The night after Negan declared war on Dad and his people, we spent alone in his rooms. He was tense again, having kept me beside him as his lieutenants reported to him and they worked out a plan. I could feel the eyes of these men and women on me, wondering I was more than sure, if I could be trusted.
Negan had pulled me onto his lap, tucking me into his body, and glared over my head at them. "She's with me." Was all he'd say, and so I sat in during the planning. I listened as I heard that three of Negan's people had died, two Alexandrians, and Sasha were casualties of Dad's need to be on top. I listened as I learned, for the first time just how vast Negan's reach really was. The people I'd seen outside, the ones I'd witnessed the night Abraham die, they were mere drops in his ocean of people.
I learned that Dad had put his trust in the wrong people. That those people had turned at the last moment and helped Negan and his people. I learned that Sasha had died in the coffin during transport, a question building within me about the how. Negan passed over it, and they pounded out their plans. They expanded security. They talked about what to expect, what to prepare for, who else couldn't be trusted.
Once we were alone, in our rooms with the sun finally going down on a miserable day, I turned to him and for once it was my turn to get him to talk. But first, first I needed to get his stress levels down. So I pulled him by his hand to the bathroom, and skipping the shower, I ran us a very warm and deep bath. I made sure the temperature was just right, then I turned to him, and took off each piece of his clothing. I was doing a more thorough inspection than I could do in front of his people. I checked for bruises, which he had a few of, and more importantly bites or scratches.
"Jessi," he sounded like he was fighting against himself, which if his hardness was telling the truth, he was. "What are you doing?"
I looked up at him and smiled. "I'm checking to make sure you made it out unscathed, Negan." I shook my head and pulled him toward the bathtub. "You need to relax. De-stress. Get in the tub." It was an order. I heard it, he heard it, and he stopped.
"Gonna join me?" I nearly rolled my eyes. What was it with the men I found attractive and their inability to bathe without me? Although, drinking in Negan's form, I couldn't say that Negan had been adverse to hygiene before me.
"Get in," my hands went to the hem of his t-shirt and tugged it over my head. I heard the slosh of water as he did as I said, and shucked my boots before taking off my pants and the rest of my clothes. Naked, I turned around to face him and found him leaning back against the wall of the tub. He'd turned the water off, and he was staring up at me.
I bit my lip, seeing him there, the water not obscuring him at all. Dear Lord. Who was he? And then he crooked his finger and I lifted my leg and stepped into the warm water. His hands reached for mine, pulling lightly so I would sit facing him. I crossed my legs, sitting between his open legs, and let the water's temperature help my muscles relax. Muscles that I hadn't realized were tense.
Negan's hands came up to frame my face and then he leaned forward to brush my lips with his. A light kiss, almost like he was proving I was real. And then he lay back again. His eyes were dark, pupils so dilated that they were nearly black. But he also looked exhausted, so tired that I hoped he wouldn't grow so groggy that I wouldn't be able to get him back out of the bathtub.
He pulled me forward, letting my head relax on his chest, and listening to his heartbeat against my ear helped calm me even further. Of course I was a little tense. My family was trying to fight unbeatable odds against Negan, a man who I was growing to consider more than valuable to my happiness.
"Tell me about today." I whispered, running my hands along his arms, pulling back so I could stare into his eyes. "Tell me what you think went wrong with Sasha."
He sighed, his hands sliding up my arms and touching the bareness of me. "I don't know what to think." His eyes were on mine. "Dr. Smartypants thinks it was a lack of air."
I squinted, thinking that wasn't likely. If I'd learned anything about Negan so far, it was that he wasn't that careless. "But?"
"It could have happened," his fingertips were dipping along my collarbone, up along my neck, and curling around the back of my head. "One of my guys could have shut it tighter after I put her in there."
My own hands were trailing over his skin too. Touching his sides, up his chest, through the smattering of hair. "Is that really likely?" I asked, keeping on topic, even if our hands seemed to have minds of their own.
Another sigh. "Anything is likely, Jessi." He didn't really think so, I realized, but if that's not how Sasha died, then he'd have another problem to contend with. "As for today? It was a shit show. Just like I fucking thought." His fingers tightened in my hair, but not painfully. "Rick trusted the wrong people, he made an alliance without understanding the people he'd recruited."
I nodded, letting my own hands loop around his neck. "What else?" I could tell, just like I once could read Daryl and Dad, that there was more. "What else went wrong?"
Negan's eyes dropped and he took a deep breath. When he looked back into my face, when his eyes met mine again, I knew this was what he was most irritated about. More than the loss of life. More than the attempt to kill him. More than the threat of war.
"He didn't ask about you. He didn't bargain for you. He didn't fucking even say your name, Jessi." I opened my mouth to ask which one, but he shook his head. "Neither of them." And I realized, Dad would have been the one speaking. My dad, the man who'd always been my hero. A man who once upon a time I wanted so badly to make proud of me. A man who I'd once been able to tell when his life was in danger. He'd truly written me off.
"Ah." I was surprised at how unconcerned and unhurt I sounded. It did hurt. Knowing that two men who meant the world to me didn't seem to care about me at all hurt. Yet, there was a part of me that understood. I'd left. I made a deal. I hadn't fought against the darkness for them. And I hadn't fought to get back to them. Maybe they weren't the only ones who wrote someone off. I licked my lips. "It's fine, Negan." And a large part of me meant it. "It's fine."
I kissed him then. Letting my lips, my mouth tell him what I couldn't. I'd made my choice. And they'd made theirs. There was no looking back. For any of us.
