Chapter Twelve
Rose was sharpening her knife. It had started to drag the last time she used it when Rick approached her for what she knew was going to be one of the worst conversations of her life.
"Ya alright?" He asked her when he came to a stop.
"Cut the shit... please?" She said sadly. "I know you think I fucked up but nothing bad happened."
"It could have."
"I was armed. He wasn't" Rose shrugged. "I saw the proof that he was sick spilling out of that bucket! You really think I didn't think about it logically? He was sick, unarmed and if he managed to get past me then Eddie was outside..."
"And what if he got past Eddie too?" He growled. "What if he had gotten to Judith?"
"He would never...!" She stopped herself before defending Negan but the look on Rick's face told her he already knew what she was going to say.
"He's gotten to you." Rick looked at her with the look he saved for the times he really needed it, she called it his cop face.
"No..." As much as she tried to hide the uncertainty in her voice she knew it was pointless. "I let a sick man be more comfortable, that's all there is to it Rick. If I really thought anybody could have come to any harm I wouldn't have done it."
The man just stared back at her for a long time looking for any part of her expression that might give away her true feelings. Rick was sure she was starting to soften to the man he wanted kept away from everybody and he couldn't help but feel slightly responsible for it, he had asked her to do just that. How could he be angry at her?
"Shit..." He said under his breath. "Okay." He knelt down in front of her and placed his hand over the one that held her knife. "I trust you, Rose." The sincerity in her eyes told him he could.
"I would never do anything I thought would put Judith in danger." She told him quietly. "Any of you... I fought alongside you!"
"I know." He nodded to her, feeling stupid that he would ever doubt her, she was a strong and capable woman. That was exactly why he trusted her to do it in the first place.
XX
"Rick came to see me yesterday." Was the first thing Negan told Rose.
"Oh yeah?" She asked sitting back in her chair.
"Told me about his day like I'm his fuckin' wife or somethin'.'" He made a sound of disgust. "Kept talkin' about the future you're all creatin' out there." Rose noticed something different in his voice. It wasn't the usual warm tone but empty and her stomach dropped, already knowing what was coming having seen it so many times before. People always ended up here.
He had done so well so far. She stayed silent knowing by now that if he started a conversation he wouldn't need much coaxing.
"I got to thinking' how I'll never be a part of that." He stayed sat on his cot, leaning up against the hard wall one of his long legs bent and the fact that he hadn't come right up to the bars like usual bothered Rose to no end. "I'll never get to just sit outside with a beer, watch people do stupid shit." He paused but it was a heavy one. "I'll never get to have you." He finished.
"Negan..." She started quietly as she stood up at the bars but she just didn't know what to say.
"That day with you..." Negan said softly. "It fuckin' broke me." His voice cracked with the strain of the emotion he was holding in. "The second I got back in this cell I just felt cold, alone... fuckin' hopeless. The silence... it's too much for me, Rose."
"Come here..." She said quietly, not having anything else to say while her heart broke for him. The only thing she could think of doing was touching him, that always made him feel better right? If she could just...
"Im no good for ya." He spoke in the same monotonous way he had when he began this conversation. "Just like I wasn't for Lucille."
"You need to let go Negan. You've been beating yourself up over that stuff for too long."
"I don't want you comin' in here anymore, ya hear me?" He rasped still looking at the wall.
"What?"
"I don't deserve you spendin' all your time in here. You can deny it all you want but I know you got feelin's for me." He laughed slowly, maliciously. "I've always had the worst luck. So meetin' the girl of my fuckin' dreams in the god damned apocalypse while I'm locked up with no chance of a future with her... that sounds just like fuckin' like me."
"Negan you're bound to feel like this! The worst thing would be to be alone... I'm not leavin' you alone to rot in here."
"So what you gonna do spend the rest of your life pining over me like one of them desperate, lonely, ugly fucks who fall in love with people on death row?" He lazily rolled his head to look at me now. "Cos' that's what I am sweetheart. I'm gonna die here. I give it the big fuck you to Rick and everybody but I know I'm not gettin' out."
"Whether you like it or not Negan... I'll be coming to see you everyday."
"Oh shit! You really are desperate aren't you."
"Stop being an asshole cos you think you can push me away." She said not taking anything he said to heart.
"Go find some normal, boring fuck and stop botherin' me would ya?"
"Funny you should say that... Gabriel's started to look real good."
"I'm fuckin' serious, Rose." She had stupidly thought making a joke would perk him up alittle, the fact that he didn't come back with some snark remark worried her. He was right, this was serious. "I can't give you what you deserve. I'll never be able to."
XX
It went pretty much the same way every single time Rose went to see Negan. He wouldn't eat, she got no reaction from him even when she offered to flash him and she as being serious. No matter what she did he stayed in that deep dark pit of depression she has seen so many others in before, had even helped people get out of. This time she felt helpless.
XX
"He's not eating." Michonne seemed to be making a habit out of searching Rose out and begging her to clean up her and Ricks mess. Rose threw down the trowel she was using and stood up to face her.
"You know what Michonne. Neither am I!
He's depressed! Of course he's fuckin depressed! It's fucking cruel. What do you want me to do for him? Give him a prescription!"
"I don't... I just thought..."
"You thought I have some kind of connection with him right? That's what Rick asked me to do! Make a connection with a imprisoned man but get the third degree off you both when I actually try to help him."
"I get it." Although Michonne looked like she wanted to rip Rose's head off she just walked off.
️️️️️️️️
XX
"You've been talkin' to Michonne." Rose's voice echoed in the cell which felt completely empty. No reply.
"You had a lot to say to her apparently." Rose sighed.
"It's been a week. Are you gonna give up?"
Nothing.
"I miss you."
Silence. Rose squeezed her eyes shut feeling stupid in a hundred different ways for having said that.
"You asked me once... what the worst thing I've ever done is?"
She heard him shuffle and hoped she'd finally got his attention.
"Ask me again again and I'll tell you."
"What's the worst thing you've ever done?" His voice was still flat but at least it was words.
"It was a while after this whole thing started... I was with two other women and there was these guys, four of them." The same dread that always filled her whenever she thought about it came in floods and she had to take a deep breath. "We joined up with them, safety in numbers and all that. One night they were talking to themselves, laughing about stuff and kept looking over at us. I knew straight away something was off, men have that certain look when they're thinking about doing terrible things. I told the other two, Erin and Abi." There name made her eyes fill with tears. "To keep hold of their weapons and I remember thinking first thing in the morning and we're gone."
She looked up to see Negan had turned to face her now.
"But it was already too late. They came over one with a gun and the other three grabbed us. Pinned us down and I fought, I fought so god damn hard and I was lucky. That's all it was. I wasn't any stronger than the others and the guy who came to me was a little smaller. I got away just before he... I stabbed the sick fuck. There I was running away, half naked lucky it was dark so the shots the guy fired after me, missed." She began crying now and she knew it was an accumulation of everything... the loneliness, her unwanted feelings for Negan, the hostility from certain members of the group but most of all the shame and guilt. "I just ran off. I didn't help them!"
All that could be heard was her soft sobs as she tried to control herself. "I got out of the place we were holed up and kept moving until morning. I've no idea how I survived any of it. I was just lucky. That's the only difference between them and me."
"You did what you had to do." His voice made her jump. "I'm so sorry that happened Rose."
"Don't!" She snapped. "Don't feel sorry for me. It's those poor women..."
"I don't know what the hell you hoped would happen by tellin' me that. All it's made me do is get angry that I can't hold you! That it could happen to you again and I'd be locked up in this FUCKING SHIT HOLE!" He raged worse than she'd ever seen him before. "Yeah you stand there like a fuckin' deer in the headlights darlin' cos there's nothing I can do for ya! So just fuckin' leave!"
Rose hesitated, not knowing what to do until she came to a harsh conclusion. "You're right. There's nothin' either of us can do for each other." She said quietly, in defeat. "I thought I could help you. That was so naive of me."
And then she left.
"Rose.." Negan said so quietly she didn't even hear. "Fuckin' shit!" He shouted, enraged that she was carrying around guilt because of some sick fucks and just as angry that he couldn't do anything about it.
️️️️️️️️️️
XX
Later that day Rose had been doing paroles around the walls having needed to get out. Walking back to her house she was intercepted by Scott, his warm friendly eyes looking concerned.
"Is it all sorted?" He asked.
"What?"
"Maggie..."
"What about her?" Rose asked getting frustrated.
"I thought you'd have been told... Maggie turned up at here about ten, fifteen minutes ago... I told Michonne..."
He didn't even finish his sentence before Rose was racing off to the place she knew Maggie would be. The panic pushed her to run even faster knowing all too well what the only reason the woman would have stepped foot in Alexandria.
A/N
So sorry for the cliffhanger but this is close to 2000 words and I don't know if anyone would want a chapter that long.
Thanks as always to anyone who has followed or left comments.
Love ya for it!
Guest (Amanda) Thank you so much for your review I'm so glad you love it and you don't have to worry I'm with this story until the end! I love writing these two.