"The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned."

― Maya Angelou

At daybreak, once everyone had woken up, they began to mill about the barn. First they checked outside, after Daryl had mentioned Maggie and Sasha had gone off together for a walk, and that's when they noticed the destruction. Trees had been uprooted or knocked down and a large path within the woods had been created by what had most likely been a tornado the night before, and by some stroke of luck or an act of God, the barn was spared along with all of them inside it. The walkers that had been outside hadn't. They were ripped in halves, impaled by branches, crushed by tree trunks and, in the case of one particular walker, was dangling a few feet up in a tree by its legs.

Back inside the barn, the puttering began.

They still didn't have food, but now they had water; not much, but enough. They used some of it to clean their faces and just feel a little more human. Others cleaned their weapons or just stared off at nothing.

There also seemed to be a change in the air. The gloom of their recent losses didn't seem as hard to bear and surviving the storm gave them a little perspective on things. In Rick's case, after the move he'd made after the storm passed, in kissing Georgie for all to see, he had new possibilities to consider as he sat there on the ground, leaning against a post Judith sitting up between his calves.

Georgie sat across from him, beside Carol, cleaning her hunting knife, as Abraham sat kitty-corner to them with his gun out.

"That was some statement Rick made last night," Carol whispered.

Georgie lifted her head to the older woman. "Hmm?"

Carol eyed Georgie and smirked knowingly. "You know what I'm talking about."

Georgie felt her face grow flush as she tried to hide her own smile. "Oh, that."

"Yeah." Pocketing her knife, Carol turned and glanced at Rick who seemed lost in a daydream before bringing her attention back to Georgie. "How long has it been going on?"

"What? I—nothing's happened. I mean, nothing's really happened. Not—not yet anyway."

Carol was full on grinning at how the younger woman fumbled over herself. "You sure? I mean, I'm not brand new. I've been around long enough to know the looks you two have been passing to each other since Atlanta. Not to mention the two of you have gone off together, alone, a few times since then."

Georgie looked almost mortified. "We've…kissed…several times, but that's the bulk of it—my God, you are like an old washer woman digging for gossip." She swatted Carol in the arm.

Carol chuckled as a response. It just felt so good to do. "Hey, in all seriousness, I'm glad for you both. You're good people, and you deserve happiness where you can get it."

"Oh my God," Georgie rolled her eyes. "I can't have this conversation with you right now. It just feels too weird."

"Yeah, you shouldn't be sitting here with me; you should be over there with him." As an afterthought, Carol added, "Go make googly eyes at each other."

Georgie swatted Carol one last time before standing up and doing just that; moving to sit down beside Rick. He snapped out of whatever he was thinking about and looked up at her and let his gaze follow her as she sat. She turned slightly to face him, eyeing him up.

"So, Carol is starting to tease me about us apparently. She saw that kiss last night, but she's given her blessing if that means anything," she laughed. Georgie then grew a little serious. "You really caught me off guard with that, though. Not the fact that you kissed me, but the when and the where you did it. I wasn't expecting such a…declaration, I guess."

Rick grabbed her hand in his. "Sorry, I didn't mean to put you on the spot. I just felt like it was the thing to do and I'm not ashamed if you're not."

"Of course I'm not," she assured. "You just…"

Judith gurgled a happy little sound and flapped her hands around, playing with thin air and it cut into both Rick and Georgie's attentions. Pulling at her hand, he forced Georgie to move closer up against her. He didn't feel much like talking about anything at the moment. His head was just reeling with so many thoughts, but having her right there, like that, with his daughter safely near and his son also nearby…it was a comfort.

"Hey. Everyone?" came Maggie's voice as the barn doors opened. "This is Aaron."

Everyone seemed to jump to their feet as Maggie stepped inside with some unknown man ― Aaron, apparently ― and Sasha behind them. The group all grabbed for their weapons while Georgie just grabbed Judith. Rick put an arm out and held his two ladies ― as he thought of them in his head ― back in protection. Daryl darted outside with his crossbow to give a check for others and Rick cocked his gun in case as he stepped closer to the stranger in their mists.

"We met him outside. He's by himself," Maggie continued. "We took his weapons and we took his gear."

That didn't stop Daryl from giving Aaron a pat-down anyway to be on the safe side. Despite the man looking clean and unassuming, and considering the group's previous experiences with outsiders, they were taking zero chances.

"Hi," Aaron greeted timidly.

Judith began to cry and Rick looked at Georgie, giving her a nod of the head. She stepped back with Carl, keeping both children out of Aaron's direct line of sight.

"Nice to meet you," Aaron continued. But as he stepped forward to offer his hand in a shake to Rick, Daryl moved behind him and the gestured stopped the newcomer in his tracks.

"You said he had a weapon?" Rick asked of Maggie, who stepped forward and handed over a small revolver. He took it, looked at it briefly and smelled the barrel to see if it had been fired recently. He then looked back at Aaron, still suspicious, as he pocketed the gun behind him. "There's something you need?"

"He has a camp, nearby," Sasha said. "He wants us to audition for membership."

"I wish there was another word," Aaron smirked. "Audition makes it sound like we're some kind of a dance troupe. That's only on Friday nights." His joke fell flat and he knew it. "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?" Sasha hesitated, but quickly consented, walking up to Rick with Aaron's backpack she had been wearing. "Front pocket, there's an envelope." Rick knelt down with the bag and unzipped the pocket in question, pulling an envelope out. "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—"

"Nobody gives a shit," Daryl interrupted.

Aaron looked over his shoulder at him. "You're absolutely, one hundred percent right." Turning back to Rick, who had removed the photographs from the envelope, he continued, "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." Rick stood up and it was hard to tell what he was thinking, but Aaron pressed on nevertheless. "Like I said, security is obviously important. In fact, there's only one resource more critical to our community's survival: the people."

Rick looked over his shoulder at Michonne who was immediately behind him, and then to Georgie before looking back forward. His expression seemed doubtful and amused at the same time but there was still no telling what he was truly thinking through Aaron's spiel.

"Together we're strong. You can make us even stronger. The next picture, you'll see inside the gates," Aaron continued, as Rick began to walk forward with that swagger in his walk Georgie than grown to love just as much as him. "Our community was first construc—"

Without warning, Rick pulled back his fist and cold-cocked Aaron, knocking his flat on his ass and out cold. Rick just looked down at the man as several of the others clamored to him, to tie him up. As he turned and walk back toward Michonne, Georgie and his kids, Michonne pulled him aside.

"So we're clear, that look wasn't a 'let's attack that man' look. It was a 'he seems like an okay guy to me' look," Michonne informed quietly, a little pissed with Rick.

"We got to secure him." Rick pointed at Carl. "Dump his pack. Let's see what this guy really is."

"Rick," Michonne compelled.

"Everybody else, we need eyes in every direction. They're coming for us. We might not know how or when, but they are." He looked at everyone, wanting them be prepared.

"Me and Sasha, we didn't see him," Maggie spoke. "If he had wanted to hurt us, he could've."

"Anybody see anything?" Rick persisted.

"Just a lot of places to hide," Glenn replied, peering outside.

"Alright, keep looking." Rick walked up to Carl. "What did you find?"

"Never seen a gun like that before."

"It's a flare gun," Georgie replied, shifting Judith on her hip. "It's used for alerting others where you are in case of emergency." She looked up at Rick who caught her gaze.

They both seemed to share the same thought. If Aaron had a flare gun, there were definitely one or more people nearby.

Aaron groaned, waking back up. "That's a hell of a right cross there, Rick."

"Sit him up."

"I think it's better if—" Maggie began.

"It's okay," Aaron insisted, groaning again.

Rick gestured at him. "He's fine. Sit him up."

"You're being cautious. I completely understand."

Aaron was being too cooperative. Georgie was actually starting to find it a bit annoying.

"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?"

Aaron sighed. "Does it matter?"

"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, thirty-two, four hundred and forty-four, 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?" Aaron questioned.

Rick and Daryl both looked at two of the bottles of water from the road. They had taken it with them, but not drunk from them yet.

"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."

The group looked among themselves just as Rick slowly approached Aaron. Quietly, but with a firm and strained voice, he repeated, "How many others are out there?"

"One," Aaron answered, but Rick shook his head. "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?" He looked at the group, imploringly. "What if I drove you to the community? All of you. We leave now; we'll get there by lunch."

Rick looked around. "I'm not sure how the fifteen of us are going to fit in the car you and your one friend drove down here in."

"We drove separately," Aaron remarked. "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 questioned.

"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 wasn't buying what Aaron was selling.

"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," the bound man assured.

"I'll check out the cars," Michonne offered.

"There aren't any cars," Rick dismissed.

"There's only one way to find out."

"We don't need to find out."

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

Maggie piped up. "Me neither."

Rick shook his head. He didn't like any of this, at all. "Your way is dangerous, mine isn't."

"Passing up someplace where we can live? Where Judith can live? That's pretty dangerous." Michonne implored, "We need to find out what this is. We can handle ourselves. So that's what we're gonna do."

"Then I will, too," Glenn offered, as Rick looked over at him. "I'll go."

Rick still didn't like this but, if they were gonna do it anyway, he wanted them safe. Turning around, he looked at the ginger haired man. "Abraham."

"Yeah," Abraham answered, hosting his gun. "I'll walk with them."

Rick nodded at Rosita. "Rosita?"

"Okay," she agreed.

Rick, then, walked up to Glenn. "If there's trouble, you got enough firepower?"

"We got what we got," replied Glenn.

Rick pulled out Aaron's gun and handed it to the younger man as Daryl lifted Aaron to his feet and carried him over to a post. "The walkies are out of juice," Rick continued. "If you're not back in sixty minutes, we'll come," he looked around at the others preparing to leave, "Which might be just what they want. If we're all in here, we're a target."

Daryl made a spinning hand gesture above his head. "I've got the area covered."

"Alright, groups of two, find somewhere safe within eyeshot."

Everyone left, even Carl. Rick looked toward the back of the barn, where Georgie remained, holding Judith.

"Do you want me to take Judith? I mean, I'd rather stay plus I think she's safer here with you near."

Rick moved closer to her, about to say no, for her to leave and take Judith, but he didn't think it was safe out there either, and if something happened inside the barn, Georgie could be there to get out with his daughter. "Yeah, stay. Just keep a distance for now."

Georgie nodded and pulled up an old crate to sit on, resting Judith in her lap while Rick went to the barn doors and shut them, but peered outside slightly to look after the others.

"When the world was still the world, I worked for an NGO," Aaron spoke. "Our mission was to deliver medicine and food to the Niger River Delta. Bad people pointed guns in my face every other week. You're not bad people. You're not going to kill us. And we are definitely not going to kill you."

"Just because we're good people doesn't mean we won't kill you," Rick remarked, still peering through the crack in the door. "If the five of them aren't back in an hour I'll put a knife in the base of your skull."

Shutting the door then, Rick stalked over to where Georgie was as Judith started crying.

"She's hungry," Georgie whispered, looking up at him.

Rick sighed, placing his hands on his hips. "Do we have any of that powdered milk left?"

Georgie shook her head. "We used it up yesterday morning before the cars broke down. There's only water. She needs more than that, though."

"Alright, okay…" He nodded, considering any option.

Rick spotted some acorns on the ground and grabbed small bowl. Crouching down on to the floor and using the butt of his Colt, he attempted to crack the shells open. He remembered how Georgie had mentioned making that pecan butter stuff, that was more or less grainy and syrupy, but it had done the trick. If he could pound the nuts to something of a powder and add some water to it, that could be something. However, the task was incredibly harder it seemed and Judith continued to wail.

"Shh, shh, sweetie, it's alright," Georgie cooed, as she noticed Rick's shoulders tensing from stress. Gently, she reached a hand out and touched his left shoulder blade and it seemed to help a little, that tiny gesture.

"You did see the jar of applesauce in my bag, right? This isn't a trick." Rick looked up at Aaron briefly. "This isn't about trying to make you like me. It's self-preservation. Because if the roamers hear her and come this way, I know I'll be the first to go."

"Rick," Georgie muttered. She didn't say it, but the tone in which she said his name suggested that maybe this was the moment they should trust Aaron. Judith kept on crying, so Georgie bounced her gently on her knee. "Shh, shh. Alright, come here, come here. Shh," she murmured quietly, pulling Judith closer as she saw Aaron look imploringly at her. "Rick."

He turned and stared at her, getting up to his feet. It looked as if he was caving and was going to give Judith the applesauce. Opening the jar up, he scooped out a spoonful and instead walked over to Aaron with it. Georgie was curious to know how this would play out and she could only do so by standing up as well and following behind Rick slightly as he held the spoon out for Aaron to taste test the applesauce.

"You think I'm trying to poison your baby daughter?" Aaron asked, almost offended. "I'm tied up and you've already expressed a willingness to stab me in the head. How would cruelly killing your daughter in front of you in any way help the situation?"

Georgie stepped closer, taking a sort of Mama Bear stance. "Maybe she doesn't die. Maybe she gets sick. Maybe you're the only one that can help her and we just lose," she commented as Rick crouched down to Aaron's level.

"I am the only one who can help her because I have applesauce and we all win." He backed his head away as Rick forced the spoon toward his face, looking between the pair. "I hate applesauce. My mom used to make me eat foods I didn't like to make me more manly; salmon patties, applesauce, and onions. She was a very confused woman who tried her damnedest. I just brought the jar to show that we have apple trees nearby."

"Like you said, you'll be the first to go," Rick reiterated as Aaron caved, wincing as he swallowed the spoonful Rick shoved in his mouth.

"Was that so hard?" Georgie questioned as Rick tasted what was left on the spoon.

Rick stood up and nodded at Georgie, ushering her back toward where the jar was and handing the spoon to her. "It's good," he assured her in a whisper as Judith continued to wail, her little tummy churning with hunger.

Aaron frowned, looking over at them. "The community is big enough. We can find a place for you to live where even when she cries, no one, nothing can hear it outside the walls."

Georgie moved the crate she'd been sitting on over toward the table and sat back down before proceeding to spoon out the applesauce and feed Judith, who gobbled it up like rapid-fire. As the little girl ceased crying and made the faintest of humming noises from being happy to eat, Georgie pressed her lips to the child's head and looked up at Rick.

He looked down at his watch. "You got forty-three minutes," he said to Aaron.

A short while later, the group had reconvened at the barn, bringing back Aaron's two vehicles, a white Cadillac and an RV, along with a supply of canned goods they'd salvaged from the vehicles. Rick was crouched down, holding one of the cans in his hands as the others stood around. After a moment of thought, Rick got up and turned to face Aaron.

"This," he held up the can, but meant the entire supply, "this is ours now."

Aaron nodded. "There's more than enough."

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

"What do you mean? Why wouldn't we go?" Carl asked, somewhat flabbergasted.

Michonne looked around at everyone. "If he were lying or if he wanted to hurt us," she answered. "But he isn't, and he doesn't. We need this. So we're going, all of us. Somebody say something if they feel differently."

Georgie pressed her lips firmly together. Despite the situation, she really wanted to smile or laugh a little. To have someone other than Rick taking charge for once is something she knew Rick needed, whether he was willing to admit it or not. He needed someone else to take the reins once in a while. She just hoped he could see it that way. She could see he was still uneasy, given what she knew of the groups different experiences with communities in the past offering hope for safety.

"I don't know, man. This barn smells like horse shit," Daryl quipped.

Still focusing mostly on Rick, Georgie saw that way he was shaking. It was faint but she noticed. "Yeah," he gave in, tilting his head slightly. "We're going."

Michonne smiled. She had been the main champion for all of them to find a community and so it went without saying how happy she was that Rick acquiesced to what the majority seemed to want. The others believed everything Aaron had told them, and he had given no reason to no longer doubt him. Rick was beginning to see that he couldn't fight city hall, even if he did have his own reservations still.

"So where are we going?" Rick asked, turning back to Aaron. "Where's your camp?"

"Well, every time I've done this, I've been behind the wheel driving recruits back.I believe you're good people. I've bet my life on it." Aaron looked at Michonne as she approached him. "I'm just not ready to bet my friends' lives just yet."

"You're not driving," she informed while Rick got out their map and laid it upon the ground. "So if you want to get home, you'll have to tell us how."

Aaron sighed. "Go north on Route 16."

"And then?"

"I'll tell you when we get there."

Rick just stared for a moment, his jaw firm. "We'll take 23 north. You'll give us directions from there," he decided.

"That's—" Aaron seemed panicked. "I don't know how else to say it—that's a bad idea. We've cleared 16. It'll be faster."

"We'll take 23," Rick repeated, laying the law more or less. "We leave at sundown."

"We're doing this at night?" Sasha questioned.

Rick looked back at the group. "Look, I know it's dangerous. But it's better than riding up to the gates during the day. If it isn't safe, we need to get gone before they know we're there."

"No one is going to hurt you," Aaron guaranteed. "You're trying to protect your group, but you're putting them in danger."

Turning back to the other man, Rick grabbed onto the wooden framework beside him. "Tell me where the camp is, we'll leave right now." When Aaron would divulge the information, Rick turned back to his people. "It's going to be a long night," he said, standing up. "Eat. Get some rest if you can."

With that, Rick stalked off toward the barn doors and went outside. A moment later, Michonne followed him, while the rest of the group turned back to the food, practically ignoring Aaron in the process. Having already fed Judith and also changing her diaper, Georgie set the girl down in a crate lined with her blanket, and decided to wait to eat as the others dove in first.

Walking over to Aaron with a bottle of water, she uncapped it and knelt down. "Thirsty?"

He shook his head. "No, thank you. But I appreciate the hospitality," he quipped, giving a tug at his bound hands.

"We've had bad experiences with very bad people," she replied. "You'll have to forgive us, but we prefer to be safe rather than sorry."

"Driving the 23 at night is being sorry." Aaron leaned in toward her. "Is there a way you can make him see that—"

"Rick has yet to give me reason not to trust his judgement. So, if he feels better not traveling your route, your way, then so do I," Georgie spoke. "Where he goes, I go, we go."

Aaron wasn't going to convince anyone, it would seem, so he resigned himself to drop the subject. Instead, he broached a different subject for the sake of passing the time until someone was kind enough to untie his hand and they hit the road. "Can I ask a question?"

"I don't know, can you?" Georgie eyed him and took a swig from the water bottle.

"How long have you and Rick been married?"

A chuckle burst out of Georgie's mouth and she almost choked on the water. "Wait—what?"

"I'm sorry. Did I misread the situation?" Aaron seemed a little embarrassed. "I just thought, from what I've been able to see of your group from afar and up close, the way the two of you are with each other, and how you've worked in tandem to care for Judith, I just assumed…"

Georgie shook her head. "We're not married; we just…care a lot about each other."

"Oh," Aaron nodded. "I had noticed the wedding rings on your fingers, too. That added to my confusion, I guess."

Looking down at her left hand, Georgie saw her ring. "No, we were married to other people."

To be honest, she didn't even realize she still wore the ring. For some reason she thought she had removed it long ago and tossed it away. Considering that notion, Georgie wondered if she shouldn't just do that now. Not, immediately 'now', right there in front of Aaron, but soon. The day she had found her husband's truck, two weeks after abandoning her and their daughter, she considered herself a widow and that's how she had presented herself to her previous groups.

Just as she got back up to her feet, Michonne sauntered back into the barn and went to grab something to eat among the others, when Rick followed suit.

His eyes immediately fell upon Georgie and he gave a polite nod down to Aaron, but made no move to untie the man just yet. Instead, Rick grabbed two canned goods and a bottle of water and then walked back over to Georgie, giving her a tap to her elbow with his fingers.

"C'mon," he gestured back toward the barn doors with a tilt of his head.

"Where are we going?"

"Just c'mon."

Without giving Aaron, the conversation she had with him or her ring a second thought, Georgie followed Rick out of the barn and over to the RV. He opened the door and held it open, letting her step up into it first.

"When all this first happened, the outbreak," he began to say as he gestured to the RV's kitchen table for her to sit and then pulled open the drawers near the sink, "I woke up in a hospital, dehydrated and weak. I'd been shot on the job, about two months earlier, just before the outbreak spread. I was in a coma and when I woke up I found the world like this. I couldn't find my family, everything was destroyed, and nothing worked anymore. I was so confused and lost." Rick to a seat at the table opposite from her and pulled out a pocket knife, opening up the cans, which were both S'Getti Rings. "I met a guy named Morgan and his son Duane, who explained things to me; how the world worked now. Once I was armed with enough know-how and weapons, I made my way to Atlanta. Then I ran out of gas, so I got a horse instead."

Georgie smirked as he passed one of the cans to her and a spoon he had found in the drawer. He didn't need to offer her the water bottle since he had seen she had her own.

"You rode a horse into Atlanta?" she questioned with a chuckle.

Rick nodded at the memory and smirked as well. "Yeah."

"I can't imagine that went well."

"It didn't. I got swarmed by walkers. I fell off the horse and tried getting away. Walkers ripped that horse to shreds."

"Obviously you got away."

"I crawled into a tank, and then that's when I met Glenn. He radioed me inside there, helped get me to safety. Long story short, I went back with him to the camp outside the city his people were staying at, and as luck would have it Carl and my wife Lori were there, along with my best friend Shane. Carol was there, too, but that was when her daughter Sophia and her asshole husband Ed were still alive," Rick narrated. "I think it was the next day when I met Daryl. He was part of the camp but had been off hunting. He was a different man then in the beginning. A little more disgruntled, I s'pose."

They both smiled at each other.

"We were all different in the beginning. We've all changed," she said.

Rick leaned back, taking a bite of cold S'Getti Rings with his own spoon and nodding at her statement. "One of the men at that first camp, he had an RV like this. He used to sit on top with a lawn chair and an umbrella, keeping watch with his shotgun."

"What was his name?"

"Dale." Rick sighed, staring into the can for what seemed like forever. "You know the man I am now," he continued. "You don't know who I was or all the details of how I got to be this man, no different than I don't know the woman you were, aside from stories. And that's all they are: stories. We hear 'em, we can react to 'em, but we can never experience firsthand what the other person experienced."

Georgie stopped eating, setting her spoon in her can and just waiting to see where Rick's train of thought was leading this conversation.

"You mean something to me, Georgie," he admitted. He was still looking down at his can, almost as if he couldn't bring himself to look up at her just yet. "I feel myself going to these darker places that I'd rather not go, and then I feel your hand or I see you standing there and I feel calm." When he lifted his eyes, he was staring across the table at her, holding her gaze. "You do that." Reaching his hand out to her, he linked his fingers with hers. "It's been my job to make sure everyone else is safe, and then here you come into my life and suddenly I feel like I can be safe, too. And I know that sounds like something off a Hallmark card, but it's true, and I know I keep telling you all these little things I'm so grateful for you doing, but I mean it. I just…"

"You don't have to say anything else."

"No—no, I do." He looked over at the door, as if expecting someone to walk in. "I just worry that when we go to Aaron's community that I won't know what to do if it really is this safe haven. What—what do I do then when I don't have to protect everyone anymore? Who do I become?"

Georgie smiled at him like she would a nervous child and reached her other hand out to clasp over both of theirs. "The man you used to be?" she suggested him. "I wouldn't mind meeting him. Although, I am biased towards this one."

Rick's gaze softened and he leaned forward. "You know, when I brought you in here, I hadn't meant to go off on a tangent about my past and my fears. I was actually meaning for this to be like a date of sorts." He chuckled a little at himself. "I think the RV, in general, just reminded me of the beginning and I just went with it."

"Wait—back up," Georgie laughed. "This is our first date?"

"Yeah, what do you think of it so far?" he joked. "You enjoying yourself? I was thinking a round of miniature golf afterward."

A bright smile plastered itself on Georgie's face as a heartier laugh escaped her lips. "Will there be dancing, too? I miss dancing."

Rick pointed at her. "Shit, we haven't done that in a few days." Georgie seemed confused at first, so he asked, "What do you miss from the old world, aside from dancing, that is?"

Georgie leaned back and tried thinking up an answer she hadn't already used before. After a moment, a mischievous thought appeared in her head and she stifled her grin as best as possible. "I don't know that I should say. I mean, this is only the first date, after all."

"Try me."

Shifting in her seat, Georgie stood up and shoved Rick in the shoulder so he would move over a bit. When he did, she sat back down and turned to face him before leaning in to whisper her answer in his ear. As soon as she pulled back to look at him, she could see his face flush and his bright blue eyes begin to darken.

"What do you miss?" she continued before he could properly react.

With a small smile toying at his lips, Rick leaned in and whispered the same thing in her ear that she had just whispered in his.

Georgie made a face. "That's not how the game goes," she chuckled. "You're supposed to say something different."

"It is different," he insisted. "It'll be with you."

A knocked came to the RV door, cutting into their mood, yet again.

Sighing, Rick looked over at the door. "What's up?" he called out, rubbing his mouth and beard with his hand.

"It's Carol. A few of us were wondering if you're okay with us untying Aaron's hands."

"Uh, yeah," Rick agreed. "There's plenty of you in there to keep an eye on if him he tries anything."

"Alright." It was quiet for a moment and the pair didn't hear Carol. They also didn't see if she'd headed back to the barn as they turned to glance out of the windows. "One more thing." Their attention turned immediately back toward the door. "Don't make a mess in there, you two. Most of us have to travel in this thing tonight."

They finally heard Carol stepping away by the crunch of leaves under her feet and a moment later they could see her out the window heading back into the barn.

Georgie smirked as she leaned forward to rest her elbows on the table and then her face her hands. Casually, she turned her face toward Rick and raised an eyebrow. "Do you think we'll ever not be interrupted?" she asked him. "I know it's hard when we're traveling on the road as a group of sixteen, but it seems like no matter what we're doing or not doing we're stopping before we ever get started."

Rick shrugged and frowned. "Maybe we'll get a chance at actual privacy in Aaron's community."

"Nothing should happen now, anyway," Georgie added. Then in a more teasing tone, "I mean, this is only our first date after all. I'm not one of those fast girls."

He snickered and nodded. "Let's just see what happens with Aaron's community. If it pans out, we'll all try and settle in, hopefully clean ourselves up and feel human again. Then we'll see where our second date leads us if the rest of the group can leave us alone for more than five minutes," he remarked as he put an arm around her shoulder and pulled her against his side. Turning his head slightly, his beard brushed her temple before his lips did. "I, especially, could do with a hot shower first."

"You don't smell that bad," she chuckled, reaching her arm across them both and tugging slightly at his dirty brown shirt he'd claimed back in Greensboro.

"Liar."

Georgie merely smiled in response. Reaching out for her can of S'Getti rings, she pulled out the spoon and continued to eat while leaning more into his side. Rick rested his head against hers and also went back to eating his own cold, canned pasta.

"Pretty nice first date," Georgie finally said.

"Yeah," Rick nodded.