Author's Note: Hide Your Fires is an AU story diverging from my main Negan/OC/Rick story Goodnight Love. This story can be read as a stand-alone and is primarily Negan/OC. Videos for characters canon and original, can be found on my Youtube channel via the link on my profile.

'Stars, hide your fires;

Let not light see my black and deep desires...'

Shakespeare

The Question Of My Heart

"And they all lived happily ever after..."

Michonne closed the book of fairytales with a flourish, making Andre clap his hands with glee, his small face lighting up at her theatrics. As she dropped a brief kiss on his brow, a flash of movement caught her eye, making her glance up, only to see Kit in the doorway of her office, his suit crumpled, dark curls in disarray.

"Heda," Michonne called over her shoulder to her personal assistant, "would you take Andre out front for a moment? My ten'o'clock is here."

Heda set down her fashion magazine, before straightening her neon pink glasses and standing up, smoothing down her culottes with a carelessness that could have fooled even the closest observer. She played her part in the deception to perfection, never remarking upon how Michonne's ten'o'clock was always the same man, keeping her face carefully blank every time Kit came into the art gallery, announcing he had an appointment with Michonne.

Michonne handed Andre to Heda, mouthing 'thank you', before indicating for Kit to take a seat. But as the door closed with a click behind Heda and Andre, Kit crossed the carpet in two quick strides, pulling Michonne to him, his mouth crushing hers. Several long moments passed before Michonne drew away from him, her heart beating like a hummingbird in her chest.

"I thought we agreed all that had to stop," Michonne said quietly, sitting down on the edge of her desk, Kit remaining deliberately on his feet.

"I really think we should stop saying I'm your ten'o'clock," Kit said with a frown, as if she hadn't spoken, "especially since you haven't had an appointment for the past two weeks."

"Three weeks actually," Michonne corrected him, running a hand down the side of her face, "orders for paintings have just tailed off, and as you know, all my goddamn entire staff have called in sick."

"All except the inimitable Heda," Kit drawled as he took off his suit jacket, draping it over the back of the leather sofa. "The unsinkable Heda."

"If it wasn't for her, I think sometimes I would just shut the gallery down," Michonne said doubtfully, "but she insists on keeping it running, says it will work out. She knows I love this place..." Michonne glanced around her, taking in everything she'd achieved, as if looking at it for the last time. "She's great with Andre," she added with forced enthusiasm, "ever since the daycare centre shut down, Heda's been all hands on deck with Andre, since I can't get a babysitter for love or money ."

"It would make more sense for you to close this place down," Kit said bluntly, studying Michonne's strained face, "what with all those bloody exhibitions being called off, your artists AWOL, your clientele equally MIA. Since that fool you call Andre's father prefers to peddle pharmaceuticals during the end of days, than make sure his family is safe" -

- "Hey" -

- "Oh, come on, the least he could do is watch Andre whilst you try to make it work here" -

- "Christopher!"

"Oh, come on, you won't even let me help," Kit snapped, "Mike should support you on this when he knows your heart is set on keeping the joint running. I mean, it's not like he's engaged in viable employment at the moment anyways" -

- "Don't drag Andre's father into this," Michonne said dangerously, even as she didn't point out Kit was now equally as unemployed as Mike, "don't even mention him. I have the situation under control, okay?"

Kit looked away, neither agreeing nor disagreeing, his jaw tightening. He loved Michonne, but he didn't want to hide his heart, watching Michonne live a lie with another man. The night before, Kit had given Michonne an ultimatum, that he was ending their affair, stating he would stay away until she made her decision, yet here he was, unable to exile himself from her side for even a day.

"I don't want our life to be like this, Christopher," Michonne said, shaking her head, "but I have to consider Andre before us, above everything else."

"I don't want our life to be like this either," Kit retorted, enunciating every word, emphasizing his English accent, "to creep around, turning what we have into some sleazy, sordid arrangement" - As he spoke, Michonne suddenly sneezed, making Kit freeze.

"Don't," Michonne said thickly, holding up her hand, fumbling for a tissue with the other, "it's just my allergies."

Kit looked at her for a long moment, before turning away, wrapping his arms around his head. The flu outbreak had silently and slowly spread, contaminating and killing, the world only realizing what it waswhen it was too late. Now Albany was all but under martial law, with curfews being established and quarantine being imposed on infected areas. But Kit uneasily sensed there was a darker edge to events, seeing past the mass media censorship and into the oblivion beyond.

He had been reduced to refugee status, his passport confiscated the day before, all foreign nationals forbidden from leaving the country in case they caused the spread of further infection. It had only been six months ago when he'd agreed to take up tenure at Albany State University, leaving England to start a new life in the States, spending the summer preparing himself for his new position and moving into an upmarket brownstone apartment building. But his future had unfolded in a way he hadn't planned, his life no longer the new beginning he'd sought to build. Yet he'd always reasoned that life was a fickle mistress, temperamental in turns, obtuse in others.

As he lowered his arms to his sides again, Michonne's gaze flickered over Kit, taking in his scuffed shoes and ink-stained shirt sleeves, a world away from the usually dapper Kit who wouldn't leave the house if one hair was out of place. Whilst Kit was conservative and cutting, Michonne was exotic and easygoing, the two somehow balancing each other out. From the moment she'd first seen him, her existence had suddenly become illuminated, Kit driving the darkness out.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Kit said irritably, throwing himself down onto the sofa, sliding the book of fairytales aside.

"I was just thinking about how we first met," Michonne said, a small smile tugging at the corner of her lips, "your head getting stuck in the elevator doors, how you screamed like a girl" -

- "I did not" -

"You so did," Michonne countered, "and if I hadn't been there, your skull would have been" -

- "Well, let's count ourselves fortunate my skull didn't have its diameter drastically altered," Kit snapped. "That's the silver lining to that particularly sorry tale."

"I thought falling for your beautiful and brilliant neighbour was the silver lining to that story," Michonne said with an arched eyebrow as she folded her arms across her chest, ruefully remembering Kit's flowery phrases, "that 'your whole world changed forever that day'."

Kit cleared his throat awkwardly, silently cursing Michonne's photographic memory, how she could quote verbatim sentences he'd said several months ago, sentences devised to seduce. "I stand corrected," he said, his grey gaze drifting over Michonne in her red and gold wraparound dress, her braided hair piled up on her head, "now where we?"

"Where were we what?" Michonne said, sauntering over, deliberately swaying her hips from side to side.

"You were here on my lap," Kit said, drawing her onto his knee.

"That was yesterday morning actually."

"You really do have a phenomenal memory."

"How's Imogen?" Michonne asked pointedly, making Kit's wandering hand freeze mid-thigh, before falling to his side.

"She is as mad as a box of cats as per usual," Kit said tiredly, "so nothing new on that front."

"She should have stayed in England," Michonne said for not the first time, recalling Imogen's determination to have her holiday, come hell or high water, "and then she wouldn't be in this mess now."

"Well, you know what Imogen is like when she gets the bit between her teeth."

Michonne just laughed, throwing her head back, Kit idly admiring the swan-like curve of her neck.

"You should have seen her with this soldier yesterday," he continued, playing with the belt around her waist, "tore a strip or ten off him for taking her passport. The poor bloke was practically cowering under his desk until she was frogmarched away in high dudgeon."

"I feel for her though," Michonne said quietly, "being so far from home."

"Thing is, you know she doesn't want to go back," Kit said tiredly, "since she's got nothing to go back to. She said the other day she'd just wanted to escape the shitstorm that's her life."

"She's young," Michonne said tiredly, "and she'll adapt. She has to. But you can't keep holding her hand, Kit. She has to learn to stand on her own two feet."

"She already does," Kit snapped, startling Michonne, "but I'm all the family she's got."

Michonne looked away, knowing she was fighting a losing battle, that Imogen was Kit's weak point. From the little she'd learned, Imogen was Kit's Eliza Doolittle, his pet philanthropy project, Kit trying to turn the girl into a woman but not with much success, unable to save his sister from herself. But Michonne understood against her will, having tried and failed to change Mike, excusing his every failure, standing between him and bitter reality.

"You don't really know Imogen, Michonne," Kit said coldly, "you think you do, but you don't."

"I think I have a better grasp of her than you think, Christopher," Michonne said equally as coldly, "she's splitting hairs because she's got to put her pride in her pocket and find it in herself to accept what she considers charity."

Kit's jaw tightened. "She was actually talking of going out there and finding a job," he said stiffly, "but I said no, not with the way everything is falling apart. As if anyone is hiring anyways. And she would be breaking the conditions of her visa" -

- "Wow, such startling attention to legal detail" -

-"But if we're talking about money, we'll manage," Kit cut across her cuttingly, "the Board is paying me a small stipend to keep me sweet since they were so anxious to secure my services before the world went to the dogs" -

- "So I suppose the Board want to honour your contract when this outbreak shindig blows over?" Michonne guessed, tracing his features with the tip of her finger, making his frown fade.

"Well, I am an eminent professor of anthropology," Kit said slowly, pressing his lips to her palm, "arguably the foremost in my field. They consider me a huge draw" -

- "How about you consider moi for a moment?" Michonne said, her mouth meeting his, making Kit's world end all over again.

If I go on
With you by my side
Can it be
The way it was
When we met...