When Negan returned to The Sanctuary with Illya, Hal and the other secondary Lieutenants he was quickly shuffled in to see Doctor Carson despite his protests and growls. Hal hadn't taken arguments from their leader though which quite frankly showed him to either be extremely brave or extremely stupid.

Not long after Carson had begun to stitch the Savior leader's injuries up – a missing nipple being chiefly amongst them – Simon entered through the squeaky door. Negan only looked up when let out a hiss of sympathy.

"Shit!"

"I know, I'm missing a fucking nipple. It's currently in Baxter's fucking colon." Negan glared at the doctor when he pulled a little too tightly on the stitches before turning his attention back to his second-in-command. "Now, where is my fucking wife?!"

Simon seemed confused. "She's not with you? Lee went to get you, I was there to distract them."

Negan sighed as he thought of Lee's blood, it was soaked into his shirt along with his own.

"I shot her. She must have past out."

Simon's brow furrowed. "You shot her?"

"I didn't do it on fucking purpose! Just fucking find my wife, if something happens to her I'll rip your head off."

Simon nodded. "I'll have Regina and Dwight sent out to search the convent."

Negan raised an eyebrow as Doc Carson trimmed the edges of Negan's stitches and started to bandage him up.

"Convent?"

"That place is huge, it's more the size of a convent." Simon told the boss rather nonchalantly.

Negan shook his head as if throwing the comment away and turned his attention back to his missing wife.

"We move out as soon as I'm sewn up. She's bleeding out and I will not let those fuckers cut my goddamn Queen up and eat her as fucking dinner!"

Simon looked hesitant. "Negan, can you even walk?"

Negan growled. "For my fucking wife I can do any-fucking-thing. Now get out and make sure they look for her! I want them covering the place, we'll join them in a short while."

He hated to backpeddle but Simon made a good point, he couldn't walk properly.

Simon turned to leave but paused with his hand on the door-handle and turned back to face the bearded man.

"What do you want me to do with the Russian?" A split pause. "Is he really Lee's brother?"

Negan nodded slightly as Doctor Carson pushed himself away from the Savior and let him carefully pull on the clean t-shirt Hal had brought him.

"Yeah, he is. Have him patched up if he needs it and get him drawing a fucking map of their place. It's a goddamn maze."

"There's also a guy and a kid at the gate. Only reason the sharpshooters didn't shoot on sight was because of the kid. He has some story about you saying he's welcome here. Name's TC-"

Negan didn't need to hear more. "He's fine. Let 'em in and feed the kid."

"Done." Simon left then and Negan hissed when Carson started examining his knee.

"Jesus Christ that hurts!" He growled.

Carson spoke cautiously. "I'm sorry, Sir, I'm trying to work quickly like you wanted. You're going to need a cane for a while."

"The fuck I am."

"It'll heal faster if you use one and sit down often. I'm sorry but that's the only way you can avoid serious damage. I'll have my brother search for a crutch for you, he's in the triage area the Queen set up. I'd still be with the other Saviors had the Queen not thought to bring my brother from Hilltop when she took over."

That got the bearded man's attention. "Yulia took over?"

The doctor nodded. "Yes, Sir. You're Lieutenants decided to follow the Queen rather than Simon."

Negan chuckled which caused him pain so he quickly grounded to a halt.

"That's my girl, taking fucking over and getting shit done. How long after she gave orders did people roll out?"

"Almost immediately, Sir. If you mean to locate you though, about six hours. I wasn't privy to the full plan. All I know is that she gave operational control to Gavin under threat of death and Dwight was to deal with medical; he was actually quite good."

Negan was proud of his girl, with so many injured she's have had to pull people from other outposts and then arm them. Six hours was a pretty good response time.

"Pass me that fucking radio." Negan ordered and the doctor obeyed quickly. "Gavin, get on this fucking radio now."

There was a crackle. "Yeah, Negan?."

"Find Lucille, Yulia said Hal had her. Bring her to me and I want a fucking update on Sobaka."

"Sure, I'll get her. Connor brought the dog back about twenty minutes ago, said it wasn't as bad as it looked but the dog's out of commission for a while."

He'd hoped Sobaka would have been in fully working order, Negan expected he'd have wanted to take a bit out of Baxter.

"No one told you?"

"Shut the fuck up and get me Lucille!"

With that Negan dropped his radio and stretched as best he could what with the amount of gauze he had taped to him.

"Doc, how long can someone survive after they've been shot in the lower gut?" Negan asked not wanting to know the answer but needing to.

The grey haired man thought for a moment. "Depends. Did the bullet a through and through?" Negan shook his head no. "Okay, and em, what calibre was the bullet?"

"9mm."

The doctor wanted to shrug but he knew better.

"It's hard to say then, Sir. Any number of organs could be damaged or she could be extremely lucky and the bullet has lodged somewhere out of the way. I can tell you this though, the longer she's left untreated the more danger she's in. Also, she'll more than likely need a transfusion and IV fluids. If it's worst case scenario then I'll need an endothelial tube and all my equipment will need to be sterilize. She doesn't get treatment soon and she will bleed to death." Negan paled. "You don't need to worry though, Sir."

"Oh yeah?" Negan clearly wasn't impressed.

"I think the Queen has proven herself immortal."

That made the Savior leader chuckle and fuck did it hurt.

Meanwhile Simon made his way down the long expanses of grungy looking halls unit he found Regina sat with Dwight in the conference room as Negan called it. He crashed down into his usual seat and let his head fall back.

"You okay, Simon?" Dwight asked cautiously.

"Yeah, fine. Turns out Lee's been shot and she's still at that bloody Church."

"What the fuck?! I thought she came back with Negan."

Simon shook his head as Regina's brow furrowed deeply. "No... and Negan's worried. I need you two to go back to that place and scope it out. See if you can find her, maybe she got out. If not observe. Me and Negan will meet you in a short while."

"Bet you're fucking enjoying this, aren't you, asshole? Lee never should have let you out of your fucking room."

"Shut the fuck up, Regina. Shot, remember? The longer you yell at me the more chance of her being dead. Dwight, take her, would ya?"

Dwight nodded and rose to his feet. "Come on, Regina. Simon's right."

Only a little reluctantly did Regina leave glaring daggers at Simon for following Dwight out the room. Simon breathed a sigh of relief when the door closed and let his head fall back once again. Had Regina asked him two days ago if he'd wanted Lee gone the honest answer would have been yes but then he'd called her into his room to speak to her and had learnt she wasn't the authoritative bitch he'd assumed.

XX

Simon paced back and forth in his room. How fucking dare she take over The Sanctuary! How fucking dare she! He was Negan's second, he was the one who was to run the place in Negan's absence, he was the one who'd fought by the bearded man's side for years.

Suddenly the door opened and Simon ground to a halt as the Russian entered with a polite smile to Arat who guarded the door. Once it was closed the pair just stood there looking at one another waiting for someone to speak. Simon found he eventually just fell into one of the chairs at his table and stared at her; she was beautiful, he could see why Negan had gone for her.

"You asked to see me." She said in that bold accent of hers.

Simon nodded. "Yeah, I did. I'd ask what gave you any right to take over but you'd just tell me you're the Queen, wouldn't ya?"

"Well, I am."

"I don't give a shit. And as much as I fucking hate to admit it, you were right to. I fucked up, didn't I? This is my fucking fault. I pulled my men away."

"You've calmed down, lovely. I'd wondered if you would try and corner the market on being pissed off."

Lee sighed and sat herself in the chair opposite the older man, it was then he noticed she had Lucille as she rested her against the table leg.

"Babysitting?" He asked and Lee actually smiled.

"Negan doesn't like her being unattended." A pause. "And I might have over-reached earlier. You were right to pull your team out, there wasn't any cover and... you couldn't have kept them safe if you had. I think this is all our faults."

Simon sighed. "Why don't you like me?"

"I told you before, it's not that I don't like you it's that I don't trust you."

"Yeah, yeah, I remember."

The moustached man looked away from Yulia and over at his bed as memories of old filled his mind. She just watched him quietly ever the observer.

"I was married once, you know." He said almost absent-mindedly and Lee actually seemed interested which surprised him.

"You were?"

"Yeah. Beautiful as hell. Had this long blonde hair that she used to wear up in two little bun things, looked like something out of one of those Japanese cartoons."

"Anime." She supplied helpfully and Simon finally looked over at her.

"That's it. You kind of remind me of her in a way." Lee's head cocked to the side in silent question. "She didn't trust me either. Negan told me she was crazy but I loved her so bloody much. Married her and then the real creep show started. She wouldn't let me leave the house for longer than five minutes before she called and asked what I was doing or who I was with, she'd go through my calls and texts and question me because I held a door for another woman while we were at the mall."

"What was her name?"

"Adrianna." He answered simply.

"Pretty name."

"That's what I thought. Eventually it went too far and I had no choice but to divorce her, she really was nuts. I stayed with Negan for a while and it worked okay since he was always at the school coaching."

"I don't understand why you're telling me all this, Simon."

Simon took a calming breath. "I tried so many times to prove to Adrianna that I wasn't cheating on her or anything like what she thought but she never believed me. Nothing I ever did made her see the truth. I guess... if I prove myself to you will you accept it or will you be like her and say you do only to go back to checking my call logs?"

Yulia smiled slightly. "The way I grew up you either trusted someone with your life or you kept them at arms length so you could use them when you needed to and then throw them back. In my world just about everyone was out to kill you. However, if someone proved themselves, proved themselves so as someone trusted them and not because they'd gotten someone to trust them-"

"Isn't that the same thing?" He questioned.

"нет, it's not." (no) Yulia pushed stray hair behind her ear. "If they wanted to be trusted and had earned it then we trusted them... but there were very few that ever did. You prove yourself to me and I will trust you, Simon. Show me you're the Vader to his Palpatine."

That got a smirk out of the moustached man.

"So who does that make you?" He asked with jest and Lee chuckled.

"Oh, I'm Han Solo. Cocky, travels around with a creature covered in fur and would rather shoot you than have an in depthconversation."

"Damn! Your Daddy raised a little lady that don't take shit from no one, didn't he, Sugar Puff?" He laughed.

"What is it with the men in this place using food based pet names?" Yulia questioned herself but Simon seemed to ignore it. "My father had to, sometimes being strong is the only choice you have."

Simon stood up and went over to the little set of cabinets that served as a rather dreary looking kitchenette and pulled a bottle of wine out from one of them, he picked up two clean-ish glasses and returned to his seat where he poured.

"Have you ever been with a group or has it just been you since this shit started?" He pushed a glass towards her and Lee picked it up and took a swig.

Lee shrugged. "I was with some people for a while in the beginning but it didn't last long."

"Why not?"

Lee sighed as Simon took a sip from his own glass. "Like a dolphin on strike it just wasn't clicking for me."

Simon roared with laugher and nearly choked on his wine.

"You know, Negan is starting to rub off on you, you're even starting to talk like him. Quick wit and all that."

Lee shrugged. "Eh, what you gonna do? Everyone has to have a sense of humour in the apocalypse. Although a couple of days ago he did make me laugh until I was blue in the tits."

The two sipped the wine and laughed for a moment but it had started to sound forced... because it was.

"Seriously though, Simon, how you you expect to prove you're trustworthy?"

"I think I have an idea on how to distract everyone long enough for you to get Negan. You're going to have to be dead though."