I must admit. I'm a little nervous to present this one to you guys. The majority of the responses from chapter three were overwhelmingly positive and I seriously appreciate that. But I will say, this chapter definitely doesn't wrap the last one up in a neat little bow of resolution. You'll have to be a little more patient for that. It does, however, provide some much-needed character development for Rick Grimes.

Once again, thank you so much for reviewing and I can't wait to hear your thoughts on this one.

Four

I won't be so loud if this is what you need

I won't be so loud if you won't take my lead - James Blake - Love Me in Whatever Way

Even if she wasn't speaking to him, if he wasn't supposed to speak to her, Rick was relieved to see Michonne at the next meeting. He sat in the back of the room, situated on the right side of the aisle in the last row of chairs. Michonne was where she always was, somewhere in the middle, probably thinking she blended in perfectly with the rest of the room. He knew differently though. He'd been able to spot her seconds after he entered, even though the majority of the seats had already been filled with bodies.

She was gorgeous as always. Her rich brown skin glowing even under the oppressive fluorescent lights in the church basement. She wore a dark colored tank top with thick straps, and he spent minutes upon minutes thinking about running his fingers and tongue on the soft skin there. No matter how hard he fought it, Rick couldn't help but think back to the kiss they'd had just days before. The sweet taste and feel of her full lips, the way her hips felt clutched under his palms. He'd relished at how soft and willing Michonne been in his arms that night. Holding her, kissing her had felt more right than anything had in a long time.

Rick hadn't expected the kiss to make them fall in love like some damn fairytale. He wasn't some 15-year-old boy who was too green to see reality. But he definitely hadn't expected her to tell him that she couldn't have anything to do with. Everything in him had wanted to push back, but he instantly understood how selfish that would have been. She wasn't interested in pursuing even a friendship with him, and it made him feel brittle and desperately sad. But he respected her wishes, he had to.

He accepted them, understood them even. But that didn't make the pill of her rejection any easier to swallow. During Thursday's meeting, Rick switched between listening to the testimonies of his fellow alcoholics and watching Michonne. Completely unconcerned with seeming creepy, he took notice of her ticks and tendencies.

He noticed that every time there was a pause between speakers, she fidgeted and shifted in her seat. It was eerily similar to the way kids try to avoid being picked on in class when they don't have the answers to the questions the teacher poses. Sometimes, someone would stand up and offer a particularly tragic story about their failing relationship with their children. Those always punched Rick painfully in the gut. And, if the frequent rolling of her slim shoulders was an indication, they seemed to do the same to Michonne as well.

Like every other meeting they'd attended together, she made no move to stand up and speak. When the meeting ended with her never leaving her chair, he found himself disappointed. He knew that he probably wouldn't get the chance to speak to her one-on-one again. That only made him even more eager to learn about her in the only other way he could imagine her revealing herself to him since she'd shut him out - through personal testimonies. He wanted to know more about her story, to find out what haunted her, to just hear her damn voice just one more time. But it didn't seem like Michonne had an equally pressing desire to reveal herself, not to him or anyone else in attendance.

He sat in his chair until the majority of the people in the basement cleared out. He was still thinking about her when he stood up to leave and spotted her in the short line at the exit door. She looked up at him and their eyes meet. It was brief, so quick that Rick couldn't even read the look on her face before she shoved her way through the line, out the door, and further away from him. The emotion building in his throat could only be soothed by a gruff, loud clearing of it that shocked even him.

Saturday was undoubtedly better than Thursday. Just after sunrise, he was woken up by a phone call from Lori. He'd panicked at first, thinking something was wrong with Carl. Instead, she'd surprised him by asking if he wanted to take the pre-teen for the day. He found it a little suspicious, in the years that she'd had sole custody of Carl, she'd never pushed for those kinds of visits. Not on such short notice, and certainly not for an entire day without her being there too. But Rick knew she had no intention of sharing her reasons and Rick had no intention of asking for them. She didn't even get the question out fully before he was agreeing enthusiastically. It took him less than half an hour to get up, shower, and head over to Lori's place.

His heart warmed when Carl's eyes lit up the moment he saw him. 6 a.m., fresh out of bed, with the impressions from his pillow still on his face and his boy was ecstatic. It would be the third time they'd seen each other in one week. Neither of them could remember that happening in Rick's most recent, more troubled years.

They'd started the day with breakfast at the King County Cafe - a place they'd gone at least once a week when Carl was a toddler. A time when Rick had, had better "control" over his addiction. The 11-year-old scarfed down a stack of red velvet pancakes while Rick nursed bacon, eggs, and toast. Even with their separation, the father and son found it easy to make conversation. Quickly moving from a school project Carl was working on to his new favorite comic book release to the fact that his mom had stopped allowing him to go outside and play unless his room was clean.

Truthfully, it didn't matter the topic. Rick was just happy to be having a conversation with his boy at all. In the week they'd been doing their after-school visits, their conversations had mainly focused on school. A quick story about middle school drama before they got going on homework and dinner. Rick appreciated any time with Carl, but it felt nice to be able to talk to him without having to rush through math problems or worry about the clock expiring a couple hours after he picked him up.

After breakfast, they did a little comic book shopping, then back to Rick's to watch the newest Avengers movie. Lori made sure to text him just about every hour, inquiring about Carl, asking what they were doing, and sending him non-subtle requests to be careful with their son. Rick tried his hardest to be understanding. And as much as he got where his ex-wife was coming from, he couldn't shake his frustration, even if he made a concentrated effort not to let Carl be privy to it.

Early afternoon Carl approached Rick, cell phone in hand, and asked him if he'd take him to the park to "chill" with his friend Duane Jones. He wasn't too excited about sharing his time with his son with anyone else, but he found it impossible to deny him.

As Carl and Duane kicked around a soccer ball on a quiet, wide open grassy area of King County's only park, he sat next to the other boy's father, Morgan. Rick had known the other man since high school. A couple of years older than him, Morgan had always been quiet and studious. They'd never been the closest of friends, hanging out with a group every once in a while. As they got older they developed a friendly business relationship as well.

He'd never hung out with the man just the two of him, and Rick feared it would be painfully awkward, but it wasn't. Even sitting quietly, watching their boys play, Morgan had an incredibly calm, quiet presence. So calm that Rick was surprised when he struck up a conversation with him.

"So how are you, man? You been good?" The man next to him asked, looking out across the field at their boys. "I heard through the grapevine you started going to meetings again. You go to the ones over at High Point Baptist?"

Rick chuckled. "The grapevine huh?"

He and Morgan exchanged an amused, rueful smile. They both knew how fast word traveled in small towns like King County.

"Nah," Rick continued. "I'm at a place over in Madison. They're going alright."

"Just alright?" Morgan's face was serious again. His brown eyes crinkled at the sides even when resting. They were somehow comforting and disconcerting at the same time. Rick fidgeted a bit, picking at a small fray in the knee of his dark jeans and uncrossing his legs at the ankles to sit up a little straighter.

"You know how it is, man. One day at a time." It was such a cop-out answer, and both of them silently recognized it. Morgan said nothing, just letting him sit in his answer, waiting patiently to hear more. "I think I'm doin' good," Rick continued after a few moments. "I'm stayin' sober, resistin' temptation and all that, but that ain't even necessarily the hardest part."

The man next to him hummed in agreement but otherwise said nothing. He kept those eyes on Rick though, laying him as bare as a damn baby's ass.

Rick cleared his throat and looked away from Morgan, towards their boys. Carl's hair was sweaty now, the longer locks clinging to his forehead as he tried to hurl the soccer ball off of it. "Everythang feels...I don't know...fragile, like it could fall apart at any second now. I've been tryin' to get Lori to let me take Carl more and I need to stay right in order for that to happen, but if it doesn't, if she don't ever think I'm fit, I ain't sure I can keep it up. Stay sober, you know?"

Rick's voice was gruff and soft. He wasn't holding back tears, but he was choking on the emotion he was trying to keep from spilling out.

"Why don't you think you can stay sober?" Morgan asked, genuinely curious.

He closed his eyes and tilted his head back a bit, leaning more on the bench they were sitting on. When he spoke again, it was without opening his eyes. "Sometimes I feel like drinkin' was always meant to be a part of me. My daddy, my grandaddy, and his daddy before him. All of 'em were drunks, every single damn one of 'em. It was in me from the beginnin', before I even realized it. Here I am now. Fightin' every day not to pass that shit down to my own boy. And as much as I want to fight it, I can always feel it there, and I'm scared I won't always be able to fend it off, sometimes, I don't even want to. I'm tryin' to be strong, to keep goin' for Carl's sake, but that don't always feel like enough."

Rick let out short chuckle full of disgust. He hadn't made the admission looking for advice or even sympathy, he was only telling the truth, as raw and unedited as he could muster it.

"You remember when Jenny died?" Morgan asked softly, his gaze atop the windblown trees in front of them.

"Yeah," Rick recalled sadly.

Jenny Jones died suddenly and tragically. The former teacher had been driving down one of the lesser traveled highways on her way back to King County from her mother's house. She'd hydroplaned on a turn and her car went careening into a tree. Dead on impact, the coroner said. But it took nearly a day for her to be found, ashen and lifeless in the front seat of her crushed Subaru. Her death devastated the entire town, but no one as much as Morgan and a 7-year-old Duane. Rick wished he could say he'd reached out and lent a helping hand for his kind-of-friend, but he hadn't. He'd been too knee deep in his own addiction to offer more than sincere but useless apologies.

"I know you weren't all there to realize it, but I wasn't anywhere close to bein' fine," Morgan shook his head. "I spent a long, long time as half a man. I could barely get up every mornin'. Had Duane makin' his own breakfasts and gettin' himself to school. I was out of it, man. I wasn't me, I wasn't a father or a husband, I wasn't anybody."

Rick didn't know what to say. His and Morgans situations were so vastly different, but the similarities between them were startlingly similar. It was the first time Rick could remember another person being able to relate to his situation so wholly. His daddy had died an alcoholic, and Rick wasn't positive that the man had felt even an ounce of guilt about the mess he'd left in his wake. As many demons as his childhood best friend Daryl had, the realities of failing as a father and a husband weren't among them.

"I didn't come out of it for months," Morgan continued. "Not even when Duane almost set the damn house on fire tryin' to make chicken noodle soup. As much as I wanted to be the daddy he needed, I couldn't be that until I had the want to be a good man for myself too."

Rick's brows furrowed. "I'm not sure I get what you mean."

"I'm sayin', I don't know shit about bein' an alcoholic, but I know about bein' a father and bein' a man who ain't livin', barely survivin' even." Even speaking softly, Morgan's voice was more powerful than Rick had ever heard it. "I know it ain't easy to hear, but you can't just want to stay sober for Carl. There's goin' to be a time when he has to leave, become his own man, start his own family, and he ain't goin' to need you to be strong for him all the time because he'll be able to be strong for himself. Then what? What happens when the one thing you were stayin' sober for ain't starin' you in the face every day?"

"I…I don't know," he answered honestly.

"That's why you've got to want it for you too. I couldn't get right until I looked in the mirror and wanted to see something different for myself, not just for Duane. We're parents, but we're people too," Morgan said. "You need to give enough of a shit about yourself to sustain even when nobody is dependin' on you to do it."

The words were nearly enough to knock Rick over in his seat. It wasn't something he'd ever considered. Everyone he knew, including himself, had been telling him to "do it for Carl" for years. He knew they weren't completely wrong either. Carl deserved a father who was completely present all the time, to love him, care for him, and lead him. Naturally, the only way Rick could be that father was to be sober. But it didn't have to, shouldn't have to, be the only reason. He hadn't made it through even half of the 12 steps in the AA program yet, but none of them so far had focused on using self-love to bolster your sobriety. Hell, maybe it was a given and he'd just missed the memo.

Morgan wasn't a therapist, and as much as Rick wished it were so, the revelation he'd brought on wasn't enough to cure decades of self-loathing and pain. That didn't mean it didn't open his eyes and make him view himself and his mission a little differently. Still, it was a little difficult to grasp fully. Everything parents do is supposed to be for their kids, especially when they'd fucked up as much as he had. The prospect of shifting the axis of his sobriety from focusing solely on Carl was terrifying. Partly because it felt wrong to de-center his son - even if only a little bit - in favor of himself. And partly because he had no idea what it meant to love yourself, especially not enough to save yourself from your own damningly selfish habits.

As he sat silently next to Morgan, the summer breeze ruffling his curls and the sound of his son's laughter ringing in his ears, Rick knew the latter of those tasks was the most daunting.

His conversation with Morgan sat with him for hours after they separated. Rick had fielded multiple check-in calls from Lori, stopped by the grocery store, and made a hearty spaghetti dinner alongside Carl in his kitchen. It was nearly 9 p.m. before his ex-wife called him, her voice a little rushed and breathless as she asked him to bring Carl back home to her.

It was a quiet drive, with the 11-year-old nearly dozing off as they ambled down the road with a CD of Johnny Cash's greatest hits playing softly from the speakers. When Rick pulled into Lori's driveway, Carl didn't make an immediate move to exit the truck like he normally did. Unbuckling his seatbelt, Rick turned a bit to face his son, noticing the small worry line between his eyebrows.

"You alright?" Rick prompted softly. Getting Carl to open up didn't usually take a ton of effort, just a great amount of patience.

"I've just been thinking about something," the boy answered. "You know how you and mom are divorced?"

Rick nodded, unsure about where the conversation was going.

"Well, I know you told me when you moved out that you and mom were splitting up, but that didn't mean you were leaving me," Carl paused again, his curious eyes on Rick. "But if that's true, why haven't I been seeing you as much?"

Neither he nor Lori had broached the topic of Rick's alcoholism with their son. Maybe it had been an irresponsible oversight on their part, but the wounds were so deep and neither of them knew how to adequately explain the situation. If he was being honest with himself, Rick hadn't wanted to. He'd hoped that he could get sober and Carl would forget all about the fact that he'd been relegated to seeing his dad for a few hours a couple of times a week for years. But his boy wasn't one to let something like that slide. And as much as it pained Rick, it made him proud too.

"Yeah, I know I haven't been livin' up to the promise I made you. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry if I made you feel like I didn't care about bein' your dad anymore, but I've always cared about bein' a father to you and I always will," Rick took a deep breath. "It's just...I was too sick for a little while. Too sick to really be there for you. But I'm gettin' better now and thangs ain't goin' back to how they used to be, they're goin' to be better."

Rick tried his hardest to explain it as best he could to the 11-year-old. Addiction was a sickness, one that he'd been suffering from for a long, long time. He'd come to grips with it, but that didn't make him any less ashamed about having Carl know the full truth.

"You were sick?" His boy looked panicked. "What kind of sick? You don't have cancer do you?"

"No," Rick placed his warm hand on the back of Carl's neck, hoping to soothe him. "No, I don't have cancer, Carl. Don't worry, I'm goin' to be just fine."

Their eyes, so much alike, connected as Carl stared him down, the little worry line between his brown deepening even further. "Are you sick because you're an alcoholic?"

The question was so softly spoken Rick almost missed it. Or would have, had it not knocked all the air out of his lungs. He could feel the blood rushing to his ears and easily hear the steady drum of his heart pounding behind his ribcage. Hearing Carl speak those words made him sick to his stomach. Had Lori said something without consulting him first? Had Rick been so obvious in his addiction that his child had been able to figure it out on his own? Either scenario had him pushing down bile.

"What makes you ask that?" Rick asked weakly, staring the boy down as if his eyes would reveal the answers before his mouth.

Carl paused like he didn't want to continue with the conversation. Rick bit down on his tongue to keep himself from speaking out again.

"Well, this week mom got me the new Spider-Man game for my PlayStation and I asked Tyler Davis if he wanted to come over and play it with me, but his mom said he couldn't because...because you're a lousy drunk and she doesn't want him around us like that. Tyler said everybody knows it too."

"Jesus, Carl-"

His son cut him off. "Is that the truth, dad? Are you an alcoholic?"

The look on Carl's face was so earnest that Rick had to look away for a moment. He had no illusions about everyone in King County not knowing that he was an alcoholic. Usually, he didn't care enough about what the small-minded assholes in town thought, but knowing that they extended their hatred of him to Carl in some form. Knowing that his son had been subjected to any kind of ridicule because of his shitty decisions filled him with rage and a whole host of other feelings he didn't have the time to unpack right there in the moment.

Rick was a coward. He knew it as he sat there, right in front of his son thinking of ways to evade the question and soften the blow. He wanted to be honest with Carl, but he was already hanging on by a thread. One that would have no problem snapping when he admitted the truth and saw the look of anger and betrayal on the boy's face. He didn't want to do it. Couldn't, more like.

"You shouldn't believe everything you hear, Carl. This is a small town, people like to talk a lot about stuff, even when they've got no idea what's really goin' on."

Carl looked at him for a beat longer then nodded. "Okay."

Rick leaned over the console and gave him a quick hug before the boy grabbed up his book bag and hopped out of the truck. Before he swung the heavy door closed, Carl turned back to look at his father. The dip between his eyebrows was smoothed and his face was almost stony with something Rick thought looked like pure certainty.

"Even if you are a drunk, I don't care. You're still my dad. Remember what you always tell me when I get in trouble? It doesn't matter what you do, I'll always love you. Forever."