All Nightmare Long

Chapter 584

Author's Note: Nobody has been talking to me. And I've been battling an ear infection this week, so I was ignoring Negan's whispering (no pun intended) in my ear. I finally decided we needed to check in with Jes and Alexandria and Shaw. I love the interaction between Shaw and Jes. It's sad that Walking Dead will be ending after Season 11, but all good things must end. Please review.

Alexandria:

Shaw glanced at the Hispanic man who was talking to Quinn and walked over. "Gus right?"

Quinn and Gus exchanged glances as Quinn laid Hope down in the bassinett on the front porch. Gus gave a small smile. "That's right, Gus Alverez."

"Yours?" Shaw asked nodding toward Hope.

Quinn looked at him. "Jewel's and Rick's. We're babysitting. I'm Quinn, in case you forgot."

Shaw put a cigar in his mouth biting off the end. "Your brother was the one who got gutted right? By Negan."

Quinn tensed as Gus touched her arm. "He was brutally murdered by Negan, yes," Gus answered. "What can we do for you?"

"You were in the military, right?" Shaw asked, as he directed his attention to Gus.

"Yes, Army," Gus answered.

"How'd you end up here?" Shaw answered.

"He was a friend of my deceased husband; he helped my daughter and I get out. We found this place by accident, it was ran by my parents. Why?" Quinn responded.

"I have a place, it's made up mostly of military, secret service. We could use more people," Shaw told him, ignoring Quinn.

"Are you really trying to recruit me?" Gus questioned, glancing at him unbelievably.

"Not recruit, just giving you an option, a different option. An option to be with your own type of people," Shaw explained.

"Aren't you supposed to be an ally?" Quinn questioned. "Our ally? Allies usually don't try to steal each other's people."

"It's not stealing, it's making the best use of a person's abilities," Shaw said.

Jes and Garza walked up and Jes glared at Shaw. "He throwing you his pitch?"

"He threw, it missed," Gus responded.

Jes turned and looked at him. "You know for a military guy; the meaning of teamwork doesn't mean a thing to you. We are working together, there's no you and them, it's us. I thought we got over this."

"Got over what? Trying to make my group stronger?" Shaw questioned.

"Our group is stronger, we're not alone anymore. Jes and I've been talking, we think we should move everyone to either Hilltop or Alexandria," Garza said.

"We have room," Quinn said.

"We're not leaving Arlington," Shaw answered as he walked away.

"It was nice talking with you," Gus called after Shaw as he glanced at Quinn.

Jes sighed as she and Garza followed him. "You aren't even willing to listen to our reasoning?" she questioned.

"It doesn't matter, we're not leaving. It's our home," Shaw answered. "This your armory?" he asked as he nodded toward a building.

"It was," Jes answered as she exchanged glances with Garza as Shaw went into the armory. "Look, you owe it to your group to listen to us. As a commanding officer, you know that combining forces to fight the enemy is the only way that some wars are won. You've done the first step, you agreed to help us. And, I know I speak for everyone here when I say that we appreciate it. We've lost people, a couple of hard hitters. You would have liked Abraham; he was your type of person. I respected him, and I hardly respect anyone."

"It's true, I've never seen her give her respect willingly in all the time I've known her," Garza added.

Shaw looked around the armory. "He did clear you out."

Jes arched an eyebrow. "Yeah, what you thought we were making it up?"

"How'd you know?" Shaw questioned as he turned around and looked at her as hit chewed on the end of cigar.

"How'd I know what?" Jes questioned.

"How did you know that you would need to hide guns? He hadn't come here yet, you hadn't met him, so how did you know that you needed to take guns off the itinerary and hide them?" Shaw questioned as he looked at her.

"I simply anticipated the next move of the enemy," Jes asked. "We made an opening move; in retrospect it was the wrong move. He was going to counter, and it was going to be a big move. I didn't know when, or how, but it was coming. I couldn't be sure of what he would do, and I certainly didn't see him beating two people in the head with a bat he calls Lucille. Maybe I should have seen it, Summer told us what he had done at another community. She saw it with her own eyes. She warned us, and we didn't listen."

Garza put a hand on her arm. "You can't blame yourself."

Jes pulled her arm away and sat down and looked at him. "I can and I will," she said as she looked at Shaw. "We had taken a lot of guns from Negan's compound; they hadn't gone on inventory yet. We didn't need them all, it made sense to hide some. Maggie and Glenn had discussed it too, it wasn't just me. I just took it on myself to take the initiative to do it," she said. "I never thought I'd run into a group of people still playing soldiers," she informed him as she stood up. "You're tired of fighting the dead, you want a real enemy, you're craving it. If you weren't, you wouldn't have set up a training area like you have. You get up and still do P.T. You're a lifetime soldier, Shaw, it's in your blood. You don't want to leave Arlington because you don't want to give up control. I'm not asking you to give up your home, give up what you built," she explained.

"Then what are you asking?" Shaw asked.

Jes glanced at Garza, nodding for him to take over. "She's asking us to protect our people. From what I observed, Negan is going to be back. We are going to have to be ready to fight and the way to do that, is to learn about how we fight. We have to fight together, as one unit."

"Thought you didn't want us around, we're the type that draws attention," Shaw pointed out.

"That was before we declared war," Jes simply answered.