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When Negan suggested that Judith be taken to the doctor, he hadn't expected to be the one to take her.
Judith had been coughing for at least a week now and sneezing for longer than that. Rick had waved it off, saying that it was only because of the Winter weather and that it'd pass soon enough, which was true, but still, Negan wanted it checked out.
Rick was the kind of guy who only visited the doctor once every other year, if even then. Once, he'd had a full on flu and refused to visit a doctor until he'd blacked out for an hour and then woke up only to throw up again. Carl was the same way, hadn't been to a doctor since Negan had known he and Rick, and he'd known them for three years now. In fact, year two of knowing them, Carl had fallen off a ladder and popped his shoulder out of place. Did he go to the hospital and get them to pop it back into place? Nope. He'd gotten up, blinked a few times, cursed (Earning a scolding from his unconcerned dad) and then banged his shoulder against the wall to pop it back into place. Then, he went back to doing what he was doing. Negan had stared at the scene, mouth hanging wide open, phone in hand ready to call an ambulance.
They were tough as nails and believed that time could heal practically anything. Negan couldn't figure out how those assholes were even still alive. Sure, he wasn't a fan of going to the doctors, and he damn for sure wasn't a fan of hospitals, but he went when he knew he needed to.
Unwilling to let Rick and Carl turn their baby girl into a freak like them, he'd demanded that she be taken to the doctor for a checkup. He knew it was probably only a cold, and they were already giving her over the counter cold medicine which was probably all that the doctor would recommend they do, but he just wanted to be sure.
Rick had refused the first few times, having a different excuse each time. First, it was because Judith hated the doctor and would cry all day if she was taken to one, and there was just no need for that considering there was nothing really wrong with her. Then, it was because her doctor was a forty-five-minute car ride away, then, it was because Rick was too busy with work to take her, and so on and so forth.
Negan accepted the excuses begrudgingly because he kind of understood. Yeah, Rick was a busy man, he worked more times than not and when he wasn't working he was getting his well-deserved rest, and when he wasn't doing that he was spending time with his kids. Negan understood that he didn't want to deal with a screaming toddler when he didn't necessarily have to, and he understood why he didn't wanna take a forty-five-minute drive that he didn't have to. Still, he wanted Judith to be checked out.
"So, you take her." Rick had finally said. Negan had stood there, wide eyed and open mouthed, at a loss for words. He'd never taken Judith to the doctor before. She'd only been to the doctor two or three times since he'd known them and Rick had taken her then. He didn't know what to say to the child's doctor!
"I-I can't." He'd denied quickly. "I don't--She's not--"
"She is your daughter, just as much as she is mine, and you know that." Rick had reassured him, rubbing his hand softly. "You know just as well as I do, if not even better, what medicine she's taking, what she's allergic to, how much she weighs, how tall she is, everything. You know everything about her. Not that you'd even need to know all of that--But you do."
"Rick--" Negan looked down as he let out a sigh.
When he and Rick had first started dating, it was...It was different than how it is now.
Carl hadn't been a big fan of Negan in the beginning, for good reason. Negan was crude and rude and--Well, you've got to get to know him in order to love him and Carl had no intentions of getting to know him. But when he did, he'd grown to like Negan.
Judith, well, she'd been just shy of one year old and a hell of a lot easier to please than Carl, but Rick had been a bit protective of her. It was bad enough Carl was exposed to Negan so much, he didn't want Judith around him so much too. Rick had been afraid that he and Negan would break up, and he didn't want her or Carl getting too attached.
It quickly became clear, however, that Negan didn't have plans to leave anytime soon, so, Rick had relaxed a little, allowing Negan to be around Judith as much as he wanted to, which seemed to be all the time. He loved her!
"She's your daughter too." Rick had nodded. "You want her to go to the doctor? Alright. You take her to the doctor."
So, here they were.
"Is he gonna poke me?" She whined, burying her head in Negan's neck, bumping his chin in the process. He chuckled as he patted her back to try to soothe her and get her to stop squirming around. She'd already asked that question a hundred times, but he could tell she was nervous and thought the answer might change if she kept asking. "No, Judith. I don't think there's gonna be any reason for him to give you a shot today."
"Promise?"
"I promise...Again."
"And we still get ice cream after we leave?"
"Yes, chocolate chip and strawberry, your favorites."
She grew silent for a moment, Negan bouncing his leg up and down every few seconds as he glanced around the room. Thankfully, the doctor's office wasn't all that busy today, but there were still about six or seven kids and a couple pairs of parents sitting around.
Two kids were on the floor playing with blocks, two were next to their parents, coloring, and the rest were either running around or crying into their parents' shoulders. Negan grinned. In his opinion, his kid was the most well-behaved one here, even if she was pinching his neck repeatedly for no apparent reason. He tried to ignore the stinging pain, but she kept pinching the same exact spot so he decided to distract her with something that wouldn't cause him so much pain.
"Judy, you know, the doctor is here to make you feel better. I know it's not really fun being here in this stuffy little office and having to deal with a stranger putting foreign tools near your face, trying to check out what's going on inside you before you even know, but in the end, it's worth it. Doctors make you healthy again! They don't mean any harm, they just want to help."
"What if they don't make me healthy again?" She grouched. Negan sucked in a sharp breath, not expecting the question at all. He let out a nervous chuckle before trying to talk again, but he couldn't. It felt like there was a Boa constrictor wrapped around his neck, squeezing all the air out of him.
His grip on Judith loosened as he thought back to Lucille. How the doctors had failed to save her...They did everything right. They figured out that she had cancer earlier than most people figure it out. They gave her every type of treatment in the book, and for a while, it seemed they were helping. Negan had watched that woman die twice. Once when she first got sick, when she stopped being herself, when she gave up on fighting and became a quiet, quaint soulless being, trapped in a human body, and once in the actual end, after he watched her come back to life, after she got her motivation to fight back, after they thought she was home-free. She'd been getting so much better, the doctors were telling her every day how far she was coming, how amazing her recovery was. Just when they thought she'd make it, just when Negan had started making plans to take her home again...She died. She gave up. Her body did, at least. It was over. All the treatments and progress in the world couldn't save her. The worst part was that there was no specific reason for her sudden death. She'd been doing good. There were no signs of her going anytime soon, and yet, she did.
"Papa?"
Negan blinked a few times before shifting his eyes toward Judith again. "Y-You'll get better, I promise." He mumbled. He felt guilty right after. Now he was making promises he just couldn't keep. Again.
He knew in the back of his mind that he had nothing to worry about. This was just a simple cold. Kids got sick all the time. She'd be better by next week, most likely, but still. He'd told Lucille the exact same thing, and now she was six feet under.
"Judith Grimes?"
Negan looked up hurriedly as he heard the name being called and stood up slowly. He held onto Judith tightly, walking slowly toward the smiling nurse that was waving him over. "Hi! My name is Anna, I'm guessing this is Judith?" She grinned as she waved at the shy little girl. "Follow me."
She led them to a room at the very end of the hall and Negan watched like a cat ready to pounce as she measured Judith's height, checked on her weight and did all the shit that nurses usually did. Negan wanted to relax, he knew that he could, the nurse was keeping up a small conversation with a now not so nervous Judith, asking her about her favorite cartoons and listening as she recited her ABC's in the wrong order, but he still felt on edge. Doctor's offices, even ones made for children, unsettled him.
When the nurse was done she waved a goodbye to Judy and then to Negan before stepping out of the room again. Judith waddled over to Negan and took a seat on his lap again, giggling as she played with a toy that the nurse had handed her. Clearly, she was feeling a lot better, now not afraid and even her constant coughing had slacked up, but Negan was only growing antsier.
"I miss daddy." Judith mumbled after a few moments. "We get him ice cream too?"
"Can't promise I won't eat it in the car on the way back, but yeah, I'll get him some too."
"And bubby?"
"I'll get the one-eyed punk one too." He grinned.
She seemed content with his answer and went back to playing with her toy quietly. Negan sighed softly, rubbing her fluffy hair down.
A few minutes later, the door opened again, and in walked the doctor. Negan shifted uncomfortably in his seat and Judith dropped her toy on the floor before cuddling into his chest, clearly startled by the man's sudden presence.
"Hi! I'm Dr. Perry. Maybe you remember me?" The man got down on one knee as he spoke to Judy, but she turned to look away from him, causing him to chuckle. "Still as shy as always, I see. This time, she's not crying. I'll call that progress." He grinned. "I'm afraid I don't remember seeing you here, though..."
"I'm Negan." Negan shook the man's hand and blew out a long breath. He wished he could just turn his head and pretend the man wasn't there, but that wasn't socially acceptable for a man of his age. "I'm her stepdad and this is my first time bringing her so..."
"Gotcha." The man nodded. "So, I hear she's coughing and sneezing a lot. From what the nurse wrote down, it seems like she's just got a head cold. Unless there are more concerns?"
"No, I think it's just a cold too, but it's been a while since she's had a checkup so...Just wanted to make sure?" Negan swallowed thickly as he watched the doctor closely.
He nodded before reaching out, silently asking for permission to pick up Judy. Negan felt like he was betraying her by handing her over to him, especially when she gripped at his jacket sleeve with all of her might, but he knew that one of them had to act like an adult in the situation and sadly, that had to be him.
"Okay, darling, I'm just going to make sure everything looks okay, alright? I'm going to check your ears—" he tugged gently at her ear. "—Your nose—" He booped her nose. "—And your throat." He chuckled as she squirmed around to get out of his grip as he tickled her neck. "I also need to make sure that you're breathing well, and I'll check that with my stethoscope." He tugged at the medical tool around his neck. "Maybe when I'm done checking on you, you could check on how I'm doing? I'll let you listen to my heartbeat."
"Okay." She agreed, excitement evident on her face. Negan let out a relieved breath. At least one of them was calm again.
***
The doctor had made good on his promise, giving her her checkup before allowing her to use his stethoscope to listen to not only his heartbeat but also her own and Negan's. When they were officially done, she hugged him goodbye, Negan thanked him what must've been a thousand times, and then she got a sucker from the nurse she'd seen first.
The drive home was actually fun, the appointment had gone well and it was only a cold and she'd been prescribed an over the counter medicine to take for her cough, just as Rick had told him. Negan and Judith spent the entire ride home singing loudly to Disney songs and rap music with a hint of Justin Bieber added to the mix, only stopping to go into the ice cream shop.
When they finally got home, Judith ran up to the front door as soon as Negan got her out of her car seat and knocked a few times before standing back. Negan chuckled as he leaned against the car and ate the rest of his—Well, Rick's—ice cream. A few moments later, the door opened and Rick looked around in confusion for a few moments before looking down. His eyebrows shot up and he gave Judith a large, open-mouthed smile before leaning down to pick the giggling girl up and hug her tightly. Negan couldn't hear what he was saying to her from his spot near the car, but the man was glowing, looking happier than ever, and Judith was just as thrilled to see him as he was her. Negan could practically feel his heart growing twenty sizes.
Rick looked over at him after a minute and sent him a soft grin before turning to hand her to Carl, who'd appeared in the doorway a few moments ago.
Rick closed the door behind him as he fully stepped outside and took a few long strides toward Negan, hands on his hips, looking like one delicious motherfucking officer, in Negan's humble opinion.
"What'd you do, Negan? Pay her off?"
"What are you talking about, Officer Grimes?" Negan chuckled. Rick beamed up at him, his eyes narrowing cutely as he let out a few chuckles of his own. "She's never come back from the doctor so happy. She usually ends up sobbing all day after an appointment."
Negan shrugged his shoulders. "What can I say? Papa Negan is naturally magical...The ice cream probably did help a bit, huh?" Rick nodded with a knowing smirk. "She was good during the appointment too, though. I think I was more nervous than she was."
"Nervous?"
Negan looked down and scraped the sides of the now empty ice cream cup he'd been eating from, trying to gather the last bit of the delicious treat on his spoon before shoving it into his mouth. "She asked me if...They couldn't make her better. Made me...I just thought about Lucille and, I don't know—"
"Hey, it's okay." Rick mumbled as he reached up to stroke Negan's cheek softly. "I'm sorry. I should've taken her—"
"No, it's fine." Negan shook his head. "Can't avoid going to the doctor forever. It was good. I got to bond with her some more." He smiled. "And I stole a second sucker for myself too, so, that made everything worth it."
"You bragging about stealing to a cop? Pretty bold." Rick snickered. "Judith mentioned ice cream? Said Y'all got some for all of us. Where's mine?"
"I ate it." Negan sighed. "I'd offer you Carl's but...I ate that too."
"I should make you sleep in the yard tonight." Rick rolled his eyes before leaning up to give Negan a kiss. What was meant to be a short and sweet peck on the lips ended up becoming a heated kiss, tongues fighting for dominance, hands roaming, bodies grinding together. Rick pulled away before either of them could lose complete control and sent Negan a lazy smile. "Peanut butter is my favorite. How dare you take that away from me."
Negan wrapped Rick's arms around his waist before leaning in to give him another kiss. "You make out with me long enough it'll be just like you're eating it yourself." He winked.
"Quit being gross in the front yard, please."
Negan and Rick glanced toward the house, noticing that Carl had reappeared in the front door holding a tired looking Judith. "I was told there was ice cream?"
"I ate it. And your dad's about to get a taste of what could've been, but I'm afraid you're not gonna have the same luck." Negan smirked.
Carl cringed. "You two are disgusting...But I'm craving some ice cream now so I'll make you guys a deal." There was a devious gleam in his eye, noticeable even from where Negan and Rick were standing. "You let me drive to the ice cream shop and I'll let you guys make out in the backseat like teenagers."
"Deal!"
"Judith isn't about to watch us make out and Carl isn't about to drive my car." Rick rolled his eyes. Carl had his license, but he wasn't the greatest driver, in Rick's opinion. He did alright, but he was heavy footed and got distracted easily. Rick couldn't blame him. After observing Negan's only half decent driving, Carl was royally fucked in the transportation department.
"I could find a girl who's had ice cream recently to make out with if that's what you want?" Carl smirked. Rick narrowed his eyes and sighed. "Get in the damn car."