Negan's never been accused of having a handle on his emotions. Being with Lucille only exacerbated that quality in him. When he was with her, Negan was prone to dramatics. Negan wasn't the only one to be so damn stubborn, though. Lucille was the exact same damn way about it. Lucille's mother had put it in a nice way that still stuck with Negan to this day: "You're young and passionate. So, what if that means you butt heads so much? That just means you'll be even more passionate making up afterwards. And then I'll finally get my grandchildren."
Well, she never got her grandchildren. Despite all their lovemaking, Negan and Lucille avoided having children as if they were the plague, or more aptly to their thinking, parasites. Both Lucille and Negan worked – Negan with two jobs, coaching and selling used cars – there wasn't any money to even think of having children yet.
Towards the end, though, Negan started to think that maybe he and Lucille didn't have any children to save them from the heartache. Their marriage had started to fall apart. It was no one's fault really. They just didn't get along anymore.
One day Negan just woke up and he couldn't stand the fact that Lucille never stacked her shoes in the closet and he realized just how annoying her off-tune humming was when she brushed her teeth. So, he went to the bar that night and cheated; and when he came home, he could tolerate her shoes laying out and he could tune out her humming as he waited for her in their marriage bed.
It wasn't until Lucille was diagnosed that Negan realized that maybe the heartache they were saving the-children-they-never-had from was watching Lucille die, not their imminent divorce. And Negan wasn't a dick; he couldn't leave his wife when she had cancer. Lucille gave him an out, though. She told him she knew about the women and told him to just leave, but Negan had stayed.
Not like staying did a lot of good for him, though. While Lucille went through her chemo treatments, Negan and Lucille reconnected and rekindled the fire and passion in their love. Too little too late did Negan realize that he fell in love with his wife again – harder than ever before – just in time for her condition to be terminal. He was the fool of love, the fucking idiot who fell in love with a dying woman.
Then it all came to a head. Lucille died. The world ended. The dead rose. Negan's entire world turned on its head. He was plunged into the thick of it, no time to grieve – it was do or die, just survive, damn it.
So, it's little surprise that when Negan finally gets some damn much wanted and needed stability in his life as top fucking dog of Saviors and the Sanctuary, that Negan's armor starts to crack. He had done things – hell, who hadn't? – horrible damn things. Smashed in the heads of the living and the dead with a barbwire bat until it was coated in blood. Burned the faces off those who broke his rules. Killed people, so many damn people that deserved or didn't, he didn't care which.
And it wasn't until Negan stopped to look around him that he realized he tried so hard to fill the void that Lucille left in his heart. He named the bat after her. He had a harem of women – none of them that looked like her – but he named each of them as a wife. He hoarded medical supplies and never let anyone get sick. They could die from anything else, but he wouldn't let them get sick. If Negan could help it, too, not a single one the dead were allowed to roam free. Either they were used for the fence, or Negan killed them. The only dead he never killed himself was his own wife's reanimated corpse. No, he had to call in some fucking kid to kill her for him.
Lucille had been dead for two years now, but it felt like a lifetime ago. Negan had stopped rutting against the bat handle. He stopped thinking of her name and face when he was with other women. All he wanted to do was let go, but…but he needed closure. Negan wanted to see her again, to bury her properly, to give her a better goodbye. His last goodbye had just been a kiss on her forehead. She deserved better.
But try as he might, Negan had forgotten Lucille's face. Was she a blonde? Or maybe she had black hair… she had light eyes when she was happy, but he remembered a pair of dark eyes while he made love to her. What color were those eyes? How beautiful was her smile?
Guilt consumed Negan as he failed to be able to conjure her face. Nothing was left of his old life to remind him. He had stopped wearing his wedding ring long before Lucille was diagnosed. There was nothing left of her; literally nothing except his half-formed, half-imagined memories. That was not enough.
Then, Negan once again had to shove his grief aside as more shit cropped up. One of his outposts was wiped out overnight – fuckers slaughtered in their sleep – and Negan had to shut that shit down before all of his Saviors were wiped out. He had found the group responsible for it: The Alexandria Safe-Zone. Negan pulled out all the stops with them, a regular Career Day spectacle of it just to flex his power. Lucille bashed in two heads. The leader was broken. One of their men was taken prisoner. It was a damn productive, good day.
Just three days later, Negan made a surprise visit to their community. His intention had been to just scope the place out, take their guns, their medical supplies, whatever struck his fancy. As soon as he stepped foot in, Negan was transported. This untouched suburbia was a blast from the past he had with Lucille.
It was such a normal, average neighborhood, albeit with nicer houses than he and Lucille could ever afford. But these houses were the exactly the kind he and Lucille always wanted. Wrap around, covered porches with built in swings. No white picket fences and lawns that were still pretty damn well manicured. Who the hell was cutting the grass during the apocalypse?
"Hot diggity dog!" Negan crowed in delight and spread his arms wide. "This place is cock-sucking magnificent!" And then he and their leader – Rick, his new bitch – toured the place while his Saviors did the shake down.
Negan was having fun messing with Rick, watching the man lower his eyes so demurely for him and grip Lucille nice and tight while she hung limp at his side. When Negan looked at Rick – really looked at Rick – he felt something. Pride and delight, mainly, but maybe there was something else there, too.
Strutting about town with Rick trailing after him like a piece of trash skittering down the street in the wind, Negan felt like this place was perfectly preserved better than a picturesque Christmas town in a snow globe. All Negan wanted to do was shake it up.
Then Negan turned his head and through the throng of Saviors going freely in and out of houses he swore he saw someone beautiful – a woman maybe – and damn, had he seen her before? Maybe at the line-up. Her hair was dark and curly, either a chestnut brown or pitch black. She was wearing a damn white dress, which in this suburbia didn't look out of place at all. Hell, it looked like she was getting married. Negan thought about his wives.
Their dresses were black and he'd done that deliberately. For one, it was a sexy color. Easy to wash. Everyone looked damn good in black. Maybe a perverse part of Negan also didn't want to bother learning the details about his wives either; like their favorite colors. But maybe it was because Lucille hated black dresses. She always complained that they reminded her of funerals. Hell, maybe Negan dolled up his wives in black dresses because they were dead to their husbands. Nah, he wasn't nearly so sentimental as that.
"Boss, I think you wanna look at this," one of his Saviors – Gary – interrupted his train of thought.
Gary gave him a video camera, and then Negan's mind was on other things – "Freaky Deaky!" – and then on Rick's luscious manbush, just how deep and gravely that man's voice could get. Negan teased him about it, pretended to record just how cowed Rick was like a dog who knew he shouldn't have pissed on the rug. He'd already forgotten about the woman by the time the creepy-ass priest showed up.
The sick woman had died; the one who's boyfriend Negan splattered all over the ground.
The priest led them to where they buried their dead and Negan stared at the fresh graves thoughtfully. No wonder Rick was so bitter and broken. Three people died for nothing. Negan shook his head at that, and while he ran his mouth so thoughtlessly – staring deep into Rick's cold and watery blue eyes – he could've sworn he saw the flutter of a white dress in his peripheral vision. He dismissed it as someone's freshly laundered sheet on a clothesline and dared not look directly at it. Half of Negan believed it was the sick girl haunting him. She could've had cancer like Lucille. Negan didn't want to think about it.
Luckily – or maybe unfortunately – he didn't have to because shit hit the fan. Rick's kid fucked up and shot at him men – threatened Negan himself, too. So, Negan decided to take their guns. Of course, he had come here planning that anyway; but also, they were their fucking guns originally until Rick knocked off that Satellite Outpost. But, Negan was going to use Carl's behavior as an excuse.
Their pantry was a fucking joke. Hell, Negan would have used this visit to drag Rick on a scavenging trip if he had known that these fuckers didn't have jack shit. While he let Arat handle loading up the guns, Negan backed Rick into a corner just to fuck with him. It was intimate, and as Rick glared up at him like some baleful cat that got his tail stepped on, all Negan could do was smile. That fucking spark. God, it was something. Beautiful. Dangerous. Familiar.
He cut Rick some slack and backed off. Outside, he fucked around with Rick more, just showing off. They watched Daryl and the other Saviors load the truck with guns. Negan popping off at the mouth about bazookas and just how well Rick could polish a pistol. He aimed the gun at Daryl, tracked him with it, watching Rick go stiff; and at the last possible second, he shot a damn window for the hell of it. Glass shattered and Rick relaxed. Negan thought that was really fucking funny.
Then there were more fuck-ups. Missing guns. Negan really didn't like that. He sent Rick off to find the guns before he killed Olivia, and then he went and sat on a bench with her, just waiting. He'd wait all day. They really didn't need anyone to die. Negan tried to talk to Olivia; he really did.
"Olivia, right?"
"Y-yes," she miserably whimpered, avoiding his eye and throwing herself on the opposite side of the bench.
Negan's mouth pinched. When she went stiff it wasn't as satisfying as when Rick did it. He pushed the thought aside. "You wouldn't happen to know where the guns are, would you, baby? You don't wanna be caught in a lie for one of these poor fucks. That would be stupid. I don't think you're fucking stupid, Olivia."
"N-no," she quietly moaned, hiding behind her hair and trembling against his outer thigh pressed against her larger one. "I, I really don't know. I'm s-sorry."
"Hey, baby, I'm sorry, too." Negan looked up at Rick peeking through the blinds of a house. "It's not on my fucking head."
Rick disappeared from the blinds with a flutter of a curtain. Negan licked his lips thoughtfully, humming to himself. He turned to address Olivia again, when another flutter caught his eye. Snapping his head toward the window suspiciously, Negan saw the same woman from before. This time she was looking at him, though. Just morosely staring through the glass, looking dead at him with her dead eyes, not scared at all.
Well, Negan was used to the pitiful looks – but for her to not cower away? He wasn't so sure he liked that. Negan bared his teeth in anything but a smile. She didn't even blink. Refusing to break the staring contest, Negan growled "Olivia?"
"Y-yeah?"
"Who's that fucking woman?" Negan pointed at the window, and the woman did nothing.
"W-what w-woman?" Olivia asked, genuine confusion laced into her soft, watery voice.
"What the fuck is the use of your glasses if you can't see shit? She's right fucking there!"
"I-I don't see…"
Frustrated, Negan broke the stare and turned to Olivia. He gently grabbed her chin and directly her to look, but as soon as he raised his index finger again, there was no one there. "What the hell?" Releasing Olivia, Negan stood up and walked toward the building. They were fucking with him, they had to be.
But he had to let it go because Rick brought the guns. It was time to leave; didn't want to drive through the night. They were on their way out when Rick made them wait to talk to that chick with the sword. She was hot. Rick was pretty hot, too. While he waited, he whistled, looking around absently, rocking back on his heels.
And down the street was that woman again. Negan nearly called out to her until he saw how his Saviors brushed by her, the white dress flipping around their bodies. No way in hell any of his Saviors would pass by a woman without snarling something nasty or trying to flirt. The way her dress flapped in the wind, too, a nonexistent wind that wasn't there…
It clicked.
She wasn't there either.
Negan hummed.
Well, she wasn't bothering him. He was almost regretful that she wasn't real. Negan had been looking for wives to add to the bunch. That woman might have been asked.
He didn't think he was crazy. The dead rose up every day. Some other supernatural shit like this must be real, too. Men became devils every day. People saw their demons everywhere. Negan wasn't going to let this get to him.
When Rick came up, Negan fucked around with him a little more; and forgot all about the woman in the white dress until next time.
Negan came to Alexandria sooner than he expected or wanted to. Carl had been a little shit, and Negan needed to talk to Rick about it. Negan marched Carl through the street without incident all the way back to his house. He had a little spat with Olivia, Carl took him on the tour, it was good. But then there was Judith – the little angel. Negan took her out on the porch for some fresh air and sat with her on his lap, cuddling his chest as she fell back to sleep. He talked out of his ass to Carl, making vague threats, but all Negan could think about what this fucking suburbia and the baby in his lap.
God, Lucille would've loved a place like this. She deserved a place like this. Looking down at Rick's baby girl, Negan knew that Lucille deserved a cute little baby like this. Negan absent-mindedly twirled a lock of Judith's blonde hair around his finger, smiling at her as she stared at him with sleepy eyes. Their baby would've had black hair. Lucille's eyes and Negan's smile, but the black hair would've been from both of them.
Just like that, Negan looked up and over the porch railing he saw the woman in the white dress standing in the yard. She wasn't real, otherwise Arat would've dragged her off the lawn. She was staring up at him, eyes only for him, and against the green of the grass her dress was unearthly white and she was so damn beautiful it was like the glowed. Her curly black hair drifted in the breeze – a breeze Negan couldn't feel – and she was so much closer to him now then she was the last time he visited.
Recognition nearly knocked Negan out of the rocking chair.
It was Lucille.
Hell, he should've known. He should know what his dead wife's fucking face looked like. Fuck, the dress she was wearing was Lucille's damn wedding dress. Negan was a fool.
He stared at her longer, stroking Judith's back soothingly to get her to go back to sleep. Maybe he couldn't remember her face because she hadn't looked like that in a long time. Not only had chemo and cancer ravage her health and beauty, but their marriage had been so terrible that Lucille had never looked happy. Negan took up infidelity; Lucille took up chain-smoking cigarettes. Her smile had diminished, her fingertips went yellow, a cough racked her body and ruined her singing.
Negan had forgotten all of that until he was looking at how perfect this Lucille was now. Was she an angel? Was she one of his demons? Just a ghost of a memory, half-remembered and half-conjured? He had always wanted to see Lucille again, but looking at her now… she still wasn't enough.
Judith started fussing, so Negan went inside. He didn't see Lucille again until he started playing pool and she stood in the small crowd of Alexandrians gathering around. Eventually he lost sight of her.
And then he gutted Spencer, and as he swept his gaze over the crowd, she was gone.
And then Rosita shot Lucille, and Lucille really was gone.
Seeing Rick was the only thing that really held Negan back. Well that, and they got a man who could make them bullets. That was fucking lucky, all things considered. When he left Alexandria, Negan had two thoughts in mind: one, he really wanted that fucking pool table. He was getting a little bored with ping pong.
But more importantly, he was going to burn this suburbia on the threshold of hell to the ground if it meant he could stop seeing that ghost. This baseball bat that's saved his life more times than he could count? She's the only woman he needs.