Quinn, Negan, Maggie, and Elijah, in the forest

Negan put his mask on and showed us how to herd the walkers. I spotted two of them and I headed there with Maggie to try and herd them back. Negan quickly put ropes around the trees making a pen to keep them somewhere, then joined us and herded them inside.

"Easy peasy," he said smiling at us. I smiled back, while Maggie rolled her eyes irritatedly. She turned around and went out to look for more. I followed her. We were walking without making a sound. After a while, we spotted a group of five. Maggie nodded towards them and I nodded yes silently. We herded them back. Negan was sitting on a log, watching us. He had already taken his mask off, thank god. He made a little campfire while we were away. I was full of adrenalin, being this close to walkers, to grave danger. When we finished and Maggie locked the pen, we both exhaled sharply. We took off our masks she glanced at me then at Negan. He was staring at us looking pretty entertained. He congratulated Maggie and said she is welcome. Maggie didn't say anything, she went off to Elijah. I sat next to Negan.

"You are a professional now," he said smiling at me.

"Yeah. It gives me the creeps. I have never been so close to them before," I said as I was staring at the ground. "Knowing that if I make one wrong move they will tear me apart."

"Don't think about that. Focus on relaxing your muscles. If you play the part well enough the enemy won't be able to tell if you're dead or alive."

"That's not that good, though. They will kill us either way. People are putting down walkers all the time, it won't be so good if they think we are dead," I said thinking out loud. Finally, I glanced at Negan. He was smiling at me gently.

"We'll get over with this quickly and hopefully you'll never have to do it again," he said. I nodded understandingly. I glanced at Elijah and Maggie, he went off somewhere and she started rummaging in her bag. I glanced back at Negan, he drank a little water and then handed the flask to me. I drank a huge sip, then gave it back to him.

"Thanks," I said. I glanced at the campfire in front of us. "Do you think this plan will work?" I asked him.

"Yeah. The original plan sucked, but this one… we might get a chance," he said as he looked at me and our eyes met. I nodded understandingly.

"I hope we can help Daryl out of that situation," I said. "And before you start it… we're just friends. So…" I hesitated for a moment, but Negan didn't say anything, he was looking at me curiously, waiting for me to continue. So I did. "He is like trying to be one of them, going undercover. Like you did."

"Yeah," he said, still examining me with his eyes.

"I want to get him out of it. It's dangerous. I want to take him back to Carol. And also… This whole situation reminds me of you having to go undercover with the whisperers. And I don't like it at all. If I was able to do anything back then… I would have gone to find you…"

"It's okay," said Negan interrupting me. "Don't feel bad about my situation. It's over. It wasn't like going for a vacation, but compared to the jail at Alexandria, it was almost like that. I was still a prisoner, but in a different setting," he explained gently.

"I'm sorry you had to go through that and I want to get Daryl out of it," I stated. He nodded understandingly. I could see he was trying hard not to get jealous. And I appreciated his effort in trying.

"If Maggie can relax her muscles we will be able to carry this out and we will get the food and save Rapunzel too," he said smiling.

"Rapunzel? Daryl is Rapunzel?" I asked chuckling. He nodded smiling." He's anything but a princess."

We were both chuckling. I loved how Negan always made me laugh with his idiotic wordings. I glanced at him and pecked his cheek. He raised his eyebrows surprised.

"What's that for?" he asked.

"I don't know. You're cute," I said smiling. He smiled widely too and I saw a slight redness on his cheeks. I made him blush with one tiny kiss on the cheek? I smiled to myself at that thought.

"Stop this, please," said Maggie as she brought her backpack over to us and put it next to the log she was about to sit on. Our smiles faded. Maggie sat down across the campfire and leaned ahead putting her elbows on her knees, holding her head.

"You know…" I started carefully, "…with Elijah being back, you should really sleep now a bit."

She slowly held up her head, looked at us, then gave in and nodded in agreement.

"When Elijah comes back," she said sleepily, she could barely keep her eyes open. I nodded in agreement. I glanced at Negan, he was getting the bandage off his wound. I scooped closer to take a look. It stopped bleeding, it looked nasty, but not so bad. Negan held his thigh and tried to look at the wound from every angle possible. He made a painful grimace while doing so.

"You should leave it for a little while before you put the bandage back on it," I said.

"Yeah," he said nodding in agreement. He straightened his leg in front of him and rested it like that. I heard footsteps I grabbed my knife in my belt, but I very soon saw Elijah emerge from the woods. He got an animal in his hand.

"Thought we could roast it," he said. Negan and I nodded, Maggie smiled at him. He sat next to Maggie and started to prepare the meat with his knife. I didn't look at it, I still had a soft spot for cute little fluffy animals. Thank god it was already dead when he brought it to us. Maggie fell asleep in an instant. Negan glanced at her, then at me.

"You should sleep a little too," he said gently, quietly to me.

"You should, you need to heal that wound," I said pointing at his leg.

"I'm fine. Sleep," he said smiling. I let out a sigh. If we keep doing this, none of us will sleep, so I got comfortable as much as I could on a log and soon drifted off.

…

When Maggie woke up she glanced around alert. Elijah smiled at her gently. The meat was already over the fire. Maggie glanced at Quinn and Negan, she realized Negan fell asleep too with his head resting on Quinn's shoulder. They looked kind of cute like this, but at the same time, the thought of Glenn flashed inside her head nonstop like a red siren. Her eyes darkened once again and felt the urge to kill Negan in his sleep.

"Hey," said Elijah quietly. "Let them be. You promised. We need their help."

Maggie glanced at him then back at the peacefully sleeping couple, then back at Elijah. She nodded finally, giving in.

"Right," she said. She got up and went off to stretch a little and check the walkers in the pen.

…

When I woke up I felt Negan resting on my shoulder. I smiled to myself, but then I didn't know how to get up not to wake him up. I slowly started to move and tried to get up, but he woke up.

"I'm awake" he murmured with closed eyes, then he opened his eyes and glanced at me.

"I need a little privacy," I said quietly as I left him there, I had to pee. Elijah witnessed this exchange and smiled slightly. Negan put the bandage back on his wound as I left.

…

After I finished I went back to the camp and found Elijah missing and Negan and Maggie deep in conversation. I slowly walked up to them, not to interrupt. Negan was talking about how sorry he felt for Maggie and they started talking about the war between Alexandria and the Sanctuary. And then Maggie asked if Negan would do things differently… I already knew the answer to that. Negan regretted killing Glenn and Abraham, regretted his behavior, but also, if he wanted to maintain his kingdom, he should have killed us all… And he did say that, but without mentioning Glenn and his regret. This came out really badly. He just told Maggie he should have killed all of us. Maggie stood up without saying anything, shot a killer glance at me, and left. I sat next to Negan.

"You shouldn't have said that," I said.

"I know. But she needed to hear it. From one leader to another. She might make use of it later."

"So… it was a piece of advice? Against those who took her home?" I asked unsurely.

"Yeah," he said glancing after Maggie, then he turned his eyes to me. "Now it's my time for privacy," he said smiling, and headed into the woods to relieve himself. As I was waiting for him to come back I grabbed a tiny piece of meat from the plate and ate it. I took this time to think about what I heard. I could understand both sides. What they did and why. And I blamed it on the world as it is now. It was a very unfortunate situation. Negan's people shouldn't have started by demanding our stuff and Daryl shouldn't have blown them up with a rocket. And Negan shouldn't have done what he has done… I got distracted when Negan came back to my side and we watched Maggie and Elijah herd a couple more walkers into the pen. I glanced at Negan.

"Despite everything that happened… I'm still glad that I got to know you," I said gently. "The real you, not the leader performance you gave back then. The real you."

He let out a sigh before he answered.

"I hate what I did," he said quietly. "I regret a lot of things and I know what I should have done differently," he said frowning his eyebrows indicating he was deep in thoughts.

"You should have told this to Maggie," I said gently.

"No way. She won't ever change her mind about me and honestly, I don't blame her for that. There's no point in explaining things or trying to convince her," said Negan. I nodded understandingly.

"You're probably right," I said as I let out a sigh.

"If everything stayed the same, I would have never met you," he continued gently, looking me in the eye. "Somehow… I'm glad that I ended up in Alexandria's jail."

I felt my heart pounding up in my throat as I slowly leaned closer to kiss him. I still didn't get used to it, I preferred to wait for him to kiss me. And he knew that too, so he didn't lean closer to me this time. He waited for me to kiss him. And I did, slowly. It felt so good. It was slow but really hot. The fact that we didn't touch each other with our hands somehow made it even hotter. When I backed away I looked him in the eye.

"We should help them," I said, nodding my head in Maggie's direction.

"Yeah, we should," he said and kissed me once again. This time I put my hand on the back of his neck, he put his hands on my waist and pulled me into a hug. We kissed slowly, gently, sweetly for a little while then we backed away.

"Okay, now we should really help them," I said smiling turning my eyes to the ground embarrassed, but then I glanced back at Negan as he was so handsome when he was smiling, I just had to see his smile. I instantly smiled too. He nodded and put his mask on. I saw a determined spark in his eyes. Like he was ready to go to battle, again. I wasn't sure I was ready though. I was terrified. But I had to keep calm and do it anyway. I put my mask on too and we headed in the direction of Maggie and Elijah, to check the walkers in the pen. It was already a little crowd in there.

…

Negan's heart was racing every time he got close to Quinn. He just couldn't get used to it. He still couldn't believe that he found love after Lucille, after the Sanctuary… after everything. He just couldn't believe it. Even in danger, he felt so grateful and in love. He was in love.

…

Author's notes:

As you can see this one is the 99th chapter… I was thinking about what should I do for chapter 100 that would make it special, and I decided I couldn't do much, so it will be a super long chapter next week! Usually, my chapters are around 1300-2300 words and next week's chapter will be over 5000 words! So get comfortable next week, because it will take a while to read it. Also, I was lucky enough that I reached season 11 part 1's final episode so this is going to be super long and action-packed. And heart-to-heart packed… ❤ I hope you're curious about it! ^-^ See you next week! ❤

Listen to "Real one" by Smash Into Pieces. It goes for Negan. I love this song so much it describes Negan's essence perfectly. ❤❤❤

Thank You for reading! ❤