Ruin Me So You Can Save Yourself (Daryl Dixon X Male OC)

74. New Friend

Daryl Dixon

I sneak away from Sam closer to the morning and make myself a place in the other end of the barn. Sam notices, of course he notices. When he woke up I watched his eyes slide across the barn before lending on me and once they did I could see it clearly as day, a hint of disappointment in them. He wanted me to stay right there, I know he did, he always does.

"Hey, everyone, this is Aaron." Maggie speaks as she walks into the barn and I get up with my crossbow in hand. Some guy follows her and Sasha inside.

I walk over and glance outside, making sure there was no one else and then shut the door behind them.

"We met him outside. He's by himself. We took his weapons and we took his gear." Maggie says but better safe than sorry so I set my crossbow on the ground and start patting the man down.

"Hi." Aaron speaks and Judith starts crying at which Rick passed her to Carl. "It's nice to meet you." He steps forward at which I step forward with him, not letting him get away any farther then arm lengtht distance from me.

"You said he had a weapon?" Rick asks hoarsely and Maggie walks over to him handing him a pistol. "There's something you need?"

"He has a camp nearby. He wants us to audition for membership." Sasha says.

"We don't do them preppy boy book clubs." Merle scoffs as he rests against the beam nearby.

Preppy is a good word to describe this guy. Clean clothes, nice shirt, carefully brushed hair, clean skin. It's like he's on a walk to a park and not apocalypse.

"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 speaks and when his joke falls flat and met with only heavy silence he sighs and continues. "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." He turns to Sasha. "Sasha, can you hand Rick my pack?" She walks over to Rick and passes him the backpack. "Front pocket, there's an envelope. There's no way o 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 camea-..."

"Nobody gives a shit." I cut him off. That blabbing was getting on my nerves already.

He turns to look at me. His expression is soft, a little terrified but kind. He does look harmless but can't trust no one those days. Can't let your guard down. I remember how Gareth, that fucker from Terminus had an innocent look in his eyes and then he turned out to be people eating fucker.

"You're absolutely one hundred percent right." He says and then turn to Rick who sits on the floor, looking through pictures. "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 15 foot high, 12 foot wide slab of solid steel framed by cold rolled stell 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-..." Rick shuts him up by hitting him on the head with butt of his handgun, knocking him out.

I kneel by Aaron quickly checking if he's alive and then pull one of the shoelaces that we're wrapped around my ankle, tying his hands together behind his back.

"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 has wanted to hurt us he could've." Maggie speaks but Rick doesn't listen.

"Anybody see anything?"

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

"Alright, keep looking."

Maggie and Michonne manage to get the guy back to consciousness and sit him up.

"You're being cautious. I completely understand." He says.

So polite. So fucking polite. Like he haven't seen the world yet. Reminds me of Sam before all this. No matter what you do he understands and accepts it. Maybe he ain't bad people in the end of the day, or maybe he is. Sam was like that once too and now he keeps his body count on the handle of his ax. He still can be Sammy but there's no place for that where we are now.

"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? 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 for, zero. No matter what I say, you're not going to trust me."

"It's hard to trust anyone who smiles after getting punched in the face." Rick says with a shrug of his shoulders.

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

"How long you people been followin' 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 asks again.

"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."

"I'm not sure how the seventeen of us are gonna 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 parked just a couple miles away, right?" Carol asks.

"East in Ridge Road just after you hit Route16. We wanted to get them closer, but the. The storm came, blocked the road. We couldn't clear it."

"Yeah, you really throught 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."

Rick stays silent just staring down at the guy. When someone says "you can trust me" that's a first sign that you shouldn't trust them.

"I'll check out the cars." Sam speaks.

"There aren't any cars." Rick says.

"Only one way to find out."

"We don't need to find out." Rick protests.

"What, you gonna stop me?" Sam huffs. "This is our chance. If this place is real, it's a place for Judith to grow in. Or you want to raise her on the road? We can buy the question is, for how long? I'm going to check out the cars."

"Nah, you stay, keep an eye on the pretty boy over there. I'll take Daryl." Merle says as he pushes himself off the beam.

"Take Abraham and Rosita with you." Rick says, his eyes are still on Sam who stares at his father. I feel like they having a fight with their intense gazes. "The walkies are out of juice. If you're not back in sixty minutes, we'll come. Which might be just what they want." He says glancing over at me and I give him a short nod.

"Come on." Merle says and the four of us move out.