"Let's meet the man."

Negan hopped out of the RV, and Lucille dutifully followed, hand resting on the bat on his shoulder. She let herself be tugged along by him, reclining in the air as she swept her passive gaze over the semi-circle of kneeling people. People. If they could even be called that. An entire outpost wiped out in their sleep? People don't do that. Well, in this world they do.

Watching and listening, Lucille narrowed her eyes, wondering which one should be picked for her. She wanted someone worthy, someone satisfying. The big fucker looked like the best option. Lucille didn't much care for the blood of women and children. But that redheaded bastard, there was something about him. He had a familiar air about him.

"Eeny…meeny…miney…mo." Negan began his game. Lucille let herself be swung about, but the never looked away from the redhead. That was the one she wanted. Once Negan neared the end of his rhyme, Lucille tugged the bat toward the redhead. The intent would be unmistakable.

And Negan picked him.

"If anybody moves, cut the boy's other eye out and feed it to his father," Negan said. "You can breathe. You can blink. You can cry. Hell, you're all going to be doing that."

Lucille placed her hands over Negan's and helped him heft the bat high in the air. They both brought it down with a crack, Negan breathing heavily and Lucille laughing. It was easier than cracking eggs, and Lucille ducked down to smell the blood. The iron scent was as equal parts intoxicating as it was energizing.

Behind her, Lucille could hear Negan crack a joke like he cracked this redhead's skull – but the redhead had a better come back. "Suck my nuts!"

Snorting, Lucille was already tugging the bat back up. They weren't finished yet.

After Negan had flattened the man's head into the ground and started his taunting again, Lucille knelt over the man's body. She sensed there was something…something lingering.

And then she knew because suddenly the redhead stood before her in burnished gold armor. His wings matched his hair; blood red fading to orange. Lucille rose to stand eye to eye with him. For a moment they were locked together like that, and then the redhead spoke. "You and I are going to be seeing a lot more of each other."

"Not for long."

The redhead's mustache bristled, but then their attention was diverted back to Negan. That redneck slugged him in the face. Lucille immediately flew to his side and imbued herself in the bat, encouraging him to lift it against him, to get some damn revenge. Negan resisted, and Lucille almost flew to Dwight to make him pull the trigger; but then she saw how Negan tipped the bat like a compass toward the Asian. Lucille immediately understood.

She made eye-contact with the redhead as she encouraged Negan to lift the bat. "No exceptions!"

The redhead rushed her and tackled Lucille to the ground, but Negan finished the job easily without her help. Lucille wrestled with the redhead for a while until someone pulled the redhead off – it was the Asian, in blacken armor streaked with silver. His wings were white. "No, Abraham! We've got to do something now for them, we have to help them."

"You can't," Lucille spat and she almost felt like she was spitting blood. "These people are mine. So long as I'm alive, they are, too."

"Why didn't we have a Valkyrie on our side?"

"I don't know." Lucille rose up, keeping her eye on Negan kneeling next to their leader. "You might have had a Valkyrie, but they probably already died for you."

"Your time will come, too," said the Asian – Glenn – as he pointed his finger at Lucille.

But Lucille only laughed at him. They spent the rest of the night fighting for control. When Negan and Rick went on their trip, Abraham accompanied Lucille. He pushed Rick to raise the hatchet at Negan, but Lucille made Negan raise the machine gun back. Then Abraham pushed Negan's machine gun around so that he wouldn't shoot Rick. Lucille watched and cackled. She knew Negan's true intentions.

When they got back, Glenn and Abraham watched as Negan forced Rick to raise his axe at Carl. None of them dared to touch the blade. But then Negan started counting and Glenn rushed forward. Lucille did, too. They struggled like that for a while until Negan made Rick drop it.

While Negan made his speech, Lucille made hers to the other Valkyrie. "You're going to die for these people because you love them. You love them all so much. All of them. That is your mistake."

"And don't you love him?" Glenn said.

"Only him. The rest don't matter."

"That's your mistake," Abraham said.

Lucille only shook her head, and left with Negan. He could never be her mistake.

The next time she saw them again was when she and Negan went to visit their community Alexandria. Mercy for the weak, vengeance for the plunderers. Lucille smiled at the pretty words. Negan passed the bat to Rick, and Lucille tugged it down hard so that it weighed heavy in his grip. Abraham met her at the gate, and it felt weird for Lucille to be visible again.

"Adjusting to this new life?" She teased.

"I know how to point a gun," Abraham said gruffly.

Lucille hummed thoughtfully and they walked side by side tensely in Negan and Rick's shadow. "You were a soldier before, weren't you?"

"Sergeant Abraham Ford."

"Combat Medic, myself," Lucille admitted. It felt strange to talk so much and have answer, to confess and have her confession be heard. She wasn't sure if she cared so much for it now.

"You're his wife." Abraham wasn't asking.

"Yes, Sergeant. Or, at least, I was." She slid her eyes over to him. "I died before all this. Cancer. Negan had no time to mourn before he was plunged into hell."

"And you were made a Valkyrie to help him?"

"It never told me why I was made a Valkyrie." Lucille shot Abraham a glare. "And you?"

After a pause, Abraham admitted, "It told me that I wouldn't be a Valkyrie for long, but neither would you."

"Why?"

"You weren't doing your job anymore."

"Says who?"

"It. God. Whatever the shit."

Disbelieving, Lucille scoffed, "If that is God, I don't care to see Heaven."

"After what I've seen, honey, you don't have to worry about Heaven."

Wryly, Lucille smirked, but then there were interrupted as the priest led to them to fresh graves. Lucille stood right on top of one, thoughtfully staring at the dirt clinging to the priest's black pants. "Where is the other Valkyrie?"

"Glenn's not here."

"No, he wouldn't be. It hurts to be near your bodies. I imagine, you're not buried here." Flicking her eyes over to Negan, as watchful as a hawk when it comes to his safety, Lucille briefly glanced back at Abraham. "Neither is Glenn's widow."

Abraham said nothing. He didn't have to. Instead, he countered her, "Doesn't it make your cunt itch to hear your husband talking about fucking some other pussy?"

"My cunt only itches after he uses that bat to bash in some poor fuck's brain," Lucille shot back defensively. What he said hit too close to home for her and she didn't like it. She shifted from foot to foot from the cognitive dissonance. "The itch goes away when he wipes the blood away, cooing how much he still loves me."

"I was married from before, too." Abraham said flatly. "She died. It was my fault. But I still found someone else to love. And after her, someone better. It's like I told her; you're not the only woman in the world."

Before Lucille could retaliate, a gunshot rang through the air. They both followed the noise to the one-eyed kid from before. Lucille shook her head and turned to Abraham who was staring at the kid – Carl – fondly. "You say you can control guns now? Other weapons?"

"I've been practicing."

Tilting her head at her husband, Lucille said, "Negan figured as much. Well…" She trailed off and gestured to Negan again.

"That reminds me that your people have a shitload of our guns," Negan said to Rick. And Lucille smiled gleefully.

When Lucille left with Negan, it was with all their guns. Negan took the bat from Rick's grip, and Lucille immediately lightened the load, chuckling when Negan growled one last inappropriate comment in his ear. She didn't say a word to Abraham and didn't look back.

Abraham's ominous warning that she wouldn't be around for long had been weighing heavily on Lucille's mind. She took to walking with Negan now, slipping her hand with his to hold the bat together. Lucille wasn't ready to leave him yet, and more importantly, she didn't think he'd be ready to let her go either. He still hasn't despite drowning himself in pussy. The goddamn bat was named after her, for Christ's sake. Some night he still rutting against the handle and called her name. This was love, real love worth fighting for. It didn't matter that she was dead.

The day Carl came to the Sanctuary, though, Lucille genuinely feared for her life. He could have shot Negan, he could have done it. She had tried to move the gun away, to point it somewhere else, but the kid's control was strong. All she could do was stay the trigger. Then Negan had gone and offered the kid a damn tour as if he were Willy goddamn Wonka. And he had forgotten the bat.

Lucille clung to his back, eyeing the kid. She tried to tilt her head, to dive inside Negan as if she could see things from his perspective. But nothing. Carl being here put Negan in danger, and Lucille's skin crawled with the discomfort. Negan made Carl sing to the bat – to her – but Lucille wasn't pleased. She sat across from Carl, Negan swinging the bat distractingly, and Lucille felt nothing but dread.

The dread wouldn't go away, either. They drove Carl home, Lucille sitting across Negan's lap with her wings hanging out the window and enjoying the breeze. She kept her eyes glued to Carl the whole time.

Back at Alexandria, Negan lingered, waiting for Rick, Carl's father. Lucille was on edge. Abraham was gone, and Lucille wondered if he was following Rick. But there was something in the air, she was sure of it. Negan was cooking spaghetti happily, and all Lucille could think of was the million and one ways this could go wrong.

The only thing that abated her anxiety was seeing Negan coo over a baby. At first it made Lucille feel warm and fuzzy, remembering the joys of cradling an infant. Then she'd remember how she could never give Negan a baby and she was desolate again tenfold. When he rocked Judith in his lap on the porch and called her an angel, Lucille was sure she was going to die. But she didn't. And this felt ten times worse than watching him fuck his wives into the mattress.

When Spencer came over and invited Negan to play pool, Lucille had not marginally relaxed an inch. She spent the entirety of dinner sitting rigidly in the chair, smelling the spaghetti and fresh rolls and feeling sick to her stomach. She'd rather smell blood. Lucille sat in the middle of the pool table while Spencer and Negan played. Half-listening to their conversation, Lucille rolled around on her stomach, watching the Alexandrians gather around. Eventually, she saw Abraham walk up with one of the girls from the lineup, a Latina. Lucille climbed to her feet when she saw him, ready for a fight. He looked too pleased with himself.

Negan's voice raised in pitch, and Lucille could tell what that meant. Time to show her power. She jumped down beside Negan, sliding her hand seductively over his belly to where he kept his knife. They'd never see a knife coming. Lucille was right. Spencer's guts spilled all over the asphalt and splashed on Negan. The crowd rippled with horror and fear, gasping and quaking; and Lucille and Negan basked in the attention and iron stench of blood.

"Anyone wanna finish the game?" Negan gloated, pointing the bat at the crowd. Lucille had a finger on the tip, helping him hold it steady. She and Abraham glared daggers at each other. "Come on, I was winning!"

Abraham was so distracting that Lucille didn't notice the Latina raise her gun until she had already pulled the trigger. War instincts – from Lucille's time and from Valkyrie time – reared its ugly head and Lucille pushed the bat up with her finger to block the bullet. It worked; it shouldn't have worked but it did. Negan was alive. Lucille tossed a smile towards Abraham, but then, warmth bloomed in her heart and it hurt. She looked down.

There was a bullet hole in her armor, pulsing hot red blood that smelled metallic.

"I told you," Abraham began, not pitying her in the slightest, "You are gonna die."

Lucille placed a hand over her heart, watching everything happen in slow motion. Negan roared in rage. Arat tackled the Latina down in the street. Negan moaned how she would never be beautiful again. Lucille felt pain, cried tears, felt human again. Her black feather fell off her back like autumn leaves and withered in the street as wispy as smoke.

Negan said, "Lucille…Give me strength."

Dropping to her knees, Lucille nodding at him in earnest. "Yes, Negan, have it. Have it all. All my love and strength, my love."

Then time sped up and Negan ordered Arat to kill someone. Abraham shouted and jerked Arat's gun up away from the Latina. The bullet hit Olivia and Abraham shouted angrily again.

Where she was lying in the street between Spencer's corpse and the Latina's prone body, Lucille laughed until she coughed up blood. "You lied. You haven't been practicing at all."

"Shut up and die already."

"I am," Lucille said, "I am. I'm just so tired. It's taking me awhile." Her eyes fell shut. "I've only died once before, you know."

"I know."

"Yes, you do." With a tremendous amount of effort, Lucille opened her eyes one last time and looked up at Negan and his smooth baby face. She couldn't remember the last time he shaved. Maybe from before when she was still alive. "I love you, Negan. So much."

And then she died on the battlefield again. While she wasn't ready to die, Lucille was much happier dying this time if only because she this time she died for love.