Solitary: The Walking Dead

Chapter Fifty-four.

It's a community.

Iris lifts her head from Daryl's shoulder and turns to look at him, she watches as he keeps his eyes on the group, she reaches her free hand up and strokes his hair from his eyes. Daryl moves his eyes to her "I'm sorry I haven't spoken to you since it happened" Iris whispers "'m sorry too" Daryl mumbles, the two look at each other in silence, both thinking how they never want to be away from each other again.

Everybody starts to wake up, Iris keeps her eyes on the man as he looks over to the others, she leans closer and gives him a small kiss on the cheek before standing and walking over to the group, Daryl watches as she walks away, shocked but happy with the gesture. They have become a light for each other in a world filled with darkness.

Iris lets out a whistle, calling Bear over to her, they make their way through everyone on the floor and walk outside. Iris looks around at the remains from last night's storm, trees fallen, and walkers sprawled around and hanging in trees. Iris walks Bear around, letting him go to the toilet, stopping when she finds Maggie and Sasha with their guns pointed at a man, Iris quickly pulls out her gun as Bear stands and barks at the man.

"Are you two okay?" she asks, keeping her eyes on the stranger as her finger rests on the trigger, "yeah. We're fine" Maggie says, "who are you?" Iris questions, the stranger notices her southern accent getting stronger when she talks to him, "my name's Aaron" he says, keeping his hands up "what do you want?" she asks "I'd like to talk to the person in charge" he says over Bear's growls.

Maggie and Sasha lead the man to the barn as Iris stays behind him with her dog, her gun still pointed at the man's head. "Hey!" Maggie says, slowly opening the doors, "everyone... this is Aaron" she adds, stepping into the barn and revealing the man, the group all raise their guns, Iris watches as Daryl storms towards her looking around behind her before he starts patting Aaron down.

"We met him outside. He's by himself. We took his weapons and we took his gear." Maggie says and Iris closes the door with Tara's help, stepping towards Daryl when he stands up again. He looks over to the woman scanning her up and down and making sure she wasn't hurt. "Hi" the stranger says, looking around at the group as they stand watching him, Iris watches as Rick hands the crying baby to Carl, turning back to the stranger.

"It's nice to meet you" Aaron says, stepping forward, Iris and Daryl step up to the man, gripping their weapons, as the rest of the group cock their guns, the stranger stops. "You said he had a weapon?" Rick asks, and Maggie walks over to him handing over the gun, "there something you need?" Rick asks, "he has a camp nearby... he wants us to audition for membership" Sasha says.

Iris and Daryl look to each other before focusing back on the stranger, "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 jokes, trying to get the group to warm up and let their walls down, but he fails.

"Um, and it's not a camp. It's a community. I think you all would make valuable additions. But it's not my call. 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?" he asks, and the woman walks towars Rick, taking off the backpack and handing it to Rick.

"Front pocket, there's an envelope." Aaron says, and rick opens it up, "There's no way I could convince you to come with me just by talking about our community. That's why I brought those. I apologize in advance for the picture quality. We just found an old camera store last..." the stranger rambles, getting cut off by Daryl "Nobody gives a shit."

"You're absolutely 100% right. 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." Aaron explains as Rick looks at the pictures, "If you join us, you will be. Each panel in that wall is a 15-foot-high, 12-foot-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. Together we're strong. You can make us even stronger."

Rick starts walking towards the man "The next picture, you'll see inside the gates. Our community was first construc..." Rick punches Aaron unconscious. Daryl quickly checks the man is out before grabbing rope and helping Iris tie him up. "Everybody else, we need eyes in every direction. They're coming for us. We might not know how or when, but they are." Rick announces, as Iris, Daryl and Carol work on wrapping the rope around the mans wrists.

"Me and Sasha, we didn't see him. If he had wanted to hurt us, he could've." Maggie says, "Anybody see anything?" Rick asks "Just a lot of places to hide." Glenn says, looking through the gaps in the wall. "All right, keep looking." Rick says, Iris stands with Carol and Daryl and they step away, keeping their eye on the stranger, Aaron slowly starts to wake up "That's a hell of a right cross there, Rick." he says.

"Sit him up." Rick orders "I think it's better if..." "It's okay." Aaron says, cutting Maggie off, "He's fine. Sit him up." Rick says, Michonne and Maggie carefully pull the man into a sitting position, "You're being cautious. I completely understand." "How many of your people are out there? You have a flare gun. You have it to signal your people. How many of them are there?" Rick questions.

"Does it matter?" Aaron asks "Yes. 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... eight, 32, 444, zero... No matter what I say, you're not going to trust me." Aaron says, Iris and Daryl stick next to each other, gripping onto their weapons.

"Well, it's hard to trust anyone who smiles after getting punched in the face." Rick says "How about a guy who leaves bottles of water for you in the road?" "How long you people been following us?" Daryl questions, stepping closer to the stranger, "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. 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." he explains, and everyone looks at each other, unsure.

"How many others are out there?" Rick asks again, growing annoyed, "One... 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? What if I drove you to the community? All of you? We leave now, we'll get there by lunch." Aaron says "I'm not sure how the 15 of us are going to fit in the car you and your one friend drove down here in." Rick says.

"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 says "And you're parked just a couple miles away, right?" Carol asks "East on Ridge Road, just after you hit Route 16. We wanted to get them closer, but then the storm came, blocked the road. We couldn't clear it." "Yeah, you've really thought this through." "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 says, Rick stares at the man for a moment, making a decision.

"I'll check out the cars." Michonne says "There aren't any cars." Rick says "There's only one way to find out." "We don't need to find out." "We do. You know what you know and you're sure of it, but I'm not" Michonne says "Me neither." Maggie speaks up.

"Your way is dangerous, mine isn't." Rick says "Passing up someplace where we can live? Where Judith can live? That's pretty dangerous. We need to find out what this is. We can handle ourselves. So that's what we're gonna do." Michonne argues, "Then I will, too." Glenn says after thinking for a minute, "I'll go." he adds, looking at Rick.

"Abraham." Rick calls, looking over to the man, "Yeah. I'll walk with them." Abraham says, "Rosita?" "Okay." "If there's trouble, you got enough firepower?" Rick asks, "We got what we got." Glenn says "The walkies are out of juice. If you're not back in 60 minutes, we'll come. Which might be just what they want." Rick says, Iris watches as they walk out of the barn "If we're all in here, we're a target." Rick says, "I've got the area covered." Daryl says picking up his crossbow, walking out of the barn with Iris and Bear following.