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He isn't shocked Maggie made it. Rick had always known she had it in her. Out of all the Greene family, she had that spark of darkness that a person needs to survive this world. Rick wished this had been a journey to find her, to get to know who she was now. Swap stories over a drink or two. Judith had run off with some boy; that's what brought him, Michonne, and RJ out this way. It had taken weeks to track her down. She was somewhere in New York playing house.
Discovering Maggie was in charge of New York hadn't shocked him either. Rick had seen that leadership potential way back when she was still childish and unsure of herself. Negan being head of security was something he never would have predicted in a thousand years. It was disconcerting to see Maggie stare at Negan with trust in her eyes, but gaze at Rick like he was a potential enemy.
Once she had only have looked at him with trust and respect maybe that died for good the day he let Negan live.
“She doesn't wanna see you, Rick,” Maggie said. He was standing in her office, feeling like a boy dragged in front of his principal for doing something wrong. “I can't make her return home.”
“You didn't have to offer sanctuary here,” Rick replied. He tried searching her face for something of the woman he'd once known, but there was nothing there. He wanted to tell her he was sorry for Otis, Patricia, Hershel, Beth, and Glenn, but he didn't think it would make her favor him more to remind her of the losses he couldn't stop.
“No, we should have just let her leave with lover boy,” Negan snorted, rolling his eyes.
Rick wished he would just leave them alone to talk, or at the very least, that Michonne and RJ had been allowed to be part of the conversation. When he looked at Negan, he wanted to see someone who had changed, but all he could see were Abraham and Glenn's last moments. How Maggie could get past it, he didn't know, but she had. She didn't flinch at Lucille in Negan's hand, even though Rick could barely stomach looking at it.
How long had it taken her to get comfortable? What horrible things had happened to her that she needed him nearby like a guard dog? Rick couldn't help but wonder.
“You've had a long journey. Why don't you rest up?” Maggie suggested, shooting Negan a look to shut up. “Maybe she'll change her mind in a few days.”
The apartment was nice. They had power and plenty of food. Maggie's crops had done better than theirs, it seemed. He understood why Judith would want to stay here. But Rick could never settle here. He was uncomfortable. Every time he saw Maggie and Negan together, he was reminded of how much distance there was between him and Maggie. A wound that kept getting wider, one that could never heal.
It was his fault. He'd let Negan live and broken his promise. Rick found it almost perverse that she could then be so at ease with Negan. They had conversations with nothing but their eyes, whispered to one another.
“It's strange,” Michonne commented, taking a sip of liquor. God only knew what type it was. All he knew it was Negan's homebrew. “Seeing Maggie so happy. I can't remember the last time I saw that. She's built a good home here, it seems.”
“We are not staying. Once Judith sees sense, we are going home,” Rick said, running his hands across his beard. He didn't need to tell Michonne why they couldn't stay. She knew him, knew his heart, soul, and mind.
“You're going to have to accept that boyfriend of hers,” Michonne told him for what felt like the hundredth time. Maybe she had said it that many times. “She's growing up, Rick. I don't like him either, but she does. Remember what it was like to be young and stupidly in love.”
He did, but this was different. When he was Judith's age, his biggest concern was football and whether he could successfully grow a beard. Not walkers, not whether the crops would grow or the animals would die, or whether another human might murder him simply because they could.
Maggie was bleeding. He wanted to help. Michonne wanted to help, but she flinched away from them both as if they were strangers to her who might rip her apart because they saw weakness. But Negan was accepted. He was allowed to wipe the blood away, so tenderly that it was almost sickening. Rick had to swallow the question he'd been dying to ask: “How close are you two?” Because, deep down, he didn't want to know the answer.
“See, I've told you, Margaret, a thousand times to play nice with others,” Negan murmured softly and teasingly, his back to Rick. “Or at least kick their ass if you can't.”
“Hey, I won, asshole,” Maggie hissed as he pressed down a gauze pad on her wound. It felt wrong to be here as if Rick were interrupting something private and intimate.
Rick didn't miss the way her hand lingered for a second at Negan's wrist. Not to push him away because of the pain, but to seek comfort and offer it. He wanted to be happy she found someone that she could trust, but the happiness doesn't come. There was no rage or disgust just this bitter regret that she had been parted from them all so long she had built a home, a life, almost a family with Negan.
“Of course you did, honey.” Negan turned his head slightly and looked at Rick as if he wanted to say something. Maybe it was to gloat. Maybe it was to apologize. But whatever it was died in his throat when Hershel burst through the door. “Easy there, Sparky. She's fine. I would have made her go to the hospital if she wasn't.”
