[Outfit Above]
S5 Ep: 11  "The Distance"

Maggie, Sasha and I decided to bring Aaron to the group after hearing what he had to say about a safe community. "Guys." I called as I slowly opened the barn doors revealing Aaron and the girls. "This is Aaron." As soon as our group saw someone they didn't know they each jumped up with their weapons in hand. "We met him outside. He's by himself." Daryl ran past me and checked outside as I explained to Rick.

"We took his weapons and we took his gear." Daryl still patted him down anyways but found nothing. Aaron stood still with his hands up beside me as he looked at Rick. "Hi." Judith started crying almost as soon as Aaron spoke. Rick passed her off to Carl without removing his eyes from Aaron. "It's nice to meet you." Aaron said with a weak smile and took a few steps forwards trying to shake Rick's hand but quickly halted when the sounds of guns clicking hit his ears.

"You said he had a weapon?" I walked around Aaron and handed Rick the small gun he had. Rick checked the clip before putting it in the back of his belt. "There's something you need?" Sasha spoke for Aaron. "He has a camp, nearby. He wants us to 'audition' for membership." Still keeping his hands up Aaron glanced back at Sasha with a slight grimace. "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."

He chuckled to himself softly but stopped when he found no one taking his joke. "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." Aaron turned towards Sasha and gestured slightly towards Rick.

"Sasha, can you hand Rick my pack?" Pursing her lips Sasha side-eyed him before taking his backpack and handing it over to Rick. "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." Aaron gestured to the manila packet with pictures in it that Rick took out. "I apologize in advance for the picture quality. We just found an old camera store last--"

Daryl cut him off gruffly. "Nobody gives a shit." Aaron looked back at him and nodded slightly. "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. If you join us, you will be." Aaron pointed to the pictures as Rick flipped through them. "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." Rick stood up from his spot on the dirt floor and looked up at the brunette with narrowed eyes. "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 looks back down at the pictures and starts marching towards Aaron as he speaks. "The next picture, you'll see inside the gates. Our community was first construct--" Rick cut him off by hitting him with a harsh right hook knocking him down. I squatted down and checked Aaron finding him completely out cold for the time being. "Everybody else, we need eyes in every direction. They're coming for us. We might not know how or when, but they are."

I looked up at Rick while Carol and Daryl tied Aaron up. "Maggie, Sasha and I, we didn't see him. If he had wanted to hurt us, he could've." Rick ignored my words and instead looked around at those who were checking outside through the cracks in the wood. "Anybody see anything?" Glenn looked over his shoulder at him. "Just a lot of places to hide." Rick nodded. "All right, keep looking."

As he walked back over to Carl who was going through Aaron's bag I focused back on trying to wake Aaron back up with a wet cloth. Aaron groaned and looked up at me and Michonne from his place on the ground. He breathed out a laugh and looked over at Rick. "That's a hell of a right cross there, Rick." Rick nodded towards Michonne and I "Sit him up." I looked back at him unsure of his request. "It'd be better if-" Aaron cut me off with a small shake of his head. "It's okay." He groaned again and stretched out his jaw, Rick gestured towards him. "He's fine. Sit him up."

Michonne pulled him up into a sitting position and he groaned once more. "You're being cautious. I completely understand." Rick clenched his jaw. "How many of your people are out there?" Aaron looked slightly confused so Rick held out a flare gun. "You have a flare gun. You have it to signal your people. How many of them are there?" Aaron sighed and his head dropped slightly. "Does it matter?" Rick nodded stubbornly. "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." Rick shrugged. "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?" Rick shared a weary look with Daryl and Glenn. "How long you people been following us?" Daryl demanded as he stepped forward. "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 looked around at all of us for a moment before his eyes found Rick again.

"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." Rick slowly took a few steps towards him and repeated his question. "How many others are out there?" Aaron swallowed. "One." Rick shook his head causing Aaron to sigh and lick his lips. "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?"

I pushed myself off the ground as Aaron looked in thought. "What if I drove you to the community? All of you? We leave now, we'll get there by lunch." He offered but Rick shook his head. "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." Aaron shook his head. "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." He explained yet most of the group still remained hesitant.

"And you're parked just a couple miles away, right?" Carol asked and Aaron nodded again. "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." Rick scoffed to himself. "Yeah, you've really thought this through." Aaron looked up at him almost pleading. "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."

Michone shifted on her feet and looked towards Rick as she offered. "I'll check out the cars." Rick shook his head but kept his eyes on Aaron. "There aren't any cars."

"There's only one way to find out." Michonne countered and Rick finally looked up at her. "We don't need to find out." She nodded once. "We do. You know what you know and you're sure of it, but I'm not." I stepped forward and stood next to her with my arms crossed. "I'm not either." Rick looked over at me and shook his head. "Your way is dangerous, mine isn't." Michonned looked at him in disbelief. " 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." Michonne glanced at me and nodded once before looking back at Rick deciding for us. "So that's what we're gonna do." Glenn looked at me and turned to Rick. "Then I will, too. I'll go." Rick looked back at Abraham and called out to him, meeting his eyes the ginger nodded. "Yeah. I'll walk with them." Rick turned back around and looked to Rosita. "Rosita?" The dark-haired girl nodded once.

"The walkies are out of juice. If you're not back in 60 minutes, we'll come." Rick explained with a sigh. "Which might be just what they want." Michonne nodded and walked out with Abraham, Rosita, Glenn and I following. The five of us walked down the road towards where Aaron said they parked their cars. "Eyes open, everybody. Weapons up. You see someone coming at us, you fire." I slipped my gun out of my holster and held it tightly in hand at Glenn's instructions. "Copy that." Abraham called from behind us. Michonne looked over at Glenn with a frown. "So if we see someone, we just shoot them?"

"Good question" I muttered as Michonne continued. "What if they're someone like us? What if Aaron is telling the truth? What if they're someone who has nothing to do with this?" Glenn shrugged. "We're five people walking with guns. No one's coming up to say hello." Michonne's brows furrowed more. "But that's exactly what happened."

"If it's someone like us, we should be afraid of them. He said he was watching us, right? It means he saw us yesterday. And after everything we've done, why would he want us to join his group?" Michonne tilted her head in thought for a moment at his words before speaking. "People like us saved a priest. Saved a girl who rolled up to the prison with the Governor. Saved a crazy lady with a sword. He saw that."

"I don't know what he saw." Glenn countered.

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As we came across fallen trees we slowly climbed over them and had our weapons ready as we kept forward. Straight ahead was the cars Aaron talked about."He was telling the truth." Michonne said with a slight smile at the old white car and the large RV. I pushed the reminders of our time back on the farm due to the RV and focused on aiming my gun to the bushes when rustling was heard. "Not one step closer, asshole!" Glenn demanded thinking it was the other person Aaron spoke about.

Instead, two walkers emerged from the woods causing us all to sigh and drop our weapons. "I got 'em." Abraham called as he and Rosita took them out. The two of them took the RV clearing it while we stayed outside. Finding it all to be how he said it was we brought the cars back to the barn after moving the trees. "This, this is ours now." Rick told Aaron as he gestured to all the food we found in the RV. "There's more than enough." Aaron said shortly but Rick shook his head.

"It's ours whether or not we go to your camp." Carl frowned at his father. "Whoa. What do you mean? Why wouldn't we go?" Michonne looked around at all of us as she spoke. "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." I nodded wholeheartedly agreeing with her, I still had some doubts but it could not hurt us more to check it out. "Somebody say something if they feel differently." She finished but only received some nods until Daryl. "I don't know, man. This barn smells like horse shit." Rick looked at Michonne and nodded. "Yeah. We're going." Turning around he looked down at 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." Michonne walked past Rick and straight towards Aaron. "You're not driving." She declared. "So if you want to get home, you'll have to tell us how." Aaron sighed and looked over at Rick who had squatted down to write the directions on a map.

"Go north on Route 16." Michonne raised a brow as she looked at the brunette expectantly. "And then?" Aaron looked up at her. "I'll tell you when we get there." Rick narrowed his eyes for a moment before deciding. "We'll take 23 north. You'll give us directions from there." Aaron quickly shook his head disagreeing. "That's...I don't know how else to say it...That's a bad idea. We've cleared 16. It'll be faster."

"We'll take 23. We leave at sundown." Risk insisted. I looked past him at Aaron and could see the clear worry on his face. He wasn't lying but Rick wasn't willing to risk it. "We're doing this at night?" Sasha asked warily. "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." Rick explained making a good point. It's what they did with Terminus and look how that turned out..

"No one is going to hurt you. You're trying to protect your group, but you're putting them in danger." Rick looked back at Aaron and shrugged his arms. "Tell me where the camp is, we'll leave right now." Aaron only looked away in defeat and the final decision was made. "It's going to be a long night. Eat. Get some rest if you can."

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After we took off in separate cars, we were driving down route 23 behind Rick, Glenn, Michonne, and Aaron when they got cut off by a group of walkers. Abraham stopped the RV fast enough where the walkers didn't ram into us. "Where'd they go?" I panicked when we could no longer see their car in front of us. "I don't know!" Abraham called back. In the distance, a red flare went up. "That had to be them right?" Shrugging Abraham took us in reverse and circled back "Were gonna find out."

We got back onto the road and kept driving leaving the walkers behind us and hoping that when we got to where the flare came from that was where they would be. We followed the trail all the way past a water tower and in between two abandoned buildings. A dirty car sat in the middle with dead walkers around it, Daryl, Rosita, Abraham, Maggie and I got out to check the area. I looked inside a garage door to find a guy on the floor leaning against a cushion. "Guys!"

I waved them over and they all looked in "Think 'es it?" Daryl questioned as I squinted to get a better look. "No...looks like he just hurt his ankle." I looked back at him and he nodded already knowing what I was gonna suggest. "Get everyone and bring them inside. We can wait here. Hopefully, they saw the flare too and will think we shot it." Abraham and Rosita nodded and broke off to get back to the RV while Maggie, Daryl and I went in.

The man on the floor held his hands up "Please don't shoot!" I shook my head and stepped closer "We're not gonna. Did you shoot the flare?" The man hesitantly nodded "It's a signal for my friend." I tilted my head. "Aaron?" I guessed and his eyes widened. "You know him?" Maggie nodded and stepped closer "We do. He was bringing us back to your camp." The man sighed in relief before looking back up at us and over our shoulders at the doorway where our group was coming in.

"We got cut off from the rest of our group." I explained. "We're hopin' we could stay here and that they'd find us" Maggie added and the man nodded before pushing himself up into a better sitting position. He grimaced as his ankle hit the ground. "I'm Eric." I smiled warmingly "Aubree. That's Maggie and Daryl" I gestured to the two people behind me and he nodded with a slight smile.

"I'll take watch" Daryl said, earning a nod from both myself and Maggie before he went out. I squatted down beside Eric. "Mind if I take a look?" He shrugged "As long as you promise not to injure me further" I chuckled softly "I was in med school. You're in good hands" I gently felt his ankle and found it to be broken. "It's broken." I looked up at Maggie "Can you see if you can find two thin pieces of wood and some cloth?" She nodded and walked off only to come back a few minutes later with two dowel rods like sticks and an old shirt. I nodded at her as thanks and carefully got to work creating a splint for Eric.

I slid a couch cushion under his leg "Keep your foot elevated it will help with the pain and pressure. It's not much but it's all I can do for now." Eric quickly shook his head "Thank you. We could definitely use us back home." I smiled softly at him as did Maggie. From outside Daryl whistled and banged on the garage door giving us the signal that they were here.

Jumping up from my spot on the floor I ran outside and straight into Glenn's arms. "Oh thank God" I breathed out as I tightened my grip around his shoulders. "Thank god for flares" Glenn mused with a grin as he set me down, I took his hand in mine and led him back into the building where the rest of the group was. Aaron came to us after checking in on Eric. "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."

Aaron smiled slightly. "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. That sounds fine. But if we're staying here for the night, you're sleeping over there." I looked at Rick in disbelief as Maggie took the words out of my mouth. "You really think we got to do that?" Rick shrugged. "It's the safe play. We don't know you." Aaron looked back at Rick and shook his head as he gestured to the other room where Eric was.

"The only way you're gonna stop me from being with him right now is by shooting me." When none moved or said anything Aaron took a step forward only for Glen to stop the potential fight between him and Rick. "Rick, he told us where the camp is. And he really was only traveling with one other person. They're both unarmed. One of them's got a broken ankle. I want us to be safe, too. I can't give up everything else. I know what I said, but it does matter." Rick nodded at Glenn listening to the voice of reason. "All right."

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The next morning we headed out like we said, all of us managed to cram into the RV but not without some either sitting on each other's laps or on the floor. Everything was going smoothly until the RV broke down. Abraham looked in the RV and groaned "I don't know what the hell I'm looking at here." I chuckled "Let us take a look" I said while gesturing towards Glenn. Rosita rose a brow. "You know how to fix an RV?" I shrugged and walked forward "We know enough. An old friend taught us."

I looked in there and furrowed my brows in thought while Abraham hit the side of the RV angrily. "Can't win. Might as well paint it red, put a ladder on it." I shook my head and turned towards the group. "It needs a new battery." Abraham narrowed his eyes. "Where in the hell are we gonna find another battery?" Glenn patted his shoulder. "Right over here." He led him around to the door of the RV and showed him the extra cords. "How'd you know those were there?" Glenn shrugged "Like Bree said...an old friend." 

They grabbed the battery and Abraham brought it back over to me, I took out the old one and switched them out. Shutting the lid I walked around to the door and nodded to Abraham. "Go ahead." He turned the keys and the engine started right up causing everyone to cheer happily. Glenn and I smiled at each other widely before climbing back in and taking our seats. It was only another twenty minutes until we pulled to a stop outside the gates of Alexandria.

Everyone climbed out and waited for them to open, Aaron helped Eric in first and eventually waved us in after Daryl quickly shot down a possum. "We brought dinner." A man with curly dark hair looked at us all wearily but Aaron waved us in. "it's okay. Come on in, guys." Glenn and I walked inside by side along with everyone else until the same curly-haired man shut the gates behind us. "Before we take this any further, I need you all to turn in your weapons." the man spoke which instantly had us put our guards up.

Stay, you hand them over." the man insisted so Rick stepped forward with Judith on his hip and his gun in hand. "We don't know if we want to stay." Rick retorted strongly and before the man could say anything else another man jumped down from the watch platform. "It's fine, Nicholas. If they were gonna use them they would have already." My brows furrowed in thought at the sound of the man's voice. Why does it sound so familiar...it-it can't be...I looked over at the man as he walked past our group to stand by Aaron.

"Dad?"

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I bet you didn't see that coming
Until next time - A