Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“I’m sorry, it’s not possible. I’m gonna need to take at least a couple weeks.”

Maggie grabs two packs of jerky and some Sourpatch Kids, impulse buys she can never resist at the gas stop on the way into town. Hershel never keeps any good comfort food in the house and she has a feeling she might be needing it tonight. With the other hand she holds her phone a safe distance away from her ear.

“Gregory, I didn’t plan for my dad to get sick…” She rolls her eyes at the wary cashier before pointing outside and silently mouthing the number of her pump. He gives her nothing in return, simply avoids eye contact and starts clacking at the cash register.

A steady breath in through her nose to keep her from screaming down the phone at the man in charge of her future... two, three…

And out. Two. Three. Four. Five.

“Well, maybe that’s for the best. No, I— excuse me?"

But who is she trying to kid, really?

"You know what? I’d rather go work for Satan himself than come back to your soul-sucking office, you miserable piece of shit!”

Out. Two, three, four…

The cashier winces at Maggie's outburst. She registers his nervous smile as he gingerly waves at somebody behind her and— wait, did he just side-eye her like she’s some sort of fucking Karen??

Feeling a little rushed and a lot embarrassed, she hits the red button on her phone to focus her full attention on paying and getting the hell out of there. She quickly and quietly apologizes to the teenager, although she’s sure he’ll have heard and said worse things himself, just like all the other mouth-breathing little assholes around these parts.

The phone call with her boss, alongside her career, just ended as gracefully as her already-dubious public image is about to among the townspeople of Walkerton. Because Maggie Greene can’t just waltz back into town without the wildfire spreading.

She fumbles with her card, car keys and snacks as the unease settles in.

Shit.

But whatever. It’s not like her career was going anywhere with Gregory in charge. She’s been cleaning up his messes for seven years and he still doesn't have the courtesy to remember her fucking name. Or so he makes out, calling her everything under the sun but Maggie.

Maybe this is the push she needs.

Yeah, sure. Exactly the push I need to quit city life. To come back to this backwater town with my small-minded family and their idiot neighbours. Undo all them years of grindin’ down at college and trying to live independently in the city.

She regrets the thought instantly. Her family aren’t small minded, they’re great. They stuck together through her mom’s passing. Got Maggie through that whole thing with Glenn.

Dad and Beth. It’s only the three of them left, but there’s enough love between them to go around the entire state of Virginia.

Still, Maggie worked damn hard to get out of this place that holds so many bad memories. Good ones, too, but… well. That’s all they are. Memories.

It’s nobody’s fault that she's had to come back. Beth is still in California, half way through her final year at college with good prospects out there for after she graduates, so it would be unfair to expect her to up and leave at such a crucial stage. Hershel is an old man, still doing too much for his age, complete with a knee injury. On top of that, as of three days ago, he has succumbed to what must be his first bout of illness since before she was born. It's had him house-ridden, unable to attend his beloved bar downtown, let alone see to the running of it.

It’s not a money thing. He has that in plenty. But considering how hard he works every day and the modest way the three of them have always lived, nobody would ever know. Generational wealth was wasted on the Greenes. Hershel is allergic to sitting still. A trait that he passed to his daughters.

Maggie can’t spite him for wanting to keep active. She can’t imagine herself retiring in front of the TV to rot alone for the last twenty years of her life, either. Rich or poor. Wouldn’t wish that on her worst enemy.

“Hey, Maggie.”

Who just so happens to be patiently waiting in line behind her, Maggie learns, as she almost collides with him when turning to leave. Gets to see that fucking face crinkle up overhead, grinning from ear to ear, just like the last time she saw him. Like the cat who got the fucking cream.

Not that she wouldn't have known anyway, just by that gravelly voice of his, as deep and rich and stimulating as a double shot of espresso.

Oh. Oh no.

In twothree out twothree in twothree out—

Chapter Text

Senior Year

She tore through the water, back and forth. Had lost count of how many lengths she was up to, her throat and eyes burning from the chlorine that made its way into her mouth and goggles.

“Come on! Where the hell’s your head at, Greene?!”

Glenn’s truck, that’s where. With him laid between her bare legs on the back seat.

They’d done it the night before. Their first time. And of all the things to dwell on, she couldn’t stop thinking about what he might have done with the picnic blanket he'd laid under her ass before the Great Deflowering. The blanket she had ruined instead of his upholstery. If it had been anything belonging to the Greene household, Maggie would have been forced to burn it.

Then take it out into the woods and bury it, because  her dad would kill her if he found out. Full-blown murder.

Right after he had hung, drawn, and quartered Glenn Rhee.

“You’re not slowing down on me, are you?”

She pushed the thought of Hershel going biblical on both their asses from her head and pushed her body harder towards that voice.

“That’s more like it. Come on, you can do it. Good girl, Maggie. That’s it.”

That worked. It always did. Coach Smith made her feel like she was capable of anything. Made it easier to believe she could win at life.

It spiked her energy, having somebody who constantly spoke up about her achievements. Especially a teacher, who seemed to put her before every other of his students. Not just the other swimmers, but on every team in her school. Although, nobody talked about anything as much as Negan did. He was probably just that sort of person. Charismatic. Made everyone else feel the same way.

Then again, Glenn had noticed Coach's favouritism of Maggie, too. Had mentioned it a couple of times, actually.

And to think, Maggie used to have a bit of a thing for her gym teacher. It’s a good thing she finally noticed the way Glenn looked at her when she did. After Mr Porter made them lab partners at the start of senior year, right before Ms. Harrison skipped town and left Coach Smith to step in as Maggie’s swim coach. It already felt kind of weird because he was a guy. A hot guy, at that. It would have been even worse if she was crushing hard on him.

But that was no cause for concern now that she finally had a cute-as-heck boyfriend who was madly in love with her. Who she'd given her most precious possession to just last night, and who she still felt on her skin despite two showers and at least fifty lengths in a pool of chemicals.

“Aaaand… you’re done!”

Coach Smith slow clapped with one hand against the wrist that held his stopwatch as Maggie hoisted herself out of the pool. He had that same old smile on his face, the one that reminded her of the big bad wolf from the story mom used to read her. The smile he always wore. “I mean, I don’t know what the fuu— udge happened in the middle, there, but you really kicked ass in that home stretch. More of that, please.”

“Sorry, Coach. Cramped up a little.” She concentrated on the tiles underfoot, letting them lead her in the direction of the locker room. She set her hair free from its swim cap in her daily attempt to give it ample time to inflate before the first school bell. “Haven’t hydrated enough. It won’t happen again.”

“Hey,” he called softly as she passed by. Why was she so reluctant to meet his eye? “You okay, Greene?”

She made the mistake of looking up in time to see him raise an eyebrow. How did he always see right through her?

“Yeah." It wasn't enough. She could see he wasn't buying it. "Just tired."

They were the only people at the pool, which was usually the case first thing on a Monday morning. Maggie took her swimming seriously, taking to the pool at every opportunity with the intention of pursuing a college team. Of all the people in her life, Coach Smith was the most supportive of this endeavour, insisting that as long as she kept to a set timetable he would accommodate her training as much as possible.

He made his way towards her. Maggie couldn't deny that before all her brain cells defected to Team Glenn, Coach Smith had lived rent free in her head. There was a time, not too long ago in fact, that Maggie would have gone out of her way to be alone in a room with him, taking all his attention for herself.

Now that she had taken the final step with Glenn, all she felt was Coach’s eyes boring a hole through her. Like he knew what they'd done, as if there was something different about her.

“Tired, huh? You been getting lit this weekend?”

If any other teacher at Walkerton had said such a thing, Maggie might have cringed to death. But he just had this way with words that exuded confidence. Coach Smith had James Bond levels of charm.

“It was just a small thing with some friends last night. Stayed out a little later than I should have. I don’t plan on making it a habit.”

“Woah, there. You’re allowed to have a little fun now and again, Maggie, I was just—”

As he came to a stop in front of her, his curious gaze pulled into a frown. His disappointment in her lack of commitment was like a pitchfork to the ribs, until—

Until his hand came up to her collarbone to sweep a lock of hair over her left shoulder.

She hardly had time to feel the sting of his disappointment. The pitchfork was torn out of Maggie, and all her stuffing along with it. He hadn’t touched her skin, but the look on his face at the sight of her bare neck felt somehow even more scandalous than watching Glenn come across her stomach in the dark. 

It was as if her coach had been struck. But whether by disgust, hatred, or something else, Maggie hadn't the foggiest.

He was so close. Too close. And all she could do was watch his lips as they slowly parted, and wonder at how that sharp-looking stubble on his jaw would feel against her cheek...

The door's bell almost rings off its hook as Maggie barges her way out of the gas stop. When it tinkles again a few seconds later, she imagines it dropping on his fat head.

Ding-ding, fucker.

She’s always wondered at the word 'triggered’. What do people really mean when they say they can fully relapse, fall head-first into an unhealthy mental state, or have an involuntary physical response to something as simple as a sound or smell. Now though, hearing his voice for the first time in, what… twelve years? Somehow even more gravelly-yet-smooth than she remembers, the low rumble of his engine sets off the deep, barely-restrained resentment she has held on to since her final year of high school.

“Maggie, hold up!”

“Get the hell away from me.”

“Wait, you—“

Maggie spins around. If he’s as good at reading her now as he was when he coached her, he will know better than to get any closer.

Apparently not.

In two three, out two three four five, in…

“Still breathing wrong, huh?”

Really? 

“Do I look like I’m about to swim home, asshole?”

How the hell does he remember that?

And that face. That irritating mug she once used to see behind her eyelids. After all this time, all the work she's done to forget, it’s right there. Grinning, all teeth and dimples at her, just waiting to be smacked. 

If only my hands weren’t full.

Except no, she would never. Maggie can fantasize all she likes about beating the crap out of certain people in particular, but she doesn’t really believe in violence. Unless it’s to defend, of course.

He’s definitely not worth spending a night in one of Rick’s cells.

“You left this on the counter.” He holds out her phone. “Figured you might need it in case Gregory calls back.”

“Stay the fuck out of my business." She snatches what belongs to her, careful not to touch the hand that offers it. You and Gregory can go suck each other’s dicks.”

“Damn you are terrifying. I haven’t heard a potty mouth quite like that since you went off to college.”

“So you do remember.”

“Hell, darlin’. How could I forget?”

“Listen,” she says, baring her teeth, taking a step forward and jabbing the space between them with her packs of candy and dried meat. “Stay away from me. I don’t want to talk to you. Ever. In an ideal world, I’d never have to see you again, but this is a very small town—”

“Well, that’s gonna be awkward with me being kind of a regular around these parts. Doesn’t seem very fair depriving your pops of a helping hand while he’s sick.”

“What?” What?!

“I help him out now and again, Hershel’s a good pal. I can help you too while—”

“You help him out?” She can’t believe her ears. “You’re friends with my father? Hershel Greene?”

“Uh, yeah?” he chuckles in disbelief that this could possibly be news to her. “I’m one of his best customers. Well… probably not. But I’m a regular. Sometimes he needs a hand lifting a keg or two. Doesn’t he ever–?”

No, he doesn’t. He has never once mentioned the name Negan Smith to me.

“Well, I’m back now," she says, cutting him off. "And I definitely don’t need your help. Neither does he.”

Negan's smile drops a little at the edges. He straightens up. “Really? That’s how you’re gonna be? After all this time?”

All this time.

“You think I want someone like you sniffin’ around my bar?”

“Technically it’s your dad’s bar. And your family seems to like me.”

Family? Beth, too? That little—

“Maybe you’ve got them fooled, but not me.”

His jaw flexes like he’s chewing his cheek. He runs his fingers across his chin as he shakes his head.

“And there was me thinking you might have grown up. Come back from college, back from the great big bad world just a tad more mature."

“I know you don't have a mature bone in your damn body. And I've seen what you’re capable of.”

“You’ve been gone a while. Things change. People change. But then again, you never really did know shit about me. So, respectfully, you're talking outta your ass.”

“I know enough to keep my distance.”

She storms off towards her truck, determined to have the final word. She has nothing else to say to him.

“Drive safe!” he hollers across the lot.

How is it possible to hear a smirk?

“Fuck off!”

His low chuckle gets cut off by the slam of her door. 

That asshole. That fucking—

Maggie misses the ignition with the key three times, too busy throwing daggers at him through her wing mirror.

“Fuck!” Deep breaths. Deep breaths. In, two, three… out, two three, four, five.

Breathing wrong, as if he invented bodily functions. Thinks he can tell me how to hyperventilate just because he taught me how to practice trickle breathing.  

Out of the corner of her eye she sees his stupid mid-life crisis on wheels bolt out of the lot.

She thinks about the last time she spoke to him,, all those years ago. Remembers it clear as day. There were as many words spoken then as there were middle fingers sticking up in his face. After that parting gift, she had silently vowed never to think about or lay eyes on him again. Never in her life had she treated another person like that, nor had she since.

Well, besides during her very recent phone call with Gregory, but that prick had it coming.

Keeping one of those promises had been enough. Now she’d broken both.

That’s the thing with small towns. You’re stuck with the same people until one of you leaves or dies. She left for as long as she could. The least her old coach could have done was do everyone a favour and die.

No. She doesn’t mean that. That’s too wicked, even to think.

Maggie may be many things, but she certainly isn’t wicked. Right now, she is downright furious at herself for reacting to his bullshit.

Boy, does that man love the sound of his own voice.

But that’ll be the last time. He won’t get another thing out of Maggie but a kick in the teeth if he so much as winks at her.

When her grip finally starts to relax on the steering wheel, she continues the journey through town towards her childhood home. ‘The Farm’, people call it. Although, it’s not much of a farm. More just a big, old-money house her father inherited, with a butt-load of acres and a steadily-diminishing stock of animals. All’s left now are Beth’s chickens, and with her gone they’ll only last as long as they keep laying.

Dad’s real passion has always been his bar. He retired as a veterinarian early and bought the run-down dive after the old owner died. He doesn’t even drink, just loves the atmosphere. The company. Giving people a warm and dry place to go when they need one. Now, or at least the last time she saw it, it had been restored to a cosy - if not a little gloomy - space for tired old men and women to spend their days and nights telling stories nobody cared about.

Nobody but Hershel, that is. Maggie's dad is one hell of a good man.

Although the first familiar face she met with in town was that of her least favourite person on the planet (and that’s saying a lot while Gregory is still alive and kicking), seeing her dad waiting on the porch floods her with happiness. It’s been a while. Not the Christmas just past, but the one before. All three Greenes had gotten a couple of festive days around the tree together before Maggie had to leave for work again.

You know what? Good riddance to that piece-of-shit job. It's about time I spent some time with my dad .

As she drives down the main street, passing faces and places mostly unfamiliar, it occurs to Maggie just how unfamiliar her hometown has become. Even though she's returned plenty of times while living away from the farm, those occasions had always been spent at the farm with the two people who meant the most to her. She hadn't properly explored Walkerton outside of their meadows and the gas stop since teenhood.

Pulling up to the house, Maggie remembers why she is back here in the first place. Dad looks awful. He shouldn’t be out of bed, let alone out on the damn porch. 

She spends all that first night telling him to sit his ass down. “If you need something, I will get it.”

He hoarsely laughs it off over and over, thrilled to finally have her at home. Feeling bad about telling him off so much after only just arriving, she resists asking him about their mutual acquaintance. No need to lose her temper again so soon over Negan when he in't even around.

Good friends, he’d said. If they’re such good friends, how come her dad had never brought him up?

I shouldn't be angry at Dad. It's a relief to know he has people helping him out now that he's slowing down. Beth, on the other hand... How could she have been servin' Negan at the bar all that time before going to college, or during her summers here, and never say a word? He must have been exaggerating about how well he knew the Greenes.

She sternly reminds herself not to jump to conclusions based on anything that comes out of that man's mouth.

Her first night home is a fitful one. Maggie tosses and turns in her old familiar four-poster until those goddamn chickens wake her up at the crack of dawn. Knowing it’s only a matter of time – that she wouldn’t be able to just leave it – Maggie is interrogating her father before their toast has chance to pop. 

“Are you friends with Negan Smith?”

To her dismay, his eyes light up over his morning paper. “Why, yes. A good man, that one. Why d’you ask?”

He's smiling at her like they've just shared a fond memory. “What the hell, dad?”

Hershel’s bushy eyebrows knit together. “Mm. He did mention you had some kind of beef with him... Was it to do with that boyfriend of yours, Glenn? I asked Beth if she knew what all that was about, but she said it was just childish stuff. Long past, nothin’ worth worrying about.”

So he doesn’t know. How is that even possible?

Her dad had been around for the whole thing. Was right there on the porch waiting to comfort her after she saw Glenn off at the airport, never to see him again.

She must have mentioned Negan’s involvement to Hershel, surely?

Although, at the time, she didn’t really say much at all. She had cried that whole summer, pretty much, and left for college shortly after.

“Was she wrong?” Hershel looks concerned. Maggie almost feels bad about causing him to fret while he’s in such a rough state. “He was your swim coach, wasn’t he? Did he… Maggie," he says, his voice growing more sober. Concerned and, to Maggies surprise, tinged with anger. "He never laid a finger on you, did he?”

“Jesus, Dad! No.”

He blows out a sigh of relief while Maggie tries to find somewhere to look. Anywhere but at her old man. “Well, thank God for that.” He smiles and shakes his head, as if reprimanding himself for even considering that his friend would do such a thing.

“He…” She stops herself. Doesn’t really want to go into what happened between them with her elderly, salt-of-the-earth father. He doesn't need to know. What would be the good in dragging up the past after all this time? It's not like she plans on allowing him within a hundred yards of her or her dad's pub for as long as she is in charge.

Okay, yeah. So Hershel never learned the details. It’s the only reason that makes sense. How else could lovely, sweet, caring Hershel, who gives all his time and energy to those who need it most, be on good terms with a man as selfish as Negan?

Chapter Text

Senior Year

It had felt good. Really, sinfully good, having Glenn’s hands on her again. Wrapped around her back, sometimes one of them venturing between their bodies to cup over the bra that always got in the way.

Having to remind herself they were still at school in the middle of the afternoon — that it was broad daylight and there were still teachers around — and not giving a solitary shit all the while.

Good, until she heard that fucking whistle.

Not the physical one Coach never seemed to take from around his neck, but the high-pitched sound he pushed between his lips as he went about his tasks. Pretty much whenever he wasn’t talking or yelling.

That whistle usually had a different effect on Maggie. It was kind of endearing that he always seemed to whistle the same tune. Always managed to do it through a warm smile, eyes crinkled, as if he knew something. His whistle was the punchline to a silly little joke that nobody else was in on.

Now, here, the sound made Maggie’s lips freeze against her boyfriend. Her whole body went rigid in his arms, causing him to pull back.

“Mmh, don’t worry, he can’t see us,” Glenn whispered, moving his lips to her neck.

“He’s not blind. And he’s got to walk right by us to get to the gym, I'm pretty sure he’s gonna see.”

Glenn sighs. He leans back, but doesn’t release his affectionate grip on his girl. “We’re only kissing, what’s he going to say? ‘Stop being teenagers’? Besides, he’s probably out here on purpose to spy on you.”

“Don’t be gross!” Maggie winced, trying her hardest not to let that thought run wild between her ears.

Glenn laughs, but raises his eyebrows. “Just saying, he’s always around when we are together at school... and he always has at least one eye on you .”

“What the hell are you talking about? He’s our gym teacher. Currently the only gym teacher in the school, so obviously he’s going to be here a lot. And he is not always looking at me.”

“Sure, Maggs,” he scoffed, mocking her with his best side eye. She knew he was only ribbing her, but, after the last conversation she had with Negan a few days before, his insistence was starting to rub her the wrong way.

Any other time, she would have joked along with Glenn. Preened at the implied praise, that a grown man who she once had a silly crush on wants to ravish her behind the bike sheds. Now, the way Glenn frames it makes her feel a little… icky.

However much she had once daydreamed about making out with the hot gym teacher, it would be very inappropriate of him to feel the same way about his student. To be into her in any way… wouldn’t it? Most of the time she spends around Negan, she is alone and wearing nothing but her bathing suit.

Like the other morning, when she ridiculously thought he was going to kiss her, of all things.

So ridiculous. Yet why did her breathing stutter every time it crossed her mind?

She had been reliving the embarrassment ever since, the moment circulating in her memory like the chorus of a detested song.

When Coach Smith had approached her, time had slowed down and Maggie was suddenly hyper-aware of her own skin. The water running down the valley of her spine beneath the spandex. The soles of her feet dipping into the lines of grout between the tiles.

The sensation of tenderness at her collarbone, right where her hair had been swept back, as the older man’s dark gaze burned into the flesh there.

She hadn’t know whether she wanted to escape out of her own body or wrap her arms about his neck. Feel the cold, hard press of his whistle against her sternum and let him take her wherever he wanted.

But the choice was taken away along with the scent of his aftershave as Coach Smith stepped back, tearing Maggie out of her petrified state. His brown eyes, however, couldn’t seem to break from her shoulder as he opened his mouth.

He took a deep breath, the words spilling out on his exhale.

“Tell your little boyfriend to be more careful. This shit won’t fly with college recruiters.” 

Maggie’s eyes blew wide, the activities of the night before rushing through her brain like a flipbook. She followed his gaze down and saw, at the very limits of her vision, a smattering of purple bruising her collarbone. 

Her immediate reaction was to stretch the skin of her shoulder in an attempt to see the extent of Glenn’s damage, but there wasn’t enough give.

The desire to hide away in the locker room flooded back tenfold. Pure, unadulterated mortification seeped through Maggie to the tips of her bare toes. She dropped her head, looked at the rivulets of water leading down her body towards them. At the steadily-expanding puddle that began to flow towards his black Chucks, barely a metre away.

Her dad would never wear such a thing.

Glenn had a pair in blue.

What even was Negan? He certainly wasn’t a teenager, but at the same time he wasn’t the kind of man Maggie was familiar with.

He’s older, like her father. Or maybe more like an uncle? But he is boyish and funny, like Glenn and his teammates. And really… nice? Caring. Like how she imagined having an older brother might have been…

Regardless of who he was or what category her coach fell into, it didn’t matter at that moment. A deep shame was muddling her guts and she wondered if she wouldn’t rather be discovered by Hershel himself than the teacher in front of her.

The man who knew what she did last night.

Maggie had somehow found it in her to look up to his face. It was trained upon hers, then, and it was agony. He looked pissed off. Disappointed, even. Somewhere between Glenn when his team lost a game and Daddy after seeing the world’s latest tragedy on the news.

But this had been directed entirely at her, and his scrutiny was unbearable.

“Maggie? What’s wrong, are you cold?” Glenn’s soft voice broke her train of thought, dragging her out from beneath Negan’s microscope and back to her place between her boyfriend and the cold steel of the bleachers.

 “Here,” he said, shucking off his jacket. He pulled her to him and draped it across her shoulders before laying his mouth over hers in another deep kiss.

“Break it up! Christ al- mighty.”

The combination of the wet press of Glenn’s mouth and the sound of her coach’s booming reprimand battered her senses, causing her to reflexively shove off her boyfriend.

She hadn’t noticed how much closer Coach Smith had gotten until he was passing their side of the bleachers. When she snapped her head to the side he was already watching her.

Not Glenn. Her.

And he wasn’t smiling.

All she could do was blink, unable to settle on either one of them while Glenn stared daggers at the man striding towards the tunnel.

After a long, slow glare at her as he walked by, he finally shot a withering look at Glenn.

“Cool down or get a fucking room. Off campus. Far, far away from my goddamn field,” he said, slowly and carefully. He continued with that familiar swagger into the darkness of the tunnel until he was out of sight. Maggie was overcome with guilt, hit by the same wave of embarrassment and self-consciousness of the previous Monday.

She hated him for making her feel that way.

“Prick,” Glenn muttered, too low to have any consequences. “Sorry if I hurt you—”

“No,” Maggie hurried to ease his worry. He always fell straight to worrying. “He just made me jump, that’s all. I have been meaning to talk to you, though. About what we did, uhm… last weekend.”

Glenn’s face melted into a sweet smile. If she looked too hard it might have even shown signs of smugness. “Oh yeah? I can’t stop thinking about how you felt, Maggie. When can we—”

“We can, soon,” she forced an empty giggle, pushing away his fresh attempt at her earlobe. “But this… you have to be careful, Glenn. I can’t walk around covered in hickeys, especially not with comps and college trials coming up. And my dad could see.”

She pulls aside the neckline of her top for him to see the ugly mark he'd left.

“Oh shit, sorry! You just get me so… I’ll take it easy, beautiful. I promise.”

Glenn. That’s who her heart really beat double-time for. Lovely, sweet, gorgeous, multi-talented Glenn. He would never yell at Maggie and walk away. And he was all hers to keep.

Maggie’s first full day back at the farm is mostly spent making phone calls to her company’s HR office, notifying them of her immediate resignation and ensuring that everybody in the office knows – if they didn’t already – that Gregory is an emotionally abusive, misogynistic, narcissistic dickhead.

By dinner time, Hershel has taken a turn for the worse. Probably from the excitement of forcing himself out to greet her yesterday. She is torn between relief and unease at the fact he has finally listened to her and gone back to bed. Something he would never do unless he was feeling even shittier than he looked. And honestly, he looks pretty shit.

Before letting him rest for the night, she squeezes every bit of information about the running of the bar she can from him. She already knows how to work there, having done so during some evenings and weekends before her departure. But takings and figures and orders and invoices and all that crap? She’s totally lost. Maggie has always had a head for numbers, but her dad’s numbers were sure to only make sense to him. It has always been that way. His methods are completely batshit, yet somehow always seem to work. Hershel is a true maverick, and it only makes Maggie love him more.

Greene’s is generally a quiet little bar, so the couple of staff Hershel keeps have managed to keep the doors open while he’s been out. The customers are mostly regulars, either sociable and friendly with each other, or tend to keep to themselves. The only one Maggie knows of is some guy named Daryl, who apparently barely speaks a word, and that’s only because Beth never used to shut up about him during their phone calls. “You’d love him, Maggie, you’re both miserable as hell!” Beth had exclaimed once.

I should really call her.

When Beth had to leave for college, Herschel replaced her with a young woman named Enid. Maggie takes the new second-in-command's number off the fridge (where Hershel kept all his emergency numbers, of course) and waits for him to fall asleep before calling. Enid seems nice, their conversation flowing around their boring discussion of business. Maggie is relieved to not have to manage some sassy old know-it-all, or another Gregory.

They agree it would be a good idea for Maggie to drop by in the morning, so she makes sure to be up and about before even the chickens and Hershel can make a peep. A quick trip to the store for drugs, food, essentials and a breakfast and paper delivery to Hershel’s room later, Maggie is ready to start her new job as pub landlady.

It’s just for a few days. That’s what she keeps telling herself as she re-learns the workings of the bar. Gets to know Enid a little better, and meets another firecracker of a part-time barmaid called Rosita who mostly works on weekends. Chats with customers, old and new, including the infamous Daryl Dixon, who is just as quiet and gruff as Beth made out. He is younger than Maggie had assumed, based on the description she'd been given. Wonder if I'll be around long enough to see whatever charm Beth sees in him.

Soon as her dad’s better she will return to the city. Find another office to work in, maybe get lucky and find a new boss who isn’t a total shit.

It’s at least comforting to see Hershel is surrounded by a bunch of good people and has plenty of friends keeping an eye on him as he reaches old age. She’s always talked to him weekly over the phone, and is pretty sure Beth calls him nearly every day, but still sometimes finds herself worrying in the middle of the night that he might be struggling in silence.

It was the three of them for such a long time, then Maggie left, and now Beth. Their dad has always encouraged them to live their lives however they choose, but he’s never been totally alone before.

It comes to Maggie naturally, she has found. Loneliness. She finds it far more comforting than the constant fear of growing attached to people who will either screw her over or abandon her or die. She’s stuck with her dad and Beth, and that’s more than enough. It would kill Maggie to lose either of them, she doesn’t need to grow any more feathers only for them to be plucked out of her life.

After a few hours when the staff of Greene’s have agreed that Maggie knows all she needs to about the bar’s upkeep, as well as the hours she will need to cover so that Enid can stop working crazy overtime, Maggie goes home for the day to feed and water the old man.

He’s awake but still abed. His newspaper lies folded open on the floor, crossword puzzle started but with little progress while he listens to the digital radio Beth got him a short while back.

“You look terrible.”

“Why, thank you, Florence Nightingale. How’s the pub? Is Enid lookin' after the place?”

Maggie gives him a smile, returns with a hot mug of lemon and honey and reels off the ins and outs of her day from the foot of his bed. It’s clear by the crinkling of his eyes that hearing his eldest daughter talk about his favourite place fills him with much-needed joy, so she goes into as much honest, mundane detail as she can remember.

Enid had the bar covered the next morning, so Maggie wasn’t scheduled to help out until around four when things usually picked up.

Instead she spends the morning going through the house, re-familiarising herself with the kitchen, tidying up her suitcase which she refuses to fully unpack while Gilmore Girls plays in the background.

It’s crisp and sunny out, turning the meadows surrounding the farm golden, dotted with jewels of colour that she can see from her bedroom window. Maggie is having a lovely day. She hates to admit it, even to herself, but it’s the first time she has felt this warm inside in years.

Every now and then she pops in on her dad.

“Stop coming in just to check I’m still alive.”

“Actually I was coming to see if you wanted any lunch, but you know what? Forget it.”

“Oh, Maggie honey," he goes on, knowing better than to indulge her sass. "Is there any of that vegetable soup left in the pantry?”

“Too late, can’t hear you!” she yells, already half-way down the hall.

“Thank you kindly, darlin’.”

Maggie walks away with a smile on her face and a spring in her step. She hadn’t realised how much she missed being here. Where all was quiet but the creaky sounds of the house and the Greene’s peacefully rolling around inside it. If only Beth was here to complete Maggie’s happiness.

As she passes the hall windows when heading for the kitchen, she notices a black shape appear in the distance where their long track meets the road. 

She continues her journey. Ends up checking every cupboard for the requested soup. She knows exactly which he means. Her dad's old favourite. He used to dish it up for her and Beth whenever they had the sniffles growing up.

Unfortunately, the cupboard is bare. 

Must remember to get soup on the way to work.

Her visit to the store the day before wasn’t very fruitful, Maggie wouldn’t deny it. She had no idea what to get him, and honestly, has gotten so used to having shopping and meals delivered to her apartment. Wondering what will work as the best alternative for her sick father’s cravings, she stands at the sink watching the black dot grow as it crawls towards the house.

Oh for fuck’s sake.

She can feel a little knot of dread snowballing in her stomach the closer he gets.

Is this because I enjoyed my morning a little too much while my dad is laid up on death’s door, Lord? Did you send this asshole all the way up here just to punish little old me?

She swings the front door open before he even has time to get out of his dumb-ass car. Hands on her hips. Ready to fucking rumble.

The obnoxious ignition cuts out, the driver door pops open, and out comes Negan in a pair of black wayfarer sunglasses. They’re dark as night, but she can still feel his eyeballs all over her as he walks around, heaves a basket out of the passenger side and kicks the door shut. It looks like a hamper covered with a couple of gingham tea towels.

Maggie tilts her head, gives him the smarmiest look she can muster as his foot meets the bottom step.

“You shouldn’t have.”

He looks surprised, clearly choosing not to acknowledge her sarcasm. “Hi. Sorry to drop by unannounced, it’s just some things I picked up at the market, I thought maybe—”

“No really, you ass. I already told you to stay away from me, I definitely don’t need you to bring me a goddamn welcome basket.”

He doesn’t look amused, exactly, but he lets out a sly bark anyway.

“Well good, because it’s not for you. Christ , you’re self involved.”

There’s a moment of pause as she registers the embarrassment of assuming he’d brought her a gift before the knife is twisted by his insult. The humiliation reverts back to pure hatred before it has time to sink in. And yet, she knows it wouldn’t sting so much if it wasn’t so true.

Maggie’s temper flares into an inferno. She sees it reflected in Negan’s opaque lenses, the exact moment his spark meets her gunpowder. The tongue peeking between his teeth and lips tells her he saw it too. He knows what he’s done.

“What?!”

Her nose wrinkles and her teeth gnash and her stance changes like a mother wolf defending her pups. But all she has to defend is her own wounded ego. She isn’t this person. So why on earth does she let him bring out the worst in her?

“Look, I’m not here to aggravate you, or grovel for forgiveness, or anything else you might be thinking in that small-ass mind of yours. I just want to get this to Hershel." he raises the basket and gives it a light shake from side to side, causing its contents to rustle. "Enid mentioned last night that you’d been at the bar this time yesterday, so I figured it was probably a better time to avoid a tongue lashing. Which, damn it, is something I thought I would never say.”

He takes a breather to lift the corner of his mouth and the opposite eyebrow in a cheeky smirk. Maggie wills herself to be bigger so her body can better block the doorway.

“So, sweet-cheeks. I can take it to him myself, or you can find it in that stony ol’ heart of yours to do the honours and give him my best.”

When he makes no move, Maggie yanks the basket from his hands which automatically lift in surrender. 

“Get the fuck off my porch.”

He looks at her then with features a little softer. Maybe he’s learning when to stop pushing her buttons while he’s ahead, or maybe his intentions really are genuine. She finds herself wishing she could see his eyes, but Negan makes sure to keep that grin off his features and she has no direct excuse to slap those glasses right off his nose.

“Thank you.” He doesn’t say another word, or make any kind of mockery of her. Just turns around and trots back down the stoop to his car.

She watches his back, stretched over with dark flannel, as it dips back into the driver’s seat. Any moment she still expects him to show her his fangs, or wind his window down and flip a bird in her direction. At the very least to make a parting eyebrow waggle as he drives off. But no. 

He does exactly what she asks. Gets in his car and drives away without so much as a glance in his rear-view mirror.

It leaves Maggie feeling weird. Not powerful, not smug or content, like she expected such an act of submission from him would. It's more like when she has been craving ice cream all week but by the time she gets to the bodega on a Friday evening they only have vanilla.

She still gets ice cream. It’s still satisfying, of course. But shit , if she wasn’t hoping for something a little more exciting.

The first thing she does after slamming the front door closed with her foot is drop the basket on the kitchen counter. Whipping off the towels like a magician with a tablecloth, she groans. Rolls her eyes.

Directly in the middle, amidst punnets of fruit, organic-looking veggies, a fresh loaf of sourdough, and a bounty of other bits and pieces, sits four cans of the exact brand of soup Hershel is craving.

Lord, you are pulling my leg somethin’ fierce.

“Who was that?” Herschel croaks as Maggie carries a tray with two steaming bowls of soup and buttered sourdough into the room.

“Negan sends his regards.”

When she returns from her shift at Greene's, Maggie gets a craving of her own. She is desperate for something sweet and ends up plodding to the kitchen around midnight, even though she knows what she really wants isn't there. Kicking herself for forgetting to top up on emergency snacks while at the store that morning. She's sure she saw some old cocoa powder from 1998 in the pantry earlier...

The hamper catches her eye from the counter, but it's contents have been disturbed since she removed the soup and bread. Hershel must have got up at some point to have a snoop.

Sitting together in one corner of the wide basket are a packet of Sour Patch Kids and two packs of the same jerky Maggie had thrust in Negan's face on her way into town.

She hops her ass up onto the polished counter top and nibbles at the packet with her teeth. Picks out a little red man and stubbornly sucks the sugar off his head.

Asshole.

Chapter Text

Senior Year

Maybe If somebody had interrupted Maggie, or she had stopped to think about what she was about to do as she stomped towards the gym—

“Why did you do it?!”

Well. She would have probably still done it. Barged right into Coach Smith’s office like a bull with PMS.

It was worth it to see his eyes widen at her the way they did. To be the cause of that line between his brows, if only for a second.

“Good morning to you too, Greene. Now, I suggest you leave my office, take a breather, and try that entrance again. How about a more courteous knock-knock this time, maybe even give me a chance to ask who’s there?”

In, two. Three…

And out, two. Three. Four. Five.

Why does everything he says have to be some kind of fucking quip, even when he is clearly trying his hand at being serious? Maggie used to love it, the way he spoke to the students like they were humans and not livestock to be wary of, to be herded from one classroom to another.

Right now she just wished he could be a little more professional. With any other teacher, she could get her own way by running her temper. They’d have to get a chaperone in the room, listen to her complaints sincerely or risk the consequences of dismissing a student in distress.

But Negan didn’t pander to those rules. She’d seen his methods of discipline when the occasional asshole student stepped out of line. Out here in the gym was his personal territory, even more so now there were no other gym teachers. No need to keep up appearances until the higher-ups came sniffing.

He would tell her straight. If she lashed out at him with her claws he would probably pin her to his desk and not let her up until she pinky-swore to behave. For some reason that thought made her heart hammer even faster.

“I just. Need to know. Why.”

He abandoned whatever he was doing at his filing cabinet and sighed as he plopped himself into the spinny chair at his desk.

“Well shit, kid, you’re gonna have to be more specific.”

Did he really have no idea? He knew she and Glenn were together. Was he really so careless with the future of his students that he couldn’t remember? Did he even register the pain he had caused?

Maggie had waited at Glenn’s truck in the empty school parking lot for nearly an hour that day. When he’d finally walked out of the front doors, she’d snapped her sketchbook closed on the drawing she was working on, of Glenn’s back as he smashed a ball out of the park. It was going to be a surprise for their first Valentine’s day together.

In hindsight, Maggie would have expected him to look angry. Hungry for justice. Boiling hot like she was today as she stood in front of Negan. But Glenn had come out of school white as a sheet, shouldering his backpack with his head down like someone had stolen his lunch money.

“Glenn. You just dropped him from the team like that.” She snaps her fingers and the sound rings about the room.

Negan’s face curdled between mirth and disbelief. His eyes lit up and his fangs popped and GOD Maggie wished he wasn’t so fucking nice to look at, even when he was laughing In her face.

“You have got to be shittin’ me. That’s why you’re here? For Rhee?”

“You’re treating my boyfriend like dirt and I need to know why!”

“Did you only just find out or something? ‘Cause I dropped that bombshell on him a good couple of weeks ago, and it sounds to me like you should be directing these soap-opera dramatics elsewhere.”

No, because she had tried everything else. All she could get out of Glenn was that he ‘wasn’t good enough to be on the team’, and that ’there was no point in going over it again and again because the decision was final’.

But Maggie had to keep checking because he wasn’t getting any better. Each time they met up he still wasn’t his usual smiley, clingy, sweet self. After two weeks of the same sad, and frankly moody Glenn, Maggie had begun to worry something more sinister had gone on.

Just last night he had snapped at her for pointing out that he could still play if he wanted . Attend practise like the others who didn’t make the first team. They fell out after that. He asked her to leave because he wasn’t feeling well, putting an end to their study session. Maggie had tossed and turned in her bed all night. By morning she’d decided to find out for herself what the fuck was going on directly from the man responsible.

Which had all led up to what was turning out to be one of the worst mornings of her life. She had intended to casually bring it up with her coach during practice. To try and gather the information subtly, to be vulnerable with him, knowing it was the only sure-fire way to get Negan to spill the beans.

However, due to a pack of unforeseeable and sanity-trying hurdles occurring between stepping out of bed and making it to school, Maggie was ready to spit fire by the time she locked eyes with him.

First, Beth had used the last of the coffee for a fuckin’ elementary school art project. Awesome. Second, Maggie had texted Glenn as soon as she rose to see if he was feeling better and received no reply. Third, her piece-of-shit car wouldn’t start, no matter how long she spent trying.

A note from Hershel read he’d gone out early as a favour to an old friend whose prized mare was stuck in labour. In the end she had to excavate her old bike from the mountain of crap in the garage, only to find that Beth had locked hers to it about a year ago and didn’t know where the key was. Her only saving grace was Hershel’s bolt cutters which were sticking up out of a pile of junk in the corner.

Much to Beth’s delight, she rolled up to breakfast club perched on her sister’s handlebars that morning. Coffee art in tow.

By the time Maggie had locked up her bike and got her sweaty and dishevelled self into school, she’d already missed the first forty-five minutes of swim practice.

So yeah. Maggie was angry right now for a variety of reasons, most of which had occurred that very morning and had absolutely nothing to do with Negan. But they had cumulatively begun to press harder on an already long-exposed nerve.

Perhaps it was unfair to take that into the office of her coach, who had only ever treated her with kindness and respect. But it was too late. That nerve had finally snapped.

Yes, she was directing her anger at Negan. But she had tried with Glenn. Everything she could think of, and all she got in return was petulance and misery.

But Negan didn’t need to know that.

“Well considering he hasn’t had practice to attend, I’d be a bit fuckin’ dumb not to notice, wouldn’t I?”

“Woah! Language , Miss Greene.”

His shout should have tamed her. Snapped her back to reality where he was her superior. Not her enemy, and certainly not her friend. But this rare display of dominance only worked to stir her coals.

“Just tell me—“

“He doesn’t want it enough!” Negan cut her off. “Even if he thinks he does right now! He’s a good kid with an okay swing in him, but he’s just. Not. Good enough.”

“Liar!”

Negan stood up again and firmly planted his knuckles on his immaculate desk, leaning his weight onto them. Took a deep, centering breath.

“Now, Maggie, you listen good. I’ve wasted an hour of my morning waiting to monitor your session which you – ever so politely – failed to attend without so much as a phone call. Then, not only do you turn up late without an apology, you fly into my office like the Tasmanian freakin’ Devil and try tellin’ me how to do my job without a single ‘how’s it going?’. So please, tell me why I should give you the time from my watch , let alone confidential information about another student?”

“So there is more you’re not telling me?”

“Jesus Christ…”

“Does Glenn really know why?”

“None of this is any of your business, Greene.”

Maggie could tell she was pushing Negan’s buttons. That he was trying to keep a lid on it for both their sakes. She was determined to break him. The same question was poised on her tongue, ready to be repeated, and he could tell.

“Okay. Clearly you’ve got some loaded theory or other, so why don’t you just spill whatever’s eatin’ you?”

And didn’t that take her by surprise. Shit. He had a point. One that forces Maggie to really consider why she was so convinced Negan is lying.

Of course it knocked her confidence. Caused her to doubt herself.

“Go on, spit it out. What are you so ready to accuse me of?” he pushed.

No. There is no doubt. Glenn was awesome at baseball. And Maggie was pretty sure he loved the sport more than he loved her. She hated that, but it didn't make it any less true. That’s just boys for you.

“You hate him,” she spats.

“Sure. Right. Any particular theories as to why I would hate a random teenage boy who wouldn’t hurt a fly?”

He clearly meant it as a rhetorical question. But Maggie’s mental threads all led to the same tangled mess at the centre of her mind.

Oh.

“Glenn is always saying how much work you put into my training.”

“Well, at least somebody noticed,” said Negan. He rolled his eyes in an arch across the low ceiling.

“That it’s weird.”

“Sheesh. If this is an attempt to warm me up to the kid then I have to say, Maggie, you’re a terrible fluffer.”

She didn’t miss a beat. “That you’re too friendly with me. That you’re…” she paused to gulp down her fear. “You’re always lookin’.”

Negan’s face flared up like a spooked horse. He angled his head and watched her from of the corner of his eye.

“Okay. Whatever it is you’re getting at – and I have a feeling I know what you’re getting at – you’re gonna have to stop right there. Right now. Because you’re… Well– Okay, first of all, Glenn is wrong. I understand he is upset, and maybe he’s been taking that out on you. But Maggie, you have to understand that what I think you’re leading up to it is quite a serious allegation. I would never try to stop you from reporting me if you felt genuinely threatened by me in any way, but regardless, we can’t be talking alone in my office about it. If you like we can go straight to the safe-guarding officer–”

Every word he spoke poked another icy needle directly into Maggie’s spine. Yes, that is exactly what she was implying. But not for one second had she actually, truly meant it.

Damn her for letting Glenn put stupid ideas in her head. Her coach had never made her feel anything other than safe and – well, maybe a little bit squiggly every now and then – but that was her own problem. Never had she felt threatened by him. Even on the day that he’d touched her hair to get a better look at her bruising.

But that was something, wasn’t it? He’d touched her without needing to. What she did with her body should be of no concern to her swim coach. Maggie is suddenly overcome with… feelings. Was it panic? Excitement? Or something completely different?

She went to speak calmly and clearly, but her voice broke around the words that emerged. “I just– I, I came here because I can’t bear to see him upset. And if that had anything at all to do with me, then I want– I need to know!”

Negan looked stuck. Torn between sitting back down and vaulting over the desk to comfort her. Instead he stayed where he was, dragged a hand down his gaunt face and rubbed at his stubble. “Let me make this clear. And if this doesn’t get through to you, I don’t know what else to say.”

All Maggie could do was watch through bleary eyes what she knew must have been his whistle glinting against his navy button-down. She knew if she tried to meet his gaze those tears would fall, and that wasn’t an option. There’s only so much embarrassment one can take before the first bell. 

“I am happy to pretend this conversation never happened. But if that’s what you want, then you have to tell me – and be honest. Glenn said that stuff about me, right? But… do you agree with him?”

“No.”

“Because if I have ever made you feel uncomfortable–”

“ No!”

“You positive? I’m not trying to coerce you into saying or not saying anything, you got that? So are you sure?”

“Yes!” Maggie couldn’t bear him talking to her like that. Like she was a fucking bomb that could go off at any second. “I came here to find out why Glenn is no longer a varsity player, so I had to make sure you weren’t… that is wasn’t… because of me.”

Negan doesn’t say anything else. He just starts laughing.

“What’s funny?”

The laughter trailed off, but his grin remained. “Sorry. It’s just that nobody has ever been that openly narcissistic in front of me before. Christ, I thought I was bad. That is not an acceptable thing to do to a teacher, by the way. To come into their office and, what? Check I’m not sabotaging the future of some kid because I have a crush on his girlfriend? Now that. Is. Somethin’ else.”

Maggie feels like she might fall through the floor.

“You don’t even care about the damage you’ve done, you monster! How can you be so reckless with another person’s feelings?”

Something snapped in Negan’s features then. Like it was closing time and the shutters were locking down.

“Okay. Get out.”

‘Wha–”

“Right now. Get the hell out  of my office before I have security come and escort you all the way off the goddamn grounds.”

She couldn’t help the snort that came out despite the growing pit in her stomach. There was no humour in it. “Oh, really?”

“You really don’t want to have that kind of thing on your record, especially this close to graduation. So I’ll tell you one more time. Please, leave. Before I do something we'll both regret.”

“Yeah? And what’s that, exactly? You gonna throw me off the swim team?”

He moved then, and Maggie’s heart jumped into her throat. He quickly rounded the desk and didn't stop. Maggie reflexively backed up until her ass hit his door.

He stopped a good six feet away. Nowhere near her, really. Maggie kicked herself for letting him shake her so easily.

“Let it go, Maggie. Don’t jeopardise your future over a boy who will be gone soon.”

“Gone? What do you mean, gone?”

The only answer she got was his eyelids falling shut in… what was that? Regret? Like he knew he had just put his foot in something but didn’t want to look down and confirm it.

Before she could turn what he said in her mind, the bell signalling the start of first period blared outside the door.

“Oh, for fuhhh…” Negan trailed off in a sigh before turning, grabbing his snap-back off the desk and pulling the peak over his eyes. 

“We need to go. Listen, I don’t want this — whatever the hell this was — to affect our relationship. I like being your coach and am happy to continue, but no more of this. Please. Mine and Glenn’s business is not intertwined with your relationship with him. Or with me.”

He opened the door and made an ‘after you’ motion. She was still reeling from the words “gone soon” and absently followed his direction to leave.

Her phone vibrated in her pocket. It was a text from Glenn. Fucking finally.

Maggie rushed to open it, but found she had to read it three times before it properly sank in.

She looked up to watch Negan pace away from her towards the main indoor gym, but he had already turned the corridor out of sight.

Gone.

The soup works its magic almost immediately. To the point that Maggie wonders if Hershel hadn’t been putting on his illness just to have a few days in bed with his favourite food served to him on a platter. Still, she isn’t willing to take any risks and orders him to stay put.

Don’t really wanna be stuck here forever...

A couple more days of servitude and she allows her dad to help out with some small chores around the house. Of course, he wants to get straight back to the bar, but that’s not going to happen on Maggie’s watch.

“I’m not gonna let you start spreadin’ germs to your poor staff and customers. It’s bad enough that I’m there. Hopefully I haven’t been carrying it back and forth with me.”

She keeps him housebound for another week. He can do everything for himself, so she spends his quarantine fully immersed in the life of a bartender on his behalf.

The punters welcome her. She gets to know Daryl a little better, and some other regulars who she finds much more likely to chat and be flirty with her. She’d be lying if she said all the sudden attention didn’t make her go home smiling most days, no matter how innocent it may be on both sides of the bar. She hadn’t spent time in such an easy atmosphere since leaving town at eighteen. Now that she’s thirty and much less shy to their banter, her father’s friends are a lot more relaxed in her presence.

It’s still a chilled place to spend time. Such a contrast from the office she recently quit, where everyone hated each other but pretended otherwise. Unlike her moody, self-conscious, teenage self back in the day, grown-up Maggie can recognise the appeal of the old-timey building. The smell of stale beer, Guinness and spirits. The low quality speakers of the crappy jukebox in the back corner. The low chatter and laughter of people who come in for company, how they congregate around the single pool table for their low-stakes tournaments at a quarter a game. It’s all so incredibly comforting. Especially now that late summer is chilling off and the pub's atmosphere is so warm.

Maggie has to go to the nearest Old Navy outlet for some season-appropriate outfits. Stupidly, she only brought the same summer clothes she had been wearing for months, so has to stock up on a closet full of henleys, jeans, and hoodies. Practical stuff for while she’s pulling pints and heaving kegs around, but form-fitting and cute enough to show her old townspeople she hasn’t totally let herself go over the years.

She’s fitting in a lot easier than she had thought possible. Enid and Rosita are awesome and Maggie is pretty sure they like her, too. She doesn’t have much to add to their discourse, but they talk about experiences and boys and girl stuff in general. Always ask her stuff that most would consider private, to which she wishes she could give more exciting answers.

Rosita has too many lovers on the go to keep track of, and she tells Maggie that Enid almost definitely has a thing for one of the delivery guys, Alden. The name rings a bell. Maggie thinks he might have been in the same grade as her at school.

She tries not to think too much about high school, or anything or any one to do with it.

For a long time after graduation there was always a new friend request from one of her old cohort that she simply ignored. Eventually these requests built up until she realised she hated social media and deleted all her accounts.

Even though every new person she meets looks at her like some kind of freakshow for not being chronically online, her life is a thousand times better without it. Mainly because not having an active account anywhere made it a thousand times harder to stalk her high-school sweetheart.

Too many times had Maggie caught herself typing his name into the search bar. Staring at his name, his location, right into the three pairs of beautiful brown eyes in his profile picture.

The worst part is that each time she would cave and sit for indeterminable lengths of time just looking, it didn’t make her jealous or sad for the love that was torn away from her, almost as soon as she gave him everything. If anything she was happy that he had found his happiness.

No. It wasn't the loss of Glenn.

It was the actions of Negan.

Fucking Negan Smith and his asshole power trip took this all away from me, her brain would say, turning him into some fairy-tale villain that practically haunts her past. She hates it. The fact that his face lingers in her memory more clearly than Glenn’s makes her feel sick at herself.

I hate him . I hate him for spoiling the memory of the boy who loved me. Get a fucking grip, Maggie Greene.

So she makes sure nobody can pester her about the past. Beth has tried to bring it up a couple of times, but has been successfully shut the hell down by her scary older sister. Because if Maggie doesn’t think about it, she can’t think about him.

Miraculously, she hasn’t seen or heard from Negan since he left that basket in her hands last week. At first she was convinced he’d be everywhere, tailing her around town just to make her uncomfortable, or whatever he does to get his kicks these days. After a week of radio silence, she is starting to think she really is self-involved.

But that would mean admitting he is right about something. About her. And the longer she can go without validating anything of the kind, the better.

“You okay, Maggs?”

She blinks out of her trance at the sound of Enid’s voice.

“Oh, yeah. Sorry.”

“Where’d you go?”

Nope. Absolutely not going there with Enid.

“I was thinking about… dinner.” It’s the first thing that pops into her head. Feels reasonable.

“You’re literally eating lunch right now.” 

Maggie looks down at the bag of chips in her hands. There's one suspended halfway to her mouth.

Right.

Enid smirks. “Now what, or should I say who , were you daydreaming about?”

Ew, fuck no.

Maggie gives her colleague a brief and nervous chuckle before having the bright idea to deflect. “I’d rather talk about who you’ve been daydreamin’ ‘bout lately. You looking forward to our delivery on Monday morning?”

“Hey! No talking about boyfiends while I’m present, thank you kindly.” Herschel booms, making them both jump as he comes out of the back room.

The day Negan Smith becomes my boyfriend will be the day the dead rise up.

“If we stop, will you promise to stop working like you promised and talk to Daryl some more about motors, or plumbing, or whatever it is you two keep whispering about?”

A rusty hum of mirth comes from Daryl’s end of the bar. “We were actually talkin’ about boys, too.”

Wait, what?

Hershel barks, which results in a small coughing fit.

“Damn it, daddy, I knew I shouldn’t have let you leave the house. Sit your ass down.”

He finally does as he’s told. Maggie puts her chips down to go in the back and finish what he’d started. The dishwasher is unloaded and refilled in half the time it would have taken him.

She comes back out onto the bar floor to find Enid has joined the two men. They're crowded together, leaning over each side of the bar hatch in what can only be described as a conspiratory huddle.

Maggie gets a step nearer.

“... I’m still tryin’a figure out what he did to make her hate him so much…”

“... don’t know. He wouldn’t hurt a damn fly, let alone a kid…”

“... kids always hate their teachers. Hell, I know I did–”

“... or maybe she had a cru–”

“What are you three talking about?”

Enid jumps up from her lean against the bar. Daryl looks to be seeking the meaning of life in the dregs of his pint. Hershel just stares directly at his daughter with his tired eyes.

Maggie reclaims her packet of chips and tips the remaining crumbs down the hatch, all the while suspiciously side-eyeing her dad. He looks like he might answer her question outright, but is cut off by the front door opening. A snap of cool air blows across the room, sending a shudder right through Maggie.

“Whooooey! Gettin’ a little chilly out there, aint it?”

The silhouette filling the doorway gives a theatrical shudder as he hugs himself, chafing his arms through his sherpa jacket.

And Maggie, of course, chokes.

Crumbs? Everywhere. Somehow both scattered over the bar and blocking her windpipe.

Through her tears she sees Enid slap a hand over her mouth in an attempt to disguise her laughter. Maggie whips the bar cloth from Enid’s shoulder and begins wiping away the crap she just sprayed all over the nearest drip tray.

Of course. No wonder dad was so desperate to come here today.

“Hey, speak of the devil!” Daryl chirps, turning on his barstool to face Negan. It’s the most enthusiastic she’s ever seen Daryl in their short acquaintance. Hershel gives him a small jab in the ribs that Maggie is sure she wasn’t meant to notice.

“Hershel.” Negan steps onto the glossy hardwood and into the warmth of the pub. “Good to see you alive and kicking, bud.”

It’s clear his eyes need to adjust to the darkness of Greene’s after being out in the dazzling sunshine. They are lively and smiling, flitting between the two men and Enid. Then they pan down to the opposite end of the bar.

His expression dims as he meets Maggie’s glare through the spaces between the beer taps. Her fists clench at her sides, crushing the empty packet in one hand and the bar rag in the other.

It takes everything in her power not to cough at the sharp tickle still in her throat, but any reaction she makes now would give him permission to tool with her. She can’t have that.

“Quiet today, huh?” Negan breaks their eye contact to look around the room. There’s only one couple sitting together in the corner near the door. He gives them a polite nod.

“Can’t complain. Had a busy Friday last night, so we’re catching a breather before the game later,” says Enid, looking at Maggie to confirm. Like she expects her to agree. To talk to this man.

Well, tough shit, Enid.

“Wait, have you met Negan before?”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. She obviously knows–

“Yeah, we’ve met. Used to teach her gym, too. Think she graduated the year before you started high school. Same year as Alden.”

If it hadn’t come from Negan’s mouth, Maggie would have privately celebrated Enid’s humbling. She decides to ignore the fact that Negan just tactfully changed the subject with a loaded quirk of his eyebrow at the younger woman.

Take that, you little shit.

“Hey, Maggie.”

When will her name coming out of his mouth stop giving her chills? What is the recommended length of time she should wait before seeing her doctor about it?

“Negan.”

Somehow that feels even weirder, his name on my tongue.

Luckily, Maggie doesn’t have to talk to him again. She busies herself in the back while Enid tends out front.

That is until Enid goes out for lunch and Hershel starts his yelling.

Maggie rolls her eyes and throws the delivery note on the desk. She’s been working her way down it as slowly as possible, and it would take approximately as long as she could still hear that voice echoing around the pub.

“Yeah?” She walks out to find Daryl has left. Her dad and Negan are in deep conversation about something or other.

How the hell are they friends?

“Sweetie, could you get Negan a coke?”

Hershel, you petty son of a bitch. At least I know where I get it from.

“You know I’m working, right?”

“Yeah. In a bar. My bar. The very bar I’m not allowed to work in because my daughter won’t let me. So can you please serve Negan a coke?”

Maggie can’t help but glance at Negan. He must be loving this.

He’s already looking at her, but to her surprise his expression is almost… pained? Which only makes the whole situation so much more cripplingly awkward.

Unable to bear feeling sorry for either herself or the man she’s sworn to hate for eternity, she shifts into ‘no-nonsense’ gear and does her job. Fills a pint glass, adds a lemon wedge for garnish. She doesn’t even let the intrusive thought of spraying carbonated water up his nose win.

“That’s $2.49.”

“It’s on the house, muffin.”

“Like hell it is,” she snaps, giving Hershel a warning look. She holds the card reader out towards Negan. He surprises her again by having already held out his card to pay.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake–”

Maggie ignores her father, instead watching for the green tick to appear that will confirm the approved payment. Only once do her eyes skitter over to the name on the card and the long, tanned fingers that hold it.

“Thank you,” Negan murmurs, raising one side of his mouth. In some attempt at politeness, she guesses.

“Don’t mention it.”

“You two are gonna be the death o’ me, aint you? What on earth— ”

“Hershel, it’s fine,” Negan says through a smile pointed at Maggie. “It’s about time someone made me pay for a drink around here.”

Maggie disappears into the back before her father can embarrass her any further. That’s the last thing she needs in front of Negan. Last time was bad enough, twelve whole freaking years ago. It swims through her mind as she picks up her pencil again.

She continues with the delivery note, checking and circling the various brands and quantities of liquor that Alden brought earlier this week. It’s not long after that Hershel pokes his head around the door.

“What in hell was that?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she says, not bothering to turn.

“You know what. That man hasn’t paid for a drink in here since…” Hershel stops. Maggie looks over her shoulder to check he hasn’t collapsed or had a stroke or something. And wouldn’t that be icing on the cake that this week has been.

“Since when? Since taking my boyfriend away from me wasn’t enough so he had to move in on my family, too?”

Wow, that might be one of the most pathetic thing I’ve ever said aloud.

“It’s not my place to talk about Negan’s past. Especially to someone who talks to him like dirt. And on that subject, you better tell me what went on between you two over this whole ‘Glenn thing’, because that poor boy couldn’t wait to get out of here. I aint ever seen someone chug a pint that fast, not even at closing time.”

That poor boy??

“He’s not a boy, dad, he’s a grown-ass man! You know how I felt about Glenn, and it's that asshole’s fault,” she says, perhaps a little too loud as she jabs a finger roughly in the direction of the front door, “that the love of my life had to leave the country.”

“I knew that much. But honey, that was years ago. Glenn’s not dead as far as I’ve heard. You could have stayed together. Hell, I wouldn’t have liked it, but you could have moved to London with him if that’s what you both had wanted. But you didn’t. You went to college, you’ve earned a decent career, and I’m sure you’ve had plenty other boyfriends you never introduce to me."

No, I really haven't.

"You and Negan both need to move on from this.”

Maggie lets out a scornful laugh. “He doesn’t need to move on. He never gave a shit in the first place.”

“Well that’s where you’re wrong, Maggie. You two are gonna talk this out. I’m not having my eldest treat one of my friends like that when he’s done nothing to warrant it. Hell, he may as well have become the son I never had over the last decade, and I’ll be damned if he hasn’t been through enough in his life without someone constantly blaming him for their teenage heartbreak!”

It had been a long time since Maggie had seen Hershel angry. Yet here he is, his cheeks flushed an ever-so-slight shade of pink, his voice raised enough for the remaining couple in the bar to perhaps just hear him from across the room. No, it isn’t a lot. It never was. But to Maggie, and anyone who knew him like family, he might as well have thrown a TV out the window.

She doesn’t know what to say. She just looks down at her hands, unable to bravely face the wrath of her father head on.

“I love you, Maggs. But unless he’s ever hurt you, or threatened you or anyone you know – which you said he hasn’t – then I need you to put whatever this is aside and treat him as you would Daryl. Lord knows they’re like peas in a pod, those two, so you’re gonna be seeing a lot more of Negan as long as you choose to stay in town. I'd like that to be forever, but I would never expect it of you.”

All of Maggie’s energy is going into not showing she’s about to cry like a baby, so she keeps her mouth shut.

“That clear?”

 She simply nods at her father and hopes it’s enough.

“Thank you, my love. I promise, that means a great deal. I’ll leave you to it for now, but if you want to talk more… about anything, Maggie, I mean it... then I’m here. Don’t you forget.”

Talk to Negan, she thinks when she is once again left alone with nothing but a desk full of paperwork and the pencil she somehow hasn’t snapped yet.

Maybe it is time to leave town, after all.

Chapter Text

Senior Year       

Glenn: sry about last nyt. nd 2 talk 2u but im staying home 2day. can i meet u after skl? 

She had read the text a hundred times throughout the morning. It took her until lunch to reply.

Maggie: Sure see u later. On my bike by the way. Long story lol. <3

He’s breaking up with me.

Please don’t break up with me. I love you.

Please don’t leave me.

Unable to focus on anything else, by 3pm Maggie was about ready to start tearing her hair out.

Never had she been so ready for the final bell to ring and at the same time dreaded it with every fibre of her being. The only thing she could be grateful for was that the day’s timetable kept her well away from the gymnasium, meaning she had successfully avoided another collision with Coach Smith.

Each lesson she expected to be summoned to the office. Told that her little outburst that morning in front of the gym teacher was unacceptable behaviour and she was no longer a student at Walkerton High.

A little dramatic, yeah, but that’s just the way her brain was turning. All Maggie wanted to do was go home and crawl under the covers.

Glenn had texted her back saying he would put her bike in the truck and take her and Beth home. True to his word, he was waiting out in the parking lot when she walked her bike around the building. He had the window down with his arm resting on the ledge, his baseball cap pulled low. Beneath it, Maggie could just see his eyes glaring off into space.

“About last night… I shouldn’t have treated you that way,” he said when Maggie had settled into the passenger seat. “You’ve been awesome, and I’m sorry for taking everything out on you the last couple weeks.”

“Glenn, it’s okay. I’m here—”

“That’s the thing, Maggs.” He looks down at the hands twisting around each other in his lap. One of them untangles itself to reach out for hers. “ I won’t be.”

“What do you mean?”

She grips that hand for dear life.

“We are leaving. My parents said we have nothing to keep us here, so there’s no reason we can’t move away for the promotion my mom has been offered. And my dad wants me to go to the same college he went to to study medicine, and I…”

“You’re not going to UVA?”

Maggie was. Had already sorted the application. Was readying herself for the recruiting process with hopes of getting on their prestigious swimming team.

They’d planned it together.

“There’s no point in hoping for a baseball scholarship any more. Coach Smith has fucked that up for me. And my dad isn’t going to pay for me to pursue a sport he thinks I’m no good at. Me being dropped is the excuse they’ve been waiting for, so we’re moving.”

“It’s fine. We can still see each other outside of—”

“London. I’m moving to London.”

She managed to keep her shit together until crossing the threshold of her house. As soon as the sound of Glenn’s truck started disappearing down the lane, she abandoned Beth in the hall to fend for herself. Maggie sprinted to her room and flung herself onto the sheets.

It was impossible to know how much time had passed when the door eventually creaked open.

“Maggie?” The voice was small and squeaky. Not her dad’s timbre, thank god.

She heard Beth’s soft footsteps come further into the room.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Maggie sobs. Clearly not fine, but would a nine-year-old know any better?

“Dad’ll kill you if he knows you ran through the house in your sneakers.”

“Good, let him.”

Her baby sister was quiet for a moment. Maggie wondered if she had simply walked away, until the mattress dipped beside her.

She pulled her head out of the quilt and rolled to one side as soft little arms enveloped her from behind. Maggie had assumed the worst was over, but feeling herself encased in her sister’s hug released the biggest, most embarrassing outburst of them all.

Thank god Glenn wasn’t there to see it. 

They’d talked and cried and held hands for a good twenty minutes before having to go collect Beth. It had been controlled and full of heartbreak and regret. This, though, in her bed, squeezing herself tight through her heaving sobs, safe in the arms of her baby sister, was pure devastation. Maggie’s happiness was tumbling down, and all she could see was one face through her tears.

Don’t jeopardise your future over a boy who will be gone soon.

Negan fucking Smith.

“I just don’t understand why you never mentioned it!” Maggie screeches incredulously down the phone.

“Because what would your reaction have been? Exactly. This. So why on god’s green earth would I bring it up unprompted?”

Arguing with Beth might be Maggie's least favourite pastime. Mainly because her younger sister always makes infuriatingly excellent points.

Unfortunately (mainly for Hershel), stubbornness is one of their few shared traits. One they definitely inherited from their dad.

“Well, it sounds to me like he’s been a significant figure in your life since you were nine, Beth. That’s a whole chunk of your life you’ve never told me about! Dad too! Is there anything else I don’t know? Are we even related? Were you secretly left on our doorstep in a basket by some alien stork? That would make a lot of sense actually…”

“Jeez, I’m sorry for trying to save your feelin’s from gettin’ hurt!” Beth whines down the phone.

“I’m just saying, a warning would have been nice.”

“What, and give you another excuse to never come back?”

Ouch. How does she do that? See right through me like a screen friggin’ door.

“I don’t understand what your beef is. Negan is a really good guy. And he’s an even better teacher. I can’t imagine him kicking Glenn without a solid reason. Unless he really had to”

“Christ, Beth, you were there! You saw what that whole thing did to me!”

“Yeah, I did. I saw how broken you were at losing your first love. So much so that you pushed everyone away and wouldn’t hear a word of reason. You’re a grown up now, Maggs. It’s time you started acting like one. Just talk to him. Maybe start by apologising for what a huge shit you’ve been.”

It seemed like a good idea at the time, but Maggie is starting to regret spilling to Beth about her recent collisions with Negan.

“Uh, fuck you?!”

“I love you too. Give Daddy a hug from me. Maybe save up a couple for Negan and Daryl, too.”

Maggie can practically hear Beth winking down the receiver. “Ew, not gonna happen. Love you.”

“Seriously, Maggie. Talk. It sounds like he’s trying to make amends, so the least you can do is be polite.”

“Hm.”

“And if you don’t think you can muster a hug then at least tell everyone I said hi!”

“Goodnight, Beth.”

It’s a struggle, but Maggie manages to persuade Hershel to let her cover his shifts for at least another week until he is fully recovered. Even if he wants to come along to see his friends, she will do all the heavy lifting.

“I’m fine! Don’t you need to get back to your real job?”

The knot in Maggie’s stomach tightens. She’s never been much good at lying to her dad. “They told me to take as much time as I need.”

Hershel gives her a look she hasn’t seen in over a decade. Much like her sister, her dad is installed with a grade-A bullshit detector, and has somehow always been able to say things without even opening his mouth. 

Out with it.

Maggie rolls her eyes. “Okay, so Gregory fired me. But I am going back, just as soon as you’re better.”

“He did what? ” Hershel looks like steam might come out of his ears. “I’d ask if he had a good reason but I already know it’s because you asked for time off. For the first time in… what? Five years?”

Gregory is famous in the Greene household as the asshat who treats Maggie like a living door mat.

“I thought you’d be pleased. You’ve been begging me to leave that place for years.”

“I wanted you to leave because you wanted to. Not to get the boot, especially not for my sake.” Hershel’s voice is still raised, but he sounds more upset than angry. “Then what are you going back for? To sit in your lonely apartment until you find another miserable job? Or have you got a lover over there that I don’t know about?”

“Ugh, dad, don’t say lover to me ever again.” She tamps down a full-body shudder. “No. But it is my home and I’d like to go back to my normal life and my own space at some point.”

“I don’t expect you to live with your old dad forever, Maggie. But, just in case you need to hear me say it out loud… Well. You are always welcome to live here for as long as you like. You know I love having you around.”

She can’t help the smile he pulls out of her. Decides it’s not a bad thing, showing him a thank you even if she can’t voice it.

“It’ll all be yours when I’m gone, anyway.”

Great, here we go.

“Don’t start that again,” Maggie groans as she unlocks the deadbolts at the top of the pub’s doors.

“I’m not gonna live forever, Maggie! And I know you’ll—”

“ Do what’s right by Beth, yeah, yeah. Please stop bringing up your inevitable death, dad, I don’t wanna hear it. And neither does she.”

She successfully shuts him up for the time being by giving him easy little jobs that involve minimal effort. Slicing up lemons and limes, polishing glasses, anything and everything that can be done while sitting in one spot.

Surprisingly, Hershel abides by her rules for the entire morning and into the afternoon. 

It’s a Saturday, so the day goes steadily. Customers regularly dipping in and out gives Maggie plenty to get on with. More importantly, it provides a constant supply of light tasks to keep her father occupied.

It’s nearing five o’clock when Maggie feels a flutter in her stomach.

It had started happening, this flutter, at a similar time each day she spent at the bar.

It started around about the same time…

The front door opens. Maggie looks away almost as soon as she glances up.

“Negan!” Hershel practically cheers.

Jesus, dad, calm down. He comes in at the same time every other—

Oh.

Her stomach does another flip.

Actually, maybe it’s more of a cramp than a flutter.

His boots clunk across the wood as he nears the bar. He’s about to walk right past her, so Maggie dares a glance. He’s already locked in, ready to fix her in his trap.

“Maggie,” he says politely before carrying his attention over to her father. “Evening.”

“You’ll have to excuse me,” Herschel says after their initial greeting. “Gotta see a man about a horse. Maggie, keep Negan company.”

Maggie ignores him, looking up at Negan with a stony expression as Hershel heads towards the men’s bathroom. The glass she’s polishing almost pops in her grip.

Negan looks down at the floor, unable to keep the smile off his face. He perches on his regular stool at the end of the bar. The one with the best view of whatever game is showing on the muted television suspended above the liquor.

Maggie takes her sweet time pouring out a large Coke with all the trimmings before finally thudding it onto the beer mat in front of him.

“Thanks. Read my mind.”

“You spend an unhealthy amount of time in this hole and you always get the same thing,” she says in the flattest tone possible.

Negan comes to Greene’s a lot more than she was expecting. It’s… weird.

Mainly because she’s never seen him drink alcohol. Why would anyone go to an Irish pub several days a week just to nurse a Coke?

Don’t make assumptions. He could be a recovering alcoholic. Sure, it’s a pretty dumb place to hang out if he is. But, then again, he is pretty dumb.

“Hmph, yeah that’s fair.” Negan slides a twenty towards her across the bartop.

“Put it away.”

“You don’t have to—”

“It’s my dad’s pub, not mine. And he says you drink for free, so it’s on the house.”

“Well, I haven’t got anything smaller. If you don’t give me any change then I’ll have to tip you twenty bucks.” He’s not even trying to hold back his smile anymore.

“Then I’ll just have to be rude as hell so you don’t have to tip me.”

And that’s it. The dimples are out in full force. “You treat all your customers like this?”

“You’re not a customer,” Maggie points out.

“Hell, I’m trying to be but you won’t let me,” says Negan, his grin splitting his face to display a tidy row of brilliant teeth amidst his usual stubble. But Maggie can see the frustration building in his eyes, dimples be damned.

Right. Gym coach. He always was good at keeping his cool.

Being patient with me.

“If it were up to me you’d never have been allowed over the damn threshold,” she says, leaning forward slightly with what she hopes is an obviously sarcastic smile. 

He scowls, but it’s still underlined with humour. “Right. So it’s still too soon to ask if we can make up and be friends?”

Beth’s voice rings in her head.

You’re a grown up now, Maggs. It’s time you started acting like one.

Just talk to him.

A loud clunk of metal against concrete rings out from the open cellar door, shaking Maggie out of her head— and the stare-down she didn’t realise she was having with Negan. They share a frown before she is turning and jogging towards the sound.

As soon as she makes the stairs, Hershel comes into view. He is sitting upright on the floor, laughing and shaking his head to himself.

“What the hell, Dad?” Maggie bends down to check him over and attempts to help him up. Negan hooks the arm she isn’t holding and Hershel is hoisted to his feet. “What did I say about staying away from the kegs? For crying out loud!”

“Damn it, I'm not a child, Maggie.”

“No, you’re not. You’re not a thirty-year-old any more, either!”

“To be fair, neither am I,” Negan says from behind her. She turns to see him roll the keg that had caused Hershel’s tumble as if it weighs nothing. Hershel chuckles.

“And who the hell said you could be down here?” She knows her dad’ll chew her ear off again about how she treats his friends, but she finds the words are impossible to hold in.

“Jesus, calm down. Who do you think usually lugs these things around when none of you young whipper-snappers are here?’ Negan grumbles before leaning to look around her. ‘Hersh, what the fuck were you thinking? You should be leaving this shit to us.”

Oh… kay? Maggie shuts her mouth at the sight of somebody who isn’t herself giving her father a good telling off.

Hmh. Can’t argue with that.

“Line needed changin’ anyhow, but I thought I might give you two some time to kiss ‘n’ make up.”

“What?”

“What?!”

They blurt it out in unison. She shapes her features into something like disgust, but the pinkness has already flushed up her throat.

“Well, not literally . I just want you to get along. I already have enough awkward silences to deal with whenever Alden stays longer than he needs to just to get an eyeful of Erin.”

Maggie once again thinks about Beth’s advice. She also remembers her sister’s request involving hugging certain middle-aged men she barely knows and buries it in some deep recess of her brain to be forgotten.

You can at least be civil. That’s good enough for him.

Negan speaks before she even has a chance to yield. “She has every right to be pissed at me,” he tells Hershel before turning his attention to Maggie. “I can’t force you to get along with me. But just know that if you’re ever ready to be on friendly speaking terms, I’d love to put things to bed. Catch up with you a little. It’s been a while.”

His eyes reflect the harsh glare from the unshaded lightbulb hanging overhead. Why can’t she stop looking into them?

She shakes her head. “Fine”.

It’s almost comical how the eyebrows on both men shoot up into their hairlines. Or at least where her father’s hairline used to be.

“Really?”

Maggie dares another glance in time to see the corner of Negan’s mouth quirk up. She takes a deep breath and turns towards the stairs.

“I’m going back up before someone ransacks the bar. Nobody else do anything stupid, please.”

“I’m sorry, Maggs…” Hershel calls in defeat as she’s halfway up.

“Don’t be sorry, just don’t do it again. Any heavy lifting from now on will be done by me or…” she doesn’t mean to trail off, but it’s difficult to say his name without giving it a sharp edge. Her eyes close.

It shouldn’t be this hard.

“Or Negan.”

Or Enid. Fuck! Why didn’t I just say Enid? Or Rosita? Christ, she’s stronger than all of us put together.

“Right on.” Negan’s voice drones. He’s trying to be stern to her father, but Maggie can hear the satisfaction in his voice.

She turns back and squats down on the steps to glare at him. “Hey. You still don’t actually work here, so either get to moving those barrels or get the hell out of my cellar.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

After their conversation in the cellar where Maggie stupidly agreed to a truce, she can almost guarantee seeing Negan during each of her evening shifts.

Other than his customary nod in her direction upon his arrival, he doesn’t always engage with her. She can tell he wants to, but has a feeling he is heeding the warning she constantly has written across her face whenever he’s around.

He sips his coke. Watches the silent TV. Chats with Hershel, Daryl, sometimes Enid and other customers.

Tonight he’s playing a mini pool tournament with Daryl and a married couple that Maggie doesn’t know all that well. One of them is definitely called Aaron, she thinks.

And he’s kicking all their asses. Negan, that is.

“You wanna play?”

Maggie hadn’t realised she was, in fact, staring at the fat end of the cue balancing loosely in his fingers.

She scoffs. “What, so you can go easy on me?”

He snorts. “Hell no,” he practically snarls in return. He has the audacity to wink at her.

This makes her stand up straight and move to the opposite end of the bar to serve people, turning back once with a look of warning. He laughs and turns back to beat Aaron’s husband with a swift pot of the black.

She overhears his throaty “ Yeah ! Suck it, Eric”. Tries not to turn pink as she asks the customer in front of her what he wants.

The stranger raises his eyebrows at her with a smile. He’s not not good looking, but there’s something in the way he’s been looking at her for the past hour that makes Maggie a little uncomfortable.

It’s nothing new. There’s always someone, usually the hicks who’ve never left town in their lives who stare at her like dogs through a butcher’s window. This asshole is probably no different. She’s the freshest meat in town, sort of, and apparently that gives everyone the right to size her up.

“Another beer and whatever you’re having, beautiful.”

Here we go.

“Mine are on the house, but thank you.”

“Suit yourself. Stick the rest in the tips jar, then.”

That’s fair. Generous, even. But there’s an edge to his tone that Maggie doesn’t appreciate.

“You’re new round here,” he says as she silently pours his pint.

“Not really. I grew up here. I’ve just come back from the city for a little while.”

“City girl, huh? No wonder. You ain’t as friendly as Enid or Rosie.”

She lands the pint in front of him and slides his change into the back pocket of her jeans. “No, I ain’t.”

Maggie finds herself walking back over towards the pool table end of the room. As far away as she can get from the greasy-haired redneck without crossing out onto the main floor. Negan is already there, leaning against the bar top. His steady, sober glare is locked on the other man across the room.

“Is that Cousin-It-looking motherfucker giving you trouble?”

“Not as much as you ,” she says, without her usual malice.

His crow’s feet crinkle for her. The ones he had even when he was thirty.

It feels bizarre, having an adult conversation with this man. He’s always had a gift for creative swearing, only now he seems to do it more freely in front of her. And he lets his eyes linger on hers a lot longer than he ever did at school. It feels a little like growing up to realise your parents aren’t just your parents. That they are real people with their own friends and relationships, likes and dislikes.

Except Maggie and Negan aren’t related. He’s always just been… a man.

“Seriously though, if he— or anyone — makes you uncomfortable? Just say the word.”

Um. What the fuck?

“Thanks, but I can take care of myself.” It doesn’t come out as bitter as she intended, she fears.

“Shit, I know you can,” he mutters in a bright-eyed challenge as he pushes himself off the lacquered wood. “And the offer of a game still stands, whenever you want. I’m sick of kickin’ these assholes to the kerb.” He tips his head back in the direction of Aaron, who flips him off with—

Is that a prosthetic arm?

“Are you really bragging about beating a one-armed man at pool right now?” Aaron calls over. “Stop flirting, it’s your turn to break.”

Before Maggie’s face has time to blanch, Negan turns and points his cue at his heckler. “Just you wait, bud.”

Before he walks away, he leans his body back in her direction as if to share a secret. “By the way, thank you. For letting me keep coming in here.”

She frowns, but he carries on. “I know,  know. It’s not your pub, blah blah. But still, this place means a lot to me. As does your family, especially—“ he cuts himself off and starts again. “Whenever… if ever you are ready to talk. To, uh, hear me out, I guess… maybe we could—”

A glass smashes at the opposite side of the pub in one of the booths. There’s a room-wide whooping and applause as some poor guy raises his hands apologetically to Maggie. 

She’s already flustered, her heart thrumming. She doesn’t know whether she wants to kick the guy out or give him a fresh one on the house.

Bravely, she looks back at Negan who smiles as she begins walking away. Their expressions couldn’t be more polar.

“I, uhm. Yeah. Okay. ‘Scuse me.”

He nods an “okay” at her, looking far too hopeful for Maggie’s liking, and heads back to the table. Maggie can’t help but notice his eyes holding a spot at the opposite end of the bar before placing all his focus back into the game with his friends.

Maggie grabs what she needs to clean up the glass. On her way out from behind the bar, she gets caught in the eyeline of the redneck who’s five bucks still sit in her pocket. 

She was wrong. He is definitely not attractive.

He grins at her with greyed teeth, then turns his attention back to the pool table as Negan’s cue ball smashes open a fresh game.

Maggie ends up staying in town a lot longer than intended.

Before she knows it, three weeks have passed. Then a month. And then suddenly the landscape around the farm starts looking a little more ablaze as autumn fully sets in.

Someone would have called if my apartment burned down, right?

She tries not to dwell on the fact that none of her neighbours or ex-colleagues have shown any concern at her sudden disappearance 

Nobody in town mentions Maggie’s lingering presence, so neither does she. It’s not until her next phone call with Beth that she is forced to acknowledge her current living status out loud.

“So when are you planning on leaving?”

“Soon as dad stops doing stupid shit and hires somebody physically suited for manual labour.”

“Oh, so you’re here to stay?!” The sound of hands clapping together rings out from Beth’s end.

“You can’t say ‘here’ when you moved out literally years ago. If you were here I could go home.”

“You are home. Stop pretending you prefer living alone in that boring apartment building full of rich assholes.”

“At least those rich assholes understand personal space unlike some of the creeps in this town.”

“Lay off! Negan is a lot of things but he ain’t no creep.”

Huh.

“I wasn’t talking about Negan. But you said it, not me.”

There’s a pause on the line. The sound of shuffling coming from Beth’ end. “You, ah… seen much of Daryl, lately?”

Lord. “Really? Again with Daryl?”

“Hey! We were good friends... Are good friends. Just tell him I miss him, okay?”

“What if I just get his number for you?”

“Oh, no. I- I actually already have it.”

“ Christ , Beth, then why the hell are you trying to make me your personal kissogram service? Just text him!”

“God, no, he gave me it for emergencies!”

“Well, I’m not passing on any more messages for you. He obviously misses you a bunch, so text him. Hell, call the guy, I bet he answers in one ring.”

There’s a long sound of frustration from the other end of the line. Maggie grins to herself. Adorable.

“Only if you hug Negan for me.” 

And that little grin drops right off her face. Beth’s tone holds a challenge. Maggie doesn’t like it.

“If those are the terms then you better get over your crush on Daryl reeeaal quick.”

“I don’t have a—!“

Maggie cuts her off with a “Love you!” and sticks her phone on charge before getting on with her bedtime routine.

She doesn’t spend the whole process thinking about how she would even broach the subject of a friendly hug with Negan.

She definitely doesn’t have a dream about climbing out of her old school pool in front of the entire baseball team to find she has no bathing suit, much to the alarm of her coach who uses his large body to shield her.

It’s not just at the bar. She sees him everywhere.

Buying groceries. At the ATM. On his way to school. The first time Maggie sees him after her subconscious public humiliation is while she’s out getting milk. She never expects to see anyone before 8am besides the miserable gas-station employee. Nevertheless, there’s Negan, up and at ‘em in all his gym-teacher glory.

He’s standing in that way he does, ever so slightly leaning back as if to get a better look at whatever he’s doing with his hands. As if he’s aiming at an invisible urinal, or easing himself into…

Nope.

The way he holds the hose into his car’s tank at that particular moment is doing everything to further that unmentionable illusion.

Get your mind out of the gutter, Greene.

He squints against the sunrise at the moving digits on the pump, mouth working around the white stick of a—

Is that a sucker in his mouth?

Shit—

Maggie’s front wheel bumps up the kerb, jostling her back to reality. Naturally, his head turns towards the scrape of rubber on battered concrete a hundred feet away.

“Morning,” he says cheerfully when she steps out at the next pump, the lollipop clacking against his teeth as he speaks.

Her habitual desire to tell him to “fuck off” has the words dancing on the tip of her tongue. But, given their recent truce of sorts, it doesn’t feel like an appropriate response any more.

Why does he have to be so goddamn happy all the time?

“Yeah,” she practically grunts.

“All good?”

“Y…eah?” She takes a good long blink, silently trying to exorcise from her mind the image of him, fully clothed, warm and solid, wrapping around her bare skin as he had done in her feverish dream. “Yeah”. Fuck, say any other word, for the love of god… “I just… mornings, I guess.”

Mornings. Really?

He chuckles. “Got it. Perks of working with kids: you get real used to early starts.”

Ugh.

“Do you still teach gym?”

She cringes at herself. 

Christ, where did that come from? I’m helping to dig my own small-talk grave, now?

The minutest flicker of surprise lights up Negan’s face at the question. “Uh, yeah. Me and a couple others in the department. They haven’t left me to run around with the entire school anymore like I was in your final year,” he chuckles and whistles through his teeth. “Jesus, that was rough.”

Maggie stills. Has to bite her tongue.

Wasn’t it just.

Negan must sense her bristling. He glances between his pump and the station, looking like he knows he said something wrong and is entering dangerous territory. “Well, I better bounce. Have a good day, Greene. See you around.”

“See you.” How does he keep managing to make her feel guilty? Like she’s telling off a puppy just for wagging its tail. “Hey, nice car by the way.”

“Lucille? Yeah she’s a real fox, ain't she? It’s incredible what a working man can afford when he doesn’t blow it all on cigarettes and alcohol. Let me know if you ever want to go for a spin.”

And he winks at her.

“Don’t push it.”

Then he laughs. Such a bright, happy sound. Maggie wants to resent it. So badly.

“Damn, sorry. I know I’m probably on probation, but it’s so fun watching you blush. Here…”

Negan bends, reaches through the open window of his black Mustang into the glove compartment. Maggie uses his distraction to try and remove any trace of pink from her cheeks with sheer determination alone, but the groan he makes as he stands back upright strikes up a fresh, rosy bloom.

When he holds out a red sucker for her, she fears she might turn fuchsia.

“Oh, my god. I’ve heard stories about school teachers who drive around with a glove compartment full of candy, but most of them are in jail now.”

“Funny. Might I add, it's also incredible to what lengths a man will go to satisfy his oral fixation when his mouth isn’t full of cigarettes and alcohol.”

She takes it from him, but doesn’t unwrap it. “I was wonderin’ who made the glory hole in the men’s room at Greene’s .”

“Hey, what can I say? Modern, ex-substance-abusing men such as Daryl and I gotta get our kicks somewhere.”

They both snicker at each other for a moment for the first time since he was her swim coach. Of all the inappropriate things to bond over, it’s a mutual dark sense of humour.

“I figured… with you always ordering Coke, and.. I didn’t want to–”

“Hey. It’s nothing. There’s a lot you couldn’t have known. Now… and back then. I wasn’t just being polite before when I said we should talk.”

Maggie hesitates, wondering what he could possibly shine a light on that she didn’t already understand. He is watching her carefully, but they are both snapped out of it by a shrill beep from a car waiting for Negan’s spot.

“Shit. Not right now, of course. I gotta get to work, but I’ll see you at the bar.” He finds his smile again. “The ball’s in your court, bunny.”

Her eyes widen.

She is about to ask who the hell he thinks he is, but another beep breaks her focus. Negan turns away, jogging towards the station with no more than a hasty wave in her direction and a nod of apology at the beep-happy guy.

The driver then rolls his eyes at Maggie who, feeling herself flush the colour of the lollipop in her hand past the neckline of her hoodie, shoves it into her pocket, jumps into her truck and speeds off.

It’s not until reaching her driveway that she realises she forgot the milk.

Toast it is.

Bunny?

Chapter Text

Senior Year 

Things had been going much better with Glenn since Maggie’s initial discovery of their doomed future together.

She’d been too scared to give him his valentines gift in case it caused another upset and spoiled their goodbye. After tearing it from her book, screwing it into a ball, unscrewing and ironing it out, only to ball it up again, it had lain in the waste paper basket under her desk for at least two months before being thrown out for good. 

Giving him a drawing of himself swinging a bat in a baseball jersey would definitely be in poor taste after his dismissal from the team… right?

Neither of them had any need or desire to be anywhere near the gym. She had informed the school counselor of an ‘injury’ that would prevent her from occupying the pool, so no further questions were asked. The rest of her final semester would instead be spent cramming for mathematics and IT.

Maggie was under no illusion that this would have a detrimental impact on her securing a college scholarship, but somehow that didn’t seem so important. Something in her had changed. Although her heart was breaking in every possible way, she just couldn’t take any further pleasure from the thought of being totally independent of the family’s money.

Or swimming while Negan was in the same room, probably biding his time before sabotaging her future, too. 

Better to do that herself.

Despite her best efforts to remove herself from his line of sight, that dickhead seemed to be lurking around every corner.

Every time they made eye contact she would experience a swell of nausea. The only thing that eased her stomach was seeing the mutual discomfort on his face.

Good. You deserve to feel guilty.

And just like that, he was gone.

No, not Negan, unfortunately. Apparently he wasn’t going anywhere.

Glenn was gone. Out of her life, quite possibly forever.

After the initial shock of the big news, Glenn had come round. After some sincere apologising on his part, together they decided to continue hanging out until he and his family were ready to leave for good.

That, as it happened, took a lot less time than Maggie predicted. She had no real concept of how quickly an entire family usually upped sticks and turned their life on its axis, but she would never have guessed at it taking only a couple of months.

Then again, the Rhees were pretty well off. Possibly even more so than the Greenes. Or, maybe Glenn’s family just flaunted it more. Maggie had never witnessed any major spending within her own household in all her seventeen years, but knew that simply having money somehow made life a lot easier to navigate.

For instance, if ever you suddenly lose any hope of a college scholarship all because of an insane teacher, you can always fall back on daddy’s inheritance.

Maggie’s final weeks with Glenn consisted of lots of drive-thrus, several long talks into the night — mainly about what assholes teachers and parents were — and driving out to their makeout point to… well.

To make out, etcetera.

While Maggie had known, deep down, that it would make his inevitable departure all the more painful, she couldn’t help clinging to him like a limpet. She let him be as intimate as he wanted with her.

And oh boy, was she paying for it now. Curled up on her comforter in fetal position, knowing the dam would burst if she dared let out a single tear.

No amount of cuddles from Beth or wise words of wisdom from her father were powerful enough to pull Maggie out of her room for the first two days after Glenn’s flight. Now, two months later, she could just about drag herself up and get ready for graduation.

After the regularly scheduled early-morning sob session, Maggie’s day was going swell. Dad and his little blonde-haired kitchen assistant had made pancakes and covered the table with gifts especially catered to future university freshmen. Amazingly, there wasn’t a single reference to swimming in sight.

She made herself the most presentable she had felt in a while and couldn’t help but smile at herself in the mirror before they headed out together.

Maggie felt good. Proud of herself for making it to the end of term despite her woes. She couldn’t wait to follow her classmates and grasp that diploma like a lifeline as her two favourite people cheered her on.

But as soon as it was Maggie’s turn to make her way up onto that stage, all the giddiness of the morning was extinguished by a particular set of eyes fixed on her.

Instinctually, she frowned at him. His mouth curved up at one side in reply as he clapped along in celebration of her achievement.

Snapping out of her hyperfocus on her nemesis, she remembered there were certain expectations of her from Beth and Hershel.

Sure, everyone was looking at her, so she ironed out her features, gave her small family a wave and maintained her practiced smile until exiting the stage. As soon as the next student stole the show, Maggie’s glare fell right back onto Negan.

He must have been the only person sitting in the audience who didn’t give a shit about the student on stage. His head turned to follow her all the way down the aisle until he would have been forced to swivel in his seat. Only when she was out of sight did his eyes turn back to the front, and only then did Maggie dare to exhale.

”I’m so proud of you, muffin. You’ll go far,” said Hershel, hugging her around the shoulders when they finally escaped the ceremony.

”I hope I look as pretty as you when I graduate,” Beth sing-songed from lower down where she was squeezing Maggie around the middle, her tiny frame enveloped in the folds of the burgundy graduation gown.

Maggie kissed her dad’s cheek and took a hold of Beth’s hand before they headed in the direction of the parking lot. She had opted out of the student-family-teacher celebrations, much to the relief of all three of them. The last thing she needed was a hundred people asking how Glenn was, whether she had heard from him, and would he be back at any point? She would rather have fallen flat on her face up on that stage.

Until the day of the event, that kind of interaction had been her only concern. Now, after being eyeballed intensely by the gym teacher who she’d more-or-less accosted in his office, Maggie was more worried about Negan accosting her in front of her dad and the entire year group.

Instead, the Greene’s — the introverted extroverts they were — had agreed in advance to ditch the party and go to Carol’s diner for what Beth liked to call ‘breakfast-for-dinner’. Then home for movies, popcorn, and marshmallow hot chocolates.

Maggie promised herself she wouldn’t give one more minute of her big day to thoughts of ex-boyfriends, ex-coaches, future colleges, or anything that wasn’t eating carbs or her awesome little family.

The family she knew she would miss even more than Glenn Rhee.

There were still a couple of extra-curricular meetings to tie up the week after graduation and some thank-you cards that Maggie needed to post in the pigeonholes of her favourite teachers. She had just dropped them off in the office and was swinging open the door to leave when who should be on the other side, arm outstretched for the handle?

Because, of course.

In-two-three-out-two-three-in—  

“Maggie?”

Negan looks as surprised to see her as she is annoyed to see him. She tries extra hard not to slam the door in his face.

It’s crazy to think there would have been an extra-special thank-you card, maybe even a gift for him on his desk, if Glenn were still here.

“Hey, I wanted to—”

The office was empty but for her, and the corridor was fairly sparse at this time of year. It emboldened her.

“Don’t care. Get lost.”

”Woah. You might not be under my tutelage any more, kid, but you’re still a student on school premises and I’m still a teacher. An iota of respect, please.”

Because Maggie Greene is Maggie Greene, her entire being screamed at her to show him the respect he deserved as her elder and superior. But she was too tired from all the crying she’d been doing over the weekend.

She missed her boyfriend.

Ex boyfriend. All because of some teacher with a god complex.

A group of cheerleaders walked around the corner and she took the opportunity to squeeze past. He wouldn’t try to stop her in front of an audience.

Would he?

He definitely wouldn’t.

Right?

Negan didn’t, of course. He simply stepped aside to widen the gap between them as if she was a walking stick of dynamite. 

”Miss Greene, please…”

”I can’t wait to never see you again,” she said, low enough to remain out of earshot of the approaching cloud of short skirts and shimmering pom-poms. Walking backwards away from him, Maggie raised both hands and flipped him off. A two-for-one. It was like she could feel the power emanating from the tips of her freshly-manicured graduation nails.

This, however, did not go unnoticed by the cheerleaders. They fell into a mixture of giggles, gasps and “ooo”s at their coach’s expense until he turned on them with a look of warning that suggested their next training session together didn’t have to be a fun one.

She didn’t wait for him to turn back. Instead, she left him to deal out threats of punishment she knew he had no real intention of laying down on his students.

Maggie has to get home. She’s got a summer to enjoy with dad and Beth before escaping this dumb little town forever.

It’s been an average Saturday at Greene’s . Not too busy. Not too dead. Just how she likes it. Maggie, however, is feeling far from her average self.

It’s been approximately thirty-six hours since Negan left her hanging at the gas station.

It’s embarrassing, the number of times she catches herself looking up every time some checked-shirt hillbilly lugs himself through the front doors.

Around about the millionth time it happens, it ends up being the long-haired asshole from a couple weeks ago. Unfortunately, he takes Maggie’s microsecond of attention as permission to flirt with her again in his gross, misogynistic, white-male-rage-fuelled way.

She pats herself on the back for managing to tolerate it for a whole entire minute before turning away to help Rosita pour out a round of shots.

“Seriously. Dudes like Jared are the worst part of the job,” Rosita mumbles as she waits for Maggie to be done with the bottle of Jack Daniels.

“Worse than cleaning the men’s room?”

“As long as they’re not in the men’s room, yes. But if this prick,” Rosita subtly gestures over her shoulder at Maggie’s parasite, “ever followed me in there, I’d use that pinhead of his as a fucking toilet brush.”

They giggle over their craft, pouring drink after drink for the most recent herd that had shuffled in from the late October cold.

“Hey, girls, what’s taking so long? Can’t a hard-working guy get a beer in this fuckin’ joint?”

Rosita slams the bottles of spirits she holds in each hand down on the worktop and turns around.

Uh oh.

“Jared, you live in your dad’s basement and haven’t had a job since you got fired from Trader Joe’s for trying to sell your crappy weed to customers. Wait your damn turn. Lord knows you ain’t got nothin’ better to be doing than sitting there running your mouth.”

Shit, Rosita.

Maggie suddenly dreads turning around.

Please have a sense of humour. Please, please…

“Whatever, Espinosa. I need a piss. Maggie’ll take care of me when I get back, won’t you, baby?”

She’s about to tell him where to shove his baby , but is cut off by the screech of his barstool.

At least she can now turn back to the other customers without him catching her eye.

As she drops the change of the generous group into the tip jar, the front door opens just enough to let in the six-foot-something frame she’s definitely not been waiting for. 

Maggie’s is the first face he finds in the room. She immediately starts pouring his drink before anyone else can try grabbing her attention.

It’s been a long time since she’s seen him without wishing he’d vanish into thin air.

Weird.

“Evening. No Hershel?”

“He’s in the back. I found a few things to keep him busy. Pretty sure he’s counting change from the jukebox right now.” 

And by busy I mean out of the way while I interrogate you. Sorry, Negan. You’re stuck with me.

She refuses to analyse the unmistakable twist of disappointment in her chest at his preoccupation with her dad’s whereabouts.

Negan grins though, taking the icy glass straight from her hand. “What are you up to, Miss Greene?” he asks, eyeing her suspiciously.

Miss Greene.

Just like that, they’re back at practice. He sounds exactly the same.

“I’d like to ask you the same question, Coach. You said something yesterday morning.”

She leans across the bar top towards him. He doesn’t recoil like she’d predicted. Like she’d hoped . He just stands there, lips twitching with mirth as his chin tilts down to look at her.

Somehow, without her voice wavering, she manages to go ahead with her challenge.

“You said we should talk. I’m ready. And I’ve got a shit-ton of questions lined up.”

He swallows, throat pushing against his shirt collar. “Aren’t you on shift?”

“She’s supposed to be.”

Maggie turns to see Jared has returned from the bathroom and is blatantly staring at her denim-clad ass from his barstool. He’s perched on a different one this time, all the nearer to her current position — all the better for Negan to witness any interactions between them.

Who knew Negan could be preferable to anyone. Gregory and this fucker are starting up quite a list.

Maggie turns back to Negan whose attention is now fixed on the slimy toad a few barstools away.

“Don’t go anywhere,” she says, pointing at Negan’s chest from a safe distance. His look of disdain disappears when he draws his eyes back to her and exchanges it for one of… intrigue? Anxiety?

Is he… nervous?

The look between them lasts a second too long. There’s that flutter again, deep in Maggie’s abdomen. It sends her spinning on her heel.

“Right, what can I get you?” she asks the asshole still looking at her like a piece of meat.

“Oh come on, baby, I know you know my usual by now.”

Oh, fuck you.

“Listen, I don’t know who put you under the illusion that you’re hot shit, but you ain’t coming in here and harassing our staff, or calling me pet names like you know me from Adam. You can stay and drink yourself stupid for all I care, just do it quietly . So, was that the house beer?”

Jared raises his hands in surrender. He’s mocking her. “Woah, alright, chill. I was just trying to be friendly. Didn’t think you’d be as uptight as Espinosa.”

Maggie’s eyes dart around the room to confirm that Rosita is in the cellar, well out of earshot. Thank god.

Maggie moves to the tap about halfway between Jared the slack-jawed yokel and the man from whom she will be demanding answers at the very first opportunity.

“What did she just say about watching your fucking mouth?” Maggie almost jumps out of her skin at Negan’s voice as it booms from behind her.

“Negan…” She gives him a warning look, but it’s no use. He’s already locked in.

“Yeah, Negan . Shouldn’t you be off coaching little league or something?”

“I’m a high school teacher, dumbass, which is a much more respectable occupation than town crackhead.” Negan’s mocking tone seems at odds with his set jaw. “Do us all a favour and hit the fuckin’ bricks.”

Um, excuse me?

“Hey,” she snaps, turning her back on Jared. “You might change the occasional keg ‘round here but you don’t get to decide who is and ain’t allowed to drink ‘em.”

There’s a fire in Negan’s eyes, but his voice remains calm. “Are you kidding me?”

Maggie hesitates.

Why am I fighting this? I don’t want that guy in here any more than I want Negan in my life.

To make the situation even more ridiculous, Jared teases Negan with a Jerry Springer-worthy ‘whooop’.

Negan drops his voice so it’s loud enough for only her to hear. “You just can’t let me be on your side, can you? You’d literally rather be heckled by that fucking neckbeard than accept my help.”

It’s too late, she’s already started pouring Jared’s beer. Maggie doesn’t look up as she replies: “I don’t need you on my side, Negan. I’ve survived this long and it’s certainly no thanks to you.”

“Sounds like she can take care of herself, huh?” Jared says. Maggie preens, then immediately hates herself for it. “You need to take a step back and leave the lady alone, old fella. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure to take good care of her.” He slaps a ten-dollar bill down in a puddle of condensation.

She stills.

Regret. She regrets scolding Negan, but knows she is just too proud to go back on it.

He’s right. I am self-involved. The personality of a prickly fucking pear. Why am I like this? Why would anyone want—

“Maggs?” At the very edge of her vision she sees Negan lean further towards her, as far as the bar will allow. That one utterance of her name sounds like he’s asking for permission. Pleading.

“Like I said before.” He says, voice gravelly. “Just say the word.”

Adrenaline rushes through her and it's impossible to know what to say. To either of them.

Where the fuck is Rosita when I need her?

Maggie finally gets enough of a grip to look sideways at Negan. She’s about to plead with her eyes for… for what exactly? For Negan to leave well alone?

Or for him to be her saviour?

“Get out of my pub, you little punk.”

Every sound in the bar disappears besides some obscure eighties song on the jukebox, finally getting its big moment. All heads turn towards the doorway of the office where Hershel stands tall, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, with a look on his face that instills fear in Maggie. Reminds her of the time seven-year-old Beth led her entire roost of chickens through the house for ‘bath time’.

“Dad–”

But he’s looking straight past her.

“Nobody talks to my staff or friends like that,” Hershel tells Jared, with that long-lost sternness of his. “They especially don’t talk about my daughters like that. So I suggest you take that money o’ yours to the liquor store and don’t let me see you in here again.”

Jared looks from Hershel to Negan with all the petulance of a teenager. Maggie has no idea what his reaction will be and has no desire whatsoever to find out. For some reason her eyes land on Negan instead.

He’s completely still, eyes steadily trained on Jared. He looks like a Doberman ready to lunge.

“Whatever. Stinks in here anyways. At least the girls at Governor’s are hot.” Maggie rolls her eyes and turns towards the rows of liquor on the wall behind. Jared slides his ten off the bar, grimacing at the wetness of it as he scrunches it into his pocket.

Maggie doesn’t usually drink at work, but the open bottle of Hendricks left on the counter is looking real friendly right about now. She stares at it until the sound of steps fades towards the door and is replaced by the ring of the bell signalling Jared’s departure.

Hershel breaks the silence. “Negan, that man isn’t welcome here any more. If he comes back again while I’m not around, please make sure he remembers the way out.”

The room is once again abuzz with chatter and the clinking of glasses, the little moment of drama done and dusted. Hershel avoids Maggie’s eye, retreating back into the office as if he was never there.

“Are you alright?” Negan asks. His voice is low. Serious, but warm and rich.

Annoyingly comforting.

Maggie could scream. Opening her mouth to tell him off feels like a risk. She takes it.

“I’m not seventeen anymore, I don’t need you or my dad scaring off little boys for me. Yeah, Jared’s a shithead, but we both know I could kick his ass all the way back to whatever hole in bumfuck-nowhere he crawled out of.”

She expects him to giggle at that, the man-child that he is, but for the first time in his life his face is like stone.

“I don’t doubt it. Listen, I’m not saying you ain’t special, Greene, because you certainly are…” His eye contact waivers and he looks down at his hands before righting himself. “somethin’ else. But I’m sorry, I will never sit around and watch anyone I know get… fucking… sexually harassed while they’re working. Christ!”

She’s rolls her eyes in exhaustion, ready to call him whatever insult pops into her frazzled head first, but he will not stop talking.

“I know you think I’m just some trouble-causing busybody who won’t get his beak out of your life. But, honestly? I don’t give a fuck. That kid is trouble. Always has been. And I’ll be amazed if he makes it through life without having to sign his name on the sex-offenders register. So fucking sue me, Maggs, ‘cus I’m not going anywhere.”

Maggie, unable to land on a response she won’t instantly regret, her brain whirring at a hundred miles a minute, clamps her mouth shut in a huff. Her lips are set at a firm 180° as she turns towards the cellar.

Okay, so I’m not ready to talk to him. I was wrong. No biggie.

“Maggie.” She doesn't turn around.

Nope. “Rosita? Can you get up here, please?”

There’s no other way. Maggie isn’t going to spend the remainder of her shift pouting in front of the guy who just told her off. Nor can she step into the office for a breather with her father sitting there like king of the fucking castle. Rosita can take the helm for a bit.

Time to hole away in the cellar.

Observing the relationship between her dad and Negan is a habit Maggie develops following the barring of Jared.

From afar.

While avoiding Negan like the plague.

Yeah, she feels a little weird about it. But she simply can’t get her head around how they have been such good friends all these years without her hearing so much as a peep about her old teacher-slash-nemesis. 

She finds herself leaning on the bar or standing in the office doorway just out of sight during their conversations.

Eavesdropping. Willing her ears to turn into satellites to pick up on every tiny interaction. Tuning her bullshit radar to its highest frequency.

Much to her frustration, Maggie finds nothing out of the ordinary in their friendship. The only thing of intrigue she discovers is the freedom with which Hershel talks to Negan and Daryl compared to herself and Beth. Nothing gross, of course. But everything is lined with easy humour.

She expected that the two men in their forties would barely speak to one another, and only ever in deep manly grunts about sports, manual labour, and all things crass when they did. In actual fact, Negan and Daryl spend a lot of time talking excitedly about anything and everything whenever they’re not sipping their drinks or playing a round of pool in comfortable silence.

There’s a camaraderie between him and Daryl that she can’t help but find kind of… cute. Not to mention the way they treat her old dad.

Where Maggie expected there to be an element of astuteness to their relationship with Hershel, or an underlying trace of mockery in the way they talk to him, she only finds a clear respect. Admiration. Possibly even love.

It makes her feel a whole wobble of emotions that she can’t quite put her finger on. Like whenever she sees tiny babies in their strollers with those little winter pom-pom hats that make them look like koala bears.

But when Hershel enters the mix, it’s as if he completes some mysterious circuit between the three of them that simultaneously ages Negan and Daryl twenty years and knocks several decades off of himself. Sometimes it’s as if her father reverts back to his youth and is winding up his own squabbling parents.

What Maggie hates the most about the new nosey habit she can’t seem to shake is that she finds herself giggling under her breath. A lot .

Negan is funny.

It reminds her of how they used to joke around during training. When he’d never let her leave without making her smile at least once, even after her particularly bad sessions.

He was hilarious then, too. That bastard.

Back before he showed his true colours and she thought he was her dream man. The naive, hormonal teenager that she was.

Since that crappy Saturday when Jared got the boot, when Maggie had spent the rest of the night performing a hundred unpleasant and/or unnecessary cellar-based tasks, Negan has tried to strike up a conversation with her almost every shift. Mostly, she gives him the coldest of shoulders.

One afternoon, though, a few weeks later when it seems he has officially stopped trying, she forces herself to start a conversation.

He won’t ever know what causes her to relent her stubborn refusal to give him the time of day. That’s one piece of information she’s determined to take to her grave. That being said, if Maggie had a best friend who wasn’t her biological sister, she might confess her newest most secret shame to them.

Basically, Maggie Greene had a wet dream.

No, not the kind that involved being caught short of a bathing suit at the campus pool. It was the scandalous kind. The dirty kind. The kind she hadn’t experienced in a long time. And guess which asshole was the main star.

To make things worse, she had indulged in it. Maggie woke up at sunrise with her legs clamped together, her body feverish and tingling for the orgasm it desperately craved after being edged by her filthy subconscious for god-knows how long.

Knowing herself all too well – that there wouldn’t be a single productive thought in her head that day until she had exorcised her horny demon – she began her ministrations.

There is only so much to be achieved in the family home occupied by her father, not to mention the limited resources she has there. Basically, whenever Maggie isn’t in the city, she has to get creative.

She is just a girl, after all. And her body, especially when ovulating ( probably? ), wants what it wants.

She doesn’t have to like Negan to imagine his hands on her body. She spends enough time looking at them wrapped around a pint glass or a pool cue. Fingers running over his stubble, underlining where the tip of his tongue peeks out from between those perfect teeth whenever he’s really trying to piss her off.

Maggie’s mind flitted to her recent pool nightmare, in which his arms had wrapped around her protectively. Her traitorous brain got creative. Had imagined his long fingers trailing down her back to rest on her ass. Cupping her, safe and warm, hiding her from the leering boys in her class. Holding her tight against his front so that her mound sat against the firm bulge in those track pants she remembered so vividly.

I wanted Negan to fuck me before I knew for certain what that meant. That’s what she admitted to herself as she wedged the puffiest of her bed’s scatter cushions between her thighs. Even before Glenn.

Maggie had been grinding her pussy back and forth on top of the pillow before she could think twice about it. It’d been a long time since she’d had the urge to mount something, usually having her trusty rechargeable tucked away within arm’s reach.

Never too late to get back on the horse, she reasoned with herself, succumbing to the rocking motion which she knew would relieve her, just like it had when she was a teenager. Release all that tension.

He can pretend he has my best interests in mind all he wants, but I know he wouldn’t hesitate to shove me into a toilet stall at Greene’s if he got the chance. Maybe bend me over the bar for all the rednecks in town to see.

Let me ride him against the red leather seats of his Mustang.

It hadn’t been hard to imagine at all when the pillow had perfectly cradled the backs of her thighs and pushed so tenderly against her clit as she rocked. The perfect saddle.

Well. Almost perfect.

She found that the illusion slipped whenever embarrassment and shame tried to flush it out. It only left her grasping even harder for her weak conjuration of what his chest might feel like beneath her fingers. How, in the privacy of his bedroom… or, perhaps, on his couch? he might lay on his back, totally submitting to her dominant yet needy pleasure for the sake of his own perverted kicks.

Wearing nothing but the same old smirk that never fails to make her blood pressure spike…

And that fucking cold hard whistle around his neck–

So, what? Maggie had fucked herself ragged to a fantasy about riding her dad’s friend, who also happens to be her third-least favourite person on the planet. These things happen to the best of us.

Maggie doesn’t know who they happen to, exactly, but has since decided it was just another one of those crazy, human-woman phenomenons she had no control over. She puts it down to the burning questions she still has. The ones she had planned to have answered during that fateful Saturday shift, only to be cockblocked by the sheer levels of testosterone saturating the air.

Firstly: how did you become friends with my dad and sister?

Also: how is it possible that you’re such a nice guy and yet still managed to ruin a boy’s only dream when he was so close to living it?

And, most importantly: what the fuck compelled you to call a woman you barely know ‘bunny’ at the crack of dawn in the middle of a gas station? Don't you find that a little, hm I dunno... creepy?

Since he dipped on her that one morning at the gas station, Maggie — being who she is — has been through many phases of doubt. Convinced herself repeatedly that she must have misheard him, or that he meant to say ‘bud’, or ‘honey’, but got his words muddled.

But she’s not an idiot. She eventually deduces, solely from the fact that he’s never stumbled over his words in their entire acquaintance (the smooth-talking prick that he is), that she heard him right.

So, digging up her courage, she takes advantage of a solo shift.

“Okay, spill,” she says, planting down an open bag of chips between them on the bar and nudging it slightly towards him.

“Huh?”

“How’d you get so close with Hershel and Beth?”

Negan sighs and looks back up at the TV. “D’you mind? I wanna see how this ends,” he says, but takes a chip and side-eyes her cheekily, his open mouth curving at the edges with humour.

Maggie reaches up to turn it off at the screen. The pub is almost empty, otherwise she wouldn’t dare mess with the locals and their obsession with minor-league sports. Negan doesn’t count.

He turns to her fully, both elbows pressing down on the wood. “You must be suuuper bored to be starting a conversation with me ,” he says between slow crunches.

“There’s nobody here to embarrass myself in front of by publicly talkin’ to you.”

“My wife died. I started drinking. A little too much. Your dad runs a cosy establishment that happens to sell liquor.”

Oh. Crap.

“I didn’t… I’m sorry. When did your wife…?”

He shakes his head and smiles. “About the same time Ms. Harrison ran off and left me in charge of an entire school’s-worth of jocks.”

Maggie’s face drops.

Senior year. I was one of those abandoned jocks.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says. “You were just a kid. Had your own shit to worry about. More than any of your classmates did. Going through puberty and losing your mom like that? Without going off the rails? You were the strongest person I knew. Then I met Hershel and could see where you got it from. You and Beth.”

Maggie can’t quite get her head around it. “You never seemed… upset. Ever. About anything. You definitely never looked drunk or smelled of booze or…” Maggie leaves it there, hoping to god this isn’t the wrong thing to be blurting to a potential recovering alcoholic.

“At first it didn’t really hit me. It’d been a long time coming and we had prepared for it. Or, rather, she had tried to prepare me for it. Her inevitable untimely death,” he chuckles. “So with everything going on at work, it was easy to pretend nothing had happened. That I’d still be going home to my beautiful wife every night and cook her favourite spaghetti or some shit. I, uh.. I didn’t start drinking right away. That came after.”

Negan looks uneasy. Like he isn’t sure whether he should be telling her this.

Maggie can feel her heart breaking as if it’s his. She knows all about the pain of sharing the loss of a loved one. How desperate one can be to drop the subject. To clam up, pretend like it’s nothing and try to move on. So she gives him an out.

”We don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to. I’ve never been as good at comforting people as my dad and sister, and I don’t want you to revert back to your old ways on my watch.”

Negan lets out a throaty laugh in response. “Nah, I’m good. It didn’t last longer than a few months, thanks to stumbling into this pub during a particularly rough session. I don’t know what would have happened otherwise. It’s been a long time besides a couple of bumps in the road pretty early on. Actually, it was only recently that I celebrated ten years completely sober.”

He gestures a half-assed, self-deprecating fist-pump. “Honestly, just the smell of spirits makes me gip a little,” he adds with a shudder, taking another couple of chips from the bag.

”Can I ask you a question, then?”

”Christ. What is this, a game show? I haven't been able to get a word out of you in weeks!”

She slaps him on the arm. Pushes the chips the rest of the way towards him, suddenly having no appetite. ”That time I came to your office. When… when I yelled at you.”

”Can you be more specific?”

”Oh my god, shut up. You know when I mean, Negan.”

”Yeah. What about it?” He’s joking, but he looks as nervous as he did that day twelve years ago. About what, Maggie has no idea. It’s her who should be — and very much is — embarrassed by her outburst that day.

Despite how long ago it was and how valid my reasons were.

“You said you kicked Glenn off the baseball team because he wasn’t good enough,” she begins, only to get another deeper, tired sigh in reply. “That was bullshit, wasn’t it?”

Negan looks her firmly in the eye. “Now that , I definitely don’t want to talk about.”

Oh.

Well, that takes her down a peg.

She’s pissed off, sure, but finds she can’t be quite as infuriated with him now she knows what he was going through at the time.

Still…

“Listen,” he goes on. His voice returns to its normal lighthearted self, almost sounding apologetic. “I really don’t want to tell you my reasons for letting go of Rhee. I can’t say I regret what I did because I really didn’t have much of a choice in the matter.”

She drops his gaze at that, because how dare he? But he angles his head to grab her attention again. She submits, but keeps the murderous scowl on her face.

“But I need you to know, Maggs. It wasn’t my call. I know it probably seemed like it at the time, but I promise you, I wasn’t the one pulling the strings.”

“So who the hell was? Who, with more leverage than you, would hate him enough to do that? He was devastated!”

“He soon moved on, though, huh? I’m sure he’s plenty rich and happy and all that crap.”

Maggie is certain Negan didn’t mean it as a jab at the way Glenn not only moved away, but also seemed to very quickly move on from her once she was out of touching distance. Still, it stung a little.

“Okay,” she challenges, moving them safely away from the topic of her past rejection. “So you’re saying if it had been up to you, Glenn might’ve been a major-league baseball player by now?” She quirks an eyebrow.

“Now, let’s not get carried away,” he says, giving her an eye-roll. “But yeah. I had no beef with the kid, he had an excellent swing. There were some dogshit players on that team and, as you so calmly informed me that day in my office, it made no fucking sense to kick Glenn. If my life hadn’t been falling apart, I would never have agreed to hurt somebody like that. And to a kid… christ. But they would have cut him anyway, so why not let good ol’ Coach Smith take the hit.”

Negan pulls a hand down his face before using it to prop up his chin. It feels odd to be so close to him as he allows her glances into the only history lesson she has ever wanted to learn.

“They?” Maggie edges a little closer, hoping he’ll cave.

“Please, can we drop it for now? I promise I’ll tell you some other time. As long as you know it wasn’t me who decided to get rid of your precious little boyfriend, that’s enough about that for one night.”

Maggie wants to snark back at him, but finds she can’t. If the main reason she has hated him all this time is, in fact, not true, what is she supposed to hate him for? What is she meant to feel towards Negan if not severe dislike?

He beats her to it with his own subtle attempt at changing the subject. “So, uhm, do you still talk to Rhee, or...?”

“No. We kept in touch for a while, but the distance made it kind of pointless.”

That’s technically not a lie, even if it was a one-sided decision.

“I’m sorry, you know? I know what it’s like to fall head over heels at that age.”

“It’s fine,” she replies, eager to get away from the topic of high-school heartbreak. Somehow it didn’t feel right comparing what was essentially a fling between her and Glenn to whatever Negan had with his late wife. “Tell me more about how the hell you managed to recover from alcoholism in a goddamn Irish pub. Apparently I missed a lot when I moved away to college.” 

She eyes him, curious whether he will humour her.

“You really have no tact at all, do you?”

“Nope. But I think that was one of the many reasons I was your favourite student.” She gives him a proud look, very pleased with herself indeed.

He laughs in her face. “You’re insane. And you’re right. You, Miss Greene, are a terrible shoulder to cry on. But you have always had some magic, mysterious way of making me feel better.”

Maggie feels a trail of pink blooming along her collar bones. Maybe a little splashes up into the apples of her cheeks, too.

She uses pouring him another drink as an excuse to turn away. When she returns, with a dramatic change of subject and a little more pestering, he finally tells her how he turned his life around with the help of the oldest and youngest Greenes.

He tells her of the depression, the way it swallowed him up during the same summer she was preparing for college. It wasn’t until the fall that he ended up in this very pub, getting into a fight with some thug and then telling Hershel his life story while he got patched up.

“I guess telling people my life story in bars is becoming a bit of a habit, huh?” 

“I wasn’t gonna say anything, but yeah. Now I know you’re a widower, you’re really startin’ to bring the place down with your sad-old-man vibe.”

Clearly, when the pressure of work began to ease off, the loss of his wife hit Negan like a steam train.

He tried to drink away the pain, but it was too quiet at home. Instead he’d go out to clubs and dive bars. As soon as women started flirting with him — which, of course, they did—  he’d recoil, stumble home sick to his stomach. It felt like betrayal, he said.

Hershel helped get him through it. Having lost his own wife in pretty much the same way, he was the only person who could get through to the wounded thirty-year-old man who’d lost his high-school sweetheart much, much too soon.

And Beth, of course, was like a little ray of sunshine breaking through his black clouds of misery. Always having little chats with him about nothing and everything all at once. As the years passed and she got older, they’d go through her math homework together sitting right here at this very end of the bar.

A mixture of incredulity and jealousy flashes through Maggie. She feels a pang of regret. Doesn’t know who to be more jealous of: Negan, for getting to see her little sister grow up, or Beth who apparently got two dads.

She decides on neither. It quickly dawns on Maggie that she is incredibly grateful.

“That checks out,” she giggles drily, trying to hold in this sudden thrum of warmth beneath her ribs. “Beth is perfect in every way, but if the fate of the world rested on that girl knowing her times-tables, we’d all be screwed.”

Negan is grinning the entire time they share stories about Beth, but that jealousy Maggie had felt a flicker of in the back of her mind never rears its ugly head again. It only makes her want to call her sister, tell her she’s sorry for not being around. Let her know she is proud of her, not only for all her achievements, but for lighting up the lives of everyone lucky enough to meet her.

Maggie’s conversation with Negan is the most emotional stimulation she has experienced in a long time. Deep in her feelings, for a fleeting moment she considers Beth’s challenge — or, ( fine! ) her request — to give Daryl and Negan a hug on her behalf.

But the temptation is quickly swept away by the memory of her dream from the other morning. When his hands wandered all over her body and she came the hardest she possibly ever has in her life at the mere thought of it.

Absolutely unwilling to follow a two-hour-long conversation about Dad, Beth, dead wives, and depression with intimate daydreams of Negan , Maggie firmly banishes the thought from her head.

She leaves him out front while she cleans up a few glasses. It offers some respite from masking the torrent of emotions she’s been hit with since learning so much about her old teacher.

It’s pointless to deny, especially to herself, that she could no longer have any reason to hate him. If he was telling the truth, that is.

Negan clearly holds no grudge against her. He’s let every rude remark, every ungrateful dismissal she’s ever thrown at him slide. He could have actioned against the way Maggie acted towards him during her final school term, but he hadn’t. He could have easily avoided interactions with her when seeing Hershel since her return, but he didn’t. She’d sworn in his face, called him names, but still he had brought her favourite snacks, helped out in the cellar, and stuck around when she was the only one in the pub.

He even defended me from Jared after weeks of me being…

Being an asshole .

And she had, hadn’t she? Been a bit of an asshole to Negan.

Maggie hadn’t allowed herself to admit it, but his presence at the end of the bar during her shifts makes her feel a little safer, even when she isn’t in any immediate danger. The sounds of him and Daryl and sometimes the other guys playing pool is like the equivalent of locking the car doors behind her to drive home at night.

But there’s still this fucking shitmix of feelings tugging her every which way. It’s as if her memories of senior year are shifting the more time she and Negan spend together. Like a dirtied-up, Glenn-shaped lens of hatred has been lifted from her view of him.

More than anything it makes her feel kinda regretful. Guilty, even. Makes her long to travel back in time and never involve herself in Glenn’s mess — to not quit swimming like a fucking idiot and keep working towards her potential.

All that hard work in the pool, just thrown away. All because she was… is! a headstrong idiot.

Before coming back out onto the floor to face him, Maggie takes a moment. She leans up against the dishwasher and lets her eyes drift closed, breathing through an onslaught of self-loathing.

God, I miss those mornings and after-school practices at the pool. Always have.

I missed them more than I ever missed Glenn.

She’s starting to think the nausea she used to feel when avoiding Negan during those final few weeks of high school might not have been fuelled by hatred alone.

Because if she has no more reason to suspect he is a power-hungry, Glenn-hating piece of shit, then surely Maggie is allowed to admit it.

That she had missed her coach.

No point in denying it any more. But, at the time, she couldn’t be blamed for feeling she had been betrayed by Negan. One of the few adults left in her life who, up until that point, had seemed to genuinely care about her.

Maybe that’s why, when the final customer has left and there are no signs of anyone coming in for a nightcap, Maggie doesn’t tell him to leave. She just locks the door a half-hour early and starts the end-of-day routine.

He doesn’t make any quips about her locking him in, or ask if she’s going to make him mop the floors like she’d expected.

Suspicious.

She eyeballs him on her way to do the restroom checks. He is leaning forwards on the bar, distracted by something interesting on his phone.

Thankfully, her dad’s usual weekday clientele have good habits and don’t make too much work for the staff come closing time. It doesn’t take Maggie long to refill the soap and toilet paper dispensers, all the while thinking about how Negan’s dimples joined to create a slight double chin as he looked down, illuminated by his screen.

She almost expects him to have left when she comes back, but no. There he is.

Stacking up the last of the empties from the other tables along the bar.

“I’m not paying you, y’know,” she says with a smirk, an offering of thanks to him in the only way she knows how.

“The quicker you get cleaned up, the quicker I can hammer you at a game of pool. You know, you’re the only person in this damn bar who’s too chicken shit to take me on?”

She swallows, looking at the empty glasses on the bar.

“Unless you wanna get going, of course. I wouldn’t wanna keep you after such a long and gruelling shift,” Negan teases.

As silly as it makes her feel to admit it, her previous state of loathing would have twisted this teasing into sincere mockery.

He winks at her. “Shall I rack ‘em up?”

Yes. “No.”

It kind of blurts out if her, as automatic as a sneeze. “I’ve got an early start. Sorry,” she adds while heading back behind the bar, attempting to not sound like she hates him for a change.

“Hey, that’s cool,” he says through a chuckle. He reaches for his jacket from its place on the back of his stool. “You didn’t throw a barstool at my head and tell me to get the fuck out. I’m gonna count that as progress.”

“Alright, jerk. You better be gone by the time I come back out here.”

“No, really, this might be the closest you’ve ever gotten to saying goodbye to me without telling me to fuck off. Are you feeling well?” Negan gives her a mock look of concern.

Why does your smile have to be so fucking infectious?

“Hm, I don’t know about that. You probably don’t even remember me from before I tore you a new one, but there was once a time when I went out of my way to wave goodbye to Coach Smith.”

Well, doesn’t that take him aback. Negan lets out a tiny gasp of surprise under his breath. It’s barely detectable from Maggie’s place across the bar, but she picks up on it all the same. He licks his lips in thought, expression turning serious.

As for Maggie? Well. She doesn’t know what came over her.

Did I really just say that? Aloud? To his face?

“No, I remember,” he croaks. “The teachers… We, uh, weren’t supposed to have favourites. But you were always mine, Miss Greene.”

And that’s all it takes, apparently. A little praise.

His words send a rush of dopamine through Maggie. It’s like she’s standing in front of him in nothing but a bathing suit all over again. Can practically see the baseball cap on his head. The glint of his whistle. The fucking stopwatch in his hand, ready to stop her air supply with a single tilt of his criminally beautiful lips.

In, two, three, four, five, six…

To her extreme mortification, she feels that praise stroke something deep in her core. It causes her to shift her weight to the other foot.

Oh my god. No. Fuck you, body. Especially fuck you, Negan.

She tries her very best to look nonchalant. Whether it’s convincing, who the fuck knows. Before turning away into the office, Maggie raises both eyebrows in what she hopes looks like a smug challenge and sticks both her middle fingers in the air.

Her rudest salute. The one reserved for Negan alone.

He doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t swear back. He simply looks at her like she just gave him a lap dance.

Any further response goes unseen as Maggie ducks into the back.

What, exactly, does he remember? she thinks as she hears the front door unlatch and then close shortly after.

The bar feels too quiet now. Colder. And for some reason she’s bone-tired.

Floors can wait til morning.

Around twenty minutes later, after cashing up and switching off, she locks up to leave for the night.

It’s only a few feet to her car, but it’s dark besides the two street lights out front. Maggie is tugging the thick cardigan close as she fishes for the car key at the bottom of her tote when a pair of headlights comes on, bringing her attention to the pitch-black car at the opposite corner of the lot.

The brilliant light illuminates the brick wall of Greene’s, casting the driver in a warm glow.

Negan waves. She finally pulls her pesky runaway key out of her bag and waves back.

He waited.

Seeing him there fills her with gratitude. She immediately feels wrapped up tight in an invisible embrace, more comforting than the world’s comfiest sweater could ever offer.

But she doesn’t dawdle. The angry butterflies in her stomach remind her she hasn’t eaten anything.

It’s not until Maggie is driving down the street, watching the mustang making a left in her rear view mirror, that she realises she never asked him about the whole bunny thing.

Forget it, she scolds herself, shaking her head. It doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s time to stop obsessing over every little thing Negan says and does.

Maybe give the poor guy a goddamn break.

Chapter Text

Considering its placement in the ass crack of nowhere, Walkerton High was a pretty prestigious school. Folks with money from across this half of the state sent their kids there, so it was a weird mix of future ivy-league shit bags, and catchment-area shit bags who got lucky with the geographical coordinates of their trailer. With a few genuinely nice kids in between, whose parents didn’t make his life a living hell.

“Let me get this straight. You want me to break the kid’s heart, make myself look like an asshole of immeasurable proportions, just so your son doesn’t find out what selfish pricks his parents are?”

There was an awkward shuffle of feet in Negan’s periphery. He turned his attention to the tired looking man who stood flat against his office wall. Ezekiel, the perfect headteacher, who always projected utmost confidence and courage, was trying to become one with the breeze blocks and disappear himself from the scene.

“And you’re okay with this?” Negan asked his boss. The question was purely rhetorical, the answer already etched into Ezekiel’s stony face. Clear as day.

“Mr and Mrs Rhee have made several generous donations to our institution in recent years. The least we can do is accommodate their plans which have Glenn’s best interests at the centre,” Ezekiel said. Negan had never heard him speak with so little enthusiasm.

No. Of course you’re not okay with this. Who fucking would be?

They all knew what he really wanted to say, but the Rhees wouldn’t risk having to admit their scheme was bogus and Negan knew he was already toeing the line of being fired.

Fuck them, they are pricks.

Glenn’s mom broke the silence.

“Listen, Mr. Smith. We understand this might seem like an unfair proposal, but please, think about it from Glenn’s point of view. We need to move for work. He will hate the change enough without us having to drag him away from his team, his friends… I think he might even have a girlfriend…”

Negan’s jaw clenched without permission.

“…and the last thing he needs is a grudge against us while having to adapt to a whole new life in a foreign country. Forget about the favour you’re doing us and think about the service you’re doing your student.”

Ugh. Sure, we’re lying through our teeth to our son but it’s for his own good… Poor fucking kid.

No. He just couldn’t look on the bright side of anything any more – even while the most evil, selfish part of Negan’s brain chanted with joy that “the boy who’s been pawing at my favourite girl all over campus is being shipped across the Atlantic for good!”.

Student. Favourite student , you fuckin’ creep.

Nah. Lucille was always the one to see the good in everyone. She even saw good in me.

It had taken a long time for Negan to get settled into small-town life after growing up in DC, but he’d followed where the work was. Lucille had happily tagged along and together they ran away from their empty lives in the city to create something new for them both. Something comfortable. 

They didn’t need anyone else. Right up until the end.

The night before the Rhees had been escorted into his office had been especially rough for Negan. Since the funeral, it had grown more and more difficult to face the everyday mundanity of life without his other half there to find the hilarity in it.

It had finally set in. No more denial, no more funeral planning. Only relentless, unceasing pain.

The loss was eating away at him.

It was Mr Rhee’s turn to speak up. “There will be compensation. And you wouldn’t have to worry about repercussions, as what you’re doing isn’t against the law. It is entirely for the benefit of our family and nobody outside these four walls need know.”

Oh, fuck off.

“Great.” Negan’s head tilted in exhaustion. He dragged a hand down his tired face. “Go on then, how much are you willing to pay me to land the blow?”

If Mr Rhee picked up on Negan’s sarcasm, he didn’t show it. “Fifteen seems more than adequate.”

Negan stilled in his seat. Fifteen… hundred?

He’s not seriously considering it from a financially beneficial perspective, of course. One-and-a-half thousand dollars isn’t going to help him out with the debts he’s accumulated in the lead-up to Lucille’s…

“Eighteen.” He found his own mouth cutting him off before his brain could go there. 

What, I’m haggling now? Fuck my fucking mouth. Couldv’e at least rounded up to two grand, idiot.

Mr Rhee sighed.

“Good. So do we have your cooperation?” Mrs Rhee said through a controlled smile, leaning forward in her seat. Negan couldn’t fathom how much this big move must be benefiting them if they’re just throwing away cash to sweeten up their son.

Come to think of it, why not just give the kid a bunch of money instead of a thirty year old man who’s already exhausted by the world? But by the sound of it, Glenn isn’t going to notice an extra couple of thousand dollars trickling into his vault at Gringott’s, is he?

“Sure. Fuck it. I don’t feel like I have much of a choice in this anyway,” Negan said pointedly in the direction of Ezekiel. “And you’re right. It’s probably what’s best for the kid. Who gives a crap about my reputation, anyway?”

“You won’t regret this, Mr Smith. You’re doing a good thing.”

Mr Rhee lifted his briefcase onto the desk between them.

Was this the point where they pulled out a fat fucking tape recorder and the feds barge in? He couldn’t help but wince as the clasps flicked open, but his face fell into a frown at the thickness of the brown envelope placed in front of him.

“Here’s fifteen. We will have the rest delivered tomorrow. Principal Sutton, will you see us out?”

Negan didn’t say a word. He simply held his head between his hands and stared at the envelope until the door clipped shut behind the three of them.

Fifteen?

When the sound of Glenn’s mom’s stiletto heels had disappeared down the corridor, Negan dared to pick it up. The tab wasn’t stuck down, and as he raised it from the desk, two stacks of benjamins tumbled out onto the wood. It wasn’t a full briefcase, sure, but it was a considerably bigger wad than $1500 could possibly make up.

Fifteen.

Fifteen… thousand?

No. Eighteen they’d said they’d pay him. Thousand? US Dollars. Just to play the bad guy? Surely not.

It’s enough to pay the last of the medical bills and catch up with the missed mortgage payments, his traitorous conscience whispered. What else did you expect from the fuckin’ blue-collar parents at this school? Take what you can get.

Lucille’s illness had really done one over on him, in more ways than total emotional devastation. The funeral costs had been the final big hit.

Damn, I mean… it’s not like they’re gonna hurt the kid. He’s gonna have an amazing future. Opportunities I sure as shit never had. And they’ve got a point. Glenn might not find it as hard when they inevitably drag him away from baseball if he doesn’t know it was their decision.

His parents get the life they want in England and Negan will betray a kid and be the kind of sellout grown-up he swore he would never become.

Win, win, fucking win.

Negan leant back in his desk chair and pulled the peak of his baseball cap down over his eyes.

He refused to fall into the chasm of considering how this would affect Maggie. His star student, his single beam of hope in the darkness, his…

Not his.

Maggie, who had lost so much in this life already, was about to have her first love ripped away from her.

And, from the perspective of every student and teacher in school, it would be all Coach Smith’s doing.

Negan couldn’t bear it, the way she looked at him. 

He knew he would never forget the fire in Maggie’s eyes as she exploded into his office, guns a-blazing in defense of her boyfriend. Despite all the early mornings she blessed him with her warm humour and dazzling smile at training, that single look of pure hatred will be the face that haunts him.

Maggie was kind.Generous. And for such a beautiful soul to hold him so low in her opinion? Well, it dragged him even deeper into the mire.

The days were longer now. Without Lucille.

He talked to her, his wife. He asked her where his keys were. What she wanted for dinner. Did they need gas? Could he get her anything from the store?

He couldn’t wait to break the habit. Couldn’t wait to stop feeling that icy stab of silence each time, a reminder that it’s just him rolling around in their— in his— house like a pea in a fucking drum.

Then he’d get to school and everything felt back to normal. Lucille was never there, so he couldn’t miss her. School was safe.

Or at least it had been.

When he first became a teacher, Negan had no idea he would grow so attached to his students. Hadn’t thought it possible. Not all of them held a place in his heart, of course. A lot of them were straight-up shits. But every year there had always been a handful that made his days a little brighter.

Maggie, though? In the murkiest time of his life, Maggie Greene somehow became the sun itself.

Naturally, as any responsible grown man in a role of care to minors would, he began to despise himself for the feelings she elicited in him.

Because when the dreams started, it quickly became difficult not to think about her in his waking moments, too. Those especially lonely waking moments when his dick screamed out for release and he couldn’t stroke himself to a relieving finish without her walking into his imagination in that fucking school-issued swim suit. 

It wasn’t enough to tell himself it was a natural response.

She’s beautiful. I only ever see her in a bathing suit. Yeah, despite the fact that she’s almost eighteen and I’ve just entered my thirties, we have a hell of a lot in common…

Bullshit. No excuses.

But that was the crux of it. The bottom line. He could adore her all he wanted, from afar. No matter how disgusted it made him feel whenever he looked in the mirror. No matter how soon her birthday might be coming up.

Maggie was seventeen. He was her teacher. And that made him sick to his fucking stomach.

If it were another man, Negan would have strung him up by the balls. The only thing that stopped him from turning himself in to Ezekiel was the knowledge that he wouldn’t actually touch her with a ten-foot pole.

No matter how much it hurt to keep his distance. He’d rather drink himself into a walking corpse of a man.

Now, to top it all off, she hated his guts as much as he did himself.

A nightcap of whiskey here. A bottle of gin there. A messy binge at the weekend with men he couldn’t even call his friends.

Anything he could do to forget for a little while.

“Didn’t you cause enough trouble in my pub the other night?”

A vaguely familiar face from the previous weekend appeared before Negan from behind the bar. The man’s voice was stern, but his face contained a smile that Negan felt he didn’t quite deserve.

He had no idea who this fucking guy was. Only that he’d been thrown out of this bar the other night for being a disorderly piece of shit. His memories from that night were foggy, but he remembered being patched up by some old fella who kept asking questions. And Negan, the mess that he was, spewed forth his recent sad-as-fuck history.

He had come back to apologise to the owner for the mess he’d made, but hadn’t expected to be greeted by a novelty TV ad from the 90s. This festive-looking dude was either about to hand him a bottle of Coke or a boneless bucket.

“Yeah, uh. Sorry about that. I came back to… well. Say sorry, I guess. That wasn’t something I usually do. Ever. This isn’t my usual scene.”

“Could’a fooled me, the way you stank out the place last Frid’y. And that’s coming from a man who spends almost every day surrounded by alcoholics – functioning or otherwise. Bold of you to show your face again so soon.”

Negan leans on his elbows against the bar. “I…”

He doesn’t really want to get into why. People don’t want to hear about his misery, let alone some random barkeep trapped into a small space by his very occupation. Negan pitied the person who’d helped him out and made the effort to put him in a cab.

Instead, Negan just sighed. “Jesus, man, I can’t apologise enough.”

“Ah, no harm done. Although you might want to apologise to Daryl. You blew his record streak for days without a black eye.”

“Ah, shit. Do you know where I might find him?” Negan dragged a hand down his face.

“What’s your name, son? I didn’t catch it before,” Colonel Santa asked, ignoring his question.

Fair enough. Maybe it was a bad idea to go looking for some redneck you wouldn’t know from Adam, that you just so happened to punch in the face at the weekend.

“Negan. Smith. This is your bar, right? Either you saw everything or somebody’s put wanted posters of me up in your bathrooms.”

The older man shook his head and laughed. “Hooey, you sure must’a been steamin’ if you don’t remember the face who spent an hour bandaging you up!” He held out his hand across the polished bar top. “Hershel Greene.”

Negan’s eyes drift shut in mortification. “Jesus, I am so sorry.” He grabbed Hershel’s hand for a solid shake. 

“Why, not to worry, son. Don’t know if you’ll remember, but you told me all about your troubles. You’re going through one of the hardest things a person can go through in this life, and still so young.”

“Yeah, hopefully I’m getting all the bad out of the way early on and my late twenties didn’t set the future standard.”

“Hm,” Hershel huffs humourlessly, his brow furrowed. “Say, your name sounds mighty familiar.”

Simultaneously, something clicked in Negan’s brain and plummeted straight to his stomach.

Hershel. Why did that name ring a bell? 

Greene’s. Hershel Greene.

Maggie Greene. Hershel…

Dad.

Oh, fuck.

“Negan? Not very common around these parts. Maybe somebody yelled at me on Friday when I was threatening that asshole with a beating.” The longer he could keep from discussing Maggie with her own father – who, by rights, should have already barred him and called the sheriff – the better.

“What d’you do for work, Negan?”

Great. Straight into it, then.

“Teacher,” he offered, because apparently avoiding his problems was second nature these days.

Would she have told her dad about the whole Glenn drama? She seemed pretty terrified that time Negan had noticed those bruises on her shoulder — left by that fuckin immature little — Maybe Hershel was none the wiser about Maggie’s upset, or that she even had a boyfriend in the first place.

Hershel looked him up and down from across the bartop, from his worn flannel to the top of his hat, before settling on the scruff on his chin. “You look more like a ranch hand.”

“It’s a Sunday, they can’t make me wear that fuckin’ prison gear on my own time.”

Hershel chuckled. “I used to feel the same way about my vet scrubs. Now I miss the days when I could fit into them. What’s your subject?”

May as well bite the bullet.

“Gym. At Walkerton.”

“Well, well, well! Coach Smith? That’s it, you taught my Maggie. I’ve heard all about you.”

“Uh oh.” Negan tried to keep his tone light and free, but he wanted nothing more than to run straight into the nearest bathroom stall and flush himself out of there. “All terrible, I’m sure.”

“Maggie is a harsh critic when it comes to adults, especially her teachers. But I think she might have held a candle for you.”

Well, didn’t that just tear the deck right from under his boots. Steal his breath. Kick him in the sack a little.

“She’s a good kid. Really put the work into everything she did.”

Until I let her down. Until she walked out on her own future over some boy.

And if he was a better man, he’d keep his damn mouth shut. But…

“Where’d she end up?”

“New York. Left about two weeks ago. Home ain’t been the same without her.”

“I bet. Must’ve been heartbreaking to watch her go.”

I should know.

“Of course. But she seemed restless… I think she was outgrowing this place. In a way it felt right to see her leave, spread her wings. Hopefully she will come back to us, but I could never force her to stick around for my sake. I’ve got her little sister, Beth, to keep me on my toes for a while longer yet.”

Negan wished he could feel the same way. Maggie was meant to apply for scholarships. Had wanted more than anything to go to Virginia. Her eyes had lit up when she told him all about her plans a year ago. He hoped that she had at least joined a swim club up there, if not tried out for the team.

If he’d known the hit losing Glenn would have had on Maggie, he’d never have agreed to the deal.

Not for a fucking million.

She’d have lost Glenn anyway, but at least it wouldn’t have looked like Negan made it happen. 

At least he’d have had those final months of training with her. Been able to help her get into the college she wanted.

Been able to say their goodbyes on good terms. Heartbreaking for him, yes, but good.

Instead she hadn’t even looked at him. Didn’t want to.

“Say, I’m never serving you another measure for as long as I run this pub,” Hershel states, snapping Negan out of his miserable reverie. “But I’d greatly appreciate it if you’d stick around a while. Gets a little quiet round here and a new face is a nice change. And as a gesture of goodwill after the mess you made the other night, maybe you could offer to help me shift some barrels before you head out.”

Negan laughs, shaking his head with closed eyes. “Happy to help. But please, don’t deny a sorry man a good old-fashioned coke.”

S niffles. That’s what he could hear as he walked into Greene’s one Saturday morning in early December.

The sound was coming from a little heap of sweaters topped with a woollen pom-pom hat, sunny-blonde curls spewing from beneath, sitting at the nearest end of the bar with her head on the wood.

No, not the wood. On what looked to be an open workbook.

Negan looked around the otherwise empty saloon. He’d expected as much at this time of day, the bar still being closed to customers. The only reason Negan was around was because he’d offered to help Hershel out with some heavy lifting.

He’d come to find the old man’s company soothing, almost. Making his way to the pub here and there had become a refreshing change from wallowing in misery on his own couch.

This little girl he’d never seen before, but her legend had preceded her.

“Hey there. It’s Beth, right? You okay?” Negan asked as he approached the bar, hopefully at a safe enough distance not to frighten her.

“I’ll never be okay as long as math exists,” Beth whines, muffled against the paper.

Negan fails to keep the grin off his face. Luckily, she doesn’t look up.

“Is your dad here? Maybe he can help you out.”

“Maggie said daddy’s math is total crap and I’d be better off guessin’. But she ain’t here to help me no more, either.”

Negan tried his darnedest to swallow the chortle that threatened to burst out of him before daring to open his mouth. He sat down a few stools away from her.

“Wanna slide that book on over here? Maybe I can offer some advice.” He wasn’t the best mathematician by a long shot, but surely even a gym teacher could figure out third grade numeracy.

Beth finally raised her head. There was crease between her little brows, and another longer one down the length of her cheek where it had been pressed into the book’s seam.

“Dad said I’m not a’pposed to talk to strangers.”

“Well, he’s right about that. Tell you what, I’ll go find your dad and get him to make introductions, hm?”

She narrows her eyes. “What’s your name?”

“Me? I’m Negan. A friend of your pop and, uh… your sister’s old school teacher.”

Beth perks up at that. “You’re a teacher?”

“Hey! Why so surprised?”

She giggles. It’s sweet.

Cute kid.

“Well, daddy’s in the bathroom fixin’ a drippy tap.” She slides the book towards him. “If you know Maggie and daddy and you’re a teacher… you can have a look if you want.”

“Alright then, let’s see here.”

And thus began Negan Smith’s career as a weekend math teacher — with a little literacy and science thrown in too sometimes to really test his knowledge — much to the delight of Beth and her equally grateful father.

Every weekend he’d join them in the pub. He got to know them. The regulars, the staff. Daryl, the guy whose face got in the way of his fist that fateful Friday night, turned out to be a pretty decent guy who he quickly got on with like a house on fire. Together, Daryl and Hershel helped Negan through the loneliest period of his entire life. Besides a couple of lapses in the following years, he never had another drink. Certainly never a single drop from that bar since the night he made a royal idiot of himself.

Gradually, Beth’s homework got more difficult, and eventually Beth got better at answering the questions than Negan until one day he hung up his tutoring cap for good.

With no more homework to do, they’d spend their time at the bar talking about TV, music,  life, family, the tragic rat tail that Daryl was “just trying out” every other year.

Of course, Beth told Negan every single thing she heard from Maggie, whether he wanted to know or not. Her whereabouts, her career, the piece of shit she worked for in the city. All of it.

The only time he wasn’t around the eldest and youngest Greenes was when the middle one came home. Maggie would only ever be around for a couple of days at a time, and she never came to the pub.

It didn’t matter though. Because as soon as Beth got back from being holed up in their house over Christmas or whenever Maggie could get away from work, Beth would bring out the pictures.

“She brought us matchin’ pajamas this year! It was so funny ‘cause daddy’s didn’t fit because of his recent ice-cream phase and— anyways, look! I swear, she gets prettier every time she comes home, don’t she?”

And there she’d be, growing more beautiful by the year. An actual, fully-grown woman, which made him feel even more disgusting about how he’d felt about her while she was only just leaving high school. After a few years he started to notice angles framing her face, a slight darkening around her eyes that only came with reaching one’s late twenties.

Or your early twenties if you married your insane high-school sweetheart, like he and Lucille both did.

Every time Maggie’s name came out of Beth’s mouth, Negan expected to hear about a boyfriend, or a wedding, or babies, but they never came. Not to his knowledge, at least. Thank fuck.

Not that it’s any of your business, you fucking creep. It’s bad enough you’re chummy with her dad and sister.

He had told Hershel and Beth that Maggie hated him, decidedly from her point of view and without his side of the story and true reasons for sabotaging Glenn. Nobody needed his sorry excuses. It was bad enough that he’d broken the kid’s heart, let alone been paid to do it.

Better to look like an asshole than a coward, right?

He guessed Maggie knew about his relationship with her family. How could she not, with the way Beth shared everyone’s business around town from the post she eventually claimed behind the bar (much to Hershel’s discontentment)?

Negan felt, perhaps a little vainly, that Maggie avoided the pub during her brief visits home because of him.

And who would blame her?

“Are you sure you’re gonna be okay?”

“Christ, kid, I have a life outside of you and this bar, y’know.”

Beth’s face twisted with doubt. “Sure. Don’t worry, I’ll back in December. Just promise me you’ll take care of daddy and Daryl. They’re idiots.”

“I thought I was an idiot?”

“Only when you talk to women. You can handle those two just fine.”

“Hey! I’ll have you know that I have plenty of—“

“Gross, no, don’t even go there.”

“Aw. I’m gonna miss seeing you around the halls at school. Around here. Who’s gonna whoop my ass at pool? I’ll finally be the town champion.”

“Maybe Maggie will come visit more in my absence and give you a pounding. Remind everyone who the real champion is.”

Negan couldn’t help the way his ears perked up like a fucking mutt as soon as that name was mentioned.

Beth tutted and rolled her eyes. “Dude, you really have it bad, don’tcha.” It wasn’t a question.

“Pardon?”

“For Maggie. You haven’t seen her in a decade and she still lives rent free in your head.”

“Beth, what are you talking about?” Suddenly his insides felt like they’d been smoothied. If he hadn’t already been sitting on Hershel’s front porch he might’ve crashed straight through it. “Where the hell is this coming from?”

“I’m not a kid any more, which means I no longer have to watch you pop your head out of your shell every time her name comes up and not understand why. You love her.”

Negan simply gaped at her like a landed bass. “You’re nuts.”

“But I’m right.”

“Kid, I haven’t seen your sister since she was your age. And she was definitely still a kid.”

She snorted. “Barely. Maggie was an old woman since she was about 10, ever since mom died and she had to grow up and raise me. And what are you, like… seven years older?”

Okay, so maybe math never became Beth’s strong suit.

“Twelve.”

“Whatever. The point is, no matter how great a guy you are and how professional a teacher — although your use of language on school property puts that up for debate — you had a crush on her. And, boy howdy, she sure had a crush on you.”

“You were like… seven! What the hell did you know about anything?”

“Maggie talked about you all the time. I’m pretty sure your name was scrawled all the way through her journal at one point. Until the whole Glenn thing. After that she may as well have stopped talking altogether.”

It was like somebody had jammed a broom handle in his intestines and started twisting, combining his guilt with an ugly dose of regret. He rested his head in his hands, elbows pressing into his knees.

“I’m so sorry.”

“You told her that, right?”

He thought back to their final collision in the school’s hall after graduation.

“Dang, I tried . She didn’t have time for me and, to be honest, I can’t find it in me to blame her.”

“First of all: pathetic. Second, she had all the time in the world for you. And it’s been a long time. I bet she doesn’t remember any of it. She hasn’t mentioned Glenn for years.”

The matter of factness on Beth’s face made him want to burst into laughter, but he knew it would only encourage her. “You’re actually insane. We should be shipping you off to an asylum instead of college.”

“Sure, sure, keep deflecting. But we both know that, out of the two of us, I’m the sane one here. Just promise me, if she ever comes back to town you’ll try talkin’ to her.”

Negan just stares at the expanse of lawn before him. Processing… whatever this fucking conversation was.

“And not in the way you usually talk to women. Christ.”

“Alright, alright, smart ass, let’s get you inside, it’s almost time for the game to start. And if you utter a single word about me or Maggie in the same sentence in front of Hershel, I’ll be looking up the securest mental institutions California has to offer.”

“Wait, so… I’m right?”

Negan’s eyes widened. Luckily he’d already turned towards the front door. Controlling his features into his stern teacher face, he spins to point a finger at the little shit.

When exactly did she start noticing things?

“About me needing to apologise, yes. The rest? You’ve clearly been smoking too much pot with those band freaks you hang out with behind the bleachers. I’m tellin’ your dad.”

Beth giggles. “Sure thing, bro. Hey, do you think you’ll ask Daryl to be your best man? I’d love to watch him have to make a speech.”

“In!”

Greene’s Irish Pub used to be Negan’s safe house. The place he’d go to escape the clawing, never-ending quiet of his own home. Even during the year-long relationship he’d had about six years back, which ended with him being told by an exceptionally smart and beautiful woman he certainly didn’t deserve that he was… what was it? Emotionally unavailable? He’d spent most of his time either at work or in the bar with his odd selection of pals instead of really trying to love her back.

After the loss of Lucille — his best friend, his lover, his family — he found himself preserving those who had preserved him in their own way. Greene’s became the sanctuary he so desperately needed. His new family. Anything outside of that bubble they’d helped him create always came second, no matter how unhealthy it might’ve seemed to those on the outside.

Now, the pub has become something else entirely. He is no longer safe there, yet he can’t keep away. Finds himself pulling into the parking lot every night after first driving home from school after a quick freshen up.

For Maggie. 

Whether she’s on shift or not. Just in case.

Negan will be the first to admit he has always been a little on the pathetic side, but this new phase in his life really takes the cake.

As if she would ever notice, let alone care.  

In the weeks after their private conversation, the one where he almost revealed fucking everything to her about Glenn, Maggie seems to have a lot more shifts. Even when she isn’t working, she’s just… there.

And the most dangerous thing of all is that she has started being civil.

Smiling at him.

Well, sometimes. At least twice.

If she isn’t smiling at him then she is at least able to look him in the eye without that menacing glare he’s grown so used to.

And why is that dangerous, you ask?

It’s harder to look away from her when she’s not threatening to spit in my eye.

Negan has baseball practice with his juniors after school on Thursdays, so he usually either skips his visit to Greene’s or goes a little later in the evening. 

But boy, did shit hit the fan this evening. Sam Anderson had to be taken to the ER after taking a stray ball to the skull.

It’s just a bump, he’ll be fine.

Probably.

But it leaves Negan feeling tense. Anxious. Like he doesn’t really feel like going back to his empty house to think about that kid having a brain haemorrhage or something, all because Coach Smith let his focus slip for a single second.

He didn’t, of course. There was nothing anyone could have done to prevent it, other than Sam keeping his eye on the fucking ball for a change . Negan is probably the most attentive high-school gym coach on the east coast. But try telling him that.

It’s almost 8pm by the time he gets back to his office and finishes up the accident paperwork according to school policy. If he goes home to shower and change he wont get to the pub until nine at the earliest. And that, for some reason, feels like a stupid time to be showing up.

So after a sigh and a long, exhausted look at himself in one of the staff-bathroom mirrors, Negan plops himself into his car, drives around to McDonalds for a late, half-assed dinner, and makes his way to Greene’s .

He feels instantly better as he walks across the parking lot, ditching his empties in the dumpster, and stepping out of the chill air into the cozy bar.

If not a little back-bent with fatigue.

“Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes. Did you only just leave work or somethin’?”

Negan strides over to lean on the bar close to Hershel who is already at work pouring out an icy coke for him.

“Kids, baseballs, concussions… don’t ask.”

He pantomimes the stress of his day, resting his elbows on the bar and gripping the sides of his head with a look on his face that screams “kill me”. It brings his attention to the baseball cap on his head which he hardly ever wears outside of work. The sun had gone down long before Negan had finished flapping over the golf-ball-sized egg on the kid’s head, and all thoughts of whatever may have rested on his own head had gone completely out of the window.

He straightens up, thanking Hershel for yet another drink on the house. Negan grabs the glass to take to his usual stool at the end of the bar, out of the way of everyone’s business, when he hears a set of boots come to a sudden halt outside the ladies bathroom.

And there she is.

There she fuckin’ is.

For some reason Maggie Greene is standing stock still in the middle of the floor, glaring at him. Or rather, at his chest?

He looks down to see the rest of his gym-teacher attire, the same navy blue shit he’s worn at school for the last fifteen years or so, with a V of the plain-white tee visible at his neck.

Oh yeah, and he’s still wearing his whistle. Another forgotten accessory that he’s so used to having on him that he could sleep in it.

Head still lowered, Negan looks back up at Maggie curiously. She looks as if she’s seen a ghost. 

Shit, maybe she has. He suddenly feels like they’ve gone back in time. Can almost see her standing there in nothing but a bathing suit, hair dripping onto the wood.

It’s not unpleasant. He can’t keep the childish grin off his face as he offers her a “Hey.”

“What’re you doing here?”

Oh. Well, fuck me then.

“Uh…”

“Sorry, I mean—” she rushes out, floundering in that cute way she always does. “You just… you don’t usually come here on Thursdays.”

Negan doesn’t know what to say to that. Or what to do with his body.

She doesn’t want him there. Fair enough. But he’s feeling a little vulnerable right now and doesn’t really feel like leaving when he just got here.

He fiddles with the peak of his cap nervously. Takes it off. Panicks at the cool exposure of his head and flips it on backwards with the snapback part on his forehead.

A look he’s probably too old for, but whatever.

“Yeah, sorry, I um, had a rough day so I thought I could use a distraction. I can go, though…”

“Don’t be stupid, that’s not what I meant. Siddown.” She points at his usual stool, a line between her brows.

“Yes, ma’am.”

He does as he is bid, not realising that Maggie is following at a safe distance behind. When he turns in his seat, he’s surprised to find her climbing into the one nearest.

He can count on one hand how many times since she returned to Walkerton they’ve spoken without a bar between them to keep him safe.

Interesting.

He hopes she can sense his weakness and takes pity on him, just for tonight.

“Are you working?” he asks.

“Y—”

“No, she’s not!” Two voices ring out from behind the bar. Hershel’s from the office, and what can only be Rosita’s from the cellar.

Negan chuckles. “Sounds like you’re over staffed on Thursdays.”

Maggie rolls her eyes. “Sue me for being bored in that fuckin’ house. I gotta upgrade the internet package, if that’s even possible out on the farm. I can barely stream half an episode of Supernatural before I get cut off.”

“How tragic is it that we’re both avoiding our boring-as-shit houses by coming here to hang out with your 70-year-old dad?”

Maggie… laughs?

And it really is the most beautiful thing he’s witnessed in the last— well, however long it’s been since he watched her walk across that graduation stage. But now she is blessing him with a private display of perfect teeth and nose wrinkles.

“Not as tragic as me deciding to give up city life to stay here.”

“You’re not going back?”

“Don’t sound too disappointed,” she jabs, but she’s kidding. If anything, Negan probably looks and sounds like he’s ready to scream hallelujah from the rooftop. “For now, at least. I’m enjoying getting to know everyone again, and there ain’t much joy for me back at my apartment, these days.” 

She’s here. She’s letting me talk to her. Maybe she doesn’t hate me.

“Now, about that game of pool you’ve been begging me for…”

Fuck, really? What deity did I unknowingly blow in my sleep to be rewarded, thus?

Then he remembers the turmoil of his afternoon and decides he definitely earned at least an invite to play pool from the object of his desire.

It’s everything he can do to not bite her hand off at the chance. 

“Finally brave enough to take me on, huh?”

That’s right, play it cool. You’re hard to get, Negan Smith. Giving nothin’ away to nobody.

“ Sure, darlin’, I’ll rack ‘em up.”

Psh, who the hell am I trying to kid?

“Don’t be trying to go easy on me,” Maggie says as they head over, rounding the table to grab a cue from the wall mount and gently nudging him in the ribs. “I have a reputation to uphold.”

“Don’t you worry about that. I’ve heard all about your skills, Greene.”

He bools the cue ball over to her place at the top end of the table. She catches it with a smirk and positions it on the white dot.

“From Beth, I’m guessing? She might be right about my skills at the pool table, but you better not believe everything that little bastard tells you.”

Negan can’t help but show his glee. Man, it must be terrifying to be in a room with the two of them together.

Poor Hershel.

Maggie twists the chalk over the end of her chosen cue. “Do you wanna break?”

Negan fishes in his pocket for a quarter and walks around the table to stand in front of her. He can see the instinct to step back flash in her eyes, but she stands her ground. He stops when there’s only two feet between them. “Let’s flip for it.”

“Heads,” she blurts before he finishes speaking.

The coin rings as it flips in the air and lands with a little slap in his palm.

Heads.

Maggie gets straight to it, bending over the white before smashing it into the neatly packed triangle of spots and stripes. It explodes, balls spinning out across the green felt. Two spots fall into a corner pocket in quick succession.

“Fluke.”

“Shut it, stripes.” She doesn’t even look up at him. Just finds her next victim and plops it into the nearest pocket with a shit-eating grin on her face.

It feels strange, illegal almost, being able to appreciate Maggie without feeling the usual sting of mental self-flaggelation. No longer having any valid reasons to stop himself, Negan finds that his eyes are scarcely able to keep off of her.

Ass .

That’s what his caveman brain provides first. Her ass in those jeans.

Tits, second. He is but a man, after all, and the blood-red fitted henley she’s wearing isn’t buttoned all the way, which drives him insane at the best of times from his usual perch at the bar. He hopes he looks calm and collected from the outside, because on the inside he may as well be hooting and hollering, chasing her around the table with his fist in his mouth.

But after a few minutes of watching Maggie bent low over the table as she pots ball after ball, he finds her focus to be the perfect distraction – realises he’s being blessed with the perfect opportunity to get a good look at her face.

Sure, he’s looked at it plenty. But not without her noticing and immediately grimacing or turning away in embarrassment.

It’s odd to look at a face he used to know from memory so many years later on. She’s exactly the same, and yet completely unrecognisable. Almost an entirely different creature, but still the Maggie he used to coach from the poolside.

Just as overwhelmingly pretty. Just as stubborn in a way that makes him want to push her to the limits of her patience. To test just how far he can take it before she throws the nearest sharp object in the direction of his torso.

He’s so enthralled by the tilt of her mouth in response to her opening streak that, when the white follows her ball into the pocket, Negan doesn’t even register that it’s to his advantage.

“Negan?”

“Hm?”

“I said I thought I’d let you have a shot,” she says, standing the butt of her cue on the floor and tilting her head enough that her hair falls gently to one side. “Where did you go?”

Heaven, the traitorous voice in his head screams. Angel.

“I was wondering how long I’d have to wait until I’d get a chance to kick your ass, Greene,” he says, stepping up and positioning his cue. “And I was thinking about when you were in your senior year.”

Maggie blesses his eyes with one of her ruddy blushes. It’s a doozy, spreading from her cheeks all the way down to below her shirt.

I wonder how far down it goes…

“It feels like I never left, seeing you in that uniform,” she says.

“Huh. Good nostalgia or bad?”

“Awful. The worst,” she groans, but she’s smiling shyly. “Been having trauma flashbacks. Waiting for you to pull out the stopwatch.”

Negan takes his first shot, then his second. He misses the third, she misses, then they seem to be taking it in turns til they’re both on the black.

He’s not trying to let her win. It’s just that he keeps missing pockets that he should definitely be hitting, considering the immeasurable number of games he’s played at this goddamn table in this goddamn bar. But she keeps missing them too.

Negan allows himself to wonder if she’s trying to prolong the inevitable as much as he is.

“You’re not trying to let me win are you?” he asks from the opposite side of the table when the black once again bounces between two cushions and away from her targeted pocket.

“It’s been a while. Guess I’m a little rusty.”

“I want a rematch,” he says, smashing the black into a middle pocket, finally putting the tortured thing to rest. “And you better bring your A-game this time.”

“Wow, you really haven’t changed, have you?”

There’s a playful if not a tad sardonic lilt to Maggie’s tone that piques Negan’s curiosity.

Fuck it, if she wants to play.

He straightens up and stalks around the table towards her.

“You could say I’m a little more strict, now,” he says, the corners of his mouth lifting his dimples into that devilish grin he knows he is more than capable of when necessary.

Watching the smirk drop from her mouth, her eyes widen into dinner plates and briefly flit around her immediate surroundings is, for lack of a better word, thrilling.

“I don’t accept anything less than perfection. And if perfection is unattainable? Well then, why even bother?”

But he’s not talking about his teaching philosophy. No.

He’s talking about what he wants. What he’s always wanted. Negan is done pretending he is capable of settling for anything less than what he sets his mind on.

For anyone other than the woman in front of him.

Without her anger there to mask them, Maggie’s traits that led to his mess in the first place are left in full view. Her natural joy he hadn’t seen since before she graduated, that easy, natural focus in everything she does, outlined by her keen, no-bullshit attitude.

A sharp, stone-cold fox, now momentarily stunned in the dazzling headlights.

There’s a vulnerability there which makes him want to snatch her up and carry her off. It’s a primal urge that he might be deeply concerned about if he didn’t know it was driven by a desire to keep her safe. In his arms, specifically.

“I imagine your life is full of disappointment, then, expecting perfection from anyone at Walkerton High.” Maggie is trying to gain back her courage, but her voice still waivers a touch. He sees right through the facade as he squats down onto one knee in front of her.

“It’s been a long twelve years, bunny.”

Fuck.

There he goes again, god damn it.

He hadn’t been sure during their last tango at the gas station. This time it’s clear, undeniable in her blown pupils, that she registered it.

Negan drops his final quarter into the table. Maggie visibly jumps at the loud thunk of balls rolling into the return hole level with her thigh.

He looks up at her from below for a second too long, like he’s been caught praying to Venus or some shit. A lowly mortal daring to look a goddess in the eye.

But then something bursts in her expression. Like she’s had some kind of epiphany from hearing that single word.

It scares the shit out of him.

He keeps his cool, though, reaching into the table and placing the balls back into the triangle on the tabletop, handfuls at a time.

“You’ve called me that before.”

“Huh?” Negan doesn’t look at her.

“At the gas station, weeks ago. But you’ve said it before, I know you have. Back then…”

Finished, he stands and leans against the table. This isn’t really happening. He’s dreaming. He’s been caught with his trousers down and it’s all just one long, inescapable, embarrassing nightmare.

“Sorry, it just… comes out sometimes. If it’s made you uncomfortable, I—”

“No,” she says quickly. It’s obviously a lie. “But why?”

“It’s just like...” Maybe he can save himself. “I dunno. Like saying darlin’, or—” He pauses, genuinely unable to think of an excuse other than the truth. The truth which is going to make him sound like a complete and utter weirdo.

He really doesn’t use pet names all that much. It’s mostly just insults that come out of his mouth towards his current students.

“You call everyone darlin’ all the time, but I ain’t ever heard you call anyone bunny before. It’s a little…”

Negan grimaces. Sighs. “Creepy?”

Maggie laughs, re-chalking her perfectly dusty cue just for something else to focus on. “I mean, I was gonna say uncharacteristically cutesy , but…”

“But it’s definitely creepy. I’m so sorry, it’s been a thing since you were just a kid and now you’re not a kid—” he rambles, gesturing at her body as if that is somehow less creepy. “I’m gonna shut my idiot mouth, now.”

He sets off to the opposite end of the table to line up for his turn to break, hoping that just maybe the floor will swallow him up into hell on the way.

“Oh no you don’t!” Maggie warns. He can hear her boots stomping at his heel. “Tell me why. It’s been driving me nuts.”

Negan doesn’t turn to face her. Simply bends to start the game. He hits the ball, but it’s intercepted before it even crosses the middle of the table.

Maggie holds the cue ball aloft. “Tell me. Why bunny?”

His eyes roll. “You’re gonna be mad.”

“I’m al ready mad.”

“Fuck. Fine, but gimme that ball before I disqualify you from our tournament.”

She drops it into his open palm, her face splitting into a satisfied grin.

“You’re really not gonna like this.”

“Oh my god, just tell me already so I know whether to knee you in the dick.”

“Jesus. Okay, how about I tell you if you promise to not knee me in the dick?”

“Fine.”

He sighs, long and low. Looks around at the rest of the pub’s few occupants in the low lighting. Eyes the area behind the bar and finds no Hershel in sight. “You’re gonna freak out and leave.”

“I work here. If anyone’s leaving it’s your sorry ass. Tell. Me!”

He glances down at her mouth, contemplating, before biting his lips into a smile.

She asked for it.

“You used to smile all the time. When you were a teenager.”

Negan may as well have said Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin, the effect his words have on her. Totally shtum, as if her making another peep will put an end to his story before it begins. He takes the opportunity to line up the ball again and break the triangle.

“All me and my wife ever wanted was kids. We weren’t psychos or anything, we just both had that in common. We moved here, so ready to start the family neither of us ever really had. But then she got sick, and that all went out of the window.”

His hands feel shaky, but he sends a ball home. Stripes again.

His heart is pounding. “I’ve never told anyone this before.”

When he dares to look at Maggie again, she’s watching him with what looks like a mix of sympathy and reverence. He swallows.

“ Days got dark. Real fucking dark, Maggie, like you wouldn’t believe. When I wasn’t at work I’d be up at all hours of the day taking care of Lucille and the house. Not very often taking care of my self , honestly. But then when I came to school? The kids just made everything so much easier. And Lucille, she understood. Wanted to hear all about my day and would ask me to tell her stories.

She loved hearing all the dumb shit the ninth-graders came out with. Sometimes she would ask about the kids whose names I mentioned more often than others, as if she’d started picking up favourite characters from a TV show or somethin’.”

Negan takes a drink. He fleetingly wishes there was something a little harder in there before remembering that that’s the old Negan’s thing.

Present Negan has an altogether different vice.

“But there was this one kid she picked up on instantly. Kept asking about the swimmer girl. The eleventh-grader who didn’t really know much about the ins and outs of swimming, nor was she particularly good at it, but would be damned if she didn’t have her ass in that pool every chance she got.”

The next ball he hits a little too forcefully. It pings off the cushion.

He could clearly see what Maggie was thinking, the lines of surprise in her forehead giving her away as she trained all her attention on her first move of the game.

“Yeah, I told her all about you. I wasn’t even your coach at the time, but I’d taught you enough to know who you were. Teachers always talk about those special kids—”

“Hey!” Maggie gives him a gentle nudge out of the way to take her shot.

“Those exceptional kids who were as tough as nails. Ms Harrison told me about the shit you’d been through… with your mom…” 

Maggie stills, taking a little longer to aim than usual. It makes Negan feel terrible for bringing up her painful past and admitting that she had been a topic of conversation among her teachers, but he goes on.

“We all thought your were fuckin’ awesome. I didn’t tell Lucille the part about your mom, with her going through the same… down a similar road… you know—”

Maggie hits the ball, ignoring its destination to look up at him. When it drops into the pocket, she doesn’t even bother to relish gaining another point. “I know.”

I’m so sorry that you do. That we both have to know that pain.

“Anyway, she’d ask about you a lot. Loved hearing about your progress, especially on her worst days. She was the reason I agreed to coach you when Harrison left out of the blue. I wasn’t so sure about it, with me being a guy, and you were getting more and more… well. You were becoming a woman, and it didn’t sit right that you were allowed to be left alone in a bathing suit with a grown-ass man. I knew you were safe with me, but if it were my daughter in that situation…”

As uncomfortable as Negan feels discussing this with Maggie, she doesn’t seem to give a shit. Hell, she fucking giggles.  

“You should’ve seen my dad’s face when he found out that the Coach Smith I couldn’t stop talking about was a dude.”

“Poor bastard. But yeah, thank Lucille who would have beaten me to death with my own baseball bat if I’d have refused. If you were forced to give up the thing that gave you so much life. When I told her the bunny thing, she was even more invested.”

If any of Maggie’s attention had remained on the table, it was now completely abandoned.

“Do you remember at the very start of our training together, when I pretty much had to teach you the basics of breathing?”

“ Oh, here we go again. You did not!”

“ Uhhh, did too! On the front crawl you’d open your mouth so wide I thought you were gonna suck in the whole pool. And — now, please don’t hit me — you’re not gonna like this, I can tell…”

“You’re already cruising, Negan. I ain’t making any more promises, and I don’t have to knee you in the dick to make you pay.”

He’s laughing before he even says it. Can’t stop himself.

“See, the thing is… whenever you opened your mouth, even from the side of the pool all I could see were those two front teeth of yours…”

Her mouth falls open. Then, probably out of self-consciousness, she snaps it shut again.

“And it was so funny. So fuckin’ cute, man, you were adorable.” His shoulders are shaking at the memory and the look on her face right now, despite his best efforts. Maggie looks like she wants to clamp down on his arm like a Rottweiler.

“It was so hard to keep a straight face, the first time I saw it I laughed so hard when I got home. Said you looked like a Disney bunny about to yawn or sneeze or something. Lucille gave me such a smack.”

“Good! Lucille sounds like a sensible woman.”

“I gravitate towards women who won’t stand for my bullshit. But she also laughed her ass off, so don’t be too forgiving.”

“I can’t believe it. You basically just told me I have buck teeth so prominent that they warranted a nickname. That is bullying, sir!”

“Maybe I should have made you promise not to bite me, instead.”

Maggie brandishes her cue in his face.  “Oh, you’re gonna get it,” she warns, before turning back to the table with a look of sheer determination blazing in her eyes.

Christ, I hope so, bunny. Lay it all on me.