Chapter Nine

When You Need Me

The next day wasn't a good day. Possibly even the worst day I'd had so far.

I had gotten out of bed and started getting dressed for the gym, excited to meet Laura. As I pulled on a pair of spandex workout shorts, I started absentmindedly humming. I pulled the shorts up and grabbed a sports bra from the dresser, jerking it over my head.

Recognition hit me as I looked around for a pair of tennis shoes. The song. When You Need Me.

I stared at my reflection as my dad ran the brush through my hair. He had come to see if I was ready to leave, and saw me sitting at my vanity, freaking out. So, he'd picked up the brush and started untangling the mess that was my hair.

His eyes met mine in the mirror and a soft smile pulled at his lips. His deep voice filled the space around us as he sang, calming my nerves.

"If you miss me, I'll be there

To brush the sunlight from your hair

I'll be there to guide you, when trouble walks beside you

If you need me, I'll be there

And when this dirty world, has been cold to you

I got two strong arms, oh waitin' to hold you

And when those mean days come along

We'll stand together and we'll take 'em on

So if you need me, just call my name."

He had sung this same song to me a hundred times and every time, it made me smile. Today, though, was different. I was leaving home. And while I was excited to start college, the thought of leaving my family behind scared me.

My fingers tapped nervously on my knees.

"I'm scared, dad."

"I know, sweetheart. It's a big move, but it's going to be worth it."

"I just don't want to leave you guys," I mumbled, trying hard not to let the tears in my eyes spill over.

His eyes made contact with mine in the mirror again.

"You can always come home, baby. Whenever you want. I'll come get you. It's only a nine hour drive," he said as he sat the brush down and kissed the top of my head. "Your mom and I will always be here, Piper."

I felt the numbness creep back in and I crawled back into my bed, pulling the thick comforter over my head. And I laid there, bouncing between letting memories filter back in and sobbing when it was too much. I don't know how long I stayed like that before finally falling into a restless sleep, the dreams not much better than my reality.

Eventually, a sound pulled me from my sleep. I jerked the blanket off my head and looked around the room in a tired haze. No one was in here.

A soft knock sounded from the bedroom door causing me to jump a little. I stared at the door for a moment, willing the person on the other side to go away. A few seconds of silence had me rolling over to face the wall that my bed was pushed up against. I pulled the blanket over my head and curled into a ball underneath it.

The knock sounded again, but I couldn't find it in me to move or even yell out and demand they leave me alone. It felt like the life had been sucked out of me.

I had struggled with depression as a teenager. I'd been medicated and that had helped. Eventually I'd started therapy and was able to do without the medication for a while.

But this wasn't that. This was a deep, hollow ache in my chest and that only intensified when I thought about it too much. This was grieving in the worst possible way.

I knew that everyone in this new world had lost someone, suffered from something, but what I couldn't figure out was how those people got up everyday and just carried on. Even the days that weren't so bad, days when I could laugh at a joke Eleanor had told or smile at someone I passed in the hall, sat on my heart with a crushing weight.

I was alive. I was working out and talking to people and living in a relatively safe place. And my family was dead. All of them and it was my fault.

"Wildflower?"

My body tensed, my thoughts pulling back to the present. I held my breath, willing Negan to take the hint and leave. I hadn't even heard the door open.

How the fuck did he get in here?

"I know you're awake, doll," Negan breathed out, his voice sounding concerned.

I knew that if I tried to speak, I would just start crying again. I could feel my throat constrict and the tears were already building up behind my eyelids. So I just stayed where I was, wrapped in my little cocoon of misery.

I heard Negan sigh and shuffle around the room for a second. Something heavy hit the floor and I felt the blanket lift from my back. Before I could let out a groan of protest, I felt his warmth at my back as he slid into my bed. The cover dropped again, returning me to my darkness, and his arm slid around my waist. I felt his breath on the back of my neck as he settled his head on my pillow.

"Do you want to talk about it?" He murmured, his fingers splaying across my stomach.

I shook my head, keeping my eyes tightly closed.

I didn't want him to know about the bad days. I wanted to be strong and angry, not pathetic and clinically depressed.

I felt Negan burrow in closer to me, his arms tightening around me as his hand pressed harder on my stomach to pull me into him. The smell of leather and him filled the air around me, grounding me, for some reason. I kept my eyes closed and dozed off again at some point.

Until I was pulled from sleep again by soft snores in my ear. Negan was still behind me with his face buried in my hair and his arm loosely draped across my waist. His long legs were wrapped in mine. His long body was too big for this little ass bed.

A soft smile pulled up my mouth for a second. I'd always told him that he'd snored and he had always vehemently denied it.

I slowly rolled over, careful not to wake him. When I was facing him, I took the time to look over his face. His lips were slightly parted and his face looked so relaxed. The scruffle along his chin was slightly longer than what he normally let it get. There were more white hairs visible, sprinkled in with the black, which made me smile again. He hated them, said that it made him look older than he was, but I always liked the way it contrasted to his dark hair. My eyes continued to take him in, landing on his normally slicked back hair that was messy right now, falling across his forehead.

It should be illegal to be this fucking handsome. Like the Ken doll of the apocalypse.

The thought made me laugh a little. I tentatively pulled my hand up to his face and ran my fingers along his beard before lightly tracing his lips. They were so soft. I smiled again when I remembered the first time I had kissed him.

It was the fourth time he'd come to Purcellville. It was hot as hell outside and he had found me lying in the same spot in the field of wildflowers, on a blanket, reading a book. Brendan had left for a few days, leaving me to do whatever I wanted in that time.

Negan had laid beside me and made me read to him, saying it had been a rough week and he'd just wanted to hear my voice for a while. At some point his leather jacket had come off and was thrown next to Lucille beside us. He'd scooted closer to me until our arms were touching and he'd closed his eyes. When I had glanced over at him thirty minutes later, I'd realized he was asleep. Laughing to myself, I'd set the book down and moved his arm so I could lay my head on his chest. We'd never done anything like that before, but I wanted to just feel him.

I had felt him shift slightly and his arm wrapped my shoulders, pulling me closer. I had started to stutter out an apology for waking him up when he'd grabbed my chin and pulled my face up to his, placing a kiss on my lips that had wiped all intelligent thought out of my body.

He had been right last night. I couldn't have faked any of that, even if I wanted to. He had been my escape, my little slice of heaven while I was clawing to get out of hell.

"Are you watching me sleep, wildflower?" Negan's deep, rough voice asked, pulling me from the memory.

My eyes bounced up to his quickly. His amber orbs were only halfway open, sleep still dragging them down slightly. His mouth had drifted up into an easy smile. My heart started beating frantically as I searched for something to say.

"I was actually just thinking that I like you so much more when you're not talking. It's super peaceful," I said, deciding that snarky was a safe territory to stay in.

He let out a low laugh and closed his eyes again, nuzzling his face into my neck. My hand, that I still hadn't put back down after being caught touching him, instinctively snaked around to the back of his head and rested in his hair.

"You always smell so good. Like sunshine and flowers," he mumbled against my skin, breathing in deep.

"Are you trying to butter me up for something?"

"No, ma'am. Just making sure that you know how delicious you smell," he chuckled.

My fingers started scratching at Negan's scalp while I absentmindedly played with his hair. If I tried hard enough to imagine it, it was like we were back in my tiny bed, in my room, and he had snuck in like to sleep next to me.

This didn't change anything between us. I was still hurt, even though he told me that he hadn't meant anything he said, but I was grateful he'd gotten in bed with me. It helped, more than I wanted to admit. And I just wanted to feel him for a second.

Negan let out a low groan, causing me to shiver.

"You keep doing that, doll, and I'll never get out of this fucking bed."

I laughed and pulled my fingers out of his hair, playfully shoving his shoulder.

"What time is it?" I asked.

Negan pulled his head out of my neck and brought one of his wrists up to his face, squinting his eyes and looking at his watch.

"Fuck. It's three in the morning." He grumbled dropping his hand to his face and rubbing at his eyes. "I didn't mean to sleep that long."

"Your body probably needed it," I reassured him, for whatever reason, "But also I'm really hungry. I didn't eat yesterday. And no, I don't want to eat you or you to eat me or any variation of dirty things you can come up with. I want actual real life food, please."

Negan looked at me, surprise coloring his features before he let out a loud laugh.

"I forget how well you know me sometimes," he said, untangling himself from me and getting out of bed.

I felt the coldness replace his warmth and it was disappointing to say the least. The disappointment quickly disappeared as I watched him stretch in front of me. His arms reached for the ceiling and his shirt rose up, showing some of his stomach and his happy trail disappearing underneath the dark jeans that sat low on his hips.

I am no better than a fucking man.

I pushed the blanket off of me and pushed myself to my knees, crawling to the edge of the bed that he was standing in front of. He stopped mid stretch when I climbed off the bed and his eyes slowly flowed down my body. I was still wearing the black sports bra and black workout shorts I had intended to go to the gym in.

"Fuck," he muttered, turning his back to find his shoes.

I smiled to myself.

"You want some spaghetti? I'll make it," he offered, pulling his boots on.

"You know how to cook?" I asked, finally locating some flip flops that I usually used to shower in.

Negan laughed and looked back at me. "It's spaghetti, doll. Everyone knows how to make spaghetti."

"False. I've had some real bad spaghetti before. We'll see if yours is worth a shit," I responded, patting his cheek as I walked around him towards the door.

His hand reached out and grabbed my wrist. I looked up at him in confusion.

"Are you going to put a shirt on something?" He asked, his other hand gesturing towards my clothes.

"Do you have something against shorts and sports bras?" I asked back, raising an eyebrow.

"No, definitely pro all of fucking this," he said dramatically, his hand doing a frantic downward motion at my body, "but there might be people awake. And this doesn't exactly cover much."

I smiled at him, as sweet as I could.

"Negan, I will fully commit to prancing around this place in my birthday suit, if I want to. This covers all of the important parts. It's what I wear to workout. You, sweet boy, do not get to tell me what I can wear in public," I patted his cheek again, just to be extra condescending.

With that I jerked my wrist out of his hand and opened the door, motioning for him to exit the room.

I could see the annoyance on his face, but he made a smart decision and kept his big ass mouth shut.

"You're the actual fucking worst sometimes," he muttered, walking out of my room.

"And I do believe you like it," I responded cheerfully, following behind him.

Negan's spaghetti, much to my surprise, was, in fact, worth a shit. It was really good. While he had cooked, we hadn't talked about anything important. Not about Brendan or the fact that I had stayed in bed for the better part of 22 hours crying over my family. We definitely didn't talk about everything he'd told me the night before last.

We talked about absolutely everything else. It felt… normal. Like how we had been before everything. We never ran out of something to talk about, mainly thanks to Negan. The man could hold a conversation with a brick wall.

As we shoveled spaghetti into our mouths at the island Ms. Ellie and I always sat at in the kitchen, he still managed to talk around the noodles in his mouth.

"What do you think of this place?" He asked, waving his fork around in the air for a second.

"It's cool. I think you could definitely do some extra things."

"Like what?"

"I think we should start expanding the fence line. Maybe reinforcing it some. The chainlink is good for the time being, but we could really build that shit up. Kinda like at Purcellville, but better. Like, reinforce the fuck out of it until it's completely solid. But also, we could totally start putting some buildings around the factory. People keep being brought in, but Ms. Ellie said we were slowly starting to run out of space to put them. Also, would it kill someone to put up some drywall around here and paint it? The factory offers a solid protection that's real hard to find now, but it's so gray that it just makes me sad. I feel like I'm trapped in a tomb sometimes," I responded, still shoving food in my face.

"Oh, and you know what else? We should build an actual barn. For the animals and maybe have a back part to it as storage or something. Maybe like a solid area for a small school, too? Ms. Ellie said that there was a room that was pretty big, but it was hard to fit all the kids in it. I think having a larger building for them would be good. Plus it would get them out of here. We should totally make a run to a Home Depot or something and get a little playground for them." I was rambling, but I hadn't realized until my eyes finally left my spaghetti and looked up to Negan's, who was watching me with an amused expression on his face.

"What?" I mumbled.

"We? Does that mean that after we finish what we need to, you plan on sticking around here?" He asked, sitting his fork on his plate.

I paused for a moment, my head slightly tilting.

"Where else would I go?"

His eyebrows drew together for a second.

"Anywhere you want, doll. I'm not holding you captive. You can leave, if and when you ever want to. But it kinda sounds like you wanna stay here," he smiled after the last sentence. A genuine smile.

"I… I don't know what I want right now. But I do think I'd want to stay here." I responded.

"Good."

And then he returned back to eating, slipping in questions about the list of ideas I'd given him. While I knew Negan was a good leader, he didn't seem to know a lot about his people. And I didn't really either, but talking to Ms. Ellie over the last few weeks had garnered me a lot of information about the residents at the Sanctuary.

When we finished eating, I washed the dishes at the large sink and Negan dried them and put them away. We were quiet finally, the only sound was the clinking of dishes.

"Why did you come to my room earlier?" I whispered.

I almost thought he didn't hear me, until he set a plate in the dish rack to his right and then turned to look at me.

"I had been waiting for you to find me, so I could show you where you'd be working, but you never did. I figured you just didn't want to see me, but then Laura came to my office and asked if you were okay. She told me that she was supposed to meet you in the gym for training, and you never showed. I got… nervous. So I went looking for you, to make sure you were okay." His tone was low as he spoke, and he did so slowly, like he was trying to not scare off a frightened deer.

I glanced over at him before scrubbing a pan that was already clean.

"I wasn't okay," I whispered again.

I felt the heat from his body as he stepped closer to me, until his chest was pressed to my arm. One hand came to rest on my lower back, while the other lightly pressed against my cheek and turned my head towards him.

"Do those days happen a lot?" He asked, obvious concern in his eyes.

"A few times a week, maybe. This week has been pretty okay. Except for yesterday. That was actually probably the worst day I've had since I've been here," I murmured, keeping my eyes on his.

He nodded his head slowly, his eyebrows pinching together.

"I want you to come to me on the bad days. Come tell me and lay in my bed. I'll leave you there, alone, unless you need me with you, but I want to be able to make sure you're okay. Do you think you can do that?" He asked, his intense eyes staying locked on my face.

I nodded my head, not trusting myself to open my mouth.

"Do you need to talk about what made yesterday bad?"

His thumb brushed over my cheek.

I shook my head and my eyes fell.

How can I explain that something so small had started a downward spiral?

He just looked at me for a second.

"When Lucille died, I would have bad days too. Some days I was okay, some days I wanted to punch fucking walls. It's okay to grieve them, Piper. I don't want you to force yourself to be okay if you're not."

I nodded my head, my voice breaking as I said, "Thank you, Negan."

He pressed a quick kiss to my forehead that took me by surprise.

"Are you tired?" he asked.

"Not even remotely," I responded, feeling relieved that he changed the subject.

"Good. Let me show me where you'll be working."

We finished the dishes and I followed him from the kitchen and across the factory. We were quiet as we walked, falling into an easy silence, which was a nice change of pace with Negan.

We finally reached a set of white double doors and Negan walked through them, holding one open for me. We were in a large room with floor to ceiling factory windows on two of the walls. The windows definitely needed to be cleaned, but I filed that away for another day, when I could figure out exactly how to reach the windows at the top of the ridiculously high walls.

There were work tables everywhere throughout the large room, along with stools at them. A small row of counters and cabinets lined one half of the wall opposite the windows, with a sink. I scanned the boxes stacked on the shelves there. Protective gear.

I started walking around the room, taking in all the boxes. It was all here. Everything I fucking needed to produce mass amounts of ammo. Boxes and boxes of empty bullet casings, multiple manual reloading machines, motor drives, scales, gauges, primer tubes and trays, conversion parts, and over one hundred boxes of different gunpowder. I was like a kid in a fucking candy shop as I read through all of the boxes.

"Holy shit, Negan. Holy fucking shit. Do you know what I can do with all of this? Do you have any fucking idea?" I asked, practically vibrating out of my skin as I took everything in, "This is so much better than the set up that Brendan gave me. So much fucking better!"

I turned my head to find Negan, who was leaning against the wall beside the door, watching me with a grin on his face.

Fuck. Those dimples.

"You're so fucking cute when you're excited," he said.

"Focus, Negan. I'm about to supply you with bullets for every type of gun you could possibly find. Not to mention the explosive I could rig up with some of this shit. I'm literally just carrying the whole Sanctuary on my back right now. You're welcome," I said, winking at him and giving him a dramatic bow.

His laugh filled the large room, making me smile. Being in here, seeing all of this, had lifted my mood considerably. More so because I knew this meant I was one step closer to Brendan.

I looked to the far side of the room. A desk was set up with a few boxes on top. I skipped towards it, letting the excitement really get to me. The boxes were full of different office supplies. Normal shit like pens and notepads, but it just added to my happiness.

I turned towards Negan again who had followed me.

"Is this for me too?" I asked.

"It is. This is your fucking domain, wildflower. Everything that happens in here is up to you. Behind those doors, you call the shots. We'll talk to some people, get some workers in here to help you. You can pick them and set the points for each position. All of this is for you."

I looked at him, wide eyed. Was he actually giving me control over something? Was he ill?

I launched myself at him, throwing my arms around his neck and burying my face into his neck.

"Thank you. Thank you so fucking much, Negan!" I all but screamed as I hugged him.

He chuckled and his hands came up to rest on my hips.

"Anything for you, doll. Now come on. Sit down with me and walk me through the plan." He mumbled against my shoulder, before stepping back from me.

I nodded frantically and wrapped my hand around his, pulling him towards the desk, ready to lay out my exceptionally brilliant plan.