Get In

Maggie hugged her brother tight at her front door, rocking him back and forth sweetly until he finally had to chuckle and ask to be brought inside from the cold.

"Get in here, bud!" Glenn ushered his brother-in-law in with a big grin and a few hearty slaps on the back.

Maggie led them to her couch, unable to stop herself from smiling. "I'm so happy for you, Rick. Michonne is a wonderful woman. I've gotten a chance to talk to her a bunch. She's just the sweetest, most lovin' person. You two really make a great couple."

"Thanks, Maggie."

"Momma and Daddy would love her. Momma especially."

"I gotta tell ya, sis, it means a lot to have you guys on board with this."

Glenn chimed in, "I always knew this was serious, but Maggie was a little worried at first…"

"I was. I didn't know what to think and it was happenin' so fast," Maggie defended herself with an embarrassed but relieved laugh.

Glenn repeated what he always said about his brother-in-law's ability to find something good in the worst situations, "He's got the luckiest luck for bad luck in everything."

Maggie agreed. "Yeah. I can see how happy you make each other and I've been prayin' for you both… and for Carl," she called back as she walked away. "Wait right there."

She disappeared down her hallway remembering growing up in that house as a kid. Rick would chase her down that same hallway every Halloween wearing a zombie mask. They always divided their trick or treat candy on their parents bed. Her brother would give her extra pieces and their father would smile, mussing Rick's hair in silent approval.

Their lives were happy. Their parents always made them feel safe. Mr. and Mrs. Grimes had a textbook "high school sweethearts" love story that still wasn't over because they were laid to rest side by side under a huge oak in Hilltop Cemetery.

Maggie pushed aside a few things in her top dresser drawer. She wiped away tears as she prayed again that her brother could have what he was looking for. A love like she'd found with Glenn. A marriage full of joy like their parents made them believe in.

Maggie and Rick never worried about their lives falling apart. A great foundation gave them a different perspective on relationships and made Rick and his sister hopeless romantics. She thought of her parents smiling down on them now. She knew they were as proud of Rick as she was. They would've been overjoyed that he'd found somebody to love.

Nothing could be more ironic than his parents' devotion to each other being the reason Rick jumped headfirst into a "high school sweetheart" marriage of his own with a woman like Lori. Nothing, except the irony of falling madly in love with Michonne when chasms of hate were everywhere around him.

"Yeah, the prayers must be workin'." Rick nodded to Glenn, who leaned against the kitchen door frame with a warm smile. "Carl asked a lot of questions, but in the end, he said he likes havin' Michonne around. He said she makes him feel calm. It was the most he's talked to me without throwin' a fit in a long time."

The divorce attorney knew all too well the toll the dissolution of a marriage could take on any children involved. Glenn had been just as worried about Carl as anyone else. "He took the divorce so hard. I miss my nephew. I'm glad he's coming around."

"Okay, Rick. Here it is." Maggie sang excitedly, rejoining her favorite men in the living room. She presented a miniature wine colored box, detailed in gold. Removing it's top, she placed it down on her coffee table in front of her brother. The three of them went silent, taking in Ella Grimes' gold band and single stone ring.

"Remember how momma loved weddings," Maggie reminisced with tearful eyes.

A lump formed in Rick's throat but he swallowed it down. He chose to laugh at a memory instead of shedding any tears. "Remember how she thought she was tipsy from that slice of rum cake at Aunt Bonnie's wedding?"

"And daddy had to carry her to the car." Maggie added, shaking her head.

Glenn could recall the sweet hilarity of the Grimes'. They always made him feel like part of the family so he was always around. "I really miss them."

"Glenn..." Rick closed up the box again and put it in his pocket. He stood up and walked over to his brother-in-law. "I want to ask you if you'd be my best man."

Glenn's deep breath and stoic face made Maggie and Rick wonder what he was about to say.

"In the letter Shane left me, he asked me. He asked me to be your best man. He said you and Michonne were a sure thing. And that I had to stand there with you in his place."

Maggie's face frowned as she crept into the beginning of an ugly cry. Instantly it settled on all of them that the only reason Glenn would have this honor was because Rick's original best man was gone. That truth produced a heaviness in the room that Glenn quickly alleviated.

"He also said that he was glad he wouldn't have to be there for what would be the dullest bachelor party ever."

Chuckles bubbled up over the gloom. Shane was still lightening the mood. The same way he made it impossible to be sad in life, he broke the tension with his farewell letters from beyond the grave. All of them could imagine him there, rummaging through the kitchen for food like a hungry raccoon and cracking jokes over the fridge door wearing a smart alec smile.

"No bachelor party necessary," Rick replied with an absolving hand to Glenn's back. "I was thinking of a simple, small ceremony right here in the living room. I don't want her stressed about guest lists or flowers like Lori was. I just want her to be my wife."

"Of course you can get married here! I'll take care of it all." Maggie threw her arms around her brother again, squeezing him tight.

"Thank you so much," Rick hugged her back, muffled by her embrace. "If she says yes, I'll put you in touch with her mother."

Maggie drew back dumbstruck. "Of course she'll say yes! Of course she will. You two are meant to be. We know it and she knows it too."

Her brother grinned at her conviction. "I know, Maggie, but marriage is a big step. And she can be a bit skittish... Understandably. I don't want to make her feel rushed," Rick acknowledged. "But I'm still gonna put it out there. Whether she says yes now or later, doesn't matter. I'm gonna spend the rest of my life with that woman making her happy. That's all I wanna do."

….

"Thanks for meeting me, mommy. I know it was short notice."

"That's alright, sweet child. How are you feeling? I don't like you being out in this cold weather after you were sick." Gayle unwrapped the layered scarf from her neck and removed her coat. She neatly folded her belongings over the back of the chair and sat down in front of Michonne.

"I'm doing better, mommy. Much better."

"And Carl?"

"He's doing better too. He keeps asking for more peach vanilla muffins. I told him 'don't look at me'." A dead half laugh mixed with her answer. "I said nobody can make them like you do."

Her mother smiled at that. "Tell him I'll make some more if he keeps that room of his clean. And what about Rick? How's he?"

"He's hanging in there." Michonne answered with the image of her man dangling from a cliff.

Like a mother can decipher her baby's cries, she could tell the difference in Rick being stressed from work, being stressed about Carl, stressed about her. But the concerns on his face were none of those. He was still gone a lot and now that the possibility of him going out to meet Shane was gone, she worried and wondered what was going on even more.

Tonight when he left her, he seemed more optimistic than usual. But just a little deeper, in his eyes, in his tone, there was something much more grim. Something heavier than the loss of a best friend was there and she had no idea what it could be.

Michonne thought maybe there was something wrong with Maggie. Maybe that's why he had to visit her so late before work. She and Maggie were becoming close, but perhaps not close enough for his sister to divulge any secrets to his new girlfriend just yet. Michonne zoned out for a second, trying to make sense of it all.

Mrs. August was doing her best to seem nonchalant, but unconsciously she knit her brow as she looked her daughter over. "Well, what's going on? Why am I at this hole-in-the-wall cafe in the middle of the night," Gayle asked, looking around with a sneer.

The christmas stockings that hung around the room were dusty relics and the cheap artificial tree in the entryway was ratty and unfluffed. The christmas melody playing over the shoppe's speakers was hauntingly mayonnaise.

"It's not even ten o'clock yet." Michonne managed a fading smile at her mother's exaggeration as she looked out the window of the small diner.

On the outskirts of King County, the parking lot of frozen packed dirt was dark and deserted. Her car sat among the few others in unmarked spaces under spot lights on wooden poles. The other cars must've belonged to staff since there were no other patrons in sight.

"Michonne. I said what's wrong?"

Her hands twisted in her lap. "Merle Dixon," she finally said, "he called me this afternoon."

"Merle Dixon? Isn't he the one..."

"Yes. When everything first happened I asked Rick to set up a meeting with him and Deputy Walsh. Deputy Dixon called this afternoon and apologized for dodging me. He said he felt so awful about what happened, he just couldn't look me in the face."

Gayle reached a hand over the table and Michonne grabbed hold of her mother as she fought back emotion and tried to explain. "He says the weight of it all makes him afraid of ending up like his partner. He asked if I would be willing to hear him out."

"Are you? Willing?"

"That's the thing, mommy. I feel so bad about what happened to Deputy Walsh. He came to me looking to be heard and I… I just couldn't. I couldn't hear him out. I can tell Rick doesn't want to place any of the blame for his suicide on me, but I can't help but feel somewhat responsible."

"You are not responsible for that," Gayle jumped to say. "You're not responsible for any of this, sweet child."

"I know. I know you're right." Michonne sighed, pulling her hair back from her slumped shoulders. She returned her hand to her mother's and gave it a desperate squeeze. "Still doesn't stop me from feeling that way."

"You don't owe this Deputy Dixon a shoulder to cry on. The only reason for this meeting is if you think it will be good for you," her mother said staunchly. "If this is gonna set you back in your healing, we are leaving right now."

Like a switch was flipped in her brain, Gayle was suddenly curious. "What does Rick have to say about it?" She couldn't imagine he wouldn't be right there by her side for this.

"I can't tell Rick about this, mommy. He's trying to be strong, but he's still in mourning. Over his friend. Over his job. Over the awfulness of this whole situation. Besides he and Merle Dixon butt heads. And Sasha obviously can't be here. That's why I called you."

It warmed Gayle's heart to hear her daughter trusted her after all the ways she'd let her down. At the same time, it made her feel that much more guilty.

To Michonne, Gayle was the mother she remembered tying her shoes, tucking her in, cutting her crusts. But to Gayle, Michonne was a brand new person. Her baby had lived a life that she knew little about and now she was a grown woman.

Gayle couldn't say for sure what moved Michonne. Why she felt the need to accomodate a man who had wronged her so, was something her mother couldn't wrap her head around. Still, she listened.

"I didn't want to do this alone, but it was important to me not to have Rick babysitting me through every difficult moment in my life. I don't want him to feel like that's all he is to me. And yeah, Carl and I had a minor breakthrough, but it was only days ago that I was just an intruding charity case to him. Besides..."

Michonne went mute when she saw the vintage dark colored car pull in straight ahead. Its headlights flashed through the windows, blinding her briefly and then went dark. The car reversed into a parking spot and red brake lights glowed as the car engine went silent. The white man behind the wheel sat for a moment.

He looked like she felt. Full of nerves and uncertainty. She watched him get out of his car, close the door and stand there. Gayle turned to watch too.

Merle couldn't seem to take his hand off the door handle. He was poised to open it again and drive away. They couldn't be sure, but it looked as if he was speaking some strength into his knees to do what he had come there to do.

Michonne swallowed hard and stood up. She couldn't continue to watch him languish in his reservations, whatever they were. She decided a little reassuring welcome was needed. You can do this, Michonne, she thought to herself. Just keep it together.

The sound system played on the outside speakers a 1940's quartet version of Silent Night. Michonne hummed to herself 'all is calm, all is bright' to settle her nerves as she stepped lightly with a steady pace. She crossed the threshold and stood a few feet away from the back of his car.

Head down, deep in his thoughts; Merle never noticed her.

She spoke gently to avoid startling him. "Deputy Dixon?"

Hesitantly, he looked up into her bottomless brown eyes. He straightened his back, seeming to find that courage he'd been searching for in the pebbles under his boots. He reached under his jacket and pulled a gun out of his waistband.

Neither of them said a word for what felt like an eternity.

But only seconds had passed before Gayle pushed open the diner door. Following Michonne, she entered the frigid night air. The two frozen figures before her seemed to be speaking without words. She had no idea of the intensity of their exchange, until the weapon Merle was training on her daughter came into view.

"What…" Michonne could not begin to piece together a viable question. Still, the unasked question on her lips was communicated in the confusion on her face.

"You thought I came here to cry and beg your forgiveness," Merle asked with a sneer. "You'd love to see a white man grovel at your feet. Wouldn't you?"

"Grovel?" Humiliating him was the furthest thing from her mind. Before she could even process where he'd gotten that idea from, a more pressing question shot from her lips. "Why are you here, then?"

Merle didn't give her an answer. Only a command. "Turn around."

"I know the devil is a lie!" Gayle mumbled to herself rebuking the danger confronting them and took a step toward her daughter. Her heart galloping in her chest.

Merle jerked the gun in her direction. His eyes shifted nervously back to Michonne. "I thought we agreed to come alone?"

"I agreed not to involve Rick. And I didn't." Michonne tried to reassure Merle, gain his trust and regain his undivided attention. She turned her back to him slowly and put her wrists together behind her in a show of surrender.

"I don't know this woman." Michonne locked wide eyes with her mother, wordlessly imploring her to play along. "She has nothing to do with me."

Merle pulled a pair of handcuffs from his coat pocket. Keeping the barrel of his firearm on Gayle, he bound her daughter with a single skillful hand. He yanked the chain connecting the cuffs, pulling Michonne closer.

"Even if you weren't a carbon copy of her, I'd know that's a lie."

"I swear."

"You see for one thing," Merle explained smugly, "Your little star cross'd love affair done made you a VIP for a movement you don't even know about. We been keepin' tabs. Gayle Eileen August. Leaves the city's suburbs for the country roads to King County a few times a week. Does lunch dates and shoppin' with her daughter." Merle smugly rattled off the surveillance notes his SOC accomplices had given him. "But for some reason, she's gotta go and come back before her big mandingo Marine gets home from work."

"What? Why are you watching us?" Michonne shivered. Her coat was in her mother's hands, but she quaked at Merle's frightening knowledge.

He ignored her question. "I know niggers don't like to be daddies…" he mocked. "So all you black bitches have daddy issues..."

"What do you want?" Gayle cut him off mid sentence. Anger was beginning to override her fear.

"Well, that brings me back to the movement. The revolution." He moved the aim of his gun from Gayle to the back of Michonne's head, knowing the threat of him pulling the trigger would keep the mother under control as much as the daughter. He pulled out his car keys and unlocked his trunk. "Get in. You're coming with me."

Michonne's trepid breaths fogged the air. She glanced into the trunk. What she saw sent her into panicked sobs. There was nothing inside except a lining of plastic sheeting and a roll of duct tape. Her mind raced to think of a way out of this situation.

"I said get in!"

"You won't get away with this," Gayle promised him.

"And that's where you're wrong, Mrs. August. There was a reason why I chose this place to meet. It's been around for decades. Owned by an American family who believes in American values. Klansmen for generations… and now they're ready for action. Now they're Saviors. Just like me."

Michonne could not believe her ears. She didn't know much about the Saviors, but she knew they were a dangerous group. When she'd arrived at the diner, she'd been so preoccupied with preparing to meet Merle, she never noticed that no one ever greeted her. No waiter had approached to take her order.

Now, she and her mother looked back inside and saw a trio of white employees spectating this moment of terror as the serene lyrics about mother and child ghosted through the air.

"Ain't no cameras." Merle directed their attention along the roof's edge with pleasure. Only green holiday lights blinked above them. "Ain't no witnesses. Ain't nobody comin' to help you. So… Get. In."

Gayle looked at her daughter's tearful face. She couldn't let this be the last time she saw her. Her baby had been through so much. She wouldn't stand by and watch her be hurt again. Never again. Not my sweet child, she kept saying to herself. Not my sweet child.

She lunged at Merle, on her way to rip him limb from limb to rescue her daughter from his clutches. The attack did not take Merle by surprise. His training told him every move she was about to make. He knew the moment she came out of that diner to her daughter's side, Gayle August was not going to make this easy for him.

In the seconds of distance between them, he slammed the butt of his pistol against the back of Michonne's head. The young woman went motionless and gravity took over. Merle managed to hold her upright and at the same time fire a shot at the woman running at him full speed.

Michonne wasn't out completely. In a trauma induced stupor, she witnessed Gayle drop to the ground. Mentally she fought and screamed but her body did not move. Her mother, face down and eyes closed, did not move. Michonne's coat was still tightly gripped in her mother's hand.

She heard the crinkling of plastic as Deputy Dixon ungracefully dumped her into the trunk of his car.

"You sit tight, little lady," he said. Then the trunk door slammed shut. The driver's door slammed shut. The engine turned over and her body jerked as the heavy rear wheels propelled the car forward into a nightmare that Michonne would wake up to soon enough.

….

Hugh August walked up to the nurse's station. His heavy voice made the young woman in braids and scrubs jump from her concentration on the file in front of her and give the six foot three man her undivided attention.

"I received a call about my wife, Gayle August."

His face was carved rock. Expressionless. Clean shaven and dark. Not only in color but also his stare. He wasn't a heartthrob, but he was handsome. Bald crown gleaming. His posture, kingly. Chin held high. The full stature of a man.

Without delay the nurse signed him in and directed him where he needed to go. He offered no thanks, leaving the nurse to feel like a discarded peon. Hugh took unyielding strides down the hospital corridor. Staff wheeling patients about on gurneys looked annoyed but intimidated as they made way for the boorish marine bogarting the hall.

He had expected to come home to dinner and a rerun of Law and Order. Instead he was looking down on his wife's body. And the rage in him was already boiling over. Not at the gunman who'd shot his wife, but at the woman herself for defying him.

It wasn't the control he craved. That's what Gayle had always thought of him. That he got some sort of egotistical thrill from the tight ship he ran, at work and at home.

But It wasn't true. Hugh loved his family more than anything. There was nothing more important to him than the safety of the people he loved. He was a man of absolutes. Heeding his mandates showed absolute loyalty. Going your own way, going rogue was absolute betrayal.

He knew how to keep people safe. As Sergeant Instructor, it was his job to indoctrinate his recruits to make them war-ready. Life was the most perilous war of them all and to save his wife and daughter from being injured, they had to follow his orders to the letter.

It may never have been tender, but it was always out of love. In his mind, he believed one day they'd understand that and thank him for it. Thank him for being strong enough to hurt their feelings when necessary, if it meant keeping them from mortal wounds inflicted by those who would use and abuse them. More than anything, he wanted them to trust him. Just trust that he loved them enough to always do what was best for them.

He kept his ireful eyes on his wife, seeing the price she'd paid for mutiny. But deeper down, the truth was, he blamed himself more than he blamed her. His harsh demeanor made it hard for her to confide in him, so she never opened up to him about anything.

He had no clue why she was found on the side of a little county road. And it hurt him thinking he'd never know. Still he tried to stiffen his lip and steel his gut. But thoughts of his daughter boiled inside him.

She had burst free from his safety net. She wouldn't accept the protection he tried to give her. So he had to protect himself.

He was a man who knew the truth: Sometimes, despite the familiar phrase, in war you have no choice but to leave a man behind.

Especially if that man's insubordinate attitude is putting the entire mission at risk. Even if that 'man' is your young pregnant daughter. The mission to protect cannot be abandoned.

"Hugh…" Gayle's weak voice shattered his inner thoughts. Immediately his temper was quashed with an overwhelming sense of relief. Until he held her hand and leaned in closer. "Michonne… they have her. My baby… Dixon…"

"What? Who?"

Gayle tried to sit up. Pain shot through her core. Still, she used every ounce of strength to speak her piece. "They have my sweet child, Hugh. Our baby." She breathed a couple of heavy breaths, trying to fight the medication and her body's instinct to remain still.

"You were with Michonne?"

"Yes."

"Don't you see what happens when you don't listen? The both of you…"

Words failed him. He tensed the muscles in his neck, trying to calm himself. Trying not to let emotion take him over.

"Dammit, Hugh! Our child is in real danger! This punishment has gone on long enough. Whatever lesson you want her to learn about authority… about weakness… about life… it won't mean a damn thing if she's dead!"

"Dead?"

"Yes! That's what I'm trying to tell you. And you're going to get up… get out of here and go get my baby." Gayle groaned, biting her lip through the excruciating pain. She sat up completely and pulled the hospital blankets back.

Hugh tried to object. He tried to shush her, lay her down again. She threw his hand off her and before he could comprehend the unfamiliar fire in her, her hand whipped through the air and landed, stinging across his face.

He stumbled back holding his cheek in complete shock.

Many years ago, he struck his wife in a fit of rage and disorientation. He regretted that for so long, but he never apologized.

He always wanted to. But not even the moment when he crossed state lines, driving through the night to get his wife and daughter and bring them home, had he said it.

He had an unbreakable will. It had gotten him through basic training, through the Tet Offensive in South Vietnam with bits of his best friend on his face. That unbreakable will had helped him endure being pegged as a white man's weapon to the preachers of Black Power and a baby-killer to the hippies who protested him when he stepped back on American soil.

His relentlessness was the reason Gayle stopped running with her little one in tow. She knew he would never let her go. But she didn't know it was because she had always been his lifeline. Only he knew that.

But now, Hugh could see that same unrelenting madness in his wife when it came to Michonne. That same will that served her to keep her distance from the daughter she loved so much, so that sweet child could make a life without the pressure of his dominance.

It was the same will that allowed her to smile every night while serving his plate. And it was that very same brave strength that made her charge a man with a loaded gun.

He knew, even with a bullethole in her gut, she would never let her go. Michonne's existence in the world was Gayle's lifeline. Only she knew that.

"You're going to go get her, or I swear to god, I will! But if anything… and I mean anything... happens to that child, you'll be dead to me!"

Gayle grit her teeth through the pain, through her fury. "And don't think I couldn't erase you from my life in a heartbeat. You're the one who taught me how! I've done it for years to the wrong person for the wrong reasons. I would have no problem doing it to you."

She collapsed back onto her bed. "Hell, I still might!"

The nurses on duty came rushing in. Their faces were full of concern hearing their ICU patient shouting in hysteria. Immediately, they began to manage the tubes and monitors around her. Hugh stepped back grief-stricken and horrified by his wife's words.

Gayle struggled and screamed. "I still might, you miserable bastard! You find my baby and bring her home to me!"