The New World 5

Daryl didn't get as much sleep, if you want to call it that, then he wanted. It was more like a fifteen minute power nap, his thoughts wouldn't shut off. His mind was racing about the future. Would this outbreak ever get resolved? He wanted it to get resolved, for Sabrina and his unborn child...and lil' ass kicker so she didn't have to grow up in this terrible mess. Looking to the left, Daryl saw Sabrina sleeping soundly cuddled into his side. His mind drifted off again...Is the baby a boy or girl? Who would it take after? Sabrina or him. Was he ready to be a father? Would he make a good father? What if the little human he helped create hated him? Daryl knew one thing for sure though, he'd never be like his father to his own child. With all the abuse, mentally, emotionally, verbally and physically, Daryl would never put his child through that. But his brother always told him, 'it doesn't matter if you say you'll never be like our father, it'll happen sooner or later. It's unavoidable.' Daryl scoffed and slowly got up with a grunt, he needed to do something before his thoughts ate him alive. Looking back at a sleeping Sabrina he kneeled down, kissing her cheek and whispered an 'I love you' before standing back up with his crossbow and walked to the main area of the barn.

Sabrina slowly woke up to notice that Daryl wasn't beside her anymore. Sitting up quickly she looked around and caught a glimpse of him in the main part of the barn cleaning his crossbow. She let out a soft relieved sigh before slowly standing up and brushing the hay out of her hair and dusting herself off. She looked down at her belly and grumbled a bit, soon she was going to have to find bigger pants due to her belly that was going to expand. Making her way to the main part of the barn, Sabrina saw Maggie slowly open the barn doors as she made it to Daryl.

"Hey. Everyone, this is Aaron."

Daryl was the very first one up on his feet to scout the area outside while everyone else stood up in defensive mode. Daryl came back in and patted Aron down quickly while Sasha closed the barn doors.

"We met him outside. He's by himself. We took his weapons and gear." Maggie finished.

"Hi." The new guy named Aaron said.

Judith started crying so Carl took her from Rick.

"It's nice to meet you." He said going to Rick to shake his hand but stopped quickly when Daryl quickly went after him and Sabrina popped open her throwing knife pouch.

"You said he had a weapon?" Rick asked. Maggie gave Rick the weapon and he examined before tucking it behind him. "Is there something you need?"

"He has a camp, nearby. He wants us to audition for membership." Sasha spoke up.

"Audition?" Sabrina mumbled confused.

"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."

Sabrina gave the guy a very unamused look at his poor attempt at a joke. And the group must've felt the same way because Sabrina didn't see anyone crack a small smile.

"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?"

Sasha handed the backpack over to Rick and Aaron continued. "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 apologize in advance for the picture quality. We just found an old camera store last-"

"Nobody gives a shit." Daryl said, causing Aaron to stop with his rambling.

"You're absolutely one hundred percent right."

Sabrina rolled her eyes, the poor guy just didn't know when to shut his mouth. She walked over to Rick to see pictures of the 'community'.

"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 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. The next picture, you'll see inside the gates. Our community was first constructed-"

Sabrina didn't have time to react, Rick was already at Aaron and decked him. Aaron fell to the ground, out cold. The gang quickly tied Aaron up while Rick walked back to where he was previously standing.

"Rick, I know that his talking was getting annoying but to knock his lights out was a bit extreme." Sabrina stated.

Michonne nodded then spoke, " Also, that look wasn't a "let's attack that man" look. It was a "he seems like an okay guy to me" look."

"We got to secure him. Dump his pack. Let's see what this guy really is."

"I'm pretty sure he would've let us secure him without a struggle." Sabrina said, watching the things fall out of the backpack.

"Rick." Michonne hissed.

"Everybody else, we need eyes in every direction. They're coming for us. We might not know how or when, but they are." Rick commanded while ignoring Michonne.

"Me and Sasha, we didn't see him. If he had wanted to hurt us, he could've." Maggie spoke up, after examining Aaron.

Sabrina just shook her head, she knew Rick was trying to protect the group but he was taking things way too far.

"Anybody see anything?"

"Just a lot of places to hide." Glenn said.

"Alright. Keep looking." Rick stated before going back to Carl. "What did you find?"

"Never seen a gun like that before." Carl said holding up an orange gun.

"It's a flare Carl." Sabrina informed then snapped her head to Aaron, hearing him regain consciousness.

"That's a hell of a right cross there Rick."

"Sit him up."

"I think it's better if-"

"It's ok." Aaron groaned.

"He's alright, sit him up."

Maggie and Michonne helped Aaron to sit up. "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?"

"Does it matter?"

"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 fourty-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." Rick countered.

"How about a guy who leaves bottles of water for you in the road?"

Sabrina looked at Daryl, which he looked at her then the both of them looked at the bottled water then back to Aaron.

"How long ya people been followin' us?" Daryl asked with a deadly edge to his voice.

"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."

The barn was silent for a few moments before Rick slowly walked towards Aaron. "How many others are out there?"

"One."

Silence again.

"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."

"I'm not sure how the sixteen of us are going to fit in the car you and your one friend drove down here in."

"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."

"And you're just parked a couple of miles away right?" Carol finally spoke up.

"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."

Sabrina unfortunately had to agree with this Aaron guy's explanation.

"I'll check out the cars." Michonne said.

"There aren't any cars."

"You don't know that Rick." Sabrina stated, which earned a slight head shake from Daryl telling her to stop.

"There's only one way to find out." Michonne shot back.

"We don't need to find out."

"We do. You know what you know and you're sure of it, but I'm not."

"Me neither." Maggie said softly.

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

"Passing up someplace where we can live? Where Judith can live? Where Sabrina can give birth? Where Sabrina, Daryl and their baby 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 spoke up.

"Abraham?" Rick said looking to the tall red head.

"Yeah. I'll walk with him."

"Rosita?"

She nodded to Rick, "Ok."

"If there's trouble, you got enough firepower?"

"We got what we got." Glenn answered Rick.

Sabrina stood and watched at the sidelines while Daryl roughly escorted Aaron to a post in the barn.

"The walkies are out of juice. If you're not back in sixty minutes, we'll come. Which might be just what they want. If we're all in here, we're a target."

"I've go' the area covered." Daryl said grabbing his crossbow and headed out of the barn.

"I'm going with Daryl." Sabrina said, quickly following her husband.

"Sabrina ge' back inside." Daryl said when his wife made it outside with him.

"The main reason I'm coming is because I have to go pee."

"Ya piss like a damn horse. C'mon."

Sabrina followed carefully followed him into the woods. "Well that's what happens when you're pregnant. Your bladder gets squished."

The couple walked a few more feet until Daryl stopped. Sabrina looked around before undoing her pants and relieving herself. After she was done, Daryl led her back to the barn.

"A'righ'. I'll be back." He said then kissed her quickly. "I love ya." Daryl said barely above a whisper.

"Love you too. Be careful." Sabrina said, giving him one last kiss before making her way back to the barn.

Daryl watched her make it into the barn before venturing off. Sabrina shut the barn doors and turned around to see Rick trying to feed Aaron something while Judith bawled. Aaron finally ate the apple sauce that was on the spoon.

"You got forty-three minutes."

Sabrina rubbed her temples before going to Rick to help with trying to calm Judith down. The forty three minutes past and Aaron didn't fall over.

"Looks like it's safe. Now she can get something in her empty tummy."

Rick finally fed Judith and she quietened down. Once she had her fill Judith fell asleep as the group came pouring back in. Sabrina sat by Daryl with her head on his shoulder while Rick examined everything.

"This. This is ours now." Rick stated.

"There's more than enough."

"It's ours whether or not we go to your camp."

"What do you mean? Why wouldn't we go?" Carl asked, which surprised Sabrina a bit since he was question his father.

"If he were lying or if he wanted to hurt us but he isn't, and he doesn't. We need this. So we're going, all of us." Michonne declared. "Somebody say something if they feel differently."

"I dunno know, man. This barn smells like horse shit. 'nd Michonne brought up a poin' earlier 'bout Sabrina 'nd my unborn child."

"Yeah. We're going." Rick said then looked over to Aaron. "So where are we going? Where's your camp?"

"Well, every time I've done this, I've been behind the wheel driving recruits back. I believe you're good people. I've bet my life on it. I'm just not ready to bet my friends' lives just yet."

"You're not driving. So if you want to get home, you'll have to tell us how." Michonne stated sternly.

Rick pulled out a map, waiting for the directions.

"Go north on Route 16."

"And then?"

"I'll tell you when we get there."

"We'll take twenty-three north. You'll give us directions from there."

"That's I don't know how else to say it That's a bad idea. We've cleared sixteen. It'll be faster."

"We'll take twenty-three. We leave at sundown."

"We're doing this at night?" Sasha asked unbelievingly.

"Look, I know it's dangerous. But it's better than riding up to the gates during the day. If it isn't safe, we need to get gone before they know we're there."

"No one is going to hurt you. You're trying to protect your group, but you're putting them in danger."

Tell me where the camp is, we'll leave right now."

Silence.

"It's gonna be a long night." Rick state as he stood. "Eat. Get some rest if you can." He said before walking out of the barn and Michonne followed him.

About twenty minutes later, Rick, Michonne, Glenn and Aaron climbed into the car while the rest of the group climbed in to the RV. The ride was pretty boring and long, Sabrina ended up dozing off. She jolted awake when she heard Abraham's booming voice, getting up, she slowly walked off the RV to see another new guy tied up.

"Who's this?"

"Name's Eric." The guy said with a smile.

"He's with Aaron's group." Daryl said.

"Great. So you were stalking us too." Sabrina looked over to Eric then to Abraham. "Why'd we stop anyway? And why are we in an alleyway?"

"We accidentally hit him and broke his ankle while you were cutting logs." Abraham spoke matter-of-factly.

Sabrina rolled her eyes as she flipped him off as Tara cleared her throat.

"This place is cleared out. We can hang in there until Rick, Michonne, Glenn and Aaron show up."

Sabrina raised her eyebrows with confusion.

"We fired the flare a few minutes ago. So they know where we are." Maggie informed.

The group went inside the abandoned building and waited for Rick. It seemed like hours past before some whistling noise was heard outside. Sabrina watched out the dirty window to see Daryl give the 'It's them' sign and everyone started pouring out of the building. Aaron raced inside to check on Eric while the others stay and chatted. The group let Aaron and Eric have a few moments before entering the building again.

"Excuse me. Excuse me. Everyone. Thank you. You saved Eric. I owe you. All of you. And I will make sure that debt is paid in full when we get to our community. When we get to Alexandria. Now, I'm not sure about you, but I'd rather not do any more driving tonight. Maybe we can hit the road tomorrow morning." Aaron said coming out of the room that Eric was in.

"That sounds fine. But if we're staying here for the night, you're sleeping over there." Rick said.

"You really think we got to do that?" Maggie spoke up.

"It's the safe play. We don't know you."

"The only way you're gonna stop me from being with him right now is by shooting me."

Sabrina stood next to Daryl, watching Aaron step forward and Glenn stopping him. Glenn started whispering to Rick, most likely trying to convince him to let Aaron stay the night with Eric. Glenn finally convinced Rick and Aaron went into the back room with Eric while the others picked a spot to sleep. The group only slept for a few hours before hitting the road again. A few hours the RV slowed down and Abraham started up his mouth like a sailor about running out about the battery. While Glenn Abraham checked up on the RV, Sabrina took that time to drag Daryl to the woods for protection while she went to the bathroom again. Once she was finished the couple headed back to the road to see the RV started, Sabrina kissed Daryl before they boarded the RV again. Rick took off somewhere then came back a few minutes later and that's when the group headed to this community again. Less then an hour the group pulled up to the gates of the community and they slowly got out of the vehicles. Sabrina smiled softly as she entwined her fingers with Daryl's as they heard kids playing on the other side of the gate.

"Sounds pretty safe to me."

"Sounds like it. Bu' we don't know actually know wha's waitin' on the other side."

Sabrina nodded and took a deep breath as the group waited for the gates to be opened. Her mind was racing, what was it going to be like on the other side? And were they actually safe?