Rick's phone receives multiple texts from Glenn on Tuesday afternoon. The first is a photo of an exhausted, sweaty Maggie holding a newborn baby. The rest are excited spasms of emojis, and somewhere in there are the words, "Hershel Steven Rhee," and Negan is suddenly overwhelmed by feelings he doesn't have a name for.
Carl fires him a text almost seconds later: Maggie had the baby! Like he doesn't know Negan's in possession of Rick's phone and thus privy to Glenn's group messages.
After school, they head to the hospital, but instead of going up to the intensive care unit, they stop at a different floor filled with new life instead of death's slow, creeping decay. Maggie's room is bright white and filled with colorful decorations celebrating the child's birth. Like Rick, Maggie has clearly touched many lives, if the amount of visitors in her room is any indication. Glenn is there, of course, but also Carol and Judith and Sophia and a few Negan doesn't recognize. There's a blonde girl holding Judith, and Negan's guessing she's Maggie's sister. Something about the eyes.
Glenn greets Carl and Negan with a big smile. "Hey, you guys. I'm a father." He huffs a tired, happy laugh. Looking at Negan, he asks, "Any pointers?"
Negan smirks. "I'm the last person you want advice from." He glances around the room, searching for the baby. "Where's the little tyke?"
"He's in the nursery. The doctor said Maggie should rest, but she wanted to see everyone first."
"You two, get in here," Maggie says, beckoning to Negan and Carl. Glenn lets them inside, and they gather at her bedside. "I made a person!" Maggie grins, still a little loopy from the pain meds. "Isn't he beautiful? Glenn showed you the pictures, right?"
Negan chuckles. "You bet he did. Don't let him go; you got one of the good ones."
Maggie laughs, placing a hand on his arm. Her touch almost burns his skin. Negan hasn't been touched like this in over a month. "I want Rick to be the godfather. You think he'd like that?"
"He'd be friggin' overjoyed."
"I can help babysit," Carl offers. "Since you guys've watched Judith so much."
"That's really sweet. Thank you." Maggie looks at both of them, earnest and empathetic. "You doin' okay?"
"Hangin' in there," Negan says. Understatement of the century.
Carl nods noncommittally, and Negan can tell he wants to unload but knows now isn't the time.
"I wonder how old he'll be when Dad wakes up," Carl says, a weak attempt at a joke, but it makes Maggie smile sadly, and that's all they can hope for here.
Glenn approaches the bed and takes Maggie's hand in a gesture so tender it makes Negan look away.
"Kid, where are your parents?" Negan asks Glenn before his brain can stop him from treading potentially sensitive territory. "Or are they..."
"No, they're flying in tonight. They live in Michigan."
"Are you kidding? That's where I'm from! Lemme guess, Detroit?"
"Yeah. You too?"
"Nah, further south. A little town called Hell."
Glenn laughs. "My parents went on a road trip a couple years back and sent me a postcard from there. They thought it was hilarious."
"Yeah, the 'Welcome to Hell' sign really sets you up for a fun time."
The blonde girl tending to Judith comes nearer, leading Judith by the hand across the room to where Negan stands at Maggie's bedside. "You must be a friend of Mr. Grimes." The girl has doe-like, vivid blue eyes and an innocent face, and for the briefest moment Negan wonders what it might be like to dirty up that innocence, preferably with his cock, though he's never had a problem with using his mouth.
He can't help it. He's rarely gone this long without having sex—there was that awful stretch of time when Lucille was too weak to make herself soup, much less endure intercourse—and it's like an itch he needs to scratch, but the thought of actually pursuing it terrifies him. He can disconnect emotion from the physical act, but fucking someone else while the man he loves is in a coma feels like a betrayal.
"Me?" Negan says, mildly startled by the question and his own arousal. "Oh yeah, me and Rick are like two peas in a pod."
"Negan," Judith says, latching onto his leg. She has recently dropped the 'Uncle' part of Negan's title, and Negan isn't sure if that's a good or bad thing. Has she demoted him, or is this an indicator of closeness?
Beth looks at Judith and smiles. "You're taking care of her?"
"Who blabbed?"
"Carol did." She offers him her hand; it's soft and smooth and makes Negan feel like a sleaze. "I'm Beth. Maggie's sister."
"Negan. Rick's... partner." Like they're cowboys. Or that they co-own a law firm. Fuck, he's such an idiot. But boyfriend sounds too much like they're in middle school and scribbling each other's name in hearts on their Trapper Keepers. So what the hell is he supposed to say?
But Beth hears the subtext there, evident in the quirk at the corner of her mouth. "That's really sweet."
"So they tell me." Negan reflexively reaches down and cups Judith's head, letting her know he's not going anywhere. He thinks she's developing abandonment issues, if her clingy behavior is any indication. But it's not like he can blame her, considering what she's gone through. At least they have something in common.
After Maggie has succumbed to sleep, Negan and Carl find the nursery. Behind the glass is a line of six newborns in wheeled cribs, all wearing beanies and swaddled in white blankets. A blue index card on one of the cribs reads: Hershel Steven Rhee. 2:41 PM.
Staring at the sleeping, squirming babies, Negan imagines how Rick must have felt standing here both times his children entered the world perfect and untouched. He sees the images in a montage, like a life insurance commercial in his head: Rick standing outside the glass, gazing at this brand new life, then Rick and Lori bringing the baby home, taking turns waking up to feed him, then he grows up and becomes Carl, then Rick's back here again, staring at a pink index card this time, and they do it all over again, then the third time Rick's on the wrong floor and lying in a hospital bed, and Lori is a ghost at his bedside.
Negan is lying in bed with Rick, their limbs lazily tangled after sex. At least, Negan's assuming they had sex, because he doesn't remember having it. He can't feel the heat of Rick's body either, even though they're pressed together so there's barely any space between them. On some distant, foggy plane of consciousness, Negan knows this is a dream, but he's going to hold onto it as long as he can, because Rick is here with him, and that's all that matters.
Rick murmurs something against Negan's skin, burying whispers into the pockets of his collar bones, but Negan can't catch the words. His fingers thread through Rick's hair. He can't feel anything.
"You're so goddamn important to me," Negan says, the sentiment ringing too loud in the silent space. "I love you, Rick. I need you to see that. I'm begging you."
Rick's hands are coasting down Negan's back, but when they fall away he's holding a knife, which he uses to promptly slash Negan's throat, and Negan falls back against the pillows, coughing and spitting and gagging on his own blood.
Dormant rage awakens in him, like an old car engine sputtering to life in a roar of ignition, and Negan responds to this attempt on his life by pummeling Rick with his fists. Then they're fighting, and Rick is covered in Negan's blood, and this is the exact opposite of what they should be doing, but here they are, trading punches and the wrong type of blows. It's like Negan's trapped in his own head, watching someone else pilot his body and bend Rick's knee in a way the joint was never intended, and it snaps and pops and Rick screams, and Negan doesn't know how the fuck they ended up like this.
He wakes up with a jolt. Judith's terrified face hovers over Negan's own, coming in and out of focus as he blinks through wet eyes. "Negan, wake up," she says, shaking his shoulder with as much strength as her tiny body can produce. Her tears glisten in the moonlight leaking into the room. "You had a bad dream."
Negan's still shaking, his heart banging against his ribs.
"It's okay," Judith tells him, her chubby hands wiping at his face, and Negan is horrified for an entirely different reason until her hands come away clean. No blood. Just tears.
"You're crying too," Negan points out. Bless her heart, but she's in no position to comfort him. He sits up and rakes his hands through his hair.
"You scared me." She rubs his back the way he does for her when she has nightmares, and the gesture breaks something new inside of him.
"Sorry, kid." Negan takes a deep breath through quaking lungs. "I miss your dad."
Judith sniffles and scoots closer so she can bury her face in his side, her tears forming wet spots on his t-shirt, and they stay that way until she cries herself out.
It's been a month and a half since Negan and Rick exchanged words or glances or fluids. Negan, Judith, Carl, and Shane are gathered in Rick's dismal hospital room. The bouquets decorating the room have begun to wilt, an outward manifestation of everyone's optimism regarding Rick's condition.
Rick's doctor, Dr. Horvath, is an older man with grey hair and dark eyebrows that look like caterpillars on his face. "I wish I had more news for you," he tells them, and at least he has the good sense to sound disappointed about this, but given how tightly interwoven this town is he might be a friend of Rick's, too. "But so often medicine is a matter of waiting for the body to heal itself."
Shane leans against the windowsill, arms folded over his chest, his biceps bulging against the sleeves of his deputy's uniform. He's scowling like he wants to punch something; Negan can relate. "It's been almost two months," Shane says. "How long do you think he can hang on like this?"
"Who knows? It could be weeks, months, years. Hours. Comas are unpredictable."
"You've seen this before, right? What does your gut say?" Shane has commandeered the questions, and Negan feels like an interloper. He looks at Rick buried beneath all the tubes and wires.
Dr. Horvath is quiet for a moment. "I don't think the length of his coma is a good sign. The bullet caused some extensive tissue damage and blood loss, but that shouldn't keep him out this long."
Shane exhales an angry sigh from his nostrils like a raging bull. "So, what, we should start thinking about..." He doesn't finish that, but he doesn't need to.
"Oh, Christ," Negan groans. "Not you too?" Why is Negan the only one around here with some goddamn hope? "Can we have some faith in Rick?"
Then, as though their conversation opened the lock on his brain and reached him through the haze, Rick's voice sounds in a dry, hoarse whisper. "Negan?"
It's a miracle, really, and Negan's heart stops in his chest and crawls into his throat. Rick is awake and alive and looking perplexed and bedraggled, and Negan is overwhelmed that Rick's first post-coma word is his name.
"Daddy!" Judith cries, scampering toward the bed.
"No way," Carl says, awed as he follows his sister.
Shane's head snaps in the direction of Rick's voice, and he joins the children there at Rick's bedside.
"Dad, are you okay?" Carl asks, and Rick is looking at his kids like he's never seen them before, like some cosmic accident has caused him to awaken in the wrong universe.
Rick's eyes find Negan's own, and Negan can't help the goofy smile that crawls across his lips, but when Rick speaks it's that godawful nightmare all over again, the venomous words like a blade against his throat: "What are you doing here?"