Chapter 14: Goodnight, Love

Michonne wasn't sure how long she sat there in her office. But it grew dark; black slowly descended and overtook all of the light in the room.

Her phone sat silent on the desk in front of her. No ringtone, no vibration, no onscreen notification...nothing. Carl's pen stayed clutched in Michonne's fist. When it was completely dark, she turned the lamp on in her office and sat back with a sigh.

It was done. It was really done. But with the peace and quiet of her office, Michonne almost believed that nothing had changed. It reminded her of the calm that touched the town a few nights ago. But that calm had been temporary. A storm swept through afterwards. And everyone, except her, had stayed to clean it up.

Michonne was in the midst of wondering if she felt any different when the calm was disturbed. Her office door opened.

Michonne tensed and looked toward it. It was Rick.

His form barely filled the doorway. His phone was in his hand which was hanging limply at his side. Michonne looked from the object to his face. An almost haunted look was on his countenance. Michonne stood up.

"What is this?" Rick asked, not moving.

Michonne glanced down at her desk. "You gotta be more specific-"

"DON'T PLAY GAMES!" Rick roared. Michonne jumped, startled to hear Rick's voice raised to such a volume. "I'm tired of the games. And the lies," He swung the door closed and stalked into the room. Michonne kept herself planted where she was as he approached. "Just tell me what this is." He raised the phone. At this point, he was right in front of her face with only the desk between them.

Michonne refused to be intimidated. "Why don't you ask your wife?" she retorted, her voice cold.

Rick scoffed. "No, I'm askin' you," Rick said, his Southern accent getting heavier the more worked up he got. His body was slightly shifted to the side and his head was tilted, as if he couldn't face her directly for fear of what he might do.

His anger fed Michonne's. She stepped out from behind her desk, not needing or wanting a physical shield. "Why?" Michonne asked. "You afraid of what she might tell you?"

A questioning look appeared on Rick's face. "Why are you doin' this?" he asked. "Why- why go to all of this trouble to ruin my life?"

"I'm not trying to ruin your life. Not anymore. I don't care about your life."

Rick's face twisted into a frown. He simply didn't understand. He dropped the hand that held his cell phone to his side and he scratched at his brow, trying to make sense of it all. "So, Lori was right. You- you came here for somethin'. For what?!" He thought back to Lori telling him about her and Michonne's conversation on the first night they met. Mike Wallace. That incident. The image of that scene came into his mind, filled it, and he suddenly knew. "You- you knew him."

An angry satisfaction filled Michonne's being at Rick having figured it out. She went to her desk, pulled out a framed picture, and slammed it on the surface. The man Rick had only ever seen lifeless was staring out at him, smiling, and holding a young boy. Rick shook his head, a well of sadness filling him. He didn't want to see. "He was my fiance," Michonne said. "This is his son." Michonne's voice broke. "My son."

"You...you're the reason why Shane decided to quit. You got to him."

"Look at him!" Michonne demanded, as Rick's eyes kept glancing around the room. Anywhere but at the picture. "Look at my son!"

Rick looked at him. "You have no idea..." Rick said, his voice breaking. "How sorry I am about what happened. I've gone to therapy; it's haunted me..."

Michonne's focus went to Rick's left. Mike had appeared at Rick's shoulder. Michonne couldn't see his eyes. Rick started to follow her eyeline, but Michonne's focus snapped back to him. "I guess that's supposed to make me feel better..." she said. "It doesn't."

She walked back to the front of her desk. "I had to blackmail Shane to get him to quit. Told him I'd show you that picture if he didn't."

"You showed it to me anyway."

"I did."

Rick's hand clenched around the phone still in his hand.

"Shane shot Mike that night," Michonne continued. "And the only things Shane care about are his job, you, and your wife...Now he doesn't have any of them...Well, depending on how things go after this, he might still have your wife-"

Rick advanced on Michonne quickly. She instinctively wrapped her fingers around the glass nameplate on her desk as Rick's hands clamped down on her upper arms. His fingers bit into her skin and his eyes sparked dangerously. This was the closest Rick Grimes had ever come to hurting a woman.

The picture on Michonne's desk fell with a tink and in an instant, Rick snapped out of his rage. Rick's face laxed with shock and his head fell with shame.

And Michonne, herself, felt a new kind of frustration. Frustration in the fact that it hurt. Not the pain of his grip, but the pain of his hate. It hurt her that she had managed to inspire such contempt from him. She fought to hold back tears from her heightened emotions – tears that pricked the backs of her eyes. It wasn't supposed to hurt. "Were you this upset when your partner murdered an innocent man?" Michonne asked, her voice steady under malice. "No," she said. "Probably not. You're as much to blame as him."

Rick released her and backed away.

"Since you got what you came for..." he said, his voice low. "I hope that you'd leave now. Go back home."

He left her office.

Michonne's hand slid from her nameplate to catch a few tears that finally leaked over.

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Rick sat in his living room, in front of the fireplace. They barely used it, but tonight he had the flames going low. The sound of the crackling of the logs was soothing to him.

When Lori walked through the door, he took a deep breath.

"Rick, what are you still doing up?" Lori asked. A bag rustled in her hand.

"Waiting for you," Rick said. "You weren't here when I got back."

"I needed to get some air. Stopped at a convenience store to get a few things while I was out..."

Rick nodded. "I sent Carl over to stay with Duane for the night."

"Oh..." Lori said. "Okay." She didn't move from where she stood next to the arm of the couch to kiss him on his cheek as she normally would. She could feel tension in the air. "Were you able to find Shane?"

Rick sighed. "No," she said. "Were you?"

"...No...I guess he must have left town for a while after quitting. I just wish I knew why he did it."

"I know why he did it."

For the first time since she came in, Rick looked over at Lori. When she gave him a questioning look, he picked his cell phone off of the cushion next to him and pulled the picture up. He held it up so that Lori could see.

The plastic grocery bag Lori held fell from her grasp and a small gasp left her lips. Silence descended over the room. "Rick, I-"

"When I first got this...I stared at it for an hour..." Rick said. "Tellin' myself it couldn't be true. That my wife and my best friend wouldn't do this. But it's true, isn't it?"

Lori closed her eyes, feeling as if the floor was falling from beneath her. "It wasn't supposed to happen," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

"How long have you two liked each other?" Rick asked. "Have you always-?"

"No." Lori hurriedly went to Rick and sat by his side. She grabbed his arm, but her contact only caused him to stand up and move away. Lori swallowed the lump that formed in her throat. "No," she said again, trying to keep herself from crying. "I don't love him, Rick. I love you."

"Then what's this about?" Rick asked, raising his voice, showing her the picture again.

"I don't know!" In one moment, Lori looked for the right words to express the confused feelings of several years. "I- I do love you, Rick; there's never been a doubt in my mind. But..."

Rick's stomach fell to his shoes.

"I don't know when I started depending on Shane. He's always there when you're not-"

"I'm here, Lori!" Rick shouted. "I'm here! You make me sound like an absentee husband and father when I do every damn thing I can to support this family!"

"I know you're here and you're a great husband and a great father, but it doesn't always feel like it."

"What the hell does that even mean, Lori?!"

Lori's head fell in her hands as she fought back tears. "I don't know!" She stood up and faced him. Her hands went to her back pockets. "Sometimes..." she looked for the right words. "It's like all you are is a man that provides. You provide a home for us and food, but you don't share yourself. I can't remember the last time we've really sat down and talked. About stuff that matters. And when we try and I think we're getting somewhere, it's like you shut down."

"Because all we do when we talk these days is end up arguing!"

"That's better than nothing!"

Rick threw the cell phone down on the couch and put his hands on his hips. "And you're saying you can talk to Shane?"

"I'm saying...it's not as difficult."

Rick was quiet. He was hurting. "...Is this the first time you've kissed him?" Rick asked.

"Yes," Lori said. "Yes. And I pulled away right when I realized what was going on. It wasn't supposed to happen; I'm...so sorry, Rick."

Rick rubbed his fingers over his eyes, thinking. The only thing he could think was that he didn't want to lose her. Fourteen years of marriage. Fourteen years of marriage wasn't something to just throw away. "We can get over this," Rick said. "You forgave me for what I did. I can forgive you. Let's...let's make a clean slate. Let's start over."

Shadows danced over the living room as the flames died down in the fireplace.

"I...I want to," Lori said.

Rick felt foreboding in his stomach. "Then let's do it."

"I want to..." Lori said again. "But maybe it's best if I go to my mom's for a little while."

Silence again. "...You mean separate..." Rick said.

"Only for a little while," Lori repeated. She kept speaking as Rick sat down, trying to wrap his head around what she was saying. "You're right about us. When we speak, we only argue. We need some time apart. After that...then we can see about starting fresh."

Rick stared into the dying flames; he seemed to have gone away somewhere.

"Rick?"

"I've known a lot of couples who took a break," Rick said. "Married couples. Who said they weren't divorced, but separated. 'We're not divorced, just separated'. And none of those couples ever fixed what was wrong. Divorce papers always came. Taking breaks doesn't work. We have to work through this...together."

"We're not those people," Lori said. "I believe you when you say we can get through this. But I...I need a break. Believe in us."

The flames died in the fireplace. Lori's voice faded. Rick wasn't sure how long he checked out, but when he became aware of his surroundings again, Lori was gone.

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Carl wasn't sure what exactly had happened, but one morning he woke up and everything had just been different. His mother wasn't there and came in later that day to talk to him about how she would be gone for a little while and that it wasn't his fault. That he could maybe visit her and grandma when school got out for summer.

Carl had pretended to understand, but he didn't. And every day that went by when his mother wasn't back yet, he understood less and less. So far, two weeks had passed. He didn't know how many more weeks things would stay like this, but his mom inviting him to his grandma's for the summer didn't make things look promising. He had to keep himself from whining and asking her to come back whenever she made her daily phone calls. He knew that that wouldn't be very mature of him. He also didn't ask her about why she left. He didn't need to know.

He figured it was his father's fault.

His dad hadn't even tried to talk to him about his mother's reason for leaving. Carl guessed his dad figured that Lori's talk had been enough.

But Carl was just more confused than ever. He found out Duane was transferring to a new school next year. Shane and his father were no longer friends anymore – Carl had seen Rick punch Shane when Shane showed up to their house the day after Lori left – so Shane no longer spent any time with Carl. And Carl had a hard time connecting with his father even though he was there.

There was one person who was a constant since everything started to fall apart, though.

"Carl, where are you going?" Rick asked as Carl bounded through the living room with his backpack on his back.

"Out," Carl responded.

"I took the day off; I thought we could-" Carl closed the door on his father's sentence and ran up the street. He then pushed through the trees at the edge of town and then found the fallen log he had sat on on the night that his father got shot. About a half an hour later, he heard the snapping of twigs and the crunching of leaves. He smiled and looked up from the comic he had been reading to pass the time just as Michonne became visible through the trees. Her dreads, which were in a ponytail, fell over her shoulder as she ducked under wayward tree limbs.

In her hands, as usual, she carried a lunch box.

"Tell me, again, why we have to meet out here?" Michonne said as she sat down. She was in a fancy skirt, blouse, and heels. Carl would usually laugh at someone who came out to the woods in such a ridiculous getup, but he dared not laugh at Michonne. She somehow made the outfit seem like it belonged. The trees were the ones who had to conform, not her.

"'Cause this is our spot," Carl said, eagerly taking the lunch box from her hands. The only way he had survived these two weeks were through her lunchboxes. His dad's cooking was bound to kill him.

Michonne smiled gently at him as he ravenously unwrapped the paper around the sandwiches she had prepared. It was cute to hear him refer to the clearing as their spot. "And it keeps us away from prying eyes," she half-joked. "Admit it. You don't want to be seen with me."

Carl shrugged. There was some truth to it. "My dad told me to stay away from you. Helps if I don't have to keep making excuses."

Michonne nodded. "Makes sense. And you should probably do as your dad says."

"Why?" Carl asked.

"Because I'll throw you in an oven and eat you like that witch in Hansel and Gretel," Michonne joked. "I'm fattening you up for a reason."

"I'm serious," Carl said. "Why? You're cool but...nobody seems to like you."

"Ouch."

"No-" Carl fumbled with his words. "You know what I mean."

Michonne sighed. She glanced around and grabbed the X-Men comic that Carl had been reading. "I guess my comic book expertise can't win everyone over."

Carl could tell that she was still deflecting, but he took a bite of his sandwich and let it go. "You don't know as much as you think you do," Carl teased casually.

Michonne hiked a brow at him. "Excuse me? I don't think you know who you're talking to."

Carl laughed, but he didn't push the subject because he knew if he pressed it, she would challenge him to a trivia quiz-off. And she would end up winning. And he would end up having to wear a bow in his hair or something. "Are you not gonna eat?" Carl asked.

Michonne shook her head. "I already ate."

"There's a lot here," Carl said, looking at the rest of the food in the lunchbox.

"Take it home and keep it for leftovers."

"Okay," Carl said with a shrug, happy for any excuse not to eat his dad's cooking. "Oh yeah!" He started to reach into his backpack.

"Carl, I have to tell you something."

"What is it?"

"I'm going to be going back to Atlanta soon and I just wanted you to know I've really enjoyed getting to know you and spending time with you."

Carl froze in his movement. He looked over his shoulder at Michonne. "You're leaving?" he asked, disbelief edging his voice.

Taken aback by Carl's serious tone, Michonne answered. "Yeah..."

"There's not much left for me to do here. I've tried the small town thing, and it's just not working. You can call me any time you want, though-"

"Whatever." Before Michonne could finish speaking, Carl finished digging in his backpack and threw a folded piece of paper at her. He then stood up. He dropped his sandwich on the ground, stepping on it as he left. "I don't care."

Michonne was left confused at Carl's abrupt exit. "Carl!"

She opened the piece of paper he had thrown at her and saw that it was the report he had written about her. A large, red "A" was at the top of the paper and the title 'Attorney Awesome v. The World' was in bold. Michonne smiled. Next to the title was a cartoon drawing of a woman with dreads making a grand speech on a pile of books. She wore a cape and only one word floated above her head in a speech bubble: 'Justice!'

Touched, Michonne folded the paper again and stook it into the hem of her skirt. "Thanks for being my friend, Carl," she whispered. Michonne was almost relieved that by leaving now, she'd leave Carl's view of her, as he had depicted her in his report, intact. She would have no opportunity to taint it.

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Carl walked into his home and slammed the door.

"Carl!" Rick reprimanded in response.

When Carl ignored him and pounded up the stairs, Rick stood up from the couch and followed after him. He found him in his room with his headphones on and music blaring out of them. "Carl," Rick said again, trying to get his son's attention with no luck. He moved forward and took the headphones off of Carl's ears.

"Hey!"

Rick ignored Carl's protest and threw the headphones onto a drawer situated against Carl's wall.

Carl's room was similar to most boys' rooms of his age. He had a single bed with blue sheets on top, posters of soft rock bands that Rick didn't know the name of took up space on the wall, and it was a mess! Rick really hadn't taken a look in Carl's room for weeks now. Clothing littered the floor and trash flowed over from the small trash can next to his bed. "Your room's a mess!" Rick said, distracted for a moment from the reason he had followed Carl up to his room in the first place.

But he was reminded when Carl snatched his headphones back off of the top of his drawer, knocking a few items down in the process, and placed them over his ears once again.

The headphones were taken from Carl for a second time. "What's wrong with you?" Rick asked.

Frustrated, Carl wished for his Dad to leave him alone. "Can you give me my fuckin' headphones, Dad?" Carl held his hand out for them; Rick held them out of reach, appalled. "Please?"

"What did you just say to me?" Rick asked. He stared down at his eleven-year-old son with authoritative anger. "Who taught you to speak like that?"

"You. Shane." Carl no longer wanted to talk about anything. He flipped over onto his side and faced the wall. "Whatever."

"No, not whatever. You sit up here and look at me." Carl ignored him. "Get up!" Rick demanded.

Carl obeyed – reluctantly and angrily, but he obeyed. He glared at Rick after sitting up.

"I don't care if you heard it from me, your mother, or a family friend. That language doesn't come into this house," Rick demanded, his eyes trained on Carl's. "Especially not when you're speakin' to me. You wanna start speakin' like an adult, you better stop throwin' tantrums like a kid."

Anger coursed through Carl's body, but he kept his lips shut.

Rick considered his unrepentant son and grew suspicious. He knew his son went to talk to Michonne sometimes. He had seen them once on his patrol of town. Carl had been laughing at the time, though – something that was becoming more and more rare – and Rick hadn't gone out of his way to stop the liaisons. But now Rick was wondering if that had been the best idea. "I know you sneak off to go hang out with Michonne sometimes," Rick said. "She say somethin' to you?"

"No," Carl griped, turning over onto his side again. "What would she say? She's leaving, just like everyone else."