In which Michonne is a university professor and Rick is a contractor.

Michonne exhaled deeply as she massaged the balls of her feet. She was finally done grading final papers which means that her summer vacation could start.

"Hey, mom!" Carl called out from across the hall. She hadn't made her presence known yet, but he had perfected identifying who's sighs belonged to who.

"Hey, hun. How was your day?" She asked him.

"Boring as hell!" He yelled back.

"Language!" She retorted as she dropped her keys and purse on the closest table she could find. Carl had come into her life at a young age, Rick and Lori had broken up when he was two and she'd loved him like her own son ever since. So much so that she could feel him rolling his eyes at her. "If you keep rolling your eyes like that they'll get stuck."

She rolled her shoulders back and made her way to the living room where her children were watching TV.

"Mommy, mommy, mommy!" Her youngest yelled. She jumped into her arms and planted sloppy kisses on her face.

"Hi, baby!" She tried to dodge the wet kisses, but there were too many, too fast as she has made herself comfortable on Michonne's tiny baby bump.

"I missed you, mommy." She whined.

"I missed you too, Junebug." She kissed her back and lay her down back on the couch. "Isn't it past your bedtime?" She inquired a few minutes later.

"It's eight o'clock on a Saturday." Carl replied for his sister.

"Oh." Michonne said. "Where's your father?"

"Upstairs." Michonne looked at the stairs wondering what it was he was doing up there. "He said he was tired."

"Oh." She left the kids in the living room and bee-lined it upstairs to their bedroom. Rick had recently finished remodelling the bedroom to Michonne's desires; it looked like a Moroccan-style home. Having grown up there, she wanted to be in a place that reminded her of her old home with her family.

"Rick?" She asked. There was no response. She shut the door and headed towards the washroom. When she opened it, she found him staring at himself in the mirror with a frown on his face. By the intensity of his frown, it looks like he hadn't heard her.

He was flexing his muscles, smiling at the fact that they were still there. He would periodically touch his face and look at his teeth.

Was he checking himself out? She thought. He sighed sadly and picked up him toothbrush. Michonne snuck into the room and wrapped her arms around him, causing him to nearly choke on the mint-flavoured toothpaste. She kissed his shoulder left blade and neck before saying, "Hey!" And ending with a tap on his bum.

"Hey." He smiled, but they didn't reach his eyes.

"How was your day?" She asked with genuine curiosity as she sat on top of the large and spatious counter to face him.

"Nothin' special." He shrugged and continued brushing his teeth. "How was your conference?"

"Boring... The director of the art history department kept using 'serendipity' as a synonym for things. It made no sense and I now realise how much I hate that word." Rick chuckled. "I really hate that word now."

The pair fell into a silence that was neither awkward nor uncomfortable. Rick moved about the washroom getting ready for bed and occasionally rubbing her stomach while Michonne remained on the counter. She watched him as he internally battled with himself. The last time she had seen him this stressed and pensive was when she first started dating him, when he thought that she was going to leave him because he had too much baggage.

"Is everything okay up there?" She tried to keep it light knowing that he was on the verge of a mental break. "Babe?" She asked again when he didn't answer.

"Do you remember when we went to that charity gala last month?"

She gently scratched her stomach. "Yeah?"

"And you and that guy... Negan or somethin' were laughin' about something only you two got?" She raised an eyebrow at him. "It kinda got me thinkin'. I saw you two standing next to one another other and I thought: these two belong to each other and it made me feel inadequate." He finished while Michonne sat there quietly, in shock. "Sometimes I wonder if I'm good enough for you, if we should be together, if you'd be better off with someone more successful." He sniffed. "I don't know."

"Rick I-"

"I know you won't leave me, we have kids and pension and -"

"Rick!" She nearly screamed and he finally stopped to look at her. She stood from the counter and walked to him. He nearly backed away, but stayed put. There had been a breach of trust somewhere and she wanted to fix it before it was too late. She wiped one of his tears. "I'm not going anywhere, you'll have to pry men away from you." He smiled a small smile. "The only person I would ever leave you for is Prince... Or Leonardo DiCaprio."

"You would break our vows for Leonardo DiCaprio?"

"I would betray you like Brutus betrayed Caesar." He laughed aloud for the first time that evening. "Other than him and Prince, I am absolutely and completely in love with you." She wrapped her arms around him and went on her tip-toes to kiss him. "Now take me to bed and make love to me like a good husband."

"Yes ma'am."