A/N: We've arrived at Conquer. I did something here that I'm still not so sure about, and I'm not sure how you'll feel reading it, so I wanted to explain. This chapter ends with the bedroom scene which is perfection, and we don't mess with perfection. Oh no no. It's verbatim except for some small changes to fit my story, but I wanted to include it because it is such an important moment for the two of them and book ends this chapter nicely…and I didn't want you to have to go find the transcript on your own. Enjoy!

The creaking of the door was enough to rouse her from her light sleep, which was all she could manage in the uncomfortable folding chair she was seated in. She opened her tired eyes to see Deanna walking toward her.

"He's still out?" she whispered as she stopped at the foot of the bed, glancing down at a sleeping Rick before returning her attention to Michonne.

"Yes."

"You got him good, Michonne," she said dryly.

Michonne looked down at him blankly. She certainly wasn't pleased with herself in any way, and she found absolutely no humor in this situation. She'd done the only thing she could think to do at the time which had rendered him unconscious for the past eight hours. She looked back up to find Deanna looking expectantly at her.

"We need to talk," she said almost apologetically knowing that this neither an ideal time nor moment for Michonne.

"I know."

"Let's get some fresh air," she suggested as a way to get Michonne alone for a few minutes. Michonne sat still, glancing down at Rick then back at her. "Don't worry, we'll stay close," she assured her, sensing her hesitation.

Michonne bent down and zipped up her boots then straightened her clothes and stretched as she stood, trying to work out the kinks and aches in her muscles. They walked out of the unfinished basement level apartment, and the cool night air hit Michonne immediately causing her to shiver and wish she'd asked someone to bring her a jacket earlier. They walked up to the steps of the above unit, and took a seat so that the door leading to Rick was still in her sight. She took in a deep breath, and looked at Deanna, waiting for her to start since she'd called this meeting.

"You know I have to ask..."

"I didn't know about the gun, if I had-"

"I know," Deanna said cutting her off immediately. "I could see it on your face when you saw him."

"He wouldn't have used it," Michonne assured her.

"But I don't know that," Deanna explained calmly. "Neither does my husband, my son, our neighbors..."

Michonne nodded her head; she understood completely. They didn't know Rick like she did, and she couldn't deny how unsettling his rant was, even for her.

"I think he's just frustrated," she proffered as some sort of explanation, "...what he's been through out there, the loss he's experienced-"

"That may explain his behavior," Deanna inserted softly, but firmly, "but it doesn't excuse it. He threatened the people he was charged with protecting. He broke the very laws he was supposed to uphold by having a gun inside the walls, one he very likely stole from the armory."

"We don't know that," Michonne quickly corrected. "We shouldn't make assumptions until Rick's had a chance to speak for himself."

"And he will, this evening, at the meeting I'm going to call. I want to allow everyone to say their piece."

In the absence of a formal court of law, it seemed like the fairest option, but the thought of Rick's fate resting in the hands of a community of naive, frightened people didn't sit well with her.

"And then what?"

"And then I'll make the decision as I always have, taking the entire community's best interest into consideration."

Michonne sighed as she looked ahead considering the possible outcomes. "Are you going to kick us out?"

"After talking with everyone, I'll do what I need to do in regard to him and him alone."

"And what about Pete?" Michonne asked.

"This meeting is about Rick's actions."

"He's beating his wife," Michonne returned sharply, her tone a detour from the heretofore cordial exchange. "That's what precipitated all of this. I'm not excusing Rick, but I don't know how you can try one man in front of the community and not the other."

"It's complicated, Michonne," she said shaking her head. "He's our only doctor, a surgeon at that. He's saved lives."

"What about Denise? Dr. Cloyd," she asked.

"She's a psychiatrist, it's not the same. Pete's never felt it was appropriate."

"Of course he hasn't," Michonne pointed out. "He should be training a team of medics, or at the very least, a woman with a medical degree, but instead he's controlling access to medical care and further securing his standing in this community. He's playing you, Deanna."

"If you felt so strongly about this, why are you just bringing up now?"

"I'd planned to talk to you about Denise at our meeting this afternoon, but now that I know the whole story...If you're going to do this, you need to do it right."

"Pete is a long-standing problem that will need to be dealt with at another time. I'm here to talk about Rick."

Michonne bit her lower lip and nodded, resigned to the fact that Deanna had already determined how she was going to proceed, and that this visit was merely a courtesy and not an act of seeking counsel.

"Deanna, you brought us here for a reason, and Rick was a huge part of that. We can help you make this community stronger. That's what you wanted, right?"

Deanna tilted her head and pressed her lips together in a tight grin, not answering her question.

"You should share that at the meeting, Michonne. I know it's only been a few days, but you should know that I think the world of you," she said as she covered Michonne's hand where it rested on her knee with hers.

"Thank you," Michonne whispered back as she looked down at their hands, feeling as though she was about to take a fall.

"It pains me to have to do this, but you're too close to this matter, and appearances being what they are...I think it's best if you step down from your position until this issue is resolved." She squeezed Michonne's hand and gave her a rueful look.

"I understand," Michonne said evenly as she slipped her hand out from under Deanna's and stood up from her spot. "If that's all there is, I'm going to head back now. I'll see you at the meeting."

Deanna nodded while looking up at her then watched her make the short walk back into the apartment.

xxx

"What's so funny?"

His laughter ceased at the sound of the humorless voice questioning him. He looked up from his spot on the mattress lying on the floor of to find that he was not alone as he thought he was. Michonne was sitting in a metal folding chair in the corner wearing the same clothes he'd seen her in the previous morning. Her arms were folded across her chest and she had a stern look on her face that was undoubtedly meant for him.

"You were here the whole time?"

"All night. What's so funny?"

He pushed himself up to a seated position with his back against the wall, readying himself for the confrontation he could feel coming on. It was just the two of them now; there were no distractions and nowhere to hide.

"It's… it's like the train car. After the whole thing, I'm still there."

She squinted her eyes at his admission. Of all of the explanations he could give, Terminus was the last thing she expected to hear.

"Deanna wanted you in here. Calm things down," she explained. "Rosita patched you up. Carl came by for a while, I sent him home."

She'd apprised him of all he needed to know which left her with only one thing to say, so she pulled her chair closer to him and leaned in.

"Rick. What are you doing?"

She watched as he bowed his head and rubbed the back of his neck, avoiding her eyes and the question.

"We put Pete in another house," she continued, irritated by his non-answer. "You could've told me what was happening."

"You knew what was going on. You're the one who brought it to my attention," he said finally lifting his head to look at her.

"We could have dealt with it together. Avoided this whole mess," she returned firmly. His attempt at deflecting the blame only perturbed her more.

"It moved fast. And then Noah and Tara..." he explained, his tone softening with the mention of their names. "I couldn't tell you about the gun."

"No, you couldn't," she fired back sarcastically.

"Oh you wanted this place…"

"We had to stop being out there."

"Well..." He shook his head in and dropped his hand in his lap. She'd gotten what she wanted for better or worse in his estimation. "We're here."

"Well," she started with a hard stare. "You just said you weren't."

He glanced back at her, ready to respond in turn, but stopped himself at the sight of her; her face had softened and she was looking at him, searching his face for an answer. She wasn't the enemy, and never had been, but there was something about the fight for him, he couldn't pass one up. He was about to respond, but was distracted by the beam of light that began to shine into his eyes through the open door. He watched Glenn, Carol, and Abraham enter the room then glanced back at Michonne and gave a quick nod to put their exchange on hold before returning his attention to their new guests.

"Where'd you get the gun?" Michonne continued seamlessly, using their presence to put pressure on him.

"You took it, right?" Carol asked as she stared down at him, hoping to lead him into an answer that would maintain their cover. "From the armory?"

Rick stared back at her. He understood what she was doing, but couldn't decide which way to go, although she and the group had already taken his silence as a yes.

"That was stupid," she scoffed. "Why did you do it?"

"Just in case," he answered half-heartedly as he glanced at Michonne.

"Deanna's planning to have a meeting tonight," Glenn announced soberly. "For anyone who wants to."

"To kick Rick out?" Abraham asked.

"To try," Carol sneered.

"You don't know that," Michonne interjected from her seat, pulling everyone's focus to her.

"Did you know about this?" Rick asked her pointedly. Whether he had the right to feel this way or not, the thought that of her withholding this from him hurt.

"She stopped by late last night to let me know. I was gonna tell you, but then..." she trailed off as she motioned at the distraction in front of them.

He watched as she looked down, shaking her head wearily; they could both feel the weight of the increasing number of unresolved issues between them mounting.

"At the meeting," Carol said, getting back to the business that mattered most to her, "you say you were worried about someone being abused and no one was doing anything about it. You say you took a gun just to be sure that Jessie was safe from a man who wound up attacking you. You say you'll do whatever you want them to."

Michonne's face contorted with disbelief as Carol created this story so effortlessly, and at the insinuation that this wasn't the impetus for stealing the guns at all, but rather a convenient excuse.

"That's perfect..." Michonne piped up causing Carol to turn toward her with a pleasantly surprised grin thinking that she had garnered her support, "...exploiting this family's trouble for your gain."

Michonne looked pointedly at Rick, hoping that this would be the breaking point for him because it certainly was for her. She wasn't sure who they were anymore if they were going to proceed with this, creating lies about helping someone instead of actually doing it.

"Well, regardless of what you end up telling them," Abraham continued getting back to the most pressing matter in his eyes, "what happens if after all the nice words, they still try to kick him out?"

"They're guarding the armory now," Glenn added.

"We still have knives," Carol said, committed to hiding the fact that she and Rick still had guns. "That's all we'll need against them."

"Tonight, at the meeting, if it looks like it's going bad, I whistle. Carol grabs Deanna, I take Spencer, you grab Reg," Rick said as he looked to Michonne. "Glenn and Abraham cover us, watch the crowd-"

"We can talk to them," Michonne pleaded.

"Yeah, we will. If we can't get through, we take the three of them and say we'll slit their throats."

"Like at Terminus?" Glenn asked, obviously as disillusioned with this plan as Michonne was.

"No, we just tell 'em," Rick assured him. "They give us the armory, and it's over," he said shaking his head in exasperation.

"Did you want this?" Glenn asked.

"No," he replied genuinely. "I hit my limit. I screwed up." He looked to Michonne knowing that she needed to hear that more than Glenn did. "And here we are," he added before he tore his eyes away from hers and began to lie down. He wanted to stop all the of the outside noise so that he could think, figure things out for himself. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm just gonna sleep some more."

He stared at the wall ahead as he listened to Abe, Glenn, and Carol file out of the room. He watched Michonne stand out of the corner of his eye and walk toward the door, surprised she was leaving him as well. He looked over his shoulder quickly seeing Abe holding the door for her.

"Michonne," he called out.

She stopped and looked back at him then nodded at Abe to go on without her before walking back to the foot of the mattress where he had turned and sat up to face her.

"Do you think she'll really do it?" he asked softly.

She huffed out a bitter laugh and looked up at the ceiling, shaking her head. She wasn't sure if she was more disappointed in his self-centered question or in herself for thinking that he had called her back in to level with her.

"I'm not asking for me. I'm asking for Carl and Judith," he clarified based on her reaction.

"I honestly don't know, Rick," she said somberly.

"I know how much she respects you, so if there's anything you can say or do..."

"I already have and I will," she promised. She stared down at him as he stared back her. His change in tone prompted her to ask one more time, hoping for a different outcome. "Rick, why didn't you tell me?"

"You weren't around," he answered honestly, but incorrectly in her opinion.

"I was just sitting around planning and hesitating, right?" she asked, calling back to the accusation he'd hurled at her yesterday in the thick of his meltdown. "I couldn't have been too hard to find."

"Michonne..."

"No. No," she repeated calmly, but certainly. "I've been inside these walls with you, under the same roof, sleeping in the next room over from you every night. I've been there."

"You hung up your sword, and went in a different direction," he said as he flung his arm to the side. "I had to protect this place," he said emphatically.

She tilted her head, trying to understand how this made sense to him. The threat persisted outside, but from everything she had seen, there was still no threat to them inside these walls. She'd warned him against looking for trouble just a few days earlier, but it seemed he couldn't help himself.

"From what?" she asked breathlessly. He stared back at her for a beat before turning his head to look away. She'd lost him again.

"I'm gonna go now..." she said quietly as she turned away.

xxx

"Red bird, red bird, what do you see? Huh? What do you see, Judes?"

Michonne lifted the corner of the page ever so slightly to give her a clue. "What do Judes and the red bird see? Show me," she prompted again as the baby quickly caught on and turned the page, excitedly banging her hands on the new page and babbling at the sight of the yellow duck.

Michonne gasped in surprise for Judith's sake then read on. "I see a yellow duck looking at me. He looks like your rubber ducky, doesn't he? I wonder if his name is Melvin, too," she mused aloud as she chuckled to herself. Judith looked up curiously from her snug position in the space created by Michonne's crossed legs. Her brother had a habit of giving all of her toys and dolls the most random names he could come up with much to their misfortune, but her amusement. "Yeah, I hope not either," Michonne said as she wrinkled her nose then looked over Judith's head to read the next line of the book lying across her lap.

"Yellow duck yellow duck, what do you see?"

Before they could answer that question, however, Michonne heard the door open. She cursed inwardly that her peaceful alone time with Judith had come to an end, particularly since two of the three people that could be walking through that door had already succeeded in pissing her off that morning.

"What are you doing up?" Carol chirped from behind once she spotted the duo sitting on the couch.

"She woke up from her nap crying, so I got up with her," Michonne explained without looking up from the book and the little girl in her lap.

"Sorry about that. I had to run out to take care of something quickly, and I thought I'd make it back before she woke up. I can take her now," she said as she walked into the living room, holding out her arms with a smile.

"That's OK. We're good," she called out.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Carol turn to walk away, and she looked up to see that she had made her way into the kitchen where she busied herself with emptying the dishwasher. She hummed quietly as she moved about the kitchen in her khaki pants, denim shirt, and light yellow cardigan, opening and shutting cabinet doors and drawers as she put away the dishes. Just a few weeks ago, she'd walked side by side with this gun-toting, combat boot-wearing survivor through the back roads and woods of Virigina as they journeyed to Washington, D.C. It was a bleak time for the group, but she often found herself at Carol's side walking in companionable silence, sometimes even sharing a laugh or a moment of encouragement; but since they'd arrived in Alexandria, there had been no more of that. She thought that perhaps she was imagining things, but today's events showed that there was a sharp divide between the two women and it was bigger than she ever could have imagined.

"That was some tale you came up with for Rick," Michonne called out from her spot on the couch, unable to let that morning's conversation go.

Carol finished placing a stack of clean plates in the cabinet then closed the door and turned to face Michonne.

"He just needs to tell them a story that they want to hear, and they'll eat it up," she explained as she walked up to the kitchen island and placed her hands on the counter. "It's what I've been doing since I got here."

"Why?"

"Because these people are children and children like stories," she said unapologetically.

Michonne widened her eyes at the explanation, surprised to find her so forthcoming with her dismissal of their fellow community members.

"If they're just children, why go to all this trouble?" she challenged. "You're such a strong, smart woman. You have so much to offer them."

Carol tilted her head and gave Michonne a saccharine smile. She had the distinct feeling that Carol regarded her as a naive little child at this very moment for expressing that opinion.

"I want the best for our group, just like you do. If you're not a fan, I'm all right with that. You keep going about things your way, and just consider my way a safety. A back up plan…But look at us," Carol added as she pinched her cardigan for emphasis then pointed at Michonne. "Maybe we're really not so different."

Michonne looked down at the white wool sweater and black leather pants she wore then back at Carol.

"I'm actually trying here," Michonne countered.

"I am, too, Michonne," she said as she shut the door of the now empty dishwasher and headed off to her room.

xxx

As she stepped into the doorway of his bedroom, she found him sitting at the end of his bed, looking down at a gun in his hand, yet another gun that she wasn't aware of, but hardly surprised to see. She watched him for a moment before alerting him to her presence.

"Rick. You ready?"

"Carol and me..." he started without turning to face her, "we worked it out together. Carol took three guns from the armory. I still have one, she still has one." He lifted his head to look at her, taking in a shaky breath before continuing with his admission. "We lied to you because I wasn't sure how you'd take it, what you'd do," he finished as he extended his arm to her, offering the gun.

She didn't reach for the gun; instead she threw her black jacket on the bed and sighed. She didn't want to be mad or right, she just wanted to fix this and move on. She wanted her friend back, and his admission of the truth was all she needed.

"You think I'd try to stop you?"

He dropped his arm at the realization that she didn't want to take his gun now, and probably never would have.

"Well, you did hit me over the head," he quipped.

"That was for you, not them," she said clearly. She wanted there to be no doubt about her intentions or where her loyalties lied.

He breathed in deeply again then stood up from the bed and walked over to her so that they were standing face to face in the light of the window.

"I was afraid you'd talk me out of it. You could've."

"We don't need them here," she assured him with a gentle voice and soft smile. "I don't need my sword. I think you can find a way. We can find a way," she clarified in response to the uncertain look on his face. "And if we don't... I'm still with you."

He stared back at her and exhaled as a sense of relief washed over him. He was scared and uncertain, but not alone.

"Something's gonna happen," she assured him. "Just don't make something happen."

He lifted the gun from his side once more, bringing it to the level of her waist, wanting to rid himself of the any potential barriers to their trust or safety, but she covered his hand with hers and returned it to his side. She trusted him: to know what he needed and to make the right decisions. She gave him one last looked before the picked up her jacket and left for the meeting.

"Don't be too long," she called out to him as she walked out of the room.