ELEANOR . NEGAN

065.

Eleanor, Daryl and Negan began to make their way through the woods to find the border that presented Alpha's head. It was peaceful, and sometimes funny, but other times Daryl would send daggers to the back of Negan's head so Elle would tell him to calm down, or do it quietly.

Thick harsh ropes were wrapped around Negan's hands as he walked in front of Daryl and Eleanor. Every once in a while he'd turn around and raise his eyebrows suggestively, to which Daryl would raise his bow in annoyance. It made Elle laugh, that was a good thing.

The sun began to set, and it wouldn't be long until they reached the top of the hill. Only issue is that Eleanor was dreading it. It hurt to breathe, still, so like before she was using Daryl as a crutch. She ignored how Negan's eyes zoned in on Daryl's hand where he placed it right by her ribs. Stop.

"How far left?" She groaned, taking another step up the incline of grass.

"Just up here, El'."

Negan looked at the pair, and then looked back forward. "Thank fuck," She coughed, her ribs really fucking hurt. "That's it right?"

In front of them was the high of the hill with sharpened sticks dug into the ground. The place looked eerie in the darkness of the night, she shuddered. "Yur right." Daryl kept moving, "I ain't see no head."

Negan went wide eyed and rushed away, his jaw slacked. "I swear to God it was on that spike." Desperation filled his body once more, "We can uh, shit, we can wait for Carol or-"

Negan wished he never turned around when he saw the tip of Daryl's bow to his face. "Aw, come on, man!"

"Daryl, buddy-"

He only brought the bow closer to him. Shit. Elle's words weren't working and neither was his, time to babble until somebody listens. "This- we are talking about Lydia here. Why would I stash her out in a banjo country unless the whole point was to keep her safe? Unless the whole fucking point was just to use her as bait so I could get Alpha alone?"

Daryl and Elle shared a look, it made sense. "Ya sure took yur sweet-ass time, thou', didn't ya?"

"What is with you guys thinking I didn't do it fast enough? You didn't kill her — I did." Eleanor wanted to stop their rattling, but between letting go of Daryl to raise her hands when she knew neither would listen, it was pointless. "It took a minute. I had to get her to trust me." Okay, ew. "Because I wasn't on some half-cocked suicide mission!"

"Nah," Daryl states gruffly. "It's 'cause ya liked it."

Eleanor felt rigid all of a sudden, and her eyes kept flickering between the two verbally battling men. It made sense, but then again the way Negan cast his eyes down to the floor and a frown took over, said otherwise. "Can we just sit down?" Elle begged the question, she was getting tired. "I feel sick."

Negan tore his eyes away from the ground and looked at her with concern. It was sick and sweet and it made Daryl freeze up at the sudden change. Negan went to open his mouth, probably reassure her and say it was okay, until a circle of guns cocked around them.

"Bollocks," Elle groaned and swung her head to look at the, well, gun holders. "Fuckin' Skins." She was sick and tired with dealing with the Whisperer's, she wanted it over now.

Nonetheless, since they were under gun-point by three Whisperer's, Daryl dropped his bow to the floor and helped take off her knife sheathe and gun, before standing rigid in front of their stares.

"Alpha's dead." One of them said. "Because of you." He jolted the tip of the shotgun towards Negan's face. Elle could feel her heart plummet. "We kneel..."