A/N: Hi guys! I got a new AU adventure for Richonne. I gonna try a "normal" Rick and Michonne, no gods, no powers, hopefully, fun and an exciting take on our TWD couple.

Please read, enjoy and hope you like!

Yelle

Chapter 1

It's A Brand New Day

Atlanta, Georgia…

"Good morning, Sasha. Which bay we workin' today?" Michonne slammed her locker shut and walked over to where her best friend sat staring at her locker door. As usual, the two of them showed up for work early to get things ready for the rest of the crew.

Sasha dragged her eyes away and hurriedly closed the door before Michonne came close enough to see what she was gawking at. "Good news. We're assigned to the Kingdom today."

"Cool." Michonne flung her locs behind her shoulder as she started zipping up her knee-length lab coat. Not paying attention to her jumpy and nervous buddy, she checked her pockets to make sure she had all the equipment she would need throughout the day. "And, what's the bad news?"

Michonne counted medical tape, sterilized metal scissors and several hemostats (plastic scissor clamps). She always kept at least eight of the dark blue clamps hooked to her coat and placed along the zipper for easy reach.

Sasha sighed, took one last look and finally closed the locker before making sure her single braid down the middle of her head was still tight. She pulled on her coat and grabbed her white visor with its clear plastic shield. She had drawn her name in some pretty cursive and painted flowers around it, making it easier for their donors to see her name. "They've partnered us with Jessie and Spencer."

"Shit! Like I really need this today." Michonne lifted her foot up on the bench in the employee's locker room and made sure her sneakers were tied. "I know Andrea did this on purpose. Ok," she took a deep breath and relaxed her shoulders, "I'm not going to let this bother me. Today is one of our busiest days and I will remain professional."

Michonne straightened with a determined look, "Sasha, keep Spencer on your side and I'll take Jessie."

"Girl, you know you might as well be working by yourself," Sasha guffawed with a hand on her hip.

"I know. I'm holding out hope that Jessie is gonna get it together." Michonne shrugged and waved her hands, "I'm going to be encouraging and try not to roll my eyes."

Sasha made sure she had all her hemostats and laughed, "Just make sure she doesn't fuck anyone up like the last guy."

Michonne tapped her on the shoulder, "And, you make sure Spencer doesn't spend all day flirting with donors instead of doing his job."

"Let's do this." They spoke together and gave each other a high five before making their way out the employee locker room to the donor floor.

Michonne Buchont and Sasha Williams stepped out into the receiving area of the medical facility, ASZ Plasmapheresis Center. A place where people came to donate their plasma and were paid a small fee.

The building consisted of four main sections: The front area, donor floor, QC, and the employee's section.

When the donors first walk into the front, their weight is documented, they answer a questionnaire about their medical history and their vitals and iron levels are checked to make sure they're healthy enough to donate.

Next, is the donor floor where the donor is given their chart with their personal/medical information and led to one of the four rooms or bays separated by wide glass windows. They are then escorted to one of the donor bays to be greeted by the phlebotomist or assistant. The charts are reviewed one last time for any inconsistencies and if everything checks out, they are prepped for donation. From there, they are hooked up to an automated centrifuge that separates white cells from their red blood cells.

The red cells flowed through a series of clear tubing and are returned to the donor, while the white almost clear plasma is collected in sterile bottles, frozen and shipped off to labs for processing.

Each morning, before the doors open to their customers, Group Leader Michonne and Sasha, Senior Phlebotomist, set about equipping each medical bay; Sanctuary, Oceanside, Hilltop and the Kingdom with sterile, one-time use infusion sets for each plasmapheresis machine.

The walls are painted in light, neutral colors, and the lounge-beds are made of grey leather. The donors are provided with a clean pillow and blanket for their comfort.

By the time the rest of the employees begun to trickle in, the two friends had each bay of twelve beds ready for whoever was assigned to that section.

For every six beds, two workers were needed. Today being Friday, they knew they were gonna get slammed by people looking for a little extra cash for the weekend. Spencer Monroe and Jessie Anderson had only been working at the center for two months, and they both have recently been promoted to phlebotomist even though Michonne made it known they weren't ready.

However, Assistant Manager, Andrea Harrison, ignored her recommendations and decided they were.

Spencer, the son of the manager, Deanna, with no prior experience drawing blood, was a spoiled brat who made a habit of talking constantly with the donors and not doing his work.

Jessie came from the place where people volunteered and gave their blood for free. So, they were usually nice to her, yet, she was so damn intimidated by everyone and everything, Michonne spent most of the time trying to get the girl to stop crying.

Here, where money was involved, if you performed a bad stick and that person couldn't donate, they wouldn't get the full fee. That made for some pissed off folks. Longtime donors became very territorial about who put a needle in their arm. Newbies usually got the brunt of their aggressiveness. Poor Jessie didn't know how to handle an irate donor who didn't want her to touch them.

If the donor requested another phlebotomist to perform the venipuncture, she cried. If they allowed her to proceed and then flinched right before she placed the needle, she cried. If they yelled at her for missing a vein, she cried.

Several times Michonne tried to console her, and not to take it personally. She told Jessie it happened to her when she first started, how perseverance and determination would help her improve her skills and learning to communicate with the donors would make her days better.

All to no avail, she still cried.

Resigned to the fact she would be working her side of the room by herself, Michonne set about hooking up the sterile infusion kits to each pheresis machine. She made sure they had enough gloves, gauze, and tape. Once the donor finished they needed to wipe down all the beds and machines with cleaning solution and make it ready for the next person.

It was a revolving door of donors. Hooking them up, draining their blood, transporting plasma to Quality Control, giving them time to recover, then send them home.

The donating process took about an hour each if there were no complications. To keep their attention, they had televisions set up on each side of the room to keep their customers occupied. They weren't allowed to fall asleep and it was the phlebotomist's job to watch and make sure no one passed out.

After several hours of non-stop donors, things began to slow down, and the two friends could leave the newbies on watch while they went to lunch. In the breakroom, the manager, Deanna Monroe sat with them. The short, older woman hesitated before stating, "I wanted to thank you for taking Spencer under your wings and showing him the ropes."

Sasha turned her head and rolled her eyes before pasting on a fake smile, "It's no problem. He's doing as well as can be expected."

Sitting next to her, Michonne discreetly kneed her friend, "He's coming along well. It'll take some time for him to get used to working more consistently and efficiently." She reached out and patted Deanna's arm, "He'll get there."

Smiling with relief, Deanna sat up straighter and lightly smacked the table, "That's good to hear." She turned her head to make sure no one stood in the doorway listening, "I'm sorry I can't do anything with Jessie. As you know, Phillip owns the place and it's out of my hands. I'm confident that you can straighten her out to become a productive part of this company."

Michonne was relieved to find out their manager wasn't as blind as she thought. Phillip Blake, owner of ASZ Plasma Center never let management do their job. He made sure that he had a hand in all hiring. She couldn't fuss too much because he hired her and Sasha. He wasn't all that bad but when it comes to young, cute blondes, it didn't matter if they had the skills or not. He left it up to the other workers to clean up whatever mess they made.

Deanna had continued talking, "And to show you how grateful I am for looking after my son, I have two tickets to the opera. Yanna is singing tonight. Pete and I were supposed to go, but I have some business to attend concerning my youngest." She shook her head in disappointment, "He got himself in a pickle at school and we have to deal with it now."

Michonne and Sasha looked at each other with skepticism then shrugged. "We'd love to go, Deanna. It's just, I don't have anything to wear to something as fancy as an opera." Michonne turned to Sasha to see if she agreed. She knew damn well neither one of them had the proper attire.

Sasha nodded her head, "Yeah, Michonne's right. By the time we clock out, we wouldn't have time to go find something. I wouldn't want us to go there looking raggedy." She gave Michonne a calculating smirk.

Deanna got the hint, right away. She held up her arm and peered at her watch, "That is no problem. I'm going to shut down your bay for the rest of the day. When it's cleared of the last donor, Jessie and Spencer can clean and get it ready for the weekend crew. Now, since I knew this was last minute and you girls would need some time to doll yourselves up. I made an appointment at Sin-Care. There you can pick out a dress, and get a makeover."

Michonne gave a worried glance over to Sasha. The expensive boutique was not in the roommate's budget.

Deanna assured them, "Don't worry about a thing. My sister-in-law owns it and everything's all on me."

Sasha gasped, "Are you serious?"

Michonne smiled with glee, "Wow, that's so generous of you."

Deanna shrugged, "You took care of my son, now I'm taking care of you." She stood and smoothed out the wrinkles in her plaid skirt. "I'm going to let Andrea know that you two are leaving early. Oh, another thing… you'll get paid for the full eight hours today." She turned to leave then suddenly turned back, "Michonne, can you come with me to my office for a sec? I wanted to discuss something with you. It won't take long. I'll get you the tickets and the address. Then you can be on your way."

"Sure." Michonne nodded, then to her friend, "Sasha, I'll meet you in a bit."

Sasha acknowledged she heard then walked out of the lunch room, stopped to grab her lab coat then headed toward the locker room. Michonne followed Deanna down the carpeted hallway to her office.

Not sure why Deanna wanted to speak to her alone, she pulled on the hem of her white t-shirt before sitting in the chair in front of her boss's desk.

She watched as the older woman sat down then gave her a motherly smile, "Michonne, I've watched you come into this company, working hard and learning everything you can. I admire that. You get along with all the employees, even Jessie," she chuckled, "that takes strength of character and patience.

"I asked to speak with you because I have one question."

Michonne nervously picked at the seam on her jeans. She wasn't sure what Deanna would ask her.

"What do you want from this place?"

It sure as heck wasn't that. Michonne took a deep breath, looked up at the ceiling and thought a second on what she wanted to say, "Well, first thing… I want this place to succeed and then I want to manage it. It doesn't necessarily have to be this building, but I want to be the general manager then one day become the owner of my own plasma center."

Deanna grinned with satisfaction and took in her spacious office with another sigh, "That's what I thought. You and Andrea started at the same time. You both started entry level and while you took the time to learn every aspect of each position, she jumped straight into management. I won't go over what we both know how she accomplished that, but I will say, one day it will come back to bite her in the ass. You, my dear, on the other hand, this route you've taken will one day be of use to you. So, keep doing what you're doing."

She came around the desk and grabbed Michonne's hands and pulled her out of the chair. Deanna gave her a brief hug, "Now, go on. Go have some fun with Sasha. Don't beat anyone up and I'll see you both bright and early Monday."

Michonne pulled back out of the hug, "What do you mean, 'beat anyone up'?"

Deanna burst out laughing, "Don't think I don't know what you do after you leave here. I have great respect and envy for what you ladies do and both of you earned, no… you deserve a bigger role around here. Now, get out of here before I start crying." She reached out and handed the tickets and address over, then turned Michonne by her shoulders and gave her a little push toward the door. "Have fun and do a lot of things I'm too old to do."

Michonne giggled then ran out the door to meet up with Sasha. Once they put up their equipment, they made a quick trip back out to the donor floor to say goodbye to the donors and the rest of the crew. Not surprisingly, Jessie's eyes began to water with panic. Michonne told her not to worry. Spencer would be there to answer any questions she had.

"Who is that?"

Sasha slammed her locker door shut before turning around to see Michonne standing behind her. A bright red flush crept under the light-brown skin of her cheeks, "Nothing."

Michonne placed a hand on her hip and smirked, "You've been staring at the picture all morning and now you're embarrassed as hell because I might have seen it. Don't say it's nothing. Why don't you just pull it out and let me see who it is? I'm gonna find out anyway."

Sasha leaned back and peeked around Michonne to make sure no one else was in the room. They could hear the workers and donors out on the floor, but not near the door. "Okay, don't laugh at me but it's a picture of Manuel." She opened the door and pulled out the image. "It's just something I screenshotted and printed out." She handed it over.

Michonne's dark brown, elegant fingers reached and plucked the picture out of Sasha's hands by the corner. "My, my, my. He's got a big, uh…."

Sasha grinned brightly, "Dick? Yes, gurl… he does and he can work it too."

Thinking about how would Sasha know this, it dawned on Michonne, "Uhm, Sasha. Is this guy a porn star?

Her friend shrugged, "Doesn't matter. He's got a big dick and he knows what to do with it. And, one day I'm gonna meet Mr. Williams and he's gonna give me the Manny."

Michonne shook her head, chuckling, "Manny? Girl, you stupid," she laughs, "he's a professional fucker. If you set the bar to his standards, the average guy will never get a chance with you." She snapped her fingers in realization, "Is that why you dumped Bob?"

Sasha stood up from the bench, swung her leg over the seat and straightened the hem of her t-shirt, "You know damn well Bob dumped me. It's not my fault he kept comparing himself to other men. I tried to encourage him, but he didn't want to listen to me."

"What happened to Abe? He's got a little somethin-somethin down there. Why'd you give that up?"

Sasha shrugged, "Abe was great… funny, in fact, the best, except Abe likes to share himself with others and I ain't down with that. I'm glad we still get along and can work together. Enough about old boyfriends, let's get out of here. We got some primping to do and go see Yanna."

During Yanna's intermission, Officer Rick Grimes leaned casually against the wall at the Opera House bar. After adjusting his glasses, he tugged on the collar of his crisp, white dress shirt because he cinched his blue tie too tight. Waiting for his partner Shane to come back from the restroom, he watched the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen, sitting and chatting with another woman.

She wore a body-hugging strapless red dress made of lace. Her dark-brown skin gleamed golden under the warm house lights, her healthy locs hung down past her shoulders and he could see small diamonds scattered throughout her hair and they twinkled every time she moved.

She held herself up in a regal manner and all he could think of was that she had to be a queen of some country. She was a visage of elegance and sophistication as she stood chatting with her friend.

It wasn't just the dress that caught his eye, it was the voluptuous ass that made him give thanks to the sweet Lord in heaven and he wasn't even religious. It was the sumptuous full lips covered in red lipstick that matched her form-fitting dress that has his mouth fall open. He had to discreetly wipe the little bit of drool that escaped because he left it open too long.

As he stood there gawking like a peeping tom. He wandered back to how a 25-year-old man, born and raised in a small town, expected to find an acceptable girl when he was ten, marry that girl when he graduated high school, to somehow find himself single and standing in an opera house.

Along with tying himself down at a young age, his life goal at one point was to follow his family's tradition and become a county deputy then work his way up to the sheriff. Just like his father and his grandfather.

Things started off the way they were supposed to. He met the girl, dated her through high school and took her to prom. It was after graduation that his parents carefully laid out plans went eschew.

Rick had genuine respect and love for the law. Being shown the ropes by his father's buddies, and being automatically grandfathered into the Sheriff's Department of King's county was not gonna cut it.

With his mind made up, instead of marrying the girl next door, Rick dragged his best friend with him to the Georgia Department of Safety Academy and qualified for Georgia's prestigious SWAT team.

Once in a new environment, and meeting new people, the simple life of King's County seemed rather dull. Even duller was his relationship with the girl next door, Lori.

Once he was accepted into the program, he sat down and spoke with her about his change of plans. She wasn't feeling it. All she wanted out of life was to be married and have babies with a deputy who would one day become sheriff of their small town. She planned to have four children, be the belle of the ball and be the pillar of the community were everyone worshiped the sheriff's family.

No, she didn't want to wait three years for Rick to graduate the academy. She didn't want to leave the path she mapped out with her parents.

She promptly broke up with him. It didn't take her long to marry her own boy-next-door neighbor, Leon Basset.

Rick and Shane moved to Forest Park and joined the Griffin State Patrol.

That was seven years ago.

On his recent visit to see his parents, through the grapevine he found out that Lori had four kids.

Lori divorced Leon after being married five years because he never made sheriff. Right after that, Leon was killed while on-duty.

His mother asked if he wanted to check on his old girlfriend and Rick didn't see a point. Their relationship was done. She made her choice and he had moved on. No need to rehash old memories.

His life right now was great, he and Shane were part of SWAT and they both shared an apartment with their bartender buddy, Daryl. While work was challenging, he wouldn't change a thing.

Going to the opera was another thing that was new. During their first briefing last week, Commander Morgan told them they were teaming up with the mayor for some PR campaign. He volunteered his officers for charity work, blood-drives, going out to the schools, training centers and meeting up with the public. In gratitude, the mayor offered up free tickets to see a rising star in the world of opera, Yanna.

Rick had never been, so he was the first to raise his hand. Shane, who usually followed him, raised his hand, as well. Glenn Rhee and three other officers accepted and here they were. Dressed in suits none were used to wearing and enjoying the melodic voice of the young soprano.

A loud laugh brought him back to the present and his eyes nearly popped out of his head from what he witnessed. His beautiful, sophisticated goddess had both hands clasped around her breasts and was adjusting herself shamelessly in public. She shimmied her hips while pushing those puppies more comfortably inside her dress, laughing at her friend brightly as she did her little dance.

A/N: Thank you so much for reading! I hope you all enjoyed this little idea I had. Please leave a comment and let me know what you think. ?

PS. Yanna is a real soprano, if you like opera and would like to check her out, let me know.