Chapter Text
When the door lock makes its usual soft opening click, his ears prick up. It’s a bit earlier in the day than usual, but Negan is glad whenever the priest is coming with his meals. He hasn’t been out to work since the botched supply run, and after spending several days coped up in his room, he’s almost climbing the walls. So whatever conversation Gabriel is willing to regale him with before resuming his other duties is always a welcome distraction.
“Hey, Gabe, bring any whiskey along for dinner?” he says, nose still in his book, before noticing that the footfalls sound different this time around from the soft, unassuming ones he’s come to associate with Gabriel.
He looks up, and to his surprise the man standing before him isn’t the priest, but Rick, in the flesh. There’s a puffy bruise on his cheek, and his movements are stiff, like someone shoved a giant iron rod up his ass, but other than that, he looks mostly like his usual self. A little paler, perhaps.
“Well look who’s here,” Negan says, giving Rick a big grin as he cozies up against his pillow, drawing his legs up. “Welcome back to the land of the living. Hope you enjoyed the great, all-inclusive infirmary experience.”
Rick gives him a long-suffering look before sitting down on the sole chair in the room, a wince passing over his features.
“I assume Gabriel has been taking care of you while I was away?” he asks as soon as he’s maneuvered himself into a position that his cracked ribs seem to deem acceptable, a fist discreetly pressed against his side.
“He sure did, he’s been here like clockwork to tuck me in every night and say my evening prayers with me.” He gives Rick’s stiff form a quick once-over. “So how’s everything?” he asks, reverting to a more serious tone. “Gabriel told me you were a bit banged up, but nothing that wouldn’t mend.”
“Yeah, Siddiq said I should be fine, even though he wanted me to take it easy for a while. Mostly it’s just my cracked ribs that bother me. And they’ll heal soon enough.”
Rick exhales deeply, then remains silent for several long minutes.
Negan waits. It’s not like he has anywhere else he needs to be.
“Thank you,” Rick finally says. “For bringing me back. For… saving my life. I know you didn’t have to.”
And that’s where Rick is just plain out wrong.
“Actually, I did have to.” Negan cocks his head to the side. “You really expected me to just leave you there to become walker chow?”
Blue eyes look onto his, and for a whimsical moment, Negan can’t help but wonder why he’s always likened them to ice or steel when their color is in fact more reminiscent of the sky.
“Well, if the alternative meant passing up on the perfect shot at freedom… it’s not a choice everyone would have made.”
Negan rolls his eyes. “For fuck’s sake, Rick, I’ve already told you a billion times already—I’m not gonna escape. There’s jack shit waiting for me out there. I’m here, in Alexandria, and I’m going to make the best out of it. I’m not about to fuck things up on an epic scale again.”
A short pause follows, but before Rick can respond, Negan continues.
“Besides, it’s me who should be saying that.”
Rick frowns. “Saying what?”
Letting an arm rest across his updrawn knees, Negan meets Rick’s gaze straight on.
“’Thank you’. I’ve never really said it before, so I’ll just do it now instead.” He takes a deep breath, not sure why he’s waited so long with this. “So, thank you. I really mean it. For… everything. For giving me a second chance. Fuck knows I didn’t deserve it.”
Those blue eyes are still locked onto him as Rick gives a slow nod. “I’m glad it wasn’t wasted.”
A beat of silence follows before Rick speaks again.
“And, for the record, I haven’t once regretted giving you that chance.”
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The next day, everything is back to normal again. Well, almost normal, as it turns out.
As usual, Rick comes in the morning to bring him out for work. And Negan is very much looking forward to that part, to finally get out of his room after his dull stint spent doing nothing in particular while Rick was holed up in the infirmary, most likely also busy doing nothing in particular. He holds out his hands for the shackles, but lets them fall as he realizes that Rick didn’t bring any with him this time around.
“Well, I think we should be able to do without them from here on,” Rick says in response to Negan’s questioning expression.
Negan blinks in surprise, unable to find anything to say in reply. Finally, the moment has arrived that he’s been waiting for, for so long—the day when he would have earned Rick’s trust and be let out to work without shackles. Sure, it might have taken him over half a year to get there, but that just makes the moment all the sweeter.
“Just keep in mind that the ones you left behind at the grocery store weren’t the only pair I’ve got lying around,” Rick says as he raises his eyebrows pointedly, but the tone of his voice is more light-hearted than threatening.
“No worries, boss.” He grins. “I’ll be on my best behavior.”
Stepping out the door to face Alexandria has never felt so good. His steps feel lighter than they have in years as he walks unshackled next to Rick. Almost like they’re on equal footing. Okay, he knows they’re really not, because, shackles or not, Rick is still the warden and Negan his prisoner, but it’s a nice illusion nevertheless. One he could easily grow used to. And, who knows, if he continues to handle his cards right, one day, he might perhaps not be all too far off.
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There’s not exactly a wide variety of tasks that Rick can perform in his current sore state, so he contents himself with settling down on an old tree stump to sharpen some tools. It beats twiddling his thumbs in the infirmary, at least.
As he throws a glance at Negan crouching in a potato field a few paces away, his train of thought inevitably returns to that confused moment a few days ago when he had woken up in the infirmary.
His eyelids weigh a ton, and there’s a throbbing pain in his side, his head, and most everywhere else too. Forcing his eyes open is a struggle, and when he finally succeeds, he’s met by a hazy shape hovering above him. He has to blink several times before the blur coalesces into Siddiq, the man fussing with something on Rick’s head. A bandage?
“Siddiq?” he manages, trying to heave himself up to his elbows, but he barely manages to lift his head off the pillow.
Siddiq jolts, but quickly get his bearings as he reaches out a hand to gently press Rick back into the mattress. “Don’t try to move. You probably have a concussion and some cracked ribs to boot.”
Rick winces at how a mere hand on his chest is enough to keep him in place. When did he get this weak and pathetic?
But the doctor’s face is painted with relief rather than worry. “Glad to see you’re awake. How are you feeling?”
“Like… shit.”
“I bet,” Siddiq says, making a sympathetic grimace. “I think you should be in the clear, but I’m going to have you examined to make sure there are no alarming symptoms.”
Siddiq leans in close, and then there’s a torch shining into Rick’s eyes. The light makes a flash of pain sear through his skull, and he groans. But he submits to the doctor’s poking and prodding and questioning, while struggling to get a grip on the confusing situation.
Nothing seems to make any sense, because wasn’t he out on a supply run with Negan? So how the heck did he end up here in the infirmary? And why is he even injured in the first place?
A second later, his memories return in a quick succession of flashes. The decrepit convenience store. An ominous crack above his head. His gaze going toward the ceiling, A big slab of drywall suddenly detaching. And himself, clumsily stumbling backward, but not quickly enough. Then, nothing but darkness.
“How did I get here?” he croaks, and Siddiq hurries to hand him the glass of water standing on the bedside table. Rick drinks, then coughs as a gulp of liquid goes down the wrong way.
“Negan brought you back,” the doctor answers, making Rick startle and cough again.
Negan brought him back?
Negan?
And that part had kept churning in his mind as he lay idle in the infirmary, his predicament having granted him all the time in the world to contemplate and ponder. Even now, he’s still amazed—Negan actually passed over his chance at freedom so he could bring Rick back. While it’d been a long time since he’d stopped thinking of Negan as a dangerous man, he’d still kept the shackles on his wrists, because escaping was a whole other matter. It was natural and expected for any prisoner to desire freedom, because that’s human nature—even if Negan might harbor no active intent of escaping, Rick still didn’t trust that he’d be able to withstand temptation if it presented itself. So he had let the shackles stay on, hesitant to take the plunge of removing them.
But Negan had shown him that his worries had been totally unfounded.
And now he owes his life to Negan. Truth be told, it wasn’t how he imagined that their supply run would end. But it sure beats several other alternatives he can think of.
He watches as Negan pulls another batch of potatoes out of the ground, dropping his haul into the basket at his side. Perhaps the offshoots of the very potatoes he’d been planting on his first day of work in Alexandria. Which seems like a lifetime ago, now.
He wonders what Carl would have said if he could have seen his father and their old arch enemy like this. What he would have thought if he knew that Rick is actually considering giving Negan back his freedom someday. Not now, no, and not for a long time yet. But one day.
Well, he realizes, there’s one thing he’s sure of.
Carl would have approved.
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He’s pleased when Laura comes to see him as he takes a break from his potatoes, as usual seating herself opposite from him.
Her gaze immediately latches onto his unshackled wrists and remains there for a long time before she looks up at him, her head cocked to the side, an eyebrow elegantly raised.
“Well I’ll be damned, I think there’s something different about you today.” She’s quiet for a minute, furrowing her brow as if in contemplation, then her face splits into a wide grin. “Oh, don’t tell me, I know! You got yourself a haircut, didn’t you?”
He laughs. And damn, how much sweeter it feels to laugh when he’s not in chains anymore. Their absence is a real weight off him, and not primarily in the physical sense.
And he’d like to think—even if it might just be wishful thinking on his part—that the glances from the passing Alexandrians, even the old-timers, have been a lot less hostile this morning than they usually are. One guy—Negan doesn’t remember his name—even came up to him and, to his surprise, placed a hand on his shoulder, telling him that he may well become an Alexandrian yet. The gesture had taken him aback, but word about the botched supply run and how he had brought Rick back must have made its way around the community.
Well, who knows, maybe, one day, he might actually earn something of a place here. He sure hopes so.
“Oh, before I forget, I got something for you, darling,” he says as he reaches into his pocket and hands Laura the KitKat bar.
Her eyes go wide, as if he’s presented her with the Holy Grail with a map to Atlantis stashed inside. She accepts his offering with both hands, almost reverently. “Whoa! Where did you get this?”
“Well, that’s the only thing we brought back from our supply run. Figured you should have it.”
She leans over, kissing him on the cheek. “Thanks a lot, babe. Always knew there was a damn good reason for sticking around you.”
He grins back at her. A KitKat bar might not be much, but he supposes it’s a start. He has the rest of his life to make amends for everything. And he’s grateful beyond words that Rick gave him the chance to.