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Lee tells Clement that they need to leave immediately to find help. They exit the house through the back door -- Clement closing it behind him -- and out through the gate. They see a pair of men trying to push a car out of the middle of the road. Lee greets them, and they both cry out in shock, afraid that Lee and Clement are about to eat them. They introduced themselves and explained that they were trying to move a car so they could drive away to one of their dads a few miles away from Atlanta. One of them, Shawn Greene asks for Lee's help in moving the car in exchange for passage to the farm. Lee, before he thinks about it, blurts out that Clement is not his son and says that he is just some guy who found him.

The other man, Chet, raises the alarm that more monsters were coming their way. Lee and Shawn quickly hop over to the obstacle and push the car out of the road. Shawn calls for everyone to enter his pickup truck. Lee, Clement and Chet get safely in the truck, and Shawn drives away from the rotting people and onward to his father's farm. Upon his arrival several hours later, Chet gets into his own car that was at the farm and leaves for his mother's house. After the departure of Chet, Shawn's father exits the house, expressing relief at seeing his son alive and well. Both men discuss the situation in the city before turning their attention to Lee and Clement.

Shawn's father mistakenly believes that Lee was Clement's father, but Shawn corrects him and explains that Lee is just a man who found him by himself. He asks Clement to verify Lee's identity, and he does so while hiding behind Lee's back. Shawn's father notices Lee's leg injury and tells him to sit on the porch so he could treat it after asking his son to check on Shawn's sister inside the house. Lee sits on a bench and Shawn's father checks out the wound. He asks Lee for his name and then introduces himself as Hershel Greene. He then asks Lee who he was and what had caused his injury who explains that he had been in accident after hitting a man with the car.

As he bandages Lee's wound, he tells Lee that he and Clement could sleep in the barn with "another displaced family of three". Shawn returns and suggests that he fortify the fence in the morning. Hershel, however, believes that it is unnecessary as "that stuff didn't happen out here" as he claimed before allowing it due to his son's adamant reasoning. Shawn heads inside as Hershel explains to keep the wound clean and watch for any signs of infection. Lee and Clement bed down in the barn with a pair of small sleeping bags. Clement quietly comments on the smell, where Lee finishes his sentence about what the smell was like.

Clement says that he misses his parents and asks how far Savannah is from where they are. Lee says that it is very far away, and Clement dozes off. Guilty about not being able to provide him more comfort, Lee slips into a nightmare about his ex-wife and the man she had slept with to end their marriage. He dreams about how he had killed the man and abruptly wakes up. Realizing that Clement was still next to him and sleeping comfortably, Lee falls back asleep into a dreamless rest knowing he now held the responsibility of a little boy who was relying on him to survive the darkness that now suffocated the world.

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The following morning, Lee is awoken by a man telling him light-heartedly to get up. Lee yawns and stands up as the stranger jokes to Clement that he might have spiders in his hair, but his "daddy" scared them off. Lee explains that he his not truly his father and introduces himself. The man greets Lee and tells them that he is Kenny. Suddenly, a very loud boy appears at the doors of the barn and calls for his dad to join him before scampering off. The trio in the barn leave to find him. Kenny tells Lee that the boy was his son, Ken Jr., but he tends to call him "Duck" because he tends to quack like one.

Kenny then brings Lee and Clement over to meet his family. He introduces them after asking whether or not Lee wanted a ride to Macon. Kenny's wife, Katjaa, quickly compliments Clement and he warms up to the older woman. Shawn comes over and informs them that he needed to reinforce the fence on the west side of the farm. Duck volunteers his help, and Shawn gives him the position of foreman. They break off to the other side of the house and work on the fence. Clement joins Katjaa as Kenny leaves to fix his own truck, Lee asks Kenny if he needed any help and what his plan is.

 Kenny then says that he believes the National Guard would solve the situation and that they should just try to weather the storm. In the event that the National Guard would be unable to fix the problem soon, he would just return to his home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and get on his boat until the situation was resolved. Leaving Kenny to work on his truck, Lee goes to talk to Katjaa and asked about her profession. He learns that she is a veterinarian and her job was how she met Kenny. She asks about Lee's job, and he informs her that he was a history professor at the University of Georgia, but was fired. 

He then asked what her story was and she remorsefully tells him that she had driven by other people that had needed help and over others. Lee apologizes for her hardships and leaves to find Shawn. He finds Shawn working to hammer a board into place on the fence. He asks if Shawn needed any help, and Shawn puts him to work on sawing a length of two-by-fours apart. Shawn relays a story to Lee where he watched a man in Atlanta shoot a boy dead without hesitation. He then asks if Lee had killed any of the undead people so far, to which Lee says that he was forced to bash a "poor girl's brains in".

Shawn is quite perturbed by this and sends Lee's way to find his dad after Lee finishes cutting his board in order to be alone. Lee finds Hershel in the barn as he is raking along a bale of hay to one of his horses. Hershel looks up and asks him how he got out of the city, to which Lee told him the truth about what had happened in the police car; Hershel appreciated his honesty. Lee compliments his farm, and Hershel turns the conversation around to Lee's family. Lee explains that his parents are in Macon with his brother and that's where he was heading with Clement. Hershel then points out that Lee must take care of Clement now and asks how he had met him.

Lee informed Hershel about how he met Clement and Hershel stopped working to look up at Lee, He asks Lee if he could give him some advice and Lee accepts. Hershel tells Lee that he may not know who he is or what he did, If the situation in the city does not get resolved soon, then Lee would be bound to meet other people that would question his honesty and it was important that he was honest though he had been impressed that Lee listened to his advice. Suddenly, Shawn screams out from the fence. Hershel orders him to go help while he gets his gun. Lee rushes around the house and finds Shawn's legs pinned beneath a tractor while a pair of Walkers try to break through the unfinished fence. 

Duck is stupefied upon the tractor at having run Shawn over, and a third Walker reaches over the fence and grabs him. Lee rushed over to Shawn and takes a moment to analyse the situation before he attempted to pull Shawn from underneath the tractor unsuccessfully, so he moves to trying to push the tractor off of Shawn. After his first failed attempt, Kenny arrives to pulls his son out of danger, but struggles with the walker attacking Duck. Lee continues to try and save Shawn as Kenny successfully frees his son from the walker's grasp and chooses to run away with his son instead of helping Lee free Hershel's son. The walkers then burst through the fence and leap onto Shawn, biting into his leg and neck.

Hershel then arrives and looks on in horror as his son is suffering beneath the walkers' ministrations, but quickly recovers enough to shoot the walkers with his shotgun, then the third who had attacked Duck as it tried to get in again. He then rushes over to Shawn's side, Shawn assuring him that he was okay and that Lee tried to save him before he dies. Everyone gathers around Hershel as he closes his son's eyes. He tells them all to leave the farm. Kenny tries to apologize but is rejected. Hershel then tells Lee to hope Kenny doesn't do the same thing if Clement's life is at stake, but Lee tells Hershel that Shawn's death was not Kenny's fault. 

Hershel orders them all to leave again as he tends to his son's corpse. Kenny sombrely approaches Lee and tells him he and Clement could tag along with them to Macon if he wanted to. He then takes his family to the truck as Lee pulls Clement away. Lee looks back at Hershel with guilt in his heart, despite the split second moment he wanted to save Duck as he pictured Clement in the boy's place instead, he knew that Kenny would make it to save the boy so he had to help Shawn, the man who had saved him and Clement from facing the Walkers alone in the streets. And now Hershel's words a echoing through his mind leaving him worried for Clement's future.

At dusk, the truck they had driven to Macon runs out of gas. Everyone exits the vehicle and walks a short distance until Duck points out someone who appears to be working on an engine of a big rig truck. Kenny shouts at the man and asks if he is friendly and if he can lend some assistance for their dilemma. The man then looks at Kenny and growls, revealing that he is not with the living, but is, in fact, a walker, eating a dishevelled, bloody corpse rather than doing repairs. Several more walkers approach from all directions as the survivors put their backs to a Drugstore. Duck is then tackled by a walker and screams for help until a gunshot sounds out and kills the walker, spraying blood all over Duck as he fearfully runs to his dad.

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Hayden nodded at Carley and Glenn, the three of them rushed out of the Drugstore and quickly assisted the five survivors outside. Carley shoots at several more Walkers while Hayden knocks one down with his bat while Glenn ushers them into the Drugstore. After everyone safely enters, Glenn locks the security gate to the Drugstore and runs inside prompting Doug to close the doors. "We can't take risks like this!" Lily snapped at the three bringing a glare to Carley's face. "And we can't just let people die, either," Carley snapped back at her. "When I say that door stays shut no matter what, I fucking mean it," Lily growled out at Carley.

"Lily, they needed the help and they had kids. If you think I'm turning a blind eye to that, then you clearly don't understand the man I am," Hayden warned Lily who crossed her arms as she spoke, "We don't know who these people are. They could be dangerous!" Hayden rolled his eyes at her, "And we could be dangerous to them. That's life." Carley smiled at Hayden's words, the older blonde walked away from them towards the corner where Naya was sitting with a book in her hand. "You okay?" Hayden whispered as he knelt down to her. "Yeah, are you?" Naya asked him. "Sure am," Hayden promised with a wink before standing up and turning to the group.

"Worse, they could've lead 'em right to us," Larry added as he looked to his daughter. "Where the hell is your humanity?" Carley asked Larry and Lily. "We have kids," The African American man told them softly with a frown. "Yeah, so do we," Lily argued before motioning towards Naya who looked up at the attention, her eyes moved from the two new men to the boy standing behind them, his eyes locked on her with a curious tilt. "We couldn't leave them out there," Hayden added with narrow eyes, he did not like Lily and Larry. "This is about survival, do you guy's not see what's happening?" Lily asked them seriously. 

"They've got kids, Lily," Glenn reminded her. "Those things outside don't care," Lily replied to him. "Maybe you should go join 'em then. You'll have something in common!" The man wearing the trucker hat sneered at Lily, the words made Hayden smirk slightly. "Goddammit, Lily! You have to control these people," Larry told his daughter as he pointed at the two new men. "She's the leader," Lee informs Kenny who didn't care about that. Naya noticed the curly-haired boy approaching the toilet door, she watched with a slightly pout as he pushed on the door and then lightly knocked on it. "Son of a bitch!" Larry exclaimed after looking at the little boy sitting at the counter, blood covering him as his mother cleaned him.

"One of them is bitten!" Larry called out angrily. Hayden looked over and frowned, he wouldn't let anything happen until a bite was seen and confirmed even if it meant knocking Larry out, he'd do so for the boy. "He wasn't bitten," The leading man of the newcomers promised with certainty. "Hell, he wasn't!" Larry snapped back at him, "We have to end this now." Larry moved toward the boy but the kid's father was quick to step in front of him. "Over my dead body!" The boy's father warned. "We'll dig one hole," Larry told him. "No! I'm cleaning him up! There's no bite! He's fine!" The woman pleaded as she tried her best to clean him up.

"Don't you fucking people get it?!" Larry shouted at them, "We've already seen this happen. We let someone with a bite stay and we all end up bitten!" Hayden picked up a cloth and walked over to the woman, he held it out to her before handing over a bottle of water, she looked up at him gratefully before taking the items and using them to clean the boy off quicker. "Shut up!" The boy's father snapped. "We gotta throw him out! Or smash his head in!" Larry told the group angrily. "KENNY! STOP HIM!" The woman pleaded with her husband. "Lee, what do we do about this guy?" Kenny asked his companion. "Dad, it's just a boy," Lily tried to tell him. "We reason with him," Lee replied to Kenny but Kenny didn't like that, but Hayden did.

"With the bloody end of an axe-handle, maybe! Nobody threatens my boy," Kenny warned before Hayden stepped between Kenny and Larry facing the older man. "Back the fuck off, Larry or I'm handling it differently," Hayden warned, his eyes hardened like a soldier. Larry backed off at the deadly look in his eyes, "If he is bitten, we will handle it. And if he isn't then you've murdered an innocent boy because your head is too far up your own ass. Back. The. Fuck. Off." Lily grabbed her father's arm and pulled him away from the situation. "See! No bites!" The woman exclaimed with the proof leaving the room completely silent.

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Rosemary Speaks

So obviously, I'm making my own path so a lot of scenes will be different and dialogue will be altered but ultimately, I hope you'll like it.

Hayden not letting any kids get hurt in this book and Larry doesn't scare him, but he scares Larry. Never fuck with a soldier who has a daughter to protect.

What did y'all think of this chapter?
Any questions?

See you in the next chapter!