Judith's first steps:

The soft breeze that rippled through the always seemingly busy but quiet Alexandria Safe Zone was deceiving to say the least, for inside The Grimes' residence there was a room filled of hooting laughter and encouraging words.
"Come on Little Ass Kicker, you got this. If you can do this, you can ride the bike with me real soon." Daryl squatted, trying to get Judith away from chair to walk towards him.

"It's not going work like that, Daryl," Sasha smirked at him, her usual sunken demeanour forgotten in this one moment. Daryl took note of that and gave her a slight nod to show that he had in fact done so.
"Sasha's right," Glenn spoke, sitting on the couch with Maggie at his right. "If there's one thing she must have learnt off Michonne, is that you don't have to do anything the way someone tells you to do it, isn't that right Michonne?"

Her smile brightened the room as a laugh left her lips. "Me? Her dad's the culprit in all honesty!"
Through all the laughter and chatter in the room – accompanied by Abraham and Rosita bickering over why Abraham hadn't gone to speak to Eugene again whilst Eugene cowered in the corner with an urging Tara, Rick could not be found.

Even Carl had found his way here with a girl Michonne was sure he had mentioned , that she had probably dismissed with a slight pessimistic thought of "we don't all get our partners for life".
Allowing her eyes to settle on the scene made something inside her chest hurt and she wasn't quite sure she wanted to recall what it in fact was.

The door bell rang, for which she excused herself and opened to find Carol.
"I'm sorry I turned up late, I had to bring cookies!" Carol waltzed in and made everyone's mouth drool. She hovered over Daryl, pretending to be slightly mad at him before taking out a cookie and feeding it to him. "You would have gotten more if you'd offered to pick me up."
Daryl tried to play off his embarrassment, "You know what they say, something about wolves being in a pack but the leader going off alone... or something like that... Hey guys! Don't look at me like that! I haven't read a book in years, it's not like I've even had time! Saving all your ungrateful asses."

Carol hit him playfully on the head whilst Maggie kicked him from where she was from.
"Hey!" He joked like he was hurt and looked at Judith. "You see that Ass Kicker, I need you to walk over here and defend me!"
Judith simply stared at him for a moment, then stuck her tongue out as if to mock him.
"It seems like she picked her side, eh!" Maggie laughed.

Michonne chuckled to herself as she started to close the door, however, she was interrupted before she could do so.
Michonne had always believed in the power of nature, that it told humans things before they could actually see it. She was in tune with it she felt. So before she had set eyes on the foot that stopped her from closing the door, she heard the crack of thunder and the heavy set of rain on the pavement.

"Hey! I just couldn't ignore all the hustle and bustle from the house and I was just wondering what was going on! Is it a party? I love parties!" The forcefulness of a happy tone was like high frequency to Michonne's ears.
"No, not really. It's more of a... family thing." She hadn't meant to use such an excluding term, but once it had fallen off her lips, the warmth that conquered her inside made her sure she was going to hell for relishing in the delight of the effect of it.

"You know, I was looking for Rick anyway." The happy tone was now replaced with a determined one. "He looks like he needs another hair cut." Michonne was tempted to roll her eyes at this woman – you can't try and break the ice you just created,
"Look, Jessie," Michonne cleared her throat as she heard the room beside her quieten down. "I'm sure your hair cuts are super duper lovely and all, so good that when this whole zombie thing blows over you can create your very own 'Super Cuts!' barber, but right now, we've got a family thing going on." Michonne gave her best smile as she heard footsteps fall behind her.

"Yeah, sorry, I'll make sure Rick gets to you though! Can't have one of the very best constables not responding to their friendly neighbours now, can we?" Maggie's polite tone did nothing to soften the atmosphere, but instead added to the chill.
With a deep swallow, Jessie swallowed her pride and put on a smile. "Of course! He's such a delight." Her eyes hovered on Michonne for a second longer then she was walking away, getting wetter by the second until she was out of view.

Maggie patted her back and whispered to her, "That is how you handle an unwanted guest. But if it had been at Daddies house he would have given them the old boot and a good old talking to!"
Her intense laughter bought the whole room back to the atmosphere that had been alive in it before the interruption.
Now both Carol and Daryl were squatting, attempting to bait Judith with cookies. Whilst Sasha kept repeatedly telling them it's not going to work, with Glenn siding with her and nodding to everything she said. Carl and Enid sat in the corner, looking over a comic with stars in their eyes. Abraham, Eugene, Rosita and Tara sat on the sidelines, wondering which side to pick and which side would win.

Rick was still missing, he had been missing the whole time. It was his idea to throw this thing, in the spur of the moment this morning. When he had seen Judith stand on her own two feet before toppling over right back onto her bottom a second after.
"Maggie, I'm going to..."
"Don't worry, I've got it. I think we've all been wondering the same thing."

Michonne smiled at the lack of words needed between them and anyone for a matter of fact within this ground, then started to make her way up the stairs.
He wasn't in his room, or Carl's or Judith's. She checked the bathroom hastily, worry setting in her bones.
She felt her heartbeat quicken. He couldn't have slipped out anywhere, so where was he?
In her frantic motion, opened her bedroom door despite her mind telling her he had not reason to be there, and found him with his back to her sitting on her bed, staring out of the window.

Her heart steadied as her mind preoccupied itself with the best way she could approach him. Even though she could tell there were no tears shed in this moment, she could sense vulnerability radiating off him and although this wasn't new territory, it was something she hadn't ever had to deal with between them before.
Michonne decided to sit place herself two rulers widths away from him and follow his eyes out of the window.

"You want to tell me why you're not down there?" Her voice resonated in the room for a few seconds before it found him and it took even longer than a few seconds to get a response from him.
"I thought you would have guessed by now."
She tasted the words he had just said, let them play on her tongue, let them taste bitter and sweet.
Outside of the window Michonne watched the sky in it's unsteady emotion. The sun would peak through grey clouds, making the rainbows on the window shine like crystals, creating an atmosphere of serenity only to be interrupted by the sound of thunder like a reminder that all good things end.

"This isn't going to end Rick. I get that all we have seen for a long time are constant reminders that all good things come to an end, but that isn't always the case. Maybe we can be. Here. We can be whatever you want to call it, just know it'll work."
She had hoped she was getting to him. There was no time for weakness, no time to hurt over old wounds, especially when a good thing had been given to them. There was no time to let the past effect the present, it was too beautiful for that.

"She wanted whatever I want to call it. Lori wanted a family. I couldn't give her that, couldn't give her what we have downstairs, you know?" His eyes were glassy, glazed over and on the verge of tears. Michonne watched as his chest rose fast and fell even faster, her worry about him caused her to act quickly and place a hand over his. She felt the coolness of his wedding ring and cursed at the gentle reminder from the world that this in fact could never be real too, that they could never be what he had just called them: a family.

"Well, I don't know what you believe in Grimes, but since we've both spoken to our significant others from beyond the grave, it wouldn't hurt to believe that they can see what we're doing now. And maybe that their proud." He broke his stare from the window to look at her intensely, the emotion conveyed by his almost knotted eyebrows and slightly frowning mouth causing her heart to stammer.
Daringly, she ran her thumb over his fingers and cursed at feeling so weak in this new territory.

After the silence had settled between them and she had moved her eyes back to the window in fear they would tell him everything about her, that she would unravel right in front of him, she got up. "Rick, you have two children down there and a group of people that we call home. The present is here, stop trying to reach for the past."

As she started to turn and leave, she felt his hands grab hers, stopping her in her tracks.
"Thank you." Michonne turned around slowly, a smile on her face.
"It's alright big guy, you know how they say it takes two to tango? Well it takes two to lead."
He chuckled at her analogy. "You're right, you're always there when I fall, Michonne."

The emotion that wavered across his face at that moment didn't go unnoticed by Michonne.
Had it been lust? Had it been love or infatuation? Appreciation?
The list of possibilities was endless and all she could do was let her mouth hang as she scrambled for words to say, to fill up the atmosphere, to make it known something inside her had been woken by the way he had said her name.

His hand came to rest of her hips. "Michonne..."
"SHE'S GOING TO DO IT! SHE'S GOING TO WALK! I DONE IT! RICK! MICHONNE! EVERYBODY! QUICK!" Daryl's voice echoed in the house, disturbing the delicate atmosphere that was once there.

Rick and Michonne raced each other to the door and down the stairs, just in time to watch Judith take her first steps.