Too Far Gone // D. Dixon

chapter twelve

When Aaron finally woke up, he groaned in pain.

Aaron chuckled as he opened his eyes, "That's a hell of a right cross there, Rick."

"Sit him up." Rick orders as Michonne and Maggie move Aaron. The guy was still adjusting to being awake after having the literal daylights knocked out of him.

"You're being cautious, I completely understand-" Aaron begins to speak, but Rick cuts him off.

"How many of your people are out there?" Rick asks him, pulling out the flare gun Carl had found in his bag, "You have a flare gun. You have it to signal your people. How many of them are there?"

Aaron stops to think for a moment before responding with a question, "Does it matter?"

"Yes..." Rick says in an angry whisper, "Yes, it does."

"I mean, of course, it matters how many people are actually out there...but does it matter how many people I tell you are out there? Because I'm pretty sure no matter what number I say--8...32...444...0. No matter what I say, you're not going to trust me." Aaron spoke to the entire group, but he looked directly at Rick. Maren shifted uncomfortably, feeling nauseous at the idea of being surrounding by a massive group.

"Well, it's hard to trust anyone who smiles after getting punched in the face." Rick scoffs.

"How about a guy who leaves bottles of water for you in the road?" Aaron asks, making the group look shocked. Maren thought about that for a moment, that was this guy?

"How long you people been followin' us?" Daryl huffs at the man, getting anxious for the group.

"Long enough to see that you practically ignore a pack of roamers on your trail. Long enough to see that despite a lack of food and water, you never turned on each other," Aaron smiles sadly as he recalls seeing how tired they were, "You're survivors and you're people. Like I said, and I hope you won't punch me for saying it again, that is the most important resource in the world."

Nobody said anything for a moment, the group just looked at each other. Nobody had to say a word, there was a silent form of communication that they'd formed during their time on the road. One that this guy had yet to understand.

"How many others are out there?" Rick asks again, walking dangerously close to Aaron.

"One," Aaron says, but it feels wrong, "I knew you wouldn't believe me. If it's not words, if it's not pictures, what would it take to convince you that this is for real?"

Silence follows.

"What if I drove you to the community? All of you?" Aaron pleads, "We leave now, we'll get there by lunch."

"I'm not sure how the 16 of us are going to fit in the car you and your one friend drove down here in." Rick challenges him, thinking like he used to. It seemed his extensive detective and investigative skills are deemed useful in this world.

"We drove separately. If we found a group, we wanted to be able to bring them all home. There's enough room for all of us." Aaron explained, looking at each member. He understood them being cautious, but they had to realize he only meant to help.

"And you're parked just a couple miles away, right?" Carol asked, trying to pick him apart. People had ticks, ways of showing if they were telling the truth or not.

"East on Ridge Road, just after you hit Route 16. We wanted to get them closer, but the storm came and blocked the road. We couldn't clear it-" Aaron continues but is yet again cut off.

"Yeah, you've really thought this through." Rick was hesitant to believe him, let alone trust him. But he couldn't deny the depth of his details, the lack of hesitation in his responses. If he was lying, he was a damn good liar.

"Rick, if I wanted to ambush you, I'd do it here. You know, light the barn on fire while you slept, pick you off as you ran out the only exit. You can trust me." Aaron tried his best to convince the group, they'd made it clear this endeavor was not going to be easy.

"I'll check out the cars." Michonne turns to Rick, not asking him but telling him what she's doing.

"There aren't any cars-" Rick spat out quickly.

"There's only one way to find out." Michonne piped back, making it clear that she wasn't so ready to give up.

"We don't need to find out-" Rick started, but this time he was the one being cut off.

"We need to check the cars, Rick," Maren stood in front of Rick, "The least we can do is investigate. If there's more people out there...we have to know."

"Maren's right, Rick," Michonne nods to her, "You know what you know and you're sure of it, but I'm not."

"Me neither." Maggie stood by Maren and Michonne.

There was a chance there was something else out there, something else other than living like this. Being so hungry, you have no choice but to eat dogs. Being so dehydrated that you see stars. They all knew they couldn't survive like this forever. Eventually it would get them all killed.

"Your way is dangerous, mine isn't." Rick retorted.

"Passing up someplace where we can live? Where Judith can live? That's pretty dangerous," Michonne argued, "We need to find out what this is. We can handle ourselves."

"And that's exactly what we're gonna do," Maren stood up holding her gun, "We've survived this long on less."

With that, Rick sent a group to check out the cars and everyone else for surveillance. Maren had volunteered to stay behind to take care of Judith and watch over Aaron, mostly to be there in case shit went sideways.

"When the world was still the world, I worked for an NGO. Our mission was to deliver medicine and food to Niger River Delta," Aaron said, "Bad people pointed guns in my face every other week. You're not bad people. You're not going to kill us, and we're certainly not going to kill you." He looked between Rick and Chloe, the only two adults that remained in the barn, alongside baby Judith.

"Just because we're good people doesn't mean we won't kill you," Rick said, looking out the barn door, "If the five of them aren't back in an hour, I'll put a knife in the base of your skull."

- TOO FAR GONE -

Rick and Aaron hadn't communicated much after that. It was safe to say that Aaron was patient, seeing as he watched idly as the pair took care of Judith.

When Judith started fussing, Maren figured she was thirsty. After trying the water, Judith began to cry.

"Rick, she's hungry..." Maren looked at Rick, who grabbed some of the acorns they'd stumbled upon. He put them in a bowl and began to crush them, or at least he was attempting to crush them. When that looked to be a struggle, Aaron spoke up again.

"You did see the jar of applesauce in my bag, right?" Aaron said, catching Maren and Rick's attention, "This isn't a trick. This isn't about trying to make you like me, it's self preservation. If the roamers hear her and come this way, I know I'll be the first to go."

"I know we don't trust him...but he's got a point..." Maren whispered to Rick. He only sighed, getting up to grab the applesauce. He looked at the jar suspiciously, before putting some on the spoon and making Aaron eat it first.

"You think I'm trying to poison your baby daughter?" Aaron looked at Rick in shock, "I'm tied up and you've already expressed a willingness to stab me in the head. How would cruelly killing your daughter in front of you in any way help the situation?"

"Maybe she doesn't die. Maybe she gets sick. Maybe you're the only one that can help her and I just lose." Rick angrily speaks to Aaron, sick of the bullshitting.

"I am the only one who can help her because I have applesauce and we all win," Aaron retorts back, frustrated that Rick won't just feed the baby, "I hate applesauce...I just brought the jar to show that we have apple trees nearby."

"Like you said, you'll be the first to go." Rick states, pushing the spoon to his mouth. Aaron sighs, taking the bite despite his protests.

"The community is big enough. We can find a place for you to live where even when she cries, no one, nothing can hear it outside the walls." Aaron looks at Maren, begging her to hear him.

Instead, Maren just looks at Rick once again and says, "You got 43 minutes."