Future Ghosts • TWD

79. Disheartened.

Things had gone from bad to worse. Michonne had returned, but without Glenn- who she was supposed to be with. Rick had also returned, but he returned with a huge herd of walkers following him. Now all of those walkers were surrounding Alexandria like a moat full of alligators around a castle. Rosie was worried for Daryl, and for Glenn, and for Abraham, and for Sasha, and for all of the people who were outside of the walls. What if they came back, and they couldn't get inside? What if they were stuck out there, all on their own? She tried not to think about it. Rick would come up with a plan. He always did.

"You can hear it. Some of you saw it," Rick announced as he joined the crowd of people gathered around the walls of Alexandria. They all had these concerned looks on their faces, and it only made Rosie's anxiety grow worse. "They got back here, half of them. Still enough to surround us 20 deep. Look, I know you're scared. You haven't seen anything like this. You haven't been through anything like this. But we're safe for now. The panel the truck hit seems intact. We reinforced it just in case. Either way, the wall's gonna hold together. Can you?"

Can you? That was the big question. Had the people of Alexandria seen enough to finally understand? Would they do as they were told and work together to save this place, or would they spiral into a panic and turn against each other? Only time would tell.

"The others, they're gonna be back," Rick claimed.

"They're gonna be back," Rosita repeated, nodding her head, as if confirming it.

Rick nodded his head back at her, appreciatively. "Daryl, Abraham, Sasha, they all have vehicles. They're gonna lead 'em away, just like the others. And Glenn and Nicholas are gonna walk back through the front gate after. They know what they're doing, and we know what we need to do. We keep noise to a minimum. Pull our blinds at night. Even better, keep the lights out. We'll try to make this place as quiet as a graveyard, see if they move on."

"This place is a graveyard," one of the women from Alexandria that Rosie still hadn't met spoke. She had short, brown hair and a sort of disbelief in her tone that irked Rosie. Nothing would get better if they didn't stick together and do as Rick said. Doubt, disbelief, and mistrust would tear the people apart, and they'd be as good as dead.

"The quarry broke open, and those walkers were heading this way," Aaron suddenly started speaking. He stepped forward, closer to Rick, in the center of the gathering. "All of them. The plan that Rick put into place stopped that from happening. He got half of them away."

Rick's plans always worked, and if they didn't, he always came up with a new plan that would work. His plans worked, and he made them work because he was good. At first, Rosie didn't understand why Rick, Daryl, Glenn, and T-Dog risked their lives to get her back from the vatos, back in Atlanta. They had their guns, and saving her would just be adding an extra mouth to feed, an extra kid to keep track of, and an extra person to save. But they did it anyway, without hesitation, because they were good people. They didn't even think for a second that they'd go back to camp without her, because they were good people. Rosie had been nothing but rude to Rick and T-Dog, but they still saved her. Rosie had barely even spared Glenn a glance, but he still saved her. And Rosie had been nothing but a pain in the ass to Daryl all day long, but he still saved her. Rick, and the other people in his group, were good people. They did things for the greater good, and they did it because it was who they were. So when these people from Alexandria doubted them, it made Rosie want to yell, and scream, and bang her fists against their chests until they finally understood that they were good people, and they were only trying to help.

"I was out there recruiting with Daryl. I wanted to try to get into a cannery and scavenge, and Daryl wanted to keep looking for people. We did what I wanted... and we wound up in a trap set by those people. And I lost my pack. They must've followed our tracks. Those people who attacked us... they found their way back here because of me," Aaron went on to explain. Rosie watched as his own people sighed and looked away from him, shame and disgust plastered on their unscathed, ignorant faces.