"They're screwing with the wrong people."

~Rick Grimes

"Is it a sin to hate someone?" A male voice asked Gabriel, who was manning the gate.

"No, not necessarily," Gabriel didn't bother to look at who asked this, knowing it was Spencer. "Thoughts are just thoughts. It's our actions that matter."

"I hate Rick," Spencer growled. "He shouldn't be in charge. My mother- she was in Congress- she inspired people. She brought out the good in people," He approached Gabriel, wiping snow off his jacket.

"Rick brought out the good in me," Gabriel turned towards the vexed man.

"By bullying you?" Spencer scoffed.

"By inspiring me," Gabriel chuckled. "He didn't just keep people alive. He brought us all together. He's not perfect, but he's a man who finds his way."

"Not everyone. My mother, my father, my brother. When he got here, they died," Spencer looked at the priest angrily.

"Or maybe other people didn't die because he got here," Gabriel responded.

"Or maybe we shouldn't have attacked that outpost!" Spencer raised his voice, trying to prove his point. "Maybe Maggie-"

"No, we can't think like that. We're here now. We have to look towards the future," Gabriel interrupted, tired of Spencer's talk.

"What future? There's no future with him in charge," Spencer shook his head. "Maggie and Daryl should have come back," His voice dropped low as he said this. "Not Rick. That would have been the best thing for all of us."

Gabriel's face contorted into a grimace. "What you're saying doesn't make you a sinner. But it does make you a tremendous shit."

Spencer looked at Gabriel in disbelief, who was wearing a smirk with pride.

"Open the gate," Spencer demanded.

"No. You cannot leave without clearance from Rick."

"I don't give a shit about what Rick says. Open the gate." But Gabriel refused to.

"I have to go scavenge for supplies and food. Am I the only one who understands that this is what Rick has doomed us to? No one is taking this seriously." Spencer was practically in Gabriel's face. "Now open it or I'll do it myself."

"Go ahead then. I won't stop you. But I will not allow you to take a car," Gabriel said, frustrating Spencer even more. Spencer roughly opened it, leaving the city without another word.

Gabriel shut the gate, sighing at Spencer's foolishness. He remembered when he used to be that way, when he was blinded by his pride and stupidity. But then God revealed to him what type of man Rick was and his common sense prevailed.

Eugene approached the priest, saying, "We all need to go to the church. Rick is having a meeting." Gabriel nodded, unsure if he should mention what Spencer had done. The men walked over to the church together, being the last ones to arrive.

Glenn was seated in the front row, watching Rick wearily. Rick was trying to gather his thoughts for what he was about to say to his people. Abraham was seated next to Glenn, his mind preoccupied with Sasha.

"Alright," Rick spoke up, silencing everyone with his gruff voice. "Several things have come up in the past days. Glenn has already told you about Sasha and Hilltop. I was able to secure an alliance with The Kingdom. Their leader has given us some guns, so we're not completely defenseless. We have a total of seven guns, counting the ones Glenn and Rosita brought back from Oceanside."

Rosita looked over at Glenn from across with a hardened expression. Glenn averted his eyes from hers, not brave enough to face her glare.

"That is still not enough to win a war. I don't know how much of a weaponry Hilltop has..." Rick trailed off, before Eugene raised his hand.

"I have an announcement to make. I was able to make a bullet," He stated. Rosita turned her glare from Glenn to Eugene, staring at him in awe.

"That's great news, Eugene. We're going to need more of those for this. You think you can make some more for these specific guns?" Rick asked, with a glimmer of hope.

"Of course," Eugene answered. "I apologize on changing the subject, but I noticed not everyone is here." People looked around, trying to figure out who was missing.

Gabriel, unable to keep his silence, voiced what had happened to Spencer. "Spencer left earlier."

"Are you serious?" Rosita was beyond irritated.

"I cannot stress this enough. No one is allowed to leave unless I say so!" Rick had had enough of people leaving Alexandria. "If you all leave, and something happens, we will not go out looking for you."

Glenn agreed with Rick on this wholeheartedly. The last time people had left unknowingly it had cost them gravely. He knew he had broken this rule, but he had never expected people to go looking for him. He did not want them to.

"Now, we have just received a valuable piece of information. Carl has found out where The Saviors' base is. We don't have an exact location, but it is not too far from here apparently," Rick continued.

"We'll need to scout it," Abraham voiced his thoughts. "That's what went wrong with the outpost. For all we know, there could be more outposts." Everyone remained quiet at this recognition, knowing Abraham brought up a good point. The satellite outpost had not been scouted, which proved to be a deadly mistake.

"Yeah, we will need to do that," Rick ran his hand over his five o' clock shadow. "I don't know how we would be able to scout it without being noticed though..."

"When Negan comes back here, someone should leave to scout it. It would be a lot safer," Abraham was already beginning to formulate a plan. "We need to plan several things before we march to war. We need bullets, more guns, a layout of the building and if there are other outposts, amount of Saviors, communication between Hilltop and The Kingdom, and how we will attack the base."

"The good thing is we have other weapons," Michonne gestured with her katana. "Once we know the layout of the building, we could take over their armory and claim our weapons back."

"For this, everyone will need to step up and do their part. No running away, no hesitance. We will see this through," Rick reminded the Alexandrians, seeing their worried faces.

"We should assign roles to all of these parts," Glenn said. "That will make it easier to know who should be leaving. Eugene is making bullets. I could scout the base," he volunteered. Seeing that no one was going to take upon this duty, Rick agreed to Glenn's request.

"You have always volunteered to do the most dangerous jobs, Glenn," Rick realized.

"Maggie called me walker bait for a reason," Glenn responded sadly.

"How will you get the layout?" Rosita questioned skeptically. Glenn had no reasonable answer for this.

"If I have to sneak in, I will," Glenn replied darkly. "I will do whatever I must if it means we will win."

"No," Rick cut in. "We can get the layout another way."

"How, Rick?" Glenn grilled him. "I would love to know what another way there is!" Rick looked surprised at his friend's outburst.

"Glenn, you will be captured if you sneak in. And we can't afford to rescue you right now if that happens," Rick replied tensely.

"I'll go to The Kingdom once we have everything ready," Michonne changed the topic before things spiraled out of control.

"And I can go to Hilltop to visit Sasha. I'm sure she misses me." Abraham grinned.

"I can scavenge for guns," Aaron offered. One by one, the citizens started to volunteer for different duties. For once in a long time, everyone was coming together. Rick expressed his gratitude to each of them, acknowledging that they were all facing certain death for doing this. But in the back of his mind, something told him Glenn was pulling away from Alexandria.

~

Meanwhile, Spencer had been able to catch the attention of a female Savior, who pulled over to see what he wanted.

"What are you doing out here by yourself?" She questioned flirtatiously.

"I want to talk to Negan," He smiled at her. He had been preparing for his moment with Negan, speaking in front of a mirror to rehearse what he would say.

"And what do you want to talk to him about?" She kept going with her flirtation.

"There's an issue at Alexandria he needs to know about," He stood up taller, trying to make himself look more attractive.

"Get in and I'll take you to him. Maybe after you talk to him, we can meet together," She grinned.

"Maybe," Spencer answered as he climbed in.

All the way over to the base, the woman and Spencer continued their teasing. The woman was trying to get with him, while Spencer was just trying to stay on her good side.

When they pulled up to the factory, Spencer's eyes widened at how huge it was. This fueled his belief that Rick had screwed up royally.

"Negan's this way," She hopped out of the car with Spencer in tow. The other Saviors gave him strange and menacing looks, causing Spencer to gulp. Maybe this was a bad idea...

No. He couldn't think that way. He had to believe in himself just like his mom did.

They walked up several flights of stairs to reach Negan's room. The woman knocked on his door, saying: "Negan. There's a man from Alexandria who wants to see you."

The door immediately swung open, revealing a cheerful Negan.

"Hi. My name's Spencer. We haven't officially met," Spencer said warmly.

"Hi, Spencer! Come on in!" Negan motioned him inside. Spencer walked into the room, which was luxurious. Compared to the rest of the compound, this room did not fit in a factory. The woman waved bye to Spencer before leaving the pair.

"I brought you a bottle of whiskey," Spencer opened up his backpack, handing over the bottle to Negan.

"Wow! You didn't have to!" Negan started pouring them a glass. "Thank you, Spencer. You don't know how much this means to me." He handed the glass to Spencer and clinked their glasses together. "Sit down, sit down. You are my guest here. I know my house is not as grand as Alexandria. It doesn't have running water or anything like that, but I want to make you feel as comfortable as possible."

"Thanks," Spencer sat down. "Speaking of Alexandria, that's what I wanted to talk to you about. That's why I'm here. Alexandria used to be a safe place. But once Rick arrived... people were killed. My mom, dad, brother. I lost them because of him. Look, I don't agree with your ways. But I get it. You're creating a system. Rick doesn't. He has a history of not being able to work with others."

Negan listened to this intently. "So ever since Rick entered the picture, you became an orphan?" Spencer nodded his head.

"My mom used to be the leader. If I was in charge, you wouldn't have any problems. I'm the only one who gets it now," Spencer continued.

"So what are you saying? You want me to kill him so you'll be in charge?" Negan raised his eyebrow.

"That would be the best option for all of us," Spencer took a sip from his glass. "Rick will eventually cause problems for you."

"Rick is not in charge though. I am. So what's your point?"

"He will want to retake that power. Just like he took it from my mom," Spencer firmly said.

"This pisses me off! I'm going to go to Alexandria right now and put an end to this," Negan jumped to his feet. Spencer leapt to his feet as well, following Negan out the door.

"Yes, Rick needs to be stopped," Spencer said, causing Negan to stop.

"You have given me a lot of think about, Spencer. Like how Rick threatened to kill me... how he hates my guts. Yet he swallows that hatred to haul ass for me so I don't kill any of your people. That takes guts." Negan looked at Spencer intensely. "Then I think about you. A guy who sneaks over to my base just to convince me to kill Rick so he could take over. Why not just kill Rick yourself? I'll tell you why," He leaned in close to Spencer. "Cause you got no guts."

"And I was beginning to consider you my best friend," Negan said as he stabbed Spencer in the stomach. Spencer cried out, but Negan continued slashing at him.

"Looks like you did have guts after all!" Negan exclaimed as looked down at the dying Spencer. "They were in you the whole time!"

"Someone clean this mess up!" He yelled at the group surrounding them. "And someone bring me a fresh shirt. I can't show up to Alexandria looking like a bloody mess," He ordered as he stabbed Spencer again; this time to prevent him from reanimating.

"Sir, there's been another runaway," Fat Joey approached Negan. "It's Mark."

Negan rolled his eyes at this news. "Dwight! Get over here!"

Dwight appeared suddenly, his appearance more ragged than usual. There were dark circles under his eyes, looking like he hadn't slept in days.

"We have another escapee apparently," Negan explained. "Mark couldn't deal with his new scar and decided to go AWOL."

"I'll go look for him," Dwight answered tiredly. Negan looked unimpressed at him, but didn't say anything.

"Where is my damn shirt?! I asked for that a minute ago!" A redheaded woman rapidly hurried over to him, handing him a new shirt. He snatched it from her, walking out to go change. But not before saying:

"The rest of you, we're paying Alexandria another unexpected visit. Get the trucks ready. And for God's sake, someone pick up that body! He can't stay here..." Negan remarked, chuckling darkly. "...He is an Alexandrian after all..."