A/N This chapter is particularly gruesome and dismal. Also, the rest of issue 3 is covered in this chapter, but I wrote a lot of this chapter before issue 3 so let's just say the story is completely AU from here on out.


Blythe starts across the street, almost getting hit by a car as he walks across it. "Where's my wife?" He screams at me.

"Oh. Now he's married." I prayed Blythe would pull his gun on me, because then I might have some ground to have him arrested when the neighbor witnesses it. My eyebrows furrow when this fucker actually drops to his knees and starts to sob.

"Oh, god, no," he chokes. "Grey!"

"Get it to-fucking-gether, man!"

Blythe grabs the front of my pants. "Help me find her, please. I- I'm not right without her."

I shove him off of me as he rolls around on the pavement. Now, why I thought it would be a bad idea if this motherfucker shot himself is beyond fucking me, but I pull the gun out of his mouth as it fires into the concrete. If anyone is going to kill him, it's going to be me.

Blythe lies still for a moment, before he pushes himself up into a sitting position. "I knew if I beat her into submission like her father, she'd never leave me and do whatever I say."

"You're a fucking coward. Calling yourself a man is a fucking joke."

"Maybe that's why she never told me that she loved me."

"Really? Because the last thing Grey ever said to me was that she loved me." It's a stupid thing to say on my part, but I don't give a fuck. This cocksucker has taken everything away from me, and once Lucille goes, I'll have nothing left to fucking lose.

The look on his face is horrifying.

"Have a nice day, Blake," I simper, walking back into the house.


People started seeing me in a different light. They took my resignation as me wanting to spend more time with Lucille because of the cancer. It was gratifying to have that feeling again. The feeling that I'm the king dick motherfucker. Still, it didn't change the fact Lulu's days were numbered. She lost all of her hair when the treatment started. It was difficult to watch because I had made the comment that I hated her hair short, and I feared that played over in the back of her mind.

Lucille was always the strong one, and a lot of times it seemed like she was telling me to suck it up. "Stop it. Not here. You're making a scene."

Pretty bad when your wife has to tell you to stop crying like some little girl.


Sometimes I'd end up in a daze thinking about Grey. I just kept wondering if she was okay. I got my answer two weeks later when I received a postcard in the mail. It's addressed to Darkness. My heart is beating so fucking fast. The sender is Lily. Our movie! She's okay. That's all I wanted to know. In a way, it helps me move on. Helps me close that chapter of us. Or, rather, it should have closed it. I missed her so much.


"You're hurting me, stop, please," Lucille cries.

"Lucille?" I haul ass up my steps when I hear her whimper again. Nothing prepares you for when you open your bedroom door and find your wife being raped. "You motherfucker," I scream, tackling her ex from my bed. I stick both thumbs in his eye sockets, going as far into his worthless skull as I can force them. I've never killed a man before, yet all I can think about is why I didn't do it sooner. So it didn't have to come to this point. I take the book she's been reading from the dresser and bludgeon his balls until there's just a bloody puddle. Then the book is cast to the side. "You wanna fucking touch my wife?" His face becomes a speed bag for my own personal amusement. I watch his worthless life start to fade from his eyes, and all you can hear is the hard packing noises as I continued to deliver each blow.

"Negan, please," Lucille cries, tugging on my arm.

Her voice snaps me back into reality. I yank the sheet from the bed, and wrap it around her.

"Is anyone hurt," several voices shout from down stairs.

How did I get such morbid amusement from this that I didn't realize she called the cops?

Blythe folds his arms and looks down at what's left of Lucille's ex.

Frank stands beside him with a smug look on his face. "What do we have here, Sheriff?"

Oh, god, no, please don't fucking do this to me. I swallow hard, moving Lucille closer to me.

Blythe turns his attention at me, then at Frank. "Home invasion."

There was no doubt in my mind that Blythe was going to pin this on me, and when he didn't, I'm speechless.

"Let them have some privacy, and get this shithead out of the room," Blythe tells the others. "Frank, take them to the station when they're ready." Blythe looks back at me after the others have left. "I'll take care of everything."

He is the last person that should have helped me.

...

"Negan," Lucille whispers.

I've been on the edge of the bed in a daze for hours. His blood still stains my fingers and face. "I should have protected you."

"You did protect me."

Maybe it was a culmination of everything. I just sit there and sob.

Lucille cleans his blood from me.

When she starts on my face, I stand up and go in the shower.

She joins me, something she's always been against. Maybe she sensed that it would be our last night together.

I sure fucking didn't.


"Something's burning," I tell Lucille, turning off the stove. Where the fuck is she? "Lul-" Oh, fuck! No! "Lucille, wake up." I shake her. I pick her limp body up off the couch and run ten blocks to the hospital. "Help me," I scream at the nurses. This isn't happening! "Help her!"

"Sir, you have to wait outside."

"Lucille, no!"

...

I cling to Lucille's frigid hand.

"Go home. There's nothing you can do for me here."

"You're going to fucking beat this. Okay? Stop all this goddamn negative thinking. You're like a health ninja who's going to broadsword the fuck out of this cancer… you're going to…"

"You're off your game. Ninja's don't use broadswords."

"I need you to know that you are everything to me. I'm not perfect… hell, I'm a fucking piece of dog shit. You deserve so much better. Did I do this to you? Did I fucking cause this? If I had been there for you… and not… if I didn't… would you have been strong enough to fight this?" I'm interrupted by the alarm on one of the machines.

"Ne-" Lucille's eyes fixate in place.

And just like that… Everything I love is gone. Gone because of some bullshit illness. Gone, and there is nothing that I can motherfucking do.

...

The thing about a small town is, nothing is sacred. Word spread about Lucille's death at such an alarming rate, I didn't even make it out of the hospital before I'm bombarded with well wishes. I don't want your fucking condolences. Why am I the one they are concerned about? Fuck this. I won't have people talk about my wife like this. I run back to her room only to find she's not there. No. No, why did they… I sink to my knees and press my hand to the cool linoleum. No one bothered me for hours. Maybe they didn't realize I was even here. Maybe I'm just that goddamn pathetic. My knees are shaky, and when I try to get to my feet, I collapse. Lucille!

...

"Sign here, and here," the funeral director points.

No. Fuck you.

"Now did you say you were having her cremated?"

"I'm not going to fucking burn my wife," I snap. It's the first time I've said anything since her death. I hang my head, shaking it side to side. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay, I understand."

No, you fucking don't understand, and that apology wasn't meant for you. It was for her. There's all these options of caskets. This is the last fucking thing I'll ever do for her, and I can't even afford to get her something nice! Just some bottom of the barrel generic fucking piece of shit. Like me. Guess she should be used to me disappointing her.

He silences his phone after the third time in two minutes that it rings. "Take your time."

I just want to get this fucking shit over with. When you get married, you don't think that ten years into it you're going to be burying your wife.

"Look, we can make the arrangements in a few days. Go home and collect your thoughts."

I wouldn't need to collect my thoughts if I would have been a better man to my wife.

...

The whole goddamn town has lost their fucking mind. It takes me almost 40 minutes to get home. I'm so fucking numb as I stand in the doorway of our home.

"We interrupt regular broadcasting at the request of the-"

I hit the button on the TV and unplug my phone. The bed smells like her, so I crawl in my bathtub instead. It's my last perfect memory of us. There's a few sleeping pills I chase with half a bottle of whisky. It might be my last memory, too.


A/N This chapter, and the one that will follow it were originally one chapter, but I didn't want to take away from Lucille's death and that's why I chose to end it here. Despite the tone, this chapter and the next one are actually my favorites because it shapes Negan in so many ways.