Title: With Him
Author: bana05
Rating: T
Characters/Pairings: Richonne
Spoilers: Up to 6x15
Disclaimer: The Walking Dead ain't mine. If it were, there would be nothing but Michonne getting loved on for sixteen episodes straight.
Summary: Michonne hadn't chatted with Mike in a while, which was a good thing, right?
Author's Notes: Although season six is in the books, it isn't yet for the purposes of this installment. This interlude happens in 6x15 but before anyone dies, during one of the mornings in the montage that started the episode. As always, please forgive any errors and enjoy!

It was the hand on her cheek that roused Michonne from her deep sleep, even as her body felt heavy from the weariness of the previous day. She blinked blearily, the room still dark save for the brilliant moonlight entering through the window, yet she met a pair of brown eyes so bright she squinted in its wake.

"Hey, Mick," he said, his smile Colgate ready, a far cry from when she'd last seen him.

"Mike?" she whispered, her heart thundering in her chest. She didn't reach out to touch him, Rick's soft snores and strong arms still about her. She knew her fingers would simply pass through air, anyway. That didn't mean she didn't want to feel his face, the scratch of his goatee, the warmth of his lips that she still missed.

"That's my name. You can wear it out all night long," he said with a wink.

Michonne snorted quietly and rolled her eyes, remembering that was the first thing he'd said to her when a mutual had introduced them at one of the mutual's art showings. Attraction had been there to be sure, but Mike's forced arrogance had left much more to be desired. She'd kept a wide berth for the rest of the night, knowing too well how a Black man who had looks and potential could tend to believe all women were at their disposal, and that was because they usually were. But then Mike had caught her staring at one of the paintings on exhibit, a ruddy abstract she simply couldn't understand, and his interpretation had been so engagingly profound that they'd ended up talking right in front of that art until the gallery had been ready to close hours later.

He'd been getting a PhD in English from Emory; she'd just gotten her fancy law degree from Howard. He'd been beautiful, interested in her thoughts and opinions, and he hadn't minded she'd rooted for Washington while he'd been a tried and true Dirty Bird. Thankfully, the teams hadn't played each other enough where the relationship could be tested, but she'd never hesitated to pull out the Ring Check trump card when Mike got too big for his football britches.

Her parents hadn't liked him, wondering what he was going to do with a PhD in such a vague field, not liking their daughter would have to be the breadwinner while he wrote poetry no one cared about outside of open mic nights. But he'd leave poems for her in her case files, in the lunches he'd pack for her, in the voicemails he'd leave when she had to work late nights at the office.

"You haven't talked to me in a while," Mike whispered, pulling her from her thoughts, his thumb brushing the swell of her cheek. "I'm real glad about that."

She narrowed her eyes. "Are you now? That why you're suddenly corporeal and not just a voice in my head?"

"Dunno about the corporeal part, but, maybe? Yeah," he said with a nod. "Means you're moving on. Means you're finding happiness again. Means you're doing what we couldn't…that I didn't destroy that part of you irreparably."

Michonne pursed her lips and closed her eyes against his words. "I figured out the answer."

"Yes," Mike agreed. "Andrea helped you. Carl helped you. Rick."

She nodded. "You. Him."

Mike drifted the knuckles of his pristine hand on her cheek. She wished she could feel its warmth, its sturdiness. That hand had withstood her bone-crushing grip as she'd brought their child into the world. He'd joke about how two midnight people could make a sun-bright baby even though he'd been the one to contribute that particular throwback gene. Andre had looked like Mike's great grandfather, who'd been the result of a white banker in Dry Branch, Georgia having relations with his young Black housekeeper at the turn of the previous century. Andre had been the most beautiful baby, smiling as soon as Mike had placed him in her arms.

"Rick's good for you, Mick," he said, his lips curling upward, and Michonne rolled her eyes again.

"Even dead you're cornier than Kansas," she teased.

"Hey, Mick and Mike's now Mick and Rick," Mike said cheerily. "I was a poet, after all."

"But ain't nobody know it," she cracked, muffling her giggle with her pillow when he scowled playfully at her.

"You did," Mike reminded her, arching an eyebrow, but he grinned. "Then again, you're certainly not nobody."

She squeezed Rick's forearm since she couldn't touch Mike. "You were everything to me."

"And you were everything to me, you and Andre," Mike said, his eyes suddenly glistening. "I didn't deal with the loss of you very well."

Michonne felt a spike of rage that she purged harshly through her nose on a breath. "We weren't lost."

"Yeah, you were," Mike said evenly, taking her anger in stride. "I'd lost you and I knew it, but you stubbornly held us together. You were good for that, Mick, making ways out of no way. That's what drew me to you."

"You who could find the meaning in anything, make parallels and points out of the most disparate concepts," Michonne reminded him skeptically.

"Writing a poem about how much I love you does jack when the world falls apart," Mike said flatly.

"It kept me going," Michonne revealed to him. "Why do you think I asked you to make up something before we went to sleep at camp?"

Sighing, he leaned forward and kissed her forehead for a long moment. "I'd seen my demise, Michonne, and our son's. I'd never seen yours."

Michonne hissed in a sharp breath. "Michael."

"Our boy wasn't made for this world, and I couldn't figure out how to make him be. I didn't want this for him, you know that," Mike said, his forehead now pressed against hers. "I wanted him safe, and you, but I couldn't figure out how to make that so. I couldn't see a way out. There was no light at the end of the tunnel for me; and while you were trying to carve out of that tunnel with that sword of yours, I was already giving Andre's eulogy in my head." He shuddered out a breath and Michonne imagined she could feel it against her mouth. It didn't reek of reefer anymore. "His death is on me."

"No." Michonne knew now survival was as much about luck as it was about guile, and the more one had of both, the better one's chances. And really, hadn't it always been that way?

Mike simply looked at her for a long while. "I was high."

"Even if you weren't, nobody could've survived what had happened, not even me," Michonne finally admitted, and she reeled from the confession. "I saw that camp, Michael. I saw the devastation in your eyes, that you had to watch…" She could still see, plain as day, a camp completely overrun with people dead or about to be. Terry had found her first, his face haggard and bloodied as he led her to an abandoned truck where Mike and Andre had hidden. Her relief had morphed into rageful grief at the sight of Mike sobbing over their son who'd already turned, his tiny body jerking, his mouth snapping and snarling underneath Mike's bloody hand.

It'd been the same hand she'd almost broken over three years ago.

It hadn't mattered, though, because he'd already been bitten trying to save a son who'd already been dead. Terry had told her what had happened as the light of the living faded from his eyes, that one of the new refugees had been passing out weed and he and Mike had taken some while Andre napped in their tent, had planned to share some with her when she'd returned because they'd all been too tight for too long and they'd just needed to relax. But then the alarm had sounded, a horde had arrived, and they'd been a split-second too late in realizing it wasn't all just a trippy nightmare.

"We were running to the gates, Andre in my arms. He was scratched when one of them grabbed his shirt," Mike had picked up the recitation, his own eyes going dull as perspiration dotted his ashen face. "I punched it to free its grip and another's mouth snapped down on my arm." He'd laughed humorlessly. "Then Terry got bit trying to help me loose. Ain't that a bitch?"

At the time, Michonne couldn't process this because all she'd seen was her writhing undead baby in his dying father's arms. She'd seen their failure, because surely it'd been hers as much as Mike's and Terry's. If they hadn't been high…if they'd gotten as good with a sword or any weapon as she'd gotten…if they'd had enough faith for them all so she wouldn't have had to shoulder it by herself…

If the world hadn't gone to shit and dragged Mike down with it, then she wouldn't have had to sink her katana through their son's skull.

"I'm glad you have another chance at happiness and love with a man better equipped to handle this new world than I was."

Michonne blinked and tears streaked down her face. "Mike…"

"He is, and that's the simple truth of it," Mike said with a firm nod. "I ain't mad at the brotha for that. I'm glad. As hard as you held it down for us, you need someone who can hold it down just as hard for you."

"Am I just having you say that to make me feel less guilty?"

"You shouldn't feel guilty about love, Mick," Mike said. "You loved me. I let you down in the worst possible way. You hated me."

"I missed you. I loved you," Michonne whispered. "I always will."

Mike's smile was wistful and he kissed her forehead again. "Be happy, Mick. You made it out that tunnel. Enjoy this light."

"You got me through it," she whispered. "You protected me, you and Terry, and I couldn't see that until recently."

"Light shines and reveals. In the aspect of your eyes and smile I see a future that begins with you. Bright and hopeful and blessed to be bathed in yours. Though I do not deserve your offering, I treasure it always."

Michonne hiccoughed a sob hearing Mike recite a line of a poem he'd written when he'd learned of her pregnancy.

"I'm just glad I could do for you what I couldn't do for our boy," Mike whispered. "I did the best I could, even though it wasn't enough, and I'm sorry for it. I really am, Michonne."

He'd turned while he'd been in the middle of that refrain and she'd hacked off his jaw. Now, she kissed him quiet. Air. Nothingness.

Rick's arm tightened around her middle just before his lips found the curve of her shoulder. She looked over that shoulder to see bloodshot blue eyes gazing back at her.

"I woke you," she stated. "I'm sorry."

Michonne didn't ask if he'd heard because it was obvious he had.

"Mike's the dead boyfriend," he conjectured, his tone neutral, understanding, and she nodded. He nodded back. "Did y'all have a good talk?"

She nodded again and smiled softly. "He says he's glad I'm happy."

"That's all I want you to be," Rick drawled into her neck, sleep already reclaiming him. "Safe and happy for as long as you draw breath. And you're drawin' it for a long time if I have anything to say about it."

Michonne tangled her fingers with his hand that cradled her womb. Her belly fluttered like the loose ends that were still flapping in the wind over their deal with Hilltop and the lingering Saviors that remained. Yet here in this bed with him, Michonne resolved to focus only on their light and silently vowed to protect it with her life.