Chapter 14: Bad Company

It was another clear and sunny day. Rick woke up to the sound of birds and to an empty bed.

Michonne, for once, had spent the night in Alexandria. Rick suspected that his exhausted face was the only reason she showed up at all, let alone stayed longer than the time it took for her to resupply. He usually managed to catch sight of her slipping out of the house, Carl's hat pulled low over her eyes. Rick never tried to stop her; he knew he couldn't, but he wanted to, desperately. Even the deafening silence between them was better than an empty house.

That morning, she'd taken the sniper rifle from the fireplace. She didn't look up at him when she walked out, the rifle hanging from her shoulder. She wouldn't be out looking for Carl and Judith today, Rick realized.

The Saviors' visit loomed over all of their heads. They've put aside half of their supplies; it wasn't a lot. The food they managed to acquire from the Hilltop community was already running low, and now they needed to tighten their rations even more.

As it turned out, the Saviors decided to show up for their so-called dues a full day early.

Rick was alerted about their incoming visitors by Aaron, who had been on watchtower duty. He didn't need to have bothered; they could all hear the rumble of the approaching vehicles. More than likely, walkers had been drawn to the sound too.

Negan himself was standing behind the gate. Rick was more than a little surprised; he hadn't gotten the impression that Negan often humbled himself to join the Saviors on their raids. The man greeted Rick with a friendly smile, dimples and all, but Rick remembered all too well how he'd beat both Abraham and Glenn to death wearing that same grin.

"Do not make me have to ask," Negan warned when Rick didn't immediately move to open the gate.

"You said a week," Rick said. "You're early." Nevertheless, Rick gritted his teeth and pulled the gate aside. It creaked heavily.

"I missed you," Negan offered as a way of explanation, eyes crinkling with an easy smile.

The walker that came stumbling from between the trucks was a laughable threat. It came straight at them, making that guttural noise that walkers made when they'd spotted food. Negan greeted it with the same enthusiasm as he'd greeted Rick earlier. He made sure Rick was watching when he bashed its head in with a single strike from his barbed bat, rendering it truly and finally dead.

"Did I just take care of one of those dead pricks that could've killed one of y'all?" Negan then proceeded to air out his grievances. Acting as if he had done them a great favor. As if they needed his so-called protection. His so-called service.

He handed Rick his bloodied bat and gestured for his people to move ahead with the process.

Reluctantly, Rick followed Negan into his community, his home, carrying Negan's bat around like a servant, barbs dripping walker-blood onto the sidewalk. The Saviors didn't waste any time invading people's space, demanding they empty their pockets and their homes. For all their cheap thuggish behavior, they were incredibly in sync with one another. And they completely ignored the neat piles of food Rick and his people had put aside for them.

"By the way," Negan said as he surveyed his people at work. "Any luck finding your kids?"

Rick felt a muscle in his jaw twitch. "No."

Negan grimaced sympathetically. "Yeah, same on our side." Rick didn't know what expression passed over his face then, but Negan didn't seem to like it. "Beg your fucking pardon, Rick. Is that skepticism I detect? I told you, the boys are keeping a lookout for your goddamn kids. My word is my fucking bond."

He stepped closer, enough that Rick could feel his breath. "Maybe we're not doing enough, Rick, is that it?"

A memory came to Rick's mind, unbidden. When Carl had been a young boy, he'd gotten into a fight with another boy at school. It was bad enough that the teacher had to pull them apart, and Rick and Lori were called in to meet with the principal. It didn't matter that the other boy had been picking on Carl for weeks (which Rick had only then realized, much to his shame), Carl had thrown the first punch, and he'd ended up suspended for two days as a result.

Later, Carl had asked Rick what he should've done instead. The other boy, whose name Rick couldn't recall, had been older and much larger than Carl had been back then. (Rick did remember that, as a deputy, he'd been called to the boy's house on several occasions due to "domestic disturbances"). Rick had put his hands on Carl's shoulders and told him that next time he should count to ten.

Years later, Rick tried to follow his own advice. The bat's weight was ever so tempting in his hand. It was not the counting, but the sound of Anna's, his elderly neighbor's, soft crying that finally prompted Rick to say, "no."

"No?"

"No, you're... doing enough," Rick gritted out, resolutely looking at his feet.

"Don't you mention it," Negan said with an aw shucks tone of voice, thumping Rick's shoulder. He finally took a step out of Rick's personal bubble. "How'd you manage to lose them anyway? What, they run away or something? You must feel like a piece of shit."

"No," Rick said hoarsely. "They didn't… they didn't run. My daughter is just two. We woke up one morning and they were gone."

"Did you notice any weird smells?" Negan asked after a long pause. Rick looked up to see Negan was staring at him with narrowed eyes.

"What?"

Negan gave him a hard, searching look. "Sulfur. Smells like rotten eggs." He seemed to consider Rick's confused expression as a no, because he went on to asking, "what about cold spots in the house? Any strange substances? Markings of any kind?"

Rick thought back to that awful day. "No… no. Nothing like that."

"Huh, how about that," Negan said mostly to himself. He ran a hand through his hair, seemingly lost in thought. Finally, he turned back to Rick, giving him an almost sheepish look. "Sorry, I'm drawing a blank." He grinned suddenly, all teeth. "Hey, you got any family photos?"

A short time later, Rick came out of his house holding a framed photograph of Carl and Judith. "It's recent," he said with a voice full of gravel. The polaroid was grainy and overexposed, but Carl was smiling even with the bandage on his face, and Rick, who had been off-frame pulling silly faces, managed to get Judith to smile too. Michonne snapped the photo just a few weeks past, a lifetime ago.

He couldn't bring himself to hand it over until Negan coughed, holding out a hand expectantly. Negan made a show of fumbling with the frame. It hit the ground, harder than it should have from such a simple drop, its glass shattering.

"Oh, how clumsy of me," Negan said with an exaggerated sigh. He pointed to his feet, all but leering. "Pick that up, Rick, would you?"

Rick went down on one knee, head bowed. He could feel the burning gazes of all the people around them, Saviors and Alexandrians alike, but couldn't bring himself to look back at them. He didn't realize his hands were shaking until he felt the sting of the glass shards and heard Negan's sharp bark that he'd better not get any of his blood on (the already bloodied) Lucille. He pulled the delicate photo from the frame and handed it over to Negan, climbing back up to his feet.

"Oh, would you look at this little angel," Negan cooed when he saw Judith. He turned the polaroid around so Rick could see too. As if Rick hadn't been staring at it every damn night. "Adorable," Negan said. Then he gestured for one of his men to approach. "Pass that around. I want everyone to get a good look at it." The grim-faced man nodded, taking the photograph.

"Don't," Rick called before he could stop himself.

Negan stepped into Rick's path before he could go after the guy. "Relax," he said with a grin. It reminded Rick of a shark. "Like I said, service. You'll get it back when we're done."

Negan stepped back with another good thump to Rick's shoulder, making a show of looking around. "Say, whatever happened to that sick girl?"

A/N: Short chapter this time, sorry. I find it really difficult to weave around canon scenes. I have zero interest in repeating the actual scenes word for word, by the way. Except for the detailed divergences, you can imagine everything else taking place exactly as in canon.

By the way, the photograph is the one we've seen in ep 6.10. You can google it, it's really sweet.