Dead Man Walking

lii.

Hunter got out of the Rv as they arrived back in Alexandria and walked around it to the other side to greet Rosita. He wraps his arm around her and places a kiss on her forehead. While Sasha and Aaron walked over to Rick.

"Get Olivia. She should inventory what we have. We'll meet her at the pantry."

"You have food?" Sasha asks.

"Yeah," Michonne responds, "Enough for another month."

"We need everybody in the church in an hour," Hunter says to Sasha.

"What is it?"

"We'll talk about it."

Rosita looks at Hunter curiously but Hunter simply shakes his head and motions for her to follow him, "I got to see Maggie's ultrasound picture. Brought me back to when Lori told me she was pregnant for the first time."

"Who's Lori?"

Hunter sometimes forgets that Rosita hasn't been with them since the beginning and she doesn't know who some people are, "Lori is Carl and Judith's mom. Rick's wife. She died giving birth to Judith."

"I'm sorry."

"I just know that when Maggie's baby is born she's gonna be there to raise it. And everyone here is gonna love that child."

Rosita smiles and it faded quickly when she saw the dried blood on his hands, "What happened when you were there?"

"A little fight broke out. Some guy named Nathan stabbed the Hilltop leader," Hunter tells her, "But nothing to worry about. I wasn't involved. Rick and Michonne took care of it. And if you didn't notice they're together. It's crazy the first time we met Michonne they hated each other."

Rosita chuckles as she thinks about the first time they met each other, "So kinda like us?"

"You might've hated me, I just thought you were annoying. Calling me an asshole and all that."

She rolls her eyes, "You were an asshole."

Hunter sighs dramatically and wraps his arm around her shoulder, "And yet you fell for me."

_____

Hunter stood at the front of the church with his brother as everyone started filling in. They needed to talk to all of them about the deal they made with Hilltop. They couldn't fight Negan and his boys without them.

As everyone sat down and looked up at the brothers Rick decided to start, "We can work with the Hilltop. Maggie hammered out a deal. We're getting food, eggs, butter, fresh vegetables. But they're not just giving it away. These Saviors, they almost killed Sasha, Daryl, and Abraham on the road. Now, sooner or later, they would've found us, just like those Wolves did, just like Jesus did. They woulda killed someone or some of us. And then they would try to own us. And we would try to stop them."

"But by then, in that kind of fight, low on food, we could lose. This is the only way to be sure, as sure as we can get, that we win," Hunter says, he's not one to back down from a fight, "And we have to win. We do this for the Hilltop, it's how we keep this place. It's how we feed this place. But this needs to be a group decision. If any of you want to object, now's your chance to say your piece."

The room stayed quiet a few people glances at each other. Hunter looked around all of them waiting to see if anyone objected. And Morgan was the one to stand from his spot and the attention was on him.

"You're sure we can do it?" Morgan asks rather nervously as he looks at everyone's eyes on him, "We can beat them?"

"What this group has done, what we've learned, what we've become, all od us— yes, I'm sure," Rick answers.