Rick is up before the sun on his first day as constable, navigating the darkened house like a maze. The group agreed to split into three houses yesterday, an incremental step towards acclimation, and Rick is wary of it. It feels alarmingly normal to wake up alone in a bed, to get dressed for work, kiss Judith's sleeping head, and tiptoe downstairs to the kitchen. It rings with a troubling dissonance, echoing a time he can never truly return to, no matter what Deanna seems to think.
He plucks an applesauce from the pantry and leans against the kitchen counter as he eats, taking note of the cabinets full of some other family's life. Kids' ceramics projects and souvenir tchotchkes and monogrammed wine glasses. He closes his eyes and breathes in, almost choking on the unfamiliar smell of his aftershave.
"New sheriff in town, huh?"
Rick looks up, noticing for the first time that Daryl is sitting in the dining room, cleaning his crossbow. "Somethin' like that," he affirms with a tilt of his head, setting his applesauce aside and walking towards the table. "You're up early."
Daryl grunts, lifting his crossbow to inspect it. "More like up late." He stops, looks up at Rick. "Nice getup."
Rick scoffs and looks down at himself, at the ridiculous tie he's sporting. "Deanna thinks we need to look official."
Daryl raises his eyebrows. "Yeah? And what d'you think?"
"I think it's play pretend- somethin' to make them feel better."
Daryl takes it in silently, a pregnant pause passing as he considers his next words carefully.
"Carol's planning to get their guns. She thinks she can."
"Can she?"
Daryl tosses aside the rag he'd been using, leans back in his chair. "Leave the window open, sneak in while no one's around..." He shrugs. "Could work."
"Well," Rick drawls with a sigh, placing his hands on his hips. "We need to do it sooner rather than later- right now, they trust us. That's the only way this is gonna work."
Daryl nods. "Just waitin' for our moment."
Rick saunters back into the kitchen, scoops out the last of his applesauce before placing the empty jar in the sink, stopping to look out the kitchen window onto what was once a picturesque suburban backyard.
Rick will try- for Carl and Judith, and for the others. He will try to make something of this. But this, what they're all doing right now, it's not real and it won't last. Rick will play pretend with Deanna and Michonne and he'll put on this costume and act like a constable- if that's what it takes to secure a place for his people, he'll do it.
But he's not risking a single goddamn thing.
He squares his tie and turns back to Daryl.
"The welcome party's tonight- whole town'll be there."
Daryl nods once, eyes narrowed, and Rick knows he understands.
--
Michonne is already waiting when Rick arrives at the gates of Alexandria at dawn for a perimeter check. She's standing with a hip popped, katana swung over her back, her outfit a mirror of his. She's utilitarian and sharp and so unlike the woman he used to know. It reminds him of something Deanna said about both of them knowing what it's like outside. He's been having a hard time thinking of Michonne that way, as someone like him.
"Good mornin'," Rick calls out as he approaches.
She gives him a tight smile. "Morning."
He comes to stand in front of her, hands on hips. "I figure we check out the perimeter, talk security, decide how we're moving forward- be back before the run-crew heads out so I can talk with 'em."
Her eyes widen and her smiles tightens further. "Hm. You've got this all figured out, huh?"
"Well between the two of us, I am the cop-"
"Trust me, Rick, I know that."
He stops, takes a step further into her space, observing the familiar way she sighs and looks up at him. The iciness that's been forming between them for the past two days is stifling and intoxicating, distracting him from the burning pit of relief and desire and grief that fills him at the sight of Michonne. He wants to be angry with her, wants to find a reason to be. But that desire is irrational and will lead them nowhere good.
"We don't have to do this," he warns, voice low. "You have your reasons for being here and so do I. Let's do our job and leave it at that."
She looks at him for a long moment, eyes searching. "My reasons are the same as yours."
Before he can begin to decipher what she means, she's pulling the gate open and heading out, not waiting for Rick to follow.
"I've already brought up a lot of what you're thinking," she says as she walks ahead of him along the walls. "Walker-traps along the street, clearing sightlines, spike the supports so no one can climb them, put a fucking body in the watch tower."
"Then why haven't they listened?"
She peeks over her shoulder with a wry smile. "Guess I wasn't very persuasive."
"I don't buy that. This comin' from the lawyer?"
"I'm not anything anymore."
Rick feels his stomach sink with the mounting suspicion that she has not been part of the lucky few here in Alexandria. Before, after she left him, he'd spent a lot of time getting used to not knowing her anymore. It had been such an impossible thought after spending seven years in each other's palms. Now, knowing who Michonne has become feels just as unfathomable.
"How long have you been here?"
"Four months."
"Did you come here with-"
Before he can finish the question, a pair of walkers emerge from the trees, toddling towards them with outstretched arms. Rick reaches quickly for his knife, but finds that Michonne is quicker. She unshieths her katana is a single elegant movement, lunging forward and decapitating both walkers in one arcing swing. It's like something out of the comics she used to get for Carl. Ricks looks on mystified, at her swinging hair and graceful athleticism, wonders where and when she developed this skill.
Her posture relaxes and she turns to face him, eyebrows shooting up in alarm at the sight of him. "Behind you!"
In an instant, Rick is plunging his bowie knife into the skull of a walker, managing to barely look away from Michonne as he does so.
She watches him with an unreadable expression, something dark stirring in her eyes. She swishes her blade, the blood flying off with a thwack, before she slides it back into its shieth.
"I came here alone."
--
Rick had never been very good at parties. He was easily overwhelmed, struggled with the tedium of small talk. He often ended up on the outskirts, watching.
He finds himself in a similar position now- camped out in the front room of Deanna's home with Carol, keenly watching the front door. They're waiting for Olivia, the inventory manager, to arrive- their cue for Carol to slip out of the party and nab the guns.
"How was your first day as sheriff?" Carol asks quietly, the mockery in her tone not lost on him.
"As good as you'd expect." He looks around to scan the party, looking for signs of trouble. A good number of their people have shown up and they look to be getting along fine, for the most part.
Carol hums her acknowledgement, eyes still locked on the door. "That have anything to do with her?"
Rick brings his attention back to the door to see Michonne being ushered in by Reg, a young girl around Carl's age following close behind. She's locs are down and she's wearing a simple grey dress. He can't help but think absently that she would've never worn something like that before. Michonne liked color and pattern and detail. Rick supposes that style choices are limited even here in Alexandria- or maybe that's just not who she is anymore.
He watches Carl run up to meet her, beaming in a way he hasn't seen in a long time. A similar expression breaks across her face- making Rick realize with a painful jolt that it's the first time he's really seen her smile since he's been here.
He follows them with his eyes until they are out of sight, then stares at the corner they disappeared behind until Carol nudges his arm.
"Look, she's here." Rick snaps his attention to the door that Olivia has just walked through. "Which means it's empty so…"
"I'll go with you," he offers, desperate for an out.
"No- you're the cop, I'm the homemaker," she reminds him as if listing their parts in a play. "I'm invisible."
"Alright," Rick agrees with a humph, watching her go. "Be careful."
"Dad! C'mere!" His son's voice beckons him from the dining room. Rick steels himself and goes to meet him, finding Carl standing with the young girl Michonne came in with. Michonne stands a small distance away, nursing a plastic cup of punch.
"Dad, this is Enid, she's friends with Ron, remember?"
The scrawny blonde kid that Carl was hanging around with yesterday. "Yeah I remember. Good to meet you, Enid." He nods his head at her and grins warmly. She gives the vaguest smile in return, obviously uncomfortable with Carl's enthusiastic introduction.
"Enid lives with Michonne," Carl informs him and Rick's eyes immediately shoot up to Michonne, finding that she's looking back. "Isn't that cool?"
"Sure is," Rick agrees without looking away from her.
"We'll probably see each other a lot when I go to see Michonne and all. Plus Enid has an awesome comic book collection." The comment brings a reverent smile to Rick's face, pulling his attention back to his son. It's been so incredibly long since he's seen him like this, happy and childlike. He'd jar it if he could.
"Michonne's been bringing them back for me when she goes on runs," Enid chimes in, voice bland and quiet. Rick gets the sense that there's more to her than the others here, that she's been on the outside too. Carl probably realizes it too- it's probably why he likes her.
"Apparently she came back with a truckful of Hostess cakes last time," Carl informs him. "They showed me earlier, there's a pile of twinkies this high in the pantry."
The mention of the pantry sobers Rick, reminding him of Carol and the guns. He blanches, unsure how to continue.
"I think I saw some in the kitchen," Michonne interjects, unknowingly saving him. "But you guys should probably hurry- I saw some guy with a mullet stuffing them in his pockets."
The two kids scamper off, laughing as they go to meet their other friends. Because Carl has those here.
It leaves him looking at Michonne as she finishes off the last of her punch in one long sip. Rick hasn't been able to look her in the eye for too long ever since they talked this morning. I came here alone, she'd said. It hasn't left his mind. Thoughts of Andre and Mike have been swirling through his head, vague half-formed images he tries to recall. He'd never met Mike, and only saw Andre a handful of times when Michonne brought the baby with her to pick up Carl for visits. Back when he still let her visit. All of those thoughts screeched like nails on chalkboard in his mind, painful and unsettling. I came here alone, she'd said. The unspoken horror of that statement is haunting Rick.
"You good?" Michonne asks, pulling his attention back to her. She's got her arms crossed over her chest, empty cup in one hand.
"Fine," he answers shortly. "Do I not look fine?"
"You look worried."
He is worried. Carol is out there stealing a cache of guns as they speak. His people are looking to him to know to know how to proceed. He can't tell them that they're safe because they're not. He can't tell them they're staying because he's not sure they should. He sees the irony in the fact that he's making and breaking the rules in this place- becoming their constable and stealing their guns. He knows it's fucking insane, but it's how they have to play this, it's how they survive.
So you could say that Rick is worried.
"Why did you agree to this, Michonne?"
"To what, being a constable?"
"That," Rick nods slowly, closing the gap between them so that they're both leaning against the back wall of the room. "All of it."
She tilts her head and studies him with narrowed eyes. He recognizes the look from before- it's the one she'd use when he was beating around the bush. In layman's terms, it meant: cut the bullshit.
"I can't tell you what to do here, Rick," she says plainly. "I didn't come to Alexandria with a dozen other people looking to me. And I didn't agree to all this." She gestures with her empty cup to the people around them. "I see what you see when you look at this place. You think it's weak, you think I'm weak for staying here-"
"I don't-"
"You do. And I know it's different for you, Rick. I know me being here it doesn't change anything for you, but for me? It changes everything." Her voice drops as she speaks, the last word coming out as a low hiss, imbued with an intensity that makes her lower lip tremble. She studies him for a long moment, her expression caught somewhere between anger and empathy. "Having something to protect changes everything."
She peels herself from the wall, walks away without looking back. Rick watches her go, feeling the weight of her words descend upon him. He wants to call her back and tell her she's wrong.
She changes everything for him too.