When he was younger, Carl imagined the first time he drove a car would be with his father in the front seat, gripping onto the handle and pretending he wasn't terrified that Carl would crash into Mrs. Baker's novelty rooster mailbox. He didn't picture his first time behind the wheel to be in a car he hot wired, a skill he learned from watching Daryl. He didn't think his first road trip would be to avenge the death of his friends.
He also didn't imagine that the road trip would end with him forced by armed guard into the bedroom of a sadistic killer. But his life hadn't turned out how he had planned recently.
Negan forced him to sit down on the plush chair. He pulled off his leather jacket, sitting down on the couch in front of Carl, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and a grin on his face. Carl looked at the tattoos on his arms, a sign of the world they used to live in. A heart below his elbow, the word "Bison" on his forearm, a peach just peeking out of the collar of his shirt, a cross on his shoulder. Negan was a person who had, before all this, cared enough about God to ink it onto his skin. Carl couldn't imagine the Negan now believing in any power higher than himself.
"I gotta say, kid," Negan said. "You got some huge, man sized balls. Coming here, trying to assassinate me all on your own like that. I don't normally take kindly to folks tryna kill me, but damn! You got some style." Carl gritted his teeth, not moving his eye away from Negan. He wouldn't give him the satisfaction of backing down. "What's under that eyepatch? Not an eye, I'm guessing."
"I got shot," Carl said.
"In the goddamn head? You are one tough son of a bitch," Negan laughed. "Take it off."
"What? No," Carl said, taken aback.
"Come on, kid," Negan said. "You killed two of my men out there and I let you live. You owe me."
Carl stared him down, but Negan didn't budge. Carl flexed his fingers, wanting to do something but he knew he couldn't. Negan took his gun and no amount of Daryl's fighting lessons would change the fact that Negan was twice his size.
Carl pulled his hat off and grabbed the bandage at the edge, slowly peeling it off of his face. He hadn't had the stomach to look at it himself. He just let Georgie change the bandage while she blocked his view from the mirror.
He felt the last bit of cloth peel away from the scarred flesh of his eye socket, making Negan laugh gleefully, clapping his large hands together. "Christ! That is disgusting," Negan said.
Carl looked down, his hair covering the injured half of his face, but that didn't stop Negan. "I can see the socket. No wonder you cover that shit up. That is gross as hell, have you seen that? Have you looked at it? Oh my lord!"
Carl cursed the tears that fell from his remaining eye. He didn't want to cry and he didn't even know why he did. More important things had happened, he wasn't concerned with how he looked, but something in him broke as Negan mocked his disfigured face.
"Damn," Negan sighed heavily. "Look, kid… I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-," Negan drifted off as Carl looked back up at him. Negan brushed his hand over his mouth, looking Carl over. "It's easy to forget you're a kid. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. You're tough, most kids in your shoes would be crying about missing the prom. You got shot in the damn face."
Carl stayed silent, looking back at Negan, trying to figure out the man who sat in front of him, who would brutally murder two people in front of him and laugh, but then apologize for hurting his feelings.
"My daughter," Negan said, pausing as if these two words were a punch to his gut. "She was always telling me I was too harsh on people. She was probably right, clearly."
"You have a daughter?"
"I don't talk about her much these days, not really anyone worth talking about her to anymore," Negan said. "She was a sweet girl. She'd cry her eyes out any time that Sarah McLachlan dog commercial would come on."
"My mom did too," Carl said.
"Your mom die?" Negan asked. Carl nodded. "Women like that are some of the best, but they don't last here. My wife was a tough lady. Hell, when I met her, she was kicking some ass in a mud wrestling contest in Georgia. I thought Lulu would be a badass. It was probably my fault, every time she'd turn on the waterworks, I'd come running and do whatever she needed me to do. I never let her fight her own battles."
Carl felt his heart stop as he realized what Negan had said. He had heard this story before, only from someone else's point of view. "Lulu?" He asked weakly. Negan smiled, catching himself in nostalgia.
"There's a reason my bat's called Lucille. My wife didn't want to name our girl after her, she thought that was tacky. I negotiated her down to a middle name, but my baby was always Lulu to me," He pulled the collar of his shirt down further, showing the tattoo of a peach that Carl had spotted earlier, though now he realized it also bore the name 'Lulu'. "Georgia Lucille. Prettiest damn thing you could ever see, my girl. Smart, too. Don't know where she got that from. She was gonna be a doctor."
Carl barely heard what Negan was saying anymore as he studied the man's face. How could Georgie, who patched up his wounds and made him dinner and fought alongside him, be a part of this man who murdered just for the hell of it. He felt sick to his stomach as he realized the chocolate brown eyes that he found comfort in many times over the last few years stared back at him now, only from the face of Glenn and Abraham's killer.
"She died. Right when all this shit hit the fan," Negan laughed again, but it held none of the cruel delight that it usually did. It was weighted in sadness. "She wanted to stay where she was, wait this thing out, but I told her to get on the plane and come home so I could take care of her like I always did. Turn on the news a few hours later, find out her plane crashed right into the Blue Ridge Mountains."
"I'm sorry," Carl said, surprised to find he actually meant it. Negan nodded.
"Me too," Negan said. "But like I said, she wouldn't have lasted in this world anyways, so maybe it's for the best."
"What if she did?" Carl asked. Negan looked taken aback. "If your daughter survived, do you think this would be different?"
Negan gave his forlorn laugh again. "I can guarantee if my girl was alive, we wouldn't be having this conversation, kid. After she died, I did what I had to. I do what I have to, to keep my people alive. But if Lulu were here? I can't really say what I'd do."
"I think I want to go back home," Carl said. Negan looked at him for a long moment.
"Sure, kid," He said. "Let's take you home."
The quiet bustle pulled Carl out of his deep sleep. He still felt groggy from the drugs and his body ached like nothing he had ever felt before, but as he felt the weight of his father's hat still on his head, he couldn't help but feel proud of himself.
"Good morning," The girl who was placing his breakfast on his nightstand said. "You're looking like a million bucks, there, kid."
"Are you a doctor?" Carl asked. He remembered the other doctor vaguely, an old man with white hair and a gentle smile.
"Not really," The girl said with a laugh. "But I was helping with your operation. Probably why it went so well, I'm lucky that way. I'm Georgie."
"I'm Carl."
"Nice to formally meet you, Carl," Georgie said. She leaned over his bed, placing her hand on his forehead like his mom did when he claimed he felt too sick to go to school. "You're definitely doing better than when you first got here."
A silver chain fell out from her shirt as she checked him over, though she didn't seem to notice as the dog tags swung like a pendulum above Carl. He remembered seeing dog tags like that on the army guys who seemed to be on every corner when this all started.
"Are you in the military?" Carl asked.
"God, no," Georgie laughed, shoving the chain back under her shirt. "These are my dad's. He was in the service before I was born."
"He's the doctor, right?"
"That's Hershel, but no, he's not my dad," Georgie said. "Hershel took me in when everything was going bananas, I know his daughter from school."
"Where's your dad then?" Carl asked.
"Last I knew, he was in Virginia. I'm hoping he's still there." Georgie smiled at him sadly. Carl knew how she felt. He touched the brim of his hat, remembering when Shane had told him that they had to pack up their car and leave and that his dad wouldn't be coming with.
"I lost my dad too," Carl said. "But he found his way back."
"He seems resourceful like that," Georgie said.
"He is," Carl said. "But maybe your dad can find his way back to you, too."
Georgie flicked the brim of Carl's hat. "I hope he does."
As the gates of Alexandria opened for them, Carl worried how well thought out his plan was. Considering he had put little to no thought to it, he figured not very.
"Damn, this is a mighty sweet set up y'all have got here," Negan said with a low whistle as they pulled through the gates. Carl's chest tensed as he saw his parents waiting for them in the dead center of main street. As he thought, Georgie was nowhere to be seen, probably shoved into hiding as soon as the guards announced the Saviors' truck had arrived.
"Can you wait here?" Carl asked as they pulled to a stop. Negan raised an eyebrow at him.
"Excuse the god damn hell out of me?" Negan asked.
"Or get out, whatever," Carl said. "But don't leave, I need to talk to my dad about something."
"Was it about the murder you committed earlier?" Negan asked. "Because I think we need to have a little PTA meeting about that ourselves."
"You can tell him whatever you'd like," Carl said. He was anxious to get out of the cab and find Georgie.
"Go ahead then," Negan said, gesturing to the door. Carl got out first and like he thought, Negan came out after him, but stayed at the side of the truck. "Just dropping off the boy, no need for distress."
"What were you doing with him?" Rick asked Negan as Carl came towards him. Michonne reached out, checking over his face as if he would have sustained a terminal bat wound to the head that had gone unnoticed at first glance somehow. He knew he would get an earful from her later.
"Hey, the little sociopath came to me," Negan defended.
"Dad," Carl said, pulling Rick's attention to him. "Where's Georgie?"
Rick's eyes flicked over to Negan and back to Carl. "In the house with Judith, why are you-,"
"She needs to see Negan," Carl said.
"Carl, no," Michonne said, her voice hushed. "We've kept her out of this."
"She can change his mind, I can't explain right now, but she can," Carl said before taking off down the street towards their house while his father shouted his name after him. Carl was surprised Rick didn't take off after him, but he was probably worried about leaving Negan unattended in Alexandria. Carl wanted to feel bad about leaving his father out of his plan, but he knew his father wouldn't understand unless Carl showed him.
He opened the front door, looking around the front room even though he knew he wouldn't find them so out in the open. "Georgie," Carl called. He heard footsteps upstairs and within seconds, Georgie appeared at the top.
"Carl, Jesus Christ," She said as she ran down, pulling him into a bone crushing hug. For someone so small, she had quite the grip when she was worried. "Where the hell were you?"
"You have to come out," Carl said in a rush. "Negan's here."
"According to Pops, that's exactly why I'm not supposed to come out," Georgie said, staring at him wide eyed as if he had gone crazy. "What's going on?"
"Come on," Carl said, pulling her by the hand outside. Georgie followed, if only because she was too confused to move on her own accord. They reached the gate where Negan and his Saviors still stood. Carl didn't take him as someone who followed orders, but his curiosity must have won out.
"Carl!" Rick yelled as he saw that his son had indeed pulled Georgie out of the safety of their home. "What the hell are you doing?"
Georgie started to explain she had no part in Carl's scheme when her eyes fell on Negan. She seemed almost entranced as she started towards him until Rick threw his arm out, stopping her from going any further. He looked at her as if she had gone just as crazy as Carl. Negan stood frozen by the truck, his normally cocky grin dropping from his face as he looked over the woman Carl had brought out.
"Lulu," Negan said finally as he took a breath, one he had been holding since the phone line cut off. "You're here."
"Daddy," Georgie said. She tried to move past Rick, but he held his arm still as he looked back and forth between Georgie and Negan, seemingly reaching the same conclusion Carl had, though with different results.
"Take your hand off my goddamn daughter," Negan said, stepping forward, Lucille raised. Georgie took note of the bat, her face falling as she also noticed the Saviors behind her father.
She shoved Rick's arm down, pulling the knife she kept on her belt out, holding it in a frighteningly steady hand. The sight of his little girl, the one who had to sleep in his bed if she even thought she saw a spider in her room, wielding a knife, ready to kill, was enough to stop him in his tracks.
"Lulu, it's not-,"
"Don't call me that, you fucking psychopath," Georgie said. "You're a killer. You killed my family."
"I'm your dad, it's still me," Negan said weakly.
"No," Georgie spat back at him. "My dad died a long time ago. You're Negan."