I enter the house and am suddenly amazed. It's so clean! I haven't seen a clean house since the first week of the apocalypse. There wasn't any dust, dirt, blood, or anything anywhere. Everything had its place and there wasn't stuff everywhere.

Daryl leans against the island in the kitchen, fiddling with his crossbow.

"This place is a bit to good." I comment. He looks up from under his hair and nods.

"They said we could hang up our weapons or somthin' like that. I ain't gonna do that. Sounds suspicious if ya ask me." He then carries on with his crossbow.

Carol comes walking into the kitchen. "They have working water here, the shower is upstairs to the left. Oscar is in it right now, but until then you can go put your stuff in your room which is right across the hall from the bathroom."

I look down at my "stuff" which was just my axe and gun holster with no gun. Dylan and Austin never gave me back my gun when they captured us, just my axe.

I shrug and then proceed cautiously to the stairs. I remind myself that I don't have to look put for walkers in this house and walk noisily up the stairs on purpose, making sure my boots hit each step and I don't skip steps.

I look through each door up there, just not the bathroom door. Zainab and Carl would both kill me. The house has four bedrooms and one and a half bathrooms. I open the door across from the bathroom and enter the small room.

The walls were a light blue color and had a picture of butterflies flying upwards, emerging from paint below them. A white dresser was against the wall next to the door with a small oval mirror with white surrounding it above the dresser. The dresser drawers were empty. There was a small pink brush on the dresser along with a small box of tissue and some lotion. The twin sized bed sat in the middle of the room against a wall with a light grey comforter and pillows. On it was a pair of clothes folded up, a toothbrush, deodorant, and a note.

The note read:

Dear resident,

Welcome to our beloved home, Alexandria. We take pride in all we do here and do our best to make it feel like home.

You can relieve your weekly rationing of food down at, what we call, the food pantry. Located on Carpenter Dr. You can get your clothes from the fabric house right near the front right corner of the main gates. The infirmary is near the front on Morgan Rd.

If you have any guns on you, we would highly encourage you to check them in at the armory. If you are seen with a gun, then you will be punished. This is for the saftey of our residents and for yourself.

The water is on all the time, since it comes from the lake inside the walls. The electricity however is only to be used from dawn to dusk. We want to conserve our electricity due to the fact that if it's cloudy outside, our solar panels cannot gather any energy. Please take part and limit your use of lights and anything that is electric.

If you have any further questions please feel free to stop by and ask.

~ Reg and Deanna Monroe

I place the letter on the dresser and put my axe on the nightstand near the bed. It looks menacing on the white wood while covered in blood and dirt and guts.

I hear the bathroom door open and Oscar walk down the hall past my room to get to his room, which is at the end of the hall. I gather the folded clothes, toothbrush, and deodorant and head for the bathroom. The mirror was steamy, something you don't see anymore. That must mean they have hot water!

I jump for the shower with the cream colored curtain and turn the handle and wouldn't you believe that water came from overhead! It's been ages since we've seen working water! I discard my old, bloody and filthy clothes. The bandage on my shoulder isn't looking so hot with the huge blood stain on it. I take it off and look at my wound. They were able to get the bullet out, but it wasn't closing totally and puss was coming out of it, showing it was fighting off an infection. I make a mental note to go have it properly cleaned at the infirmary. Meanwhile I found a roll of gauss and put it over it.

It was amazing how filthy I was. The clear water came out from the shower head and went down the drain all black. The hair on my legs was out of control and I was happy to take a razor to them.

After half an hour I turned the water off and dried off. I put on the clothes that were laid out. New garments, light blue jeans, and a long sleeved black t-shirt with thumb holes. I wipe the steam off the mirror and examined myself in it. I hardly recognize myself without the dirt and blood all over my face and the ratty, greasy hair. I grab the brush and fight with the tangles in my hair, using detangler in the process. When I'm done, I see my hair is at my mid back. I grab my dog tags off the counter and slip them over my head. They stand out more against the black.

I brush my teeth and then exit the bathroom. Throwing my dirty clothes in the hamper in my closet.

I go downstairs to find Carol coming back with some clothes she got at the fabric house. She smiles at me and then makes her way up to the bathroom.

I get an idea and search around the house for some scissors. I found some by the time Carol came back downstairs, which was an hour later. The reason it took so long was because I easily got distracted by the many things located in each room. Especially the living room which is right across the kitchen and the stairs.

"Hey Carol, can I ask you a favour?" I aks the kind, but deadly, woman.

"Sure." She smiles.

I hold the scissors up. "Can you please cut my hair?"

She nods and has me sit on the bar stool at the island. She runs upstairs real quick to grab a towel and puts it around my shoulders so no hair gets in my shirt and down my neck.

"Where to?" She asks.

"An inch below my shoulders."

She sets off cutting and soon my blonde hair is rid of dead ends and sits just below my shoulders. I thank her and help her clean up all the hair.

Oscar comes down stairs just then and does a double take. "Didn't recognize ya for a second." I roll my eyes at him.

"You guys should probably go to the fabric house to get some clothes. Deanna and Reg are hosting a party tomorrow and everyone is invites so get something nice." She informs us and then goes on and orders Daryl to take a shower but he refused.

I run upstairs and grab my boots and shove them on. Oscar had left to go find Zainab so they could go together, so I walked down there. It looked Like they made the bottom of a house look like a department store. I walked curiously through the racks and looked at the various clothes they had set out.

On every rack, there was a sign reminding newbies to only take seven outfits and a casual outfit. Others had to trade in articles of clothing to relieve new ones.

I was looking through a rack of short sleeves when I see a familiar Sheriff's hat on the other side. I push away the shirts on either side and whisper "boo". He looks up startled and then smiles when he sees it's just me.

"Well, don't you look different." He compliments me.

"Back at ya handsome."

"You cut your hair?" He runs a hand down my damp hair.

"Thought it'd look better than a bunch of dead ends."

He smiles. "It looks wonderful."

"So when are you getting your hair cut?" I smirk.

"Never!" He shouts and closes the shirts between us. We both laugh and continue on with our clothes gathering.

In the end I end up with the seven outfits and an outfit for the party tomorrow which is a cream colored sweater with a navy blue anchor on it along with some black skinny jeans and a pair of white converse that I chose for my one pair of shoes. I'm not really a dress kind of girl. I mean, after all these years I just don't find any use in them since they'd just get in the way of a fight.

Carl and I walk home with our clothes in hand and run into Morgan who was walking down to the fabric house.

"Apparently we're required to put our weapons away. Like how the hell am I going to hang a sickle on my wall and expect it to not look tacky?" She vents and then continues walking down the road.

"I'm with her." I jab my thumb behind me. "What am I supposed to do with an axe?"

"At least you'll have a weapon! My gun got taken away and put in the armory!" Carl whines. I shake my head at him and kiss him before we go our seperate ways.

I walk up the porch of the house I'm staying at, where Daryl sits on the rail.

"You still refusing to take a shower?" I sneer.

"Dirt ain't killed me yet." He grumbles. I chuckle at him and open the front door. Carol slides something out the oven and it smells heavenly. It's an actual hot meal, and not one out of a can!

"Supper is almost ready." She smiles at me and then turns her attention to cleaning off her brass knuckle knife. Again I say she is a sweet, but deadly and sometimes scarry woman.

I nod and run upstairs and put my stuff in the closet and drawers. I have to admit that this is really weird. Living like this again.

I go back downstairs when Carol calls everyone to supper. I should be happy to go back to this lifestyle, but instead it feels alien to go back. Like instead of sitting here, I should be patrolling the outside of the house and making sure that no walkers get in.

"I'm surprised Rick isn't having us all stay in one house." Oscar says.

Carol sets some kind of casserole on the table as Oscar and I get the table set for the rest of the group to come over.

"He said that there was enough people in each house to be on the look out. We won't go a day without seeing eachother though so we know no one's missing."

The doorbell rings and I open to see the rest of the group outside. The adults sit at the table while the teenagers sit at the island. It's almost like Thanksgiving again. Except with a new family.

A/N: Sorry for any mistakes in this chapter. It's like 11:40 now and I'm Uber tired, but I figured I must publish this long overdue chapter. Click that star!

Stay in the salt circle Niall, so the walkers don't get ya!

~zombiefighter01