Disclaimer—I don't own or make claim to the characters from The Walking Dead. I only own my original characters.

They sit in silence, staring at me in shock after the revelation that we were at Disney World when things started. Finally, Rick speaks up. "Your van has Colorado license plates."

I nod. "We almost flew. We're lucky we didn't or we'd all be dead right now. We had decided to drive, to see some sights on the way. The kids had never been east of Colorado, so we figured it was worth making some memories on the way."

Carol asks, "How in the world did you get out of Disney World alive? I mean, there are thousands of people there. One walker could make thousands of walkers really quickly. People wouldn't have a chance."

I take a deep breath. "Well, really it was my husband, Dave, who saved us. Without him we'd never have made it out, we would have become some of those thousands of walkers. He humored me and my desire to take the kids to Disney World." I huff out a laugh at the memory. "He hated crowds. The very last place on earth he wanted to be was there. But, I suppose, after 23 years of marriage he knew when not to argue, when it was hopeless." I smile, remembering. "I can be pretty stubborn when I have my mind set on something," I confide, and they all laugh. I think Rick laughed the hardest of all. Maggie says, "Wow, 23 years. That's a long time."

"Yeah," I say. "It is."

"How did he get you out?" Carol asks.

I look back up at them. "Well, he had his stubborn moments too," I laugh. "We were on our third day there. It was early afternoon and I think the kids had already hit every ride in the park at least once by then. He started telling me that weird things were happening. That we need to leave, to get back to the hotel. I thought he was just tired and cranky, but this time it was me that didn't argue. I thought I'd just head back with the kids after we dropped him off so he could take a break." I chuckle, "Maybe take a nap. But once we reached the hotel he insisted on packing up. I didn't know what he was going on about and, honestly, he made me mad. I'd worked so hard to plan this trip and now he just wanted to leave early? I started to argue with him and he just grabbed me and told me this wasn't just him being a dork about crowds. That there were some serious news reports circulating of some strange virus that was making people act crazy, attack other people, even eat other people like cannibals. I didn't know what to think, it sounded so out there, ya know?" They all nod at me. They remember how crazy it sounded at first.

"But then he looked into my eyes and told me that if I loved him," my voice cracks on the words. I take a deep breath. "If I loved him or ever trusted him, I needed to trust him more than ever now, stop arguing and help him pack up so we could get out of there. So we could get our kids out of there before it was too late."

All is silent as they digested that. Maggie asks, "So you believed him?"

I smile. "I don't know that it was so much that I believed him as that I could see that he believed it. This wasn't just him sick of vacation, he was serious. He thought there was a threat. So we packed up and left."

"Just like that?" Carol asks.

"Just like that," I say. "Of course, the kids were furious. How dare we cut short their vacation? But we got on the road, got out of the city and managed to make it to Atlanta before the roads gridlocked."

"You were in Atlanta?" Rick asks, surprised.

"Well, only peripherally," I say. "Once we saw the roads were packed and we wouldn't get through, we ended up on 85 going the opposite direction than we wanted. It was the only way out though, that road was moving at least. By this time we'd been listening to the reports on the radio and even the kids were convinced something bad was going down. And then we saw them bombing Atlanta from a distance. That was a night I'll never forget."

"You were headed home?" Carol asked.

"We were trying," I responded. "It seemed to be an exercise in frustration though. Every time we made progress, we'd lose it. We soon had to get off 85 because it was so congested as we approached Charlotte. I couldn't even tell you what roads we took. Every back road we could find that was clear and trying to turn west whenever we could. We should have done that in Atlanta and maybe we wouldn't have ended so much further east than we wanted to be. Then we had to start scavenging for gas. The gas stations were closed but there were cars everywhere. It felt so wrong, but the cars were abandoned or their owners were dead inside and we were alive and needed it. So we scavenged and stayed wherever we could find that was safe. We spent months doing that and trying to head toward home. There was always some blockage that would send us east again. Eventually we came upon some people. They said they had a community, good people, wanted us to join." I look Rick in the eyes as I say that.

He responds, "Did you?"

"We decided it was worth checking out. We were exhausted and hadn't made much progress toward home. It would give us a place to regroup and recharge, get ready for a longer journey than we ever thought we'd be taking. Obviously the 30 hour drive of old was going to take months, maybe even years. We followed them back, but their community wasn't all they said it was."

"What was wrong with it?" asked Maggie.

"Well, first of all it was just a bunch of people camping out around a tank. As if a tank could protect them from walkers," I scoff. I see their eyes perk up as I mentioned the tank.

"Then it was just little things from there. We stayed the night with them, but Dave and I took shifts keeping watch. Something just didn't feel right. Then the next morning, we met their leader. He was some smooth talking operator, that's for sure. He wore an eye patch of all things! I don't know if he actually needed it or not, but he had those people wrapped around his finger. We soon learned that what they really wanted was more people to go to war for him. There were some people who lived in a prison who had done him wrong. He was planning a war to take over this prison. According to him these were hard criminals that we'd be doing the world a favor by taking them out." I scoff again, "Those people were buying it, every one of them."

Rick asks, "You didn't?"

"No," I reply. "Dave and I talked it over and we could both see that he just wanted that prison. Maybe they'd done him wrong, maybe not, but we guessed not. But really, we didn't care. No way were we going to fight a war for this guy, put our children in danger for him. But, we knew better than to tell him that. He just smelled that kind of crazy, you know?"

Maggie says, "Yeah. We know. So what did you do?"

"Well, we smiled and nodded and said the right things. And we watched and waited. As soon as there was a chance that night, we booked it out of there. Luckily we'd parked the van outside of camp. The way was blocked west and we knew they had lookouts on the roads that way watching for those people at the prison. So we headed east, again."

"So you got away?" Rick asked.

"Yeah," I reply, "We never saw them again luckily. He looked like the kind of guy that would take our leaving personally."

"Well, you're not wrong about that," Rick says. "We were the people at the prison. I'm glad you didn't come with him to attack us."

"What?!" I exclaim. "You were at the prison?"

"Yeah," Maggie said. "He wanted what we had and managed to destroy the prison while he was at it. He got most of his people killed too. He was bad news and nobody had a home there anymore after he was done. Except the walkers."

I take a moment to digest that. "Wow. So you guys were out there as well then once you lost the prison?"

"We were," Rick replies.

Carol asks, "Where did you go after leaving them?"

"Well, we wandered for months. Two steps forward and 5 back it seemed like constantly. Scavenging for supplies, gas, food. Eventually we ended up near Harrisburg. I wasn't sure we were going to make it anymore, to be honest. It had been so long since we started and we were no closer to getting home. But then we met some more people. We were more wary this time around, cautious. We met and talked to them a few times before we even thought about going back to their camp. They seemed...sincere. There was this older lady who had that whole maternal thing going on. Anyway, they called their place an 'Outpost' and said there was a bigger group in another location. They did mostly farming at their place. It wasn't a bad place. We worked hard, but then we worked hard out there scavenging too. And they had food. So much food. They shipped a lot of it off to other locations, but we got first pick because we grew it. It wasn't the best place in the world, but it wasn't the worst place either. We spent a few months there, relatively happy. We all worked in the fields and grew and harvested food. Dave and I planned on resting for a bit, putting away some food stores for later so we had some for the rest of our trip home. We hadn't given up, we'd just delayed things a bit."

Right then, Daryl comes walking in. Maggie pauses the recording while Rick gets up to talk to Daryl. They speak low, but I hear something about the prisoner still being unconscious. Prisoner, I think to myself? That doesn't bode well for this place if they have prisoners. My heart sinks. This place was growing on me. I so wanted it to be what it presented itself as--a safe place to raise my kids with a community of like-minded people. Not psychopaths who keep prisoners.

Carol looks over at me. "Hey, we can finish this later. Why don't we head over to Rick's for some dinner? You come too Maggie, I have enough for everyone, it'll be like old times. Sandi, are you hungry, I'm sure your kids would be happy for some dinner." My stomach growls right on time. We all laugh.

"Rick, we're having spaghetti Tuesday at your house. You two join us when you're done," Carol calls out.

Rick waves at us as we leave. Dang, I wanted to find out more about what kind of prisoner they have.

I am confused about something else though. "Carol, it's not Tuesday," I say. She and Maggie both laugh. "It's just a longstanding joke, don't take it seriously," she says.

We get to Rick's house and the kids see us walking by and join us. Once we get inside it's mass chaos. People everywhere. Carol goes into the kitchen to get dinner on the table. Maggie kisses Glenn and grabs my arm. "Let me introduce you to everyone. You know Carol and Glenn of course. This is Michonne," she gestures to a beautiful african american woman with a large sword on her back, "and Eugene," a man with an actual mullet haircut stands next to her. I shake their hands and murmur pleasantries. Maggie continues pulling me around, "This is Rosita, Sasha & Abraham," she points to two more gorgeous women and a very large man. I barely have time to acknowledge them before she continues on, "You know Denise and this is Tara." Tara and I look at each other in shock. I recognize her from the crazy tank pirate mans group. She speaks first, "Didn't you join Brian's group back when we were camping out in the woods with the tank." Wow. She's not going to deny it. I look at Maggie in shock. Maggie smiles. "Yes, Tara was part of that group, she helped attack the prison. But she figured out that it was wrong part way through, and after things were over she helped Glenn. He wouldn't have made it without her and she's a full member of our group." Okay then. "Hi Tara," I say. She asks, "Where did you all disappear to? One minute you were there and the next you were gone." I reply, "We left. We weren't about to get our kids involved in a war." She nods. "Fair enough, I wish I'd figured it out ahead of time as well."

I hear Rick's voice behind me then greeting people. He walks up and puts a hand on my shoulder. Ack. He's sure touchy-feely and that makes it hard for me to ignore him. I still get a jolt every time he touches me. Every time I turn around he's there. It's not good for my piece of mind. Maggie tells him, "I was just introducing Sandi to everybody. I think I got everyone...no wait," she drags me over to Carl who is holding a baby. Wow, a baby in this world. "You know Carl, but this is Judith." Rick follows us over and picks up Judith out of Carl's arms with experienced hands and props her on his hip. Carl says, "This is my little sister." I look at Rick in shock. I look around wildly, but there isn't anyone else I haven't been introduced to. I had assumed that Carl's Mom was gone, but if he has a baby... "I'm sorry, is your wife here too?" Why on earth was he telling me he was attracted to me when he had a wife, son and a baby?

He looks a little sad. "No, my wife didn't make it when Judith was born." Oh. Well, dang.

I touch his shoulder. "I'm so sorry," I say. He replies, "I know, you understand better than most." Yeah, I do understand. Wow, we've both lost our spouses. Crummy thing to have in common. Right then Judith grabs my hand which I was pulling away from his shoulder. She babbles happily at us. We laugh and she puts her arms out and practically jumps into my arms. Wow, she's lucky I'm a good catch.

"It looks like she likes you," Rick says with a gleam in his eye. Uh oh. He's back to giving those looks again. Carol calls us in for dinner and we have a good time. I can tell this group has been through a lot together. I find myself surprisingly enjoying this time and I know the kids had a lot of fun. Judith is determined to be by me, so it was fun to play with a baby again. Every time I look up Rick is staring at me. It's making me uncomfortable. Luckily there are too many people in the house to have any more 'talks.' He thinks this is waiting for me to be ready??

Finally, Judith has tired herself out and I hand her over to Rick to put her to bed. He tells me how good I am with her. I point out that with 4 kids I'd better have at least some skill. While he is upstairs laying her down, people start to head home for the night. I quickly grab my kids and slip out before he comes back downstairs. I think I've had enough of Rick Grimes intensity for the day. What am I going to do about him?

A/N Well, what do you think so far??  This story is starting to come together a bit better in my head.  I hope it's building up the tension for my readers as well.  Sandi is starting to realize she has a problem, judging by her reaction to the possibilty of Rick having a wife.  Will she acknowledge what's between them or stay in denial a little longer?  What do you think?  

If you liked this chapter please consider giving it a vote and I would love some comments!  I have Chapter 8 done and just need to do some final editing, so it will likely be posted in the next couple of days.