A new and improved version of Chapter 17, with Chapter 18 very soon to follow...
Chapter 17: Red Sky at Morning, Part I
It wasn't often that Daryl was woken from a sound sleep. That would require sleeping soundly, a dangerous concept even in his childhood and definitely nowadays. He'd had times where he passed out, either from a bad beating or pure exhaustion. And then there had been nights on the road with Beth, once he'd come to trust her not only with his emotions but also with his safety (at least for a few hours of keeping watch). Then four straight nights in a row at the Lykins farm, once he'd settled into things, but that could be chalked up to the luxury of sleeping on a soft surface under a warm blanket with the smells and sounds of calm spring nights coming in from the yard and woods beyond the screened-in porch after weeks of being shut in a damp concrete box with nothing but the stench of his own filth.
Negan's incessant pounding on the cell door with Lucille startled him, though, and he barely had time to pull himself into a half-sitting position before said door was jerked open and the man himself was stepping into the already-cramped space to tower over his prisoner.
"Up and at 'em! You're with me today, yes sir-ree, big plans for you this fine morning!"
It was a good thing he slept fully clothed, shoes included, because Negan didn't even give him time to take a piss before hauling him out of the cell and using Lucille to prod him down the hall and out to the garage. The Hell's he in such a damn hurry for?
Daryl wasn't the only one curious about Negan's self-imposed rush. Simon's face was openly confused as he watched Daryl load crates of goods into the cargo-hold of one of the smaller U-Hauls per Negan's instructions.
"We got a trade meet I forgot about, boss?" he inquired.
"Nah," Negan returned with a casual ease, "Just making a run to the Kingdom. Didn't bother with you with it since I know they're not exactly your favorite folks to deal with. Besides, you've got more than your fair share on your plate already, keeping Hilltop in line. You and your boys deserve a break." He clapped a hand on Simon's shoulder and looked him in the eye with a serious expression, "Don't think I don't know that. Don't think for one fucking second I don't know how you've had my back with all this shit."
Simon held his gaze as he nodded, "Always." Daryl watched as Negan held the meaningful look for a moment longer before giving Simon's shoulder a squeeze and pulling his face back into its usual toothy grin.
"Do me a favor? Babysit Daryl for a hot minute while I kiss my wives goodbye? King Dreds gets a real stick up his ass if I don't give him the proper time and attention, and I'mma need something good to think about while he yaps my ear off."
Daryl kept his head down and loaded the last of the boxes as Negan strolled away, his sing-song whistling fading on the wind. Simon waited for the definitive slam of the factory door before rounding on Daryl, cornering him against the U-hall's side paneling.
"What's in the crates?" he demanded.
Daryl kept his chin tucked down but his eyes alertly marking the approaching members of Simon's preferred crew, effectively boxing him in. Silently, he shrugged his shoulders, genuinely not knowing, or caring, about the truck's contents.
"Show me."
Daryl didn't see any reason to earn himself a beat-down by not complying. He pulled box after box down from where he'd stacked them and lined them up at the edge of the truck's back opening. Simon and one of his men lightly pawed through each one, always careful not to move anything around too much and putting it back the way they found it, before shoving each crate back towards Daryl to re-pack at the back of the cargo hold.
As Daryl climbed down from the truck to stand in front of Negan's right-hand man again, Simon stared him down, head cocked to the side as if considering both the man in front of him and his next words.
But whatever Simon might have wanted to say to Daryl was cut off by the factory door slamming open, Negan striding towards the group with a notable bounce in his step, Lucille swinging at his side.
"Come on, chauffeur, let's get on the road, burning fucking daylight!"
Negan might have made a show of just how routine this delivery trip was in front of the other Saviors, but as soon as the cabin that served as a Sanctuary security check-point was no longer visible in the side-view mirrors, Negan dropped his boots from the dashboard, sat up straight in the truck's bench seat, and directed Daryl to change both road and direction. It didn't take long for him to figure out that the old country road they were now on would take them towards the coast.
Daryl was tempted to ask if they were going back to the group of women Negan had introduced after the first run to Alexandria, but Negan had been uncharacteristically silent since passing through the Sanctuary's gates, even keeping the music off.
The woods had thinned out to open fields and the dirt was visibly sandy by the time Negan finally broke the tense quiet, "You been enjoying yourself these past few days? More importantly," he continued, his voice in its usual rhythmic cadence but his grin toned down to what would pass for a normal person's smile, "do you understand why I made you do it?"
Daryl knew he was referring to the cleaning job in the Sanctuary's Crypt. "Yeah." He chewed absently on the inside of his cheek as he debated how much to share, finally opting for a casual, "Wanted me to see 'em as people."
"Fuck that," Negan dismissed, "And fuck you if that's all you got out of it. I already know you aren't the murdering type. Oh, you can kill easy enough, sure, but a cold-blooded murderer you are most certainly fucking not," he confidently declared. "So try again. Other than me wanting to seriously piss you off, and believe me, the visible agitation in your whole goddamned demeanor every time you trudged out of there has definitely been a big fucking bonus for me, why did I make you waste the last four days of your life?"
"Ya figure by now Beth's told me how y'all see things, what went down at the outpost and all. And it don't fit with what you've figured 'bout me, like ya said, I ain't the kind to kill for fun. And Rick, Michonne, all the rest, they ain't like that, either. Looked in the book," Daryl revealed, "at the pictures. I remember their faces, and we didn't kill 'em all. Some of 'em, I know for sure, we rounded up, talked to 'em, and then let 'em go."
"How many did you and your people kill?" Negan was all business now.
"Don't know for sure," Daryl admitted. "Fire bombs were supposed to just flash over and be done, shouldn't've been anybody caught by the flames, just scared enough to run outside. We wanted as many alive as we could manage, only way to know for sure if we'd got you. Didn't stop to count how many got killed once they came out those doors. Ten, though, ten we definitely set loose. Did it myself."
"Because you thought I was dead."
"One of 'em stepped up and said he was Negan, didn't know ya had everyone callin' themselves that. 's what Gregory wanted. We kill you, we get half the harvest for a year. Could save the seeds from that to get our own crops goin' again. Just tryin' to keep people alive. 's all it ever was."
"Amazing how a little desperation will have folks doing things they never thought they'd do," Negan quirked.
Daryl swallowed and took a breath before softly mumbling, "If ya found out who killed the others, the ones we let go…"
"Beth told you, didn't she?"
Daryl nodded.
Negan huffed, annoyed, "Didn't dawn on her that maybe I went to the trouble of having that little private pow-wow with her in the one place I knew we couldn't be eavesdropped on precisely because I didn't want anyone else knowing this shit? No, of course she's gotta tell you! It occur to either one of you that your little box isn't exactly fucking soundproof? That shutting that door for privacy's sake means that any fucker who wants to can stand out there in that hallway and listen to every goddamned word without you knowing? Fuck's sake, I've eavesdropped on you. More than once."
"She didn't tell me 'til we were at the farm," Daryl defended. "No one was around to hear. She ain't stupid. And y'all ain't as quiet as ya think ya are in that hallway."
That was enough to stop Negan's protests.
Daryl pressed again, "We do what ya want, and ya find out who's been workin' with Gregory to get rid of you, take over for themselves, will you back off Alexandria?"
"I told you, and I fucking meant it: no matter how this turns out, Rick is never going to get you back."
"Ain't said that," Daryl tapped the breaks so he could turn and look Negan in the eye, "I said I'll stay, and I'm stayin'. Said I'd work, so I'm workin'. And I ain't leavin' her, never again. None'a that makes the folks in the Safe Zone any less important, to me or to her."
Negan grinned, "Good God damn, but I wish I could worm my way between your ears to get a first-hand look at what kind of fucked-up logic has twisted its way around your good sense! First you left her for dead, now you can't live without her, but you won't live with her, and that's before we even bring your rugrats into the equation. Are they yours, are they not? You didn't even ask about them when we first talked. But you can't say you don't like kids after I've seen how crazy little Judith is about you. Maybe it's just your kids you don't like? The hell's going on up there in that fucking head of yours? For the life of me, I cannot fucking figure you out and it's driving me fucking nuts!"
Seemingly spent, Negan pulled back and took a breath, "Alright. Let's say it all works out aces for me, I find the fuckers in my own camp who thought they could take what's mine, set your people up as the fall guys, and Lucille has her merry way with them and all is once again right in my corner of the world. You think it's all kittens and rainbows from there? Your people still killed my people. Maybe not as many as I originally thought, but you still did it. Yeah, somebody steered you wrong, but the motherfucking fact is, you went there and did what you did. Nobody held guns to your heads, made you set off those homemade firecrackers, or any of the other shit that followed. That is a debt your people need to square up. But you're right. Context. Intent. Those things matter, should be taken into account. So, yeah, once I get what I want, I could see my way to easing up, cutting back on their expected offerings, considering the circumstances. Fair enough?"
Daryl nodded. It would have to do.
"Then would you kindly stop making us late? These women are already gonna be pissed as all hell when they see you coming back."
Daryl put the truck in gear and started down the road, "Then why'd ya bring me?"
"I imagine they're going to ask the same damned thing, and I'm only explaining myself once today."
"Simon looked in the crates, after you left," Daryl changed topics.
"I know," Negan revealed, "I was watching from the window. Could mean nothing. Simon gets a little high-strung when he isn't in the know. Could mean everything. He and his boys pretty much had full run of things until your darling wife came along and convinced me to go all fair and shit, 'the rules are for everyone'. And he's had damn-near-exclusive control of Hilltop since their fuck-up."
"What'd they do?" Daryl put the question out there that had been bothering him for weeks now. Because even Beth had dodged the query when he'd brought it up with her, and he hadn't seen reason to go there again if she wasn't up to it. But he had to know – what had Hilltop done that was so damned awful that everything had spiraled this far out of control?
"Pull up like you did before," Negan ignored the question to Daryl's consternation, "but go ahead and shut off the engine. We'll need to split up what goes here and what's meant for the Kingdom, and I sure as shit ain't hauling those boxes when I've got my handy-dandy Daryl to do it for me."
It wasn't every day that her katana went missing. Actually, there was never a day when Michonne didn't know exactly where it was. An extension of herself since she came across it, and more-so since losing her baby boy, Michonne might have preferred to keep it at rest on the mantle, but that didn't mean she wasn't keenly aware of its presence. And the way things were now with the Saviors, every blade was a precious form of defense, but most especially hers.
It hadn't gone far, she knew, and she was all but certain who had lifted it from its resting place. It didn't mean she wasn't slightly dismayed to find Carl using her beautiful sword to angrily hack away at the juniper bushes growing along the side of their house.
"I didn't know you wanted to learn," she mused, choosing a relaxed stance.
Carl at least had the good grace to look slightly guilty and stop damaging the shrubbery (and potentially her blade).
"Sorry," he added after a beat, still holding the katana. He busied his hands by wiping the blade clean with the end of his t-shirt. "We need new ways of fighting. Until we get our guns back, I mean. And maybe even then."
"I agree. If you're serious about this," Michonne reached for her blade, "I'll train you. And if we can't find one like this, we'll look into adapting something else. But until then, maybe lay off killing one of our better medical herbs?"
From the slightly widened eyes and deeper frown, Michonne guessed that thought hadn't crossed her step-son's mind.
She stepped closer to him, "I get it, I really do. But right now, patience is the best weapon we have."
"That doesn't make it a good one," Carl countered, "It's not right, you know it's not!"
"I know, and I agree with you." Michonne sighed. "It's not losing our guns that's holding us back. We're survivors. We're the ones who live. We do that because we're strong, and we're strongest when we're together. With everything we do, we have to consider the ones who aren't with us and how that – "
"And what if this is as together as we're going to get?" his interruption stopped Michonne short.
"Carol's gone, we don't know where. Morgan's gone, we don't know where," Carl started listing off. "And they might come back tomorrow, or months from now, or not at all. Maggie's gone, and even if she weren't, she is sick, or was sick… Whether Negan's telling the truth doesn't matter, because she's got a baby inside her and shouldn't be fighting anyway. Aaron's a good guy but he can't help us where he is. And Daryl…" Carl trailed off for a moment. "This is killing him. Negan's killing him."
"You don't know – "
"Yeah, I do. I'm not a little kid, and I'm not stupid. We lose people. Even strong people that we thought would always be there. T-Dogg, and Andrea, and Hershel… and we could lose Daryl, too. You saw him, last week, on his knees the whole time like even the Saviors knew he wasn't strong enough anymore. And they didn't bring him at all the week before. How much longer before… It's like Negan knows, if he breaks Daryl, he breaks all of us."
Privately, Michonne agreed with Carl. It had been enough of an itch under her skin watching Negan parade Daryl around, observing the normally proud and stubborn man bow his head and shuffle along. She hadn't been prepared for how freshly it would dig at her emotions to see him last week, pulled from the back of the truck instead of stepping down on his own accord, then pushed to his knees in the middle of the road. And that was it, really, just made to kneel there in silence, with everyone giving him a wide berth and the Saviors doing all the lifting of their goods into the trucks. But it was too reminiscent of their experience the night Eugene died, too many questions that never got answers. Why wasn't Negan making him work? Was Daryl on his knees just as a visual reminder of that night? Or had he been beaten, injured in some way that even Negan didn't want to risk revealing through too much movement? Or was Daryl alright (relatively, for being Negan's prisoner), and there was nothing behind it all except Negan wanting to fuck with their emotions? No one could be sure, especially after Daryl's conspicuous absence the week before, and it had unsettled Michonne in ways she hadn't expected. Carl, too, it seemed. But they couldn't afford to have him losing his temper with the Saviors around.
"You're right, about a lot of things. And I know you're not stupid, and your Dad knows it, too. And yes, of all the people Negan's taken from us, Daryl is the one I'm most worried about. But you know who else isn't stupid?" She made sure she had Carl's full attention before continuing. "Negan. He's planning on keeping us all under his boot for years to come. He knows, if he kills Daryl, this soon and when we're all trying to follow his rules, yeah, it would break us down a little more than we already are, but it would also fire us up, because then we'd know for sure that there was no way for us to live with the Saviors. And Negan is not going to risk that. What Negan needs is to keep us questioning. Questioning ourselves, questioning what is happening or will happen to the people we love, and questioning him most of all."
Michonne was going to continue but Carl's gaze pulled away from her, forcing her to turn to see what was more interesting than their conversation. Even with her view limited, she observed first Rosita and Abraham walking with a casual gait that was too forced to be coincidence, before slipping into Tobin's garage and easing the sliding door down. The Hell are they up to?
From Carl's expression, he had a similar question in mind. Michonne forced herself to push her thoughts down and focus. "Look, you want to fight. I want to fight, too. And we're probably not the only ones getting impatient. But a lot needs to happen before we do. Because when we fight, we're going to win. And we're going to win because we're going to do it together."
"Do they know that?" Carl asked, tipping his head towards Tobin's garage.
"Abraham's too proud a soldier to go diving into a fight without a battle plan," Michonne observed, while privately planning to say something to Rick the first chance she got, "My guess is that their secret get-together is less about strategy and more about, ah, romance."
"But he's with – and she's…" Carl trailed off, finally putting two and two together. "Oh."
"Uh, huh," Michonne nodded.
"Should we say something to Sasha and Spencer?"
Michonne draped her arm casually over Carl's shoulder and began leading him back into the house, "My friend, let me give you some advice that will save you many years-worth of unnecessary drama and stress. Never, ever, get involved in other people's relationships. You want to worry about someone's love life? Focus on your own."
"I don't have a love life."
"Good for you," Michonne quipped, giving a knowing smile and nod to Rick as they entered the kitchen. "Ain't nothing but trouble."
They weren't even a third of the way through sorting the goods when the group of women burst from the trees, every bit as angry as predicted.
"You want him dead or something? We told you, no one else but you."
Negan kept sorting as if it didn't bother him in the slightest to be poked by the sharpened tip of the spear. "It's not safe to travel alone these days."
"Bullshit, it's never stopped you before," the woman challenged.
"You planning to kill us, or can we move this the fuck along, get the goods swapped out, yada-yada, blah-blah-fucking-blah? I do have other places to be today." The women didn't seem to know how to respond to Negan's lack of concern for their raised weapons.
Daryl watched from inside the cargo hold as Negan finally turned to face her, "The situation has changed. Or at least become clearer. I have reason to believe the bastards who attacked your people may be gearing up for another run at things."
"We never thought they left."
"I had." Negan leaned against the back of the truck, "I've got connections at nearly two dozen communities, and nearly twice that in my own outposts. From the mountains to the coast, from the suburbs of DC to fucking Raleigh, North Carolina, and no one has ever gone through what you and yours did. We find pockets of survivors who have gone through some horrible shit, to be sure. But nothing like what happened at Briar's Creek."
"But you think they've come back," the leader frowned, having eased off her initial combative stance. From his limited vantage point, Daryl could see the other women sharing uneasy glances, some angry, others fearful at Negan's warning.
"I think they may have been under my nose the whole time," he acknowledged. "I think, after laying low for as long as they have, our common enemy may finally be itching to show their ugly asses and are now trying to close in."
After a beat, he pointed a gloved finger at Daryl, "The time may come when I can't make these little visits. Quite frankly, I value my own safety over the pleasure of your company," he grinned, "I brought him here so you could all get a good look, and remember him. He is the only person I've told about you or this place. And he is the only person I would consider sending in my place. Maybe his wife, but she wouldn't come without him. Anyone else comes out here, no matter what name they use, they're not mine."
The women nodded in understanding. "You planning on dying, then, that you wouldn't be coming out here anymore?"
"Fuck, no," Negan grinned widely, "I've got big, big plans for these sorry shits, and when things go the way I'm steering them, I'm gonna be gift-wrapping those motherfuckers for you, pretty little bows and all."
Chapter 18 should be up by tomorrow night (sooner if I can get the editing done on the last scene!).