Too Good to be Bad | Negan |

12 - Welcome to the Sanctuary

I'm right about not being able to sleep. Negan's breathing turns shallow after a while, but I keep tossing and turning, always keeping my distance from him. Sometimes I fall asleep, only to dream strange and incoherent dreams that I wake up from again before getting any real rest. One of those short bursts of sleep is disrupted not by a strange dream, but by a small voice slowly creeping into my unconscioussness.

'Lara. Lara. Lara!'

I startle awake, realizing the voice isn't coming from inside my head, but from the actual world around me.

'You're awake', a small voice says.

'For fuck's sake', I mumble. 'Carmen?' I ask, slowly taking in my surroundings. In the moonlight I can just make out her small face lying staring at me from besides the bed.

'That's a bad word', she whispers.

'Yeah, sorry', I say groggily. 'What are you doing?'

'I had a bad dream', she whispers. Then, without warning, she crawls onto the bed next to me. That's not uncommon, she often comes to sleep with us when she has bad dreams. But I'm usually lying next to her uncle, rather than a bat-wielding dictator we hardly know. I can hear him grunt too, indicating that he's about to wake up.

'You can't get in here, darling', I say, quickly moving into a sitting position so I can stop her from getting comfortable beneath the covers.

'Why not?' she asks disappointed, dropping the whispers and throwing her arms around my neck.

'Because Negan is sleeping here.' I do make sure to whisper. 'So there's no room. And you have to be quiet or he'll wake up.'

'Too fucking late for that', he says in a gruff voice. He also moves into a sitting position and yawns. 'You really gotta kick this habit of interrupting my sleep', he says to me.

'This one's hardly my fault, is it?' I say while I try to wrench Carmen off my neck. 'Mija, por favor, you're strangling me.'

She finally lets go, and curls up in my lap.

'There's plenty of space, he's no bigger than uncle Alex', she says, looking at Negan.

'Yes, but you don't know him and you don't just get into bed with men you don't know.'

'You don't know him.'

I sigh and look over at Negan. I'm glad to see he's smiling, so he can't be that angry.

'I'm so sorry. Let me just bring her back to bed, okay?'

'No', Carmen says before he can answer.

'Carmen, please', I say exasperatedly.

'I won't be able to sleep. My dream was too scary. Please let me stay with you? Pleaaaaase.' She claps her hands together in a begging gesture and pulls her lips into a pout, but letting her stay here in a bed with Negan is the last thing I'll ever do. I get ready to grab her and drag her back to her room if I have to, but then Negan starts to talk.

'Why don't you tell us what your dream was about. Maybe it won't be so scary anymore.'

I look over at him. He smiles softly at Carmen, making her feel at ease. I don't understand how he keeps switching from sweet to annoying to downright evil. Carmen looks at me, not sure whether I'll allow it.

'Yeah all right, tell me. But after that you have to go back to your own bed okay?'

Carmen nods, although she obviously doesn't agree with it.

'I dreamed about you', she says, pointing her little finger at me.

'About me?'

She nods. 'We were walking in a big, big field, and then suddenly, a huge elephant comes flying over and he grabs you with his big teeth and he eats you.'