A/N: I started a thing. And I was on the fence with whether to actually start this, because I said I would never do two stories at once again. So I'm blaming SDCC and Andy Lincoln for this, because my feels are everywhere, thanks to him and his mama and the glorious pictures that just came out. (Also, I've been listening to the Alabama Shakes album a lot lately, and it got all kinds of ideas going.) So here we go!

I had someone ask me what I'd do if I could write S6, so that's kinda where we're starting here. In particular, the day (or rather night) after Conquer. I hope you like! -Ash

Chapter 1: Quiet

The night was long underway, and was officially turning to the next day as Rick sat solitarily at his dining table. Everything was quiet as he sat there, eating cookies Carol had made days ago. He liked the quiet, he thought to himself, staring out of the window ahead of him. It was pitch black outside, but he didn't mind the darkness either. It had been so noisy for so long, in his head, at least. His paranoia always running rampant; trying to stay one step ahead. It was tiring.

And when he got to Alexandria, things were just so confusing. It became white noise then. There was Deanna in his ear, then Carol, then Jessie, then Pete. He was hearing everything, and processing nothing. It wasn't until Michonne knocked him out that all the noise stopped. Silence. Peace. Time to think. Time to breathe. He felt better. And that was the reason he could finally actually enjoy the quiet of his home at midnight.

As he finished one cookie and moved on to another, he heard footsteps on the staircase. He tried to decipher who it was by just the sound, but decided it could've been either Michonne or Carol. They both tended to step lightly, he knew, though Michonne was practically soundless sometimes. She moved like a cat. He chuckled to himself at the idea, just as the lights in the room went out. He still hadn't viewed the culprit, but called out to them anyway as he turned in his chair.

"I'm in here," he said, a mouth full of food.

Michonne peered around the corner sleepily, surprised to find Rick sitting there, fully dressed. "What are you doing?" she yawned. She continued across their living room towards the front doors as she waited for his answer.

"I'm just... here," he shrugged. He kicked out a chair for her as he watched her check the locks. "Come visit."

She glanced back at him, a bit perplexed by the request. "Why?"

He avoided her gaze now, looking toward the window when he realized she wasn't in a visiting mood. "No reason in particular," he shrugged again.

"Okay." With a sigh, she took the seat adjacent to his position at the head of the table. "What's up."

"You okay?" he questioned, baffled by her obvious irritation, seemingly with him.

"It's late," she said. She had yawned so many times, her eyes had begun to water. "I just came down to shut down for the night."

He nodded in understanding, taking another bite of his cookie. "You don't have to stay then. I didn't mean to disrupt your flow."

She chuckled a bit derisively and shook her head at him. "You ask me to come sit with you like things are just… copacetic between us."

"Well after our conversations yesterday, I kinda thought they were."

"Of course." She smiled ruefully as she lowered her head. She pursed her lips as she considered how to say exactly what was on her mind.

"Are they not?"

"You can't just… romanticize your lies by saying you did so because I could've changed your mind. I mean, maybe you don't realize it, but it hurt that you didn't trust me, Rick. And I get it," she nodded, seeing that he wanted to cut in. "I meant it when I said that I'm still with you. But I don't have the luxury of shrugging off what you did and chalking it up to you screwing up. I gave you my implicit trust a long time ago, and I think I deserve that much in return. So you've gotta understand if I don't want to sit with you at midnight, uselessly chatting about cookies. Which we both know would've been the inevitable topic at hand."

He swallowed hard, digesting the weight of his actions, and what they'd done to his friend. His best friend, really. He thought that they'd smoothed things over, but in the fog of everything else, he hadn't realized that wasn't necessarily true. She was upset, and she had every right to be. "I'm sorry," he declared softly, his voice thick with both regret and sincerity.

"You should be."

"I wasn't thinkin'," he said for what had to be the fifth time in two days. "It won't happen again."

"It better not. Because I'm with you, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna put up with bullshit. This isn't unconditional."

He dared to chuckle at that, looking her in the eye as he cocked his head. "So you're sayin' you'd leave me?"

She smiled back at him, silently admitting that she had never seriously considered the notion. But she was feeling too indignant to admit that those words were just words. "Let's not forget who left whom here."

He nodded again, because she was right, again. He had gone somewhere else completely, even if only in his mind, and didn't even mention he was leaving. "Fair enough."

"So I'll rephrase what I said. I'm with you as long as you're with me, Rick."

He sighed heavily, both relieved and scared to hear those words. He had no plans on going anywhere, but those moments always snuck up on him. He never had plans to lose himself. They just happened, and often in spectacular fashion. How he could promise he wouldn't go off the deep end again, he didn't know. But he would most certainly try. "I'm with you."

"Good," she said, looking him in the eye, letting him know that she believed him, and she was choosing to trust him once again. "Can I go now?"

"You really don't wanna sit with me, huh?"

She scoffed at him attempting to play the victim here, after all of his shenanigans. "It's late," she said. "And thanks to you, we'll be spending all day tomorrow in the sun, so…"

"Thanks to me," he repeated as if the words were foreign to him. "Did we not sit in Deanna's living room all afternoon and decide that was the best next move?"

"We did," she nodded. "Yes."

"And now you're complainin' about it?"

"I'm 'complaining' about you having me sit here for no reason." She offered an obviously fake smile and crossed her arms over her chest. "And those cookies have to be stale by now."

He smirked at the fact that she was correct, and that they were about to be discussing cookies, just as she prophesized. "They are."

"Well, I guess that's no different than ninety percent of what we eat anyway."

"That was how I saw it." He broke his last cookie in half, and then tore the napkin that he was using as a plate, sliding them both across the table to her. "They're not half bad."

"If you have no tastebuds..."

"You sayin' I don't have any taste?" he challenged playfully, his eyebrows raised.

"If the shoe fits..."

"Sam seems to like 'em," he shrugged, taking a small bite.

"Yeah, well he's also eight," she joked.

"I think he's ten."

She frowned at him curiously, surprised that she knew the boy's actual age and he didn't. "I was kidding. He's eleven."

"Oh," he shot back, bemused. He could tell that Michonne thought that was something he should know, given his connection to the Anderson family. "Carol spends much more time with him than I have."

"Not something you've discussed his mother then, I take it."

"Not quite," he confessed.

"I figured with you in the street, ready to die for Jessie, you'd know more about her kids than I do. But... no judgment here."

"That sounds a lot like judgement," he said, stifling a chuckle. "And for what it's worth, that fight with Pete wasn't for her."

"Wasn't it?"

"I mean, I guess some part of it was," he quietly conceded. "But most of it was ego, I think. Just plain old hubris."

She scoffed at the fact that he was avoiding admitting the actual reasoning behind his dick-swinging contest with Pete. From an observer's perspective, he wanted Jessie for himself, and it was that simple. "If you say so..."

He looked up at Michonne, eyeing her intently when it was clear that she didn't believe him. "Nothin' happened between me and Jessie, if that's what you're thinkin'. I wasn't after another man's wife. I wouldn't do that."

She nodded, hoping that she knew at least that much to be true about Rick. But she had also gotten wind of him kissing Jessie on the cheek at Deanna's party, and it had been hard for her to get a read on him since then. "Sounds like that didn't stop you from kissing her," she said. She avoided his gaze, knowingly stirring the pot as she took a bite of her cookie.

He looked back at her blankly, surprised to hear that she knew about that. "It was a peck on the cheek, " he retorted. "She had Judith, brought her back to me, and I was just sayin' thank you."

"Never seen you kiss anyone else on the cheek," she continued with her mouth full. "And I know at least two of us have saved Judith's life. So..."

"I know I've thanked you, and Carol, and everyone several times over," he chuckled uneasily, suddenly feeling like he was on a witness stand.

"Well… I guess me and Carol and everyone else just aren't pretty enough to deserve a kiss for it then," she prodded, knowing she was making him sweat. "I get it."

"Come on, Michonne, you know you're gorgeous," he blurted out before he could think.

She quirked an eyebrow at his proclamation, but wished she had a mug of something to hide the smile that was trying to sneak past her lips.

"Carol is too," he quickly added in a failed attempt at saving face. But it was true. They all were. "You all are."

"That is accurate," she said, smirking. "I'm glad you agree."

He nodded, finishing off what was left of his cookie, then began to pick the crumbs from the table to drop into his napkin.

"I'm fucking with you, Rick," she smiled, proving his very statement in that moment. "Honestly, whatever you do with Jessie is your business."

He chuckled appreciatively, given the fact that he was already on thin ice with Michonne. He probably would've done whatever she wanted in that moment. "I don't know what's gonna happen," he said honestly. "I don't even know if she's mad at me or what. But I'm not… pursuing anything there."

Given the fact that he had just killed the woman's husband the day before, that sounded like a good idea to her, but she decided against saying anything one way or the other. "As I said, that's your business."

"And you have no opinion on it one way or the other," he nodded sarcastically, knowing that wasn't true. "I got it."

"I don't," she said defensively.

Her harsh tone was confusing and amusing to him. He kept his head lowered, unsure how to cap off their conversation now. He decided to go with something innocuous. "I didn't thank you for last night," he remembered. "For taking care of Carl and Judith while I was… sorting things out with Morgan and Daryl."

"You know you don't have to thank me for that," she said softly, shaking her head. "I thought we came to that understanding back in Atlanta."

"I guess after everything, I wanted to make sure."

"I'm not Jessie," she smirked. "You don't have to kiss me on the cheek for holding your baby."

"All right," he smiled bashfully. She likely wouldn't stop giving him shit for that anytime soon, and he would just have to live with it. "Weren't you goin' to bed?"

"I thought you wanted me to visit…"

"I thought we could unwind, maybe talk about the meeting today. I didn't know you were gonna turn it into an interrogation."

"Men always do that," she said, shaking her head again, disappointedly now.

"Do what?"

"When you get into an uncomfortable conversation, you act like you're being grilled. When the fact is, you just don't wanna have the conversation."

"I don't think that's specific to men," he submitted carefully. "Why does it feel like you're mad at me?"

"I think I am," she answered with a yawn. It was a long and drawn out and dramatic yawn, followed by a sigh. "Or I wish I was. For some reason, I'm not good at being mad at you."

"Well, you looked pretty pissed yesterday morning," he recalled.

"That's because I sat there staring at you for ten hours, and all I had to think about was how stupid you've been lately."

"I find it hard to believe you did that for ten hours."

She crossed her arms again, and sat back in her chair, looking very similar to the way she did when he'd woken up the previous day. "Then you clearly underestimate just how stupid you've been lately."

"Touché," he relented, raising his hands in surrender. "I just want us to be okay."

"We are…"

"And you're okay?"

Michonne nodded this time, a little less sure about that answer.

He narrowed his eyes, trying to get a read of her expression, to no avail. "Well I won't keep you then…"

She didn't move, however, grappling with herself over whether she wanted to actually have the discussion that was happening in her head at that moment. She would usually come to Rick with her worries, but since Alexandria, things definitely felt stilted between them. "I took my sword down," she decided to say, figuring he had already noticed anyway.

"Yeah… I saw that," he confirmed with a nod.

"You didn't say anything."

"I didn't know what to say. Yesterday, you said you didn't need it. And after Pete, I figured you realized you did. That maybe it's safer on your back than anywhere else."

She closed her eyes, taking in his words. The same words she said to herself when she took her katana from the mantle. It was almost jarring to realize how well Rick knew her sometimes. "I suppose there was nothing to say then."

"And you're sure you're all right?" he pressed. He felt like she was holding something back, but his knack for knowing what was on her mind was failing him now. "Even if I can't fix it, I just… wanna know."

She smiled at him gratefully. "I'm fine. Really."

He nodded, accepting that he wasn't going to get much more than that.

"We should get to bed," she said, already grabbing the table to push up from her seat. "Tomorrow is gonna be a long day."

"Aren't they all?" he joked. He stood with her, grabbing both of their empty napkins to leave the table clean.

As he headed off towards the kitchen, she called after him softly, not wanting to wake their housemates. "Rick?"

He turned back to her with his eyebrows raised questioningly. "Yeah?"

"I'm proud of you."

He felt his face flush, even though he had no idea what she was proud of him for. "For what?"

"You did screw up," she said, echoing his sentiments from the day before. "But I see you trying to fix things, even if you're uncompromising in your methods. I know you wanna make this place a home, and I just… since I haven't said much since everything last night, I thought you should know that."

He nodded, running his hands across his stubbly chin and the bandages adorning it, processing her admission. "I appreciate that," he said.

"Good night, Rick."

He watched as she turned for the steps, noticing her light footsteps once again. Michonne had a way of sneaking up on him, he realized, literally, and figuratively. Even on the day they met, she showed up at his gates out of nowhere, taking him by utter surprise and bewilderment. Since then, she had slowly but surely climbed her way to the top of the list of people he trusted most. And now, he found that she was constantly in his head, keeping him grounded, holding him together when nothing else would. He was almost afraid to find out how she would end up surprising him next.

She had already made it up the steps by then, and was probably in her room, but Rick's mouth seemed to be on a delay behind his brain when he finally responded to her. "Night, Michonne."