Negan hadn't answered Rae's question about her freedom, he'd just started the engine and pulled out of the field. She supposed that was his answer, she was free to belong to him. Part of her wondered if that was such a bad thing? While a bigger part screamed 'hell yeah it was'.

They drove in silence for what felt like forever but must have only been twenty minutes. Every little movement that Negan made seemed to catch her eye and when he stifled a yawn with the back of his hand she realised two things. One, under all that ego (and there was a lot of ego) he was just a man. Two, he'd spent the entire night awake, not just awake, fighting.

"Pull over," Rae said, a suggestion rather than a command but he did it instantly.

"You need to go potty, or… something else..."

"You're exhausted. You can get some sleep while I drive."

His face softened and he gave her this look that wasn't his usual smug smile, his eyes were melted chocolate and her stomach did a flip. "You taking care of me Red?"

Rae looked away, instead focusing her attention on the side of the road where a cluster of halfers were trying their best to scramble over a four foot fence that Zoey could have climbed. "You're gonna fall asleep at the wheel and get us killed," she began, hardening her voice, "I, on the other hand, have just had the longest nap of my entire life."

"Damn," he smacked the steering wheel, his voice amused, "just when I think you're being sweet you sass me with that fucking tongue of yours. Are you looking for a spanking because I gotta tell you doll, I am never too tired to take care of business."

"I'm just offering to drive… or am I incapable of doing that too?" She glared at him, hating the way he seemed to take up every inch of the car and the way his voice resonated deep and smooth like a fountain of good bourbon that trickled right down to her core.

"I never said you weren't capable baby. I happen to think you're a very capable woman," his eyes swept down her body before he reached over and popped the release of her seatbelt. "You wanna show me how capable you are?"

Rae bit her tongue, clumsy hands reaching for the door before she clambered out of the car. Somewhere in the steps it took to get to the drivers side she decided to forget about melted chocolate and screw her head back on.

Negan stood in the doorway, blocking it up with his devilish smile.

Rae held her chin up, defiant to his ridiculous charms, "you're in my way."

Only Negan could have a devil smile that grew even more fiendish, "ask nicely and I'll move."

Rae huffed, he just couldn't let her win, he just had to always be so domineering, "when was the last time you asked nicely for anything?"

"I'm not you."

Inside she was screaming, outside she remained perfectly calm, "please excuse me oh mighty one so I can drive us home."

He sniggerered before holding his hand to his ear, "do I detect sarcasm coming from your sweet lips right now baby doll?"

Rae cocked her head to the side, her tone of voice as sweet as sugar, "you don't think you're mighty?"

Negan didn't respond, he gave a smile that was all teeth before he ran his tongue along them and stepped aside. She liked to think she'd won a small victory but there was no victories with Negan, he'd already told her that he always wins.

She watched him settling into the passenger seat, rolling the chair back into a more relaxed position and resting one boot on the dash. He gave a big sigh and closed his eyes before they sprang back to life, catching her unnecessary staring and affording her a well deserved blush. "No funny business sweetheart. I know I'm irresistible and I can only imagine what's going on in your head with the way you were just eye fucking me but if you want funny business be a good girl and wake me up first."

Rae didn't answer him, she started the car hands at ten and two and eyes facing strictly forward. Somewhere along the way she decided not to drive straight home to Grandma's. It was daylight and for the first time in months she could be outside her community without worrying that Jacob was lurking behind every corner. So with that in mind there were some errands she wanted to run while she had Negan with her. He might have had an ego bigger than the car, bigger than the entire state, but he made her feel safe. At least in the physical sense.

She drove to her hometown, population unknown. It was the kind of place you spent your childhood trying to leave and your adulthood making it back. It was in this little town, 7 and a half miles from Grandma's house, that she'd watched the world go to hell and ran away screaming from her first halfer. Most of the people in her community had lived here or just outside and she missed it. Mostly she missed the idea of it. Getting up, going to work, petty problems. All the mundane things you hate in life were faded nostalgia like watching old reruns of your favourite cartoons.

Rae had spent last winter with Miguel, Boots and a team of others trying to clear all the halfers from the town with the idea that they could build an even bigger wall and have an even bigger community. But that had been before Jacob, back when the number of people living at Grandma's had been far more than the walls could hold.

They'd blocked off the three main roads that led into town with cars and makeshift gates made out of shopping carts loaded with breeze blocks to stop them from rolling away. She pulled up outside one of her roadblocks to see it still intact. She didn't know about the other two or the fences and railings that made up the rest of the natural barriers but when she had last been here there had been no halfers left wandering the streets. They'd been taking their time, clearing the houses one by one and gathering all supplies. It had been her way of keeping everyone busy and productive when it was too cold for farming. This winter Rae wasn't sure what she was going to do.

As soon as she killed the engine, Negan's eyes shot open and he jumped up in his seat. It made her jump. "What the fuck is this?" His voice was all detached and sleepy.

"I need to pick up some things."

He rubbed his hand over his face, scratching his scruff and truly waking up. "What things?"

"Shoes, clothes."

"Fucking hell. You can put a woman in the apocalypse but you can't stop her dragging a man shopping."

Rae gave him a pointed look, "wait here then." She left him behind, feeling irritated that he was even suggesting she was 'shopping' like some idiot end of the world bimbo who cared about pretty shoes and sparkly accessories. She grabbed her glock and knife out of the car boot and holstered them in their rightful place on her belt before climbing over the shopping carts that were always a pain to open up to allow entry to cars.

Negan followed her. Keeping a comfortable distance as she head for the little high street that held a handful of stores and more than a handful of coffee shops.

Zuzu was growing like a beanstalk, her jeans had all turned into capri's and her shoes had needed replacing for a bigger size for more time than Rae wanted to think about. Then there was Carly's baby who'd been spending his first weeks wearing some contraption Grandma had made out of old tea towels coupled with knitted leggings. Carly would never mention it but Rae was certain she'd like to see her newborn in real babygrows. And it wasn't just the children, everyone needed extra clothes and shoes. Apparel hadn't been high on her list of supplies when she had been sneaking around trying to find food but that didn't mean it wasn't important, especially now winter was fast approaching.

The children's store was half dedicated to overpriced clothes and half dedicated to wooden, eco friendly, toxic free toys. Boots had picked the lock last winter and she'd never asked where he'd learned the skill but his wonky smile had told her he didn't pick it up in the army.

Rae picked up a burlap shopping bag that was on a display next to the cashier's desk when the tinkle of the door bell announced Negan's arrival in the store. "So…" she turned to look at him. With her anger at Negan drugging her subsided, she'd spent the entire drive mulling over a million questions about last night, "I wanna know what happened. I mean, aside from Miguel. Are all his people gone? Carly said there were over fifty of them when she was there."

He had his bat on his shoulder and no smile on his face. "The ones that didn't die, I offered them home in the Sanctuary."

She was surprised, she hadn't expected him to make an offer like that, she'd assumed he was the kind of man that left no one standing, she liked the revelation, "they said yes?"

"Their home was burned to dust. Most people just want a place to lay their head at night, they don't give two fucks who's running the joint."

"What about their supplies? He must have had things? God knows he stole enough from my people when he caught them."

Negan turned to stare at a stand of toddler clothes, his focus fixing on a miniature leather jacket before he thumbed the lapel, "there's nothing left."

"Not even-"

"Look sweetheart, I lost three of my guys saving your ass and I don't need to give you a fucking rundown of how every-fucking-thing happened," he turned on his heel and slammed out the door leaving her feeling winded. Negan was always an asshole but he was always a controlled one.

Then it struck her that perhaps she'd made another assumption, she'd assumed he didn't care about anyone but himself, but maybe he did. Losing people never got easier for her and last night he'd lost three. She pictured the faces of the men that had silently sat in the truck with her and a wave of guilt, so familiar and so palpable hung tight to her lungs before she tried to shake it.

She almost wished Negan was still in the clothes store distracting her with his innuendo ladened mouth. She filled her shopping bag and then another as quickly as possible. When she stepped outside she found him lying on a low wall, ankles crossed as he basked in the sun like a big cat. "Where next baby?" he crooned without even looking at her.

"Actually I could do with going to my apartment."

"Oh really," Negan grinned, jumping from the wall, "you want me to come up for coffee?"

Rae decided that almost missing him had been temporary insanity brought on from whatever he'd dosed her with as she shoved a bag of clothes in his hand with as much force as she could muster, "you didn't like my coffee, remember?"

In this town nothing wasn't in walking distance and it was only fifteen minutes to her apartment. On the way they encountered a lone halfer. Rae didn't know whether it had escaped from a house she hadn't cleared or made it past one of the defences but she hoped for the former.

Before Negan could take care of it, she picked up a broken fence panel and took one satisfying swing for the head. It was quite cathartic, proving if not to Negan then certainly to herself that she wasn't useless. She'd made it this far without him, his ego or his potty mouth so she didn't need to start leaning on a crutch now or ever. She threw the fence panel down and carried on walking.

Rae's apartment was one of many in a long block of brownstones. She's stashed the front door key under a fake rock last time she'd been here and she retrieved it before letting herself and Negan into the communal hall. Her apartment was on the second floor, the door hardware read 2C and she hesitated before opening it.

When was the last time she'd invited a man up to her apartment? She couldn't even remember. She wondered what state she'd left it in when she'd last been here and decided it was too late to really worry about that now. Besides which, worrying about piles of dirty clothes was about the stupidest thing she could think of doing anyway. She opened the door, dropped her keys in the end table dish by force of habit and caught a glance of her face in the mirror. Jesus, she wasn't the same girl who had lived here before. Her cheeks were hollow, her eyes hard, her hair bedraggled and she wondered what the hell Negan even saw in her.

Her tiny hallway lead onto her living room, bedroom and bathroom. All the doors were firmly closed and she opened the furthest before pointing at her sofa, "take a seat."

/

Negan ignored Rae's request. Instead, dumped his bag of baby clothes onto the floor, placing Lucille besides them. He wasn't missing this chance to snoop around the inner workings of her life, or rather her old life. He imagined a world before where he might have come here after a date that didn't involve getting punched in the head followed by bludgeoning a man to death. Then he glanced at Lucille and felt shitty for even thinking about dating Rae. Fucking her yes, but dating was for pussy whipped assholes.

Her apartment was nice, cluttered, a little messy but it suited her. The one surprising thing was the baby grand piano, it took up most of the room sitting in its corner by the window and behind it were a showcase of photographs in a muddle of frames. In one of them she was a little girl sitting by a different piano and a very young looking Grandma Ellie. There were others filled with friends, a woman who maybe looked like her sister and a newborn he assumed was baby Zuzu. It was a wall of women.

He turned to see her watching him, "I bet your neighbours loved you," he gestured to the piano.

"Actually they did."

He half laughed, he could believe it, who wouldn't like a leggy redhead. For one tantalising minute he imagined long red hair trailing down her spine, her ass perched on a stool as her icy alabaster fingers tinkled the ivories. He didn't give a fuck what she played as long as she did it without a shred of clothing and for his own private entertainment. "You're a musician?" his voice was hoarse just thinking about it.

"Maybe once upon a time I thought I could be." Rae shrugged, taking what looked like a well practiced perch on her windowsill, "I guess I was never good enough."

"I find that hard to believe." Negan loosened the top button of his shirt. "So what did you do Red?" he rubbed the point where she'd punched him and waggled his eyebrows, "pro wrestler?"

"Does it matter?"

Negan brushed his index finger along the piano keys, a fast flutter of notes going low to high. Did it matter? Not really, but he wanted to know anyway. And on second thought maybe it did matter to him what kind of music she played. "I think it does."

"Well you know what they say about those who can't do? I moved home and took a position at the same high school I couldn't wait to leave when I was a kid. But it was nice, I miss it."

Negan snorted, "you're telling me you were a highschool teacher?"

"Everything you've seen and you find that ridiculous?"

Negan made his way back around the piano, he didn't find it shocking so much as he found it amusing as hell. "What do they say about those who can't teach?" he pointed his thumb at his own chest and pictured meeting the lovely Miss Honey in the faculty lounge. His school sure as shit hadn't had teachers with legs like hers.

Rae's laugh was genuine, it lit up her entire face, bottle green eyes almost glowing, "you were a gym teacher?"

He held out his hands, "we all gotta make a livin' sweetheart. And I prefer Coach."

Rae shook her head, "no, I refuse to believe it. You were always king of the apocalypse, or just waiting to be. There's no way you cashed cheques and went grocery shopping."

Negan stepped closer to her, he swept the hair off her neck and whispered, "I even had homeowners insurance and a subscription to Netflix."

"Wow, quite the life you had there Coach."

Negan found himself shifting even closer, his hand bunching into the soft velvet drapes as he towered over her perch at the window. This redhead was putting his dirty fantasies in overdrive, "so Miss Honey… you had the pleasure of my oral repertoire the other day, what's my musical grade?"

Rae half laughed, her bright green eyes studying him as her lips pulled into a mischievous grin, "you mean when you drowned out The Temptations like a strangled cat? I'll give you a C for effort... F plus for technique."

"F must stand for for fucking awesome."

She held his gaze, her grin never wavering, "try failure."

"You're really gonna make me work for this huh Red?" With five grateful wives he didn't have to work for much.

"You know…" Rae cleared her throat, ducking under his arm, "Tim taught physics and uh… Margo worked in the school office."

He held her arm to stop her moving to far with her bullshit change of conversation, "that's real fucking nice but we both know I don't give a fuck about Timmy and Margo."

"Well maybe you should. They belong to you don't they?" her tone was sharp and she was beginning to remind him exactly why he forced people to their knees before he gave them the rundown of the new world order. But he didn't want her on her knees, at least not in the metaphorical sense.

"Say the word baby and I'll walk away. I'm not saying it will be easy, it definitely fucking won't be but there are no half measures. Either you belong to me or you don't, I can't have it any other way."

She sucked her bottom lip, holding in any and all words. He released his hold on her arm with a smile, "play me something Red."

She hesitated, "maybe some other time. I'm just gonna grab a few things and we can leave."

Negan didn't follow her when she left the living room, he wasn't the sort of man to force himself into a woman's bedroom if she didn't want him there and god only knew what the fuck Rae wanted. Sometimes she looked at him like she might eat him with a spoon, other times she looked like she might gouge his eyes out with one instead. When she returned she had a well loved holdall crammed until the zipper was strained. He could understand where that fucking zipper was coming from, Rae had a way of straining a zipper fit to burst.

"I'm all set," she said like a woman who had no fucking idea how crazy she was making him.

Negan grabbed Lucille and his bag of baby clothes and with every step he kept with Rae he began to wonder how the fuck he'd ended up trailing after this redhead and carrying her fucking shopping. He never did this much shit for his actual wives and they were at least willing to fuck him for the privilege. What was Rae willing to do? Not tell him to walk away. Jesus fuck, he was losing it, all the blood that kept heading south must have been draining directly from his brain.

He could already hear the groans of dead before they turned onto the street that lead to the car. One quick glance showed a sizable number, at least nine. It might have frightened most people but Negan needed this, he needed at least some kind of fucking stress relief.

He looked at Red, any one of his wives would have been cowering and shitting themselves by now. She was standing tall on her endless legs, scraping that fiery hair into a ponytail and her eyes were filled with a fierceness that was in devastating combination with her honey gold freckles. "They must have broke through the defences…" she pulled her knife from her belt, "just don't get any blood on the baby clothes."

Negan twirled Lucille in his hand and grinned, it was going to be a difficult fight, he could barely take his eyes off her.

A/N- Thanks for reading and to all my new followers and all the wonderful comments! This was a bit of a slower paced chapter than the last couple but I hope you all liked it anyway :)