Chapter 26

That night Gareth started to take night-shifts and Maggie slept in the RW. He had taken out the mikes, just in case to hear approaching walkers or survivors. A few walkers walked by the warehouse where they had parked the RW, but they didn't seem to have noticed them.

Quickly he heard something through the mikes. It sounded like screaming of people that were attacked by something. Gareth quickly ran to the RW and woke up his fiancé.

"Maggie, wake up!" he shouted at her.

"What?" she asked looking sleepy.

"I heard people over the mikes! It sounded like they are in trouble!" he said. Maggie immediately jumped out if the bed, put in some pants and grabbed a riffle.

Both of them ran out to the direction where Gareth had recorded the screams. It seemed to be the grocery store of the town. They ran in and saw people. Two small children, a boy and a girl, as well two men. Gareth noticed three dead bodies on the ground. One woman and two men. It seemed like the two men had attacked the group of three adults and two children, presumably they were some bandits.

"What the fuck?" asked one of the men.

"Help!" screamed the little girl. She was between the age of eight and ten and her face was covered in tears.

"What the Hell is going on here?" asked Maggie. She and Gareth looked at the two men.

One of them had long brown hair, the other one shorter blond. Both of them were filthy and had a "W" carved on their foreheads.

"Leave us, and we might not hurt ya" said the man with the long brown hair. He resembled Mike a little bit.

"Leave the children alone, and we'll leave you alone!" replied Maggie. She seemed to have her maternal instincts on, seeing that these two men were ready to hurt children.

"You have a lot of stuff on ya" said the blonde man. "Hey, Derek, why would we let them leave? The can have a camp or sometin' that we could use"

Gareth looked at the two men. One of them had a handgun, the other one a knife. The seemed to be pretty sure that they could take him and Maggie on, though. Why? Gareth tried to figure it out. That's when he got a scary thought. What if it wasn't just them?

That's when he heard someone come behind him and he turned around. It was an other man with an "W" in his forehead. He had an hatchet in his hand and ran towards Gareth.

Gareth didn't hesitate. He shot the man with his riffle in the head, killing him. He heard another gunshot, turned around and saw the blonde man on the ground. Maggie had shot him. But the man with the long hair, Derek, had ran over to her and taken her hostage. He held a knife around Maggie's throat.

"Alright, pretty boy, here is what we are gonna do. You're gonna give us me your vehicle, weapons, food and other thangs and tell me where your camp is. You look to clean to live on the road. If you're gonna do what I say, I'm not gonna slice this bitch's throat open. Deal?" he asked. Maggie tried to give a calm look at Gareth, but he saw that she was terrified.

Gareth kept aiming at him. The man held Maggie, threatened to kill her.

"Boy, how is you aim? You might hit her with that thing. Wanna take the…"

Bam.

Derek fell on the ground with a hole in his head. Gareth still held his riffle up. Maggie ran over to him and hugged him. She buried her head in his shoulder.

After that they turned to see the two children more closely. They were both small, under ten years old. Both had brown hair, the boy had curly ones.

"We're not gonna hurt ya" said Maggie, smiling at them.

"Maggie?" asked the girl.

"Molly, Luke?" asked Maggie them.

Gareth looked at the children, before turning to Maggie.

"You know them?" asked Gareth his fiancé.

"Yes! They lived in the prison with us, before Terminus" she explained. "I didn't know the survived the assault from the Governor"

The two children ran to Maggie and hugged her.

"Is Carol alive?" asked the boy, Luke.

"Yeah, she lives with us in a small town a few hours from here" replies Maggie holding both. "It's a big community with walls, and showers and even a school!"

Gareth and Maggie brought the two children to the RW. The got to sleep in the bed while Maggie and Gareth held watch over them.

"Thank god you had the mikes with you. If not god knows what would have happened to them. I like how you always take precautions in these things" she said holding her head against his shoulder.

"Yeah, I learned after the occupation" replied Gareth.

"Mhhm. I just wondered if Molly and Emma could be the flower-girls at the wedding?" she asked him. "And do you have already a bestman?"

"I don't have a best friends currently. Well, maybe Aaron. Or Heath. The idea with Molly and Emma is lovely. Who is going to be your maid of honor?"

"Maybe Tara, or Rosita. Kaylee would be a nice idea as well. I can't decide! I have so many friends at the moment!" she said, sounding a little tried.

"Well, you're gonna have to pick one" he said to her.

There was no reply.

Gareth turned to see that his fiancé had fallen asleep. He gently just held her for about an hour and a half before they switched.

The following morning:

"Are there other children in the community?" asked Molly Gareth and Maggie, as they drove back to Alexandria.

"Yeah, a few" said Gareth.

"Are Lizzie and Mike there?" asked Luke.

Maggie had no reply to this. She hadn't seen the two little blond siblings since the prison and had guessed that they had died.

Luke and Molly had told that they escaped the prison with Raymond, Smitty and Gloria, three Woodbury survivors and had wandered ever since. They came across some soldiers once that told them that there would be something in Washington so they traveled there. They came in the small town across Derek and his buddies and they knew the rest of the story.

In a few hours they were at the safe-zone and Spencer opened the gate. Aaron walked towards them.

"You're back already? I had expected at least two weeks of you being out there" he said.

"Well we came across some bandits and found two orphans. Seemed like we had to come back" said Gareth to him.

"What happened to the bandits?" asked Aaron.

"We killed them. They left us no choice" said Maggie.

"Well good job you two"

"Thank you, I think I'm gonna take the Luke and Molly to Carol" she replied. She walked off to find the Carol-

"Hey, Aaron. Can I ask you something?" asked Gareth the other recruiter of Alexandria.

"Well you just did… never mind, what do you want?" asked the gay man.

"Well, me and Maggie are getting married and I don't have a best man, so would you be interested?"

"I'm sorry but I can't. I don't want to have in a wedding anything to do with the bride or the groom. I'm really sorry" said Aaron.

"It's alright. I can always ask Heath or Mark" replied Gareth. "But I could use your help in finding a right kind of tuxedo"

"Yeah, I think I can help you with that" replied Aaron.

Gareth and Maggie hadn't really made a date for their ceremony, but they wanted it to be somewhere between May and July. Things clearly seemed to be good, but they have all learned that sooner or later a new threat will rise and tries to destroy what they have, whether it's walkers or humans.