A/N: Hi, friends! This is the first fanfic I've posted, so I'm just a tad nervous about it. Please leave all the reviews and tell me what you liked and what you didn't! I'll be updating every few days. This story has made me write more in the last few days than I think I ever have in my life, so I definitely won't be stopping until it's done. If you're taking a chance and reading this, I love you already.
Chapter One
Wake Me Up
Pain radiated everywhere. From what felt like the ends of my hair to the toes on my feet, everything fucking hurt. Beeping and what sounded like a pumping noise surrounded me.
Where the fuck am I at?
I tried to pry my eyes open, but they wouldn't move. No matter how hard my brain commanded my eyelids to just fucking open, they stayed firmly closed.
You know what? This is fine. Everything is totally fine. Just breathe. Listen. Think.
Loud footsteps, followed by even louder whistling filtered through the beeping. The air in whatever room I was currently incapacitated in seemed to be completely sucked out of it as a door slammed open with a force that made things rattle, mentally making me flinch.
"How's my favorite fucking doctor today? Has the patient finally decided to make a fucking appearance, doc?" A loud voice boomed. I couldn't see the face, but the voice somehow sounded familiar to me, so much that I could hear the sarcastic smile behind the words.
A scent that was so strongly beautiful wafted over me as shuffling footsteps and the sound of a chair being pushed back sounded.
"Negan, hello," a small, older voice croaked out, "No, she hasn't woken up yet. Her stats are improving daily, however. As you know, we don't exactly have a way to scan her brain, so I'm not sure what's going on under the surface, but she's breathing on her own and everything looks good."
"It's been a week and a half, doc. Why are you so certain she'll wake up? She fell three stories," The other, deeper voice asked, lower than it had been when he'd first entered the room.
"I'm not, Negan. I can only be hopeful," the older voice whispered.
Fingers landed lightly on my right arm. I wanted to open my eyes to see the man who was checking on me and smelled so, so good, but a darkness pulled me under and I fell back into a deep sleep.
"Any news today, doc? She open her eyes at all?" A deep voice pulled me out of what felt like the hardest sleep of my life, but I couldn't get my eyes to open.
"No, sir. Nothing to report today," an older voice responded.
I felt fingers on my right arm, lightly stroking up and down. I tried again to open my eyes, to seek out the owner of the rough fingers, with absolutely no success.
I heard a gasp from the owner of the older voice, "Look, look down at her fingers. They're moving."
"Has she done that before?" The deep voice - Negan, I would assume, asked.
"No, not at all. We have someone with her around the clock and she's never so much as flinched," the older male responded, sounding as if he was shocked.
I heard someone shuffle closer to the bed and the fingers that had stayed on my right arm put more pressure on me. The sound of clothes shifting filled the air as I felt someone lean close to me.
"Come back to me, doll. Open those pretty fucking eyes and let me hear that smart ass mouth again," the deep voice whispered close to you.
I tried. I tried so hard to just force my eyes to open. I wanted to see the man that had such a beautiful voice. Instead, I felt the darkness of my mind pulling me back under.
A violent gasp left my throat and I sat straight up in bed. Bright lights hit my eyes and I scrambled back as far as I could until my back hit the wall behind me. I squinted, trying to get my eyes to focus on quite literally any fucking thing I could, but the lights were so bright, it hurt. My arms wrapped around my legs, pulling them close to me. I could feel a wire pulling at my arm and the soft cushion of a bed underneath me. My head turned frantically, trying to take in anything that could tell me where I was.
I glanced down at myself. A light blue nightgown with flowers on it covered the top half of my body, but had bunched up when I had drawn my legs up to my chest. My mouth was so incredibly dry that even pulling air through it was painful.
"Oh, my God," A loud gasp sounded from my left and my head jerked to find the source of the noise.
An older man in a white jacket with a stethoscope around his neck stood from his desk in the corner of the large room so fast the cup on his desk fell to the floor, shattering and spilling water all over the place. His white hair was slicked back out of his face and the dark circles under his eyes were prominent.
He quickly scrambled across the room, towards me, causing me to push my back harder against the solid wall behind me. The man pulled out a walkie talkie, lifting it close to his mouth and pushing the button on the side so hard his finger paled.
"Doc to Negan. Wildflower is awake, Negan. She's awake," he frantically called before dropping it back into his coat pocket.
The doctor's eyes stayed locked on mine as he pressed close to my bed. He reached his hand towards me and I flinched backwards again, bumping my head on the wall slightly.
"Who are you?" My voice croaked as I tried my hardest to stay as far away from this stranger as I could.
"I'm Doctor Carson. Do you know where you are?" He asked, drawing his hand back and pulling his stethoscope from around his neck.
I quickly glanced around the room again. Dingy concrete walls, bright lights, no windows, cabinets with glass doors that held what I would assume were medical supplies. The bed underneath was a hospital bed and there were machines surrounding me and the doctor. It was definitely supposed to be a doctor's office of some kind, but the room looked like it hadn't been made for it at all. It felt like I was in a basement. I shifted my eyes quickly back to the doctor.
"No, I don't," I whispered quietly, my voice cracking.
"Can you tell me your name?" The doctor asked as he slid the stethoscope into his ears.
I opened my mouth to answer and immediately stopped. I knew my name. I knew my fucking name. My head started to pound and my heart started to beat rapidly against my chest. My name. He wanted to know my name. I couldn't make it come out of my mouth or even pull it to the forefront of my mind.
What the fuck is wrong with me? Why can't I remember my own name?
The doctor's eyes locked on mine, concern drawing his eyebrows together.
"I… I… I don't know. I… I can't remember it," I breathed, feeling tears well up in my eyes. I slammed my head down to my knees, slowly starting to rock myself back and forth.
"Hey, hey, hey. That's okay. It's okay. What's the last thing you remember?" The doctor lightly placed his hand over my arm, attempting to console me, as he placed his stethoscope on my back.
I closed my eyes hard, trying to get my brain to do literally anything of use. What was the last thing I remembered? I sifted through my mind.
I remembered an older woman driving a car down a four lane road, her blonde hair pulled into a high ponytail. There was a younger boy in the backseat, maybe a teenager, with headphones in his ears and dark hair falling over his eyes, looking out the window. The woman smiled over at me and grasped my hand in hers across the center console. She was saying she was so proud of me and I would be the best… best what? The memory started to dissolve and the harder I tried to keep it from turning black, the faster it left.
I relayed the information to the doctor, lifting my head slightly to look at him. His eyebrows were still drawn and his mouth was set in a hard line.
"Where am I? How long have I been here? What happened to me?" I rapidly fired the questions at the man, watching his reaction, trying to gauge what was happening.
He sighed heavily. He pulled his hand and his stethoscope away from. He dropped the stethoscope around his neck and looked at me again.
"You're at The Sanctuary. You've been in this bed for two and a half months, under my care. You were brought back by our leader after you… after you fell from a three story building," he said, speaking the last half of the sentence slowly.
A three story building? There was no way. I tried to even my accelerated breathing, focusing on calming myself before looking back to the doctor.
"The Sanctuary? Is this a cult? It kind of sounds like a cult," I responded, watching for any sort of reaction.
The doctor smirked, but the smirk quickly fell from his face when footsteps thundered outside of the door, getting closer and closer. I started to draw in on myself again. If the doctor was nervous about the footsteps quickly approaching, my gut told me I should be nervous too.
The door slammed open with a force that caused me to draw my sore arms around my body tighter, the wire that was taped to my right arm stretched to accommodate the resistance. My head dropped to my knees and my eyes closed again. Maybe if I couldn't see them, they would just go away. Sound logic.
A breath fell from the new intruder in a ragged way and the footsteps paused. I wanted to look up, but I couldn't get my body to cooperate. Fear had seized every reasonable part of me.
The steps approached and I heard the doctor step back several paces, allowing the person to get close to my bed.
"Wildflower? Lift your head. Come on, doll. Look at me," I heard a deep voice say.
Bells went off in my head. The voice was familiar, but I couldn't place why. Familiarity was something I needed right now. I needed to remember something. I lifted my head, my eyes immediately locking on to beautiful brown eyes. I know these eyes. How do I know these eyes?
I took in the rest of his face slowly. Slicked back dark hair, gorgeous white teeth, salt and pepper colored scruff covering his strong jaw. I continued scanning his face, my breathing slowing down. The right corner of his lips quirked up in a smirk.
The doctor cleared his throat, but the man's eyes never left mine.
"Negan, I need to speak to you outside," Dr. Carson said quietly.
My shoulders straightened at the doctor's request and I unwrapped my arms from around my knees, letting them drop to the bed. I didn't want this man to leave. He's the only thing that felt even remotely recognizable.
"Wait," I whispered, glancing between the doctor and the man he called Negan, "Please don't make him leave. I know him, somehow."
Negan's eyebrows pulled together, finally breaking eye contact and shooting the doctor a questioning look before returning his stare to me.
"Negan… She doesn't remember anything. She doesn't know her name, and doesn't seem to remember anything from before waking up. She may have amnesia from the trauma to her head," Dr. Carson said, glancing between Negan and myself.
The more Dr. Carson talked, the more concerned Negan's face became.
"Wildflower, do you remember me at all? Do you remember Purcellville?" Negan asked, his eyes searching mine for any hint of recognition.
Purcellville? That didn't sound familiar at all. Was that a town? I couldn't place why I should know what Purcellville meant, but I knew that I knew this man's face and his voice. It soothed something in me. That had to be a good sign, right? It had to mean he was safe.
"I don't… I don't know what Purcellville is. I know your face and your eyes and your voice. I don't know why, but you feel like… like, I should know you," I whispered back to him.
Using my voice hurt. My throat felt dry and getting my mouth to move to form words was becoming more and more exhausting with every attempt.
"Do you remember the walkers, wildflower?" Negan questioned, his eyes never leaving mine.
"The walkers? What do you mean? Why do you keep calling me wildflower? Is that my name?" I asked, mentally crossing my fingers that someone hadn't actually tried to name their child Wildflower.
A slight smile curved Negan's lips. "No, doll. That's not your name. Listen, let's call it a day for now, okay? You looked tired. We can talk more tomorrow. Do you want some water?"
I didn't miss that he avoided all of my questions but one. He was right, though. I was feeling tired.
"Are you going to leave me?" I asked, ignoring his question and hoping that he wouldn't. I didn't want to wake up to just the doctor again.
His eyebrows raised up, surprised I'd asked, but he quickly recovered and let a blinding smile grace his face.
"Do you want me to stay with you, doll?" He asked, slightly tilting his head.
I nodded, flinching when a small, sharp pain pierced my head.
"Please, stay with me," I responded as I let my body relax and scooted down the bed, off the pillows I was currently sitting on, "And yes please, I'd really love some water right now."
Negan threw a commanding look at the doctor who jumped into action quickly. Negan held his hand out behind him without taking his eyes off of me. After a few seconds, the doctor handed him a cup of water that he softly handed to me. I put the cups to my lips and began to drink, entirely too fast. Water slid down my chin as I handed the cup back to him. I quickly wiped it with the back of my hand as Negan set the cup down on the nightstand next to the bed.
"Thank you," I murmured, earning another smile from him.
Negan pulled the blanket I was sitting on from under my legs and held it up while I slid under it. He draped the cover over my shoulders and pulled a chair close to the bed. I watched him closely, fearing that if I took my eyes off of him, he would disappear. He sat down and put his elbows on the bed, crossing his arms, and putting his chin on the back of his hands.
"I won't leave you, wildflower. I'll stay as long as you want me to." He whispered.
My hand slid out from under the blanket and rested on his arms as I felt my eyes closing. I had so many questions that I wanted answered, but I couldn't ignore the exhaustion coursing through my body as I drifted off to sleep.