I See Things

Author: Ruse (sithcandy)

Summary: A Rick/Michonne moment after the episode "Clear". Oneshot. Just a late late night inspiration.

Disclaimer: Not owned by me. I make no money. Look at the boys at AMC.

Moonlight, soft and unyielding to the dark. It was light that that night on the beach, it was everywhere. He could see it now, the glittering tide washing black, cool waters over white sand. Like staring into her dark eyes against her pale skin, liquid and magnetic. But his eyes wouldn't work right, wouldn't stay in the beautiful world of memory for long. Reality was cold, assailing him with the truth of what his sensory organs could not deny. Rick closed his eyes against the stark, empty, walker infested fields of the prison yard. He leaned his head against the fence railing on the walkway, the place where she had stood, wanting him to forgive her. He had touched her, but that was a long way from absolution.

"Stay with me, Lori," he breathed, his chest heavy. The memories were fading slowly. What had she told him that night on the beach, that night on a honeymoon so long ago? He couldn't bring the words to mind. His fingers tightened on the metal. It was almost hard to believe anything joyful could belong to memory instead of fantasy. When she was alive, even when he couldn't bring himself to speak to her, he could believe it, could remember it even as he pushed it away. "I'm sorry," he apologized again, for the millionth time. "I…I saw Morgan today. I found him, Lori. I failed him. Failed him like I failed you."

He opened his eyes and stood back, gazing out at the stars, the trees, the shifting movements in the grass below. He looked for her there, looked for her quiet shape, her forgiving eyes. Rick brought his hand to his mouth, inhaled and waited for her.

It wasn't Lori that stood behind him, though. "What are you doing?"

He bowed his head as if reprimanded. Her dusky voice carried just far enough for him and, knitting his brow, shrugging a little, Rick said, "You know…just…stuff."

Michonne came to stand by his side, arms crossed, her black eyes gentle yet without losing any of the hardness this hellish existence had given her. "I was talking about the cigarette. What are you doing with that?"

Rick grunted, taking another inhale. "Self-medicating."

"Your son know you do that?"

Flicking the ashes off, he faced her as he breathed in again. "You a moral authority now?"

The dark woman rolled her eyes at him in that way she had, as if she were trying to be patient when it wasn't her strong suit. She took it from him, inhaled from it, then flicked it through the fence. Rick watched it fall, one brow raised as she said, "Hardly. Can't exactly walk up to the corner store and get more, though. You think now's the time for vices?"

Rick gripped the fence links again. A breeze ruffled his hair, shifted his shirt. "I think cancer's the least of my worries. I guess you're right. Wouldn't wanna get volatile, would I?"

"Only when the Governor comes." Her voice took on that distinctly chill tone whenever she talked about him. "Then it's game on for all of us. And I'll do my part." She looked up at him, hard and serious. "Mutual problem, and all."

So she had heard him talking to Carl as they braced the tire. He wasn't sorry for the words, not after all he'd seen, all he'd done to protect those he loved. How did you open doors that had been rusted shut for so long? How did you begin to trust again? In this world maybe you didn't, shouldn't. "What do you want me to say?"

"I don't want you to say anything," she replied, watching him, expression betraying little. It was her way, so closed, so aloof. How do you trust a mystery? Yet there was one truth he could not avoid. "You need me."

"Yeah, I need you," he admitted, not backing down against her intense gaze. "I need you, I need Merle. I need Morgan, Andrea." He could have used Tyrese and his small band, but he'd been too blind to see it at the time. "Against the Governor an army wouldn't exactly hurt."

She shook her head. All those points were a given. "I'm talking after." Rick stilled at the words, words he'd known would come in some form, thinking uneasy thoughts of future. When this little war was done, if any of them even survived—no, when they survived—what would happen then? He would send her on her merry way.

Out in the dark to face the monsters alone. Rick glared at the moon, raised a shaky hand to smooth his hair back. "I don't…I don't know…" Where was Lori? He needed her; he needed someone, anyone to take this burden off his shoulders. To guide him, to give him a sign.

There were no signs tonight. Michonne's eyes glittered darkly, looking at him under furrowed brows. For a tense moment he waited for a biting reply, but her expression eased as she watched him. She nodded softly, turning back towards the way into the prison. "You're wrong you know," she said, opening the prison door, stopping only to add, "Nobody needs Merle." The door clanged shut and she was gone.

It hit him then what Lori had said that night on their honeymoon, that night on the beach. Trust me, she had teased, drawing him into the cold water.

He took a deep breath and looked back out into the grass, the woods beyond. He thought of Morgan, of the fear and loneliness he had seen in the man's dark eyes, the grief and the self-blame. You have to come back from this, Rick had said to him, and the words rang in his head again and again. Morgan had refused, content to go on "clearing" walkers until it drove him to death. You have to come back from this, he had said, but maybe they didn't have to be Morgan's salvation alone. Maybe, maybe…

Rick looked for Lori, but she wasn't there. He saw nothing.

A/N: Listening to Jacob's Theme from Twilight. 3