A/N: Back in the original run of TWD, I wrote a fic series titled Me + You about our favorite couple. I was going to add this story to that series but decided to start a new one specifically for TWOL. That special show deserves something for it only. Hope you enjoy!
Sometimes he thought he was still in a dream. Everything was surreal, familiar, and strange at the same time. The living room was almost a snapshot of the last time he walked out the door nearly a decade earlier. Though the old Afghan throw on the back of the sofa was a little more worn, the colors were a little more muted. More stuff had been collected over the years. Books and old toys were placed neatly in the corners of the room. A few new knick-knacks were spread across the tables. Three sets of shoes in different sizes were lined up near the front door. A green umbrella fell diagonally in a brass holder near the stairs. It was a peculiar sight to Rick. It seemed like a foreign concept now that raindrops were a threat you had to protect yourself from.
He felt the same nostalgia mixed with the unfamiliar as he gazed at Alexandria from the window. A windmill. Flourishing crops, people —the ones he knew, the ones he didn't recognize, and the ones he seemed to recall somewhere in the back of his mind—though the edges of his recognition were faded like his well-worn boots.
Scenes from the past flashed through his head like a This Is Your Life montage: picnics with Michonne and Judith, securing the wall that still protected the community, helping Carl re-learn to shoot, re-learn his equilibrium after he lost his eye.
Carl.
The corner of Carl's gravestone stuck out among the grass and crops. Ten years since it happened. His oldest son would be a grown man now had he lived. He'd be on a path to forge his legacy in this world. He knew Carl would have been just as good of a man as he was a kid. Better than Rick could hope to be. The only picture he had of Carl and Judith together sat still perched on the dresser in his and Michonne's bedroom. He'd broken down the first time he saw his son's actual face again, not just in his dreams and not in a simple drawing.
A lone man walked down the sidewalk and stopped in front of the house. He waved as he spotted Rick standing there. The man was of average height and size, average in every way. Rick wasn't sure if he would remember him even if the last decade hadn't happened. The man could have been someone Rick knew or just another stranger who wanted to gaze at the curio that was Rick Grimes, raised from the presumed dead by his wife to breathe the Alexandria air once more.
He waved back, then quickly shut the curtains tight. Sitting back on the couch, he rummaged through the small storage box on the coffee table. He had looked through it so many times since he had been back home. Nearly a decade's worth of pictures depicting what he had missed.
On the back of the first picture of a chubby baby were scribbles written about RJ at three months old in smudged blue ink. Another picture of Judith's fifth birthday. Another of both kids on swings, and one picture that always brought a smile so big to Rick's face his cheek almost stung from being stretched so tight: RJ as a toddler with applesauce smeared across his face and a broad smile so sweet, so innocent that was so much like Carl's. It tugged at Rick's heart, making him grateful that something so beautiful could still exist in a broken world. His baby boy called him the Brave Man, but he didn't feel brave. He still had an almost immobilizing fear that somehow he'd lose them all again.
He flipped through more pictures, trying to memorize every detail, trying to soak in so many years all at once. Michonne wasn't in most of the pictures, but the few times she appeared, her smile never reached her eyes.
I only feel safe when I'm with you.
He rubbed his eye, then studied her face in a picture of her and the kids out by the water at Oceanside, tracing the outline of her body with the tip of his fingernail. The fact that his love, his everything, spent so many years feeling unsafe and alone made him want to cry. Made him want to hold on to her, to shield her body from any more pain.
…this back and forth…it's hurting me, Rick…you're hurting me.
He'd hurt her. He thought he was saving her, but he was hurting her instead. She had her own trauma to deal with, and she still fought to bring him back: mind, body, and soul.
He closed his eyes, thinking back to making love to her the night before they took down Beale. Thinking back to putting that ring on her finger to seal what he knew in his heart since they lived at the prison, he would only ever belong to her. He'd made her a vow to spend a lifetime making those years up to her, and he meant every word.
Her soft footsteps brought him out of his daze. He loved her walk even when he could only hear it: strong and feminine, sexy and agile.
He'd already risen when she entered the living room and made a beeline over to her. She looked relaxed in baggy black lounge pants and a mint-colored fitted tank top, with her feet bare. Her locs were swept over one shoulder. Her eyes lit up with her smile when she spotted him. Rick had never felt so lucky.
He wrapped his arms around her, kissing her cheek and neck before finally capturing her lips in a long kiss. They breathed into one another, his moans mixed in with hers. Their passion and longing for each other let loose like an insatiable itch that would never be satisfied as their tongues brushed against each other. Her arms tight around his neck, his hand tracing down her body, landing firmly on her backside, savoring her contours, greedily rubbing like it was his lifeline.
"Well, hi," Michonne said when they finally came up for a breath.
He smiled at her before placing one more light kiss on her lips. "Hi."
She wrapped her arms around his waist, tugging on his blue and white plaid shirt. Hands traveled lower, getting her own feel at the back of his jeans.
"I can get used to being greeted like that every time you see me," she said.
"You should because I'm never gonna stop."
She placed another quick kiss on his lips. "It's past noon. Why did you let me sleep so long? I didn't plan on taking a nap."
He rubbed lazy circles on the small of her back. "You were only out for an hour and a half and seemed pretty tired. You deserve to rest."
"Who's fault is that? You had to have your mid-morning delight. We were just supposed to make the bed, and then somehow we're naked."
He bit his lip as he remembered her leg draped over his shoulder, her hand gripping his hair, her breathless pants cutting into the silence of their bedroom.
"Guess you just have that effect on me." He pulled her closer and kissed her again.
"Mmmmmm…," Michonne pulled away reluctantly. "Are you hungry?" She headed to the kitchen. "I'm starving."
"I could go for some tasteful noods."
She smirked at him over her shoulder. "I bet you would. But I told the kids we'll eat them for dinner. They love them." She opened the refrigerator. "Remember, don't call them tasteful noods around them, though. I took them out of the packaging. As far as they know, they're just noodles."
"I'll remember that."
"We have some leftover tomato soup from last night, and we could make a couple of sandwiches."
Rick followed Michonne into the kitchen. "Sounds good."
He took down a couple of bowls from the cabinet as she warmed the soup in a pot. They worked in content silence as they moved around the kitchen in sync to prepare their lunch. The simple domesticity of it soothed Rick more than he had words for. As Michonne stirred the soup, he came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. He kissed her right shoulder, then placed kisses behind her ear, down her neck, savoring each taste of her skin. She angled her head, giving him better access as she sighed in contentment and leaned back against him.
Twenty minutes later, lunch was ready.
"You want to eat outside on the back porch?" She asked.
He nodded and smiled at her. "Sure, sounds nice. It's still private out there."
He grabbed the sandwiches while she arranged the soup bowls on a tray. He trailed behind her as they made their way outside. On the porch, there was a small table and two chairs next to each other. A drizzle made the air cool and clean, making for an impromptu, cozy lunch.
Rick watched Michonne as she added a bit of pepper to her soup. She blew on the spoonful of liquid before taking a bite, and her eyes closed in satisfaction as the first taste hit her tongue. His eyes roamed from her lips to her eyes and back again. He could sit and stare at her for hours and never get tired.
When he set his gaze on her eyes again, she looked at him amused. " Are you okay, baby?" she asked.
He grinned at her. "I'm okay. I like looking at you. You're beautiful."
She ducked her head down in that shy way she only showed him, reaching over to run one finger down his beard.
"You have a way with words, Grimes."
He raised an eyebrow. "Some would say I'm a poet."
Michonne laughed and shook her head. "Don't remind me how pissed off I was at you."
"I deserved it. I thought I was protecting you, but I wasn't treating you how you deserve. I plan to make that up to you every day for the rest of my life."
Michonne gave him a wistful smile. "I hated fighting with you. So much. I don't remember us ever fighting like that. That tension was killing me."
"Me too."
"But we made it. You're here now. That's all that matters."
"All that matters is I'm never leaving you again."
"I'll kill anyone who tries to take you away from me again." Michonne's full lips set into a determined pout.
"Only if I don't get to them first." Rick sat back and stretched his legs out. "I used to imagine sitting with you on this porch and telling you how I escaped. I thought about it a lot, wrote about it."
Michonne clasped his hand. "I spoke to you a lot while you were away. Carl too. It helped me feel closer to both of you. I imagined Carl somewhere out there with Andre. But with you, I couldn't accept that you were gone. I had my dreams too. I kept seeing you walk up to the gate with some wild story about surviving the explosion and needing time to recover before coming back to me. Nothing else felt right. It didn't seem possible that you would never return. That I would never see you again. I felt your soul every night as I tried to sleep."
"Being loved by you," He shook his head in awe, "is something I can't put into words. The fact that you never gave up on me, never stopped believing I was still alive, came looking for me, brought me back….being here with you now," He took a deep breath. "It's everything."
"You'd do the same for me."
"Sweetheart, I'd find you anywhere."
"And I'll never stop being grateful for it."
They sat in silence once more, finishing their lunch. Her bare feet rested atop his boots, gently massaging his ankle. Rick gazed out onto the street from their back porch. Their position afforded them a view of the community without being seen themselves. A woman strolled down the road near the windmill, leading a horse. Rick had grown accustomed to helicopters and military vehicles for so long that he had forgotten how simply the rest of the world lived.
Glancing back at Michonne, he saw that she'd pushed aside her empty soup bowl.
She leaned her head on her hand, eyes closed, letting the light raindrops kiss her face. Her face was relaxed, with a tiny smile. A tiny droplet of soup lingered on her lips. He leaned over to wipe it off with his thumb. She opened her eyes and beamed at him.
"Hi," she said.
He took her hand, kissed her palm, and laid it over his heart. "Hi."
"I love you," she said.
"Always," he said with another kiss to her hand.
Rick gestured towards the woman with the horse. "Reminds me of another dream I had where you were an equestrian, riding at the stable I owned."
Michonne tilted her head to the side, thinking for a moment. "Equestrian, huh? I wonder what made you dream that?"
"Well, I do like watching you ride a horse." He winked at her.
"You are insatiable. You know that?" She moved closer to snuggle against him.
"Only for you," Rick said. He pulled her even closer to him with his arm wrapped around her shoulders.
"Had a dream about us in the rain too," Rick said as he ran a finger up and down her arm. "We weren't doing anything special, just walking in the rain in New York, in Times Square. It was just me and you; no one else around."
"Have you ever been to New York before?" She craned her neck to look up at him.
"Never. Before all this, I only managed to venture to Florida to take Carl to Disney World."
"Times Square was never empty. Tourists everywhere. I'm sure you would have hated it." She laughed to herself. "I lived there for a few months during my Art History phase."
"You're right. I probably would have hated it. I never liked crowds. That was never me. Though sometimes, I can barely remember who I was before everything changed. Except for loving Carl, everything else about Sheriff Deputy Grimes seems like someone else's life."
"In a way, it was. Fragments of who we used to be still exist in us, but all of us who survived this long are different people now."
Rick looked out over the community again, noting the changes that had occurred since he had been gone.
"I guess it's the same with who I was before I was kidnapped. Other than loving you, I don't believe I'm the same man who was trying to build that bridge."
"I feel that. I'm not the same either. I closed myself off so much after you were gone. I died a little inside too. It's both strange and wonderful to feel so alive again."
Her hand caressed his jeans-clad thigh, then down to his knee. "What motivates you now, Rick?" Michonne asked. "I know we've only been back less than a month, but what does being back here mean to you?"
"Besides you and our kids, I don't know, Michonne. But I know I don't want to fight or strategize. Maybe there will be a time when we have to do that again to protect the ones we love, but right now, I just want to be with my family. I want to cherish every moment we have together."
Michonne nodded in understanding. "That makes sense. And that's what I want too."
"I can help with the farming and other odds and ends, but I don't have the energy to be around people or answer any questions. I can't give more of myself right now. Everything I have is just for you and the kids."
Rick wiped his eyes with his forearm. "I'm tired, Michonne. I don't have the energy to fight anymore. We've lost nearly ten years for no reason."
Michonne turned to face him, cupping his face in her hands. "You don't have to do anything else, Rick. You don't owe anyone anything right now."
"Except you and the kids."
She gave him a soft kiss on the lips. "That goes without saying."
"I just want to take care of you," Rick whispered. "You don't owe anyone else anything either."
"We'll take care of each other," Michonne said.
They held each other close, their foreheads touching and breathing each other in.
I'm sorry for what they did to you.
"Thank you, Sweetheart," Rick said, voice still gentle.
She smiled with a hint of disbelief. "You're always thanking me. What it's for this time?"
"You've kept this place safe for our children and everyone else," he said, filled with awe. "A lot of these people didn't appreciate it as much as they should have. But I do. I appreciate everything you do."
She shook her head, tears shimmering in her eyes. "You have no idea how much I missed you. I felt so alone," her voice cracked, "for so long." She closed her eyes and let out a sigh. "I needed you so much, Rick."
He wiped her tears away with his thumb and kissed each of her cheeks. "I always need you. We won't ever be apart again."
"Maybe we should run away together, you, me, and the kids," Michonne teased.
"I would if it were possible." He gently pushed one of her locs behind her ear. "Is that what you want? What's motivating you now?"
Michonne shrugged. "Technically, I'm still the head of security here."
"Do you want to do that? Your time at the CRM proved you can't hide your leadership qualities. Even if you don't want to lead, you will eventually."
"You're having a real pot, kettle moment, Rick."
He chuckled. "Yeahhh, I know. How about I farm, and you do your thing with security, and if we're needed, we'll be here?"
Michonne laid her head on his shoulder. "That's what we'll do."
"Okay."
"Okay."
With that settled, they eased back into their comfortable silence. There was no greater feeling for Rick than having Michonne in his arms. At night when they're wrapped around each other, he tries to stay awake longer to hear her gentle breathing as she slept. To know she was real and his again.
He shut his eyes, soaking it in, and everything felt perfect. But as had happened so many times since he'd been back, that familiar nagging sensation crept into his mind once again. He couldn't shake the feeling that something was bound to go wrong, that something was going to happen. This bliss, his mind tried to convince him, couldn't last forever.
Rick squinted back inside the house to look at the clock in the kitchen. "What time do the kids get home from school again?"
Michonne looked back at the clock, too. "Should be soon," she patted his hand. "Don't worry, Rick. They're okay."
"I know. It's just…" He shakes his head. "I can't shake off what Beale said about spies being everywhere. Plus, we're still in the dark about these Commonwealth folks," he scowled. "Their goddamn leader shot Judith. We don't know much about them, especially the newcomers that moved to Alexandria. It's unsettling—strange teachers we don't know with our children. I just…" Another sigh escaped him. "It scares me, Michonne."
"It scares me too, Rick. But we're here. We're alert. We're watching. Nobody reads people better than we do. We're back, and we're going to protect them."
Rick nodded. "Yeah…yeah. And that's the shit we do."
"That's the shit we do," Michonne agreed. "Being parents at the end of the world has a whole new set of rules. The world's broken, but me and you can help put it back together for our babies."
Rick nodded. "I'm gonna try."
Michonne watched Rick closely. "Speaking of school, RJ receives such glowing reports from his teacher," she said with a smile. "He skipped two grades. He might be a little genius."
Rick pushed aside his fears to indulge in his new favorite subject: his children's comings and goings. "He definitely gets that from his mama," he said, kissing her on the temple.
"His Daddy got a little something going on in the intelligence department too." Michonne stood up. "RJ probably can't wait to get home from school. He sprints back to the house every day just to be around you. He used to be a mama's boy, but I've been pushed aside. He just wants to be around his dad as much as possible."
Rick's face lit up with a smile. "I can't tell you how good it feels. I thought it would take him longer to warm up to me, but now he's my shadow. I love it so much. I love him so much. You've done an incredible job raising them both. Judith is remarkable in so many ways. I can't believe how much our little girl has grown."
"I tried my best. It was hard sometimes….a lot of times."
"Good thing for our family that your best is usually perfect."
Michonne took Rick's hand and pulled him from the chair. "Like I said before, you have a way with words, Grimes. Come on, let's prepare for the kids to get home. I need to change clothes. They'll be ready for their sword and hatchet lessons when they get here."
Rick followed his wife into the living room; their hands collapsed together tightly, arms swinging slightly. Before they could reach the stairs, the kids burst through the front door.
"Hey, Mom. Hey, Dad!" Judith exclaimed as she dashed up the stairs.
"Hey, sweetie," Michonne said. "How was - "
"I'm getting my sword so we can practice." Judith interrupted before Michonne could finish her sentence. She paused mid-stride and hurried back down the stairs to kiss Michonne on the cheek. "Hey, Mom."
Michonne smiled, smoothed her hair down, and kissed her forehead. "Hey, sweetie, now go get your sword."
RJ followed his sister inside and went straight to his father. He threw his arms around Rick's waist. "Hi, Dad."
"Hey, Junior," Rick replied, hugging him tightly. He kneeled to get eye level with him. "How was school today?"
"Dad, do you know fractions?"
"It's been a long time since I was in a math class. But I might remember a little. Do you need help with your homework?" He looked up at Michonne. She watched both of them, amused.
"Nope. I made an A. Did you know that ⅔ + ¾ = 1 ¼ ?"
"No, son, I didn't."
"I can teach you, Dad. Ms. Jones said I was the only one that made a perfect score." He pulled a sheet of paper out of his backpack. A big, red A was written on top.
Rick glanced at Michonne with a grin, then back at his son. "Look at that. I'm so proud of you, Junior." He hugged his son again. "Come on, go get your hatchet. Let's start the lesson."
"Okay!" RJ high-fived his dad.
He stopped to hug Michonne. "Hi, Mama." Then, he marched up to his bedroom to get his weapon.
Michonne wrapped one arm around Rick's waist. "These two are wonderful motivations to have."
Rick nodded as he pulled Michonne close, tears glistening in his eyes. "That they are. Even with everything that's happened, I feel like the luckiest man in the world right now."