Naomi

"Good morning, Naomi!" Negan's booming voice burst into the room at the same time he flung the door open. I jolted awake from what had been, until that moment, quite a deep sleep. I propped myself up on my elbows and looked at him. It was barely light outside yet. Where did this asshole get off on waking me up so damn early? And how did he always have so much energy? His usual, terrible smile was still plastered all over his face as he said, "Rise and shine, gorgeous!"

He was in a good mood, which should've been my first indication that something was about to go at least a little bit wrong. But I was still half asleep, so I thought nothing of it beyond mild annoyance. I pulled myself up to sit on the bed, my muscles still heavy with sleep. I tried to wake myself up enough to deal with whatever fresh hell this was going to be. I yawned. "What the hell time is it?"

"Not a morning person, huh?" he laughed. He walked further into the room, hands behind his back. I didn't think much of it, imagined Lucille was hidden there because I didn't think I'd ever seen him without his bat.

Not a morning-in-captivity-person, actually.

Then I remembered that I was trying to play this whole thing smarter than I had before. So I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and tried again. "Sorry. Good morning."

"That's more like it," he said. "And this is a good morning. Boy, do I have something to put you in a good mood? See, Daryl and I took a little trip to your old home yesterday. Checked in on how Rick and the gang were doing, and I brought you a little something back. A gift. Ain't you a lucky gal?"

Dread filled my stomach. I didn't like his tone, and I didn't like how much he enjoyed this. There was no way that something that was bringing him this much joy would be something that I would consider "lucky." I half expected him to be hiding one of our friends' heads behind his back, but when he took his hands out from behind him, he held a book. It felt like a trap, but I couldn't work out how. I stared at it.

"It's a book," I said, still searching for the trap.

"Well noticed, you are perceptive as shit," he replied, and I had to actively refrain from rolling my eyes. He held it out to me. I did not move to take it. He saw my reluctance and sighed. "It's not a bomb, you can touch it. Daryl told me how much of a goddamn bookworm you are, and I thought you might like a little something to read while you're in here."

I eyed the book in his hands. It looked real enough, and I wasn't sure what kind of horrors you could hide in a book. Didn't seem likely that there would be a weapon in there if he was so readily handing it over to me. I also couldn't imagine how or why Daryl would have offered up any information like that freely. I doubted he'd changed his opinion of Negan enough to chit chat about my interests. Had Negan beaten it out of him? Why? That was a lot of effort for what was effectively a worthless piece of information.

Maybe this was a genuine gesture, a sign that he genuinely believed I was putting all of my anger and rage behind me. I had to keep him thinking that. I reached out for the book, a slightly battered hardback copy of Wuthering Heights. He looked so pleased when I took it that I felt even more like I'd wandered into a trap or was being tested. Still not entirely trusting it, I turned the book over in my hands and pressed my thumb into the edges of the hardback cover. It was heavy. Probably heavy enough to beat him over the head with and do at least a little bit of damage. Was that the test? He was giving me this to see whether or not I'd attack him?

"Flip through," he encouraged me. "Pages are real, too."

I cracked it open and thumbed through the pages. Something flew out of it and landed on the floor in front of me. A photograph. Face-up. Upside down, but I knew it instantly. I froze. Daryl, Mia, and I grinned up at the ceiling of this miserable place. Negan delighted in my reaction.

"Oh, there it is," he said. I felt like my insides were slowly turning to ice. "A gift within a gift. Don't be shy, Naomi. Pick it up."

For a moment, I didn't think I could move at all like I was genuinely frozen where I sat. How did he get this? Did he know? Did he know about Mia? I realized, the longer I sat there staring helplessly at the ground, the worse this could be for me. I needed to find out what he knew as fast as I could without giving anything else away.

"Where did you get this?" I asked. The floor was cold against my bare feet as I slipped out of bed and walked the short distance to where the picture had fallen. "How did you-"

"I told you," he said as I picked it up. "Daryl and I, and a few more of my men, went on a little road trip. Visited our mutual friend Rick-the-prick and made sure we got our half of his shit."

"You went through my room," I said, putting the pieces together and trying to read into his bullshit. I didn't like the thought of him being in there, rifling through my stuff so thoroughly he could find one small photograph. What had he done to the others? Did they have anything left back home?

"Oh, Naomi," he sounded disappointed. "I went through our room. I own Rick, I own Alexandria and all the shit in there. And, despite what Daryl thinks, I own you too. Which means I own all your shit. I am just lending you that extremely personal photograph so that you can tell me who's in it."

I swallowed. This was it. This would tell me whether he knew about Mia or not. It was lucky that she was so young in this picture and not recognizable.

"It's me," I started. "And, Daryl."

"Uh-huh," Negan said, sounding on the verge of being angry. He knew I'd skipped Mia, still avoiding saying her name. It was painted on the banner behind us, but I hoped he'd missed that little detail.

"On my sister's birthday," I said. His eyebrows pricked up then like it was what he wanted to hear. I didn't know if that was a good or a bad thing.

"Your sister?" he repeated, studying my face so closely that I felt like I was in an exam. I nodded. I would not say her name. Not unless I had to. "The kid in the photograph is your sister?"

"Yes." I nodded and wondered why he's asked so intensely for clarification. If Daryl was with him when he found it, surely he'd asked the same questions? Was what I was saying not matching up with something he had? Why was he so damn interested?

"What happened to her?" Negan asked, moving even closer to me. My heart beat hard in my chest. I tried to think like Daryl, to guess what he would've said to keep Mia safe. Keep her hidden.

"She didn't make it," I said, and I dropped my eyes to the floor in case he could spot my lie in them. The photograph shook in my hands. I hoped he'd think it was out of grief, rather than fear that he already knew about Mia. That he already had her. I fought the urge to look out and check that Simon or some other asshole wasn't standing in the corridor with her.

Negan took a step back.

"Well, shit," he said. Every muscle in my body tensed. "Daryl was telling the truth. See, I thought you'd been lying to me about how long you guys had been together. Thought you had some secret little family before all of this. You might not have lied to me, Naomi, but you sure as shit didn't tell me the truth."

I felt a twist of guilt at being caught out, even though I hadn't lied. Not really. I'd just left out how much history there was between Daryl and mem. Because it was convenient for me and useful to him. I knew it was both our biggest weakness and our biggest strength, and the more Negan knew about it, the more leverage he had. Or at least, thought he had.

"Why would that matter?" I asked. "What's it to you how long we've been together?"

"It doesn't really matter to me if you've been together a week, a month, or ten years," he said. "What matters to me is how much you're willing to do for each other because that directly relates to how useful you are to me. Now when I heard that 'we ain't been together long' crap, I knew something was up. But when I saw this-"

He reached over and plucked the photograph right out of my hand. I watched him slip it back into a pocket of his leather jacket.

"Can I-" I started to say automatically.

"Oh no, no, no," he said. "This is mine now. Just like you are. Just like Daryl is."

A stab of anger right in my heart. I did not react to it, I knew that was exactly what he wanted and why he'd paraded that photograph around in the first place. It was just a photograph, a material thing. It didn't matter if I got it back or not because I'd have the real people with me real soon.

"When I saw this," Negan continued, patting the pocket he'd slipped it into. "It all made a lot more sense. You kneeling down in front of me, ready to take on Lucille for the sake of some new piece of ass? Nah, I wasn't buying it. You were too damn quick. Too ready for it. You two are more used to fighting to survive than some of the rest of these sorry pricks, am I right?"

"Shit was tough," I shrugged, "but we got through it."

Just like we'll get through this.

"How old were you when you met Daryl?"

"Seven," I remembered that quiet, hungry, boy with messy hair who'd treated me and everyone else with nothing but suspicion. Small for his age. My heart ached. I wanted to reach back in time and pick him up, keep him safe. I hadn't been able to save him then, and I wasn't doing any better now. Frustration brought angry tears to my eyes.

"Well, ain't that cute?" he said, a small frown creasing his brow like he was deep in thought, and his dark eyes fixed on me in a way that made me feel like I couldn't move a goddamn muscle. As if he'd be able to find an answer to his unasked questions in the way I moved, a look in my eye, or a microexpression on my face.

Nothing about that time in our lives felt fucking cute. A world of intense, prolonged violence and long stretches of neglect. I'd never been able to stop Daryl's dad from beating him, I could only pick up the pieces when he was done. I'd carried a guilt with me for a long time about not being able to do anything, but Daryl hadn't been able to stop what was happening to me, either. And I'd never expected him to be able to because he'd been a goddamn kid. Knowing that he was close and always there for me, hadn't suddenly made everything okay. But it had given me something good to hold onto when things were bad. I'd never been alone.

Just like now.

"So, what was it, huh?" Negan asked. His voice was oddly gentle like he knew he was quietly pulling me back into the room. "You follow him around just waiting until the day that almost every other woman has died off, and he finally noticed you?"

I laughed. It was short and sharp and bitter, but I couldn't help it. The idea of Daryl as some teenage Lothario while I followed him around like a lovesick puppy was so far from the reality of it, I couldn't take it seriously. And as for Daryl' noticing' me? I'd never seen him notice anyone, not like that. I looked back at him and shook my head, "No."

"No?" he didn't look mad at me for laughing at him. Worryingly, it seemed to be exactly what he expected. I wondered if he'd gone so far in the opposite direction from the truth because he'd known it was so ridiculous I'd be forced to react. "That not how it went down? I'm just struggling to work out why it took you two so damn long to figure shit out."

You and me both, asshole.

I knew what he was fishing for, and I was happy to give it to him. Daryl and I had worked through our fight, and there were no lingering resentments there. I'd forgiven him years before he'd even apologized, and from the sounds of things, he'd done the same. Daryl and I were as solid as we had always been.

"We had a fight," I told him. I felt so calm. I hoped he saw that, and I hoped it scared him, let him know his plan wasn't going to work. "After I moved off to college. Didn't speak for years, not until we found each other again - in the middle of all this - and we're fine."

"You sound pretty damn sure about that."

"I am," I said confidently. "It was a dumb fight, and it's all in the past, there's nothing you can do or say that will change that. So, if you were planning on using that to turn us against each other or some shit-"

"Wouldn't dream of it," he said. "And I don't know if that is even possible. In fact, I'm counting on it. Having someone that can get you through tough shit, that is truly special. I can see why you're fighting like hell to hold on to that, I don't want to shut that down, I want to harness that fight. I want you to use all that fight for me."

It sounded impossible.

"You gotta wake up, Naomi," Negan said, again pulling me back from the edge of something. It felt deliberate. Like he knew the path he was leading me down and wanted to keep distracting me from whatever lay at the end of it until he was ready for me to see it. "You ain't kids anymore, running around whatever cesspool of piss and shit and human garbage you managed to crawl out of. I could drag Daryl in here and shoot him right in front of you. I could chop so many things off of him until whatever was left was alive, but unrecognizable. Do you know what it's like? To have someone that can get you through any kind of shit and then lose them? And I don't mean in some dumb fight, or having a few damn walls between you, I mean really, truly, lose them?"

No.

No, I didn't.

Even in the years we'd spent not talking, Daryl had been so much a part of me that I would've been dishonest to say he hadn't got me through it. Daryl and I had grown together, like two trees in a forest. Shared roots all tangled up so that even apart, we still grew together. Who he was had shaped who I became. I had seen who he had the potential to grow into clear as day from the first time I'd met him. If you could take our souls out and lay them side by side, they would be so indistinguishable from one another that even we wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

Cut us apart, and I didn't know if I could survive it.

"Let me ask you something, Naomi," he said and leaned in real close. "Do you love him?"

Yes.

The answer hit me like a goddamn freight train. First, there was the shock of it, lifting me up and out of myself until I could see it all laid before me, plain as day. Of course, I loved him. How could I not?

"Holy shit," Negan whispered, light filling his eyes. "You just realized it didn't you? You just realized you're in love with him—what a moment. And I got to be a part of it? I'm honored."

As the shock wore off, there was nothing but anger and fear. I wanted to throw a punch, and I didn't really care what at. The floor, the wall, his face, it didn't matter. Fighting Negan to the death honestly felt less terrifying than the realization that I was in love. A small part of me had worried that something inside me was too broken to be capable of it. But that wasn't it. I'd never said it, never felt for anyone else because I couldn't. Because I'd already been inescapably in love with him.

It had always been him.

It hurt. To know it so completely like this, while we were apart and I could do nothing about it. All of that wasted time stretched out behind me. The threat that it was the only time we'd get hung over me too. We could die in here, and he'd never know how I felt about him.

"Oof," Negan said like he had any idea what I was feeling. "I do not envy you. Loving someone in this is hard as shit. But, between you and me, loving someone who's dead? That is way worse."

It was a thinly veiled threat against Daryl's life. But it was more than that. A shadow passed across his face, something in the deepest recesses of his eyes told me that it was more than that. He knew. He was speaking from experience. Negan had not only lost somebody, more surprisingly, he'd loved somebody too.

He probably didn't know it, but he'd given me something to fight for and something I could use. I didn't know how, yet. But he had.

"Alright, I'm done with her," Negan said as he stepped out. "She can eat now."

Sherry stepped into the room with a small plate of food. She waited until the door closed behind her before she said, "Are you okay?"

I nodded, still numb.

"I have to get him out of here," I said. I knew, more clearly than ever, that I wouldn't be able to say no to anything Negan asked me if it risked Daryl's life or his safety. But I also knew, the only way to be sure that he was safe forever, was to get him out of here. No matter how long it took. No matter the sacrifice I had to make, he and Mia were getting out of this place.

"You can't," Sherry said quietly.

"You and Dwight managed it," I pointed out.

"We came back," she said like I needed reminding. "Because there's no other choice. Everything is Negan. Even out there."

"You're wrong," I told her. "You had a choice. You could've gone with Daryl in that burnt-out forest. You could've joined all of us in Alexandria."

"Alexandria works for Negan now, too," she said. "At most, it would've just bought us a little extra time."

"You're wrong," I said. "Alexandria ain't done. They'll fight back."

"You don't know that."

"I know Rick," I said. "And I know he won't take this lying down for long. They might be biding their time now, but they are going to fight back. One way or another, Negan's reign of terror will end. And you can help us end it. Just help us get home."

"I made my choice," she said.

"It was brave," I said. She looked at me in disbelief. "What you did. Marrying Negan to save Dwight, to keep him alive, it was brave. But don't act like it was your choice. It was the only thing you could do to save someone you loved. Dwight dying? That wasn't an option, not for you. Like Daryl dying, or spending the rest of his life serving Negan, it is not an option for me. You did what you had to. But you can always make another choice. A real one."

The silence between us felt like it was made of glass, transparent and fragile, a shard of it slowly cutting into each of us.

I know, I wanted to say to her, I know what it's like when someone forces you into something and makes it feel like it's your fault.

"If I do help you get out," she said, and my heart leaped at the thought she was even considering it. "He'll know. He'll kill me."

"So come with us," I said. "Come to Alexandria. Fight with us."

"You think your people will welcome me?" she said. "You think they'll open their gates to a Savior?"

"If you've got Daryl with you," I said. "They'll open the gates. Rick is a good man. If he knows you helped us get out, he'll let you stay. I know it."

I knew how much I was asking her to risk. Trusting me on all of this would be a lot. But I could also see that Sherry was slowly losing her will to live in this place. Following orders that she didn't believe in from a guy she hated. I'd never once caught the same glee in her eye that I'd occasionally found in Dwight's. She was quiet for a really long time.

"I can't let you see him," Sherry said eventually. "But you can talk."

It wasn't what I expected her to say, but it was so much better.

Daryl

"Daryl?"

Her voice was quiet, but I knew it right away. A shadow under the door, but I hadn't heard her walk up. Was I dreaming? She didn't say anything else.

"Naomi?" I moved as close to the door as I could as fast as I could. Something about her voice sounded off, I knew something was up. When she didn't say anything else, I got worried. "Naomi, that you? Are you-"

"I'm alone," she said quickly, although that hadn't been what I was about to ask. Maybe it should've been. Maybe Negan was out there with her, gun pressed to her head, and that's why she sounded so weird. "Sherry's distracting Dwight. I… I probably ain't got too long."

"Are you okay?" I asked, sitting down right by the door so I could hear her better. I didn't much care how she'd got here or how long we had. I just wanted to know that she was okay, and I didn't want to waste any of our limited time on anything else. It was the first time we'd really had to speak to one another since we'd left Alexandria. "Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine," she said, and I heard her sit down on the other side of the door. "Are you okay?"

"Right as rain," I said. I could still feel the bruises all over me, but I didn't want her to worry, and they didn't matter now that she was close.

"They treating you okay?" she asked. Something had really freaked out, I could tell by her voice, but I could imagine the wide eyes and shaky hands that went with it. I wondered if Negan had told her he'd done something to me, just to mess with her head, and she'd fought her way down here just to check. "You got food? Water? Do you have-"

"Naomi," I interrupted her. "I'm fine. Quit worrying about me."

Worry about yourself for one goddamn moment.

"I wish I knew how," she said, after a short silence.

"Yeah, I wish you did, too," I said. She'd been the first, and for a long while the only, person to give a crap about me. Even when she shouldn't. The weight of it sat heavy on my chest. It was fine, times like this when I knew she was okay, but when she was gone from my sight or I couldn't hear her, I could only imagine the worst. Knew that every second of pain she felt here was on me. "You shouldn't have followed me here. When Negan gave you a choice, you should've gone back to Alexandria with the rest of them."

"You know I couldn't," she said like I was being ridiculous. "I couldn't leave you here."

"You could," I argued. "You just wouldn't."

"If it had been me that he'd taken," she said, "if things had been the other way around, you'd have followed me here."

I couldn't argue with that, and she knew it.

"Yeah," I said. "I guess that sounds about right."

She was quiet for a moment, and then she said, "I… I saw Mia."

"For real?"

"Yeah," she said. "Even had a chance to talk to her. She's okay, Daryl. They haven't hurt her. She's okay."

"That's good," I said, trying to sound as calm as possible because she sure as shit wasn't sounding calm herself.

"Yeah. It is."

There was something so frantic about her voice that it sent my heart racing. There wasn't much that scared her. The whole time I'd known her, she'd always been the more level headed of the two of us. Not that it was hard to be calmer than me, but I'd only ever seen her blow a fuse when someone she cared about was in some kind of trouble. Usually me. I was used to her being cool, collected. Planning shit out. Negan must've done something, said something to her.

Was she thinking about taking his deal? To save me? I wished I could see her face, get to know what she was thinking. I knew there was only so long that I could stay calm to keep her calm.

"Daryl-"

"Promise me," I cut across her. Whatever she had to say could wait. I had to get it out before I lost it. "Promise me you won't marry him. No matter what he does, or says, or says he's going to do to me. Promise me you will not marry him."

She was quiet for so long that I thought she might've gone, but I hadn't heard her get whisked away. When I looked at the light under the door, her shadow was still there. Stubborn silence radiated from it. I could picture her face, that defiant little frown.

"Hey. Promise me," I said again.

Silence.

"Naomi," I called. I heard her sniff and realized she'd been so quiet because she was crying. I rested my forehead on the door between us and wished I could hold her together.

"It won't come to that," she said after a while. "I'm close to getting Sherry to help us get out of here. I think she-"

"That ain't what I asked," I interrupted her again. I wasn't going to let her get out of this so easy. Wasn't going to let her dance around it. I didn't want to hear her hair-brained schemes to get us out of here. I wanted her to take a moment and really think about the worst-case scenario. I needed to know that no matter what, she wouldn't do anything dumb for me.

Another pause. Another sniff.

"If he threatens to kill you, Daryl, I can't…"

"I am ready to die for you, Naomi," I said, and it didn't feel like a big revelation, it had always been true. Just statistically likely until now.

"No," she said immediately, sounding angry that I'd said it at all.

"I'd rather die than see you controlled by him," I said.

"Shut up," she said fiercely. "It ain't worth that, Daryl. It ain't worth your life."

"Yeah, it is."

"It ain't," she said. "I know it ain't, you know it ain't. If he tries to kill you, I'll kill him."

"Then, he'll take us both down."

"Fine."

I knew she wasn't thinking rationally, but I'd never more sure of what I was saying. It was like we'd switched places. I was so used to her being the one to talk me down from all of my emotional anger, I wasn't sure I knew how to do the same for her.

"If he does that, who's gonna look after Mia, huh?" I said. I knew it was unfair of me to bring it up, but she needed to hear it. To be reminded of what was really important in all of this.

"I can get you both out," she said like she really believed it.

"But if you don't," I said. "If he drags me out under that bat, if I get bit by one of them Walkers on the fence, if Dwight kicks me to death, I gotta know you won't say yes to him."

"We'd both have a better-"

"We wouldn't," I said, and I heard her sob. "We wouldn't have a better life. You wouldn't. You gotta stay free for you, and for Mia. And for me. Promise me."

"I can work the fence too, I can work for points, I can-" her voice was thick with tears. Damn near broke my heart. I almost let up, almost stopped asking. But this was important. I'd sleep better knowing she was done sacrificing herself for me.

"That ain't what I'm asking," I said again. "Promise me you won't give in to him, you won't marry him, even if he says he'll kill me."

Silence. And then, very quietly, my ear pressed right against the door, I heard her whisper, "I promise."

She didn't say anything else. I could still hear her softly crying out there. Knew how she'd look when she was. When those eyes filled with tears, I felt like the world was ending, and it was down to me to do what it took to stop it.

I loved her so much, always had. If dying for her in here was how I was meant to go out, that was fine by me. My only regret would be going out without her knowing what she meant to me.

"Hey, Naomi…" I said.

"Yeah?"

I took a deep breath. No way I could just jump right into this, I needed to build myself up. "You know I think you're pretty, right?"

"What?" she sounded shocked enough that I think she'd stopped crying.

"I just…" I started and didn't know how to finish. "... don't know if I ever said that before."

"Daryl," she sniffed again. "You ain't gotta say shit like that. I don't…"

"I know I don't have to. I want to," I said. "Should've said it a long time ago, too. You're beautiful, Naomi."

"Shut up, dumbass."

"I'm serious."

She sighed, "Don't let him get to you."

"What?"

"Negan. The shit he said to us up there. Don't let it get to you," she said. "It don't matter what you say. Or what you don't say. You show up, you got my back more than anyone. That's what matters."

I agreed with her a little. But that didn't mean I shouldn't tell her these things. Maybe if I had we'd have got together sooner, had more time together before all of this shit kicked off. I'd thought I'd had my whole life, but this could be the end of it.

"He ain't wrong, though," I said. "I don't… say shit when I should. I ain't good at this soppy crap, but you deserve…"

"Daryl," she snapped. "Stop."

"No, Naomi. I… The way I feel about you. It ain't…"

"I know."

"You don't."

"I do."

"Nah. You don't," I said. "Because I ain't ever told you, not really. Sure as hell ain't shown it enough."

"I know how much you care about me Daryl, I do," she said. There was a begging, pleading note in her voice. "Just stop. Please. Stop talking."

"Why?"

"It feels like you're trying to say goodbye," she said, and her voice cracked. But it was stronger, angrier than it had been before. I could hear that typical Naomi-determination starting to flare up. I smiled in the dark. Even in such a desperate situation, she felt like an unstoppable force of nature. "Like you think we ain't gonna see each other again but we are. This ain't goodbye. It ain't."

"I know," I said, although I didn't. Neither of us could know.

"I'm gonna get you out. Me. You. Mia. We can go home. Be a family. The three of us."

"The three of us?" I repeated, just to make sure that's what she'd really said.

"Yeah. Of course. If… if that's something you want."

"Yeah. Course it is."

It's all I've ever wanted.

"Okay," she said, and she sounded calmer. "Then stop tryna say goodbye to me. Anything we gotta say to each other, we can say it when we get out. Deal?"

Something about the way she said it reminded me of when we were kids. That grubby girl with the sad, kind eyes who'd spit in her hand and shake with me over something that seemed life or death at the time but was just some dumb kid shit. I smiled in the dark.

"Deal."

Someone said something to her, too far away for me to hear it but I knew what it would be. I heard her move against the door and she said, "Daryl, I have to go."

"Okay," I said. I knew it was coming but my heart still sank.

"I'm getting you out of here. I promise," she said urgently. "Just be ready, okay? Be ready to run."

"Okay, Naomi," I said.

"See you soon," she said. "Real soon."

"Yeah," I said. "See you soon."

I didn't know if I believed it or not anymore. Seemed like we'd see each other whenever Negan said we could. I knew he wasn't done torturing us yet but the beatings were starting to ease off a little, for me at least. From the state of Naomi, and the last time I'd seen her face to face, it seemed like he'd moved on to trying to break our minds over our bodies.

So, I was ready for him when the door opened and he was standing there with Dwight. Dwight hauled me out and pushed me along the corridor to start working for points at the Sanctuary fence.

"Just came to check in with my workforce," Negan said. "See how our newest team member is getting on."

I said nothing, kept my eyes ahead of me and focused on just taking things one step at time. Dwight looked warily at me, like he thought my silence was going to provoke some kind of outburst.

Good. I hope it does.

My hands felt free for the first time in a while. My injuries were slowly healing. I could do with landing one more punch on Negan's stupid face.

"Giving me the silent treatment, huh?" he said. "That's fine. Thought you might want to hear about this real interesting chat I had with your old lady this morning. Or, should I say, my new lady?"

I stopped then, looked him dead in the eye, "She ain't ever gonna be yours."

He gave me that wide sickeningly satisfied smile. "What did you just say to me?"

"She ain't ever gonna be yours," I repeated, louder than before, and started walking again. It was easy to say because I believed it more than I had ever believed in anything. No matter how sad she'd looked when I'd seen her, how frantic she'd sounded, I knew that nothing on Earth would make Naomi break a promise to me. Nothing before this ever had. That girl, in the photograph he'd so gleefully kept his sweaty hands on, it was the same one he had locked up. The one who'd always had my back, always fought for me and for what she thought was right, always kept a promise.

"Oh yeah?" he said.

"Yeah," I said. "It ain't gonna work."

"You'd be surprised how many times it's worked before," he said. "Got most of my wives I got in this exact same way."

"Then you gotta work on your game, man."

"That how you got her in the first place, huh?" he laughed. "Your game?"

I said nothing. Felt a flare of annoyance but it was nothing like the white hot rage I'd felt the other times he'd tried to goad me into a fight. I wondered how obvious it was, if it was written all over me that I wasn't any kind of smooth-talking many-wives kinda guy. I was more of a fall in love with your best friend and keep it to yourself for years kinda guy.

"Lemme ask you something, Daryl," Negan said. "Do you really think, if all this hadn't happened and the whole world hadn't gone to hell in a handbasket, that she would be with you? Or even with a guy remotely like you?"

No.

"Because from what I heard," he continued. "Before all this, you weren't even talking."

How does he know that?

Why would she tell him?

I stopped walking again. The same ice cold knot of guilt formed in my stomach every time I thought about that fight, or who I'd been before this. Negan grinned again, knew he'd got a reaction from me.

"She was off at college, making something of herself and you were...," he trailed off, like he expected me to finish the sentence. "Doing what? College? Humanitarian work? Volunteering some place? You think she'd be with a lowlife like you if the world hadn't ended?"

It hurt. But I reminded myself that Naomi had always seen something in me. God knows how, but she'd believed in me right from the start. My silence annoyed him again.

"Tell me this then, Romeo. You really think she won't agree to be mine if she thinks it'll get you out of your current hole… If she thinks it'll save your life?" he asked. I said nothing but for once, I felt like the smug asshole in this conversation.

"You don't get it," I told him. "Even if she does marry you. Even if she does agree to this shit, she still ain't gonna be yours."

"How's that?" he said. His face was getting a little red. A little flushed with anger. It was satisfying. "Because you think even with me, she'll always secretly be yours? You should know, Daryl, if one of my wives cheats on me-"

"Nah, that ain't it," I didn't need to hear it. I didn't need to hear what he'd do to her in that situation because it was never going to happen. "You can't own her, man. She is something else. Even if hell freezes it over and she somehow agrees to this? She ain't anyone's but her own. And if she agrees to this shit, you're gonna have to sleep with one eye open because she will come for you."

He laughed.

"Oh, I'm sure she will," he grinned like a wolf. "In fact, I'm counting on her coming for me all night long, don't you worry about that. I told you, I take good care of my girls."

It was so much easier to stomach now that I had her promise. I looked away from him again.

"You don't get it."

"No, you don't get it," he said, jabbing his damn bat in my face. I stared at it, and then back at him. He leaned in and asked, "Do you love her, Daryl?"

Of course I do.

I shut my mouth and kept it shut. But he smiled like he already knew.

"If you were in her shoes, wouldn't you do damn near anything to make sure she was okay?" he said. "Ain't that why you're down her work for points for me? She'll fall in line, Daryl. Both of you will."

"You're wrong," I told him. He nodded to Dwight who shoved me out of one of the doors and into the bright sun. I could still hear him laughing when the door closed. It was good, in a way, that he'd frustrated me like this. That little extra bit of aggression would make getting Walkers on the fence that little bit easier. And he could be as smug as he damn well pleased. He was still wrong. Naomi had made a promise to me that she had no reason to break. I guess it was the one time in my life that I was glad she wasn't in love with me.