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"How do you feel?"
He'd asked the question three times. She'd counted. First, it was, "how are you?" and he flooded her with questions about The Sanctuary, her position there, where she slept, what she ate. He'd asked her two more times if he hurt her, and she had to assure him no; that Negan's motive when it came to her didn't include violence. The way Rick's face twisted, as if he'd done something wrong, evinced that he didn't quite believe her.
"I feel fine," she mumbled. But she felt more than fine. She was grateful, happy, sad, and guilty all at the same time. It was a peculiar feeling.
"It's been months." His fingers gripped the edge of the kitchen counter turning his knuckles an ill white to match his pale face. A pot containing potatoes behind him was near boiling over. "Months he's had you. You've told me nothing. Each day you were gone it killed me. I wanted to go there, take you back myself, but I couldn't do that, you know I couldn't do that. I felt helpless."
She glanced down. "I'm sorry."
"Why?"
She paused a second too long, then looked back up. "I don't know, I'm just sorry. Everything has been so hard for you and I know that."
He scratched his beard and turned around, lowering the heat on the burner. The bubbles in the pot simmered. "You need to talk to me, Vada. That's all I'm asking."
She hopped off the seat at the island and trailed around it, leaning against one of the drawers. She kicked one foot over the other and shot her father a sympathetic look, but he wasn't watching. "I got there and it was huge. Wasn't what I was expecting at all, but then again, I'm not sure what I was expecting. It was a factory of some sort. Walkers stuck on poles outside the fences, it was all pretty brutal and it looked kind of dreary from the outside. The inside is nice, though. He gave me my own room, then told me I couldn't eat for free because they have this point system going on. I told him I could scavenge and he let me."
She carefully left out the part where Negan asked her to be her wife, and when he took her out for target practice and they got stranded, to spare her father's feelings. Even with all that left out, his face was etched with concern.
"Go on," he mumbled, barely audible.
"Well, I met Vincent, and he helped me through it. He didn't like Negan but he stayed there because he didn't want to be on his own. I continued to work, then one day I got that concussion I told you about, and he decided to give me one more chance. So we went out, me and him, and we scavenged for a bit, then Negan found a knife in my pocket that I'd forgotten to give back, and he was really mad. When we were driving back, a herd of walkers stopped us and I took the opportunity to run. That was pretty dumb, but I was scared and everything."
