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The months that followed were brutal, in all senses of the word.
With Gregory refusing to act against Negan, the Alexandrians had been forced from the Hilltop with barely any supplies and nothing even close to resembling a plan. Despite Gregory’s orders to let them leave without any assistance, Jesus found himself blurting out everything he knew about a potential ally for the Alexandrians: The Kingdom and King Ezekiel.
It wasn’t exactly his fault, Jesus reasoned, they were all going to get themselves killed if they went off without a plan. DARYL was going to get himself killed, judging by the raw rage he seemed to be bottling up. And considering how much work Jesus had put in to making sure Daryl made it to the Hilltop in one piece, it would make no sense for him to let Daryl die now.
That’s what Jesus told himself anyway. Plus, if he scratched their back, they could scratch his. They were all skilled fighters and even the offspring of a fool and an imbecile would be able to tell that there would be a fight coming to their gates sooner or later. And it did come. Or, rather, the Alexandrians went looking for a fight and they found one.
The first person they lost was Sasha.
None of them had seen it coming, they were all prepared for death but it’s a funny thing, you can prepare and plan and know that death is coming for you but you’ll always be shocked when there’s a knock on your door and there He is, staring right at you.
They never found out exactly who had killed her, how she had died. Whether she knew it was coming or died in a blissful ignorance. Jesus had his suspicions; Negan wasn’t one to turn down a chance to lord it over somebody, to let them know that they were beat. And he was the one who had bought her to them. He called it a ‘peace-offering’ before flinging her body at Rick’s feet, like a cat bringing a dead bird to its master.
The only thing that had stopped Daryl from trying to tear Negan’s head off was Jesus grabbing round the back of his neck in an iron-grip and pulling the other man round as hard as he could into his own space, pressing Daryl's face into the place between his shoulder and his neck. He had struggled at first, but Jesus whispered in his ear; calming platitudes, hushed bargaining, promises of revenge. They were lucky they were hidden away from site, lucky that the Saviours were still looking for Daryl and didn’t know that Jesus knew them.
Once the Saviours had left, Daryl and Jesus remained where they were for a while, hidden from the world. Daryl had lifted his head away from Jesus’s neck but his body was still turned in towards him, gaze lowered and his quick, shallow breaths still brushing across his collar bone; signalling a panic attack Jesus knew he was attempting to fight back.
Neither of them spoke, there was nothing to say, but Jesus kept one finger ravelled-up in a loose piece of thread hanging from a rip in the knee of Daryl’s jeans. It was strangely comforting and that was definitely a good thing considering Daryl wasn’t the only one that was trying not to panic.
Sasha had been a friend. One of Jesus’ very few real friends. And she was dead. And now she was nothing more than a perfect example of why he didn’t exactly go around making a habit of bonding with people. Because it didn’t just hurt. It 'hurt' when people left or when they turned out to be less than he thought them to be but this… ‘hurt’ didn’t describe the pain that had shot through him when Negan had first uncovered Sasha’s body. ‘Hurt’ didn’t even come close.
They stayed where they were, sat beneath a tree behind one of the Alexandrian houses, until the sky turned black and Michonne came out to fetch them. Her face was stoic as ever and despite the pain clearly visible around her eyes, she stood firm and spoke clearly as she told them the coast was clear, offering them both a hand to stand up.
They buried Sasha in the dark, next to Maggie’s empty grave and the other, sadly, occupied ones.
But Sasha was just the first.
After her there was Rosita. Then Eugene. And then Kal and Rosie and Tobin and another and another and another until Jesus looked around him and realised that there were so few of them left that they didn’t stand a chance against Negan. That they were all going to die. Of course, that was when it happened.
It was a miracle, or a fluke to those who didn’t believe in the existence of miracles anymore, but nevertheless an event that none of them could have predicted. Except perhaps Rick, with his self-assuredness that the man seemed to constantly shroud himself in.
They caught Negan.
It was his own fault really. Pride comes before a fall and all that. Because for all his posturing and showing off, swinging that bloody bat around and playing God, Negan neglected to realise that his power came from the people who served him. Without them, he was nothing. As Rick put it later, ‘he’s just a guy who bought a baseball bat to a gun fight’.
When Rick had started leaving Alexandria on secret little outings, Jesus hadn’t known what to think. As much as he respected Rick and his leadership (especially with Gregory being an ever-present shadow over his life), he didn’t trust him 100%. The Alexandrians had accepted Jesus, for the most part, and their alliance was strong but Jesus didn’t have a background with Rick. He didn’t truly *know* him. So naturally when he noticed Rick going off on 'scouting trips for Negan’ but not really coming back with anything, Jesus got suspicious.
That was when he had decided to follow the sheriff on his next outing and discovered that not only was Rick not looking for stuff for Negan, but he had been meeting with one of Negan’s henchmen - Dwight.
Daryl was NOT been pleased when Jesus had told him. Actually, that was an understatement. Jesus had barely finished telling Daryl what he had seen when the other man was storming from the porch of his house over to Rick and Michonne’s home, throwing the door open so hard that the resulting bang echoed around the estate, drawing curious and frightened glares from the few remaining residents of Alexandria. Jesus shot them all an apologetic look as he hurried inside the house after Daryl and pulled the door quietly to.
“Rick! Rick you sumbitch, where the fuck are ya?!”
In a less tense situation, Jesus would have laughed at Rick’s bemused face as he peeked around the doorway to the kitchen, drying his hands off on an old tea towel. But there was nothing even remotely funny about the poorly-masked look of betrayal on Daryl’s face.
Rick glanced quickly at Jesus and then back at Daryl before he took a deep breath and stepped into the room.
“Daryl, listen—“
“Nah, I ain’t listenin’ to shit. It true?” Daryl growled, pacing up and down the living room, the dirt from his boots leaving smears on the pristine floor.
“Is what true?” Rick’s voice was even and calm, pitched low as he tried in vain to get eye contact with Daryl.
“You know what, I ain’t gonna ask ya again” Daryl snapped back.
Rick sighed deeply, looking towards Jesus again as if to get some support. Jesus just raised his eyebrow in response. He respected Rick but if he had to pick between him and Daryl, well... The choice really wasn’t a difficult one. He should really look into the why of that. Rick seemed to understand the fact that Jesus wasn’t going to be jumping to his defence and threw the towel gently onto the couch, sitting on the arm.
“If this is about Dwight—“
“Fuckin’ right, it’s about Dwight” Daryl spat back, all hackles raised and teeth bared “What the fuck you doin’?”
“We need to get to Negan. You heard that saying? ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend’? Well, that applies here.” Daryl snorted, rubbing his hands over his face quickly. “Negan took Dwight’s wife from him. His WIFE, Daryl. You said it yourself. I figured, what would I do in that situation? I’d want revenge, I’d want payback, I’d want to make sure that the person I loved most in the world wasn’t at the beck-and-call of some psychopath. So I took a gamble, I reached out to Dwight. Turns out I wasn’t wrong.” Rick stood again and walked up to Daryl who was steadfastly refusing to make eye contact, still pacing up and down like he had an itch under his skin that he couldn’t get rid of. “Hey…” Rick reached out and tried to hold Daryl still but the other man jerked away the second his fingers brushed his shoulder.
“Nah, this ain’t right. HE ain’t right. Ya know what he DID, Rick.”
Rick sighed.
“I do know. And believe me I wanted to kill him for what he did to you, I still do, but we got to think about a plan and this is the only one I got right now.”
This made Daryl look up. He looked like Rick had just slapped him. There was silence for a few seconds before Daryl spoke again.
“What he— What he did to me? Who gives a FUCK what he did to me?! What about what he did to HER? He shot an arrow right through the back of ‘er head, Rick. Then 'e laughed about it.”
Rick visibly paled under his beard and this time it was he who broke Daryl’s gaze.
“I know what he did to Denise as well and it’s awful Daryl, awful. But—"
“Nah. Nah, you’ve always done this man. I get it, ya care about who ya care about. ‘Chonne, Carl, Asskicker, Carol, Mags… me, whatever. But you ain’t ever got it through your head that it ain’t just US that matter. Denise? If he had done that to any of us you’d have killed him the first chance ya got. But not her, why?”
Jesus shuffled on the spot, feeling very much like this was a private conversation that he should not be a part of. Rick, on the other hand, drew himself up and stared Daryl down, raising his voice as he spoke.
“Because you’re family. It’s different, it just IS, you can’t expect me to explain that to you.”
“But she mattered.” Daryl’s now-quiet voice broke slightly on the last word, but he stayed staring at Rick through his hair. “She did. She might not have been ‘family’ to you, but to Tara, to Rosita, to me… She was good, man. And he murdered her like she was nothing, like she weren’t worth shit. And now, what? You want us to cozy up to him? Maybe Tara can go give him a tour, that’d be nice—“
“NO. Daryl, no, that’s not…” Rick pinched the bridge of his nose and shut his eyes for a few moments, seemingly trying to think what tact to take. Jesus prided himself on his ability to read any given situation and he could tell that it really didn’t matter what Rick said next. He knew exactly how this was going to go.
“Daryl,” Rick continued, “I’m sorry, I really am but we don’t have a choice. We have to take down Negan. We HAVE to. This, all of this, comes down to him. Denise, Abraham, Glenn, Spencer, Olivia, Rosita, Eugene, Sasha, Tobin… Whoever did the killing, the buck stops with him. We cut off the head, the body dies. When this is all over, when he’s dead or gone or imprisoned… Dwight’s gonna leave. He’ll be gone, out there on his own. We both know that’s as good as dead.” Rick grasped Daryl by the shoulders, pulling them closer together. “I need you with me. I can’t do any of this without you Daryl, you’re my brother. We have to win.”
There was silence in the room, only the ticking of the clock on the wall making any sound at all. Jesus couldn’t stop himself from holding his breath as they both waited for Daryl’s response. Daryl nodded slightly to himself.
“I’m with ya. Always.” He stepped back a few paces from Rick, standing at Jesus’ side, “But the second Negan’s gone, the very second, imma put an arrow in his skull, see how he likes it. You don’t want that happenin’? You tell him to get gone ‘fore that happens, a’ight? I don’t see him, he lives. I do… he’s a dead man.”
And with that Daryl brushed past Jesus and left the house, leaving Rick staring after his retreating figure with a conflicted look on his face. Jesus felt really awkward suddenly, aware that this whole conversation had happened because of him. He felt an almost overbearing need to apologise, despite not actually being sorry for telling Daryl what was going on, but he kept quiet, simply nodding at Rick and turning to leave.
“Jesus?” Rick’s voice called out from behind him as he reached the door. Jesus looked back over his shoulder. “Just… Make sure he’s okay would ya?”
Jesus smiled in what he hoped what was an encouraging manner and nodded.
“I will, Rick.”
Dwight came through for them, he really did. Jesus was impressed in spite of himself.
He manipulated, he lied, he persuaded so many Saviours to rise up that eventually there were more of them on Rick’s side than Negan’s.
Not that Negan knew that until Rick wanted him too, until he turned up in Alexandria, swinging that bat around and shouting orders in that grating, mocking tone he so loved. Eventually Rick had interrupted. Laid down the new rules, watched with amusement as Negan’s face transformed from a sneering smirk into gradual shock as more than half of his own men and women turned on him. It wasn’t just the Alexandrians, the Kingdom and the Hilltop who were victims of Negan, after all.
Rick had given him a choice – fight or surrender. Negan had chosen to fight, naturally, and so the battle began.
Many of the Saviours were the first to fall; the still-loyal members angry at their fellows’ betrayal and the turncoats still smarting from past grievances. Rick and the Alexandrians stayed on the outskirts, taking out as many of Negan’s people as they could, while Negan himself fought off those who had turned against him.
Daryl and Jesus joined the melee as quickly as they could, with the fighting members from Hilltop and the Kingdom, rushing from their hiding place and into the fray.
Jesus couldn’t say how long the battle went on for, how long they fought for their lives, for their freedom and the freedom of their friends, but the sun had almost fully set by the time Negan found himself cornered by Rick, Daryl, Jesus and Dwight, kneeling on the blood-strewn cement.
“Well, well, well… what ARE we going to do now?” Negan plastered a customary smirk over his face, but the edges were frayed, his eyes wider than usual.
Rick smiled back, leaning down and plucking Lucille from Negan’s hand.
“Wellll…” Rick drew the word out with relish, propping Lucille up over his own shoulder and standing there as though he didn’t have a care in the world, as if there weren’t dead people littering the streets behind him. “That’s up to you. I could kill you right now if you want? It’d be easier, less hassle, and I assure you I would really enjoy it. Or,” Rick paused, glancing at Daryl for a moment until Daryl nodded minutely, not removing his own gaze from Negan, “or, we have a lovely cell that I think you would enjoy. We’ll feed you, keep you alive, but you ain’t getting out, not for a good long time. The choice is yours.”
Negan’s eyes narrowed as he weighed up his options.
“And I suppose, were I to pick Option A, you’d be turning my own Lucille against me?”
Rick grinned nastily.
“Oh, most definitely.”
Negan hummed to himself, looking between Rick and Daryl, more or less ignoring Dwight and Jesus.
“And how about you sunshine? You happy with me shacking up here after what I did to your little Asian boyfriend and the jolly ginger giant?”
Daryl’s hand twitched on his gun, Jesus could practically see his desire to shoot Negan in the head rolling off him in waves, but he placed it in the waistband of his jeans and shrugged casually.
“Don’t like it, but it’s Rick’s choice. ‘Sides, I got a whole case ‘a dog food that’s goin’ to waste, be good use it.”
Negan visibly paled and he swallowed nervously as he looked back at Rick.
“Fine. Option B on the proviso that THIS,” he jerked his head in Daryl’s direction, “doesn’t guard my cell. And I get to keep Lucille.”
Rick laughed suddenly, a full belly laugh that made a good few people, Jesus included, jump slightly. He wiped his eyes before he spoke again.
“You are in NO position to be negotiating. Dwight, thank you for your help, you can leave now. The supplies we discussed are in a car out the back. Go.”
Dwight nodded once and turned his back on them all, jogging off up the street. Daryl watched him the whole way, eyes following Dwight’s retreating figure and he only stopped when Jesus reached out and touched his bare arm lightly, mentally pulling him back to the present situation. Daryl’s eyes met his and Jesus smiled at him gently before turning to Rick and speaking for the first time.
“Daryl and I can accompany Negan to the cell, if you want?”
“No, it’s fine, thanks Jesus, I’ll do it. I need to have a word with him anyway, make sure he’s clear on the rules of his new living arrangements. You two, make sure we’re secure from the outside again, see that the people that helped us have medical supplies and enough to get them back to the Sanctuary. ‘Chonne?!” Rick called out to Michonne, who was standing to the side, with a rag cleaning off her blade. She looked up. “Check on our people, see who’s good, who’s not. Everyone else…” Rick raised his voice further so that it echoed around Alexandria for all to hear. “We got work to do!”
A cheer rose up amongst the people who were still standing, and even some of those who weren’t, sitting on the ground cradling their injuries or holding the dead in their arms. Nobody questioned Rick’s decision to imprison Negan, not then. There had been enough death that day.
As Jesus stepped into Daryl’s space and nudged him forward, beginning to walk alongside him, their hands brushing with every step, the sun made a brief glaring re-appearance before disappearing for good behind the far wall of Alexandria. Jesus glanced sideways to see Daryl looking at him as they walked and they both smiled. The rare look of unburdened happiness on Daryl’s face made Jesus’ smile transform into a fully fledged grin and Daryl shoved lightly at him as they stepped through the gates of Alexandria to check the perimeter.
It was a brave new world, a FREE new world. And as Jesus watched Daryl leap onto the bonnet of one of the abandoned cars outside of Alexandria to get a better look at the area, wobbling slightly as he stepped further up the broken windscreen, he knew that there was nowhere else he would rather be than at Daryl’s side.