They stood outside the gates of Alexandria waiting for let to open the gates and let them in. Hunter didn't know what to expect, it could be exactly like Terminus. It looks nice and safe but they could be cannibals, or they could be nothing behind the walls. Hunter put a lot of trust in Aaron because he wanted a nice shower. But if this was all a lie and there was nothing beyond the gates he was going to start a war.
The group lifted their guns to a trash can that was knocked over. A force of habit over any unusual sound that they heard. Daryl shot his arrow into the possum just as the gates opened. They were greeted by Aaron and a man they didn't know.
"We brought dinner."
"It's okay," Aaron tells the other man at the gate, "Come on in, guys."
Hunter was the first to walk through the gates and he was in awe. It looked like the dead never started walking on this side of the gate. It looked safe, it looked like a place Hunter could call home.
Hunter watched as they shut the gates behind them. The gates looked secure. He wondered if they had any threats come their way.
"Before we take this any further, I need you all to turn over your weapons," Nicholas tells them, "Stay, you hand them over."
"We don't know if we want to stay," Rick says.
"It's fine Nicholas," Aaron spoke up.
"If we were gonna use them, we would have started already," Rick stated.
"Let them talk to Deanna first."
"Who the hell is Deanna?" Hunter asks, Aaron never told them anything about Deanna.
"She knows everything you'd want to know about this place," Aaron answers, "Rick, why don't you start?"
Rick turns his head to his group, he looked between all of them before his eyes land on the walker outside of the gate, "Sasha."
Sasha turns around. She aims her gun at the walker and pulled the trigger. The walker collapsed dead onto the ground. And they closed the other gate behind the bars closing their view to the outside.
"It's a good thing we're here."
______
"They're still your guns. You can check them out whenever you go beyond the wall," Deanna announces from the top of the stairs, "But inside here, we store them for safety."
Hunter didn't want to part with his gun. He didn't want anyone else taking it, he didn't mind if it was someone from his group but he didn't know anyone else in this community. He didn't know if they should trust them completely.
He pulled out his pistol and dropped it into the pile. He then took out his other handgun and added it to the pile before taking his assault rifle off his back and placing it down. With their entire group, they had a lot of guns. Almost all didn't fit on the little cart they brought out.
"Should have brought another bin."
Hunter, Rick and Carl were being shown the houses that they were being given. Aaron was showing them around the town. Aaron showed them two houses and Hunter was trying to comprehend that both big houses were theirs.
Hunter stood there with Rick beside him and Carl in front. Hunter, had his arms wrapped around his nephew as they all stared at the houses, "Both of them?" Hunter asks.
"At your disposal," Aaron confirms with a smile before nodding to the nicer-looking house, "I'd call dibs on that one. It's got more curb appeal. Listen, I know you're still feeling us out, but I'm glad you came. Anyway, Deanna's asked everyone to give you your space so they aren't all coming at you at once. Take your time. Explore. You need anything, you call me. I don't–we don't have phones. I–I meant I'm four houses down."
"Thank you."
Once Aaron walked away, the Grimes walked down the street toward the houses they were given. Rick turned the knob and opened the door, the three walked into the house and the first thing Hunter saw was the empty picture frames.
As he walked further into the house, he was amazed at how much it looked like a home before the apocalypse. He walked up the stairs with Carl and their first thought was the bathroom. They raced to the bathroom door and Hunter scoffed out a chuckle at the sight of a clean bathtub.
Hunter glances over at Carl and they smile at each other before Hunter walked over to the tub and turned on the tap. Water sprinkled down from the tap and Hunter felt like he could cry. He hasn't had a shower since this all started. He got close to showers with the lake they had at the camp outside Atlanta.
"Let's go see the kitchen," Carl says.
Hunter shut off the tap and followed Carl out of the bathroom. They walked back down the stairs. They roamed around the kitchen and Hunter knew Carol would love this. She loves cooking, she was always volunteering at the prison to make them food and everything. He always thought she'd be better working as a guard.
He left the house and went to go find Rosita. He didn't know where anything was in this town but he was gonna find them. He eventually found all of them by the gate where they came in.
"Hunter, what's going on?" Carol asks as she sees him approaching.
"Working showers," Hunter answers as he motions for them to follow him, "We have two houses. We're supposed to do these interviews with Daenna, I don't know anything about them and I don't care. There are showers, beds, and a kitchen. We have two houses all to ourselves."
Hunter smiles at all of them, this was more than they'd had in a long time. Hunter grabbed Rosita's hand a dragged her with him as he led them to the houses, "Take your pick! We are taking a shower! Go check out that house."
Hunter ran up the stairs to the other house, he knew Rick was in the first one. He opened up the door and shut it behind them. Hunter held a boyish grin on his face as he looked at Rosita.
She narrows her eyes at the man standing in front of her, she crosses her arms over her chest, "What's with that look?"
"What look?" Hunter shrugs his shoulders, "I don't know what you're talking about."
"That stupid look on your face, never seen it on you before. I've seen sad, annoyed, pissed off, whiny–"
"Okay, I get it," Hunter stopped her lists from continuing, "I was just thinking, you look really good right now and you'd look even better in the shower. With me," He raises his brows and the smile returned to his face.
Rosita didn't want something serious, she didn't have something serious with Abraham. It was just sex. She loved Abraham, he was the first person to say he needed her and they were good friends. But sometimes the way Hunter looked at her, it made her want to forget everything and just be with him.
She turned on her feet and started walking up the stairs, Hunter tilted his head and furrowed his brows in confusion. "Are you coming?"Hunter smiles and runs up the stairs following her into the bathroom.
_____
Hunter ran his fingers through his hair. After the shower he had with Rosita, she'd offered to cut his hair. He didn't like the long hair or the beard so it felt good to get rid of it. It felt good to finally have a shower, to be clean of everything they went through out there.
"I think I did a pretty good job," Rosita says admiring the job she did on his hair. Her hand reaches out and she ran her fingers through his hair.
"Yeah, I wasn't really liking the long hair," Hunter picked up the towel and tried his hair as best he could, "Thank you. I would've gotten Maggie to do it but she's been going through a tough time."
Rosita shakes her head as she tightens the towel around her body, "I know you'll find a way to repay me."
He hums and turns in his spot he places a kiss on her lips before walking out of the bathroom. Hunter has claimed the master bedroom, he doubted he'd sleep there, he was probably going to sleep in Rick's place but when he felt comfortable this bedroom was his.
Hunter searched through all the drawers in the bedroom and there were clothes in them but none that he would ever wear. He grabbed his bag from under the bed and pulled out the only clean clothes he had. He put them on and grabbed his jacket.
"I have to go meet up with Rick, I'll see you later?" Rosita nodded and Hunter made his way down the stairs and out of the house. Hunter walked out of the house and met up with Rick, Carol, and Daryl.
"They're right next to each other, but–"
"They took our weapons and now they're splitting us up," Rick finishes.
Hunter was surprised to see Rick didn't have his beard anymore but that wasn't the topic at hand, "We're all staying in the same house tonight."
Daryl and Carol nodded and the two walked off while Hunter smiled at his brother, "I like what you've done. No bread, cut your hair. You're copying me."
Rick chuckles, "The way I see it, you're younger than me. Which means that you're copying me," Rick wraps his arm around his brother's shoulder, "What do you think of this place?"
Hunter exhales as he looks around the town, "Rick, I'm gonna be honest with you. I love this place for three reasons. Number one, there's water. Number two, all of us are here. And last but not least, I just had sex in the shower with the most beautiful woman I have ever laid eyes on in my life. This place is great."
Rick laughs, and it was his first genuine laugh in a long time, "Yes, your attraction with Rosita."
"No, Rick, I love this woman and there is nothing you can say to convince me otherwise."
Rick hums with a nod of his head, "Right, I can see that. I haven't seen you this happy in a long time."
"We rarely get chances to be happy," Hunter shrugs, "We're safe here for now. If something goes wrong we're smart enough to handle it. I think we should enjoy this moment for as long as we can."
There was nothing for them to do the rest of the day but settle in. They didn't really have anything to unpack they'd been living on the road for weeks. And they don't know anyone in this community they stuck together, splitting up into teams if they needed to scope out the area. Some of them were offered jobs but Hunter wasn't approached.
They knew they were being watched and Hunter was willing to do anything to not have this meeting with Deanna. Soon enough the night came and they all packed into Rick's house in the living room.
Hunter brought the pillows from his room down to the living room. He made himself comfortable in the corner of the room. Rosita had found her way next to him and he pulled the blanket over them as Hunter opened the book he found in the house.
"You read?"
Hunter scoffs taking offence to her question, "I'm not stupid. I had hobbies before the world went to shit."
She scrunches her face, "Like reading? What else did you do?"
"I played baseball with Carl every day after he finished school. I took engineering classes. I rebuilt a 1968 Ford Mustang and I was planning on getting Carl to help me rebuild a 1970 chevy truck," Hunter informs her, "We were also planning on making walkie-talkies."
"So when we were trying to get the bus to work, you could've helped and saved us a lot more time?"
Hunter purses his lips as his eyes went back to the book, "That's correct. But Abraham pissed me off and I guess I didn't want you to leave."
The knock on the door interrupted their conversation. Hunter jolted up and reached for his gun before he realized they had it locked up. Rick glances over at his brother before opening the door.
It was Deanna, "Listen, I don't mean to interrupt. I just wanted to stop by and see how you were all settling," Her eyes found them all in the living room, "Oh, my. Staying together. Smart."
"No one said we couldn't," Rick says.
"You said you're a family. That's what you said. Absolutely amazing to me how people with completely different backgrounds and nothing in common can become that," Deanna says, "Don't you think?"
"Everybody said you gave them jobs."
"Yeah. Part of this place. Looks like the communists won after all," Deanna laughs.
Hunter furrowed his brows, "I didn't get a job."
Deanna smiles over at Hunter, she hasn't spoken with him yet and she was looking forward to speaking with him but she got a lot of information from Rick, "I have. I just haven't told you yet. The same goes for you, Rick, and Michonne. I'm closing in on something for Sasha. And I'm just trying to figure Mr. Dixon out, but I will."
_____
Hunter walked into Deanna's house. It was the biggest one on the block. She was seated on the couch and Hunter was looking at her book collection. He didn't know what this talk would entail and he really thought he could avoid it but he couldn't.
"It's nice to finally meet you, Hunter."
"Yeah, you too. Thank you for letting us stay here," He was in awe of how many books she had, "We've been out there since this all started. We're all gonna have a lot to get used to."
"I understand, please have a seat," Deanna motioned to the chair behind him. He noticed the camera behind her as he took a seat, "I was a congressperson. Ohio, 15th district. You?"
"Does it really matter?" Hunter questions.
"I believe it does."
"I have a question, if I may?" Deanna nods, "What exactly is this place?"
"This is the start of sustainability. That's what the brochures we found say. This was a planned community with its own solar grid, cisterns, eco-based sewage filtration. Starting in the low 800,000s if there is such a thing. And they sold them all."
"How'd you end up here?" Hunter wonders.
"My family and I were trying to get back to Ohio so I could help my district manage the crisis. And, uh, the army stopped us on a back road and directed us here," Deanna explains, "They were supposed to come later. They didn't. But there were supplies here and we made the best of it."
"Did you put up the wall?"
"Well, there was this huge shopping mall being built nearby. And my husband reg is a professor of architecture," Deanna leans forward on the couch with a small smile on her face, "And who he was mattered quite a bit. He got the first plates up with our sons. And after a few weeks, more people arrived and we had help. We had a community."
Hunter furrows his brows as he leans back in the chair and crosses his legs, "So you've been behind these walls this whole time?"
"We need people who have lived out there. Your group is the first we've even considered taking in for a long time."
"You should keep your gates closed."
Deanna chuckles, "Your brother said the same thing. He told me it's all about survival now."
"He's right. There are people out there who would take all of this from you in a second. We've faced those people. Horrible people," Hunter bites on the bottom of his lip, "I'm not saying I'm perfect. But I'm better than the people that are out there. I still have a bit of my sanity intact."
"What were you before this all started?"
"I was a Sergeant in the military for five years and then I was a cop. I've dabbled in other things but nothing that would have any use to you."
"From what I understand, from what I've heard from your family. You and Rick are in charge?" Deanna asks.
Hunter shrugs his shoulders, "They listen to us sometimes, yeah. But we're a group. Everyone's opinions matter to me. I'm not above any of them. And I love every single one of them even if Abraham pisses me off sometimes, he's family now."
_____
Hunter wasn't expecting to walk out of the house and see Daryl fighting Nicholas, He jumped down the steps and ran over to the fight. Rick was coming in from beyond the wall and ran over together. The Grimes brother's grabbed Daryl and pulled him off the man.
"Come on, man. Let's not do this right now," Hunter says as he and Rick pull him away. Daryl continued to try and get at Nicholas but Hunter and Rick blocked his way.
"I want everyone to hear me, okay?" Deanna exclaims, "Rick and his people are part of this community now in all ways as equals. Understood? All of you, turn in your weapons. Then you two come talk to me."
Nicholas and Aiden walked away as Rick, Daryl, Glenn, Maggie, Hunter, and Noah stayed in their spots. Deanna turned to the brothers, "I told you guys I had a job for you. I liked you guys to be our constable. That's what you both were. That's what you are," She turns to Michonne, "And you, too. Will you accept?"
Rick looks at his brother, Hunter was already looking at him with a grin. Rick nods and answers for both of them, "Okay."
"Yeah, I'm in," Michonne nods. Daryl scoffs, and he grabs his crossbow. He sends a look toward them before storming off.
"Thank you," Deanna says to Glenn.
"For what?"
"For knocking him on his ass."
Maggie and Hunter share a laugh but Hunter doesn't think Glenn found it funny as he simply marches away.
Later that day when Hunter got into his bedroom he found a police uniform on his bed. He had mixed emotions about it. He hadn't worn one in years and now here he was back to doing something he did before the world ended. He changed into the uniform and walked over to Rick's house only to see Rick standing there in the same uniform. This was their new life, for now.