Here's how the plan is supposed to go:
Glenn and Rosita will be in the first car, Glenn driving and Rosita covering him. Together, they'll lead the herd east. Rick, Aiden, and Michonne will stay behind to watch the barricade and deal with any stragglers before leaving in the second car. Once Glenn and Rosita have led the walkers away for about thirty miles, they'll outrun the herd and head back south to the rendezvous point.
It's a good plan, they ran through it incessantly the night before. Everyone knows where they need to be and what they need to do. All things considered, it might just be an easy job.
As Glenn and Rosita drive away, the deafening whine of heavy metal follows and, with it, the large herd of walkers. Michonne watches from behind the barricade of dead cars they assembled yesterday. It's not foolproof in terms of design, but it should be enough to force the herd to turn.
Aiden and Rick are close by, weapons drawn as they watch the masses of walkers begin to eek against the sides of the cars, sliding past them and towards the deafening music. In the light of day, in the face of the task at hand, Michonne struggles to fathom the events of last night. She and Rick kissed. They kissed, and they could've done more. They would've. Her blood boils at the thought of it- hot and bothered has never been a more apt term. She's so angry at him. So angry. Since she woke up today, Michonne's been unable to look at him without seething.
Nothing is happening. Fuck him.
Suffice to say that Michonne is looking forward to mincing some walkers this morning. She could use the distraction.
The barricade is holding well, the cars shifting only slightly as the herd continues to drag along them. Michonne takes a few steps back to get a better look; the one big drawback of the plan is that the herd is forced to bottleneck as it turns onto the east-bound road, meaning a large chunk of the walkers are piled up against the barricade all at once. Michonne spots one car at the end of the line rocking violently, bodies cramming against it.
"We might have a situation over there," Michonne motions to the shaking car.
Rick looks over at it, then at her, considering both with the same stony expression. "It'll hold."
Aiden steps forward, holding his hip with one hand and his rifle with the other, a challenge clear in his posture. "And if it doesn't?"
Rick narrows his eyes at the young man. "Then we fight 'em."
"That's all you got?"
"That's all anyone's got, kid," Rick practically spits. "That's how the world works now- the real world, not the one you and your people have been living in."
"Rick," Michonne warns sternly. She's got her own reservations about Aiden and all the shitty qualities he shares with his brother Spencer. But Rick is supposed to act as a leader here, and these are supposed to be his people- in spite of reservations. The last thing they need right is a goddamn pissing contest.
"A plan, Rick," the kid dares with a faint smirk. "I wanted to know if you had a plan."
Michonne can see the anger rolling off of Rick, in the ticking of his jaw and the tilt of his head. She doesn't have the patience for what he's going to say next and they certainly don't have the time for it. Fuck it, she'll be the leader. So she steps between the two men before he can open his mouth.
"The plan," Michonne starts sharply, eyes bouncing between them. "Is to keep the herd from getting to Alexandria, to your families. Your parents, your kids, Glenn's wife? That's what this is about. We do this together, you said that." She stops and fixes her eyes on Rick, gaze falling to his lips briefly before she turns away from him. "We've got guns, we've got flares… we keep the herd moving east no matter what. For your people."
She can feel Rick staring at the back of her head and it makes her simmer. She'd forgotten what it was to feel this much. So much of herself has been turned off for so long- emptiness in the name of self-preservation. That was what kept her safe for so long.
Now, Rick is here, forcing her to feel at full capacity. And it feels akin to dying.
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
All three of them turn, hearts dropping painfully. It's a car alarm, coming from the shaking car at the end of the line. In an instant, half the herd is breaking off to turn back towards the sound.
"How the fuck do we turn that off?" Aiden asks as they run towards the car.
"You two cover me!" Rick calls out, racing ahead. He gets to the car first, pulling open the passenger door and crawling across, taking his hatchet to the panel under the steering wheel.
Michonne hops on top of the rocking car, slicing her katana through the heads of the nearest walkers that claw at her feet. Aiden follows, using the blanket of noise as an excuse to empty his rifle into the crowd. The walkers nearest to the car are banging their bodies repeatedly against the windows, the low crunch of glass standing out against the high blaring of the alarm. Michonne stabs through their heads as fast as she can but they're swarming fast and the glass eventually breaks in fully.
"Rick!" Michonne calls out in fear as she slashes the head off a walker currently sticking its hands through the driver's side window. In that moment, the car rocks back violently and Michonne tips forward, nearly falling into the herd. But Aiden grabs her back by the arm, steadying her. She looks at him, heaving with adrenaline. "Thank you," she breathes out, hoping he can read her lips or at least her earnest expression.
He gives her a single nod, and Michonne swears she hears him say, "We do this together."
The echoed words fortify Michonne, allow her to continue fending off walkers until finally, finally the alarm turns off.
Her ears ring violently, all senses dampened by the sudden lack. There's a small second of relief- that the sound is gone, that Rick is still alive in there- before the situation comes crashing down once again, as the walkers finally manage to push the car out of their way, creating a wide breach in the barricade.
The three of them quickly flee the car, giving it a wide berth as it continues to move aside, walkers bursting forth like a smushed ant pile.
"Watch your backs!" Rick shouts as they poise themselves for attack. "The sound drew walkers out of the woods!" As if on cue, one comes lumbering towards Michonne and she swings around to behead it.
A steady stream of walkers are advancing towards them, spilling out of the gap more quickly than the group can comfortably manage. They need to divert the herd, but there's too many walkers for any one of them to break formation and attempt it.
Michonne swings wildly, furiously, precisely, taking out as many walkers at a time as she possibly can. Distantly, she considers that she got her wish- this is certainly a distraction. They're getting pushed farther and farther back. With so many dead pooling at their feet, walkers are tripping over them to get to the trio.
"Michonne! Give me your flare gun!" Aiden calls out. She risks a single glance over towards him and sees that he's practically swarmed, firing off shots with breakneck speed.
"What? No!"
"I'm gonna make a run for the front! Fire the flare from there!"
"We need you here!" Rick yells. The dead continue to trip over themselves, allowing them to strike them while they're down and put more bodies between themselves and the oncoming walkers. It's the only thing keeping them afloat at the moment.
"I'm running out of bullets!" Aiden breaks free from the group of walkers surrounding him and comes over to Michonne. "Let me do it."
There's no time to think on it, there's no time to look Aiden in the eyes and decide if this is right. All Michonne can do is trust the kid's conviction and hand him the flare gun.
Michonne and Rick are left to take on the herd. It's shrinking but still dense, and becoming more difficult to manage as walkers wander in from the surrounding woods. They're being attacked from all sides now.
"Michonne!" Rick calls out as he strikes a walker that had been coming at her from behind. She gives him a nod, as if settling a silent agreement, and they move to stand back to back. Suddenly, it's as if they're advancing through the herd as one tandem killing machine. It's invigorating and terrifying, feeling so exposed and yet so dangerous. With Rick behind her, physically bolstering her, Michonne doesn't know if she's ever felt more powerful.
Ever since she'd left Atlanta, killing walkers had been a procedural sort-of necessity. Most of the time, she didn't even know why she did it- it came as thoughtlessly and pointlessly as breathing. Every time she tried to stop, her body persisted, forcing her lungs to swell, forcing her feet to move, and forcing her blade to strike.
For the first time in a very long time, her fight has a reason.
The first flare fires, bright and loud, drawing the attention of the walkers still within the barricade. Aiden is standing on top of the first car in the line, waving his rifle as he fires off a spray of bullets. "COME GET ME MOTHERFUCKERS!" He bangs the rifle against the car loudly and fires the second flare.
Outside the barricade, the fight rages on. The road is a graveyard and Rick and Michonne stand amongst it as a single entity, blood-covered and heaving, taking the remaining walkers as they come. To their amazement, Aiden's efforts seem to have drawn nearly the whole herd east, leaving them free to fall back and make a run for their car so that they can get the hell out of here.
"Kid! Let's go!" Rick yells out, already tearing open the car door and pushing the keys into the ignition. Michonne sheathes her katana and slumps into the passenger seat, feeling the adrenaline rush out of her body the instant the door closes. It leaves her cold and light-headed, keenly aware of the burning in her muscles. She closes her eyes and breathes, only for a moment, before there is a thud against her window. She looks up to find a growling walker looking back at her, but before she can do anything about it, Aiden is there, bashing its head with the butt of his rifle before throwing himself into the backseat.
"Go!" he exclaims and, for the first time, Rick listens to the kid.
Glenn and Rosita are already at the rendezvous point when they arrive, bloody and tired.
"Shit, what happened to you guys?" Rosita asks, arms crossed as she walks over to them.
Michonne slams her car door shut. "A walker set off one of the car alarms."
Rick is there behind her like a shadow. "Half the herd broke off, barricade didn't hold."
Glenn fixes them with a bewildered look. "You fought off half that herd?"
"Most of them," Michonne nods. "Aiden managed to draw them back your way- saved our asses."
"Where is he?" Rosita asks and Michonne realizes belatedly that Aiden has not gotten out of the car. The three of them had spent the car ride in almost complete silence and, after a while, Michonne had assumed that Aiden fell asleep. She turns back to the car, opening the door to the backseat to find Aiden's pale form slumped against the seat. His eyes are open but barely and a quick scan of his body reveals something neither she nor Rick noticed earlier: a gaping bite wound in his side.
"Kid?" Rick says from over her shoulder, peering in on the scene she has just discovered. Neither of them reacts, not visibly. They can't afford to be shocked by things like this anymore. But it does sink like a stone in Michonne's gut; another death on her watch.
"I told them to come get me," Aiden rasps, eyes half open. "Guess I was asking for it."
Despite the joke, Michonne can plainly see the fear all over the young man's face.
"Fuck," Glenn murmurs somewhere behind them.
"I thought I could at least make it home," Aiden whispers. The words tear like wildfire through Michonne, the pain in them so bright she has to look down for a moment. "I thought I'd make it that far."
"We'll get you home," Rick promises, even though he shouldn't, even though he can't possibly. He just can't help it. He's already pulling the keys from his pocket and moving to get back in the car, but Michonne turns and catches him by the wrist and takes the keys. Rick looks at her for a long moment, somewhere between angry and desperate. Despite the rocky beginning, they're indebted to Aiden for what he did today, for saving them. She can see it on Rick's face, the guilt of knowing they can't return the favor.
Knowing Rick comes as thoughtlessly and pointlessly as breathing, as fighting. She does it even when she doesn't want to. Wordlessly, they speak. I have to try, his eyes plead. I can't let you, she replies.
"I won't make it," Aiden confirms brashly. "I won't."
Michonne turns back to the man, mustering all the resolve she can to school her expression. With a deep sigh, she asks the impossible question. "How do you want this to go, Aiden?"
His expression crumples then, the realization setting in firmly. Rick walks away and Michonne swallows the lump in her throat, listening to Aiden's harsh sobs. She clasps her hand over his shoulder, giving what little support she can.
"I don't think I can-" he struggles to get out. "I can't- I don't want to be the one to do it."
"Okay," Michonne nods. "Then you won't." They don't have to talk about what that means, what will come after Aiden dies. Michonne will let him pretend for just a little longer that there is still peace after death, and she'll try to make it true. Even if she knows, even if she's seen the truth first hand.
"Me and Rick can help move him," Glenn offers. Michonne nods, squeezes Aiden's shoulder once more before stepping aside. She watches Glenn and Rick help maneuver Aiden into the bed of the truck, the afternoon sunshine revealing the ghastly extent of the bite. Observing the large bloodstain now adorning the backseat, it's clear that blood loss might kill Aiden before the bite gets the chance.
It's a gruesome process, dying. Michonne's seen it happen enough times by now to know that. It's not shocking by any means, but it's been a long time since she's been this in touch with her feelings. It's like she's experiencing all of this as a real person for the first time since the beginning. She's a live wire, raw and tetchy.
Michonne is leaning against the side of the truck, listening to Aiden's moans of pain at full attention, when Rick comes to stand alongside her. It's a position reminiscent of the night before, what feels like a million lifetimes ago. She doesn't feel angry at him anymore, just exhausted. Of course, that could just be the state of affairs- who knows how she'll feel tomorrow.
Michonne knows she must be exhausted because she lets her head fall against Rick's shoulder, lets his hand weave behind her and discreetly hold her hip. She lets them stay like that, eyes closed and content, until she hears Rosita speak.
"He's gone."
Michonne straightens. She knows what it means. She knows what she has to do. She climbs into the truck bed, settles next to Aiden's prone body and checks. Just for peace of mind, just to say that she did. All Michonne can think about is the fact that she'll have to face Deanna later. She's already deciding how she'll describe this to the woman, considering what details she would have wanted to know, as a mother. It stings so sharply that Michonne gasps. She stares down at the dead man and sees nothing but a child, a son. She roughly wipes away a wayward tear, unclips the knife that hangs from his belt, and unsheathes it. She slides it gently into the side of Aiden's head before climbing back out of the bed of the truck.
Rick is there waiting, watching her as she closes the tailgate and continues to stare at Aiden's body.
"We should get out of here," he says, voice low and gravelly.
Michonne nods, forcing her eyes away from the dead body and towards the man in front of her. He's looking at her with gratitude and understanding, an acknowledgment of the burden she took on. It's a weighty thing, but the silent thank you he's expressing is simple and familiar, reminding Michonne of the look he would give her when she offered to read Carl his favorite bedtime story. It's a glimpse, a small one, of the person he used to be to her. But it's enough for now. Enough for her to believe that feeling this much doesn't have to be a bad thing.
"Yeah," she agrees with a shuddering sigh. "But I'm driving."