Lucille was not unfamiliar with death. Her mother died in a car accident when Lucille was only seven years old. The other driver had been drinking, and Lucille's mother had been coming home late from the graveyard shift at the diner. For a long time, it was just Lucille and her father, and their relationship was strained at best and terrible at worst.

The first chance she got to leave, Lucille took it.

Her chance came when the army recruiters came to her high school, promising to pay for college in exchange for service. Lucille agreed, and became a combat medic. Then came 9/11, and Lucille didn't come home for a while.

Lucille's relationship with death became a battle. She tried to save lives more often than she was forced to take them. Either way, she hated all the killings and the death. She hated having the choice of who lived and who died, who was worth the supplies, who could endure the pain to survive rather than live. She hated that more people died in her arms than she cared to count, despite how hard she would try to save them. This wasn't the life for her.

When she came back, she went to nursing school. She wanted to work with babies. Babies were so fresh and new; they were pure and innocent. Besides that, Lucille knew that working with babies would be the closest she could ever come to having one. The reason she came home was because of an injury – a shot clean through her uterus. It was pretty ugly, but Lucille didn't care. She knew it was better to be alive and there were worse injuries to have.

She had met Negan at a used car dealership. Her last car had been a Ford POS, crapped out on her, and she needed a replacement desperately. Negan had been the salesmen, and at first, she thought that his flirting had been just the tactic he used to sell cars. But then, even after she signed, the papers, he hadn't let her alone. "You new around these parts, Lucille?"

"Yeah, I'm attending the nursing school downtown."

"Can I take you out to dinner?" Negan had asked, tongue sliding over bleached white teeth, eyes nearly just as bright.

"Dinner?" Lucille had blinked, confused. She hadn't thought a man as handsome as Negan would look twice at her.

"Well, shit, if you don't want dinner, then how about a movie? Or we could go to the bar?" Gone was the smooth salesman persona and now there was something sincere and genuine. Lucille had seen it in his eyes just how much he was interested in her. She hadn't been sure if it would go beyond a quick fuck, but at the time she hadn't cared.

"Okay, I'll go to dinner with you."

Out of all the decisions she had made in her life so far – leaving home and participating in a war, coming back to put herself through medical school for a grueling job where she knew that not all babies would live – going out with Negan hadn't been her most impetuous thought. But she never regretted saying yes to him.

She said yes to him again when they finally married.

Negan was a good husband. He didn't mind that sometimes she swerved for paper bags in the roads or woke up in a cold sweat, crying out for people that had been gone for a while. Those nights were the worst, but Negan would always make them better. And most importantly, he didn't care that they couldn't have a baby together. Negan not only worked at a car dealership, but he also worked at the local high school and coached basketball. He was with kids all the time – even after school, he'd play ping pong with the neighborhood kids. Negan was of the mind that this was the closest he could get to having kids and that was alright with him. Lucille appreciated that.

In spite of herself, though, Lucille was getting worse. She should have gone to get professional help, but she was too afraid. But being at a hospital only exacerbated her PTSD. She remembered how one day it all came to a head when one of the babies she'd been helping deliver just… just didn't make it. It happened, sometimes, where it is no one's fault, but it happens anyway. The mother could do her best, but death comes no matter what precautions are taken. It was too much for Lucille, and she had to go home because she couldn't bring herself to do anything else.

When Negan came home from work, Lucille lashed out at him for no apparent reason. She didn't even know why either. But she felt irritable and overstimulated and Negan was just being too loud and obnoxious and vulgar – things that used to never bother her before. They argued until Lucille cried and Negan left for the bar.

The next day, he would apologize and Lucille would, too. They danced around Lucille's instability, Negan hinting that she should see someone, Lucille hedging around the fact that she should. But then Lucille would go back to work and the cycle would begin anew. Babies were dying more frequently now and Lucille didn't understand why. There was talk of other things, too, but Lucille barely paid attention to the news anymore. It reminded her too much of when she was a combat medic because all the news talked about was terrorist threats and riots in the streets. And Lucille got much worse as it became harder for her to go to work.

Sometimes she'd just hear a baby scream – a normal sound – and it would take her back to when she'd have to hold down some unfortunate soldier who found a bomb, trying to keep him together as his limbs would fall apart. And then Lucille would blink and she'd realize that she was holding the baby too tightly or that she was about to add too much medicine to the IV bag. When she assisted in labors, the sight of blood – the iron smell of it – nearly made her throw up. The nightmare wouldn't end when she'd go home. Negan brushed tears from her eyes on more than one occasion, tears Lucille hadn't realized were there.

Then there were the phantom pains. Lucille had had her uterus removed, but sometimes she felt like she was still getting the cramps from her period. It used to just be occasional, but now it was nearly every night. Lucille blamed it on her trauma and moved on, downing Tylenol by the bottle as the cramps became too intense – so intense that it was hard for her to move.

And despite all of her medical training, Lucille didn't recognize the signs of cancer when she got it. She let it go too far until it went far past her liver to her gallbladder and stomach and lower esophagus.

Through it all, Negan… Negan had done his best. Before she was diagnosed, he was distant but that was because Lucille had pushed him away. After she was diagnosed, though, he came back and he was patient and hopeful. He actually believed that she could beat this. But Lucille knew that that was unlikely. Sometimes she'd hear things from the nurses – nurses she knew and used to work with – or the TV would be turned on to the news and Lucille would catch snippets about an unusual disease outbreak. At first, she thought it was her imagination, though, and she and Negan didn't talk about it.

Instead they talked about Negan's other women. Lucille hated that that happened, but she couldn't blame him. She was dying. If he wanted to go back to one of them, she couldn't stop it. And if one of those women gave him the family that she never could, then so be it. Lucille even went so far as to encourage it.

"What were they like, Negan? Not broken like me?" It exhausted her to speak, but the words needed to be said.

"Fuck, Lucille, it wasn't like that," Negan argued, concern creasing his forehead. "I just wanted to get my fucking dick wet and you were so frigid." Immediately, he was regretful. "Shit, I didn't mean it like that."

"No, Negan, you're right. I was being frigid. I'm just broken, Negan."

"You're not broken, Lucille. You're the strongest fucking woman I know. You're just sick."

"I was sick before the cancer you know."

"I know." Negan heaved a sigh and covered her cold hand lying limp by her side with his own larger, warmer one. "I love you anyway. I'm just a big piece of shit, Lucille. But you're still too damn good for me."

"Shut up, Negan." Lucille drew a shaky breath. "Now, I need you to find someone else, someone who isn't broken."

"Fuck no. I'm with you."

"Not for long," Lucille reminded him, "Not for long."

"Lucille," he grasped at her hand more firmly, squeezing, imploring her, "Don't leave me all alone, Lucille. Please don't fucking go. Please." Her vision was a little hazy, but Lucille could see the tears drip down his face. "Fucking please, Lucille. Be with me, be with me for fucking ever. Be with me always, baby. Please."

"Negan, I'm so tired," Lucille said, unsure of why she said that. "I feel so heavy. Like lead."

"You can rest, Lucille, but please don't fucking leave me."

Against her will, Lucille's eyes closed.

Lucille had to be dreaming. She was surrounded by white, white ceiling and floor and walls, all glowing. It was as if she was in the center of a star. Now she was no longer hot or cold, or tired for that matter. But she didn't feel lively either. She just was.

"I died," Lucille whispered to herself when she realized. "I just died."

"Lucille," a voice said, a voice Lucille did not recognize. "Lucille, you have died on the battlefield. Glory awaits you."

"I died in a hospital," Lucille corrected the voice. She felt phantom echoes of her PTSD and she had to assure herself what was real, what her memories actually were. The words came out of her in a flood. "I didn't die in Iraq. I was in a hospital in South Carolina. I got out of the war, I got married, I got cancer. I died. I died from cancer."

"Cancer is a battle – your body is the field. You lost the battle, but it was a good fight. You will receive your glory."

"Good fight?" Lucille snorted. Cancer wasn't a fucking boxing match. "I die of cancer so I get to go to Heaven, is that what you're saying? Even though I've killed people, even though I've let so many people die?"

"Heaven is not your glory."

"Damnation is hardly glory. Or purgatory. So, will I be reborn?"

"No," the voice said. "You will be remade."

With that finality, Lucille did feel something again. She felt heat sear her flesh, though it was not painful, and something bloomed from her back. Wings. Lucille knew they were wings, black as her hair.

"I'm an angel? Seriously?"

"A Valkyrie."

Then Lucille burst into light and when the sparkles and dazzles went away, she was suddenly clasped in bronze armor threaded with deadly silver spikes that glittered dangerously. Funny, she couldn't remember what she was wearing before – had she been naked? Despite all the metal, she felt as light as a cloud.

Lifting her hands, sword and shield materialized in her grip. Lucille's hands immediately adjusted to gripping the sword and shield correctly, as effortlessly as she cradled a newborn in the nursery to show the proud father or hefted her gun overseas to aim at a nameless target, a lifetime ago.

She was a Valkyrie now. Briefly, she could remember the stories from that mythology class she took in high school. They were Nordic lesser gods that carried the chosen few from the battlefield to Valhalla. And, if she remembered correctly, they were like the waitresses at Hooters, too, in Valhalla's mead halls. Lucille shook her head at nothing.

"Why?"

"You were a soldier. The world is now a battlefield. You must choose who will survive in the new world to come, or who deserves the eternal rest."

"What about my rest?!" Lucille shouted.

The voice's reply was emotionless. "In due time, Lucille. But you remain whole. They must free you before you are put to rest."

Before Lucille could demand a straightforward answer, the light went out and it was as quick and sudden as falling back into a dreamless sleep.