Mending Fences - Chapter 2: "The Beginning"

The dining area was loud. In addition to half eaten food on plates on the table, Andre, Judith and Logan crowded around Rick. They had minutes before rushed upstairs and brought down recent school projects and scattered them on the table.

They each were actively trying to compete for their father's attention and Rick loved it as he was trying to divide his attention between the three of them as best as he can.

Rick looked up briefly and caught Michonne smiling and he smiled at her. Carl and Sophia complained loudly of the noise and the crowd at the table as they were trying to finish their dinner. Judith pulled Rick's hand.

"Come daddy!"

She literally dragged him into the living room with Andre and Logan in tow with their projects in hand. She sat him on the floor and then rushed back to the dining table to collect her projects.

All this flurry of activity brought a smile to Michonne's face and joy in her heart. She saw when Rick looked up at her among the chatter. She gently touched Sophia's arm.

"Help me clear the table...both of you."

Sophia punched Carl to get his attention because he had put on his headphones to drown out his younger siblings babbling.

"Mom needs us to help clear the table."

Carl rolled his eyes and they both got up. Michonne had already begun moving plates from the table to the sink. The three of them formed a chain from the table to the sink and in a couple of minutes the table was completely cleared...minus a few projects from Judith and Logan. Rick had turned around and saw when the others began clearing the table. He rose up to help but Judith and Logan pushed him back down on the floor.

"No daddy! Carl and Sophia will help mummy!" Logan pleaded.

"I heard that!"

Sophia answered back and Logan stuck his tongue out to his big sister. Sophia has quietly slipped away and had gone upstairs leaving Carl to help their mother with the dishes. The phone began ringing and Andre who was nearest answered.

"Mom! It's Kevin. He wants to come over to spend the night. Can he? Pleaseeee!"

Kevin was Andre's best friend who lived five houses down. She raised her hand in defeat. It was Friday night and it was their weekly ritual.

"Mom said it was ok. Don't forget to bring….."

Andre began rattling off the various names of PlayStation to his friend. A minute later, he rushed past them up the stairs to his room. Now that Kevin is coming over, Logan is going to have to sleep with Carl tonight.

As Michonne washed the plates and handed them to Carl to rinse and dry she observed her son. He had a cool reception to his father being home. She knows Carl loves his father to death but at age 12 and as the eldest child he was able to understand the full gravity and rigor of the investigation, Rick's trial and his sentencing.

However the real toll of the situation came to a head about two weeks after Rick's began his sentencing.***************

Three years ago….

Michonne was at the kitchen counter preparing vegetables for the night's dinner when Carl walked in, dropping his bag on the floor.

"Mom."

She looked up and was instantly horrified by Carl's left black and blue eye. It was swollen shut. She immediately rushed over to him and cradled his face in her palms.

"Oh my god! What happened?!"

She was damn near hysterical by then as she examined his eye. He was hesitant to answer her.

"What…..happened?!"

"I got into a fight in school today."

"Carl!"

"What was I supposed to do mom?! He was calling dad a murderer! I wasn't gonna let him get away with that! I told him to take it back but he didn't! So…."

Michonne grabbed her son firmly at the shoulders.

"What did you do?"

"I punched him in the face and knocked out a tooth."

"Carl!"

"His friends jumped in and beat me up. The principal and another teacher broke us up."

Michonne looked at her son, his eyes casted downwards. She left him and seconds later returned with the first aid kit. As a former nurse she quickly and efficiently attended to his swollen eye.

"Look at me!"

Carl slowly casted his one good eye up to his mother. She hugged him and he buried his face in her chest.

"I know that this is hard with your father being gone but it is for a little while. But you can't go around hitting people...no matter what they say about you or us. Your daddy loves us."

She tilt his face to look into his eyes.

"Do you understand?"

"Yes..but there is something else I need to tell you."

Michonne watched in dread as Carl pulled out a letter from his bag and handed it to her. As she opened it, the word 'Suspension' jumped out at her.

She looked at her son. That day she grounded Carl for one week...the duration of his suspension from school. Later that night she cried in her bedroom, holding the suspension letter in hand.*************

After washing the dishes and Carl went up to his room, Michonne went into the living room and stood at the entrance way looking at her two youngest and their father. Judith was four and Logan three when Rick started serving his sentence.

They were so young and had no clue that the next three years of their lives was going to be a fatherless one. The first two months was the hardest for them as they cried constantly for him. All she could do was try her best to assure them that he was coming back. The visits to the prison was hard on her too..seeing her husband behind bars like a caged animal. It sickened her and it upset her children.

A friend then suggested that she make a scrapbook with pictures of Rick with the children as babies and tell them stories about him...just to keep them hopeful and him in memory until he comes back home. Looking at them now..with him proves that the idea worked. Smiling, she headed upstairs to take a shower.***********

When Logan turned and looked over his shoulder, Rick followed his line of sight. He saw Michonne walking up the stairs to their room. He was worried.************

The cold water hit her face with a soothing force. She began shivering but refused to turn on the heater. After a minute, she stepped back, and reaching for the soap she examined the fading mark on her left finger. She remembered when she first met Rick. She had just turned eighteen years old and was a trainee nursing student at the time at St Albert's Memorial Hospital.

Seventeen years ago…..

Michonne had just walked in the hospital doors to begin her shift when two gurneys rushed past her to go inside. At a quick glance she saw that it was two men...one of them a police officer.

Both men was talking smack to each other with another police officer walking next to his partner on the gurney trying to calm him down. Both were wheeled in two vacant spaces next to each other and both of them appear badly bruised and bloodied. Even while being attended to, both of them continued to behave badly, cursing and swearing at each other. The other officer stood between both men to act as a referee.

Mrs Carr, a senior nurse called Michonne into the room.

"You attend to this one." She said, pointing to the officer on the bed.

Michonne approached and began cleaning the cuts and scrapes he had but the officer was making it difficult for her. He was too busy shouting words at the other man. She noticed the other officer looking at her closely and slightly amused that his partner was giving her so much trouble as she try to perform her duties. After about ten minutes of no success, she had had enough.

"Hey!"

She screamed at the officer, grabbing his uniform shirt collar simultaneously and pulling him hard towards her so that he could face her...to get his full attention. The other officer's back instantly stiffened as if she was commanding him also.

"KEEP…..STILL!" she said forcefully.

She watched as the officer's eyes travelled from her hand clenching his uniform up towards her face. His eyes registered shock at the manner at which he was being handled.

That's when she noticed how blue they were...his eyes as it cut into her. His eyes held her gaze. The other patient was still pelting insults at him..but the officer wasn't responding as his focus was elsewhere now.

His eyes slowly and steadily looked at her from head to toe and back up again. It was she who pulled away her eyes first and she began attending to him. He laid perfectly still..so still that she glanced up briefly to see if he was still breathing.

Her patient was still staring her...this time his eyes laden with curiosity. The other officer was looking at her also.

"I should have killed that bitch when I had the chance!" The other man screamed.

"Shut up!" The refereeing officer shouted at him.

"I should have killed her whore of a daughter too!" The man continued.

"I said enough!"

"When I get out of here on bail I'll go straight to the house and GUT THEM BOTH!"

That was the last straw for her patient. He sprang off the bed with lightening speed, causing Michonne to get startled and she fell back, her body slamming hard against an ECG machine stationed behind her. She hit her elbow trying to brace her fall on the cold, unforgiving floor and she screamed out in pain. Other nurses rushed to her aid**********

Paul didn't see when his partner flew off the bed, rushed passed him and dived on their suspect. Instead his attention was on the nurse attending to his partner. When he saw her fell down and screamed out in pain he was snapped back to reality.

The man's scream echoed through the hospital and when Paul turned his head he saw it….his partner..a fellow police officer on top of a suspect in the middle of a hospital pounding the bloody shit out of him. He grabbed him around tthe waist.

"Grimes!"

He tried pulling him off but his partner had a vice grip on the man.

"Rick!" He screamed. "Enough!"

Three hospital security officers came to his aid and they managed to pull him off.

"Take him to another room and guard him!"

Paul command and watched as Rick was being dragged off to calm down. He turned his attention back towards the nurse and saw that her colleagues were attending to her. A doctor rushed up and when he stretched out her hand a blood curdling scream escaped her lips. The doctor shook his head and the nurse began crying.***********

Paul bursted into the room that Rick was being held in.

"What the f*ck!"

"He deserved what he got!"

"I'm not talking about that scumbag! You pushed down the nurse! She's hurt!"

"What?"

He saw how pissed off Paul was at him and then he remembered. He rushed passed him and out into the hall. Frantically, he sprinted back to where he was and saw on two bed down a huddle of the hospital staff.

He glared angrily at the suspect who grinned a bloody toothy smile at him. He forced himself to ignore him and walked cautiously towards the group. He was met with a wall of angry nurses, arms folded across their chest.

He looked passed the shoulder of Nurse Carr and saw the young nurse arm being bandaged by the doctor. She was clearly in pain and feeling his eyes on her...looked up at him. He saw the hurt in her eyes. She turned away from him.

"You need to leave….now."

Rick looked at the hurt nurse again...hoping to meet her eyes one more time before he has to leave. She turned her back to him. His heart broke into a million pieces. He didn't mean to hurt her and he intended to make that clear to her.

Rick showed up every day for the next week at the hospital. He brought flowers and a card with a written apology inside every time hoping to see her. Her colleagues told her of his frequent visits. Finally, he was able to bribe one of the nurses to get her work schedule and waited patiently in the lobby to see her.

When he showed up on the first night of her correct shift. she was genuinely alarmed. She avoided him for the first few times and then on the fifth time he showed up...she spied him from the lobby.

"Just talk to him." Nurse Bell urged her. "He has been racked with guilt and have been coming here everyday since."

Nurse Bell gave her a little nudge.

"He's cute too."

Michonne swallowed hard and walked out into the lobby.***********

When Rick saw her walking out to him, he rose to his feet quickly. He sheepishly handed her the flowers and the card. She read it.

"Hi." He said.

"Hi."**********

After that day, Michonne told him that she was alright and that he didn't need to check up on her.

"You are not fine." He pointed at her still bandaged elbow. "I am so sorry."

"I am."

They stood there in the lobby awkwardly for a few minutes.

"I should really get back to work."

"Ok. Can I pass tomorrow to check on you?"

"I'm fine..so that's not necessary."

"Please…"

Rick blue eyes weighed her down. They pleaded with her. Finally she gave in.

"Ok."

She saw the biggest smile ever that day.***********

Rick, unsurprisingly kept his word and pretty soon they were dating after four months. He was sweet and caring and fully explained his actions that day in the hospital. It was then she learned that he was only nine months on the job when they met that day in the hospital.

Two months after her nineteenth birthday he proposed. It was after a quiet dinner as they was strolling by the national park. She cried. Three months later they were pronounced husband and wife and Carl was born a year later when she was twenty and Rick was twenty three.***********

Present day….

Michonne finally stepped out of the shower and quickly dressed herself in red boy shorts and a white T-shirt. She sat down at her vanity table and opened a small jewellery box. She took out her wedding ring and slipped it on her finger. She loved her husband and will wear the symbol of their love.