For my sister | Negan |

1 - These people are dangerous

'They're here.'

'Shit, seriously? Already?'

'Yeah, I guess they're early.'

'Okay, well... go upstairs and stay there.'

'What? Why?'

'Because these people are dangerous, Ella! You know what they did. Just hide in your room till they're gone. I'll come get you.'

'If they're dangerous, you should hide too.'

'I can't hide, I'm the doctor. I can't just let them barge through here on their own. Now go on, they could get here any second.'

'But-'

'Now, Ella!'

'Ugh!'

I roll my eyes when my little sister stamps her feet before she makes her way to the stairs. Then I hurry over to the window to look out onto the street. They're here indeed. Countless intimidating-looking men and women are parading through the streets of Alexandria like they own the place. But I forget... they do own this place. He made sure of that.

I'm glad I wasn't there. I don't think I ever could have recovered from seeing Glen and Abraham die like that. But I've been feeling so tremendously guilty ever since it happened. I should have been able to help Maggie. What's the point of a doctor that can't even do that? But I had no experience with the infection that hit her. I didn't have the equipment and I didn't have the right medication. We knew they'd be able to help her better at the Hilltop. Of course, if we'd known then what they had planned for us...

Ella keeps telling me there's no use torturing myself over these things that have already happened. She's right, of course. She usually is. The kid's pretty smart for a 15-year-old. But I'm afraid I can't quite see it all as rationally as she does. They were my friends. Now they're gone forever.

My breath halts for a moment when I spot Rick and the man by his side. Poor Rick looks more distraught than I've ever seen him. In great contrast to the man he's with, who seems to be having the time of his life. He's tall, his dark hair is slicked back and he's wearing a leather jacket that stretches over his broad shoulders. There's no question to who that might be. Negan. His name alone brings out the goosebumps on my skin.

To my relief, the two of them pass by my house without entering. But I'm sure that his Saviours will be here any moment. They weren't supposed to come yet. Rick said that they'd given us a week to prepare for their first visit. But it's very clear to us that these people make their own rules.

I step away from the window and look around the room in anguish. They said they'll take half of everything. I'm sure that includes half of our medical supplies. It'll be shit, but I suppose we'll manage. Let's just hope nobody catches any serious illnesses any time soon. There's just one thing I'm really worried about. We can't lose Ella's medication. We need all of it.

She had her first seizure when she was only 8 years old. It was one of the scariest moments of my life when she just collapsed at the dinner table and started convulsing on the floor. She was diagnosed with epilepsy soon after that. It was a difficult time for her when they were still figuring out the right treatment. She hurt herself badly several times when she fell down as she had a seizure. But even if she didn't necessarily hurt herself, the seizures would always leave her exhausted and in pain. It was heartbreaking to see.

There's no real cure for epilepsy. It's caused by a problem in the brain that can never be solved. But most people with epilepsy can live perfectly normal lives when they use the right medication. Ella hadn't had a seizure in years before the world went down.

Of course, it all became more difficult after that. I went home to my family when the news started to get frightening. And I did take some of Ella's medicine with me from the hospital where I was doing my internship. But it was only enough to last us a couple months. Because that's what we thought we were dealing with in the beginning. We thought the government would sort everything out and life would go back to normal. We didn't realize we were dealing with the end of the world.

Surviving the fall was hard enough for anybody. But try surviving a zombie apocalypse with a teen girl that keeps collapsing out of nowhere. We stayed in our house for as long as we could, but we ran out of supplies eventually. We loaded up our car and went in search of... something.

We were raiding this store, looking for supplies when it happened. We were actually getting a pretty good haul when all of a sudden Ella collapsed and fell right into a rack of fancy kitchen supplies. The noise was deafening and the dead soon came crawling out of every corner. My dad picked Ella up and we ran for it, but there were just so many of them. Our mom never made it out of that store.

We were never sure what to do after that. Leave Ella on her own in the car or whatever place we were staying at, or take her with us and risk another disaster like that. Neither option was safe. We knew we wouldn't be able to keep it up like that for a long time.

But then we found Alexandria. And we were finally safe. Still, even in a relatively safe environment, the seizures Ella kept having were a danger to her. Someone always had to keep an eye on her, make sure she didn't hurt herself if she did seizure. Besides that... You can never be sure that a seizure won't have permanent damage on the brain.

So they went out with a group to the nearest hospital to find her medicine. My dad and some others. Not all of them returned. But my dad did. And he had her medicine with him. Enough to last us for years. But he didn't get out unscathed. A bite mark right in his neck. At least we got to say goodbye... It was just the two of us after that.

I'll be damned if I let that asshole put his greedy hands on the medicine that my father gave his life for.

Making a snap decision, I hurry over to the storage room where we keep the medicine and grab the box with Ella's drugs. I need to hide it. Quickly. Let him take half of everything else.

I know just where to take it. The sink was blocked the other day, we had to take everything out. Including a wooden panel to follow the drain and I noticed there was a lot of empty space behind there. They won't think to look there behind a hardly visible wooden panel beneath the sink. I rush over to the kitchen with the box in my hands and don't hesitate to pull everything out of the cabinet beneath the sink to reach the panel. I have to be quick, they could get here any moment. Finally I've created enough space to pull out the panel and I stuff the box into the open space with trembling hands. Then I close it up again and toss everything back into the cabinet, erasing all evidence that anything sketchy happened here. I've only just shut the doors and taken a big sigh of relief when there's a loud and impatient knock on the door.

They're here.

---

A/N: Thank you for picking up my story! I hope you'll enjoy it. If you're interested to see how I imagine my original characters, skip to the last chapter for the character aesthetics.

♡