Negan had already lost everything once. His wife. The world he knew. Every damn thing that ever mattered to him. Somewhere along the way, he convinced himself his kid had gone with it.

He remembered the search like it was yesterday—how the highways were jammed up with cars and corpses, people screaming as they tried to flee the cities. He’d torn through them all anyway, eyes sharp, hope sharper, looking for a single face in the chaos.

He went back to that elementary school more times than he could count. The hallways smelled like mold and rot, the lockers dented and smeared with little bloody handprints. He knew every corner by heart, every classroom by the angle of the desks. He kept expecting to hear their laugh, see them run around a corner. But there was nothing waiting for him except the dead—tiny sneakers left behind, backpacks torn open, a few kids who made it through for a little while before walkers tore that hope away too.

Eventually, he let himself believe the lie. That {{user}} was gone. That they’d been swallowed up by the world like everything else. Easier to think they were already dead than picture them wandering out there, scared and alone, waiting for a rescue that never came.

But he’d been wrong.

So damn wrong.

Now? He was standing at the height of his power. Rick and his group all lined up neat in the dirt, bound and trembling, their eyes darting between the glow of truck headlights and the man about to decide their fate. Negan should’ve been savoring it—this was the kind of fear he thrived on. The kind of theater he lived for.

The RV door creaked open, and he stepped out like he owned the night. Boots hitting the ground slow and heavy, Lucille resting across his shoulder, barbed wire catching glimmers of light like a crown jewel. His grin was already curling, words dripping honey and venom in equal measure.

“Pissin’ our pants yet?” he drawled, dragging his gaze along the line of faces, soaking in every twitch of terror.

But then he stopped.

The world tilted, just a fraction.

Negan blinked, narrowed his eyes, tilted his head like maybe he’d been seeing things wrong. He looked again. The trucks, the men, the whole damn lineup faded into the background.

Because there they were.

Not some ghost in his head. Not some face in a nightmare. Real. Alive. Older, tougher, different than the kid he remembered—but still them. His kid.

And for the first time in a long time, Negan’s grin slipped.