#ohw

“it reminded me of you.”

She’s always awake when he comes home from runs.  

She’ll greet him, ask how the trip went, if everyone is safe, how he’s feeling.  It’s their routine, now.

It pleases him.  

He tries not to let it please him too much.  He knows she just wants to go to bed with a sound mind, to be sure that everything and everyone is alright.  He knows she’s not waiting up for him, specifically.  Sometimes, though, it feels like she is, and recently there seems to be a part of him - small, but getting louder and more insistent by the day - that wishes she were waiting up for him, specifically.  

But he pushes those intrusive thoughts away, tells himself he is making something out of nothing, and focuses on her.

This particular evening, he finds her sitting at the island in the kitchen when he arrives at their house, reading a book and drinking hot tea out of a plain, white mug.  He smiles, and his fingers fiddle with an object held behind his back.

She looks up when he closes the door behind him, grins when she catches his eye.  She closes her book, takes a slow sip out of her mug, as he comes over to stand on the other side of the island, across from her.

“How’d it go?” she asks lowly.

He shrugs.

“Alright.  We checked out some old superstore.  It was mostly picked-over, and we knew it would be since it was right on the main road.  But we found a good bit of medicine in some small, side cabinet behind the pharmacy counter.”

He pauses.  She waits.

“The food was pretty much gone, though.  Or bad.”

She looks down and frowns, and he hates it.  He can’t help feeling like he failed her, even though he knows it’s not his fault.

“We’re going out again tomorrow,” he assures her quickly, as if trying to make up for his shortcomings.  “Aaron said there was a small town about 20 miles out that was more off the beaten path.  Me and Daryl’ll check it out.”

She nods, but still has a frown on her face.  He wants to make it go away more than anything.

Again, he turns a hidden item over in his hand, surreptitiously.

“Gotcha somethin’.”

She glances up at his words, her brow furrowing.  A curious glint appears in her eyes.

“What?”

“I got you somethin’,” he repeats.

Before she can say anything else, he removes his hand from behind his back and sets a white mug down on the counter between them, adorned with flowers and the shiny, gold outline of a cat.  She gazes at him for a moment longer, the corners of her open mouth just beginning to curl up, before reaching out and grabbing the mug.  She brings it closer to her, so she can read the matching gold lettering decorating one side.

“‘Sorry, I Gato Go, My Cat Needs Me,’” she reads aloud.

She’s quiet, and stares at the mug, her mouth still agape.

Then, she laughs - a deep laugh that comes from her belly and makes her shoulders shake.  Before he knows it, he’s laughing along with her.

“You remembered?” she asks, a hint of incredulity in her tone.

He scoffs playfully.

“Of course.  How could I forget your deep love for novelty mugs?”

“I just - “ she begins, trying to speak through her wide smile and lingering giggles.  “It was a random, passing conversation on the road, months ago.  I’d just figured…”

She trails off, and a wave of self-consciousness washes over him.  He wonders if she finds it strange that he remembers.  If he’s being honest, he makes a point to remember everything she tells him about her life before, even if it’s only something as small as having a cupboard full of colorful mugs covered in cute images and clever sayings.

He has an insatiable desire to know her - to know not only who she is now, but who she was, as well.

“Well,” he begins, hoping his slight embarrassment isn’t apparent.  When he thought about giving the cup to her, he’d been so calm and collected.  He and Michonne were cool like that.  The two of them were friends, and friends got each other stuff.

Now that he’s in front of her, he feels like a blubbering mess.

“When I saw it - and it had the saying and then the cat outline on it...I guess it reminded me of you.”

She looks up from the mug and peers at him.

“What do you mean?” she inquires slowly.

He hesitates, and tilts his head to the side.  Now he’s confused.

“What do I mean?”

“The cat outline?  What do you mean?”

Oh, that.  He curses inwardly, afraid that, again, he’s shown his hand too plainly, that she’ll be weirded out by how much he pays attention to her.

“I - I mean,” he stutters, “you had that cat sculpture-thing back at the prison, and I guess I just always assumed you were a...cat person.”

She doesn’t answer him right away.  He bows his head and stares at the floor, one hand coming up to scratch at the back of his neck awkwardly.

“You’re very observant, Mr. Grimes.”

He brings his eyes back towards her at the sound of her voice, and finds she’s still squinting at him, but with a smile on her face.

“I’ll have you know,” she continues, “that I am a cat person.  And I had a cat before all this, named Pepper.  She was gray and fat and very moody.  A princess, through and through.”

She sighs, then presses her lips together and gives him a tight-lipped smile that’s somewhat sad.

“I miss her.  I know pets aren’t very important, considering everything else we’ve lost, but I miss her all the same.”

They’re both silent for a moment, as they take a moment to remember the cat, and the everything else.  Finally, she reaches out, places her hand over his.

“Thank you, Rick,” she murmurs.  “I...really love this.”

Her eyes are soft, and he smiles back gently, before motioning to the set of cabinets behind her with his gaze.

“Maybe you can start a new cupboard full.”

She grins, and squeezes his hand once before pulling back.  Her touch and warmth linger on his skin.

“Yeah,” she whispers.  “Maybe I can.”

And the next morning, when he sees her drinking her hot tea from her new mug, instead of the plain, boring one she usually uses, he can’t help the smile that takes over his face.  

He vows to never come home from a run empty-handed again.

Author’s Note: 'Gato' means 'cat' in Spanish, in case you didn't know!

The mug Rick got Michonne is a real mug that's currently available at Target. I want it really bad, as I myself collect mugs.

Also, as if we didn't already know Michonne is a cat person, her dressing Judith up like a cat in 9x14 certainly proves it :)

I hope you liked this chapter! See you all soon!