Notes: Keep forgetting to mention that I've gone back and added a tiny detail to the start of CH120. It's just that Sasha left her knife at Hilltop before she left, so now Rhys has it. Sorry if that was confusing last chapter. I've always thought it was an interesting detail in the show that Sasha has the same knife for her whole time on twd, but for a suicide mission against Negan she suddenly has some big ass different knife. Idk, worked out for my story, so I'm not complaining.

Minutes.

-Carl-

"You ever hear the one about the stupid little prick named Rick who thought he knew shit but didn't know shit and got everyone that he gave a shit about killed?"

Negan points at Dad and grins, tongue between his teeth like he can already taste his victory.

"It's about you."

I glance behind me. The Scavenger with their gun to my head is fairly young. Maybe twenty. He's shaking a little. Sweat on his brown. He keeps glancing away from me.

"You're all gonna wanna put your guns down now," Negan yells up at the wall.

"No one drops anything," Dad hisses. He glares at Jadis. "We had a deal."

"Tamiel came for the boat things," she tells him. "Followed ones who took." She nods out towards the Saviors. "Made a better deal."

Dad grits his teeth and shakes his head. His eyes are glassy and wild. He watches as the Saviors open up the trust a move truck and take the explosives that the Scavengers must have sabotaged.

Negan looks up at dad. "You push me, and you push me, and you push me, Rick!" He leers, thrusting his hips out and leaning back. "You just tried to blow us up, right? I mean, I get me... my people. But Eugene? He's one of yours. And after what he did... he stepped up. You people are animals. Universe gives you a sign, and you just—" he flips dad off "—shove your finger right up its ass!"

He cackles at us.

"Dwight, Simon, chop-chop."

We watch in horror as Simon drags Mikey out of Negan's big black truck by his scruff. A small sliver of relief grips at my chest when I see him alive, but he looks terrified, dressed in the same rags that Daryl had been in when they brought him here. A giant letter P is painted red across his chest. He's pulled up to the flatbed that Eugene since climbed down from, forced to his knees.

Negan climbs up and stands beside Mikey on the stage, patting his head with a gloved hand.

Then Simon and Dwight throw back the tarped box strapped to the flatbed to reveal a coffin. They stand it upright and wheel it to Negan's other side.

My heart pounds in my throat.

"So you don't like Eugene anymore," Negan sighs, hand resting on Mikey's trembling head; he clunks on the coffin with Lucille in his other. "You guys gotta like Sasha and Mikey. I do, too."

Lucille raps against the coffin again.

"Got them both right here... even got Sasha packaged for your convenience, alive and well. Would have done the same for squirt here, but we only had the one box."

Rosita's face is pale and sickly. I imagine I'm the same.

"Now, I brought them so I wouldn't have to kill all of you," Negan explains, "and not killing all of you could get complicated."

Negan scratches his chin and points at Dad.

"See, I know there's a lot of firepower left in there, Rick. So I'm gonna make this simple...

I want all the guns you've managed to scrape up. Yep, I know about those, too.

I want... every... last... grain of lemonade you got left.

I want a person of your own choosing... for Lucille.

Daryl— Ooh, I gotta get me my Daryl back. I see you.

And the pool table...

And all the pool cues...

And the fucking chalk.

And I want it now!

Or... Sasha and Mikey die.

And then all of you.

Probably.

C'mon Rick.

Just because I brought Sasha in a casket doesn't mean she has to leave in it."

Dad doesn't say anything.

Negan pinches the bridge of his nose and chuckles, shaking his head like he's tired of it all.

"You know what?" he barks. "You suck ass, Rick. You really do. I don't wanna have to kill them, but that's exactly what you're gonna make me do."

Dad steps forward on the watchtower, Jadis' gun following him. "Let me see her."

Negan chuckles. "All right. Just gimme a second... I might have to get her up to speed. Can't hear shit inside this thing."

He knocks Lucille against the coffin door.

"Sash... you're not gonna believe this crap."

The coffin door clicks open. The light hits Sasha's face. She winces at it.

She stumbles out of the coffin, disorientated.

"See..." Negan points at her, rolling his eyes. "Now, Sasha, would you do us all a favour and speed this shit up? Rick would rather you dying than him bending the knee again."

Sasha looks around, taking in where she is and what's happening.

She looks up at Rick.

She looks at Negan.

She looks at Mikey.

She nods.

Mikey scrambles off his knees and forward before anyone can stop him, crashing into the back of Negan and seizing at the knife on his hip, tugging it from its sheath. Negan yells, twisting around and batting Mikey away with his arm. Mikey hits the ground. So does the knife. Sasha charges Negan, snatching up the blade and colliding with him, sending the two of them flying off the flatbed and into a wrestling match in the dirt below.

I see the opening. I Spin around on my knees, drawing my pistol from my holster and putting a bullet in the young Scavenger's knee. Then his chest. Then his head. He falls backwards off the scaffolding, dead. I shoot the next guy along in the shoulder. He screams, pointing his rifle at me, but Minnie pumps her shotgun and blows his face off, gore exploding through the air in a red mist. I snatch up his rifle and aim over the wall. One of the Saviors grabs Mikey by the arm, but I spray a hail of bullets down, mowing him off his feet. I spot Sasha struggling against Negan. She's on top of him, pushing the knife down an inch from his face, screaming at him, no words, just fury and hatred that force the blade closer and closer to his wide eyes. A Savior with a grey beanie grabs her shoulders and tries to pull her off, but she whirls around and slits his throat open with the knife. I aim down at Negan but have to duck when a hundred bullets fly back at me from the Saviors. Scott pulls me back from the wall's edge. With Aaron and Eric's help, we clear the Scavengers from the walls — bodies falling in lifeless heaps left and right.

Saviors manage to get the gate open and then they're flooding in like ants below us, shooting up at us. Aaron pushes me out the way of a spray of shots. I trip over a body, and my feet leave the guard post floor as I tumble off the wall towards the hard ground far below. I land on my back in the dirt. I'm gasping for air as it's all forced out of me. Before I can find my gun Simon finds me, grabbing my hair, pulling me to my feet, and slamming his knee into my stomach.

-Rhys-

-Exactly Eight Minutes Ago-

Farron gestures for me to put my rifle down, hers still aimed at my heart.

My lip twitches in rage as I slowly lean the gun against the wall beside me.

"Why?" I ask.

"We win," she smirks.

"Why not just shoot me?"

"Need people," she says.

"You think I'd join you and your trash dump?"

She shakes her head.

"Not for us."

"For who?"

She rolls her eyes. "Enough questions."

"You know your whole trash gimic is pretty lame," I hiss at her.

She smirks at me again.

I keep trying to speak to her, slowly reaching behind me for my pistol, my fingers twitching against the grip as it tugs in its holster.

"No," she says firmly, shaking her head and raising the gun a little until it's in my face. She takes a step closer. "Throw gun— off."

I grimace, biting my tongue as I slowly pull it from my holster and toss it off the balcony edge.

She steps closer again.

Eugene must have stopped using the megaphone because I can't hear anything from the front gate.

"No chance anyway," she tells me.

"Oh yeah?" I ask, looking around for a weapon. Ty's hammer and Sasha's knife are both still on my belt. There's a plant pot behind her. My rifle's still against the wall. I shake my head. "Why's that?"

"Lead soldier," she says proudly. "Jadis puts faith— in me."

"Right..." I nod. I take a tiny step closer to my rifle. "And you guys talking like idiots... that part of the act, too?"

She strides forward. "No." Her gun barrel is an inch from my nose.

Gunshots crackle through the air from towards the main gate. Then some from the back gates where Michonne is. Farron looks. I don't hesitate — I can't because then people die. I grab the barrel of her rifle, twisting it away from my face and yanking it over my shoulder, pulling Farron in close. I punch her in the stomach as hard as I can, and she shrieks. I manage to wrestle the gun from her, and in the struggle it flies off the building edge. She reels back, her elbow connecting with my chin, sending me staggering back. She grins, pulling a knife. I take a few wobbly steps away and draw my hammer. She charges. I swing my hammer as hard as I can, and she ducks under it, slicing at my arm. Clothes and skin rip open. I yell. She slashes her knife again, but I'm fast enough to slam the hammer down on her forearm. I hear the bone above her wrist crack and the sound of metal hitting concrete when the knife slips from her fingers. I try to breathe, but she closes the gap and grabs at my hammer, her fist pounding me in the face and throwing us both onto the floor. The hammer skids away. Farron climbs on top of me, her hands closing around my throat tight. She squeezes so tightly that I hear a crack in my throat, feeling the pressure squeeze the air from my lungs as I gasp desperately. Despite the broken bone in her arm, she presses down harder. I fumble with Sasha's knife as my face goes numb and my throat continues to crush in on itself. I tug out the knife and drive it desperately into her ribs. Farron shrieks as she pulls back, giving me a chance to breathe. I twist over onto my front, retching and spluttering, trying to crawl towards my rifle. She dives on top of me, flipping me over and trying close her fingers around my throat again. I push her face away with my hands, but she opens her mouth and bites down hard on my ring finger. I scream as I feel the bone shatter and the finger tear away from my hand. She spits it out beside us. I try to kick and punch, but she kneels on my arm, keeping it pinned, pressing all her weight into her hands still wrapped around my throat. I choke. There's a shatter of pottery. We're showered in potting soil. Farron collapses. Michonne's standing behind her, dropping the last of the plant pot she just broke over the woman's head. Farron staggers to her feet, dazed, Sasha's knife still sticking in her side as she grabs my rifle, but Michonne swings her sword and severs Farron's hand from her wrist. Then she kicks her off the balcony. Farron screams as she falls with the gun. A sickening thud somewhere below.

"They betrayed— betrayed us," I wheeze, my throat feels like it's still being crushed. I sit up, clutching my hand as blood spurts from where my finger was. "Fuck."

"They did," Michonne pants, getting under my arm and lifting me. Her face is bruised, and she has a dark pool of blood staining the side of her sweater that looks like it's still filling. "Come on, we need to get that finger covered."

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah," she says breathlessly. But then she falters, clutching her side, more blood pooling.

"Michonne?!"

"I'm—" she's bleeding so much more than I realised. She falls. "I'm okay. We're— we're the ones who live."

-Carl-

-Now-

Simon marches me through the community at gunpoint. So many people are dead. Blood trickles to the drains, and bodies litter the streets. Most of them are ours.

Simon leads me to a spot in the grass by the wall. Mikey and Sasha are here, on their knees. Negan's standing over them, Lucille on his shoulder, a small cut on his cheek from where Sasha got him with his own knife.

I'm forced to my knees alongside them.

"Welcome to the party, kid," Negan sighs, grinning still.

"Are you okay?" I ask the others.

Mikey nods quickly, staring at the floor.

Sasha's eyes are staring wide at me, she opens her mouth, but Negan yells at us.

"No talking, you three!" He waggles his finger. "Not 'till Daddy gets home."

Then I see Dad. Jadis brings him, her gun pressed into his back. He's clutching a bullet wound in his abdomen.

"Down," Jadis tells him.

Dad's looking around, panting.

Jadis jabs him in the side that's bleeding, and he falls to his knees beside me with a grunt coming from between his gritted teeth.

"Well, shit, Rick," Negan mutters. "You just couldn't stick with us, huh? You had to go with these filthy garbage people?"

Jadis gives him a look.

"No offence," Negan chuckles.

I glance up at the Brownstone roof. I can't see the glint of a rifle or the silhouette of a person. Rhys was up there with one of them. The stress of him being gone... the sight of Saviors forcing our people to their knees... the sound of my dad wheezing as he bleeds out beside me. I can't stop what comes next. My bandage starts to turn damp as my eye leaks, tears streaming down my face.

"No, no, no!" Negan points Lucille at me, each prickle on her back sharp and glaring. "Don't you dare, kid! Don't you fucking dare. See, Sasha here... she is competing for your number one spot as the most badass — radass motherfucker I've ever met. So don't you cry! Minus five points."

I grind my teeth, looking up at him. "Fuck you."

He barks a laugh in my face. "Don't you try and win me over now."

Jadis suddenly steps in. "Deal is for twelve, yes?" she asks Negan.

"Ten." he grimaces at her for interrupting. "People are a resource."

"Twelve."

Negan stares her down, the crackle of gunfire happening somewhere off in the distance.

Jadis nods. "Ten."

Negan chuckles and sighs.

He walks around the four of us, scratching his stubble. Lucille drags along in the grass behind him.

"Ahh, Rick. This is just gonna make you sad. You're gonna wish you were dead. I like having fun... I truly fuckin' do. But maybe you think that the guy that did what he did to your friends wasn't me, like that was some sort of a fucking put-on... like I'm not the guy with the bat— I'm just the guy that makes your kid spaghetti!"

Another gunshot rings out. I think about Michonne's group at the far gate.

"Oh, oh shit. Maybe this is on me. Maybe this is all on me. I gotta make it right. I guess I gotta start all over again." He points at me, and I shiver. "I gotta tell ya, Rick, If I had a kid, I'd want him to be just like your kid, which makes this so much harder."

Sasha sits up straight. "You agreed only one person has to die," she hisses. "We agreed. Then pick me! Kill me."

Negan licks his lips, leaning back and staring down at her like an explosion in a glass cage. Obliteration contained for him to watch.

"Oh, Sash," he chuckles. "That was the deal. But you and Mikey-boy royally fucked that up when you pulled your little stunt by the gate."

He crouches down in front of her.

"See," Negan smiles, "I wanted you to be one of my top somebodys. I wanted you to be the badass you are without the leash that Rick the Prick seems to keep on y'all."

He points at Mikey.

"I wanted him to work his way up. Start down low with Daryl and make his way to the top. Learn to live a hard life— what it means to struggle."

Negan laughs in the back of his throat, tapping a gloved thumb against Lucillie's spikes.

"See, Sasha, now, thanks to you... I'm gonna go down the line. Back to square one. Only, this time... I'm taking three people. Not one. Not two. And you're not gonna like it."

"You're not gonna win," I tell him.

"Carl. It is over." Negan stands up and points. "Why don't you point your one ball down the street there and take it all in."

I do. We all do. Saviors collect up our guns from corpses while Scavengers tie people up for whatever they traded after. Then I hear a scream from towards Mikey's house. We look fast enough to see the blur of someone falling from the roof and hitting the ground out of sight.

Dad groans. I choke on a sob. Sasha's looking at us like she might know.

"Who—?" she gasps. "No. Carl, Rick, who— who just—"

I can't stop the cry that comes out of me. I moan out and fall onto my hands, gripping at grass and mud between my fingers.

Dad's gasping, eyes fluttering wildly as he shakes his head.

"Oh," Negan chuckles. "Oh, wow. You just lost somebody important to you right now— like, just now! Jesus... That. Is. Timing."

"It wasn't..." Sasha shakes her head, gasping at the air as it runs out for her. Just her. Like the world turns poison when she loses him. "No! He wouldn't... no. Rhys— I taught him to not— he can't just—"

"No..." Mikey whispers.

"Rhys?" Negan looks at her with familiarity until his eyes light up. "Oh, fuck. Not the boyfriend you told me I couldn't meet because he was dead! Carl, you lying little shit! I felt damn sorry for you! You're telling me I could have met him today if—? Fuck, Carl... in a way, this is all your fault. I could have put him on the no-kill list if I knew!"

I tighten my fists in the earth, listening to all the noises in the world turn to a high pitch ringing as Sasha wails for Rhys.

Negan crouches before Dad.

"Well, Rick... you chose this. I truly don't know what more I could have done to warn you...

And this isn't a warning.

This is punishment.

I'm gonna kill Sasha now.

Then Mikey.

Finally Carl.

I'm gonna make it three...

...nice...

...hard...

...swings...

...try to do each of them in one because I like them."

A single tear rolls down Dad's cheek.

"I just want you to put that in your brain and roll it around for a moment, Rick."

Negan pokes the side of his head.

"I'm gonna kill them, and then Lucille here... she's gonna take your hands."

Dad's eyes finally make their way up and up until they meet him with steel and fire. "You can do it right in front of me. You can take my hands. I told you already— I'm gonna kill you. All of you. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but nothing will change that. Nothing. You're all already dead."

Negan's face slips and cracks. When Rosita shot at him, it was the first time I'd seen him stop acting; stop performing. Then he was scared. But now, the mask has slipped, and he's furious. Real rage in his narrow eyes and curled-up laugh lines. Then he pulls it back on and smiles.

"Damn. Wow, Rick. Okay." Negan stands up. He clears his throat and walks towards Sasha with Lucille in hand. "You said I could do it—"

"No!"

The scream stops Negan like a finger to a metronome. The endless ticking of his warpath blocked.

Rhys comes out of my blindside. He leaps at Negan, fists flailing. Negan swings around, and his bat connects with Rhys' ribs in mid-air, flinging him to the ground.

I'm shrivelling up on the spot as I realise he's dead all over again. He's back but now Negan's standing over him with the bat.

"Who in the fuck are you?" Negan laughs, holding up a hand to stop the Saviors that rush to grab a crippled Rhys.

Rhys curles up on the ground holding his middle, trying to stand and falling on his face. His finger is missing.

Negan shrugs and raises his bat over Rhys.

"No!" I shriek at him, snotting and crying and reeling on the spot. "No-please-no-don't-please-stop-"

"Woah," Negan looks at me. "Calm the fuck down, Carl."

I try begging but my words choke in the back of my throat.

"I'm guessing by the commotion that you're Rhys?" He looks down at him. "Congrats on not falling."

Rhys nods, his nose in the dirt.

"What a fucking disapointmen—"

"Fuck you," Rhys hisses.

Negan frowns. "You come running at me all G-I-No-fuckin-plan-Jo. Unarmed and heavy as a bag of piss... and you expect me not to be disappointed?"

Sasha starts begging, too. "Don't— just kill me. Kill me. Please, kill me."

"Jesus," Negan shakes his head. "Why does this kid make all the badasses in your little group cry like fucking assholes?" He grins. "Don't worry, Sash, I'm still gonna kill you."

Rhys finds enough strength to sit up after Negan says that. "Y'know," he huffs, holding his middle, blood on his lips. "You should really kill me instead."

Negan's eyes go a little wider, like he's interested. "Is that so?"

Rhys looks up at him, one of his eyes is bruised bloodshot. I see it in him before anyone else does. Maybe only a second after he decides on it himself. He's going to make Negan kill him.

"Carl said you told him that Paula was one of your top lieutenants, yeah?" Rhys asks.

"Rhys, shut the fuck up!" I shout at him as he slowly kneels up straight like Abraham had. "You hear me!? Shut up. Just fucking stop!"

"You saying you're the one that took her out?" Negan grimaces like it's actually pissing him off.

"No." Rhys shrugs, spitting blood on the floor. "The walkers did that. All I did was push her onto that spike." He coughs blood now, wincing. "But she screamed a lot before she went out. You guys have a habit of dying like cowards."

"You little fucking shit!" Simon marches at Rhys.

"Simon!" Negan barks. "Stay your ass in line."

Simon takes a few steps back, chest heaving.

"Damn," Negan says, grinning again. "I see why you're screwin' this one, Carl."

"Please don't," I whine and groan at him, tears and drool across my face.

Negan laughs at me again. "Don't worry, I'm a man of my word. It's the three of you," he says, walking around Sasha again. "Rhys can come back to Sanctuary with me after all this shit is dealt with, and we can have a nice long chat about his punishment. Anyways... something tells me this will hurt him more than a bat to the head."

He raises Lucille above Sasha again. Barbed fangs bared in the sunlight.

"Remember, Rick, you said I could do it..."

I close my eye.

Rhys screams.

Mikey wails.

Shiva rumbles and roars.

There's screaming and gunfire.

My eye opens, and we flip around to see the tiger's teeth tearing through the flesh and bone of a Savior's face behind Negan.

Then Negan's sprinting away with his lieutenants and Jadis as his men aim at the tiger tearing the stomach from the man she just pounced on. But they die before they can shoot Shiva — gunfire exploding from our side — Saviors drop like flies. Horses gallop up the roads of Alexandria, a thunder of soldiers and a king that marches under his red and gold encrusted banner.

The rock in the road is torn from the crust of the earth as he roars with his tiger.

"END THESE SAVIORS AND THEIR ACCOMPLICES!

ALEXANDRIA WILL NOT FALL,

NOT ON THIS DAY!"

Carol turns a corner in paintball armour and shoots down a Saviors standing over Rhys. Rhys manages to toss the Savior's rifle to Dad, then the pistol on his hip to Sasha. He collapses, exhausted, to the ground after.

They fire on the retreating Saviors that scramble away from Shiva as she devours another victim.

A Savior aims his gun at me, but an arrow flies through his eye and brain. I look to see Jenny on horseback, already loosing another arrow.

Dad reaches out and pulls Rhys by the collar closer to the rest of us.

Then I see Maggie, Enid, and Jesus, charging in with the rest of Hilltop.

"Phalanx out," Maggie barks orders. "Third group, now!"

Then Daryl runs out onto the street, too. He scoops up a gun from the ground. "Move up! Now, we got your backs!"

Dad pulls me to my feet and hands me a gun from the Savior Shiva killed first.

Sasha springs on top of Rhys as gunfire whizzes over our heads. I skid down beside them, and Rhys groans at us that his side hurts. Sasha pulls up his red-stained shirt to find a dozen deep and weeping holes where Lucille had bitten into his flesh.

Dad helps Mikey up, handing him a gun that he looks at like he has no idea what to do. We get Sasha and Rhys up, and the five of us push toward everyone else on the street. Sasha and I stay under Rhys' arms when he stumbles and trips.

One Savior charges at Dad when he runs out of bullets, but he stops dead in his tracks when Morgan intercepts him, driving his sharpened staff into the guy's neck. He snatches his gun and fires at Scavengers and Saviors alike.

"Guys," Enid says, breathless, as we reach her taking cover by the RV. Maggie's already pushed on ahead with Bertie and Jesus. "Shit, is Rhys okay?"

"If fine," Rhys groans, wincing a little.

A flare shoots into the air from near the gate. Smoke starts to fill our walls. Small cans with short fuses are tossed over them from outside.

"They're falling back!" Dad yells.

I hear Maggie shouting orders up ahead. "Eduardo, Bertie, between the houses— cover the gate! Let's go."

"Now we finish this!" Ezekiel booms, charging after the retreating Saviors with his sword drawn, Shiva on his heels, blood soaking her fur.

"Michonne," Rhys keeps saying over and over. "Mikey's house..."

"Dad," I bark over the fading gunfire, but he already heard, motioning for us to follow as he starts in that direction.

We reach the Brownstone apartments, getting to the steps of Mikey's house. That Scavenger that had been on the roof with Rhys is splattered along the sidewalk, face swamped in blood and her leg bent out at an awkward angle.

"Where?" Dad barks at Rhys, jumping over the body.

"Upstairs."

Dad and Mikey rush inside.

I try for us to follow, but Sasha turns to me, ducking out of Rhys' arm. "Can you take him?"

I nod. "Where are you going?"

"To help finish this," she says, grabbing one of the sniper rifles from the street by the dead Scavenger. She yanks her own knife from the woman's ribs, passing it back to Rhys.

"Don't lose it," she says. Then she takes off after the others.

Rhys and I slowly make our way inside, Rhys leading the way as best he can. My hands are stained dark in his blood.

Michonne is at the bottom of the stairs, slouched over on the last one, Dad by her side, Mikey a few feet behind. She must have tried to make it closer to the fight and fallen. One of her eyes is swollen and bloody. Her head is slumped against the wall, and she doesn't look like she's breathing.

Rhys tells me I can let go of him, leaning on Mikey instead.

I rush to Dad and Michonne.

"Michonne?" Dad whispers, touching her arm with a trembling hand. "Michonne."

Her head moves, and shallow breaths start to whistle from her nose.

"Oh, you're alive," dad gasps, stroking her hair and crying. "You're alive."

I touch the back of her hand gingerly and she lifts it to my cheek, running her thumb against it until she catches a tear.

"We— w— we're— we're—" she croaks, her voice all mixed with blood in her throat.

"I know," Dad coos. "I know. We are. We will."

When I turn around, Rhys and Mikey are nowhere to be seen. I make my way outside and find Rhys sitting on the steps alone. He's looking at the dead Scavenger mangled on the sidewalk.

"Where's Mikey?"

"Went to find Enid and everyone else," Rhys wheezes.

I cut a hole in my flannel sleeve using my knife and tear it off my arm. I sit beside Rhys and gesture for his hand. He gives it to me, and I wrap his finger up tightly. He winces, hissing through his teeth.

I pull his head into me and hold it tightly.

"We win," he whispers.