...in which we meet some more familiar faces! yay! minus one. boo!

The next morning came way too soon. Marie and I were back out in the garden, and I was trying desperately to work and to ignore both my raging headache and Marie's incessant questions.

"How are you not hung over?" I wondered aloud.

"I'm never hung over. You should know that by now," she replied.

"You suck." I was attempting to assess this year's tomato seedlings for disease resistance, to compare it to last year's data, and Marie was weeding. Or she was supposed to be, but she definitely was spending more time interrogating me.

"So what exactly did you say to him?"

"It doesn't matter. I fell on my face right in front of him! That cancels out anything REMOTELY clever I might have said to him!" I violently made some notes in my notebook.

"I really think you're worried about nothing. You're a hot girl. That overrides clumsiness." She very delicately plucked the tiniest of weeds from a bed of cucumber seedlings.

Mercifully, we were interrupted by Bob, who was one of our town councilors. There were five of them, and one of their main tasks was assessing all visitors to determine if they could stay. They were also responsible for assigning them their new jobs. He was bringing up one of the new arrivals, a girl who looked about my age, who also appeared to be about six months pregnant.

"Stella, Marie, this is Maggie. She's got previous farming experience, so she's going to be working with you guys. Can you get her started?" he asked.

"Uh, yeah," I said. It was hard to believe they would make a pregnant girl do manual labor like this, but Bob was one who didn't take too kindly to questioning his actions.

Bob left her with us, and made a beeline for the infirmary. "Ugh," Marie said, "he's probably going to go boss them around now. Did you hear how he once wrote an episode of House?"

I laughed and rolled my eyes. That was his claim to expertise in the medical field, and he liked to mention it to pretty much everyone as often as possible. I explained this to Maggie, and it brought a slight smile to her face. She still looked like hell, but a slightly better version of hell where you can take a shower and have a decent meal. I was still puzzling over why Bob would assign her to the community garden.

Marie, having no worries about the potential landmine she was venturing into asked, "So are you pregnant, or what?"

Maggie nodded, "Yep." She had sort of a wry smile on her face, but you could see in her eyes she was terrified.

"Seems like kinda bad timing, given the running, and the zombies and all."

"Jesus, Marie, shut up!" Sometimes, I really couldn't believe her nerve.

Maggie didn't take offense. "Trust me, I know. But sometimes, shit just happens…."

"Bob's kind of a dick for making you do this kind of work in your condition," Marie said.

Maggie looked like she might have something to say about "her condition," but restrained herself. Instead, she simply explained, "I requested it."

I took this as my cue to change the subject. "So anyway, what kind of experience do you have?"

Maggie told me about the farm where she grew up, and that ended my questioning of Bob's sanity, at least on this particular subject. She had experience with pretty much every farm-related task, from delivering calves to beekeeping. I pretty much expected every newcomer to exaggerate their skill set to some extent because they were generally pretty desperate to stay. However, I believed Maggie was being completely honest, and I realized that we had hit the jackpot with her. I assigned her to organizing the giant bins of seeds since it was something that wasn't too demanding and also kept her out of the sun, which was pretty intense for a spring day. But she asked if she could help with the weeding, much to Marie's delight. "It would feel good to have my hands in the dirt again," she explained.

Of course, Marie wouldn't let her work in peace. She peppered her with questions, and I ran interference when I could see Marie was getting too personal. Marie seriously had no filter. She claimed that was why she had decided to go into computers. That was a field where bluntness was more of an asset than a liability.

We were able to piece together most of the story of Maggie and her group, and how they ended up here. They had been on the road for about six months, but hadn't found any compound where they were allowed to stay, or any uninhabited place that seemed safe enough. They had been living in a prison for several years, but when the de facto leader - some guy named Rick - was bit by a walker and killed, the infighting started. Maggie said the members of her original group decided they had had enough, and set out for a new place.

"Looking back, we could have stood our ground and thrown the others out since it was our place originally, but none of us had the stomach to fight other people, and that's what it would have gotten to. We'd done that before, and we weren't going down that road again." She stopped talking, and turned her face up to the sun, soaking up some of the rays for a minute.

I took this as my cue. "Are you guys hungry? Let's see what's for lunch in the kitchen."

000000

There are a lot of things you don't ever think about until they are gone. You just take something deceptively simple, like electricity, for granted. Too dark? Flip a switch and turn on a light. Bored? Turn on the TV or look at funny cat pictures on the internet for a while. Power's out? Enjoy the feeling of living like a pioneer for a while, but take comfort in the thought that it will be back on in a few hours. But you never realize how truly amazing something like electricity is until is gone. I mean, GONE gone -100% no-chance-in-hell of coming back, because it would take a wizard to sort out the shit show a power grid would have become after eight years of disrepair.

Because of the lack of power, it was much easier to have a central kitchen in the compound. There was a group of people assigned to planning, cooking, and serving meals based on what food we had access to at that time. Back at the beginning, our scavenger group would come across things like canned goods or pop, or things like that, but that stuff was pretty much all gone. (Some days I would have killed a man for a Coke.) Now it was what could be hunted or collected from the surrounding areas, grown in our garden, or taken from our goats and chickens. But I digress!

After we collected our lunches, Maggie saw a couple of members of her group eating, so she headed over to sit with them. I was about to sit at our usual table, when Marie asked where the hell I was going. "We have the perfect 'in' to go talk to them!"

"I don't want to butt in," I argued. "They don't look like they necessarily want our company."

Maggie saw us arguing and waved us over, so I had no choice but to go and sit down. "This is my dad, Herschel, Carl, and my husband, Glenn." We had clearly interrupted a serious discussion, but Marie for her part, took no notice.

"So how do you guys like it so far?" she asked.

Glenn glared at Carl and Herschel and said nothing. Herschel looked at Marie and me. He didn't answer our question, but rather asked one of his own. "How long have you all lived here?"

"It's been about seven years," I responded.

"You like it pretty well?" Herschel asked.

"Yeah, it's a good place, given the options. It's better than trying to go it alone, that's for damn sure," I said.

"Who runs the place?" Carl asked. The look on his face indicated that he was looking for a very specific answer.

"There's a five-person town council," Marie told him. "We have elections every other year. Although, since there aren't too many of us, everyone pretty much rotates through a spot. We have a couple of people who absolutely refuse, like Stella here, but MOST of us are willing to do our part."

I rolled my eyes at her. The answer seemed to suit Herschel and Glenn, but Carl still seemed skeptical. "And no one has ever tried to, like, seize control or anything?"

Marie and I both looked at him like he had two heads. "Um, no! There are a couple of jackasses who we have to put in their place, but people are pretty much in agreement with how things go here. If you don't like it, you are sent packing," she explained.

Glenn had the next question. "What about security? You guys pretty much just let us in."

"If you play nice with us, we play nice with you," I said simply. "If you had approached aggressively, you wouldn't have made it to the gate." I indicated the snipers along the wall. "It used to happen a lot, but lately people coming through have been much more cooperative. Maybe we're starting to regain our humanity."

Glenn and Carl shrugged, while Maggie and Herschel smiled slightly and nodded. I could tell who the optimists were in this bunch. We ate quietly for a minute, but then I felt Marie give me a sharp jab in the ribs. I glared at her, but noticed she was staring at something, a big grin spreading across her face.

I looked to see what was making her so giddy, and there was James Dean and his gun show, approaching with a little girl who looked to be about seven or eight. Naturally, he was holding her hand and was clearly completely enraptured with listening to her chatter.

"Oh shit, there go my ovaries again," Marie muttered in my ear.

I gave her a death stare, and pretended to be interested in my lunch. Of course he's good with kids! Of course! I was beginning to think that my excuse about not being interested because he must be an asshole was not going to cut it. I realized he was heading this way, so I got up and started to make an excuse about how I needed to go back to work. But Maggie waved at them to come over, and said, "Hang on, you need to meet Daryl and Judith." I wasn't sure I could handle another completely mortifying encounter, but I couldn't think of how to get the hell out of there and not look like a raving lunatic.

As they approached, Maggie said wistfully, "It is SO good to see her smiling again." Glenn and Herschel both had the most sorrowful look on their faces, and Carl wordlessly got up from the table and left. I immediately realized that Rick must have been Judith's father. Even Marie was silent. As the little girl approached, Maggie composed herself again. "Judith," Maggie said, "these are my new friends Marie and Stella."

"Hi," said Judith. She squeezed in between the two of us, and began to describe how much fun she had this morning, hanging out with Uncle Daryl.

The mood at the table brightened immediately, and I had to bite back a grin at Judith's nickname for him. I snuck a glance at "Uncle Daryl." While he looked slightly sheepish, he was clearly in love with that little girl. He ruffled her hair, and muttered, "That's my lil ass kicker." Again, I felt another jab in my rib from Marie. I was going to have a serious bruise there tomorrow.

"And this," continued Maggie, smirking, "is Uncle Daryl."

"Hey Funny Girl, what's happening?" He stuck his hands in his pockets and gave me that damn half-grin. I was suddenly very glad that I had my sunglasses so he couldn't see the panic in my eyes.

"Hey," I replied. I had to get out of there NOW. I VERY carefully stood up, so there wouldn't be an encore of my fall from last night, and told the rest of the group I REALLY had to be going. "It was nice meeting you all." As I fled the scene, I heard again, "See ya 'round, Funny Girl."

00000000

I was trying to bury myself in tomato-related facts and figures, when Maggie and Marie came back. I could tell the minute I looked at them that Marie had found herself an ally in her matchmaking plot. I put my head down on the table, certain I was going to die. "So," I said to them, not lifting my head, "have we all officially reverted to ninth grade?" When I finally looked up, Marie was nearly hyperventilating with excitement, and Maggie actually looked truly happy for the first time all day.

"Well," Marie announced, "your douchebag theory is OFFICIALLY debunked."

I groaned and put my head back down on the table.

"Oh, this is so awesome!" Maggie giggled. "I have so wanted to see Daryl find a girl! He is just the sweetest, most awesome guy! "

"Not to mention smoking hot," Marie interjected. As if we were all blind.

"OK, aren't you guys getting a little ahead of yourselves? I'm not sure if Marie mentioned it, Maggie, but I quite literally fell on my face in front of him! There's no coming back from that!"

"But he gave you a nickname!" Maggie protested. "He only does that with people he likes."

"Is it just people he likes, or people he LIKES likes?" I asked, immediately realizing how ridiculous that sounded.

"Ok, now who's in ninth grade?" Marie snorted.

"You know what I mean," I snapped. This had to end. I glared at Marie. "Under no circumstances are you to do ANY goddamn thing to interfere, or I will take great pleasure in strangling you with my bare hands." I looked at Maggie, and said, "I don't know you well enough to threaten you, so I'm just begging you to PLEASE not say anything to Daryl. Please?"

Maggie reluctantly agreed, but added, "Don't write him off, OK? He really deserves a great girl."

Just what I needed, more hope.