CHAPTER THIRTEEN
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DALE RETURNED from his talk with Hershel later on that day, looking severely bothered. Arden looked up at him expectantly from where she waited with Glenn and he sat down in front of them.

"So?" she prompted, more than ready for him to just spit it out. The more she thought about a barn full of walkers, the more she didn't like it.

"He...he thinks they're still people," Dale started, sounding confused himself, but there was also a hint of sympathy in his tone. "Just sick people. His wife, his stepson. He thinks they can get better."

There was a moment of complete silence. "There's no way that he can look at what they've become and still believe that," Arden said in complete disbelief. "There's no way."

"We have to tell everyone," Glenn replied, moving past Hershel's rationale.

Arden nodded in agreement. "They have the right to know. We're no better than them if we keep this to ourselves," she told them.

"But we wait until tomorrow. We can wait until tomorrow," Dale interjected, agreeing with her nonetheless. Arden thought that sounded as good as any other plan. No need for Hershel to get bombarded with it twice in one day. They were definitely going to be kicked out if that was the case.

__________

Crickets hummed distantly outside of their tent, Arden closing her eyes in an attempt to enjoy the tranquility of the farm. While she still could. There was no possible way she could see the barn situation working out for anyone.

Glenn was lying quietly beside her a few feet away. "I never thanked you properly for letting me stay in here," she said, her voice sounding foreign among the quiet ambience. "So thank you. I really do appreciate it."

She was spending her nights a lot more comfortable and warm, that was for sure.

"It's not a problem," Glenn brushed off casually. "I didn't want you to have to sleep on the ground."

"You know, technically we're still—"

"Please just let me have my gallant hero moment," he interrupted, mock pleading with her. She laughed in response and shook her head.

A few more moments of silence passed and she could practically hear the wheels in his head turning, whirring at unimaginable speeds.

"You're still thinking about the barn, aren't you?" Arden questioned, shifting slightly. It was on her mind as well. "And Lori."

"Yeah," he confirmed with a sigh. The crickets filled in the empty space in between his words. "Tell me something about you."

"What?" The statement hadn't made any sense in relation to what they had been discussing and she glanced over at him in confusion. He was starting at the ceiling of the tent, clearly trying to relax.

"I'm tired of thinking about everyone's secrets. How about we do the opposite? Think about something else?" he prompted, almost sounding a hint nervous like he expected her to immediately say no. "You tell me something about you and I tell you something about me."

Arden paused for a minute, the idea of thinking about practically anything other than their current situation was quite appealing. "You go first."

"Okay," Glenn agreed, pausing for a few minutes in order to come up with something and gather his thoughts. He took a deep breath. "My parents were immigrants from Korea. They live in California. Or, lived. I'm not sure if they're alive and I'm never going to know. Getting to California is a slim chance these days."

Arden looked at him for a few solid seconds, processing what he had just said to her. It was honest and it was real. It felt just as real as the crickets outside of the tent and as the moon glow cast upon it. When she looked over she saw something far more genuine than anything she could find out there on most days.

She took her time in thinking. There was nothing that she could think of to say, nothing as blunt as that. He knew about her probably dead family already and her time at the CDC.

"Do you like the rain?" he asked out of nowhere, sounding more comfortable and calm than he had been in days.

"That's a random question," she pointed out, laughing a little bit.

Glenn smiled back at her. "Not really. You're from Seattle, right? It rains a lot there," he defended. "Do you like it?"

Arden was a little bit touched that he even remembered that she was from Seattle. She mentioned it casually in the car and didn't expect him to actually remember.

"I do," she admitted. "I really do — the world seems more at peace, you know? Or at least it did then."

It was nice of him, she thought, to ask her a more simple question than a loaded one — clearly he could tell where her comfort level was at.

Arden and Glenn lay there for a minute listening to the crickets and the distant crackle of the dying fire before he spoke again. "I ended things with Maggie."

She furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. "Why are you telling me this?"

"I think we're friends, right?" he ventured. She could hear him shrug and she thought back to his comment about her making him nervous when he was convincing her not to leave. "Also it's another secret I'm done keeping."

"I don't know if it was exactly a secret, Glenn," she laughed, remembering how obvious he had been when they had first met Maggie. "Why? Why did you end it? You seemed to like her."

"I did, but she was confusing most of the time and I kept getting mixed messages," he explained, letting out a deep sigh. "I don't want to be a last resort."

The last part of that sentence was heartbreaking in itself. Of course nobody ever wanted to be anybody's last choice. Their 'if there was an apocalypse, I guess so' choice.

"Well, Glenn," Arden started, gearing up to be brutally honest with him. "If I had met you outside of all this...mess, you wouldn't be my last resort. And it's Maggie's loss, really."

She couldn't tell exactly what he was thinking after she said that, so she just waited in bated breath hoping that what she said was actually okay. It always felt like making people feel better was not her strong suit.

"Arden," he said finally, this time much quieter. "I really am glad that you stayed. I want you to know that."

Arden smiled. "I do."

__________

The repeated scratch of Andrea sharpening her knife alongside the sizzling of their breakfast played in Arden's ears as she tried to imagine their reactions. It would probably be quite similar to hers, but some in the group were more unpredictable than others.

She glanced at Glenn, who was sitting next to her, as he glanced at Maggie on the porch nervously. Maggie shook her head slowly in his direction and Arden couldn't quite tell if it was because she had a feeling he would tell or because he had ended things with her. Glenn turned his attention to Dale who nodded at him.

Arden squeezed his shoulder briefly and he sighed before standing up and making his way to the front of the entire group. "Hey, guys..." he began, shifting his hands around slightly. His voice was shaky. "The barn's full of walkers."

Everyone froze. It didn't matter what they were doing beforehand, it all ended with those words. Without a word, Shane started walking first and everyone soon followed him. They all wanted to see for themselves, Arden supposed. Although, she hadn't exactly needed that when she found out. It would have been a big thing to lie about.

When they all crowded around the barn, Shane stepped up and looked through the crack between the doors and stood there for a moment. The groans were audible from where the rest of them stood. At a particularly vicious groan, Shane backed away from the barn and stared at Rick directly.

"You cannot tell me you're all right with this," he spat, walking past Rick in order to pace behind him.

"No, I'm not," Rick snapped back defiantly, every muscle in his body tense. "But we're guests here. This isn't our land."

"This is our lives man!" Shane burst out, this time much louder than before. Arden flinched from where she was standing near him, nearly bumping into Glenn.

"Lower your voice."

"We can't just sweep this under the rug."

"It ain't right. Not remotely."

Arden sighed at the reactions and chimed in, "Of course it's not right. But do we want to leave the safety of this farm?"

Shane eyed her more than anyone as he stated his next words carefully. "We either gotta go in there, we gotta make things right, or we just gotta go. Now, we have been talking about Fort Benning for a long time now —"

"We can't go!" Rick interrupted loudly. Arden knew exactly why they couldn't go, not now. Not with Lori pregnant like she was.

"Why, Rick? Why?" Shane questioned, like he expected no one to be able to answer that question.

"Because my daughter's still out there," Carol jumped in, looking at Shane with a distrubed expression. Shane took a breath and let out an exhausted laugh, covering his face with his hands.

"I think it's time that we all start to just consider the other possibility, now —"

"Shane! We are not leaving Sophia behind," Rick interrupted.

Daryl stepped up, his face painted with near rage as it often was when he got worked up about things. "I'm close to finding this girl, I just found her damn doll a few days ago!"

Shane laughed. "You found her doll, Daryl, that's what you did. You found a doll," he told him, clearly trying to knock him down a peg.

"You don't know what the hell you're talking about!" Daryl spat, taking a step toward Shane only to be intercepted by Rick, who put his arm between the two before anything could escalate beyond that.

"I'm just saying what needs to be said, if you don't get a good lead within the first forty-eight hours, then —"

"Shane, Shane!" Rick hissed, now stepping up to the man himself as he rambled those words right in front of the girl's mother.

"Let me tell you something else, man," Shane continued, now clearly getting worked up as he took a step away from the group, pointing in Daryl's direction. "If she was alive out there and saw you comin', all methed out with your buck knife and your geek ears around your neck, she would run in the other direction!"

At that, Daryl lunged at Shane, screaming things Arden couldn't coherently make out. Everyone started yelling at them to stop when Shane did the same. Arden found herself on Daryl's side of things, trying to help break up the fight.

They broke up and Shane snapped at Lori briefly. "Now just let me talk to Hershel. Let me figure it out!" Rick yelled at him.

"What are you gonna figure out!" Shane screamed at him, ready to barrel at Rick this time.

Lori put her hand on his chest and shouted, "Enough!"

"If we're gonna stay, if we're gonna clear this barn, I have to talk him into it. This is his land!" Rick explained in a tight, tense tone, pointing back at the barn in question.

"Hershel sees those things in there as people," Dale, of all people, decided to chime in. He hadn't spoken since they had talked about telling everyone earlier that morning. "Sick people. His wife, his stepson."

"You knew?"

"Yesterday I talked to Hershel," Dale admitted, not faltering one bit with all of the new eyes and scrutiny trained on him.

"And you waited the night?" Shane asked, the anger still evident in his tone.

"I thought we could survive one more night! We did," Dale snapped back. "I was waiting until this morning to say something, but Glenn wanted to be the one."

"The man is crazy, Rick, if Hershel thinks those things are alive —"

"Stop!" Rick interrupted, shaking his head at Shane. He turned his attention to the whole group. "Everyone, go take a breather. I promise that I will talk to Hershel and then everyone else after that."

And with that, he walked away from the barn.