Better Days
Chapter 351
Author's Note: Stupid FanFiction is having trouble with reviews again. I'm getting them through email, so keep sending them. Hopefully it'll fix itself. This may or may not be the last chapter I post before the hospital. This weekend is going to be insane, but hopefully can squeeze one or two more in. So there's going to be three teams, because I need Summer to be able to be separated from our group (*cough* Jesus*) Review please.
Team Family (Or most of it) POV:
Jewel adjusted Hope in her carrier as she stepped near Rick in the front of Deanna's house. "I set up a sign up sheet at the front of the door. None of you need to sign it, I have no doubt you all were going to be here," she told the group.
"We should all sign it, we don't want to make them think that we're any different then anyone else," Carol told them.
"Yet there is, we know what the hell we're doing," Jes said.
"Carol's right, we'll all sign it," Rick told them. "The only way we have a chance on saving this place is if we work together."
"You know whose going to do most of the heavy lifting Rick," Daryl told him.
"Yeah, but we still need there help," Rick told him.
"So, do we have a plan dad?" Summer asked.
"I have one working in my mind. But, I have to admit that coming up with a plan to lead that many walkers' away isn't the easiest thing I've had to do," Rick told them.
"You know we'll be there for whatever you need Rick," Glenn told him.
"Just tell us where you need us," Joey agreed.
"I'm in, just make sure I get some competent people with me," David said.
"In other words, no Alexandrians," Jes added. "Rick, you know we'd all follow you to hell and back, we have, but I think we'd all feel better if we didn't have to depend on most of these people to survive."
"Not everyone of them is bad," Beth pointed out. "Quinn, Francine, Gus, Jill, a couple others, they stood up for Rick last night."
"But the majority of them haven't caught up to what the world is now," Carol reminded them. "They're stuck in the beginning of this thing, and for all of us that's a bad thing."
"We all know we're going to be the ones doing the majority of this thing," Abraham added. "I've seen how these people react in the face of walkers' and it's not good."
"We don't have much choice," Michonne reminded them. "We can't just turn our back on them, they'd never survive. We need this place and these people need us. Maybe, for once, we can turn a bad situation into good one. Maybe we don't have to watch people die, and maybe we don't have to lose anyone, because that's what's going to happen if we don't include everyone. If we turn our backs and let them handle it, some of us are going to die. If we try to do it on our own without there help, some of us are going to die. And maybe, even this way some of us still die, but at least we die trying to do more then just survive for once."
Jewel and Mar both smirked. "I think she pretty well said it all, didn't she?" Mar questioned.
Jes shrugged. "Alright, on that note, I'm going to go stake out a position in the back. Get an overview of the room, keep an eye out on everyone," she said as she went to the back to where the table was sitting, turned a chair around, hopped on the table, sat down and put her feet on the chair.
"Does it scare anyone else how she always thinks tactically?" Mar questioned.
"No, I'm just glad she's on our side," Jewel answered. "We should get settled, we don't want anyone to think we're plotting there demise," she said.
"We're trying to save them," Daryl responded as he took a seat on the window seat, nodding at Mar to join him.
"I'm sure if they can turn it another way, they will," Rick told them. "Summer get your mother one of the dining room chairs, so she can sit with Hope up here beside me."
"Right," Summer said as she went back to the table and got a chair bringing it up front.
"You've got this," Jewel told him as she kissed him. "I'm right here," she assured him.
Rick nodded and squeezed her hand. "We've got this."
Alexandria POV:
Rick looked at everyone as they were talking among themselves. "Alright, I need to get all of your attention. Morgan, Jewel and I were outside the gates today, down past the bridge, and we heard something. We heard walkers', a lot of walkers', they were in a pit. I've never seen so many in one spot at a time," he told them.
"The population of DC could possibly be down there, probably another city. That's why this place is still here, why you're all still here," Jewel informed them.
"My team... we saw it early on, back when we were on one of those first scouts, finding out what was around here. There was a camp at the bottom. The people, they must have blocked the exits with one of those trucks back when everything started to go bad. They didn't make it. They were all roamers, maybe a dozen of them," Heath told them.
Jes looked at him. "I hate to ask the obvious, but who are you?"
"Heath, my team and I just got back from a run. Annie, Scott, and Brad," he said as he nodded to each of the members of the team. Brad was standing by Jill, his arm around her.
"My son has been scouting for Alexandria since the beginning," Noreen told the group.
"No one's been back since?" Maggie asked.
"DC, every town worth scavenging are all in the other direction. And I never really felt like having a picnic next to the camp that ate itself," Heath told them.
"So all the while the walkers have been drawn by the sound and they're making more sound and they're drawing more in," Michonne said.
"Didn't anyone ever wonder why there were no walkers' at your gates? Didn't you wonder where they all went?" Summer asked.
"Not really, we just figured they went somewhere else," Brad answered. "Out of sight, out of mind," he added.
"So, basically you're all lucky that Morgan, Rick and Jewel was outside the gates today, and saw them, otherwise this town would have been wiped off the face of the earth, along with all of you," Jes said as she shook her head.
"You're in this town now too, you'd all be wiped off the face of the earth with the rest of us," Carter told them.
"Yeah you keep thinking that sunshine," Daryl said.
Jewel put a blanket over Hope to nurse her. "The point is, we did see it, and now we have time to do something about it," she said as she tried to stop the tension in the group. "Rick has a plan, and we all need to listen to it, because it may be the only way we survive," she said as she nodded to Rick.
"One of the trucks keeping the walkers in could go off the edge any day now. Maybe after one more hard rain. That exit sends them east, all of them, right at us. This isn't about if it gives, it's when. It's gonna happen, that's why we have to do this soon," Rick told them.
"This is- I don't even have another word for it. This is terrifying, all of it. But it doesn't sound like there's any other way," Carol said, using her scared persona.
"It's the only way," Jewel told them. "Those walkers' are pushing against those trucks, and some are already squeezing through. That's probably where the one that Rick killed last night came from," she said as she glanced over at Gabriel. "This is the only way we can survive."
"Maybe there is," Carter said.
"Why am I not surprised that it's you to offer an objection," Jes said from her position at the back of the room.
"You all may be ready to his plan, but I'm not," Carter told them.
"If you have an idea, then just say it," Joey told him.
"I mean, couldn't we just build up the weak spots? I could draw up plans. I worked on the wall with Reg. Construction crew- we can try and make it safe," Carter told them.
"It would be a good idea, if we had the time," David said.
"Rick and Jewel say this can happen at anytime, I tend to believe them," Abraham added.
"Even if we could, the sound of those walkers is drawing more and more every day. Building up the exits won't change that," Rick told them.
"We're going to do what Rick says, the plan he's laid out," Deanna told them.
Quinn nodded. "You all may not trust Rick and his group yet, but they have a better idea what we're dealing with then we do. We can't handle this on our own, we wouldn't be able to handle it on our own. We wouldn't even know it was happening if they hadn't seen it," she told him.
"They wouldn't have seen it if," Carter started to say.
"It doesn't matter why they saw it, Carter, they saw it. We were stupid not to follow up on it, all of us," Quinn informed them. "And, we got lucky that it held out this long. But luck runs out," she told them.
"There's a quote from the author Patrick McGill and that's to the soldier, luck is merely another word for skill," Jes said.
"We're not soldiers," Stacey said.
"We're all soldiers," Beth argued. "We don't have any choice in the matter, not if we want to survive."
"We have the skill, so let us use it," Summer told him. "Dad, go ahead."
TBC