Chapter 24

A/N: Hi everyone. I am so sorry for how long it is taking me to get new chapters out. I've started a new job and don't have much internet (or time) during the week, so unfortunately chapters are going to be released a bit more slowly now. Thanks as always to my beta DewieDTT and I hope you enjoy the chapter.

Kat tipped her head back and laughed as the rain washed over her. She pulled out an empty water bottle that she had been carrying, letting it fill up with rain before gulping it down. Her body was relieved at getting the water it so desperately needed.

The smiles and laughter died down once the thunder started. It would be dangerous for them to be out on the open road during the storm. They could get ill and the thunder would rile up the walkers. They needed shelter and fast.

'Let's keep moving' yelled Rick.

'There's a barn' Daryl yelled back, indicating the direction he and Kat had been. They all began to run towards the barn, anxious to get some shelter. They all piled under the eaves of the barn, trying to stay out of the rain as best they could, while some of the members went inside and checked out every corner for lurking walkers before giving it the all clear. Kat leant against the barn, a wave of dizziness hitting her and threatening to make her pass out again.

'You ok?' Daryl asked, touching her back gently.

'Yeah. I'm still weak. Running wasn't a good idea when you're hungry and dehydrated' she tried to make light of the situation and smiled at him reassuringly.

'Let me take a look at your head' Carol said and led her to one side. She peeled the bandage back from the wound and looked closely at the infection. 'It's starting to clear up. You need to keep taking the antibiotics until it's all gone.'

'Thanks' Kat said and nodded. She didn't have the heart to tell Carol that she had run out of antibiotics yesterday. Even if she told Carol, there was no pharmacy that they could just run out to to pick some up. They were in the middle of nowhere. She would just have to hang on until they reached the next town.

Everyone began to settle down in the barn. A small fire had been made with what dry wood they could find. Slowly, people began to leave the fire and find a place to sleep for the night. Kat had been ushered off to rest by Carol who was fussing over her. Kat lay down in a corner to try to sleep but was too cold to sleep. She could still hear people whispering around the fire and she almost abandoned her attempt at sleeping to join them around the warm fire. Just as she was about to sit up, a warm body pressed up behind her. She looked over her shoulder to see Daryl.

He looked uncomfortable as he tried to decide where to place his arm. Kat gave him a gentle smile and pulled his arm to wrap around her waist, pulling him closer to her. Daryl wasn't one to show her too much affection around others but they were tucked in a corner, out of direct eye-line of everyone sat around the fire. Daryl nuzzled his face into her shoulder and Kat grinned to herself. She let the warmth from Daryl's body wash over her and she drifted off to sleep.

Kat stirred when Daryl pulled away from her. She looked back at him as he stood and brushed some of the hay and dust from his clothes.

'I've got watch. Go back to sleep' he whispered. Kat nodded and tried to go back to sleep but it seemed beyond her reach once more. The thunder and wind were roaring and the lightning flashing, the storm getting worse and worse.

She heard Daryl grunt and sat up to see what was happening. She saw him securing the doors and pushing hard to close them. She could just make out the sound of riled up walkers over the storm. She ran over and braced her back against the door, struggling to keep it shut. The walkers were so agitated by the storm that they would easily tear the barn apart.

People began to notice the struggle to keep the doors shut and soon everyone was pushing against the doors. Fighting for their lives. All of them thinking that this was the end. Daryl had his arms braced forward against the doors and glanced over at Kat. They stared at each other intensely as the storm raged around them. At least if this was the end, they were together. Kat glanced to her left and saw Carol leaning against the door next to her. Merle had his arms on either side of Carol, so they were face to face. At least if this was the end, she was surrounded by family.

As suddenly as the walkers had appeared, pressure seemed to disappear from the door. There were no walkers pushing on it anymore. Daryl peered through the crack in the door. The walkers seemed to have gone. All he could see was darkness. How could they just have disappeared? Normally, once they knew there were living people around, it would take a lot to make them give up the hunt. Daryl watched for several minutes but nothing appeared. The storm also began to quieten around them. The thunder was getting more and more distant.

The group waited, half expecting the walkers to appear again but after a while people began to drift off to go to sleep again. They didn't know what had happened to the walkers but it was a miracle that they had survived them.

Kat pulled Daryl to the back wall of the barn. 'You should sleep' Kat told him. 'Your watch is over and they're gone. Get some rest.'

'Nah' Daryl grunted. 'Gon' keep a watch on the door. They could be back.' Daryl slumped down against the back wall, chewing his thumb nail like he did when he was nervous. Kat looked unsure of where to settle for a moment, so Daryl grabbed her hand and guided her to the floor next to him. He settled her with her head on his lap. She slowly dozed off to sleep and once he was sure that she was definitely asleep, he ran his hand through her hair, enjoying the intimacy of the moment.

Daryl stayed there staring at the door for any sign of trouble until sunlight began to shine into the barn. It was still early though.

'You should get some sleep' Maggie told him. The light had woken her and she knew that Daryl hadn't slept at all.

'Yeah' he replied but made no move to go to sleep. A wave of guilt rushed over him about Beth. He was starting to move on from her death. He was starting to feel happy again with Kat. He took one look at how much Maggie was suffering and he felt guilty that he wasn't suffering as much as her. Beth's death was his fault.

'It's okay to rest now' Maggie told him.

Daryl looked over at Sasha, the other member of the group who was suffering through her losses. She seemed to have finally managed to get some sleep. She hadn't slept much since Tyreese had died. 'He was tough.'

'He was' Maggie agreed.

'So was she. She didn't know it, but she was' Daryl said, resuming his stroking of Kat's hair.

'It's ok to be happy. It wasn't your fault. You both deserve to be happy' Maggie said, gesturing to Kat sleeping in his lap. Maggie left him to go wake Sasha to do a perimeter check. Daryl didn't want to disturb Kat so he leant his head back against the wall of the barn and went to sleep, some of the guilt slipping away.

The group wasn't quite sure what to do. The barn was shelter and safety but they still didn't have food or water. They were going to wait for Maggie and Sasha to come back from their perimeter check and have a group chat. To stay and scout the local area for sources of food and water or to move on.

'Hey. Everyone...' everyone looked over as Maggie and Sasha came back into the barn. 'This is Aaron.' A man walked in behind her and immediately everyone loaded there weapons and had them pointed at Aaron. 'We met him outside. He's by himself. We took his weapons and we took his gear.'

Daryl left Kat's side and looked out of the barn doors, checking for signs of anyone else who might be watching them. He then patted Aaron down checking for any hidden weapons.

'Hi' said Aaron simply. 'It's nice to meet you.' Aaron moved forward as if to try to shake Rick's hand but he stopped when everyone's weapons twitched in their hands.

'You said he had a weapon?' Rick asked, ignoring him. Maggie handed Rick the weapon and Rick looked it over before placing it in the waistband of his trousers. 'There's something you need?'

'He has a camp, nearby. He wants us to audition for membership' Sasha explained for him.

'I wish there was another word. Audition makes it sound like we're some kind of a dance troupe' Aaron joked, Kat smiled and Aaron caught her eyes and smiled at her. 'That's only on Friday nights.' Kat couldn't help the laugh that escaped her. She received a glare from Rick.

'At least someone has a sense of humour' Aaron smiled at her. He received a poke in the back from Daryl's crossbow in warning. '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. I know. If I were you, I wouldn't go either. Not until I knew exactly what I was getting into. Sasha, can you hand Rick my pack?' Some people glanced at each other nervously; this man knew their names. He had obviously been watching and listening to them for a while. Sasha did as he asked and took the pack to Rick.

'Front pocket, there's an envelope. There's no way I 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 camera store last...' Aaron rambled.

'Nobody gives a shit' growled Daryl.

'You're absolutely 100% right. 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 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. Together we're strong. You can make us even stronger.'

This place sounded too good to be true. Kat was in two minds. She wanted this place to be real so badly. A place they could settle down. Not have to live in as much fear. Move on with their lives as best as possible. But she couldn't get the thought of Terminus out of her head. She had had the same hopes there. And look how that had ended.

'The next picture, you'll see inside the gates. Our community was first construc...' Rick walked over and punched Aaron in the face, knocking him to the floor. Kat thought that Aaron seemed like a nice guy, he hadn't done anything to warrant being punched like that. She threw a glare at Rick and knelt down on the floor with Maggie and Daryl to check whether he was ok.

Rick moved back to talk to Michonne and Carl before calling out to the rest of them. 'Everybody else, we need eyes in every direction. They're coming for us. We might not know how or when, but they are.' Kat couldn't help but think that Rick sounded paranoid.

'Me and Sasha, we didn't see him. If he had wanted to hurt us, he could've' Maggie said. Apparently Kat wasn't the only one to trust Aaron.

'Anybody see anything?' Rick asked to the people looking out the front.

'Just a lot of places to hide' Glenn answered.

'All right, keep looking.'

Kat and Maggie were gently trying to bring Aaron back to consciousness. Michonne had secured his arms behind his back. He slowly came to and groaned in pain. 'That's a hell of a right cross there, Rick.' He groaned again as Michonne sat him up as Rick ordered.

'You're being cautious. I completely understand' Aaron said gently.

'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?' Rick asked sharply.

'Does it matter?' Aaron sighed.

'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?'

'That was you?' Kat asked.

'You needed water' Aaron sighed. 'You especially' he indicated to Kat.

'How long you people been following us?' Daryl asked.

'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 asked 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 15 of us are going to 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're parked just a couple miles away, right?' Carol asked sarcastically.

'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 said grimly.

'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'll check out the cars' Michonne volunteered.

'There aren't any cars' Rick said adamantly.

'There's only one way to find out' Michonne replied.

'We don't need to find out.'

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

'Me neither' Maggie joined in.

'Your way is dangerous, mine isn't' Rick argued.

'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' Michonne said with finality.

Rick knew he was fighting a losing battle and so sent Michonne, Maggie, Glenn, Rosita and Abraham to check out the cars. Everyone else was to spread out along the perimeter in twos so that they weren't a target all in the barn. Kat stood up from where she was still on the floor next to Aaron. The dizziness from her infection washed over her yet again.

'You should stay here' Carol said with a hand on her shoulder, before disappearing out the door with Merle as her partner. Rick nodded in agreement.

Rick approached Kat and pulled the bandage away from her wound. 'I thought Carol said it was getting better. This looks pretty bad' Rick said. 'You still taking the antibiotics?'

'I'm out' Kat said softly.

'Shit' Rick swore.

'You know we have a doctor in our community' Aaron chimed in.

'Of course you do' Rick said sarcastically, re-covering Kat's head wound.

'I noticed the signs of an infection while I was watching you. We normally bring some medicine in the vehicles in case anyone is injured when we find them. I made sure I had some antibiotics in my pack for you. They should be over there, brown bottle.'

Kat and Rick looked over the small bottle of antibiotics. The label and everything seemed in order. Kat reached to take them from Rick's hands but he snatched it out of her reach. 'I'm not letting you take these. There could be anything in there.'

'Rick, I know you don't want to trust anyone after everything that has happened. But we need to. It's the same dilemma as the water. If I don't get antiobiotics then this infection will probably kill me' Kat argued.

'Merle has the most experience with this kind of thing. We'll wait until he gets back and see what he thinks about the pills' Rick conceded.

Rick placed the antibiotics back onto the crate and then went back to the door to look outside. While Rick's back was turned Kat quietly took a pill out and swallowed it dry. She nodded at Aaron who smiled at her reassuringly. They'd soon find out whether he was trustworthy or not.

The five of them that had checked out the cars came back with lots of canned food. They had found a car and an RV. Aaron had told the truth. Nothing untoward had happened after Kat had taken the medication as well. She trusted Aaron. They needed this community.

'This, this is ours now' Rick said, gesturing to the food.

'There's more than enough' Aaron agreed.

'It's ours whether or not we go to your camp' Rick said.

'What do you mean? Why wouldn't we go?' Carl asked incredulously.

'If he were lying or if he wanted to hurt us... but he isn't, and he doesn't. He gave us food and water' Michonne said.

'And medicine' Kat added.

'We don't know whether it's actually medicine' Rick tried to contradict her.

'It's not done anything bad to me yet' Kat replied.

'You took some?' Rick asked angrily.

'He's not trying to hurt us Rick. He just wants to help' Kat said in return.

'We need this. So we're going, all of us. Somebody say something if they feel differently' Michonne said with certainty.

Rick looked at Daryl for back-up but received none. 'I don't know, man. This barn smells like horse shit' Daryl said, shrugging. Truth was that he knew Kat had made up her mind and he would follow her to the ends of the earth.

'Yeah. We're going' Rick finally conceded.

Aaron refused to tell them exactly where his camp was. They made plans to travel at night and Aaron would give them directions as they went. Everyone was concerned about how dangerous it was travelling at night but Rick wanted to be able to check it out without the community knowing they were there first. So their plans were made.

Kat and Daryl sat at the front of the RV, Abraham behind the wheel. The group were all piled into the RV; Michonne, Glenn, Rick and Aaron were in the car in front, leading the way. The drive had been uneventful so far and they hoped that it would continue that way.

Their luck was short lived though. The darkness made visibility limited and they only realised that they had driven right into a herd of walkers when it was already too late. Abraham slammed on the brakes and they watched as the car in front of them continued to plough through the walkers, transforming the white car into a canvas of red blood and gore.

'Follow them!' yelled Maggie, wanting to follow her husband.

'We'd never make it through the herd. It's a miracle their car is still going' Abraham yelled. He threw the RV into reverse and they managed to get away from the walkers.

'What do we do now?' asked Kat.

'They'll realise we aren't following them and they'll come back. We'll have to find an alternative route' Carol reasoned.

'We can't stay on the road too long. Half that herd will be heading for us and the other half for them' Daryl said.

'We need to stay on the road for them to find us' Maggie replied.

'Hey!' yelled Carl, interrupting the debate. 'There was a flare!'

'What?' Abraham asked.

'Someone shot up a flare, just over there' Rosita confirmed, pointing to the direction.

'Rick has the flare gun!' Maggie said.

'But it's coming from the wrong direction. There's no way they could have got over there so fast' Abraham reasoned.

'If Aaron had a flare gun, what's the betting the other person who came out here with him had one as well?' Kat said.

'What do we do?' Abraham asked.

'They wouldn't have shot a flare if they had another choice. They need help. We go help them!' exclaimed Kat.

Abraham looked around at everyone else to check opinions and everyone else seemed to agree. He managed to turn the RV around and they headed towards the flare.

They got to the water tower and got out of the RV, weapons at the ready.

'It was around here somewhere' Rosita said.

'This way' whispered Daryl, following the sound of walkers. They rounded a corner to find walkers swarming a car. They were so intent on whatever was underneath it that they didn't hear the group approaching.

'Help!' screamed a pained voice from under the car.

The group immediately sprang into action and began taking out the walkers that had finally noticed the group and started to peel off towards them. Once Kat had taken out a few walkers, and the others were distracted, she approached the car and held out a hand to pull out the man from underneath it.

A small man emerged from underneath, wincing as he tried to get up. 'I've hurt my ankle, they rolled a tire onto it' he told her. Kat managed to support him as they limped away from the fighting, the group making sure to keep walkers away from them.

The rest of the group managed to take out all of the walkers and they all gathered around the man, who was still relying on Kat to keep him standing. Abraham and Daryl kept their weapons trained on him, Daryl not liking the fact that Kat was so close to this unknown man.

'Who are you?' Daryl asked.

The man looked around and ignored the question. 'Where's Aaron?'

'Who are you?' Daryl repeated but the man seemed to be getting more and more distressed.

'Aaron and three of our people were in a car ahead of us. We hit a herd of walkers and got separated. I'm sure if they saw the flare they'll head here' Kat told him.

The man nodded and seemed to calm down slightly. 'I'm Eric. I'm from Alexandria as well. Thank you. If you hadn't saved me…' he trailed off in thought.

'We need to get him off that ankle' Maggie said.

Abraham and Daryl scouted inside an abandoned warehouse. They found it to be clear so Kat helped Eric into the back room and Maggie checked over his ankle. Daryl was keeping watch out the front of the building, checking for signs of the others.

'I think it's broken' Maggie sighed, looking at his ankle. She didn't have much medical knowledge, only things that her father had passed on. 'I can't do anything for it except wrap it tightly and suggest you try not to walk on it.'

'Thank you' Eric said sincerely.

Maggie accepted the thanks and then left the room. Kat got up to leave as well but Eric stopped her. 'Wait, how are you feeling?'

Kat was taken aback for a minute and then remembered that he had been watching with Aaron. 'I'm getting better now thanks to the antibiotics you brought with you. So thank you.'

'Let's call it even' Eric smiled and Kat returned the smile. 'Will you stay with me? I'm worried about Aaron being out there and I don't want to be left alone with my thoughts.'

Kat agreed and stayed and got to know Eric a little bit. They were broken from their conversation about what they missed from before the apocalypse by a yell from Daryl out front. Kat left to go see what was happening.

She went into the other room to find a frantic looking Aaron. 'Eric?' he yelled.

'He's through there, he's okay' Kat said reassuringly. The look of relief took over Aaron's face and he hugged Kat quickly before disappearing into the other room. Kat looked in on the room to see the two men kissing. She didn't want to intrude so she slipped back into the other room, to make sure that the rest of the group had arrived safely.

Eventually Aaron emerged from the room. 'Everyone. Thank you. You saved Eric. I owe you. All of you. And I will make sure that debt is paid in full when we get to our community. When we get to Alexandria.'

Kat glanced up at Daryl and he smiled back at her. She discretely reached down and their fingers entwined. They had a new hope. This could be a new beginning for them all.