Before

Her body was on the mend but her psyche was another complication in itself. During the day she could force herself into not thinking about it. Nights on the other hand…

They started out as dreams, wishes, of her waking to find them at her bedside. Maggie, Glenn, Carol. Daryl. And Judith. She would wake up and her family would be there.

Except they never were.

Night after night, those dreams slowly morphed into torment. She'd see their faces, hear their voices and then be reminded that it was all a lie. They weren't here, they weren't coming. They left. And her own goddamn sister didn't even show up.

The fragments of hope she'd had of them realizing their mistake and returning for her morphed into anger around the time she ran her first lap through Grady's parking lot. The dreams stopped the day a CRM helicopter landed on that same pavement.

Now

Thorne led the prisoner to the remaining chair in the room and waited for her to sit before moving to her space at the back of the room. The moment she's seated, Michonne locks eyes with the blue pair she no longer recognizes. Beth Greene's eyes were kind and hopeful, full of love. This doppelgänger's eyes were cold steel and piercing in a way that made Michonne feel exposed.

Murray started saying something, probably making introductions and explaining the investigative process as was CRM policy, but neither woman broke their stare. He was still droning on when Michonne spoke over him. "How long have you known Rick was here?"

Not How long have you been here , or How are you here . They'd only spent mere minutes in each other's presence in ten years and the older woman was already proving the blonde's year-long theory. The people she once considered as family–some of them actual blood relatives–didn't give a damn about her. It made it much easier for her to trample down the remaining scraps of feeling she had for them.

"Since he arrived," she answered simply.

Michonne's eyes narrowed as the women went back to staring at each other and the room stood still as they waited to see who would break first.

"He didn't know?"

It was a decision she made the first time she saw him in recovery after being brought in. He was lying there, unconscious and completely unaware of her presence. She thought she'd forgotten his face, all their faces, but she'd recognize him anywhere. Time had changed the body of who she once thought to be the last honorable man. He'd gained some weight, and more gray hairs. There were extra wrinkles around his eyes and mouth; the type her mother used to call smile-lines. He'd had time to be happy in the years since she last saw him.

In the hallway where she died.

"I woke up in a trunk surrounded by the dead. I had to stay silent through agonizing pain so that they wouldn't rip me apart." Her voice grew louder as she spoke, anger always being her most difficult emotion to control. "I spent months in that hospital with people who treated me worse than shit on their shoe until I was strong enough to leave. And I did it alone ." She paused, letting the word bite into the air. "Why would I give him the satisfaction of knowing I was alive when you all left me for dead?"

Michonne's eyes were saucers on the other side of the table and she blinked as if she'd been physically struck. The other occupants of the room, while used to the cold demeanor of the Councilor, knew that once the dam broke the floodwaters would drown everyone in its path.

"You left him too, didn't you?" It was a low blow, but barely scraped the bottom of the barrel she sat in. "Stopped looking when it got too hard."

"Daryl didn't."

The words made her falter. It was the first time she'd heard his name in–she needed to focus.

"How did Carl die?" She knew the answer of course. Years of keeping a silent, watchful eye on the remains of her group kept her in the loop on most things. But she also felt the need to push this particular button to prove her point.

Her former group member bore daggers at the young woman, but even still her lip quivered and she had to swallow the lump in her throat before she spoke. "He was bit trying to help someone."

The slow grin that grew on the blonde's face was nothing like the beautiful smiles of her childhood. This was eerie and combined with the harsh look of her facial scars and her pale skin, it made her look like a comic book villain. It unsettled Michonne more than anything else had since Jocelyn stole her daughter away in the night.

"Helping people," she drawled as she finally stepped closer to the table. "Isn't it funny how helping people gets you…nothing." She tilted her head in a way that made Michonne think that she may be a little insane. "Helping people gets you bit. Helping people gets you shot in the head," she says gesturing to herself. "And what do we have to show for it? Noah's dead, isn't he? And that man Carl 'saved'? Where's he?"

She paused and waited for an answer that wasn't coming. They both knew it anyway.

The Councilor clasped both hands behind her back and started pacing in the small space between the wall and the chair's backs, ready to slowly circle the table. "Rick needed to believe that he was alone here because he was." Her voice was steady again, reciting parts of a speech she'd given hundreds of times. For the first time she looked around the room at the others, meeting the eyes of each before moving on to the next. Ready to bask in the silent approval they'd give for her words. "Alone either makes or breaks you. You take away the blind loyalty to family and the reliance on others and you become strong enough to survive. Knowing that you're capable of doing anything on your own? That's when you can decide whether you want to be or not."

She halted behind the chair the older woman sat in before continuing. "A's haven't figured this out yet. They still think they can save everyone, that they can fix things. They try and try and try no matter who much they fail. They make mistakes that ruin lives. But B's? They know better. They've seen all the ugly parts of the world and still believe in something more. B's can make the hard choices for the greater good, ones that actually save people." She stalled her feet when she reached the spot directly to the right of the seated woman, and looked down at her from above. "Rick had finally understood that before you got here."

Michonne's face was stormy as disbelief and hatred poured out of her in waves. It was clear to her that this lookalike might have once been Beth Greene, but that it wasn't who they would be dealing with now.