Its been a while! But i hope this won't disappoint. This is the conclusion of ACTII!

Enjoy!!

Michonne's tears glistened in the moonlight. Propped up on her elbow as she stared at Judith's sleeping face, her heart heavy, weighed down by all that's transpired so far. Disappointment wasn't the only thing her daughter displayed when she broke the news of Rick's departure, Michonne was further pained by Judith's tears and the wracking sobs she couldn't seem to contain. It came as a surprise at how attached she'd become but it was something Michonne could understand. She looked toward the window in the room and out into the night, she too often felt her thoughts drifting towards the handsome man who saved them, fed them, and essentially took on their burden when he so clearly had his own. Where had he gone? Was he alright? The moment they had before he left, was it real?

The reality of being on her own was much more steep than she could've ever predicted. Her determination was wavering and it made her frustrated, she couldn't; she wouldn't. She needed to quickly think up a plan to get them to Woodbury. They had some money and other necessities but was it enough to carry them the distance? They would need food and places to lay their heads because as far as she knew, Woodbury was worlds away from Alexandria. Her mind tried to think back to the maps she'd scoured over in Siddiq's office but it was all a blur to her now. Michonne sat up slowly, not wanting to wake Judith and slinked over to the window that looked out toward the back of the dilapidated home. There was a cropping of woods encasing them and she spotted the lone shed a fair distance away.

The night carried a lot of sounds if you listened closely and the quiet, secluded home amplified it. The faint intermittent croaking of frogs most likely from a creek nearby, the high pitched chirping of crickets that created a tune with some wayward owl on the breeze. Michonne stared at the shed, it was quite daunting in the shadows but the moonlight gave a streak of clarity against one of the front windows. An unusual feeling stirred in her gut the longer she looked, it had never occurred to her to check it, save for the first night, it had slipped her mind that it was even there and beyond that she'd been worried sick for Judith and trying to bottle her sadness about Rick leaving. He definitely could've scoped it out already, deemed it irrelevant but he would've said something to her. The shed wasn't completely visible, it was partially hidden behind a small cluster of trees and if she strained her neck enough she could spot a stack of firewood and a few unidentifiable things peeking from behind the building. She blew out a breath and hugged herself. The smartest thing to do was go to the clinic and see if they could point her in a general direction or better yet, lend her a map; she wasn't the most well versed in cartography but it couldn't be helped. In the end she wasn't sure she quite liked the way that Dr. Greene eyed her as she collected Judith and received the rundown on how to prevent further sickness. This was another problem—Judith needed medicine, she may have been stable and awake but she wasn't completely out of the clear yet. Despite his loaded silence, Dr. Greene had given her a prescription of what would be best. Michonne wasn't sure they had enough to cover the cost.

It was odd. Michonne had never felt this searing liability before. She planned to escape for so long that it became more fantasy than reality. She had structured her mind to just keep putting one foot in front of the other until she got somewhere where she could settle, be a real woman with real dreams and not something for someone else. She was naïve and she was sure it looked that way to Rick. Heat welled in her cheeks and along her chest—thinking of it now, it was embarrassing. For someone who had a purpose, a need and a goal like Rick, her displays of defiance and grandeur must've looked abhorrent. She never truly had a plausible plan and she had deceived herself into thinking she did.

In hindsight, Michonne never thought she'd escape. After him , after Mike she had been deterred, so violently from what to expect beyond the walls of Wysteria that her bolstered stubbornness and resistance to what she once knew became a comfort to her. He had shaken her world in the worst way possible, clipped her views so much that she had become complacent in being a difficult woman; a sought after flower, the one, who by all accounts and purposes, dragged Gertie by her toes. Michonne was broken, she knew Gertie was troubled, she knew something was off; had caught glimpses of it at a young age but it was all she had. The control in those short moments when she would anger the house mother, annoy her, twist her chord enough that it snapped. It made her feel something, invigorated? Vindicated? The pain reminded her that she was still there, not in some dank basement going mad by her own breathing. The sorrow and disappointment of being sought after by someone you had once treated as a mother made her aware that she wasn't soulless, that emotions hadn't been sucked from her. The misogyny she endured, the humiliation, the racism polished with fetishism. Everything was just her trying to shed a version of herself she hated, that version she wanted to believe was a phantom left in that basement. That version of her that was dying, dead, killed.

Michonne took a breath. Her mind had completely strayed and her body felt stiff with tension. Visions of her life played back in reels until it came to halt with her standing over a bleeding Gertie, trying to tamper that smile that made her feel icky, lost, yet giddy. The smile that came with the want to grab Rick's gun and put a bullet through Gertie's skull with no hesitation. The moment had been quick but it frightened her. The phantom in the basement still clung to her, the animal that Mike created in that godforsaken basement still had a place despite all her countermeasures. Maybe she hadn't done much to thwart it, maybe that version of her had just switched targets. The daydreams, the fantasies, the bloodthirst of finally showing Mike what he'd born had been shattered by Gertie sending him to jail. Her animal despised her for that, hated that she couldn't end it herself, hated that she'd never get to feed that smile that crafted in the dark.

Michonne turned to Judith, her dark brown eyes gleaming in the night. It held a hardness she'd become less used to when her daughter had first arrived, when Sasha had first been brought in, when she'd started getting to know the world beyond her enclosed cage. She breathed slowly, watching Judith's small body move with steady breaths of her own and she felt herself calming down. She thought of Rick, if he was cold, if he had eaten, did he find his son yet? His curly hair, chiseled jaw and soft eyes, his comforting presence and the warmth she felt despite his stoic expression. She'd only ever seen him smile once and it had been small, engaging Judith in chatter and watching her excitedly ask questions, some he would answer and some he wouldn't.

Michonne could use him now, just to talk. She didn't know if he would be okay with the ugly being residing in her and not knowing was as good an answer as she would get. Her chest ached at the thought and it ached for the action she had been tempted to take that first night she saw him. It was shallow, it was callous, it proved to be a waste of thought. Not everyone beyond the walls was like Mike. Michonne turned back to the window and stopped short. She saw a flash of movement through the window where moonlight hit. Her heart picked up pace as she tried to make out more movement in case it had been a trick of her eyes. Witnessing another tiny movement in the window, Michonne felt her blood run cold. Someone was there and not too far from them. Questions started coming in like a heavy current. When did they get there? How long have they been there? Why hadn't she seen them? It was all useless, she needed to act now.

She went back over to Judith and bent to leave a lingering kiss on her forehead. Michonne loathed to leave her but she felt her to be safer in the house where she knew no one lurked, though it didn't hold up much comfort now. Could there be others? Had they gotten in? Should she wake Judith? More questions.

She stared at her daughter for a beat. "Judith" she called her and shook her gently. "Judith wake up sweetheart"

The young girl stirred before she squinted into the dark room, hand coming up to rub at her eyes. She was still facing away so when she saw the empty space next to her, she jolted up but Michonne was there to soothe her.

"I'm here baby," she said.

"Mama?" Judith's voice was small and laced with sleep but Michonne's heart swelled at her new moniker. It gave her a kind of strength she didn't know she possessed and made her surging anxiousness settle some.

"I'm sorry to wake you but I need you to hide in the closet until I come back" Michonne hurriedly explained.

"Why, what's going on?"

"I think someone's in the shed behind the house. I'm going to check" Michonne looked toward the bedroom door. Feeling like time wasn't on her side, she also needed a weapon. Judith's small hand wrapped tightly around Michonne's wrist and the two looked at each other. The worry and fright on Judith's face made her one part protective and another part angry at whoever this was, causing her daughter to feel this way.

"Are you sure?"

Michonne nodded. "I am"

Judith looked at her a moment more, as if etching her face in her mind or perhaps simply trying to process all of this after just waking up, not unlike she did earlier that day. It was a source of frustration for Michonne that they couldn't catch a break but it seemed life was intent on making her work for the one she wanted with Judith.

"Okay" her daughter nodded slowly.

"Okay" Michonne repeated and helped Judith tuck her tiny body in the far corner of the closet.

"Wait until I come back. I'll knock four times, then pause and knock a fifth, understand?" Judith nodded as she hugged her knees. The scene was enough to break Michonne but she couldn't guarantee that she would be safe by her side.

"I'll be back" she said, it wasn't an outright promise but it held conviction and Michonne hoped Judith could hold on to that. She grabbed the jacket Rick got for her and tucked into it quickly before leaving.

She then stepped out into the still upstairs hallway and closed the bedroom door. It was quiet but she knew that could be deceiving. Someone could be in there with them and Michonne hoped to the heavens that it wasn't the case. She checked the other rooms cautiously and found no one so she made her way downstairs and stopped behind the couch. Her eyes went to the dwindled fireplace and then up—she's seen it before but she figured it was a prop; some kind of décor, something like the old oil lanterns on some of the walls at Wysteria . Michonne rounded into the middle of the sitting area and pulled the coffee table off to the side of the fireplace since there were still embers burning. She tested her weight on it before climbing it to reach for the flat surface of the fireplace. The sword rested in iron holdings shutting from the wall and Michonne stretched to grab the end. When she lifted it she was surprised by its heaviness, she figured it was better than nothing and was determined to use it for blunt force but this was intriguing.

When she got the sword down she looked at the dusty white leather of the scabbard and admired the beauty of it. She wasn't expecting much when she unsheathed it but the glint was almost blinding, she stared in awe at the blade and wondered if it was sharp enough to cause real damage. Michonne wasn't sure she could pull that off but the thought of Judith cowering in a closet waiting on her, stirred the anger from before. She was done with being held back, being reduced to a damsel; Michonne had enough of that. Something fiery burned in the pit of her stomach, something different than the sludge like hold of the animal, something sensible yet forthcoming.

Michonne dropped the sword back inside, strapped it across her body and made her way down the hallway towards what she knew was the back door. A shiver ran through her because it would be so easy to ambush them, to come in and catch them off guard. She was glad the fire was low but the person probably already knew it was inhabited. The back door's lock had rusted away so it was all up to chance if Michonne thought about it enough, this was why Rick said it wasn't ideal to stay there. Stepping out into the yard, her eyes immediately went to the dark spaces between the trees where an abyss resided that she had a hard time feeling confident about. But her thoughts were solely on the shed just off in the distance. She unsheathed the sword once more, feeling a bit more confident about having it and she trekked into the dark of the night.

As Michonne got closer to the shed the more wary she became. She spotted the pile of firewood along with an overly rusted bike and other junk like cut mesh, pipes and discarded netting. Michonne stopped and listened and through all the sounds of the night, she heard faint shuffling coming from the wooden shed. Her heart hammered but she approached and stood in front of the door, it was slightly open which confused her.

The door creaked and she knew whoever was inside was alerted. She heard the hurried skittering and then silence. Michonne's guard was up and she clutched the hilt of her sword praying her eyes would adjust fast enough before she was rushed. She stood there, staring into the dark until she could make out shapes and some furniture. Once she stepped inside she heard the tell tale movements and without much thought she heaved the sword up and it collided with something metal. Her arms were unused to the weight of the weapon and the force of the impact reverberated through her arms and shifted her feet, so she let it fall. But they came at her again and she blocked as best she could, feeling her muscles strain. She moved away after pushing back their weapon.

The figure was becoming more pronounced as was the interior and she confusingly took in that the makeshift work table was pushed to a corner along with a few miscellaneous things, the shelves still held boxes and tools and some of them were in the same corner as the table and in the middle of the room was a thin blanket and some pillows, along with a tattered bag with what looked to be some clothes and a clear plastic bag of what she could only describe as garbage scraps. They came again and this time she was caught off guard and hit on the arm. She yelped but retaliated by thrusting up her weapon to brace the force with which they dealt their blows, this was her first time fighting this way and she was getting a crash course in her lack of physical strength. They had moved near the window that the moonlight streaked across and there she saw his face—a young boy. He pressed heavily into her, eyes blazing, alert, wild and Michonne quickly backed away. He rushed forward but she leaned away and held up the sword as a barricade.

"Stop!" She shouted.

The boy halted and eyed her, body tensed and poised to fight. Michonne's eyes were wide as she stood to her full height and stared at the gangly boy who could be no older than 9. His chest heaved and his eyes never left her and she felt like prey, like she was being surveyed even though they never abandoned eye contact. Michonne's stomach twisted. A brief image of the small storage closet on her way to the back door being slightly ajar, made some things clear.

"You knew we were there" she caught her breath.

He said nothing. Only stared.

"You've been watching us," Michonne stated.

He settled down his weapon but didn't seem unguarded in the least and Michonne wondered how such a young boy could seem so off putting, so rigid but Michonne knew that reality could be a real bad wake up call. He was thin, thinner than he should be. His hair was an overgrown, wild, curly afro that fell messily into his face and from what she could peep from behind the strands, his eyes were a deep brown like hers but his complexion was lighter. But what really took her attention and formed a knot in her gut was the dark, jarring mark just beneath his collarbone peeking from the neck of the too big shirt he wore. It was crude and jagged and Michonne swallowed the bile that rose up in her throat because a brand would've been better, no, the 'W' symbol was harshly etched into his skin by hand.

"Who are you?" Michonne lifted her gaze back to the partially hidden eyes. They were so clear, yet expressionless and she wondered what he was thinking. Would he attack her again? Did he fear her? Why hadn't he rushed them? They were vulnerable and yet there he was in a shed.

He straightened, the tension easing just the slightest bit. He didn't stop surveying her but he seemed less threatened. "I don't have the luxury of answering that question"

"Why not?" The adrenaline from Michonne's body was loosening and she was feeling the damage of her hasty actions.

He said nothing.

"You've been here all this time, snuck in and took what you needed and not once did you make yourself known? How?" Michonne's curiosity had always been a double edged sword, one she'd learned to use to her advantage but in this case she was just in awe. Had this been someone with ill intent they would've been more than screwed; they could still be screwed.

"I'm just used to efficiency," he said factually. Michonne tilted her head slightly. The way he spoke was blunt even for a child. His tone felt very monotonous but there was a telltale inquisitiveness underneath it. She watched him frown slightly before dropping his metal pipe down further and let out a breath

"Where is the man?" The boy asked.

Michonne swallowed. "Why?"

"You ask a lot of questions," he said passively.

"And you don't really answer them, do you?" Michonne felt her mouth quirk a bit. He was definitely a kid but one that wasn't pretending at living, he was every bit portraying his survival and she wanted to know more. Her thoughts immediately ran to Judith, she saw her in him; another child who was dealt a hard hand and survived, is still surviving. They may have seen different scenery but they definitely saw the same sky. She stared at the boy as he flopped down on his makeshift bed and started digging through the plastic bag of scraps. He'd scoped her out and he seemed unimpressed and no longer alarmed; Michonne wasn't sure to be offended or relieved. Her first stint with a weapon and it was with a kid who seemed more adept with one. It said a lot. It opened a dam that ran many different ways.

"What's your story?" She couldn't help but ask as she watched him pick at the corners of a half eaten sandwich. Her eyes roamed then and caught the sight of his bare feet, scuffed up and dirty, then his hands that were bruised and calloused.

"I don't have one"

"Lying isn't fruitful, ever heard that?"

"No. And that's stupid"

"Why do you think that?"

The boy sighed and looked at her. "Because lying is essential. It's gotten me food before and clothes and a place to sleep" he went back to picking at the stale bread and floppy lettuce and vegetables.

Michonne looked around the space again. "It seems you've done that on your own though"

"Because I needed to. You took the house and that man was always watching" he told her and pulled out what looked to be a moldy piece of cake. Michonne reached out then, her stomach roiling at what he was about to do. His eyes flashed with something dark then and she pulled back but she didn't move away. The silence was loud but Michonne wasn't one to be deterred and her concern about Judith was growing. She needed to get back to her. Although she was feeling that concern extended to the strange boy huddled in front of her. She crouched.

"Come inside"

"No"

"You should and I'm not asking either. I'm sure you've seen the little girl with me, that's Judith and she's friendly company and right now she's waiting for me but knowing you're out here when we only occupy one room, won't sit right with me"

"You want to soothe your conscience" he stated. She caught his gaze. It was so strong and keen and reminded her of Rick in that sense, though it didn't hold the warmth and definitely none of the innocence you could find in Judith's intelligent eyes.

"If that's the way you want to look at it, if that will make you follow me" Michonne sheathed the sword into the scabbard on her back.

"I'm not following you. I'm humoring you" he huffed and Michonne couldn't hold the smile this time.

"Then, thank you," she said.

The boy stuffed his garbage meal away and stared at her long enough for her to become awkward so she stood up and went towards the door, trusting that he would indeed humor her. She made it more than halfway back to the house before she heard his hushed voice. His mop of hair flopping as he walked.

"People like us don't have stories" he said as they came up to the back door.

Michonne turned to him. He was lugging the bag, the scraps nowhere in sight. He stopped in front of her and seemed to hesitate. She watched him lift his free hand towards his face before he paused and let out a breath. Michonne didn't say anything she was curious and worried about what he clearly felt the need to do. He eventually pushed the bulk of his hair away from his face and Michonne's eyes widened at the long scar running from the left side of his forehead to just above the right side of his lip. It was pink and puckered so it couldn't have been that long since it was inflicted.

"What are you saying?" Michonne breathed. Her heart was hammering.

"I think you know. Your scars aren't visible" he said with surety.

"Tell me"

"We don't get stories" his eyes bored into her. "We get eulogies"

-()-

Gertie stepped off the train after it pulled into the overarching station. The platform was fairly busy with people going to and fro for what she thought was a sleepy town. Though Malamut was very much the hicks in comparison to the sprawling liveliness of Alexandria. She made her way through one of three terminals before heading to the big double doors that led outside.

The sun was just beginning to rise in the distance and Gertie breathed in that clean air. There was a breeze brushing the baggy pants she'd traded for her dress and the T-shirt and jacket for her cloak. She pulled the cap low on her face and walked through the spattered crowd waiting to be dropped off or picked up, toward the map of the town plastered on a bullet board. She moved her finger along from where she was and stopped at the nearest police station well into main street. It was as good a place to start as any. Gertie felt a buzz circulate through her limbs at the thought that she was close, so close to seeing her flower again, so close to laying her hands on her, so close to teaching a lesson that will make her realize that leaving her had been the biggest mistake of her life.