ELEANOR . NEGAN

127.

Eleanor quite understood the word 'wanted'. Not for a long time at least. The last time she felt truly wanted was in the comforts of her mother's arms, while Jac played at her feet with his blocks of toys. He was stacking them together just to watch them fall and laugh loudly.

"Look, Ellie!" He'd screech playfully.

"I'm looking!"

Jude would laugh sweetly in their small living room, swinging Eleanor back and forth as Jac laughed like the child he was. It was sweet, she was wanted. And, yeah, she was young and she should be wanted but that was the last memory she had where she felt it.

The second one was Hershel. Back at the farm in the early days of the apocalypse where she stumbled onto his lot with depleting hunger and thirst. She pulled a strong face nonetheless until her lack of anything with protein and meat made her vision blur and her knees to cushion her fall.

That was when she felt the arms of Rick, screaming out towards the field that they found someone.

But as the months and years stretched and everyone got used to the disaster of life which is now, they all seemed to pair off. Strong enough to work as a group, but not friendly enough to stay. Eleanor's guilty pleasure was those where she'd eat with the group around a fire and share stories you never normally would.

Daryl never said anything, but when it was late and everyone was wandering off to their own beds, he would take her to the side and share one. Maybe that was why Eleanor was angry when Daryl left with Merle when no one else was — she knew all the stories about him.

And then, after that, normalcy came back and the wreckage of memories and sturdiness which was the apocalypse started to deplete. This wasn't anything bad, people just seemed to feel safe within the confinements of Alexandria even if they disagreed against it.

People made friends, her group made friends, but she was never one for conversation. Eleanor was loud, and sarcastic, and joked at all the wrong times, so it was no surprise when no one willingly wanted to talk. Usually, when the nights are dim and cold, she sit on the edge of a porch with a cigarette close to her lips and watch as the sun hid away.

But then she found Maya. A young girl who's been alone since the start, using instincts she barely had any idea about. "They left me!" She'd cry when Eleanor first found her, and Elle knew deep down that she was glad she was the first to find Maya.

"Who left you?"

Turns out, Maya didn't feel wanted either. She was left in an adoption centre when she was very young, then left in different foster families who only took her in to showcase their own maturity despite never taking her full time. When the apocalypse hit, a group of older unwanted children kept her safe.

Until one night, they left her. Gone in the wind, out of sight, leaving Maya with nothing but a small knife and a breakfast bar.

Eleanor would never truly know how lucky she was to find Maya first.

The more she aged, the more she felt that she was needed. And maybe that was because she met him, met Negan. It was never the most ethical meeting nor was it the best, but it was something. It was them. Eleanor figured if she met Negan in a normal setting, before the apocalypse, and saw him with his leather jacket and that stupid grin with a bit more brown in his hair rather than grey... well, who was she kidding? She'd still give him another look.