Part 2
She lowered herself to the ground, feeling the way her muscles pulled themselves taut on her arms and legs as her nose brushed the hard stone prison floor and how the slight twinge of effort was just another reminder of everything she had managed to lose was due to the fact she hadn't been strong enough.
When was the reminder and pain ever going to go away? Beth had told her once that it wouldn't with a look on her face that clearly said it wasn't meant to be sympathetic or anything else of the sort, it was just the cold, harsh truth and Michonne still didn't want to believe it no matter how many times it became obvious.
When had she become such a believer?
With a large exhale she lowered herself to the ground again and counted to ten before hoisting herself back up.
"How many is that?" Beth Greene asked with nonchalance that made a small flicker of a smile appear on Michonne's face before it was wiped away by her own thoughts taunting her; how could she still find it in her to smile? It wasn't right.
Michonne breathed in hard through her nose, eyes refusing to move anywhere else but at the stone floor of the prison, "lost count."
Scruffy, greyed trainers appeared at the corner of Michonne's right before they disappeared to get replaced with the sight of two, pale legs crossed together as the Greene girl sat beside her, watching her work with her lower lip caught in between her teeth with such curiosity it made Michonne wonder what the girl truly wanted from her.
It didn't take long for the girl to answer her unspoken question. "Andrea saved my life you know?"
She stilled in her routine, halfway in between touching the cold floor with her nose and halfway in between lifting away from it; stuck in the middle, stuck on pause – it was a similarity that didn't go ignored and therefore was the reason why Michonne found herself unable to speak as the words she heard every night before went to sleep was once more whispered in her ear.
'You never said it.'
Beth took her silence as her answer and continued to speak, her hands tapping the ground as though she was beating out a somewhat solemn rhythm. "She saved me from mam back when we were all together on my family's farm; she stopped her from biting me, if she hadn't of been there then..."
Michonne glanced at the blonde girl to her right, allowing herself to sink to the ground and rest her cheek on her crossed arms as she looked at the Greene girl. "She was good at that," she muttered, eyes drawn to the small rag that had been tied over the girl's left wrist with a small chain of the cross tied to the very ends. "Good at saving people."
"Yeah," The blonde girl's smile brightened into something that more resembled a grin as she nodded in agreement, "she really was."
Michonne smiled bitterly in reply, getting up from where she lay on the prison floor to dust herself down and grab at her blade that she had placed on the table they used to place most of their weapons; she planned on using those weapons soon enough of course, mostly on the Governor and the little amount of men he had left.
Beth's eyes followed her and with a grunt she slipped the strap that held the sword and its sheath over her head, shouldering it with such a practiced ease that it didn't stop her from breaking away from the young girl's gaze.
The silent conversation between the two was broken however when the sound of crutches banging on the stone floor resounded through the room and only seconds later did Hershel appear, his usually kind eyes steeled into an icy metal that almost made Michonne drop the gun she had been handling when he directed his gaze at her.
She steadied the gun in her grip and placed it back on the table, eyes moving away from the older man's with something that felt like guilt starting to swirl in the pit of her stomach; the worst part was that she had no idea why when Hershel had no reason to make her feel such guilt.
"Daddy, are you okay?" Beth had made her way over to her father, blocking Michonne's sight of the old man when she risked a quick look before returning her gaze back onto the rifle she held in her hands. "Does your bandage need to be cleaned again? I'll go down to the creek with Karen and get some water to clean it if you'd like."
Michonne flinched at the memory of one of the Woodbury survivors, it hadn't been easy seeing them move on into the prison without expecting to see the blonde-haired woman at the helm leading them in and it especially hadn't been easy seeing Karen rifle through bags of clothes brought from Woodbury that from memory Michonne had recognized to be Andrea's.
(It had ended with her losing her nerve and snapping at the dark haired woman, grabbing the bags of clothing from Karen's hands and walking out of the prison to burn them. They had been Andrea's in life; they would remain so in death.)
Rick had called her irrational for not thinking properly about it just before he said he understood what she was going through, and so Michonne had accepted his scolding with only a brief promise of not to do something like that again. She didn't know if she could keep that promise but it was one she made regardless, anything to stop the mindless noise that was forever in her head.
Hershel's voice (softer than expected) interrupted her thoughts, pulling her attention back to the real world and onto the man that was now starting to make his way past his daughter to head in her direction.
"That's alright sweetheart, it's kind of you to ask, but I'd like some time to speak to Michonne," the old man said, each word accentuated by the subtle click of his tongue against the roof of his mouth that only stilled when he finally stopped right in front of her, his gaze of steel threatening to pierce her open if she even looked at him wrong. "Alone."
Michonne placed the gun down, the impact of it hitting the table masking the sound of Beth leaving the room and the clacking noise as the old man's crutches pulled him along until Hershel could sit at the bench beside her with his face titled up to stare at her, bright blue eyes large and solemn enough that she sat down next to him with a sigh and awaited for whatever judgement he wanted to give her.
"You still hearin' things?" He asked her with a tone in his voice that suggested immediately to Michonne that was not the thing he had come to talk with her about but had asked her to throw her off the scent. It didn't work.
She grunted in response, not willing to answer the man properly when she had made it clear many times before that her thoughts about the woman they had lost were her thoughts alone; thoughts that she did not wish to share with anyone – even the youngest Greene girl who seemed to insist that all they did was talk about Andrea, an effort Michonne didn't know if she liked or disliked when she had time to think about it late at night with her dreams full of darkness instead of blonde curls.
Hershel sighed at her silence, a hand coming up to stroke his long, white beard before he rested it on the space between them on the bench; a telling that instantly set Michonne on alert even before the man opened his mouth to speak once more.
"Beth's not Andrea," he said breathlessly, looking pained at the mere thought that he would been actually going through this conversation with her and Michonne couldn't blame him, this conversation was already turning out to be a living nightmare, one that she had no idea how to get out of. "And as her father I'd like to remind you of that before me and the rest of the group start to worry."
She got the hint of that and stood up from where she sat at the bench, dark eyes boring down deep into Hershel's before she stood up to walk away, knowing it would be best to avoid a fight altogether by simply taking her frustration out on something that wasn't alive.
"Nobody is," she growled, shouldering past one of the Woodbury survivors to make her way out into the fields.
"You need to stop it," Michonne found herself growling as she paced up and down the long grass of the fields where the dead lay, her eyes focused on nothing but the lopsided cross at the end of the row of crosses. "I can't sleep because of you – you need to stop it you hear me? Stop..."
Silence answered her like it always did and before it had been enough to calm Michonne, but now it only infuriated her as she walked up to stand at the very front of Andrea's grave with eyes narrowed to try and keep the hot tears that burned there to remain.
Was this how her life was going to be now? Forever running back to Andrea's grave when she couldn't handle it? Did that have to be such a bad thing? Did it have to cause the group to look at her with such sympathy that it threatened to burn her?
Before she could think any more of the situation she was interrupted from her musings by the sound of someone calling her name, said sound drawing her attention upwards to see the curly haired woman they had rescued from Woodbury staring back at her from behind the chain-linked fence with such a sad expression on her face that it made Michonne growl and kick at the dirt underneath her feet.
Karen must have noticed her aggravation considering the annoyed tone she used when she spoke again, "you know ignoring me isn't the sound way of getting me to leave you alone!"
Michonne growled again and before she realized it she was already walking towards the now stoic-looking woman, her long strides angry and irritable as she stopped in front of Karen with her lower lip pouted out in a barely contained fury that made her arms shake as she rested her hands on her hips, her stance insolent.
"What do you want?" She asked with barely contained malice, eyes searching the woman's face to try and figure out her angle, "I'm busy."
Karen snorted at first, her face contorted into a look of mockery, however softened just before Michonne could say anything, her speech and thoughts already overridden by Karen's own words: "looking at graves isn't being busy in the normal standards of today's society."
The warrior immediately bulked and the words to give Karen a tongue-lashing was just on the very tip of her tongue before she caught wind of the two Greene sisters coming down from the prison, her eyes lingering on the similar blonde locks of the youngest for a mere moment before Michonne moved her gaze onto the darker-haired woman in front of her, eyes challenging Karen to say any more of what she obviously wanted to say.
It was a look that had meant to challenge, but Michonne would be lying if she said she had expected for Karen to actually meet it head on.
"People are getting worried about you and your friendship with the youngest of those farmer's daughters," she muttered with dark eyes that told Michonne everything she wanted to know without the other woman even realizing – that everyone practically knew, that they thought her unstable, that she had...that she had used Beth as Andrea's substitute, "just saying that you need to distance yourself a little otherwise people will start to talk and when they talk about this people might start to get angry, I mean you're a fully grown…"
"Enough!" Michonne snarled with her hand already coming upwards to grab at the handle of her sword, the way they shook however was enough to suspend the motion and with a gasp of pain she withdrew her hand back to her side as the sensation of a hand being pressed against her back drew a heavy breath from her lips.
It felt so intimate and loving that when Michonne looked over her shoulder to see nobody there she let out a choked noise and pulled away from where she was to turn her back on Karen, feet carrying her through the long grass towards the cropped area where Andrea's grave still was; the place where Michonne truly found herself feeling safe.
Not at peace though, never at peace.
A press of lips against her cheek that felt so real almost brought her to her knees in front of the grave, hands shaking and curled into fists to stop herself from doing anything else that might harm either herself or the people around her.
Everything felt wrong.
And then everything seemed to be a spectacle of noise as with little to no warning the sound of gunfire filled Michonne's ears, mixing with the screams of the Woodbury citizens and the yells of Rick and Daryl from above telling them all to retreat back into the prison.
Michonne's eyes were set ablaze as a bullet came soaring past her, the gunshot frying her brain as she propelled back to the time where she had looked into eyes of sapphire and had watched as they had turned lifeless and grey with just one press of the trigger and how her heart had felt so heavy she had been unable to move for what had felt like hours, too attached to the warmth that lingered on the body underneath her.
Everything she saw were like snapshots of a camera. One second she was glancing back at Andrea's grave, the next she was looking over at the prison to see the retreating civilians of Woodbury, after that the forest that was hidden behind the chain-linked fence and after that…
She drew her sword and rushed towards the gate entrance that would lead her to the main prison's block outside, her eyes burning as sweat trickled down her face and got into her eyes, blinding her momentarily as bullet after bullet followed her until she reached the fence with hands grasping blindly at the chains to allow her entrance.
Beth was there and her hands grazed the underside of Michonne's elbow before the warrior could stop her, holding her back from her destination as bullet after bullet littered around them, kicking up dirt and dust into Michonne's face as she glared out into the horizon with her eyes hard and her cheeks puffed angrily.
"Michonne we need to get inside!" The young farm girl insisted, her fingers gripping tightly onto the warrior's arm to tug her along the compound to where Tyreese and his sister were leading in the large majority of Woodbury citizens that had massed outside, "Michonne quick before…"
Michonne had had enough of this and with a defying grunt she wrenched her arm away from the youngest Greene sister and started to make her way forward, rushing down the gritted path of the prison with screams of her name following her and the sound of gunshots echoing in her ears.
The barest of touches grazed up and down her arms as though to calm her but instead they only entice her forward, her lungs burning and her legs aching as she raced down the dirt path towards the entrance of the prison with her sword by her side as she shied away from the bullets still heading in her direction.
She's either going to die or get wounded, she realized after a bullet skimmed past her ear and the sound of mocking laughter reached her just before the sound faded away and the figure (the lone figure, the figure who haunted her, who made her blood boil, who had taken her away from her grasp) turned their back on her to walk back into the brush on where they had originally come from.
'Don't you fucking run from me,' she thought with a rage that left her burning white hot and for her veins to feel as though that rage was some inferno inside of her that was on a low burn even as she finally took her steps forward and reached the locked gate, breaking the lock with one slam of her sword handle against the lock to give her the incentive of slamming the gate open.
The gate behind is fastened shut almost immediately after her by her own hands and then before Michonne can listen to reason she's running towards the woodland that surrounded the prison, her sword gripped so tightly in her hand that she couldn't even begin to comprehend where the sword started and she ended for she was one with it this time, complete in a way that Andrea had made her feel before the bastard who she was running after had torn her away.
What surprised Michonne the most was that it didn't take long for her to catch up with the clear signs of the man's tracks, the large imprints of footsteps in the mud, the crushed leaves and branches that had happened underfoot…
It made her suspicious.
Did he want her to follow him? Was that part of his plan all along, to lead her to a spot and then finish her off? And was it really such a bad thing in the first place, when all could see when she closed and opened her eyes was Andrea's face and the words of 'you never said it' imprinted into the lids of her eyes?
The crack of what sounded to be a whip against bark made the air around her practically rattle and caused her ears to sting and eyes to widen, desperately searching for the sound even as her feet carried her through the woodland where the long grass and nettles tugged at her legs to stop her from moving further.
It felt like when she was walking away from Woodbury again, the wet grass had made her almost slip a couple of times and the wind was rough against her face each time she took another few steps forward; at the time it had only made Michonne angrier but now that she thought about it she wished it had played more on her guilt than her frustration with Andrea's unwillingness to listen to her.
Though she supposed Andrea's willingness might have improved a fair bit if she had actually opened up her damn mouth to tell her what had happened, what she had seen…
Just another regret Michonne couldn't escape even if she tried.
The wind blew in her face again, whipping up her dreads in a haphazardly fashion until she could feel the cool breeze on her neck and hear the whistling of the wind and another familiar cracking noise of something that sounded like a whip.
Crack!
Michonne spun around with a yell, sword drawn on the sound and ready to slash at whatever had made it but before she could even attempt it she found herself falling still, her breathing heavy as her wide eyes met with none other than Beth Greene's own, the surprise at seeing the girl almost making her drop her sword as she took in the sight of the Greene girl staring right back at her, gun in hand.
And all she could see was Andrea.
It made her features crumble in defeat and for a dry sob to get caught in her throat as she took in the sight of the beautiful blonde locks that adorned the girl's head, not shown fully by the white beanie but still so terribly familiar it would be ridiculous not to mistake it for Andrea's, and the eyes too…They were enough to break her heart.
"Michonne," Beth croaked out her name like a prayer, her voice sounding so utterly terrified that it made every single fear, every single hatred, every single sorrow vanish from Michonne for a brief moment to be replaced with an overwhelming amount of affection that made her lower her weapon, eyes wet with tears.
She had never wanted Andrea so much in her life to help her, to help her understand what she should do now that she had Beth Greene in front of her but The Governor somewhere behind her – she couldn't risk Beth's life this way but at the same time she couldn't allow Andrea's murderer to escape unharmed.
'I helped in killing her,' had been her constant thought since coming back to Woodbury with Andrea's quickening cold body wrapped up to rest in her lap, 'I left her there alone, I didn't go back for her, I didn't ask her to stay, I…I never said it.'
The problem was that Michonne knew she was paying for that, paying for it more slowly than she would make the Governor pay for it once she found him and she intended to kill him slow, to make him feel so much pain that he would beg for the merciful release that death would bring him.
Part of her didn't think it was fair that he would get that peace before her but a larger, more desperate part was just so distracted with the thought of ripping the Governor limp from limp that even if it only brought her peace only briefly it would be more than enough to last her until death itself wrapped its arms around her and took her for its own.
And that was what fuelled her decision to turn her back on the young Greene girl, moving forward through the woodland to follow the Governor's tracks: "Go back to the prison Beth."
A large gust of wind hit her in the face and made her growl as she halted at the force of it, hands shaking in frustration.
"Stop," she uttered under her breath, placing one step in front of another and ignoring the whispers that were starting to resound at the very back of her mind as she slashed away at grass that clung to her now dampened jeans, "I'm not coming back to that prison without his head."
The sound of branches snapping underfoot and leaves crinkling made Michonne pause and glare at the approaching Beth from over her shoulder, "I told you to go back to the prison before the group wonder where you've gone."
"When I left to run after you Daryl and Karen were already coming behind me," Beth informed her, the fear in her voice now replaced with something that sounded incredibly like petulance, "they told me to wait at the gates but I didn't think about it…I just knew it was the Governor."
"And you ran out of there?" Michonne snapped at the girl, turning to show the smaller woman the full extent of her rage at such idiocy and how it probably almost got Beth killed, "Get the hell back to that prison right now before you get hurt."
Beth to her own credit only seemed to find her command insulting as her features tightened angrily and her arms crossed over her chest, looking the picture of someone who had finally gotten fed up with what was being thrown at her and was now very much prepared to take a stand.
It would have amused Michonne once upon a time, but now it just infuriated her, "Don't make me repeat myself," she told the girl, grabbing Beth's arm and tightening her hold on it, "Get going before I drag you there myself."
"I'm not leaving without you!" Beth retorted with a stamp of her foot, her features flushed in mixture of anger and embarrassment at being yelled at in such a way, "So it looks like you're going to have to drag me back there or let me come with you!"
Michonne didn't bother answering to that verbally, instead narrowing her eyes threateningly at the girl in front of her before gesturing back to the prison with another squeeze of Beth's arms, hoping more than anything it would be enough to shut down any other protests the Greene girl planned for her.
It didn't.
"Let me come with you," Beth pleaded one more time, her eyes shining with unshed tears as she wrenched her arm away from Michonne's grip, "I can help you and I promise to stay out the way, and if you get into trouble I have your back so you won't get hurt."
Beth's words only made Michonne bite her lip and release the girl with an aggravated sigh, turning her back on Beth to stare directly ahead where she could just about make out the loose branches and trampled grass that signalled that someone indeed has just passed through here a few minutes ago but that wouldn't matter at all if Michonne didn't ditch Beth now to go after her prey right now.
She was so tempted, so tempted to leave Beth by herself and rush after the Governor with sword brandished and ready to take him down as slowly as possible until he could literally feel every single painful feeling of her slicing at him until he had no choice but to die, to fucking die and bleed until Michonne was satisfied.
Michonne didn't think that day would come however, and how many times could she keep ripping him apart until there was nothing left? She couldn't piece him back together again and again just to rip him apart again and again, no matter how much she wanted to do so.
It wouldn't bring Andrea back, Michonne didn't have to be smart at all to know that, but it at least gave her something and right now that was what she needed now more than anything; something that mattered, something that would give her a purpose for this new world that had swallowed her whole.
She looked at Beth from over her shoulder again, the girl's words repeating in her head.
'I'll have your back.'
Andrea had had her back too before Michonne had left her, did Beth not think she would do so again? That she had become mentally stronger in being with Rick's group? All she had been guaranteed was some sense of safety, and even then that safety would one day leave until they were back on the road once again with nothing but uncertainty that greeted her each morning like an old friend.
Michonne closed her eyes and rubbed a hand over her face, "if you come with me you look after yourself, don't expect me to hold your hand in everything and if you come with me then…" She paused; her tongue feeling like it had grown several sizes too big for her mouth, "you might not be coming back."
At the large swallowing sound she received from the girl Michonne snorted and shook her head, "go back to the prison Beth, you'll be safer out there than you would be with me."
Beth met her eyes dead on, the look in them sending a cold chill down Michonne's spine as she took in the determined glint of the blonde girl staring right back at her before she took three long strides forward, stopping besides the warrior to stare at her briefly before she opened her mouth to speak, her voice small but not lacking in strength: "we need to go otherwise Karen and Daryl might catch up with us."
Michonne could only watch in wonder as Beth simply waited for her to keep moving forward, her brow creased as she tried her hardest to study the youngest Greene girl to try and figure out her motivation to even accompany her in the first place because to her it just didn't make a lick of sense on why the girl wanted to be with her anyway, especially when Michonne had practically promised Beth that she wouldn't be looking after her and that if she went with her now there was a good chance Beth wouldn't see the prison group and her family ever again.
It was a question that Michonne only asked the girl a few minutes in on their trek into the forest, her curiosity getting the better of her.
"I don't know," Beth admitted quietly to herself with a shrug, giving the warrior a small smile that didn't meet her eyes, "Maybe because I can always hear you talking in your sleep, you mutter things about Andrea all the time and…I don't think you should be on your own."
"You're not the one to decide that," Michonne snapped, her sudden curiosity merging instead to one of anger, "I've been fine on my own, I don't need you telling me…"
"You don't even say her name," Beth interrupted her, once again startling the warrior at how someone so soft spoken could make her feel like such a fool in a matter of moments without even trying, "Andrea wouldn't want you running off out of here by yourself, she would want you to come back to the prison and wait for the rest of us."
Michonne inwardly told her companion to go fuck herself with a sharp glare in Beth's direction, her eyes hard with a fury that had been there last when she had been walking out of Woodbury's gates with Andrea behind her and resentment and guilt curdling her stomach so violently that she thought she was going to be sick.
She knew that Beth had some truth in what she was saying; she knew that Andrea wouldn't have wanted her to bring Beth along, wouldn't have wanted her to risk herself just for revenge.
But Andrea was gone and with it Michonne felt as though her heart was gone too, so who cared what Andrea would have wanted? She didn't. She never had in the past (she had left her, she had left her there, with him!) so why start now? Andrea had been everything to her and yet she had left her behind like it was the easiest thing in the world.
She could feel Andrea's voice again, a flicker of hope that made Michonne look towards Beth once she caught sight of blonde locks and hear the sound of honey and thistle tickle her ears, deafening her with its lustrous sound and making her mouth water at the smell of dried sweat mixed with vanilla that had filled her with such desire so long ago that it had caused her shame.
"You left me to rot there, you left me to die, and you left me as he filled me with his lies and his manipulation and his seed because you never said it, you never said it at all."
Harsh words of honey and thistle and they did nothing but break Michonne's heart and caused her determination to make the man known as the Governor suffer even more.
"Come on," she called to Beth who had fallen behind to pick at something that looked to be wild-berries, "we need to keep moving."
Part 3 coming soon, thank you all for the support and reviews given.