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SlumberingVoid— Judith just strikes me as the sort of person to one day carry mints in her purse, aha. I knew about the honey, but the sweets fact is a new one for me! I guess even an apocalypse can't kill sugar.

-Mikey-

The morning brought something not unsimilar to stability. Mikey awoke expecting there to arguments, anger, and accusations. Instead, it was quiet. He even had time for a quick, cooling shower to refresh and wash off the sweat of the hot Virginian night before getting dressed in his usual t-shirt, jeans, and cardigan combo.

Mikey made breakfast for Gracie, whom he'd found in Aaron's study practising her knowledge of the states from his number plate collection on the wall he'd finished some years ago. Before eight, he had helped her pack her backpack for school and walked her down the street to Minnie's, who had offered to take her the other night.

When Aaron came downstairs, Mikey had breakfast ready for them on the table.

"Since when do you make eggs?" Aaron frowned, amused. "Or... anything for that matter?"

Mikey shrugged without looking up, almost finished with his breakfast as he read through a battered copy of Jane Eyre that look ancient with its torn pages and crinkled spine.

"Since today, I guess," he responded.

Aaron sat at the kitchen table with his frown still attached. "Gracie's gone to her lessons?"

"Yeah," Mikey said, nodding at his eggs, while he turned his page. "Surprised you slept in."

"Yeah, well," Aaron grumbled, not finishing.

"Yeah, well, is right," Mikey sighed.

Aaron chuckled then, and when Mikey looked up, he saw him look at his book.

"How many times have you read that?"

"Only once," Mikey told him.

"Then why's it so..." Aaron struggled for the word.

"Defiled?"

"That."

Mikey flicked back a few pages before closing the book to show off the dented cover. The white wrinkles that ran across the black paper like cold veins that couldn't pump like they should.

"It's Carl's copy," Mikey answered. "Judith wanted mine before she left since the only thing wrong with it was the thick layer of dust it managed to collect under my bed over the years."

Aaron closed his eyes pensively, chuckling as he ran a hand through his beard and nodded. "I remember you guys studying that for class."

Mikey nodded, tapping a thumb against his empty glass that did have orange juice in it a few minutes ago. "Made me think about Dani. Haven't thought about her in years."

"She was a good teacher... a good person," Aaron said. "That the reason you've only read that book once?"

"Probably," Mikey said, distracted. "You'd think I'd be less sad about it after years of not thinking about her. But then Judith brings this book around and suddenly I can see her mangled body outside her classroom after those Wolves attacked us."

"That's the only downside to have a conscience, I guess."

There was banging at the door, then. Heavy and ceaseless.

Aaron went to answer it.

Mikey continued chewing on his eggs, hearing Gabriel's voice at the door.

He heard the door shut and watched Aaron rush back in to the kitchen. He was holding his boots and fumbling with his prosthetic strap.

"What happened?" Mikey asked, standing up.

"Negan," Aaron hissed, his face a fury. "Negan got out."

The cell was searched high and low despite there being nowhere for a full-grown man to hide in the four-by-four basement. Negan's small book collection was torn apart for clues or tools he might have used, but nothing was found.

He'd vanished.

Mikey spoke with Aaron and Mikey outside the Brownstones, all three of them trying to keep their voices quiet for those that hadn't heard yet.

"No signs of the gate being forced open," Mikey said. "He had help."

"The guards say the keys are missing," Gabriel sighed.

"Well, whoever stole them must have let him out," Aaron growled.

"Who was on watch last night?" Aaron asked Mikey.

"Laura was on the rota," Mikey said. "But she said she didn't do it, and I believe her. Why would she?"

"Yeah, I believe her, too," Gabriel concurred.

"I did it."

The three turned to see Lydia walk down the step from her house, the silence the whisperers graffiti still splattered across their door, clearly no one having gotten around to cleaning it off yet.

"I let Negan out," she told them, walking straight past the three and down the steps to the Brownstone basement.

Gabrial, Mikey, and Aaron all looked at each other.

"Go get Daryl," Gabriel said to Aaron. "Mikey, keep an eye on her 'till he gets here."

When Mikey walked into the drafty old basement, Lydia had shut herself in Negan's cell, crouched in the corner by his bookcase and sifting through the torn pages tossed to the ground in the search.

"If you did it..." Mikey started, leaning against the bars of the cell and peering through the closed gate.

"I did."

"How did you let him out?"

"Keys."

"Where are the keys?" Mikey asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Tossed them in the lake," she mumbled over her shoulder at him.

"Huh," Mikey said in a skeptical tone. "And where'd you steal them from?"

"What?"

He shrugged. "If this was you, you'd know where we kept the keys, right?"

"Stole them from Gabriel's house while you were at your meeting..."

Mikey smirked. "But Gabriel's set isn't missing."

"I put them back."

"I thought you tossed them in the lake?"

Lydia went quiet. She shook her head and stomped over to Negan's cot where she laid down, hand cupped to her cheek against the pillow as she turned her back to him.

Daryl marched in then, flinging open the cell gate and pointing to the exit.

"C'mon, you didn't do this."

"Yeah, we've gotten that far," Mikey said.

"I kept watch last night," Daryl sighed. "You never left the house."

"Does it matter?" she asked. She sat up to stare at them from across the small cell. The light from the window danced across her face, highlighting the bruises from last night that shined a sore reddish-purple. She pulled her knees close to her chest and hugged them tight. "This is where they want me."

"The council knows you didn't do this," Mikey told her.

"Not your stupid council," she hissed. "Your people."

"Doesn't matter what they want," Daryl grunted.

She tipped herself forward on the cot to look down at the floor below, a sad smile on her face. "Y'know, for a long time I blamed myself for what happened last year. Kept thinkin', what if I'd just stayed in that cell at Hilltop? If I never let myself be taken alive by you people in the first place? Never went off with Henry? Never told my mother to leave me alone?"

"You're not to blame for her," Daryl said softly.

"My mother was right," she croaked in the high voice you do when you're trying not to cry. "She said you people put on these polite faces, but it's just a mask. Because when things get bad... when you get scared... you pick a target, aim, and shoot."

"You're not a target," Mikey argued calmly.

"Me, Negan, anything but you," she said.

"Negan's different," Daryl told her, glancing at Mikey. "You didn't know him. Not like we did."

"So you people keep sayin'..."

"Before you knew him," Mikey said, picking his words carefully. "Negan killed my brother... gutted him in the streets right out there for everyone to see. He had my friend Olivia shot. Kept me and Daryl in a cage. He did terrible, terrible things."

"Now you keep him in a cage," she said, looking around at the grey walls that surrounded us. "And the Negan I know stood up for me when he didn't have to..."

She didn't say it to argue. She just said what was true.

"I tried fitting in... I wanted to be like you."

Daryl opened the gate a little wider, hiding his face in the shadows this room cast so well.

"You don't belong in a cage," he grunted.

"I'm better here," she told them, her face still so sad. "I feel safe."

Daryl's chin twitched like had more to say, but he just nodded closed the gate and left.

Mikey watched her a moment longer.

Lydia stared back.

It felt like she was daring him to leave.

So he went to.

"I asked Rhys to kill me," she said quickly, stopping him at the door with her rushed whisper.

He turned to look at her.

"Back when we had to cross the frozen river," she explained in a shaky voice. "I told him killing me would make Hilltop and his family safe... said that he would be doing it for Henry." She grimaced. "He could have done it... no one would have known. It would have made things easier. It would have."

"He wouldn't have if you'd tried to make him for a million years."

Lydia tutted. "I'm right, though."

"Don't feel guilty that you're alive, Lydia," Mikey told her.

She pressed her sleeve to her cheek, drying the tear that had trickled there. "How?"

Mikey just pressed his lips together and offered her a tired smile. He was still trying to figure that out, too.

"I knew," Mikey said instead. "I knew that you asked him to do that."

Her bruised eye widened enough that it hurt and made her wince.

"That's one of the perks of living with people you can trust," Mikey told her. "No secrets."

"Look how well that's working."

Mikey grimaced, nodding at the fair assessment, glancing around at the cell again. "Daryl was right, you know."