AN: I'm so happy that this story is starting to catch on here on. It caught on right off the bat (pun not intended) on AO3, which I figured might be the case considering that there seems to be more activity there for Negan readers, but I'm glad to have a following here as well. Thanks so much you guys for the support! I really appreciate every bit of it.

Recently Re-edited: (6/9/19)

Disclaimer: I don't own the Walking Dead.

Breaking Point, or, "the fall is hard but the landing is harder."

~O~

Samantha suffered a fitful sleep that night. She was plagued with nightmares that had her waking up every hour, bringing her back to her dark cell and the full soundtrack to Guys and Dolls, where the voice of Marlon Brando and the demons of her subconscious made for a hellish concoction.

She woke up in a cold sweat that clung to her tacky skin, gasping for breath. The acidic burn of bile crept up the back of her throat, but she swallowed hard against it despite her cotton dry mouth. The remnants of her latest nightmare still lingered vividly in her mind's eye as her body worked to reorient itself. With each passing second the images became less tangible, as dreams do, but as she pulled herself up into a sitting position with her back resting against the wall, she couldn't help recalling as she buried her fingers in her dirty hair, pulling harshly at the roots.

She had been running through the forest, on a night that was unnaturally dark (as you do), with no moon or stars to give light to the path ahead. She ran full sprint through the trees, bare footed as she dodged low hanging branches and protruding tree roots. There had been just enough light to give the winter-bared limbs a ghoulish silhouette, making them look like emaciated hands reaching out for her as she ran past. Her heart pounding could be heard as she fled from the chorus of two-note whistles that echoed off the trees.

It had been her mind's way of processing the previous days events and she did not appreciate the symbolism behind the endless stretch of forest and the stalking whistles. To be anymore obvious of heralding Negan's draining presence on her body and mind, it would have to have the man himself depicted, waving his arms like a circus clown with a neon sign above his head that read 'I own your soul!'.

His hand would have to reach out, extending towards her at an impossible length, as if made of something malleable like clay or rubber rather than human flesh. The leather of his black jacket would squeal in protest at the stretch before his fingers wrapped around her throat, squeezing the life out of her with his eyes gaping like pinwheels with sick satisfaction and malice.

But dreams were more subtle than that. It was always about representation and double meanings.

Fortunately, after each nightmare Sam was able to lull back into an uneasy slumber within just a couple of minutes. She was more exhausted than she had been in days prior, and she was becoming more adjusted to her cell; not even the harsh floor could keep her from falling asleep now.

It was early morning when she woke up for the final time, only not because of torturous reels spliced by her own subconscious. She was being watched; she could feel it.

Her eyes drifted open as the fine hair on the back of her neck raised. She was laying in the fetal position with her arms wrapped around herself and her back facing the door. Her eyes fell on the back wall, where the painted brick was now illuminated with yellow light, signifying that her cell door was wide open. She didn't allow herself to feel excited or suspicious by this because of the tall shadow that stretched the length of the doorway. Her cell was open, but someone was standing there, leaning against the door jamb, watching her sleep.

His shadow could have been mistaken for a posh gentleman's; all height and sharp angles, leaning on the baseball bat that looked almost like a cane. As she came into full consciousness a foreign smell so powerful invaded her space, a contradicting mixture of bitter and saccharine. It made the inside of her nose burn and her head hurt, like huffing a sharpie.

Sam laid still, not letting on that she was awake as she listened to her guest drink from his mug. She could picture him, sipping so casually on a luxury from the old world that she had assumed no longer existed, along with Red Bull and glutton-free pastries; things long-since looted in the first wave or perishables the new world couldn't sustain.

"You know," Negan's voice drawled lazily, not fooled by her act, "I've been thinking a lot about what you said yesterday, and everything we talked about."

Her eyes danced back and forth over the shadow, trying to deduce his mood.

"Almost couldn't get my fuck on with my wives last night because you had me so preoccupied. You've gotta know how damn frustrating that is," he said, before there was a contemplative pause for a second thought, "or maybe you don't."

Sam heard him shift, inhaling before clearing his throat.

"Yeah, you probably don't."

All of the man's showboating seemed to be absent. His form was cladded in just a white t-shirt and trousers. He was calm and at ease, putting Sam on edge. She was starting to think that maybe this was another dream when Negan's shadow pushed off the door jamb.

"Time to start the day."

He disappeared, taking that intense smell of coffee with him, and Dwight took his place. He didn't take up nearly as much atmosphere as Negan did, so little in fact that it was laughable how small the scarred man was. Sam pushed down the desire to say as much out loud as he reached down and grabbed her. He followed his boss' orders to a tee despite his obvious loathing for the man. She let him manhandle her without protest. Her hands remained free, but he kept a firm grip on her forearm.

Negan watched as he waited for them to catch up. He allowed Dwight and Sam to pass him so that Sam was being marched forward. They walked in silence until the small woman finally gathered the energy to speak up.

"Where are we going?" she rasped.

Negan disregarded her question as he voiced his own.

"I've been on this earth for almost fifty years, and do you know what I've learned?"

"Nothing?"

He let out a sarcastic laugh while shoving her forward, making her stumble. As she righted her footing, she caught the mean side glare that Dwight was giving her. Frustration wrinkled his scarred face. She knew that if he had things his way, Sam would have submitted to Negan long ago and he wouldn't be playing chaperone whenever she needed to be escorted somewhere other than the bathroom. She sneered back at him.

"No. I've learned that a little humility builds character."

"And you think I'm just radiate pride?" she asked, looking forward again.

"You radiate something, mouse, but I ain't sure its pride."

"Where are we going?" she asked again.

"You'll see."

Turning down a hallway that led out of the main building, Fat Joey stood by the doors with Negan's leather jacket, holding it out dutifully like a loyal dog presenting its master with his morning newspaper.

Negan handed his mug to the savior and grabbed his jacket, shrugging it on to his lean shoulders in a smooth, practiced motion before grabbing Lucille and pushing the latch on the door. The early morning air was cold, nipping at exposed skin. Goosebumps erupted along Sam's arms and legs. She was grossly undressed. Her only advantage was that early morning chills had nothing on Alaskan winters and she was more adjusted to cold weather than most. She shifted from foot to foot using the heals to stave off the numbing in her toes.

They stepped out into the chorus of undead groans and rattling chainlink. The sparse saviors out on morning watch looked their way with blank expressions and loaded assault rifles in their hands. Negan walked with purpose towards an empty section of the yard. There was a rusted pole with a long chain piled next to it.

The large shackle attached to the end of the chain made Sam falter in her steps. Dwight pushed on her shoulder, forcing her forward. Negan's seasoned face was void of emotion as he watched her. Their eyes locked before Negan raised his hand, gesturing to Dwight with two fingers and pointing at the chain.

"Get her hooked up, Dee."

Sam didn't struggle as Dwight picked up the chain and kneeled down next to her legs, attaching the shackle her ankle. The bare skin of her right ankle screamed at the unnatural sensation of freezing metal enclosing around fragile bone. Dwight reached into his pocket and pulled out a tool to twist the screw pin into place. He slipped it into the latch and the shackle snapped close with a click that could've been a gunshot with how loud it echoed through Sam's ears.

"We used to have one with a padlock," Negan spoke, nodding towards the shackle as Dwight twisted it, "but we had to scrounge up this old ass one just for you, mouse. Not risking you getting your hands on something you can pick the lock with." He pointed at his temple, winking, "lucky for us, I'm a fast leaner, too."

The prospect of being chained up like an animal threatened to set off something primal inside of her. A panic akin to the kind that drove coyotes to bite off their own foot when caught in a trap, licked at the edges of Samantha's rationality and calm disposition.

Her eyes never left Negan's as she stared hard at him with a look that said both 'don't do this' and 'I hate you'.

Dwight straightened up and gave the chain a good yank to make sure that it would hold before nodding at Negan. The Sanctuary leader jerked his head in the direction of the doors and the two men turned away. As soon as his eyes weren't on her anymore, Sam lunged, grabbing the chain that bound her and pulling desperately at the end attached to the pole. When it didn't budge, she let out a cry of rage and threw the chain back on the ground.

"Do you think that tethering me up like a dog will change anything!?" she shouted at Negan's retreating back.

Negan stopped and turned ostentatiously on his heel to look back at her. "Probably not, but this isn't really about you, is it? I'm going to put you out here every fucking day until we're all on the same page about just how insignificant you are. I am not going to have an uprising on my hands just because some bitch decided to crawl inside a fucking vent."

"You vile, horrible man!" she screamed in a last ditch effort to scathe him.

"Sticks and stones, mouse. Sticks and stones."

Sam watched the Sanctuary doors close behind him and despaired.

For the next few days, a new routine took shape. Every morning her handlers would take her out of her cell and chain her up in the Sanctuary yard. It didn't matter what the weather was like, rain or shine, at the crack of dawn Sam was pulled out into the yard. She wasn't made to do anything while she was out there. Once she was secured to her chain, Sam was left completely to her own devices, which didn't vary much from what they were inside of her cell.

Being outside was both a relief and an irritant. A relief because it was a change of scenery with the privilege of a little more mobility and stimulation, but an irritant largely because of the weather and the smell of rotting corpses. The weather brought different intervals of discomfort for her throughout the day. The mornings were still cold, and noticeably getting colder, and without any protection the sun would beat down on her in the afternoon, drying her out like a raisin.

She spent most of her day sitting up against her pole, as she had done in her cell, trying to pretend she was anywhere else. Sometimes she would wander the yard, going as far and as wide as her chain would allow. It had a decent reach; not long enough for her to go anywhere interesting, but enough for her to get a little exercise.

Nobody except her handlers ever approached her while she was out there. She imagined that Negan had forbid any contact, for both workers and saviors. There were still the curious stares from the saviors on watch and the gardening crew, but like a leper, Sam stood banished on her own little boat of isolation. She preferred it that way, though. She didn't need anyone flocking around her while she was chained to a pole and unable to walk away.

Sam hated being chained up like some unruly animal. It didn't damper her pride, considering that she didn't have much of an ego, but it dehumanized her.

The chain stripped her of all her rights as a human being, keeping her grounded to a single spot where a brutal man decided she would stay. It followed her wherever she went, dragging behind her in a constant reminder that she wasn't a free woman in any sense of the word. The sound of metal scraping asphalt and loose dirt followed her into her nightmares.

~O~

Sam thought about Stockholm syndrome a lot and the chances that, given enough time, she would develop it for the Saviors.

She had once read a book about it, when her elderly middle school librarian accidentally lent it out to her among the stack of Sherlock Holmes stories he had set aside for her. Once she had run through the library's meager Doyle collection, she read the book out of boredom and curiosity.

Stockholm was a condition where hostages sympathize with their captors. The first recognized case was from an incident during a six-day bank siege in Stockholm, Sweden. It was a finicky sort of phenomenon, one which had many questioning its legitimacy as a mental affliction. It was a contested illness, she read, much like the controversy surrounding criminal cases involving Multiple Personality disorder. People doubt whether the condition truly has any influence over someone's ability to tell right from wrong or to make rational decisions.

It wasn't hard to see why some would think against it. After all, why do some people grow attached to their captors while others recognized their positions as victims and hate their captors? She had read that shared beliefs could play a factor, which lent itself to the Patty Hearst incident; a woman in the 70's who was kidnapped by a guerilla group only to end up joining them in their cause.

The book had coined the term "infantilization". As hostages/prisoners, victims were stripped of basic human rights like eating, drinking and using the restroom unless given permission. They become dependent on their captor for these simple allowances. Small things like being given a candy bar could have the victim experiencing powerful positive feelings towards their captor which was the standing water for the syndrome. Their perception of the situation would warp, and also their perception of their captor. Rather than being the person who put them in the situation, they became the person who was going to let them live.

It was a survival strategy, like flight or fight - the secret option C, submitting in order to survive.

Sam didn't know where she would fall, but currently she wasn't feeling any warm fuzzies for Negan or his people.

Additionally, there was also Lima Syndrome to take into consideration (if she was truly that desperate for a distraction), but Sam doubted that this would become a ripe case study for that, either.

However, if she were to submit to Stockholm, she wondered when exactly it would happen, because ignorance was bliss and she couldn't imagine anything sweeter at the moment.

~O~

Sometimes Negan would visit her.

At least once a day, but sometimes more.

He would try to talk to her, naturally, but she would rarely respond. She already knew what he wanted, what he would inevitably ask her. It always came back to whether she was ready to give in. He would visit her just to see how far he had managed to bend her that day. Inch by inch, she assured him, but gradually nevertheless.

Much to his crudely expressed chagrin, each encounter ended much in the same way, regardless of whether Sam bothered to answer him.

Her second day on the chain, Sam had found a rusted pipe among a pile of discarded factory parts that lay near her pole. She picked it up and ran her fingers along its discolored surface.

'I'm a Savior,' she thought, swinging the pipe around childishly as she swayed, 'I'm a savior. I torment other communities and take things that don't belong to me. That's right, that's what I do. I ain't got no sympathy or remorse for the lives that I make more difficult. I blindly follow orders from a madman with a pet baseball bat who swears like it's going out of style. This week me and my boys will visit a community of little old grannies and we'll take all their sowing needles and balls of yarn, then the week after we'll steal crutches from amputees and use them to club puppies to death. I'm a savior. Ain't got no sympathy. Ain't got no remorse. I'll ride the roads of the apocalypse in a beat up army truck, taking things that don't belong to me. What's theirs is half of mine.'

"What in the hell are you doing now, mouse?"

'No, half of his.'

Sam didn't turn around or stop the almost incoherent game of make-believe in her head to face Negan. He stood somewhere behind her, without a doubt with his baseball bat on his shoulder.

"Pretending to be a Savior," she replied, flippant, still swinging the pipe around.

'I've got no worry. I've got no morals. But I have one thing. I've got a disease that's eating me up inside. A disease that makes me less than human. I can feel it rotting my insides like an apple that's browning. My nails are yellowing, my skin is wrinkling like old leather, I smell like roadkill, I hunger for the lives of others and I'm losing my mind. I've had this disease for a while now so I went to the doctor. Do you know what he told me? His prognosis?'

"Oh yeah?" he mused, sounding interested. She heard him shift his stance with the gravel crunching under his boot. "How are you liking it?"

Sam unceremoniously dropped the pipe, her nose curling up in contempt and responding dryly.

"I'm bored."

It hit the pavement with a loud clatter.

'He told me, 'I'm terribly sorry, Mr. Savior, but you're Negan.'

Negan let out a snort.

'You're Negan, and it's terminal.'

He turned and walked back towards the main building, leaving Sam to meander back over to her pole and lower herself to the ground. She drew her legs up to her chest and buried her face in her knees.

'I'm a Savior. I have no sympathy. I have no remorse.'

~O~

The day when it all became too much came two days later.

Sam was sitting on the lukewarm asphalt against her pole. Thinking and doing nothing of any real interest or purpose, she had her face buried in her knees when she heard the sound of approaching trucks.

They were loud enough to almost drown out the moans of the dead leashed to the fences. The saviors at the front gate moved to let the trucks in, pulling back the chain link fence and gesturing wide with their arms. There were so many that they took up most of the yard, even infringing on Sam's small patch of territory, allowing her to wander within close proximity. She watched with her arms wrapped around herself as Negan's men piled out and began unloading their bounty.

While her new station allowed her to witness a few of these shipments over the past few days, she had never seen one so big before. There was usually only a truck or two; this was a convention.

The double doors of the main building opened with a screech as Negan and a pair of his highest ranking came out, descending the stairs. Sam didn't turn to look at him as he approached, knowing the sound of his boots against gravel by heart now, and neither did he acknowledge her as he passed, nearly skimming her arm. The driver of the truck closest to them stepped out of the cabin and dropped to one knee, ready to give Negan his run report.

Negan held out his arms in a gesture of bemusement, watching his savior climb back to his feet. "You're almost an hour late, Vince. What the fuck were you doing?"

Vince dipped his head in a respectful apology. "We hit a roadblock of dead ones on the way back from the kingdom. It took a while to clear them."

"The kingdom," Negan muttered decisively, shaking his head at the ridiculousness of the play-pretend community. "We lose anybody?"

"No, sir, but Butch had a close call."

"Oh yeah? And where's he?"

"Still in the truck. I told him to take a minute before helping us unload. It was his first close call and he's pretty shaken up."

"Pussy," Negan scoffed before reaching to scratch at his beard, thinking for a moment. "Alright then, you know the drill, boys. Unload, set aside a few things for yourselves then take the rest to the marketplace and we'll call it a fucking day."

Negan walked back towards the doors where Dwight stood waiting for him. His eyes flickered up at Sam as he passed by her again, a silent warning of 'watch yourself' as he kicked her chain out of his way. He did nothing to stop her from milling about as his men worked the trucks so she assumed he didn't care enough to chase her off. Negan climbed back up on to the entrance platform to talk to Dwight. Indirectly given permission, she continued to watch.

Negan's men carry box after box of supplies out of the trucks. She wondered, not for the first time, just how many communities Negan had under his all-consuming thumb. She had to assume that he held power over every collection of survivors large enough to be a group over several Virginia counties. It didn't bode thinking about, because Sam was here and "here" was the eye of the storm where Negan's control was the strongest but his people the safest, and where they didn't have to worry about a weekly visit from their local savior outpost.

Sam kept close but out of the way. She stood with her arms wrapped around herself near the truck closest to her pole. It was a white box truck. It could've been the same one she had stowed away in. Wouldn't that be a neat circle?

Somehow, over the noise, she heard a thud. It was out of place, making it stand out from the usual cacophony of the yard. She looked to her right, pinpointing the sound originating from the front of the truck, in the cabin.

Curious, she walked towards it, eyeing the passenger side door as her chain dragged on the ground behind her. Another thud sounded out, rattling the window, making Sam jump and drop her arms at her sides. The door was too high up for her to see what was inside, but she could see the shadow of movement just faintly.

She glanced back towards Negan and his men. Negan stood leaning over the yellow railing of the platform, engrossed in his conversation with Dwight. His eyes didn't even flicker in her direction like they usually did when he sought her out to make sure she wasn't up to something. She looked back at the truck, biting her bottom lip. Her hand itched to reach out and grab the door handle, but not even she lacked that much self-preservation.

Her feet remained cemented to the ground, though, well within a dangerous proximity of the cabin. The thuds on the door grew louder and shook the cabin harder to the point where she considered calling out to someone.

Before she could, the passenger door suddenly flew open and a man fell out.

He landed heavy on to the gravel, hitting face first. He hadn't done anything to break his fall. His arms didn't come up to protect his face; he just let his front take the full brunt. Startled, Sam took a step back, staring wide-eyed at the savior laying motionless in front of her.

Her heart pounded as she watched the savior move. His limbs curled in towards his body as he pushed himself up on all fours. She could see the wrongness in his movements, how they were too sluggish and uncoordinated for someone who simply took an accidental tumble. A broken moan came from the man and Sam stared in horror as he lifted his head with an unnatural jerk of his neck, his eyes coming up to look at hers, revealing milky white pupils.

Its jaw dropped open and it let out another groan before stumbling to its feet, somehow managing to stand upright despite the lack of equilibrium in its brain-dead system. Its hand reached out towards her, fingers searching for living flesh. Sam gasped as she finally moved. She stepped backwards, her hand reaching for a blade on her hip that wasn't there. The vulnerability of her attire flared anew when she realized she was defenseless.

In a burst of surprising speed, the savior lunged at her and she moved backwards again, but her feet tangled in her chain and her world was throw off its axis as she pitched backwards. Dust flew up as she landed hard on the gravel. Tiny rocks bit into her elbows and the exposed portion of her back. Her eyes stayed locked on the goblin as it limped towards her. It lunged again, landing on top of Sam before she could scramble out of the way.

The weight of the goblin knocked the air from her lungs and caused the back of her head to hit the ground, stunning her long enough to allow the goblin to crawl up the length of her body. Realizing that she was literally staring death in the face, her arms shot up to protect herself. She pushed hard against the goblin's collarbone, just barely stopping it from sinking its teeth into her cheek.

It kept at its assault, pushing against her arms in blind desperation to feed. Sam turned her head away from its snapping jaws and finally screamed.

The sounds of her distress rang out into the yard, causing heads to look up and the groans of the other goblins to raise in volume at the anticipation of scenting blood on the wind.

Sam and the savior rolled around on the gravel, kicking up dust as the woman fought hard to keep the undead away from her flesh. Even through the adrenaline, her arms began to weaken and she could feel the distance between them closing. Tears streamed down her face as she opened her eyes and looked directly into the goblin's, seeing her death just a hair length away.

Just as she felt that the goblin would push past her last defense, it was torn off of her. It collapsed on to its side with a bone-shattering impact, thrown bodily off of Sam by Negan's brutal kick.

With her arms still raised in front of her face, Sam watched the leader step over her to finish dispatching the goblin. Dwight came up behind her, grabbing beneath her arms and dragging her back. Negan raised Lucille high above his head before bringing her down on the goblin's skull, cracking it open with a sickening noise. He repeated the motion several times with labored grunts until the savior's head was nothing but a puddle.

Sam scrambled away from Dwight, stumbling back to her pole with clumsy steps. She collapsed on to it and gripped it tight, leaning her entire weight on it as she fought against hyperventilating. Her heart pounded and her whole body shook with each ragged breath she managed to suck into her heavy lungs.

"The fuck!" she heard Negan yell behind her. "What the fuck!"

"Negan, I swear to God I didn't know!" Vince, the head of the run, began to plead, knowing that his position made this incident liable on him. "He told me he hadn't been bit!"

"And you fucking believed him? You know you're supposed to check that shit! Always check!"

"I know, I'm sorry."

"Oh, you're sorry? You're fucking sorry? You better be sorry! You brought one of those infected bastards into my Sanctuary! Do you have any idea how long its been since that's happened? Not since I first took this place. There goes my ticket into Guinness, asshole! Better tell somebody to put that 'last day since incident' board back to fucking zero!"

"I-" the savior looked horrified. His eyes followed Lucille as Negan waved her about in his rage, expecting to feel the bite of barbwire at any moment.

"And not only did you tarnish my perfect fucking record, but your dumbass almost got someone bit. This isn't day one of fucking preschool, Vince. You're one of my highest officers, you know what is expected of you. Who the fuck do you think you are, disregarding my rules and putting one of my people at risk? You think my mouse appreciates having a fresh corpse thrown in her face?"

Negan was furious, moreso than he had been in a while. Encountering and handling infected outside the Sanctuary gates was one thing, mishaps were expected because of the unpredictability of the new world, but inside the Sanctuary he had a reputation to uphold, people to protect and provide for. There couldn't be gate breaches and infected saviors being allowed back inside. If a savior was bit, unless it was on a spot that could be amputated, he or she was put down. It was something that had to be done, every savior knew that.

And they also knew to fucking check someone for bites if they had a close call. Negan couldn't count the number of times during the first months of the outbreak that he had almost lost a chunk of himself because his traveling-companion-of-the-week was a selfish prick who decided to hide their terminal wound from him, leaving him to wake up to their reanimated corpse gnawing on his boot after they turned during the night. Fucking rude.

"But I guess it's okay since you're sorry about it," he scoffed, looking down at the pitiful picture his savior painted at his feet.

He looked around at the crowd that had gathered. The air was tense and the men and few women were waiting to see what would happen next. Negan reached up to rub at his chin, taking in a breath as his eyes trailed across the yard and landed on Samantha's small, shivering form. With a curse, his hand dropped from his face.

"Get the fuck out of here," he told Vince, "and so help me, don't let me see your ass ugly mug on another run or else Lucille's going to take a fucking bite out of it."

Vince stuttered out a noise of gratitude as he raised to his feet and pushed through the crowd. Negan readjusted his grip on Lucille, clearing his throat loudly before spitting at the ground near the remains of his savior. He couldn't recall much about him, but from the looks of it he was one of the younger ones.

"What a goddamn shame," he muttered, before gesturing with his arm. "Alright, enough standing around, people. These trucks aren't going to unload them damn selves."

He shifted his weight to his other leg as he turned to walk across the yard. A pang ran through his knee and up his thigh as he remembered the less-than-advisory maneuver he had done to get to Sam when she was being attacked. When he heard her scream bloody murder, it was act first and think later that had him catapulting himself over the railing like he was some Olympic pole vaulter, and not a former gym teacher pushing fifty. It was a large drop on a set of joints that hadn't been prepared for it. He was lucky he hadn't broken his fucking hip.

Negan stopped a couple of feet away from where Sam still kneeled, the skirt of her dirt-streaked dress bellowing out around her and her hands clutching the pole. Her shoulders hefted with what could've been sobs, but she was silent. He watched her, taking in her shrunken form and how ghostly white her knuckles were from gripping the metal so hard. She hadn't been bitten. There wasn't any fresh blood on her; just the near black shit that oozed out of the dead ones. Infected blood, rotted beyond recognition as soon as the heart stopped beating.

"What do you want done with her?" Dwight asked, coming to stand next to him.

"Get her unhooked," he told him, "we're taking her back to her cell."

Sam gave no resistance while Dwight unlocked her from her chain, but it took some effort to pry her off the pole. She must have been in shock. Perhaps that was the closest call that Samantha has had in a while, or possibly ever - if the crafty minx had always been this clever. Negan felt angry again at the whole thing, how close they had come to this shit storm between them becoming completely fucking moot. Nothing mattered if you were dead.

Once the young woman was tucked safely back in her cell, Negan dismissed Dwight with a nod. He stepped in her doorway, drumming his long fingers on the handle of Lucille. There wasn't anything that needed to be said, but the air felt too empty to leave on silence.

"For what it's worth, it was never my intention for you get to hurt."

There was sincerity in his voice. He lingered for a few more moments before he let out a frustrated sigh and closed her door.

Sam shut down after that. In the days following her brush with death, she had entered a state of forlorn, borderline catatonia.

She had never been very responsive to begin with, but she had still put in the effort that it took to stay alive. She would eat the food given to her, drink their water and comply to the degree that would keep those privileges from being taken away, all the while keeping the fight, but now the will was gone. Meals and cups of water went untouched, sitting in the corner of her room where they had been left. Sam would do nothing but lay on her side with her arms wrapped around herself.

When her watchers came to take her out for bathroom breaks or to be chained in the yard, they were met with her back. She would no longer stand and hold her hands out, allowing them to be bound. They would snap at her, curse at her, demanding that she get up, but it was like she wasn't there anymore. Emotionally, mentally, she wasn't really. The saviors would handle her roughly, but she still wouldn't move. Joey would be nicer, tentatively reaching out to grab her arm, only to drop it when it remained limp. Sam had become an empty husk, a broken marionette with its strings cut, laying motionless on the ground.

This went on for days, but Negan never came down to the cells to deal with it.

It was Dwight who finally came, when Sam's lack of response forced Joey to call for back up ("it's like she's dead," he whispered into his radio), and the scarred savior finally let out his frustration on her. He stood in her doorway for a good half hour, yelling at her. He screamed at her for her foolishness, calling her stupid, accusing her of being a martyr. There was a long tirade of how pointless her suffering was, how it didn't mean a damn thing. Negan would win this battle of wills. He would always win.

He screamed at her until his voice was raw, but it failed to have any impact on Sam. Her eyes didn't even blink as she stared at the back wall, not processing a single word. When he saw that she still wasn't going to move, he let out an enraged shout, picking up her untouched dinner tray and throwing it down the hallway, narrowly missing Fat Joey who turned his back and flinched as a glob of powered mashed potatoes came sailing his way. Peas and carrot bits flew and the tray hit the floor with a loud clatter.

Dwight's heavy footfalls stomped back down the hall, leaving Fat Joey to close Sam's cell door. The portly savior brushed chunks of potato from the back of his shirt, mumbling quietly under his breath. He looked at the food decorating the floor and sighed. The door to Sam's cell stayed open as he took a broom from the maintenance closet down the hall and started sweeping the mess. When he was finished, he dutifully put the broom back.

With one hand on the door he looked in on the young woman. His brows knitted together with sympathy. He stood there a moment, thinking, before he walked over to his chair, but he didn't sit down. Sam blinked out of her trance when she heard him fumbling with something. Her eyes trailed over his massive shadow as he returned to her doorway.

"I'm really not supposed to do this, but here."

She heard him set something on the ground before closing the door again.

The shape and shine of aluminum against the light under the door was unmistakable. Her body ached when she moved to sit up. The soda can felt smooth and cool under her fingers as she picked it up and examined it the best she could in the dark. Sam was always more inclined towards lemon lime, but the promise of something sweet and bubbly and familiar against her tongue was too tempting.

She pulled the tab and the can opened with a pop and a hiss. The grape flavoring was intense and the carbonation burned the inside of her mouth like liquor, making her eyes water, but that didn't stop her from throwing back her head and downing half the can. It bubbled all the way down her throat and settled like air in her empty stomach.

Sam let out a sigh through her nose as she leaned back against the wall with the soda can cradled in her lap. Her tongue darted out to wet her dry lips as she closed her eyes. Memories of teeth snapping inches from her face flashed inside her head, along with the echoes of adrenaline in her limbs and the chest-tightening sensation of nearly dying.

She had never gotten so close to being bitten before. Traveling light and solo made it easy to avoid dangers and Sam had been lucky to never have had to face a goblin head on. She had killed many infected, but they had been stealth kills, done by creeping up behind and embedding a knife in their skulls before they even had a chance to scent her, or kills done at a distance with a handgun. She never had to physically brawl with one before.

The savior had only been dead minutes so it still had the muscle to make it dangerous. If Negan hadn't kicked it off, then she would surely be dead, and it wasn't a happy feeling knowing that the man now had that to hold over her head, on top of everything else. It truly had been the straw that broke the camel's back. Sam didn't feel anything now. She felt hollow.

Negan had won, though he probably didn't realize it yet. He had broken her.

Her fingers tapped idly against the can as she stared vacantly at the door of her cell. She listened through the music playing overhead to the noises outside, the occasional sniff and soft turning of a page; Joey reading one of his comics, passing the time until his shift was over.

Sam sipped at her drink until it was finished before raising the can to her mouth and biting into it.

If Negan or Dwight had chosen to enter her cell at that moment, they would have thought she had finally gone insane. Carefully, quietly, so the crinkling of the can wouldn't draw attention, Sam gnawed at the thin aluminum. It was uncomfortable, making her teeth ache, but she bit through the taste of dirty pennies, both from the metal and the blood from her gums, until it tore. Digging her fingers in, she peeled the can apart. She worked at it until she was left with a square piece of aluminum.

While she had been working, Joey's shift ended and Sims had taken his place. Sam waited for the moment when the older savior would inevitable nod off, rolling the piece of aluminum through her fingers. When the sound of his breathing finally evened out, she got on to her knees and crawled over to the doorknob. Being gentle not to tear the thin aluminum, she worked her makeshift lock pick between the lock's catch and the door hinge, just like using a credit card to slip the catch out of place.

Feeling it give, Sam gingerly climbed to her feet and opened the door. Smoothing out the skirt of her filthy dress, she gave Sims a blank look as he slumbered on the chair next to her cell. She closed the door behind her and walked down the hall, her bare feet padding faintly, leaving behind the sounds of Teen Beach Movie and Sims' snores.

Through her melancholy, she brought the remnants of the soda can with her so Joey wouldn't be blamed for her escape. Maybe it really was Stockholm that compelled her, or maybe Joey was just a decent person, but she didn't want him to get in trouble.

It was only mid-day, but the halls near the cells were empty. They didn't get much foot traffic on a typical day, but there had to be at least a few saviors. Perhaps Negan didn't think Sam warranted more than one guard anymore. Maybe he thought she had no more moves to make, and until half an hour ago, she didn't.

She had gotten out of her cell, but what came next was still a mystery.

She came to a juncture in the hall that veered off into two paths. The left led to a door at the end and out into the yard while the right led deeper into the Sanctuary. Going left, she came to the door and pushed on the bar, revealing an overcast sky and wet pavement. Humidity hung in the air like a wet blanket, immediately making her palms damp.

Her escape was, more or less, right in front of her, but for some reason, Sam found herself stalling. The joints in her knees locked as she stared out into the empty yard.

It would be foolish to believe that there was a conceivable limit to just how much pain and suffering the human mind could experience without falling into reversible insanity. On the contrary, humans were prodigiously resilient when it came to the abject horrors of the world, post and pre death rising.

Like many things that seemed to defy logic and nature, stories of amazing feats preformed by people who, for all intents and purposes, should be dead, overcoming and even thriving - had always fascinated Samantha.

Vesna Vulovic, ripped from an airplane and surviving a thirty-three thousand foot drop (one for the record books). John Colter, an American trapper in 1808, chased by Blackfeet natives in a literal manhunt (Hugh Glass eat your heart out). Aron Ralston (and his arm), caught not-so figuratively between a rock and a hard place. Titanic passengers in the freezing waters of the North Atlantic Ocean. Jews in death camps. Survivors fighting off hordes of reanimated corpses.

The human soul, or the instinctual drive to survive (for those who don't believe in the former), in a good many ways, had the potential to bring about the impossible.

But when the human spirit was nigh nil, the event of death could be just as spectacular. It was the line that separated the fighters still alive in this world and the ones who opted out. (Mind, opted out in the sense that they chose the peace of death over enduring the hardships of life - not the instances where one was bitten and chose permanent stillness in death over something a little less-so.)

Samantha was not at an optimal time in her life to handle thinking about "what next?". She was drained, physically and emotionally. If confronted by an extreme situation like the ones she had read about in books, she wouldn't be up to snuff, not in the realm that would have her removing her limbs to get herself free. How was she supposed to go back to the way things were before finding the Sanctuary when she couldn't even bring herself to take a single step outside?

Had she become domesticated and not even realize it? Had her lapse in vacant compliance actually been a surrender, blindsiding her with the reality that she was no longer an outdoor cat but a declawed indoor? Where had the fight gone? Tucked away in one of the many pockets of Negan's zipper-riddled, tacky, Bad Company leather jacket?

There was the possibility she had left it in the yard, with the remains of that savior and the tracks in the gravel where she had struggled, but if it had gone then, she wouldn't be here. She would have let that goblin make a meal of her. It had to have vanished sometime between the yard and her return to her cell to sulk in misery.

She stared out over the wet pavement for a few moments before turning away. The first few steps were slow and hesitant and half clumsy, as if warring between going outside and staying in. Her resolve wasn't much better. Her head was in disarray, turmoil. She wanted to leave the Sanctuary, to be "free" (whatever that meant), but she knew there was nothing out there for her. No chance of surviving the rest of the day.

And even if she did, it was too late for that anyways.

She turned her back on her only means of escape, and made her way back down the hall.

Making a stop in the room that she knew held the stereo system for the music, Sam walked back to the hallway with an armful of CD's and turned right.

~O~

Sims jolted awake when someone delivered a kick to the side of his boot. He sat up in his chair with an aborted snore and blinked his eyes. Carter, the youngest of the cell guards, looked down at him. He had one hand resting on the shoulder of the chair while the other balanced a food tray; feeding time for the prisoner.

"Wake up, old man," he said, partly amused but mostly apathetic. "You're shift is over."

Sims let out a guttural yawn as he looked down at his wristwatch. "Already? Damn."

"Yeah, time really flies when you're dead asleep, doesn't it? You really gotta knock that off. If Dwight ever catches you, you can say goodbye to your points."

The older man stifled another yawn as he waved the other off. He hefted himself out of the uncomfortable chair that did murder on his back and let out a groan. He stepped aside to allow Carter to place the food tray on the chair and handed him the ring of keys.

"You need any help?" he asked, but only to be polite.

He hoped, and knew, that Carter wouldn't take him up on the offer. He liked to show off his natural ability to wrangle the prisoners, a talent he had discovered during his first assignment in redirect duty. He was stronger and more able-bodied than both Sims and Fat Joey, and because of that he was the only one allowed to take Sam out of her cell.

"Nah," he shook his head, "I got her. She's barely moved in days."

"I'll leave it to you then."

They exchanged goodbyes before Sims made his way down the hall on his bad knee, but he didn't make it more than five feet before he heard the opening of the cell door.

"What the- hey!"

Sims turned, wincing at the pain in his kneecap. "Hrm?"

Carter stood next to the open door with his arms out. "Sims, where's the girl?"

"What are you talking about?"

"She's not here!"

Sims limped back over to the cell, pushing the younger man out of the way and peering inside. "What?"

Both saviors felt their stomachs drop when they realized Samantha was - not just gone, but gone. MIA. Nowhere to be found.

Sims looked at Carter, his aged face draining of its color.

"She should be here," he breathed, panicked.

"Oh fuck."

"I don't know when- how she could've-"

"Goddammit Sims!" Carter cursed as he reached for the radio on his belt.

On the other side of the Sanctuary and three floors up, Dwight sat in a ragged, lazyboy chair, rocking slowly while nursing a bottle of beer. His room was dark except for the small portable television that ran an old VHS episode of The Partridge Family. The picture was fuzzy and the colors were faded out to almost a sepia tone, but it was just clear enough to make out Shirley Jones in her heyday dancing to music mingled with white noise.

The condensation from his bottle slipped down its long neck and over his bony fingers. His eyes stared out through his stringy hair watching the archaic set, moving only to rock the chair up and down and occasionally take a drink from his bottle. He stayed like that until the monotony of his downtime spent wallowing in self-pity and hate for everything was interrupted by his radio, his name coming in through the static.

Blinking out of his far-off stare, he picked up the remote resting on his thigh and put the television on mute before reaching over the side of his chair for his radio.

"This is Dee," he grunted into the speaker.

"Dee, this is Carter down in the cells. The girl got out somehow and we don't know where she is."

Dwight let out a sigh, leaning forward in his chair and switching off the television. "You lost Negan's toy?"

"I don't know what happened, man. We were doing a shift change and when I opened the cell to give her her food, she wasn't there."

"Did Sims fall asleep on the job again?"

"I...I don't know. He was awake when I-"

"Don't cover for his mistake unless you want it to be your ass on the chopping block."

"She was just gone, Dee."

Dwight exhaled through his nose, momentarily taking his finger off the talk button before saying:

"Alright, just forget about it. You and Sims check the surrounding hallways for her while I circle the outside. We've got fifteen minutes before I have to radio this in to Negan, so I suggest you move fast. If we can find her and get her back in her cell before reporting in, then maybe Negan will go easy on the old man."

"Roger that. Thanks, Dee."

"Don't thank me."

Dwight released the button and put his radio on his belt, standing up from his chair and reaching to grab his crossbow from where he kept it hanging on the wall. He made it outside the main building in record time, going no faster than a brisk walk, and began patrolling the outside, looking for any signs of their escaped prisoner. The feed from his radio was silent so he knew that she hadn't tried to escape the compound yet. The gate guards would have seen her coming and reported it.

There was a fine mist coming down now, the lightest rainfall they had all week. It matted into his hair and clothes, dampening his already shitty mood. He didn't know why he didn't just immediately report to Negan with this and let the three stooges bumble around the building looking for the girl. She was crafty, but she wasn't a fucking wizard. The only way she could have gotten out of her cell was if those morons weren't doing their jobs. She may have stopped resisting them, but that wasn't an excuse to let their guard down.

Part of him hoped that Sam had escaped, that she had escaped the compound and that they would find her corpse somewhere in a ditch so that they could finally be done with this. If Dwight couldn't skirt the rules and make it out untouched, then neither could she.

A loud crunch underneath his boot caused him to halt. He pulled his boot back and found glass-like pieces scattered all along the gravel. Dwight bent down and picked up a sliver, churning it over in his hand to see the costume store cowboy from the Village People printed on the opposite side. CD's, he realized.

He looked up, reaching for his radio.

"Carter, this is Dee. Scrap what I said, this can't wait. I need you to report to Negan right now. She's on the roof."

AN: Alright, I hope you guy enjoyed the new chapter. Sorry the delay was so long. Make sure to let me know what you guys think!

~Scorpiofreak~