AN: Here we are, another chapter here.

I may need to remind people reading (who are sensitive to certain characters in the show) that the characters here are not exactly the characters in the show. This particularly applies to Negan.

I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!

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"You're sure you're OK?" Daryl asked when he broke from the hug. He looked a little restored by the affection, and Carol smiled at the concerned lines on his face.

"I'm fine," she assured him.

"Really fine or—fine like…you think I expect you to say you're fine, or I don't care…or?"

Daryl never did finish the rest of the possibilities from which Carol could choose, and he didn't have to. She did a quick mental check of her body, especially now that the adrenaline was dying down a little.

"I'm really fine," she reiterated. "And I certainly know you care. My throat hurts—a little. My face. But really? I'm fine, Daryl."

Daryl stared at her hard, like he was expecting her to be telling him a lie, and then he nodded.

"OK," he said. "Maybe we—oughta call Al."

"This would be a stupid reason to bother Alice," Carol assured him.

"Al's on call twenty-four fuckin' seven," Merle said. "There ain't no stupid reason to call Al if you thinkin' you beat up, Mouse."

Carol had almost forgotten they weren't alone. Merle looked at her, concerned. Andrea seemed to have relaxed a little, accepting that there was no immediate danger, but the line between her eyebrows said that she still hadn't been entirely filled in.

In a strange way, it felt good. So many people were concerned about her over, really—and considering the course of her life—a very minor altercation. Anything Ed had ever done to her was at least three times worse than what the man had done to her—and Ed's abuse wasn't some one-time event that could be stopped by the arrival of others on the scene. Carol told herself that she shouldn't feel so oddly pleased when something serious enough had taken place that Daryl's clothes were stained with another man's blood.

Carol remembered his hands and dropped her eyes. She gathered Daryl's hand up and looked at the busted knuckles. The blood was already drying all over them, his own mixing with that he'd taken from the man.

"Your hands…" Carol said. "Come to the kitchen. Let me wash them."

"I ain't worried about my hands, Carol!" Daryl said, pulling his hand away and speaking clearly more sharply than he intended. His eyes reflected his own surprise at his tone—and his sorrow over it. "I'm worried about you. About…you know…"

Carol smiled to herself. Her heart fluttered in her chest. She nodded at him.

"I'm fine," she assured him once more. "I promise. I'm—completely fine. I'm sure of it. I don't lie to you, remember?" He sucked in a deep breath and let it out, nodding and humming his agreement. She decided to tease him to lighten him up a bit. She worried that he was genuinely suffering more than she was over the whole thing. "I almost won, really. A little longer and—I'd have had him right where I wanted him."

"Damn sure would'a," Merle offered with a laugh. "Fuckin' hell—if Teeter had the common sense these days that God give dirt? He'd be fuckin' proud of you, brother. You'da killed that asshole if I hadn't held you back. Always knew—if you found you a good woman? One you really give a damn about? You'd burn down the whole fuckin' world to keep people from fuckin' with her."

There was a touch of admiration in Merle's voice and a great deal of approval.

While Merle was speaking, Negan had come back into the lobby. He walked straight for the bar where the aluminum ashtray sat, stared at the ashes, and then cursed under his breath before he fumbled around under the counter in search of something.

"Left my full fucking pack of smokes upstairs," he said.

Without his having to make more of a request, Merle offered him a pack of cigarettes. Negan hummed a thanks, took one out of the pack and lit it.

"What happened?" Andrea asked, finally feeling that it was safe to speak and things had calmed enough for her to get some kind of answer.

"Rock's about as fucking dumb as his name implies," Negan mused. "Where's that whiskey and shit you brought in this morning, Merle?"

"Kitchen," Merle offered. "Come on."

Carol followed along with everyone else as they moved to the kitchen. Merle pulled a cardboard box with various bottles of liquor—all brought from the Chambers, without a doubt—from a cabinet and placed it on the counter in the kitchen. He pulled glasses from the cabinet, lined them up, and made himself a drink before offering over the freedom to pour drinks to anyone else who felt they might want one.

Carol saw Daryl fix a drink for himself, but it was little more than a shot in the bottom of the glass and he sipped it instead of swallowing it back. Negan, on the other hand, poured himself the kind of glass that said he intended to pass the night at the motel. Then, for good measure, he tucked the bottle under his arm.

"Rock's as fucking dumb as dumbfucks fucking come," Negan said. He took another cigarette from Merle's pack, took an empty glass as an ashtray, and tossed the cigarettes among the bottles of alcohol for anyone who might be in need of one. "Went off chasin' a pussy about two months ago—hell, could've been longer. It isn't like we exactly kept up."

"Showed up this morning," Merle said. "He was drunk when he got here."

"Asshole carries two flasks the same damn way those Old West gunslingers used to carry pistols," Negan offered with a laugh. "One on each hip. Fastest drunk in the West. Came in this morning bitching about the pussy he chased. Took him right on up through Virginia just to drop his ass like a hot potato. He came in bitching about the reasons you don't make a cunt your old lady. In hindsight, I should've sent his sorry ass back to Union to sober up and get over his shit. I thought he was just blowing off smoke, though. I figured he was smart enough to know better than to fuck with an old lady—especially one that belongs to the fucking Judges." Negan laughed to himself. "I guess he's too damn dumb to know that a Judge'll destroy anything and everything that ever mattered to you."

"I'm sorry you lost a brother," Daryl offered. It was sincere. Carol could hear it in his voice. He didn't say that he was sorry for what he did. He didn't say that he was sorry to have demanded the man's patch. He didn't say that he took a single bit of it back. But he was sorry for any loss that Negan might be feeling.

Carol remembered the picture on the wall behind the counter.

She hadn't asked. She didn't know the details. But Negan was no stranger to the family—and she realized, it was her family now.

Negan laughed to himself.

"Don't you lose no sleep over it, lil' brother," Negan offered. "Hell—I'm not cryin' in my beer over Rock. His own sweet, loving mother wouldn't cry over his loss. It was a matter of fucking time with Rock."

Carol followed Andrea to one of the little tables, pulled around one of the chairs she'd washed just that day, and sat down. Andrea rubbed her back affectionately—her hand ghosting over a spot that was slightly sore, and had probably been protected from being even more sore by the absorbency of the leather she was wearing—and smiled at Carol to offer some strength or solidarity.

"Only thing I'm worried about is fuckin' Rock findin' whoever the fuck hit us before," Merle said.

Working together hadn't made Merle or Daryl entirely positive that Negan and the Saviors hadn't had some hand in the whole fiasco that saw Andrea burned and Alice and Sadie threatened, but they were willing to believe Negan until they were given reason to believe otherwise. Carol thought that, slowly, they were all starting to believe in Negan's sincerity. He'd had plenty of opportunity to hit the club. He hadn't. If he was biding his time, it was difficult to figure out what exactly he was biding it for.

And he'd been quick to get rid of Rock for his actions.

"The one good thing we got going for is the fact that most clubs worth their salt won't take someone who's lost their patch," Negan said. "Word travels fast—faster than just about anything else. You can bet your man, Kickstand, who's out there watchin' to see that Rock don't decide to come back and try his luck—he's already put out the APB to your guys and mine what happened. Everybody in three states will know that Rock went after an old lady before the fucking sun goes down. And there are very few clubs where fucking with an ally's old lady won't get your ass drummed out of town."

"Problem bein' that the enemy of my enemy is my fuckin' friend," Merle said. "Rock finds the asshole that ordered a hit on my wife, and suddenly he don't gotta look too fuckin' far to find a patch to replace the one he lost movin' in on my lil' brother's old lady."

Carol felt Andrea's hand squeeze her shoulder. She reached her hand up to touch Andrea's fingers, and Andrea moved her hand to take Carol's hand in hers and hold it casually at the table—her fingers trailing gently over Carol's. The gesture was calming, and comforting, and Carol appreciated it more than she might have imagined.

"It's time to set up details," Daryl said, helping himself to a cigarette and moving out of the kitchen to follow Negan as the man had slowly migrated to a table with the glass he was using as an ashtray. Tired of speaking through the service window, Merle made the move as well. Negan sat at one of the tables, but Merle and Daryl merely hovered around it to share the glass. "Every old lady is fuckin' covered from now until the damn dust has settled."

Merle laughed.

"Better'n that—every old lady's packin'," Merle said. "We haulin' 'em all down to the range. Everyone carries. And even if you don't got a gun on you—you carryin' a blade. It was good on Mouse that we was nearby, but she'da been even safer if she coulda sliced a fuckin' chunk outta that asshole in self-defense."

"It'd even be better if your women was armed," Daryl offered in Negan's direction. "Hell—if they'll go after an old lady, they'd just as soon we was pullin' whores outta dumpsters."

"Guns and knives are all good," Negan said, lighting the cigarette that he'd snagged earlier. "But they don't do a fucking bit of good against the sneaky ass attacks like running people off the fucking highway. He laughed to himself and shrugged. He looked directly at Merle. "But then—that's more of a Judge thing, isn't it?"

Carol didn't miss the expression that crossed Merle's face, or the setting of his jaw before he purposefully relaxed it.

"I know you don't wanna believe it," Merle said. "But that weren't a Judge hit."

"Judges don't leave a lot of car fires in their wake?" Negan asked. He hummed. "Suicides and—car accidents without fucking witnesses?"

Merle kept a steady expression. Carol could feel, from several tables away, that he absolutely didn't want conflict. He was projecting calm into the room.

He didn't deny Negan's accusation—not entirely.

"Judges don't hit their own," Merle offered.

"That's bullshit and you know it," Negan said. "Teachin' manners starts at home, isn't that what the hell Teeter used to say before he'd knock any of us in the head?"

"Judges don't hit their own like that," Merle clarified. "Not without a reason so damned solid that even the devil agrees with our fuckin' judgement calls. You know that shit. If you search your fuckin' self? You know that shit. And we don't never hit old ladies."

Carol didn't know what was taking place, exactly, but she understood that it was a serious discussion between the men. Negan nodded his head, hummed noncommittally, and stood up. He picked up his drink, but he didn't move entirely away from the table.

He looked toward Carol and Andrea and raised his glass in a mock toast.

"You did what the fuck you should've done to that fuckhead, lil' brother," Negan offered. "I hope you—never have to protect her from more than that. Never have to see more than that." He hummed again. Took a long swallow from the glass. "I hope you never—get the call that she's leaving the fucking…she was leaving the fucking diner that night. Picking up dinner. I hope you never get the fucking call that there's someone outside that makes her uncomfortable—never did say who, if she fucking knew. That she's going to get in the car and come straight home—and you're watching the fucking clock. Knowing with each passing, fucking second that you won't hear the car in the driveway. I hope you never fucking get there to see all those lights on the side of the road. And they're being so damn discreet. Trying to keep you from seeing—while they try to talk to you about what you know. What they want you to know. What they think you can handle. And you know they're taking too damn many trips to that fucking body bag because she's not even a whole fucking person anymore."

Negan stopped short. He picked up the bottle from the table and tucked it back under his arm. Any hint of humor was gone from his features. Carol wasn't used to seeing the man entirely without a hint of humor—even if it was ironic humor.

Maybe, in response to her thoughts, or maybe out of practice, he forced a smile. He forced a burst of completely unconvincing laughter.

"Son of a bitch," he muttered. He said nothing else as he walked, somewhat shuffling his feet, toward the lobby that would take him back in the direction of the stairwell. "Put out a full detail," he called behind him. "Tell me where you want Saviors. I'ma call in some backup—probably the Nomads and the Marietta chapter. You might wanna reach out, too."

He didn't say anything else. And he slipped out of their sight.

Carol could only assume that he was going upstairs to one of the rooms, but she got the distinct feeling that it was best if nobody followed him.