AN: Here we go, another little chapter here. I'm working out what's left to happen in detail. I've got a couple of different possible directions I'm toying with to see which I like better, but the one thing I do know is that it's going to be pretty different than the show.

I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!

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When Michonne cracked open her eyes, she wasn't sure where she was or what was happening around her. For a moment, she lie there almost like she was in a dream, trying only to identify her whereabouts.

She had slept.

But she hadn't just slept, she'd slept fully, completely…she'd lost herself for a moment. She'd slept like there was no reason to stay awake. She'd slept like she hadn't slept in a very long time.

And now she realized, slowly, that she was in the apartment in the little town she suspected to be run by a madman. Light filtered into the room via the windows and when Michonne moved, even slightly, she realized that there was a weight on her. In her sleep, Andrea had worked her way over from her side of the bed, arguably not far enough away from Michonne's side in such a small bed to be called a side, and was lying draped pretty much on top of Michonne's body. From the sound of her breathing, too, she had slept quite soundly and wasn't awake from her dreams yet.

Michonne shifted to try to slide out from under her companion without waking her, but the slightest change in her own position disturbed Andrea's rest.

"What time is it?" Andrea asked.

And Michonne almost laughed at the fact that it was easy, just in the moment, to imagine that she might have said something just like that to her in a world before all of this…if somehow fate had brought them together. And maybe Michonne would have offered, to soften the blow of having to wake up on what was, for imagination purposes, a Sunday morning, to make chocolate chip pancakes for her.

But that was a world that was very far removed from this one.

"Don't know," Michonne responded, rolling over as Andrea lifted off of her. "But I'm sure that we're supposed to be doing something."

Andrea looked around, her sleepy expression almost making her look angry at the sun for hurting her eyes at the moment, and glanced toward the door before she scrubbed at her eyes.

"I don't know, Mich," Andrea said. "If they wanted us bad enough, someone might have knocked on our…"

She hesitated and blinked at the door a few times before sighing and dropping back against the mattress.

"Knocked on our heavily barricaded door," Andrea said. "Mich, the lock isn't enough? The chain they put in for you? Not enough? We have to have the chair there too?"

"Why does it bother you?" Michonne asked.

"Why do we have to have it? It makes us look suspicious," Andrea said.

"Because we are suspicious," Michonne said. "At least I am. And no one but you and I know that chair is there. Nobody else does."

Andrea groaned and Michonne sat up beside her in the bed. Andrea lifted just enough to put one of her hands behind her bed. The other she reached up and caught the end of one of Michonne's dreads with. She tugged it gently.

"Mich, I like this. I like…waking up because my body is ready to wake up, not because I've spent the whole night terrified of what I was going to wake up to. And I like waking up to you," Andrea said.

Michonne hummed at her.

"And I like waking up to you," Michonne said. "And when we find a home? A really safe one? We'll wake up to each other every day. I was just thinking…in another life? I would have made you chocolate chip pancakes this morning."

Andrea smiled at her.

"And they would have been delicious," she offered, raising her eyebrows at Michonne. "And in this other life…I would have thanked you for them."

Michonne bit her lip and shook her head at Andrea.

"You're ridiculous," she said, not able to control her smile even if she wanted to. "You're ridiculous," she repeated, trying to crawl out of the bed until Andrea caught her arm and pulled her back.

Andrea kissed the back of her neck and then ran her tongue lightly up the curve of Michonne's neck just to her ear, bringing her face around enough to suck Michonne's ear lobe. Michonne shivered, the act shooting electricity through her.

"You're still sick," Michonne said.

Andrea laughed, her lips close to her ear.

"I'm not sick, Mich," Andrea offered. "I took the medicine."

"You're weak," Michonne offered.

"I think…I can hold my own," Andrea responded. She laughed quietly again, obviously amused at her clearly assumed position of dominance at the moment. "Just don't get too crazy, right?"

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"Ladies," The Governor said, grinning broadly. Andrea smiled back at him. She thought the man was certainly suited for a job as a politician and she imagined that his position wasn't one that was new to him with the changing of the world. He'd probably held some kind of office before the fall.

"Governor," Andrea said, laughing a little to herself at how odd it sounded to call another human being, in all sincerity, by such a title when they were eating what boiled down to be cafeteria lunches at outdoor picnic tables.

Michonne didn't so much as mumble a response to the man. She had a real and sudden interest in the mediocre food. As a result, he turned his attention to Andrea.

"You're…uh…looking good," he offered. "I expect you're feeling better?"

"Much, thank you," Andrea said.

He cleared his throat and rocked on his feet, looking back at Michonne who couldn't have looked less engaged if it had been her life's profession.

"I hate to interrupt your lunch," he said. "And I could maybe turn my head the other way on…breaking and entering…after all, I know it's difficult to come in, off the road, and readjust to the way that society works, but people are complaining, and I just can't look the other way on that when people in my town don't feel safe going to get their meals."

Andrea felt her own face contorting in confusion. She glanced at Michonne, but her expression hadn't changed at all. If anything, it had maybe taken on the quality that she was even less interested in the interaction than she had been before. She slowly chewed at her food and stared straight ahead.

"I'm sorry?" Andrea asked, finally figuring out that Michonne had been clearly struck deaf.

The Governor made a gesture that Andrea took to be the drawing of an invisible katana and then gestured toward Michonne.

"The sword," he said. He chuckled to himself like it was a grand joke. "I can put aside my own feelings over the fact that your friend here broke into my apartment and stole it, but…I can't excuse her wearing it in public. If you'll, well, if you'll have a look around, you'll notice that no one not working the wall has a weapon. It's making people uncomfortable that she's wearing it. It would make them even more uncomfortable if I were to make a scene about the invasion of my private space."

Andrea sat there a moment feeling confused and shocked enough that she could have been, as the saying went, knocked over with a feather.

It was true that Michonne had her katana strapped to her back, but suddenly Andrea couldn't remember how long she'd had it. The problem was that the sword was so much a part of Michonne that Andrea didn't notice when she had it and when she didn't unless they were sleeping. It simply didn't catch her attention. She hadn't even noticed its reappearance, despite the fact that she knew that they'd taken it, as anything out of the ordinary.

"Breaking and entering?" Andrea asked to no one in particular.

"Your weapons, along with all the personal weapons that people hand over for safe keeping upon arrival are stored in my apartment," the Governor said. "It keeps them from getting mixed in with the general weapons that we find here and there on runs that stay in the armory for protecting Woodbury. Your friend here, broke into my apartment and stole the weapon."

"We never handed our weapons over for safe keeping," Michonne said, though she didn't look at him. "They were taken from us while we were blindfolded, bound, and treated like common criminals. I prefer, if anyone's keeping my weapon safe, to be the one doing it…that way it keeps me safe too. It's sort of a two way deal."

"Breaking and entering, Michonne?" Andrea asked.

Michonne shook her head slightly at her. It was more a shake of dismissal than one of negation. It was the same kind of "we'll discuss this later" head shake that you might give to anyone in an inappropriate setting.

And Andrea didn't feel any less overwhelmed.

They were sleeping in an apartment with a lock and a safety chain, and there was still a chair against the door, simply because Michonne seemed afraid that someone was going to invade their privacy. Yet here she was hearing that Michonne had broken into this man's apartment?

Michonne could shake her head at her, and she could dismiss her all she wanted, but Andrea was determined, now, to have some answers about this.

"I can understand your attachment to your weapon," the Governor said. "It's a nice weapon, after all. You wouldn't want to lose it. But I'm going to have to ask you not to wear it in public. Leave it in your room. It'll be safe there."

He chuckled again.

"Until now, we haven't had a problem with crime in Woodbury…no fights, no civil unrest, no break ins…I'm sure your sword will be safe in your room, but it's a ordinance for the whole town that nobody carries a weapon, and I'm going to have to ask you follow that rule as long as you remain here," the Governor said.

Michonne looked at him then.

"And if we choose not to remain here?" Michonne asked.

"Mich…" Andrea said quickly. This wasn't the time or the place for this kind of discussion and Andrea felt like she was going to have a very hard time defending Michonne, or even understanding her, until she could get her back to the room and demand some kind of explanation for her actions.

Paranoia in a world gone mad was one thing. Pessimism in the face of hell was even somewhat understandable. But breaking into someone's apartment in a town that hadn't proved, not in any way, to be the danger hotspot that Michonne seemed to think it was? It just seemed like too much to Andrea and she was going to have to put her foot down and demand some sort of explanation, otherwise she wasn't sure she could say that she even knew the woman across the table from her.

Maybe she didn't even know the woman she'd considered her protector for months…her best friend…her lover.

"If you choose not to remain," the Governor said, "then you'll take your weapons with you as I've said before. You just let us know when you're ready for us to open the gates."

He glanced back toward Andrea.

"Until then, however, I'm going to have to ask you to respect the rules that everyone abides by and not to wear the sword in public," he said.

He smiled at Andrea and she almost flinched when, unexpectedly, he outstretched a hand and rested it on her shoulder, squeezing her shoulder gently in an affectionate manner.

"But we'd hate to see you ladies leave," he said. "We're all pleased that you're recovering so well. Woodbury is blessed to have you two lovely ladies present."

He moved his hand and then turned back to Michonne his face dropping the smile slightly.

"Until you decide, though, please…don't enter into places uninvited. Respect privacy…and, please, don't wear the sword," he said.

"It's not a problem," Andrea said, glaring at Michonne who had returned to being stoic or bored or whatever it was that she was trying to pretend she was at the moment. Whatever it was, it wasn't amusing to Andrea.

"See that it isn't," the Governor said. He walked off without saying more and Andrea stood up.

"I'm going back to the room," she said. "You take however long you need, but when you come back up there…I expect some answers. So you take a walk…or you…do whatever it is you need to do, Michonne, since clearly I don't know what it is you do, but when you come back to the room, you be ready to be honest with me. I've been nothing but honest with you…I expect a little in return."

Andrea walked off, surprised herself at how much anger and frustration she could feel coursing through her veins.

She wasn't asking for the world. She was only asking for a little insight to soothe over the betrayal she felt at realizing that the person she thought of as the only person she really had left in the world was, practically, a complete stranger to her.