Negan woke up. I was by his bed, and he was staring up at me. I took his hand in mine and sighed. And then Dad, with Michonne by his side, told one of the men I love exactly what his future held.

"Carl pictured something better. All of us, working together, for something bigger than all of us. You'll have a job, too. You get to be a part of it. You'll be an example of what this will be. You're gonna rot in a cell." Dad tells him as I hold his hand, and close my eyes against the burning of my building tears. This isn't what Carl wanted and he knows that, but part of my deal with Dad and Michonne, with Daryl is that I won't speak against this. The plan for Negan. For that price, I can visit him. I can keep this connection, even if it's sparse. Even if it isn't going to be enough.

Michonne, I can feel her eyes on me as she speaks, "For the rest of your life." My heart pounds in my chest as I feel Negan's hand tighten on mine.

"You're gonna be evidence we're making a civilization. Something we had, something we're gonna get back. Keeping you breathing will help show people things have changed. That's the part you'll play." A civilization where someone who could be your strongest soldier, your strongest ally is a prisoner.

My eyes open and I look up as Michonne cuts me as deeply as Negan. "So, after all this. Maybe you're good for something." As though him saving me, loving me was nothing. Not worth noticing, or worth more than being a caged animal.

They leave us alone. I pull a chair to his bed and sit down. I can feel his eyes on me, but I'm quiet. Was it worth it? The deal I made, the plea I made for his life? Would he think so? Would he agree as the years pass by?

"Hey you," he whispers, and I have to smile. I'd thought, days ago that I would never hear his voice again. Looking up, his hand reaches out and brushes my hair from my face. "He told me he killed you." Simon, that asshole. "Made it fucking a pleasure to squeeze the fucking life out of his sorry ass."

"I thought you were dead." I offered, drinking in his face. "He told me that, when he left me here hoping that I'd die." Simon was dead, that was a pleasant thought. "I'm sorry."

"For what, princess?" He asked, cupping my chin in his hand. "What do you have to be sorry for?"

"Everything." I answer. "For this most of all." I glance around the room. "For agreeing to-"

He shushed me. "I'm alive because of you." Yeah, and what kind of life is it? "If I can see you, touch you, then it's a small price to pay." I hear the 'for now'. I can hear it as if he's screaming it.

"Daryl," I start and see his eyes flinch. "Negan, I have to say it." He nods, his hand leaving my face. I take it back in my own and link my fingers through his. "Daryl and I, we-" And now I can't say it. I can't tell him that I've agreed to a future with Daryl. That he and I are together, because I can see the pain in his eyes at the mere thought of what I was going to say. I sigh and stare at our hands. His long fingers nearly covering the entire back of my hand. The warmth I can feel, reminding me that he's alive. That he's here. That he's with me.

"Hey," I look back up. "I wasn't fair, when I asked you to-" And now he's struggling with the words. "I love you." He looks as surprised as I am by the words. "I love you, and that means that I have to fucking be happy for you, even if-"

"I love you, too." His eyes lock on mine. "I do-" I close my eyes, because this part is the hardest. "But I love him, too. And it's selfish, and it's cruel, but I do." When I open mine, he's smiling at me.

"You're a miracle. Do you know that?" And I stare at him. "You have so fucking much to give, how did I not fucking see that it was more than even I could hold."

I snorted. A miracle? Really? "I'm a broken woman, who got pushed to get better by the strangest therapist I've ever seen." His dimples deepen. "Lucky he was so fucking sexy. And I am greedy enough to want him, AND the first man I ever loved. Greedy enough to not give a damn if another woman goes hungry for love just so I can have you both." His smile has turned to a smirk. "Not sure that's all that miraculous, Negan."

"You forced them to save me." He reminded me. I nodded my agreement. "Have you read Carl's letter?" Another nod. "Rick's woman-"

"Michonne," I supply for him.

"She radioed me," my shock must be pretty damn clear. "Yeah, I know. She read mine to me." I wait, I know this is important. "Your brother, he wanted so goddamn much." I chuckle. "He wanted US, Jessi. He wanted you and me. And he wanted peace." I nod. "She didn't tell me you were alive. I-" He sighed. "I don't know if it would have changed my mind. I don't know if knowing you were here, ALIVE and waiting would have stopped this. It was just too fucking far gone."

I'm blinking back the tears that had threatened to fall when Dad and Michonne had issued their edict. Using my free hand, I swipe them away. "I know." And I do. Now. That this would have happened if I'd never gone to find my family that night. If I'd never met Negan. If he'd never laid eyes on me at all. Carl had expected too much, from Dad and from Negan. They couldn't have worked this out. With or without me.

I stayed as long as I could, but he was still recuperating, so sleep took him under sooner than I'd expected. I sat with him for a bit as he dreamed, seeing a smile across his lips, I stood and kissed his forehead.

I was walking away from the infirmary when I saw Daryl coming out of the house. He smiled when he caught sight of me. I met him on the porch, letting him pull me into his arms and hold me. My head on his chest, listening to his heart beating, I felt his hands slide down my back.

"How was your visit?" Daryl's head was propped on top of mine, and I could feel the sound of his words vibrate through my cheek.

"Fine." I wasn't going to do that. I wasn't going to talk to Daryl about Negan and my angst in regards to him. He deserved better, they both did.

"Got plans for the rest of the day?" Daryl's voice, rough and sweet made me think he was planning on distracting me in my bed again. I shrugged. "Cause I was thinkin'-" I waited, my body almost humming at the promise. "Been awhile since ya had your bow in your hands."

"That wasn't the proposition I thought I'd hear from you, Dixon." I pulled back and looked up at his face, that half smile haunting his mouth. "You're right. It has been awhile." Far too long, I thought, since I felt good enough to pick it up.

He pulled me off the porch and I followed, wondering just what he'd set up. And there, away from the come and go of our combined communities, he had his crossbow, a very sweet compound bow for me, and a target that made me laugh.

"Is that?" A body outline with a painted on mustache that looked close enough to Simon that I'd take extreme pleasure of picking up that bow and notching arrow after arrow into his fucking fake face.

"Thought ya'd want a target that would motivate ya." His eyes were twinkling down at my smile. "Want to bring all of ya back, Jessi." I nodded, and took the bow that he'd picked up from his hand.

"Let's see how much rust I've let accumulate." Testing the bow tension, I adjusted it and then, feeling Daryl's eyes on me, I notched my first arrow.

We walked back as the sky started to darken, hands linked, my bow slung over my shoulder and his crossbow on his own. I was smiling and laughing and I could tell that he was enjoying me, this me the happy one. The one that was regaining her confidence, even if it had taken far more tries than I cared to remember to hit the fucking target where I wanted to.

I was so wrapped up in Daryl and our afternoon, that I nearly missed the hiss. The hissed words aimed right at me as we walked past a group of people that I could swear I didn't know, and had never met. I felt Daryl's hand tighten in mine and knew he'd heard it too.

"Negan's whore." And I couldn't tell if it came from one of the women or men. "Fucking traitorous bitch." I could swear I heard one spit in our direction, but I kept walking, head as high as it had been when I'd walked out and offered my life for Glenn's. An offer that would never be heard as loud, apparently, as my screams for Dad to save Negan's life.

We walked all the way to my room, a room that until the day before I'd shared with Judith, in silence. Daryl's hand still holding tight to mine, our fingers linked, my heart pounding so loudly in my chest that I was sure he could hear it. What had I expected? That I'd be welcomed back, no issues? For God's sake, they didn't even look all that happily on me when I went back to Alexandria.

"Jessi," Daryl's voice was quiet as I drew my hand from his and went to stand by the window. "Ya can't let a few-"

I snorted, my go to expression lately it seemed. "Please, Daryl, don't insult me or yourself by pretending it's only a few that have those thoughts about me." I'd seen them, even Maggie who still had Glenn at her side, looked at me like I'd betrayed them by asking for Negan's life to be spared. "I knew it was going to be like this." My voice was hushed, not masking my pain, but not willing to shout it out either. "I knew when Sasha came to the Sanctuary." I heard him inhale. Ah, he'd assumed I hadn't known. "She looked at me like I'd killed Abe myself." I could still feel her eyes burning into mine, and Negan stepping in front of me so I wouldn't be hurt. "I saved one, but apparently I should have saved two."

"Ya didn't know-" Daryl was begging me to stop blaming myself, but how could I? Not when everyone else clearly did.

"I didn't know he wouldn't kill me, Daryl." I turned to face him, letting the dim light shine over me. "That's all. I knew that I was too late for Abraham, I watched him do it, paralyzed. I saw him point at Glenn, and I was there. Didn't even decide to step out, but there he was looking at me." I could still feel the chill that had driven me to that fucking clearing. The chill warned me that Daryl and Dad were in danger. "I saw a way out, me for Glenn, and I took it." My eyes met his and I could see his pain at my words, but he had to get it. "I wanted him to kill me, Daryl. I wanted him to take it away, my life, my pain, my fucking failure." He opened his mouth, but I rushed on. "He didn't. And that shocked me far more than it shocked any of you, I promise you that." I leaned against the wall and kept going. "Negan, he's a persistent bastard. He pushed and pushed." His eyes narrowed. "Pushed me to TALK, Daryl, nothing else. He wanted to know when, and how. When I'd lost my way. How long it had been since I felt anything. He pushed until I cracked wide open." His hands were tight fists. "And then, Sasha showed up. And I knew, even after I'd SEEN Olivia watch me like a fucking hawk with MY OWN SISTER, I knew that no one trusted me. Not now. Because he DIDN'T kill me, Daryl. That's all. If I was dead, I'd have been a fucking martyr. A rallying cry for you to go for his fucking head. I lived and I was a turncoat. And you still went for his head." My eyes dropped to the floor. "I fell in love with Negan because he saw through my mask without trying and he refused to wait until I asked for help to give it." I would not apologize to these people for finding comfort in him. Not even my own family. "But even then, I never once blamed anyone for my break, Daryl. That was on ME. Not you. Not Dad. Not Carl." My voice broke at my little brother's name. "No one owned my failures, but ME." I sighed, and looked back up to see him studying me. "And I never once, not even when he asked and begged me to, did I give up loving you."

Daryl watched me, waiting to see if I was finished. Satisfied I was, he moved forward, putting down his crossbow. Taking my bow from my shoulder and leaning it against the wall I had been, he tilted my chin up so I was staring at his face.

"I hate him, Jessi." His voice was as hushed as mine. "I hate him for killin' Abe. I hate him for considerin' killin' Glenn." His thumb brushed my skin. "I hate him for takin' ya up on that deal. But most of all, I hate him for helpin' ya when I was too fuckin' blind and selfish to do it myself." He was still staring down at me. "I won't defend him. Not to them. Not for ya. But I will tear them apart if they come for ya again. Words, looks, don't fuckin' care. Ya ain't him, Jessi. And no matter how ya feel for him, that ain't how they're gonna talk to ya."

I started to speak, but he stopped me with a brush of his lips. Just letting me know, with a kiss, that he loved me even if he didn't agree. That he would never agree with me where Negan was concerned. And I had to wonder, if push came to shove, would Daryl join with the call for Negan's death and would he forgive me when I stood against him and them.