Chapter Text
Traipsing through the woods looking for your escaped, deranged father wasn’t exactly Carl’s idea of a good date, but the way you lit up when he offered to take you searching again today dispelled any apprehension he had about the whole thing. You’ve gone stargazing and on picnic dates plenty of times before, and you will again as soon as he puts this whole thing to rest.
A twig snaps, a small squirrel scampering up a tree and out of view.
“Carl, did you hear that?” You whisper, putting a hand on your gun.
It’s around the thirtieth time you’ve attributed a small, unsuspecting noise to Negan, eagerly charging forward by yourself, but Carl still plays along.
“Yeah,” He answers, resting a hand on your shoulder. “It was just an animal, ‘s okay.”
You let out a frustrated sigh, turning to face the endless scape of trees around you, the wind blowing in your hair. The prospect of finding Negan in these woods, the same woods you’ve taken hundreds of times should have been easy, but day by day it’s starting to feel more like finding a needle in a haystack.
How on earth did Negan deal with the search for you coming up empty all that time?
Maybe it was adrenaline. Maybe every time the search came up empty he only got more desperate to find you and bring you home safe. That’s certainly how you’ve been feeling. It’s such a rush that you can hardly sleep at night, just waiting for the sun to come up and it to be an acceptable time to suggest going out again.
There’s a crunch in the distance, then another, and another, in quick succession like the drag of a limping walker.
You immediately rush forward without a second thought, leaving Carl in the dust as you make your way in the direction of the noise through bushes and lush plants that block your line of sight to where the noise originated. It’s further than the others you’ve responded to, but boy is it worth it, because standing there in all his glory, is your dad. He’s a little worse for wear, his peppery stubble grown out more than usual and his jacket nowhere near as shiny as you know he likes it, Lucille swinging lowly at his side— probably because of the walker lying on the ground.
Your heart swells with excitement, mind racing with joy and fear of your impending reunion as you start to take a step forward.
“You okay, kid? It didn’t get you did it?” He asks before you can actually take that step, and you almost want to let yourself believe his words are meant for you until another girl around your age stands up from the brush.
She has a small smile on her lips, something pretty and untainted by the horrors of the world on her rounded face, freckles adorning her skin, with dark silky hair that looks just like old pictures of Lucille’s.
“Does it matter? We should keep moving.” She requests, tugging the hood of her dirty red and white track hoodie back up.
He lets out a noise you can only describe as worry, grabbing one of her arms to stop her, and you’re ashamed to admit that there’s a small part of you that wishes he would hit her, or yell at her, or tell her to be stronger instead of letting something as stupid as a walker get the upper hand in a 1v1, but he doesn’t.
“Let me see.”
You let out a shaky, stuttering breath as your dad drops Lucille on the ground to cup this stranger's face in his hands.
“Daddy– Negan, I'm fine…” She grumbles, as if his affection is overbearing.
It should be impossible for him to be this gentle with someone, for him to cast the bat that was even more important to him than you aside so casually, it’s just not in his nature. Yet here he is with this girl you’ve never seen before, doting on her and coddling her instead of demanding she be better like he’d done all your life.
You want to be angry at him, but the insecure part of yourself that still wants his approval just keeps asking what’s wrong with you. What about you made him feel he couldn’t treat you this gently? Why were you never good enough?
You sink your teeth into your bottom lip, blood trickling down in place of the tears you’re holding back as you draw your gun and step out into the open.
The girl sees you first and gasps, drawing her knife. Negan has his back turned to where you are now, but when she pulls her weapon he kicks Lucille up into his hands and takes a wide swing without even bothering to look at what he might be hitting, then holds the weapon in your direction threateningly, a warning that you’re familiar with.
When his eyes lock with yours, recognition crossing his features, they widen, glossing over. “Baby girl?” He says under his breath, then the girl tries to tug him away from you, like you’re the danger. His attention turns back to her. “Lydia, relax, I know this kid. She isn’t—”
This kid?
You click the safety off of the gun, cocking your head to the side. “Lydia, huh?”
Just look at him, about to reassure her again that nothing will happen to her. How could he be so sure that you aren’t going to shoot him between the eyes right now, when you know damn well that you should? —No one would even blame you for it, and god, how good it would feel for everything between you to finally come to an end.
His nose scrunches when you say her name, the hand not holding Lucille moving back to push her behind him protectively. “I know what this looks like, baby, but I swear it’s not like that,” He tries to soothe, lowering the bat ever so slightly, “I just need to get her home safe to some friends and then I’ll get the fuck out of your way, I swear it on my life.”
“Out of my way?” You don’t lower the gun but you finally let your lip slip out of your teeth, lapping at the residual crimson.
The girl cowering behind him, holding her knife so sloppily that if she actually tried to stab into anything with it she'd cut open the palm of her hand and expose herself to being infected, gives you a sharp look, daring you to get any closer as if she could do anything about it.
“Looks like you found someone to play house with,” You seethe, pointing the gun at where she’s peeking out behind him, “Someone who actually looks like her.”
“No.” He says sternly, “Nobody could ever replace you baby girl, never. What her mom and I had was a mistake. She’s bad. —Worse than me, even.”
It seems like he knows that’s the exact opposite of what he should have said when your brows furrow with confusion, your trigger finger only curling tighter. “Her mom? You and her, and her mom, all together in one big happy fucking family?”
In the past, such simple assurances would have been enough to placate you back into silence, but now, after months of being in the dark and thinking he hated you until Carl told you the truth, it just makes you even more uncertain. Just how long has he been with this girl?
His demeanor softens as he takes a step forward, lowering the bat slowly. “Baby, it killed me to let you go but I was poisoning you—”
Let you go?
“You left me!” You shriek, waving the gun around between the two of them, “You didn’t let me go anywhere, you took that choice away from me. –All my choices, right up until the very end!”
There’s a pause at this, his head tilting to the side, eyes flickering over your face to analyze your pain until he sees the necklace around your neck. –Carl must have told you what happened, or at least some version of the story. The only question is what he'd perverted to result in his obedient, soft daughter before him with a gun.
“That's it?” You push with a pang of sadness at his silence, “You're not even… going to deny it or explain why?”
Negan decides he can’t waste anymore time. He has to get Lydia somewhere safe, even if it means disarming you and leaving you behind in the woods, confused, and bleeding from the heart again. –He knows Carl and the rest of the people from Alexandria will help you lick your reopened wounds again, hell, they might even blame themselves for letting you out on your own, so he tries what he’s always done best; Manipulating.
“Baby,” He starts with a proud smile, eyes narrowing with something that looks like pride. “You’ve gotten stronger, I can tell. Meaner, too, with a smug mug and a glare that fuckin’ kills. Actually, you're startin’ to look a lot like me—”
You fire a warning shot, the bullet grazing the girl’s shoulder. She lets out a frightened scream, slapping a hand over the open wound.
“Jesus, fuck! Eli, stop it!” He shouts, but stops himself from berating you too much as the girl picks up a backpack lying near them and takes off running.
“Guess you weren’t that close after all.”
He shoots you a glare, silently cursing you for scaring her off. “What is it that you want from me now, kid? You’re better off without me! Just fuckin’ look at you! —I’m not good for people! I did you a goddamn favor by leaving you with those people and you repay me by stopping the one truly good thing I've tried to do on my own?” He reaches out to take away the gun but you kick him in the stomach, causing him to keel over and clutch the area.
He hadn’t expected you to retaliate after he expressed his disappointment, but that was his mistake.
“I don’t know what I want.” But you never wanted him to leave. “I might never know what I want again, but right now, all I know is that you aren't getting the fuck out of this. –You don't get to walk away again.”
His hand falls, his upper body unfolding so he can be face to face with you again, the self consciousness in your voice seeping through to stab him in the heart. You almost sound… afraid… that he might leave you again, despite being the one in full control of the situation. You have the gun.
“Oh, baby girl…” It’s getting harder for him, especially when he sees the blood on your lips and the shake in your hands. “I know you’re fuckin’ pissed, you have every right to be, but I didn’t plan on this. My hands were dirty as shit because of everything I did, and you were clean. I couldn’t keep tainting you like that… They wanted you, you wanted them, and I was… I was too weak to protect you from yourself.” He glances over his shoulder to where the girl went, and fuck if you aren't tempted to pop him in that moment, but you listen.
You can’t let your emotions get the better of you with stakes this high, not with the end this close.
“You heard her name, right? Lydia.” He repeats, trying to get the name to stick with you. “Lydia's mom is a real piece of shit, she runs a group called the Whisperers, and they don’t discriminate when it comes to killin’ and hurting kids.”
He sees the recognition that flickers in your eyes at the name.
“Those assholes?” You mutter under your breath, your guard lowering for the first time since the conversation started as your eyes search the grass, deep in thought.
“Mhm, yeah,” He nods in agreement, motioning once again for you to lower the gun. “Those assholes.”
Your gaze becomes accusatory, coming back up to meet his. “And you were fucking their leader? Her mom?”
He doesn’t answer the question, the silence hanging between you an answer in itself.
“Of course you were…” A deranged man, through and through.
“She was letting them do whatever they wanted to Lydia, so I told her I could get her to one of the settlements and free her. That’s all. She’s not my daughter, she’s nothing like you. No one’s ever replacing you, baby.”
You lower the gun slightly, “I’m always going to love you. Nothing will ever change that, and I know it, but I also hate you.” You confess, “Every day I wonder how much of me is you, if what I’m saying is because of you, how life would be if you could’ve kept your shit together when Lucille died, like Rick did when his wife did…” You shake your head slightly, giving him a pleading look, “It’s things like this that make me worry about myself. —You haphazardly took in another kid and got her to call you dad with no intention of taking any responsibility for her.”
He nods, not bothering to fully consider your words. “You needed a dad, and I’m not one.”
“You are,” You shake your head with a scoff that almost turns into a tired laugh, “A shitty dad, but you stuck around.”
His eyes widen, mouth parting for a moment as the weight of this interaction hits him for the first time.
He's alone in the woods with the person who should resent him the most, and they have a gun, but the part that hits him hardest is realizing that he doesn’t feel the need to protect you anymore, rather he has to stop his fingers where they twitch to prevent himself from picking up the bat to defend himself… Since when were you the enemy?
“So, are you going to kill me? Let me have my last words and then put one right between the eyes?” He eggs on, not knowing what possesses him to taunt you.
Maybe it's insecurity in the fact he's not in control, and hasn't been since he lost The Sanctuary… Or maybe it has to do with the satisfying feeling he gets when he thinks of you being the one to end the mess he put himself in. If you were the one to do him in, he thinks he'd be okay with that.
“I can't deny I thought about it… a lot,” You swallow hard, finally lowering the gun on your own accord. “–What I would do when I saw you again, how I'd make you pay… and none of it was pretty, Negan, but I don't want you dead.”
“So what then?”
“I'm bringing you back to Alexandria.” You pause, sniffling dryly, “You're going to pay for your crimes, but I won't let them execute you. I hate you too much to see you go out quickly like that, but I'll let them choose what to do with you.”
He kicks up the bat again, hesitantly clenching it in his hands as he winds back, ready for a fight. “You know I can't let you do that, baby girl. That's not how this works, I can't just give it all up like this…”
“I do,” You say with conviction, tossing the gun aside to work with your own knife, which you know can be used to incapacitate him in a non-lethal way. He'd been the one to teach you after all.
Taking a deep breath he shrugs back his concerns, stepping back to let you get your feet into the clearing properly. “If we’re doing this, I’m not gonna play dirty. Not with you.” He clarifies, but as soon as you plant your feet into the ground he takes a forceful swing at your head, the whoosh of the bat ghosting your hair as it comes down for a second time, skinning your leg.
You let out a snuffed scream of pain, ducking away from his next swing, attempting to slash him back, but he blocks it with Lucille, forcing you into the tree behind you and pressing the barbed wire into your neck.
The force gradually gets harder until you don’t have any choice but to sink your knife into his side, somewhere in his upper thigh instead of the soft, mortal flesh of his torso. You don’t mean to, but with your eyes you plead for an ending straight from a fucked up fairytale, one where the fighting stops and you walk home side by side.
He groans, clenching his teeth as he pulls the knife out of himself and tosses it out of reach, pushing harder on your neck. “We don’t have to do this shit,” He says desperately, “Turn a blind eye for me, and I’ll turn you loose. Easy-peasy, no necks getting squeezy.”
It feels like he might actually snap your windpipe, you think for a moment, but then you remember being in this exact position with Dwight and shallow out your breathing, making room to pry his fingers from your neck and gripping the wound you made on him, feeling the hot crimson liquid leak through the slats of your fingers.
“Shit! You little fucking asshole!”
It works, he lets you go, and you rush straight for the weapon in the grass.
Once the blade is safely in your possession you turn back towards him where he’s putting pressure on the gash in his thigh, his other hand holding him steady on the tree, your hand nursing the punctured crown around your throat.
“This is for you too, you know?” You say, feeling tears prick at the corners of your eyes. “I might want you to hurt for what you did, but there’s still a part of me that thinks you can be saved.”
He furrows his brows, “That makes you a goddamn idiot.”
“No,” You say with complete certainty, “You being with that stupid girl pissed me off for a lot of personal reasons, but you were right. —It was selfless of you to save her from a situation like that when you could have just watched. You were always like that, you had rules about people suffering and having to live with the damage done to them. You protected the weak, and made sure they learned to take care of themselves.”
“And look how that always goes for me!” He snaps, pressing forward to cut the bat across the air around you, back and forth.
He’s exhausting himself, and he knows it, but he’s desperate to get you to be quiet.
“Yeah, look!” You say, motioning to yourself once you’ve backed a decent distance away from him. “A daughter who can defend herself against a grown man with a bigger weapon!”
He cracks the bat down again, pitifully missing. “Shut up!” He begs, tears starting to burn his own eyes as he watches you desperately try to pull him back to sanity with you.
“A daughter who thinks even murderers can be saved because there’s good in everyone!” You say, not even bothering to dodge the next hit, as he completely miscalculates his swing out of pure desperation, a few crazed strands falling from his usually neatly slicked back hair. “And if you still don’t believe me just look at yourself!”
He brings Lucille down again as you jump over a rotted out fallen tree, the wood squishing and keeping the bat lodged inside of it no matter how hard he tugs.
“You saved me, dad!” You confess, dropping the knife and kicking it over to his feet. “There was always some good in you, even before all of this started when you thought you couldn’t get any more depraved. —Lucille stayed. —I stayed.” You keep walking towards him where he’s trying to dislodge the weapon, still trying to pull him above the ice floor separating you. “I thought I was broken and you walked up in that stupid coach uniform with popsicles and a smile, and you kept me afloat. —Even when you started killing people, I stayed!”
“Be quiet,” He says in a deep snarl, a boot slamming up beside the weapon to try and help dislodge it. “Just be fucking quiet…”
“When you started collecting wives, offering them things that used to come so easily before everything happened in exchange for their lives, I stayed!” Your hand comes up to clench the chest of your shirt, “It didn’t matter what you did because I knew you were still the soft man who took me in. —The man who knew that every person had worth.”
“Some people are worthless.” He seethes, but you ignore him.
“Even when you were running The Sanctuary you would make sure the workers didn’t get killed on the job, because you care. —That’s why you blew up on Rick when they murdered everyone in the satellite station.” You’re close enough that you can reach out and grab him now, his hands slowly releasing the bat and dipping into his jacket for what looks like a self-soothing hug. It’s so uncharacteristically soft that it puts you at ease, almost feeling the way the wall between you vanishes. You rest a hand on his shoulder, thumbing it softly before retracting the hand. “Even when you hurt me too… I stayed.”
He takes a peek at you over his shoulder, a single tear streaking its way down his cheek, face otherwise untouched.
You offer him a soft smile, holding out your arms for a hug. “I’m still here.”
He slowly reaches out to wrap an arm around your upper body, your muscles untensing in preparation for the hug you’ve been secretly wishing you could get for months, face leaning up so you can rest it on his shoulder…
Only to feel the sting of betrayal when his hands slip out from his jacket and a knife plunges into the softness of your stomach, stuck deep somewhere you’d be sure to bleed out if you were actually by yourself out here.
You can’t even bring yourself to scream, mouth falling open with confusion and betrayal as you try to hold him tighter, but the tighter you hold him, the further he sticks the knife into you, your own blood gushing out and pooling around your shoes, trickling down your legs.
“D-D-Dad?” You manage in a whisper, and suddenly the knife is ripped from you, the arm around your upper body releasing you and letting you fall to the ground on your back.
It feels like you’re swallowing something metallic and warm, your entire body writhing with pain. What the hell did he peirce? It was just for show, right? To prove a point? He would never ACTUALLY hurt you, would he? It’s inconceivable.
“It… h-hurts? Dad—” You feel yourself actually choke and force yourself to stop talking, shaking your head in denial against the forest floor.
He hasn’t made a single move to run, standing above you with the knife in hand, eyes wide as your eyes flicker open and shut, not comprehending the situation around you.
The scene playing out before him reminds him of the day you’d been shot, lying in a pool of your own blood, innocently crying out to him for help as you started slipping in and out of lucidity. —And that day he would have done anything to scoop you up and hold you in his arms.
So that’s exactly what he does.
He keeps the knife clenched tight in his fist, pulling you into his lap bridal style so he can rock you, watching your eyes flick over the clouds in the sky while a lump in his throat forms. You’re dying, and you’re dying because he stabbed you.
He brushes your hair back, giving you a kiss on the forehead. “See? What did I tell you, baby girl? I hurt people. —That’s all I’ll ever do.” His voice breaks as he delivers what was supposed to be a cocky line, your hand clenching the stomach of his shirt for dear life.
“Please—” You beg, choking again and shutting your eyes as his tears start to drip down onto your face. “Please m-make it stop. I wan— I want you to come h-home with me.”
He can’t bring himself to end your pain. He didn’t even mean to stab you in the first place, it just happened. There was a dark part of him buried beneath everything else that knew everyone he loved would betray him, and so after what he did to you it felt impossible that you weren’t going to stab him in the back. So he did it first. He wasn’t lying to himself when he thought you killing him would be better for the world, he would have accepted that.
But you didn’t want to kill him.
You wanted justice.
Redemption.
What a fucking joke.
He pulls you flush against his chest and lifts you up, the knife falling to the ground as he starts carrying you into the woods, slamming his foot against the handle of Lucille to free her. He doesn’t know where he’s going. Hell, he doesn’t even know where he is.
“P-Please, stop,” You cry out in pain as he adjusts his hold on you, moving you over his shoulder like a sack of flour. “I-I can’t…”
But you’re going together.
***
He vaguely remembers your cries going silent, the fighting tension in your limbs becoming limp coldness as he walked, but you aren’t dead. No, if you were dead you would have turned and bitten into where your face is pressed into the warm crook of his neck by now, so he presses on.
A part of him that nearly faints at the idea of even just seeing you skin your knee recalls carrying you up to bed like this when you were younger and everything started. —That same part of him keeps quietly lulling you and humming long forgotten, butchered nursery rhymes in your ear, gently bouncing you.
He passes by The Kingdom, only observing the ashes of what was once a populous dream —a place you used to say you wished you could have seen more often because it was like a real life wonderland— pausing for a moment, but only a moment, before continuing along his path.
Seeing it gave him a good idea of where he was, and where he needed to go if he’s going to get there. Where is there? He isn’t sure yet.
Your arm twitches and he stops, resting a comforting hand against the back of your head to give you the opportunity to sink your teeth into him for what he did if you wish, like a mother offering her breast to her young, but the cries start up again and he realizes you passed out from blood loss before.
“Shh-shh,” He hushes, bouncing you again.
He walks over to someplace that looks safe enough to sit and rests you on the trunk of a car, holding you upright and shrugging off his leather jacket to wrap it around you because— god you’re so cold, it’s unnatural.
The jacket looks much too big on you and against the newfound paleness of your skin, the black leather makes you look terrifyingly white and frail.
“You should bite me, even if you aren’t…” He trails off, letting the wind fill the silence between you.
There’s a farm across a field, a rusted out red truck with trees dancing and walkers stumbling, but each time you blink it’s like there’s people there. Not monsters. Just people, going about their business and taking care of the farm, going elbow deep into the hood of the truck to fix the engine… Then you blink again and they’re all snarls and gnashing teeth, rotted skin pulled towards the ground with time.
He sees your eyes looking off into the distance, tries to see what you’re so content with looking at, but he can’t. Your breathing is soft and creaky, and when he lets go of you, you slump forward like you can’t hold your own weight anymore, then back, to lean on the trunk with a settling sigh, your eyes drifting up to the clouds once again.
You mumble something he can’t quite understand, repeating it again and again until he finally makes out a soft, “It’s… gonna rain, dad.”
It’s such a mundane thing to say. The first words you manage after the betrayal he committed are about the weather, warning him even now.
“Yeah, baby,” He nearly breaks down sobbing, heart aching as he kneels down in front of you and tears a piece of his shirt off, barely managing to keep it together for your sake as he tries to patch the wound temporarily. “Don’t move, okay? You’re bleeding a lot.”
Your eyes flicker over to the tree line. “Do you think she’ll be okay out there? —When it rains?”
Realization hits him like a truck, Lydia having been forgotten in his scramble to get away from the site where he… did this.
“Probably.” He dismisses.
“I only let her go because I knew we were near Hilltop… She ran in the right direction,” You smile, turning your head back towards the clouds again. “She just needed some guidance… through the shoulder.” You joke, referring to the bullet.
He stands up, mouth parting with surprise as he lets out a shaky huff. —Even when you hated the girl for everything she stood for, you still made sure she was going to get somewhere safe instead of putting her in danger when you decided to fight the man.
“I shouldn’t get to live after this,” Negan confides with a cough to cover up a sob, “You should be standing above me, spitting on my body and swinging on me instead of… this. —Anything but this. You’re right to hate me. I hate myself.”
Your eyes narrow, your neck straining as you try to sit up, but the man pushes you back down. “Don’t strain yourself,” He warns.
“I benched you. To keep you safe. —Let you breathe for a minute, calm down, refocus.”
The memory bubbles up, but instead of weighing heavily on your mind like they normally do when they return, it fades away, popping.
“I don’t hate y-you. I’m sorry I ever said that, I was just so angry…” You admit, tears spilling over your eyes again as you start sobbing again. “I’m glad you’re here, even if sometimes it feels like I’ll never forgive you. I want to.”
He pulls you into a hug, lightly stroking the back of your head and your shoulder blades, not caring about the way your blood is seeping into his white t-shirt as he does it. —It’s torn anyway.
“I want to go back,” He howls desperately, “I want to go back and undo what I did. I want you to make it through this, baby girl.” He pulls back from the hug and rests his forehead against yours, letting your tears cocktail with his and fall between you onto his leather jacket around you. “It should have been me. I should have to pay for everything I’ve done.”
He keeps whispering a mixture of self-hatred and comfort into your ear until the rain starts trickling down, a thunder clap sounding in the distance.
You want to stay like this forever but your body won’t let you, torn between nausea and exhaustion. So you try to remind yourself of what you need to do before you end up slipping away again, trying very poorly to hide the terror you’re in as you pull back.
“I don’t feel good.”
He runs his thumb along your cheek, searching your eyes until he understands. “You’re gonna pass out again?”
You reach into the front of your shirt and tug and the two necklaces around your neck like you’re going to pull them off, but you’re too weak to actually accomplish this, so you settle for holding them. “If I—”
“You won’t.” He denies quickly, pushing them back down to your chest.
“But if I do, I want you to keep the flower and give the other one back to Rick… make peace with them so we can all live in peace,” You narrow your eyes lovingly at the glass star, admiring the way water accumulates at each point before falling down. “To be honest, I don’t know that I’ll actually wake up again, but I want him to know. —I want all of them to know, that way they don’t waste time looking for me. I love the people there. They’re like a second family to me …And dad?”
His hand is tense on the car beside you, the veins of his hands and arms showing as he tries to use it to ground himself and prevent an outburst at his own helplessness. “Yes, baby?”
“I love you.”
“I love you too, baby girl,” He takes your hand in his, softly squeezing. “There’s nothing left I need to be here for except you.”
***
After you vanished into the woods Carl spent hours trying to retrace your steps, only to find a pool of blood and your discarded hunting knife, which meant as much as he wanted to keep looking for you, he needed to go and get more help. If the Whisperers were involved in whatever happened to you, he was going to need backup.
He was disappointed to learn however, that most of the new people in Alexandria didn’t have any interest in going after someone they didn’t know in the midst of an unknown community attacking them and bad weather, not even if he begged them, and most of what Carl would consider the original group were out doing various things to protect the damn place, which left three other people to help with the search for you. His dad, Michonne, and Rosita.
Only four people to cover over a hundred acres that he’s already spent months searching through by himself for Negan and turned up nothing.
Rick sets a reassuring hand on his shoulder, staring out at the woods as he considers the impossible task before them. “We’ll find her.”
Carl gives him a skeptical look, reaching up to adjust his hat only for his fingers to go straight through the space as he recalls giving it to Judith this morning before he left.
Rosita pushes past them and into the woods by herself. “We’d better, and soon. If the weather gets any worse we’re gonna have to go back,” She sighs, “We don’t want to work on wet ground, the tracks and any markers we place to track where we’ve been will be erased.”
Rick catches a few drops of rain in his hand, rubbing it between his pointer and thumb. “I wish we had Daryl… He would probably be able to do this better than we can.”
“Well, we don’t,” Michonne chimes in, slinging an arm around Carl’s shoulder when she sees his face fall. “All that means is that we have to work twice as hard.”
The boy shakes his head, shrugging her arm off. “All that means is that she could be like Sophia when we find her. No one could have changed that.”
Rick’s eyebrows shoot to the top of his forehead, the abrupt mention of the little girl shocking him to the core.
“You should have seen the blood, dad,” He lets out a soft cry under his breath, trying to hold it together. “If you had then you’d know it’s been too long. It took hours for us to get out here and more for me to even figure out anythin’ had gone wrong in the first place.”
Carl comes to a stop at the edge of the clearing where he found your knife, clenching the handle of the blade in his hands as he steps over a bush into the space.
“This is where the blood—” He stops dead in his tracks, able to notice the gun on the ground from where he is now, immediately rushing over to that area. How could he have been so stupid as to forget he has a blind spot?, he wonders, gritting his teeth.
Rick and Michonne follow suit, seeing what he is and the brutal picture it paints of what happened here. The gun. A broken bracelet spilled in the grass he knows for a fact doesn’t belong to you. The blood. The scuff marks up a tree. The deep drags in the dirt and disturbed forest floor.
“You said the blood you found was still wet, right? As in fresh blood wet, not rain wet?” Rick analyzes the scene, gaze turning critical as he tries to tap into the cop within him to string together a cohesive timeline. First thing’s first, the fight clearly ended near the larger pool of blood, so this would be the area to figure out what happened before that. “It looks like the fight started in this area,” He motions vaguely to the ground surrounding the tree, then points along a path leading to where Carl found the knife. “And went that way.”
Michonne aims a hand at a bullet hole barely showing through the tree bark, pacing around to figure out where the person aiming the gun would have been standing and settling on a spot directly in front of the bracelet, a few yards away.
“The gun is hers. I remember her carrying it around sometimes, but it was originally from the armory.” She kneels down and picks the gun up, passing it between her hands to inspect the body before opening it up and checking the cylinder. “She only fired once.”
Rick kneels down near her, picking up pieces of the bracelet. “But there’s no spatter from the shot. So maybe…” He holds a bead up to the light, noting how clean it looks, “Maybe she got into a fight with a Whisperer because she tried to shoot them thinkin’ they were a walker and she missed? There was clearly a struggle here, but if she was the only one hurt, she wouldn’t have been able to make it over there and bleed that much after this. She would have passed out.” A person can only lose so much blood depending on their size, so there’s no way both spots are from you.
“So which blood is hers?” Michonne vocalizes.
Carl lets out an annoyed sigh, eye searching the forest and wishing he could take off and leave them to sit here and piece things together while he looks for you. It rubs him the wrong way to know you’re out here in this weather, probably hurt, maybe even captive or…
He shakes his head, deciding to offer up even the most basic information he knows. “The bracelet isn’t hers, she didn’t have anything like that.”
They both look over at him, scrunching up their faces, Michonne picking up a bead that’s in the shape of a cartoonish pink flower. “So there was another kid here at some point?” She suggests, “Or maybe she got this while she was gone and you just hadn’t seen it yet, Carl.”
Rick shakes his head, eyes flicking back and forth at the scene before widening, something clicking in his mind. “No, wait a minute, I think I get it now.” He stands up, walking over to the spot you’d been standing when you’d shot Lydia in the shoulder and lining his hands up to mimic the shot like Michonne had done.
He looks so passionate that Carl takes a step forward to watch, hoping that whatever he’s figured out will help them find you.
“She was over here,” He repeats, starting to lay out the information they know to weave his theory in, “She stepped out of the brush to ambush the people, one adult and one child of undetermined age,” He lifts the hand to mimic a gunshot, “She decided for some reason that she needed to shoot, and I doubt she did it for herself. Maybe she thought the child was in danger or needed help and tried to shoot the adult, but missed? There was a scuffle. She grabbed the kid's arm and snapped the bracelet by accident, but the adult was already aware of her presence at that point and they ended up in the fight?”
Michonne frowns, kicking the walker lying nearby with the toe of her boot. “And how does he play into that story, exactly? I think the walker snapped the bracelet.”
“If that’s the case, then maybe she jumped out to save them and came across more than she bargained for,” He sighs, “The kid might have been a diversion to attack whoever tried to help them. Wouldn’t be the first time. —Used to happen before too.”
Carl’s eye catches the vaguest blur of something red in the overwhelming amount of dull greenery around them, and even though most of it’s been washed away by the rain he can tell it’s blood.
“There’s a trail.” He announces, taking off in that direction, one hand on his gun and the other loosely slapping at the plants in his way of getting to it. He doesn’t even care that his legs ache after hours of frantically searching for you, he just wants to find you, find anything that might tell him how to get you back.
The trail is sparse, the group of three having to split up at times to figure out where the next bit of blood is leading to, at times the trail doubling back around on itself in a strange way that reminds him of cursive. —He isn’t sure what would be worse, if you were at the end of all this blood, or if you weren’t.
Eventually Rosita returns, following their muddy footprints, the rain going from a trickle to a steady pour that makes all of their stomachs sink. Carl already knows what she’s going to say, so when she rests a sorry hand on his shoulder he turns his back on her and keeps pushing forward, trying to ignore the way that his boot slips on the mud, proving her point.
He feels like a hound, everytime he catches the sight of crimson taking off like a feral dog, everytime he smells iron in the air, spinning around to find the source, but never quite catching up.
Michonne’s eyes suddenly widen, her arm flying out to hold Carl back, her eyes fixed on a point straight ahead.
“What?” He asks, heart racing, which only gets worse when she starts to try and shield him from the sight. “No, what is it? What did you find?”
“Rick.” It’s one word, simple and pointed, but it’s enough to make his dad straighten where he stands. —He sees whatever it is too and draws his gun, marching forward.
“What? Dad, what is it?” Carl repeats with increasing panic, trying to get past the woman or get a peek over her shoulders, but she won’t let him. It’s all too familiar to the way she reacted when they found Enid’s head on a pike, but this time, she’s not letting him go. “Michonne, please? Please?” He pleads with her. “I need to see, please let me—”
Two shots fire, the smell of blood hitting his nose almost instantly, sending him into a tailspin and causing him to start thrashing and jerking against her protective hold.
“Let me go!” He yells at the top of his lungs, voice cracking, “I need to know! Please, let me go! Please! It’s not her, it can’t be her!” A few tears manage to squeeze their way out as he loses his grip on staying composed for your sake. “I-It’s not fuckin’ her! It’s not! Let me go! This is bullshit!”
Finally Rick returns to his line of sight, eyes trained on the ground, letting the silence drag on for an agonizingly long moment as he tries to come up with something coherent to say, leaving Carl holding his breath.
“It wasn’t.” He manages, “It was just blood on the trunk that the walkers were after. —It was fresh, still had a little warmth to it…” He raises his eyes to meet Carl’s, raising the bat he’d found leaning up against the car to let him see it. It’s got wood underneath the bends of the barbed wire, the handle caked in a mixture of dirt and blood, the shiny weapon he was once so afraid of reduced to sporting equipment in his father’s hands. It looks so small compared to what he pictures in his memory, but he reminds himself that’s probably because its merciless user is nowhere in sight. “There were drag marks too, so either…”
Either Negan’s got you, or it’s just him.
Michonne loosens her grip on him, shifting her arms to be around his neck in a hug. “I’m really sorry I did that, but I had to, Carl. It wouldn’t have been fair to let you see something like that again.”
He doesn’t answer, blinking out at the farm as he tries to catch his breath from the panic he was sent into, somehow even less calm than he was before now that he knows the possibilities of what’s actually happened to you.
“And remember to watch your mouth,” Rick reminds quietly, almost ashamed for not knowing what to say. “I’ll give you a pass for now considering the circumstances, but you can’t be swearin’ like that around Judith.”
Carl just nods weakly, his hands coming up to meet Michonne's to anchor himself back to his calm and collected state.
Once he’s calm enough to move again, which isn’t very calm at all, he runs his hands down his face and keeps walking. He doesn’t see a clear trail to follow like with the blood before, but he remembers Daryl talking about how to look for signs of human tracks, shoe patterns and disturbed soil, following every little mark he can identify.
***
“Ta-da!” Your dad pulls the silver lid off of a rather regular plate, revealing the spaghetti he made for dinner. “See? I told you that I wasn’t going to burn your house down, prick.”
Rick nods, clearly annoyed by the other man. “That you did.”
“It looks good! —Smells good too,” You smile, taking a deep whiff of the air that nearly sends you into a coughing fit, your breath hitching. You feel another sharp pain in your stomach and reach down to clutch it, your hand hitting the table in front of you before you can.
Both men turn to you, confused, but you can hardly make their faces out with the tears stinging at your eyes from the coughing.
“Sorry,” You say hoarsely, taking a sip of water, “I’m just really hungry I guess.”
Your dad rushes over too fast for a simple coughing fit, wrapping his arms around you tightly and pressing you into the crook of his neck. Overprotective much? But that’s just how he is, isn’t it…? “It’s gonna be okay. I promise. I’ve got you, baby.” He soothes.
It briefly crosses your mind that it’s strange for him to be this affectionate with you, but before you can consider it for longer than a second Carl rounds the corner of the kitchen and walks over to you with a wide smile.
“Hey, sweetheart.” He coos lovingly, taking his hat off of his head and pulling it down over your eyes.
“Hey, I was just about to— Woah!” He suddenly reaches out and pulls you by the arm to try and force you out of the room, but you catch the doorframe in time to stop him, shooting a glance at your dad and Rick where they’re hovering over the table.
Your dad looks over his shoulder, mixing something in a large teal bowl with a whisk. “Hang in there, kiddo.”
You’re pretty sure it’s meant to be a joke, but his tone is all wrong for it.
Carl tries tugging you with more force, digging his heels into the floor, but you curl your fingers around the doorframe to stay in place. “Aren’t we going to eat with them?”
“Nope, we’re going upstairs to play with Judith,” He says, pulling you again, “Plus, we aren’t cooks. You know we don’t belong in the kitchen…!” He jokes, then laughs for an uncomfortable amount of time, tipping his head back from the way it erupts out of him.
You give him a skeptical look, loosening your grip. “Do we have to leave?”
“Eventually.”
Your fingers slip from the frame and you feel your skin split open, the warm blood running down from your fingers to your palm and then curling around the bend of your elbow as you hold it up to your face to watch.
“Carl, I cut my hand. Bad.” You say, looking up at him.
He keeps smiling, cocking his head. “Did you?”
What’s going on with him?
“Yeah, I—” You pause as he pulls your hand back up to your face and you see the clean skin of your arm. No cuts, no damage, no blood, not even the slightest hint of the irritation your skin felt a few moments ago. “Wait, no… I could’ve sworn I just cut my hand on the doorframe. There was blood all over the place.”
You want to ask him what the hell is going on but before you can he says, “You’re acting kind of strange, are you feeling okay?” Slinking a hand around your waist as he leads you up the stairs.
You suddenly feel embarrassed by your own behavior, both in the kitchen and now with him. Everything you’ve ever wanted is right in front of you, just perfect, and you’re worried about NOT being injured?
“I guess I’m just tired,” You dismiss, starting to take the lead up to Judith’s room.
He still manages to get past you and reaches for the door handle, shooting you one last loving smile, his eyes squinting. “You know, you’ve always been safe here with me, right? I would never let anything happen to you.”
“Come on, baby… I need you, you hear me? I need you.” Your father shouts from downstairs, a few pans clattering.
You try to turn your head in the direction of the stairs, but Carl catches your chin in a light grip and guides you back to face him. “Ignore him.”
“But he’s calling me, he needs help with—”
“Don’t worry about it,” He says quietly, his grip on your chin shifting to cradle your cheek as he plants a kiss on your forehead. “Just… pay attention to me for now. Going down there is only going to get you hurt…” He pauses, seeing that you’re not totally convinced. “We’re not chefs, remember?”
“I guess not, but…” You bite into your lower lip, “It feels wrong to just ignore him.”
“You’re not ignoring him,” He says, lowering himself to level his blue eyes with yours, bringing his other hand up to rest on your other cheek. “You’ll have all the time in the world to talk to him, get smothered by all his affection, and get to do everything you want… You just need to hold out for a little while longer. —Sometimes it’s better to wait for things. Sometimes it’s not safe.”
You’re about to respond to him again, the words dying on your tongue when at this level you realize something is horribly wrong. You do a double take, once, then again, eventually resorting to brushing his fringe aside just to be sure of what you’re seeing, your eyebrows raising.
Two eyes? Two beautiful, blue eyes that look at you like you’re the whole world? —Instead of the one you’re used to, the orb perfectly shining like a gem in contrast to the empty socket on the other side of his face, a crater marking his survival of what was truly the worst of the world.
It feels wrong for you to wish that your boyfriend would only have one eye, but here you are doing it.
You pull away, his hands slipping down to his sides as you start slowly backing away from him and towards the stairs. “I…” You want to make an excuse, tell him that you’re going downstairs to see what your dad needs, but you can’t manage to get the words out.
He blinks a few times as he stands up straight, cocking his head, eyes flicking over your form innocently. “What’s the matter? We’re going to play with Judith, aren’t we?”
You shake your head. “No… I don’t— What the hell is going on?”
This isn’t like the other times you’ve let yourself sink into an old skin of yours, let it envelope you so you don't have to face reality, this isn’t a memory. This is something completely made up, and you don’t like it.
You don’t like it at all.
The smile he’s been wearing this entire time falls to a softer expression, his hands held out with their palms up in a plea. “I just… don’t want you to hurt, that’s all,” He pauses, “Like I said, sometimes it’s not safe. I know you know that, that’s why I’m here.”
“No,” You say with a slight shake of your head, holding a hand out defensively to keep him from getting any closer. —But when you do this, you feel a slight pressure on your head like you’re hanging, the blood from when you cut your hand coming into focus.
“So you’d rather be awake?” He asks with a worried frown, stepping forward to match your step backward, “You’d rather feel every second of your life draining as you bleed out?”
You blink, or at least you think you do, but you find that when you close your eyes they exertingly open somewhere else. —A lush forest, rain seeping into the broken cracks of your body, your stomach pain causing your breath to hitch, the person carrying you over their shoulder adjusting their grasp as you strain against them for a split second.
The change nearly makes you vomit, the agony that shoots through your limbs nearly makes you collapse, but you open your eyes back to the house. To this cartoonish version of Carl.
You look down at your hands, flipping them over to inspect the clean, untouched skin. “Am I dying?”
He opens his mouth to say something in response, his eyes glancing at the stairs with a heavy look in them as they glaze over, but you interrupt him.
“Are you dead too?” You ask, and strikes you like a slap to the face that you can’t remember how you got here, or how your dad ended up downstairs with Rick of all people, sharing a meal like nothing was ever wrong. “And them?”
He turns his attention back to you, the sadness never leaving his eyes. “I only know what you know.”
“Because you’re not real.” You deadpan, staring him down.
“Do you want ‘real’?”
“Yes. I need to know what I’m dealing with, even if…” You shake your head, glaring at him. “That’s another reason I know you’re not him. He would know that’s how we do things in Alexandria, that we take what we have and we figure out a way to make it work. I need to know if I’m dead, or… dying.”
He takes a cautious step forward, watching you to make sure you won’t take another step away from him— but really, he probably already knew you wouldn’t because he ‘knows what you know’, maybe it’s a courtesy, your mind giving you one last pitiful chance to protect itself from what’s happened.
His hands come up to catch your face, gently stroking underneath your eyes with his thumbs as he gives you a loving look, just about the only thing this imposter is able to imitate correctly.
“All you have to do is open your eyes,” He claims, running his fingers from where they rest on your jaw to in front of your eyes, the light of the house disappearing as the slats of his fingers close.
It’s another heavy, ruthless blink, where it seems as though you close your eyes on the world, except this time you know that this side is where true consciousness lies. The forest, with cold water running down your back and limbs from the rain, the sun starting to slip from where it once proudly stood at mid-day.
Your vision is dark and bleary, partially from what feels like your entire body freezing, and partially because of the tears in your eyes from forcing them open. The person who’s carrying you has their shoulder digging into the open wound you feel on your abdomen, each limping step adding a painful stab to the mixture of agony you’re experiencing.
You try to speak but all that comes out is a pitiful whimper, your arm stretched out and searching for something to ground you and stop them from taking you wherever they are. —That must be how you cut your hand open before, not on a doorframe, but on a sharp, thorny plant you'd clung to while they tugged you along.
The person stops, moving their arms from your hips to your waist and pulling you down to rest on their side so you can see their face. “You're okay,” Negan says, swiping a hand at the blood streaking down your face from your nose. “Get some rest.”
But you can't. You don't want to go back there, even though you know it wasn't real.
“I'm scared, dad,” You say weakly, your voice heightening to a whine. “It feels like I'm going to die every time I close my eyes.”
His grip on you tightens protectively, but he knows better than to argue with you. “Okay.” He says softly, too afraid to make a promise he can't keep. “Don't be scared, baby, I'm right here.”
He wonders if saying that will even comfort you considering he’d been the one to do this to you in a moment of desperation. —How could you ever trust him to protect you again, when he can’t even protect you from himself?
You sniffle softly, “Where are we going?”
With all the pain and confusion you’d forgotten to ask the last time you’d woken up, but now that you understand what’s going on to some degree, it’s one of the only questions on your mind.
He hesitates to answer for a fraction of a second before offering the truth, “I don’t know yet, or I didn’t until—”
You cock your head, having to lean it up against his shoulder for support to keep your head up when leaning makes you dizzy.
He stares down at your face, your cheek smashed against the lapel of his jacket and those big eyes staring up at him expectantly just like they always had. —Him doing this hasn’t changed the way you look at him at all, a quiet, nostalgic sadness spread across your features and in the deepest parts of you, ingrained within the person you’ve become. He isn’t sure if that’s a good or a bad thing.
“Until you told me,” He says, rubbing circles in your shoulder. “You said you wanted to go home, so I’m getting you there.”
***
“I don’t understand…” Rick says, setting a hand on his forehead as he stares down at the tracks in the mud. —They double back, again, but this time they go further towards Alexandria than before.
Carl sticks out two fingers, curling some of the mud from one of the footprints into his hand and squeezing it.
His hair is soaked and sticking to his forehead, much like Rick’s, but unlike his dad he has a silent grimace on his face, not bothering to make any attempts to protect himself from the weather or otherwise as he tactlessly hunts through the woods.
“It’s not her, so it’s him,” He says with a soft laugh, looking at the single set of tracks, large men’s shoes. “She’s dead.”
The hopeful expression Rick had been wearing this entire time to keep his son’s morale up falls with the words, images of the little girl leaving the barn long-gone flashing behind his eyes and forcing him to swallow his emotions to keep it up.
“She might not be,” He comforts, then his tone turns lecturing, “Carl, you know better than anyone else that we have to keep lookin’. It’s still the first fourty-eight hours.”
Carl shoots him a sharp glare, gearing up to say something about how Rick’s last search effort had gone, when images of you lying in bed next to him, smiling as he went on for hours about what feels like useless nonsense now hit him like a punch to the gut and the words wilt.
He hangs his head with guilt, eye falling back on the footprints before him.
It’s all his fault.
You were doing so well, so well together, and then he went and ruined everything by bringing up that stupid necklace and offering to take you with him.
He never should have trusted Negan, let alone trusted him not to hurt you when he saw him do it so much before. —No one means anything to that man.
“I’m going to kill him.”
He raises his head to look back up at his dad, who is staring down at him like he can’t comprehend what his gentle boy is saying, so he repeats it.
“When we find him… I’m going to be the one to kill him.”
With that, he cocks his gun and stands up to keep walking ahead of them, only sparing Michonne a small glance to warn her that he’s deadly serious.
***
It’s only once you see the familiar sight of E.R.+C.G. carved into a tree with newly added angel wings and a halo that you realize your dad isn’t taking you back to The Sanctuary.
He leaves the woods with you, taking a deep breath as he makes his way over to a car sitting just on the edge of the road, completely destroyed to the point there’s no way anybody could drive it, the hood popped open and rusted out, the floor of the car missing and overgrown with plant life.
“Dad?” You let the question hang in the air as he suddenly sets you on your feet, feet and legs that you can’t feel, before helping you lean against the door of the car.
He’s silent and methodical, only offering a small stroke to your cheek and chin before continuing what he’s doing, walking over to the back of the car and slamming his foot against it until a piece of the bumper comes off with a loud thud.
“Dad, the walkers are going to hear you, you have to—! Eugh!” You clutch your stomach and tip your head back, the tension of straining yourself silencing you.
“Trust me, I know,” He says, picking up the hunk of metal with one of his feet still placed on it, snapping it in half, before dragging it over to you and wrapping your un-injured hand around it. Your hand remains limp, so he adds, “Hold it.”
A tear slips out of your closed eyes, your head still slammed back against the car as you pour your strength into holding up the hunk of metal. “I can’t do it. —I can’t fight right now,” You admit with a choked cry, lightly banging your head against the car, “Please don’t make me do this again.”
You expect him to be disappointed in you for fucking everything up, but he isn’t. He looks sad.
“You aren’t going to, just relax, save your energy.”
He slides a hand underneath your head to stop the banging and abruptly wraps his arms around you, pulling you as close as he can and taking a deep breath, memorizing the feeling.
You're too shocked to do anything for a moment, almost letting your hand go slack around the metal before you come back to yourself and lean into the hug as much as you can. “O-Okay?”
“Man, I don’t know when I’ll be able to do this again,” He sighs with a laugh— or was it a sob?
It feels all too much like when Dwight decided to leave, and you want to ask him if he’s going to abandon you when all of a sudden he falls to his knees in front of you, never taking his eyes off of yours.
“What are you doing?” You ask, eyes wide at the sight of your father, Negan, on his knees.
He guides your hand, the sharp edge of the bumper by extension, to the cut on his leg, coating the metal with his blood before shoving it upward and forcing you to lean forwards to catch yourself.
“Eli?”
You turn at the sound of your own name, the metal clattering down beside your dad as you see Carl start sprinting his way over, quickly followed by Rick and Michonne.
***
“You don’t need to do this, Carl,” Michonne tries to reason, tugging at the hem of his shirt as he keeps following the tracks, “Let us do it for you. You’re right, it needs to be done, but you shouldn’t let your personal emotions affect the way we handle him. He’s a monster. There are so many other people who want justice, it wouldn’t be fair for you to—”
He abruptly stops at the edge of the woods, Michonne bumping into his back as he lowers his gun, eye blown wide.
“Is that…” He says under his breath, seeing you in the road.
You’re bloody, just about every part of your usually clean body soaked in a deep red color, your head turned down at the man below you on his knees with your hair stuck to your face and neck with a mixture of sweat and blood. —You look fucking insane, but Carl’s never been more glad to see anybody like that, because it’s you, and you’re alive.
He feels stupid now for doubting you.
A relieved smile spreads across his face as he gets ready to step out and greet you when you raise your hands above your head in one sharp movement, your sneakers slipping on the pavement, looking ready to bring it down on Negan’s head like he’d done to so many others before.
“Eli?”
You turn to face him, the metal dropped at the sound of his voice calling out to you, your face shifting to something soft and desperate, reaching out for him with a pitiful cry. Carl rushes over to you without another moment to spare and throws his arms around you, squeezing until he feels the rush of liquid on his fingers and realizes the blood all over you is your own.
The two adults walk past you with a quick once over glance, and start working to restrain Negan, who doesn’t fight them in the slightest, still not removing his eyes from yours once. It’s almost like he’s waiting to make sure you’re not afraid before he does anything else.
Carl stares down at his palms, hearing the strange way your breathing is rattling and finally noticing how pale your skin is, his heart starting to race again.
“It’s hers,” He says in a panic, taking his hands away like he burned you, guilt evident on his face.
They stop at this, Michonne dropping the arm of Negan’s she’d put behind his back, eyes widening when she sees the way Carl’s hands are absolutely painted red from only touching you once.
“‘S you? It’s really you?” You ask in a slurred tone, bloodied hands wrapping around his cheeks and brushing his fringe aside to inspect the bandage over his right eye.
Rick reluctantly leaves Michonne to handle Negan, reminding himself he’s only a few feet away as he walks over to you and kneels down, hands on your rib cage as he turns you towards him, seeing that you aren’t going to move yourself. The worst of the blood is around your stomach, so he puts his focus there.
“You mind?” He asks, hand hovering over the end of your shirt.
Your eyes that were once on Carl suddenly turn to meet his, blinking slowly. “Huh?”
“Can I take a look?” He rephrases, but you still don’t give a coherent answer.
“I think she might be delirious,” Rick announces, deciding to take a look at the wound without your permission. He tugs your shirt up, but only the amount necessary to see what’s going on, not wanting to risk exposing you to the rain while you’re already so cold.
You flinch away at the air suddenly hitting the sensitive skin, except for what’s hidden by a strip of dripping red fabric. “No, it’s cold. I need this,” You refuse, reaching down to tug it back into place, which he of course easily lifts back up.
“Sorry. Hang in there, deputy, I need to see what we’re dealing with.”
You start shooting Negan a helpless look, his gaze softening when you give him watery puppy eyes and reach out in his direction even though he’s too far to touch. “Dad, it’s cold—”
“She’s definitely fuckin’ delirious, been talking like that for a while,” Negan suddenly adds to the conversation, feigning annoyance. “—Rambling.”
Negan knows he needs to tell them exactly what’s going on with you without leaving out any details, otherwise they might overlook something, putting you at risk, and he can’t have that. It’s already risky enough for you to be in this state knowing what you know, but now unable to filter any of what comes out of your mouth, like calling him dad with Rick right there.
Carl gives him a murderous look.
“Cover his goddamn mouth,” Rick snaps, and Michonne does so eagerly.
Rick pulls back the fabric covering the wound and sees the brutal gash dug so deep into your torso he thinks for a moment that it may have gone all the way through you, at least until he runs his fingers down your back and feels that it’s solid skin.
He gives Negan a warning glance, unable to comprehend how the man could do something like this to someone who was once one of his own. “You… You did this?”
The other man just stares for a moment, taking in the sight of your wound for the first time since he wrapped it and seeing how bad it really is. He hadn’t stabbed you but once. —The wound on the other hand certainly tells a different story, the flesh frayed and damaged like he’d gone at it over and over again, trying to hurt you, maybe because he kept driving the knife in further.
He can’t speak, gagged with his own signature red bandana, but even if he could he makes sure to communicate with his eyes that he wouldn’t, and the lack of a response is response enough to Rick.
Rick’s nostrils flare, his hand reaching out and picking up Lucille, putting the bat underneath the other man’s chin.
He takes a second to really feel the position, basking in the way the role reversal makes him feel before finding that it makes him sick. —Not here, not like this, and not in front of his family, his impressionable son who’s already been through enough.
“If I had any semblance of mercy for you left, I would bash your skull in right now so you wouldn’t have to pay for this. —So you wouldn’t have to go on waiting and hoping, and being crushed every single time like we did,” He spits, “But you don’t deserve my mercy. You’re going to rot.”
“Dad—!” You try to rush forward once Rick has backed away from the man, but Rick scoops you up and starts carrying you, motioning for Carl to follow.
“No, wait! H-He’s coming home with us, right? He has to!” You plead, fighting his grip to get back to the other man where he kneels on the ground.
Michonne pulls Negan to his feet, her katana resting at his back as she guides him on the other side of Carl where he can’t look at you anymore. “Don’t worry, he definitely is coming back with us.” She says with slight amusement, “You did a good job today, catching him like that and waiting for us.”
You shake your head, nuzzling your face into Rick’s shoulder with shame.
Carl reaches out and laces his fingers with yours, giving you a kiss on the forehead. “It’s gonna be okay, honey, just rest up until we get home.”
You’re going to refuse again when you catch a glimpse of Negan nodding from behind Carl, mouthing for you to comply.
“I’ll be fine,” you catch between tired blinks, your eyes drifting shut.
***
He was wrong.
Almost as soon as they got back to Alexandria multiple people tried and succeeded in taking swings at him as they entered, Rick and Michonne watching from the sidelines as people cursed him for what he did to them. It was better for them to get it all out now, and for them to see who had high emotions and would be a potential threat if they spared Negan.
Aaron, Daryl and Gabriel rushed over to see what was happening as the crowd grew larger, Aaron offering to take you to the infirmary, and once people calmed down they put Negan in a jail cell and held a meeting to discuss what to do with him. —Which was hard to do, considering they had no idea what happened because Negan wouldn’t say, and you couldn’t.
You were lucky, all things considered, but all your miraculous recoveries finally caught up with you. When Negan stabbed you, he managed to get the knife so deep into you and at such an angle that he actually punctured your pancreas.
With all the blood loss you almost had a complete organ failure, unfortunately gaining Anemia. —Lucky for you, Negan was a bounty people were willing to pay you back for, both in blood and medicine.
You stayed in bed for four weeks, happy to do so considering Carl was always at your side, other people visiting you on multiple occasions, like Dwight, who brought you more flowers and candy, but you were even happier when you could start walking around again.
Because that meant you could finally talk to Negan in the cell.
When you open the door, the air is dusty and smells like sweat, all too familiar from the time you spent locked in here. —He doesn’t look up at the sound of the door opening, his eyes trained on the wall, mind as far as your’s had been.
“Sucks, doesn’t it?” You ask, and finally his head snaps up and he stands, walking as far as he can before he reaches the bars.
“Baby girl,” He says hoarsely, voice cracking from the time it spent in silence, but he seems to quickly recover. “You look like shit, are you okay? —They told me I pierced one of your organs, but they wouldn’t say how you were doing. I-Is it… Are you…?” He looks down at the spot he stabbed you beneath your clothes.
You can’t help but look too as you answer him, the spot only partially satiated by the heavy pain medication they’re using on you. “Well, there were a few complications, but nothing that’ll… y’know.”
This is so unbelievably awkward that it’s killing you.
“Even in chains, you dictate my life.” You joke, but it falls dead on the floor between you, a dark reminder of what your relationship has twisted into.
“I’m sorry,” He admits softly, his hands held out in front of you like when he had carried you through the woods.
“That’s not how I—”
“But it should be,” He cuts off, his eyes gleaming in the dim lighting, “I’ve been thinking about you nonstop, everything I did to you and how every single time I knew I’d done something wrong I just handed over whatever you wanted, which was usually something I was choosing to deprive you of. —My attention, my affection, education.”
You avert your eyes, rubbing the back of your hands. “Well, you were busy running an entire community and I wanted to be with you…” You excuse.
“Eli, that’s not fuckin’ normal, kid. I can’t let you walk away thinking that it is, because I meant what I said,” He says, raising his voice to get your attention back on him. “I love you, baby.”
“I love you too… I know everything that happened wasn’t normal, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want you to be accepted,” You take a step closer to the bars and he backs away, “Because I meant what I said, I still think you can be changed, and I don’t care if that makes me an idiot. I don’t care if it takes me coming back down to this musty room for years. —I won’t stop trying to change people until the day I die because you taught me that everyone is worth something.”
He reaches out to hug you, hands hitting metal before backs away with surprise, sitting back down, holding his face in his hands.
“Shit, I’m trapped now, aren’t I?” He laments with a small chuckle, looking around the cell with wide eyes, “It was worth it, though. —You’re still standing.”
He wouldn’t change this outcome for the world considering what he’d done, the only thing he still regrets is making it happen in the first place. —His wish, to go back and undo all of this, can never come true. His day of reckoning finally came, and now he’s jailed for his crimes.
You step close enough to wrap your fingers around the bars, clenching them tightly. “This was always how it was going to be.”
It’s not a question and he knows it, but he answers it anyway, giving you the approval you’ve always craved from him.
“Yes. It was.”