Chapter Text
Flat on his back in the darkness, Negan stared up at the ceiling in his prison cell. The moonlight seeped through the bars of the window, casting a hazy, dim spotlight. He watched as a lone moth fluttered in, the insect bouncing along the ceiling in an erratic flight pattern for a minute or so, before finally finding its way back out the window and into the night.
Negan was left with the bitter thought - a fucking moth had more freedom than he did.
Anger flared as he thought of the man who had incarcerated him, Rick Grimes. Rick had won the war, had spared Negan a certain death, but it wasn’t out of the goodness of his heart, heck no. Negan was to sit in this jail until he rotted, miserable and stewing in defeat. A dog sent to the kennel, neutered and muzzled.
He had been in this cell for three months now, if he had to guess. But it wouldn’t be for much longer. Negan had ideas. He was going to escape from here, out of this cell and out of Alexandria. He would climb over the wall to freedom, never to return to this godforsaken place ever again. He just needed to wait until the right moment, until the stars aligned in his favor.
The guards here weren’t the sharpest tools in the shed. One of these days, someone was going to forget to lock the cell door, or become distracted, allowing Negan to grab the gun from their holster and shoot them point blank in the chest.
And after he escaped from the cell, he was going to pay a little visit to the Grimes household. He was going to find his Lucille. She was still out there, somewhere. Rick probably had her stashed at his house, in a closet or the attic. Negan would wait until night to break in, when everyone was fast asleep and dreaming their sorry little dreams.
And after Negan found Lucille, he was going to sneak up to Rick’s room, silent as a ghost with Lucille clutched firmly in his fist. He was going to hover over Rick’s sleeping form in the darkness, watch him snuggle beneath those cozy sheets, blissfully oblivious to the threat by his bedside.
And Negan would switch on the lights, flooding the room with his grand presence. Rick would jolt awake, sitting up in bed, his face a mask of surprise and confusion. It would take a second for his bleary, sleepy eyes to adjust, and when they did…
Negan would make damn sure that the very last thing Rick would ever see, is Negan’s mug and Lucille flying towards his vision before everything turned black.
Sweet, sweet revenge. Negan chuckled to himself as he played out the scenario for the thousandth time in his mind. It was only a matter of time. No one would see it coming. He would finally get his brutal payback against Rick.
With that glorious thought dancing in his head, Negan fell asleep, his lips swept up in a vengeful smirk.
He awoke to voices nearby, eyes still closed. Hushed voices murmured beside him, impossible to decipher. He stirred, straining to lift his eyes open, an onslaught of brightness assaulting his pupils making him squeeze them shut again. Groaning, he tried once more, cracking his lids open slow and cautious.
There was a gasp and then silence as Negan regained full awareness, twinging in a strange pain as his sight focused.
“Negan,” someone uttered.
He took in his surroundings. This wasn’t the prison. He wasn’t lying on his little cot. He was in an actual bed in a well-lit room.
“He’s awake!” another voice exclaimed.
Alarmed, he sought to sit up, only to erupt in agony. “Ahh, fuck!” he burst out, shocks of pain exploding inside his head. Immediately, several people appeared at his side.
“Negan, lie down. It’s okay,” someone instructed, and Negan did so, falling back on the large, plush pillow behind him. He now noticed that his head was wrapped in bandages, a thick padding covering the side of his temple, partially obscuring his view.
He sucked in a hard breath through gritted teeth as the crashing pain subsided. Three people stood along the bedside on his left. There was a man in a white medical coat, presumably a doctor, analyzing him intently like a science project. Next to the doctor were the faces of Rick and Michonne, looking at Negan with odd expressions of joy. Odd, because they never looked at him like that.
“What…the hell…is going on?” Negan rasped out.
“You were in an accident,” the doctor explained. “You fell from the watch tower. You’ve been in a coma for the past five days.”
Negan heard the words but they didn’t make sense. “Wh-what? The fuck are you talking about?”
“Do you not remember?” At Negan’s puzzled expression, the doctor continued. “It’s okay. Some memory loss is common, especially with your head injury. What’s the last thing you remember?”
The seconds passed as Negan’s audience awaited his answer with wide eyes and bated breath, staring at him like he was about to tell the secrets of the universe. It was ridiculous.
“What are you pricks trying to play? I remember just fine,” Negan seethed with a dry throat, wincing at the pounding in his skull. “I was in that bunghole of a jail cell, trying to sleep on that shitty cot. So which one of you clobbered me in the middle of the night and dragged me here to the infirmary? That’s prisoner abuse, you know. You act like a bunch of goody-ass two-shoes but you’re all really some goddamn sick fucks.”
Negan was about to spout more accusations when he saw their expressions crumple, their initial smiles morphing into disturbance.
“What!” Negan almost shouted.
Michonne spoke up in a tentative, ginger voice. “Negan, you’re…kidding, right? You’re just making a joke?”
“Um, no,” Negan retorted, “I’m not kidding. It’s you that’s fucking with me. Now can you drop the kool-aid flavored bullshit and tell me what the fuck happened to me?”
For several moments, everyone just looked at everyone else, the tension in the room blooming thick and acrid.
“Negan,” Michonne began, low and grave. “You haven’t been in that cell for six years.”
Negan could only squint quizzically through his pain, the words leaping over his head like they were a badly delivered punchline.
“It’s true,” Michonne continued, “that was six years ago. But last week, you fell from the tower. The railing was loose and it broke. It was probably about a three-story fall. We brought you to the infirmary. But you wouldn’t wake up. We thought…we thought you wouldn’t make it…”
Negan observed the three of them as he listened in stunned amazement. He thought Rick and Michonne looked a bit different than when he saw them last – different hair-styles, maybe some weight change. Their faces seemed more weathered and deep-set, but it could just be the terrible lighting in the room.
Alternating pairs of brown and blue eyes bore into him as Negan mentally spliced and dissected the story presented to him. Flickers of hope riddled everyone’s faces as it seemed Negan was trying hard to recall, reaching into the depths of his memories to validate what they were claiming.
But instead, Negan started to laugh. He laughed, head thrown back against the pillow, chest heaving in a fit of hilarity. “Holy shit,” he breathed, “Jesus fucking Christ. And I thought you dipfucks had no sense of humor.”
The harrowed looks on everyone’s faces only made Negan laugh harder. Especially Rick, who dropped his gaze to the floor, looking like he was about to throw up or cry. “You really had me at ‘six years’. Yes, siree, that was good.” He would have kept laughing if it didn’t hurt so much. Choking out a final chuckle, Negan settled down. “Look, I like a good practical joke like anyone else, but seriously, beating the shit outta me while I’m sleeping isn’t fucking cool. Not cool at all.”
A small sound came from the other side of the bed, a sound like a hiccup and a sob. Turning to his right, Negan saw a young child standing there – a girl, about nine or ten years old, glossy-eyed and watching Negan with the same broken look as the rest of them. She wore a hat that was too big for her - it seemed almost familiar – but Negan had never seen this child in his life.
He turned back to the adults in the room. “Who’s the kid?” he asked out of genuine curiosity, only to receive deeper looks of anguish, and a louder sob from the girl beside him.
“Negan, will you please excuse us?” the doctor announced quickly, gesturing for Rick and Michonne to exit the room in a hurry. They all left without another word, the girl following them out the door, practically running as if fleeing from something terrible.
Alone now, Negan laid back on the infirmary bed, wondering what in the holy hell was happening. What kind of absurdity was Rick and Michonne pulling on him, and why?
He raised a hand to touch the bandage wrap over his head. It hurt too much to sit up, let alone stand, so escaping from this room wasn’t going to happen today. His skull felt like it had been split open with a jackhammer. Someone had done a number on him alright, and it wasn’t difficult to guess who had beat him senseless while he slept – the same shit-weasel who led a slaughter of an outpost full of Negan’s men while they slept, of course.
He could hear the chattering on the other side of the door between Rick, Michonne and the doctor, rushed dialogue and fractured mutterings, but his ears couldn’t pick up any distinct words. They were likely rehearsing the next part of their bullshit act or devising more ways to fuck with him, Negan could only figure.
Lowering his arm down to his side, a flash of something shiny caught his eye. He lifted his left hand again, bringing it up to his face. There, on the fourth finger, was a ring.
Negan had never seen it before. It was quite clearly a man’s wedding band, a white metal ring with signs of wear, minute scratches on the surface creating a patina. Someone had placed this piece of jewelry on his finger while he was unconscious. He couldn’t even begin to fathom why. The last time he had worn a ring was when he was married to Lucille, and this was definitely not that ring.
He pulled the ring off in distaste, tossing it onto the bedside table.
Minutes passed and Negan was fuming angry with impatience, ready to yell for someone to come and explain what exactly in the hell was going on. After a while, the door opened and only Michonne re-entered, a tense yet somber note chiseled into her features. She moved a chair close to the foot of the bed and took a seat, her movements heavy and deliberate.
“So they volunteered you to chat with me?” Negan said, folding his arms. “Rick couldn’t dig his pathetic cojones out of his pants to face me, huh?”
“Rick wanted to talk to you very badly,” Michonne informed, “but I told him it would be better if I spoke to you first.”
“So are you going to tell me what’s going on, or are you going to play another game of ‘fuck with Negan?’ By the way, great acting job by all of you earlier. Really, you should all win fucking Emmys for best daytime drama. And what’s with Rick? Jesus, he looked like someone ran over his puppy.”
Michonne remained stoic and calm. “Negan, we weren’t playing a game. Everything we said earlier was true. Look, you have to listen to me. I’ll tell you everything that happened, but you have to listen and try to remember.”
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Negan sighed in exasperation.
“Just. Listen,” Michonne punctuated, grave as a tomb. “Over six years ago we put you in that prison. You were supposed to remain there for the rest of your life.”
“Shit, would you quit it with the-“
“But then the Whisperers happened,” Michonne continued, ignoring interruptions. “They were a group of humans who wore the skins of walkers. They looked like walkers, they moved like walkers. We clashed with them. They killed our friends. And then their leader, Alpha, drew out their territory, said if we crossed to their side, they would go to war with us.
“And then there was a fire. We had to cross over to their land to extinguish it. But it started the war. They controlled a walker horde of tens of thousands. They were going to wipe us out. There was nothing we could do, no way we could fight them.”
“Jesus, what the fuck kind of freakshow fairy tale are you-“
“Then one night you escaped from your cell,” she pressed on. “And somehow you managed to find the Whisperers and infiltrate them. You destroyed Alpha from the inside. You helped us, Negan. We won, because of you.
“So we gave you your freedom. You could have left us, you could have struck out on your own, but you didn’t. We let you stay in one of the vacant houses. But you never came out of your house. For weeks, you were a hermit, staying alone in there. It wasn’t like you and we were concerned. We thought you might have been depressed.
“So Rick and Judith started visiting you. They wanted to give you some company, to cheer you up. They’d bring over food and games and they’d stay with you for hours. Everyday.
“Over time, you began to come out of your shell. You and Rick got close. Judith too. But you and Rick, you two started spending more time together. You became nearly inseparable.
“After a while, you moved in with Rick and Judith. You became part of their family. And about two years ago, Negan, you and Rick got married,” Michonne finished with an upturned smile. “You guys got married.”
She stopped speaking, carefully scanning Negan’s expression for any kind of recollection of what she’d just shared, leaning forward in the chair. “Negan? Do you remember any of that?”
“Goddamn…,” Negan whispered in awe and wonderment, seemingly processing the vast implications of what he’d heard. He looked at Michonne, her stone-tight jaw and scrunched brow, awaiting his answer. “You know, if you’re going to keep fucking with me, you should’ve at least made the story believable instead of pulling all that bizarro shit outta your ass. Or did Rick come up with that bloated load of crap? I’ll give you props on creativity, though. Never in a million years would I have-“
Michonne faltered, cupping her face in her hands. “Negan,” she sighed, “it’s not a story. Why would we lie to you? Why would we make it all up? What possible reason would we have to do that?”
“I don’t know!” Negan spat, voice raising. “Because you’re bored and got nothing better to do? Because this is all so goddamn entertaining for you? Yeah, I bet you all decided to get together and plan this big, glorious prank on me, because I’m stuck in a cell and don’t know fuckall, and you think you can do whatever you want to me for shits and giggles. And if by chance I start to believe any of this heaping turd pile you’re trying to ram down my throat, you’ll all jump out and yell ‘Gotcha!’ so I can look like a giant fucking idiot while everyone laughs their asses off.
“But I’ll never fall for it so you can drop the act. But hey, good job on the attention to detail,” Negan ranted on, “I must say I’m impressed. The new hair-do’s on everyone – and even the crying kid was a nice touch, although kinda random. So who’s she supposed to be? And how’d you rope some poor little kid into this shitshow anyway?”
“Negan-,“ Michonne warned with a pained look, “that was Judith. She – she’s your stepdaughter.”
“Ohh, right,” Negan scoffed, “’cause I’m ‘married’ to Rick, am I? I guess that explains that thing over there,” he said, nodding towards the wedding ring on the side table. “Again, all the little details. Bravo.” He shook his head with a rancorous sneer. “Look, I know it’s Rick putting you all up to this. It’s not enough for him that he slit my throat, not enough that I gotta rot in some cell. He’s gotta fuck with me any way he can and you’re all too happy to play along.”
“Rick-…,” Michonne rasped, “Rick is absolutely devastated by all of this…”
“By the way,” Negan chided, “you could’ve told me I was married to a dyslexic polar bear and I’d believe that before I’d ever believe that I married Rick the Prick. I mean, come the fuck on.”
Michonne sat grim-faced, her mouth pursed and speechless as she stared at the ring lying idle on the table. She stood abruptly, pushing the chair backwards, the wooden legs scraping harshly against the linoleum flooring. Darting forward, she palmed the ring in her hand before turning to leave the room.
“Hey, you gonna bring that back to Rick?” Negan queried as Michonne reached for the door. “When you give it to him, tell him he can go cram it all the way up his shithole until he chokes on the fucking thing.”
She was already gone before Negan finished his instructions, but he was sure she got the gist.
Days passed as he laid in the infirmary bed. The medical staff came to check on him regularly, to deliver meals, to provide pain medicine and to replace his bandages as needed. They always remained tight-lipped when it came to Negan’s probing questions.
“C’mon doc, you’re not still going along with Rick the Prick’s little charade, right? You can tell me who it was that conked me over the noggin’. It was Rick, wasn’t it? Just say it.”
They would look at him like startled deer, faltering for an answer, then hurriedly excuse themselves to work on something else.
Slowly, Negan found himself able to sit up, and then he was able to stand up without excruciating pain. Eventually, he was padding around the room on his own, flipping open the window shade, peering through the glass out into a world he was not a part of. At first, he thought the sights looked “off”, kind of archaic, but brushed it off.
He was able to saunter into the small, connected bathroom and look into the mirror that hung above the sink. He stared close at his reflection, leaning forward, mere inches from himself. He supposed he looked a tad older – more gray, deeper lines – but it only meant that his time in the prison had taken a toll, the strain of incarceration aging him prematurely in a few short months. He even had a shorter haircut, which disturbed and enraged him, for how dare they mess with his hair while he was knocked out cold?
Then one day, Rick appeared in the doorway.
Negan looked up from the bed, immediately bristling at the sight of Rick. This man who Negan was certain had inflicted his head injury, this man who was having his people fabricate an entire universe of lies, had the gall to show up here.
For moments, Rick only stood by the threshold, looking at Negan as if through an invisible barrier. “Hey,” he voiced, his first words to Negan since his injury, “um, how are you feeling?” He took a tentative step into the room, slinking ever closer to the bedside but keeping careful distance.
“Well, well, if it isn’t ‘hubby dearest’. So what brings you by, prick? Are you taking me back to the cell now? Wait ‘til I fall asleep so you can give me another concussion and then tell me I’m screwing the Queen of England?”
Rick seemed sharply taken aback by Negan’s sarcasm, visibly flinching and breaking eye contact as if he were slapped in the face. He recovered after a few beats, decidedly ignoring the shots fired.
“The doctor told me it’s okay if you left the infirmary for a short period,” Rick stated. “I was thinking I could show you around the community, and you could see for yourself all the changes that’s been made. And maybe, - maybe you’ll remember some of it…”
Jesus, Rick was still holding fast to his sick mind games, Negan thought, still trying to convince him that years had literally elapsed overnight. He was partially curious to see just how far Rick was willing to take it.
“You’re going to bring me out there?” Negan asked, “Parade me all around the fine people of Alexandria?”
Rick’s adam apple bobbed along the column of his throat. “I just think it would help if you saw for yourself…”
Negan tilted his head as he pondered the proposal, his mind churning with possibilities. “Alright, Rick,” he drawled coolly. “Let’s go.”
Together, they exited the room, Rick leading the way through the infirmary. Negan couldn’t believe it as he followed behind a defenseless Rick. It was only the two of them there – Rick hadn’t brought any backup with him, and not a single weapon on his person.
Here was his opportunity, clear as a bell. Negan’s mind pooled with thoughts of violence, all the ways he had envisioned killing Rick during the time he sat imprisoned. He could attack Rick right here and now with his own deadly hands, slam Rick to the floor and strangle the breath from him, watch those shocked blue eyes wash over in crimson, revel as his enemy turned limp and lifeless beneath his grip.
With a clenched jaw, Negan closed his hand, knuckles whitening, examining the back of Rick’s head to target his first blow. He couldn’t believe Rick was being this unguarded, so strangely trusting. It was just plain foolish, so unlike Rick.
Was this a trick? A test? Negan dug his nails into the palm of his tightened fist, willing himself to strike.
But suddenly they were outdoors, the sunlight bright and streaming on Negan’s face as he blinked back the glare.
“C’mon,” Rick said lightly, looking over his shoulder, encouraging Negan to follow.
The moment for bloodshed had passed. Outside, people milled about the scene - working, chatting and going about their day. He couldn’t kill Rick in front of so many witnesses.
They walked along the path, passing by large structures, the expanded garden, the windmill, the schoolhouse, the graveyard. Rick would frequently glance at Negan with a nervous eye, seemingly to gauge Negan’s reaction to everything.
Alexandria looked different, Negan had to internally admit. New buildings, more land. Horses and chickens. Like a throwback to a semi-colonial era.
And the townspeople didn’t seem alarmed by Negan’s presence outside the jail. They weren’t gasping and pointing at a wild beast that had broken out of its cage. It must be all part of the show, Negan figured. Rick had instructed them well.
“And this proves what, exactly?” Negan huffed when they stopped in front of the greenhouse.
“Negan, we’ve been slowly developing over the last six years,” Rick stated, “all this progress couldn’t have happened overnight.”
“So you’ve all been very busy beavers,” Negan said, dismissive in tone. “But it’s not fucking proof of anything. You could’ve brought in help from the other communities to build all this shit. Could’ve been done real fast, a couple of months.”
Just then a random passerby stopped in front of them. “Hey, Negan. Rick,” the man greeted as if he knew them. “Negan, glad to see you’re out and about. You had us worried after that nasty fall. Are you doing okay?”
A cold, withering glower was Negan’s response to the stranger, whose friendly smile soon melted off his face.
“Really, Rick?” Negan snapped, “Is everyone in this goddamn place in on this prank? You’ll really stop at nothing to keep fucking with me. Are your people just props, Rick? This all a big fucking fake movie set with cardboard cut-outs and shitty hollow buildings? You really think I’ll believe that I woke up six years in the fucking future and that I somehow married the biggest prickhole I ever met? This is just a great barrel of laughs for you, isn’t it? Yeah, it’s a real knee-slapper alright, you sad, sorry stack of shit!”
At this vociferous tirade, all pedestrians in the vicinity stopped and stared, eyes gawking and mouths gaping like fish. Rick looked absolutely mortified, his skin bleaching pale, a quivering leaf wilting under the heated blaze of Negan’s verbal assault. The stranger had quietly scurried away amid Negan’s explosive raging.
“I’ve had enough of this shit,” Negan seethed, turning to walk away, wishing for a bottle of pain pills. His head wound stung deep under the bandage patch and his nerves were frayed like exposed electrical wire.
“Wait!” Rick called out. He reached a hand towards Negan’s shoulder, but pulled back abruptly like he’d be singed by fire. “There’s somewhere else I want you to see. Please, Negan. It’s….it’s important.”
For some reason, something in Rick’s voice made Negan stop and reluctantly turn around. Maybe it was the piteous, plaintive timbre that pulled at him, like a lost dog crying in the rain. Maybe it was sheer morbid curiosity of what else Rick could possibly have up his sleeve.
Rick nodded and walked forward, stopping to glance at Negan in a silent plead to follow. With a groaning sigh, Negan did so against his better judgement.
They came to a row of houses, climbed up the porch steps of one such home. The wood creaked under their weight as Rick opened the door. Negan was struck by familiarity when he stepped through the entrance.
This was Rick’s house.
Negan brimmed with befuddlement as to why Rick would bring them here, into his own home, alone with no audience.
Again, Negan’s thoughts turned dark. Here was another chance to kill Rick.
Rick moved further into the house with Negan trailing close, a prone lamb naively leading a wolf into its private shelter. They wandered aimlessly it seemed, from room to room, with no clear purpose of this visit.
They entered the kitchen. Negan spied the various items sitting atop the counter – a waffle iron, cookie jars, cutting boards – before his eyes stopped on a block of knives. He imagined himself grabbing one, lunging and impaling the wide blade between Rick’s rib bones. Wrench the knife out amid dry gasps and slash Rick’s throat in a dizzy fit of vengeance. Soak himself in the molten torrent of blood until Rick’s placid body lay trickling at Negan’s feet.
“Do you…remember any of this?” Rick spoke, breaking Negan out of his morbid musings.
Negan positioned himself closer to the knives, well within an outstretched arm.
“Sure do,” was his reply. “Been here once. Cooked spaghetti with dear ‘ole Carl. Boy, that sure was some good times,” Negan taunted with a wry grin, noting how Rick recoiled at the mention of his dead son’s name. The man sank where he stood, so fragile like a simple gust would bowl him over. Rick looked so hollow, so coiled in suffering, and for a fleeting moment Negan felt a stab of remorse.
He couldn’t understand it, why Rick mimicked a glass figurine about to shatter. It almost reminded Negan of their first meeting - Rick utterly broken, the tears of anguish he had shed. But this seemed a different kind of brokenness. It tugged Negan on an innate level, pinched him with the slightest of doubt. And it didn’t seem to have anything to do with Carl.
Negan had to remind himself - it was only an act, and a damn good one.
And then Rick bolted from the kitchen in dramatic fashion, leaving Negan mystified and listening to the sound of fading footfalls. He couldn’t understand it, why Rick was doing this, why Rick was expending so much time and effort on this joke - and it was a joke, most certainly.
Behind the space Rick had vacated was the refrigerator. Upon its double doors, a series of child’s crayon drawings hung from small magnets shaped like fruit. Negan glimpsed them briefly – colorful scenes of rainbows, horses and trees. Puffy happy clouds and birds in flight. Squiggly-lined portrayals of people as interpreted by a child’s hand.
He recalled Rick’s daughter - the bright, bouncy-haired toddler Negan had once joyfully plucked from her crib, no more than the age of three at the time – far too young to produce the quality of these drawings. They were yet another damning lie, drawn by an older child or maybe even an adult, and planted here for Negan’s eyes.
These were sick, twisted games Rick was playing.
Negan glanced back at the knives sheathed in their wooden block, but the luster of murder had dulled. This was all so sad and pathetic. Rick had a major screw loose and Negan almost pitied him.
Then he remembered Lucille. His Lucille was likely somewhere around here, sitting isolated and lonely, longing for Negan to retrieve her. He wanted to tear the place apart to search for her, but he couldn’t right now, not while Rick was still roaming somewhere in the house.
He would have to come back another time. Right now he just wanted to get back to the infirmary and pop some pain pills. He didn’t even bother to hunt Rick down. Negan was done with the insanity, done with everything.
Hours later, he had another visitor. A polite knock on his door revealed Father Gabriel, calm and reserved, dressed in his usual priestly attire.
“So, Gabey, are you going to shovel the same horseshit in my face like everyone else around here? I’m expecting better from a man of the good book. After all, isn’t that one of those ten commandments? Thou shalt not fuck with people?”
“I came to see how you were doing,” Gabriel said. “I heard you caused quite a stir today. People are…concerned.”
“The only thing they should be concerned about is that they have a leader who’s getting his rocks off from mind-fucking me and roping everyone else into his dysfunctional looney tunes shit show. Yeah, real stellar as fuck leadership quality right there.”
Gabriel did not react or argue, and only clasped his hands in front of himself, bowed his head briefly. “I will continue to pray for your recovery, Negan. And if I may add a word of advice. Sometimes there are signs pointing to things unknown to us, things that are beyond our reason or perception. Many times, we overlook them, so I implore you, Negan, please do not overlook the signs.”
“Goddammit, Gabe, what in the holy fucking hell?”
“I must be going. See you again soon,” Gabriel finished, dipping out of the room.
Negan decided he’d had enough. He was convinced that all of Alexandria was collaborating to drive him mad, to chip away at his sanity until they had to install padded walls in the jail cell. Well, Negan wasn’t going to oblige them. As soon as he was healed enough to travel, he would leave for good.
Over the next days, he prepared. He collected extra food and medicine the staff brought him, stashed them in a knapsack he kept hidden under the bed. Then, when no one was looking, he planned to walk through the gates, forever leaving this place.
He would find his way back to Sanctuary, the only real home he’d known since the world went to hell. Negan wondered who was left there, if his people were clamoring for his return, who was in charge in his absence. He would find out soon enough, but one thing he knew for sure, even if Sanctuary had been razed to the ground, he would never return to Alexandria.