6 weeks later,
"I would love to get in to something 'grimey' with you…I-I promise…I-I don't think I will ever be able to tell you."
These are the routine phrases that went through Ricks mind whenever he was alone. In this instance he's checking the snares during the wee hours of the morning. He stops in front of one and pinches the bridge of his nose and closes his eyes trying to get her voice out of his head. When he opens them he looks up at the sky; he uses his hand to block the suns reflection coming off of the different shades of gold's, browns, and burgundy color of the autumn leaves. It was turning fall where ever the group was in the Georgia territory.
Rick drops his head as he begins to hear the moans and dragging sounds of a walker in the distance; he quickly and quietly pulls some work gloves out of his pocket; grabs the small game out of the snare then leans up against one of the trees as the walker approaches the area.
He waits behind the tree as the walker begins to pass by him; then he waits a few minutes longer to make sure there aren't any other walkers coming up behind the one that has just past him. He considers killing the walker but he sees that it's walking in the opposite direction of the cul de sac so Rick quietly slips away to check the other snares. After checking the last of the snares he starts heading back to the cul de sac with 6 rabbits and one squirrel in his pouch.
Once he approaches the barricade to the block he sees Tyreese and Abraham on the wall.
"Anything good", Tyreese yells down with an anxious smile.
Rick smiles at him and walks up closer to the gate, "We got a few rabbits and a squirrel. But a couple of the snares were empty."
"Damn, I so hungry I could eat a few rabbits by myself." Tyreese says as Abraham bumps him with his elbow in agreement.
Tyreese and Abraham climb down off the wall in order to open up the barricade.
Abraham asks, "So when's Daryl coming back from hunting?"
Rick walks through the barricade and says, "Uh, he should be coming back sometime tomorrow before it gets dark." He says while helping him move the barricade back in place.
"Listen, I'm goin' to take a walk further back beyond the backyard fence over at Daryl's tomorrow morning. So make sure to get some rest tonight with me gone and Daryl not due till tomorrow at sunset you'll be working with a skeleton crew for a few hours." Rick says. He reaches in his pouch and grabs to rabbits then hands them to Abraham, "Here, Bob and Sasha say that all that salty spam and bacon isn't good for Jane and the baby."
Abraham looks at Rick with surprise, "Oh…alright," Abe looks over at Tyreese, "You don't mind do you?"
Tyreese looks at him with a silly grin, "Come on man, don't insult me like that, of course I don't mind. Anybody that's about to have a kid is a top priority right?" He looks over at Rick for consensus. "If were not fighting to preserve life then what the hell are we fighting to survive?"
Abraham pats Tyreese on his should before he gets on some kind of sermon and says, "Thanks brother" then he starts walking over to Jane's house. As he walks over toward the house his looks down at the two rabbits Rick gave him and all he could feel was resentment and contempt toward Rick, "self-righteous bastard."
Jane opens the door for Abraham letting him in, she saw the rabbit exchange from the window.
Abraham smiles at Jane and her growing belly in her worn sweat pants and one of Abe loose fitting shirts, "Hey, mother to be", and kisses her on the cheek. Every time Abe kissed her she wanted to recoil but she was playing the roll he expected her to…for the time being.
She allows the kiss and closes the door behind him. Looking up stairs quickly to see if Rosita is listening, Jane quietly asks, "So when are you gonna take care of this?"
"Soon", he says, "The timing needs to be right, everyone needs to be relaxed." Don't worry its gonna be sooner than you think."
He throws the dead game in the corner on the floor and plops down on the couch then he pats the seat next to him for Jane to sit on down. Jane walks over and slowly sits down.
Abraham rests his hand on her belly, "My wife could never carry a baby to full term, she kept having miss carriages. She would only last for 4-6 weeks then she would lose it. '
Alarmed by this revelation Jane asks him, "Well what was the problem?"
"We never found out, she took some test but they never found anything." He says.
"Did they test you?" she asks.
"Me? What the hell they gonna test me for I was fine. Besides I've passed every military physical every given to me." He looks over as Jane, "Clearly it must have been her look how far along you are."
Troubled by this brief medical history, Jane gets up off the couch and looks down at Abe, "You need to hurry up and do what you need to do while there's tension between the two of them", then she walks in to the kitchen.
Rosita lays on the floor at the top of the stairs when Jane let Abraham in the door. Once she moved in to the house with Abe six weeks ago, she immediately felt like a third wheel, especially when Jane and Abe tried to speak privately without her hearing.
Tyreese sees Glenn and Sasha coming down the block to take over the morning and afternoon watch.
"So it's my turn to get Judy today right?" Tyreese asks in anticipation.
"Rick chuckles a bit and says, "Yea, your house is the daycare today."
Glenn and Sasha nod and say good morning to Tyreese and Rick and continue to the barricade. When Tyreese is about to veer off to his house he stops to look at Rick, "You know with the way world is now, having a Judith around makes everything seems a little less…" at a loss for words Tyreese goes silent.
Rick looks at Tyreese and places his hand on his shoulder, "Yea…it does. Thanks, to you and Carol."
The two men part ways; Rick turns back around walking up the block and tells Tyreese, "I'll have Carl and Judy come down in a bit."
When Rick reaches the front door he hears aloud roar of laughter and clapping. He opens the door with a confused smile, curious as to what's going on. Once he steps inside he sees Michonne hugging and smiling at Judith.
Carl's standing next to Michonne when he sees his father coming in, "Dad, Judith just crawled backwards down the stairs without any help this time."
Michonne turns around and sees Rick standing in the foyer, "There's your dad mommy, you gonna go to your daddy? Huh?" Michonne says to Judith in child-like voice. Judith turns around and reaches for Rick.
Rick quickly removes the gloves from his hands and hands them to Carl along with the pouch. "Wow, Judith you're a brave little girl?" he tells his daughter.
Michonne smiles at Carl; nudges him on the shoulder and says, "Yep, just like her big brother."
Carl's face becomes bright pink as he revels in the compliment.
Rick smiles proudly as Carl reacts to Michonne compliment then he kisses Judith forehead.
However, once Rick and Michonne look at one another they smile briefly forgetting for a second that the nature of their relationship for the past few of weeks has been about the survival of Carl, Judith and the group. Nothing else.
"Carl, why don't you put those gloves in the sink down stairs then get Judith's bag. Tyreese is anxiously waiting to watch Judith today." Rick tells him.
Carl starts walking over to the kitchen toward the basement. Rick adds, "Take whatever you're going to need too, I want you to hang around to keep an eye on Judith, Tyreese is coming off of the night watch so I know he's gonna want to sleep after a while."
Michonne watches as Carl goes over to the basement. Without turning around to address Rick face to face she blurts out, "I'll go rinse out some of her bottles for her bag.", and walks away.
Rick places soft kisses on Judith's face while he watching Michonne walk in to the kitchen. He notices that her locs are still hanging down covering up the nap of her neck.
He was also troubled by the fact that Jane was quite open, according to Sasha about being pregnant and who the father was. So why would Michonne play such a silly game just to get out of a relationship with him. If that is the case then he would have to consider that Michonne was more damaged than he originally thought.
XXX
Rick stands on the front porch placing the pouch with the dead game around Carl's shoulder and asks, "Do you want me to walk you guys down…" Carl interrupts his father, "Dad!" He smiles with a bit of embarrassment at the question he was about to ask.
Rick kept forgetting that Carl was old enough and able enough to at least take his sister down the block. More and more Carl was reminding his father that he really wasn't a child anymore; he wasn't even an adolescent. Not exactly a full fledge adult but certainly old enough to look after his baby sister.
As Rick stood on the front porch watching his son and daughter walk down the block to Tyreese's house; he suddenly recalls that the only two people that were going to be in the house were him and Michonne. An empty house had been a rare occurrence ever since Daryl announced his "open door", policy and gave everybody in the group a set of bump keys.
Michonne leans her head out of the kitchen making sure that Rick is still standing on the front porch. She was also well aware of the house being empty with the exception of her and Rick. Over the past few weeks her and Rick could easily avoid the awkwardness of their feelings toward one another when other people were in the house. However, with just the two of them she knew that he will want to talk.
She quickly runs through the living and up the stairs; but as she gets to the middle of the stairs she hears the front door close. She looks back down the stairs and sees Rick pursing his lips together and lowering his stare at her because he knew she was trying to avoid talking to him. "I can't do this right now Rick, I have stuff to do." She calls out while rushing up the rest of the steps; closing the master bedroom door behind her.
Rick quickly runs up the steps two at a time; he already knew that this discussion may turn in to an all-out-brawl but, it's been six weeks that the group has known about Jane, her pregnancy and Abraham; so he wants to know why they can't pick up where they left off.
He goes to open the bedroom door but she's already locked it. He bangs on the door twice, "Chonne', open this door, right now", Rick says in a dry and bitter tone.
"No Rick, I'm getting dressed!" she yells from far away in the room.
"Chonne, I swear if you don't unlock this door I am gonna kick it in." He promises.
A few seconds later he hears her unlock the door but she doesn't open it. When he walks he sees her wearing a pair of black skin tight legging and dark blue denim mini skirt and a bra. She walks back over to the bottom of the bed and sits down to finish tying her boots. When she bends over to tie her boots he stares as her copious breasts as they lean heavily against the cups of her bra.
It had been weeks since Rick saw her without a shirt, but they had been estranged long enough that he felt as though he was invading her privacy a bit so he looks away while close the bedroom door, "Could you please put a shirt…" She cuts him off, "Cut it out Grimes", she says already fully annoyed, "What do you want?"
Hearing her tone, he gets agitated as well, "Look, I know we haven't had much time alone to discuss some thangs but, can I ask you something?"
Michonne finishes lacing her boots and grabs her wine colored vest off the bed. She puts on the vest pushing her locs away from her neck and out from underneath the vest. She looks at him then rolls her eyes while buttoning down her vest, "What?" she asks coldly.
"Why would she only tell you that I was the father?" He asks.
Michonne stops right after the second button on her vest leaving the rest of them undone. She drops her jaw appallingly and asks, "So now you think I was lying?"
"That's not what I meant Michonne", he says with a hint of misunderstanding in his voice.
This time she clenches her lips together in anger and narrows her eyes at Rick. Michonne grabs her bag and katana by the baseboard of the bed then starts to walk over to the door but, Rick moves in front of her blocking the exit.
"Michonne, wait just listen." He pleads.
"Get out on my way Rick." She angrily pleads back.
Rick gets mad too, "Just hold one Chonne' let me talk to you!"
With restraint, she says through her gritted teeth, "Don't make me hurt you Grimes."
He angrily chuckles once and leans his head directly in to her face and asks, "Oh so now you want to hurt me?"
Michonne reaches for the door knob but Rick grabs her wrist; she drops her bag and katana on the floor and raises her hand to hit him but, he grabs that arm and twists it around her back as though he were subduing a suspect.
He puts both of her hands behind her back and presser her against the door. She turns her head sideways trying to break free of his law enforcement grip. Rick uses one of his legs to spread hers apart; he leans upon her back and whispers, "Why are we going through this Michonne. You always struck me as a pragmatic woman."
He slowly reaches one of his hands around to the front of her and brushes his hand against her exposed belly in an attempt to stop her from trying to break free.
His touch does the trick because she stops trying to break free when she feels his hard-skinned hands on her stomach.
Inches away from licking her earlobe Rick confides, "Every day we're not together is day I'm gonna regret, Michonne. Stop hiding behind your ego."
Rick let's go of her wrists slowly while taking a step back to make sure she doesn't try to swing at him again.
Michonne gradually backups while massaging the circulation back in to her wrists, still looking at him pissed off but also a bit confused after being forced in to listening to what he had to say.
Rick open the bedroom door and right before he walks out of the room he says, "I'm going on a perimeter check."