"Put your arms up and cough, please!"

"This is the cafeteria. Commissary is down that hall and community showers to the right."

"They put me in engineering. I'm supposed to check the entire Sanctuary from top to bottom for improvements. The outposts, too. You alright, Lil?"

"What do you want? Rice or pasta? I don't have all fucking day."

"Ha! Good one! You don't have nearly enough points for soap. Try again next week."

"PUT THE FUCKING BUCKET ON THAT THING!"

"You're the newbies, right? I'm Paula, one of the lieutenants. Welcome to Sanctuary. Now get the fuck up from our table."

Lilly collapsed onto the bench of one of the cafeteria tables and buried her face into her arms, grateful that the pre-dinner bustle hadn't started yet and that the room was almost empty for now, except for about ten people scattered around various tables. She hadn't been this exhausted since the first couple of days after the world had ended and she was close to crying from the combination of getting next to no sleep, people being dicks to her and having to navigate and remember all the new rules, buildings and faces. Not to mention the alarming increase in human interaction, both positive and negative. The Saviors were of course curious about the two newcomers and wanted to know everything from marital status to favorite animal, but were also quick to remind both Lilly and Jax where they stood on the proverbial totem pole at Sanctuary.

The past two weeks had been a blur of activity and while Jax seemed quick to adapt to their new surroundings, Lilly was having a hell of a hard time with it. She slept even less now, lying awake for hours on her small cot in the dormitory, listening to the sounds of the people around her rustling, snoring and talking in their sleep. She and Jax had a small section to themselves, separated by curtains to give them at least some amount of privacy in the large room, occupied by those Saviors that didn't have enough points for their own room yet, or who simply didn't mind sharing sleeping arrangements with thirty other people.

Apart from what seemed like a cacophony of sounds after spending the last three months in near total silence, the other thing keeping Lilly awake were her own thoughts. There was the ever present fear of someone dying in their sleep and attacking the others in the dormitory, and Lilly still couldn't be one hundred percent sure that none of the living here would attack them, or steal from them, or god knows what other fucked up things people did these days. Luckily, Jax didn't complain too much when she slipped into his bed and cuddled up against him in the early hours of the morning, to get at least a couple of minutes of sleep before having to face another day of hard physical work on the fence. Jax merely mumbled something about her at least taking off her boots, before turning around and going back to sleep.

Most people at Sanctuary had been nice enough to them so far. It had taken some time for Dwight, Seth and Gavin to accept Lilly on their team and during their first week working together, they had alternated between pestering her about what she had done for Negan to assign her to fence duty and barking orders at her. The former had sizzled down when it had become clear that Lilly wouldn't disclose their leader's reason for making her do work that was meant as a form of punishment. And when she had started to get the hang of catching new walkers, loading them into a truck and chaining them to the fence, their rude comments had stopped as well. It had probably helped that Lilly had saved Gavin out of a tight spot where he had stupidly gotten himself surrounded by a bunch of biters. She had also started to snap back at them at some point and the three men had realized that everyone could get along just fine, without adding further stress to an already very stressful day of work.

Lilly was glad that she had become friendly with her teammates. Handling undead had been more to her than just hard physical labor with the added excitement of risking your life. Getting along well with the others had reduced her crippling panic to a bearable tingling of fear at the base of her spine. The reason that she used a long machete as her weapon of choice was that she couldn't stand coming too close to their rotting faces with their snarling mouths and their teeth snapping at her, trying to rip out chunks of flesh.

Lilly shuddered at the thought of getting up close and personal with walkers again tomorrow to fill the spaces in front of the fence with an ever growing army of the undead.

She felt someone sitting down opposite of her and thought that maybe Jax had finished inspecting every nook and cranny at Sanctuary early today, or that maybe the three boys had decided to join her for dinner early. She raised her head just enough to peek over her arms and was greeted by a pair of boobs nearly spilling out of a black satin corset. Lilly sat up to look at the owner of those boobs and wasn't surprised that they belonged to one of Negan's wives.

"Hello! You're Lilly, right? I'm Sherry. I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to properly welcome you to Sanctuary yet, I'm usually one of the first to greet newcomers as soon as they arrive."

You sure as shit were the first to greet Jax the moment we got out of quarantine.

Lilly managed to return Sherry's smile with one of her own, despite immediately becoming painfully aware of how bad she looked in contrast to the well-groomed woman in front of her. Shiny hair flowing freely down her shoulders, soft skin that smelled nice, sexy lingerie covered only by a thin jacket, a touch of makeup. Lilly, on the other hand, had just finished her work on the fence and she was sweaty and tired, with dark circles under her eyes, frizzy hair not quite contained in a ponytail and the skin on top of her shoulders peeling away from the severe sunburn she had gotten from being outside every day. She wished she had opted to go straight for the showers and try out her brand new bar of soap instead of resting in the cafeteria for a moment and she wondered briefly if she would look too much like a madwoman if she just jumped up and ran away.

"So… Negan has asked me to talk to you… I don't know how familiar you are with how things work here at Sanctuary? We've all been wondering why he put you on fence duty, that's usually something used as punishment…"

Sherry looked at Lilly expectantly. Lilly was by now used to people asking her what she had done to warrant being punished right upon her arrival at Sanctuary. She had her standard answer ready, despite being momentarily stunned by Sherry's statement that their leader had sent her to talk to her. Lilly hadn't interacted with Negan since he had brought her and Jax home with him, not counting him watching her from the other side of the fence once or twice, smirking at her through the chain links, no doubt pleased with having gotten in the last word. Or maybe he was just making sure you're doing your job.

"I might have been a little too sassy when Negan and the Saviors found us. It's not the first time my big mouth got me in trouble," Lilly shrugged and smiled, trying to sound nonchalant.

"Oh, alright then. People have been talking about you and him spending the night together? We just thought something might have happened, you know…"

Lilly thought that Sherry wasn't exactly subtle in trying to extract information from her. She also didn't like the fact that she was apparently already the new main attraction of the Sanctuary's rumor mill.

"Nah, nothing like that. I guess our fearless leader's just not a big fan of backtalk."

"Hmm, I can't say I ever got in trouble with him for that… then again, as a wife I have some special privileges, of course. Which is actually why I came to talk to you. I don't know if Negan told you about us wives yet…?"

"Uhm, no, I haven't really seen him since I got here. Dwight told me about you, though."

"Dwight talked about me?" Sherry leaned forward eagerly "What did he say?"

"He just explained what the wives are, what you do, you know?" Lilly tried very hard to keep the mixture of disgust and amusement she was feeling out of her voice. Dwight had told her exactly what a wife's "job" was and he had also opened up a bit about his relationship with Sherry before she had accepted Negan's proposal, but Lilly thought it was best to just let Sherry talk and to not appear too judgy.

"Oh, okay. Well then maybe you know that we are Negan's companions. There are currently five of us and we live with him upstairs in the penthouse, beautifully furnished, by the way, with great amenities. We take care of his emotional needs, if you know what I mean, and in return we don't have to work for points."

Sherry sounded like real-estate agent trying to get rid of the shabby fixer-upper with a memorized sales speech. It was quite the contrast to Dwight's "He fucks them and they get pampered in exchange.", but the overall message was still the same, Lilly thought, while Sherry continued:

"He takes care of us and keeps us safe. This world has become so dangerous, especially for a girl. I mean, who in their right mind would want to go outside and fight monsters? I remember how horrible it is out there…" She actually sniffled a little and Lilly had to suppress the laugh that was threatening to escape her lips.

"So… when a new girl joins the Sanctuary, Negan often asks them if they are interested in becoming a wife. He usually goes for the really hot ones, but he must have taken a liking to you, I guess…"

Lilly blinked and tried thinking about what to say to that, but Sherry wasn't even paying attention to her. She was twirling a strand of her hair and looking at the kitchen workers who had started to bring out dishes and she continued with a bored expression:

"Anyway… we are kind of running low on space upstairs and Negan actually has everything he needs with us five, but I'm still supposed to ask you if you're interested."

Lilly let out a short laugh, not trying to hide her disdain anymore after Sherry decided to comment on her appearance.

"Uhm, thanks, but no thanks. I actually like going out there and contribute to the community, you know?"

Sherry appeared to have stopped listening after the word "no" and merely gave her sickly sweet, but obviously fake smile while standing up from the bench.

"Okay, I'll tell him you're not interested. Have a nice dinner and please don't hesitate to come to me if you ever have any problems here, okay? Oh and please say hi to Dwight and to your friend Jax. See ya!"

And away she bounced, back up the stairs, over the walkway and into the "Tower", the tall building which provided housing for Negan, his wives and his lieutenants. Lilly stayed back at the table wondering how she managed to walk in those high heels without them getting caught in the metal grates. The thoughts were running wild in her mind. Why would Negan ask her to be a wife? Why did he send Sherry and didn't talk to her in person? Should she be grateful about having had this conversation with Sherry instead of things getting awkward with Negan? And why in the ever-loving fuck did he need five chicks to keep him satisfied? What would the guys say about this? And Jax?

The last two questions were about to be answered when Dwight, Seth and Gavin plopped down next to and across from her a couple of minutes later, placing bottles of water and trays of food on the table. They had been nice enough to get a plate for Lilly, too and she thanked them profusely before telling them what had transpired with Sherry earlier. Gavin's and Seth's eyes widened, while Dwight looked about ready to murder someone and they all started talking simultaneously:

"He seriously asked you?"

"What did Sherry say?"

"What did YOU say?"

"Please tell me you told him to fuck off…"

"Who is supposed to fuck off?"

Jax had since arrived at the table and was standing behind Dwight, looking down at them with curiosity. Lilly gave him a quick recap of her conversation with Sherry and unlike her team mates, Jax didn't seem too surprised by this new development. He didn't even bother asking her what her answer was, he knew Lilly well enough to know that she would never accept this kind of proposal.

"You didn't tell her to fuck off, did you?" was the only concern he had and Lilly told him that she had been perfectly civil, despite Sherry's snarky remarks about her appearance.

"Don't let Sherry get under your skin. She can be a bitch sometimes, but she wasn't always that way. I guess she regrets taking Negan up on his offer of becoming a wife," Dwight said with a sad expression on his face and the other men tried to look anywhere but at him. The wives were clearly a touchy subject for Dwight and it made everyone uncomfortable whenever it came up in his presence.

After Lilly had assured the four men around her that she would not disappear to the depraved microcosm that was Negan's penthouse, they all had a pleasant time at dinner.

"Are you going to come hang out with us tonight?" Seth asked Lilly when they had all finished their plates of rice with what the Saviors called 'mystery sauce'.

There were two recreation rooms at Sanctuary. One for the Tower residents that was out of bounds for anyone else and one for the 'Groundlings'. It was basically just a part of the huge cafeteria equipped with sofas, ping pong tables and shelves with books and board games and many of the lieutenants opted to spend their free time there instead of in the Tower.

"No, I'm going to take a walk and then I'll try to get some sleep," Lilly declined once again. Dwight, Seth and Gavin had invited her multiple times over the last two weeks to join them in the rec room, but she always refused in favor of getting some hours of sleep before the rest of the people living in the dormitory turned in for the night. She would have loved to play cards and talk with the others, but she couldn't afford to run only on fumes in the morning. Not when her current job was not only exhausting, but also dangerous.

The three men tried to convince her to stay, but she took her tray to bring it back to the counter where the food was handed out, bid them all good night and headed for the doors to the inner courtyard. It was separated from the outer perimeter with another fence, this one without the added defense of the undead. Across the yard was the dormitory and on the left and right several smaller buildings that acted as armories and storage buildings and one large office building that had been transformed into a housing facility for those who wanted a room to themselves. The courtyard itself contained some playground equipment to keep the children of The Sanctuary entertained and a couple of picnic tables where people liked to hang out after dinner for some drinks while the nights were still so warm.

One long beer table was covered with rows upon rows of solar powered camping lanterns, each one bearing the name of its owner. Every resident of The Sanctuary got a lantern when they arrived and were then responsible to put it on the 'charging table' in the morning and pick it back up before sundown. If you forgot to charge your lantern you had to rely on others to walk with you, since the use of candles was heavily monitored to avoid fire hazards.

It was at the charging table that Lilly waited for Jax to join her on their daily after-dinner walk. It was an opportunity to stretch their legs a bit and talk in private about their day, since everywhere else you were bound to have people listening in on your conversations. Jax soon arrived and put an arm around her shoulders encouragingly to steer Lilly in the direction of the inner fence along which they walked a couple of rounds every night.

"Dwight seemed a little peeved about Sherry approaching you," Jax dove right into the conversation at hand.

"He's peeved about the whole wife thing. I can't blame him, it's totally weird, even without your former spouse being a member of the fuck club."

"The way I see it, though, said spouse is a bit of a bitch. I mean, she chose to become a wife, it's not like Negan forces those women."

Lilly scowled and slapped Jax on his arm, half serious, half playful. "Don't call her that. But no, Sherry didn't seem too perturbed about me declining. Quite the contrary, actually. I think those girls don't like to share whatever it is they have."

"Connor told me that they are free to leave whenever they want, but that it hardly ever happens. Do you know Haley from the kitchen crew? She was a wife for a couple of weeks, but apparently she got cold feet and left."

"Good for her. I mean, can you imagine just sitting on your ass all day doing nothing, waiting to get chosen to suck someone's dick?"

"Eh… I don't know. Do you think they get candy?"

They both laughed and continued their rounds while joking about all the different ways the wives had to 'perform' and made guesses about what special treats they got for their services. After about an hour, Lilly wished Jax a good night on which he commented "Yeah, see you in MY bed later". He went back to the cafeteria to join the others for a game of poker and a glass of bourbon and Lilly disappeared into the blissfully empty dormitory to enjoy some peace and quiet and hopefully some sleep.

A couple of days later, Dwight, Seth, Gavin and Lilly had just arrived back at Sanctuary after another day of catching walkers and chaining them to the fence. They all hopped out of the truck and were laughing together about a particularly ugly biter Lilly had caught that day that she had named Kevin.

"So when is the wedding, Lil? I gotta make sure there are enough suits and ties in inventory until then," Dwight grinned while they made their way to the water tank to wash their hands and faces.

Lilly put on a dreamy expression. "I thought maybe spring… outdoors… beautiful vintage theme with cream and rose colors. We need lots of time for planning and after all, Kevin and I only just met."

The three men laughed and Gavin commented that he would have to puke red wine to add to the color scheme, which made Lilly splash him with water and soon they were all trying to get each other as drenched as possible.

"Lilly and Kevin, sitting on a tree… b-i-t-i-n-n-g!" Gavin sang and Lilly and the others nearly doubled over laughing because of his off-key singing and his awful spelling.

"Who the fucking fuck is Kevin?"

They all spun around to a rather disgruntled looking Negan, baseball bat on his shoulder, the other hand on his hip.

"Are you fucking kidding me with this shit? Why the fuck are you wasting the fucking water like that?"

Lilly looked down on herself and then at the others who were all dripping wet from their little water fight.

"Sorry boss, we were just joking around and got a little carried away."

"I can fucking see that Dwight. Maybe I should take away some fucking points from each of you to remind you that water doesn't come from the fucking tap anymore?"

Lilly paled. She had worked hard and only bought some absolute necessities to save up her points, but it would still take an immense amount of time and work to get a room to herself one day, which she desperately wanted.

"We're sorry Negan. We promise it won't happen again," Seth reassured him. Lilly knew that Seth and Dwight were more relaxed about their points, but because Gavin wasn't a lieutenant, he was just as protective about his points as she was, since he didn't earn nearly as much as those in a leading position.

"I know it fucking won't. Anyway, fence duty is over, we've got enough fuckers chained up for now. Dwight, take Gavin and go find Jax. You're going to take him to the outposts tomorrow, spend two days collecting fucking data about what they need in terms of improvements to the buildings. Seth, go have a look at Laura's patrol schedules, there was some fuck-up with the shifts. Get fucking going!"

The three men practically ran inside to get away from Negan and his bad mood and Lilly started to follow them when she felt a hand on her upper arm.

"Where the fuck do you think you're going, sunshine?"

"Inside?"

Lilly looked up at him questioningly. She hadn't been alone with him, or even talked to him since she had arrived at Sanctuary and the fact that he had put her on fence duty and his 'marriage proposal' still occupied her mind a lot. He let go of her and looked her up and down.

"Not yet. You need a fucking job, right? Jeez, babe. You look like shit, despite the little wet t-shirt contest you've got going on there." Negan stared pointedly at her chest where the soaked grey tank top clung to her black sports bra and Lilly raised an eye brow and crossed her arms. He grinned and his eyes wandered back to her face.

"This fried fucking chicken look really doesn't suit you. Aren't you using sunblock? I'm pretty fucking sure we have a couple of bottles in inventory."

"I didn't have enough points and then I just kind of forgot about it." Lilly shrugged. She knew her pale skin wasn't coping well with being outside all day. Summer was almost over, but the sun still did a good deal of damage to her and she wasn't used to it, having stayed in the shade of buildings and trees while scavenging and hunting before joining the Saviors.

"You really gotta get your fucking priorities straight. Any-fucking-way, I've got a meeting scheduled tomorrow morning and I need you fresh and fucking clean until then, so do me a favor and take a fucking bath, have a big fucking dinner and a good night's sleep. 8:30am sharp."

"A meeting? Are we finally going to do that job interview?"

"Nope. I don't need to fucking interview you to know where to put you to work."

Lilly's eyes widened. She was worried about what fresh horrors Negan had in store for her.

"And where is that exactly?"

"You, me and a couple of other guys are going to head out in two days for a run. Just a one-day job for your first time. If you don't fuck it up, and if the others approve, you can join the scavenging team. If you want the job, that is."

Lilly's face lit up and she squealed "Yes!" and threw her arms around his neck. "Thank you so so much Negan. I promise I won't disappoint you."

She let go of her leader, who looked more than a little surprised by her reaction and ran inside with a new spring in her step to go find Jax and tell him the news. She couldn't wait to get outside and do what she did best. Plan a run, find supplies, gather them, kill undead on her way in and out. No more getting too close to those things. No more dragging them to the fence full of snapping teeth and grabbing hands. Things were finally starting to look up.