A/N: Thanks to those who left lovely reviews for the last update. Publishing the first chapter of a new story is always nerve-wracking, so I appreciate your support! Guest (whoever you are!)-special thanks to you for your thoughtful review-some of what you said made me wonder if you had a peek at my outline. Interesting comment about compliments. ;)

Just two things before you read this update: Yes, this is still Michonne-focused, and I only promised to remix the story, not make it squeaky clean. Hope you enjoy!

"Come in."

Michonne opened the door to the house that served as the community's infirmary and peeked around the corner to find Rosita seated in a stool at the kitchen island all by herself, chin resting on her hands as she focused intently at something in front of her on the counter.

"Hey," Michonne said gingerly as she stepped into the infirmary and closed the door behind her.

"Hey," Rosita replied, finally looking up at the sound of a familiar voice.

"How's it going?"

"Fine. Just catching up on my reading..." she said as she lifted up the April 2009 issue of Cosmopolitan for Michonne's benefit. "11 Awesome Things You Can Do With Long Hair During Sex," she said with a smirk and mocking tone in her voice.

"You're lying."

"Nope. Number one? Drag it over his head like a sexy car wash."

"Or not...what does that even mean? Let me see that," she demanded as she slid into the stool next to Rosita to see the article with her own eyes. She read two sentences before she pushed it away, seeing all she needed to see.

"I can't figure out whether this article is that ridiculous or it just seems that way because we're that of touch with the way things were. This was the kind of stuff we worried about?" Rosita mused as she leaned back in her chair.

"Things have changed, but I'm pretty sure we'd have been rolling our eyes at this stuff back then, too."

"God, I hope so. I'd kind of want to punch old me in the face if that wasn't the case," she said with a laugh. "Anyway, what's going on? You OK?"

"Yeah. I just came by to meet the doctor and see if I could get a tour of the infirmary."

"Pete stepped out about twenty minutes ago. Said he had to run an errand or something. He didn't say when he'd be back."

"I guess I'll just keep making my rounds and check in later then."

"Sure you don't want to stay and hang out? I've got plenty to keep us entertained," Rosita said with a grin as she pointed to the stack of assorted old magazines in the corner.

"As tempting as that sounds, I can't. I'm supposed to be out meeting everyone and getting a feel for this place."

"Just you? Where's Rick?"

"He's out patrolling..." Michonne hesitated for a second before continuing. "I got reassigned, actually. I'll be working with Deanna and Maggie.

"Really?" Rosita asked with genuine surprise in her voice and concern on her face that caught Michonne off guard.

The door opened before Michonne could answer, though, and both women turned their attention to the tall, lumbering blonde man who stood in the open doorway just beyond the threshold, scanning the area in front of him for a moment.

"Rosita, I'm back," he said in a voice louder than necessary that boomed through the empty clinic.

"I'm right here," Rosita responded with pursed lips as she raised a hand in the air and slowly waved it back and forth to catch his attention. All of the warmth in her voice that she'd used when talking to Michonne had disappeared.

"Oh. Hi there," he said affably enough as he turned to see them.

"This is Michonne. She came in with my group, and she's working with Deanna."

"Pete. Nice to meet you," he said extending his right hand out to shake Michonne's.

"Nice to meet you, too. I was just telling Rosita that I stopped by hoping to get a better idea of how the infirmary works."

"How many of you are there again?" he asked as he squinted his eyes and scratched the side of his head.

"Fifteen."

"You know, you all really should get in here for check-ups after being out there so long. We can start with you first since you're here."

"I've got a lot on my agenda today, but I'll set up an appointment for another day and spread the word among our group. I just wanted to get a quick overview, if you don't mind."

"It only takes a few minutes. You'll probably get a better idea of what goes on here from the patient perspective."

She frankly didn't want to do this today, but she also considered that it was a necessary part of assimilating, so in the spirit of embracing this community decided to say yes and get it over with.

"Great. Rosita, can you get her vitals then have her take a seat over there while I gather my things?"

Rosita nodded then looked to Michonne to make sure she was really on board with this before leading her over to the scale to take her weight and height then to the exam table where she prepared to take her blood pressure manually, a skill she was still trying to master as she fiddled with the stethoscope and cuff. Michonne gave Rosita her right arm, and coolly watched Pete fumble around the kitchen as he shuffled through some papers, seemingly displeased with something as he muttered to himself and started going through the cabinets. He let one slam shut accidentally, the loud sound causing Michonne to flinch which caused a spike in the reading and forced Rosita to restart the process.

He was certainly odd, then again, she knew several highly intelligent people who didn't shine in social situations. He finally gathered what he needed and pushed a rolling stool in front of her just as Rosita finished with her measurements. She jotted the numbers down on a Post-It note and handed it over to him for review. He nodded as he read the information then stuck it to his notes, looked up at Michonne and smiled. She grinned back, waiting for him to begin the physical; but he sat there looking up at her with her file balanced on his left knee and a pen in his right hand, holding his smile longer that what felt normal or necessary before he finally commenced.

"So what's your date of birth, Michonne?"

"September 5, 1978."

"Any medical problems?"

"No."

"Surgeries?"

"Just a tonsillectomy when I was five."

"Any major medical problems run in the family?"

"High blood pressure on my mother's side," she answered immediately before pausing to run through the rest of her relatives in her mind, "but that's about it."

"Any allergies to foods or medicine?"

"None."

"And are you taking any medications?"

"Nope," she answered wondering if he found her uneventful medical history as boring as she did.

"No vitamins, supplements, birth control? People always forget to include those."

She glanced beyond his shoulder and caught Rosita's eye, the smirk on her face causing Michonne to break.

"We've been out wandering around in the woods for almost two months. How would we have access to any of that?" Michonne joked good naturedly with a small laugh.

"I understand, but these are standard questions. Just doing my job."

"Sorry," Michonne apologized before regaining her composure. "No, no vitamins. I do have an IUD, though. I guess you'd count that."

"I would. See? Like I said, people always forget to include those things...Made my wife get one of those. Can't afford to have any more kids with things the way they are now," he said off handedly as he looked down, scribbling notes in her chart.

The word made instantly made the hair on the back of her neck stand up, and the fact that she now knew her neighbor-two-doors-down's birth control method through no admission of her own didn't sit well with her. Her face tightened as she watched him finish charting, wondering if he would correct himself, but he looked up and smiled awkwardly, continuing with his interview.

"Ever been pregnant?"

"Do you mind if I stop to ask you something about the process? Just for my own understanding?"

"Not at all."

"What's the point of these exams?"

"It's screening. Preventative health."

"And let's say you were to find something, do you have the resources to do anything about it?" she questioned further causing his smile to fade.

"Well, if it's something simple like high blood pressure, yes. We have medications on hand that I can prescribe. But no, I don't have the capacity to run lab tests or do imaging studies, so there are certainly limitations to what we can find and treat. In the case of your people, though, I'd want to make sure that you're not bringing in any infectious diseases from the outside that could spread here. I imagine it's going to feel like practicing medicine a hundred years ago with diseases like tuberculosis becoming common again."

He spoke with an odd affect, she thought, slowly pushing his words through clenched teeth as if forming his sentences took such great effort; or perhaps it was the attempt to conceal his annoyance with her line of questioning that took so much effort.

"So why don't we just focus on that today?" she asked.

"Sure..."

xxxxx

"Hey Rick!"

Rick looked over to find Jessie walking out of her garage to greet him, so he stopped and walked halfway up the short driveway to where she stood.

"Morning, Jessie. How's it going?"

"Not too bad. Just organizing the garage...again," she said with a self-conscious laugh. "It's like a monthly project for me. I'm not sure how we accumulate so much junk, but we do."

"Yeah," he answered as he glanced back at the garage that looked relatively clean to him.

"So you're going back to your old look, huh?"

He started at her blankly for a moment. "What's that?"

"The um...the stubble," she stammered as she pointed at the result of two day's going without shaving on his face.

"Right," he said with a forced smile to make her feel at ease. Old look, new look; he wasn't even sure what that meant anymore.

"Not that it looks bad or anything..." she continued to stammer as she shook her head and looked down at the ground in embarrassment.

He grinned and looked down, as well, feeling his cheeks flush slightly with embarrassment then waived his hand to signal that he thought nothing of it. They stood there quietly for a moment before she spoke up again, apparently always feeling the need to fill silence with words.

"I saw the Millers yesterday afternoon. They couldn't stop talking about Judith."

"Well, they met her for all of two minutes."

"Doesn't matter. It's been a long time since anyone around here has seen a baby. She's gonna have to put up with the extra attention and some pinched cheeks."

"I guess it's easy to forget that."

"They had twelve grandchildren before...everything," she said as she crinkled her nose and avoided naming the bad event. "They've become surrogate grandparents to all of the kids here. It could be a nice thing for your children, especially Judith since she probably never had the chance to..." she trailed off as she watched Rick avert his eyes and look upward sensing she'd said something wrong.

Judith would never know her mother, never mind her grandparents. She had someone in her life who served as a grandfather, though; a devoted, loving, wise man who cared for her as if she was his own, but he was no longer with them, and she was too young to remember the countless hours they spent together.

"It's a...it's a nice thought," he finally answered quietly.

"I guess what I'm trying to say is it's not just you anymore," referencing the words he'd said to her the first day she'd met him.

"It's not," he answered immediately as he furrowed his brow.

"Right." She gave a small smile at his response, feeling as though she had finally gotten her point across and assuming that he understood.

"I should probably get back to work," he said as he pointed his thumb to the street behind him.

"Me too. I'll see you around, Rick."

"See you," he said with a wave as he turned around and walked back to the street to continue his patrol.

As he walked, absently twisting the band on his left ring finger, the thoughts running through his mind were of people and places that looked far different than those that surrounded him now; smiling and carrying on in front of their perfect houses as the sun shown down on them on this clear, quiet day.

xxxxx

Rick stood on the front porch of his home, one hand resting on railing and the other arm slung under Judith's bottom as she leaned against his chest looking out into their front yard pointing and babbling about whatever came into her view.

"What's that? You see a dog? Yeah," he whispered as they watched one of their neighbors walk by with her brown lab.

Unless interrupted by his daughter, however, his eyes were focused solely on Carl where he sat in the grass on the other side of the lake talking with two boys and a girl around his age. Even within the confines of the walls, the most secure place they'd been since the prison, a place he personally patrols daily now, he had trouble letting go.

It reminded him of the first time he and Lori had let Carl ride his bike to school, giving him a head start then following slowly behind him in his squad car to make sure he arrived. Or the night of his first sleep over where they fell asleep on the couch in their clothes waiting for the call to pick him up in the middle of the night that never came. It made no sense to feel this way given everything he and Carl had been through, but he couldn't quite get through to himself on this one, so he continued looking out across the lake until Maggie and Michonne came into his view as the they rounded the corner, heading towards their respective houses. They were deep in conversation, Maggie listening in as Michonne spoke, making a square with her hands then gesturing to create a visual of whatever she was talking about for Maggie's benefit.

"You see Michonne? And Maggie?" whispered to Judith, as he pointed to the two women approaching them. The baby looked in their direction and lit up at the sight of the two familiar faces, and once the women caught sight of her, they did the same.

"Hey cutie pie!" Maggie called out as she waved at the little girl. "Hey Rick," she added.

He waved back and watched as they said their good byes then as Michonne walked up the path and ascended the steps to join him on the porch.

"Hey," she greeted as she came to stand next to him, facing forward to mirror his position.

"Hey."

"What are you two up to?"

"Just hangin' out. Stayin' out of Carol's way so she can finish makin' dinner."

"I see," she said as she looked down at Judith then out toward the community again. "How was your day?"

"Quiet."

"Well, quiet's good, right?"

"No, it's just quiet," he replied evenly. "How about yours?"

"Pretty much the same. Met with more people, worked on my list of proposals, stopped by the infirmary to check it out...speaking of, have you met Pete yet?"

"Jessie's husband?"

"The doctor, yeah," she confirmed.

"Only in passing a couple nights ago. Why?"

"Just wondering what your impression was."

"Hard to say," Rick lied. He thought the guy was a dick, but figured he was being overly sensitive and looking for problems where they didn't exist. "You have a run in with him or something?"

"No, nothing like that. He just gave me a weird vibe...I don't know. Maybe it's just me. I'll run it by Rosita since she works closely with."

"Sounds reasonable. I'll make it a point to stop by tomorrow, say hello."

"You don't have to do that."

"It's not a problem. What else am I gonna do?" he asked rhetorically as he began to lightly bounce Judith on his hip since she'd grown restless from being ignored as the two adults conversed.

"That reminds me, can we set up a time to talk tomorrow?"

Rick furrowed his brow, and angled his head toward Michonne. "Isn't that what we're doing right now?"

"Yes, but I'm talking about a proper meeting."

Rick dipped his head a little lower to meet her eyes with his, and stared back in annoyance. "About?"

"Security."

"Shouldn't that just be a talk between you and me? I thought we were gonna work together on that."

"We will, but Deanna has to be on board. And I'll make sure she gets there."

"Just to be clear, we're talking look outs, wall reinforcements, and arms training with the goal of everyone being able to carry inside the walls, right?"

"Basically, yes."

"What time do I need to be there?"

"Let's say 9:00 AM at Deanna's?"

Rick nodded his head slowly, still looking pained at the thought of attending a meeting, something he didn't miss at all from before. He looked away from Michonne to check back on Carl since he'd been distracted for the past few minutes. Michonne followed his gaze until she landed on the boy and his friends, as well, a smile forming on her face at the sight.

"When I walked by earlier, they were getting Carl up to speed on what they studied in history last week. I guess there's a test coming up in a few days," she said as she looked up at Rick who'd let a small grin form on his face.

"That's what they've been doing out there all afternoon?"

"I think so. What'd you think they were doing?" she asked sensing the relief in his voice.

"I don't even know."

"They seem like good kids."

"Yeah," he said quietly as he took in a deep breath through his nose, his grin fading as he exhaled.

Michonne watched him closely, feeling as though there was something he wasn't saying.

"You OK?" she asked.

"Yeah, just..." he trailed off and motioned to his head without actually answering her. Thinking? Tired? Distracted? She decided not to press now.

"Well, I'm gonna head inside. See if Carol needs any help. You want me to take her?" she asked looking down at Judith.

"No, it's OK. I'm gonna go grab Carl. We'll use it as an excuse to walk around the pond. Look for ducks and turtles," he said with a wink.

Michonne chuckled to herself because she and he both knew that neither of those existed out there, but she was sure the baby would appreciate the adventure anyway. She turned her body toward the door and lifted her hand to the back of Judith's head, letting it run over the golden curls at the nape of her neck then on to her father's shoulder, patting it gently before as she passed.

"I'll see you both in a bit," she said softly as she continued on to the door and let herself in.

Rick looked down at his daughter, and pressed a kiss onto the top of her head. "You ready to go for a little walk?" he asked.

As he turned to head down the steps, he heard the door open behind him not seconds after it had just closed.

"You decide you want to join us?" he asked as he looked back smiling to see Carol closing the door behind her before walking over to him.

"I just came out to tell you dinner would be ready in about five minutes."

"Well, we were just heading over to get Carl."

She glanced behind her before looking back at Rick with a disgruntled look that he assumed was for not being ready for dinner yet.

"Sorry?" he said indignantly. She rolled her eyes at his tone and folded her arms across her chest.

"Did you happen to notice the newest decoration at our place?" she asked in a hushed voice.

He glanced at the closest window, but nothing came to mind, so he shrugged and shook his head.

"The katana hanging over the fireplace? You didn't notice that?"

He looked back again, unable to get a clear view of the wall through the bamboo shades. "When did that happen?"

"Sometime since last night after we all went to bed?" Carol guessed, not trying to hide her disapproval as evidenced by her sharp tone. "I knew these people were weak," she said gesturing out of the community, "but I didn't expect them to bring our people down with them so quickly."

"This is Michonne you're talking about," Rick scoffed.

"I know. It's disappointing."

"You don't have to worry about her. I'm sure she has her reasons."

"All I know is that we can't be caught unprepared should something happen. I'm not going another day without our weapons."

"Deanna doesn't want that," Rick reminded her. "Not yet. We're gonna work on it."

"I know. But like I said, I'm not going another day without. In the armory, they've got a couple of footlockers just full of 9 millimeter autos, Rugers, Kel-Tecs. They lock it up at night, but there's a window right there with a latch on it. I can leave it open and sneak at night."

"A latch?" he asked, shaking his head incredulously at the poor excuse for security.

"Yeah."

"Why are you telling me this? You know I'm in a tough spot."

"Since when does that matter? I'm telling you because I know you, and we both know that it really can't be any other way," she said as she looked down at Judith and placed her hand on her head before letting it drop back down to her side. His eyes had followed her hand throughout its entire motion and were now cast downward as he considered her proposition.

"You think about it. Let me know tomorrow," she said with a forced smile. "Now go get Carl. I don't want dinner to get cold."