Author Note: Hey, all! I'm not usually a story juggler, as it's almost too much to write one story at a time, but this idea came about after watching an SNL spoof (I know!) about two reporters who had a lot of sexual tension on air who recently got engaged. I thought that it would make for a great Rick/Michonne fic.

Anyways, I'm not sure about this one, so if you like it tell me! Thank you.

Chapter One: Monday Morning

Monday

9:30 A.M.

"And we're live in three, two, one…," the camera man snaps, as Michonne Anthony steps into the frame.

"Hello, Michonne Anthony here reporting live from the White House," she begins, motioning behind her. "Donald Trump, or as we like to call him here at Morning Grimes, Donald Dumbass, is about to give a speech in the press room on the firing of house speaker Sean Spicer," Michonne went on. "Over the last couple of weeks, the house has been chaotic after the abrupt firing of former FBI director James Comey. Sources within the white house insist that this was not because of former Democratic nominee Hilary Clinton's emails, but really, about ties between Mr. Trump's cabinet, and -"

Michonne was cut off by the abrupt sound of harsh beeping in her earpiece, as she heard one of the producers whisper frantically to her. "We're cutting to Grimes, Michonne," said Abraham - her news director - spoke sternly, his boisterous voice hurting her ears. "Do a quick cut to the desk, pronto, Anthony. The President is about to go live."

"I'm on air, sir, I can just report live now -"

"Anthony."

"Ford, I'm right here and I was just reporting -"

Unsure of what to do, Glenn continued to roll, motioning for the bus to make sure that they didn't get cut off. Maggie Greene, an assistant reporter, nodded back, making sure that everything was still connected.

"Cut to Grimes, 'Chonne," He instructed her sternly. "We're live. And stop calling the President a dumbass."

She sighed heavily. "Fine," she told him, hearing the clicking of him ending their communication. She forced a tight smile on her face, deeply annoyed that after nearly half her life in this career, and a Master's Degree in Journalism from an Ivy League school, she still played second fiddle to the white man. "I'm very sorry about that, we had a bit of a connection issue. I've just been informed that Mr. Trump is about to speak. Let's cut back to Rick Grimes at the anchor desk, the one who so eagerly handles every story."

She said this bitingly, bitterly, before signaling Glenn to shut the cameras down. Afterwards, she trudged over to the van, and chugged down her coffee.

"Ousted again by Grimes?" Maggie asked, knowingly.

Michonne sighed once more. "Yeah, I guess I should be used to never getting my teeth in the real scoop."

Maggie's bright emerald eyes grew soft with empathy, as she'd seen Michonne struggle for awhile at Morning Grimes. She's come there only a year ago, but rose quickly from morning fluff pieces about diets to hard hitting political journalism straight in Washington. She'd seen Michonne secure sources inside the White House and directly with Representatives; she'd sacrificed relationships in order to always be in the front lines of every single travesty, massive national issue, or political one. And in that time, they'd become close friends.

The second cameraman - Eric - a short young man with glasses and credentials longer than his body, crossed to the other side of Michonne, depositing his gear onto the ground next to him. "Ford must've cut in on your story again?"

"He did," Michonne confirmed.

Eric rolled his eyes.

"Abraham is hunky man meat that I wouldn't mind riding me, but the network is totally fucking him up the ass," Eric bluntly stated. Maggie and Michonne couldn't help but laughing out loud at his candor. "He's trying to turn us into Fox News, when we're not exactly right wing media's cup of tea."

"That's probably why they've got Grimes - his Georgia boy, small town former police officer act makes middle America feel safe," Michonne said, taking another swig of her coffee.

"Yeesh, 'Chonne, Grimes isn't too bad," Eric laughed at Michonne's pettiness. "You just need him to dick you down. I'll record the sex tape."

Glenn walked over, chuckling and shaking his head. He gave Maggie - his fiance - a quick kiss on the cheek before sitting next to her. "Eric, Michonne is right on some level, though. She deserves to be at the anchor desk just as much as Grimes does."

"Definitely so," Eric agreed.

Maggie ruffled Michonne's dreads affectionately, and then put a comforting arm around her. "I'm sure you'll get that anchor job. You just gotta hold on."

Even though Michonne knew that Maggie was right, she still felt like giving up.

2:30 P.M.

Michonne arrived to CNN headquarters after a long and stressful flight back home in coach. There had been a mother with a newborn in the window seat next to her, and a bigger man who farted a lot, and insisted on flirting with her in the aisle seat. She was trapped the entire time, just praying to get out, or at least hoping that maybe the plane would crash to put her out of her misery.

As soon as Michonne stepped into the newsroom, a production assistant came over to her. She was a young girl, with bright cerulean eyes, and a zest for life that comes when you're in your twenties working in some capacity for CNN.

"Ms. Anthony, the executive producer would like to see you and Mr. Grimes in his office immediately," She said, staring down at the clipboard in her pale hands.

"Do you know the reason?"

"No, he just said to come."

The young woman seemed nervous, Michonne noted, and she didn't like the idea of pressing people in such a way. "Thank you, I'll go ahead and get Grimes myself."

"Okay, thank you!" the girl responded, before quickly scurrying off.

Michonne sighed, hating that she'd given herself the assignment of wrangling Grimes, but she figured that she was the only one who could. He owned this place. He knew it. So, sometimes it satisfied her to tell him what to do, and where to go. As she set off to find him, she thought about doing this in great detail, until she found him sitting at his desk with the weather girl.

The weather girl - Jessie Anderson - stood by Rick Grimes' desk with a smug smirk on her face. She was a girl that'd probably slept into her position, not that Michonne liked to think of women that way, but she came to work in too-tight dresses, her cleavage piled up at the top like two overly ripe cantaloupes; her naturally brown hair dyed platinum blonde, and her make up overdone. She'd hang at his table, overtly giggling at each and every joke, because she, like Michonne, was after the big gig.

But Michonne knew that she deserved it. She'd performed at the top of her class at Columbia, her marks were high in law school, she'd written for The Times, reported for the local news in Atlanta for nearly 10 years before she had landed her current job as a reporter for CNN's Morning Grimes. She wouldn't be ousted by some brainless bimbo who claimed to be a meteorologist but had trouble telling the difference between Cumulus cloud and a Stratus cloud.

Jessie Anderson jiggled her boobs in a disinterested Grimes' face one more time before she decided to walk over and break the news to him.

"Grimes," Michonne said, her tone clipped.

His jaw clenched, as his steely blue eyes averted up to where she stood. "Anthony."

"The executive producer wants to meet with both of us," Michonne informed him. "Now."

"Any idea what this could be about?"

"Why would I know?" Michonne snapped.

"No need to get sour on me, Anthony, I'm simply askin' you a question and you're actin' like I pissed in your cheerios," Rick stood, turning to address her directly. Michonne wore five inch Louboutins, which made them nearly the same height, and for a moment, she was startled by the intensity and beauty of those eyes. "Do you have a problem with me?"

Michonne felt a warmth and a tingling at the tone of his voice and forced herself to keep her composure. "No, I don't have a problem."

She moved back, the two of them still locked in a heated staring context, neither one wanting to flinch first. And then Rick smirked, his eyes travelling up and down her body, from her shapely legs, covered in navy blue pants, to her matching navy blue blazer, and white button down, unbuttoned just enough to reveal a little bit of cleavage.

He kept staring, unable to help himself. Damn, he thought to himself. She had been his enemy ever since their days at FOX 5 Atlanta. She'd beaten him at nearly every story, every promotion, every exclusive story in the Atlanta area, but he had gotten the deal of a lifetime: his own show on CNN over her several years ago, and he'd thought that his show was safe until they'd also hired her as their top news reporter nearly a year ago. Ever since then, she had been competing for a spot on his anchor desk.

He thought that he'd deserved that spot, as he'd spent several years working as a Sheriff Deputy for his community, serving and protecting, before he'd switched fields into a different form of service. But he couldn't help how attractive he'd always found her, how untouchable she'd always been, even with the underlying energy between them.

And then he heard snapping, but not her snapping. It was Jessie, his overtly perky weather girl. "Rick," she purred. "Michonne," she continued. "Your meeting?"

"Oh, yeah," Rick said with a careful smile. "Thank you, beautiful."

Rick said this and threw a pointed look at Michonne, who stood there with steam nearly coming out of her ears, pushing past the both of them without as much as a word. Rick watched her ass sway for a moment before quickly following her to their executive producer's office.

When Michonne and Rick arrived to their executive producer's office, the pair of them fought at the door for who would enter first. Rick argued that obviously he would enter, as he had seniority over Michonne, but Michonne argued that she was specifically told first to arrive, and so she should enter first.

"I can't believe you'd really abuse your powers of anchorship to get in the door first," Michonne snapped, annoyed that he got under her skin for the smallest of things.

Rick smirked to himself, enjoying pushing her neatly polished buttons. "My powers of anchorship?"

"Yes, you think that just because you sit at that desk that you're top -"

" - I think that you're assumin' a lot about me, just because I don't have your fancy degrees and -"

" - My fancy degrees are exactly why I deserve to be here more than -"

"Settle down! Jeez, you two act like children," came the voice of their annoyed, red faced boss Dale Horvath. "Now get your asses in here."

Stunned, the two of them nodded their heads and scurried inside the room with their literal tails between their legs.

"You two are in here because I've got a proposition for the both of you," Dale began, pulling out a thick stack of papers from underneath his desk. "And by proposition, I mean you're doing the damn thing with no talk back."

"Doing what thing?" Michonne asked.

"You two are my new co-anchors," Dale smirked, and sat back.

"Will the show be called Morning Anthony and Grimes now?" Michonne asked, a little too eagerly.

"You were just waiting to take my title, weren't you?" Rick said, he sat straighter, his head titled slightly, his eyes were once again hard.

"I just think that it's only fair," She responded simply.

"Well, too bad, Anthony, it's still Morning Grimes," Dale told her, which caused Michonne to deflate. "The viewers seemed to really respond to the back and forth during the 9 o'clock hour, so the network head - Negan, has requested that you both be put on to 'spice things up,'" Dale explained. "TODAY has been eating up our ratings lately."

"So, we'll have the whole 9 o'clock hour?" Rick asked. "Just the two of us?"

"We'll probably add in a correspondent or two, book some guests, but you'll be delivering the news in a different sort of way," Dale explained, motioning to the stack of letters in front of him. "These are the fan letters demanding you two be co-hosts."

Surprised, the pair turned to face each other; Rick wore a panty melting smile, with his curls becoming a bit more messy than they usually were. He continued to stare at her, as if trying to communicate something to her without speaking. And she knew that they'd always had this vibe between them, but she hadn't realized that thousands of people had picked up on it.

She also knew that this was her dream, even if it meant sharing that dream with Rick Grimes.

"When do we start?" Michonne finally asked, reluctantly pulling her eyes from Rick's.

"Tomorrow morning," Dale said.

Well, Michonne thought. We're fucked.