Chapter Text
She counted out the days, though she could no longer tell the months: 136 days Michonne stayed in the cabin, laboriously gathering and chopping the firewood; drawing and boiling the well water for washing and drinking; setting traps and cooking what rotless flesh she could find; checking the perimeter up to a mile around either way in the wood; keeping her sword sharp and unbloodied; watching her belly swell and waiting for Mike and Terry to return.
On the 137th day, she found a man tangled in her perimeter.
She thought he was a shambler for a second, for he did not seem very bothered or even particularly aware of the razor thin wire tangled around his ankle - he simply lay upon the forest floor, among the bloodied leaves and dirt, his eyes vacant and unhurried as she bent to look him over for scratches or bites.
She heard sparrows in the branches above - their chirping, first, and then the beating of their wings as they flew off.
When she was satisfied he had no signs of fever or either of infection, she stood straight over him. His eyes slid over to her as she gestured her sword at his head.
'Do you want to live?' she asked.
He blinked - he eyed her and her sword with a wariness that came and went, in waves. It was all the answer he gave.
He lay still, almost prone, while she clipped him free - he said nothing when she tied a plastic bag around his ankle, to catch the blood before any more of it left a trail. There was the barest flicker of curiosity in his face when she uncorked her sake jar and poured diluted vinegar over the bloodied ground - but he asked no questions.
He followed after her without objection. He did not turn into a monster when she showed him a very roundabout route to the cabin - he remained injured and largely untalkative when she opened its door to him.
She made a (possibly toxic) concoction of whiskey and Listerine, dug out the fabric shears, and grabbed the rolling pin from the kitchen and the skin stapler from her room.
In the guest room, where he lay bleeding, she cut off the bottom leg of his left pantleg, and gave him the rolling pin to bite down on before she cleaned and removed the razor blade wire from his lower calf.
'If you scream,' she warned him beforehand, her voice still raspy from underuse, 'I will stab you in the throat.'
She did not have to worry. She barely had started peeling - never mind pulling - the wire before the man simply passed out.
He spent the next week or so sleeping, mainly; depleting her stock of chicken bouillon and pain killers otherwise.
He walked like a shambler on the rare occasions he had to use the toilet - she showed him how to force a flush by pouring in one of the family size Coca Colas into the bowl. She was paranoid about him fucking up the pipes by taking a shit, but it sounded like he only ever pissed.
In his more aware moments, he seemed annoyed by her following him around. He could be annoyed all he wanted - she wasn't letting him walk around while she was unaware.
Anyway he seemed to recover quickly with her seated at his bedside, her sword always within reach in case he turned.
She slept poorly, of course ... but then she always had, ever since Mike and Terry had gone.
Sometimes she wondered if she would ever sleep well again.
No. No-no-no.
She awoke with a flinch - the 143rd day - and found the man sitting up in bed, watching her.
Little flicks of light came in through the slats on the window. She could hear the rain sprinkling across the roof.
She went very still. She thought of the storm guiding her sword.
She watched him back.
The man had a darkening bruise on his forehead, where he'd knocked it against the headboard in his sleep one night.
'You talk in your sleep,' he said.
Michonne took this riveting observation to mean that he was feeling better. She stood, put her sword in its sling around her torso, and left the guest room. Quickly, she half-boiled him a bucket of well water she'd planned to use for herself if he did not wake.
From the surplus room, she plucked a bar of unscented Dove soap and picked out a set of grey washcloths, and a rainbow beach towel. From the suitcase, she pulled out some clothing that would probably fit him well enough.
He watched her bring the items in one-by-one and pile them - save the bucket - onto the end of the bed, at his feet.
'You need a bath,' she told him. He still smelled of stress, sweat, and blood - plus however many days he'd been on the road before she'd found him. She thought this went without saying.
Apparently it did not. 'You don't exactly smell like a bed of roses yourself,' he said.
'The shamblers seem to like strong, artificial scents,' she informed him, sidestepping his insult. He was lucky he wasn't well. 'Perfumes, colognes, fragrance oils ... they tend to follow those scents almost as much as they follow the scent of human blood. Natural or foul smells don't seem to catch their attention as much.'
She did not mention any of her experiments with steaming rosemary and mint near her hanging laundry. She herself wasn't sure if it was worth the time, effort or water.
'Shamblers,' he echoed. He pushed the covers back and pulled his legs out of bed.
She noticed his wound - which she'd wrapped in a cut-up pillow case after running out of gauze - had beaded up with tiny dots of blood. The dots looked rust brown, at least, so it had probably been a few hours since he'd actually been bleeding.
'The camp I was at,' said the man, '... they called them walkers, there.'
She nodded, not certain what she was meant to do with this information. Maybe he preferred to call them walkers?
She watched him look at her - she watched him take in the interior of the room around them: the spiders in the ceiling corners - the chair where she'd been curled up, sleeping - the planks of wood on the boarded-up window ... the table against the wall behind her, covered in yellowed maps and abandoned experiments ... piles of religion-adjacent books on foraging and surviving in the wild that were unhelpful or even dangerous ... a radio that didn't work except to play static ... tough, cheap gas station chewing gum that she'd bought on the way up here ... some red-topped tacks, and a long roll of Einstein stamps.
After a few moments of this, he winced, and glanced down at his leg.
He'd need something to re-wrap it with, she decided, standing up. She left him sitting there. She stopped off in her room to mark off the day, and then headed into the surplus room.
Not for the first time, she thought how lucky it was that Terry's mom had thought the end of days would require so many linens.
'Bit of a packrat, huh,' she heard.
In seconds, she'd whirled around, the pillowcases tumbling down her front to the floor as she drew her sword and levelled it at the man leaning in the doorway.
He paused on the threshold - he had followed her, she observed: he was well enough to talk and walk and follow her without her noticing - and leaned back, his hands palm up.
'Sorry,' he said carefully. His voice in a hush. His eyes flicked down to the sack of potatoes near his foot, then back to her. 'Didn't mean to startle you.'
The cold bright light of day filtered in through the skylight above her head. Outside, the wind picked up in moments, then just as quickly died down, splatting wet leaves somewhere she could hear but could not see.
She was aware of his strangeness; of his maleness. She took in every detail of his tired face - the faded bruising on his knuckles - the light hair on his exposed forearms - the width of each of his thighs - his height when he wasn't slumped over and losing blood.
She calculated how fast he seemed to be able to walk; how quickly he could reach her and harm her.
She steadied her breath; she did not lower her sword.
Slowly, he lowered one hand and held it out in front of himself.
Huh. Michonne narrowed her eyes.
'My name is Rick,' he said. 'Rick Grimes.'
Oh. He was holding his hand out for a handshake.
Michonne pulled back, still wary - he was playing at friendly, it seemed, so she'd let her guard down. But she would not touch him if it was not necessary, and especially not just to appease him.
She slid her sword smoothly back into its sheath and bent to pick up the pillowcases, her eyes still fixed on him.
She came up close to him, sidestepping the potato sack, taking in the light sheen of sweat on his forehead. Privately she hoped he enjoyed her 'bed of roses' odour.
With the toes of her right foot, she tapped the floor in between his legs. She watched a flush of red travel up his neck.
'How far,' she said softly, 'do you think you can walk?'
He furrowed his brow and lowered both his hands to his sides. He was breathing very carefully, she saw. Good. She liked this - the awareness she could see all over his body - much more than the feigned friendliness.
'I don't know,' he said, a touch of wariness in his voice.
She showed him her teeth. 'Let's find out.'
*
The woman was odd, no two ways about it.
She was almost frighteningly quiet when he was awake - she ignored his questions about whose clothes he was wearing, did not react when he made comments about all the family photos hung up on the wall - when he jokingly asked about 'sword practice?' and pointed out the strange gouges on the living room couch, she simply stared at him and walked out the front door.
In fact, she only seemed to relax when they exited the cabin; and still she became sharp and wary if he observed her too obviously.
Yet she was patient, even solicitous with him. He'd thought, from her ominous delivery earlier, that she'd meant to walk him till he dropped - instead, it seemed she truly wanted to test his stamina while she showed him about. She gave him what looked like a broom that had been sharpened into a spear on one side. ('Failed fishing experiment,' she curtly explained.)
She kept a close eye on him as she took him to the outhouse and the ash box - 'I'd time my shits for the daytime, if I were you,' she told him, so deadpan it almost made him want to laugh - the woodblock where she chopped all the wood, the small garden she'd planted in the dug-out front yard, almost wholly dedicated to basil, mint and rosemary. She slowed down whenever he seemed to be having the most trouble walking.
'What's in that direction?' he asked, gesturing to a path that seemed to wind around toward the back of the cabin.
She ignored him. She walked him down a side path on the opposite side of the cabin, closer to where the outhouse was. Down the long side path they went, and very clearly at Rick's pace. They slowed and slowed and finally came to a stop at the top of a steep paved incline. The incline was slick with rain, pebbles, leaves and all sorts of things that Rick could slip on.
He paused to take a breath - or a few of them, really - trying to mentally work himself up to going down and then back up the hill in the mild, drizzly weather. ('Mossy weather,' Carl would call it.)
He shifted from one boot to the other, staring downward in blank distraction; after a few moments, he realised that his boots were clean. Before, they had been covered in blood - his own, of course, and quite a bit of it belonging to walkers, too. The rest had been Shane's.
But they were clean now. A bit wet from the rain, yes, with bits of dirt and leaves and pine needles on the sides, but otherwise clean. The woman must have cleaned them while he was in and out. Even though she did not know - or, plainly - trust him.
'Down that way is the well,' said the woman, gesturing with her chin. This made the hood of her rain jacket - which seemed too big everywhere but around her mid-section - go down over her eyes. She quickly yanked it up as if nothing had happened. Rick softly scratched the front of his beard so he would not smile. 'I usually go through four buckets of water a day for cleaning and cooking. Sometimes I get too tired, though. Maybe you might help me with that,' she said, 'when you feel better.'
Then she paused, and lowered her head. He noticed she had a very small mole on the side of her nose.
She raised her eyes to his. If she were a different person, he might have found the gesture a bit endearing.
'Unless you want to leave, I guess,' she said.
Odd, yes - unexpected, certainly - yet all the same, a small spring of gratitude welled up in his chest. He had not made up his mind about dying yet, for what he had done - he figured he could wait until he had paid her back for saving his life, first.
He put away his curiosity - for now - resolving to take things at her pace, same as she did for him. He turned his head and looked away from her, pretending to take in the dripping wood around them. Making his body language casual and small. Tapping the heel of one of the boots she'd cleaned ... for an absolute stranger.
'I'll be here,' he said, in mild voice. He sensed her turning to look at him in his periphery; he took in a bracing breath of fresh air - smelling the garden in her clothes, herbal, minty and sweet - and pretended he did not notice her stare. ''Long as you'll have me.'
She said nothing in return - somehow he sensed that his answer satisfied her anyway. A squirrel darted out in their path, then onto the wet squelching leaves, to the left of them as they kept walking, and up the nearest tree.
'Only game I know how to hunt is squirrel meat,' she said, sighing. He snuck a quick look at her, then cleared his throat and looked up at the tall trees overhead when she glanced back. She mistook his point of interest. 'I usually set up my traps on flat ground,' she said, with a slight influx of energy to her words. 'I almost fell from here once,' she almost seemed to smile as she pointed to the slope along the side of the hill, 'before I knew what I was doing. But, hm. I've gotten better at setting traps, I think. I catch rabbits a lot - I usually let them go - rabbit starvation, you know.' He nodded, since this sounded vaguely familiar, even if he had never gone hunting much.
She sounded glum - as if she thought he really might judge her for eating squirrels? letting rabbits go? not being an expert hunter, maybe? - but also much more relaxed, somehow, rambling on about this or that, in that raspy, late-night-phone-call voice of hers. Loose-limbed.
He looked at his boots instead of at her so she would keep talking. She'd caught a fawn, once, and she ended up cutting it loose because she didn't know how to clean or store it. Mm-hm, said Rick. Some days she only caught shamblers, and that was the worst - all the work, and no pay-off. Mm-hm.
There was something fuzzy and familiar about her voice when it was quiet and unselfconscious like this ... he had a strange memory of her talking to him like this in his sleep, quick and rambling and casual - maybe even kind.
He had thought it must have been a dream, for she had been so quiet, so severe that morning. Now he wondered if she even realised she talked like this - largely one-sided, packing in every observation she'd been holding onto - almost as if she might lose it or forget it if she did not tell him right that second.
He wondered how long she had been alone.
Longer than Shane had been alone, he figured; longer than it had taken for Shane to find his way out of the hospital; longer than it had taken for him to find Rick and Lori and Carl; longer than it had taken for him to start seeing Rick as his enemy.
A thin fog drifted over their heads as they ascended to the side path. Rick heard the sound of wings somewhere above them. He despaired.
Through the trees, he could see the cabin, the locked garage shed she had not shown him, the outhouse coming into view. He noticed, belatedly, that the woman had petered off talking while he had tended to his own thoughts.
He was sorry for it, as he was sorry for a good many things, lately.
Leave it to Rick, Shane whispered, to ruin a good thing. Rick ignored him.
He and the woman walked, in newly strained silence, toward the cabin, rising like some wretched wooden carving in the foggy mountainside. He wrinkled his nose at the lingering scent of something fetid and rotting - it was this that he had smelled this morning. The garden herbs did nothing to cover the stench up. Were there walkers nearby?
He could feel the woman growing more and more tense at his side - he got the sense that she did not much enjoy coming back to the cabin, that she greatly preferred being out in the woods. When she began to almost literally drag her feet, he did not say anything, but instead merely slowed down to match her pace, tightening his hold on the spear-broom.
He glanced up when she stopped walking and turned to look at him. She did not turn away or scowl when he stopped short and met her eyes-- well, the part of her eyes that he could see: her hood had slipped low again, and she had to tilt her head up at him to compensate.
The sight was so unexpectedly endearing that he smiled at her without meaning to. He saw immediately that this startled her, and possibly not in a good way.
'What's your name?' he said quickly, dropping his smile before she could bolt away or draw her sword on him again. 'You never said, before.'
She blinked at him. 'You didn't ask, before,' she said, flat-voiced. So they were back to the tense, why-are-you-talking-to-me version of her from this morning, then. Well - he had already decided not to ask too many questions. He'd take it as a lesson, then--
'My name's Michonne,' she muttered, looking away from him.
'Miss-ion?' he tried.
He thought she would scowl. Instead she simply said: 'Mi. Chonne.'
'Ok.' He nodded. 'Ok. Michonne.'
She nodded and ducked under her hood till it slipped almost to her nose.
'--Rick,' she said back - in her low raspy voice that kept catching him in the chest.
Rick scratched his nose and kept his face calm. Mi-chonne would probably stab him in the stomach if he pulled up her hood. It would have been condescending even if there was no sword involved.
Andrea had said that he expected nothing but deference from the women around him, which he hadn't thought was true - especially not compared to Shane! - but Lori certainly didn't jump to his defence. So what did he know.
He frowned, scuffing his boot in place. Where was that rotting smell coming from?
Michonne was more odd than endearing, he told himself. Probably he was just lonely, after being on the road alone for ... however long it had been. His brain shied away from counting the days. Probably he just liked being around someone - yes, a female someone, yes, a not-unattractive female someone - who did not doubt everything he said.
'I'm gonna see if Mike and Terry have come back,' Michonne said, as if he knew what either of those names meant. 'Wait here.' She took a short step toward him, and pushed up her hood. He almost averted his own eyes, trying not to notice how beautiful her eyes were. 'And if you see a shambler - oh, sorry, you call them walkers,' she corrected herself, with as much delicacy as one might hear at a doctor's appointment, 'if you see a walker, please kill it.'
Rick placed a hand over his eyes, and fought his face from smiling as hard as he could. 'Michonne,' he said, when he had controlled himself, and could lift his hand from his face, 'you from the city?'
Michonne paused, and narrowed her eyes. 'Ye---s,' she said.
'I see.' He nodded gravely. She sent him an odd look - then, when she realised he wasn't going to say anything further, turned and went toward the back of the cabin.
He let out a quick scoff. Michonne had probably been one of those fancy, self-correcting city types before everything happened. She'd probably never even been camping before this.
... And she'd still stayed alive, he thought, smile fading, all this time. Somehow she'd learned, somehow she'd taught herself how to survive. He had no doubt that she knew how to use that sword - he had no doubt that she knew how to kill a walk-- a shambler.
He looked down again at the stretched out white tee shirt he was wearing, at the slightly too long trousers that she'd helped cuff so they didn't drag on the wet ground, at the slightly too small windbreaker that he couldn't zip all the way up.
The question was: Why was she out here alone?