Because the world has an uncanny knack for kicking Rick while he's down, the next time he runs into Negan is Wednesday night. He'd been coming back from a late-night disturbance call when Officer Abraham Ford told him he'd picked up some "loud, intoxicated numbnuts" at a local bar and threw him in the drunk tank for the night. Rick nodded, went to make sure the guy hadn't choked on his own vomit, and, lo and behold, who's lounging in the cell but Coach Negan? And still wearing that goddamn leather jacket.
A smarmy grin cracks across Negan's face when he sees Rick. "Well, well, well, if it ain't Rick the prick."
"Coach."
"You know this guy?" Ford's partner, Officer Tara Chambler, is keeping watch over the holding cells.
Rick looks back at her. "We've met." His face says he's deeply regretful over this fact.
Tara mirrors his expression and glances back down at her phone.
"It certainly is a pleasure seeing your cheery face again," Negan says.
Rick knows sarcasm when he hears it. "Have one too many tonight?"
"Some people just can't hold their liquor."
"I hadn't pegged you for a lightweight."
Negan sneers at him, amused. "I'm just peachy keen. I was talking about Simon. You know him?"
"I've seen him around." Rick recalls bringing Simon in for drunk and disorderlies, barfights, and one instance of indecent exposure. He leans against the wall, peering at Negan through the bars
"That high-horse motherfucker thinks he can beat me at ping pong? I had to shut that shit down."
Rick makes a show of looking inside the cell. There are a half dozen cots, only one of which is occupied. "Seems like you got the place to yourself."
Negan scoffs. "He's a sneaky little cocksucker. Slipped out the door by the time your grunt got there."
"So you're in a holding cell over a game of ping pong?" Rick tries not to laugh, really, he does, but it's just so hard.
"You spend all day shuffling words around you can make anything sound stupid as shit."
Rick notices a red blemish about the size of a fist along the right side of Negan's jaw. It's camouflaged by his facial hair, which is why Rick didn't notice it at first. "He clocked you?"
"He got lucky." Negan lifts a hand to his wounded face as though protecting it from further damage.
If Rick truly had a choice here, he would go home and let Negan suffer until morning. Abraham could watch him overnight. Oh, Abraham would have a fucking field day with this douchenozzle. Even Tara would probably enjoy screwing with him.
But Negan is Carl's coach, and Rick acting like a shithead to him would mean Carl taking the brunt of Negan's anger. Carl is already at a disadvantage due to his lack of pitching finesse, so Rick can only imagine how things might escalate if Negan had revenge as a motive. Rick can't let that happen, no matter how much he dislikes Negan.
Rick leaves the room and returns with ice in a ziplocked plastic bag for Negan's bruised face. He offers up the bag through the bars of the cell. Negan stares at it, his brow furrowed, like he thinks Rick's trying to pull something shifty here.
After eyeing Rick curiously for a moment—seriously, Rick feels a little violated—Negan takes the ice pack and settles it against his jaw. "Took you long enough."
Which is officially the shittiest thank you Rick has ever received, and he has a teenage son. "You're welcome."
Rick walks away from the cell and over to the desk where Tara's sitting. "Did Ford book him?"
"He wanted to. There was a bit of a dick-measuring contest." Tara smirks, perhaps remembering said contest. "But then Grease Lightning over there puked into a trashcan, and Abe took pity on him."
Rick can't stop the snickering laugh that spills from his mouth. He shakes his head in amusement, trying to picture this walking, talking garbage can actually puking into one.
Rick glances over his shoulder at Negan, who scowls at him, but there's something deeper there. Maybe shame?
"Hey, um, Rick?" Tara says quietly.
"Yeah?"
"So... about the wedding. It's next month. On the fourth. Saturday." Tara is engaged to her girlfriend of four years, Rosita Espinosa. She showed up last week with a modest diamond ring on her finger and a huge smile. "It would really mean a lot to me if you came. But I totally get it if you don't want to, and please don't make yourself miserable on my account, I swear I won't—"
Rick smiles, holds up a hand to stop Tara's awkward gush of words. "It's okay. I'll think about it."
Rick has avoided weddings since Lori's death, because the last thing he needs is a blistering reminder of the lifetime of happiness stolen away from him. Last year, Glenn Rhee (yes, the pizza delivery boy) invited Rick to his wedding—the bride-to-be one Maggie Greene, the town's most esteemed veterinarian—but Rick had to politely decline the offer, because he knew he'd either stay sober and cry through the ceremony harder than anyone in the audience has a right to, or he'd hit the bar and end up being loudly cynical about marriage and love and probably throw up on the wedding cake.
"You don't have to bring anyone," Tara reminds him. "It's super casual. I'm gonna wear Chucks underneath my dress."
"I promise I'll think about it."
Tara smiles sheepishly, like she's embarrassed they even had this conversation. "Thanks." She gives him an appreciative nod and slides out of the chair, disappearing down the corridor.
When Tara is gone, Negan speaks up. "Your wife... The kid's mother. Is she..."
"She's gone," Rick says, so quietly he can barely hear himself.
Negan scoffs. "No wonder the kid's all fucked up. He lost his parents."
"He's got me."
"Really? 'Cause that's not what I've been hearing."
"He talks to you? About me?" Rick's almost offended that his own son won't talk to him but instead confide in his douchebag coach. What the fuck, Carl?
"He's told me enough. I mean, you gotta read between the lines with a kid like Carl, but apparently you and I both like to drink our problems away."
"I'm not the one in the drunk tank," Rick points out.
"No, you're just pushing your kid away," Negan says, sarcastically dismissive. Before Rick can argue, Negan adds, "How long have you been flying solo?"
"Two years." Actually, it's been two years, three months, and eighteen days, but who's counting?
"Two years?" Negan says, looking at Rick in amused disbelief. His head does a weird nodding thing that punctuates each word. "Wow. How in the holy hell did you make it this far?"
Rick shrugs. He moves closer and wraps a hand around one of the bars, as though needing the support. "You just... survive. Somehow. Keep moving. It doesn't get better, but you get stronger."
"That's some primo therapy bullshit." Negan chuckles, but his heart's not in it. "How long have you been drinking the Kool-Aid?" His left hand is draped over his knee, his thumb brushing over the underside of his fingers. Rick suspects Negan's hiding some sort of contraption to help him break out of the cell, but he sees the tiny glint of silver in Negan's hand, a wedding ring rolled around in his palm.
"You lost somebody too." It's supposed to be a question, but it doesn't come out like one. "How long?"
Negan stays quiet for a few seconds, staring at the ring as though he can see a better life inside of it. "One year to the day."
Damn.
Rick remembers the one-year "anniversary" of Lori's death. He was a goddamn mess. If memory serves him correctly, he spent the day in bed and swallowed down drinks strong enough to send a DeLorean back in time. Then Carol let herself in with the key Lori had given her ages ago, and Carl and Judith were there and things were... not okay, but manageable.
The annual resurgence of that awful day had been softened because Rick had people. Does Negan have people? He's in a detox cell in a shitty Georgia town police department on the anniversary of his wife's death, so that's a pretty strong argument to the contrary.
And the fact that Negan just sort of appeared in their sleepy town without any known ties is particularly distressing. But it makes sense Negan would start over somewhere new instead of staying in a house filled with memories like latent landmines.
Rick's house, on the other hand, is a fucking minefield. Every day erodes the scant traces of Lori that remain. On bad days, Rick wants to put up red velvet ropes and cordon it off like something in a museum. A monument to his sadness.
Poor, pathetic bastards, both of them.
"What was her name?" Rick asks, treading carefully, but odds are Negan's been dwelling on her all day. The wound is already open.
"Lucille."
Rick nods. "Lori." He wants to find something poignant in the fact both names start with the same letter, but what would it be? They're just two unlucky saps who drew the short straw. "No kids?"
"We didn't get that far. But Lucille was goddamn baby crazy," Negan says with palpable fondness. He tips his head back and chuckles, as though remembering something. "Some chicks have that big, elaborate wedding fantasy planned out. But Lucille had baby names and clothes and toys and all that shit locked down before we ever talked about it."
Rick drags a chair from across the room and sits near the door of the cell. He hasn't really talked about Lori with anyone aside from Denise. It might be beneficial to confide in someone who rejects 'primo therapy bullshit,' as Negan so aptly put it.
Negan continues, rolling the ring between his fingers like he wants to put it on but isn't sure what that would mean. "She used to nag me about swearing, saying if I didn't clean up my language our kid's first word would be 'fuck' or 'shit' or some other excellent demonstration of vulgarity." The corner of his mouth twitches into a smile that makes Rick ache.
Negan is lost for a moment in this recollection before turning his head to Rick. "You're still here? Fan-fucking-tastic, my friend. Why don't you get in on this? What's the memory that plays on a little movie screen in your head? You know, the one that makes you wanna stick that gun in your mouth and call it a day. Sharing is caring."
Negan's wearing that stupid smirk again. Rick wants to slap it off his face, but it's probably a defense mechanism. He read somewhere that the physical act of smiling is supposed to improve your mood. Rick's calling horseshit on that one, but he hasn't actually tried it.
Rick opens his mouth, closes it, swallows.
"C'mon," Negan coaxes. "Don't get all limp-dicked now. What's that thing therapists always say? Work through your shit."
Rick highly doubts Denise would phrase it that way. He scrubs a hand over his mouth—the bristles of his facial hair scrape against his palm, he really should shave more often—and starts over. "Judith was... unplanned. Lori didn't want to have another baby. But one night we were trying to decide what to do about the pregnancy, and she found this box she made back when Carl was born. It was about the size of a shoebox, and inside was a bunch of pictures we took of him through the first few years. His first crayon drawings were in there... A couple baby teeth Lori saved. It was nice, looking back and seeing how excited we were to have a kid. I guess Lori saw something there that changed her mind."
Rick exhales a breath, a little shaky after the painful excursion to the past. For a moment, Negan says nothing, which is a fucking miracle, but of course he has to open his dumb mouth, because the world may actually end if he's not talking.
"That is some Hallmark shit! I'm dead serious: that brought a tear to my eye. A-plus-plus!"
God, what a dickhead.
But it's not like Negan's going to openly cry or express an emotion other than arrogance in front of Rick, so what else is he to do but paper over it with sleazy charm until it hardens to bone? If he's been doing this since Lucille's death, Negan may actually be dead inside.
There is nothing quite as sad as a person whom you can see right through.
"Alright, your turn," Rick says, raking a hand through his hair.
Negan drops his head back and laughs as though Rick has told him the most hilarious joke in the entire world. "Slow your fucking roll, Rick. I'm not easy. You don't expect me to put out on the first date, do you?"
Rick isn't entirely sure what he was expecting, but this seems about right.
"Well, I think we've made a real breakthrough today," Rick says. He rises from the chair, moves it back behind the desk. Negan isn't going to give him any more, so staying here seems pointless. Talking about this has drawn fresh blood from Rick's open wound, and he needs to recuperate with Carl and Judith. Negan will just have to fend for himself. "But it looks like our time is up."
"Toodle-oo, Sheriff," Negan says, and if there was any trace of melancholy in his voice before, it's gone now. He said too many real things, and now he's retreating to the protective fort of sarcasm and assholery.
Rick shoves his arms into his jacket and leaves Negan there to stew in his thoughts.