Joy and sorrow are sisters; they live in the same house.
—Macrina Wiederkehr, The Song of the Seed
Three Months After the War
He took to the garden again.
The one Maggie started. Before Negan and Glenn and the war. Before he broke her heart.
They expanded it and cleared as much land as they could spare. It was easier than it should have been. The bombs did some of the work for them, leveling the earth so they could start fresh.
They had to.
He had to.
The grass grew back. Thicker and greener than it had been before.
Things break, but they can still grow.
Rick wondered what Hershel would think of his decision to spare Negan, knowing how much it wounded his daughter.
Only some things came back.
The damage was too deep in some places. Some of the soil was dry and obstinate. Nothing grew in those places.
It should have frustrated him, the work, the toil.
But he liked it. He needed it. Digging deep into the dirt. Straining his limbs. Forming callouses on his palms. Sometimes, the callouses burst, and his palms bled. He savored the sting, the slow drip of red down the shovel.
It distracted him from the white cross in his periphery. The one that said: Carl.
If she was home when he arrived, Michonne would glance at his bloodied hands.
Then, wordlessly, she would lead him to the kitchen sink, run his hands under cool water, clean his wounds, and wrap his opened blisters in gauze. Her triage ended with a delicate kiss to each palm. Then she left him be. At night she wrapped herself around him when he wept. When he quieted, she played with his hair until he fell into a sleep that never alleviated the exhaustion.
The land was hard. He worked it, hoping.
But they needed a solution that went beyond his pain.
Their pain.
It was his love who offered it.
"A soil transplant," she said in her silken voice, looking out over the crops, with a cup of lemon tea in hand.
"A transplant?"
She shrugged.
"It may not work. I found a book on global warming and deforestation. I was bored, read a few chapters. There were some hypotheses that soil transplants could help restore damaged habitats. Agriculturalists tested it on farmlands. Had some success. We could try. It would probably take a few months. But we're doing good otherwise, so we have time."
Rick stared at her. She kept her eyes on the land, waiting. He squinted.
"You were bored?"
Another shrug.
"That's good. That's real good."
"It may not work. But there's plenty of land to take from. State parks. Wetlands—though that may not be compatible with what's native here. We might have to go far out, but it's worth it if it works."
"You're somethin' else."
"It may not work."
She handed him her tea, and he took a sip. Truthfully, he just wanted to put his lips where hers had been.
"But it might."
"Let's ask Eugene what he thinks. Until then, raised beds."
He looked over the land and nodded. It was a good idea—a more immediate solution.
"Bound to be some big garden centers in DC. We can find soil there. Or trade with the Kingdom," he said.
She took her tea back. Her fingertips grazed his healing palm.
"Good. I don't want you doing this forever."
They both knew what this was, but it was the first time she'd mentioned it. He waited; but she said nothing else.
"Alright. I'll ask Tobin."
Tobin wasn't their only carpenter, but he was the most skilled. The man hadn't cared much for Rick when they came to Alexandria. He probably still didn't. But now Tobin felt sorry for him. The man who'd lost his son.
"I can make them."
He turned his head, taking in the orange sunlight against her glittering skin. Her hair was pulled into a high ponytail, making the stunning lines of her face visible. His eyes lingered on the fabric securing her hair.
A strip of Carl's blue plaid shirt. Dangling and swishing between her locs.
His heart quivered.
With grief over their lost son. With affection for her.
He cleared the ever-present lump from his throat and tugged at her hair.
"Yeah?"
It was hard to smile these days, and even harder to joke or laugh, but she made it possible sometimes.
Sensing his surprise, Michonne gave him a teasing smile.
It was a relief to see. Outside of interactions with Judith, she smiled as rarely as he did.
"You don't think I can?"
He scoffed.
"Chonne, you can do damn near everythin'."
She bit her bottom lip at his praise. She was the most self-assured person he'd ever met. But sometimes he made her blush. He liked that. He liked that a lot.
"My mother," she said. "That's how I learned."
Rick turned his whole body to her. Even now, he knew so little about her life before. How was it possible to be smitten with someone he still had so much to learn about?
Their knowing felt instinctual, intuitive. A recognition of sorts. It was cliche but he felt that he'd known her all his life.
Still, he devoured any tidbit she gave him, hoarding each and every detail. Ironic that he would be the more forthcoming person in the relationship.
Her eyes drifted to the left.
The cross. Their son.
Her smile grew.
"Carl would have loved her."
The lump returned. In truth, it was always there now.
Not just for Carl but for her mother. For the other losses she seldom talked about.
He slid his hand down her arm, to her soft hand, lifting it and pressing a kiss to the back of it.
He had more to do in the garden, and she had responsibilities elsewhere. She left him with her tea and a lingering kiss.
Her fingers whispered across Carl's grave marker as she passed.
It was a mother's touch.
In the mornings, she used their backyard to work on the beds. It was fenced in and their house was secluded in the back of the community. Away from prying eyes. Blessedly away from the sympathy, as stifling as it was appreciated.
She'd taken on more of the leadership since the war.
The Alexandrians gravitated towards her. Her intellect. Her levelheadedness. Her quiet, regal strength.
She was gentle water after a flash flood.
For all of them. Especially him.
And, of the two of them, she was easier to draw near to.
He was prone to long bouts of silence, unable to make heads or tails of what anyone was saying to him. The world had taken on a disorienting, watery quality. At any moment he was submerged, cut off from air and light and direction. He was always swimming towards the surface, frantically, furiously, trying to breathe, only to realize he had been swimming towards the seabed. He feared the pressure would atomize him.
Grief, he'd learned, shapeshifted.
Lori's death had rendered him inert.
Carl's death left him crawling out of his skin. Words deserted him. Yet he didn't feel motionless.
At all times, he was vibrating, thrumming. With rage. With disbelief. With the most acute sadness he'd ever experienced. A sadness so embedded that his hands trembled sometimes.
People noticed and steered clear. Not the way they had when he first came to Alexandria. Then, they were afraid of his rage. Now they were afraid of his sadness. So they left him be.
He was quiet.
But Michonne was still. She was so very still. That was the only way he could describe it. As if she were on pause, in a way.
It was neither indifference nor apathy.
There was nothing cold about the way she'd loved Carl. She'd loved his son. Profoundly. Deeply. A love that evoked something his father used to recite.
Deep calls to deep.
Psalm 42. An excerpt of scripture that had always resonated with Rick despite his agnosticism.
Listen for who your soul calls out for.
That's what his father said. Nineteen-year-old Rick hadn't wanted to hear that. Not one bit. He had a princess cut ring in his pocket at the time. He was going to propose.
His father's dictum had come with a long silence and thoughtful eyes.
It had chilled Rick, the look his father gave him. It wasn't the enthusiasm he'd been looking for, the certainty he was seeking. It was the very abstraction that a young Rick Grimes couldn't appreciate. He rejected faith but liked conviction. Perhaps he was a bit dogmatic. Back then, he'd wanted his father to match his conviction, to give him the right words. His dad was good at that sort of thing.
When things hardened between him and Lori, Rick had gone to his father, again desperate for guidance.
Deep calls to deep, son. What's your heart telling you?
Back then, all of Rick's indignation was silent and simmering. Instead of speaking, he'd swallowed all of his disappointment and confusion. He'd nodded—that's what he did back then, nodded at everything no matter how he felt—and went home to his wife.
He didn't understand his father's words then.
He understood now.
He knew for the first time what it meant for his soul to call to another's. To have his very being bend and stretch towards someone else. To understand someone in the deepest, most illegible parts of him.
Rick's soul recognized Michonne.
But Carl had recognized her first.
I think she's one of us.
It amused Rick now that Michonne had liked his son before she'd liked him. It hurt him too, in a tender and fond way.
Carl and Michonne's bond had endeared him. And he'd envied it. Their closeness. Their kinship. The way Michonne knew what to say to Carl in a way that he'd hear, something Rick had felt increasingly inept at.
Their connection delighted him more than anything.
His son's reverence. Her devotion. They'd needed each other.
He understood why Carl had needed her.
Only later, after he'd gotten to know her, after she'd slowly revealed the pieces of her life before them, would he understand why Michonne had needed Carl.
Two Months Before the War
Carl hadn't woken up yet.
Time, Denise said. It would take time.
Time. Traumatic brain injury. Rest.
Those were the only words Rick remembered.
Everything else was white noise.
He only retained Michonne and Judith's words after that. And Judith did enough talking for the both of his girls.
His girls.
That's how he'd come to think of them.
Judith made sense—the daughter he hadn't planned for but loved desperately.
Michonne? Well.
She was like Judith. A surprise.
But she was a woman. In the most profound sense. And she wasn't his. Not that she would take kindly to any possessive language. His—she—didn't take kindly to restraints. He'd learned that early on.
Unlike the others—Maggie, Glenn, and Carol mostly—Michonne didn't try to persuade him to leave, to take a shower, to rest.
She placed clean clothes on a chair and that was it. Rick took the hint, waiting until she left for watch to steal into the bathroom and clean himself with a washcloth.
While their family took on the cleanup, he and Michonne tended to the kids. Michonne took her regular watch shifts. Otherwise, she was there with him, waitin for Carl to wake, applying lotion and almond oil to his skin so it wouldn't dry.
She spent a lot of time at the window, arms crossed, watching their community come together again.
When he pried his eyes away from Carl, he watched her, wondering—he wondered so many things about her—what she was thinking about.
"The last time Carl was shot," he said, taking a breath, "Lori, my wife, was still alive."
Michonne turned from the window to look at him.
She had this habit. She didn't push or probe, never urged or demanded that he talk.
But he always felt an odd upwelling when she looked at him. Her substantial presence was the demand. Her eyes drew things out, made him feel like his words were better out than in his head, the place where he'd always kept them.
"It was early after the turn. We were still tryin' to make sense of this new world. We didn't know if Carl would make it."
Rick looked at his son. The bandage over his newly emptied eye socket was stained reddish-brown. It would need to be changed soon.
"The operation Hershel had to do could kill him. So we had to make a choice. Try or let him die. Lori, she asked if it was better for Carl to die then. So he wouldn't have suffer the world."
Michonne's face remained smooth.
"Fuck, Chonne. I was so mad at her for sayin' it. For even thinkin' it."
He glanced again at the bandage. Carl's chest rose and fell in even breaths, and Rick savored the movement. For the moment, Carl was alive.
He turned back to her.
"It felt like she was givin' up on him. On what could be. I couldn't imagine a world without him, you know, couldn't understand how that could ever be better."
Her eyes trailed to his son.
Their son.
Carl had felt like their son for a while now. He kept this feeling to himself, afraid to saddle her with a responsibility she maybe didn't want and certainly had not asked for.
He kept the other feelings to himself, too.
For their friendship. For her relationship with Carl.
"But here he is. Missin' an eye. He's just a boy. He shouldn't be…"
His throat tightened. Leaning forward, he put his elbows on his knees.
"I understand now. What Lori was tryna say. What she was feelin'. I still can't—I don't want a world without him, Chonne. I can't have that. But maybe—" He sighed. "Maybe it would be easier for him than this."
She approached the bed on quiet and bare feet. Just an hour ago, he'd watched her paint her toenails Cherry Red #042. He'd told himself that it wasn't right to watch her, to like watching as she wiggled and blew on her toes. A way to take her mind off their son lying in a bed with a missing eye. The polish shimmered as she came closer.
As if holding precious metal, she took Carl's hand, tracing his fingers, resting her pointer and middle finger against his pulse.
"She changed her mind," Michonne said.
"Yeah. But maybe she wouldn't have if she knew what would happen to him."
Michonne sat on the edge of the bed, looking at the opposite wall.
"She would have made the same choice."
Though she'd never met Lori, she said it with certainty. He might have resented that conviction from anyone else. But not her. Never her.
"How do you know?" he asked.
She nodded at the sleeping girl in the crib they'd fit into the room. They had tried to split their time between their home and the infirmary. But they'd each found it difficult to be away from Carl, and they weren't letting Judith away from their sight either.
"Because Judith's here. Lori died so that could happen. Knowing what she knew about the world, she still believed it was worth it."
Rick's eyes welled. He ruminated often on Lori's last moments. About the words unspoken between them. About what Carl had to do.
He had seen the courage in Lori's choice. The love and devotion.
Until that moment, he'd overlooked the hope in it.
But Michonne. Seeing. Always seeing. Helping him see, too.
She lowered Carl's hand to the bed and resumed her post at the window. The muscles in her arms flexed as she folded them, gazing out at the street. She was quiet for a while.
Then she gutted him.
"I had a daughter."
His head snapped towards her.
The room whirled. It turned on its side. Flipped upside down. Turned back again.
He worried that he misheard, that his grief had conjured up this confession in some distorted yearning for companionship.
He stared. Speechless. Reeling.
Later, when she left for watch, when the only sound in the room was Judith's occasional shuffling, he would concede that he'd known. Somewhere, in that secret, ever-expanding place labeled Michonne, he had known this about her.
But, right then, those four words—I had a daughter—dizzied him.
He'd considered the possibility. Of course he had.
But time passed. Their relationship deepened. And she never said a word. She was his confidant, his partner, his safe place. And he'd thought, hoped, he was hers.
He had considered she'd been a mother. Of course he had.
But more time passed. Their relationship unfolded, opening up something both radical and familiar in him. Terminus. The road. Now Alexandria. And she had never mentioned a child.
He'd abandoned the thought.
Her aloofness with Judith could be explained otherwise.
She simply didn't want to grow attached to their community, to the life they were building. She'd been distant with everyone. Her search for The Governor kept her at arm's length. Rick knew even back then that it wasn't just The Governor keeping her out there, keeping her away.
She was alone when she stumbled up to the prison. Raw and angry and alone.
Rick knew how one ended up alone in the world.
Loss.
Her entire family, he presumed. The nephew she'd adored and only mentioned once in passing. Andre. At least one sibling. Parents. Friends.
Her lover.
A man Rick mused on. A man she never spoke about save that one time. The dead boyfriend she used to talk to. The one she had offered as a tenuous bridge between them, back when all he could see in his periphery was Lori. And sometimes Shane.
Her bond with Carl and eventual ease with Judith could be explained too. Underneath her toughness and reserve, she was charming—tenderhearted—infinitely so—A fact that became all the more apparent as one got to know her.
Of course, Rick had considered the possibility.
And now she had just confirmed, in the calmest voice imaginable, that she did have a child. One that wasn't there with them as both his children lay in the room.
Alive.
All this time, she had been carrying that loss. By herself.
Jesus.
"Michonne," he breathed.
He rarely used her full name anymore.
"Colette, after my mother. Lettie for short."
She rolled her shoulders, still facing the street, her head quirked at an angle. Rick could see her face. She smiled briefly.
"It's an old-fashioned name, I know. Probably why my boyfriend Mike liked it so much. He was always waiting for me to be old-fashioned, I guess."
She sighed. There was so much there. Rick wanted to ask but knew not to interrupt.
"Mike was like Lori. He wondered what the point was. But he wasn't as brave in the end."
Rick wondered if she was avoiding his eyes on purpose. Maybe the words came easier that way. Maybe they were opposites. Her eyes drew him in. His turned her away, made her feel too claustrophobic.
"Merle said something to you once. About the walkers I had on chains. Do you remember?"
He started to speak, but his throat was raw and swollen. He cleared it.
"I do."
He remembered everything concerning her.
He'd pondered that particular detail. But he never asked and she never volunteered. He hadn't wanted to alienate her, especially after she began to trust him.
"Mike and his friend Terry. Their chains were their punishment."
She turned to look at him. At Carl's prone form.
"But more than anything," she said, "The chains were my punishment. So I would remember."
She closed her eyes then and Rick was sure that she was seeing her daughter. Had she looked anything like her exquisite mother?
His heart stuttered. Her eyes were clear when she opened them. He wanted to comfort her all the same.
"I know what it feels like to fail your child, Rick."
He shook his head.
"Chonne."
Whatever happened, it wasn't her failure. He knew that. He knew that as much as he'd ever known anything in his life.
"One day, I'll tell you how they died. But I can tell you now that Mike was wrong. Death isn't easier."
Her shoulders slumped as if she were deflated. She dropped into the opposite chair again and took Carl's hand. Rick suspected it was as much for her comfort as Carl's. This time, she traced the lines of his hands, from heel to fingertip. Rick turned his head to wipe his tears. The last thing he wanted was for her to comfort him over her loss. Word bubbled up and lodged in his throat. Useless, insignificant words.
How?
Jesus, Chonne.
What happened?
Please tell me what happened to you.
How are you still here?
How did you survive that?
Why didn't you let me carry this with you?
"I'm sorry, Chonne. I'm so sorry."
Useless words. A single lit match in a sprawling, dark forest.
She was quiet for a time, then held out her hand. Without hesitation, Rick gripped it. He was surprised to see her smile. The same smile Judith got when she did something particularly precious. She squeezed before replacing her hand with Carl's. His son's skin was smooth and elastic, thanks to her care.
"He's still here. You can touch him. You can see him. So whatever failure you're ruminating on, make peace with it before he wakes up. Because he will wake up, and he'll need us."
Her words consoled and rebuked him. He was as grateful as he was repentant. For his wallowing. For his self-pity. For not knowing that she was carrying this all while sitting with him, looking over their son, reminded of the worst thing that had ever happened to her.
Her pretty brown eyes drifted to the window. He loved those eyes. He wished, selfishly, that she would stop denying him.
"I can't promise that he'll always be here, Rick. I wish I could. But I promise that I'd die to keep him safe. Maybe that doesn't mean much. Now that you know I couldn't protect my own child."
"Hey," Rick said, surprising them both with his sharp tone, which he never used with her. "No. You don't do that. Look at me."
Rick angled his head to capture her gaze and she refused him.
"Look at me, Michonne. Please."
Her chest heaved. Just once. A single, shuddering breath.
When she finally granted him her eyes, those brown eyes he loved, they swam. Tears slipped down her cheeks for the first time since her revelation. His heart crumpled, but he ordered himself to keep his voice even, to stay seated. Otherwise, he feared, she would retreat. As, he realized, she had been doing in a way since they'd met.
"I trust you with my life. I trust you with Carl's life. With Judith's. Nothin' you say to me will ever change that. Nothin'."
Those delicate tears pooled in the well of her collarbone. The one he'd catch himself staring at on the road, late at night, with the glow of the fire reflecting off it. In his most tired and vulnerable moments, he wondered what it would be like to kiss her there, if she would like that.
Now he just wanted to wipe the tears from it.
He sat still, pinning her with his eyes, willing her to stay. He needed to make this demand of her. Because if he didn't push, she would take the out. She would run.
She sighed. It was an exhausted, watery thing. The look she gave him cleaved his heart in two.
(She would give him that same look months later. As she came to terms with the possibility of losing him to Negan.)
"You don't even know what happened, Rick."
No. And he hoped, desperately, that she would tell him one day. So he could carry this with her.
"I know you."
More tears fell down her face. She didn't bother to wipe them away, and Rick was grateful that she knew that she didn't need to. She turned again to the window. He reached for her hand, rubbing his thumb back and forth across it. She didn't pull away.
He saw her sometimes.
Colette. Lettie.
A tiny, gauzelike shadow that came and went.
Sometimes she stood stock still with her eyes on her mother. Sometimes she looked at him.
It had been three weeks since Carl died. The first time he saw her.
He knew exactly who she was.
He didn't know how he knew that first time. He just did.
Judith slept upstairs. Michonne glided around the kitchen—more out of an inerasable grace than any lightness of heart. She absentmindedly assembled almonds and slices of cucumber, tomatoes, and apples.
Neither of them had much of an appetite, but they did their best to make sure the other ate at least once a day. It was their new routine. Sitting at the counter or dining table, holding hands, and forcing themselves to eat. A silent meeting of grieving lovers.
Michonne worked facing the kitchen window, her back to him. Rick watched her with unseeing eyes.
The air around her knee moved.
He blinked.
Don't start this shit again.
A shadow. A flicker.
Not again.
Michonne stepped to the side to reach the salt and pepper. The shadow moved with her. Rick shivered.
He didn't see Carl as he'd seen Lori, and he was ambivalent. But now, faced with the possibility of Carl's ghost, Rick realized he'd been relieved.
Michonne moved again. The shadow followed.
Rick stared.
The shadow—the girl—turned and looked at him.
His breath caught.
Though delicate and translucent, her face was clear. And so very familiar. High cheekbones. Big, plaintive eyes. A nose that broadened winsomely at the nostrils.
Lettie.
Her head titled to the side as if she'd heard him.
Lettie, he thought again, stunned.
She smiled. A wide, sparkling smile as if to say, That's me! Rick's heart stuttered.
That smile was all Michonne.
Lettie turned to her mother and looked up, her tiny hands resting on Michonne's shin. Michonne gave no indication that she could see or feel her.
The sight rooted Rick to his chair, his eyes affixed to his love's lost child.
It neither frightened nor worried him. It should. It meant he was probably losing his grip on reality. It was why he was relieved not to have seen Carl. He couldn't go to that place again, the one he went to after Lori.
The pain of losing his son threatened to kill him most days. He worried sometimes that he'd drop dead from the grief. But at least, unlike after Lori's passing, he felt somewhat tethered to the world still.
He attributed this largely to the woman standing before him. To her presence. To her tranquility in the midst of her grief. To her unique understanding of his pain.
A pain she understood precisely because of the flickering apparition at her feet. The one that only he could see.
Rick didn't know why he could see her. Or why he wasn't afraid. Or why he was sure that it was Lettie.
He knew only, in a fierce way, that he loved her. He embraced the dizzying affection with open, greedy hands.
Michonne turned, plate in hand.
"Oh, baby."
Lettie disappeared.
Michonne put the plate on the counter, rounding it to wipe at his face with gentle hands. Only then did Rick notice the hot, swollen feeling of his eyes and cheeks. She moved to pull him into her breasts. The way she often did when a crying spell seized him. He'd spent many nights since the war ended, dampening her chest with his despair.
When he resisted, she pulled back.
"I'm sorry. Do you need space?"
Shaking his head, he held her wrists, preventing her from moving away.
"No."
She inspected him.
"I love you," he said.
Lips pressed together, she ducked her head so he wouldn't see her eyes watering. That he could bring this fearsome warrior to tears with three words moved him. It always did.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
Everything. Their children were dead.
And, worse still, whatever he felt, she felt twofold. Not that she ever—ever—compared their grief or even really talked about the loss of her child. Instead, she cried with him and wrapped herself around him when she needed comfort.
But, God, she said so little.
"I—I need you to know somethin'," he said.
"Tell me."
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Her pulse thrummed against his lips. It was steady, like her. His own heart hammered, afraid of how she'd receive his words.
Lori had resented this about him. His reticence. His fear. He always seemed to be thinking the wrong thing, saying the wrong thing. Never saying enough.
Michonne was a lawyer by training. She was both savvy and selective with her words.
"I know I wasn't there, but I woulda done anythin' for her. Anythin'."
She frowned, confused. But Michonne. She was quick as lightning. The smartest person he'd ever met.
Eyes shimmering, she stepped back. Her lips quivered.
"I'm sorry," He said. "I'm sorry we didn't meet 'till after."
Her hand braced her stomach like she was trying to hold something inside. He stood and she stared at him with her big, pretty, glistening eyes.
"I woulda loved her."
She made a wretched noise. Something between a sob and a whimper. Hearing it nearly buckled his knees. He had never heard her make that noise before.
"I do love her."
He wanted to say more. There were things he'd been thinking about, things he wanted to tell her, things that had been on his mind to share since she'd revealed her loss to him.
Instead, he wrapped his arms around her, grateful when she melted into him, burying her face into his neck.
After many moments, she spoke.
"I know."
Seven Months After the War
It was he who suggested the move.
He'd been thinking about it for a while.
Michonne spent a lot of time in Deanna's old house, transforming it into a headquarters. .
"So our house is just ours," she said.
It worked. The Alexandrians learned to seek them out at the townhouse.
Judith loved the townhouse for some reason.
She liked to run from room to room, reveling in the low buzz of adults coming in and out. So much so that Rosita found and installed baby gates to keep Judith from taking a tumble. The townhouse had three flights of stairs. Two to the upper floors. One to the basement apartment.
"These stairs are steep as shit," she said, a frown on her face.
He was grateful for Rosita. The kinship between her and Michonne had grown since the war. They were similar. Fierce. Pragmatic. Tenderhearted.
He sometimes found them in the kitchen, heads bent over plans, talking in low voices. It was how he learned that Michonne spoke Spanish. A fact she liked to tease him with sometimes.
Eyes on the map before her, she said something to Rosita. He didn't understand a lick of it. Rosita flicked her eyes at him and then huffed.
"Ew, Michonne. Jesus."
Rick raised an eyebrow as Rosita hightailed it out of the kitchen, feigning a gag as she went. Her smile sabotaged it. The front door clicked behind her.
"What'd you say?" he asked.
"Something naughty."
He blushed as his lower abdomen tightened.
They hadn't made love in months.
"That right?"
She leaned on the counter.
"Mhm."
He glanced into the adjoining living room, where Judith slept on the couch. It wasn't lost on him how comfortable both his girls were here.
"What was your old house like?" he asked.
"My old house?"
"Yeah. Before all this."
She titled her head in thought. Then, nimbly, she slid onto the counter. Rick stared. Her leggings pressed against her labia, molding to the plump shape of it. His blush deepened, and he averted his eyes.
"I preferred apartment living back then," she said.
With another peek at Judith, he came further into the kitchen, positioning himself against the counter opposite her.
"I had a condo downtown. I loved it."
It didn't surprise him that she would prefer something more metropolitan. He could see it, decorated with art and plants and color, filled with her music.
"Mike lived a few buildings over. He wanted me to move in with him."
Rick's ears perked up. She rarely talked about Mike.
"Did you?"
She waved her hand.
"Baby, I wasn't giving up my dream apartment for a man I'd been dating for five months."
That pleased him. It shouldn't. No use being smug about a dead man, especially one she'd loved. And one he understood to an extent. Rick resented him for betraying her and if he could, he would revive him so he could kill him again. But had Rick been in Mike's place, he'd have wanted to wake up to her too.
"How'd he take it?"
Shrugging, she extended her leg. Her foot was silky under his fingers.
"About as well as he took me not wanting to buy a house in Buckhead with him. He wanted to live in a neighborhood a lot like this, actually."
"But you didn't?"
"The suburbs weren't my thing."
She didn't say so, but he got the feeling that the suburbs still weren't her thing. She groaned when he pressed his thumb into her arch.
"Good?"
"Yes."
His inner thighs tingled.
He slid his hand to her ankle, calf, and back to her foot.
"Lori and I used to drive around neighborhoods like this."
Her eyes softened the way they did whenever he talked about his past.
"So, did you end up in your dream house at the end of the world?"
He hesitated.
"It's a real nice house. I ain't complainin' about it. Especially now."
She tilted her head.
"But?"
Lori would have adored their current house. It was exactly what she'd always wanted for them. A big house with a wide, wrapping porch. Big windows. A spacious backyard. Something to pass on to their kids and their kids down the line. A house they would never be able to afford on a teacher and Sheriff's Deputy salary.
He'd struggled with that when they first arrived in Alexandria.
The dream house without Lori.
The guilt.
That the house felt like a dream even without Lori.
Because Michonne was there.
How could he relish sharing his wife's dream home with another woman?
That guilt had faded. Time did that. Being in love did that. But he wished Lori had gotten to see the house, have it for herself. She deserved that kind of thing. Now Carl was gone too, and the house was ill-fitting without him.
"What did you dream about?" Michonne asked. "If not for a fancy house."
"You."
The word was out before he could stop himself.
"So you're clairvoyant?"
She thought he was teasing.
"I wish I'd seen you coming, Chonne."
His tone was serious, and she noticed. Before she could ask him about it, he released her foot, instead resting his hands on either side of her hips. Then, because he wanted to, he kissed her collarbone. He knew now that it made her tremble, that she liked it. Just like his kisses to her neck, the tops of her breasts, the inside of her thighs.
"I wanted to feel what I feel with you. That's what I used to dream about."
She stared at him with wide, stunned eyes. Her pulse thump-thump-thumped in her neck.
He needed to tell her this. He'd needed to talk about it for a long time. He had tried with Shane a few times. But Shane couldn't hear him, couldn't understand his melancholy way back then, a melancholy that Shane felt was inappropriate, gratuitous, ungrateful.
You have everythin', Rick, Shane used to say. Everythin'. What you're feelin' will pass.
"I wasn't the best husband before. I never cheated or anythin' like that. Never wanted to, never thought about it."
He sighed, took her hands in his, and stared at them so he could get all the words out.
"But after a while, I wasn't there. I loved Lori. I did. I swear I did. But I worked a lot. Too much. I went through the motions. I figured if I kept doin' that, I'd feel what I wanted to feel. Lori deserved a lot better."
Judith shifted on the couch. She huffed, rolled, and stilled again. Michonne had piled blankets and pillows on the floor in case their little one moved too far. After a beat, he continued.
"It was me. It wasn't her. I know that sounds like bullshit. But it really was me, Chonne. I was waitin' for somethin'. Wantin' somethin'. I didn't even know what it was then."
Before, there had been that inescapable emptiness. That hollow feeling. The sense that something indiscernible was missing from his life, from him. It wasn't until Carl that he'd felt like he knew the world a bit. It wasn't until Carl that he'd felt purpose or any real sense of being.
As he held his son, the world made sense for a bit.
But still the void would return to him.
As he drove around King County on patrol, houses and longstanding business passing him by. As he sat in Dan's, a beer in front him, chatter around him, people laughing and feeling and being. As he stood before the grill, gazing at his manicured backyard, barbecue fork in his hand, food sizzling. As he occasionally sat in the pew on the back row, listening to the preacher. As he rolled away from his wife after their love-making, his breath returning to him, his dick growing flaccid.
That was his life. Yearning. Wanting. Waiting.
He could never put words to it, never say just what he was yearning for.
Now he knew.
"Mike," Michonne started.
She bit her lip and squeezed Rick's hands.
"He didn't understand why I was the way I was."
"The way you were?"
She shook her head, laughing.
"He used to say we had everything, especially after Lettie. We had the jobs, the baby, and the fancy condo—I did move in with him after I got pregnant. But I wasn't all there sometimes. I know that. He knew that. I know that was painful for him, wanting parts of me he could never reach. I didn't even know what those parts were, Rick. I felt them, but I didn't know what to call them."
Rick's knees weakened with the eerie similarity.
"I guess Mike felt like he wasn't enough. That the life we had wasn't enough for me. But that was the thing. I never said I wanted that life. The kids. The house. The marriage."
"You were married?" he asked, surprised, sure they hadn't been.
"No," she said, letting go of his hands to pull her hair up. "He wanted to be."
"But you didn't want that?"
"No."
This pleased Rick, and the pleasure of it shamed him.
"Why not?" he asked.
She shrugged.
"I never cared about stuff like that. I always thought you could love someone, deeply, and not marry them. I didn't like what marriage did to women so I wasn't interested."
Rick nodded. The fact didn't surprise him, knowing what he knew about her.
"Mike couldn't understand. Why I didn't want that. Why I didn't want the house in the suburbs. Why I didn't want to be his wife. And I could never figure out how to tell him that I wanted something else, I just didn't know what it was."
She released her locs and took his hands again, her attention drifting. His drifted with her. And they sat, quietly, musing on how the world had brought them together. Time got blurry when they were together so Rick wasn't sure how long they'd been there when she spoke again.
"I was waiting for you too."
His heart burst with joy, with wanting, with being known. He gripped her hips and pulled her closer to him. She welcomed his lips eagerly, wrapping her arms around his neck. The kiss was lewd in a way that neither of them had been for a while.
Grief did that.
She moaned when he gripped her hips harder and pressed her against his torso. A fire lit in him. He swallowed her, pushing against her so fervently that she gripped the counter with one hand to steady herself. With new leverage, she rocked against him. He felt the heat between her legs, and he groaned. He moved to pull her off the counter completely when she put a hand on his chest. His eyes fluttered open.
Dazed, he murmured, "What's wrong?"
She smiled, taking his face in both hands and turning his head. A grinning Judith stared back at them.
"Papa," she said.
The lovers extricated themselves from one another. Michonne slid off the counter. Rick adjusted his jeans. He walked to the couch and placed a kiss on Judith's forehead.
"Hi, sweetheart."
Judith babbled, a string of recognizable words sprinkled with gibberish. She clapped her hands in excitement, bouncing on the couch. Rick took one of her hands and nibbled on it. His baby girl squealed with laughter.
As his arousal faded, he glanced at Michonne. She leaned over the counter, staring off into the distance. Rick regretted his passion then, always worried about pushing her too far. He picked Judith up, and her hands immediately went to his beard, which she'd become increasingly fascinated by as it grew.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have—"
Michonne frowned, blinking and coming back from wherever she'd gone.
"No. I'm sorry. I got carried away."
Rick wanted her to get carried away with him. But since Carl, they hadn't found that rhythm. His body barely functioned in the immediate weeks after. For a while, it had taken everything for him to leave the bed in the morning, especially with Michonne wrapped around him, her grief as heavy as his.
And as the grief had lifted some, they'd had moments. Fleeting. Gestures towards the energy and ardor they'd had when Carl was still with them. But Michonne would pull away, kissing him tenderly, cooling them both.
He understood. How the body caved under the weight of despair, how the body and the self bifurcated, making things like desire and lust out of reach.
Carl's death had reopened a wound for her. One that Rick was sure never closed to begin with. How could it? It was the wound of being alive when your children weren't. It would never close.
So, as his desire for her returned, he suppressed his longing never wanting to compel or overburden her.
They touched still. They couldn't help it. Soft kisses. Holding hands. Wrapping themselves around each other at night. Massages to help the other sleep.
Rick vowed to let her come to him when or if she was ready. He had forgotten himself today.
"I been thinkin' bout somethin'."
She pressed her lips together.
"About what?"
"How would you feel about movin' into the other townhouse?"
Her eyes widened in surprise. He came to her, sitting Judith on the counter between them. Judith immediately turned her lips up to Michonne who leaned down to meet them.
"Mama."
"Judy Bear."
They grinned at each other and Rick's heart swelled. Oh, how he loved them. Oh, how they loved each other.
"Judith loves this place. You like it here too. It ain't quite a condo, and it's still in the suburbs which I know the city girl in you hates—"
She smiled.
"But it could be good for us. It's—"
"It's different without him," she said.
It was. Noticeably so. Michonne put a hand to his face.
"Let's move."
His stomach sank with relief.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah," she said. "I'd like that."
Alexandria took to the move as if they'd been waiting for it. After, when they'd transferred everything to the new house, he found Michonne on the old porch.
He'd found her there many times since Carl died, her hand pressed to where Carl's had once been. He would settle on the ground next to her without speaking and wait. It was hard to look too closely at the last physical impression of his son so he would watch her instead. He would think of how happy she'd made his son, how much they'd loved each other, how deeply their hearts had spoken to one another. And his affection and gratefulness would produce the tears that were always just on the cusp of falling. Crying, he would lament, privately, that he had something she didn't, a physical trace of the life his son had lived. All Michonne had were her memories.
"Let's take it with us," he said of the wood planks.
"You'd be okay with that?"
He reached forward to wipe away her tears.
"I want you to have it close to you."
Because that's where she needed it.
Her bottom lip trembled, and he opened his arms to her. She crawled into his lap, and they cried, right there on the porch, in a way saying goodbye to Carl all over again.