Summary- Life at the end of the world goes on.
Notes:
Let's remember I planned this fic out in December 2016. So during the first part of season 7. There is a lot that is not canon. Gracie doesn't exist. Maggie is not stone cold. Rick is still very much a thing. Negan never hooked up with Alpha. Just roll with it. Enjoy the nostalgia. And thank you to everyone who has followed this story. I cannot believe we're finally here. I had doubts that I would ever find this particular muse again but the thought of even just one person caring about this story made me determined to finish. Thanks to flames-bring-a-ton-of-ash for cheering me on as we worked together this year to finally finish our Negan fics. We did it!
18 months later…
Sunny loaded the wagon with the last of their things. Aaron and Eric were walking her daughter to pet the horses at the front of the rig. Carol had long moved on from the house finding her own place of solitude until she felt like she was ready to be a part of a community again.
She turned, blocking the early morning sun from her eyes as she gazed upon the house. People were busy with chores. Feeding chickens. Milking the cows that they finally found. Unloading the supplies sent from Alexandria and loading fresh food to send back. People walked down the street to visit neighbors and take them new supplies.
They had established a system that kept everyone comfortable. Trades were flourishing. Thanks to some museum runs and a good harvest, people were learning to make clothes and tools from scratch. It was a far cry from the scavenging everyone had relied so heavily on at the beginning of the end of the world.
There were still dangers in the world. The communities had come together to defeat The Whisperers when they arose to terrorize. And there would be more dangerous people in the future but for now, everything seemed quiet. Although it was easy to live life waiting for the other shoe to drop, Sunny had taken to reminding herself of all she had to be thankful for.
Never had she imagined that she would be anything other than a useful outcast. But she had earned everyone's trust. And thanks to Carol, Aaron, and Eric, she had even gained some responsibility. She attended meetings to give reports on the farming village jokingly called The Sticks due to its distance from everyone else. She was listened to when she gave suggestions. She was even asked for opinions.
When she was asked to move to Alexandria, she was a little taken aback. Leaving her home again, her comfort zone, was something she had never planned on doing again. But Maggie and Rick had suggested that she help take over the schooling of the kids since she had experience with what homeschooling could look like since most everyone else had only experienced brick and mortar schools. It would also be good for the baby to have friends. They arranged a home for them. It was getting crowded in Alexandria, but they were used to sharing a house.
So, she packed their things and decided to hitch a ride with the supply wagon. Aaron and Eric waited for Sunny to climb into the back of the cart and handed her the toddler after squeezing and kissing her several times. Once she was settled next to her mother, they handed Sunny a small wrapped present.
"What's this?" she asked, staring at the rectangle covered in an old washcloth.
"Open it and find out," Eric said. He wrapped his arm around Aaron's waist, nervous energy causing him to bounce on his toes as he waited in suspense.
She tugged at the frayed twine and unfolded the washcloth. She smiled as she saw a framed polaroid of the two of the men holding the little girl. "Thanks, guys. This is really great. I love it."
"Don't let her forget us," Eric begged as his eyes went misty. "As soon as we can find replacements here, we're going to be moving back."
Aaron patted his husband's shoulders reassuringly. "We'll be there as soon as we can. Make sure none of the other babies are mean to her."
Sunny laughed. "You guys. It's not like we'll never see you again." She stopped as she realized what she said. In this world, nothing was ever guaranteed. Tucking the frame into her bag, she said, "I'll make sure she never forgets her two wonderful uncles who loved her more than anything."
"We'll see you, Sunny." Aaron pulled Eric away from the wagon. They waved as it rolled away.
Holding onto her daughter, she held the little girl's hand waving it at the two men who had grown to love her. Sunny hoped she would be able to know them.
The trip took hours, the scenery crawling past them, but that was to be expected when the wagon tapped out at two horsepower. Still, it was better than walking.
It was early afternoon when they entered the gates of Alexandria. A team of people were waiting, ready to get the food out of the hot sun and into the pantry for distribution. They swarmed the wagon, working quickly around Sunny, greeting her warmly but determined to do their jobs. Soon, all that was left in the wagon were a few boxes of Sunny's things.
Rick walked up pushing a dolly. "Thought you might need a hand getting your stuff to the house."
"Thanks, Rick. I guess I hadn't exactly planned what to do when I got here." She handed the little girl, eager to stretch her legs down to the sheriff who smiled at her then gave his hand to Sunny, helping her out of the wagon.
"We've got a house at the end of the street that has room. Your roommate is gone on a run but they'll be back later."
"And you're sure they're not gonna be mad. I don't want to step on any toes." The last thing she wanted was someone who didn't want her around. She wished she could have met them prior to actually moving but traveling from The Sticks wasn't always easy.
"He'll get over it." Rick grabbed the boxes, stacking them neatly on the dolly before leaning it back and pushing it in front of him.
Sunny held her daughter's hand, diaper bag and duffel bag slung over her shoulder. It was hard not to bring the whole house but somehow she had managed to just pack things that were important to her.
As they entered the house, Sunny took in her surroundings. It was like every other house in the community. Decorated probably professionally by the people who once owned it. She would have thought it was a model home. It was nice but didn't give off the feelings of being lived in. It was too impersonal.
"So who lives here?" she asked. But when she turned Rick was already out the door. Her boxes abandoned by the front door. Was there an emergency? Should she follow him? A little whine next to her reminded her that she had other things to deal with at the moment.
Sunny set about getting her daughter fed and down for a nap. Lord knew what kind of terror she would be that night if she missed that nap. The world was full of enough monsters.
A shower later, in a clean tank top and shorts, Sunny took the time to listen to her own body and she realized she hadn't eaten yet today. First things first, to the kitchen. No one needed her to turn into a hangry monster either.
Negan, fresh from his decontamination shower in the infirmary, opened the door to his house. After two weeks on supply runs, he comes back and is told he's getting a roommate. Fucking bullshit. No one liked him. They had made that clear time and time again even after he had played a pivotal role in taking down The Whisperers.
He'd been freed according to Rick but he was still a prisoner. His house was just a bigger cage. His every move was watched. Scrutinized. His every motive doubted. Now they'd have a snitch under the guise of roommate.
He saw open boxes as soon as he walked in. How much shit did one person need? "Fucking fuck!" yelled, ready to punch Rick in his smug fucking face. He knew this would annoy the shit out of him.
The sound of shattered glass resounded in the kitchen. He walked through the small foyer turning to the left at the staircase to the living room that opened to the kitchen. He threw his leather jacket on the couch as he passed. "What the actual f-" his voice stopped.
Sunny stood behind the kitchen island. Her dark hair damp. Clean and fresh. Her green eyes widened, brimming with tears. "N-Negan?" she whispered.
"Don't move," he said. He rounded the island. He found the source of the noise in the form of shards of a drinking glass that littered the tiled floor. "Did you cut yourself? Shit, you're barefoot. Come here, honey." He lifted her, setting her on the countertop, ignoring the way she stared at him. The glass crunched under his heavy boots. He checked her legs and feet for knicks and cuts, finding none.
"Negan," she said again. "You're alive?" He was as tall as ever, towering over her even from her perch. His beard was thick with a heavy sprinkle of gray in it now. His once slicked hair was a mess of wild curls. His eyes looked tired. The lines around them deeper.
Her hands reached out to him, scared he would dissolve in front of her. That she would wake up alone again. His chest was solid. Strong and warm. She dissolved into tears. Heavy sobs wracking her small frame. She couldn't believe it. No one told her. Why wouldn't they have told her? You didn't ask, stupid. All you had to do all this time was ask.
"Sunny, princess, don't cry. Not over me." He wrapped his arms around her. He had dreamt of holding her again, never thinking he would. Convincing himself she was better off without him. That she didn't want him anymore.
She pushed away from him, looking up at him. "Why didn't you come for me?" she managed between shuddered breaths. Did he not care? Did he not want her? How could he have been here this whole time and never come to her?
He wiped the tears off her cheek with his thumb, cradling her face in his hands. "If I could have, I would have. I've been locked in a fucking jail cell. I was only let out to help fight the Whisperers. I didn't want to risk leading any of them to you."
She sniffled. "And since then?" Her hands raised to his shoulders. She didn't know if she should push him away or pull him closer, but she had to touch him. Had to know for sure he was real.
"I've been a prisoner, baby. I swear to fucking god. House arrest. Watched like a hawk by everyone. I thought you didn't want anything to do with me. Who told you I was dead?" He wanted to kill the asshole that lied to her. Probably Spencer. Fucking Spencer. He'd gut him the next time he saw him.
Sunny's head hung in shame. "No one told me you were dead. I never asked. I figured if you didn't come back you must have died. I never wanted to hear the details of how." Her lip trembled. Almost two years. She could have been with him or at least had some hope for the last two years. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know, Negan. I swear."
"You have nothing to be sorry for. Ever." Their lips met in a hurried rush of desperate passion. Their tongues swirling, tasting, devouring. It was too much and not enough.
He spread her legs stepping between them, pulling her to the edge of the granite countertop. His fingers kneading the softness of her thighs. She was everything she ever was and more than he had ever dreamed. She was real. Sweet, open, and accepting. He wanted to bury himself inside her, forgetting the last year and a half. But what did she want? What did she need? "Wait-Sunny-wait. Maybe we should-"
Sunny's hands went to his belt buckle. "No. Please, Negan. I need you. Please," she begged. She had to show him. Needed him to know how much she loved him. How much she wanted him. They could talk and sort everything out in the future.
His fingers quickly hooked the waistband of her shorts and panties. She shimmied side to side as he pulled them down, tossing them on the counter behind him.
She pulled out his cock, her body reacting to the hard velvety length that throbbed as she gently stroked it. Every lonely night. Every heartbreaking morning. She wanted to forget it all. Wanted him to make her forget it all.
"Fuck," he hissed as her small hand lined his dick up with her sleek and swollen pussy. He'd bury his face in it for hours later. But he needed to be inside her.
Her nails dug into his shoulders as he slowly pushed into her. Her back arched as he stretched and filled her. A sensation she had given up ever feeling again. Something her fingers had never managed to replicate.
Negan's throat vibrated with a growl as he was enveloped in wet warmth. He was met with no resistance and the thought that her body reacted to his presence after all this time, that she wanted him as much as he wanted her almost made him come right then and there. He pulled back and snapped his hips thrusting into her.
Sunny pulled him down in a kiss, moaning into his mouth as he set a brutal pace. She wanted it hard. She wanted to feel the soreness that would follow for hours. The reminder that he was real. That he was here. "Harder," she whispered.
He held nothing back, her sweet cries driving him. "I'm not gonna last long if we don't slow down."
"I don't care. Don't stop. Please." She was so close already. Her body in overdrive as her mind grappled with the reality of what she was feeling emotionally, mentally, physically. She was overwhelmed and overstimulated.
Negan reached between them, his thumb rubbing the slickness coating them over her sensitive clit. "Come for me, princess. I wanna feel your pussy squeezing my cock." A smile tugged at his mouth as he watched a wash of pink color her cheeks. Still innocent after all this time.
The wet sounds of their bodies, panting breaths, and crunch of the glass under his boots filled the kitchen. She clung to him as a heat coiled in her abdomen. Her breath caught in her throat as her muscles tightened. Her head fell back as waves of pleasure washed over her, a rush of arousal covered his dick as he prolonged her orgasm, pumping in and out of her body while she constricted around him.
His hand grabbed her hair, he forced her to look at him. Their eyes meeting in a haze of lust and desperation. Was there anything he wouldn't do for her, to see her look at him like that again and again?
She wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him deeper, his belt buckle loose around his hips, digging into her thighs. God, she never wanted this to end but she longed to see him lose himself, shaking with the force of his climax, knowing she was the one to make him lose control.
"I love you," she whispered against his lips before kissing him.
He groaned, his thrusts stuttered as he chased his orgasm. His dick pulsed deep within her. His grunts labored as his body shook with the force of his release. Months of fantasies could never compare to this.
His senses were flooded, grasping to remember the details, weight of her body, warmth of her breath on his neck, the rush of blood through his veins. He wanted to savor it all, replacing their last encounter where he left her crying, not knowing he would be breaking his promise of return. He leaned his head on her shoulder, withdrawing his softening dick slowly, tucking it in his pants.
Sunny watched Negan fasten his pants. His boots popped more shards of glass on the floor. He tossed her shorts to her then grabbed a broom from the pantry.
"Negan?" she asked tentatively now that the shock was wearing off. He concentrated on sweeping up the broken glass, emptying the dustpan into the trashcan a few times before he was satisfied. He crouched on the floor searching for any hidden remnants. "Negan," she repeated after dressing again.
He finally looked up at her. She wasn't sure what she saw in his face. Concern. Determination. Fear.
"Are you sure you want us here?" she asked. Was he having second thoughts now that their heads were clear?
"Us?" he asked, brows furrowing in confusion.
A cry sounded from upstairs. Negan shot to his feet. The small plaintive voice upstairs hitting him like a punch in the gut. He thought, had assumed when Spencer...he would kill him. He would murder that bastard and never think twice about it.
"Is it safe for me to get down now? She's awake." She looked to the floor for a space to hop down.
Negan nodded dumbly as he watched Sunny dismount. "She?" he whispered. His voice was graveled, stuck in his throat.
Sunny took his hand. "Come and meet your daughter." She pulled him along after her. Tugging at him whenever he paused. Her stomach churned. This moment had built up in her head for months on end. What would he think? How would he feel? Would the baby love him?
Up the stairs, down the hall, he stopped at the door. His daughter. His child was just through that thin plank of wood. His whole world was upside down. He was sure the stress of everything had caused Sunny to lose the baby. It was just another way the universe had punished him. No one had ever told him. He was going to have a fucking talk with Rick.
Sunny opened the door, the hazel-eyed baby was standing in her pack and play. Her mess of dark hair standing in a fine array of bedhead. She lifted her arms to her mother, with excited babbling issuing from her little mouth.
Sunny turned to face Negan, the little girl laying her head on her mother's shoulder. Her breath caught as she saw him blinking rapidly though his face remained passive, body stiff. "Negan, I'd like to introduce you to Moonbeam Chrysanthemum."
His eyes widened, mouth hung agape. "Are you fucking serious?" he asked. What the actual fuck? How could she? He was going to have to say that name for the rest of his life and his poor little girl was going to have to hear it for hers.
Sunny laughter pealed through the room like bells on the wind. "Oh my god. Your face. Charlotte. Her name is Charlotte." He looked more like her Negan now. The tension leaving his body, eyes sparked with emotions.
Negan let out a deep breath. "You are gonna pay for that you little brat. Scared the shit out of me." His cheeks hurt from the smile that stretched across his face. It'd been so long since he had genuinely used those muscles. So long since someone had given him a reason to. Now he had two.
"I'm sorry, but you looked like you were about to throw up. I thought some humor might ease things. I know there is a lot for us to take in. To adjust to. To talk about." She kissed the girl's forehead. Staring at Negan as he took in the two of them. She couldn't believe they were a family again, just as they always should have been. "Charlotte, this is your daddy." Charlotte's chubby hands clung to her mother as she nervously eyed Negan.
He wanted to touch her. To hold her. His daughter. It killed him a little that she didn't know him or trust him. But that might be for the best. He reached out, his finger tracing the pudgy curve of her elbow. "I'm a daddy."
"You always were." She gave him an encouraging wink. "Come on," Sunny said. "I'll show you the quickest way to her heart. Have her eating out of your hand in no time. Snacks."
The little girl's head popped up at the mention of her favorite word. She smiled and said, "Cookie."
Negan grinned. "Let's go find some fucking snacks."
They spent the rest of the evening talking. Occasionally, they would reach out to one another, needing to feel them. Needing reassurance.
After dinner, Sunny played with Charlotte slowly pulling Negan into their games, giving them both a chance to get used to one another until she whined nuzzling at Sunny's chest. She nursed her daughter until Charlotte nodded off to sleep.
Sunny lifted the sleeping child and laid her in her father's arms as he sat on the couch marveling at the tiny human. He could see bits of himself in her. The eyes, the dimples. But she was as beautiful as her mother. Although she was only 18 months, he felt like he had missed a lifetime of her developments.
They talked of all they had been through the last year and a half. Sunny told him about giving birth, building a farming community, and how she missed him every day. He told her about his year of solitary followed by his deal to kill the leader of The Whisperers in exchange for his release and his dreams of her.
As the night grew darker and the hour later, Negan carried the baby to her bed upstairs. "She's beautiful. Perfect," he whispered as he laid her down.
He'd never been a religious man. Never gave it much thought. After the world turned to shit it was hard to imagine a higher power ever letting this amount of suffering happen in the world. But looking at the child they brought into this world, the multitude of miracles that had to happen to make her, he could almost believe in God.
Leaving Charlotte in the room Sunny had thought they would share, she closed the door quietly and followed Negan to his, now theirs, down the hall.
Making up for lost time, they undressed in a slow waltz of touches, lips grazing skin. Minutes and hours melted together in a haze of silent declarations of love hidden in each tender exploration. They took their time until they spent their passions, exhausting themselves, and slept in a tangle of naked limbs.
Sunlight danced across Sunny's eyes as she squinted against the harsh brightness. Blinking, she looked around her unfamiliar setting and panic woke her more quickly than an alarm ever had. She sat up and remembered where she was. She was home. With Negan.
The sun was peeking up over the roof lines of the house outside the window. What time was it? She hadn't slept in like this since…
Charlotte.
She rushed to find some clothes and hurried downstairs, slowing as she heard the rumble of a deep voice and a familiar melody playing.
The boxes that had been left by the front door, were open, rifled through. She peeked around the corner and saw Negan's salt and pepper head sitting on the couch. He leaned down passing a cookie to his daughter who sat next to him.
We're going to have to talk about what counts as a healthy breakfast.
He motioned to the show playing on the television as Big Bird ran across the screen "Hear that, baby? That's your mama's song."
Covering her mouth to hide her emotions, she bit back tears. He remembered.
She took in the sight of them. Committing each detail to memory. She wanted to keep this moment forever. To always remember this snapshot in time where everything was perfect.
The world was a dangerous place. Filled with dangerous people. She was married to one of the most notorious villains of their time. But watching her husband and her daughter nibbling on early morning contraband as muppets sang and danced, she was filled with hope.
They could never be certain of their future. But this moment right now, the small everyday moments they all took for granted not that many years ago, made everything worth it. Made life worth living. Together they would make each day count.
The End
Notes:
Ok, there we go. It's finally done 4 years and 9 months-ish later. Thank you so much for reading. I still can't believe people actually did. If you love these two as much as I do, let me know. They are my babies and I'm going to miss them.
Some notes about the story-
The Title. For those of you who didn't grow up watching Sesame Street. Look up the lyrics. Yes, I've had that scene planned the entire time. It's my favorite. But for those that don't want to look it up the song starts out, "Sunny day sweepin' the clouds away." And that's what Sunny did for Negan.
Why didn't anyone tell them about the other? Sunny never asked. She was too afraid to know how he died. When she never asked, everyone else assumed she didn't want anything to do with Negan anymore so they never brought it up. Those closest to Sunny knew she still loved him because they heard her talking about him to her daughter when she thought she was alone. They all thought Negan would die in the prison cell anyways. Once Negan started proving himself and gaining a trickle of trust, they decided something needed to be done but no one wanted to deal with it directly. So they parent trapped their asses. Sunny and Negan get over it.
We never find out what happened to Sherry. It's the nature of the world. Maybe she found Dwight. Maybe she's still at The Sanctuary. Like Sunny, not knowing is usually easier to deal with because you can decide for yourself.
And that's it. Feel free to send me asks on tumblr or dms here if you ever wanna talk about Sunny and Negan. And again, thank you for reading and letting me share this with you.