FLASHBACK: WA - WDC - The Sanctuary - Negan's Room (Day 261)

[DarkSideCookie]

The Sanctuary - Negan's Room

Negan's private room inside The Saviors' camp named The Sanctuary, located in Washington DC.

Event taking place on Day 261.

[DarkSideCookie]

For a felt eternity, Negan was just sitting still, his hands folded in his lap, his jaw tightened, and on the glass table in front of him, a book. Negan's eyes would not leave from its cover, not even for a blink of his eyes, so long that, at some point, they had started to feel burning and tearing, unsure if due to that or the pain that he had thought would have gone forever. He already had opened the first page of it, back in Ingrid's room where he'd found it. Not on purpose. He hadn't meant to snoop around, not at all. Negan had only meant to ask Ingrid a question, at this time even forgot about what, and when she hadn't been around, he had wanted to leave. Maybe he should have. Maybe not. He wasn't looking forward to the conversation that was about to come up as soon as Ingrid would have reached his message to meet him here. He really wasn't. For many reasons. But it was necessary. However, there was probably still enough time to get another look into the pages, preparing himself for what he was going to tell her, for what he was going to blame her. Yet, in the end, it didn't matter.

His features hardened once more as his fingers slowly reached for the book one more time. The cover was blank. He had been thinking nothing of it when he'd find it laying there in Ingrid's room, had only been curious about where she might have gotten new reading material from. Negan had only grasped little scraps of the content on the book's first page, suddenly feeling like a person who had stolen someone's diary to secretly read it. And a diary it was. But not Ingrid's. Of all handwritings in the world, there was only one that Negan would recognize even after a hundred years. He had never cared much for literature, but there were one certain stories, written in beautiful handwriting, that he always had read; the stories Lucille had written. The stories she wouldn't have written for making them public, not even for her friends, but only for them. And yet, in this very moment, Negan felt like he had no right to read this story. A story that had never been meant to get read by him. But, first of all, one that had never been meant to get read by anyone at all, yet especially not by anyone else but him. Ingrid had had no right to take it. And that not enough, she'd had no fucking right to keep it hidden from him. After all the time, Negan had thought that everything had burnt down together with their house, on the day he had been setting it on flames himself, but, after all the time, there was still something left. Not just a souvenir, but a piece of Lucille, as if he could have heard her voice telling him the beginning of one last story. Their story. The hurtful part of it.

The doctor said it would be a good idea to write down my pain. That it would help me to come to terms with my loss.

Those were the only words Negan remembered to have read before the upcoming memory of the pain she certainly had been telling about had run him over like the hard rain of a monsoon.

Negan was still deep into thoughts, his face still stone-like, one of those with a real edge to them, when, eventually, a knock on the door was jolting him out of all that. "Come in," he replied the knock in a harsh tone and with actually no delay, the diary still laying right in front of him as he waited for his sister-in-law to enter.

[Ariel]

"Did he say what it was about? Kind of strange for him to pull me from my post, especially in times like this." Ingrid asked Laura as they walked through the last hallway before reaching the closed door of Negan's quarters. Things were getting a bit sticky between The Sanctuary and the neighboring farm community that they obtain half of the crops from. After Negan's more recent visit, ties had been burned and everyone who lived there was furious with Negan's way of handling things. A long time ago, Ingrid had issues with the way he handled things too. Yet, their journey to get to the soil that the stood on today was a tough and lengthy one full of lessons about the way the new world was going to be. He got them all here, alive and thriving. Ingrid loved her home, and she was passionate about keeping her family safe. As a leader, he did what he always had to do for the people. His people. However, as the brother-in-law she once claim to know, she was not particular with the way he had been behaving lately. The more successful he became, the more people he had kissing his feet. The more he treated his loyal lieutenants with distasteful antics and mannerisms, Nora especially as of late. And what was worse to Ingrid was that after everything she thought he once stood for, he proceeded to run his own personal brothel of 'wives' which made her absolutely sick to her stomach. It wasn't the fact that she had been scared to speak up to him, it was the fact that she knew no matter what she said or did that he simply wouldn't listen.

"He didn't say a thing. I'm just following orders," Laura spoke with a cut and dry tone. She was stern, but she cared just as much about this place and about Negan as Ingrid did. Although they weren't typically warm towards each other, the mutual respect was there between them. Ingrid didn't live these days to make friends and party like one might be doing at her age in a different reality, anyways, "We both know it's always important whenever the boss wants a word."

"I'm aware of that," Ingrid responded, slightly on the defense. Yet, Laura meant no harm. She simply felt the need to remind Ingrid that Negan was the boss and that she worked under him now and not with or alongside. Ingrid hated it when Laura brought her down a few notches, yet swallowed her pride and kept her mouth shut. As the two Saviors came to a halt at the door, Ingrid turned her chin over her shoulder and stared at Laura who hadn't taken her leave yet, "I can take it from here." Laura eyeballed Ingrid with a judgmental glance before nodding and making her exit. Once she was gone, Ingrid drew in a deep breath and knocked on Negan's door.

"Come in,"

A million scenarios swirled around Ingrid's brain as to what it was Negan wanted to speak to her about. The most logical one was that he wanted to discuss the unnecessary overtime she had been putting into her watch post. She had already been scolded once, but she felt that they needed her. There was no way she was going to let a bunch of hillbillies try to ruin what they had here. Ingrid took a few steps inside the room to find Negan sitting on his sofa. The air felt dense with something strange, yet Ingrid couldn't put her finger on it quite yet. He didn't look up at her with his typical, cocky smile and dirty, sexist jokes that he had seemed to have fallen back into a bad habit of making. Something was wrong.

"You wanted to see me?" Ingrid stopped at the back of the couch across from Negan before her gaze dropped down to the table where a familiar book sat.

"What is that?" Ingrid's tone grew alarmed, the tip of what could possibly turn into rage. She knew exactly what it was. And nothing could prepare her for what Negan could even possibly be thinking at this moment.

[DarkSideCookie]

Negan only slightly turned his head in her direction when she entered, the harsh look on his features unchanging. He couldn't even say himself when his anger would just bluster out. So, for now, he just sat there like a ticking time bomb.

"You wanted to see me?"

Tick tick. Negan's eyes were watching her in silence while in kind of a riot at the same time when Ingrid stepped closer to meet him by the couch. He was still following her every movement, especially the ones only her eyes made as they met with the book in front of him. Tick tick tick...

"What is that?"

"Don't fucking play me, Ingrid," Negan suddenly said, his voice harsh yet somewhat composed, although there were hints of something huge emerging in it. For a moment, he closed his eyes, taking one deep breath that was clearly recognizable on his face before opening them again, with no less intense wrath. Negan decided to ask her only one question, for now at least, yet she better not be lying to him. "Have you read it?"

[Ariel]

"Don't fucking play me, Ingrid," 

Ingrid stood motionless. A frigid chill shot up her spine, making her shake slightly as Negan's voice boomed through the room with intense emotion she hadn't heard in a very long time. Yet, Ingrid wasn't scared. She was hurt. His words made her feel like she was walking on glass, as they were now these days. Yet, these pieces were jagged and sharp and all of the pent up anger she had kept inside began to bleed out. Living under the inflated, horrible ego that Negan had become was like balancing on a breaking bridge. And every time Ingrid swore she saw a glimmer of who her brother-in-law once was, he'd throw salt in her wounds and push away his reminder of his former life. Which made Ingrid begin to wonder what the hell she was even waiting for or holding onto anymore. Holding her breath, Ingrid's petrified eyes glued onto Negan and didn't move a single muscle until he broke the silence again.

"Have you read it?"

Ingrid hesitated in guilt, yet she didn't tear her eyes away from Negan in shame or fear. They continued to pierce him with an upsetting expression of affliction as the corners of her pouting lips flexed down on her face. "She was my sister, Negan," Ingrid admitted in almost a whisper, finally let go of the breath she held onto for longer than she probably should have. She dropped her gaze back down to the book on the table, "Do you know how hard it was to keep this all to myself? To be alone with her thoughts, her words - not being able to talk to you about it? I wanted to share this with you, more than anything...," Ingrid's raised voice broke as the remnants of her crushed spirit began to flow through her emotionally strained voice, "...But I couldn't. It killed me inside to have to wait for you to be ready to know. What hurts even more is that you're still not ready - and this performance you've been putting on proves that." Her eyes flickered back up from the book to Negan, yet this time a fire of agitation could be seen igniting in her glare as it set on Negan. Ingrid crossed her arms defensively across her chest as she stood her ground. Ingrid felt as if she had seen this story unfold before, and she didn't like the ending.

[DarkSideCookie]

"She was my sister, Negan,"

Negan's jawline tightened at her whispered answer, yet he remained quiet, allowing her to explain herself with more than just that because THAT was but a poor excuse to him. And more. But he wasn't going to bring it up, for that would make their little conversation really ugly. It was not like he was seeking an argument with her. Yet still, words and accusations were brewing inside of him from times long gone; Words and accusations Lucille never had allowed herself to raise, probably not even to think. But, in the end, Negan had been the one watching her, night after night, as she sat in front of the phone, waiting for a call while, at the same time, too afraid to do so herself, quite apart from the fact that it shouldn't have been her doing the call in the first place. And now, here that sister was, using their family bond as an entitlement to read their life story, the chapter she and the rest of her family had willfully chosen not to be part of, and that only because of the man Lucille had chosen to be with.

"Do you know how hard it was to keep this all to myself? To be alone with her thoughts, her words - not being able to talk to you about it? I wanted to share this with you, more than anything...,"

With each of her words, his jawline tightened more, the bomb inside of him ticking louder and louder.

"...But I couldn't. It killed me inside to have to wait for you to be ready to know. What hurts even more is that you're still not ready - and this performance you've been putting on proves that."

Negan held his gaze as she dared to glare at him with agitation. Was she trying to turn the tables here? Was she actually telling him that he hadn't been ready for a confrontation with his own past? She who had chosen to abandon her own sister's story while it was taking place? Negan took a deep breath, sharp and intense. "You had no right to read it," he started with a quiet yet kind of brutal voice before suddenly reaching out for the book and holding it out in her direction as if to underline his repeating words. "You had.. no... fucking... RIGHT! And DON'T make me expand on that!" Deep inside, though, he kind of wanted to. He wanted to let out the yet unspoken words and accusations, not to hurt her but to just get them out. In place of Lucille. Who never had, and surely never would have.

[Ariel]

"You had.. no... fucking... RIGHT! And DON'T make me expand on that!"

Ingrid drew a breath inward through her opened mouth gaping in shock at where Negan wanted to take this conversation. Her entire body was shaking and at this point it would have been wise for her to sit down and remain neutral. Though, Ingrid was just as emotional as Negan was and she didn't bother to think that prolonging the heated banter would make matters worse. At this point, she didn't care. She had shit she had shoved away for a such long time that holding it in any longer was getting too much to handle, and clearly Negan had the same problem.

"Are you freaking kidding me right now?!" Ingrid's heart painfully squeezed in her chest as her furious gaze was unmoved from Negan, "Don't...," Shaking her head, Ingrid's quivering frown pursed together tightly to choke back whatever emotion was arising inside her throat. She raised a finger of warning in his direction, "...Don't make a spectacle of the past. I know I was a shitty person back then. You weren't #1 husband of the year either," Placing both of her hands on her hips, Ingrid diverted her painful gaze for a moment to the ground in front of her. She wasn't at a loss for words, but she was thinking about the next words that would come out of her mouth, "I didn't have to follow you Negan. You didn't force me to support you in all of this," Her head turned as she scanned their surroundings as she spoke, her reddened eyes itching with pain from holding back tears landing back on Negan, "But I believed in you. What you were doing...the new world you were creating. When we found each other weeks after shit went down, I know it was Lucy who brought us back together. She would have wanted us to take care of each other. And we did...until it all started," The tears holding on for dear life began to trickle down Ingrid's face as it began to sear with anger, "The unnecessary violence, the twisted little games, all of the horrible remarks you've been making - especially towards Nora...And what the hell do you think Lucy would think of your post apocalyptic brothel?!" Ingrid had been taking slow steps in Negan's direction in her emotionally agitated state, finding herself standing right beside where he sat. She didn't mean for everything to come out at once...it just did.

[DarkSideCookie]

"Are you freaking kidding me right now?!""Don't...,""...Don't make a spectacle of the past. I know I was a shitty person back then. You weren't #1 husband of the year either,"

The only movement on Negan's features was the tightening of his jawline as if to crunch the upcoming anger, at this point, though, too immense to just retain. Ingrid might be right about him and his past, but, unlike her, he hadn't presumed to pry into their privacy and, what was even worse, keeping from him this last memorial of her. The emotional state this find had set him into was making it much harder for him to see it from any other perspective but his own.

"I didn't have to follow you Negan. You didn't force me to support you in all of this,""But I believed in you. What you were doing...the new world you were creating. When we found each other weeks after shit went down, I know it was Lucy who brought us back together. She would have wanted us to take care of each other. And we did...

For a moment, the expression on his face softened, yet only until her next words would not only bring it back all at once but also worsen it.

"... until it all started,""The unnecessary violence, the twisted little games, all of the horrible remarks you've been making - especially towards Nora...And what the hell do you think Lucy would think of your post apocalyptic brothel?!"

"Keep Lucille out of this!" Negan suddenly fought back with a sharp tone as he rose from his seat on the couch, facing her eye to eye now. The next words came out more quietly yet not with less intensity. He made a step in her direction so that they were standing right in front of each other. "You think reading her diary makes you her voice? That - what she wrote in there - makes all your faults and behavior forgiven? At least, I've been by her side while she was still healthy and alive; While she got no support from any of her fucked up family. You were only showing up at her deathbed. You know dick about her thoughts and feelings, Ingrid. Her life was more than just that," he added with a bitter tone as he pointed towards the diary, still resting on the table. Anger was still rising in him, and when his eyes returned ahead, that distinctly reflected in them.

[Ariel]

"You think reading her diary makes you her voice? That - what she wrote in there - makes all your faults and behavior forgiven? At least, I've been by her side while she was still healthy and alive; While she got no support from any of her fucked up family. You were only showing up at her deathbed. You know dick about her thoughts and feelings, Ingrid. Her life was more than just that,"

The shock that came over Ingrid left her jaw practically on the floor. Her whole body quivered with rage as Negan's words forced themselves violently through one ear and out the other. In disbelief, Ingrid felt Negan didn't know a single thing about her relationship with Lucille. How they were the best of friends growing up. No, the family should never have abandoned her the way they did. Yet, the rift commenced that left Ingrid wishing for her sister back for a really long time. Just one damn phone call - that's all it would have taken for Ingrid to rekindle what she had with her sister. Though, it hadn't been ill feelings towards Lucille never calling or coming around again that kept her from making that call. Rather, Ingrid had always felt that Negan had taken Lucille away from them. She always pictured him whispering lies into her ears about how bad they were for her, just so that he could have her all to herself. The bitterness towards Negan that hadn't been there since the hospital days crept back in like a silent cancer, ready to squeeze every ounce of life from the room they were in. From the man in front of her.

"Yeah, seems you only cared about her when she was 'healthy and alive.' At least I was there for her in the end. I was the one who took her to her appointments. I was the one who was there for her when she got ill after every treatment. Where were you, Negan?!" At this point, Ingrid's face had grown red from using all of her energy to yell out her point to Negan. Words kept pouring out of her mouth uncontrollably as the terrible memories resurfaced, "Oh right. You were too much of a coward to be there for her through 'till death do us part' so you went and cheated on your wife, unbothered to show your face until she was practically dead. So don't lecture me on faults and behaviors when you were a fucked up husband," Ingrid's chest raised up and down as she tried to catch her breath. As the anger simmered, Ingrid had only realized just then what she had done. She didn't know what had overcame her, almost as if she had blacked out. Her old, bitter self had grabbed it's hold onto her, something she had grown from that she had vowed never to become again. "Negan," Her eyes growing wide, Ingrid's voice grew alarmed as she realized the damage she had just caused, "Negan I, I didn't mean to...I...," Ingrid stammered as she looked for reasoning in her actions. There was none.

[DarkSideCookie]

"Yeah, seems you only cared about her when she was 'healthy and alive.' At least I was there for her in the end. I was the one who took her to her appointments. I was the one who was there for her when she got ill after every treatment. Where were you, Negan?!"

Negan's face grew red from anger as he listened to her every word, feeling them like a knife piercing through his chest, towards a wound that he thought would have healed by now. But it seemed that, no matter how much time had passed to heal it over, there always was a way to tear it open again. Still, Negan hadn't expected this to become an argument between them ever again. So he hadn't been prepared, same as not for his own emotions, too immense to hold them back at this point. At this very moment, something inside him didn't even want to hold back. He had things to say, just as she had. Anyways, before he could have reacted to what she had thrown at him already, Ingrid went on with casting the blame on him.

"Oh right. You were too much of a coward to be there for her through 'till death do us part' so you went and cheated on your wife, unbothered to show your face until she was practically dead. So don't lecture me on faults and behaviors when you were a fucked up husband,"

There was not the slightest movement, not a single muscle that stirred in his face, except for the growing flame in Negan's eyes as he watched her down. Not even his teeth were making this grinding-in-his-jaw movement. He was just silent, yet not in a peaceful way; But instead in the calm before the storm way.

"Negan,""Negan I, I didn't mean to...I...,"

For a short moment, Negan's eyes were closing, not obvious if he was trying to calm himself or actually getting prepared for the storm that was about to rise. It was too late, anyway. Negan didn't even hear Ingrid's words of apology. All he heard were voices of the past; Voices of Lucille, of her little sister who accused him of all his faults and behaviors while they met on their death bed. But, most of all, voices of his past self, living up to what everyone thought of him: a selfish, insensitive asshole. And yet, even back at that time, Negan had been more than just that. There always had been this anger, this uncontrollable fire that he always had tried to keep out of the reach of the ones he loved, which hadn't been a lot of persons, granted. For a long while, only one even. It was no apology for his absence, but one reason for sure. But now, there was no way out of this situation; no way of deflecting his energy elsewhere. Negan opened his eyes again, the flame in them grown into a rage of fire. But instead of speaking up, he slowly drew away from Ingrid, turned towards the table, and picked up the diary. It would have meant only a little push to open it, to read in their past to assure himself that she hadn't thought bad of him, that she had forgiven him his faults, but it was easier not to. Because, if he allowed himself to find calm in that, there would be no other way to steer this energy, this fire inside of him, anywhere else but toward the only person in the room. A person that still meant something to him.

"I hope for you that you've had a chance to finish this," Negan spoke with anger in his voice, yet almost too calm to get interpreted as one of his usual outbursts, like alarmingly calm even, intimidating calm. And then, before Ingrid could have reacted to his cryptic words in any way, he suddenly twirled around toward the fireplace behind him, tossing the book inside, its pages swallowing up by the flames in no time.

"Because now it's history." Negan took a couple of sharp breaths with his face still turned towards the fire and what was left from Lucille's diary while he leaned an elbow against the wall. And then, when it seemed that words were about to come out of Ingrid's mouth at some point, after all, Negan, still watching the burning down pages, cut her short with only one word, yet as commanding and cold as never before around her. "OUT!"

[Ariel]

"I hope for you that you've had a chance to finish this,"

It was never good when Negan took a turn to the composed anger side of himself. Ingrid had only seen him slip into this state of mind a couple of times in front of her. He hadn't been this upset with her since Lucille's last days. Danger zone alarms were going off in her head as she watched Negan turn his body around and chuck the diary into the burning fireplace. "NO!" Ingrid shrieked, tears filling her eyes. She stretched a hand out in front of her to try and stop Negan, but her feet froze in place knowing her reaction was too late.

"Because now it's history." 

Every last memory of Lucille crumbled under the burning embers, converting the pages into nothing more than ash and smoke. The tears streamed down Ingrid's face, and she wasn't crying because she was sad or hurt. She was angry because Negan was proving every word which she had spoken badly about him. He had truly taken a turn for the worst, and there was no coming back. Not this time.

"OUT!"

Ingrid snapped her gaze hard into place to face Negan's, staring him down with her reddened, puffy face filled with furious pain. Never before had he ever screamed so loudly at her, and in this moment Ingrid felt their entire relationship crumble to the very same dust that Lucille's diary had now become, "I take back what I said...you're not a coward. You're a goddamn monster." Ingrid felt her entire body grow hot as she tried to contain her anger. Her words came out like fierce lashings, fueling hatred into every single letter. Turning her back, she escorted herself out of the room and out of Negan's life. 

*** Ingrid exits ***

Once she reached the hallway once more, Ingrid slammed the door behind her. She was in total disbelief of what just happened. How he yelled at her like she was nothing to him. How he burned Lucille's diary as if she no longer mattered. Her eyes furiously darted around the hall as she stood in place, wanting desperately to punch something. But she couldn't. All she could do was cry. Ingrid had the feeling to go find Nora, the only family she had left. Finally able to pick her feet back up again, she began to head to Nora's post, when suddenly she heard a loud bang. Then screams. People running left and right. Ingrid grabbed onto her bow that had been slung over her shoulders, yet before she had time to react everything went dark.

***

[DarkSideCookie]

"I take back what I said...you're not a coward. You're a goddamn monster."

Negan's features hardened even more at her words, although, in this moment, not because of a shock about their meaning, but instead of his anger about how this had turned out. About what their friendship had become. Their family even. Was this the end? Would she consider leaving him? In this very moment, however, his anger about the situation at hand was still too heavy to think about it rationally; to say sorry even though he couldn't make things unhappened. Words had been said, actions been taken. Maybe he was a monster. Maybe that was the only reason he was still alive. Deep down, however, Negan didn't want to be. He never wanted to hurt Ingrid. But little did he know that it would be too late to apologize at a later time. At least not before a long time later...

***