Hunter pulled the bed up to cover their naked bodies. He loved that this place had locks on its doors. It made his life a lot easier. Their bodies were entwined in a comfortable embrace. His arm was wrapped around her waist, his hand resting on the small of her back. He placed a gentle kiss on her forehead and she looked up at him with a smile.
"The other day, I found Tyler's secret room. It had a bunch of things about going against the Commonwealth," She tells him quietly as she plays with the ring on his finger, "You were right before. Something's off about this place."
"When we brought him back to Mercer. I heard Pamala and Lance talking about it," He says, "They don't think there are thousands more. But Tyler said they treat the poor like dirt. And I wouldn't be surprised if it's how the old world used to work."
"This place seems perfect. The houses, the patrols, the food, everything," Rosita says, "Tyler couldn't be the first one who's done something like this. She seemed to calm when everything happened."
Hunter sighs, "They want us to think that everything's perfect and safe. But that kid Sebastian, there's something off about him. How do they even have this many places for the thousands of people who live here? How does Pamala not know her own people? They must have lists of names. I mean, they knew our names and we never got the chance to tell it to them."
"Well, I can answer one of those questions. Eugene told them. And they had Ezekiel and Yumiko."
"You know, Judith and RJ like it here. And I like it here, I don't want to do anything to screw it all up. But I just don't trust it. I don't trust her and I don't trust Mr. Pink Suit."
"And what about Mercer?" Rosita wonders, "Do you trust him?"
Hunter nods his head, "I have no problem with Mercer. He seems like someone I can trust. He knows how it is out there, over the walls. He was in the Marines. He's smart. You know, I've been looking for Eugene. I just can't find him. Where's his apartment?"
"It's the one at the very end of the hall. He hasn't been out in days."
Hunter sat up in the bed and put on the pants he picked up from the ground. He walked over to the closet and grabbed one of his shirts, "I'll be back. I have to talk to Eugene before I go back to Alexandria. Are you coming with us?"
She shakes her head, "I'm gonna stay here. I'll probably talk to Eugene later today."
"Okay," Hunter leaned down and pressed his lips to hers, "I love you."
"I love you too."
_____
"Eugene?" Hunter says as he knocks on the door to Eugene's apartment. He's been knocking for a few minutes now and hasn't got an answer, "It's Hunter."
Eugene picked himself off the floor and opened the door. He grabbed Hunter by his shirt and dragged him in before shutting the door, "Whoa, relax man," Hunter says. He looked up at Eugene and he did not look good, "How are you? You okay?"
"I'm great," Hunter tilted his head and gave Eugene a look. Eugene bowed his head and walked further into the apartment, "Do you regret coming here?"
Hunter shrugs as he follows Eugene into the living room, "It's the dream Carl had. I guess it's alright. I don't like that they tell me what to do. I hate that we're not all here or together, but it's alright. Come on, I know I'm the leader here, but I've known you for a while now. And I can tell something's going on. You can trust me Eugene. I'm on your side. We're family."
Eugene looks down at his hands as tears start filling his eyes, "I lied to all of you when we met. About who I was, about Washington, D.C."
"Doesn't matter, that's in the past. You brought us all together. You helped me and Glenn find our families," Hunter says, "You were a great asset to us either way. And slowly but surely, you became family. And family nowadays is everything. So if you tell me what's going on in that brain of yours maybe I can help."
"Stephanie...isn't missing. I saw her. She just...she wasn't real. It was all a lie to get us here," Eugene confesses, "But Max, she is the real Stephanie."
Hunter shuts his eyes as a sigh escapes his lips, "Oh, god. Eugene, I'm so sorry. Was it Lance? Was it his plan? His idea?"
Eugene nods, "All of it was him. From the very beginning. Everything–"
"Hey, Eugene. This is not your fault. You fell in love and the girl you've been thinking is Stephanie might not be the real girl, but Max is. She was the one talking to you, you fell in love with her. Not that fake bitch," Hunter places his hands on Eugene's shoulder, "This is not your fault, you hear me? I'm going out there with Lance today. I'll have a talk with him."
"No! No, you can't let him know that I told you. No one can know that you know. This is classified," Eugene states, "It's all okay. I will be fine.
"Okay, okay. But if anything else happens. Anything, if you have a feeling, that something is wrong, you tell me, alright?"
"Okay."
______
Hunter jumped out of the truck and closed the door behind him. He's been giving Lance dirty looks every time they've crossed paths. Getting them to the Commonwealth was a trick. He didn't know if it was good or bad. Trusting communities like the Commonwealth is always hard.
He didn't trust Lance, especially not after what Eugene told him. And coming here, back to Alexandria, this was his home. His territory and he wasn't going to let the Commonwealth destroy it.
He spotted Josh, and it's been a few months since they last saw each other. And he walked over to his former friend, placing his hand on Josh's shoulder and smiling, "Things are looking good here."
Josh chuckles, "Thank you. We've been working hard here. Aaron's kind've a hard ass. Always bossing me around. Do you guys get along?"
Hunter feigns a laugh, "Oh, you have jokes. I was leading a portion of the army. And you all were a bunch of jerks, I had to knock you into shape."
"We weren't so bad," Josh says, as Aaron walks over to join them.
"I guarantee you guys were awful," Aaron jokes, "Because you're still awful now."
Hunter gave Josh a pointed look before Aaron addressed Pamela and Lance, "Welcome."
"Aaron, Pamela Milton," She introduces herself with a smile, "A pleasure."
Aaron smiles sheepishly, "Uh, care for the grand tour?"
"I would expect nothing less."
Hunter watched as Aaron rubbed the small of Josh's back before guiding Lance and Pamela away. He pursed his lips, sending Josh a teasing look as he followed behind Lance.
"Alexandria was a self-sustaining ecological community. We have water, solar panels, and uh, a crop system," Aaron explains, Hunter's head roamed Alexandria, seeing what was the same and what had changed.
"Who is the engineer?" Pamela wonders.
"I don't recall anyone from intake," Lance adds.
"No one, actually," Aaron answers, "Uh, we got the plans from the leader of an allied community. Maggie Rhee. Uh, some of our people studied the blueprints, and we built it."
"Fascinating."
Hunter fell back in step, landing him beside Daryl and Mercer, "How do you keep this place safe with it being so isolated?"
Daryl and Hunter exchange looks, recalling the many battles they had to face to get to where they are now. "Wasn't easy. Fought a lot of fights."
Mercer's brows furrowed as he looked at Daryl, "You were one of the leaders here?"
"Yeah, yeah, I guess you could say that."
"He was," Hunter spoke up, "And he still is. He's one of the best. He's just modest. We all were."
"What'd you do before all this?" Mercer questions.
Daryl shrugged his shoulders, "Doesn't matter. Least, not to us, anyway."
Hunter picked up his pace, catching up with Pamela. And he guided her into Spencer's old house. It was the best house and it was a perfect place to talk. Her eyes were instantly pulled to a framed photo.
"She looks just how I remember her," Pamela muses, smiling at the picture. "We crossed paths quite a bit in philanthropy circles back in the day. But I had no interest in politics at the time. She, however, was born to run things, what was she like as a leader?"
Hunter licked his lips, his arms coming up and crossed over his chest, "She took us in. We didn't know anyone would ever do that."
"You admire her?"
He nodded, "I did, yes. She was very kind. She built all of this for us. And it's something worth fighting for."
"But it fell," Pamela says.
"True, but we always brought it back up."
Pamela turned to him, raising her brows in question, "It fell more than once?"
"Yes."
Just then, Mercer came storming into the room. Like a man on a mission. "We've got a breach. Stay here, ma'am."
Hunter looked out of the window, seeing only one walker. "I'll handle it."
He opened the door and walked out of the house, marching toward the walker, taking out the knife in his small holster, and bringing the knife straight into the walker's head. Watching it drop to the ground.
He cleaned his knife on his pants, seeing that Mercer was guiding Pamela to the carriages. And his eyes landed on Josh, working on a new building for Alexandria. Hunter shoved his knife into his holster and walked over to him.
"So, I see you've really made yourself at home here," Hunter says, as he sits down on a bucket. Josh looks up at him in question, "I mean, I saw you and Aaron. He's a good guy."
Josh stopped what he was doing and looked up at him, "Yeah, he is. He's been really welcoming."
Hunter raises his brows, a teasing smile on his lips, "Oh really? How welcoming?" Josh smacked Hunter's shoulder, his head tilted back as he laughed, "I'm just playing around. I'm glad you're making this place your home. You deserve it."
"You know when you're coming back here?" Josh wonders.
He purses his lips, "Well, my niece and nephew love it there. They get to have the life that we did before all of this. When we were kids. And my daughter gets to be safe. All depends on Lance and Pamela. I don't trust them."
"Why? What happened?" Josh asks, looking around for any prying ears, "Is the plan in motion?"
Hunter chuckles, "A plans always in motion. We always have to be prepared. But Lance is a liar, and a snake. He's up to something, I know it. I just haven't figured it out yet."
"Well you let me know when it's time to fight," Josh says, "I'll be ready."
"You got it."
___
On their way to Hilltop, there was a problem on the road. There was a carriage being attacked by walkers. Hunter could see the horse jumping around, frightened. Hunter took out his machete from his holster, twirling around his fingers.
"Take the left, I'll take the right," He tells Daryl.
Daryl nodded and the two split apart, Daryl going left while Hunter went right. Their guards, were right behind them with guns, but they didn't need guns for this. There weren't that many walkers.
Hunter with his legs crouched as he moved swiftly towards one of the walkers up ahead, his grip tightening around the handle of his machete and he swung, cutting through the walker's face. He pushed the now-dead walker to the ground before moving forward.
Continuing his onslaught, he raised the machete high, bringing it down with force into the skull of another walker. A swift kick dislodged the now motionless corpse from his weapon, and he moved towards Maggie, who had just dispatched a threat of her own.
Extending his hand to her, Daryl simultaneously handled the two walkers on his side with his trusty crossbow. "You good?" Hunter inquired as Maggie took his hand, allowing him to pull her up from the ground.
Maggie grabbed his hand, letting him pull her off the ground. Once she was on her feet, she wrapped her arms around Hunter's neck, hugging him. Hunter returned the embrace, they hadn't seen each other in a while.
When they pulled apart, Maggie then hugged Daryl and Hunter turned his head, seeing Mercer, Pamala and Aaron and the guard coming up behind them. It was then that Hunter noticed Lydia was there with Maggie. Along with Elijah and Dianne.
Pamala, the authoritative leader of the Commonwealth, stepped forward with a polished smile that masked the underlying complexity of her position. Her gaze fixed on Maggie, she greeted, "You must be Maggie/"
After that greeting, Maggie cleaned herself off and Hunter cleaned off his blade with a cloth he found in the armoured car. Hunter knew that Maggie would never trust the commonwealth, he wasn't entirely sure he trusted the commonwealth. They were different, and not a good different.
The commonwealth was so sheltered, it felt wrong but right at the same time. Half of the people of the commonwealth probably didn't know how bad it was outside of the walls. They didn't know the struggle, what it feels like to really lose somebody. But the commonwealth had all the supplies they needed to rebuild.
Starting with Alexandria, but they also had the Hilltop and Oceanside. And they needed to make a deal with the Commonwealth.
So when Hunter approached Maggie, Aaron and Daryl were already with her. And Maggie's eyes shifted between the three of them, "It's good to see you guys."
"Maggie..." Aaron trailed off as Maggie's smile dropped completely.
"Why do you trust these people?" Maggie questions.
"Who says we do?" Daryl retorts before adding a shrug, "When do I ever?"
Maggie chuckles softly, "Fair enough."
"They have what we need," Hunter spoke up, leaning against the back of the carriage, "So, it's good to see Alexandria getting all pretty again."
"Yeah," Aaron agreed, "There's like fifty-thousand people living there. At least 49.9 seem like decent enough folks. And it's not forever. You sure you don't want to come with us. You don't have to do this alone."
"Hey, sorry to interrupt," Hunter groaned softly and his gaze hardened as he looked at Lance who was approaching them. He didn't trust Lance one bit, "The forward unit picked up a swarm. We have some extra rifles with us. So, while they're handling that. Governor Milton proposed that we all go hunting, if you're up for that?"
And they did go hunting, and Pamela requested to go with Maggie, and the rest of them split up on their own. But their hunting didn't last that long, they all waited for Pamela and Maggie to return before they continued their journey to Hilltop.
When they got to Hilltop, the Commonwealth set up camp just outside the walls. It's been a while since Hunter's been here. He wasn't sure he remembered the last time he was here. But that would be a lie, it was the fight with the whisperers.
"Hunter!"
He turned his head, smiling as he saw Lydia jogging towards him, she opened her arms and he hugged her tightly, "Hey."
"Was wondering when you'd come back," Lydia tells him.
When they pulled apart, he smiled at her, "How you doing?"
"Okay," Lydia answers with a shrug, "We're doing our best. Just feel like maybe some things just can't be fixed, you know? Just feels kind of pointless sometimes."
Hunter hums at her words, understanding them more than she knew. He felt like that when Glenn died when Carl died, he felt like that when Rick died and when Michonne left. But just because they were gone, doesn't mean he could just give up. He had Judith, RJ, Coco and Rosita in his life.
Along with everyone he met along the way. He couldn't give up because he still had people he needed to protect.
"How do you know when?" Lydia asks him.
Hunter furrowed his brows, "When what?"
Lydia shrugged her shoulders, "Just when it's time to walk away?"
"Is that what you want?" Hunter wonders.
"Hey, Maggie," Lance's voice spoke loud, interrupting his conversation with Lydia, "Is it okay if we hand out some supplies? We have more than enough. Food, fuel."
There was something going on with Lance. He just gave Hunter all of the wrong vibes, and he was really starting to hate the guy. What was he planning? What was his end goal? There was no way Lance was just naturally this giving. He wants something.
"Sure. Thank you," Maggie says.
"Great, we're on it," Lance says, before pointing to Hunter and a soldier, "You two, come with me." Hunter rolled his eyes and patted Lydia's arm before turning and following after Lance.
"Hey, Uncle Hunter, look what I got," Hershel says, having one of the guard's helmets over his head.
Hunter grins, patting Hershel's helmet, "Look at that, soldier in the making. We're gonna hand out some food. Wanna help?"
"Yeah!" Hershel exclaims.
Hunter reached the carriage, and he picked up a big basket of food and handed it to the soldier. He then reached in again, picking up another basket and holding it out to Hershel, "Bring that to Elijah."
"Okay," Hershel says, taking the basket from Hunter and walking towards his mom.
"Must be hard to be a kid out here," Mercer says.
Hunter watched as Maggie and Hershel walked towards the gates of the Hilltop, "He grew up on the road. He's different."
"Your friend, she like torturing herself out here?" Mercer asks him, referring to Maggie.
Hunter inhaled sharply his shoulders shrugging, "This place used to be special. It's going through hard times now, but it'll be up and running again."
"I guess not all places are as lucky as Alexandria," Mercer says, leaning against the carriage.
"Not all places are as lucky as the Commonwealth," Hunter retorts.
Mercer let out a chuckle, "Are you coming around?"
Hunter shakes his head but a small smile plays on his lips, "I wouldn't get ahead of yourself. But I will say, you guys had done alright by us. So, I'll give you that."
"Commonwealth ain't perfect, bro," Mercer tells him.
"Oh, really?"
"Just don't get too comfortable," Mercer responds, "The only reason you're out of your armour is because someone thought it'd be good for appearances. You got your role to play, and I got mine."
Maggie passed on the Commonwealth's offer, and that didn't surprise Hunter one bit. She didn't trust many people, she was a lot more closed off than she was before. And he didn't blame her, she lost the love of her life, she lost her entire family. He was like that once too.
And he wished he could stay at Hilltop a little longer, but he had to get back to his family. So he walked over to Maggie and he reached into his bag, trying to find the jar of candy Judith gave to him to give to Maggie.
"Got you a little gift," He tells Maggie as he approached her, his hands wrapping around the jar and he pulled it out and handed it to her, "From the little lady herself. And she says, and I quote, in case you're making Hershel eat more horse meat."
"Oh, god," Maggie says, laughing, she set the jar down and hugged Hunter, "It was good to see you."
Hunter hugged her back tightly, rubbing her back, "You too. Be careful.If you need me, if you need us, you know where we are."
"Same for you," Maggie says, pulling away from the embrace.
"I'll see you around," Hunter says, sending her one last smile before walking off, slinging his bag over his shoulder.
___
After returning to the Commonwealth, Hunter made a beeline for his apartment, a sense of comfort settling in as he entered the familiar space. His wearied expression softened into a gentle smile upon spotting his niece and nephew, peacefully slumbering on the couch side by side.
They had succumbed to sleep while engrossed in a shared comic book adventure. Hunter carefully removed his jacket, placing it with a casual ease on a nearby chair.
Approaching the duo, he couldn't help but feel a swell of affection as he lifted RJ into his arms, the bond of family evident in the tranquillity of their shared rest.
Mindful not to disturb their dreams, he navigated the apartment to tuck RJ into his own bed, pressing a tender kiss to his forehead before silently departing.
The same routine followed with Judith, as Hunter gently placed her in her bed. A soft voice interrupted the hushed atmosphere, "Uncle Hunter."
Responding with a soft smile, Hunter acknowledged, "Little lady."
Judith, still half asleep, inquired, "Did you make sure Hershel got the candy?"
Hunter nodded affirmatively, his own smile reflecting in his eyes, "Yes, I did. No more horse meat for him, just a bunch of lollypops."
Judith's drowsy smile conveyed satisfaction, "Good."
Hunter leaned down, bestowing a gentle kiss on her forehead, "Goodnight, Jude."
The girl shifted in her bed, cocooning herself in the blankets, "Goodnight, Uncle Hunter."
Exiting her room with quiet footsteps, Hunter closed the door behind him. Moving on, he entered his own room, where he found Rosita already in bed. The room was dimly lit, casting a serene ambiance over the sleeping area. A crib in the corner held his peacefully slumbering daughter.
Kissing his baby goodnight, Hunter felt the weight of the day settling as he settled into bed beside Rosita. Her voice, emerging from the darkness, reached out to him.
"How'd things go at Hilltop?" she inquired, sitting up in bed.
"Maggie didn't go for it," Hunter informed her, his voice carrying a hint of resignation, "As expected. How'd things go here?"
"I talked to Eugene," Rosita shared, her tone reflecting concern, "He's really struggling right now."
Hunter sighed, a sense of unease settling upon him, "It's this place. Lance, that guy, there's something else going on."
An-
Been a long time, and I'm going to try and get back into it. Because the Rick in Michonne show is coming out soon. Enjoy.