There were two gates to get into Alexandria, one red barred gate that looked strong. The other behind was covered with cloth, to stop anything from being able to see inside. Whoever was behind the gate rolled them open at the same time. Aaron helped Eric walk inside, before handing him off to someone behind the gate to help him away.

As we got close, something fell on the ground beside us and we all jumped. My gun was in my hand as Daryl shot whatever it was that jumped out. Someone opened the second gate to see what happened as Daryl picked up a possum.

"We brought dinner," Daryl said.

The guy in the orange shirt seemed nervous, almost.

"It's okay," Aaron said. "Come on in, guys."

I glanced at Rick, who just nodded, and we walked inside the gate. There were houses, as Aaron said, and they were massive. I don't think I'd ever seen a house as big as the ones in the community. As I entered beside Abraham, the gate began to close behind us, and I saw everyone look back.

"Before we take this any further, I need you all to turn over your weapons," the man said. "You stay, you hand them over."

"We don't know if we want to stay," Rick stepped forward.

"It's fine, Nicholas," Aaron tried.

"If we were gonna use them, we would have started already," Rick said.

"Let them talk to Deanna first," Aaron told Nicholas.

"Who's Deanna?" Abraham asked loudly beside me.

"She knows everything you'd want to know about this place," Aaron explained. "Rick, why don't you start?"

Rick gave a nod, but as he looked back to us he nodded to a walker that was approaching the gates, probably having come out from the woods or the dilapidated houses outside. "Sasha."

She turned around, raising her gun as someone began to close the gate. Sasha aimed, before letting off a silent shot into the walker that fell to the ground as the second gate closed us in, blocking any view we had to the outside. She faced us again.

"It's a good thing we're here," Rick said as he began walking to Deanna's house to begin the auditions.

That pegged the question in my mind, why hadn't anyone on watch handled the walker themselves? Why didn't they have a patrol or something to deal with it? Nobody seemed to call it in, and with how many walkers we had on our fences, getting ahead of them before they built up was the only way to deal with it. Were they this clueless?

Aaron went to speak to Deanna before she stepped out of her house to greet Rick. Deanna was a short woman with light red hair, who smiled and went to shake Rick's hand as they met. Rick handed Judith off to Carl before he stepped inside.

Rick was in the meeting for minutes, maybe ten at most, but it still felt like it had taken too long. And she wanted to have a meeting with all of us, which meant we would be sitting here for so long. Once he was done, they continued calling people into the house for meetings one-by-one.

I hated just sitting there. If anyone passed in the streets, they would be staring over at us through the gate into the garden where we were left. It was like we were on display for everyone to see. I kept my eyes on the porch in front of me, the dress I was wearing pooling on the ground and over my crossed legs.

"They're just curious," Aaron tried.

I rolled my eyes.

As the people left her house and finished with their meetings, they all seemed pleased. Everyone needed to talk about what they'd been doing in our group so she could find the best job for everyone to be placed in.

"She wants me to work with her husband," Isaac said. "He's an architect and she thinks that he could teach me, use my drawings to plan things for the future. I didn't think I'd be able to use it for anything." He was beaming, which made my disinterest in this place make me feel even worse. "It's really cool."

"It is cool," Michonne agreed. "Didn't Rick say there was a way for it to be useful?"

"Yeah," Isaac nodded and turned to Rick. "Thanks, for that."

"No problem," he gave a nod.

"I was offered to try the run group," Noah said.

"Same, dude," Tara raised her hand and Noah high-fived her.

"Yeah, me too," Glenn nodded from his place by the porch.

"It's good that they're keeping us together in some of these positions," Martinez added.

"Maybe there's no one here really qualified," I muttered from my place by the porch.

Aaron pretended not to hear, which was for the best because I really shouldn't have been acting bitchy there and then. Aaron and Eric were the people they sent out for recruitment, a job that also required you to be good at runs and scavenging because you needed to survive on the road until you found someone. Seeing one of the two people trusted with that job broke his leg under a pile of tyres, I doubted they had many more people even capable of going on runs.

"She wants me to be an engineer," Eugene began. "I'd get to work around here which is something, since as we are all aware, I'm not one to be outside the walls without getting served a heaping helpin' of—"

"Shut. Up." I snapped quietly, and he stopped immediately.

Not being bitchy went out the window. In my defence, Eugene opened his mouth.

Again, I received a glance from Aaron that I ignored. Hopefully, he thought I was just a moody teenager and that I didn't have a profound hatred for someone in my group. After that, he went to walk away, just stretching his legs as Abraham continued his meeting.

After I ruined the mood, everyone continued talking amongst themselves, and I went back to carving into the ground with a stick.

Rick came and sat beside me, but didn't say anything. He wanted to talk, I could tell, but maybe he was still struggling with his decision about coming here. Maybe he just didn't want to bring it up in front of everyone else, but still needed someone to talk to. Though, I was a little biased about the whole thing.

"They like it here," I mumbled, drawing on the ground with a stick.

Rick nodded in agreement. "Yeah, I know."

"Do you want to stay here?" I asked, glancing out the side of my eye.

"I'm not sure yet," he shook his head.

"Think you could decide before they take our guns?"

"Trust me, I'm trying," he said.

I nodded, keeping my eyes on the ground. "What do you want me to tell her?"

"What do you mean?"

I gave him a look that made it obvious. As much as I had done to help these people survive, I didn't think that telling her I'd actively been trying to kill a member of my group would paint us in the best light. The same went for telling her what Eugene had done for me to find it necessary to want him dead. It was a story that would tarnish her opinion of both of us and more so, me. If Rick wanted to stay here, then I couldn't bring that up.

"I'm not sure," Rick shook his head. "I don't know what she's trying to find out, what her angle is if she even has one. But we need to be careful." There was a pause as he continued to think about my question, shrugging his shoulders. "Just tell her the truth."

The door opened as Abraham left the room. Part of me hoped that they'd just forget about me, let me skip the audition and just do what I would have normally done back in the group. But Aaron met my eyes and nodded for me to go next. I scoffed, rolling my eyes as I stood and passed the rest of my people up the stairs.

"Last but not least," the woman smiled as she came out to meet me. "It's nice to meet you . . ."

I just stared at her, and there was a pause that Aaron had to fill. "Ace."

"Interesting name," she commented with a smile, before gesturing inside with her head. "Come in."

I went inside and looked around before Deanna led me through her house and into the living room. Her house was full of books, and it was huge. The sitting room was the size of my living room and kitchen combined before the apocalypse. Had they been here since the start? I walked inside and leaned my rifle against the bookshelf behind the armchair.

"I assume you know about the recordings?" She said, and I took a look around the room, only noticing the camera as I walked around, seeing it behind the sofa pointed at an armchair. She sat down in front of the camera to the left so she didn't get in the way. "If you don't want to be filmed then I can turn it off."

"Don't care," I mumbled.

I sat down in front of the camera, leaning back in the seat and resting my head on my hand. What was the point of filming us? I didn't understand. Not that I understood a lot about this place. How did they manage to keep it so safe? It didn't make any sense.

"I understand you've been through a great deal. Can you tell me about your journey to our community?"

What was the point? She'd already heard about how we came here from the 16 or so other people that must have told her. I didn't want to get into what happened with a stranger, because, with some of the things that happened to us, I couldn't conceal my anger about some members of my group. It probably didn't paint the best picture.

We sat in silence for maybe a minute or so, where she was expecting me to answer the question. I could have just told her how stupid it was, but maybe arguing with her was another thing that would make us look bad.

Deanna leaned forward in her seat. "Let me tell you what I think, and you can tell me if I'm right. You're trying to think about what you should or shouldn't tell me, that if you say something I might think you're irredeemable. Is that right?"

The look on her face, not quite a grin—but she thought she was so smart. I didn't know these people well enough for me to care about what they thought of me. Not yet, at least. Maybe it would come up in the future, but whatever I said in this interview wouldn't matter if Rick didn't trust this place enough to stay.

Lifting my head off my hand, I said, "Maybe I'm just waiting for you to ask a question that matters."

Deanna stared at me for a second, before a small smile appeared on her face and she let out a breathy chuckle. "Okay, we can move on if that's what you'd like. What did you want to be before everything happened?"

"Fuck me," I whispered under my breath.

"You don't think that question matters?" She raised a brow.

"I'm not even 17, it matters what I can do," I told her. "Because, funnily enough, I'm not old enough to have done what I wanted with my life."

"I asked you that to gauge the kind of person you are. It tells me more than you'd think," she said.

I rolled my eyes. "It's a waste of time."

"You think you could be as thorough?" She guessed.

"I used to do this, and I know I don't have to be that thorough," I told her truthfully. We used the three questions, which typically told us all we needed to know about the person. Then all that was needed was to work out their strengths and skills. "I think if we were doing this my way, we'd be done by now."

"This would be going quicker if you answered my questions," she said.

"This would be going quicker if you didn't start the video with small talk. And most of your questions are unnecessary," I said boredly, but decided to answer just to move the meeting along. "I wanted to be a doctor or a biomedical scientist for oncology."

"What made you want to be a doctor?"

"Irrelevant," I reminded her.

"This isn't a courtroom," she said. "You're not a lawyer."

I leaned forward. "And you're not my therapist, so stop acting like it."

Again, this brought about a chuckle from Deanna, amused and a little impressed. "Your aspiration tells me a lot. You must have been getting good grades, which means you're hard-working. And, whatever the reason is, you wanted to help people."

I clenched my teeth, shaking my head. "My mother died when I was a kid. Leukaemia."

There was a brief pause, and I could see the look in her eyes as she realised she should have probably stopped pushing the topic. "I'm sorry about that, I really am," Deanna said softly. "It's very admirable that you wanted to become a doctor to help people like her. If you had the chance, would you still want to be a doctor?"

I hadn't even thought about that since I found the bedroom of someone who studied at Harvard. But from her tone, I could tell that she was trying to offer me the chance to learn medicine. They had a doctor here who could teach me.

I thought for a second, before shaking my head. "No."

"How come?" Deanna raised a brow.

(Because when Hershel had his leg cut off I couldn't even be in the same room as him. Because when everyone got the flu, I couldn't even get the medicine to them without my chest feeling so tight. Because I kill more people than I save.)

The gaps Deanna left to see if I would answer her questions were getting shorter and shorter. "We have a doctor, someone who could teach you. You should think about it," she explained. "Though, you should probably talk to Pete anyway." Deanna finally moved on, "What did you do in your old community?"

I straightened up, my hand falling into my lap. "Everything. I was a mechanic, so I was one of the only ones that could fix our cars if something went wrong. I rebuilt the walls that had come down, cleared the building out. I stayed on watch, I did runs. I was put in charge after the war. I was on the front lines a lot."

(I killed people).

Deanna could tell, I could see in the way she paused as she tried to take in everything I said. "That's a lot to unpack. Maggie mentioned that there was a council, you were on it?"

I just nodded, not even looking at her. There was a pause, where she was probably expecting me to talk more about it, but again, it was something she already heard about from the others. Aside from how little energy I had to lead, I didn't do anything that the others didn't.

When she realised I wasn't going to say anything, she continued. "You were a mechanic. That's impressive, how did you learn that?"

"I've been helping my dad in his garage for as long as I can remember," I said simply. "I probably had a wrench in my hand before I could ride a bike."

"Is he—?"

"He went missing in the first week, after the bombing," I stopped her. "I was alone until Glenn found me."

"I'm sorry for your loss, Ace. I know it isn't easy, going through any of this alone," she said.

If you insist, I wanted to say. Every time I brought up my dad and how I lost him, they always just assumed he was dead. Maybe he was dead, but there was no way to say definitively. I just wanted him to be alive, but that was kind of hard to imagine happening when everyone just assumed he was gone. However, it was worse that she considered me alone.

"How was it fitting into your group without having your family around?" Deanna asked.

"They are my family," I said truthfully.

"I've heard that a lot today," she smiled. "Who would you say has taken care of you since you joined the group?"

"We take care of each other," I said. "But Rick's been the closest to me since the beginning. He's been taking care of me like one of his own. And Glenn has always been there for me, even when he didn't know who I was. Daryl and the others too. I've never been alone."

"You all seem very close," she commented, but Deanna moved on quickly. "We don't have a mechanic, we were just fortunate enough that nothing went wrong with our cars."

Shocker. Telling everyone that I was a mechanic was supposed to be good for one thing, to help people trust me. Now I knew that didn't work, I wished that I had just kept my mouth shut and lied. (I was immediately taken back to when Rick asked me why I never told anybody that I was a mechanic, and I told him I knew the minute it came out, all I was going to do was fix cars.)

"How did you learn to build? The walls, the gate?" She carried on.

"It's not hard," I mumbled.

Deanna nodded. "So you taught yourself?"

I shrugged. Most cement bags we found had the instructions right there on the bag, though I knew the ingredients anyway. Back in school, they used cement as a demonstration of ratios during maths. And the pulley system was just basic pivots to get the gate to open and close. Nothing I did would compare to the kinds of maths or design a professional could do.

"My husband is a professor of architecture," she said. "He's always looking for new people to go down to the shopping mall, it was in the middle of being built, so we got all of our supplies from there. Do you think that would be something you're interested in? If so, we have a group heading down to the site in a few days."

I hummed quietly in response, she may not have even heard it.

"You don't seem interested," Deanna noted.

My eyes returned to hers. "It's a job. You want me to jump around?"

"About any of this," she corrected herself. "Do you want to be here, Ace?"

No. "Whatever Rick says is what we'll do."

"And if Rick wants to stay?"

"Like I said," I told her. It was the truth, if Rick wanted to stay, we'd stay. Though, it seemed like Rick was thinking a little more than just staying here, and to be honest, I didn't disagree with him. "I couldn't care less one way or the other."

Again, she moved on, not delving too much into it. "How do you deal with the load? The amount of work you said you did, it must have been hard."

"I just do it," I said.

"That's it? Nothing to help you stay motivated or anything?"

"I don't need anything to keep me motivated," I said. "I just say I'm going to do my work and I do it. It has to be done, it's not something you can blow off. When it comes down to it, you can't just stop. It doesn't work."

(I tried.)

"I know what stressful situations are like," she said. "I had to exile people that didn't work out, and we know that's as good as killing them."

"If you think it's anywhere near as bad as killing someone then you don't know what it's like," I told her. "But you know that already. It's probably the reason we're here today. You wanted people who have been out there, surviving on the road. Maybe you want to believe that the ones you exiled out made it because others have."

Deanna was quiet, staring at me.

"I can read people too," I told her.

"I suppose you can, you'd probably do better in more areas than just manual labour, you know? But I assume that isn't what you want," she guessed. "You're strong-willed, you've been through a lot. I wish I could've heard more of that."

"I'm sure you do," I muttered.

"I can tell you want to get out of here," she noticed (because I didn't make that obvious). "I don't typically have so many jobs in mind for one person, and someone rarely gets their pick of so many, but you're the only one with the skills to do some of them."

At least this was coming out in my favour, I was needed in so many areas that it should be enough to keep myself busy. I couldn't deny the job like I had with my group, because again it would bring up stories that made our group look so bad.

"We need a mechanic," she stressed, "and I'm sure I don't need to tell you those skills are invaluable. And as I said, my husband is always looking for more builders, so think about whether you'd like to try that too. Though, he may want to talk to you himself. You could work with Eugene as an engineer."

Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Because why not, work with Eugene, that'd be great. It was like she already knew how much I hated him. Aside from that, I wasn't sure I wanted to be a builder again. I'd put so much work into the last community just to have it blow up in my face. I wasn't sure I could do that again.

"But Glenn told me you two went on a lot of runs together, and it seems like you don't want to be stuck here," she said. "So, in a few days, the run group is going out on a quick patrol to show you how we do things, and if you think you'd be okay to join them with your injuries then you're welcome to do that. My son, Aiden, will show you all the ropes."

"We don't need to be shown the ropes," I told her, but then realised something and I frowned. "Are your people ready to go out there with new people?"

Deanna tilted her head in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, you asked Aaron to find people who lived out there, who know how to survive," I reminded her. "This is only going to work if they're okay with us being there, doing things the way we know works."

"What we do works," she said.

Then why ask us to come here? I bit my tongue, knowing that the run had a chance to blow up in our faces. For some reason, Deanna didn't see it. Didn't see that people who haven't worked together or even met before may have differences in opinions on how to do things. There would be no trust between any of us, and it was stupid to think that it would just come about when we did it.

"So I work on whatever whenever I'm needed?" (Just the same as I did before. Cool.)

"If that's okay with you?" She asked. "We really don't have many people with the skills you have, and I don't want to put you somewhere and have you stuck working on one thing because I can see in your face that isn't something you'd want."

Sure, why not? That was my life at the prison and I was so . . . happy. Though, if I had just been a mechanic and all the cars were fixed I'd be going crazy doing nothing, so she was probably right about that.

I don't know.

Everything seemed less official to me. Everyone had been raving about the jobs they were given, and how they all had a specific role. They acted like they had never been needed to work within a group before. It made a little sense, we'd been on the road for so long that everyone had the same job, to survive.

I never expected to be placed anywhere else, I knew I'd be a builder or a mechanic or an engineer, I knew I'd be wanted on runs or outside the walls because that's what I'd always done. I just felt the same, I wasn't excited like everyone else.

I wanted to feel excited like the others, wanted to care that I had been given a job, that someone trusted me to do all of that stuff. But it was the same as back in the prison. I'd have to put all that work in again, for a community that already looked finished.

"Are we done here?"

"We can be," she said. "But the offer to work with Pete still stands. Think about it. Not many people have gotten to follow their aspirations since the world ended."

I grabbed my bag and my rifle and stood up before Deanna showed me back out of her house into the bark garden where everyone was still waiting. They all looked up as I left the building, but I just walked off the porch and down into the garden, standing closest to the fence at the back of the group.

"Okay," Deanna smiled as she greeted the rest of the group. "I'd say everything is going well so far. But we do need you to hand over your weapons."

Everyone was a little hesitant, even Isaac who had so badly wanted to come here. A woman with brown hair and glasses rolled a black cart into the garden where we were waiting, and I crossed my arms, watching her.

"This is Olivia," Deanna says. "She works in the pantry and keeps track of the weapons. I'm going to need all of you to hand over your guns to her so she can keep them safe in the store room."

Still, everyone was slow to react. But Deanna gave Rick a look and told him that he should be the one to start it off, and so with a sigh, he did. He placed his revolver down on the cart that Olivia had brought over so she could take our guns away.

"They're still your guns," Deanna was saying. "You can check them out whenever you go beyond the wall. But inside here, we store them for safety."

"Fucking stupid," I muttered.

Deanna shot me a look but didn't say anything. "It's safe here, you won't need anything inside the walls, but you can keep your knives if you so desire."

Olivia looked at me, hinting that I should put down my things. With a sigh, I stepped forward and put my handgun and rifle down on the cart. I wasn't going to give up the axe, and if anyone asked I planned to say that it was for climbing. Eventually, I did want to learn to use it for climbing, I could probably have so many escape routes or ways to travel around if I could use the axe.

"Can I look in your bag, see if you have any more weapons?" Olivia asked me.

It made sense, I was one of the only one of us who still carried a bag and she checked Isaac's too. Still, I was hesitant. I had a lot of things in my bag that had the potential to be dangerous, but whether these people knew that was uncertain. Still, I pulled my bag off my shoulder and opened it for her.

"Wire, some cans, bottles . . . sugar, fertiliser, maybe we could steal some of that from you for the garden?" (Sure, that's why I carried fertiliser, for gardening.) As she continued to search my bag, she shook her head and smiled at me. "Nope, all good."

When I zipped my bag up, Abraham raised his brows, giving me a knowing look. He understood what those supplies were for, but nobody here seemed to pick up on it. That was good for us because even if they'd taken our guns, we still had some means to defend ourselves that wasn't close range.

The last person to hand over their things was Carol, who looked like she was struggling to lift the machine gun over her head, getting the strap from over her shoulders. I frowned, watching her as she finally, tentatively placed it down on the cart. The woman, Olivia, smiled at her, giving her the time. But, she didn't need any time. Was she acting?

When she had put her gun down, Olivia rolled the cart back out of the garden. "Should have brought another bin."

Carol met my eyes and smiled.

Yeah, it was an act.

I smiled back at her.

Everyone spoke amongst themselves, or split off to explore the nearby area, but nobody went too far. We could still basically see everyone outside the gate as they began to look around the community, curious, but also nervous. This was probably the longest we've been inside someone else's community without shit hitting the fan.

"I can show you to your houses," Aaron said to Rick, who was standing nearby. "Give you the chance to look around."

Carl returned to hear Aaron give the offer after he handed Judith off to someone else, and he looked to Rick, who was in the process of considering. But we really had no other choice, we'd already handed over our weapons and had nowhere else to go unless Rick suddenly flipped a switch and decided that we weren't staying.

"Sure," Rick agreed with a nod. He announced to the rest of the group that we'd be checking where we were supposed to be staying, and everyone nodded in agreement, saying that they'd follow us in a little while.

"Come on," Aaron waved for us to follow him.

I did too. Thankfully, Aaron was silent for the walkover, so we didn't have to deal with his awkward thanks or admiration so we decided to see what his group was like. Eventually, he led us so far down to houses that were right next to one of the walls to the outside.

"Here they are," he raised both of his hands and gestured to the two houses we were standing between.

"Both of 'em?" Rick asked.

"At your disposal. I'd call dibs on that one," Aaron pointed to the one closest to the wall. "It's got more curb appeal."

"Because that matters," I rolled my eyes.

"Listen, I know you're still feeling us out, but I'm glad you came," he said to Rick sincerely. "Anyway, Deanna's asked everyone to give you your space so they aren't all coming at you at once. Take your time. Explore. If you need anything, you call me."

I raised a brow.

"I don't—we don't have phones. I-I meant . . ." he took a breath and pointed. "I'm four houses down."

"Thank you," Carl said to shut him up.

Rick looked at us so we could follow him inside. Immediately inside were a bunch of empty picture frames, probably of the family that lived here before—I tried not to think about it too much. We broke off with Carl at the front door, as he headed upstairs, and I followed Rick into the living room.

I heard Carl creaking upstairs as he walked around, but I wasn't worried. We would've smelt if this house had any walkers inside, and if they wanted to ambush or kill us in the house, then they'd want all of us to be in the house at the same time. It wasn't going to happen yet, at least. (I was starting to doubt it would happen at all.)

"What do you think?" Rick asked.

I didn't know whether he was asking about the house or just the community in general now I had the chance to talk to Deanna. And, like at Shirewilt, I didn't care all that much about the community. I couldn't tell whether they were good or bad because honestly, I had no desire to even look that far into it. I would be living the same as I had been at the prison, except I liked being at the prison.

Instead, I was just shocked by the sheer size of the houses. "When my mum . . . me and dad had to move into an apartment," I said. "Down to one income. Had to buy a lot of plane tickets and stuff. Then . . . then the world ended. I just—I didn't think I'd ever be back in a house again."

"What do you think about this place?" Rick asked.

"It's weird," I said. "And she seems a little delusional. I don't think the run is going to go well, because we have our way of doing things and they may do things differently. It didn't seem like she mentioned prepping them for newcomers."

"Everyone else said she gave them jobs," Rick said. "Only some of us, though. Daryl and Sasha weren't given anything. Neither were me or Michonne."

"She offered me a couple of jobs, but I do the same thing I did at the prison because no one else around here seems to be able to, which is just the story of my life," I said. "Building, mechanics. I don't know if I'd want to build again, put that much effort into a community," I explained. "She said I can try out for runs, though, which I wasn't expecting."

I paused, trying to decide whether to bring up the next thing. "And she wants me to try working with their doctor so he can teach me."

Rick raised a brow. "How come?"

"I wanted to be a doctor before," I said. "Not many people have gotten to follow their aspirations since the world ended. It's stupid though, I told her I didn't want that anymore."

"No?"

"No."

"I didn't know you wanted it before," Rick commented.

I shrugged. "It was a short-lived, pre-apocalypse dream that ended the day you cut off Hershel's leg."

"Sorry," he gave a sad smile, before leaning back on the kitchen counter. "How are you going to feel about going back to doing mechanics?"

"I couldn't tell her I quit without bringing up the fact that Eugene is a compulsive liar or that me and Abraham tried to kill him. She'd never let us stay if she knew something like that, it doesn't exactly paint us in the best light," I explained.

Rick pursed his lips and tilted his head. "I'm just surprised you told her you could fix cars after everything that happened."

"You said to answer her questions," I reminded him. "I answered them."

"I did," he said quietly, his hands on his hips as he turned away. After a brief pause, he changed the topic. "I don't know what to think about this place either. It doesn't seem like they're bad, but if that's the case, then they seem weak."

"Delusional," I muttered. "It just seemed too good, I guess."

"I know what you mean," Rick nodded.

After shaking his head.

"Enjoy it for now, let the others enjoy it at least," Rick said. "I'm gonna wash up while we have the chance."

"Yeah," I said. "I'll get the others."

As Rick went to find the bathroom, I walked back down the street to where we'd left the others near Deanna's house. They were still there, basically, no one ventured out much further. Glenn noticed me as I came over to find them.

"Everything okay?" He asked.

"They gave us two big houses," I said. "I just want to show everyone so we know where they are."

"Okay," he nodded. "Come on, guys! We're gonna go see the houses."

The group followed me and Glenn back to where Aaron showed us the houses. As we reached for the doors down, where Aaron told me he'd lived, I saw him moving around in his own house. He was probably taking care of Eric after the accident.

My mind went to Aaron a lot, he'd done a lot for me since we met and I repaid him by trying to shoot him. I know what happened with Isaac was my fault, but I don't think I was wrong. When Aaron found us, I was scared he'd hurt us and embarrassed to be caught in my first kiss. Aaron didn't tell Rick what happened or why we didn't see him. He was sad when I told him that me and Isaac weren't speaking currently and he'd been nothing but pleasant (if not a little creepy at times.)

None of this gave me any opinion on the community, and it was becoming worrying that I still couldn't care about this place. The only thing that crossed my mind when I wondered why was that it wasn't the prison. I put so much work into the prison and it was gone. What was the point in doing the same thing here?

"This place seems okay, yeah?" Glenn asked, almost sensing that I was wondering about it.

"We'll see what they can do on the run," I mumbled.

"Doesn't matter what they can do," he said. "We're here, if they aren't good at runs then we can take over, show them how to do it."

"If they let us," I said.

"Why wouldn't they? They wanted us here," Glenn reminded me.

"Deanna wanted us here, but she hasn't said why," I said. "It just seems too good to be true."

Glenn was quiet, considering, but he nodded. "Yeah, I guess."

I knew it was useless, there were a select group of people that believed there could still be something wrong here. Rick, maybe Daryl. And since the act she'd been pulling at the gun drop off, Carol was planning for something to go wrong. It would be easier to talk to those than try and convince any of the others who needed this place to work that we still didn't know everything.

As we reached our houses I gestured to the both of them. Carl was sitting outside, and he stood up when he saw them. "They gave us both of the houses," Carl said as we approached. "I haven't looked at the other house yet."

Carol nodded. "I'll take a look with you."

"Sure you're strong enough for that?" I asked her quietly with a raise of my brow.

She smirked, before pushing my shoulder away. "I can manage it."

I scoffed as she walked away, shaking my head with a smile. I turned to the other house, "Rick was in here last I checked."

As I walked up the porch, the door opened, and I expected Rick to be coming out, but instead there was a blonde woman. I froze as she smiled at me. She wasn't carrying a weapon, which was the reason I didn't have my hand over my knife ready.

"Nice to meet you, Ace, right? I'm Jessie," she said. "I've just been giving your dad a cut."

Rick? Guess so, he was the only one here as far as I knew, seeing as I'd brought everyone back now. That means that Rick had told her that he was my dad, or acting dad at the very least because we had a lot of young people that I doubt she'd just assume it.

After the awkward silence I left while wondering about her, I said. "Hi."

"I'll leave you be," she smiled.

Rick was inside as everyone began to enter the house, giving him a brief laugh as they saw him clean-shaven with a new cut. It was similar to how he used to look, but he wasn't the same. Even though it'd only been a year, Rick looked so much more mature than when I first met him.

"There's some clothes upstairs," Rick said. "We can get that dress washed."

"What happened to your face?" I tried to joke, not that my face gave it away.

"Yeah, you can see it," Daryl agreed.

"Get changed," he ignored me.

I tried thinking of more jokes as I made my way upstairs, digging through the girl clothes that some of the others had already dragged out. The good thing was there were shorts there, so I grabbed the black cotton shorts and a yellow striped vest top, before heading back downstairs. Rick was still waiting when I returned as the others filtered into the house.

"I liked your face better before, you know," I felt I had to tell him.

While he gave a small smile, he didn't answer me. Instead, Rick nodded for me and Daryl to follow him outside. Carol met us in the lane after she came out of the other house they'd given us. She shook her head, looking between them. "They're right next to each other, but—"

"They took our weapons and now they're splitting us up," Rick agreed, finishing her sentence.

"I still have everything I need to make bombs, they didn't know what the stuff in my bag was for or something. I didn't bring it up in the interview, either," I said. "So we have that if it comes down to it."

"That's good, keep it safe, don't let anyone know that you can do that," Rick said, nodding at my idea. "We'll all be staying in the same house tonight."

I ate once I had gotten out of the shower, and then all the exhaustion hit me at once. After taking the naproxen, I grabbed one of the blankets and laid down at the back end of the room, using my coat as a pillow. I slipped in and out of sleep, it was a little early, but after the night before, I was so tired it didn't matter that everyone else was staying awake.

Everyone took turns eating and using the shower, which made everyone happier that they were there. I can't remember the last time I had a shower, probably back at the prison. I pulled the blanket further over myself.

There was a hand on my arm that shook me awake a little, and I glanced back to see a blurry Rick. "Did you eat?"

I grumbled a yes in response, tucking myself against the wall as I tried falling asleep. I knew everyone around me would probably still be awake for a while, talking with the lights on, but I didn't have the energy to do that myself. I was awake most of the night before.

"Did you take your pills?"

Again, I just let out a sound that was remotely similar to yes, not wanting to wake up too much. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the others were beginning to settle down now, pulling out the blankets so we could all be in the same room, some watching the windows.

"Okay," he placed a hand on my shoulder. "Sleep well, kiddo."

Rick stood up near me.

"How long was I in there for?" Michonne asked, standing near my feet.

"20 minutes," Rick answered.

"God, I could not stop brushing."

I could hear the smile in her voice, and even after I had cleaned myself.

"Huh," I heard Michonne say. "I've never—I've never seen your face like that."

I realised that between all the movement and cleaning everyone's been doing, she hadn't gotten the chance to see Rick since he'd shaved. "That's what I felt before and after."

"Look . . . I get why we're playing it safe. We should," Michonne said. I just—I have a good feeling about this place."

"Well, I hope you're right."

"Yeah, me, too."

I felt myself drifting off as they spoke near me. There was a knock at the door that woke me up, but I just kept my head down. It couldn't have been anyone I wanted to see, because it was either Deanna or Aaron this time of night.

"Rick, I—Wow." Rick groaned at Deanna's exclamation at his new look. "I didn't know what was under there. Listen, I don't mean to interrupt. I just wanted to stop by and see how you were all settling," I looked back over my shoulder as I heard her enter. "Oh, my. Staying together. Smart."

"No one said we couldn't."

"You said you're a family," she reminded him. "That's what you said. Absolutely amazing to me how people with completely different backgrounds and nothing in common can become that. Don't you think?"

Rick changed the topic. "Everybody said you gave them jobs."

Deanna hummed. "Yeah, part of this place. Looks like the communists won after all."

"Well, you didn't give me one," he said.

"I have, I just haven't told you yet. Same with Michonne," Deanna said. "I'm closing in on something for Sasha. And Ace has proven to be quite useful also, she's smart—has some strong opinions on the way we do things here, but I'm sure we can find some common ground."

"Yeah, that sounds right," Rick agreed.

I rolled my eyes and turned back over, the string of the cotton shorts sticking into my side. Just because I had some strong opinions, doesn't mean they're wrong. Deanna had already ticked me off in the interview, and I didn't have it in me to try arguing with her again.

"And I'm just trying to figure Mr. Dixon out," Deanna finished, "but I will. You look good."

As the door closed, everyone began to settle down to sleep and I passed out the minute the lights turned off.

First stupid thing addressed this chapter, Deanna not warning the run group/having them talk to Ricks people before making them go on a run. People die out there, as you so believe, and yet you stick two groups that don't know each other together. Let them meet first.

Anyway, lmk what you thought :)