Just Keep Walking

Twenty four

That morning Mary woke up to Sasha and Maggie gone.
"Daddy? Mishy?!" She panicked suddenly, "Carl! Glenny! Maggie and Sasha are gone!"
"Shhh," Daryl whispered, "they've jus' gone for a walk." Nevertheless, half of the group woke up, Mary tugging at Michonne's dreadlocks.
"They're okay?" Glenn asked, and although he had only just woken up, he was alert at the fact that Maggie had gone.
"They're fine."
"I need a wee!" Mary hissed, and Michonne got up with a sigh, going outside with the child.
"Mishy?" Mary asked as they were in the woods.
"What?"
"Can we get a chicken again?"
"If we find a place, maybe."
"And a horse? And a dog?"
"Yeah. Come on."
"Mishy?" She called again.
"Yes, Mary?" The woman half laughed.
"Can I call it Maggie-Rick? And the horsey can be Mishy-Rick, and the doggy can be Glenny-Rick."
"Sure."
"Can I have a piggyback home?" Mary sighed, walking back over to Michonne.
"Yeah," Michonne nodded, lifting her onto her back, "is your hip hurting?"
"Yeah. It does when I walk for a while."
"Alright. That's normal, I think. We could really do with a doctor, hey?"
"We had Hershel and doctor S. They died. Everyone dies."
"Well, hopefully not for a while."
"Yeah. I want to die before daddy does, because I'd be too sad if he died. And Carl and Judith and Glenny and Maggie and you and Uncle Daryl."
"Well, I hope you live to be an old lady."
"I don't wanna be old! I'm little!" Mary giggled.
"But one day you will be. One day you'll be my age, and you'll have kids of your own, if you want."
"I'll call them Maggie-Rick." Mary nodded seriously.
"Yeah, you might change your mind on that one." Michonne chuckled.
"Why? It's the bestest name ever!"
"It is cool." Michonne nodded, figuring it was easier to agree.
"Maybe my Glenny won't like it."
"Mary, you can't marry Glenn."
"Everyone says that and it's sad. I don't get why not."
Michonne sighed, then laughed. "Glenn is married to Maggie. And he's an adult. He's too old to marry you."
"Not fair." The child mumbled into Michonne's hair. The woman laughed, then stopped as they reached the barn, the door open.
She rushed inside when she heard Sasha say, "He has a camp nearby. He wants us to audition for membership."
Rick signalled Michonne to his side, and he held Mary's tiny hand. "Not a word. Okay? Quiet. Stay with Mishy." He whispered into Mary's ear, the child understanding and nodding.
"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." The man joked.
"Who's the man?" Mary mumbled into Michonne's shoulder.
"Can you take her?" Michonne asked Noah, ignoring Mary, and he nodded, holding Mary on his hip.
"I'm Aaron, 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?"
Sasha walked over and gave Rick Aaron's bag, Mary wriggling around in Noah's arms. Michonne wanted to be ready to fight, but she knew that Mary wanted her, so took the child back with a sigh.
"Front pocket, there's an envelope. 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 apologise in advance for the picture quality, we just found an old camera store last..."
"Nobody gives a shit." Daryl snapped, cutting the man off. Rick gave Michonne a look, and Mary knew what it meant. She reached for the tiny knife she carried, but felt a sadness inside of her. She wanted this to be real. She wanted a safe place to live.
"You're absolutely one hundred percent 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. If you join us, you will be. Each panel in that wall is a fifteen foot high, twelve foot wide slab of solid steel, framed by cold rolled steel beams and square tubing. Nothing dead or alive 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. The next picture you'll see inside the gates." Aaron explained, but Rick walked over, and punched him harshly, knocking the man out.
"Daddy!" Mary scolded, annoyed even though she expected the punch.
"Mary." Rick sighed, rolling his eyes and rubbing his hand, then he walked over to Mary and Michonne, taking his daughter. "It's just for now. We don't know if we can trust him. I need to think."
"So we're clear, that look wasn't a "let's attack that man look," it was a "he seems like an okay guy to me" look?" Michonne half asked.
"We got to secure him. Dump his pack. Let's see who this guy really is."
"Rick!"
"Everybody else, we need eyes in every direction. They're coming for us. We might not know how or when, but they are."
"Me and Sasha we didn't see him. If he had wanted to hurt us, he could've." Maggie argued.
"Daddy, he might be nice." Mary whispered.
"Not now, Mary." Rick sighed, and Mary's heart sank. "Anybody see anything?"
"Just a lot of places to hide." Glenn replied.
"Alright, keep looking." Rick shouted, as he walked over to Carl. "What did you find?"
Carl held out a tiny orange gun to his father. "Never seen a gun like that before."
Rick nodded slowly, and walked over to Aaron as he began to wake up.
"That's a hell of a right cross there, Rick." Aaron groaned.
"Sit him up." The leader ordered, no empathy in his voice.
"I think it's better if..."
"It's okay." Aaron groaned, beginning to sit up by himself.
"He's fine. Sit him up." Rick repeated, and Maggie and Michonne helped him. Glenn walked over and took Mary, in case Rick needed to shout or fight, and she buried her head into his shoulder.
"Daddy won't let me talk." She whined sadly.
"Your daddy has to be the leader right now. He has to make sure we're safe." Glenn soothed, rubbing Mary's back gently.
"You're being cautious. I completely understand." Aaron nodded slowly to Rick.
"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 questioned.
"Does it matter?" Aaron shrugged, and Mary sighed at his stupidity.
"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, thirty two, four hundred and forty four, zero... No matter what I say, you're not going to trust me."
"Well, it's hard to trust anyone who smiles after getting punched in the face."
"How about a guy who leaves bottles of water for you in the road? For your children?" Aaron argued.
Daryl strode over to the mysterious man. "How long you people been following us?"
"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."
"How many others are out there?" Rick repeated, walking closer to Aaron.
"One," he replied, and, after hearing Rick scoff, he said, "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."
"Lunch?" Nary asked with wide eyes, turning to the man, and he smiled back at her.
"I'm not sure how the fifteen of us are going to fit in the car you and your one friend drove down here in." Rick snapped, and Aaron turned back to him.
"We drove separely. If we found a group, we wanted to be able to bring them all home. There's enough room for all of us."
"And you parked just a couple miles away, right?"
"East on Ridge Road, just after you hit route sixteen. 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 hissed.
Aaron sighed, and Mary glared at Rick. "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 of the only exit. You can trust me."
"Mean." Mary mumbled under her breath.
"I'll check out the cars." Michonne offered suddenly.
"There aren't any cars." Rick hissed, each word said slowly, as if he was talking to a petulant toddler.
"There's only one way to find out."
"We don't need to find out!" He insisted.
"Daddy." Mary whined.
"We do. You know what you know, and you're sure of it, but I'm not." Michonne argued.
"Me neither." Maggie added.
"Your way is dangerous, mine isn't."
"Passing up someplace where we can live? Where Mary and 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."
"Then I will too. I'll go." Glenn nodded slowly.
"Abraham?" Rick asked.
"Yeah. I'll walk with them." Abraham nodded.
"Rosita?"
"Okay." The woman agreed, and Rick nodded back at him.
"If there's trouble, you got enough firepower?" Rick questioned.
"We got what we got." Glenn shrugged. Rick gave him his gun, and then Glenn walked over to Mary. "I'll be back soon, okay? I promise."
"With a new home?" She half smiled, a glimmer of hope in her eyes.
"Maybe." Glenn nodded, kissing her cheek.
"The walkies are out of juice. If you're not back in sixty minutes, we'll come. Which might be just what they want," Rick sighed, as some of the soup left, and he took Mary into his own arms, "if we're all in here, we're a target."
"I've got the area covered." Daryl nodded.
"Alright, groups of two, find somewhere safe, within eyeshot." Rick ordered, as everyone else began to leave. 
"Want me to take Moo?" Carl asked quietly, grabbing his little sister's hand.
"No, I've got the girls. I'd sooner have them with me." Rick said gently, and Carl nodded, then left, Rick shutting the door behind him.
"When the world was still the world," Aaron said suddenly, "I worked for a NGO. Our mission was to deliver medicine and food to the Niger River Delta. Bad people pointed guns in my face every other week. You're not bad people. You're not going to kill us. And we are definitely not going to kill you."
"Just because we're good people doesn't mean we won't kill you. If the five of them aren't back in an hour... I'll put a knife in the base of your skull." Rick threatened.
"Daddy. That's not kind. We need to be kind. He might help us, and if he has a home for us then I can have my chicken and horse again." Mary whispered into Rick's shirt.
"Maybe." Rick sighed.
"We don't have any chickens or horses, but we do have a few dogs." Aaron explained to the girl.
"Don't talk to her." Rick spat fiercely. Then he sat Mary down with her bunny as he went to get Judith, the tiny child staring at Aaron the whole time.