Author's Note: Hi. :) It's been a long time, and while I've been keeping busy working on original material, I've missed you all and Richonne a lot over the past year. An old WIP has been bothering me lately, so I decided to revisit it. This story was formerly known as Number 21. I've reworked it and plan to post at least once a week until it's finally done. Hold me to it! Just a warning-this is a second chance romance. Things start angsty, but as with all romance, I promise there is a happily ever after.

Chapter 1

Season Opener

August 2001

They were supposed to be spending their last few hours together before Michonne, his girlfriend of three years, boarded a red-eye to Paris to spend senior year abroad. Rick had it all planned out. He'd ordered in wings and pizza from their favorite dive since she was going to be missing out on an entire football season's worth of tailgating and keg parties. He'd had his Mom whip up her famous red velvet cake since he'd be missing her birthday and Valentine's Day. He'd wrapped up the ratty, grey University of Georgia hoodie she always stole from him with the intent of gifting it to her once and for all so that she'd have a piece of him with her. It was nothing fancy, but that wasn't really how they did things. Honestly, all he wanted was to spend their last few hours wrapped around her in bed to make up for the lonely nights ahead of him.

Instead Rick sat on the edge of his bed watching his ex of three hours sitting cross-legged in the middle of his bedroom floor, surrounded by the CD's they had amassed together, divvying them up as if she was dealing out a deck of cards.

Yes, his ex-girlfriend.

"Hootie and the Blowfish." Michonne snickered quietly like she always did where that band was concerned as she dropped that CD in his pile like it was a dirty sock or something.

She had always teased him about his taste in music, but he had never claimed to be cool, and he knew that wasn't why she was with him anyway because she'd told him as much the night they met at a party their freshman year. They first locked eyes over some poor girl as she vomited corn chips and hunch punch all over the genuine leather cowboy boots his parents had bought him for high school graduation.

When he stepped out of the puddle of pink and slipped one arm under the pukee's arm, Michonne smiled shyly and did the same, then they took the girl to the bathroom where her friends swiftly, well as swiftly as humanly possible when three sheets to the wind in three inch heels, took over and swept her into the tiny blue-tiled room. When the door shut, Michonne smiled again and told him he was very kind...and cute. His cheeks went hot and his whole life was pretty much made at that moment.

She helped him clean up and they spent the rest of the night hanging out, instantly bonded after their heroic act. When she was about to leave, she slipped him her number and they went out to dinner the next night. He couldn't believe that simply being kind and decent was enough to attract a woman like Michonne, but somehow it was.

Too bad it wasn't enough to keep her, though...

"Lauryn Hill for me," she whispered to herself as she put that one in the cardboard box beside her.

How she made those decisions so easily, he had no idea. What was his and hers wasn't nearly as clear to him anymore.

That Lauryn Hill CD had been released the summer they started dating. He heard it everywhere they went; on the radio while they were driving around in his truck, at parties, playing on MTV in the background while he was waiting for her to get ready at her apartment. At some point, Can't Take My Eyes Off You had become their song, and, sure, it was probably every couple's song at that point in time, but it was still theirs.

He'd switch to it when they were driving in his truck together, they'd dance to it in his living room on the nights they were lucky enough to have his apartment to themselves, and make out with it playing in the background, just as it had been the very first time they did that on his couch one autumn night during their freshman year.

So how she did this? Yeah, he didn't understand. But there was a lot he didn't understand about her right now, so he just sat there in a daze because it hurt too much to really think about it.

Foo Fighters, him. Tim McGraw, him. Outkast, her. Nelly Furtado, her. Aaliyah, her. Dave Matthews Band, him?

"I think that's yours actually," he interrupted quietly.

She looked up, her hand pausing in mid-air just as she was about to add it to his pile.

"But I only bought it because we were going to that concert with your friends and I didn't know any of their stuff," she explained.

Yeah, that concert where it had rained all day, turning their lawn seats into a mud pit. They had considered bailing because they didn't care for the band enough to deal with that mess, but at Maggie and Glenn's insistence, then his friends and now hers, they stayed. The flasks of cheap vodka they had snuck in and the magic mushrooms courtesy of the friendly granola crew the next blanket over hadn't hurt either.

By the end of that night, they were covered in mud, flat on their backs, laughing and making out under the stars as if nothing else existed around them. Yes, they were those people. He had never had that much fun in his life before, and assumed he probably never would again.

"So you?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Sure."

She gave him a quick smile, and wasted no time ridding herself of the CD so that she could move onto the next one.

"Sade for me." She quickly dropped that in her box then paused as she picked up the next one. Her face softened and she audibly sighed as she turned it around to show him. "Coldplay."

While it was heartening to see that she wasn't completely devoid of emotion, he found himself bottoming out at this point. He didn't dare start to unpack the late night memories associated with that one.

"You take it."

She frowned slightly. "No, you can have it," she decided, as if it was charity.

And that's when he decided he had had enough. He pushed himself off of the bed and stepped around her and the mess she had created, then headed for the door.

"Where are you going?"

"Just take whatever you want," he called out without turning or stopping. "Or don't. I don't care."

He walked down the hall and through his living room on his way to the kitchen where he opened the fridge door and rifled through the various bottles and cans on the bottom shelf, a collection of random leftovers from past parties, before deciding on a PBR. He cracked open the silver can and chugged at least a third of it before closing the door and turning around to find that she had followed him.

"Rick."

She was standing there in a cropped purple tank top and pair of low rise jeans that hugged her thighs then flared at the bottom. Her brown hair was gathered high atop her head and her hands were planted on the soft curve of her hips. She was just staring at him with her big brown eyes, looking like she was the one who was disappointed, like she was the one who deserved some answers.

He shook his head and dropped his hands to his sides.

"Michonne, what more do you want from me?"

She stepped back and frowned slightly, chastened by his response.

"I wanted to spend my last night in town with you," she said earnestly, which honestly just pissed him off at this point.

He took another sip of his beer and stepped in closer to her, getting right into her personal space so that she would have no choice but to look him right in the eye if she was going to continue saying things like that.

"Well, here we are. What a blast."

She nodded, allowing that she probably deserved at least a little, if not all of the attitude he was throwing her way.

"I want you to be OK with this."

He cocked his head to one side in disbelief. "That's askin' a lot."

She reached down and placed her hand on his wrist. "Rick, it's not you—"

"Yeah, I know."

But there she went trying to explain it to him for what seemed like the hundredth time in the past forty-eight hours since she'd laid this on him.

"I'm going to be spending senior year abroad, then we graduate, and then who knows what happens after that. It doesn't make sense to stay together."

He felt his eyes begin to sting with tears, for what also seemed like the hundredth time tonight. "It doesn't make sense not to try at least," he argued.

And she stood there, unmoved by his tears and emotional pleas to change her mind, to at least give them a chance.

"This is a pivotal time for both of us," she explained. "We should be figuring out what we want for our lives. I wouldn't want to hold you back from that."

He wasn't sure exactly when he had lost the ability to move her, but he had. He averted his gaze to the floor for a moment, finding himself unable to look her in the eye any longer.

"You don't hold me back," he eked out quietly, "...but I certainly don't want to hold you back."

"Rick."

He felt her hand on his cheek then a gentle pull to lift his face, but he resisted and shook his head. "I know you want me to be OK with this right now, but I'm not. I'm sorry."

She brought her free hand up and placed it on his other cheek. "We can still write," she pointed out hopefully, "and Instant Message…"

They weren't friends before they started dating, so he didn't see how they could be friends after the fact, just turn off all of those feelings like that. What was the point of this separation then? In his mind, he would still be writing his girlfriend because nothing would have changed for him at all.

And he couldn't do that, so he just shook his head again.

"You're killin' me here, Michonne."

Since he wouldn't lift his head to look at her, she bent at the knee to meet him where he was. And when she looked into his eyes, red-rimmed and filled with tears, she began to blink back her own.

"I love you," she whispered.

"I loved you," he stuttered, as he began to break down.

And that's when she finally broke.

She wrapped her arms around him, trying to stay strong for both of them, but they sank down to the kitchen floor together under the weight of his body and their sadness.

Listening to sad songs is the absolute worst thing to do when sad because sadness only begets deeper sadness, like a black hole of grief. Michonne knew this, yet she couldn't stop herself throughout the entire redeye flight from Atlanta to Paris, the taxi ride from Charles de Gaulle to Montparnasse, and the short walk from the curb to her flat. She only took a short break to meet her flatmate before closing her bedroom door and starting again for the next few hours.

"Michonne?"

She slipped her headphones off her head and sat up in bed, tossing aside the pillow she had been curled up around, then furiously wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands. She took three deep breaths and adjusted her tank top.

"Yeah. Come in."

Her new flatmate, Anne, a studio art major, opened the door and peeked her head around before entering. She was a tall, thin beauty who looked like she had stepped out of an alternative rock video with her bleached out blunt bob and bangs, powdered pale skin, dark eyeliner, red lips, black jeans, and a shrunken vintage tee.

"Are you OK?" she asked upon seeing her face, no doubt puffy and streaked with dried, salty tears.

Michonne nodded as she lost it, bursting into tears again.

"Oh babe." She rushed to her side with outstretched arms. "Come here."

Anne wrapped her arms around her, and despite not being a big hugger, she accepted her comfort and rested her head against her shoulder given she was literally the only person she knew in this country, so she supposed that made them friends now.

"You homesick?" Anne asked.

She shook her head no. She wished it was that simple.

"Boyfriend?"

Michonne lifted her head and pulled away from her embrace. "We broke up yesterday...or the day before..." She sighed and brought her fingers to her throbbing head, confused as to what time or day is was thanks to the time change and her current state. "Right before I left."

"I'm so sorry."

"No, it's OK," Michonne assured her, feeling guilty for accepting any kind of comfort. "I mean, I did it...I just didn't realize how hard it would be."

"Oh," Anne mouthed, looking surprised to hear that was the case given the state of distress she found her in. "Why'd you do it then?"

My mom she wanted to say, but decided to spare her new friend from that drama.

"Because I was leaving. Because I'm supposed to be focusing on myself and my future instead of a relationship right now? Because...I shouldn't let my world get so small yet," she explained, her mother's words leaving a bitter taste in her mouth.

Despite saying it with such conviction so many times to Rick, she found that conviction wavering in the wake of this unexpected and all consuming heartbreak. Her world felt smaller than ever now; she felt small than ever.

"So he wasn't an asshole?"

"No," she huffed out regrettably. "Far from it."

"Well, that always makes it harder. You can't exactly go party your ass off to get back at him."

Michonne managed to find some humor in her dry observation and a small laugh escaped her mouth. She had absolutely no right or desire to do anything of the sort.

"Well..." Anne sighed and flicked a wadded tissue off the bed onto the floor. "You're here, and you came for a reason."

Michonne nodded in agreement.

"And it's our first night in Paris, and we should celebrate that. Even if we just go to that cafe down the street and split a bottle of wine…" She grinned and arched her thin, penciled-in eyebrow playfully. "And if that goes down easy then we'll order another and before you know it, we'll be having fun and dancing to really bad Europop with really cute French guys at the discotheque."

Anne had managed to make her crack a small smile, but shook her head. "Maybe tomorrow."

"No. Tonight," she insisted. "I know it's the last thing you want to do, and I know it's not really going to make things magically better, but you have to start somewhere. Just take little breaks from your sadness and pretend like you have no troubles, and eventually time does what it does, until one day you're not pretending anymore, you're just better."

"I—"

"We'll start at the cafe. If you're not feeling it, we can come home."

It all sounded a little too good to be true, but her head knew that she couldn't sit in this room forever even if her heart was weighing her down like an anchor. Her head also knew she probably couldn't listen to one more Sarah McLachlan song tonight, possibly ever, because it would forever be tainted with sadness and the soundtrack of this god awful time in her life.

"OK," she said finally.

Anne smiled and stood from the bed. "Good. Now throw on some heels and lipstick, and meet me downstairs in five."

Michonne remained planted on the bed and found her focus drifting to the phone on her nightstand. What she wanted to do was pick it up, dial Rick's number, and call off the break-up. She could almost feel her heart mending and mood lifting just thinking about it. It would be so easy...but that was the point her mother had made when she uncharacteristically wandered into her room the other day to offer help her pack.

Mrs. Reeves was considered cool among Michonne's friends because she never really cared what they did. Stayed out past curfew? No big deal. Got a bad grade? Shrug. It may have seemed like a blessing in the setting of youthful indiscretions, but her mother's coolness extended to the positive things, too. MVP of the volleyball team? Sure. Valedictorian? Expected. So when her mother became tearful while warning against settling down too young, how could Michonne not heed her words?

She dug a calling card out of her purse, picked up the phone and checked her watch, still on Atlanta time, which read two-forty p.m., so her mother would be awake and hopefully able to provide a little encouragement. She dialed the number, and listened to the phone ring and ring and ring until the robotic voicemail message played.

Rick could see Denise's wavy blonde hair and bespectacled green eyes peeking through the small, curtained window of his front door from his spot on the couch. The lights were off, so he was hoping she couldn't see him, but his stereo was blaring, so that might just blow his cover. Regardless, he chose to remain silent and take his chances.

She knocked lightly. "Rick?"

No such luck. Denise was like a sister which was why she had a strange familial sixth sense when it came to him. They had grown up on neighboring farms just outside of Augusta, Georgia. Their parents were close, and both being only children around the same age, they became close, too. They were in the same class from kindergarten on up, partnered together and dominated many a Four-H Hippology contests throughout their teen years, and ended up at going away to the University of Georgia together where it was only natural that they would be neighbors again.

She didn't bother to wait for his response, and instead opened the unlocked door and walked down the hallway into the living room. She put her hands on her hips and looked around the room for a moment.

"What in emo hell is going on here?" she mumbled to herself.

He got it. The darkness, the smell of body odor and stagnant air, the moody music, his slovenly figure sprawled out on the couch wearing nothing but a pair of khaki shorts. All that was missing was a dark smudge of eyeliner around his eyes.

She shook her head at his pathetic show and purposely put on a cheerful front despite it. "Well, howdy neighbor," she greeted as she walked up to the couch. "You didn't come out to the football game like you said you would."

"Didn't feel like it," he grunted back.

"Well, we beat Georgia Southern today. Go Dawgs!" she said with the requisite fist pump.

"Go Dawgs," he said back, too apathetic for a fist pump.

"OK." She blew out a breath that puffed her bangs up and rocked back on her feet. "Hey, why don't you come on over now? Everybody's at my place and we're gonna order some pizza and kill the keg from the tailgate party."

"Maybe."

She gave him a look, then bent and pushed his limp leg aside to make room to take a seat on the edge of the couch. She pulled the empty beer can he had stuffed between the couch cushions and placed it on the coffee table next to the others then picked up the CD case lying next to them and scoffed.

"Have you really been laying here in the dark drinking and listening to Dave Matthews Band all day?"

"Maybe."

She dropped the case back on the table with disgust then reached for the remote to turn the volume down on the stereo system.

"Well, this is the most frat-tastic pity party I've ever seen in my life," she declared. "Get up."

"Denise," he groaned.

"Rick, I get it," she promised. "You don't want to. There is definitely a time and place for laying around listening to sad music and feeling sorry for yourself...although there are way better songs to do it to," she said out of the side of her mouth before leaning in closer like she was sharing a secret. "I've got this break-up mix I put together with songs I downloaded from Napster, I mean, it's basically like a Lilith Fair mix, but the first one is like Sarah McLachlan, Jewel, Fiona Apple, like real cry your eyes out stuff, and then the second one is like Alanis, Hole, Fiona again, like real make you want to punch a wall and set something on fire kind of stuff." She stopped herself and shook her head. "I mean, not that I'm choosing sides and saying that you have a right to be angry at Michonne, but feelings are feelings, you know? Anyway, I can burn you a copy if you want."

He stared back at her blankly causing her to sigh with frustration as she tried to think of some kind of way to cheer her friend up.

"Or...you can always come over for a little, uh, chemically induced good mood."

His brow raised slightly. He wouldn't object to numbing this pain for the night, but his brow quickly fell as his lips settled into a frown as he remembered his career plans.

"Can't. No drug use within three years of applying for the FBI."

"Well shit," she muttered. "Look, just come over, even if it's only for a refill on your beer," she pled. "It's just me, Tara, Eugene, Rosita, Glenn, and Maggie. All friends! You don't even need to get dressed up."

"Fine."

He slowly peeled himself off the couch, stopping for a big yawn and a stretch before he began to shuffle out of the room. Heartened by his progress, Denise stood, as well, and smiled then began to follow him down the hall.

"There we go," she cheered from behind. "Splash a little water on your face, finish getting dressed...maybe a dab of cologne," she added quietly.

He turned and quirked an eyebrow. "You tryin' to tell me I stink?"

She shrugged and he kept on walking right on past his bedroom in the direction of the front door.

"OK...or, yeah, I mean it's real casual at my place," she stammered, "so, sure you could go like that, too…"

Once they reached the small foyer, he gave her a wry smile before he bent down to pick up a grey t-shirt that was balled up in the corner and covering a pair of sandals. She breathed a sigh of relief as he clothed himself then pulled his keys out of his pocket and opened the door for her. They made the short walk across the hall where she returned the favor and opened the door to the apartment she shared with Tara and Eugene.

"Hey everybody! Look who's here!" she announced…to no one.

The Florida-Ball State game was muted on the TV and Weezer, a sure sign that Eugene was playing DJ tonight, was pumping through the stereo at full blast in the empty living room.

She sighed and motioned for Rick to follow her, assuming everyone must be out back gathered around the keg, but he slowed and doubled back, when he caught some activity in the room she shared with Tara out of the corner of his eye.

"How do you say 'Go Dawgs' in French?"

Rick couldn't see her behind Tara and Rosita who were hovering over the computer, but that was definitely Maggie's voice. They all went quiet awaiting the answer to her question.

Bing

"Allez Chiens," Maggie reported.

"Allez Chiens!" they cheered.

"What time is it there?" Tara asked, her voice followed by furious typing.

Bing

"2:30 AM?!" Maggie exclaimed.

"Girl, what are you still doing up?" Rosita asked.

"Rosita wants to know what you're still doing up," Maggie said as she typed.

Bing

"I just got home. Went to a discotheque with my flatmate tonight," Maggie reported.

"Oh la la," Rosita cooed. "That sounds fancy."

Denise had returned to his side, and judging by the look on her face, she must have realized realized what he already had: they were all gathered around the computer IM'ing Michonne. She grabbed his arm and suggested that they go join the guys out on the patio.

Bing

"Drank too much wine and danced with hot French guys all night long," Maggie exclaimed before gasping and popping up out of her chair.

That stopped him dead in his tracks, though.

"Wait, what?" Tara squealed.

"Oh my-" Rosita's hands flew over her mouth, too scandalized to even finish her thought.

"Guys!" Denise yelled. "Rick's here."

The three ladies turned to see him standing there behind them looking down and out, likely the most pathetic they'd ever seen him before because that's how he felt. Here he was crying his eyes out over her and she was off having fun. With French guys. Hot ones, no less.

Bing

Bing

"Rick You made it!" Tara greeted, ignoring the incoming messages, and probably hoping he would, as well.

Rosita stood there with her hands over her mouth.

"We were just…" Maggie trailed off and shook her head regrettably. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine. I'm gonna-" He nodded towards the door and began to backpedal in that direction.

"Rick, wait," Denise pled.

"Not tonight."

"I can bring you some pizza once it gets here. Those CD's, too," she offered helplessly.

He nodded, mustering a rueful grin for her sake. He was truly appreciative of all of her effort tonight, but he just didn't have it in him tonight.