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The first notice he had was when Michonne came down to give him his food instead of Rick. Up to then, he was none the wiser and everything had been fine, or as fine as it could be with Negan behind bars; from then on, it just started crawling deeper and deeper under his skin.
Negan cocked an eyebrow and made a curious, somewhat amused sound. It’d been quite a while since anyone other than Rick had come down to pay him a visit - even though he knew that the reasons of Rick’s incursions into the pit Negan inhabited could hardly be qualified as social visits. Still, it was the only company Negan had had since Siddiq declared that Negan’s neck had healed enough for him to be able to go on without any further professional care, and so Negan had given up on ever seeing anyone other than Rick, before he broke free.
He cooed a hello and offered Michonne a bright, toothy smile. She glared, brow furrowed and lips tight, her jaw clenching in a way that let Negan know she was gritting her teeth. Negan let out a soft laugh when she roughly set his food on place and then left without sparing him a single other look. Negan laughed again, followed her with his eyes until the door slammed shut, and then grabbed an apple. He threw it in the air, caught it, and let his teeth sink into it. He threw himself onto the bed, licking a drop of juice before it fell down his chin, free arm comfortably tucked under his head and an amused glint remaining in his eyes, still fixed on the door. Rick was a better conversationalist.
-
Negan assumed that Rick simply had other things to pay attention to - he had snatched the position of leader away from Negan’s hands, after all - and while it hurt his pride that he gave up so easily on his time with Negan, he could let it slip once. Just this once, though. When the second day came and it was still Michonne who came down to be his caretaker, that didn’t sit so cool with him. His face became a less pronounced mirror of the scowl on Michonne’s face, and he rose up to face her from the other side of the bars.
“What, high and mighty Grimes thinks he can just decide to stop coming see me? I won’t have that. Tell him I want to see him. What the fuck’s that fucker doing, anyway? Better be important.”
He’d expected Michonne’s bitchface to remain unchanged, or at most, deepen just a little. It threw him off his balance to see her face morph into a mask of utter rage and hate. Without deciding to, Negan took a step back.
“It’s none of your business” she growled, getting her arm through the bars to slam a sandwich and a can of soda into his chest, not minding when the metal dug into him a little bit too much. She started to leave immediately after that, just like yesterday. She was so unlike Rick, who always stayed, even if sometimes it was just for a few minutes, even if sometimes it was just to stare in silence at Negan’s words. Negan tried to slip through the bars and grab Michonne’s arm to ask what the hell was wrong with her, but the second he moved an inch, she turned and gave Negan a look that left him breathlessly paralyzed. She sneered and went away. Negan slowly sunk into the floor and started munching on his sandwich, left with the grim impression that something was wrong.
She’d been angry, yes. But she had also looked like she was on the edge of tears.
-
It wasn’t Michonne the third day, but Negan was afraid it wasn’t Rick, either. He struggled for a few moments to remember his name, staying on a corner of the cell while the guy set a tray onto the floor. The guy pointedly avoided acknowledging Negan’s existence.
“Aaron” Negan called, finally remembering just as Aaron secured the lock on the door after closing it. “Where’s Rick?”
Aaron’s eyes flickered towards him for just a second, and then they dropped away from him. He stayed where he was, though, so Negan waited for the answer, leaning forward a few inches.
“As if you cared” was what eventually came, said in a cruel sneer. Negan scowled, pouted a little.
“I’m asking, am I not? Could have kept quiet about it.”
“You could, yeah. You should.”
“ C’mooon , what’s the harm? Ain’t like I can do anything from here.”
Aaron’s eyes met him for a second again, and like Michonne, although not to the same degree, there was a mix of both hurt and anger in there. The look stayed with Negan even after it was gone, and between then and the moment the answer came, seconds later, he felt his mouth go increasingly dry.
“Rick is dead.”
Negan’s eyes widened. Next second, he was next to the bars, gripping Aaron through them and pulling him closer, slamming him hard into the cold metal in the process. His eyes were hard and cold and held no mercy for the startled, scared man in his grip.
“That’s a fucking lie and you know it, you fucking liar. What the fuck are you fucking lying for, you fucking motherfucker?”
It couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t. Negan refused to believe it. He just had to shake the little shit harder and all the bullshit would fall down just like that. So Rick hated him so much that he’d pretended his own death, so what? He owed Negan to come see him, hate or not. This stunt was completely unnecessary.
But the moments went by and Aaron’s face didn’t show anything but cold, angry tiredness. Negan searched his eyes for something that he didn’t find, and in a shudder of weakness that he didn’t allow, his grip came loose and Aaron slipped away.
“How?” was all he managed to mutter. Aaron glared and turned his hands into fists.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does.”
“Not to you. It’s none of your fucking business” Aaron growled, and then he was gone too.
When the sheer shock came down and allowed Negan to move, the first thing he did was kick the tray. His food hit the wall and became completely inedible, slipping down the wall and pooling into the floor, but Negan couldn’t be bothered to give a shit. He let out a hoarse scream, and just barely avoided the urge to slam his head into the wall, hoping that maybe a concussion would erase the information from his mind.
He should have seen it coming. All this time, Rick had looked okay enough, but Negan could sense the lack of that vibe of energy and strength that radiated off him even back when Negan had him cowered and humiliated. Negan should have known that it wouldn’t just grow back. He should have known that a man like Rick couldn’t overcome the lost of his child just like that. He should have known that Rick didn’t have fight left in him, that he couldn’t have handled it or that he’d simply not had the strength to fight hard enough out there. Rick was dead the moment Carl was.
Carl. Negan had never gotten to say sorry. And oh, did he owe Rick an apology; he had at no moment hesitated to use Rick’s dead child as a tool to beat him down again and again, wanting to see pain and self-hate and weakness grow in the man. God, what if it was what Negan told him that finally made him go down? Surely he couldn’t have believed that bullshit, right? Negan had just wanted to knock him down, get the fight outta him. He hadn’t really meant anything he’d said, and he’d just hopped Rick would be able to shrug it off. He’d never thought of bringing it up again to clarify that.
God, he should have apologized. He’d needed to apologize. He’d wanted to apologize, but he’d never gotten around to it. Why the hell hadn’t he gotten around to it? There were so many things he’d wanted to tell Rick. He wanted to say sorry for Carl, and he wanted to say sorry for all the other people he’d killed. He wanted to say sorry for enslaving his people. He wanted to say sorry for having humiliated him and considered him a failure. He wanted to tell him that he’d been right all along, he wanted to say that he was grateful for the chance he’d given him to keep on breathing. He wanted to tell Rick that he’d taught Negan better, just by being better. He wanted to tell him that he was aching for the chance to show him that he’d changed, that he was a better man because of him, that he was worthy of being trusted. Negan wanted to tell Rick that he was the most amazing person he’d met in years, and that he’d do anything he wanted, if only Rick would ask him.
But he’d never had the chance. Or rather, he had but he’d decided to let it pass. His pride wouldn’t let him. He’d been waiting. For what? Who the hell knew what? He’d hoped Rick would need him in any way, someday, or they would be in a situation in which Rick would have to accept Negan’s words without a choice to reject them. What a stupid idea. He’d had so many chances, every day when Rick came down to see him, but he’d always been too busy not wanting to be shot down in his moment of honesty. He’d let it all pass and now he’d never have that chance because Rick was dead and Negan could never let him know.
Negan noticed a tear running down his cheek, maybe more out of frustration and anger than anything else, but there it was. It wasn’t fair. Why Rick? Rick shouldn’t have died. Out of everyone who was out there, Rick wasn’t the one the world could do without. Rick had so much to do, so much to grow. Every sliver of information Negan got from outside let him know that Rick was doing things right, so much better than Negan ever had, and he’d felt so goddamn proud of the man. These people out there needed Rick, because Rick was the one leading them to something better, and he’d just been starting. Why hadn’t they made a fucking effort to make sure he was safe? Didn’t they understand how valuable he was?
Negan kicked the wall, again and again. His hand started bleeding when the punches came, but he didn’t stop. The pain let him focus on something else.
He should have let him know. It was the only good thing he could have done with his life.
Later, when his hands couldn’t take any more beating, Negan fell down on his ass and sat in the middle of his dark, empty cell, the silence of it broken only by the deep breaths that made their way through Negan’s hands, pressing into Negan’s face. He stayed still until he’d calmed down, and the silence in the cell was absolute, but still he didn’t move an inch.
He was smarter than they thought, and they weren’t as careful as they ought to be. Negan’s imprisonment wasn’t as absolute as they thought; they’d go pale as chalk if they knew the chances Negan had had of escaping. A rueful smile made a faint appearance on Negan’s lips. He wanted to be free of this shithole more than anything, except for one thing: If he wasn’t wandering free, miles away from here, it was exclusively because of Rick. He hadn’t had someone to admire, someone whose wellbeing and opinion mattered to him, in a long time. Of course he’d wanted to stick around him, no matter the circumstances. Anything as long as he eventually had the chance to make Rick aware of the changes in him, get a fraction of his admiration back.
But Rick could never change his mind about Negan now. It was too late to do anything about it. Rick, the only person that these people out there couldn’t do without, was dead.
Negan would go away and never think of coming back. There wasn’t anything holding him here anymore. Because if Rick wasn’t there, what was the point?