Thank you to everyone who continues to read this story!
With all the drama going on between her and Negan, she didn't even consider her being affected by returning to her home city. It hit her suddenly, that this is where her family died. This is the place she ran from when they started to drop the bombs.
Maddie stops in the middle of the street, knowing that her house is thirty minutes away from here. They will have to take an alternate route. She can't handle all this.
"You okay, darlin'?" Negan turns to look at her. Despite all their arguments, he is still being nice. He knows it's all his fault, he just can't admit it to her. Better for him to become Mr Sensitive.
"We need to go that way," she points at a street to her left.
Negan nods once, waddling back through the snow, "Lead the way."
They carry on, lifting their legs due to the height of the fallen snow. The whole sky is white, but at least the wind has died down a little. Maddie looks up, blinking away the melting snowflakes on her lashes.
Most of the buildings have suffered the bombing, looking as if the concrete has been rotting for years. The windows have been blown out, though some glass remains on the lower floors. The charred walls stand out prominently against the white snow.
If it was summer, they would be going around trying to start up some of the cars. There are a lot of them lying around. Some have been flipped. Some are stuck in store windows. Maddie wonders if the engines have blown up as well.
The only thing that is odd to see – or more like not to see- is the lack of walkers. They have walked past some frozen corpses on the ground, growling against the suffocating snow, but they were simply too stuck to attack. Stepping over them, the pair carried on.
"Are you cold?" Negan notices her shudder, but he couldn't be more wrong. Maddie feels like she is getting hot flushes, walking past the place she used to pick up coffee before work.
"No," she shakes her head.
He nods silently, "Well, we should find a spot to rest anyway," he gestures around, "Under here?"
She follows his finger to a little shelter between buildings, "No."
SHSHSHSHSHSHSHSH
To Negan, it feels like they've just climbed a billion flights of stairs. He puts his hand on his wound, leaning against the wall. Maddie turns to him, raising her brows.
"I'm sorry," she says, "We're here."
She pushes a heavy door into a room that doesn't feel any warmer than the outside. It's grey and sunlight is struggling to push its way through it. The whistling of the wind reminds her that they are significantly high up.
Maddie crosses the grey room towards a half-boarded window, looking down at the streets of New York. They will need to put some work into this shelter if they want to survive the winter. All the habitable spots in town are the same kind of damaged. They will not find any better.
Negan grunts as he drops the bag with the tent on the floor, "I guess we can set it up here, yeah."
Maddie follows suit, slinging her rifle off her shoulder to prop it against the wall. Once their baggage is on the floor, she feels how severely she has managed to strain her neck.
"We're alright for a few days at the most," he sighs, "But then we'll need to look for other sources of food."
Maddie glances at him, "I know." And it's not going to be easy. Not in this weather. And not in this location either.
"Maddie," he starts. She closes her eyes to refrain from rolling them, "Are we okay?"
"We're fine, Negan," she snaps, feeling almost annoyed at the fact that she constantly needs to reassure him.
"But you're acting- "
"I'm not acting," she says, "I just need space to think and function without you."
He looks hurt by her statement, but she doesn't care. She is in mental and physical pain and the last thing she wants to do is talk to him to make it even worse.
"I need to sleep," she beats him to speaking, "Set up the tent and prepare the food if you want. I'm not hungry."
SHSHSHSHSHSHSHSH
The snow storm couldn't have come at a worse time. Maddie doesn't know how they would have survived without their tent. Negan managed to set it up in the middle of the room, shielding it from most of the wind. However, the windowless shell of a building still whipped the gales around them.
Negan was supposed to keep watch in case of walkers or people coming over here, but nobody is as dumb as them to try to survive in this city. He blows hot air into his hands and shakes the snow out of his beard.
The tent is moving like crazy, so he knows Maddie is probably not asleep. He unzips a part of the tent and closes it quickly once he is in.
Maddie shudders in her sleeping bag when their eyes meet.
"Shit," Negan curses, "You could have called me."
"What difference would that make?" she pushes the words through her chattering teeth.
He sighs before unzipping his coat and lying down next to her. She seems surprised as he takes off his beanie and pulls it over her head.
"I don't fucking need you getting sick again," he says, pulling her shivering body against his.
As much as her pride is telling her to push him away, she can't afford it. His body heat might be the only thing preventing her from freezing to death tonight.
"It's so cold," she whimpers, curling into his chest.
"Yeah, I know, darlin'."
She concentrates on the texture of his beard grazing her forehead before his cold lips plant a kiss there.
Their priority should be boarding up these windows tomorrow. And finding food and water. Maddie starts planning everything in her head as Negan rubs circles on her back.
"I'm sorry I've put you through this," he whispers into her hair. She glances up at him.
"You didn't. It was my idea to come here."
"No," he pulls her closer, "I mean the thing with Simon."
She sighs, squeezing her fingers between their bodies, "I don't want to talk about it."
"Well, we have to at some point," he watches her, "I'm still the same person, Maddie."
"Except that you're not," she whimpers against the cold, "I just… I just want to sleep, okay? There is no point getting into this again."
Negan seems unsatisfied, but he holds back his urge to resist, "Okay. Goodnight."
Maddie closes her eyes, listening to the howling of the wind.