When they got back to the Sanctuary Negan went straight to the conference room and demanded that Simon joined him, something had set him off within seconds of getting through the gates. Word of the Savior's return spread quickly throughout the whole compound and frankly Lee grew sick of the stares she got as she made her way up to the room Negan had given her in the admiration section. Lee really wanted a shower and some clean clothes, the puppy had snuggled into her chest, it had been a long time since she'd seen something so small and innocent. Just as the Russian Lieutenant got to the top of the stairs and passed the guard, Jose, two of Negan's wives came into view. Specifically Frankie and Tanya.
"What the hell is that?" Demanded Frankie.
"It's a dog." Lee deadpanned, she really didn't have time for the wives' crap.
"I can see that, bitch. I mean who the fuck did you get it past Negan?"
Frankie folded her arms over her chest, it had become clear to just about everyone in Negan's higher ranks that the wives and Yulia hated each other, some had no idea why, others had heard tell of Lee putting a knife to Amber's throat. All dared not question.
"Easy," she smiled "Negan gave him to me as a gift."
"What?" Exclaimed Tanya, she looked the most bitchy of the wives but Lee guessed she was actually quite the opposite.
"A gift." She repeated. "A present. Do you need it in another language?"
"Don't go getting fucking smart with us, whore." Well, Tanya had certainly put on her bitch cap this morning.
"And quit stealing Negan from us." Said Frankie. "We are his wives not you, you're the bloody side show attraction. The dancing Russian bear."
Lee's face grew dark at that and the two wives' smug grins faded to something more akin of fear, they'd seen how close the Russian had come to killing Amber and Negan wasn't there to protect them. The Lieutenant took a single step forwards and Frankie and Tanya backed away instantly, in that moment the wives thought they saw Negan in her eyes.
"Do you remember what happened the last time you pissed me off? Wouldn't want something worse to happen to one of Negan's pretty little wives, right?" The puppy barked drawing Yulia back to the world and away from the darkness, she tilted her head down to the animal and tickled his ears. "No we wouldn't, Sobaka."
"Bitch."
Muttered Frankie when Lee tried to make her way past the two women to her room and Lee lost it, she wasn't in the mood for this crap, needed sleep, a shower and five minutes of goddamn peace and quiet. In a single movement Lee slammed Frankie's head into the hard grey wall.
"I'm returning your nose, it was balls deep in my fucking business."
With that she marched off leaving Frankie bleeding and Tanya freaking out. If Lee hadn't been mistaken she'd heard Frankie's nose break.
~X~
A few hours later after a blissful shower and change of clothes Lee found herself out by the front gate checking on how repairs were going, she had to admit that Negan and Simon could get stuff done when they wanted to. The puppy was cuddled up in her room snoozing so Lee once again had the use of both her hands and a weight off her chest. Some of the dead had gotten loose from the fence while others had been tangled up in it so every now and again there would be a squelch sound when a Savior piked one of them.
Yulia had been contemplating if there was some way to fully reinforce the fence so as a heard never stood a chance of bringing it down again when Negan burst out of the double metal doors with Lucille gripped tight. Instantly people noticed the anger burning in his eyes and subconsciously backed away from him fearing what he'd do.
"What the shitting fuck Yulia?!" He yelled, the other Savior's looked somewhat horrified when Negan came to a dead halt in font of the Russian right up in her face. "I told you to stop fucking threatening my goddamn motherfucking wives!"
"нет (no), you said you'd prefer they stayed alive and they are."
She'd not known it was possible but Negan got even closer, eyes dark and teeth clenched.
"Don't fucking play smart with me! I tell you to do something and you fucking do it, you don't go looking for motherfucking loopholes, don't change the goddamn plan! You do as. I. Fucking. Say!"
"How about you teach them not to piss me off?" Lee's voice remained calm and she shrugged a little, she'd pushed Negan before and always gotten him back into a calmed state. "The sluts get to me." Her plan to try and make him laugh backfired.
"Did you just fucking back chat me?!"
He growled, he spoke to her as though she were a child, a stupid little girl. All her damn life she'd had men treat her like a child, didn't think she could do her job. If Negan wanted to play it that fucking way she'd give as good as she got.
"What are you going to do, Negan? Lucille me?" She gestured to the bat still tightly gripped in his gloved hand. "Great, then maybe you could name a knife after me. That's your thing right, naming stuff after dead girls you've fucked."
Negan's eye twitched and Lee instantly realised she'd not pushed over the line she'd fucking decimated it. She hadn't meant that but they really were as bad as each other and she'd just had to keep going. It was too late, he'd just been angry before but now there was utter rage. Before Lee could utter a single syllable Negan gripped her by the throat and threw her at the hard, gravely ground. The Saviors just stood there watching, they had no idea what to do. Negan grasped Lee's long raven colored hair and slammed her face into the floor, once, twice, thrice, each time with a level of rage no one had ever seen in the Savior leader. He reached for Lucille but at that moment Lee coughed up blood onto his right boot and Negan seemed to realise what he was doing. Just as quickly as it had started it was over and Negan had essentially fled inside the Sanctuary.
Lee lay there a moment couching up earthy dust and blood then managed to sit up. There was blood everywhere, her lip and forehead were pouring and there was going to be a shit tonne of bruising but he'd not killed her... and she had to be grateful for that. Hal and Connor were by her side almost instantly, Hal gripped her shoulders as though expecting her to collapse any second.
"Boss?"
She coughed again and spat out yet more crimson. Lee tried to stand but was too disoriented, her head throbbed and blood had dripped into her eyes. She didn't get a second change to stand because Hal pulled her into his muscular arms and all but ran into the Sanctuary and down hallways to Doctor Carson with Connor hot on his tail. All the other Saviors just stood there unsure as to what had just happened, don't abuse women, don't rape, they were Negan's most important rules and they'd just watched him all but pulverize his favourite Lieutenant; the woman they all knew he was having sex with.
Hal burst through the door to the infirmary nearly scaring the life out of Doctor Carson and sat Lee down on the table while Connor hovered by the door awkwardly, he no doubt expected Negan to appear again.
"Help her." Hal ordered the older doctor, his Southern twang thicker than usual.
Doctor Carson hopped to it, either his hypocritical oath spurred him on or he feared the look in Hal's eyes; everyone knew Hal followed the Russian around just waiting for someone to try and hurt her. It took a while but eventuality Carson managed to clean enough of the blood away that he could start disinfecting and stitching her flesh back together, he never said a word.
"What the fuck did Negan do that for?" Asked Connor, eyes full of shock. "I thought he was against abusing women? Jessi said he made this huge speech about it when her and Videl's group were found."
"He's supposed to be." Growled Hal. "He's a fucking hypocrite."
"Shut it!" Instantly the two secondary Lieutenants fell silent, they'd not expected their boss to speak after such violence let alone yell at them. "I'd have done the same."
Connor opened his mouth to question that, how could she have possibly agreed with what Negan had just done? Carson's voice sounded first though.
"One of you needs to get me ice, I need to get this bruising down."
"I'll go." Said Connor, if Negan did appear in the infirmary the redhead didn't want to be there to see what happened.
~X~
As expected Lee's face bruised over horribly, six stitches in her left cheek, eight along her forehead into her hairline while everything else was purple and yellow. Her left eye was terribly bloodshot almost to the point she couldn't see through it and her lip had swelled; only by the grace of God had her nose not been broken.
She'd avoided Negan for a few days and headed back to Lincoln so as he could cool off, some probably thought she'd run away fearing what he'd do but that wasn't true, Lee left because she didn't know how to say sorry. She'd pushed him into breaking his own rules, it was her fault just as much as it had been Negan's, the two were just so alike that they pushed one another until they both blew up.
"Boss?" Evan's voice pulled Lee from her thoughts and back to the teeny-tiny town that surrounded her. "I think I hear biters."
She'd had Ross and a few others scouting out to the west of Lincoln in search of supplies, she wanted to know there wasn't a single can of sardines they'd missed. Ross had done well because in less than a day he'd found a whole bloody town, small but still a town. To be honest it already looked picked over but she'd decided to bite the bullet and go look anyway... it gave her something to do.
"Yeah, I can hear it to, sounds like a lot of them." Ross agreed.
Ross was practically a stereotypical millennial despite being in his early thirties, his hair was a sandy-brown color all wound up in a man bun and he was by far the tallest of her men, towered over all of them save for Hal and even he was half a head shorter. Truth be told Lee wasn't sure how she'd ever gotten him and Jared confused, they looked, acted and sounded nothing alike, still, Negan had moved Jared to Gavin's unit so that was over and done with. Ross McCormack was a good guy, loyal, and Lee liked to use him as a scout along with Videl, Evan and Connor. That and most people tended to remember a man walking around with a M16. He was one of the fortunate ones, he and his wife, Kayla, had made it to Negan's group in the early days and were still together; there weren't too many intact families any longer.
"Fine, we'll check it out." Lee pulled out her suppressed weapons and turned to Koby. "Koby, keep an eye out and make sure all these buildings get searched. Take Videl and Owen."
"Will do, boss."
Lee turned back to Evan, Ross and the sounds of biters, here we go again, she thought as they headed forwards with the bulk of her men. As they rounded the street to their left they found an old auto body repair shop literally surrounded by the dead. The doors wouldn't hold much longer, there was only one thing that could get the dead's attention that bad... the living.
"Take them out!"
Yulia ordered and that's just what her men did, knives came out and suppressed weapons came out first killing as many as was possible until they drew too much attention and heavy weapons open fired. Within two minutes the hoard was down, nothing but rotting dead bodies piled up on one another like some sort of mass grave, horrible yet at the same time a rewarding sight. When all the flesh hungry monsters were down a silence washed over the town, nothingness, just utter quiet. Sometimes silence could be a music all of its own.
"Boss, there are people inside."
Frankly Hal was stating the obvious but Lee said nothing on the subject, just slipped her guns back into their snug thigh holsters and looked the building over, the dead had really done a number on it, a few more minutes and the glass would have shattered, doors given way. The Russian nodded to Hal, a silent order to bust down what was left of the door and let her play Negan and have her own grand entrance.
Lee's men stormed the building expecting to find weapons trained at their heads but no, instead they found a group of maybe eight people half of which looked ready to die of thirst. They had a hammer and a couple of knives but no firearms, they'd never stood a chance against that amount of biters.
"You're good, boss." Called Hal from inside and Lee strutted in, she could see why Negan liked being all over the top.
The group before her was mainly women the youngest of which was about Lee's age while the men with them were even younger.
"Who are you?" A blonde woman, the eldest, asked with only a hint of fear in her voice; Lee liked this woman.
"Which of you are in charge?"
There was a pause where everyone looked in horror at the thick bruising that coated her face and then a mass of fingers pointed over to a body laying beside a car to their right, head smashed in.
"We had to mercy him."
"Mercy?" Lee raised an eyebrow.
"He got bit, died, so we made sure he couldn't come back. We gave him mercy." A pause. "Who are you people?"
"The people who just saved your lives, this is your lucky day." No one seemed to believe her and Lee couldn't blame them for that. "How would you like to go live somewhere with food, water and medical supplies? A community where violence is not tolerated."
"Why the hell would you do that for us? What the fuck do you get out of it? Did anyone even teach you English right?"
The youngest of the men sneered, clearly an utter moron but the Sanctuary could find something useful for him to do; maybe without a firearm though since he'd likely take his foot off.
"Заткнись! (shut the hell up). Evan, if he speaks again, shoot him."
The secondary Lieutenant nodded and aimed his Walther at the idiot. "Yes, boss." The man's – teenager really – eyes went wide as he stared down the barrel of the gun.
With that the raven-haired beauty turned her attention back to the woman and the rest of her group, she'd not let one dumbass with a trigger happy mouth get to her.
"To answer his question, we're the Saviors. It's what we do. Now, I've been perfectly polite, my boys saved your lives but I'm not going to stand around here all day so some redneck with an attitude can insult me. I'm being generous."
"We've heard of you, Saviors, they say you all work for one man." The blonde woman told them as it finally dawned on her who she was faced with.
"Oh we are." Lee glanced at her men. "Who are you?!"
"Negan!" They all called back in unison, he'd got them trained so well.
This was starting to get ridiculous, it was a yes or no bloody situation, go with them or stay there and wait to die.
"What is your name?" Lee asked the older women, she'd gotten sick of thinking of her as the blonde.
"Rebecca. The mouthy idiot you have a gun on his my son, Alex and this is my daughters, Charlotte and Anna." She informed while gesturing to the two youngest women.
Lee hadn't expected for most of this group to be one single family.
"Good, now we're getting somewhere, Спасибо (thank you). My name is Yulia. And you're only getting this choice once, come with us, or stay, simple as that, we will not force you. If you want to stay here and die, Rebecca, that's your prerogative."
"Still not really a choice though, is it." Muttered Charlotte from beside her mother. Lee ignored it though.
"We'll go with you." Rebecca finally agreed.
"Fantastic." Lee looked to Evan. "Keep an eye on the хуесо́с (cocksucker)."
She turned to leave the auto body repair shop and return to Koby to see if he'd come across anything useful but something at the back of the shop caught her eye hidden at the back of the room, half covered by a once white sheet.
"Oh tell me that's what I think it is."
~X~
Lee made her way into the conference room to discuss the final repairs to the defences but Negan wasn't there, Simon, Regina and Gavin were as well as Dwight but the boss was nowhere in sight. Without a word she just sat down beside Regina. She'd not long again gotten back from her little supply run and had instantly put the new people into intake. The puppy followed behind her happily, he'd grown amazingly since he'd started getting food and water on a regular basis and the people of the Sanctuary seemed to take comfort in such a cute animal running around.
"Shit," began Simon "he really did a number on you."
Gavin smirked. "You alright there, Comrade?"
"Gavin, say that again and I'll fucking kill you." Regina gestured to Lee. "She'll be the least of your problems."
"Спасибо (thank you), Regina."
"Sure thing, Lee. Assholes need to learn and girls gotta stick together and all that shit."
"Where is Negan?" Asked Lee, she hoped Gavin would keep his mouth shut for the foreseeable future.
"Ah, now that's our problem, Angel." Lee raised an eyebrow, Simon had never called her that before. "No one has fucking seen him since you got the shit kicked out of you."
"Is he on a run or in his room?" She asked.
"Don't ya think that was the first fucking place we checked?" Simon shot back. "And we'd know if he left, he'd have told me."
"Yeah, Simon's right, Negan wouldn't just leave the Sanctuary without informing his Lieutenants." Regina leaned further back on her chair.
"Either way I'm running things until he deeps us worthy of his presence again."
Lee sighed. "Да (yes), we don't care." Gavin smirked at that.
"It's shit like that, Angel, that get's your head smashed in." Simon said in warning but Lee was utterly unaffected; save for him calling her 'angel'.
The Russian had endured just about all of Simon's creepiness she could take so shot to her feet and straightened out her tailcoat.
"I'll go get him."
"You know where he is?" Gavin looked confused, but then again Lee was fairly sure that was just Gavin's face.
"There are only three places he could and since he'd not currently in me, my search radius has been seriously diminished."
Regina burst into tiny snorts of silent laughter while Simon just looked pissed. Without another word the Russian made her way out of the conference room with the young German Shepherd following behind happily; the animal was basically glued to her.
Lee got stares as she made her way through the factory with the dog, some horrified by the damage Negan had done to her face and others amazed she'd finally been taken down a notch. Lee ignored them all though, just carried on up to Negan's office. She nodded a small greeting to Jose as she past him and quickly pushed Negan's office door open, nothing. Only one place left to look, she knocked on the door to his room but no answer came, Lee went in anyway.
The instant Lee spotted Lucille rested against the couch and the open window she knew Negan couldn't be far, he'd never leave Lucille. She sat the puppy down on the bed then clambered out onto the fire escape and quickly shot up two levels to the roof, there he was, sat at the edge on an air vent with his back to her.
"Fuck off, Simon!" The Savior leader demanded without looking around.
"It's not Simon." Negan tensed but didn't move, just kept looking out into the distance. "You're Lieutenants are waiting for you."
"Simon can handle it." He told her gruffly.
"Doubt it." She muttered to herself.
Negan either wouldn't or couldn't look at her so Lee just stood there a few feet behind the leather clad man watching him. All was quiet for a moment before the green-eyed beauty spoke again, her voice was a little awkward.
"Negan, I wanted to say... I'm sorry. I know I push too far sometimes but what I said about Lucille was wrong. I didn't mean it and I'm so sorry."
Lee wasn't accustom to apologising, she couldn't actually remember ever having done it before. However, she owned Negan that much. Silence hung between them for a long time, Negan still didn't look at her and Lee continued to just stand there patiently.
"You know she was my wife, don't you? My real wife."
"Да (yes)." She nodded. "There were only two possibilities, wife or daughter. The way you talk about her though ruled out daughter rather quickly. I'm sorry."
Negan sighed. "So am I. I should have done better by her, should have been a better husband. Lucille deserved so much more than what I gave her."
"You loved her, that would have been enough." She said simply. Negan would have liked to have believed her but Lee didn't know about his indiscretions and that was putting it fucking mildly. "Come and show Simon he's not in charge, you are. You're Negan, you don't hide."
She was right of course, usually was, and Negan knew it. There were things he needed to do, had to check on the new point count for everyone and see how the fence repairs were going. That was the only reason he nodded.
"Okay."
Finally Negan turned to face her... and his face went white. His whole demeanour changed and for a moment Lee didn't know why, not until he raced over to her with a horrified expression on his face.
"Jesus Christ, was this me? Did I fucking do this to you?" His hands shot up to cup her face so he could tilt it this way and that, there was pain in his eyes. "Shit! I'm so sorry, Yulia. I thought I'd just bust your lip or something, I thought I'd only hit your head once, not this. Fucking hell, I'm so sorry, there's no fucking excuse for this." He was talking a mile a minute and frankly it shocked the Russian. "It's rule fucking one; don't abuse the women! And everyone saw me fucking do this to you. Christ, I'm sorry. How do not hate me?"
Lee had never seen him scared before, hadn't even known he was capable of it, but there he was looking about ready to punch his own lights out. She reached up to press her hand against the one he had at her bruised and bloody cheek.
"I don't hate you, Negan, and I know why you did this. I pushed you too far and said something just to hurt you. I didn't mean it and I brought this on myself."
Negan's eyes widened. "No! No, never an excuse for doing that to a woman. I beat the shit out of you."
"And I know why," Lee said again "I know you never would have done it had I not shoved you over the over the line until all you could see was red. We're both the cause of this. It's okay, Negan. Let's just say no more about it."
The Savior leader couldn't stop looking at her bloodshot eyes and the sewn up cuts.
"You forgive me?" He looked so sad, a shadow of the man she knew him to be, Negan really didn't know he'd hurt her so badly.
"I did that moment you did this, now can we please move on?" This conversion was starting to get awkward and Lee wanted out. "Also, there's a puppy downstairs in your room that wants to see you."
"Yeah? You like your fluffy little gift?"
That was the Negan she knew, the Negan that got things done; although how quickly he'd bounced back surprised her a little. The smirk was back and that flair in his eyes.
"Very much. Sobaka is adorable."
"Sobaka?" His brow furrowed.
"Uh-huh, Sobaka. That's his name."
"What sort of a name is that?"
"Well, I didn't know what to call him and I was just talking to him in Russian and decided to stick with it." Lee shrugged her shoulders.
"So Sobaka means something. What?"
"Dog. It's literally just the Russian word for dog. I figured I'm the only one here that would know that so why not let it just be a name. Oh, and you should probably check on your wives, they'll be freaking out. There's a fight, you do this to me and then vanish."
"The only wife left is Sherry and she knows she's not in trouble." Lee's expression grew puzzled.
"What do you mean only Sherry?"
"Haven't you noticed me slowly getting rid of the wives? Sending 'em back into down to gen pop After the shit Frankie and Tanya pulled they had to fucking go, there are rules for the wives as well and I know they had to have provoked you somehow. And Amber?! While you were beating getting your bitch fight on I was down in the furnace room. Got back, found her and mark bumpin' unglies. No one cheats, that's a fucking rule and she goddamn broke it." He sighed. "And her fucking drinking was getting out of fucking control."
Lee had never expected Negan to part with his wives, they were his trophies, his things to show off to the masses. Sherry had always been his favourite so it wasn't a real shocker to find she was the one he kept. Yulia doubted Sherry would be alone for long; there would soon be more young and beautiful women looking for an easy life or the boons of being a wife. He'd probably ask her to join their ranks again knowing the answer was no.
"Well, you'll have plenty of free time. One wife, such an ordeal." She told him teasingly.
"Oh I don't know, I got a pretty sexy Lieutenant. One I probably don't deserve."
It almost gave Lee whiplash with how fast Negan could flip between moods, her mind likened it to a pregnant woman's hormones but her mouth stayed shut for once. Negan stood up straight and shook his head as though trying to throw thoughts away.
"Now, what did you say about Simon?"
Lee rolled her eyes.