What's Next

Chapter Eighteen 🦋

Val's POV:

Last night, walkers almost burst through the barn doors as the storm drew them to the barn. It took all of us to hold the barn doors shut until everything finally settled down. Sasha and Maggie went out to look around and check out the damages, after the tornado that hit us last night. I noticed Daryl talking to Maggie earlier, while I just started to wake up. "Everything okay?" I asked him quietly, with a soft smile on my face as I crouched down in front of him. "yeah, I'm just thinkin' baby that's all." He replied softly, looking at me with a small smile. I planted a soft kiss on his lips, letting him know that I cared.

**

Daryl sat, running over his crossbow, checking every inch. He had done the same with mine only moments earlier cause he wanted me to rest for a while longer. Since our talk last night before shit had hit the fan, we have been a lot better today than we have for a long time. I knew he was still hesitant about the baby and being dad but he I guess just didn't want to stress me out or worry me. There was more he wanted to tell me but clearly didn't know how so I let him be. I was just going to wait until he got the confidence to tell me.

Soon Maggie and Sasha walked in with an unknown guest following behind them, "Hey everyone, this is Aaron." Maggie announced. Everyone including me jumped to feet aiming our weapons at the man whose name was Aaron. Daryl instantly took charge and looked around outside, ignoring what Maggie was saying, "we met him outside. He's by himself"

"we took his weapons and took his gear." She continued on, meanwhile Daryl took it upon himself to pat the man down double checking, that Aaron definitely had nothing on him, like Maggie was saying. I couldn't get over how hot Daryl was when took charge, I had to snap myself out those thoughts while there were more pressing matters in front of us. But let me tell you, with the amount of hormones flooding through my body now, it was difficult to not want to get hot and heavy with Daryl. Not that I didn't before I was pregnant, but I definitely want to a lot more now. "Hi." Aaron greeted, finally speaking. Judith's cries brought me back out of my thoughts, as I walked over to Rick taking my crying niece out of his arms to comfort her while he dealt with the matter at hand that was Aaron. "It's nice to meet you," Aaron stated, holding his hand out to Rick, walking over to him clearly to shake his hand. Before stopping in his tracks as everyone went to advance on him if he chose to take another step. "You said he had a weapon?" Rick questioned Maggie, ignoring the new face.

Maggie walked over to Rick handing him the man's gun she had taken from him, soon turning and walking back to where she stood before, while my brother examined the gun he now held, soon putting it in his back pocket. "There's something you need?" My brother huffed.

"He has a camp, nearby." Sasha spoke up.

"he wants us to audition for membership." She explained.

"I wish there was another word. Audition makes it sound like we're some kind of a dance troupe. That's only on Friday nights." Aaron stated, trying to make a joke to lighten the mood. I could already tell he didn't have ill intentions. I could read people's intentions pretty well sometimes, I mean was right about Eugene while everyone else didn't care to listen to me. "Um, and its not a camp. It's a community. I think you all would make valuable additions. But its not my call." He continued on.

"my job is to convince you all to follow me back home. I know. If I were you, I wouldn't go either. Not until I knew exactly what I was getting into."

"Sasha, can you hand Rick my pack?" Sasha did as he asked, "front pocket, there's an envelope."

"Theres no way I could convince you to come with me just by talking about our community. That's why I brought those. I apologise in advance for the picture quality. We just found an old camera store last..."

"nobody gives a shit." Daryl huffed, cutting Aaron off.

"You're absolutely 100% right." Aaron replied, turning to look at Daryl. Rick began to sift through the photo pile he now held in his hands. "that's the first picture I wanted to show you because nothing I say about our community will matter unless you know you'll be safe. If you join us, you will be." Aaron explained as I looked at the picture Rick held in his hand. It was an image of a fortified wall, clearly built when this shitshow started. "Each panel in that wall is a 15ft high, 12ft wide slab of solid steel framed by cold-rolled steel beams and square tubing. Nothing alive or dead gets through that without our say-so."

"Like I said, security is obviously important. In fact, there's only one resource more critical to our community's survival. The people."

I looked around at everyone as Aaron spoke, soon catching Daryl's eyes on me. I held Judith close with one arm, while my other hand stayed on my growing stomach. Honestly I don't know what else we have to lose, and the longer were on the road the chances of our survival starts thin out. Constant hunger, thirst and exhaustion wasn't good for any of us, especially with me being pregnant. A newborn baby and Judith on the road its not what I would want for them. "together we're strong. You can make us even stronger."

"the next picture, you'll see inside the gates." I noticed Rick making his way over to Aaron, I immediately handed Judith to Carl and followed straight after Rick, knowing what he was going to do before he did it. "Rick don't." I muttered, knowing he would of heard me but he ignored me anyways. "Our community was first construc..." Aaron tried to say before he got a right hook to the face by my brother, knocking him down instantly. "Rick are fucking kidding me!" I scolded, instantly pissed off with my older brother, as I checked over the now unconscious man, while Daryl went looking around.

"I needed to shut him up." Rick defended.

"there were plenty of different ways to do that than punching him in the face." I scolded once more, making it clear that I was pissed off with how he handle things. All he did was scoff at me and shrugged it off, continuing what he was doing.

**