𝙒hen the time came for the meeting, Adalyn was shaking. She walked alongside Olivia before they settled with the others around the flickering fire. They were bathed in darkness.
Adalyn swallowed hard, looking at everyone. At Abraham, at Eugene, at Rosita. If things went south, they'd call her a traitor. She just hoped that wouldn't happen.
She focused on Deanna, rolling anxiously on the balls of her feet as she waited.
"We're going to start," Deanna said.
"Can we wait?" Maggie asked. "There's still people coming. Glenn, Rick."
Rick wasn't even at his own trial yet. That wasn't exactly a great look for him.
"We're going to start," Deanna repeated. "It's already dark. We're going to talk about what happened." That was the cue for every one still standing to get to seats. Adalyn stayed on her feet. "Not the fight. Not what precipitated it. We're dealing with that," Deanna elaborated. "We're going to talk about one of our constables, Rick Grimes. We're going to talk about how he had a pistol he stole from the armory, about how he pointed it at people. And we're going to talk about what he said. I was hoping he'd be here."
"She said he's coming," Michonne stated from her place at the back.
Adalyn nodded. "He'll be here," she said.
"I'm sure he will be," Carol agreed. "And I'm sure we can work this all out."
He had to be there. If he wasn't, Adalyn was going to lose her mind. He needed to plead his case at the very least.
From one of the houses, a dog was barking.
Adalyn closed her eyes, tuning out the sound of speaking, focusing on the frantic barks.
Something was wrong.
No one else seemed to care or even hear. Michonne was speaking. "And after being out there and then not being how you were out there... it can drive you crazy. Rick just wants his family to live. He wants all of you to live. Who he is is who you're gonna be... if you're lucky."
Carol took her turn next. "Rick Grimes saved my life over and over. There's terrifying people out there. And he rescued me from them. People like me, people like us need people like him. I know what happened last night was scary. And I'm sure he's sorry for that. But maybe we should listen to what he was saying."
Abraham went next. "Simply put... there is a vast ocean of shit that you people don't know shit about. Rick knows every fine grain of said shit... and then some."
Maggie. "My father respected Rick Grimes. Rick is a father, too. He's a man with a good heart who feels the things he does, the things he has to do. And all of us who were together before this place, no matter when we found each other, we're family now. Rick started that. And you won't stop it. You can't. And you don't want to. This community, you people... that family... you want to be a part of it, too."
Olivia coaxed Adalyn forward, and while she would have rather not spoke, Deanna was nodding, and so was Abraham, and Rosita, and Eugene, and all of the others.
Adalyn swallowed hard as she thought over what she wanted to say.
"The day I met Rick Grimes, I got a concussion. Our people had been taken captive. We got out. But after we did, Rick made sure I was okay. He didn't know me. I had just shown up out of the blue. But I was hurt, and he worried. I had been willing to leave my own people when things seemed like they were getting hard. Because I trusted Rick. I still trust him. I care about him." She wiped at tears that were starting to brim in her eyes. "He's a good person. But even good people make mistakes."
