A/N: Ahhh, it burns! The sting of negative feedback! lol. I'm kidding, it's fine. Learning not to take criticism personally is pretty valuable, really, so thank you. I often forget it's a lot easier for me to understand a character's headspace since I know where all this is going, but I do see how Rick's initial response can be confusing and/or infuriating. Of course, none of that will be addressed in this chapter, because it's all about Michonne, lol. But I promise we'll pick up where we left off with Rick in the next one. Thanks, y'all. And Happy TWD day! - Ash

11 - Slabtown

Michonne's eyes flashed open from the deep slumber she'd been in. She felt an immense grogginess wash over her as she tried to place her surroundings, and even worse, she was in pain. Her head was pounding, intensified by the fluorescent light hanging above her. Her body felt so sore, it felt like she'd been hit by a car. She wondered if she was dreaming. How could she possibly be anywhere with lights? And lying in a bed? She looked around, immediately recognizing that she was in a hospital bed, to be exact. It had to be a dream.

Slowly, she pulled herself from the bed, only to find her left wrist wrapped in a cast. What the fuck, she thought. She had been given a hospital gown, though her undergarments had thankfully remained in place. The first thing she did was check the bathroom to make sure she was alone. Clear. Then the wardrobe, for any of her belongings. Her clothes were all there, dirty as ever, along with a set of scrubs, seemingly clean. But no katana. She frowned at the sight, but her mind quickly flashed to the last thing she remembered. Walking through the woods. She was with Rick, and then she was alone, heading toward the road for better visibility. She never had her katana. This was no lucid dream – this was real.

She made it to the large window adorning her room and pushed back the blinds, finding the city of Atlanta staring back at her. The place was destroyed, having been napalmed nearly two years earlier, but she knew those streets like the back of her hand. She'd worked downtown and lived in midtown before the world ended. She knew, just from the view, that she had somehow ended up at Grady Memorial Hospital.

"Dawn is my favorite time of day," a voice announced behind her, startling her.

She quickly turned to the sound, already feeling threatened by it. A man dressed as a doctor stood before her with a timid smile on his face. He seemed fairly unassuming at first glance, but she knew better than anyone that looks were usually deceiving.

"You okay?" he asked, sounding somewhat genuine in the inquiry. When she didn't respond, he went on. "I'm Doctor Stephen Edwards. We've been taking care of you since you came in this morning."

"Who said I need taking care of?" she shot back, keeping her voice low.

"Our people found you on the side of the road, surrounded by rotters."

"There were no walkers on that road," she knew. She had gotten out of the woods as quickly as she could, knowing she was much more likely to be taken by surprise in the masses of trees. But she had a clear view of that road, and there were no walkers.

The doctor ignored her statement and instead, told her of her injuries. "You fractured your wrist out there. And sustained a superficial head wound." The door to the room swung open, and in walked a police officer – or at least a woman dressed as one – with an obvious mischief in her eye. "This is Officer Dawn Lerner," Dr. Edwards introduced, seeing the confusion on Michonne's face. "She's in charge here."

"Hello," Dawn greeted her coolly.

Michonne didn't speak, but eyed the woman further. None of this felt right, she could tell.

"Can you remember your name?" he asked.

She stared at the two of them for a long time. They hadn't earned the right to know anything about her, not when she was standing there with no answers.

"Do you have a name," Dawn repeated, much more forcefully than the man. Her sharp blue eyes were boring into the woman in front of her. "We're here to help you. That's all."

"I just want to know what you remember," the doctor appended. "If you remember."

"It's Michonne," she relented, but spoke confidently as she silently wondered if anyone else she knew was there. If Rick was there. "Michonne Grimes." Neither of them reacted, so she tried her luck and began to pull her clothes from the closet.

"I hope you don't think you're leaving," Dawn frowned.

"Why wouldn't I think that?" She immediately began to change clothes, despite the two strangers in front of her.

"You can't go anywhere in your condition."

"I'm fine."

"Four hours ago, you were unconscious. You were alone, about to be surrounded. If it weren't for my officers, you'd be one of them right now." Dawn's tone was equally condescending and creepy. "You owe us, Michonne."

As she finished re-dressing, down to her boots and zipping her vest, she stared at the two strangers unaffectedly. Granted, she wasn't clear on all the details of how she'd ended up there, she was certain it wasn't willingly. She could easily outrun a walker. The story they were trying to sell just didn't make sense. "I don't owe you shit."

Dawn stepped forward, challenging her to be any more insubordinate than she had been. "We. saved. you."

"I. don't. need. saving."

"Then you can tell that to my two officers that risked their lives trying to help you."

"Fine. Where are they?"

Dawn was quickly becoming agitated with this woman's attitude. The people they brought into the hospital were appreciative and cooperative. She was the exact opposite. "You wanna leave? Fine. Work off the time you've spent here, the meds we've given you, and you can go."

Michonne looked to the doctor, then back at Dawn, in disbelief that she was serious. But she hadn't been there more than a couple of hours. Maybe that was the easiest way out. If it were a way out at all. "What does that entail?"

"One day. You got any medical experience?"

"No."

"That's fine. Then you can assist Dr. Edwards on his rounds; you're out of here this time tomorrow."

She paused to think about that for a moment. An entire day away from the group, plus however much time it would take to get back to the church. They would worry. But she knew if she was going to get out of there, one way or another, she needed to figure the place out. So she agreed. "Fine. One day."

Michonne spent the majority of the morning following the doctor around the huge establishment that was Grady. There were sixteen floors to the place, and from what she could tell, four of them were in use. The bottom-most floors were used for dumping dead bodies down the elevator shaft. She gleaned that walkers were also free to roam those halls, so it was important to stay up high. She noted that one floor was for people that were visibly sick or dying; another seemed to be full of solely women; and then another floor with youngsters, mostly teenagers, it seemed, that had probably lost their parents. And then the personnel had a floor to themselves, with a lot of creature comforts, like a cafeteria, an exercise room, a library. She couldn't figure out how they sustained all of this for so long, but it also wasn't something she cared to look into. She would be gone soon.

In her time with Edwards, she decided that she didn't mind him. He seemed to have good intentions, even if his boss didn't. He had a good bedside manner. He was patient, albeit a bit anxious. Everyone but Dawn and the other officers she'd passed seemed like a bunch of nervous poodles. But then, Dawn seemed to rule by fear, so that made sense to her.

By lunchtime, she was starving, but had already decided she wasn't going to eat anything – she didn't want to owe them any more than she did. So she stood by the door of the cafeteria, watching the halls, while Dr. Edwards filled his plate with delicacies from their kitchen. The fact that they had fresh fruits and vegetables from a garden they furnished on the roof reminded her of the prison. But her thoughts were interrupted by one of the hospital's many officers, coming to converse with her.

"You're looking better already," the guy declared with a smarmy grin already on his chubby face. "We had a lead on some guns, so… me and my partner were pretty far out. That's when we saw you… runnin' in the road. Surrounded." He noted that she hadn't looked his way, but decided to keep talking. "When someone does you a favor, it's courtesy to show some appreciation."

She looked back at him with a scowl on her face. She didn't respond.

"I'm Gorman," he declared, trying to elicit a response from her.

Silence.

"All right." His beady eyes ogled her from head to toe and back again. Her body was insane, he thought to himself. "Just remember, everything around here costs somethin', you know."

"I'll remember that next time I ask for something," she returned coldly. She caught sight of the doctor leaving, and turned to follow him.

They went down to his office at the end of the floor designated for personnel, where he spent most of his time listening to music and rereading books. It was messy, but it was his. "Guinea pig," he revealed to Michonne proudly, as he cut into his meal. He turned on a Wye Oak record as accompaniment to their lunch. "You ever try it?"

"I've tried a lot of things," she smirked, "but no, not that."

He cut her a piece and offered it to her. When she declined with a shake of her head, he went ahead and devoured it himself. "I know this place seems weird," he said, chewing, "but it's not a bad place to be."

"You've got music to listen to and a guinea pig to eat. I imagine it's not."

"Where's your food?"

"The more I take, the more I owe," she shook her head again. "I'm fine."

"Sit down," he directed softly, offering the chair that sat across from him. "Dawn doesn't have to know."

"I'm fine," she insisted, but took the seat.

He watched her for a moment, sitting there with a permanent scowl on her face, in her pedestrian clothes. She was someone that knew how to live in this world. She was right when she said she didn't need saving. He didn't know what happened out there on that road, but he was certain that nothing good would come from her being in that hospital. "Where were you before this, Michonne Grimes?"

"I had a group," she admitted hesitantly, then corrected herself. "I have a group. We were talking about heading up north. Was out looking for a car when… whatever happened, happened."

He knew that wasn't true. But he let her keep up the charade anyway. None of it mattered. It's not like they'd been truthful with her either. "You think you'll be able to find them again when you leave here?"

She nodded. "We're close."

"Then why were you out there alone?"

She felt her hands begin to shake as she remembered the answer to that question. Everything that had happened with Rick… She could only chuckle as she realized what a shitty week she was having.

"What's funny?"

Their conversation was interrupted by a loud knock on the door, followed by one of the officers yelling into the room, "Dawn needs you! Now!"

"Come," Edwards told Michonne. The two of them sprung into action, heading up the stairs to the women's floor. They walked into a room where Dawn and the creepy officer, Gorman, were holding down a young woman, no more than 25, with a large bite taken out of her arm. "What happened," he asked.

"You're lucky we found you," Dawn told the woman, chastising her at what qualified as the least appropriate moment. "Whatever you were thinking, it wasn't worth it."

Michonne looked on in a mixture of confusion and horror, watching this woman writhe in agony.

"You have two choices," Dawn told her. "Either you cut off your arm, or we do it for you."

"Fuck you," the woman spat back. She looked back at Gorman with pure hatred in her eyes. "And your little bitch."

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed her officer charging towards the patient and immediately sent him away. "Gorman, get out of here!"

"What are you about to do?" Michonne asked Dr. Edwards.

"Give her an anesthetic and take off her arm," he answered succinctly. "I need you to hold her down."

"Get away from me," the woman yelled. "All of you can go to hell. I would rather die!"

"Joan, we're not letting you die," Dawn yelled over her, using all of her strength to keep her in place.

"I'm not going back to him!" she cried.

Dawn looked at her, and with every ounce of sincerity she could invoke, she promised, "You don't have to."

"You can't control them!"

"I will."

"Get off of me," Joan screamed.

Michonne felt sick to her stomach. She didn't know exactly what was going on, but she had enough of an idea to know that whatever it was was fucked up. "She wants you to stop," she told Dawn.

"She's delirious. She doesn't know what she wants."

"Stop." This time, she looked at both the doctor and the officer. "This isn't what she wants."

"I'm not letting her die."

"Let her go." Michonne pushed Dawn off of the suffering patient, hoping that would incite Edwards to back away as well. He did so immediately, understanding more about Michonne than Dawn would ever try to.

She looked at Michonne furiously, and before either of them knew what was happening, her hand went across Michonne's face in a stunning slap. With the headache she'd been nursing, the room went black for a moment, but it was only a few seconds before Michonne replied with a punch squarely to Dawn's jaw, causing everyone to look back at her in shock.

The officer held her newly injured face with one hand and took to her radio with the other. "I need Gorman and Licari in 3012 immediately."

"Leave her be," Michonne commanded, referring to Joan. She regained her composure as the stinging in her face lessened, and calmly walked out of the room, understanding that she would be apprehended within minutes.

"I get the feeling you think I don't care about these people," Dawn announced, making her way into Michonne's room, where she'd been locked for the past hour. The woman was staring out of the window, but Dawn could see her reflection in the glass. She was sad. "I do."

"I don't think anything about you," Michonne replied softly. "But I won't stand by while you torture someone that wants to die."

"I couldn't let her die. I'll be damned if I'm gonna let that happen again."

She finally turned to face the leader there, wondering what again meant. The place reminded her of Woodbury – a funhouse disguised as a safe haven. Which meant the person in charge was probably a lunatic. But that didn't mean the people there deserved their fate. "You don't get to choose."

"I have to," Dawn contended, her face relaying how serious she was. "Every sacrifice we make needs to be for the greater good. The second it isn't? The second I lose sight of that, it's all over. Joan is not the greater good." She moved in closer to Michonne, much too close for comfort. "And neither are you, for that matter."

"You need to back up."

"The wards keep my officers happy," she went on, giving her all of an inch of space. "The happier my officers are, the harder they work to keep this going. This hasn't been easy," she admitted. Her eyes visibly began to water as she thought through all the sacrifices she'd forced people to make. "There have been… compromises. But it's working."

"You're torturing people. Everyone here looks terrified."

"No. I'm saving them. And after they rescue us, we're gonna put the world back together. Because we're holding on. That's the good we're doing here."

"Nobody is coming to save you."

"You're wrong."

"You're wrong," Michonne maintained. "I've been out there. I've lived this every day for the past two years. This is all there is—"

"You're jaded," Dawn interrupted. "And I understand that being out there would do that to somebody. But this isn't all there is. It can't be."

Her stance softened a bit as she began to think maybe this woman really did care. Perhaps more about herself than the others, but there was a chance she wasn't all bad. Maybe she just didn't know how to hold it together. "It is," she softly asserted. "It's us, and the dead. And that girl in there understands that. You should've let her go."

Dawn looked down at the floor as she processed Michonne's words. She refused to believe she was right. "If you still plan on leaving in the morning, you should get back to work," she nodded.

"For the record, I do think you care about these people," she assured her. "But I also know I can be wrong about such things."

She accepted the small compliment and headed back for the door. "Please go get a pair of scrubs. I can't have you going around the hospital looking like this," she requested, referring to her normal clothes. "It's all about order."

Michonne was cautious, but allowed herself to give in. It wouldn't hurt her to put on the scrubs for a few hours. In fact, it would be nice to take a shower and be in clean clothes for a change. She headed for the laundry room, where she'd seen a couple of the women earlier in the day, taking on domestic duties. It was another similarity to the prison, having working washing machines. Of course they could only run theirs once a week. This place seemed to be doing laundry daily. She walked in to find a young man, not more than a couple of years older than Carl, ironing a pile of clothing.

"Well if it isn't the troublemaker," he declared with a smile on his face as she came into view. She had only been there about 12 hours, but she had certainly made some waves. "I'm Noah."

She had to stop herself from smiling back at him. Even if she figured she could trust a kid, she could never be sure. "Michonne."

"We all know your name," he assured her, amused. It had been a long time since someone came in that put Dawn on edge. Not since Joan. It was all he'd heard about, all day. "What I do wanna know is how someone like you ended up somewhere like this?"

"I don't really know," she grimaced. She could still only conjure up bits and pieces from the night before, and it was driving her a little crazy. "I was having a bad night," she recalled, deciding that she would trust the kid with the kind smile. "Distracted, I guess. I remember running through the woods, onto the road, and I think I stopped for a minute. I don't know, everything after that gets hazy, and then it just goes blank."

"That sounds about right," Noah nodded, observing a few stray scratches on her neck. "I'm guessing you magically got separated from someone you were with."

"No…" She frowned, remembering that Rick had already left her alone a few minutes before. "Just me."

"I see…"

"I don't know what they did, but I'm just here to work off what I owe, and get the hell out of here in the morning."

He nodded again, a bit aloof suddenly. "I've haven't seen it work like that yet," he revealed quietly, a dismal smirk on his face.

"How long you been here?" she frowned curiously.

"Just about a year now." He turned to show her a long, ghastly scar along his left leg. It had probably required a lot of stitches when it happened. "My dad and I were both pretty messed up when they found us. Said they could 'only save one,'" he described mockingly. "I actually believed that for a while. But now I get it," he nodded. "My dad was bigger. Stronger. Would've been a threat."

She closed her eyes, imagining Carl being separated from Rick. He was so smart, she knew he would be fine, but picturing him in these circumstances still broke her heart. Noah reminded her a lot of Carl, actually. He was obviously very mature, very pragmatic. But Carl would've been a troublemaker in that environment. Like her.

"It's crazy how Dawn just looks the other way," Noah went on with his story, as well as his ironing duties. "She doesn't know how to control these people. That's why I'm outta here when the time is right."

"Where will you go?" she asked, worried.

"Home. Alexandria, Virginia. We had walls there," he proclaimed proudly. "We just came down here, looking for my uncle, me and my dad. My mom's back there in VA." The hope in his voice was palpable, much in the same way Dawn's was when she spoke about being rescued. But Michonne didn't have the heart to tell him the reality of things. "They think I'm scrawny," he said. "They think I'm weak… But they don't know shit about me."

"You make sure it stays that way," she advised. She felt her armor softening the more he spoke to this kid. She needed to get out of there. She turned to look for a new set of scrubs, but his voice stopped her.

"What about you? Where are you headed?"

"Back to my group," she answered simply. "We don't have walls or anything. But we have each other."

He thought about what a nice feeling that must've been, to feel like you had someone to count on. He hadn't had that in a year now. "They must be crazy worried about you then."

"I hope not…"

"Kids?"

"What?"

"You got kids? You don't want them to worry about you?"

"Oh…" She felt speechless for a moment, her brain insisting that she stop and think about her answer. She thought of Carl, who she knew was likely concerned by now. That was what he did. Even when she left the prison with promises that she would be back, he was always so relieved when she actually did return. She wanted to say that yes, she did have kids. A son named Carl, not much younger than him, and a baby Judith, both of them with eyes like the sky. Like their dad. But she decided against it and shook her head. "No. No kids."

"Well… until you do get outta here, you gotta stop fighting. They always kill the strong ones eventually," he divulged woefully. "You gotta fake it 'til you make it."

She let her eyes fall on the young man, feeling sorry for how lost he seemed. He'd told himself 'one day' so many times, he didn't realize he was a part of that place now. And the possibility that that could be her one day, like one of those women on the floor upstairs, dismally pushing mops around. She swallowed hard, trying to hold her emotions together. "I truly hope you do get out of here, Noah."

He looked up from his task with a sad smile. "I hope you do, too, Troublemaker."

She quietly left the room without her scrubs.

"What the hell were you thinking, bringing her here?" Dawn was standing over two of her officers, Gorman and Andrews, berating them for the disorder that had been brought to her hospital, in the form of Michonne Grimes. "Does she look like someone who can help our cause!"

"Honestly," Gorman responded, "Yeah. Some chick cryin' on the side of the road looks like an easy target to me."

"What do you mean," she demanded.

"She popped outta the woods. Looked like she bent over to catch her breath, but she popped a squat and started cryin'. Perfect opportunity," he smirked. "She put up a little fight, got her wrist broken. But it didn't take much more'n usual. Hell, everyone's weak when they're blacked out."

"She's not weak," Dawn snapped back. "She's anything but weak."

"It'll take a little breaking in," Andrews piped up. "But she'll crack. She's just as scared as the rest of 'em."

Dawn shook her head in disagreement. She knew the policy, for the most part, was to save the women and discard the men, but she could see it in this one's entire demeanor. She was defiant because she had reason to be. She was strong. She looked at her two officers, worried for what they'd just done to her system. "You two better be right."

Meanwhile, Michonne used her break time to go see the woman she'd tried to save. Joan. She could still hear her screams in her head – I would rather die. You can't control them. She didn't know what it all meant, but if someone would rather die than be under a roof with food and protection, there was something wrong. She walked into Joan's room cautiously, finding her asleep, and her eyes immediately focused in on the missing part of her right arm. Even if she knew they'd done it anyway, it still bothered her to see. To see someone have a death wish and not have it granted. She took a seat in the bed across from her and just stared at the woman. So young. So angry and scared.

"You're a good person," Joan croaked out, having felt Michonne's presence in the room. "Thank you."

Michonne stood, walking closer to her bed so she wouldn't have to strain to see her. "I didn't do anything," she replied softly. Disappointedly.

"You tried." Her eyes relayed her appreciation more than her words could. "Nobody stands up to them. Not even Dawn."

"The officers?" she questioned, confused. She had to know what the problem was if it wasn't Dawn. Everyone seemed to think she was helpless in this, including Dawn herself, but she couldn't figure out why. "What can't she control them from?"

With the one hand she had left, Joan grabbed Michonne by the arm and pulled her close. "Don't let them win," she begged quietly. "No matter what, don't let him win."

She didn't know what Joan meant, specifically, but it was clear that things were even worse than they appeared at first glance. She had every intention of getting out of there, be it tomorrow or the next day, so 'them' winning was not an option. She offered her a small nod and a promise. "I won't."