This is a chapter that was a part of my original "The Richonne Chronicles" on my original profile under 'givesup'. I wanted to post Part One here because I am currently working on Part Two and will be posting that soon so read this, catch up and stay tuned!

I have made small changes as I wrote this almost ten years ago! And I like to believe that I have since grown as a writer and so I did make some small edits, nothing to crazy. But if you notice any, that is why. Happy Reading!

UNSTEADY: PART ONE

The bottom level of the house was almost completely void of any light and nearly wholly quiet save the occasional stirring sounds that

would trickle through Judith's baby monitor that Rick was resting against his thigh. Rick was just about halfway through his fourth glass of straight up scotch when the sound of the front door opening pulled him from his thoughts. His eyes, already adjusted to the lack of light, followed a path towards the direction of the sound. He could just barely make out her footsteps as she quietly made her way into the foyer and then into the dining room where Rick could finally see the outline of her heavily shadowed figure.

Sitting in a tucked away recliner on the far side of the living room, he watched her as she removed her Katana and placed it gingerly on the large dining room table in front of her. Her back to him, he studied her with a frown as she looked down at the Katana for several long moments. He wished he could see her facial expression in the moment, wished he knew what she was thinking while she eyed the weapon that had very naturally become an extension of herself. She placed the back of her arms on the back of one of the oak chairs and leaned against it in deep thought.

Several moments later the quiet was disrupted by a noise that came from Judith's baby monitor. Michonne turned quickly and easily on her heels towards the sudden sound. She took one cautious step towards the living room as she tried her hardest to see through the dark expanse. "Rick?" She whispered.

"It's me." He answered back. His voice thickly layered with grogginess and sounding exactly like someone who had a shit load on his mind and had just consumed a moderate amount of alcohol.

Michonne squinted as her eyebrows' furrowed; the concerned look on her face a direct response to her immediate recognition that something was wrong just by the tone of his voice.

"Rick." She said his name again – it fell from her lips in that familiar way – smooth, rich and in that low commanding but yet comforting tone that she had sometimes spoken to him in, more so recently than ever before. It was that tone that had the power to melt away the world around him instantly. It demanded his attention, his respect and probably most importantly – his surrender.

But he was a little drunk. And he wanted to rebel against the surrendering part.

Michonne took a few more careful steps into the living room. Her eyes adjusted a little bit more and she was able to finally distinguish his form sitting in the recliner in the corner of the room. "What's wrong?" She asked him quietly as she stood several feet away, her arms folded across her chest.

His chuckle was laced with darkness. "What's right?" He sniffed, looked up at her and waited for a response.

For a brief moment Michonne seemed to ponder Rick's retort before she moved across the room to close almost all of the distance between them. And as she closed in on him she noticed that Rick was holding Judith's baby monitor in one hand and a glass tumbler filled with some kind of dark liquor in his other. Her eyes moved further down and she saw that the bottle of said liquor was placed between his legs on the floor, Rick's bare feet on either side of it. Michonne crouched down and grabbed for the bottle. She held it only inches away from her face as she tried to read the words on the label in the dark. Finally, she sat all the way down on her butt and stretched out her arm trying to hand the bottle back to Rick. "Wanna save some scotch for the rest of us?" She joked, her hand still held out with the bottle in it.

Rick took the bottle from her and placed it between his legs snug against his crotch. "You don't even drink."

Michonne scoffed. "Says who?"

"I've never seen you."

"You've never seen me do a lot of things but that doesn't mean I don't do them."

Rick slowly leaned forward in the recliner, reached between his legs to grab the bottle and handed it back out to her. Michonne looked at it for a few seconds before finally taking it back with a snatch. She twisted off the top and started to bring the bottle to her mouth but stopped midway to ask, "You mind?"

"Go for it." He answered hoarsely, still leaned forward in his chair.

Rick watched as Michonne took a small swig and swallowed it right away. She grimaced at the bitterness and the now foreign feel of the way strong liquor burns the back of your throat on its way down. Once she had a hold of her bearings again, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, put the cap back on the bottle and asked, "What's up with this?" She nodded at him sitting in the dark in the middle of the night, downing alcohol like it was normal behavior for him. But she didn't need to actually say any of that; she knew that he knew what she meant with the simple question and nod in his direction. Yet, he didn't respond right away. He only sat there, quiet and thoughtful. He rubbed his calloused thumb across the speaker of Judith's baby monitor while his eyes fixated on the dark in front of him. "You know I used to be a good man. At least, I really cared about trying to be a good man." He started. His voice was low, hushed and breaking. "I was a cop. A fuckin' cop. I was an example." He said bitterly, his voice cracked when it rose. "Now look at me. I'm the opposite. I get people killed. Hell, I put my own children in danger."

Michonne inhaled sharply as she could feel her chest begin to grow heavy. She knew that he'd been struggling more than he would admit to since Carl got shot. She knew he was holding back, trying to be strong for Carl during his recovery, even trying to be strong for her, but he neglected to face his own demons that haunted him about this entire situation and now it had all obviously come to head. She wasn't quite sure how to manage this side of Rick. She'd never experienced him half drunk and angry before. But doing anything else – being anywhere else besides there for him in that moment felt wrong. Being near him, being near Carl and Judith all of the time felt right. It had always felt right. Even when she could barely hold his baby girl without being thrust into some level of emotional breakdown.

"We're all just people, Rick. Circumstances change us. Shit happens and we all navigate through it differently. You're not a bad person. You're not a bad father." She looked up into his eyes as she tried her best to relay her sincerity.

"No." He shook his head in the dark and gripped his glass tighter. "No. I am a bad father, Michonne."

"If you were I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't have stayed with you this whole time. Are you questioning my judgment?"

Rick fell silent once more.

And Michonne let him be silent.

He continued to nurse his glass of scotch while she, every minute or so, would take sips from the bottle itself. And the longer she sat there the more agitated he became. And his frustration wasn't with her per say, it was with the fact that she was there for him. Being ok with who he was and being ok with what he was doing. Her just sitting there, being ok with him, with everything, he hated it and he needed it so badly all at the same time. He felt a dull burn in the pit of his stomach from the alcohol. But that dull burn was a welcome relief over the sharp pangs of stress and guilt that were successfully overwhelming him before he opened that bottle. The aching had turned into something just bearable. The strong brown liquor also gave him the courage to talk about things that he would never normally want to discuss..

"Lori," He ground out with such a low grittiness that it caused Michonne to quickly look up at him. She found his eyes right away. "Lori – she ah – she loved me. I know she did. But she never seemed to get it. I just wanted to keep her and Carl safe but I could never – I could never make the right calls." He shook his head as he remembered. "She was so hurt and angry with me about Shane. With Carl there and him havin' to be the one to put him down…." She heard him inhale a quick breath and then slowly blow it out through his nose.

Michonne felt her throat tighten when she tried to swallow. She knew Rick never talked about this. To anyone.

"…I knew she hated me for it. And the way she looked at me? She was disgusted. Didn't even want me to touch her after I told her what happened." Rick's face contorted as he reminisced on the way she batted his hand away when he tried to reach for her desperate for her reassurance, a connection, something to keep him going.

Michonne could hear Rick's obvious struggle to keep his emotions from seeping into his tone but he failed. "After that I just became a different person. Sometimes I get glimpses of myself. Like I'm on the outside looking in and I don't like it." He took a few minutes to collect himself again. He willed his voice to be stronger when he started again. "And the more time that passes the more I understand why she hated me so much. Makes sense."

He took another sip of his drink, licked his lips of the excess alcohol around his mouth and adjusted his position in the recliner. He was looking up now, as though his past was playing like a movie on the ceiling.

"And then you come along."

"And then I came along…" Michonne repeated back to him softly in agreement.

"You didn't even know me and you trusted me. We were at odds there in the beginning but even then – I could see it – in your eyes – I could see you trusted me. Even after, no, even during me being an asshole to you, you looked at me like you could see only the good things and not any of the bad." He said, a little mesmerized by it.

He brought his gaze back down from the ceiling and looked her directly in the eye. The intensity of his gaze was not lost on Michonne even though it was too dark to make out every detail of his face, she could feel him.

"Why?" He questioned her.

Michonne brought her knees up close to her chest and held them against her as she sat on the floor and contemplated how to answer Rick's question. "I don't know…." She started softly. "I guess because I don't actually see any bad in you, Rick. We're all flawed. I'm flawed. But I see who you are, beyond what you believe you portray – I see your heart. You're good."

"I killed Pete. And then I nearly slept with Jessie…probably would have if she was still – "He cut himself short, not wanting to say it out loud. "Still think I'm good?"

Michonne's gaze flickered to the floor between them. She wasn't stupid. She knew that something was going on there, but to hear the words coming from Rick himself, she flinched inwardly, but quickly let it go as she focused back on his face.

"You killed Pete because he was dangerous. He was hurting people. There was no choice there." She spoke confidently.

"And Jessie?" He asked.

His voice held something in it when he spoke her name as a question – that plus the look on his face sent a clear indication to Michonne that Rick's simple question was only the outer layer of the more honest questions hidden deeper within. She opened her mouth to respond but found that only silence followed.

To be continued…