Meeting RJ Grimes
Chapter 1
After hitching his horse to a nearby tree, Aaron placed his backpack on the ground and retrieved his binoculars. Upon entering the shack, he then set the chair in front of the window, sat down, and used the binoculars to watch the stranger in the distance more intently.
...
Aaron had been watching the man with the limp for almost two days now. He couldn't be sure, but there was something awfully familiar about him. The man had the appearance of a hobo, but that was a term from the former world. In a zombie apocalypse, there were no such labels anymore, the apocalypse was the great leveller; everyone was now equal, they were all survivors.
He wished Daryl had been with him on this trip, but ever since the bridge fiasco, the man went into hiding and no one could figure out why.
Daryl was a loner, so no one thought anything of it at first. The odd time when he chose to speak, he said nothing one way or the other of that day. Eventually, he took to the woods and dropped in from time to time. In the past six years, however, he came around less and less, until he just stopped coming by altogether.
The war took a lot from them, but Rick's death was the cliff most couldn't walk back from. It left fissures in all of them, big and small… his absence was felt because Rick Grimes was a selfless human being who would die protecting his people because that's just who he was. He was an unassuming man who didn't believe in accolades, but lived for and worshipped his family. Not many saw him in what was believed to be his final moments, but those who did knew he died a hero. He sacrificed himself to save them all.
Things hadn't been the same for anyone since that day on the bridge. As it was, being out here now on his own, he was violating rule number one of their new security protocol. No one travels alone, except for Michonne of course whenever she would go down by the river, the last place she had seen Rick alive. At first, he used to follow her until he figured out what she was doing, only then did he pull back to give her some privacy to mourn her husband.
It hadn't been easy for Michonne either, Rick's untimely death had left her as the de facto leader of Alexandria.
Prior to the incident, the Grimes was a powerhouse couple, who ruled Alexandria. However, leadership has its own set of problems too. Case in point, the fact that Negan still lives despite all the indignities and hardship the Alliance were forced to suffer at his hands and those his people carried out in his name. But, the Alliance was still expected to reach out and be neighbourly to the Sanctuary, and its denizens. They were expected to share their prosperity with folks who once enslaved them in a tyrannical system of subjugation by people who harmed others and took great pleasure in doing so. People, who never tried fending for themselves because they preferred a system of taxation without representation.
Because of it, the communities: Hilltop and the Kingdom alike were at odds with Alexandria who undertook responsibility for the Sanctuary. Oceanside, however, slipped away shortly after the explosion, but, not before exacting their own piece of vengeance on some Saviors who worked on the bridge. At least twenty Saviors mysteriously disappeared only to be later seen as walkers.
In Rick's absence, overtime his sacrifice faded, so the communities felt less obligated to feed the folks at the Sanctuary. Eventually, it fell because nothing grew there even the corn which Eugene turned into fuel stopped growing. It was later discovered, however, that Daryl sabotaged the crops before bailing and heading into the woods. As a result, the people were forced to disperse into the three remaining communities.
After the bridge, when Aaron returned to Alexandria when the tensions started, he began leaving camp to rendezvous with Jesus. It all began under the pretext that Jesus would train him to fight, but the rendezvous' not only included training but also the exchanging of information between the communities to be in the loop as to what was going on.
Two years later, when the student began exceeding his teacher's expectations; it was then, their relationship changed. They became closer. Sure, Aaron could have just as easily relocated back to the Hilltop, but that would be like betraying Rick's sacrifice. Plus, Alexandria was his home, he was the one who recruited Rick Grimes and his group. He felt kind of a fatherly responsibility towards Alexandria, especially now that the Monroe's the founding family was long gone. There weren't too many original Alexandrian's left at this point, and Rick's group had since splintered off into the Hilltop and the Kingdom, so Aaron chose to remain in Alexandria.
Aaron respected Rick and his family. It was also Rick who made it possible for him to be a father too. Rick found Gracie on a run and brought her back with him. His instructions were to take the child to Maggie, but Aaron lost that battle because he couldn't deliver her when it came time to do so. Later, he heard rumours that both Rick and Daryl were the cause of Gracie's orphan status. Rick was tortured by the fact the child was orphaned, so he did the next best thing to find it a home, one where he need not see the reminder of an ill-fated mission.
Gracie's presence, however, won Aaron over. At the time, he was grieving Eric, his husband who ended up as a walker. The timing could not have been more perfect because he was in desperate need for a place to channel his own grief when along came orphaned Gracie, so in some small way, Rick Grimes' torture became the balm for Aaron's broken heart.
Jesus on the other hand, couldn't relocate to Alexandria because he was stuck in a position that went from Interim Leader to Leader, though he never considered it to be his job. In his mind, he was just filling in until Maggie and Hershel returned from hiding out amongst Georgie and her crew. He never understood the reason behind Maggie's sudden departure except that it coincided with her return from Alexandria, where she witnessed Rick's death which apparently shook her to the core.
It was weeks after her departure when Aaron returned from a trip to Alexandria to collect Gracie when Jesus learned Maggie's mission to Alexandria was to kill Negan, but she failed to do so.
As the story goes, both Maggie and Michonne got into an argument over her intentions in Alexandria, but Michonne eventually ceded the keys to her to exact her revenge. Even when given the opportunity, Maggie somehow failed to carry out her mission.
A short time after that, Rick died. Jesus found it strange, however, that Maggie would just run off at a point like this knowing her friend had just lost her husband, something they now had in common. Jesus thought if nothing else the tragedy would have brought the two women closer, but Maggie just couldn't get past the fact they, as in Rick and Michonne allowed the man responsible for her loss to live.
Unfortunately, where Maggie fell apart Michonne rose from the ashes and pushed through her pain because her people depended on her. They looked to her for guidance the same as they did before Rick's untimely death only now it was only her sitting on the throne.
In Maggie's absence, however, Jesus felt like the Hilltop had become an Albatross around his neck. So, on most days, he delegated his responsibilities to Tara choosing to be anywhere, but where he was elected to be, a point which Tara reminded him of quite often.
Jesus couldn't help it, he had nervous energy, one that required constant movement. Sitting around Hilltop made him antsy. He loved his home, but he preferred to be outside the gates going on adventures. He lived for the adrenaline coursing through his veins. Incidentally, one of his best adventures was the day he met Rick Grimes and his sidekick Daryl Dixon.
And like a magician, Jesus pulled another vanishing act. This time, he was a day and a half late for their rendezvous when he arrived at the shack.
The stranger had caught Aaron's eye as he rode out to the meeting point. It was a little shack just off the beaten track, which looked as though one strong wind would blow it to bits, but yet, it remained.
Today, however, had been the first real good look he got of the stranger without his cap which obscured the only portion of his face not already covered in facial hair.
But the image he saw once he focused his lens caused Aaron to gasp. He could not quite believe his eyes. It couldn't be. It was impossible, he thought, so he studied the stranger further.
The stranger's gait was off because of his limp and as such, he used a cane. It puzzled him as to why the man chose to walk when his horse was barely laden. At best, the stranger had meagre possessions and even meagre still since they were living in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. From the distance they were at, the stranger was travelling a path which would lead him directly to Alexandria. He was following the river which would take him about three to fours days if he remained on foot, but less than half that time if he rode the horse which walked gingerly at his side.
His progress was naturally slow due to his limp, but also from the heat, too. He had drained the last of his water squeezing the bottle as if in doing so it would make would make more.
The stranger led his horse closer to the riverbank so that the animal may drink. He kneeled down and cupped some water with which he drenched his head.
At that same moment, Jesus crept up beside Aaron and looked in the general direction which held his lover's interest. There was someone at the river's edge with a horse, but he was too far for bare eyes to discern more.
Aaron was speechless, so he passed the binoculars to Jesus without a word, not wanting to taint his interpretation of what he might see before them.
"How's it possible?" Jesus turned to Aaron and whispered to avoid his voice being carried away on the breeze across the open field.
"I dunno. Heck, I thought, I was seeing things myself." Aaron responded.
As if on command, the stranger tilted his head and looked directly in their direction, but he could see little because the window in which the watchers were perched was nicely camouflaged with overgrown grass.
The stranger didn't have the benefit of binoculars, but the hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end because he felt he was being observed.
He wasn't sure whether the meeting would be a friend or a foe, he hoped for the former, but in six years anything could happen. He knew he wasn't far from Alexandria at most, three or four days. He also recalled Alexandria recruited people and he was well within the perimeter, so perhaps he was being tracked by Aaron or possibly Daryl. The latter, however, would be ironic indeed given that it was his treachery which caused him to be in the herd's path in the first place.
In any event, he had come too far to fail now. It didn't take long before his trackers showed themselves. Nelly stopped drinking, lift her head and pointed her ears in the rider's direction.
Ten minutes later, the horses came to an abrupt stop and the riders dismounted. The stranger took his time and used his cane to steady himself as he rose to his full height.
The stranger before them had seen better times. He was unarmed but had the look of a crazed man, his beard was whiter now and much longer too; his hair had caught up with silver streaks and it too was much longer now. He favoured his right leg too hence the need for the cane he used.
He had the look of a man who had long ago lost touch with civilization, but beyond all that, they saw the coldness in his eyes. He was studying them and deciding his next move.
Aaron knew Rick Grimes long enough to know you didn't ever want to be on the receiving end of a head tilt, Colt or no Colt the man was dangerous, so he stepped forward.
"Well, as I live and breathe, if it ain't the Walking Dead," Aaron said as he approached Rick and pulled him into a bear hug. "I can't believe it's you." He said patting Rick's back.
"Thanks. It's great to see y'all again." Rick said, "How are things at home? Michonne? Judith?"
Aaron noted that he hadn't mentioned the baby, boy his world was about to be rocked. He couldn't even fathom what that would mean for him to find out he's missed five years of his son's life after having lost his first son for about equally the same amount of time.