Day 44

Michonne slipped out of bed quietly, not wanting to disturb her partner. The house was silent, their children safely tucked in bed—this she knew to be true—but she felt a restlessness in her soul, bone deep.

Try as she might—and she had been trying a lot—she couldn't seem to shut the motor off. Now that she was home and had a moment to breathe, to really think and feel instead of simply going through the motions, she couldn't seem to still her racing heart. She couldn't remember how to wait and see.

With one final look at Rick, his body loose as he slept, Michonne walked over to her dresser and opened the top drawer. Feeling around in the dark until her hand found what it sought, she shut the drawer quietly and moved towards the door, her movements as fluid and regal as a cat on its seventh life.

Lord knows that by now, after everything, she'd basically been through six of them, and as she descended the stairs, the starts and stops of each flashed through her mind's eye like a montage:

When the world ended, a second life started as she fought to keep Andre, Mike, and Terry alive. This life was one of heaviness, the weight of the men giving up pulling her down each day. No amount of fighting, pleading, or reasoning had been enough and she watched, horrified, as their hope and will were replaced with a resignation that cost her everything.

The moment she returned to camp and found Mike and Terry, but no Andre was the moment her third life began. It was one of solitude, confining her to a box of anguish over what she could have, should have, and would have done, if only. She resolved herself to merely existing, walling off her heart so she'd never have to crawl out from beneath the rubble of loss ever again.

Somewhere along the way she met Andrea and, by extension, Rick, Carl, and Judith, each of them taking a sledgehammer to her defenses. Each swing formed a crack that eventually allowed her inner light to shine through. A new life emerged.

Losing Carl was the end of that fourth life and a new one—life number five—sprouted from its ashes. His death created an even stronger link between her and Rick as they directed their grief towards shaping a new world in his honor. It was the first time in all of her lives that she hadn't been alone in her anguish. She had someone to lean on and they moved through their love, their pain, and their renewed purpose, together.

When she lost Rick, her life ended and this time there was no one to help her hold the pain, no one to help her navigate this new existence. Her saving grace had been their daughter and son, each giving her the strength to start again. Faith in him helped her summon the will to keep going.

And now here she was. She found him. And all of that loss and loneliness was transforming into warmth and euphoria, but this seventh life—this new, unstoppable life—was at odds with all that came before it and her old defense mechanisms were kicking in.

What was wrong with her? Why couldn't she rest?

With tears in her eyes, Michonne lowered herself onto the couch, focusing on the slab of wood hanging across from her. With the flame of a candle forming dancing shadows on the wall, she took in the handprints, Rosita's loving repairs holding the treasured possession together. Michonne smiled softly at the thought of her friend, her heart breaking not for the first time that she hadn't been here to say goodbye. That she hadn't been here to help.

Closing her eyes and promising herself to make time to see Coco and Gabriel soon, she took a deep breath and unfolded the paper she held on her lap, careful not to add to the damage of tears and folding and refolding accumulated over the years.

She opened her eyes to find the markings on the page blurry. Fortunately she didn't actually need to see the letters to know the words they formed. She knew them by heart.

Breathing slowly and gathering herself, she waited as her vision cleared and her memory dragged Carl's message into focus.

Michonne,

I got bit. I was helping someone and it happened so quickly, but I don't regret it because it was something I had to do. Please don't regret it, either. No matter what happens, it was worth it because when you help someone, you don't just change their life, you change other people's lives, too.

One time you told me that me and my dad brought you back and I hope you know that you brought us back, too. You brought us back to ourselves and back to each other when we were lost and trying to figure it out. Back then I was so mad at the world for everything it had taken from us and everything it made us do and nothing anyone said or did mattered. Except you showed up and showed me that it did.

You showed me that, even when everything goes wrong, there's still a chance that it can go right... maybe not immediately, but someday. You helped us remember what living really looks like, even when it seems like everything around us is dead.

This war will end soon, but I know there will be another one to fight. Another Negan, another Governor... there will always be something. And sometimes that something is us—the version of us that forgets, that's angry, that wants to hide, that only wants to survive, no matter the cost.

That's why you have to remind everyone that it's not enough to just put everything into winning... it's important to know what you're fighting for. Remind them that winning only feels good if you like who you are at the end of it.

You have to help my dad remember. You have to help him keep going. You have to give Judith a childhood in this crazy world, even if it keeps taking from us. I don't want her to feel like she has to grow up too soon, so help her like you helped me.

You have to remind yourself what living looks like, even when it's hard. Especially when it's hard. And if you can't, you have my dad with you. He can help bring you back again, just like he did before.

I hope I get to see you, but in case I don't, I love you, Michonne.

Thanks for being my best friend and for treating me like a real person, not just some random kid.

Thanks for seeing my dad and for loving him.

Thanks for being our mom.

I'll tell Andre you say hi.

- Carl

P.S. I left you half a Big Cat in my room. You're welcome.

Michonne read and reread the letter twice before closing her eyes again, Carl's voice sounding in her head as if he were sitting there beside her.

"I'm trying to remember, Carl," she whispered. "I think... being back here is everything I wanted, but I'm afraid it won't last. That there's something else around the corner... that all of this can be taken away again if I let my guard down."

Her breath was unsteady as she exhaled and she shook her head, willing herself to push the worst case scenarios from her mind.

Put everything into winning.

For so long she'd been running on fumes, her tank half empty, and for every moment where she felt like herself—as brief and fleeting as they were—there were more moments where she didn't. These were the moments when she felt herself shutting down. The moments where she was on edge. It was frustrating. It was annoying. It was terrifying. It wasn't her.

It's important to know what you're fighting for.

She took a deep breath as she pressed Carl's letter to her heart, trying to think through what he would say to her in this moment.

"You told me to remember, but I've had to fight for so long that I can't put the sword down. I don't think I ever really have."

Her breath caught on the last word, the last decade seeming to bubble up to the surface.

"'Chonne?"

Her eyes snapped open to find Rick at the bottom of the stairs, his body outlined in the darkness.

When she didn't answer immediately, her voice trapped in her throat, he moved into the living room, his steps slowly testing the waters.

"Everything okay?"

Lifting her eyes to meet his, she shook her head.

"No," she whispered.

He sat down immediately, turning his body to face her, his attention drawn to the paper in her hand before focusing on her face.

Michonne knew that he was there with her, ready to pick up whatever she needed to lay at his feet, but she wasn't quite sure what that was. As she looked into his eyes, his strength radiating towards her as if to pick up where hers dropped off, she heard Carl speaking to her again.

He can help bring you back again, just like he did before.

"I keep thinking about what we've had to do..."

She shook her head as the slideshow from Cascadia flashed in her mind, the photos of children morphing into each other, blending with the faces of Jocelyn's child army.

"About what we might have to do... how do we choose between this," she pointed towards the stairs where Judith and R.J. slept a few feet away, "and making sure they're safe? All I want to do is close us off to the world, but I've done that before and it never works. More people just end up getting hurt."

Rick said nothing for a moment, giving her struggles space to breathe and choosing his own words carefully.

"When you said 'children' back at the apartment my entire body shut down. Even though every part of me wanted to ask questions, to know more, I thought that if I did, it would inevitably lead to pain. So I ignored it. I tried to push you away."

He smiled softly.

"But you didn't let me. Even when you walked out—which I one hundred percent deserved—you were still there. You were still here." He held his hand to his chest. "All of you were and I couldn't unknow what I knew. I couldn't unring that bell."

Rick reached over to wipe the tear making its way down her cheek.

"I was terrified of losing you again. Of losing Judith... of losing Junior... I still am. But you helped me remember that, even when that happens—because it will," he shifted his head to catch her eyes again as she tried to look away. "That's how this thing works. It's how it's always worked... even when that happens, this right now? What we have? What we get to have? It's worth the price of admission."

Michonne inhaled slowly, mirroring the way his breaths were measured. Sure.

"We don't need to be the reason things don't work. And you," he held her gaze, "are not shutting down or closing off. You're the most loving person I know. And the strongest," he took one of her hands in his. "Right now you only need one of those. Right now we can afford to wait and see. Right now we get to love on each other," he said, kissing her cheek and earning a smile at his use of her phrase, "and we get to live. We've earned some moments of selfishness. Everything else can wait."

"I'll try," she whispered, closing her eyes as she felt him kiss the top of her head. She allowed his words to work their way through her veins, knowing that she would play them on repeat until they could be recalled as quickly as her fears.

"I know you will. And if you can't, I'm here to remind you."

Author's Note: Y'all. This chapter was so damn hard to write because I really wanted to do it justice and show that Michonne has been struggling, too. TOWL, especially E4, did an amazing job of showing the toll those years took on Rick and in my mind, Michonne's been going through it, too, especially when you consider the events of TWD. So far we haven't truly seen the internal struggles she faced after he was kidnapped, just the external results and symptoms (e.g., closing off ASZ, strained relationships with former friends, talking to Rick, etc.). Hopefully this chapter did what I wanted to do, as well as showed Carl's letter because while I've accepted that we (likely) won't ever know what it really said, I'll never really stop wondering what Danai put together for that moment (she did an interview where she said she actually wrote what she thought Carl would say so she had something to pull from during those scenes). Kk. That's it. As always, thank you so much for reading and let me know your thoughts :)