The journey was awful, the ride bumpier (she was sure) than before. But maybe she was just sensitive because she was so on edge. Negan was really going to force her to do this. He was going to tell him. Ezekiel. She'd loved him once - a long time ago - at the beginning of their marriage when he was home and affectionate and... present. It all came crashing down the moment he got the job with the zoo. He became obsessed with it; all consumed with his role with Shiva. A month or so into their marriage she stopped waiting for him to come home. She left his dinner out for him and went to bed, never bothering to stay up waiting for him anymore. Faith never saw him anymore. That was her rationale for her infidelity.
Around the time Zeke started spending all his time at the zoo, Faith started work at a new high school - guidance counsellor - school therapist. She was a psychiatrist, and a pretty good one. At the beginning, she even told herself she had the fortitude to wait for Ezekiel to come back to her, to care about her again the way he did his job. But then she'd met Negan, and it was all over. There was no hope in hell for her marriage after that. He'd smiled and said hello and, just like that, she was his. It was as simple as that.
She looked at him now - at the sadistic glee in his expression - and saw there was no hope for either of them. They were already living in the Hell they'd been destined for the moment they said hello.
"Negan," Faith tried, "you don't have-"
"Can't face the time, don't do the fucking crime, baby."
It was useless. They were almost there, anyway. Mere minutes away from ruining the life of a man who had already lost it all. She truly despised herself in that moment, as they rounded the corner of the dirt road, and came to a menacing standstill outside the gates of The Kingdom. It felt like only yesterday she had left in the middle of the night, leaving it all behind her. She should have known something would have dragged her back; she just didn't expect it to be Negan.
"I can't do this."
Negan, who had been about to stroll off, turned to regard her stock still position by her side of the car, and laughed. Uproariously. It was an act, though, she knew because she knew him too well to believe it was anything but. The evidence was all over him - he was tensed like a coil - eyes slightly too bright and intense to be genuinely amused. It was a hollow laugh. It was meant to mock.
"Can't? The fuck do you mean 'can't'? Sweetheart, you and I have done this man a very grievous fucking wrong and we are damn fucking well on our way to enlighten his tiger loving ass. Capeche? You get that? Understand me, now, Faith. Get this. For once, listen to what I am fucking saying to you. Take it in, let that fucker soak, and then accept that shit. Today is Truth Day, baby! Today is judgement day - today is... bring your... fucking... dirty ass laundry, your deepest fucking secret to work day. We're fuckin' doing this. You don't get to weasel the fuck out. We were two consenting grown ups who had a..."
He trailed off, never finishing his sentence. Was he serious? He couldn't qualify it as a relationship?
"Are you..." Faith watched him, watched the way he sweated, the way he looked anywhere but at her. Oh, hell. "Are you serious, Negan? Is that what it was to you? A dot dot dot? Are you serious?" She was scared - guilt ridden - before, but, boy, was she mad now. Whatever it was that had happened between them wasn't just a fling, or a few sexual encounters. It was what she considered to be a fully fledged relationship, spanning the course of years. Faith had loved him. More than she had ever loved Ezekiel, more than anything. She had loved Negan. She probably still did.
Her mouth was dry. He didn't think it was a relationship. He couldn't say it. What did that mean?
But the events of the day were only just beginning.
"Negan," an all too familiar voice called with oblivious grandeur from the front gates. "'Tis only three days passed since our last trade... what is the meaning of your sudden visit?"
They both froze, Negan for only a moment, before venturing round to the front of the truck. He swung Lucille like the asshole he was - a lighter, quieter version of his whistle soaring from his lips. Oh, Lucille. I'm so sorry. But she couldn't spare another wayward thought for the dead, because Faith needed to focus so completely on the precarious situation in her present. Ezekiel wasn't able to see her from where he stood, not when she was hidden behind the truck the way that she was - but Negan wouldn't allow her to stay tucked away there forever - so she wanted to reveal herself and her betrayal on her own terms.
Oh, she was so naive.
"Zekey, boy. Oh, boy, do I have a surprise for you! I think you'll fucking like this, but only for a god damn second. Now, I didn't have time to stop for a fucking bow, or shit like that, but-"
Faith felt sick to her stomach. She had never been so afraid of anything and so hateful of herself before in her life. It rendered her a trembling wreck, stuck to the spot like someone had taken the time to superglue her there. It was no use and she wasn't at all religious, but she sent a prayer upwards. This had to go as well as it could. Everybody needed to survive this. Ezekiel needed to take this as well as he possibly good. He needed to be okay after this. Faith wasn't in love with him, but she did love him. He had been a very important person in her life. She couldn't be the reason he went off the deep end. She couldn't handle the guilt of Zeke's fractured mind and tortured soul if this went badly. She knew she didn't deserve a good outcome - not for the things she had done - but she hoped whatever or whoever might be out there was benevolent enough to take care of the people she'd hurt. That they, or it, might heal what she had broken. Zeke deserved so much better than this, he deserved better than it being Negan.
It was the love and respect she held for her estranged husband that gave her the strength to step out from behind the vehicle - depriving Negan of his dramatic reveal. Instantaneously, as if she had set off a firework, all eyes fell on her. Ezekiel's facade dropped, as did his entire expression, his grandiose posture. All of it. He lowered everything, forced smiling vanishing from his features.
"Please, do not harm my wife." There was such tender desperation in his voice that it threatened to break her. But she couldn't fall apart here - she didn't deserve to.
Negan, on the other hand, tipped his head back and laughed. It was arrogant and ironic and cruel, and every inch of him exuded the perceived sense of victory he carried within himself. It was dark and unattractive, and Faith longed to just take back every second she had spent with him. But she couldn't. That was why they were here.
"Oh, shit, Faith - you do not deserve this poor asshole. Look at his fucking face! Look at that shit. He really thinks I'm gonna bash your golden head in, right here, right fucking now. Damn. What a man! What. A. Man. Mm. Glorious." Negan was gesturing towards her and looking at her, but she ignored him, scowling at the dirt. She hated him. "But no, Zekey. Fortunately fucking not. Though! You might just fucking wish I had, in a damn second!" He was grinning, taking such obvious pleasure in the build up to tearing a good man's life apart.
"Zeke, I'm so sorry. Zeke, I-"
"You see this golden headed fucking wonder right here, Your Majesty?"
He was mocking him. He had no right to-
"Faith?" Ezekiel called out to her, apprehension bleeding through his tone. He had to have figured it out. Surely. Maybe he thought she had betrayed the Kingdom? Maybe he suspected she had changed sides or been caught running away, or something. He didn't look angry, only scared. God, he didn't deserve this.
"I'm so sorry," was all she could say, head hung in shame, arms encircled around her trembling frame. Negan was intent on dealing the final blow. If she didn't give it to him, Faith knew he would only try to do worse. He was Negan. The Big Bad Wolf. He had to have the last word, he had to be the one to say the worst possible thing. He was attention hungry, and he always had been. She just didn't think him to be so cruel. But, she supposed she should have known, with the way people had been reacting to him all day. It was typical Faith. She lived her life in a state of blind denial, willing herself to ignore the harsh reality. Faith was a coward, plain and simple. She couldn't let Negan be the one to deliver this admission.
"Get a load of this shit right here, your Hi-"
"I had an affair!" It was as if she'd fired a gun, the effect was so instantaneous and complete. Silence rang uncontested through the space in front of the Kingdom, and for that small, inconsequential pocket in time... it was only the three of them. Even Negan looked shocked, arm outstretched like he was unsure if he wanted to stop her talking or comfort her. Faith would have bet on the former - and with a soft whimper - she confessed the final and perhaps worst of her crimes. "Before. With him."
Ezekiel was...
It was like he wasn't there anymore. He'd checked out - to another universe or reality, perhaps - where none of this was happening. A place where his wife had not committed such a reprehensible act of betrayal and infidelity. The dead were still peaceful and buried in the ground, and his people had never had any need for his Kingly facade. They were safe and content and thriving. Nobody had lost anything or anyone, least of all himself and his Faith. Their son was alive. He was beautiful and intelligent and happy, and-
Negan began to laugh. Great bellows of mirth left him like the most obnoxious fog horn in the history of existence, as he tipped his head back and gave in to the twisted humour he got from all of this.
"Damn, girl. Colour me impressed! You actually told the fucking truth for once! Wow, Faith. And what the fuck did it take, huh? An actual apocalypse? Me dragging your ungrateful, lying ass over to the doorstep and forcing this shit out of you?"
Faith was not someone to lose her patience easily - she never had been. But there was always something about this man that made her lose her mind and her senses. So, not only had she come barrelling up to her estranged husband's 'Kingdom' - she was going to engage in a spat with her ex-lover right in front of him. "You can stop now. You get everything you wanted."
His smile turned dark, his entire expression and his posture turning downwards a little. "Oh, no. Not everything." He bared his teeth.
She wanted to smack him.
"Go back to your damn Sanctuary." That was not the voice of a King, but it was still Ezekiel. The real Ezekiel. "I don't want to see you ever again." That was directly at her, and there was nothing she could do but accept it. Gravely, Ezekiel tugged his wedding band from his finger and tossed it into the dirt at her feet before he left. The gates shut with a great boom, and Faith was left with Negan, the ring, and her self hatred.
"Well, that went better than I fucking hoped. Shit. He didn't even get the damn tiger out."
Faith turned, and walked away from him.
