This chapter came to mind while listening to The Jacksons Five "I wanna be where you are" /z48J73gxtdI

Lanie

Rick sits down at the dining room table with Judith in his lap; Carl walks over to the dining room with two plates of Carol's casserole in his hand then sets one plate in front of his father and the other by his seat.

It's hard for Rick to enjoy being in the presence of his children with Glenn's statement from earlier constantly playing in his head.

So he tries distracting himself, "So…everything go alright today?".

Carl refuses to lift his eyes from his plate, "Same as always, you?"

"Yeah, same as yesterday and the day before", Rick snickers when he scoops a fork full of casserole in his mouth, "I never thought we'd ever get to a time like this, where we talk about how boring our day was.

Carl looks up at his Dad and smiles softly and nods in agreement pushing his pasta around his plate.

Sadly, the joke's lost on Carl; he's witnessed entirely too much in his young life. He had very little memory of what life was like before the outbreak.

He drops his fork on to his plate, "Dad, why can't Michonne live here with us?"

Rick opens his eyes wide; stunned by the his question he reply's "Well…after everything happened more houses became available…", he shrugs, "…so I suppose she wanted her own place".

He deposits a fork full of casserole in to Judith's mouth hoping to avoid eye contact with his son.

"Well, why didn't you ask her to stay then?" Carl asks.

"I…guess…I just thought she wanted to move out", he explains.

Carl haplessly inspects his plate and begins eating again, "You should've asked her to stay. She thinks you wanted her to move out so you could have time alone with us…but…" he can't put in to words how he feels so he blurts out, "…she's one of us Dad, she's supposed to live with us…under the same roof.

Judith starts grabbing at Rick's plate placing pieces of pasta in her mouth; he grins at her then over at Michonne's supporter with approval, "Well, I guess I'll have to ask her to come home then".

After checking in on Carl and Judith, making sure they're sleep; Rick hops in a luke warm shower before going to bed.

He lies down on the bed to go to sleep but he finds himself staring at the ceiling listening to the noise from in and outside the house.

If those were the only noises preventing him from falling asleep he'd be fine but they weren't. Again, Glenn's voice kept playing in his head however; this time it was accompanied by constant replays of all the times Michonne had been there for the group, Carl, Judith and him.

The harder he tried to stop the replay, the more instances of Michonne being there for him in good times and bad continued to pop in to his head.

He suddenly began to worry about the wall and whether or not Michonne was safe living alone.

Straight away, he gets dressed to patrol the perimeter.

The entire community is dark with the exception of a few solar powered street lamps.

Rick begins his sweep at the east end of Alexandria, the farthest end away from the front gate and in the same vicinity of Michonne's house.

The night air was much chillier than the evening one, it was a crisp cold air that Rick hadn't really experienced before…being a Georgia man.

He gazes at how beautiful the night sky is with its sprinkling of stars that seemed to reach as far as his eye could see.

While staring in to the sky, Rick begins to turn up the collar on his jacket to shield his neck from the autumn breeze.

Once again he's reminded of how he took nights like these for granted before the outbreak.

Scarcely remembering what life used to be like before having to worry about a walker or a human taking your life just for the sake of their survival.

His gaze at the night skies are interrupted by the sound of a wavering metal sheet.

Rick quickly pulls out his python and flashlight.

As he slowly begins to approach the wall where the noise is coming from; he instantly turns on his flashlight and aims his gun, "Stop! Don't move!"

The sound of the metal sheet wavering stops abruptly.

"Rick?"

Michonne pushes and pushes at the out of place sheet metal trying to maneuver it back in to place, "What are you doing out here", she huffs.

"Michonne", Rick quietly yells, "What the hell are you doing out here?"

She finally pushes the sheet metal back in to place and in line with the rest of the wall, "While I was patrolling the perimeter last night I saw this break in the fence. I was hoping that someone besides me would see it and take care of it", she grabs her sword from the other panel and places it on her shoulder and begins walking closer to him, "…but I guess nobody bothers to check for weaknesses."

Rick laughs a little at her due diligence, "I had no idea that you were getting up to patrol at night."

"Well, as much as I want to get a good eight hours the most that I've been able to get is about four to five", she laughs.

"I know the feeling", he smiles.

Michonne reaches her hand up to her eyes, "Could you turn off that flashlight?"

Rick forgets that he still has the flashlight on and fumbles to turn it off, "Oh, sorry."

"What are you doing out here", she asks.

"I couldn't sleep either so I thought I'd make myself useful."

Rick and Michonne begin walking around the inside perimeter of the community in silence.

They both want to say something but they walk without saying a word.

"I don't normally see you out here this time of night, is everything alright with Carl and Judith", she asks.

"Yeah, they're good."

They finish walking the perimeter in tandem and in silence.

"Well everything seems to be alright, what do you think?" Rick asks as they turn on to Michonne's block.

She smiles, "Yeah, I think I can sleep for four hours peacefully."

The two chuckle at her answer.

"Would it be alright if I walk you home", he asks.

"Yeah…", she continues to walk, "…but how will I know that you've gotten home alright", she teases.

Michonne snickers to herself at her comment until she notices that Rick has stopped walking with her. She turns around smiling curiously, "Rick come on…you know I'm only kidding?"

Rick's heart starts to beat fast but he's not sure why.

The only thing that's working in his mind right now was how to get Michonne to move back with him and the kids.

"I'll tell you how", he walks over to her.

She displays a confused smile, "How?"

"You should come back and live with us, It feels weird with you not being there with us.

After the prison; it was always either the three of us or the four of us, sleeping under the same vacant house, empty store, barn…or the sky. I don't see why that has to stop because there's available housing."

Michonne happily stunned by Rick's request, she did miss hanging out with them.

Hanging out with Carl and Judith made her fight to make sure Alexandria survived, all he more worthwhile.

She stood there in silence for a few seconds trying to come up with a reason to say no…but, the first thing she says is, "o.k.".