Disclaimer—I don't own or make claim to the characters from The Walking Dead. I only own my original characters

The kids chatter away around the table. I glance at Rick occasionally to see him leaning back and observing everyone with a satisfied look on his face. We had met the kids at school and met Kayla & Annie on their way back to the house for lunch. I made grilled cheese sandwiches which made Jordan very happy--they were his favorite.

Kira says to Carl, "I wish you could have known my Dad. He was really good at drawing, I'll never be as good as him." Suddenly she gets a look on her face of realization. "Wait, I can show you him and some of his work at least!" She dashes off to the mantle of the fireplace and pulls down a family picture I'd somehow managed to keep with us and a sketch her Dad had drawn in the van on our way to Disney World. She runs over and plops them down in front of Carl.

"See, there's my Dad."

"Wow, he's a big guy," says Carl.

Kira pushes his sketch over to him. "This is what he was drawing when the world went crazy."

"Wow, look at all those delicate lines! This big dude could draw this?!"

"Yeah," Kira sighed while looking at her Dad's work. "He was really good at this. That's what I've been trying to tell you. You keep saying your hands are too big, but that doesn't have to stop you, not if you really want to draw. My Dad liked to do powerlifting—that's why he's so big. But he also loved art, so he made sure to make time to draw as well. Those two things don't seem to go together, but he liked them both so he did them both." She paused, eyeing Carl as she made her point. "You don't have to choose just one thing to be good at. Choose them all if you want to."

Rick looks on with interest. He looks at Carl and says, "She has a good point you know? I didn't know you wanted to draw or didn't feel like you could?"

Carl shrugs. "I just felt I should do something more productive with my time is all. We need to get things done around here, not have me sit around drawing all the time. My time can be better spent helping keep the walls clear or helping Daryl hunt or something."

Rick gives Carl a look. "I know you've had to grow up fast, faster than I'd have liked, but you have some downtime to do things you enjoy. I'm hoping you will have more of chance to just be a kid, that now we have the saviors routed, that we can have some peace for a bit."

Carl starts to protest but Rick continues, "If nothing else, you have a bit of time right before bed—why don't you take that time to draw, wind down?" Carl nods and appears to be thinking about it.

Rick motions to Kira toward the pictures. "Can I see those?"

I look up in apprehension. I was of two minds when I put that photo on the mantle. On the one hand, it was the only picture I had of their Dad, and I wanted them to remember him. On the other hand, I looked horrible in that picture and really didn't want anyone to see it, especially Rick. It was back in my obese days, before I lost the weight. I should have hung it on the wall upstairs instead, I thought. Not that it would have stopped Kira. She was on a mission to get through to Carl, so she would have just run upstairs to retrieve it and bring it down. I cringe as she hands them to Rick. I watch him carefully as he first examines the family portrait and then turns his attention to the drawing torn out of a sketchbook. He looks up at Kira.

"Your Dad looks like a fine man, and I like his art. He was very talented."

"That's just a sketch, too," Kira replied. "You should have seen the completed pictures he did, in full color. They were spectacular. My favorite is one he did of me as a little girl with my two orange tabby cats! He made it look like I was floating away with joy!"

The kids then descend into reflections and discussion of their favorite pictures their Dad drew, describing them to Carl and Judith. Judith listened with interest, trying to understand what they were talking about. Rick looked over at me and caught my embarrassed look.

"What's wrong?" he murmurs softly.

"Nothing," I mouth back.

He gives me a serious, intense look and starts to say something. I know what he's going to say though. He's going to remind me of our honesty discussion—how he asked me to share with him my thoughts if he asked me what I was thinking. That he wanted to be able to follow my brain. Hell. I don't even want to follow my thoughts and I'm stuck in them. I head him off at the pass.

"Not now. Later," I promise.

His eyes gleam with the promise that he'll be following up on that. Crap. Hopefully he forgets. I look at the time and look at the kids. I stand up and start gathering up dishes.

"OK, we all have things to get done. Help me gather the plates and load the dishwasher so we can get moving."

The kids get up and start gathering up their plates. Carl picks up his without hesitation and heads to the kitchen and Rick helps, bringing more. Once the kids are done loading their plates, they call goodbye as they start to disperse to their various afternoon activities. Kira & Carl to do science schoolwork outside they decide to take Judith along to sit on the grass. Kayla heads back to the pantry and Annie to the engineering building. We need to get the walls expanded soon to add more houses for some of the additional people we took on from the Sanctuary, so they aren't sleeping in the church and crammed into the townhouses. It's not bad, but it could be more comfortable. Soon Rick and I are left alone.

"Well, I'd better get over to meet Michonne at headquarters," I say. "She wants to meet with me this afternoon. I wonder what she's up to now?" I finish wrapping up a loaf of bread and hand it to him quickly as I move toward the door. "Here's a loaf of bread to take home for you and the kids."

Rick fumbles the bread but catches it quickly to my disappointment. He moves fast to catch me by the arm. "Hold on just a minute, speedy. Thank you very much for the bread, but it's later and I'd like to know what you were thinking back at the table."

I sigh in defeat. I almost thought I'd made a clean getaway. "I wasn't really thinking a whole lot. Mostly just how I don't really like that picture, but it's the only one we have so..." I trail off slowly. He shakes his head. "No. I think there was more going on than that. What is it?"

"Hmmm. Well, I was embarrassed, I guess."

"Why would you be embarrassed?" he asked.

"Did you see how large I am in that picture? I have lost a lot of weight since then, but I still have the fat girl insecurity, I guess. I didn't really want you to see me at my worst...see what I could balloon up into."

"We all have a past. I think you're gorgeous in this photo. Yeah, I saw you were a little bigger, but most of us were pre-infected. Seeing this picture hasn't changed anything."

"It hasn't? I don't think that picture conveyed just how large I was. My body is not young anymore."

"Neither is mine," he chuckles. "We all age up in life, our bodies change, I have plenty of new scars since this crazy world, nothing to worry about."

"I don't think you understand," I warble. "I have remnants of those days. Loose skin. My body is anything but beautiful and I just can't imagine ever being willing to show it to anyone. It's very well used and just not pretty."

Understanding enters his eyes. He draws close and pulls me into his arms, staring me in the eyes the whole time.

"Hey!" I complain. "This is way more than hand holding and this is a hand holding free time!"

He laughs at me. "This is outside the boundaries of the agreement."

I give him a look of disbelief. "Outside the boundaries?! What do you mean, our agreement was clear, no physical stuff..." I break off as he ignores me and pulls me in closer while staring me down and resting his forehead against mine.

"No. This is me, talking to you, telling you that you are beautiful. There are no scars that can turn me off, no loose skin that can deter me. You are beautiful and you will be naked in my bed eventually. There is no question of that. It's happening. If you'd let me right now, I'd show you how I can worship your body. So let go of these thoughts and listen to me. I can't wait. You're gorgeous and you're mine."

I splutter, "This is way beyond what we agreed to..."

He cuts me off. "My girl needs reassurance that I find her attractive, flaws and all. No agreement is going to keep me from doing that." He pulls me the rest of the way in and nestles my head on his chest. I quiet down and just enjoy the feeling of love and acceptance. We stand there for what feels like eons, but is probably only 5 or 10 minutes. I finally pull back and look him in the eye. "Thanks."

We head out the door to our individual afternoon duties. Before we part he says, "You and the kids want to come over for dinner and movie night?"

"Movie night again?" I smile. "What's showing?"

"I don't know, probably some old 80's B-rated movies," he laughs. "And it's spaghetti on the menu because that's my best dish. But we'd be happy to have you join us."

I smirk. "Sure, I think that'd be fun. I'll bring some garlic bread."

"Perfect," he says. "6 o'clock?"

"We'll be there."

"See you soon then," he pats me on the shoulder and walks away before stopping and turning to look at me. "And Sandi? We talk to the kids tonight."

"We have a week, it doesn't have to be tonight!"

"Tonight!" he reiterates as he walks away.

I stand there watching him. I begin to doubt my plan. This was supposed to bring things under my control. Although he was holding up his end of the deal as he seemed to have reigned in that intense spark some—even when he was just reassuring me it was more comfort than crazy spark—he still seems to be way more in control of this than I feel I am. I turn and start walking toward where I am to meet Michonne again. Not much I can do at this point. I already agreed to this process and I know there's no way he'll let me back out now. With my thoughts a riot of confusion I head up the stairs to see what Michonne wants.

A/N So, even calming down the spark, Intense Rick is still intense. Phew! On the other hand, he is very sure about how attracted he is to her and hopefully reassured her just enough. She is starting to realize that even following her plan doesn't mean she's going to have control of it though. But then...who can control sparks?

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