Love's Conquer

Remember

"Nah, I'm with Rick on this." Shane grumbled as he paced back and forth, "The way you're thinkin' is dangerous, this isn't. We can't trust this son of a bitch- but you wanna go waddlin' out there to find a couple of cars on a whim? We ain't goin' nowhere with this geeked up lookin'..." Shane looked down to Aaron, who had been tied up and left on the ground, "pilgrim."

Pilgrim? That's a new one.

"Passing up some place we can live?" Michonne argued, "Where Judith can live? Where Charlie can sleep safe at night without having to worry that he might not hear a walker? That's pretty dangerous. We need to find out what this is—"

"Nah, we don't." Shane cut her off.

I shook my head in defiance, handing Judith to Carl before resting a hand on Rick's shoulder. "Can we talk?"

He switched his gaze between me and everyone else, before nodding subtly and following me out to the back.

"He's one of the good guys—"

"How can you say that- how can you even tell?" Rick questioned as the lines in his forehead grew deeper. "After everything we've been through. Everything that got us here. How?"

"It's because of everything, that I know." I stated, sucking on my lower lip before continuing. "My gut has never been wrong, you know that. When I haven't followed it, I've lived to regret it, you know that too." His intense gaze softened slightly at my words as he released a deep sigh and ran a hand across his brow. "You just have to look at him, baby. He's no threat, an I believe what he's saying. I believe that we don't have to live like this- if I'm wrong, somehow, we can handle that too."

He stepped closer to me and rested his head against mine, nudging his nose with my own. He wanted to trust again. He wanted there to be more than this. But too many times we have let our guard down; too many times we have been burned by others. Randall and his group, then the Governor, the Claimers, the Termites and each time, it gets worse. When you think it can't get any more horrific, or brutal, it does. As the world dies, the people die with it; humanity crumbles.

"I wanna believe it, too." He whispered, "I jus' can't- not without knowing for certain."

I knotted my eyebrows together in thought, before responding. "Then we don't, not until we can be sure." I said supportingly, "This is for our family, our kids- we have three of them now. Three precious lives to protect. So, I know, an I'm with you."

We took every precaution we possibly could. Michonne, Shane, Abraham, Maggie, Glenn and Rosita went to look for the vehicles from Aaron's description, whilst everyone else formed a pair and kept watch around the barn.

It turned out that he was telling the truth after all. They brought back a car and an RV, one just like Dale's as I remember it. They were stocked with food and more water; a lot of spaghetti rings which pleased Abraham more than anything and medical supplies that we had been lacking on after all the injuries we have had to contend with.

"This- this is ours now." Rick stated, holding one of the tins of food in his hand as he spoke down to Aaron.

"There's more than enough—"

"It's ours, whether or not we go to your camp." Rick pressed firmly.

"Wh- what do you mean? Why wouldn't we go?" Carl questioned.

"If he were lying, or if he wanted to hurt us-" Michonne explained, "but he isn't and he doesn't. We need this. So we're going, all of us."

"We are." I concluded in agreement, looking up to Rick as his brow furrowed. "We've gone over everything we can, there's nothing more we can do. We need to get out of this- away from the thick of it. We've been out here too long."