So... This chapter was supposed to drop yesterday, but real life got in the way so I'm sorry to anyone who was looking out for it and got disappointed.
I will say, I was a little worried about this chapter. Largely because a large portion of it doesn't pass the Bechdel test (you should totally look into it if you don't know what that is). But then I remembered that, one this is a story that needs to continue moving along, and as such, I can't fill all of the valuable plotting space with tons of innocuous conversations that mean nothing. Secondly, I know what conversations with my friends in real life look like, and we talk about men - and our relationships with them - a lot. And third, this is my damn story, so I'm allowed to do what I want.
I also want to thank everyone who takes the time to review this story. You guys have no idea how much your thoughts, opinions, and reactions spur me on and encourage me to make SACW the best story I possibly can. I love hearing from you, so keep on sending me words of your own!
I think this is the longest author's note I've ever written. I'll shut up now. As always, enjoy!
Seven
I don't know if I'm scared of dying
But I'm scared of living too fast, too slow - First Aid Kit - My Silver Lining
"I hate that they took the braised lamb shanks off the menu," Sasha voiced as she turned the menu over only to be even more disappointed that it was one-sided. "It was pretty much the only reason we come to this place."
Maggie snorted. "No, we come to this place because we like it. You're the only one who decided to only ever try one thing on the menu."
"If it ain't broke," Sasha sassed back.
"Why don't you try the bouillabaisse?" Michonne suggested in an attempt to be helpful.
"I'm not in the mood for seafood."
Her answer was short and a little snappish, causing Michonne and Maggie to look up at her with eyebrows raised. Sasha had a tendency to get a little bitchy when she was disappointed, and it often fell to them to get her back into place.
While the pretty, tawny-skinned woman didn't issue an actual apology, she sighed shamefully. "I think I'll just go with the coq au vin."
They were at Pierre's, a French restaurant in Buckhead that had been around since the '70s. They'd discovered it during undergrad and the elegant decor and dress code had made them feel incredibly sophisticated for 20-years-old. The reasonable prices, on the other hand, had been easy on their almost nonexistent budgets. In the 16 years that followed, the three women had made visiting Pierre's a regular occurrence.
Even in her worst days, their monthly trips had been something Michonne had always looked forward to. She'd always made sure to try to look her best and stay as sober as possible before and during. In the two hours they sat around a table, ate good food, and enjoyed each other's company, she could feel the vestiges of her old happy self blurring around the edges of the new her.
This time though, was different. She'd completely forgotten that she had made plans to celebrate her belated birthday with Maggie and Sasha that evening. When Maggie texted her to confirm their plans earlier that afternoon she'd still been in King County, sitting comfortably on Rick's black leather couch. She was disappointed to admit it, but she'd felt a pang of disappointment at the sweet reminder from her friend.
A part of her, a large one at that, had wanted to stay seated right where she was. To wait for Rick to come back like she'd promised to do and talk to him some more. Another part of her knew that, that would have been a bad idea. Both because it would have been rude to blow off her friends and because she was a little terrified at what she and Rick would have gotten into had she stayed longer.
Rick's presence was overwhelming. In the evening, morning, and afternoon that she'd spent with him, she'd been constantly consumed by the sheer physicality of him. Seeing him without a shirt, even sick and sweaty, made her heart race. He was strong and incredibly masculine but there was nothing about his form that seemed to be rooted in a vain attempt to gain muscle. He was mouthwatering on every level. And the showing of his skin, combined with his grey sweatpants - and the impressive appendage they barely concealed - we're...distracting, to say the least.
She'd had a great time with Rick. Had thoroughly enjoyed talking with him, even spending time with his adorable little son hadn't been nearly as painful as she imagined it would be. Those feelings were forcing her to reconsider letting him into her life in some capacity. But her desire for him had been festering for weeks and she was terrified of what she would have done to slake that desire once alone with Rick again. So, in the end, it was her ever growing lust that ultimately helped her make her decision to leave rather than stay.
But sitting in Pierre's, feeling happier than she had in a while and surrounded by her best friends, Michonne still couldn't help the pang of regret that surged through her.
Michonne looked up from her menu to see their waiter return with three glasses of water.
"Sorry for the wait, ladies," he sat the drinks on the table then pulled a wine menu from the black apron around his waist. "Can I interest you in some wine before we get your food orders in? We just received a few bottles of 2015 Siduri Pinot Noir, it's one of the most popular red wines on our menu currently."
The table went silent. Michonne swallowed harshly as two pairs of eyes fell on her. She could see the uncertainty in Maggie and Sasha's respective gazes and she hated it. She always tried her hardest to stay away from alcohol in her everyday life because it helped lessen the temptation to drink. But that didn't mean she turned into a rabid animal at the sight of the damn stuff. She had to remind herself that her friends didn't know all of the gory details and inner workings of alcoholism. Because of that, they needed patience.
"It's fine guys," she said quietly, hoping the waiter couldn't hear her. "You can get wine if you want to."
Maggie stared at her for a little longer before turning to the young man waiting patiently beside their table. "I'm fine, I think I'll stick with my water, thank you."
"Me too," Sasha said. "I have plenty of wine at home to drink, I don't need to be spending money on even more."
Their conversation resumed after he finished jotting down their orders and walked away swiftly.
"What have you guys been up to?" Michonne asked. "I feel like we haven't gotten together in a while."
Sasha snorted. "We? Y'all see each other every day."
"Yeah, but you know how busy the bakery gets. We're mostly talking about replacing the icing sugar stock and the weekly schedule. We don't have time to gossip."
"Well at least you get to lay eyes on each other. I've gotten nary a FaceTime in weeks. Weeks!"
"You don't even have an iPhone to receive FaceTime on, Sash," Michonne laughed.
"Semantics," her friend said, dipping her fingers in her water before flicking the droplets in Michonne's general direction.
Maggie let out a small, dignified giggle before tucking her hands into her lap. "Me and Glenn are trying to have a baby."
Both Michonne and Sasha tried to hide the shock on their faces. The small smirk that appeared on their friend's face clued them into the fact that they'd failed.
"I thought you guys decided you didn't want any kids," Michonne said softly.
"We didn't, but after," she paused and Michonne knew instantly what she was struggling to say.
She and Glenn had been close with Andre. Maggie had even been his godmother. Hell, the lock screen on her phone was still a picture of the two of them together. It made sense that his life - and his death - had made such an impact on her feelings toward having children of her own. It only shocked Michonne that the tragedy of it didn't push her further in the other direction.
"We've just been reevaluating lately, and we want to be parents," Maggie continued.
Michonne reached over and grasped her friend's hands. Her heart was stuck in her throat, essentially preventing her from speaking, but she wanted to show support nonetheless.
"How long have y'all been trying?" Sasha asked.
"Not long, just a couple months."
"So, you could be knocked up right now?"
"It's possible."
"No wonder you didn't want any wine," Michonne voiced, feeling a little better at the lightening of the conversation.
A round of girlish giggles rang out at the table.
"What about you, Sash? I know Abe is dying to get his little red headed babies in you," Maggie joked.
Sasha rolled her big brown eyes. "I don't know about all that," she said. "But his deployment is up in five months, so I guess we'll have to start talking about it then. This old uterus isn't going to be in its prime much longer."
Their conversation was paused by their waiter bringing their food to the table. The plates were steaming and delicious and Michonne couldn't help the loud rumble that ran through her stomach. She hadn't eaten anything since she'd made Beyens for Carl and Rick that morning and she was ravenous.
"Are you excited that he's coming home so soon?" Michonne asked, cutting into her duck confit. "It's been almost a year and a half, right?"
Sasha nodded. "Yeah, and this is it. He's retiring after this one." The look on her face was guarded.
Maggie and Michonne waited quietly, knowing that Sasha preferred to spill her thoughts at her own pace, in her own time.
"We've been married for seven years and together for nine. In all that time, between all of our deployments, we've been able to spend maybe eight months together in consecutive time. The rest of our relationship has been broken up between multiple yearlong intervals away from each other."
Sasha had enlisted in the Air Force right after earning a degree in civil engineering at Georgia State University. She'd met Abraham Ford - a Marine - a few years later while they were both stationed in Hawaii. Like many military couples, their relationship had burned hot and fast. Michonne hated to admit it, but she'd been surprised when the duo had actually made it to the altar. Sasha had been right though, in the seven years they'd been married, she had been deployed three times - twice for 18 months and once for 12. Abe had been deployed four times - a time frame that totaled two years altogether.
Michonne had never understood how they'd managed it and had always admired her friends for keeping their marriage strong in the wake of such separation. But seeing Sasha's face, looking vulnerable and unsure, Michonne sensed that there had been deeper problems there - ones that no one else but Sasha and Abe had been privy to.
"I think we'll be fine," Sasha said after a bite of her coq au vin. "But now that we'll both be out for good, I'm worried that we don't really know how to be a real married couple."
Michonne and Maggie nodded their heads in understanding. "I think you should look at it as a bit of a blessing," Michonne voiced. "It gives you a chance to learn each other all over again. Recapture what it was like to fall in love the first time."
"I hadn't thought of it like that." Sasha looked genuinely surprised at the suggestion.
"That's why you need to come to your girls more instead of keeping this stuff to your stubborn ass self," Maggie joked.
Once again, Sasha rolled her eyes. "Speaking of keeping stuff to ourselves. I'm going to need you to open up, Mimi. I know you don't like talking about it with us, but how are your meetings going?"
Her first instinct was to deflect and run from the question. Sasha was right, she didn't often share information about her continued quest for sobriety. It had taken everything in her to admit to her friends that she was an alcoholic seeking help in the first place - no matter how supportive and amazing they'd been. There was a large part of her that didn't want them to be privy to Alcoholic Michonne so that things could go back to normal after her initial recovery period. The bigger part - the more logical part - knew that that wasn't a possibility for her anymore. That her life and her relationships had been changed irrevocably by her addiction.
Michonne sweated as she thought back to the lists of her worst traits she'd tacked onto the mirror in her bedroom. I never ever want to open up. She recalled the entry in her loopy handwriting on the stark white sheet. She didn't want to open up. Unsticking her lips from one another to tell her friends about the current affairs of her life felt almost impossible. But she powered through it.
"The meetings...the meetings are fine. I really like the guy who leads them, he's very inspirational." Michonne took a sip of her eater to wet her dry mouth. "I hit my year in less than two months so I'm just focusing on that right now."
She gave a gracious smile as Maggie and Sasha gave her their congratulations and words of encouragement. "There's something that's worrying me though," she looked down at her plate.
For a second, she thought about telling them about Rick Grimes. About the swelling of emotions she felt whenever she saw him. About how much his smile made her want to curl up in its warmth and never leave. About his adorable young son who'd made the tragedy of losing her own a little less intense, even if only for a few hours. She didn't, couldn't even. And not necessarily because she was ashamed of the fact that she had developed feelings for another alcoholic. But because she felt shitty about the fact that she didn't feel strong enough to resist his charms anymore. Especially because she felt like the routine calmness and muted emotions she'd adopted in her life the past month depended on him being in it as little as possible.
"What is it?" Sasha asked. "You're not worried about staying sober, are you?"
"I think I'll always worry about staying sober, Sash. That's going to be a part of my life forever now. But no, I don't think I'm going to fall off the wagon anytime soon. At least, I'm going to try my hardest not to." She sat her knife and fork down on the plate along with her half-eaten duck, appetite officially gone. "I'm worried about the future. Of what my life is supposed to be after I hit this milestone."
Her friends looked a little confused. "Well, what do you want it to be?" Maggie questioned.
"I don't know. I don't know what kind of life I want now because I don't know who I am now," she choked on the tears she refused to let spill. "Before, I was a mother, now I'm not anymore. Then, I was an alcoholic, now I'm not anymore. The things I've used to define myself for so long are becoming less familiar every day. What happens to me now? Who am I supposed to be?"
"I'm going to tell you a secret, Mimi. You ready?" Sasha asked with a small smile.
"Yeah," she answered softly.
"None of us know who we're supposed to be or what we're supposed to be doing."
Maggie chuckled. "Sash is right. You were the only one of us who every had it all figured out. Now you're just finally on our level."
"I never had it all figured out," Michonne mumbled. "Just...a good amount of it."
Her admission caused her friends to erupt in giggles.
"But seriously, Michonne. It's okay to still be figurin' things out. Especially after you've been through so much. Your life is changing, you're changing. You don't have to have all the answers now and it's okay to be afraid of the future. All you can do is keep trying your damnedest to make sure you have one at all."
"What she said," Sasha chimed in.
Maggie's words shouldn't have been such a revelation to Michonne. But they gave her pause anyway. She'd spent the majority of her life, even before her personal tragedies, trying her hardest to make her life perfect. Even when things had deviated from her carefully laid plans, they'd always turned out ideally. Now, things were different, but she still seemed to be chasing something that felt unattainable - a Michonne of the past. Maybe she was finally ready to admit that she hated being miserable all of the time. That she wanted to be able to feel joyous again.
A nagging voice in the back of her mind told her that she was still undeserving of happiness. After all the people she'd hurt, the things she'd done and hadn't done in her life, she wasn't even sure if karmic justice would allow her to have any sort of tangible happiness.
Michonne recognized that she was in a period of great transition, though. So close to passing a milestone that she could actually be proud of. She couldn't find it in herself to top her shoulders with the bevy of self-hatred and anxieties she carried around daily. Even if only for the night, Michonne wanted to recapture the lightness she'd felt sitting at Rick Grimes' kitchen table eating crappy canned soup. She took a deep, shaking breath, closed her eyes, and bathed herself in the kind words of her best friends. Flooded with warmth that had nothing to do with the heated summer air, Michonne smiled. It was toothy and wide.
"When did you idiots get so smart?" She asked the two women at her table jokingly.
"Probably when you started slacking off," Sasha answered.
Getting home early from a night out wasn't a challenge for sober people. Even though they'd stopped for gelato after leaving Pierre's, Michonne had made it home before 9. Her thoughts were on Rick, and the promise she'd made to call him earlier that day as soon as she walked in her door. A little overwhelmed by the excitement she felt at the prospect of talking to him again, she decided to decompress first.
She went through the process of washing up, taking off her makeup, changing into her pajamas, and making a cup of tea before she settled into bed with her phone in her hand. The phone could barely ring twice before he answered.
"Hey there," he spoke softly on the other end.
She closed her eyes at the timbre of his voice. Thick, deep, and honeyed those two words nestled deep into her skin and nearly made her shudder.
"How are you?" Michonne asked, fiddling with the frayed end of the blue throw blanket on her bed. "You feeling any better?"
"Right as rain. I think your presence healed me."
She couldn't tell if he was joking or not, but she chuckled anyway. "It was probably all that damn soup you ate."
Rick let out a low humming sound. "I ain't buyin' it, but I'll let you have this one."
"That's all I ask."
"So how was your night out? You're callin' pretty early. No Atlanta pretty boys caught your eye tonight?"
"Boy please," she snorted. "I went out to dinner with my two friends, got some dessert, then came home and called you."
Michonne heard him chuckle on the other line, her face heated.
"And I don't like pretty boys!"
"Oh no?"
She could hear the rustling of covers, it sounded like he was sitting up.
"Nope," Michonne replied, playfully holding back a further explanation.
"What's your type then?"
She bit down on her bottom lip. The sugar from the gelato and the warm feeling that she had carried throughout dinner made her feel playful. "I don't have a type. I like all kinds of men."
"Oh? So, I guess you could see yourself with someone like…" He trailed off, thinking. "Negan from the meetings then?"
"Negan? You mean that dude who stands up every meeting and talks for five minutes straight about how scarily obsessed he is with the wife who left him for his sister? That Negan?"
Rick barked out a laugh. "The very one."
"Hell no. I can see myself staying as far away from him as possible though."
"So, my point stands," he sounded smug, but it wasn't unattractive. "You do have a type."
"Fine," Michonne conceded with a smile in her voice. "If not liking obvious psychopaths means I have a type then yeah, I have a type."
"HA!"
"You are so damn goofy, Rick Grimes." She waited until he barked out another endearing laugh. "I'm sure you have a type too."
The question was used as a retaliation to his own against her, but it was also born out of a genuine curiosity. She wondered desperately what he would say. She knew Rick was attracted to her, that much was obvious. The way his eyes roamed her frame whenever he saw her. The way he spoke to her with a soft, barely concealed level of sexual intent she wasn't even sure he recognized in his own voice. His attraction to her wasn't necessarily flashy and over the top obvious, but it was easy for her to see. That didn't mean she didn't want to hear him admit it any less.
"You know what, I didn't think I had one before, but..." He spoke gently, like he was mulling every single word over in his head before he said it. "It's taken me upwards of 37 years to realize that I do have a type."
He left it at that and the longer she waited for him to continue, the more she realized he was waiting for her cue.
"So, what is it?" Michonne asked softly, teeth still digging into her lip. "What's your type?"
"You know what, Michonne. Maybe it's less of a type, and more of some newfound, singularly focused interests. All of a sudden, I found myself cravin' all kinds of sweet thangs when I normally prefer savory. I see one pair of long brown legs every time I close my eyes. Nothing feels as smooth and silky as the skin two specific shoulder blades. The sound of one soft voice is enough to make my day. Hell, I've come this damn close to takin' myself down to the nearest mental hospital to get checked out because I've dreamed about the same set of big brown eyes so many damn times."
Her heart stuttered. His words were so open and raw, and the tone of his voice left no room to interpret them as anything other than the absolute truth. Rick had been thinking of her the same way she'd thought about him. Constantly and with a fervor that felt crushingly large at times.
Michonne clenched her thighs together tightly as her panties flooded. His words made her gasp outwardly. She would have been embarrassed had she not been preoccupied with the rest of her body's reaction. She wanted desperately to do as she had done nearly every night the past month. Inch her fingers past her underwear and into her pussy. Michonne wanted to fuck herself right there with Rick on the other end of the phone. She wanted him to hear her shaking and whimpering. Stroking and rubbing and thrusting until she came loud enough for him to hear on the other end of the line. More than that, she wanted him there with her.
"Jesus, Rick," The words were the only two she knew how to say in the moment.
The man let out a low chuckle. His voice was even thicker than before. Michonne wondered if this was what he sounded like when he was overcome with lust and emotion. "You asked."
"I know," she conceded. "I just didn't think...I didn't think you were going to be that honest."
"I always want to be honest with you, Michonne." His sincerity sent another shiver through her. "I know that's the only way to get close to you. By showin' you respect and givin' you honesty."
"And that's what you want then? To be close to me?"
"Since the night I first talked to you in that basement. I thought I'd made that clear."
"I knew you were attracted to me, I knew you wanted to fuck me." She heard his sharp intake of breath at her words. It was maybe the crassest thing she'd ever said to him. It was still true, she didn't necessarily have the faculties to censor herself in the moment. "I didn't know there was anything more outside of that, that you wanted."
"Shit," Rick cursed. "I guess I didn't make that shit obvious enough. Would you still have made me stay away if I had?"
"Probably," Michonne answered truthfully. "I wasn't in a place to see it as the truth. Honestly, I don't know if I am now either."
"I think you are. There's no way you would have let me say all that a few weeks ago."
She placed a hand on her chest under her t-shirt, hoping that the pressure from her palm could calm her racing pulse. "Maybe I should have. It was...it was nice hearing it."
Michonne felt a little drunk. Not the type of drunk that happened after years of alcoholism - depressing and gut-churningly painful - either. She felt like she was a 16-year-old getting tipsy off of her first glass of champagne. Giddy and open and happy. Maybe it wa as dangerous thing to feel, but she didn't get the sense that it was wrong. It was almost freeing, to be unabashedly delighted again.
Rick cursed again. "I'm tryin' my damndest to respect your boundaries, but you're makin' it hard as hell for me right now, woman."
She knew what she should have said. Logic dictated that she should have bid Rick goodbye immediately, gone back to her routine, and forgotten that their eye-opening conversation had ever happened. Her brain told her that what she wanted was wrong, that she was nowhere near deserving of the kind of admiration he had shown her. She hadn't been wrong that night. There were still a lot of things she needed to work on for herself.
Did logic and reason have to fly in the face of wants completely, though? She wasn't sure about the ways in which she wanted Rick Grimes. Nor was she confident in her ability to have him in a way that was completely healthy. Her recent penchant for failing in her personal relationships hadn't been fixed yet. But Michonne wanted to take a plunge. Nothing headfirst, and not into waters too unfamiliar and icy to find her way out, but a plunge all the same. One that she hoped she could find her way out of if the waves proved to be too treacherous.
"I think my boundaries are changing, Rick. I meant what I told you that night, I did. And I still don't know if I'll ever be able to be truly happy again, but I need to start letting good things into my life. Maybe you can be one of those good things. At least, I hope you can."
The smile in his voice was evident as he spoke again. "I think we could be very good for each other, Michonne."
Her fingers brushed her lips as if she was trying to hide a smile from him that she knew he couldn't see. "This doesn't mean we're in a relationship, though. We're not...We can't be dating right now."
"Sure," Rick replied a little too lightly. "We can take it as slow as you want. A goddamn snails pace. Just as long as I get to have you in some way."
"Rick…" She chided with a smile. His phrasing made her just as nervous and smiley at the same time.
"And by have you, I mean spend time with you, of course."
"Of course."
Michonne swallowed harshly as they sat on the phone, listening to one another breathe. The silence wasn't necessarily awkward, but it was tense. Filled with uncertainties and anticipation, she knew that she was close to spilling over the edge. She wondered if Rick was there too.
"I'm goin' to let you go now, Michonne," his voice was deeper, a little less light than it had been previously. "I've got a lot to think about and I'm sure you do too. But I'll see you Monday evenin' right?"
"Monday," she said simply.
"Save me a seat then, right there next to you."