Beauty and Her Beast (Daryl Dixon Fanfic)

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I smiled down at Faith as she clung to my breast, eating as fast as she could. I was relieved that I finally had the ability to do this again. I was nearly all dried up when we were on the road. "Hey," I looked up when Maggie opened the barn doors. "Everyone." She walked inside, followed by a man. "This is Aaron."

Everyone picked up their weapons and I held Faith impossibly closer, clutching my gun on my hip. Daryl rushed outside, looking around. "We met him outside. He's by himself." Maggie assured. "We took his weapons and we took his gear."

Aaron raised his his arms and Daryl patted him down. He kept his hands up, looking around at us with wide eyes. "Hi." Judith started crying and Rick nodded to Carl, who took her from his arms. Luke covered my chest with his jacket.

Aaron took a step forward, reaching out a hand. "It's nice to meet you." He stopped when the others behind him readied their weapons.

"You said he had a weapon?" Rick asked. Maggie handed him a small revolver and he tucked it in the back of his pants. "There something you need?"

"He has a camp nearby." Sasha answered, a cautious look on her face. "He wants us to audition for membership." I raise my brow.

Aaron sighed. "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." When none of us reacted, Aaron shook his head. "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." Rick shifted on his feet. "I know. If I were you, I wouldn't go either. Not until I knew exactly what I was getting into." Aaron turned to Sasha. "Sasha, can you hand Rick my pack?"

Sasha walked over to Rick and took the bag off her back. "Front pocket, there's an envelope." Rick set the bag on the ground, opening the pocket. "There's no way I could convince you to come with me just by talking about our community. That's why I brought those." Rick pulled out a yellow envelope, opening it. "I apologize in advance for the picture quality. We just found an old camera store last-"

"Nobody gives a shit." Daryl interrupted so he would shut up.

Aaron looked back at Daryl and nodded. "You're absolutely 100% right."

He turned back around, watching as Rick looked at the first picture. "That's the first picture I wanted to show you, because nothing I will 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 15-foot-high, 12-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." We've heard that before. They were cannibals. "Together, we're strong. You can make us even stronger."

Aaron continued talking, but I wasn't listening. Rick walked briskly towards him and punched him square in the jaw, knocking him out cold.

~*~

"How many of your people are out there?" Rick asked. Aaron was tied up, we had searched his bag. Nothing inside had screamed that he wanted to kill us. "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, 32, 444, 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?"

Daryl looked over at the two bottles sitting on a box, then stepped closer to Aaron. "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." We all exchanges looks realizing he might be right.

Rick walked even closer. "How may others are out there?"

"One." Aaron finally answered. Rick shook his head slightly. Aaron sighed. "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 sucked in a breath. After all we've been through, it's gonna take a lot. "What if I drove out to the community? All of you? We leave now, we'll get there by lunch."

Rick looked around at us all. "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."

"And you're parked just a couple miles away, right?" Carol asked.

"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 nodded.

Aaron looked shocked that Rick was still so distrustful. "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."

I rolled my eyes. "You want our trust after telling us how you'd kill us?"

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

"There aren't any cars."

"There's only one way to find out."

"We don't need to find out."

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

"Me neither." Maggie agreed.

Rick shook his head. "Your way is dangerous, mine isn't."

"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. So that's what we're gonna do."

"Then I will, too." Glenn nodded. "I'll go."

Rick shook his head. "Abraham."

He nodded. "Yeah. I'll walk with them."

"Rosita."

She nodded. "Okay."

I turned away once I realized Faith had fallen asleep, shifting until my bra and shirt were both back in place. I handed Luke his jacket and moved Faith so her head was on my shoulder, patting her back lightly. When I turned, the others were leaving. God knew I wanted to go, but I'm the only one that can quiet Faith when she's upset and we don't have the thick walls of the church so she can't be heard. I smiled at Luke and Daryl as they left.

Rick closed the door most of the way, keeping it open a crack to watch them leave. "When the world was still the word, I worked for an 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." He looked down at his watch. "If the five of them aren't back in an hour...I'll put a knife in the base of your skull."