Too Good to be Bad | Negan |

42 - What's with all the long faces?

'God, it gets so hot in this blasted country', I sigh, laying my head down on the picnic table.

'Don't you just love it?' Alex smiles, leaning comfortably against Max on the other side of the table. He has his eyes closed and basks in the sun contently.

'No, I do not', I complain. 'You're from Mexico, you're made for this weather. I'm from a country where it rains 200 days a year and my body does not agree with this.'

It has been getting hotter and hotter over the past weeks as we've entered summer. Inside the factory it's somewhat cool at least. I'm glad for it. Our cabins at the camp basically turned into saunas in this kind of weather.

'If you ask me, it's the only good thing about being stuck here', Katarina says. 'I do not miss the icy winters of Russia. Blue lips, fingers freezing off... I'll take the heat any day.'

'You do not miss the beauty of a winter morning in Russia, my love?' Nikolai asks his wife. 'I vould gladly lose another finger to the cold if I could leave this hellish heat behind me.'

'See? Nik gets it', I say, looking up to watch the kids chase each other around the table. The heat seems to have no effect on them at all.

'Come on, you don't like the sun at all, Lara?' Derek asks me. 'Must be a nice change from a lifetime of rain in England, right?'

'It didn't always rain', I say. 'We'd get the occasional sunny day. And if we did, the terraces would fill up in a second or we'd lounge on the river banks with drinks in our hands.'

I sigh, reminiscing about the home I can never return to. What I wouldn't give for one more summer in my beloved London. But of course, there's no going back. The places in my memories don't exist anymore. Derek catches my face and offers me a supportive smile.

'Sounds like a blast.'

'It was', I say softly. Then my eyes are drawn towards a group of people approaching our table.

'Hey guys', Tina greets us. She smiles at us, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes. I notice Dwight and Sherry look solemn as well.

'Is something wrong?' Max asks them, having caught their faces too.

Tina sighs, nudging Alex so she can take a seat next to him. 'Nothing I want to talk about right now. It would just ruin a perfect Friday evening.'

I catch Sherry's eye as her and Dwight pull up some chairs to join us and raise my eyebrow at her. Her eyes look worried.

'Carson just told us that Tina's meds got a lot more expensive', she says.

'I said I didn't want to talk about it', Tina says angrily.

'We can't just ignore this, Tina', Sherry responds.

'We'll figure it out', she hisses.

'What do you mean?' I ask, confused. 'Why would they just raise the prices?'

'Because they're hard to get', Dwight says, rubbing his face. He looks tired. 'And Tina needs a lot of it, so they're running low.'

'Are they about to run out?' Alex asks concerned.

'No', Sherry says shortly. 'But Negan seems to think it necessary to raise the costs to the value of the product.'

'That's stupid', I say. 'You need those meds, you can't help that.'

Tina shrugs. 'We'll just have to work more. Get the points.'

'You already work your asses off', I say. The three of them have been working every day and late into the night. I don't see how they can work even more.