Chapter 5

It was just dawn and for the second morning in a row, Rick was not there beside her. She threw on the first thing she saw which was one of Rick's shirts and went downstairs. Judith was still asleep and Carl was next door. She went downstairs and found him sitting in the overstuffed chair in his pajamas, reading a book.

"How long have you been up?" She asked rubbing her eyes.

"Hey."

She walked over and sat on the arm of the chair and slid down to the seat right next to him. He rubbed her leg with his hand, and kissed her good morning. The chair was wide enough for two with a matching ottoman. She leaned her head on his shoulder and glanced down at the book of poetry in his hand.

"I've been up for about 2 hours."

"You okay?"

"I'm much better than okay."

"You would have to be to be reading poetry."

"I used to read poetry all the time."

"You woke up just to read some?"

"No. I woke up because this is the first time in a long time I've felt free."

She looked up into his eyes and smiled.

"I can see that."

"I know there's still some things I need to work out, but an enormous weight has been lifted off my back."

Michonne cozied down and put her head back on his shoulder.

"You said we were next in your dream." He said closing the book.

"You ready to go through that?"

"That bad huh?"

She laughed.

"It's the best part of the dream, only it's not a dream."

"M-mm." He said smiling at her. "How far back does it go?"

"To the day we met, well, actually before that."

"How could it if we hadn't met yet?"

"I spent an entire winter listening to Andrea talk about Atlanta, Hershel's farm and your group. She told me about you."

"What did you think?" He said shyly.

"She down played you a bit. She mentioned Shane a lot, and it sounded like she preferred his leadership over yours, but I didn't see it that way. Shane seemed to me to be dangerous, and come to think of it, that must be why she liked the governor so much, but she did help me see that I needed to be around people again."

"So, what did Rick do before?"

"He was a deputy sheriff, so was Shane, they were partners. Rick's a good man, but he's not on top of it the way Shane is." Andrea said as they walked.

"How so?"

"He's too nice. I don't think he'll last long out here, and besides, he has that wife of his, she's a piece of work, his son Carl, and they have a baby on the way."

Michonne looked off in the distance and preferred this Rick guy. He seemed to be the better man. Shane sounded like a hot head. Frankly, he sounded stupid, but she could tell who Andrea preferred, so she left her opinion to herself.

After separating herself from Andrea and her boyfriend the governor, she found herself in a bad situation. She had been shot and was losing blood and needed water. She found a couple she was going to ask for help when she saw that Merle had seen them first. The same guy who shot her. He took them away, but not before she heard them talk about a prison, and they dropped a basket full of baby formula on the ground. She grabbed the formula and headed in the direction of the prison. If that's where they were taking the formula, it was obviously needed there.

The prison had walkers in the yard, but fortunately for her, she still had walker guts on her from earlier, and was invisible to them. To her surprise, live people were living there. Limping, she slowly made her way up to the fence.

She saw someone walking toward the fence. He saw her, and walked down toward the fence. He looked at her with a piercing glare that made her heart hurt. Their eyes locked and she grabbed the fence, her eyes pleading with his. At first she thought he was wondering if he was seeing things, but no, he saw her.

Suddenly, a walker turned to her and started snarling. She drew a sword from its scabbard on her back. The walkers started toward her to attack her. She cut through them with expert skill, but she was weak from blood loss and could not take them all on. She heard a young boy ask if they should help her, right before she passed out.

She felt cool water on her chest and she came to. A man with blue eyes was bent over her asking her who she was. She had stopped trusting people long ago, and those blue eyes that she felt she knew, would not change that in her. It would take more.

He was threatening to her in a way that was different. It wasn't from evil intentions, but a concern for his people, his family.

Rick sat quietly looking at Michonne. Listening to her talk about the dream, he saw the beginning of what they have now was. She had been there all this time.

"I believe I started to fall in love with you then. I denied it of course, but that didn't make it not true."

"What about me made you fall in love with me? I was a little less than sane then."

"Not knowing you before the outbreak, I had to wonder what you were like before, but when I found out you were the man Andrea told me about, I could see what you might have been like. I wanted to find out for myself. I saw that you loved your children, and cared for the people you considered your family. I saw in you a great capacity to love. That was something I buried in myself. It hurt too much to remember it. Slowly, over time, I allowed myself to feel again. To see in you a man I could love. I fell in love with that man Andrea referred to as 'too nice.' The one whose eyes I looked into that day through that fence. I saw you Rick, and just being near you was enough for me then."

He looked away, taken by what she just said.

"You and I were a pair of wounded animals. That's when an animal is most dangerous, when it's wounded. I saw us in your eyes. It confused me. I don't believe in love at first sight, so I focused on other things about you."

"What things?" She said curiously.

"Your impeccable instincts, skill, combat readiness. You were right, I needed you"

"You did." She agreed. "Was that it?"

He smiled at her.

"No." He said looking deep into her eyes. "I thought you were beautiful. Your eyes talked to me, and I could comprehend without words, and yobytwntqut."

"What was that last part?" She said frowning. He swallowed the end of the sentence, and it sounded like gibberish to her.

"You have a body that won't quit." He said turning red as he looked into her eyes.

A tiny smile formed on her lips.

"You thought I didn't notice you looking at me?"

"I was kinda hoping I wasn't too obvious."

"You were, but I liked it."

"Did it ever cross your mind to pursue your feelings for me?"

"No. You weren't ready, and there was too much going on."

"Like you going out looking for the governor."

The look on his face turned sour and his tone changed

"If it bothered you so much, why didn't you stop me?" Michonne said a bit agitated.

"Could I have stopped you?" He said looking directly at her.

He abruptly got up and went to the bedroom that used to be hers. He came back holding the locks of her hair the saviors stuck to a walker. They hadn't properly addressed her leaving with Glenn and Rosita to go after Daryl without letting him know.

The posture he took was all too familiar. He was now speaking from a place of hurt and anger.

"When the saviors were herding us, I found these stuck on a walkers head. They had several walkers chained across the road. It was also wearing your vest." He looked down at the locks rubbing them beneath his thumb, and recalling his despair in that moment. "This can't happen again." He said holding up the locks. "Going forward, when we set foot out of that wall out there, we go together."

He paused to control his temper and the thick emotion in his voice.

"Do you understand me Michonne?" He was clearly upset. "You're not living that life anymore. You can't just leave on a hunch or because you're needed. Not alone, and not without me."

She watched in shock as he quickly went up the stairs and slammed their bedroom door. She jumped up from the chair and headed upstairs. Halfway up, she heard his bare feet padding on the wooden floor toward her. They both stopped and he looked at her with regret. Her eyes were draw to the subtle shaking of his right hand. He quickly grabbed it with his left.

"I'm sorry." He said.

She continued up the stairs and walked with him to their room.

"Why is your hand shaking? That's new."

"No, it's always been there. That's me too." He walked over to the window and looked out. "The first time I noticed it, was after Glenn got me out of that tank, and I was up on a department store roof watching Merle being himself. I handcuffed him to the roof of that building, and let him know where I was coming from. I walked away to calm down and noticed my hand shaking. That was me controlling the urge to hurt him, maybe even kill him, I don't know. Just now, I was angry at those saviors for hurting you." He turned around to look at her. "I'm sorry I put demands on you, but I meant what I said. We only go out of those walls together."

"Maybe I needed to hear what you said, but coming from you, I didn't hear demands. I heard, 'Michonne, I love you.'"

He walked over to her, took her face in his hands and kissed her as if it was for the first time.

.