Author's Note: This is an AU I've been brainstorming for a while. The premise is simple: What would happen if Rick and Michonne met earlier in the zombie apocalypse?

A note about updates: I'm a PhD student and an incurably slow writer. Be patient with me. Thanks for reading.


Their first time was hurried and sloppy.

Good sex was messy. Shane was grown enough to know that. Slick, abandoned, urgent—that made for the best sex. Raw and shameless. Shane had stuck his dick in enough women and a few men to know that. Gender was trivial when it came to Shane's appetites, incidental rather than material.

Shane was a good ole southern boy. He was raised on certain beliefs about what a man should want. His tastes strayed traditional. But, occasionally, Shane liked to watch his dick disappear into a man's asshole. He liked to hear stoic men man with abandon, moan in a way they never could while fucking their wives with their 2.5 kids in the house.

Men who shouldn't liked being fucked in the ass were some of the liveliest fucks. Shane had enjoyed it. On occasion.

The point was: Shane had fucked enough to know good sex. It was messy. Frenzied as they were, his and Lori's first time was messy in a different way. Not the way good sex was.

The sex was good. For him and her. At least if her moans and frantic gyrations were anything to go by.

But their first time was also messy in the way that shameful, doomed fucking was. Fast. So that their good sense limped pitifully behind their passion.

It was not his best performance.

Carl was dead asleep, visible through the tent's opening. Shane supposed it was one of the luxuries of youth. Falling asleep even when the world ripped itself apart. Freckled-faced, carefree, stringy limbs askew, dirty t-shirt bunched up around his waist. Hell. The kid deserved sleep. All the sleep he could get.

Shane had sat in the waiting room during Carl's birth.

Thirty-six 's how long Lori labored before the doctors decided on the c-section. Shane sat in the waiting room in his rumpled brown uniform, knee bouncing, waiting on word from his terrified and excited best friend. Rick had burst from those double door triumphant and teary-eyed. Lori and the baby were okay. Shane had loved Carl from the first moment he laid eyes on the kid, wrinkle-faced, exasperated by the poking and prodding. He was the proudest godfather to exist.

Escape the shitstorm for as long as you can, kid, Shane thought, sitting in dirty jeans.

He watched the sleeping child for a moment. It was probably the safest a child could be at the end of the world.

Shane and Lori weren't fairing as well. Adulthood cursed them with knowledge and reasoning. They sat awake only a hair's breadth from one another, back supported against a fallen tree stump. Despite the string of cloudless days, the stump smelled faintly like wet and mold. Shane and Lori needed the closeness, the sense of nearness with someone they'd each known for years. Someone familiar in a world that sure as fuck wasn't familiar anymore.

It wasn't late. Only nine. The kids were tucked in. Some of the adults too.

Most of them stayed alert. Talking in low voices. Staring into the fire. Walking aimlessly or purposefully around the camp's perimeter. Dale had already taken up residence on top of the RV with his rifle, strained eyes scanning the area. They were so far up that they never came across walkers or people. But it paid to be careful. Sloppiness could mean a slow and agonized death these days.

Martinez and his wife had retired with the kids nearly an hour ago. Andrea and Amy whispered to one another, too far away for Shane to hear. Glenn and T-Dogg chattered while they played Speed, cards laid out in the dirt. Glenn was losing because he choked up on the numbers. Or perhaps because he was too busy nattering about a chick he'd had an unrequited crush on. His voice, jovial despite the dire circumstances, faltered when he considered that his crush was probably dead now.

A silent moment passed between the two. Then there conversation turned to music.

In the old world, it might have been callous to shift topics that quickly, to muse so carelessly about death. In this new world, scary and hideous, death was frequent. Dwelling on it did little good. Trying not to dwell on it was just as futile.

Two brothers huddled over a small fire at the far end of the camp. The cop in Shane was suspicious of them—Merle and the young one, Daryl. Shane knew a couple of bruisers when he saw them. Merle moreso than Daryl. Daryl was more of a tagalong, Shane reasoned. Quiet and observant and surly. Merle was the one Shane worried about, the kind of guy he and Rick used to arrest every other weekend after a bar fight.

Rick. Fuck.

Shane dragged a hand through his hair and over his face. There was always a layer of dirt on his face now. He used to have a strict skincare routine. Clear skin was a pussy magnet, he used to tell the guys at the station. Women with good pussy loved a well-groomed man. His colleagues never listened. It wasn't like Rick ever needed to.

Naw. Not Rick.

Handsome and babyfaced—not that the idiot ever knew it—Rick didn't have to do much but shave. Plus he was married, and even after fifteen years he was never looking for outside snatch. That was just how Rick was. Loyal, steadfast. Rick was with Lori, and that was that.

Lori.

Shane looked over at her. Always fair and slender, she was even thinner now. Food rations were necessary, and it left them all just on the tolerable side of hungry. Her elbows rested on her bent knees as she stared into the fire. The woman was goddamn tough. Shane had always known. She had to be with a cop husband, even in a sleepy place like King County. He knew it that day she knelt in front of Carl and broke the news about Rick's shooting. Looking at her drawn face and tense shoulders, he knew it now.

She kept at it for Carl. The smiling, mothering, and living. She never pretended with that the loss didn't cut her open, but she saved her most naked grief for Shane. She let Carl do most of the crying.

Shit. It wasn't even like Carl did a lot of crying now either, not after Shane first relayed the news that Rick was gone and ushered them out of King County with him. Both Lori and Carl had burst into angry, desolate sobs. Shane's heart had ached something awful.

But right now, Carl was sleeping and Lori was lost in her thoughts.

Startled, she jumped when he nudged her with his elbow. She put a hand over her heart and laughed.

"I'm so jumpy all the time now," she said. "Goddamn it."

"The way the world is now? Can't blame you. I'm jumpy too."

She gave his knee a pat. "You hide it real well."

"Come'on now. Ain't no need to lie."

"I'm not. You've kept me sane. As sane as any of us can be these days."

The fire drew her attention again, and she got quiet on him. He let her. God knew she deserved the space to just be and think and mourn. He was lost in his own thoughts when she turned to him again and touched his arm.

"You think we're safe here? Longterm?"

Shane sighed. It was the never-ending question. What was their next move? What was the safest bet?

"This place ain't ideal," Shane said, tugging on a tuft of hair near his temple. "But it's high and away from walkers and the assholes with bad intentions. For a group this size, a group with kids, that's important. Shit, that's everything."

He kicked a rock with the toe of his boot.

"We need more ammo. Some gear for when it gets cold. We could try and find another place, but it feels too fuckin' risky to leave when this works."

Lori nodded and ran a hair through her long hair. "God knows I don't want my boy sleeping outside for the foreseeable future, Shane, but I don't see any other options right now. I've been turning it over and over in my head."

"Hey," Shane said, chasing her eyes with his. "We're gonna make it work. I'm not gonna let anything happen to you or Carl."

"I know, I know. I just…"

She tipped her head back and closed her eyes. A breath quivered out of her, one of the brink of something more, something inconsolable.

"Come on," Shane said, pulling her to her feet. The tears were already spilling over. "You guys keep an eye on Carl for a minute?"

Glenn did not look up. "Got it."

Shane lead her away from the camp, a gentle hand cupping her elbow. He rushed her through a wall of trees and shrubbery, far enough away for privacy but close enough to still see the blossom of flames in the distance.

Lori stumbled away from him when he stopped. Her slender frame convulsed with sobs. She tried to speak but her words were jumbled and incomplete. Shane stood a few feet away, giving her the space he thought she needed. Her grief crushed him.

But something in her pain reached for him. Maybe distance was the last thing she needed.

Rick was dead. He wasn't around to comfort his wife anymore. Shane was all she had. And he planned to keep being around.

He owed Lori and Carl. He owed Rick. As long as he could remember, they were his family. How many times had he stumbled into their house, shit-faced and exhausted after his debauched escapades. Their full-sized guest bed was as familiar as his own..

If Shane was all Lori and Carl had, they were definitely all he had.

He approached a doubled over Lori and placed a soothing hand on her back. She stood immediately and threw her arms around his neck. He welcomed her easily, buried his face in her neck and did his own weeping. Their mutual sobs were quiet but free. The more they cried, the more they clung to one another.

"I'm sorry for losing it like this," Lori said when her crying had eased some.

He pulled away, pushed her hair out of her face, wiped her tears away with his thumb. Shaking his head, he shushed her.

"Don't do that. Don't apologize for feelin'. You gotta be strong in front of Carl. I get that. But you ain't gotta hold back with me. Not with me."

Lori sighed, nodded, pushed her face back into his neck. They swayed together, and Shane didn't keep track of how long they stood there. Time held only a fraction of its power these days.

"Thank you," she said into his skin. "I couldn't do this without you. Without Rick, I just—God, Shane. What are we gonna do?"

"Stop thanking me. I couldn't—fuck, Lori. I need you and Carl as much as y'all need me. Prob'ly more. I miss him too."

And miss Rick he did. He missed his best friend with desperate helplessness.

There was some pieces he wasn't telling Lori. Some things he had to keep from her to keep her safe. The broad shape of it all was true. It was. The smaller details wouldn't add up to anything different. Leaving them out had saved Lori and Carl's life. Rick was dead. There was no getting around that.

Shane's best friend was gone. Lori's husband was gone. And the world had gone to shit.

Shane couldn't decide if Rick was dead because the world was shit or if it was the reverse. Most days it felt like Shane's world had gone to shit because Rick was dead. He knew that much was true for Lori and Carl. How could it not be? Which is precisely why he kept her wrapped in his arms. It was cold comfort, not worth shit at the end of the day, but it was something. It was all he had to give.

Eventually Lori pulled back, not out of his arms, but enough to see him. She wiped at his dirty, tear-streaked face. Her hands were gentle as they caressed the apple of his cheeks. Something stirred low in his belly. Shane figured it was just gratitude, warmth. Just the effects of a kind and familiar presence.

Lori was kind and familiar. She was family. Beautiful too. Goddamn, was she beautiful. Always had been. Real beautiful, especially in the ribbons of moonlight that bled through the foliage.

She trailed the back of her fingers from his ear to his cheek, under his chin, the other hand grasping his bicep. When did he decide to splay his hand across the side of her neck? When did he start dragging his thumb back and forth across her jaw? She scanned his face, and he did the same. Her face, pretty and tear-streaked, shone in the moonlight. Despite their lack of shampoo, her hair was soft when he moved his hand to the nape of her neck.

He met her stare. It was anxious and questioning. Longing.

"Shane," she said, barely a whisper.

The bark of the nearest tree scraped his forearm when he backed her into it, being sure to cradle her head so as not to hurt her. Shane wasn't sure who leaned in first but neither pulled away when their lips met. They both tasted like the Colgate they'd scavenged, and fuck, it was good. Lori moaned. Shane did too. In a desperate way. In a way he never had before. Lori buried her hand in his hair and tugged nice and hard just the way Shane liked, not that she could know a thing like that about him.

"Fuck," Shane said.

He picked her up and rejoiced when she circled her legs around his waist. He clutched her thighs and ground into her. She whimpered.

"Yeah?"

"Don't stop," she said, yanking his face back to hers.

Shane couldn't be sure how long they kissed, how long he insistently pressed and gyrated his dick between her legs, generating friction where she needed it. It couldn't have been more than a minute. But she moaned and wound her hips with her limited mobility until her breath quickened into short, sharp gasps.

"Shane. God. I'm—I'm gonna come."

Fuck. He couldn't be sure that he wasn't about to come too, but he gripped her hips harder and ground her into him so she had less work to do, so she could just enjoy the feeling. He knew she was coming when she pulled his hair more sharply and let out a long moan.

"Oh God," she said, chasing her orgasm by rolling her hips harder.

Shane held her up with one arm and tried to unbuckle his belt with his other hand. His sexual partners had always loved his athleticism and dexterity. Lori, impatient and needy, pushed his hand away and swiftly got his belt and pants undone. He put her down to get her jeans and panties off, pushing his own jeans down to his knees. She jumped back into his arms and he caught her with ease. Soon enough, he was inside her. Thrusting hard and fast. She grunted as much as he did while he hammered into her.

"Fuck, Lori. Shit."

Stamina be damned. Shane came in less than a minute, pulling out just in time to spurt all over his hand, her stomach, and the bottom of her shirt. He groaned loud and deep into her neck and she cradled him close, apparently unconcerned with the mess. When his breath returned, Shane gently placed her on the ground and stumbled backwards, his dick glistening and shrinking. Lori leaned against the tree and pressed her thighs together. She covered her face with two hands.

They dressed in silence.

"Lori," he said. "Shit. I'm sorry. We, fuck, we shouldn'a done that."

Her face was flushed as she shoved her hair from her forehead.

"No, I'm sorry." She threw her hands up in disbelief. "God, I feel like I started that."

He stepped toward her.

"No. Hey. No. Whatever just happened, that won't just you. That was me too."

"Jesus." She covered her mouth with her hand.

"I didn't plan that. That ain't why I brought you out here, Lori."

"I know. I know. I didn't plan that either. It just…it just happened."

"Yeah."

They stared at each other until Shane looked down at the ring still adorning her finger. She followed his gaze and a sob heaved out of her. When Shane stepped toward her, she stepped away from him. Her face contorted in apology as his face fell.

"I'm sorry. I'm just confused."

He understood the sentiment.

"I'm sorry, Lori. I promise I ain't mean for that to happen."

Taking a deep breath, she wiped away her tears. She met his eyes with a new kind of resolve.

"We've been through hell, Shane. The both of us. We lost…" A sob cut through her words until she found them again. "We lost Rick. We both lost him. The world is crazy right now. We just needed something."

Shane thanked her practical nature. She was right. They were grieving and confused and terrified. Cities had fallen. Entire populations decimated. News about the state of the world was impossible to get. The dead lived. Rick was gone. Everything was fucked.

Yeah, yeah.

Their dalliance made sense. Just the product of weary friends needing something other than death and survival to focus on. Even if just for a moment.

"We got carried away," he said.

"Yeah," Lori said. "It won't happen again."

He nodded because it couldn't happen again. She was his best friend's wife, for fuck's sake. Didn't matter that Rick was dead. He hadn't been dead long—barely four weeks—and both Shane and Lori had been with him for years, as friend and wife. The sex made sense, but they wouldn't fuck up like that again. They wouldn't fuck like that again. They knew better now, knew to be more careful, more vigilant of wayward urges.

"It won't happen again," Shane said.

He avoided looking at her stained t-shirt. He tried not to think about how easy it had been to fuck her, how good she felt, how much he liked watching her come, how hard it made him when she said his name.

Lori inhaled, then exhaled slowly. "We should get back to camp."

"Yeah. We oughta do that."

Leading the way, he noted the small distance she kept between them, a distance that they had never felt the need to keep before. As they reached the outer perimeter of the camp, where the still burning fire better illuminated their faces, Shane heard a slight sound, a rustle so low he would have missed it if not for years of training. He spun, hand on his gun, and Lori whirled with him, gripping his forearm in fear.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you," the woman said, voice like silk.

For the second time that evening, Lori put a hand over her heart to steady herself. Shane understood why her jumpiness had increased in the last fifteen minutes. He sympathized. They were both flustered and edgy, filled with a searing shame that turned their stomachs.

"No," Lori said. "Don't apologize. We didn't hear you coming."

"Good thing," the woman said, a pleasant smile on her face, even as she assessed them with precise attention.

Shane realized a while ago that her gaze was always powerful, but it felt doubly penetrating then. Guilt was liable to fuck him over. Lori too if her wide eyes were anything to go by. An expression that clearly did not go unnoticed. Shane thought, not for the first time, but now with a burst of irritation, that few things went unnoticed by the woman.

"I try to be as quiet as possible during perimeter checks," the woman clarified. "Walkers seem drawn to noise."

Right, smart. Walkers hadn't ventured up this far. Shane wasn't sure that they could with the incline, but carefulness was paramount now. It was better to be alert.

"Right," Lori said. "Of course."

Shane eyed the long sword on the woman's back and the shorter one strapped to her hip. If he wasn't so tangled up, if he hadn't just fucked his dead best friend's wife and liked it, he might have trailed his eyes over the swell of the woman's hips the way he was prone to sometimes.

Michonne.

Women didn't have names like that where he came from. Closest thing to it was Michelle, and he could guess that Michonne would not take kindly to being called Michelle. He could just imagine that flat, unimpressed look she sometimes wore, the one that was more effective than any yelling. Shane got the impression that Michonne didn't do too much yelling. Formidable as she was, she didn't need to.

It was the swords he noticed first when they first met. Her attractiveness was a close—and he does mean close—second. Shane loved women, had always appreciated a beautiful woman, and knew when he was looking at one. Michonne wasn't the kind of beautiful you found in small towns like his. She was runway beautiful. Elite New York or Los Angeles party pretty. The kind of woman Shane would have fucked silly on his yearly Caribbean getaways and then bragged about to Rick over beers. Michonne was a looker.

The face. The glowing skin. The Colgate smile. That ass.

More than anything, the woman had a presence about her. She had appeared as the early makings of the group congregated. She was flanked by two men—one movie-star-handsome and the other good-looking enough. Even standing next to a man much bigger than her, she was the one who appeared ten feet tall.

Shane rarely went on runs. It was smarter to stay behind as defender of the camp. He hadn't had occasion to see her use her swords yet. Let T-Dogg and Glenn tell it, she was Beatrix Kiddo come to life.

Black Mamba indeed.

He wasn't an idiot. He would never call her that to her face. But Shane thought it once or twice.

Far be it from him to complain. The group needed all the capable people they could get. If one of their most capable people had a pussy—probably pretty and plump if Shane had to guess—then so be it.

She was as competent as they came. But it never stopped him from feeling uneasy around her. It wasn't rational, the feeling. Michonne was cool as a cucumber, unflappable. Oddly, she reminded him of Rick sometimes. She definitely wasn't a trouble maker like Merle Dixon or Ed Peletier. Selective with her words, she listened more than she talked.

But the way she looked at him sometimes—insistent, knowing—it got down good under his skin, a splinter that burrowed deep.

He was sure now that she could see the cum-stained shirt, Lori's flushed cheeks, his unruly hair, the new tension between them. Shane was sure she could see and knew what it meant. But whatever she saw, whatever she worked out in her swift perusal, did not show on her face. She smiled.

"Carl was funny tonight at dinner," she said to Lori.

Lori huffed and shook her head before she offered Michonne a small but genuine smile. Carl's name made Shane's chest constrict with shame.

"I swear that boy gets around you and becomes a comedian. I don't know where he gets it from."

"He's a good storyteller," Michonne said. "I told him he should consider writing. He'd be good at it."

Lori's smile widened but only a fraction. She clutched at the bottom of her shirt with shaking hands, perhaps trying to hide the evidence of their illicit fuck.

"I'm sure that made his day, Michonne. I'll hear all about it tomorrow. Believe me."

Carl had taken to Michonne like fire to tinder and hadn't burned out even a little bit since.

"That kid," Michonne said, voice laced with affection. "Anyway. I'm sorry again for startling you. Have a good night."

She walked away before either of them could respond, sword bopping against her back and the curve of her ass. Shane was too morose to enjoy the view.

Left alone with their newfound awkwardness, Lori and Shane peeked at each other, then looked away. Fuck. Shane had never been conflict avoidant, had never been afraid to say what was on his mind, but there was nothing to say. They fucked up and it confused them.

It confused him.

Lori, despite her reasonable words, seemed mortified and resolute, but not confused. As soon as they reached her tent, she muttered goodnight, and ducked inside, zipping the tent quicker than she ever had. Shane retreated to his own. Sleep evaded him.

The next morning Lori was the way she had always been with him. Shane figured it was for Carl's sake, but maybe it was meant as a kindness to him too. He should be grateful. Had he not agreed that it was a mistake? That nothing else could happen between them? The problem was that humming under his skin whenever he saw her, whenever he thought about her. It was all he could seem to do after their mistake.

The problem was that he went to sleep hard for the next two nights. Guilty and agitated, he woke with his dick in his hands. He fisted himself and pumped hard until he came, images of his best friend's wife playing across his closed eyes.

"Fuck," he groaned. At the sensation, at the situation, at the stickiness that he couldn't just wash away in the shower. "Fuck."

But he was committed to suppressing these feelings, keeping them hidden away from Lori and Carl. He owed them. He had sworn to protect them, take care of them. He owed Rick.

He was all but leading this ragtag group. He needed to focus.

They needed food. Supplies. A plan. So he pushed away the memories of his name in Lori's mouth. They made a mistake. It would never happen again. Eventually his desire would go away. These kinds of feelings were always temporary for him, often rushing in hot and petering out.

And if they never went away? Well. He could live with them.

Maybe in time it would be okay for them to try something, to feel something for one another. To want something besides a quick and sad fuck in the woods. Or maybe there would never be a them, not really, but fucking in the woods would feel more good than bad.

It was settled. Shane would be a friend, protector, beloved uncle. Not lover.

He held to that until three days after their first time. Until he went off alone in the woods for some space, just a moment of solitude because he'd caught himself staring at Lori again, watching that space right above her breasts.

Off in the woods and raging, he had turned around at the sound of footsteps and there she was. Then she was on him and he welcomed her because he wanted it as much as she did. He pulled her pants down and buried his face in her pussy, inhaled the scent of her musky curls as deeply as he could. She tried to shove him away, likely out of self-consciousness, but he held her wrists and gave her clit a firm lick, then a gentle suck. She was already wet. She buckled under his attention and he caught her, eased her down onto the ground. He pulled her so that she straddled him, and she rode him until they both came, hard. He was too far gone to pull out.

They kept on like that, meeting away from the group, fucking hard and fast, muffling the sounds of their pleasure with the other's mouth or hand. All the while, they were the easiest of friends in front of the group, in front of Carl. Friends they way they had always been, despite the sex. And friends in new ways, because of the sex. They talked and laughed. Except about Rick. They never spoke about Rick unless it was with Carl. It was their unspoken agreement.

He existed between them or off in the distance when Shane had Lori's legs wrapped around his waist. But they would never talk directly about him.

"We need to be more careful," Lori said as she caught her breath, smiling and legs spread, his come dribbling between her cheeks.

He had already begun to ejaculate when he remembered to pull out. It was a bad habit he was trying to break. Sometimes he got too caught up. Sometimes, it was too good.

"Yeah, we do," he said with a ragged exhale, smiling too. "Gotta say though. You don't make it easy. Saying my name like that."

Lori laughed, her bare breasts bouncing, and he pulled her into a sloppy kiss. She liked when he slipped his tongue against hers and caressed the same way he did her clit.

They could not afford a pregnancy. Certainly not in their predicament. Not with all the secrecy, with Carl, with their precarious supply situation, with the threat of walkers, with Rick's specter lurking about. What a cluster fuck that would be.

Except at some point loving Lori stopped feeling like a predicament, a problem to solve, a truth to avoid. It was what it was.

When did caring for her, protecting her, making love to her become love? Fuck if Shane knew. Lori was family, and then they were sneaking off, and then she was coming for him, and then she was his.

Even if they never talked about it like that, even if she still wore her wedding ring around her neck, still fingered it absentmindedly, still needed to take it off so she could come on his mouth, hands, and dick. If she needed time to heal and let her husband go, Shane could and would give her that. He needed time too. After all, he had lost his best friend. The only brother he had ever known.

But Lori was his now. That became clearer to Shane every time he was inside her, every time she writhed against him, every time she begged for him to give her what she needed.

It was okay if she needed more time to know it the way he did.

As much as it grieved Shane, as much as it tore him up from the inside out, Rick was gone. Shane, though. Shane was not.