Newly Revised
Daryl fought the entire way to the doctor's office, even as they stripped him naked and dragged him down a corridor when the doctor was done patching him up, in an attempt to find Ani. Dwight remembered how it was the same in the forest, too, though with a lot less fight back then and a lot more words. Daryl had continuously brought her up, told him that he needed to get back home to her, that he was helping them for her. And now he was still fighting with everything he had to get back to the woman they'd been told he forced to be with him. Even as he was shoved into one of the small rooms they used as a cell, Daryl was yelling and shouting about how he was going to kill Tom and Ellie, how he was going to get his wife back, how she better be fine when he did. The cell was freezing as he sat on the cold concrete, hoping and praying that Ani wasn't suffering the same treatment as he was. His only comfort was the fact that Negan seemed to want to help her, not hurt her, his only hope that the man would protect her too. He was exhausted sitting on the could ground, sleep almost overtaking him until whistling sounded from outside, making him open his eyes. It stopped outside his door while Daryl listened to the locking mechanisms on it be undone, Dwight opening the door wide. As he shielded his eyes from the light, Daryl noticed the man was wearing both his vest and his bracelet, his wedding ring no where to be seen.
"Where's Ania? The baby?" he asked, only for Dwight to scoff and offer him some bread with something on it.
Taking it as he was starving and needed his strength, he took a bite, immediately recognizing the taste of dog food, Dwight watching on before scoffing and walking out, closing the door, behind him. Daryl was left alone in the darkness with his 'meal; if they thought they'd break him by feeding him shit on bread, they had another thing coming. He'd been forced to eat even worse things as a kid just to stay alive before he'd been able to hunt proficiently so he could tolerate eating dog food for a few meals if he had to. Dwight just watched him for a moment before closing the door and walking away. Daryl finished the slice of bread, staying in his spot on the floor as he thought about what he could do. He'd been completely stripped of his clothing after his shirt and vest had been forcefully removed from him at the doctor's office. There were no cracks at the door and Daryl was exhausted by the events of the night before as well as the gunshot to his shoulder.
Daryl couldn't help it as he passed out in the cell from the exhaustion, waking to the sound of loud music blaring as he laid on the cold concrete. He didn't even know how much time had passed or how long he'd been asleep when it started going off. Pounding on the door and an order to stand on the back wall had Daryl moving before the door was open and Dwight once again brought him dog food on moldy bread. The music randomly started playing in the cell, preventing Daryl from getting much sleep at all even though the door didn't open unless someone was banging on it. Even then, it was just Dwight every time, trying to get him to just accept that this was his new reality, trying to use Ani, Ellie, and Tom against him. He really had tried to think of a plan on getting out of here, but he just couldn't concentrate with how cold he was and how worried he was about Ani. They'd threatened to take the baby away but would they wait and ask Ani about whether or not she even wanted it?
And he'd been called a rapist, that the baby was the product of rape; the thought of it sickening him. Sure, he and Ani had a few bedroom kinks on the rougher side, but he'd never once taken the girl without her permission. Even when she'd told him he could take what he needed from her, he knew she didn't mean he could just take that. He knew she'd meant to keep her in the room until they had managed to talk it out and get to the bottom of everything. If he even tried to do that, she would have him on his back if not knocked out in two seconds flat and would never be seen again. The fact that those assholes had even suggested that he had raped her after everything they had done to her right in front of his eyes. Hell, they could have already made them lose their baby once and now they were trying to make them do it again with a disgusting lie. Not even Merle, when he was high and drunk off his ass had taken a woman by force. Daryl couldn't deny that Merle had a serious case of the grab hands and a mouth that ran for days, but no Dixon that he knew of had ever forced a woman. Not his daddy, not his granddaddy, not his uncle, not one of them had ever done that. Women could be used and abused, but you didn't take them, that was something his dad had told him straight to his face. He couldn't help the scoff that escaped him when he thought about that and the contrast between even his asshole of a father the Parkers. Even that bastard had lines he won't cross, he couldn't help thinking, remembering just how fucked his dad had been in the head. He and Merle had both treated women like toys, before the world ended; he didn't do relationships, just momentary escapades, until he'd met Ani.
He was sat in the corner near the door when the damn song started playing again, beginning to drive him nuts with how often it played. Listening to the mechanisms once again, Dwight opened the door and all but threw a piece of bread and whatever dog shit was on top of it down on the floor next to him, no plate or anything, just the bread. As soon as Daryl picked it up, the man threw a set of clothes down on his head and closed the door without even uttering a word to him. He couldn't help but put the less than mediocre food down and look at the clothes that were offered to him, figuring out the right way to put them on before donning them. While the clothes weren't the warmest, they were certainly better than sitting in the buff on the cold concrete of the building's floor. The music stopped and started several times before the door opened again, Daryl immediately asking about Ani once again. Dwight just stood in the room in front of him before grabbing the back of his shirt and hauling him up and out of it. Daryl didn't put up much of a fight as he was led through the halls of the Sanctuary, as he'd heard the people calling it. He was too busy trying to memorize the layout so that he could find his way to Ani and get out them of there. They passed two corridors before turning to the left, voices floating down the hall towards him even though he couldn't tell what was being said. As he approached a chair sat outside a red door, Dwight pushed him harshly before he could see who was inside, though he could have sworn he heard Ani's voice. He only momentarily tried to look inside the slightly open door before Dwight had pushed him past and turned him down a corridor to the right. Dwight pushed Daryl into another room where the doctor was sitting with Sherry, Dwight's wife, as Dwight called to Carson.
"We were just finishing up here," Carson informed them as Sherry got down from the examination chair.
"Chop-chop," Dwight told the doctor.
"Hi, D," Sherry told Dwight, making Daryl's scowl deepen as he heard another woman's voice call another man his name from Ani; he could understand now the possessiveness she had over him being the only one to call her Ania.
"Hey," Dwight said back, looking at her in regret while she looked over to his hostage.
Even though he was trying not to be noticed, Sherry realized who he was anyway, trying to catch his eye as she inquired, "Daryl, right?"
"Don't," Dwight immediately cut in, "talk to him."
He pushed Daryl to the examination chair before walking around the doctor and noticing a pregnancy test lying on his table. Daryl saw it as he was forced to sit down, noticing it was negative and remembering when he'd seen Ani's positive. The world had stopped spinning at that moment and his heart skipped a beat when he first saw it until it started beating so hard he thought it was going to burst right out of his chest. For a split second he was terrified of what would happen and whether or not he would be anything like his father, but one look at her tear-streaked, joy filled face and all of that disappeared. She had stared up at him in disbelief and wonder while he realized what was truly happening and a shit-eating grin spread on his face. Pride and happiness had erupted within him as he grabbed her up and kissed her senseless, the only reason he hadn't taken her to bed being Jesus escaping the cell. But here Dwight was, horror crossing his face for a moment as he stared at the test before looking over at Sherry, trying to hide the disgust behind its meaning. Daryl couldn't understand why the man would look at something that was either supposed to be a good thing or a sad thing, not something to look at like piece of shit got splattered on food.
"It's negative," she told Dwight.
"Ah, well," he responded with disdain. "Maybe next time."
"Sorry," Dr. Carson told them. "Still getting used to being my own assistant."
Daryl watched Sherry throughout the entire interaction, wondering just what happened between her and Dwight in the six weeks since the forest. He knew that the scars on Dwight's face were new and that the man had made that choice he said he couldn't come back from. He'd killed Denise right in front of them, shot Ani, and who knew how many others who's lives he had ended. Whatever had made them come back to this place, whatever price they had paid, it had changed both of them completely. Daryl sat and side-eyed everyone in the room while they were awkwardly trying to figure out how to react to being in the same room. Dwight was definitely angry at whatever had happened and barely able to contain himself and the rage and regret he was obviously feeling. Sherry looked beyond guilty and uncomfortable around her husband as she stood there and looked between him and Dwight. His prison guard, for all intents and purposes, went over to talk to the doctor while leaving him a lone for a few minutes. It was pretty easy for Sherry to make her way over to him unnoticed, looking at his pale and dirty face and the rough clothing he had on and feeling sorry for him, wondering if he'd been told about his wife yet.
"Whatever they say," she told him, attempting to warn him so he didn't suffer the same fate as her and Dwight, "just do it."
"I said don't talk to him," Dwight quickly turned around and demanded.
"Okay, let's take a look," the doctor said.
Dwight and Sherry continued to stare at each other as Carson walked up to Daryl and pulled his shirt down to remove the bandage on his back. Whatever he was doing stung like a son of a bitch until he stopped and began bandaging it back up. All he could hope was that Ani's wound was being treated nicer than his even though he didn't show the discomfort on his face. She didn't need to be suffering just because of his stupid decision to try to help Dwight, let alone whatever lies her parents had spun. He hadn't been told anything about her condition or if her parents had gotten their claws back into her let alone whether or not they still had their baby. It didn't matter how many times he asked how she was, he wasn't told anything regarding her. He couldn't help wondering if she was being given the same shit food that he was being forced to eat or if they were taking pity on her for being sick. If they were letting her keep the baby, maybe they had been giving her a place to rest while she fought off the infection. Daryl didn't even know if she was awake yet or if she was panicking or, worse, shutting down to the point he wouldn't be able to bring her back. He was trying to not think about all the dark things that could happen in this place as the doctor finished redressing his wounds.
"It's the same wound as Tom and Ellie's daughter," the doctor told him. "It'll get better- if you let it. Trust me."
Dwight chastised the doctor for running his mouth before roughly pulled Daryl from the room after that and practically pushed him down the hall. It was obvious that they were purposely trying to keep any information about Ani a secret from him. From what it sounded like, though, she was at least being treated for the gunshot wound Dwight had given her, which meant she was being treated for the infection. He hoped that was the case, because if she was being treated, that meant her life was out of danger and, hopefully, by extension the baby's. Everything in him wanted to fight Dwight all over again as he saw Negan coming down the hall. He had a mocking smirk on his face as every person in the hall knelt down to the floor as if he was some sort of royalty. Negan was enjoying himself and the power he had taken for himself, at first through saving a few men and women along the way and then taking over other camps. It took a while to find the Sanctuary and gain the people he needed to keep it safe, but once he had managed it, he'd managed to keep everyone fed and protected. He didn't consider kneeling to him as that big of a sacrifice for everything that he did for the people, his smirk turning into a smile as he watched Daryl be forced down to one knee by Dwight.
Negan couldn't help himself from chuckling at the sight, telling his man, "Dwighty boy! I need to talk to my associate for a minute," he told the people in the hall behind Daryl and Dwight. "So go about your business." He watched as they all got up from the kneeling position before pointing his bat at Fat Joey and telling him, "Except for you. You stand right there," he said pointing to the wall next to the room with the red door that was currently all the way open.
Dwight pulled Daryl over to the red chair that had been sitting in front of the red door room, telling him to sit before walking away. A cry from inside the room had him ready to move as he looked through the door, the only thing keeping him in his seat being the gun aimed at his head. He could hear someone he couldn't see inside the room, another woman, warning Ani to stay where she was at the end of the bed when she went to get up. Her sweet voice saying his name brought a wave of hope and encouragement to him as he took notice of the fact that she had no bruises on her. He could see the IV in her arm and she wasn't as pale as she had been the last time he saw her, her brow free of sweat. The bed behind her looked rumpled, as if she had been sleeping in it and he could see a tray just off to the side of her that had the remnants of what looked to have been decent food at least on it. There was a bookshelf with several books and a refrigerator in the room as well, a few other more homely items completing it and making it look more comfortable. Her clothes were still on her, her wedding rings still firmly on her left hand, her bracelet sitting above it as her hand held onto her stomach in a silent promise the baby was fine.
A shadow falling on him had Daryl looking to his right to see Dwight, looking down and looking back at Ani as he was dragged away, the door to her room closing. He could hear the sobs coming from the room as he struggled all over again to get back to that room, but the best he could do was remember the way to it. The concrete outside was hotter on his feet than he cared to admit and the way he was slammed into the fence stung for a moment. There were so many walkers chained or impaled in the courtyard while they reached out to whatever they could find. Many of them were reaching out just for another moving walker until a door opened and another walker walked out. He was forced to watch as two men tried to fight off the walkers already on the wall as they tried to add the new one. Daryl was on edge as he watched one of the impaled walkers get a hold of one of the men as they finished tying the new one, but there was nothing he could do. An arrow pierced through its head as Dwight shot Daryl's crossbow to help the man get out of reach while pulling the bucket off the new walker's head. He shoved Daryl right back into the fence as another team walked out to place yet another walker in the courtyard, Daryl doing everything he could to look anywhere else.
"You know, I think I'm getting the hang of this thing," Dwight told him in certainty. "That's you, asshole. Unless you're smart. Your choice. You could be like them. Or me. Or them," He forced Daryl to watch what was happening for a few more minutes before pulling and pushing him along back to his cell, shoving him inside it hard enough for him to stumble to the ground before offering some advice. "Make it easy on yourself."
"I already told you," Daryl said. "I only kneel to one person. I ain't ever gonna kneel to Negan."
"Yeah, I said that too," Dwight told him, making Daryl look up at him in contempt.
"Yeah, I know."
Dwight looked up and sighed before looking back down at Daryl, "See, that's the thing, man. You don't. But you're gonna."
He left and slammed the door on Daryl's door, the music turning on a moment later as tried to cover his ears and groaned, the song engraving itself on his head as it played over and over again. Seeing Ani and knowing she was safe, that the baby was safe, that was the spark that brought the fire to life. Not wanting to wait any longer, he checked everything he could in the room, but there were no loose stones in the walls and the door had been sealed pretty tightly. Literally the only thing of use was the half inch or so gap at the bottom of the door that he could barely see out of when he tried. Even without a pair of shoes to protect his feet, Daryl couldn't get the picture of Ani sitting in that room out of his mind as he tried to kick down the door, wanting to get back to his wife. The music began playing again some time later, Daryl having given up the fight with the door and going back to sitting on the floor. He was doing his best not to break down because he couldn't risk being seen as weak and having that used against him. He didn't have the time nor the luxury of looking or being weak right now when Ani needed him to be strong enough to help get her out of that room and back to Alexandria. Whatever the point of that exercise earlier had been, he knew it was taking its own toll on Ani with how loud she had been crying. And with the baby and everything that happened, he was worried about what the stress of it all was doing to her. She could handle a lot, but then, she generally could only handle it when he was there but to know that he there, that he was alive, and yet out of reach would only make things that much worse for her.
Daryl was beyond annoyed as the music blared again before the latch of the door sounded and he stood at the back of his cell. The man who had threatened him outside of Ani's door stood there instead of Dwight, offering another meal to him. It was still the same dog food on bread, Daryl's stomach starting to roil at the thought of having to eat it. He knew he had to eat it for the man to leave and that it was the only way he would be able to keep his strength up. It was with a scoff and a shake of his head that the man left and the music stopped without the sound of the locking mechanism working. He had a chance to escape when the music started up again as Daryl looked through the gap under the door, making sure the cost was clear. He pushed it open just a couple centimeters as he crouched down and double checked the hall before making his move and heading towards the room with the red door. It was unlocked as he quietly entered it and closed the door carefully, looking over to see her on the bed sleeping with a tear streaked face. Creeping closer to her, he couldn't help but release the breath he'd been holding at finding her hurt. She was, but emotional pain he could help her with when they got out of her. It didn't seem as if they'd done much of anything to her at all physically, which was the one thing he was thankful for in this place. He slowly made his way to the bed, carefully reaching out and putting his hand over her mouth to stop whatever scream or shout might have made its way out of her upon waking. He had to quickly replace his hand when she broke it off, turning her around so that she could see him before leaning over her and taking the IV out of her arm. He quickly wiped the blood away, finding that it was just a little from the needle before he kissed her forehead. He noticed she felt only a little hotter than normal and her color was back when he grabbed her hand.
"You good, baby girl?" he asked her.
"Yeah, me and Little D."
"Gotta go. Come on," he said while leading her to the door.
Opening it just as carefully as he had his own, Daryl double checked the hallways, looking back to Ani and quietly telling her to follow him. She did so as he lead her down a hallway, stopping as a man stood at the doorway to the exit, Daryl throwing his arm back across her belly. When he heard a door open and close, he was about to head towards it before noises behind him made him duck down a different way, all but dragging Ani with him. Daryl was completely one-track minded as he pulled her down the hallway to the safety of another corner just in time some men walked down the hall they had just been. He had to keep her safe, her and the baby; all that mattered was that she was able to escape even if he had to sacrifice himself so she could. That was his only thought as he watched and waited for a clear path, one of her hands tightly clasped in his with her other arm holding onto his in a vice grip. Daryl could tell she was having problems dealing with the fact that they were in the same place as her parents after all the threats they had spewed. Looking back at her, he caught her determined eyes rather than a scared face and it gave him hope that everything would be okay. There were three men talking and laughing in the hallway just around the corner, thankfully going through a door by the sound of it. As of yet, they were in the clear until Ani let go of his arm and hand then, causing him to turn around as he heard a thump. She had Sherry's front against the wall, her arm behind her back with her wrist facing up in a slight contortion of the natural bend while Ani held her free arm against the woman's neck. Even though he was surprised by the quickness of the move, even though he was pissed at Sherry and Dwight alike for what happened in the forest, he still gently pulled Ani away. Although she gave him a hard and rather dirty look for doing so, Ani stepped back over to him and released Sherry, standing and glaring at the woman as she began to talk.
"Go back while you can," she told them quietly. "You know I did. Whatever he's done to you there's more. There's always more. You won't get away," she whispered. "And when you're back, it'll be worse."
"Ya lost ya reason ta fight," Ani whispered back to her, Daryl checking the hall. "We haven'."
Pulling her hand, Daryl wordlessly let Ani know it was time to go, the woman following along behind him like the lithe little thing she was. They made it to a door soon enough, Daryl looking out it and noticing the bikes out there before making a run for it while pulling her over to them. Checking to see if any had keys, a door banged open as a few Saviors exited it. Daryl grabbed Ani's arm and pull her back towards the door they'd come from only to be cut off by even more Saviors. The guy who'd brought him his last 'meal' came out of the only remaining exit they could have taken aiming Rick's own gun at them. Daryl was doing his best to keep Ani behind him even as he felt her gearing up for a fight. Her body went into a relaxed but ready stance behind him, one that meant she was ready to lash out at a moment's notice. He knew the stance well because she'd tried to teach him it, allowing him to feel the muscles in her body as she held it, though that didn't make it as far as either of them would have liked. Negan's whistling sounded around him, making Daryl bristle all the more as he tried to figure out a way to get Ani out of the situation he'd put them in.
"Are we pissin' our pants yet?"
~x~
Dwight was standing close to the exit smoking a cigarette while thinking about what Daryl had said and how hard he was fighting when Negan walked up. He'd been around to check on the little princess to see how she was doing, only to find Laura sitting outside the door with her head in her hands. Negan couldn't blame her for being a little emotional herself, seeing as how her dad had been torn away from her back at the beginning, but lessons had to be taught. He left her there to go and check on how Simon was doing on the prep work, sending the man on his way after telling him that for all intents and purposes, he was to be the Hilltop's Negan until he said otherwise. Tom and Ellie were going with him with Simon being given the express order to keep them in line and under toe. After what he had planned with Daryl a little later, he planned on taking Ani for a stroll around his kingdom so she could see how it worked. Negan wanted to give Ani a little taste of what it meant to be him and what she and Daryl had to gain by switching sides. She needed to get it through her head that this place was the best she was going to find to raise her child and the safest, too. Still, listening to Daryl trying to break down the door had been beyond gratifying for him as he walked up to Dwight and leaned against the railing next to the man.
"He is going ape-shit!" Negan said.
"Yep," Dwight said before looking down, lost in his own thoughts.
"And you, you are hustlin'. It's workin'. It's workin' slow, but, hey, man, some people are harder to break than others."
"Yeah, he's close," Dwight assured him.
"Yeah he is, so's she I'd reckon," Negan told him, thinking about how the girl had been sobbing in the room before he'd walked away. "Since you're doin' such a good job, you want a little blast from the past with you-know-who?" he asked Dwight, gauging his reaction as he spoke, chuckling as Dwight just stared at him dumbfounded. "Come on, man, I'm kidding. Lighten up. Pick whoever you want, as long as she says yes." When Dwight continued to just stare at him blankly, Negan remembered what happened the day Ani had gotten shot, "Oh crap. Are you okay down there? Your penis? I mean, that guy, he clamped on it. Or is it," Negan made a falling bomb sound while pointing downwards, causing Dwight to chuckle, "down for the count?"
"I'm fine," Dwight told him, making Negan look at him critically. "But I'm gonna pass. And I'm cool."
"Huh," Negan said. "Are you cool, though, Dwight? I mean, I just said that it's happy hour at the pussy bar and Dwight eats for free, and you're tellin' me no? Is that cool?"
"I have-haven't finished the job," Dwight stuttered. "I-I-I haven't earned it yet. Right?"
"The hell are you talking about?" Negan asked him. "You earn what you take."
Whatever he was going to say died on the tip of his tongue as one of the walkies called out, "We've got an orange situation."
"Give me that." Grabbing the walkie from Dwight, Negan stared the man down as he answered the call, "Arat, what you got? Grab-and-go?"
"Yeah, he could've only gone three ways- the moth, the angel, or the hard way," came his reply.
"Good," Negan told her, closing his eyes and sighing for a moment before Dwight took the walkie back.
"It's D. I'll meet you at the gate."
"I mean, I want my shit back," Negan told him, "but that is grunt work. Why don't you have Fat Joey do it? God knows he needs the exercise! You? You don't have to do it, Dwight."
"But I like to do it," Dwight told him, staring him straight in the eye.
Negan chuckled as he looked the man in the eye, "Good boy." With a pat on his back, he sent Dwight on his way, making his way back over to where Laura was still sitting on the floor. "Come on, let's get this done and over with."
"She's gonna come back here when you're done, right?" Laura asked, looking up at him, the crying in the room having died down a little while ago but Laura knowing what the next step for the two newest recruits would be. "She's not going in a cell?"
"Oh, come on now, you know me," Negan told her with a smile. "You know I ain't gonna be puttin' no pregnant woman in a cell. But Daryl has to learn. He has to make his choice. And whether he makes the right one that keeps her comfortable, even more so with him in there with her, or he makes one that takes its toll on her, that's up to him. I can't force his hand one way or another. And she has to break. I mean, did you see the look in her eye when we were talking? I almost believe Rick when he says she's gonna kill me."
"But you are forcing his hand, just like they forced yours," Laura countered, watching his look turn dark before looking away. "I'm just saying. We really shouldn't be doing this to them with how vulnerable she is. I mean, I get him, but do you have to do it while she watches?"
"Yes. I do. She has to see what can happen so she knows what he's riskin' by not makin' the right choice. Have her ready to beg him to kneel just so she doesn't have to see it again. We break one, we break the other."
"And if she fights? I mean, she said she has problems not breaking bones. Specifically said it like that. What if she tries to fight and we hurt the baby? What if it goes badly and one of them dies? Then what leverage do we have? You said you didn't want to risk the baby, but forcing her to watch him take a beating will put the baby at risk."
"Hey, now, he might not make that choice. Hell, he might just get here to her room and stay, see the light so to speak. We won't know until they make their moves. Which means we gotta vamoose. Let's go," Negan told her, holding his hand out to Laura only for her to look down and sigh. "I get why you want to protect her; it's hard not to want to with how small she is and how scarred she is. Hell, after seeing all that, well, still got a hard on, but damn if it ain't just a little bit smaller."
"She told me that it takes a lot to become a survivor after being a victim," Laura said, taking his hand and standing. "Said it was awesome that I managed it. I told her it takes one to know one, thinking she was in the same way I'd been, but she wasn't. But she knew anyway, just...How can someone do that to a kid?"
"I don't know," Negan said as they started down the corridor. "But I can tell you when those assholes come back, I'm making sure everyone learns why they don't lie to me and why kids are untouchable in my house."
"No, we just hurt their parents."
"Why are you like this after all this time?"
"It's obvious who was in the wrong. I don't know, I just think that a softer touch would do a hell of a lot more than a hard one with her."
"Maybe. Let's start with the hardball first, then we'll throw the curve."
"Hey, you're the boss," she told him with her hands up. "I just can't help but worry. I mean, she's really smart and all that, but she's also really emotionally vulnerable. Like she's a child who needs their security blanket to deal with things, her blanket being Daryl."
"Things get out of hand, we can always sedate her."
"Are you sure about this?"
Negan stopped and looked at Laura who looked right back at him, both contemplating each other's reactions as they watched each other before he spoke up, "Don't make me think you're goin' soft on me, Laura. Not for these assholes. The girl killed a hell of a lot of our own, more than any of the rest of them. She's threatened to kill me and everyone else who even touches Daryl. So, she's gotta learn a lesson, just like the rest of them. The only reason she's not being taught harder is because that baby in her belly is givin' her all kinds of protection right now. Remember your place."
"I know my place, sir. I'm just sympathetic, you know. Kinda reminds me of when we met, what happened after. How dad was beaten and taken away and I was stuck in that damn trailer. Still not sure what I would have done if you hadn't come back."
"My fault they found you in the first place. Had to make it right," Negan said as they waited near one of the doors to the exit, both falling silent as they watched out the window.
Negan felt absolutely no pity towards Daryl and yet, he could completely sympathize with the girl stuck in the middle of it all. Ani didn't deserve what was about to happen to her even if she had killed more of their men than anyone had ever since they'd set the Sanctuary up. It didn't change the fact that he knew his little puppets would either be trying to escape right this second or just spending what time they could together before the man was dragged away all over again. And sure enough, about twenty minutes later, Daryl was exiting the building with Ani in tow, neither looking anything other than determined. They watched as Daryl pulled the girl over to the bikes and how he attempted to keep her covered at all times when his men started coming out of the exits. With the number of his men out there with them, so keeping her out of the line of fire was impossible. Negan couldn't help the smile he got as he watched the man start panicking while having his arm in front of his wife. He was beyond excited about how things were going as he exited his own door with a whistle and Laura followed behind him. This was going to be all kinds of fun and horrible rolled into one hell hole of a hand basket, but he'd be damned if it didn't need to be done. Lessons had to be taught, period, and these two assholes wouldn't even consider trying to learn what he was trying to teach them.
Walking into the middle of the circle that had surrounded the two, he asked, "Are we pissing our pants yet?"
"Nah, why, are ya?" Ani asked, making Negan smirk as he watched Daryl's eyes go from person to person, both of them in a slightly defensive stance.
"Funny," he said before asking, "Who are you?" and pointing the bat at Fat Joey.
"Negan," the man replied.
"Who...are...you?" he quipped, pointing the bat to a man directly behind him, who immediately answered with his name. "Who are you?" he asked once again, stomping one foot and raising both arms.
"Negan," came a chorus around them, making Negan smile at Daryl.
"You see that? I am everywhere. And this was your shot to prove to me that that fundamental fact was sinkin' in and you failed," Negan told Daryl, momentarily ignoring Ani. "Which sucks because your life was about to get so much cooler. Am I right?" he asked Fat Joey.
"Damn right," he replied, making Ani scowl at him.
Negan couldn't help the bit of fun he had trying to hit Daryl's bare feet with his bat, the man barely even grunting as he moved his feet out of the way. Both he and Ani took synchronized steps back as her face darkened and Negan began chuckling before backing off. It was interesting watching the two in action, almost as if they had been doing nothing but learning the way the other moved since they'd met. He couldn't quite put his finger on them, though, as they both stared at him in contempt, the hate pouring through Ani's eyes in particular being a bit off-putting. He thought back to career night and how those kids had just stared at him with no fear in their eyes and realized just where they had learned it from, especially the little serial killer's girlfriend. The difference between the two was that when he'd threatened Rick's son, that little girl had cried out in fear. Something told him that he could make Ani do the same, but, unlike the little girl, she wouldn't be afraid to lash out and attack. A part of him really wanted to see what she could do in a fight; Rick certainly seemed to think that she was enough to threaten him. His smile only widened at the sight of her primed and ready for a fight while Daryl was just standing there trying to keep her protected.
"Now, I know Dwight gave you some options. I don't think you get it yet, so I'm gonna break it down for you," he told Daryl as Ani took a step up into the man's back. "One, you wind up on the spike and you work for me as a dead man. Two, you get out of your cell, you work for points, but you're gonna wish you were dead. Or three, you work for me, you get yourself a brand new pair of shoes and you live like a king! Get a room with your girl and all the care and food she needs for that baby! Choice seems pretty obvious. You should know, there is no door number four. This is it. This is the only way." When Daryl and Ani continued to just stare at him in contempt, he chuckled and said, "Screw it."
He raised his bat, fully prepared to just go off on Daryl yet neither Daryl nor Ani flinched even when it was within an inch of Daryl's face. Daryl didn't move a muscle and Ani twisted her body around his to where she could throw a punch, her fist was an inch away from Negan's face even as his bat was an inch away from Daryl's. She'd called his bluff with a bluff of her own that would have connected to his throat and sent him flying backwards before he could hit Daryl if he would have followed through. There was quite a difference between the way she had acted in the room and the way she was acting in the moment. Negan wondered if it had something to do with being in her husband's presence of if it was simply the fact that they had gotten so close to escaping that she was just pissed of.
"Don' fuck with me, Negan. I told ya, ya hurt my man, I will kill ya. I wasn' jokin', I wasn' makin' a threat. That was a promise," she told him in a menacing voice.
Negan knew he was quite menacing himself but realized very quickly that the girl in front of him was in no means afraid of him whatsoever. In fact, he dared to think that she was trying to make him afraid of her with that little stunt and how quickly she moved. And the punch she bluffed with; it would have landed squarely on his Adam's apple and it quite possibly could have killed him. She wouldn't back down from a fight or someone trying to intimidate her in any way, shape, or form. Then again, he had to remember that her entire past was a clusterfuck of staring down threats. It wasn't all that surprising that she barely found him as something to be feared after all of that. With the way Daryl's back was scarred up, too, he was pretty sure that he had had a similar situation to Ani's past, though no where near as bad. That was why they were resisting; Rick had been easy to break, easy to manipulate, and it had only taken a single death, a single night, and a single threat. So many people had decided to bend the knee and accept his reign and rules, many due to fear, and yet the two in front of him didn't even hide their disdain on their faces.
"Wow! You don't scare easily, do you? Neither of you?" Negan asked while backing off, a smile playing on his face at the bold ferocity of the tiny little lady that barely came up past his shoulders; she barely came up to Daryl's chin. "I love that! But Lucille? Well, it kinda pisses her off. She finds it to be disrespectful. Lucky for y'all, she's not feeling too thirsty today. But I am," he said quietly. "So, I'm gonna get me a drink," he told them almost as if he was telling a joke. "Laura, get our little Ani and bring 'er along. She don't need to be a part of what happens next."
"Come on," Laura said, grabbing Ani's elbow as the men started closing in around her and Daryl.
Ani easily broke the hold Laura had on her arm before she whipped around in a roundhouse kick and managed to get one man down before Negan and Laura were both holding onto her arms in wrist locks. She fought as hard as she could to get back to Daryl as they tried to drag her away while Daryl squared up. She knew there was no way he could fight nine men who had the height, the weight, the muscle, and the numbers against him. Ani had to help him, tried to get free of the hold the two of them had on her, tried to get to Daryl as she watched the men converge on him, but she couldn't get out of the holds. If it was just one side, she would be able to break the hold and do something to get back to him, but two sides was just too difficult. She kept fighting, though, even as she saw Daryl landing the first punch against one of the Saviors before the rest started beating him. She broke free of Laura's grip as threats and curses poured from her lips, managing to make it three steps towards Daryl before Negan gave the woman a nod and Laura kicked out her knee. Ani almost fell if it weren't for the hold Negan had on her, tweaking her shoulder in the process and giving them a chance to get her back under control.
"Now, I tried to make it to where you didn't see this," Negan told her as Daryl got caught in barrage of fists. "But you just had to fight, didn't you. This is what happens when you don't follow the rules. This is what happens when you don't make the right choice. Is this really the life you want for him? For your baby?" he asked her, watching as Daryl was knocked to the ground. "Make the right choice. Kneel. Make him kneel, and everything in that room stays yours. It can be his too. Make the right choice," he told her as Daryl was knocked unconscious, "and this will never have to happen again."
"Yeah," Ani said, her voice dripping with venom and barely contained rage. "Until the next time it happens, and the next, and the next. Ya neva could keep a promise, Negan, could ya? That's why ya ran away from 'er in 'er time a need. 'Cause ya couldn' keep ya promises ta 'er in the before, and ya didn' want ta face the responsibility a it in the afta. Ya a coward, Negan. A coward who ran away like the little bitch 'e is."
Negan and Laura both inhaled sharply, though for different reasons; it was a pretty damn quick way to get on the man's shit list. No one but him really knew the full truth about what had happened except for the man himself, and anyone who did know anything only knew he'd lost his first wife. Negan's inhale because of how precisely shit hit the nail on the head started a rougher treatment than necessary. He accidentally scraped Lucille across her face, cutting her in several spots during the ensuing struggle, but they managed to get her back into the compound. By the time they'd gotten back to the room he'd kept her in and called for Carson, he had gotten two more Saviors to help him with her. They held her down as the doctor gave her a shot before tending to the wounds on her face, most likely going to have a scar by her lip and her eyebrow after being stitched up. Negan attempted to apologize, truly feeling sorry for having roughed her up a bit, but the cold glare he got in return had him sighing. There was nothing he could do if she was unwilling to learn the lesson aside from hope that Daryl learned his. Because the day after tomorrow, well, no one was there to pay her way, and if she couldn't listen, well, they simply couldn't waste so many resources. The two needed to make the right choice sooner rather than later if they didn't want worse to happen.
Negan had to admit she was a fighter as it took at least twenty minutes for the sedative to work, the man helping to catch her as she finally succumbed to the drug and pitched forward as the rest of the men backed off. Carefully tucking her into bed, Negan left the room with Laura caring for the girl who would sleep through the night until morning. He made himself comfortable in the early morning hours in the chair in her room just watching her as he thought of what he wanted to say. She was smart enough to sniff out any lie he told her, and even smarter still to be able to uncover what he had been hiding. How she'd uncovered it was surprising, too; she'd literally taken what little she'd heard from others, what little she knew about him, and somehow extrapolated the better part of his life's story. He wondered if telling her more of the truth would get her to understand what he was trying to build and how.
~x~
Daryl came to sore as all hell and back in his cell, but he was still clothed, though, so at least he had something to be happy about. That happiness was short lived when he remembered that Negan had grabbed a hold of Ani after she'd tried to help him, shoving that bat in her face after she managed to get loose. He couldn't help the anger that raged inside of him, followed by the hopelessness at the fact that he'd led Ani into that situation, all but delivered her up to that sick bastard. And now he was right back where he started and Ani was most likely right back in that room, probably with even more guards than before. Hopefully they would continue to take pity on the pregnant woman and allow him to be the only one to suffer; his body sore but thankfully without broken bones. The last thing he wanted was for her to get hurt from his decisions, but it seemed that that was all that had been happening to her lately. Somewhere in the dark corners of his mind, he started thinking that she'd probably be better off without him, but those words she'd told him one too many times herself. Daryl had to shake those thoughts off, reminding himself that they had a baby on the way and the two of them needed him.
"Daryl?" Sherry's voice called from the other side of the door; he'd assumed it was another one of the Saviors. "There's so many things I wish I had never found out. I wish I didn't try..." she sobbed, Daryl listening silently. "Back in the woods, after I lost Tina...when we took your stuff, and we decided to go back. I told you I was sorry. And you said, 'You're gonna be.' You were right. I am."
She walked off then, leaving him with his own thoughts of what happened in those woods while they were trying to escape from Negan, apparently. Back in the woods, he'd been so ready to take them in, take them back to Alexandria, to be helpful, but they'd betrayed everything they stood for to come back to this place. He felt like he was back in his dad's house, being beaten and berated until he acted just like his dad wanted him to. The drugs he'd taken, drinking from an early age, it'd all been to make his dad accept him and stop beating him, to make Merle accept him. Now it was back to the same; be beaten down and dragged through the dirt to come out being the same as the asshole doing it. A part of him felt like the same little boy that had been locked in the coat closet while his dad and his buddies got high and drunk and pounded on the door. He'd cried the first few times they'd done it, but just like he was now, eventually he just stared and waited for it to be over. He started dozing off without realizing it until the same damn song they'd been playing randomly since he'd gotten there started blaring and startled him back awake. It barely even bothered him this time as the door opened and Dwight stepped in, trying to hand him some of the same shit they'd been feeding him since he got here.
When he didn't take it, turning his head to ignore the man's presence, Dwight tossed it on the floor and told him, "Eat." After a short pause he said, "You got your friend killed. I got Tina killed. And don't pretend like you don't know the score." Daryl couldn't help but grab the shit sandwich and toss it back up at Dwight, hitting him in the chest and causing him to squat down and practically spit at Daryl, "You should be dead. But Negan's taken a shine to you and your wife. You're lucky, don't forget." Taking a picture out of his pocket, he taped it to the wall and left the cell with a, "Bon appetit."
Daryl threw the picture on the ground before really looking at it, picking it up and flipping it over to realize what it was. Everything about the night Glenn died came flaring back into his brain as he looked at the polaroid in his hands, images he'd been keeping at bay in exchange for concentrating on Ani and the baby and escaping. But now he was right back on his knees, Ani's unconscious form laying in front of him, as Negan's bat hit the ground over and over again until the only thing recognizable about Glenn was his clothes. Daryl did his best to push the thoughts down all over again, to push down the guilt, but music began blasting out again, though it wasn't 'Easy Street' like it had been, but Roy Orbison's 'Crying.' Listening to the lyrics and looking at the picture, he couldn't help it as he started breaking down. Between Denise, Glenn, and Ani being in the situation she was in, all those choices were his to own, his mistakes to carry. He cried until he puked, passing out close to the door shortly thereafter, only coming to when he was roughly grabbed by Dwight brought to the doctor. He could tell it was early morning by the rays that were shining through the window, but how long had he been passed out in the cell before he'd woken up, and how long had he been passed out since, there was no telling. He was given a shot of antibiotics and told if he hadn't worked himself up so much and just listened to Negan, he'd be in perfect health by now. Daryl didn't say or do anything as he listened to the doctor, thinking that he was telling the truth in a way. It wasn't until Dwight roughly took him to the room with the red door that he even began to show any kind of concern. He was so scared that Ani wouldn't be in that room or that he would see her hurt or find out the baby had been lost during the fight.
"Step in," Dwight told him, pushing him inside.
He tried to take a step towards Ani, who was sleeping on the bed, some scratches and cuts on her own face, but Dwight was quick to pull him away. Negan was sitting in a chair close to the end of the bed, a TV on an entertainment center against the wall off to the side of him. It really was a nice room considering it had been refurbished from some sort of room from the factory, perhaps a break room. But looking at Ani lying on that bed, seeing her face all cut up, one of the few places on her body that she'd managed to keep relatively free of scars, he'd ruined that. She'd only had the one scar on her chin before this and now she would have a few that were more noticeable that the small crescent mark. Daryl did his best to fight the rage building inside him as he looked at his sleeping wife with the bastard who'd marked her face up sitting so close to her. It might have been his piss poor decisions that had caused everything to happen, but it was Negan who had physically harmed her. Just like it was Dwight that had killed Denise even though it was his choice to take her outside of Alexandria to begin with. The blame was placed squarely on his shoulders even if he hadn't been the one to pull the trigger or do harm to the others.
"Ahh," Negan said as he stood, looking at his men's handiwork. "Jesus. You...look awful. Don't you worry. We'll have Carson fix you all up. I imagine you've already been to see him. You thirsty? Here," he said, handing Daryl a glass of water, which he took but didn't drink from. "Ah, hell, I forgot. Your mouth is all puffed up like a baboon's ass. Need a straw? D, get him a straw. What's wrong with you?" Daryl bristled all over again at his name being used for someone else, sullying her voice calling him that, as Dwight walked past and Negan leaned in, "See that guy? He hustles. I like hustle. But believe it or not, things weren't always cool between us. See, D here—he worked for points," Negan told him as Dwight dropped a straw in the glass of water Daryl was holding. "Him and his super hot wife and her super hot sister. But see sis, she needed meds. And that shit is hard to scavenge, so it costs more. Sis fell behind on points, so I asked her to marry me. Told her I would take care of her in sickness and in health and blah blah blah, much like you did our little Sleeping Beauty over there," he said as Daryl glared at him; Ani was his wife, not theirs.
"Sorry 'bout her face, by the way. She is one hell of a fighter, much stronger than she looks, too. I mean, one kick K.O. to one of my guys, took Lucille gettin' in her face to stop her from strugglin' so much so we could drag her away, and even then, needed more guys to keep her in line. Had to sedate her to keep her from gettin' too stressed and harmin' the baby. Anyways, back to Dwight. Sis says she'll think about my proposal and because I am a stand up guy, I tell her sure, fine, okay. Next thing you know, I'm dealing with an orange situation. Dwighty boy here stole all the medication and took off with his super hot wife and my super hot maybe soon-to-be fiancée," Negan told Daryl, tapping his bat hard enough on the floor to make a loud sound that had Ani groan and move on the bed, rolling onto her side from her back. Everyone looked to the sleeping girl as she settled back down, Negan continuing his story, "So I had to send my guys after him. Because I can't let something like that stand. There...are...rules."
"Cost me an arm and a leg goin' after him. And you know what—Dwighty boy? He still got away. But here's the thing, D, he saw the light. He manned up. He came back. He asked for my forgiveness. I like that. Made me...take notice," he said with a flare of his hand. "But Lucille. Well...you know how she is. She is a stickler for the rules. So, Dwight...he begged me not to kill Sherry, which I thought was kinda cute so I was just gonna kill him. But then Sherry says that she will marry me if I let Dwight live. Which if you think about it, that's a pretty screwed up deal 'cause I was gonna marry her sister until she wound up dead, but," Negan sung out, "Sherry is super hot. Anyways, it was a start. But it wasn't enough. So Dwight...he got the iron. And then I married his super hot wife," Negan chuckled and turned toward Dwight. "Ex-wife. And then after all that, he still got on board. And now look at him! Pow! One of my top guys! We're totally cool. The point being, I think you can be that guy," Negan told Daryl. "I think you are ready to be that guy. You look around here, this room I've been keepin' little Ani looked after in. This, well, it could all be yours. The both of yours. Baby's too when the time comes. You could live together, raise your baby in peace and with everything he'd need. All you gotta do is answer one...simple...question. Who are you?"
He could keep her safe, a guarantee not to have to fight anymore for her, a guarantee of her being provided for. Sure, he might have to follow a douchebag, but he could keep her safe, keep the baby safe and it would just cost him his identity in front of this man. It wasn't like he hadn't lost his identity to another before; between his dad and Merle, he hadn't had much of an identity to begin with until the world ended. Merle might not have been as bloodthirsty as the man in front of him, but he'd certainly done everything and anything Merle had told him to within reason. Daryl looked at Ani on the bed, a small smile on her face as she nuzzled into the pillow she was holding. As Negan talked and asked him again who he was, her words came thundering in his ears, pleading with him that no matter what they said, what they promised, he wouldn't let them change him. He'd promised her he wouldn't let them change him, and even if it meant keeping her relatively safe, he couldn't break that promise. He already knew that no place was truly safe and she would rather take her chances with him on the road than give up who she was. In the end, when Negan's patience with his silence was fed up and he'd brought Lucille up close to his face, all Daryl could do was raise his head to look Negan in the eye.
"Daryl," he answered.
"Oh, this is the only-" Dwight began, thoroughly miffed that Daryl would continue to take the hard road, the high road, when the perfect out, the perfect end to everything he and the girl were going through, had just been handed to him on a silver platter.
"Hey, sst, sst," Negan stopped him. "It's cool, D. He made his choice. Ain't my problem if he made a dumbass choice. Take him back to his cell."
Daryl resisted the entire way back to his cell, especially after seeing the way Ani's brow furrowed and her breathing changed. He knew he had promised her that he wouldn't let himself fall to the cult this place created, that he wouldn't change and become what they wanted him to. He'd be damned if he wasn't even going to try to keep that promise just because the easy way out had been offered. He was a Dixon, dammit, and Dixons didn't take the easy way out when their blood was on the line, let alone their family. It might be the easy way out on the surface, but what would it cost them when they needed more than they were getting? What happened when they were split up because Negan decided one of them needed to go to a different outpost? What if he made one of them go and 'teach a lesson' to another settlement and they really had to become the monsters Ani was so adamant she didn't want to be? Even if it was the safest route in theory there was no guarantee it would be in practice. Dwight all but all but threw Daryl into the tiny cell, forcing him to step over the mess on the floor from earlier. Daryl simply sat down, everything that had been playing in his head completely drowned out by determination.
"You're gonna wind up in that room, or hangin' on the fence!" Dwight yelled at him.
He could feel his lip and nose start bleeding again while he stared at Dwight as the man turned to leave, quietly saying, "I get why did it. Why you took it. You were thinkin' 'bout someone else. That's why I can't."
"If you were thinkin' about that girl, you would just bend the knee," Dwight told him.
"Like you did? And where's your girl now?"
Dwight simply looked at him before turning away and locking the door while Daryl breathed deeply, trying to steady his racing heart. Whatever she was seeing behind those eyes, whatever the sedative they'd given her was making her dream at the end, she was still being treated well. Well, as well as she could be given the fact that she had been roughed up bad enough that she was going to have a few scars on her face. If that was the worst that she'd suffered because of his desire to escape with her before they really had any kind of plan, he would take it. He, by and far, would rather take a thousand beatings than let her take even what little damage she had. Daryl was berating himself for his momentary loss of control, his momentary lack of courage to just stand up for her as the song started playing again. He was so pissed off that he growled and closed his eyes with his hands over his ears, trying to hold onto the anger he was feeling and more sure of himself than ever that he would never bow to Negan.
~x~
"The point being, I think you can be that guy," she heard Negan say to someone. "I think you are ready to be that guy. You look around here, this room I've been keepin' little Ani looked after in. This, well, it could all be yours. Both of yours. You could live together, raise your baby in peace and with everything he'd need. All you gotta do is answer one...simple...question. Who are you?"
Daryl, she thought as she tried to force her eyes open but only managing to nuzzle into something soft and sigh, thinking she heard his voice. All she could think about was him being beside her in that moment as her mind conjured up his scent, his touch, his warmth. The dream that engulfed her was so bittersweet, Daryl holding her while looking down on their newborn son. It was made even sweeter when she heard Daryl's voice calling out her name, whispering it in her ear as he kissed her shoulder. A part of her knew he wasn't there, knew she wasn't anywhere near he was, after being taken from him by force. Her breathing started to come out harshly as her dream turned into Daryl being beat to death by faceless men while her baby was ripped from her arms by Tom and Ellie. She was stuck in a box as they were both torn away from her while she was helpless to even try to help them. Ani could barely breathe as she felt someone grabbing her shoulder, in her dream shaking her violently as she tried to open her eyes again.
"You there sweetheart?" she heard someone ask.
"Daryl?" she asked.
"Wrong man, beautiful, but good guess," Negan answered as her eyes finally opened and the nightmare was thrown to the back of her mind.
"Where is 'e?"
"Not here. Didn't want to listen to the status quo so we had to send him back to his little hellhole."
"He ain' eva goin' ta bend ta ya. Hell, there's only one way 'e bends ta me. I don' care what ya got ta offa, I don' eva want 'im ta change who 'e is jus' 'cause we're in a rough spot."
Negan took a deep breath before changing the subject in an attempt to remain civil after the fiasco in the parking lot, "Earlier, I got a little rough with you. I apologize. You've got some mouth on you, though."
"Didn' say nothin' that wasn' true," she told him, rolling on her back.
"You sure about that?"
"Yeah, I'm pretty damn sure. Reason ya got so many wives? 'Cause ya couldn' stay true ta the one that died in all this. The one that turned. The only one ya really loved. So now ya jus' give 'em all what they need ta live, ta be comfy, but ya get ta bed whicheva one is ya favorite wheneva ya want, right?"
"Damn, you are smart. It's just you and me here, so I'll tell you my little secret. Once upon a time, I was married. I cheated on her. Stayed with a friend of hers late into the night when she needed to get an MRI done. Found out she had cancer when I got home and damn if I didn't feel like a dick. I'd lost my job 'cause some asshole at a bar couldn't keep his mouth shut and I had one too many. Said asshole happened to have kids that went to the school I worked for. Now, she's stuck payin' fines that fell on my head while I'm a jobless mooch sittin' on her couch playin' video games. Made me feel less of a man. So I found a woman who wasn't happy with her man and let her make me feel like I was man. Needless to say, as soon as I found out about the cancer, I was done with that other woman," Negan told her, looking down and truly ashamed as she watched him, gauging his reason for telling her all this.
"Then when everything went to hell, she had her treatments. They had her on a schedule and it was easy enough to keep to. Had the medicine and everything was going good, until it didn't. Supposed to keep the medicine cool and kept the generator goin'. Woke up one morning to the medicine gone warm. She begged me to stay. Told me she knew about the affair and everything. I was a coward. I left her to find the medicine only to come home and find she killed herself rather than wait for me. Tied herself to the bed, and I sat there listening to her tryin' to get to me for the longest time. Rather than killin' her myself, I set the house on fire and went back to right the other wrongs I made gettin' the meds she needed all over again in the first place. That's where I met Laura," he told her. "Well, the journey to get the meds. But she had some not so great experiences because I was such a coward I couldn't just stay.
"That is why I'm truly shocked that you would love Daryl so much when he would not chose this lifestyle for you, this safety," Negan told her, watching her reactions as she smiled softly.
"'Cause 'e promised me," she told him.
"What?"
"He promised me when 'e told me where we were goin', when 'e told me we were goin' ta meet 'em. Nothin's goin' ta make 'im change," Ani told him. "Ya kill me, ya take our baby, he's jus' goin' ta fight ya worse, same goes for me, though I'll go for the kill in whateva way I can. It's easy ta figya out how ta ruffle ya feathas. Ya wear ya emotions on ya sleeves. I get that ya shite cracked when ya wife died. That don' give ya a right ta treat people like ya slaves. Ta beat people ta death jus' ta make a point. What point are ya makin'? That ya unfit ta lead and as soon as someone betta comes around, someone who can offa them a betta way a life, ya goin' ta be left high and dry, Negan. The way ya runnin' things. How many runnas ya had? How many have caught a beatin' and died unda ya watch? Ya really think ya goin' ta be able ta keep in control jus' 'cause ya scare people?"
"I don't scare you."
"Nah, ya don'."
"But Tom and Ellie do."
"They did 'til I got 'ere. They threatened Daryl, threatened Little D. I ain' lettin' that go. Got a reason ta fight."
"But could you?"
"Could I what?"
"Fight them?"
"Would ya really make me do that knowin' I'm pregnant and knowin' they wanna kill it?"
"Like I said, could you fight them? Do you think you're strong enough to take them on and keep that baby in your belly?"
"I know I could."
"Yet you let 'em go once," Negan goaded.
"I didn' let 'em go, the woman in charge a Alexandria at the time exiled 'em. The only reason they're still standin' now is 'cause I didn' know they were there. They came out a nah where and ambushed me 'fore they flipped the switch and had me unable ta fight back 'fore I could even try ta. I was able ta defend, but I wasn' able ta get in a propa stance. And once my head was cut all ta hell, there wasn' much I could do ta fight. So I jus' kept myself defended. Did what I could, ya know?"
"I can believe it. You know I used to be a gym teacher. That's what I did before all this. I had a few kids I called in about. Ones that were always bruised up. Ones that were always tryin' to hide a little too much so that they were noticeable. There were always signs to be seen," Negan told her.
"And always stories ta be told."
"Ain't that the truth. I am sorry, for what happened. But so you know, Daryl has made his choice. Soon enough, you're gonna have to make yours. You can either have this room with 'im, or I can start beatin' him daily while you watch. All you have to do is answer one simple question. Not right now. I've got a few matters to attend to. Just, mull it over," he told her, getting up and leaving the room as Laura came back in with some food. "I'll give you the day. Tomorrow, well, that's another story."