A/N: This chapter contains some troubling and possibly controversial issues with Scout's mental health.

June 30, 2017

- Jazz -

Jazz supposes he should have expected someone to show up in the infirmary sooner or later, and based on the timing, he's thinking Scout waited until she got word that Negan was being brought out of his medically induced coma today. What he didn't truly expect was to come out of the small office to see her examining the IV infusion pump with a level of curiosity she's never displayed for anything medical.

"Scout?"

She doesn't startle, but he hadn't expected her to. But she doesn't turn either, still examining the infusion pump. When he comes to look over her shoulder, he notices she has the alarms disabled, and the screen she has managed to get up makes him take a deep breath.

"No." Reaching out, he closes his hand gently over hers. She resists for a moment, but when he insists, she allows the capture and gentle movement away from the machine. "You don't take this one on your conscience, Scout."

If he'd been a couple of minutes later, Negan would have probably been beyond saving, overdosed on a combination of muscle relaxer and the pain medication that Jazz loaded earlier as part of setting it up for patient controlled pain relief. It's easy to forget that Scout spent months dealing with heavy duty medications for her burns and would have been advised what combinations were potentially deadly.

Even as he pulls her to his chest, carefully pinning her arms against him in a way that she won't fight because she will always remember his touch sensitivity and put that before any of her own personal comfort, she meets his gaze. She's so completely placid in expression that he feels icy fingers crawl along his spine. There's no anger, no outrage, none of the emotions one would expect in someone trying to end the life of someone they feel is a danger to others.

"Who says it would be on my conscience, Jasper? I don't have one where people like him are concerned. I was just trying to make it easier for you. He'd go peacefully with no pain."

It wasn't hard to miss back in the early days of the world's change when Scout did all that she could to put herself between everyone she could and any kills that had to be made. Others tried to shoulder some of it, and did at times, but what climbs out of his memory is a list of names that Negan's almost joined. It's been many years since he had to remember, but this is a reminder that Scout's an executioner. Killing Negan is just another moment where she puts herself between him and the conflict that will inevitably exist when he chose to heal instead of kill.

But what he suspected about just how disconnected Scout is from the lives she's had to take and having it confirmed are two very different things. His stomach lurches with the confirmation that if he hadn't caught her, Scout wouldn't have had any concern at all over walking away from Negan dead in that bed. To her, the world would be better off without him, and Negan is beyond all salvation by the deeds he's committed. The only concession she was giving was that there was no need for him to be in pain when she sent him beyond.

Jazz feels tears threaten, because he'd always hoped that Scout was better, that she wasn't as broken as he thought she might be. She's a mother now, a wife, not just a sister and daughter. He forgot how much Scout processes things differently, that she's damaged by what happened when she saved Daryl's life when she was a little girl. How much she loves her family doesn't change the scars she carries where most people feel regret if they have to take a life.

All he can do is give her the only argument he thinks might work. "And I would think I made a mistake and killed him."

It isn't the truth, because his memory is too regimented to not remember the doses he set, and the machine records the changes and times. But he's counting on her to think he might forget. The twelve year age difference and her years away while he was growing up often means she isn't as familiar with how he thinks as Honey or Cricket.

Scout's flat expression crumples in an instant, replaced by horror. "I would never have allowed you to believe that. I would never do that to you, Jazz. Never." The last is growled, a promise in the deepest way she can deliver it. Glancing back to the bed, he sees anger finally, and while it would worry him in most people, the fact that she's reconnected with her emotions means he's getting through to her. "He shouldn't be allowed to live."

"I'm not sure he would call himself living anymore, Scout. Do you think a man like that would want to be paralyzed, unable to perform his own basic bodily functions? His life will never be outside of medical care like he has now. Someone will have to make sure he urinates and defecates. He probably won't be able to feed himself, and he may need to be fed through a tube, depending on how far up the paralysis extends."

Jazz lets her go, freeing her so that he can grip her shoulders and meet her gaze evenly. "He is no danger to anyone we love, Scout. I swear that on my own life."

She searches his expression, and not finding any sign that he's misleading her, nods. "If he's paralyzed, that means he's not functional, right?"

Although his brain nearly trips over the odd phrasing, it doesn't last long. "It would be unlikely that he would be capable of even consensual sex."

It's not entirely a capability issue, Jazz knows, and more of the fact that he can't imagine anyone getting emotionally involved enough with a man like Negan to work through the adaptations he knows that the couple at Homestead did after the husband was impaled on mangled equipment during the Governor's attack. He hadn't been expected to survive, but by some miracle he had.

But the answer Scout needs is the one he gave her, and she accepts it. "He doesn't deserve the care you're giving him."

"That is my choice to make."

"Above all, I must not play at God."

Out of context, it takes Jazz a moment to recognize the line from the Hippocratic Oath, and he wonders at what point Scout memorized it. He considers himself a veterinarian first, physician second, but either way, both positions put him into the place to make decisions in much the same way Scout's military training has for her. The difference is, when he's not fighting an active battle, it is the longer phrase that rules him.

"Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God."

Scout surprises him by a gentle hug when he finishes the complete line, her height allowing him to feel her breath against his neck. "I'm glad that you are a good man, little brother. He won't be grateful." Then she turns on her heel and leaves, not caring of the audience they have of the various Saviors.

Jazz wonders for a moment if these people realize how easily she might have just decided to rid him of the responsibility of them all, not just Negan. Based on the wide-eyed stares focused on the door, he thinks they do.

"She's right, you know."

At the unfortunately familiar masculine voice, Jazz turns to see that Negan is blinking slowly at him. Negan's voice carries the roughness common after intubation, even though he's been breathing on his own for several hours before Jazz lessened the medications keeping him under. Without the equipment to fully assess the man's spinal cord after the combination of blood loss and blood clot caused a stroke in the spinal cord, he hadn't been certain he could even take him off the ventilator.

Stepping so that Negan can see him, Jazz meets his gaze without hesitation. Negan's too alert to have just woken up, so he's been aware for probably the entire conversation, and a suspicion falls into place. "You wanted her to kill you."

"Yes. You're too soft. Stopped her."

They stare at each other for a moment, and Jazz finally shakes his head. "It's not that I'm soft, Negan. I saved you because that's what I'm sworn to do. But now? You get to live with what you've become, and this prison your body has become is better than any punishment they could deal out to you."

Jazz doesn't like that his baser self takes satisfaction from Negan's plight, but the man's reaping what he sowed. Death isn't a true punishment, not like being this helpless.

The weird huffing is a pale imitation of Negan's old barking laughter, but Negan forces his face into a semblance of a smile. "Got balls, boy. Didn't think you did."

Before going to fix the infusion machine, Jazz gives him a grim smile. "You don't get off so easily as just dying, Negan. I'll promise you that."

He's still gentle as he goes through the exam that needs Negan awake. To his surprise, Negan appears to answer each question about movement and feeling truthfully, and he narrows down the likely area of the paralysis better. As he's making notes, he sees Negan twitching his shoulders, his expression twisting in an agony that he thinks is less physical pain and more a surge of desperate denial that he can't move his arms.

Compassion feels as wrong as the satisfaction of Negan's body becoming a prison, but Jazz moves back into Negan's line of sight. "It could improve in time. We don't have the techniques they used to, but the body heals in ways no one can ever predict."

Negan huffs, closing his eyes and gritting his teeth in obvious frustration. "Improve means what?"

"Maybe you can get enough control of your arms to feed yourself."

That makes the man open his eyes, and Jazz thinks this is where the true horror is setting in, even after Negan overheard him telling Scout just how much body autonomy Negan's lost now. Negan's in for a series of these shocks as reality sets in, but it'll be easier to ignore the catheter and stoma bag than it will be to have to sit like an infant while someone spoons food into his mouth.

"Why the fuck didn't you let me die?"

It's been easy to tell himself he's a healer, to tell others it's because he's a healer, but there's another reason he's shared with no one. Perhaps it's best that Negan hears it first.

"Because one day, my niece or nephew will ask why they don't look like Eugene, and they're going to learn who you were. That's going to be a heavy enough burden for them, but I didn't want them also knowing that their mother killed their father."

Jazz has seen what having a murderous parent does to people, how it haunts his father and uncle. Merle and Daryl will always fear their own biology in ways that most people don't, no matter how many years they've lived as good men.

"The kid would be better off if it was Eugene's."

"I agree that the world could use far more people like Eugene and fewer like you, but it is what it is. He'll still be her father, regardless of biology, and that's what will count the most."

Carol proved that to Jazz. She's his mother, and it doesn't matter that it took him fifteen years to have her. It will be the same with Eugene and the baby, just like it is for all the adopted members of his family.

A fresh dose of pain meds sends Negan off to a drugged sleep, and Jazz broods over his decision once again. He's already had to send Scout away, and while he thinks she won't return with a different method to remove Negan as a problem, he's been hidden here too long. It's time to go face his other sister and pray that Honey understands as easily as Scout does.

- Shane -

It didn't take them as long as they thought to sort out the survivors at the Sanctuary. They're assisted by Ezekiel having well protected areas to set up a larger refugee camp, but between the train and the sea, everyone has been transported to Georgia that is going to the existing communities. Alexandria, the Kingdom, and Solomon's have taken in their share as well, so the encampment just inside the second set of Kingdom walls is divided into workers on one side and the soldiers cleared of drastic wrongdoing on the other.

The prisoners are housed at Alexandria. No one had wanted them near the people they abused and tried to kill, and for all the times Shane finds Spencer vaguely irritating, he has to admit the man stepped up without hesitation to take on the responsibility. There's probably something to it, but it doesn't seem to be a favor Spencer will be asking of Homestead, so it's not Shane's concern.

His actual concern is perched in one of the two gate towers, staring out over the road approaching the Kingdom. "How long has she been up there?"

Benjamin shrugs. As Ezekiel's eldest son, he's often taking duty shifts around the Kingdom, learning everything expected of a community that seems content to have a succession and not an election for leadership. "I'm not entirely sure. I came to take my shift, and she'd relieved the prior guard. But she's not talking other than to tell me she's got the shift covered."

"I'll take care of it. Thank you for calling me up."

The ladder to climb to the top of the tower is easy enough, although Shane doesn't like the fact that Scout isn't in the normal area for the watch. She's beyond the safety of the rails on the uppermost level, sitting with her legs hanging over the edge like it's some low level wall instead of a twenty-five foot tower. Heights don't bother him like some people, but even he feels a lurch of wariness as he settles beside her.

Although she doesn't look at him, he knows she's aware it's him, because her hand covers his as soon as he's settled.

"You're worrying Benjamin."

"I worried Jazz more."

Something about her tone reminds him of that night, long ago, when Scout told him her greatest fear was becoming her mother. Even more than the explosion of temper over that excuse for a human being at the Sanctuary three days ago, this tone makes the hair on the back of his neck raised. She's been like this before, and he isn't sure he likes the parallels he's drawing.

"Why is Jazz worried?"

Her hand flexes, moving to link her fingers with his. "I thought if Negan died quietly, it would be better for Honey. Better for the baby for sure, that people forget he existed."

Oh, Christ. Debate over Negan's fate, over all of the imprisoned Saviors, is about to be a heated topic for all the communities. Despite the current cold war between Georgia and Hilltop, even Hilltop will have a seat at the table. The biggest issue is that no one seems to want the issue dealt with like Homestead and Terminus did in the past when such an extreme danger existed.

Once, Negan's life expectancy would be measured in days. Now? The debate will be more about who takes responsibility for him, not how long he'll live.

He should have expected that Scout wouldn't rest easily with that. Honey hadn't broken down when Merle revealed the man was still alive, but the brittle edge she's been riding since they were all reunited got worse. It means like most Dixons, Honey's thrown herself into working.

"I think Jazz is afraid of me now." Scout finally turns to look at him, tears starting to trickle down his face. "He knows what I am."

Regardless of their precarious balance, Shane hauls Scout close, arms around her. It takes the damn near impossible for her to cry, but when she does, it's always related to her family.

"I don't think Jazz would ever be afraid of you," he tells her softly. "And he's always known what you're capable of. He knows what we did at Grady, and he knows what you did with the Governor. You forget that he's fought, too, Scout. He's killed when he needs to. Jazz may be a healer first and foremost, but he's always protected those who needed protecting, too."

The first life Jazz ever took was at fifteen, shooting a man before he could kill Shane as they protected the elderly from men turned monsters. Shane's never forgotten that drive through the night with Jazz sitting on the floor of the bus, curled against his leg, or how the boy vomited and cried when the shock finally wore off.

None of that had stopped Jazz from training and learning everything he could to keep Homestead safe. He'd taken even more lives when Homestead was invaded, and he'd killed again in the battle when Negan finally tipped his hand against Eugene.

The difference in Scout and Jazz is clear and unfortunate, though. Scout has never felt an ounce of regret over any of her kills.

"I'm slipping," she mumbles against his chest. "The rules are changing again, and I don't have the new ones to guide me yet."

The rules are changing, and days ago, Shane had been grateful for the progress, but today, it just makes his chest ache. Scout hadn't even been acting on any authority, nor any immediate danger. Killing Negan while helpless in his hospital bed would be an assassination, not an execution. It doesn't stop Shane from wanting to do exactly that, just to stop Scout from sounding so damned lost he worries he won't be able to draw her back this time.

"I promised you I'd always help you find the line again if you crossed it, didn't I?"

"You did."

"That's what Jazz did today. He drew the line for you, because he loves you. Nothing will ever change that."

She's quiet, her breathing taking on that even pattern that it often does when she's grounding herself with the heat and scent of him. "I want to go home. I want to hold our boys and Judith, and I need Anaya to come home, at least for a little while."

"We'll do that. I'll radio Beth and tell her that Anaya needs to come home for a while." Their daughter's apprenticeship can wait a little while. The rules aren't so rigid that she can't take a sabbatical and spend time with her family. He'd offer to gather them all up and go to Tybee, but Scout asked to go home, and home will always be their cabin at Homestead.

They stay on top of the tower for at least ten more minutes before Scout finally pulls away, and after Benjamin is reassured and takes his post, they go to find her parents. Now that the need for military expertise is over, there's really no reason for Scout to stay in Virginia, and he might still be council for Homestead, but so are Merle and Carol.

For him and Scout, it's time to go home.

A/N: No Honey or the others this chapter, as I felt like this chapter needed to focus solely on Scout and Jazz.

There's no firm diagnosis I would give Scout, because she isn't textbook to anything. Those with empathy deficit disorder fall into many spectrums, and Scout is capable of empathy, just with a limited number of people or under certain rules. It's a bit like Dexter in many ways, a child damaged by trauma far beyond their coping skills, and she's aware of the missing piece of her psyche, thus why she once asked Shane to be her leash.