The storm knocked down trees, walkers in them. Austin took his anger out on them, stabbing them in the head with the knife Glenn let him keep for protection. Now that he was coming back and not slipping so much, all the pain inside of him wasn't allowed to be expressed through sadness. That part of the process was over, the silence and the crying. Now, he was just so angry. It wasn't anyone else's fault, but you'd think, with the way he started to act, that every single person in his path had been the cause of all the bad.

The rustling of leaves caught his attention, looking up to see Maggie and Sasha walked with a man infront of them, their guns drawn.

Austin glared. "Who the hell is he?"

"Aaron, hi." he smiled as Austin glared. "You look better."

Austin stepped forward as Maggie held an arm out. "Wait!"

"Who the hell is this mountain man!" Austin shouted as he grabbed him by the flannel.

"That's what we're trying to find out." Maggie pulled on his arm. "Hey. Austin."

He met her eye, getting a shake of her head. "We've got him, not gonna go anywhere."

Austin let him go, backing up with the same glare he'd had the entire time. Maggie opened the doors. "Hey, everyone. This is Aaron."

They each stood with their guns drawn. "We met him outside. He's by himself. We took his weapons and we took his gear."

Austin used his knife to press to the side of Aaron's face, pushing to make it turn. "Not a single stretch on you."

"I know, right?" Aaron smiled, Austin tilted his head to the side with a glare. Aarons smiled flattened. "Sorry."

Daryl patted him down quickly as Judith cried. He looked around. "Hi, nice to meet you."

"You said he had a weapon." Rick spoke up as he looked to the girls. Maggie walked forward and handed the gun to him. "There something you need?"

"He has a camp nearby." Sasha informed the rest of them. "He wants us to audition for membership."

"Audition?" Austin looked in disbelief. "See who can toughen him up the best?"

Maggie gave him a look to try and get him to back off, but he'd ignored her with an eye roll. Aaron took notice of Austins state. "I wish there was another word. Audition makes it sound like we're some kind of a dance troupe. That's only on Friday nights."

No one in the group found his hope for a joke funny. His head shook slightly. "Um, 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."

"With your winning personality?" Austin spoke up with an annoyed exhale.

"I know. If I were you, I wouldn't go either." Aaron spoke when noticing the groups discomfort. "Not until I knew exactly what I was getting into. Sasha, can you hand Rick my pack?"

"Why does he know all our names?" Glenn whispered to Austin.

"No clue." he stared. "If he says my name i'm gonna cut his tongue out."

"Front pocket, there's an envelope." Aaron spoke when Sasha handed Rick the bag. "There's no way I could convince you to come with me just by talking about our community. That's why I brought those. I apologize in advance for the picture quality. We just found an old camera stored-"

"Nobody gives a shit." Daryl cut him off.

Aaron looked back hesitantly. "You're absolutely 100% right."

Austin bumped Aaron's shoulder as he walked to his dad to look down at the photos. Aaron was unbothered by everyone's horrible welcoming. "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. If you join us, you will be."

The two looked down at the gated community from the black and white photo. Aaron nodded. "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. Nothing alive or dead gets through that without our say-so."

"Sounds like you're reading from a script." Austin stated at him as Rick rose to his feet. "Like a scam artist."

"It's not a scam." Aaron promised him. "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."

They all stared, Aaron swallowed. "The next picture, you'll see inside the gates. Our community was first constru-"

He was cut off by Ricks fist colliding with his jaw. Austin held his head up a little higher, wondering if his dad would let him go next. Only, that would be a little hard, considering Rick had knocked Aaron out.

"You see anything?" Rick asked as Austin rummaged through his bag.

"Lookin." he rolled his eyes. "Jesus, can you not see that's what i'm doing?"

"Rick." Michonne got his attention before he could say anything back. "So we're clear, that look wasn't a 'let's attack the man' look. It was a 'he seems like an okay guy to me' look."

"We got to secure him. Dump his pack." Rick shrugged, looking back to Austin as his words clearly angered him, chunking the bag.

"Don't you see that's what i'm doing!" he rose his voice as he stood up face to face with his dad. "You wanna do it?"

"Watch it." Rick warned him.

Austin shoved the bag into his arms. "Or what?"

"Hey!" Carl cut in. "We don't have time for this."

Austin's anger and argument took Rick more by surprise the anything. He never would speak to him like that, they never needed to. Even after the world went to shit, when they'd argue it was never out of the blue and for little things, and Austin never showed disrespect like he had just now. "Everybody else, we need eyes in every direction. They're coming for us."

"Can you take her?" Carl encouraged Austin to take Judith.

"I don't know." Austin shrugged, looking to his dad. "You think I do that good enough?"

"This attitude isn't gonna fly." Rick shook his head at his oldest as he took Judith. "Knock it off."

"Me and Sasha, we didn't see him." Maggie spoke up from the ground. "If he had wanted to hurt us, he could've."

Judith was content back in Austin's arms after a month away, he forgot how much she humanized him until he held her and took a breath.

"Anybody see anything?" Rick called out.

"Just a lot of places to hide." Glenn looked from the crack in the barn.

"All right, keep looking." Rick encouraged.

Judith's hands latched onto the little wish bone necklace around Austin's neck. He'd taken it from her own neck when they buried her, not being able to let it go if she hadn't had anything else. He pulled her hands away from it, her small hand holding onto his pinkie. Austin kissed her forehead. "I know. I miss her too."

He looked around as Aaron started to wake up. "Welcome back, Boy Scout."

"Hey!" Michonne stopped him before Austin's foot could collide with his nose. "Enough."

Aaron laughed slightly. "That's a hell of a right cross there, Rick."

"Sit him up." the oldest Grimes encouraged.

"I think it's better-"Maggie started.

"It's okay." Aaron cut her off with a small groan.

"He's fine. Sit him you." Rick went on as Michonne, with annoyance, pulled Aaron up.

"You're being cautious." he looked around at the group. "I completely understand."

"How many of your people are out there?" Rick asked bitterly. "You have a flare gun. You have it to signal your people. How many of them are there?"

Aaron sighed. "Does it matter?"

Austin slapped him in the back of the head as Aaron looked back. "Well, ow."

"It does matter." the Grimes boy glared down to him. "Do you want me to slap you again?"

"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 rambled on as Austin slapped the back of his head again. "Again, ow. I'm pretty sure no matter what number I say- eight, thirty-two, four-hundred-forty-four, zero- no matter what I say, you're not going to trust me."

"Well, it's hard to truest anyone who smiled after getting punched in the face and repeatable smacked in the back of the head." Rick mocked him.

"Maybe i'm not hitting hard enough." Austin stepped forward, after Carl took Judith again, as Maggie grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

"How about a guy who leaves bottles of water for you in the road?" Aaron spoke up in questioning.

They all realized it had been him to do so, Daryl walked closer. "How long you people been following us?"

"Long enough to see that you practically ignore a pack of roamed on your trail and that your son-" he stated to Rick. "-needs medical help."

"I know he's now talking about me." Austin spoke loud enough. "Carl better be limping around on one leg when I'm not watching."

"We have doctors, therapist that-" Aaron was cut off with a gun to the back of the head rather then a slap.

"Austin!" Maggie and Michonne scolded him on sync.

"Long enough to see that despite a lack of food and water, you never turned on each other." Aaron went on slowly after the painful hit. "Your survivors and you're people. Like I said, and I hope either of you won't attack me for saying it again, that is the most important resource in the world."

The group all stared in silence, Rick approached him after a minute. "How many others are out there?"

"One." Aaron admitted. He saw the look in Ricks eye, the way he 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 convicts you that this is for real? What if I drove you to the community? All of you?"

Austin stepped forward, Aaron memorized his foot steps now. "I won't bring up the doctors or therapists again. We leave now, we'll get there by lunch."

"I'm not sure how the sixteen of us are going to fit in the car you and your one friend drove down here in." Rick mocked his words.

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

"And you're parked just a couple miles away, right?" Carol confirmed with a questionable look.

"East on Ridge Road just after you hit Route 16." he directed them. "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 exhaled.

"Want me too shoot him?" Austin spoke, Aaron winced when Austin delicately pressed three fingers to the back of his head. "I can make it fast."

"If I wanted to ambush you, i'd do it here." Aaron spoke honestly, Austin took his fingers away from his head. "You know, light the barn on fire while you slept, pick you off as you ran out the only exit. You can trust me."

"Trust the guy that had a whole horror movie just floating around his head, ready to go." Austin inhaled as he twisted the blade of his knife on his finger, bleeding slightly as he soaked up the pain. "I always wanted to be Ghost Face."

Aaron faced him with a little grin. "Big Scream fan myself."

"I'll check out the cars." Michonne spoke up.

"There aren't any cars." Rick cut her off in annoyance.

"There's only one way to find out." she argued in return.

"We don't need to find out."

"We do. You know what you know, and you're sure of it but i'm not."

"Me neither." Maggie agreed.

Rick almost laughed. "Your way is dangerous. Mine isn't."

"Passing up someplace where we can live?" Michonne asked in disbelief. "Where Judith can live? Where Austin can get help-"

"God, I wish everyone would stop saying that." Austin laughed in disbelief.

"We can stop saying it, doesn't make it less true." Michonne turned to look back as him. "You didn't talk for a month straight. The only reason you didn't starve is because we took turns feeding you."

"I'm so sorry I wasn't skipping around with imaginary butterflies after my girlfriend died!" he voice rose higher.

"No one expect you to. But not sleeping has effected your health in ways that won't be cured by sleeping in a barn and barley getting anything to eat." her words shut him up, but the way he rolled his eyes and refused to look at her was better then any vocal argument he could provide. She looked to Rick again. "We need to find out what this is. We can handle ourselves. So that's what we're gonna do."

"Then I will, too." Glenn spoke up to get his attention. "I'll go."

Rick looked back. "Abraham."

"Yeah." he nodded. "I'll walk with him."

"Rosita?" Rick faced her.

"Okay."

"Fire power?" Rick got Glenn's attention.

"We got what we got." he nodded his head.

"Walkies are out of juice. If you're not back in sixty minutes, we'll come." Rick spoke as Glenn gave Austin his gun back with a knowing nod. "Which might be just what they want."

As they left, Rick looked around at the remaining group. "If we're all in here, we're a target."

"I've got the area covered." Daryl walked out.

"All right, groups of two, find somewhere safe within eyeshot." Rick encouraged everyone.

"You're with me." Maggie spoke up to Austin.

Austen pretended to check his bullets. "I'll go with Carl."

"You're with me." she repeated sternly, because this avoiding each other act had gone on too long, and they were both suffering tremendously.

•

kylie speaks

casually entering his
meanie era