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They were sitting far enough into the trees that no one would notice them but close enough to still see glimpses of the factory walls. Lucille stopped craning her neck to get a better view and settled back against a tree so she could look at her companion. "What do you think?
Nicole let out a heavy sigh, looking back and forth between her and the building. "I don't know. I don't like it, but... I don't like anything anymore." Her voice cracked on the last phrase and Lucille shuffled over to sit beside her. After a couple of seconds she found a good position and rested her head against Nicole's shoulder. She didn't need to say anything before the other woman spoke again. "But I really can't think of any good reasons why we shouldn't check it out. So... I guess we're going."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
They still sat there for a few more minutes before finally getting up. Everything they had was already packed up, so they just had to pick themselves up and check to make sure there were no walkers in their way before they started walking toward the factory.
They stepped out of the trees so they could get a clear view of the area around the building and she felt Nicole grab her arm with a hiss. "What the fuck." That was about the right sentiment. Who the hell kept a bunch of walkers stuck to their fences? Sure, it worked as a last line of defense and probably managed to be intimidating, but god it was just a bad idea.
"Well they've already seen us, so it's too late to just turn around." One of the people inside the fence was pointing at the two of them, and gestured broadly toward the main gate when Lucille raised her hand in a half wave. She reached down to grasp Nicole's hand tightly. "Come on. Whatever it is, we'll deal with it. And if it doesn't work, we'll sneak out in the middle of the night and keep going south." Part of the mini-speech may have been just to reassure herself, but it worked well enough, and she felt Nicole squeeze her hand back.
Walking across the clear area between the treeline and the fence felt almost eerie. It was one of the first open areas without walkers that she'd seen in a long time. It was also one of the first open areas she'd crossed in a long time. Having people with guns watching them also didn't help with the exposed feeling. Still, they made it to the front gate without incident and a stone-faced man pointed them toward a small courtyard.
"That's far enough." A woman dressed in all black came towards them and stopped a few feet away. She was holding a gun loosely in her right hand and there was at least one person on the platform behind her who looked like he was ready to shoot if they tried anything. "It doesn't look like the two of you are from around here."
"We saw some of your cars in the area and found our way here." God, they'd only been on the road for a few months bouncing between different temporary shelters, but Lucille already felt like she forgot how to talk to new people.
"You didn't run into anyone else on your way?"
"No one." Though staying out of sight and away from the roads probably had a lot to do with that.
"Do the two of you have any weapons?"
"Gun and a kitchen knife in the front of my backpack." Nicole volunteered. "And then what you can see." Even after they packed the serious stuff away, both of them had left the knives clipped to their waistbands just in case they had to deal with any walkers. Besides, they could see from a distance that all the people on guard had enough firepower that they could never be a real threat.
The woman nodded. "You can keep the knives, but hand over the gun. You can get it back when we know we can trust you." Lucille had seen it coming, but she still wasn't happy to hear it. Still, she stepped over to pull the gun out of Nicole's backpack and handed it over. The woman tucked it away and finally slotted her own gun back into the holster on her belt.
There was a loud crackle, drawing their attention to the guy on the platform as he pulled out a radio and held it up to his ear. He listened for half a minute before clipping it back on his belt and walking over to the woman. "The boss wants everyone in the main marketplace, and it's not optional."
The woman sighed and rolled her eyes back towards the entrance. "Let everyone out here know, I'll take these two in. Come on, hopefully this won't take too long." They came out into a bigger area and the noise of so many people crowded together was almost like running into a physical wall. The woman turned to them and glanced around before shaking her head. "Just stick together so I can find you afterward and we'll find a place for you." She turned and left before they could say anything.
They found a spot out of the way at the edge of the crowd, trying to make sure the space behind them was open. Lucille had to stop herself from constantly looking around and being on guard. This was the most people she'd been around in a while, and it came with a weird jittery feeling along the back of her neck. Even though there was enough noise to cover it, she kept her voice low as she leaned over to Nicole. "So this 'boss' guy, what do you wanna bet? Egomaniac or actually competent?"
Nicole turned to her with a raised eyebrow and tilted her head to mutter. "With the fence outside my money's on 'total psychopath.'"
Lucille snorted and ducked her head to hide her giggles. Sure, half of it was just nerves, but occasionally everything about the world they were living in was just completely absurd. No matter what it turned out to be, the routine would be the same; keep your head down, don't cause trouble if you don't have to, scope the place out and lay low in case they needed to sneak out.
Maybe it would work out, even with the creepy walker fence. Still, Lucille wasn't feeling too hopeful at the moment. Everyone around them seemed to be just as tense as her and Nicole. Most of them seemed to be nervously whispering or trying to find other people in the crowd without drawing too much attention to themselves. Apparently everyone being called inside out of the blue wasn't a good thing. A door creaked open and they all fell silent, like the entire crowd was holding their breath waiting for an explosion.
She nearly jumped out of her skin when a familiar voice came booming across the room.
It had to be a coincidence, or just an effect from the sound bouncing off the walls. There was still a chance though, so she rose up onto her toes to try and get a glimpse of the center of the group. There were too many people and they were too far away for her to actually see anything, and she stopped trying after only catching a couple of flashes of movement.
It had been over a year since the world fell apart and she hadn't heard from him since that last text about the bridge between their house and the hospital being out. She'd gone through being hopeful the first few times they'd run into other groups of survivors or heard about communities and being let down every time. Eventually she'd just resigned herself to the fact that they probably wouldn't see each other again. Still, it was almost physically painful to listen to the voice echo around the room and try to still be realistic.
Then she heard her name.
"I'll be back in a minute." She let go of Nicole's hand, quickly twisting her arm free when the other woman tried to grab her. It was easy enough for her to slip through the crowd without a word, just gently pushing people aside and ducking under shoulders. A few people gave her odd looks but quickly seemed to decide it wasn't worth it to do anything. She probably looked absolutely insane trying to push through the crowd while everyone else looked like they wanted to bolt, but she had to see for herself just to know for sure whether it was really him.
She finally got close enough to the front of the crowd to see the clear circle in the center, and yeah, there was that stupid jacket that she probably would have paid never to see it again before everything went to hell. He had his back turned talking at someone else, but she'd seen enough to step past the last line of people and out into the open.
A couple of other people in a small group near the center noticed and took a step forward like they were going to stop her. Well, now or never.
"Negan."
He whipped around looking absolutely furious for a moment before he froze in place, face going slack with shock. "Lucille?" She barely had a moment to give a small smile in return before he was across the floor and almost crushing her in a hug.
He pulled back a second later so they were face to face and ran a hand across her cheek to cradle the back of her head. "You're really here." It sounded like he couldn't actually believe it, and his eyes kept skipping around her face like he was trying to check each of her features. "How did you...?"
She couldn't help letting out a breathy laugh, feeling her throat constrict as tears started to burn at the corners of her eyes. "Just dumb luck." She cupped the line of his jaw and finally pulled him into a kiss so the two of them were pressed together head to toe. It had been long enough that they both fumbled a bit before managing to fit together again. When she needed to come back up for air, Lucille wrapped an arm tightly around his waist and slid the other up to hook onto his shoulders, letting her nails dig into his jacket. "I never thought I'd see you again."
His hand settled on the back of her head, and she hid a small grin against his neck when she felt fingertips playing through her hair. The last time they'd seen each other it had all fallen out from chemo. It was just barely long enough to reach her chin, but there had been a couple of times when she'd debated chopping it off, but she'd missed it enough not to. Now she was definitely glad she'd let it grow out.
"Oh god, I missed you so much, babe." The familiar voice made her stomach clench, and Lucille was pretty sure her hands had started shaking from adrenaline and relief. She tucked her face against his collar, and for a moment it almost felt like everything could be normal again.
It was all interrupted when she heard someone approach, and a guy cleared his throat like he was trying to get Negan's attention as carefully as possible. "Boss, what should we do about-"
"What you should do is notice that I'm busy and solve the goddamn problem on your own for once." There were a few murmurs then she heard a couple of people yelling and clearing everyone else out of the area. Oh right. She should probably figure out what was going on with Negan being the one in charge of the people here, and whatever she'd interrupted. But that could wait, because right now it didn't feel like Negan was ready to let her go any time soon, and she didn't have a single problem with that.
It was easy to block out the white noise from the crowd and press her ear against his chest so she could listen to the sound of his breath and the quiet thump of his heartbeat underneath it. Even after so long, she still felt like she instantly recognized those little things, and hearing them again unclenched a knot she hadn't known was in her stomach. She was realizing how much she'd missed this, missed him.
When it sounded like there were only a few people left scattered around the room, she finally loosened her grip on him and took a half step back so they could talk without going cross eyed. He looked good, maybe a little bit more grey hair, but she probably had her own fair share too. Besides, it was impossible for him to look bad when he was smiling at her like that. "I never thought I'd find you." She reached up to brush her fingertips over his cheekbone, oh yeah, she was definitely shaking, and let her hand settle against the side of his face. "I was hoping you survived, but... I never thought I'd see you again."
"I should've found another way to the hospital." His smile fell a bit and Lucille felt her heart wrench. He grasped her wrist and gently pulled her hand away from his cheek, kissing the center of her palm before pressing it against his breastbone. "The roads were a complete mess and I couldn't get through."
"It's ok." She leaned forward to press their foreheads together, giving him a small peck on the lips. "No one could get through. I'm pretty sure it kept us safe for a while. We stayed there for a couple months until a herd from the city came through. Nothing like what you have here, but plenty of beds." That got her a tiny grin, and he started looking a little bit less guilty.
"I thought you were gone. And after those first couple of weeks, I thought..." He trailed off but she knew what the end of that sentence was. 'I thought the cancer got you.' Hell, she'd thought the same thing. When everything started collapsing, she'd helped other people at the hospital but felt like she was just waiting for the end. He glanced down and pressed his free hand just below her ribs. "Are you ok now? What about...?"
"It just disappeared." She shrugged, almost bouncing on the balls of her feet with the motion. When she'd found out, she'd almost reached for her phone on instinct to call him before she remembered that it was the apocalypse and she'd tossed her phone a few weeks earlier. "I was able to get a couple of scans before we lost power completely and there was nothing. It was like I never had it."
"How? I'm definitely not a fucking doctor, but...how?" She couldn't help snorting at the way his brows knitted together and he stared down at her shirt like he could somehow see the change through the fabric.
"If you're not a doctor, then how do you expect me to know?" He shook his head with a fond smile and leaned forward to kiss her so she stopped giggling. It still felt like she was on an ecstatic sugar high but also about to cry at the same time. "I came here with one of the doctors from the hospital, and she thinks it might be something with everything that's happened and the dead coming back."
He raised an eyebrow with an amused huff. "So all it took for you to get better was the goddamn apocalypse?"
"Something like that, yeah." The tears that had been gathering at the corners of her eyes finally started spilling over, though she could still feel herself smiling hard enough that the muscles at the edge of her mouth had started to ache. He wiped away the first couple of drops that rolled down her cheeks before pulling her close again.
"I'm sorry, that was the worst way to say that." Now he was the one shaking, like he was worried about hurting her if he held on too tight. If she hadn't already been tearing up that would have pushed her over the edge. He pressed a kiss to her cheekbone and brought his hand back up to run through her hair, teasing the strands out between his fingers. "I bet you didn't miss my stupid fucking mouth."
She couldn't help grinning and tilted her head back just enough to brush her lips against the corner of said mouth. "I missed it enough." She tucked her head against his shoulder again, closing her eyes when he rested his cheek on her temple. "Missed you." After a minute, she swore she felt a drop of water against her skin a moment before Negan quietly cleared his throat, but decided not to comment on it.