THROUGHOUT THE NIGHT, ROTTERS ATTEMPTED TO GET INTO THE BARN.

But the group worked together to keep them out. A twister hit the area, swiping them away and damaging the area.

The barn remained untouched.

The sun rose the next morning, and they were all still alive.

The group was getting ready for another day of travelling, waiting for Maggie and Sasha to return, when the doors opened,

"Hey." The two women stepped in, "Everyone... This is Aaron."

A clean shaven man in clean clothes stepped in, with Sasha's gun pressed against his back.

Daryl was the first to stand, quickly heading towards the door to check if there was anyone else around while the others surrounded the man, their weapons at the ready. Vivian stood, pushing Liam behind her to keep herself between the strange man and the toddler.

"We met him outside. He's by himself." Maggie explained as Daryl began to pat him down, "We took his weapon and we took his gear."

Aaron looked around at all of them, "Hi."

Judith began to cry, breaking some of the tension, and Carl took his sister from his father.

Aaron stepped towards Rick, his hand out to shake, "It's nice to meet you." Everyone held their weapons up which made the man step back,

"You said he had a weapon?" Rick asked and Maggie handed the small hand gun over to their leader. Rick checked it before placing it into his waistband, "There's something you need?"

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

"Audition?" Marcie questioned.

"I wish there was another word." Aaron laughed nervously, "Audition makes it sound like we're some kind of a dance troupe. That's only on Friday nights." He joked but no one found the humour in 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."

No one moved or said anything, "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 gave him a look before walking over to Rick and handing the back pack over, "Front pocket, there's an envelope." Rick dug through the pocket before pulling out the envelope, "There's no way I could convince you to come with me just by talking about our community. That's why I brought those." Rick grabbed pictures from the envelope and went through them, "I apologize in advance for the picture quality. We just found an old camera store last-"

"Nobody gives a shit." Daryl interrupted,

"You're absolutely 100% right." Aaron replied, staring at the hunter before turning back to Rick, "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." Vivian stepped forward to stare at the photos over Rick's shoulder, "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." Her eyes widened slightly at the picture of giant steel walls, "Nothing alive or dead gets through that without our say-so. Like I said, security is obviously important. In fact, there's only one resource more critical to our community's survival. The people.Together we're strong. You can make us even stronger."

Rick stood up and turned to Vivian, the two trying to silently ask each other if this guy was legit or not.

"The next picture, you'll see inside the gates. Our community was first construc-" Rick approached Aaron and before Vivian could say anything, he swung his fist into the man's jaw, knocking him out completely.

Vivian sighed, crossing her arms in front of her chest, "So we're clear, that look wasn't a 'let's attack that man' look." She stated as Rick walked towards her, "It was a 'he seems like an okay guy to me' look."

"We got to secure him." Rick shrugged before turning to Marcie, "Dump his pack. Let's see what this guy really is."

She grabbed the pack and went over to the table, dumping the pack and sorting the supplies,

"Rick." Vivian tried to grab his arm to force him to listen, but he pulled away,

"Everybody else," Rick turned to the group, "we need eyes in every direction. They're coming for us. We might not know how or when, but they are."

While Daryl and Carol were tying him up, the others peeked through the gaps in the walls to see if there was anyone else out there,

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

"Anybody see anything?" Rick asked, ignoring her,

"Just a lot of places to hide." Glenn answered,

"All right, keep looking." Rick walked over to Marcie, "What did you find?"

Marcie held the flare gun out towards him, "There's someone else out there. He wouldn't have this otherwise."

"That's a hell of a right cross there, Rick." Vivian turned to see Aaron was awake,

"Sit him up."

"I think it's better if-"

"It's okay." Aaron interrupted Maggie,

"He's fine. Sit him up." Rick ordered.

Michonne and Maggie sat him up, "You're being cautious." Aaron looked around at all of them, "I completely understand."

"How many of your people are out there?" Rick asked, but Aaron hesitated to answer, "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?" Aaron replied, "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." He explained,

"Well, it's hard to trust anyone who smiles after getting punched in the face." Rick responded,

"How about a guy who leaves bottles of water for you in the road?" Aaron asked and Rick glanced around at the others,

"How long you people been following us?" Daryl growled out,

"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." He answered, "You're survivors and your 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."

While what Aaron was saying was true, people were also dangerous. He had been watching them, but not long enough. Their group was dangerous, and they didn't trust easily.

Not after Terminus.

"How many others are out there?" Rick repeated.

"One." Aaron answered steadily, not breaking eye contact with Rick, who then 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?" The restrained man asked, looking around at the group, "What if I drove you to the community? All of you? We leave now, we'll get there by lunch."

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

"We drove separately. If we found a group, we wanted to be able to bring them all home." He explained, "There's enough room for all of us."

"And you're parked just a couple miles away, right?" Carol asked, distrust clear in her voice,

"East on Ridge Road, just after you hit Route 16." He answered, "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, 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."

Vivian made eye contact with Marcie and shrugged, the man had a point. He had been watching them for a while, there were many points where he could've attacked, but he didn't.

"You can trust me."

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

"I'll go with her." Marcie stepped up,

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

"There's only one way to find out." Michonne argued,

"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."

"Me neither." Vivian added,

"Your way is dangerous, mine isn't." Rick stated,

Vivian walked over to him, "Passing up someplace where we can live? Where Judith and Liam can live? That's pretty dangerous. We need to find out what this is."

"We can handle ourselves." Michonne commented, "So that's what we're gonna do."

"Then I will, too." Glenn joined in, "I'll go."

"So will I." Marcie stated,

Rick continued to stare at Vivian before sighing, "Abraham."

The redheaded man nodded, "Yeah. I'll walk with them."

Rick turned to Rosita, asking for her assistance as well. He stepped up to Vivian, "If there's trouble, you got enough firepower?"

She shrugged, "We got what we got." The bearded man held out the gun he took from Aaron and Vivian stuffed it into her waistband, "Cute."

She went over to kiss Liam's cheek, giving him a quick goodbye while Rick spoke to Marcie, "The walkies are out of juice. If you're not back in 60 minutes, we'll come." Marcie and Michonne nodded, "Which might be just what they want."

The women rolled their eyes before walking out the barn doors, with Glenn, Rosita, and Abraham behind them,

Marcie glanced back for a moment to see the group filing out of the barn, checking the area for anymore people. She spotted Daryl, who was already staring at her,

She gave him an assuring nod before continuing towards Route 16.