Rick and Michonne are sitting on the car's rusty hood in the middle of the road. Carl is standing by his father's side, holding Judith in his arms. Their friends are not far ahead, waiting. Daryl's on watch on the roof of the broken down RV, while Glenn and Abraham are busy with repair duty. Hopefully, the stashed battery will lead them to their promised destination.
"Fight's over, you gotta let it go," Michonne proffers as Rick grabs the handgun lying behind him. She hears the answer in his tired sigh and would be surprised if she gets more out of him.
"I know it's hard. After it's kept you warm… and fed. Alive." He's blindly searching the ground, unable to see the softness in her eyes, but he feels it through the veil of numbing anxiety. His body's tense, twitchy, expecting the next deadly ambush.
"But the fight," she continues, "it turns on you." Her traits are now serious, somber, reaching for the man she's grown to know and trust, in spite of the justifiable fear holding him hostage.
"You gotta let it go," she repeats. The care, compassion and certainty in her voice draws him in. He looks at her pensively, then away and subtly nods, a little more spirited.
"That's what Bob was trying to tell me at the church. What to risk, when it's safe." Rick pauses, then resumes. "When to let someone in..." He exhales deeply.
"The rules keep changing…" Disoriented, he looks for something to hold onto. Her kind gaze is there to meet him.
"They did for me," she confesses. He finds consolation in her lenient features, but deflects her attentions, troubled by a recent, restricted recollection.
The RV's engine roars and brings his awareness back to their location. The greenery of the spring Virginian landscape is split by a streak of dirty asphalt. Her eyes do not leave him.
"Before we get going, I gotta… I gotta take a moment." He stands hesitantly. Michonne acquiesces and watches him cross the roadside, then beyond the treeline.
Rick mindlessly brings the car to a halt in front of Alexandria. He squints to shield his tired blues from the scorching sunlight and sits static, scanning the rusted gate, confused as to what to do next.
Adrift, he barely perceives his companions already getting off their vehicle. The engine's pur fades out and children's playful yells reach his ears from beyond the gate. His face relaxes to the sound of unencumbered life.
Rick turns to Michonne sitting in the passenger's seat. She gives him a tender and knowing look, and lays a hand on his, still gripping the wheel. She smiles, her eyes ask the question even before her lips do.
"You ready ?"
He takes a few seconds to take it all in.
"Yeah… Yeah." He finally turns the engine off, and goes to grab Judith happily flailing on the backseat. She takes hold of his beard under the golden hour sun, he chuckles.
"Should we go? " He kisses his baby's forehead and joins the rest of the family at the gate.