her place in the center of the group. "Stay in formation. We're almost through this pack. We got this!" she yelled to encourage her group, not slowing for a second while she took out walker after walker with her katana. Her words were met with hollers from the other group members showing their solidarity as they continued to thin out the herd.

xxxxx

Michonne stood just inside the doorway of her bedroom looking over the sleeping Grimes children in her bed. She had one hand on the door knob, but she couldn't bring herself to close the door and walk away just yet. Familiar footsteps made their way up the stairs and stopped just behind her.

"Everyone OK?" he asked in a hushed voice as he leaned his right arm against the door frame. His face hovered just above her right shoulder; he was so close that his breath tickled her ear when he spoke and she could feel the warmth of his body against her back.

"Everyone's OK," she exhaled in relief.

"All thanks to you, you know," he said. He nudged the small of her back with one of his knuckles to emphasize the you. "You held it down out there."

"I don't know about that."

"You did. We counted five members of The Wolves dead along with all of the walkers, and more importantly every single person here is still alive." She allowed herself a small smile at that news.

"What's it looking like out there?" she asked tilting her head back slightly to look at him.

"We're all right for now. We moved the truck in front of the hole in the wall until construction can get to it later this morning. Everything else is cleaned up and the bodies will be taken out and burned tomorrow. Safety check is done and everyone is accounted for. And all posts are manned in case there's a second round," he rattled off. "I came up to relieve Maggie," he added.

"No need. She said she'd stay on for a few more hours so we could get some sleep. She's been on nights in the tower, so she was able to rest during the day."

She could feel Rick let out a small laugh. He turned his head and looked back at his room still occupied by Jessie and her boys, then to Michonne's which housed his kids. "Well that'd be great if we actually had a place to sleep."

"Honestly, I don't even care about sleep. I'm so hungry right now I feel like my stomach is going to eat itself," she said as she wrapped her arm across belly as it started to growl as if on cue.

"Come on," he said as he motioned toward the kitchen with his head. He reached around her to shut the bedroom door and ushered her down the stairs.

Once they reached the kitchen, Rick stood in front of the open fridge for a second surveying the contents before realizing the futility of doing so. "PB and J?" he asked as he grabbed the peanut butter and jelly off the shelf.

"Like we have a choice," she said as she grabbed the bread, two plates, and two butter knives and met him at the kitchen island. The stood side by side divvying up the ingredients and making their sandwiches in tandem, their elbows bumping occasionally as they worked.

Michonne paused for a moment and sighed causing Rick to look over at her. "What's wrong?"

"I could really go for some Fox Brothers right now," she said wistfully. Rick let out a laugh and looked up at the clock on the living room wall.

"You want barbecue at five o'clock in the morning?"

"Yeah," she said indignantly.

"Even after all that?" he asked with disbelief, pointing his peanut butter coated knife toward the pile of mangled walkers that sat outside at the end of the street.

"Yep," she said with a smile.

"That's just gross."

"Really, Rick?" she asked shaking her head. "Really? That's the thing that crosses the line? After everything you've seen?" her voice getting higher as her disbelief grew.

His cheeks were flush and sore from trying to hold back a smile. "That's it," he said as seriously as possible.

"Unreal," she muttered under her breath. She looked up from making her sandwich to make eye contact with him which was all it took to make them burst into laughter. Movement in the living room caught their attention and their laughter tapered off as they realized they had been joined by someone else.

"What's going on?" Jessie asked with a frown as she stepped further into the living room. Her eyes were focused solely on Rick.

"Just making a snack," he answered as he nodded at the food in front of them. "You hungry?" he asked, the trace of a smile from the moment she had interrupted still lingering on his face.

"No..." she paused and furrowed her brow. "How can you two be laughing and carrying on like this with everything that's happening?"

Michonne and Rick exchanged a glance. It was obvious to Michonne that Jessie wasn't interested in her thoughts from her earlier behavior and current body language, so she held her tongue and let Rick answer.

"Jessie, what happened today...this is real life now. It's what I tried to warn you all about. We live in a dangerous world, but you'll adjust and learn how to deal with it. There's no such thing as good times or bad times anymore. It all just bleeds together and you have to make the most of it when you can."

She stared at Rick for a moment and furrowed her brow. "That sounds like some self-serving load of crap," she said shaking her head.

"It's not," he offered earnestly with a shrug of his shoulders. "It's reality."

She huffed in response and made her way back upstairs. Michonne, nearly slack jawed, looked at Rick who was reluctant to look at her. "She doesn't get it," he said.

"Yeah...I mean...I don't even know what to say," Michonne said still stunned by that exchange. "That wasn't just about the noise and laughing..."

"No," he said with a sigh.

"You need to go talk to her?"

"There's nothing else to say."

A/N: So that's that. Hope you liked it…or didn't hate it too much. There's always next chapter!

I just started opened an account on tumblr (thanks to the prompting of some wise folks), so feel free to follow me at birdnmouse for story updates!

Also just wanted to give a shout out to Fans of Fiction on YouTube. I'm sure most of you are aware of them, but these two lovely ladies have a channel dedicated to reading and reviewing fan fictions (especially Richonne fics-woo!), and they are fab! They reviewed the first chapter of Into Dawn this week if you want to check it out.

And last thing, Fox Brothers is a popular BBQ restaurant in Atlanta in case that reference was confusing to anyone.