AUTHOR'S NOTE

Hi, hello. It's me, Alistair. Okay, so I know I started this story already, and you may have noticed that I deleted it. There were a few reasons for that. Firstly, I started the damn thing with the overly ambitious intention of writing the first thing in third person and present tense, which is something I am far than used to writing with. As it turns out, while I think the first chapter or so turned out pretty okay... anything else I tried to write for it was honestly just trash. Absolute trash. Anyway, so I'm back to writing in my usual, comfortable style, and I have better ideas for my story this time around. Sorry for the confusion or whatever else, but here the story finally is. I hope you enjoy this shit. Comments and everything else are always appreciated.


Negan was not a motherfucker who believed in fate. Even if he did, that shit never did it's part in making people believe in it. So why should he? Why should Negan be one of those pansy ass idealist believers who put all their faith in a bullshit concept like fate?

He shouldn't. That was the answer.

But still, that didn't stop his mind briefly considering it when he rolled up to Alexandria for the first time, and just after some bullshit pretence of ignorance at the gates, found a familiar fucking face in a crowd of assholes. It was practically impossible for her to be there, and in one piece. Because her living room had been painted with blood. Because her bedroom had been painted with blood. Because every room in her house had been painted with fucking blood in one capacity or another. All of her shit had been gone - and obviously Negan had assumed petty fucking thieves had plundered their way through. So, yeah, there was no fucking way Faith Tindall was actually standing there, fine and fucking dandy in the midday Georgia sun. Except she was, and even with all the shit Negan had seen in his time... this was some next level shit. She looked a little rougher than before, but that shit was a given, and she had some battle scars, but that was just the crap that was visible to him from as far a distance as there was between them. Some-fucking-how, though, her hair was still glorious and golden and it didn't even look fucking dirty. Her skin was still stubbornly pale even in a fucking climate like this, and the woman was fucking smiling at someone next to her, and laughing, and-

Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit.

How the fuck?

Negan didn't care how the fuck, actually. He cared who the fuck, and who the fuck happened to be standing there like the world had never fucking ended, like dead fuckers weren't ambling around outside hungry for human flesh, and like she'd never even heard he was alive and kicking. But if she was here, then how the fuck had she not known? Unless Rick was keeping secrets from his people... which was not a part of the fucking deal. He rounded on the man now, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"That asshole at the gate... he better be the one and only around here who doesn't know who the fuck I am."

He watched for a reaction to that, and found himself pleased enough to let out a nice big grin when Rick the motherfucker ducked his head in submission. Really, though, it was like talking to Caspar the timid fucking ghost.

"Hey, Rick..." he drifted closer, eyes trained on taking in every shift in Rick's facial features, "remember when you told me you were gonna kill me? What did you say-? 'Not today, not tomorrow', or some shit? Fuck, that was fun. Where's your spine gone, Rick? Your backbone. Did it slide right out of your ass when you shit yourself?"

Rick just shook his head, eyes on the ground. Negan stayed where he was for a minute, just absorbing the shameful fucking discomfort and hatred Rick was exuding. He had shit to do, though, so eventually he swung himself back, laughing at the other man's expense. That's what he did. That shit was practically his job.

But back to Faith. And that's where his attention went, eyes sliding their way over the crowd, doing a halfhearted job of memorising faces, and trying to match them to names. But she was fucking impossible to miss, even surrounded by a shit ton of people, and what was even fucking worse was that she'd seen him by now, and was doing some sort of rabbit caught in fucking headlights impression.

"Well kneel me on the ground, slug a baseball bat over my head and call me Rick's friends!" He proclaimed, a knowing grin on his face as he sauntered closer to her, homing in with his arms spread out either side of him. Lucille hung from his right hand, attracting just as much attention as he was. That's his girl. He raised a single, almost mocking eyebrow at Faith, lowering Lucille to the ground as he did so, providing him with something to lean on. "What, you haven't got shit to say, Faith? Our fairytale fucking reunion and you don't have anything to say to me?"

It was obvious she was in a state of shock, eyes still wide and lips parted, her tongue darting out to wet them as she tried to think of something to say. Negan was a patient fucking gentleman of a man, and so he stood there, with his eyebrows raised, and waited.

"I knew I should have kept walking."

Negan blinked, eyebrows somehow raising even fucking higher. Kept walking? He looked around them, wondering if he'd heard her right.

"Excuse me?"

"I got here yesterday, and now you're here. Today."

"Oh, no, honey... you're avoiding me? Me, Faith? Negan? How the fuck, why the fuck, and what the fuck would you be doing that for?" He'd placed a hand to his chest, above his heart, as if that shit really wounded him.

She sighed, bowing her head, a hand going to her forehead as if she had a headache. A fucking headache. It was clear who was meant to be the cause of that fucker. Negan bristled, swinging Lucille up from the ground and onto his shoulder, sidling closer.

"Now that, is a pretty stupid fucking endeavour. And by association, Faith, that makes you pretty fucking stupid."

"I know." The way she spoke, he finally noticed, implied that she was just tired. That she didn't have any fight left. That she was just constantly apologetic and sorry.

"Bullshit."

"What?"

"That shit is not good enough. I ever teach you to just let someone talk to you like that?"

"No."

"No. Fucking exactly. So what the fuck is this?"

"I don't want to do this, Negan. Please just pretend I'm not here and do what you came to do."

Now that one really knocked the wind out of his fucking sails. If he remembered correctly, Faith Tindall had been his mistress. Not only that, but the only fucking mistress he'd kept around. The only woman he'd ever goddamn encountered that ever came anywhere near Lucille in his eyes. Faith was the second woman he'd ever loved in his life, but there was only one he would admit to. And she was dead. So, as Negan fucking understood it, his mistress, whom he could have sworn up and down to the Devil himself was long dead, who Negan had actually left Lucille's corpse at the fucking hospital to go look for when the shit hit the fan... wanted abso-fucking-lutely nothing to do with him.

Damn. Right. Well, her wish could and would be his fucking command.

He gave a taunting half bow, gaze trained bitterly and resolutely on her face. "As you fucking wish."

Negan went through the usual shit, going through the standard fucking motions for the stand and deliver day, as he liked to call it. Usually, it was his favourite fucking day. He got to rock up, check the place out, take an absolute shit ton of gear with him, and parade around like a fucking King while it all went down. But now, see, now, because of the shitshow of a conversation he'd had at the gates, he couldn't fucking enjoy it. There was this constant blur of gold in his fucking peripherals, and the whole fucking time he could think of nothing but all the fucking questions he had to ask her.

It was like someone had ruined Negan's Christmas, and Negan fucking loved Christmas, so as was imagined, he was pretty fucking pissed about it all.

Which was why, when everything was packed up nice and tidy in the trucks and ready to fucking go, he strode up to Rick, and said:

"I've got 49% of shit in those trucks, but 49 just isn't 50, is it, Rick? So I'm gonna take my final fucking 1%."

And scooped Faith up and tossed her over his other shoulder, mirroring the stance he'd taken with Lucille, and continued his route to the trucks just like he had been before. "I'll see you assholes next week. As for now? Ta-ta."

AN: Yo, super sorry for putting a second author's note in this chapter, but much like my muses, I have shit to say. This, of course, serves as an introductory chapter and does not, as such, represent the way the rest of the fic is going to be. Yes, I will be writing Negan a lot like this, and yes, there will be lots of focus on Negan and Faith's relationship. HOWEVER, that is not what the entire fic is about. As is true with real life, there are so many other people involved in this story, and so many characters to introduce and mess around with. This fic will not be revolving entirely around Negan and Faith. It will be told mostly from Faith's perspective, and will have her spending realistic amounts of time alone, with other people, and with her own thoughts. It's realistic for that to be the case. With so many great characters in The Walking Dead, it would be doing you and them an injustice if I didn't include them or spend time getting to know them at all. So please enjoy the story, comment and do whatever else you feel like doing. I'll update as regularly as I can. As for now? Ta-ta.