ꜰᴏᴏʟ'ꜱ ᴍᴀᴛᴇ || ᴛᴡᴅ

116: ɪ'ᴍ ɴᴏᴛ ᴀ ɢᴏᴏᴅ ᴘᴇʀꜱᴏɴ

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Getting back to the ruined remains of Alexandria was hard. 

The children greeted their parents, Rachel, Judith and RJ engulfing Daryl in a hug, while Apollo barked and ran over to Sami.

"Can't wait until Coco's old enough for hugs like that." Sami said, as Apollo spotted Dog and ran off with him.

"She's gonna hate you." Rosita chuckled, hanging the three bags she had on Sami's arm, as he handed his three to Gabriel. "You'll end up hanging out of her, like you do with me."

"Yeah, but you love me." He kissed the top of her head, before resting his head on hers, running his hands over her arms to warm her up. 

"Keep telling yourself that."

He went to say something, but instead of speaking, he coughed, hard, making him raise his hand to his mouth. "Ow."

"You okay?"

He nodded, pulling his sleeve over his hand. "Yeah. Should count that food."

"Yep." She let go of him, and made her way into the old church, where the food was being gathered. 

Sami followed after her, but slowly. He could hear a fight breaking out behind him, but could also hear Gabriel was already on it. He was distracted. 

There was blood on his hand. And when his reached a hand to his mouth, there was a drop on his lip. 

He wiped it away, quickly, and followed Rosita in. If his asthma was that bad, there was nothing they could do. It was hopefully just from the dust in the building.

They counted the food with Gabriel, and after much dividing and debating, called a meeting.

"One week." Gabriel said.

Daryl looked at him from his chair beside him. "that's in? In that last run, just a week?"

"We can make it work." Aaron said.

Sami scoffed, leaning back in his chair. "Got a stash your not telling us about? We've got more people than ever, no crops, and no live stock. We've got to do something, not just 'make it work'."

"We can get there." Aaron insisted, standing in the center of the room. "We've got people out there right now. Scavenging houses for materials."

"That were cleared out by Danny and Rachel five years ago."

"It's  a little hard to put up walls with broken tools and an empty stomach." Gabriel said from a chair across from Sami.

"Our people are good hunters." Agatha, one of Maggie's people who arrived today, spoke, leaning against the wall. "Frost and I can take a group out."

Sami wasn't sure why he was so pessimistic, but he really hated all these suggestions. "The herd scared off anything left, and even before that everything for miles all round was scarce thanks to Alpha's borders."

"We could find new territory." Daryl said.

Gabriel shook his head. "We don't have time. We need food. Lots of it. Now."

"Well, complaining like that won't get us anywhere, Gabe." Sami said.

"I know one more place." Maggie sat in a chair on Sami's left. "The place I lived before all this. Where we lived. Meridian. It's got plenty of food. Water, crops, and animals."

"Yeah. And now it's gone." Elijah shrugged.

Rosita glanced at them. "So, what happened out there?"

A heaviness overcame the room, and no one spoke for a few seconds.