4: lions and tigers and bears

With a blank expression on his face, Rick left Carl in the kitchen to trudge upstairs and find Michonne. She was done with clothing and was now browsing one of the kid's rooms, collecting books for Carl. He normally wouldn't interrupt her so hastily, but they absolutely had to have this conversation.

"We gotta talk," he announced, knowingly startling her.

She turned from the bookshelf and locked eyes with her boyfriend, already knowing where the conversation was headed. "...Okay," she sighed. "Here?"

"As good a place as any," he shrugged, moving towards her. Her gestured for her to take a seat on the bed, and he sat down on the carpeted floor so that he could look directly at her as they spoke.

He looked about as uneasy as she felt, and she knew this discussion was going to be the exact one that she dreaded. She looked him in the eye and started things off. "So… what's on your mind?"

"I feel like I should be asking you that question."

"Don't make this more uncomfortable than it already is," she pleaded. "I don't have it in me."

"All right," he sighed, glancing at their feet, only a few centimeters apart. "You pregnant?"

She didn't know why, but the question rattled her to her core. She knew he was up there to ask that very thing, yet she hadn't readied herself for it. He could've asked why her whole family was dead and elicited the same guttural reaction.

His head cocked to the side while he waited for an answer. Her face went through a series of emotions, but none of them came with a reply. "Michonne?"

"I had a son," she calmly announced to the silent room. She avoided his gaze for as long as she could, but eventually, her eyes locked on him, gauging his reaction. "Not just a boyfriend, but a son before all this."

Some part of her expected him to be shocked, shocked enough to say something, at least, but he just sat there, silently, watching her. His blue eyes offered nothing in the way of emotion – no sympathy, no confusion, no anger, just emptiness.

"Did you hear me?"

He nodded, ever so slightly.

"Are you all right?"

"Why... How come you never said anything before?" he stammered hoarsely.

"I never told anyone until I told Carl a couple of days ago," she shrugged. "I don't know why."

"You told Carl?"

She nodded. "He was feeling down, I thought it would help him to know that he wasn't alone in his grief."

Rick seemed to understand, but his empty stare had turned to a frown. "How old was he?"

"He would've been three a couple of weeks after he... died." Tears dotted her cheeks as the words came out, and she didn't try to stop them.

Rick closed his eyes, trying to push away his thoughts of Judith. He could only imagine how hard it must've been for Michonne, to not only experience such a grave loss, but to process it all alone. His own eyes began to water, but he wiped them quickly. "I'm sorry," he offered genuinely. "I wish I knew what to say."

"You don't have to say anything."

"What was his name?"

"Andre." She closed her own eyes, envisioning his perfect little face. She began to cry harder as she recalled the last time she saw him. She hated to think of it, but flashes of his bloody face had haunted her for so long. She gripped the edge of the bed, bowed her head, and let the tears fall. "I had to put him down," she whispered.

Rick was sure he felt his heart break in half in that moment. He immediately moved to kneel in front of her, wanting to comfort her in any way he could. Even if it just meant his presence. He took her hands and held them, keeping his eyes on her as he gently kissed her palm. "You don't have to hold onto this stuff by yourself," he whispered to the side of her face. "I'm with you."

"I know," she nodded to herself, eyes still closed. "I just held it in for so long. It didn't even occur to me that this was something I could share until I was talking to Carl."

"And what did he say?"

"He was so compassionate, it killed me," she opened her eyes and smiled to herself sadly. "He said maybe Judith and Andre are together somewhere."

"Jesus." Rick felt the tears on his cheeks before he could stop them.

She took his face into her hands, tenderly wiping beneath his eyes with her thumbs. She wished the circumstances were different, that they were safer, if not happier, but the truth was, news that inevitably changed your entire world would never have good timing. She searched his eyes for hope, or at the very least, understanding, before she made her big announcement. She found neither. "I am pregnant," she finally admitted.

His eyes absorbed her words slowly while the rest of his head spun in circles. Everything was happening at once, it seemed. He removed her hands from his face and pulled back to sit down on the floor again. "When were you gonna tell me?"

"I don't know," she returned genuinely. "It never quite seemed like the right time."

"Is there ever a right time?"

"I suppose there isn't." She sighed. She couldn't justifiably blame his melancholy or the fact that Judith wasn't there. It was her own cowardice that kept her secret. "Everything is just so fucked up."

"Yeah well, that's nothing new." He hated this contradictory mixture of irritation and sadness that he held for her in that moment. He didn't know which one to speak on. "This why you told me about your son?" he had to know. "So I wouldn't blow up at you?"

"No," she frowned. "Of course not."

He only looked at her, as if he was questioning her sincerity.

"I'm trying to help you understand me. Who I've been since the world went to shit, why I do the things I do."

He nodded, but still didn't say anything.

"Rick, I promise you, there's nothing inauthentic about me. I may not give it all to you at once, but when I do, it's me." Her eyes begged his to believe her. "You have to know that."

"So this new, open, ready-for-love Michonne isn't just because you were scared to be alone with a baby..."

"What the fuck, Rick."

"I'm sorry, but I have to ask..."

"Is that really what you think of me?"

He shook his head slowly and shrugged a bit. "I don't know what to think. You show up at the door with your heart in your hands, after you kept it locked away for so long... You're telling me you're done taking breaks, and I'm so pleasantly surprised by it all. Now I find out you've been keeping this huge secret. Put yourself in my shoes, tell me what I'm supposed to think."

"Rick, it took everything, and I do mean everything for me to get over myself and choose you. I fucked up not telling you sooner; I get that. But the easy way out of this was to disappear, walk away, let myself get killed. I actively chose you," she reminded him. "I chose the hard route because after all the shit that happened, even after we lost everything we had, I realized that my life was infinitely better with you in it. And yes, this kid deserves a father, and you deserve to know that this is happening, but make no mistake, I'm not afraid to be alone. In fact, trying to be in a relationship with you is the much more terrifying prospect. So no, this wasn't some setup to get back in your good graces just because you knocked me up."

He responded with silence once again.

"Say something," she demanded, frustrated.

"How long have you known," he inquired softly.

She exhaled quietly. "Just a few days. I found out the morning of the attack."

His eyes dropped to the floor, thankful that it hadn't been weeks or anything crazy like that. "I wish you'd told me sooner."

"I do too," she whispered. "If I had known it would alter your trust in me, I would have."

"I trust you," he assured her, looking her in the eye again. "But I have to ask the shitty questions or they don't get answers. And I'll always wonder. I'm trying to learn from my mistakes with Lori. And this doesn't work," he signaled between the two of them, "if we're not one hundred percent honest with each other."

It was her nodding this time. "I'm sorry, Rick,"

He inhaled and exhaled slowly, unsure of what to do with this information. The three of them on the road was one thing, but the four of them? Terminus went from a pipe dream to a virtual necessity. They needed a place to settle down. A place with a doctor. They needed a home. Rick wasn't sure he could provide that. Life just got a hell of a lot harder.

"How far along do you think you are?"

She shook her head as she tried to calculate everything. "I haven't had a period in over a year, so it's hard to say. Based on when we started and ended, I'd say anywhere from six to ten weeks."

That made sense. Especially since she wasn't showing or anything. "So we've got about six months to figure this out."

"So it seems..."

"Or... I mean, I don't know... do you want this baby?"

She looked at him curiously. "Do I have a choice?"

"I... honestly don't know how that all works." He thought back to Lori, when she was first pregnant with Judith. She certainly seemed to think she had an option in the matter. "Don't you?"

"Not a lot of abortion clinics open these days, Rick."

"You don't have to be a smart ass about it."

"I'm just saying, it's not like we have a lot of alternatives here."

"What would you want to do if we did?"

"If we did, we'd probably be living in very different circumstances. So that's a hard question to answer."

She was right about that. This might've even sounded like good news just a few months ago. "How did you feel when you first found out?" he wondered.

"Well, we still had the prison, so it was a very different set of emotions than I feel now."

"But what were they?"

"I was scared," she confessed quietly. "Scared of what you would say. Mad at myself, that I had pushed you away, only to find this out. But also, a little bit hopeful? I don't know if that's the word. But I was with Maggie at the time, and she made me feel like it would be… okay."

He took in her words contemplatively. He only felt scared in that moment. "How about after?"

"Like I said, I'm much more terrified now than I was before. But I also feel safe. With you."

He wasn't so sure that she should. "I honestly have no idea what we're gonna do," he shook his head. "This is..."

"This is heavy," she agreed, finishing his sentence for him. "But the worst part is over, Rick. We found each other."

"Yeah, I found my wife, too, and that didn't really turn out so well."

She stopped herself from replying, deflated by his words. She knew that would be something he worried about. How could he not? But for him to throw it at her the way he did, she hadn't expected. "Don't do that."

"Do what?" His stare had turned so cold within a matter of seconds. His emotions were all over the place.

She finally moved from the bed and got down on the floor with him, straddling his legs so that they were close. "We have to be in this together."

"I told you I'm with you, Michonne."

"I can see you slipping away." He tried to look away from her big pleading brown eyes, but she forced him to stay focused. "Don't leave me, baby. Not now."

"I'm trying," he promised, his eyes softening again.

"Nothing's changed. We still go to Terminus. And we'll take it from there."

He didn't know how she could say that. Everything had changed. The three of them were hardened survivors, but having a helpless baby on the road – and that was if the labor didn't kill Michonne – sounded impossible. Shane's words were ringing in his ears as he sat there. I don't think you can keep them safe. Rick wasn't lying when he said he remembered him every day. In fact, it was more like he was haunted by him. "You really trust me?"

She could feel him doubting himself and she hated it for him. "From the moment I met you," she supplied sincerely.

"Why? I was so mean to you."

"It was probably because you were mean to me," she smiled to herself. "If you had seen the way The Governor was when me and Andrea got there. He was unbelievably kind; it was so obviously fucked up." She closed her eyes for a moment, thinking of how much she wished Andrea had been able to see it. "When I came to the prison, you were the opposite. You were hostile. But that's what made sense to me. That's what I would've been. And then I saw you had a baby; I saw you with Carol… and I knew. This was real. You weren't pretending to have some paradise in the prison. It was a home. And I needed a home. And even though you told me every other minute that I couldn't stay," she chuckled lightly, "you didn't let me go. So yeah... I believe in you, Rick. I trust you with my life, I trust you with my heart, and I trust you to take care of whoever this is that we made together. We got this."

He wished he could be as confident as she was. He breathed shakily, processing her words and what it meant for the two of them to embark on this journey together. He just didn't want to fail her like he did Lori. "I sure as fuck hope you're right," he finally smiled.

He was about to offer her a kiss, but there was a knock at the door, startling both of them, though they knew it had to be Carl. They'd been so lost in the moment, they'd forgotten about him.

"Come in," Michonne called out.

He opened the door hesitantly, surprised to see Michonne on top of his father. Not because he found it inappropriate, but because she normally would've gotten up before he could see them in such a position. "Hey," he greeted them nervously.

"Hey," Rick returned softly, turning his head towards his son. "Come sit with us."

Carl frowned, unsure of where he was supposed to take a seat. It would have been awkward to take the floor with them in the position they were in, so he chose the bed. He watched as Michonne picked herself up and joined him while his dad stayed where he was. "What's going on in here?" he questioned.

"Just talkin' through some stuff," Rick offered. "Everything okay?"

Carl nodded. "You guys were just gone a long time, wanted to make sure everything was okay with you."

Michonne looked at Rick and he looked back at her apprehensively, letting her know that this was it. No more hiding, no more secrets from the kid. The cat was about to be out of the bag. He gave Carl a comforting smile before making their announcement. "Michonne is pregnant."

Carl immediately frowned at Michonne and then at his dad, trying to read their faces. He wondered if they were playing some prank on him, as they sometimes did back at the prison. Their jokes were never serious, though – it was always about food, or getting him to work on something they knew he'd hate. In this case, it seemed like that they were serious. "What?" he replied, as if he hadn't heard correctly.

"I'm having a baby," she repeated for him. "Me and your dad are."

An uncomfortable smile began to spread across his face, mainly because he was utterly confused by the words he was hearing. "…What?"

"What are you confused about," Rick asked, gazing at him. They'd finally had 'the talk' over a year ago when Lori was pregnant, but maybe he hadn't fully gotten the message.

"I mean, how is that possible?" Carl demanded. "When did this even happen? And why?"

"Why," Rick sighed inaudibly. "We didn't plan for it, Carl. It happened, and we're gonna deal with it, but we didn't get together and say, 'Hey, let's bring a baby into these shitty circumstances.'"

"But… you have to have sex to get pregnant, right?"

"Right..."

"So you knew it could happen…"

"Yes, you're right." Rick was already exhausted by the day and everything Michonne had told him. This conversation was going to be the death of him. "But that was back at the prison, and things were different then. This would've been much easier."

Carl accepted that with a small nod. He knew Hershel and Dr. S had helped deliver a couple of babies in the past few months, so it was possible. "Why didn't you tell me you were together back then?"

"Well… because we weren't."

"You weren't together? But you just said…" Carl was so confused.

"It's complicated," Michonne interjected, seeing Rick's exasperation unfold. "I'm not sure if there's a way to explain it all." She knew that sex was an odd thing for adults to comprehend, much less a teenager that was still learning what the word even meant. "But we're together now."

He nodded at her, but looked to his dad for confirmation. "So you're together and you're having a baby. And… we just forget about Judith?"

"What?" Rick frowned. "Of course not, son. She will never be forgotten."

Carl felt like they were well on their way to moving on. But he didn't feel comfortable having the conversation in front of Michonne, knowing she had lost her own child, so he relented. "If you say so."

"I do say so," Rick retorted adamantly. He knelt in front of his son and demanded his attention. "Judith will always be ours. Nothing can change that. You hear me?"

"I got it, Dad." He didn't want to be in that room anymore. He felt like his dad's stare was choking him. He needed air. "Was that it?"

"You want somethin' else?"

"No, I mean, just making sure we're still leaving in the morning."

"We are."

Carl nodded and popped up from his seat. "Okay then."

"Okay? You don't have any other questions? Concerns?"

"Nope."

Rick knew that didn't sound right – his inquisitive son always had a million questions about everything. But he wasn't going to push him into a conversation after dropping such a big bomb on him, so he let him go. "All right then…"

Michonne watched Carl carefully as he left. She saw the sadness in his eyes as he closed the door on his way out. She wanted so badly to be able to fix him. Fix both of them, really. "He's scared," she noted to Rick once she heard him trampling down the steps.

"Yeah…" he sighed. "Like father, like son." Rick fell back to the floor and looked up to the ceiling, his eyes welling with tears as he tried to think through it all. He really couldn't see his way through this one. He felt helpless.

Michonne wasn't sure what to do, what to say. Both of her boys looked so lost, so frightened. She wasn't doing so hot herself, but she knew she had to put on her game face for them. That's what relationships, what families were all about. When one faltered, the other had to rise to the occasion. After everything they'd been through, she wasn't sure how much she had left. But she would be damned if she didn't try.

A/N: And there it is! Everybody that needs to know, knows. I know you guys have been looking forward to Rick finding out, so I hope I did it justice! I'm strangely excited for the next few chapters. A little less emotion, a little more action. (I kind of suck at writing action, but we'll see how it goes, haha.) Anyway, I look forward to hearing from you guys! As always, thank you for being the awesome readers that you are! 3