Chapter Text
Their new hideout consisted of a gutted office above a shuttered bodega, two floors up from street level, windows painted over from the inside.
Noise from the city breathed in through its thin walls - metal clanging, the occasional wet chorus of walkers wandering too close, muffled in this place they had made somewhat livable.
Inside, there were two cots, a camp stove, and jugs of water lined up like the New Babylon soldiers they saw every day while scavenging around outside.
Negan lay on his stomach on his cot, his body still, but his thoughts raging like a wildfire as Maggie checked on the latest stab wound she’d given him.
It hadn’t been deep enough to kill. Oh no, it never was.
Whether that decision was made consciously by her or not, he wasn’t for certain, but he was starting to wonder if it was actually her preferred method of killing him all along - slowly, by puncturing him like a pin cushion until he couldn’t take anymore, or until she hit something vital he wouldn’t be able to recover from.
It still hurt like hell, due to the low-grade infection in it, but that wasn’t the worst part.
The worst, or rather the most confusing part about it, was that Maggie had left him alive in the first place. He didn't understand, but she was basically taking care of him now. Like they were two fellow human beings instead of Maggie and Negan, sworn enemies.
Negan had not considered her his enemy for a long time, but he doubted she could say the same. Though, the last three or four days had him scratching his head.
Since she'd found out he had the infection, she had been acting funny. Making sure the sutures stayed clean with fresh water every night, even going out of her way to find him the antibiotics he just started, further making him feel like a colossal piece of shit, when Ginny had died because he chose a ventilator instead of actual meds.
He'd done the best he could, but as usual, it hadn't been enough. Now the tension was building within him. The need to ask why she was doing all this, but they barely spoke, their communication reduced to side eyes and hand motions, leaving them to wade through all the things that became left unsaid.
It would have been easier to pretend not to notice, and let whatever it was keep festering between them along with the rest of the rot, but the shift had become much too large to ignore.
When her fingers would brush his skin, not only with practiced efficiency, but with a gentleness he didn’t know what to do with, it stirred things hidden so deep he thought maybe he was reading too much into it.
It had to be.
The infection and lack of sleep could certainly do that to a person. But with every pause that came when she finished playing nurse, as if her hands forgot who he was for half a heartbeat, and lingered, it was starting to drive him insane.
She'd also been giving him food everyday. Taken the coldest corner of the room by default, though he thought that was more of a punishment to herself than a kindness to him, as if comfort was something she couldn't afford to indulge in.
She slept with a knife in her hand every night too, so tight her knuckles were white around it, indicating that she wasn't really sleeping at all. He'd found out pretty quickly.
She was always too busy watching the door, either contemplating finally leaving him to fend on his own, or expecting Hershel to come bursting through and back into her life at any minute. Not that it was likely to happen.
The Dama had done a number on everyone, but she'd managed to reel Hershel tighter than any of them.
Negan had thought her dead, but to find out that old bitch was still out there, plotting who to manipulate next, using Hershel as her errand boy, filling his head full of dreams that were barely possible when the dead hadn’t sat at the top of the food chain, he was worried, and he knew it was taking it’s toll on Maggie.
She had told him all about what happened. How Hershel had pleaded with her to kill him so they could move on with their lives. But instead she was here with him, acting like he hadn’t been ruining hers since the second he came into it, and he didn't know why.
Why hadn’t she just killed him?
Why hadn’t she just taken Hershel and went home?
If it was her against Dama, Maggie could have taken the crow easily, but she knew the cunt had her claws in Hershel too deep psychologically.
She knew it would only drive him further away if she'd done something like that.
In exchange, Negan had told her about how Dama had threatened Hershel, Annie, and Joshua if he didn’t do what she wanted. Now they were here waiting to see what Dama's shriveled ass had up her sleeve next.
She no longer had control of the Burazi, and neither did he. But he was sure she'd figure out something.
People like that always did.
He should know, he was one of them.
“I think the stitches can come out soon." Negan felt her run a thumb down the line of sutures holding him together, almost tenderly.
He laughed once, a bitter sound that had come seemingly out of nowhere, but it wasn’t. It had been bubbling up for two weeks now, since she started making no sense, and as usual, once he got started, he couldn't be bothered to stop.
“Why didn’t you do it, Maggie? You have every damn reason. You should’ve just killed me. Ended this. Maybe you could have gotten Hershel away from that dried up old hag if you had.”
He saw her jaw tighten out of the corner of his eye where he was laying face down, his arms propped under his chin.
“Just don’t, Negan.”
“Don’t?” He glared. “No, we are not doing the ‘don’t’ thing anymore. You stabbed me in the back, and before that you stabbed me in the shoulder. And now you’re taking care of me while your son is out there? What the fuck do I have to do before you’ll kill me? I’ve seen you kill other people for less, so what’s the hold up?”
Her eyes flashed with fury.
“Watch your mouth!”
“Or what? You’ll stab me again? Do it then! Come on!”
Her hand twitched towards her knife, but then she swallowed hard and stopped herself.
He grunted and twisted onto his back to be able to face her properly. Her eyes shone in the dim light like she was holding back that flood of tears begging for release. Immediately, he felt guilty, but he also needed to know.
Their current arrangement made about as much sense as why god, the universe, or whatever the hell it was keeping this shit show running kept giving him opportunities he fucked up like he was born for it.
“Just tell me why,” he demanded again, but softer. “Why do you keep dragging this out?”
She stared down at him coldly, like he was a wall she’d run into too many times, and was about to bulldoze through. But then her shoulders lifted and fell with a shaky breath.
“Don’t you think I want to!? I can’t!”
“Sure you can! Just do it!” He frowned back at her.
He waited for the inevitable justification - the moral lecture. Something about it being, “for Hershel” or “for my soul” or “because I’m better than you,” but nothing came.
Instead, she looked away as tears streamed down her cheeks, and then she covered her face with her hands, hunching over, resting her elbows on her knees.
Negan flinched in shock as she began to cry, quickly escalating into a full blown sobbing fit.
He surely hadn't been expecting that, or for her to do it right there in front of him, but he supposed if anyone could drive her to it, it’d be him.
He shook his head and stared at the ceiling, listening to her, glancing over every so often. He wanted to hug her. Tell her it would be alright. That he'd help her get Hershel back. But he knew this woman. If it wasn’t something initiated by her first, he might wind up with another knife in him.
Knowing he was the primary cause for her accumulated grief all the time clawed at his heart, even if no one else believed it. She’d been dragged into this whole mess because of him. Because the Croat wanted him and used her to make it happen.
Minutes passed. Eventually she calmed down on her own, true to form.
He ran a hand over his face.
“You know what the real kick in the teeth is?”
She didn’t look at him as she was wiping her eyes. “If you’re about to make a joke-”
“I’m not.” He paused before going on. “It's that I keep thinking I’m doing something different. Like I’m finally learning. Protecting people. Being better.”
He chuckled, forlornly.
“Lucille...I couldn’t protect her. I built my whole fucking lovely persona out of not having to feel that, and what a marvelously shit job I did. It was like if I could become the worst possible version of me, then nothing could hurt me again. But then came Annie...I didn’t want to, but I tried again. I swear I tried...”
His eyes burned too.
“I thought if I loved them and kept them close, I could make it work...but I couldn’t. I never can. Just look at Ginny. A stupid, stubborn kid. I told myself I wasn’t going to fail her, like I had any right and hadn’t already when I killed her old man. I thought maybe I could balance the scales helping her. That this was the one. Like the universe was gonna look at me and go, ‘alright, Negan, you can have this one. You’re making progress’.”
He smiled, miserably.
“But I wasn’t. I fail everyone I try to protect. Every. Damn. Time.”
Maggie winced at the mention of Ginny, still holding onto a lot of guilt for that herself.
But as far as she was concerned, that girl was just more collateral damage in this sick and twisted relationship her and Negan couldn’t get out of.
“You didn’t fail Ginny by caring about her, Negan. You failed her because you’re you. Because you make stupid ass choices. Because you try to protect what you already broke. Have you tried protecting something without breaking it first?”
He stared.
“The reason you’re alive is because I still need you, plain and simple, even though I hate that I do. You're right. It would be so much easier for me if you were dead. But then, as usual, when I see you attempting to do the right things, and caring about people like you did with Ginny and Annie, and others over the years, no matter how terribly you might be at it, I just… can’t.”
“Maggie...”
She chirped a humorless laugh.
“I’ve wanted you dead for so long now. Because it’s something I could use to hold onto Glenn, I think. Because you’re the only other person on this planet that knows the extent of what you took away from me. And if you’re not here to shoulder that with me...then that means I’ll have to carry it alone, and I don’t know if I can. My hate for you and wanting you dead has been the thing that has kept me going. But now - ” Her throat bobbed. “It’s not so simple anymore, and it may have cost me my son. Because I can’t let it go, and I’m scared what will happen if I do."
"I can only think that If I haven't killed you by now, then maybe you’re supposed to be here. Maybe this is your punishment. To keep walking this forsaken fuckin' earth thinkin’ about all the shit you’ve done, trying until you get it right. Because maybe death is too easy for you, Negan. It always has been.”
Negan looked down, pressing his lips with a frown. Not that he hadn't thought the same thing once or twice, but it still sounded like bullshit to him. Another excuse. And now he had some insight.
She wanted him to suffer along with her, apparently, so she wouldn’t be alone with all the pain.
At least that he could understand.
“You honestly believe that?” He asked.
A sour smile broke across Maggie's lips for a split second.
“I don’t know what I believe anymore. All I know is killing you won’t bring Glenn back, and it won’t fix what’s broken in me because of it. I just want to figure out how to let this go between us. Get my son away from whatever hold this bitch has on him, and go home.”
“I’ll help you get Hershel back, Maggie,” Negan replied.
“I know you will.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Because this is all your fault. Hershel and I never would have had to come here if the Croat didn't want you.”
He nodded.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
She bristled at his apology, really looking at him, as she had been doing a lot lately. The lines carved deep around his eyes, pain etched into the set of his mouth. She was glad he was in pain, but she also felt bad because she knew he was sorry. From Glenn to this, she knew he felt bad.
But sorry didn’t make it go away, and it didn't make it better that she'd been too busy hating him to the point her son resented her because of it. Because she'd spent his life treating him like an object to be protected instead of her child that needed connection.
The awful truth was, she barely knew how to make a real connection anymore. She barely knew how to let her guard down long enough to feel anything, other than the anger and loathing for this man in front of her...and even that was fading.
She still didn’t know how she was supposed to get over this unless she did forgive or kill him.
But she didn't want to kill him, and because of that, they were stuck.
She was stuck.
Negan watched her watching him, struggling to keep it together. Slowly, she reached over and took his hand in hers. It felt awkward and uncomfortable at first, but neither of them let go. Then she raised her other hand and brushed her knuckles down the side of his face in an affectionate gesture that surprised them both.
“Do you realize the only times you aren’t completely fucking things up is when you are trying to make this up to me, and get me to forgive him you?”
His heart thumped dangerously.
“...because I know I can’t do either of those things, but the least I can do is try like I could.”
Maggie took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
“So, what do we do now, Maggie?”
She shook her head slowly.
"I don't know...for the first time in a long time, I just... don't know."