A/N: A warm, gushy thank you to readers, reviewers, and followers. You delight me. I wish I could reply directly to comments on here. I'm on AO3 and Tumblr as lamorenareina. Come chat with me.
This story is a slow burn. I linger, dawdle, meander—in canon and outside of it. There are hints, impressions, suggestions. Settle in, have some tea, some wine. I hope this thickens/extends/redefines the richness of canon.
In the comics, Michonne has twins: Elodie and Colette. I've always felt grieved by Michonne's loss in the show, gripped by her pain, exhilarated by her healing. Andre always felt immaterial to me though, for various reasons, some inscrutable. I'm grateful to the fic writers who have brought Andre to life. Something about Elodie calls to me all the same.
Thank you for being here. Here's chapter three and four.
Autumn liquefied over the prison.
It was as if the cooler temperatures were the aqueous remnants of the sweltering Georgian heat. It was odd. Michonne, native Northerner and fall enthusiast, had never considered the fall fluid or soft. Fall was solid and sturdy, not quite sharp like winter, but crunchy like a fresh Gala apple.
Michonne blamed this new outlook on the oppressive, vindictive summer just past. Air conditioning bygone, the heat had smothered them, leaving them all sweaty, pungent messes. Autumn flowed after it like cool water. Even the most staunch summer advocates—Sasha—and the most trenchant fall skeptics—Glenn, surprisingly—embraced the new season.
Michonne never used to hate summers.
Atlanta summers were special back in the day. Not Chicago summer special but still memorable. Atlanta summers boasted so much culture. Festivals, concerts, outdoor dining. Black folks were always in rare, delicious form.
Michonne had happily flaunted her short shorts, crop tops, and messy buns. She'd loved the way Mike looked at her when her legs, shoulders, and back were exposed. Ellie would beg for ice cream and they'd take her to Kilwins then traipse around the park. She and Mike used to take weekend trips, sans Ellie, to the mountains. They would eat and hike and visit the quaint outdoor markets. Wine-drunk, they would make love loudly with the windows open, air conditioning blasting, Jill Scott crooning. Something about Jill's voice while Mike kissed her always made Michonne wet.
Michonne had always been an autumn girl with a soft spot for summers.
This summer, though, had been void of the things that made summer endearing. No Mike, no Ellie, no festivals, no crop tops.
Weekend trips all over Georgia? Sure. Plenty of outdoor dining, at the prison and otherwise. Concerts, if singing to herself and her long dead lover counted.
Chasing The Governor, Michonne had wilted over the summer.
The prison had bloomed.
Up went the pergola and stone grill and long picnic tables to accommodate the prison's larger population. Picnic tables Michonne could have easily helped with if she had been around. She knew a thing or two about carpentry.
Under Rick and Carl's meticulous attention, the garden had exploded with life. Tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, and lima beans, forest green stems and leaves spilling out of the tilled soil.
And piglets. Piglets! Rick was breeding pigs now. Snuffling, pink little things that made up for their sun-ripened smell in sheer cuteness.
Rick warned Carl against growing attached. Pigs were food, not friends. Michonne had laughed loudly and delightedly when Carl relayed the message. Finding Nemo had clearly made an indelible impression on the deputy turned farmer.
She and Carl named them anyway. Josephine ("Jo") was her favorite; Violet ("Vi") was Carl's. Names were saved for when Rick wasn't around. Or whispered surreptitiously if he was near. He still occasionally side-eyed them when she and Carl hovered near the pen, chirping softly to the wet-nosed cuties.
That was the highlight of Michonne's summer—cutting up with Carl, exasperating Rick from afar, watching the teens fawn over Daryl. She enjoyed it all during her two to three day visits.
Now as summer melted into fall, she was planning for longer trips out. Cooler weather would slow The Governor, Michonne figured. Force his hand a bit. Her commitment and certainty had not wavered.
No matter how fruitless her search seemed to be, she needed to keep looking.
Still, she felt displaced, adrift.
In a different way than she had pre-Andrea. Solitude this time around was self-imposed. Michonne could admit that.
It was the price she had to pay to see this through. To protect her friends. To avenge Andrea. To honor Daryl because, grand sacrifice notwithstanding, Michonne still didn't give a fuck about Merle.
After. After it was done, after He was dead, she could think about what it meant to plant roots, if she wanted to.
Running was tiring, yes. Settling was risky.
"When are you leaving?"
Michonne swiveled lightly on the balls of her feet. The map she'd been studying got caught underfoot and slid with her movement. Carl leaned against the doorway with his face flushed and hair matted, obviously just coming in from the garden. Farming was grueling work, cool weather and all.
"Hey you."
It was her usual greeting for him.
Instead of responding, he looked down at the map with flat eyes, no doubt noting the thick black circles over Barnesville and Forsyth. He lifted those flat eyes to her face. She studied him. Something was up.
"Come in," she said, sitting lotus style against her bunk and patting the floor next to her.
Carl remained by the door, eyeing the map again.
"When are you leaving?"
Each word huffed out of him. His voice was low, tired. Earlier, he'd been cheerful, talking easily about the X-Men comic he was reading. Michonne wondered at the shift.
"Day after tomorrow," she said.
He nodded. "How long will you be gone?"
Hedging crossed her mind, but she couldn't. They had a deal. No bullshit.
"A while, I think."
His face blanked. "Okay."
Michonne halfway expected him to turn and leave. Stomping off wasn't his normal impulse with her, but he seemed sullen and disappointed. Whenever his face got exceptionally still, she knew his feelings were tumbling around inside him. Sometimes he needed space in those moments.
"You don't want to come in?"
"I need to take a shower."
"Probably a good idea." She wrinkled her nose.
His lips lifted then dropped. Eyes moving to the map, he tapped his fingers against his thigh. Michonne waited. A few moments of silence ticked by. That was fine. Silence didn't bother her.
"Can we…" He paused. The tapping stopped. "Do you wanna go outside with me? After I take a shower."
"Yes."
Her answer was easy and immediate.
Some of his gloominess lifted with his shoulders. Slightly eased, he looked at her instead of the map.
"Okay. I'll be quick."
She wrinkled her nose again.
"Not too quick. You smell like Violet."
A full smile bloomed on his face.
"Don't go anywhere," Carl said.
"Where would I go?"
His eyes beelined to the map then back to her. The movement seemed involuntary to Michonne. Oof.
"I'll wait for you here," she assured him.
Once he was gone, she folded the map and tucked it into her bag, out of sight. The kid knew how to gut her without even trying.
Carl came back fifteen minutes later, hair wet, dressed in a different pair of jeans and the Spiderman shirt she'd found for him. It was a size too big, but Carl didn't seem to mind. He looked refreshed but still forlorn. Michonne waved a lumpy Almond Joy at him.
"Looks like you could use this," she said.
"We should save it."
Michonne stood and pulled her katana over her head.
"I've got a Big Kat stashed away. We're good."
He graced her with another smile and lead the way from her cell. After Daryl coaxed her out of the upturned bus and inside the prison—"The hell you still doing in there?"—Michonne had chosen a cell on the second floor, a few cells removed from everyone else. She entertained the thought of moving closer but had yet to do so. Privacy, even minimal privacy, was hard to come by.
Reaching the first floor, she felt the immediate change in her companion. Carl's shoulder's tensed. His expression soured, lips flattening out, eyes hardening into slits.
Given the the first floor's open layout, the subject of his ire was clear. And predictable. Rick meandered around the corridor, his back to them, right elbow slightly jutting out. Judith was in his arms. From this angle, he looked to be feeding her. When his sauntering turned him in their direction, he paused, still gently rocking Judith.
Oh.
She had been unwittingly drafted into a dispute between father and son.
Michonne took small comfort in the fact that Rick, unlike his son, did not look pissed. Drained but not pissed. Weeks of beard growth obscured his face. Rick's shoulder's slouched forward like his son's had been moments ago.
Carl's gait didn't falter. In fact, he seemed to speed up. He marched down the corridor with purpose, clearly intending to ignore Rick. From her position some paces behind Carl, Michonne heard Rick sigh.
"Carl."
Carl said nothing and kept walking.
Michonne hoped he would rethink that because she couldn't very well follow him outside if he was going to ignore his father so blatantly. Not when she existed in such a strange place with Rick, long past hostile but not exactly cozy.
She was liberal when it came to giving kids emotional room, something her parents had done despite skepticism from their family. You just gon' let them do whatever they want? That was the common, misguided refrain from her old-school grandparents, aunts, and uncles.
Blind obedience disturbed her scholarly-hippie parents. Communication, openness, expressiveness. That's what her parents had cherished. Letting Michonne and her sisters experience the breadth of human emotion. That mattered to them.
Storming off, though, wounded them. Ignoring was a no-no. Michonne could ask to be excused, say she wasn't ready to talk. Sometimes her parents had pushed, most times they didn't. Because of her parent's openness, she had rarely felt the need to flee rooms. She'd tried it once. The rebellious experiment of an otherwise dutiful daughter. She did it once and never again.
Storming off was for other kids. According to her parents at least.
Don't storm off, love. That's white kid shit.
Michonne had immediately lost all her bluster and laughed hysterically. Even indignant, Michonne had loved her parents' easy humor.
She hoped Carl would stop.
She was liberal and open-minded, yeah. Chill, her friends used to say. Parenting Elodie with Mike had been a breeze, both committed to warmth and compassion but never afraid to be stern when needed.
And then there was some shit she just didn't play. She understood Carl's despair acutely. Truly she did. And he still needed to give his poor dad a break sometimes.
Rick Grimes was no hippie.
He was no tyrant either.
As long as she'd been at the prison, she'd never heard Rick raise his voice at Carl. He never hit or threatened violence. He was as mild as he was authoritative, always making eye contact when either of them was talking to the other. He could also get Carl together with a few well-placed words and a steadfast look despite Carl's preteen bravado. That was the cop in him.
Rick Grimes was nobody to play with.
Overall though, Rick was thoughtful with his children, tender. He didn't withhold touch and affection or hesitate to verbalize his love—"Love you, son." Carl's reception of such gestures was dependent on his mood, but he mostly embraced them.
Except for moments like this. When he acted his age. Or acted like a white kid his age.
Always defaulting to Rick regarding Carl, Michonne had stopped as soon as Rick called out to his son.
Carl, stop, dude.
"Carl," Rick said again, more firmly this time.
Nope. Carl kept on trekking, ever closer to the cell block's exit.
Rick didn't seem poised to yell at or grab his son. He was clearly fatigued, probably by everything, including this inability to connect with son. Plus he was still holding Judith.
Thing was, Michonne couldn't in good conscience follow Carl through that door. Doing so would communicate that she'd cosign these moments, that he could pull her along for them. She was part-hippie, yeah, but she had to set some boundaries.
Which put her in a tricky position.
For one, she was extra cautious about how she interacted with Carl, never wanting to take liberties or undermine Rick's parenting.
Two, they had an audience. Sure, nobody had even looked up from their tasks. This kind of father-son conflict was familiar. Most people in this block were Rick's close family. A lack of privacy meant they'd witnessed this song and dance before. This was mundane stuff.
Michonne was the wild card here.
Close as she and Carl were, she stayed out of his in-progress conflicts with his father. She let him process with her afterwards, if he wanted, but when it was happening, she was mum, often slipping away to give them—ding, ding, ding!—privacy.
Three, and extremely important to her, Carl was evidently sad about something. And she was sure that him taking her outside was him asking to talk. Giving him that space was important to her. Especially after the way he'd glared at her map.
But she could not walk out the door with him like this.
Carl, Carl, Carl.
He did not heed her attempts at telepathy. He passed by Rick in a huff, Rick following him with sharp, tired eyes and another stern, "Carl!"
Noisily, Judith suckled at her bottle, eyes shifting from Rick to Carl, clearly invested in the tussle between her father and brother.
When Carl was only a few feet from the exit, Michonne knew she had to act.
"Fuck," she muttered.
Working off of pure instinct, Michonne pulled the Almond Joy out of her back pocket. She pinched it between her thumb and index finger, flicked her wrist backwards and snapped it forward. One of her college friends had owned a boomerang. The image of her friend's throwing technique came to mind. The boomerang life had not agreed with Michonne.
But she had killer hand-eye coordination.
With a thwack, the candy bar hit Carl square between his taut shoulders.
He whipped around, stunned.
Rick, just as surprised, blinked, looked at the candy bar on the floor, tilted his head slowly as if trying to process what he was seeing, looked up at his bewildered son, then turned his whole body to look at her.
Soldier on, girl. Soldier on.
Michonne folded her arms over her breasts and lifted her chin.
"Did you lose your hearing in the last few minutes?" she asked Carl.
He gaped at her, speechless.
"Well? Did you?" she pressed, voice like silk.
"Did you just throw an Almond Joy at me?"
"I did. Did you lose your hearing in the last few minutes?"
Each word in her question was punctuated by a slight pause.
Carl pursed his lips. Then, "No?"
Michonne took a few cool steps towards him. She stopped in order to leave Rick, the only parent in this equation, standing between them. Judith was still going to town on that bottle. Rick was still staring, intently, but far as Michonne could tell, not angrily.
"So you did hear your dad talking to you?" she asked, voice still smooth and quiet to limit their audience.
A few of them had probably seen her little stunt though.
"Yeah, I heard him," Carl said crossing his own arms.
But already, chunks of his determination slouched off before her eyes. He and Michonne talked all the time, but she never had reason to reprimand him. The only time she had to really put her foot down with him was during their trip to King County and that was so he didn't get himself killed.
Michonne raised an eyebrow.
"So then why didn't you stop?"
She kept her voice low and soft. Carl shifted his weight and looked away.
Michonne waited. Waiting was paramount with Carl.
Eyes squinted, Rick slowly looked between them. Carl sighed, his eyes darting to his father and then to the floor.
"I just wanna go outside."
Michonne nodded.
"Yeah, me too. But you've put me in a precarious position here."
Carl scrunched his nose and looked up, eyeing her.
"Precarious," he said, sampling the word. "What's that mean?"
Gotcha. She could always count on his curiosity.
"It means uncertain, insecure, not held in place, shaky."
The definition washed over Carl. He nodded, taking it in, but clearly still confused about how his agitation with his father could have any effect on her at all. Questions zipped across his face. Michonne took a tiny step closer.
"When you hear your dad talking to you and you ignore him the way you did, it means that you're being an asshole."
Again, Carl gaped at her. Apparently nobody's called him an asshole before. Or maybe he's just not expecting it from her. She raised an eyebrow.
"No bullshit right?"
Carl's eyes narrowed. Michonne held fast. Meanwhile, Rick continued to rock Judith and watch the exchange unfold. His expression was unreadable, but he hadn't put an end to the conversation yet.
"No bullshit right?" she pressed Carl.
Shifting, he said, "No bullshit."
Blue eyes quickly darted to the elder Grimes. Rick shrugged, seemingly invested in the outcome of this.
Thank you, Sheriff.
"Well, our no bullshit policy compels me to let you know when you're being an asshole. And if I had followed you out of that door while you were being an asshole, that would make me an asshole too. See my dilemma?"
It was clear by his thoughtful frown that he did see her dilemma. Carl was quick like that.
"Yeah," he said.
Judith's suckling had slowed and Rick pulled the bottle away. The girl looked up at her father with big, adoring eyes, formula frothing around her chin and neck. She smiled dopily. Rick smiled back, always so gentle with her. The corners of Carl's mouth quirked briefly.
Michonne leveraged the slight levity. She continued.
"So then that means that if I don't want to seem like an asshole, I have to say something. I also don't want to interfere between you and your dad. That's not my place. But I really don't want to seem like an asshole. Remember when he kept trying to kick me out of here?"
Rick blushed something fierce, eyes closing briefly in remorse. It was a miracle Michonne didn't laugh. God, she wanted to.
"I had to do back flips for him to let me stay."
Still looking at Carl, she winked to let Rick know she was joking, to let him know that they were good. Red-faced, Rick shook his head, pinched the bridge of his nose.
"I can't interfere and I can't look like an asshole. Where does that leave me?" Michonne asked.
Carl dragged his eyes from Judith to his father, who's blush was fading, to Michonne.
"In a—" Carl paused, frowning. "Precarious position?"
Michonne nodded, sighing theatrically. "Yes, exactly."
She was happy he understood, happy for his pliant nature. But this wasn't the wisdom she really wanted to drive home.
"Let's say you were trying to talk to me. Maybe I'm not ready to talk. Maybe I'm tired. But I ignore you. Would you appreciate that?" she asked.
Carl looked at his father. Rick met his gaze, head tilted and eyebrow raised. Her friend then turned his judicious gaze on her.
"No," he said. "I wouldn't like that."
She nodded.
"What would you want me to do instead of ignoring you?"
If there was one thing Carl Grimes despised, it was being condescended. Smart as he was, he could spot that shit a mile away. Michonne wasn't condescending him, and he didn't seem to think she was, but this kind of questioning could seem leading, patronizing. She met his gaze firmly.
"No bullshit. What would you want me to do in that scenario?"
Again Carl's eyes darted to his father who had apparently resolved to keep quiet during this conversation. Michonne would ruminate on his receptivity later. When Carl looked back at her, some of his earlier sadness had returned.
"I'd just want you to tell me, to be honest with me."
Oh. Carl.
The kid was content to eviscerate her today.
Melancholy permeated every one of his words. Rick's face sagged.
"I'd want that too," Michonne said nodding. "We do that for each other. Deal?"
Eyes downcast, Carl nodded. "Deal."
Now to wait. There was a delicate balance to this. Pushing too much would embitter him. Michonne took a few minute steps back, hoping to give them some space and because Judith was watching her. The little girl was prone to do that sometimes. Michonne suspected it had something to do with her locs. Babies liked things that moved.
Rick clocked her movement. His eyes drifted with it. Staring must run in the family.
Thankfully, Rick's attention was diverted when Carl straightened his shoulders and looked at his father.
"Sorry, Dad. I just—" He stopped to consider his words.
Tense as their relationship was, Carl was his father's son, always speaking purposely.
"I shouldn't have ignored you," Carl continued. "I just need some…space."
Carl winced when he said "space," the word sticky and troublesome in his mouth.
"Can I go outside please?" he said on a breath.
Rick visibly relaxed and reached to place a gentle hand on the back of Carl's neck. Michonne suspected that he maybe wanted to push, maybe wanted to talk about whatever had happened between them, but he heeded his kid.
"Yeah, son. That's okay."
The tension deflated. Michonne breathed. Rick stepped back as Judith started gurgling away. He placed her on his shoulder and patted her back with his large hand.
Carl looked down at his feet where the Almond Joy winked up at him.
"You threw a candy bar at me," he said, grinning.
"Instinct."
Shaking his head, Carl picked it up, now leveling her with a flat look, as if he was about to do the scolding.
She held up her hands. "It was a little childish."
Carl titled his head like a deputy in training.
"A little, Michonne?"
Michonne pinched her index and thumb, leaving a small space between them. Rick cracked a smile.
She wrapped a lazy arm around Carl's shoulder. "Ready?"
Carl nodded, then as if in afterthought, sheepishly looked at his father. Rick tilted his head towards Carl's cell.
"Get a jacket first, Son."
Carl shuffled away, leaving Michonne with Rick and Judith. Rick shook his head, laughing quietly, disbelievingly.
"How do you do that?" he asked swiping his unoccupied hand down his weary face.
"Do what?"
Rick gestured in the direction of his son.
"Know exactly what he needs."
He was posing a rather serious question. Sorrowfully, he looked towards Carl's cell and then at her. Her heart constricted. Wanting to comfort the man holding a child she was purposefully not looking at was an odd feeling. Talking to that man about his parenting when she had failed her own child was surreal.
If only you knew.
"You understand him. More than you think you do."
Rick rubbed his forehead. "I don't know 'bout that."
Michonne watched him. Never one to avoid eye contact, Rick looked back.
"You do," she said and left it at that.
Rick nodded, unconvinced but still staring, incisive blue eyes roaming her face.
The Rick Grimes stare.
Michonne has had this fleeting thought before, but Rick could coax more than a few women out of their panties with all that blue-eyed intensity. If that was his way. Maybe it was before, marriage be damned. Nothing would surprise her more than to discover that Rick Grimes was a Lothario. Michonne was near positive he'd only used those blue eyes on his wife.
Wearing a uniform and badge, he probably used to intimidate the shit out of people with those eyes. Probably used to like doing it to his repeat offenders, the ones who really irked him.
Michonne was not easily intimidated. Never had been. She definitely wasn't with a katana on her back. Some days, though, Rick Grimes, holding a baby—a baby who stared just like her daddy—could make her fidget.
Carl rejoined them. He rubbed Judith's head and she cooed in appreciation. Rick watched them leave. Judith did too.
Outside, the woods swallowed the dropping sun. As the sun descended, it splashed the darkening sky with ribbons of orange, pink, and purple. Walkers clambered over each other at the fence. The evening laid claim to a grotesque beauty.
Carl led her to a picnic table at a distance from the small group gathered around the fire pit. Peaceful, wordless moments passed, Carl watching the group at the fire and Michonne watching the walkers.
They did this sometimes. Sat quietly, grateful for the company but bereft of words. Words for their own sake lacked currency in their friendship. Articulate as she might have once been, words were hard for her these days. Carl for his part was probably tired of useless words. The platitudes given to kids probably never having held much weight for a boy like him.
Silence was welcome between them.
Bursts of raucous laughter traveled from the fire. Michonne glanced in that direction. Zach and Lucas talked loudly, playfully hitting each other in the ribs. Patrick sat nearby but seemed less interested in the conversation, nose buried in a book.
Patrick was sweet. The other boys were too, mostly, ballsy as they were. Especially that Lucas. He seemed to irritate Rick, much to Michonne's amusement.
Michonne couldn't help but think that Carl should be sitting with them instead of her. Getting into trouble, playing truth or dare, sneaking sips of Daryl's moonshine, driving his father crazy with his adolescent ways.
Carl was more likely to leave the prison in search of The Governor than get caught kissing a girl.
Driving his father to common, frivolous exasperation wasn't Carl Grimes' style. He would much sooner give his father a heart attack.
Michonne looked at her friend, expecting him to be watching the boys. Instead his eyes were cast behind her towards the prison yard. How he managed to look simultaneously like a boy and a world-weary man Michonne would never know.
Feeling her eyes on him, Carl looked at her. "What?"
She held out her hand.
"Hit me."
Carl pulled the weapon from his pocket, broke it in half, and offered her the larger share. Preteen rebellion notwithstanding, Carl had lovely manners. Michonne convinced him to take the larger half and they chewed quietly.
"What's up?" she asked.
The boys at the fire finally captured Carl's attention. He slanted his eyes in their direction, impassive in the face of their gaiety. Michonne wondered if the disparity bothered him.
"What was your mom like, Michonne?"
Dazed, Michonne stared at him.
"My mom?"
He looked at her. His eyes were gentle but insistent.
"Yeah. If you—if you don't mind talking about her."
Was.
What was your mom like? Everyone had a someone who was. Even for the people who might be alive. They existed only in the past. The fate of Michonne's family was a mystery to Carl—to everyone, to her—but he knew the important thing. They weren't there.
Unlike when he inquired about her baby knowledge, he didn't let her off the hook now. He waited. Sometimes waiting was paramount with her too.
Remembering her mother had pained her in that deserted backyard, petunias blooming, graves rounding out of the ground. She had wanted to protect her mother from the reality of this new world. She had wanted to leave Cynthia Hawthorne in the past, a past that had long been dimmed by her absence but was much brighter than this.
Michonne stared at Carl, his emphatic eyes, his freckled nose, his sun-kissed cheeks. Her mother would have liked him, would have liked his curiosity and inquiries. She would have sat with him for hours, making tea, answering questions and posing her own. She would have sent him home with an armful of books. Carl would have luxuriated in her mother's affection.
That's a sweet boy, she would have said of him. Clever too.
That backyard had been no place for her luminous, erudite mother.
But maybe the prison was. The prison with the walkers pawing, fire burning, pigs snorting, boys laughing. Here with this mournful, motherless boy.
So Michonne let memories of her mother wash over her. And she smiled from ear to ear. Carl's shoulder's loosened.
"She was funny, witty. Her jokes went over people's heads sometimes. She was always the smartest person in the room. It didn't matter which room. She was the smartest."
Carl smirked. "That's where you get it from?"
"You flatter. She was smarter than me. Much, much smarter."
"Were you close?" Carl asked, absorbed.
"Yes. Especially once I became an adult. I admired her. I wanted to be just like her."
Fingers tapping on the table, Carl squinted, searching for his next question.
"Where did she work?"
"She was a writer and an English professor. She was respected in her field. Popular with her students. The 'cool professor,' you know? That was her," Michonne said.
"That's why you love to read?" Carl asked.
"Maybe. I might have been a reader no matter what, but I grew up around a lot of books."
On and on like that it went. Carl asked questions. Michonne answered them. She told him about her mother's garden, about her love for making things grow and come to life. She told him about her mother's ability to gather people around her, about her hilarious circle of friends who came over every week to drink wine, debate politics, and share wisdom.
And to talk in titillating detail about sex. That was the part of the conversation Michonne and her sisters would eavesdrop on, giggling and shoving and shushing. Cynthia always knew they were there. Once she had caught them peeking around the corner and winked. Michonne left that out of her recollections. Carl didn't need to know that. Best to leave talk of sex to his father.
Instead she told him how her mother had loved community, lending her intellect, presence, and hands where she was needed.
"My mother was loved. She was easy to love."
Carl watched her all the while, taking in every minute change in her facial features, every time she shifted her eyes away only to bring them back. Sometimes his eyes would drift behind her, but then he'd be right back there with her and Cynthia, laughing.
"Your mom sounds great, Michonne."
"She was great. She was the best."
He smiled with her until his dwindled and his eyes slid behind her once again. Wistfulness hung from him.
"Did you lose contact with her, with your family when the Turn happened?"
"My mom died when I was in grad school. She was sick."
Carl's face compressed, as if his eyes, eyebrows, and mouth were suddenly drawn towards the center of his face. It moved her. That he could feel saddened by her loss as if it was as fresh as his, as fresh as all the people who'd lost everything when the world changed.
"Oh. I'm sorry, Michonne."
His voice, like his face, evidenced the sincerity of his words.
She smiled softly. "I've had a long time to process it."
Carl shrugged. "Yeah. But she was still your mom."
"She was."
"Do you still miss her?"
"All the time," she said.
Michonne sensed that they were getting closer to his reason for being outside. Not that she at all doubted the earnestness of his curiosity about her mother. Carl never asked perfunctory questions. Maybe he was asking her to trust him, the way he needed to trust her for what he wanted to say. She could help him along.
"It's hard to remember her sometimes," Michonne said and his eyes found her after having drifted to the yard again.
"How come?"
She sighed.
"It was hard for her at the end. She was in a lot of pain. So much pain that she wasn't always herself."
Michonne remembered vividly. She remembered the distant look in her mothers eyes, those brief moments of lucidity when her mother reached out to touch Michonne's face and tell her it would be okay, those last tremulous breaths, sounds so inhuman Michonne had dreamed about them for a full year afterward.
The boy before her knew exactly what it was like to watch his mother die.
"I'm glad I got to be there for her. My mom asked my dad not to be there. She didn't want him to remember her that way, after how long they'd been together. She didn't want any of us there, but I insisted. I needed to be there. But it was hard seeing her like that. It was hard to say goodbye even though I knew it was coming."
It was easier to talk about this part than she had anticipated.
"Yeah," Carl said staring fixedly at the table.
"I'm grateful she doesn't have to see this," Michonne said gesturing with her chin to the walkers at the fence. "I'm glad she's at peace. But sometimes I would do anything to see her face again, hear her voice, tell her I love her, tell her I'm sorry."
Carl's head snapped up. "Why—why are you sorry?"
Michonne shrugged lightly, looking at him, knowing it was important that she could see him then, that he could see her.
"That's how it is when people die sometimes. You're just sorry. About how they died, that they died, that you didn't. About anything you might have done to make them sad, to make them feel like you didn't love them enough. You just feel…sorry."
Before Elodie's face could burrow deep, whisk her off to that dark and engulfing place, Michonne pushed it away. Now she was drained and aching and sorry. She was always so sorry.
Sensing her burgeoning melancholy, Carl leaned in.
"Your mom knew you loved her, Michonne."
Michonne stared at him.
"And your mom knew the same, Carl."
His blue eyes, now shimmering, slipped past her again. Michonne finally understood where he was looking.
"It's her birthday," he said.
Michonne smiled sadly. "Is it?"
"Yeah."
"How old would she have been?"
Carl considered. "Old. Thirty-six, I think."
"Don't make me fight you."
She welcomed his watery smile and she mourned when it fled. The wood of the table thumped under his now tapping fingers.
"I was mean to her before she died. I talked back, I ignored her."
Guilt swallowed him. Wide-mouthed and ravenous, a monster too formidable for such a small boy. It was so palpable that Michonne could see it, feel it. She wanted to throw her body over his to shield him, let it take her instead. She and this monster had history.
"You were with her. When she died?"
Carl nodded.
"I shot her. I had to."
To prevent her turning, Michonne knew. Twisted fragments of the story drifted around the prison. Less so now than right after the Woodbury survivors arrived, back when they were trying to understand this new place, when they were trying to make sense of the broken leader who had taken them in and his outraged son.
Gossip had little impact on Michonne, transient as she was. She was the subject of more than a few stories herself. Maggie knew this. Maggie had been there performing the fatal c-section. And it was Maggie who pulled her aside and filled in the gaps because, "Carl trusts you."
She had never needed the details. If Carl wanted to tell her about it then he would. All she needed to know was that he was grieving.
"Yeah," Michonne said. "You had to."
His fingers tapped harder on the table.
"I forgot it was her birthday today. Hershel told my dad the date. He does that sometimes, because he likes to keep track. Hershel does. But I didn't—I didn't remember right away. It took me an hour to realize what day it was."
The tapping stopped. He gripped the wood instead.
"I was mean to her before she died and I forgot her birthday."
Michonne wanted to reach for him but refrained.
"Your mother knew you loved her. No matter what happened, she knew that."
Carl shook his head, as if he couldn't or wouldn't hear her. That was okay. She understood that truth could masquerade as a lie. Knowing something in your head was different than knowing it in your heart. Carl, he was so young. He shouldn't have to wade through any of this.
"My dad didn't remember. He didn't say anything. He just kept on...he just kept on farming."
Carl spat "farming" like a curse. There was that anger, the one that was always brewing, even when Carl was calm, even when he seemed to accept the new rhythm of his life.
"Is that why you were angry with him?"
"He hasn't said anything. About her birthday."
Michonne nodded, feeling a profound sense of tenderness for the Grimes men. Between Carl's pinched face and Rick's tangible exhaustion from earlier, she ached for them. She understood, more than she could or would say.
Mike and Elodie's birthday snuck by her. For a long while, time ceased to matter. Holidays, birthdays, anniversaries. They passed quietly. Her grief was so raw that even formerly special days were just like the others—void.
Rick's memory lapse, Carl's penitence—she understood. Would she ever celebrate Elodie's birthday again?
"It's easy to forget," Michonne said.
"He can't—" Carl swallowed. "He didn't remember."
Michonne chased his wandering eyes.
"Do you think a single day passes when he doesn't think of your mother?"
Lori Grimes loomed over the prison. Even beyond the cross which her husband visited regularly. Her presence could be felt in Rick's reticence. She dwelled in Carl's bouts of silence. She lived in Judith. She was with them now when Carl set his eyes on her.
"Did your parents love each other?" he asked in a small voice.
Face carefully blank, Michonne watched him for a moment. He was asking one thing and wondering another.
"They did."
"How do you know?"
Oh, Carl.
Before Michonne could respond, Carl looked behind her and frowned, head tilted to the side. He and Rick had that curious habit. Like puppies. Or watchdogs, depending on their mood.
Michonne turned. Rick shuffled towards them, head bowed and something clutched in his hands. As he drew closer, the item took shape. Michonne blinked.
In the warmer months, crossvine grew wild outside the prison. They dwindled as fall emerged, but clusters of them clung stubbornly to some of the trees. Rick was holding a length of crossvine dotted with yellow-red flowers wrapped in on itself several times.
He approached the pair slowly, cautiously, the way one might if they were concerned about intruding. Michonne thought it odd. Caution was her MO. She was the one always hijacking his kid.
"I don' mean to interrupt," he said, accent peculiarly thick.
Shifting his weight to his right leg, he brought the back of his thumb to his eyebrow. It was a tick of his, Michonne had noticed.
"Not interrupting," she said.
He nodded, looked away. Then, as if steeling himself, he took a steady breath. He looked at Carl.
"It's your mother's birthday."
Instantly, Michonne felt like she was intruding.
"I made this," Rick said holding up the wreath demurely. "Uh, this mornin'. We used to have some of this growin' outside the house. She liked it. Figured we could, uh…"
Michonne should definitely not be here.
Was there a way for her to get up without drawing attention to herself? Nope. Rick was standing between her and the cell block. She glanced at Carl without moving her head. He was staring blankly at the wreath.
"It ain't much of a birthday present. But I, uh, figure we can give it to her together."
Carl continued to stare at the wreath. Michonne sat perfectly still. Why couldn't she teleport? In his son's silence, Rick cleared his throat.
"I know I—" he started.
"Okay," Carl said.
Rick's reservation gave way to relief. "Yeah?"
"Yeah, Dad. That looks—that looks nice."
It did. Something Michonne might have bought on Etsy back in the day. She wanted to be surprised at the simple artistry of it, but Rick worked with his hands and seemed to enjoy doing so. The garden wasn't just functional; there was an elegant symmetry to it. That had surprised her once, that someone so no-nonsense—a cop no less— could make art with his crops, seemingly without meaning to. But his tenderness with Judith, his patience with Carl, his purposeful hands in the dirt—a man like that could braid a wreath for his dead wife and present it to his son as a peace offering.
Rick turned that peace offering over in his hands.
"Okay then."
Carl nodded. "Okay."
Father and son looked at each other. Their silence was bursting with things unsaid. Michonne stood.
"I'm going to head inside. You two have a good night."
Breaking eye contact with Carl, Rick turned to her.
"You headin' out tomorrow?"
"Day after."
Rick nodded. "Okay."
At times it seemed like Rick Grimes wanted to say more than he did. Like he had a storm of words brewing, rotating, ready to touch down. It was in the slight shift of his body, the transference of his weight from one bowed leg to the other. The staring, the lingering. It rooted her in place longer than she intended to stay. Emerging from these fleeting moments with him were like waking up from a nap, slightly dazed and confused.
"Goodnight," she said, stepping back.
"Goodnight, Michonne."
Carl echoed his father's farewell. He too looked like he wanted to say more. Michonne headed in one direction. The boys headed in another. Michonne glanced at them just in time to see Carl take the wreath from his father's hand.