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This time of the year was the worst. Every single year it seemed like whenever the beginning of summer hit, Y/N was struck with a really bad cold. It had been that way most of her life. For some reason, the change in temperature always seemed to affect her body and not always in the best of ways. Thankfully Alexandria had given her the time off to rest and get better. She had been working so hard lately that she was sure the exhaustion didn’t help her immune system in fighting this thing off either.
Right now she had herself buried beneath the blankets in her bed. Sleep was the best thing for her. There wasn’t much she could do for herself, so getting some sleep that she hadn’t be able to get and let her body heal itself was the best idea. She knew that, but hell it frustrated her being bed ridden. Most of the time she was always on her feet doing things. Being knocked off her feet and feeling like shit was so hard for her. There was a lot she could and should have been doing right now, but she just didn’t have the energy to do it.
Adjusting in bed, she pulled the covers with her and let out a surprised sound when the door to her bedroom opened. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Negan standing in the doorway with a tray in his hands.
“Negan?” she muttered her boyfriend’s name knowing that he should have been helping the town rebuild. Since they were known for giving him a hard time, she didn’t think she would be seeing him anytime soon or even close to now. At the end of the night he was always walking in and he was always exhausted. Looking over at the clock she had, she saw what time it was and let out a long sigh. “What are you doing here?”
“I convinced Gabriel to let me come and be with you,” Negan informed her moving into the room and setting the tray that he had on her desk. Moving across the room, he pulled open the blinds and the dark room was suddenly bright making her wince. Reaching up, she covered her eyes and let out a tight groan. It gave her an immediate headache. She had been in the dark for so long, that her body and her eyes just got used to it. “I’m sorry baby.”
“It’s okay,” she waved her hand in the air dismissively while he attempted to adjust the blinds so there wasn’t as much light flooding in. He made it where it was just enough for them to be able to see around the room. When she finally lowered her hand from her eyes, she lifted her gaze and saw that Negan was staring out at her. His eyebrows were furrowed and he seemed to have an exceedingly nervous expression. “I’m surprised that the rest of the town was okay with you coming here.”
“Let’s be honest, I’m the person who does the most work. They can live without me being their slave for a fucking day,” Negan scoffed in regards to the rest of Alexandria. Negan had been working so hard to be the best version of himself for everyone and they didn’t appreciate his work at all. There was no doubt that the people of Alexandria had been hard on Negan. No matter what he did, they were always giving him shit. Even if he did something right, they were always being hard on him. No one worked as hard as he did and Alexandria would be in a much worse place right now if it wasn’t for him. “Nothing I ever do will be good enough for those people. So, I’m just going to take care of the person I love because no matter what they would be pissed at me. I’m screwed if I do and I’m screwed if I don’t.”
“Baby,” she frowned, reaching out for his hand and she hooked her fingers loosely with his. “I don’t think everyone here hates you. Some people see the changes you have made.”
“Well if they do, they really are fooling me,” Negan sighed, stepping in closer to the bed so he could hold her hand in his tighter. There was a silence and he simply shrugged his shoulders. “It doesn’t matter what they think because at the end of the day there is really only one person that I care about and that’s you. You’re the only person I have to worry about.”
“And I think you are perfect,” she assured him, tugging softly at his hand to get him to lower down on the bed beside her. Obeying her request, he sat on the edge of her bed and she lifted herself up enough to be able to stare him in the eyes. “If I wasn’t worried about you getting sick, I would totally kiss you right now. I think you are the best person I know. Anybody who doesn’t see how much you’ve changed and how eager you are to help, well I just think they are ignorant, blind assholes. Because I see everything right in the world when I look at you.”
“Well, I guess it’s a good thing that I think you are worth it and I totally am going to kiss you now after that,” Negan winked, moving in closer to her when his fingers loosely hooked around the back of her neck. Delicately pulling her toward him, Negan’s lips pressed in over hers. Cherishing the warmth of him, Y/N reached up to brush her fingers through Negan’s hair and found herself in awe of Negan. Every…single…time he kissed her, he took her breath away. When he pulled away, his eyes were hooked on hers and he cupped her face in his hands. With the gentle strokes of his rough thumbs over the side of her face, it made her feel comfortable and at ease. It was the first time today that she had actually felt that way. Hell, who was she kidding? In general Negan was the only one in Alexandria that made her feel relaxed and comfortable. At night when he held her in his arms was when she felt the best. She felt safe and loved. Nothing could make her feel better than Negan did. “Kissing you will always be worth it. I love you, so much.”
“I love you too,” she reached up to place her hands over his and caressed over his flesh. After a moment of staring at her, Negan’s Adam’s apple bounced in his throat and he forced himself to look away from her. There was definitely something wrong with him. It was obvious in the way that he was acting. This wasn’t normal of Negan. “Negan? What’s wrong?”
“I’m just…I’m worried about you,” Negan explained, forcing himself to look up and his right hand brushed up over her head to check her temperature. He almost went pale when he felt her warm to the touch. “You’re still running a fever.”
“I’ll be fine,” she tried to assure him, but he stood from the bed and folded his arms out in front of his chest. He seemed to think about things for a moment before starting to pace. Watching him, she wasn’t sure what to say. He was so tense and she didn’t know what would comfort him. “Baby? What are you doing?”
“I’m going to get you a wet cloth to help you try to bring that fever down,” Negan informed her, nodding toward the bathroom. While she appreciated the gesture, she really didn’t feel like she needed it. Before she could say anything, Negan had already headed off to the bathroom without allowing her to speak up and she sighed heavily. Since she had gotten sick, Negan had been doting on her so much that she even questioned if he had been sleeping himself. Lowering back down to the bed, she tried to get comfortable again, still leaving enough space for Negan beside her. Negan came out of the bathroom a few second later holding a dripping cloth in his hand. “I also have some tea with the soup over there on the tray. We want to make sure that you get as much fluids as possible.”
“That was very nice of you Negan,” she felt the bed dip beside her when he sat on the edge of it. A whimper fell from her throat when the freezing cold, damp cloth covered her forehead. Immediately it made her arch up from the bed with how cold it was and Negan’s nervous eyes narrowed while he looked down at her. Not only was it freezing, it was also dripping still. “That’s…very cold.”
“I’m sorry, I just want to make sure that we don’t have you burning up,” Negan reached up to stroke over the side of her face and she attempted to keep the cloth over her head. It helped, but at the same time it gave her more of a headache with the sharp ache the coolness had over her forehead. “Are you sure this is normal for you?”
“Having a sweet, caring boyfriend? No, I’ve never had one quite like you,” she joked and Negan seemed to get frustrated with her comment.
“I wish you would take this serious. You are super fucking sick and you have been for days. This isn’t something to joke about,” Negan grunted with a wrinkle of his nose and he went to move from where he was sitting, but she reached out to grab a hold of his hand. It was obvious that she had upset him because he wasn’t looking at her and she frowned.
“Why are you so upset about this Negan?” she questioned, feeling bad that she had made him upset with just her teasing comment. Caressing her thumb over the pulse point on his wrist, she offered up a weak smile and could see that he wasn’t even willing to smile back.
“I’m scared something is wrong with you…something more,” he confessed, letting out an anxious breath when she lifted herself up from the bed to press her back against the headboard. When the cloth fell from her head and into her lap, she winced and reached for it. Negan gave her a sideways glance before grabbing the cloth to set it aside. Reaching for Negan’s hands, she clasped her fingers around his and he dramatically shrugged his shoulders. “You’re really pale, you have a fever, you can barely eat, you shake when you sleep…”
“It’s a cold Negan. I have these all the time around this time of the year,” she insisted, doing her best to let him know that everything was going to be okay. “I get hit really hard with it for a few days and then in no time I’m feeling better. You don’t have to worry about me Negan.”
“Yes, yes I do,” Negan denied her comment while shaking his head repeatedly. There was a muscle in his jaw that flexed. With each second, he seemed to get more and more upset. “You have no idea how hard it is for me going through seeing someone I love being sick like this.”
“Hey, I had it last year too,” she reminded him and Negan gave her a frown.
“Yeah, but last year we just started dating each other and it was like two days you were sick. That’s what you told me. I wasn’t around to see you like this and it’s been more than two days Y/N,” Negan corrected her making her sigh when he said it. Well, he wasn’t wrong. They had only just started officially dating this year. For so long they had relentlessly flirted with each other when she would bring him things to his cell or when they worked on chores together, but things weren’t actually official until this year. She was also pretty certain that it was lasting longer because of the exhaustion her body had gone through. “I’ve had this happen before where someone thought it was nothing, but the flu or a cold and it ended up being…”
Before he could finish his sentence, there was a hitch in his voice and he lowered his head. Noting that something was wrong, she sat up straight and slid in beside him. Reaching out, she urged his jaw up to get him to look at her with her index finger. There were tears in his eyes and his bottom lip was trembling making her heart break when she saw it.
“It ended up being something else,” Negan’s voice was raspier than usual and without even asking she reached out to wrap her arms around him. Holding him tightly, she could feel that he was shaking in her arms and she felt awful for finding him so over the top originally. “I’m sorry.”
“Baby, no. It’s okay,” she hushed him, swiping at one of the tears over his face with her thumb. “What is it Negan?”
“I told you that I lost my wife, but I never really explained,” Negan swallowed down hard and his eyes narrowed while she brushed her fingers through his hair to try and soothe him. “Before this world fell to shit, I wasn’t a good man. I lost my job after getting into a bar fight over something…honestly, something kind of stupid. I felt like a piece of shit for being unemployed and I went in a downward spiral. I was cheating on my wife and I was so focused on myself that when she would tell me that she was aching or not feeling good I just ignored it. I thought that it was just her overworking and being overwhelmed. Maybe a cold…”
Instead of saying anything, she let him continue and she saw his lip quivering harder and more than anything she wanted to wrap him up in her arms. While she wanted to hold him, she knew in the end he needed to get this off his chest. But damn, seeing him cry like this was breaking her heart.
“She was having an MRI and I blew her off to cheat. God, when I came home I found out she had cancer and I just…you have some of the symptoms that she had,” Negan whimpered, reaching out to stroke his fingers through her hair. “It’s been scaring the hell out of me because I can’t lose someone else I love. I never thought I would be able to love someone again after I lost Lucille. I closed myself off from the potential of love. I didn’t think it would happen, but then you came into my life. God, I felt like the luckiest fucking guy ever when you actually agreed to being with me.”
“There’s a whole lot to like about you Negan,” she hushed him knowing that he was having somewhat of a meltdown over her being sick and that was the last thing she wanted. While she wanted him to be open with her about what happened to Lucille, she didn’t want him to make himself sick worrying about her. “I’m lucky to have you.”
“No, you’re not. I’m the one that is lucky because you deserve so much better than me. I’m just greedy and I love you so much. I just…I can’t lose you Y/N,” Negan repeated and she brushed her fingers over his face to sweep away the tears. Pulling him to her, she hugged him tightly. Immediately, Negan seemed to bury his head against her shoulder while he cried and she did her best to comfort him. “I have nothing in this world and I got used to that, but then you came along and I just can’t imagine a world without you in it.”
“I’m not going anywhere Negan. At least not now. I promise you this is a cold,” she continued to stroke her fingers through his dark hair. With the way he was shaking, she knew that he wouldn’t believe her and she pressed a loving kiss over his head. “Negan, trust me…life has only just begun for me with you. I’m not ready to leave it yet. I’m just getting my ass kicked by this cold, but I promise you…there is so much in store for life with us.”
“If you start feeling worse or abnormal, do you promise me that you will let me know?” Negan begged, pulling back enough for her to see that his face was red. Caressing over his tear stained face, she did her best to try and calm him, but she knew that he was emotional over this and she didn’t blame him.
“Of course Negan. I swear,” she promised, nodding her head when she spoke before leaning in to collect his lips in a loving kiss. Stroking over the side of his face, she felt awful for him worrying like he was. After all he went through it made sense that he would get upset over her being sick. She would be the same way if she was in his position. Now all the extra over the top stuff he was doing was beginning to make sense. This of course made her feel very guilty. “I’ll drink that tea and eat that soup. Whatever I have to do to make sure that I get better soon. Okay? And then you will see there was nothing to worry about.”
“I love you Y/N. Of course I’m going to worry about you,” Negan frowned and leaned into her touch. To love and be loved in return was something Negan never thought he would have again, but he found it with Y/N. It was both the more exhilarating feeling in the world, but also the most nerve wrecking. Now, not only did he have to worry about himself, but he was worried about her too. She was everything to him and the thought of losing her just destroyed him. “I don’t know what I would do without you.”
“And I don’t know what I would do without you either,” she assured him with a wink and she leaned in to press her forehead against his, “let’s just hope neither one of us has to find out for a very, very long time.”