AN: Thanks so much for the reviews last chapter! I'm happy to report that I finally got a beta reader for this story. Shout out to xStormbornx for all her help with the editing!

Disclaimer: I don't own The Walking Dead

Getting nowhere fast, or, "Negan's an ass, Samantha's a bitch, I think we've covered this already."

~O~

~One Month Later~

Sam stood watching the courtyard from the factory platform, her arms crossed and leaning against the yellow railing.

It was a warm day in spite of it being well into fall. She was able to forego a jacket, instead only wearing her white dress that she paired with sheer black stockings and black riding boots with a sensible block heel. The skirt of her dress fluttered around her knees every time the wind picked up. Though her face betrayed nothing as her eyes trailed analytically over the men patrolling the gate, apprehension bubbled in her stomach as she waited for Negan to return from his run. Her clipboard rested on the ground next to her boot, the silver clip keeping her papers from blowing away.

Groans from the dead and the assaulting smell that accompanied them threatened to chase her back inside, but she remained rooted where she was, where she was expected to be. When the leader of the Saviors returned, she needed to be within his sight as soon as his convoy rolled in, even if he only caught a glimpse of her standing by the factory entrance. It was one of the rules that she had to follow in order to avoid being locked inside her room while he was off the compound.

Sam's gaze traveled from the gate over the courtyard, spotting Dwight standing among a group of lower rank Saviors. They stood in a circle facing each other, passing a cigarette around and laughing. The blonde was the only one not engaging, standing there with his usual scowl. A month in and she still couldn't tell if he was giving the stink eye, or if that was just his face now. She supposed it didn't matter; he rarely had anything positive to say about anything anyways. He still had a severe disliking for Sam, but that was nothing new.

Over the past month some things had changed and some things hadn't. Sam held a position just barely above prisoner but was treated about the same. Her popularity was at an all time low and she felt like drowning herself in her kitchenette sink every morning. She had managed to make some progress through begrudging compliance. Her status improved because of it, just a bit, enough to keep her content which was a relief because she was starting to chafe under such tight restraints.

Her door was still locked from the outside at night. She hadn't yet earned the privilege of not being locked in, but over time her actions had become less monitored. In the beginning, a Savior would come and escort her up to Negan's floor where she would stay until the end of the day before being escorted back to her room and locked in again. However, she had now garnered up enough trust that she wouldn't bolt the second all backs were turned, so she was able to escort herself to her post, as well as to the restroom, the shower room, the cafeteria and the marketplace.

Though the new freedom was nice, her privacy had yet to be restored in any form. Sam knew there were hidden eyes watching her every move. She didn't have to try overly hard to be noticed, not with her track record. If she went anywhere that wasn't a common area, a Savior would appear to herd her back like a wayward lamb. It made her progress feel only surface deep, but at least her movements weren't as restricted and that was something to be optimistic about.

She had tested the limits of these new boundaries only once and learned quick enough that even though there wasn't a chain attached to her ankle anymore, she was still on a leash.

A week into her job, she had gone back up to the roof. Not to kill herself - she was done with that. She just wanted to see. The door to the roof had been blocked off with a chain and padlock, barring any access. If she had been more determined, she could have found something to pick the lock with, but she had only gone up there to see how far she could go before someone came looking. She got her answer when she went back down and found Dwight waiting at the bottom, looking as thrilled as ever.

She didn't receive points for her work. She was allowed to visit the marketplace, but was unable to buy anything. Everything that Negan decided she needed was delivered to her room; meals, toiletries, clothing, books and supplies so she could work on her designs in her downtime. He even left a notebook so she could keep a journal again, but she knew he would read it so it was only ever used for notes.

Everyday her room was picked apart by a Savior, usually Dwight, for suspicious activity or contraband. There wasn't any, nor would there be for the foreseeable future, because Sam had accepted that escape wasn't likely or convenient for her right now. In fact, she wasn't even sure she wanted to escape anymore. This wasn't the high life she was living, but it was easier than living on the road. At least at the Sanctuary she was guaranteed three meals a day and a place to sleep.

She absolutely hated her job, though. Hated it enough to still fantasize about running away. Hated it enough to long for the days where she would crawl around in the vents with total anonymity.

(The grates on the vents were now welded shut. Every single one.)

She followed Negan everywhere on the compound, taking notes, managing his schedule and appointments. She assisted him in nearly all his endeavors, preparing any equipment he might need, scheduling his appointments, filling out and filing paperwork, relaying messages and running errands. She learned all of the Sanctuary's procedures and committed them to memory. She held no power or authority whatsoever. She wasn't an advocate for Negan or his spokesperson. She was his shadow, seen and not heard.

Sometimes he made her take dictations just because he could. They would be long and purposefully nonsensical. He would talk until he ran out of things to say and then he would order her to read it all back to him before telling her to scrap it. He did it only to annoy her. He would laugh as she crumbled up the writing she had just done and tossed it into the trash with an unimpressed frown.

She brought him his meals, did his laundry, tidied his rooms and replenished his toiletries, even though he had a worker who could do all that. She didn't do any of the deep cleaning, but she did just enough for it to be humiliating.

She hated her job more than anything, but it wasn't like she could quit or join a union.

"Good afternoon, Ms. Samantha!"

Tearing her eyes from the lost souls intermingled with chainlink, they darted just below her where Simon stood with his head craned back, his thumbs tucked into the waist of his pants and a toothy smile on his mustachioed face.

"How are we this fine day?" he asked her.

"Relishing life."

"Glad to hear it!" he beamed.

He seemed to be waiting for her to reciprocate his greeting, but she went back to scanning the courtyard without another word. Most would take this as a sign of her disinterest in conversation right now, but she held back an annoyed grimace when Simon mounted the platform stairs, the expression on his face telling her that he wasn't finished. Sam turned her head and watched him approach.

"You know, I was talking with the boss man last night over a de-lectable tumbler of bourbon and he mentioned that today's a big day for you."

She let out an ambiguous hum and turned her head forward again as he came to a stop next to her.

"He also told me about how you got your whiskey cherry popped," he chuckled, giving her a wink. "Don't worry, it gets easier."

"Do I come up often during your night caps with Negan?" she asked in a flat tone.

He bobbed his head back and forth, pursing his lips. "So, so."

"Hm."

He continued talking, but she tuned him out, his voice becoming white noise in her ears. Her internal clock told her that Negan was running late and that annoyed her. There was still a lot that she needed to do before she returned to her room for the evening - not to mention her special appointment with Negan that the man's current tardiness threatened to infringe on. The leg that wasn't supporting her weight thumped against the ground, showcasing that state of her nerves. Today was a big day, indeed, but it wasn't going to be a good day.

A high pitch in Simon's tone suggesting that he had asked a question, pulled Sam out of her thoughts.

"Did you hear what I said?" he asked.

"No, I wasn't listening," she replied unabashed.

"I said, I'm sad to report that you won't be seeing much of me around the Sanctuary anymore," he repeated, pausing to give her the chance to ask why. When she didn't, he continued anyway. "Negan's giving me an outpost of my very own to run."

He waited once again for a response, clearly not getting the picture or choosing not to. It got to the point where the awkwardness became too much even for Sam and she finally threw him a bone.

"Congratulations," she deadpanned.

"Yep, it's c'est la vie for me, off to bigger and better things. I've sort of been running things at the Hilltop already, but the boss finally decided to make it official. I won't be gone forever - still gotta check in here every now and again, run things when Negan can't, but other than that, I'll be king of my own castle," he smiled, leaning against the railing next to Sam as if she had invited him - which she hadn't. "I am going to miss it around here, though."

Simon stood with Sam and looked out over the courtyard like they were old friends. If it were an option, she would've removed herself immediately, but of course, today of all days Negan's convoy was running behind.

"Do you think people will miss me?" he asked. "I mean, honestly? I'm interested in your constructive criticism here, since this is a big step up in responsibility for me. I'm looking to develop my listening skills so I can become a more hands-on leader. Hilltop is a community of farmers so I'm thinking this'll be the perfect opportunity to try a gentler approach, you know? Of course I still gotta enforce the rules and all that good stuff, but I wanna have my own leadership style, something that sets me apart from the other outpost lieutenants. Something that strictly says 'Simon' and nothing else, you know?"

No, she didn't know, and she wasn't going to ask.

"Nobody will miss you," she answered his question and ignored the rest.

If he was insulted by her bluntness he didn't show it. "Aw, well that's a shame."

Sam looked towards the road that led to the Sanctuary, for once hoping to see the line of supply trucks approaching. She willed Simon to dissolve into a puff of dust and get swept away by the wind, never to come back and bother her again, but he remained tangible and impeachable next to her.

"Still, it would be nice to have a proper send off, a going away party or something like that. What do you think?"

He grinned at her with a smile that made her feel like he was about to rip her heart from her chest in a satanic ritual. It was far more manic than anything Negan could produce. Why did he care so much about what she thought? He had barely spoken two words to her before now and suddenly he was talking to her like they were the best of pals. And people thought that Sam was weird - at least she was consistent.

"Maybe you and the wives can put together a little something, huh?" he raised his bushy eyebrows in suggestion, "you guys get along, right?"

He nudged her arm with his elbow and chuckled as she recoiled from him in blatant disgust and annoyance. He excused himself before pushing off the railing and descending the stairs, swaggering off to do whatever with his usual air of superiority. Sam ran her hand over where Simon had nudged her, trying to rub away his touch as her mood festered.

Simon would be getting nothing from her.

And, no, she didn't get along with the wives.

In comparison to their husband, her association with the wives didn't fair any better. Despite her desk being in their parlor, Sam hadn't established much of a relationship with any of the wives. Not one of any substance, at least.

There were attempts, initially, of them trying to welcome her into their space as if she were a new wife, but they were far from Sam's orbit. While Negan expected her to go above and beyond to please his every whim, he never mentioned doing the same for his wives, so she didn't. He barely spoke of his wives when she was around, except to make inappropriate jokes and suggestions, and barely gave them a glance when he would step into their parlor to get to Sam's desk.

The vibe that she picked up from the ladies was that this wasn't wholly unusual behavior for Negan, but there were still strange looks sent her way when this happened. She concluded that while it wasn't unusual for the wives to be ignored when he didn't want sex from them, it wasn't usual for him to be so invested in someone he couldn't get sex from period.

Unbeknownst to Sam, Negan didn't treat her like he treated everybody else in the Sanctuary, even his wives. He treated her different. Something was different about him when he interacted with her.

Not better or worse - just different.

And since the wives shared a space with her, and also knew Negan on a personal level, they were able to pick up on this quicker than most. They had their conversations about why that was, when neither Sam nor Negan were on the floor, but they had yet to come to an unanimous conclusion. It was almost like he held favoritism towards Sam, but not quite. She wasn't doted on as one would expect a favorite to be, not in the slightest. She wasn't abused, but she wasn't treated with a lot of respect, either.

Some of the wives were curious about this, others were bored, and maybe a small, select few felt threatened.

Sam was aware of this - the wives' curiosity, not Negan's behavior towards her. There hadn't been enough opportunities to put how he treated her next to how he treated his wives, his men and his workers for her to notice a difference - or maybe she just wasn't paying attention, as Sherry had once suggested.

She did notice them noticing her, though. For the sake of self-preservation, she supposed that being civil with these women would be in her best interest, if only to avoid being complained about to Negan, but sometimes what she thought in her mind didn't match with what came out of her mouth. On more than one occasion, both voluntary and involuntarily, she had chased off a wife.

She thought back to just yesterday, when Fat Joey had dropped off a box of magazines and books for the wives, pillaged from another nameless community. There had been only three wives in the parlor at the time, plus Sam who was going over a marketplace inventory report, paying none of them any attention. Joey gave a cheery hello that might have been directed towards her, since he was never that happy to play chambermaid for Negan's harem, but she didn't look up to check.

He deposited the box on the coffee table and left, sidestepping Frankie and Tanya as they abandoned their card game and converged around the box while Sherry hung back at the bar with her fifth glass of brandy. Frankie pulled open the box and rummaged through its contents, taking out a stack of moth-eaten magazines and setting them on the table. She picked up one and flipped through it while Tanya looked at the books and started picking out the titles that were familiar to her.

From the disappointment on her face there didn't seem to be many. They usually got bad Walmart paperbacks and toilet reads more catered for people with Negan's sense of humor. Before the world had fallen, for most people it had been hard to conjure up the time or interest to read a novel, but now that cellphones and the Internet were no longer a thing, reading had once again become an avid hobby. Good books were a rarity and Negan put effort into finding them. In fact, he made it a necessity to take all books from the communities that he controlled.

The Sanctuary had a decent library, but to the wives' chagrin, a lot of it was non-fiction; instruction manuals, academic textbooks, travelogues and historical biographies. Things that would interest Samantha, but not the wives. There was a collection of Harlequin novels and autobiographies from Hollywood celebrities long dead in the library, but they had already read those ten times over.

Apparently Negan had a personal collection of classics squirreled away in his office somewhere, but the wives never asked to read any of it.

The wives weren't stupid or illiterate. They just had typical tastes for their gender and ages. Being born and raised in the age of technology and then watching it all crash was a hard thing to reconcile and adjust to. Just because reading was the only thing left to do besides playing card games and gossiping, that wasn't going to make them ardent James Joyce and Fyodor Dostoevsky fans overnight. Sam couldn't blame them. Some of the classics were really dry reads - even she had trouble getting all the way through Moby Dick.

It wasn't until Tanya came across a book towards the very bottom that she smiled.

"Hey, I read this one before," she chimed, flashing the cover around the room.

"Yeah, me too, back in middle school, I think," Sherry said, taking another gulp of her drink.

Sam's eyes flickered up at the cover of George Orwell's Animal Farm in Tanya's hand before focusing back on her work, curiosity fleeting.

"What was it about again?" Tanya asked as she skimmed the description on the back. "We were supposed to do the reading at home and then take a test the next day in class, but I never did any of it, just copied off my friend. I could never get into book requirements."

"Communism," Sam replied.

She could feel eyes focus on her, gaining the attention of the room, but she didn't look up.

Tanya's brow knotted and she looked at the cover again. "What?"

"Animal Farm is about Communism."

"Really? I thought it was about pigs and horses living on a farm or something."

"Is that the one with the spider that could write messages in her web?" Frankie piped as she reached out her hand towards the book in a 'gimme' motion. "I loved that book when I was little!"

Tanya raised her arm so that the book was out of the other wife's reach, remarking, "that was Charlotte's Web, genius."

"Oh...then what's this one about?"

"Communism," Sam replied again.

"How do you know?"

"The pigs wear matching jackets with Stalin's mustache bedazzled on the back."

The red head's face curled up. "What?"

"She's just fucking with us again, Frank," Tanya said, glaring at Sam.

"About the communism?"

"I don't know, probably. Come on, let's take these to my room and look through them."

"Leave the animal one here," Sherry instructed. "It looks like something Negan's going to want to add to his collection."

The two gathered up the magazines and books and put them back inside the box before Frankie picked it up and they left the parlor, leaving behind Orwell on the coffee table. Sherry knocked back the last of her drink and stood from the bar. She walked over and picked up the book, flipping it over to read the overview and then flipping back to the cover with a thoughtful look. Her cheeks were flushed and she swayed a little in her stilettos, but there was enough focus there to imply she wasn't completely drunk.

"I think you're right about this book," she said, raising her hand to cover her mouth as a hiccup escaped her throat. "I'm starting to remember it. The farm animals chased off the farmer and the pigs took over."

Sam's pen scratching against paper was the only reply Sherry got. The wife crossed the parlor and put the book on the corner of Sam's desk where she knew Negan would see it.

"You know, they really don't mind having you here," she told the dark-haired woman. "If you were more friendly, they would talk to you."

"I don't want them to talk to me," Sam said in rebuttal, her tone as dry as sandpaper.

She heard Sherry click her tongue in exasperation and her heels moved in the direction of the parlor doors.

No groundwork for friendship there.

They acknowledged each other from time to time, managed to sustain some small talk long enough for it to be considered a conversation, but most of what Sam learned about the harem was from observation, and what she learned wasn't all that noteworthy.

Sherry was the ringleader of the wives so on average Sam had more contact with her, but it was all business. Whenever they exchanged words it was almost always related to Negan, relaying some message or task that he wanted done.

Frankie and Tanya were a pair, favoring each other's company above anyone else's. They were friendly and took the initiative when meeting new people. They were the first ones to approach Samantha once her desk had been set up, but she put them off quick enough and continued to put them off with incidents like Orwell.

Amber didn't spend much time in the parlor. Sam didn't know where she was when she wasn't there, but because of that the two had yet to speak to each other. The blonde seemed enough nice, though. Her and Sam's lack of interaction was more circumstantial than intentional. On the occasions where they were both in the parlor and Sam's eyes would briefly meet Amber's over the blonde's compact mirror, she would give Sam a smile and a little wave before going back to her reflection. She was immersed in her own world.

She had a childish fashion sense that often had her walking around Negan's floor in things like Hello Kitty crop tops, hotpants with hearts printed on them and frilly babydoll nighties that didn't leave much to the imagination. Her voice would take on a high-pitched tone with a strawberry lip gloss pout whenever Negan was around and she wanted something.

Sadie had a habit of touching Sam's hair. She came up behind Sam on her second day of work and threaded her dark fingers through a handful of it (startling Sam witless in the process) and purred that she adored the color. Sam's reaction made the woman laugh and she explained that she wanted to style it. She had been a hairdresser before the end and had worked in the Sanctuary's barbershop before becoming a wife. Now she styled the wives' hair and she was excited to have new material to work with.

Sadie was laidback and didn't mind the constant storm cloud thundering over Sam's head; she possessed a proverbial umbrella of nonchalance that combated it admirably. And like any good stylist, she was able to read body language and facial ques well enough to know when to do all the talking. Sam didn't let Sadie style her hair, and probably never would, but she declined the offer amicably.

Val made her contempt for Sam blatant, but ignored her most of the time. Sam didn't doubt that the wife talked about her when she wasn't around, but as long as she never incited a direct confrontation, Sam didn't care. Relevancy was necessary when gaining Samantha's attention, and vital when keeping it. Whatever didn't place itself directly in her field of vision, Sam didn't concern herself with. So as long as Val ignored her, there weren't any problems.

She was fortunate enough not to have walked in on or witness any of Negan's liaisons with his wives, mostly because she would return to her room before it got too late. Talk from the wives suggested an array of sordid details that she didn't appreciate hearing and she would remove herself from the room before things got too graphic. She went out of her way to avoid the subject. She would firmly knock on any door that she didn't know who was on the other side of, or what they were doing. If she was at her desk and she heard any suspicious sounds, she would take an impromptu lunch break without investigating. She knew that one of these days she was going to end up seeing something gross, but until then she took precautions to avoid it.

Negan's sexual innuendos knew no limits, however, and that was a unique struggle all its own.

Sam's job as Negan's assistant wasn't backbreaking work or unbearable. She just didn't like being forced to associate with his inner circle. If Negan had to give her a job, she would rather have a manual one like the workers. Their opinion of Sam was still fifty-fifty with some admiring her for pulling one over on Negan and others hating her for cheating the system, but at least working on the ground floor would be less complicated. Being on the top floor among the elite of the Sanctuary gave insight to Negan that Sam didn't vie for.

What seemed like a generally easygoing man beyond his role as leader, actually housed someone often in an irritable, brooding mood. When he wasn't putting on his grandiose act of an eccentric psychopath, his resting disposition was anything but. In fact, it was rather ordinary. It was as if his 6'2 body contained two separate people.

There would be moments, when Sam would knock on his office door or bedroom and he would fail to hear it, where she would catch him sitting at his desk or on his couch or his bed, leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees and his face looking quite solemn. Dark eyes would be trained on the floor, lost some place vast where no one else was permitted to go. His expression would be long and drawn out. His deep smile lines and crows feet more prominent, and paired with the silver of his beard, they would betray his age more than ever.

Wherever his mind was in those moments was so far out that even after she entered the room, it would take him several seconds to acknowledge her. When he did, the darkness in his half-lidded eyes would fade and he would look up at her, smiling a smile that didn't quite reach its usual wattage, and drawl out a lazy greeting.

"Hey there, Mouse. When did you scurry in?"

Sam could see him summoning the energy to put on a show, but couldn't swing it.

Whoever Sam had walked in on couldn't be further from the man who ran the imposing juggernaut that was the Sanctuary with an iron fist.

And as she learned things about Negan, he learned things about her. Things she wasn't too keen on sharing but ended up doing anyways. He once attempted to chew her out for making a mistake on a document and it led to Sam revealing that she was colorblind. Last week he had come storming out of his office, clutching a report in his hand, glaring at her as if she had written a big "fuck you" across the page instead of inventory numbers.

"What the fuck, Mouse, you wrote all of this in red pen again. I told you not to do that shit!"

"Someone touched my desk," Sam had replied, as if that explained everything.

"And? Who fucking cares? We're not talking about that, we're talking about this. This is the third fucking time you've done this and I've already told you that it drives me fucking nuts. This isn't my 'what I did over my summer fucking vacation' essay and you ain't my teacher grading it, so don't write in fucking red pen. Red is the Grim Reaper of the pen colors and you ain't mighty enough to fucking wield it. Do I need to get Carson up here to check your fucking eyesight? Are you fucking colorblind?"

"Yes."

"Yes what?"

"Yes, I'm colorblind."

"-the fuck," he inquired eloquently. He gave her a harsh, scrutinizing look even though she was staring at a piece of paper in front of her, writing as if he wasn't standing right fucking next to her, chewing her ear off. Sometimes Sam was so stoic, even he couldn't tell for sure if she was being serious or sarcastic. He raised an eyebrow at her dubiously. "Seriously?"

"Yes."

He looked down at her desk, noting not for the first time how everything had a specific place, with labels crafted from sticky notes and how she had four pen cups; one for red ink, one for green, one for blue and one for black - each labeled in bold letters. There was one lone red pen amongst the black - right where he had left it when he had borrowed it earlier to make one last note on a piece of paperwork before tossing it carelessly into the cup closest to him.

"Well," he grunted, reaching up to rub the back of his neck, "I guess that explains why all my whites last week came back fucking pink. Think you could've taken a fucking second to mention this before? Shit."

"One of your wives' thongs got mixed in. It must've been red, I couldn't see it."

"What color did you see?"

"Green."

"Who the fuck wears a green thong ever other than on St. Patrick's Day?"

He had a point. Sam could have worked out that the piece of lingerie was red and not green with her color intuition, but she had missed it - as in she hadn't notice it at all. She didn't always handle Negan's laundry like he expected her to, but she wasn't going to admit that, so she shrugged her shoulders noncommittally.

He stared at her with a half-lidded look, letting out a soft snort at this new knowledge and wondering back on the other signs he had missed. He had never thought much of it before then. In general, Sam was particular almost to the point of OCD, so he had figured this was just another one of her weird hang-ups.

Rubbing at his chin, he started to walk away but stopped, turning slow on his heel with a thoughtful look. He held up a finger as if a revelation had suddenly come over him.

"Wait," he smirked, "is that why you call the dead ones 'goblins'?"

She didn't reply.

"No shit? Does their blood look green to you?"

She shrugged her shoulders again, still not looking up.

"You're fucking adorable," Negan chuckled as he disappeared into his office.

After that he deliberately did things to test her to see if she was telling the truth, like throwing something at a blind person to see whether they would raise their hands to deflect or take it in the face.

When Negan and Simon were having their little pow-wows in his office, he would often call Sam in. She would immediately know the reason by the way they would stifle their giggles as she entered the room, trying to steel their expressions but failing when the corners of their mouths would twitch upwards. Negan would then instruct her to grab a certain colored shirt from his wardrobe, or hand him a certain colored pen, and of course she would hand him the wrong item, which wasn't very funny but he laughed anyway.

It was the most childish thing, but it didn't stop him from doing it.

Nothing ever stopped Negan from doing or saying what he wanted - not social grace, not human decency and most certainly not basic manners. Perks of being the leader, she supposed. She did her best to ignore his behavior and was successful thus far in not stepping on anybody's toes. Sam's relationship with Negan was a lesson in professional eye-rolling, but that was all.

Today was going to be different, though. She was going to purposely antagonize Negan for the first time in a month. Today was the day that she would present her first blueprint.

As she ran her plan through her head for the umpteenth time, the sound of approaching vehicles finally permeated the goblins' garbled symphony. The Saviors manning the front gate moved from their stations to allow the convoy to enter the courtyard. Sam remained where she was as the white box truck leading the supply line pulled in and parked, the engine cutting off and the passenger side door opening to reveal Negan and his bat. Simon reappeared to greet him as Dwight and his group moved to help unload the trucks. Negan smiled like a light bulb beaming to life when he caught sight of his right hand, giving him a hearty hello.

Sam watched them touch base, waiting for Negan to notice her. It took a few minutes, but once he finished briefing Simon on the success of the supply run, he finally took stock of the ongoings around him and spotted Sam up on the platform, her face expression more sour than a pitcher of lemonade with no sugar - his ray of sunshine.

The moment he saw her, Negan became suspicious, seeing the woman in her white dress, looking so pretty and superior against the gritty world around her. He knew she only wore that fucking thing when she was trying to make a point about something. He remembered their appointment and he was eager to see what she had come up with, but his eagerness came with a healthy dose of caution. He never knew what level to set his expectations with Samantha.

Unbeknownst to her (he was pretty sure but not one hundred percent - she had a wicked poker face), he had tested her several times over the past month to see if she would try anything.

He gave her opportunities to steal from the marketplace, to steal another gun off his Saviors, to steal knives from the kitchen and tools from the workshops. Back when she still had escorts, he purposely had his Saviors leave her unsupervised at random intervals to see if she would run. When she was alone with him in his office and he was having her take notes, he would put Lucille within grabbing distance and his knife on the desk before turning his back, pretending to enjoy the view from his office window.

Every time he planted a trap, Sam would sidestep it without a second glance. He gave her the best, most tempting openings to cause shit that he could think of, but she kept her sticky fingers to herself and her nose to the grindstone, taking every insult and indignity he threw her way like a champ. With her stellar performance, eventually he had to no choice but to reward her and give her more freedom. He didn't know what her deal was, whether she was genuine in her actions or if she was going for the long-con, but even with her sudden cooperation making his life easier, he wasn't going to let his guard down. She stuck to his side like glue just like he had told her to, albeit begrudgingly, and he should have been happy about this, but it unnerved him more than it pleased him.

So he didn't even acknowledge her as he mounted the stairs, flanked by two men, and stepped inside the building to do his rounds.

Once he was inside, Sam pushed off the railing and bent down to pick up her clipboard before entering the main building through a different entrance. In the distance, she could hear Negan addressing the crowd in the furnace room. She mounted the steps and began the climb up towards the top floor, her boots tapping as she went.

Wearing her dress had clued Negan in, as she thought it would. Sam had others articles in her wardrobe, having accumulated a decent selection over the month, mostly business casual and casual; collared blouses, cardigans, sweaters, practical skirts, long-sleeve thermals, dark-colored jeans with a few pairs of ankle boots, flats and canvas shoes. With her close association with Negan, she was given the means to look nice because of the clean image the leader liked to maintain in his personal circle. But the white dress was by far the nicest piece she owned, and thus was only taken out on special occasions. It was the most passive aggressive Sam was capable of being; she never cared much for symbolism.

The wives' parlor was empty when she entered through the double doors. She walked over to her desk and sat down, reaching underneath to touch the rolled up blueprint that she had stored there earlier in the day. Her fingertips skimmed the paper, assuring Sam that her project was still where she had left it, before she sat up straight and preoccupied herself with paperwork until Negan returned from his rounds. About half an hour later, the parlor doors swung open and Negan came in, making a beeline for his office.

As she waited to be called in, Val chose that moment to saunter into the parlor, wearing a cheetah print teddy and a black stiletto boots, her face made up and her brassy hair tossed. Sam's eyes flickered up from her work and followed the wife as she strutted towards Negan's office with an exaggerated sway of her hips. She gave Sam a smug smile when she passed her desk, grabbing the doorknob and entering without knocking.

Sam felt her cheeks heat up as she rolled her eyes at the wife's obvious intentions. Her skin prickled and her gut twisted in that uncomfortable way at the thought of what was about to take place in the room next door.

Perturbed that her appointment was apparently put on hold, she pushed her paperwork aside and moved to stand, but the door opened again not even a minute later and Val reappeared, looking red in the face, but not flustered like she had been sent away with a searing kiss and the promise of saucy rendezvous at a later time. Angry, like she had been told to fuck off the second she had entered.

"Hey, Creature Feature," she barked at Sam, jutting her thumb over her shoulder, "Negan wants to see you."

As Val stomped out of the parlor with a pout, Sam reached underneath her desk and pulled out her blueprint, holding it securely in both hands as she stood up and stepped inside the open entry of Negan's office. Closing the door behind her, she made a quick survey of the room where she saw Negan seated at his desk. He still wore his leather jacket, but it was left unzipped with a white shirt underneath and his scarf gone.

Not needing any prompting, she sat in the chair placed in front of his desk. She crossed one leg over the other and smoothed the wrinkles out of her dress, placing the blueprint and her hands in her lap, waiting for Negan. He sat in his chair, looking down at a piece of paper in his hand, but she knew he wasn't really reading it because he wasn't wearing his glasses. She ignored the urge to sigh.

When a fair amount of time passed without any instruction, she took the initiative and moved to put her blueprint on his desk, but Negan raised his hand and stopped her with a wag of his finger.

"Whoa, hold up," he chided. "I know your excited to make me feel dumb, but there's no need to rush. I've got something I want to say first."

Sam settled back into her chair, apprehensive. He set his paper aside and leaned forwards, the leather of his jacket squealing in protest and the zippers flashing, until his arms came to rest on the desktop. He gave her a contemplative look. He held it for a few moments before smiling a smile meant to disarm but only made her more anxious.

"I just wanted to take a minute to tell you how awesome of a job you've been doing lately. You've done everything that I've asked of you and kept yourself out of trouble. You're not my wives' or my Saviors' favorite person, but that hardly fucking matters. I think you're doing great, and what I think is much more important than what those cockshits think. And because you're doing so great, I thought I might give you little present as a reward."

Sam eyed Negan with suspicion as he opened one of his desk drawers and reached inside. She waited for him to show her whatever it was that he had, but he was taking his time, flashing her a grin as he fished something out of the drawer, his hand strategically placed so she couldn't see. He put it on the desktop and pulled his hand away with a jovial "ta-da!". She looked down and almost gasped.

It was her penlight.

It sat innocently against the polished wood of the desk like a juicy red apple being offered up to a famished traveler, but it was so obviously a trap, he might as well have poised the penlight over a loaded bear trap.

He was baiting her, she knew it, and she was honestly thinking it over despite this.

It seemed so stupid to consider showing her hand just because of a little flashlight, but that penlight was the only thing she had left from before the outbreak. Other than important supplies like food and weapons, Sam hadn't taken much with her when she had decided to leave her cousins' place on the reservation for somewhere safer, but what she had taken held significant sentimental value. Her glasses, her father's Swiss army knife and tool collection, Rhett's dog collar, a picture of her parents, a picture of her and her Uncle Cormac camping in the Glacier Bay National Park west of Juneau, and her penlight. From Alaska to Virginia, she had lost everything that she had brought with her somewhere along the way, except her penlight.

That penlight was the last remnant of her former life other than what she had stored away in her head.

It wasn't too late. He knew she was about to do something that he wouldn't like and he was giving her the chance to abort and fess up.

Sam seriously considered her options.

Becoming a Savior had always been a scary thought to her. To lose such a large facet of herself and surrender. To bark "I'm Negan" on command and mean it.

Initially, Sam had been so terrified of becoming one of them, but after being an official member of the Sanctuary for a month, she now realized that while she was held subservient underneath Negan's control, she would never stop trying to pull herself out, even if she had to crawl. She could live here, at the Sanctuary, as Negan's personal slave. She could document his orders, write down every word he said, clean his bedroom, do his laundry - she could do it all and still remain sane. She could carve a place for herself at the Sanctuary and still remain her own individual self. The plans resting in her lap were proof of that. She didn't have to worry anymore. He could use and abuse her all he liked, it wouldn't change a thing.

She would never be Negan. Better or worse, no matter what, she would always be Samantha. All that was left was for Negan to also realize it so they could move past this, and then maybe some good could come from their paths having crossed.

She just wished that she had realized this earlier so she could've thought of a different way to show Negan her stance, instead of pissing him off and losing all the progress she had made with the man with this stupid plan that she was now regretting. This wasn't a brave act of defiance. She was picking fights.

(If wishes were horses.)

She pulled her eyes away from her penlight and stared at Negan with a look of resolve, rejecting his "gift", and placed the blueprint on to his desk, sliding it forward with finality. Might as well see it through since they were here.

Negan narrowed his eyes at her before snatching up the plans.

Loudly clearing his throat, he put on his glasses and unrolled the blueprint. Sam's eyes dropped to her lap, unable to watch.

Flattening the blueprint across his desk so he could see all of it, Negan was greeted with sketches of solar panels. He had told Sam that as a test run he wanted her to come up with something simple that didn't require a lot of resources or manpower, and he was pleased with what she had chosen. Solar panels were a concept that he had thought of several times before, but had never gotten around to implementing. He had electrical workers who could hook the panels up to the Sanctuary's system, like that little twerp Sam occasionally associated with, but none of his mechanical workers had the experience or education to design them.

As he looked over the sketches, absently stroking his chin, he thought about where he could put them. They could be retrofitted for the roof of the main building or placed in a sectioned off part of the courtyard, or even placed outside the gates in some neighboring fields since the dead pricks didn't give two shits about anything inorganic. His men would just have to make sure a herd of them didn't trip over and pile up on the panels, but redirect duty would take care of most of that problem. He could even have them installed in all his outposts.

Feeling almost giddy at all the new prospects blooming in his head, Negan couldn't fight the smile that threatened to split his face, and he made the mistake of letting his guard down. However, when he looked over the directions and notes on the panels' construction that Sam had made, his brow knotted in confusion and he frowned.

The measurements, dimensions, equipment and notes were all jumbled, the letters mixed up in a way that he wasn't able to read.

"What the fuck," he growled, glaring at Sam. "I can't read this."

"I know. That's the point," Sam replied, pulling her gaze from her hands to look him in the eye, unflinching at the anger she could already see building there. "All my plans are encrypted with a code that only I know. If you want the full plans, then maybe you should ask more nicely."

Her tone held no satisfaction or snark as she explained. It had been there when she had rehearsed her responses earlier, when she was feeling proud and pleased with herself, but now that she knew she wouldn't derive any pleasure from doing this, she couldn't summon the will. Instead, the words just left a bad taste in her mouth as embarrassment crept in to replace her lost nerve.

Negan stared down at the plans as if the sheer heat in his gaze would somehow unscramble the words, but she remained confident that they would stay eligible no matter how hard he glared at them.

As Sam had traveled from town to town, city to city, and then eventually state to state, wandering aimlessly for a safe place to rest, she would salvage bookstores just as often as she would grocery stores and pharmacies. They would usually be picked clean of anything halfway entertaining, but that wasn't what she wanted, and neither were the How-To and survival books. There was nothing in those books that could teach Sam that she already didn't know so there wasn't any point cluttering up her bag with them.

What she looked for were books on encryption.

Unfortunately, the stores were mostly vacant of those as well. There was an influx of interest in classic cryptography since the world had fell (the use of linguistics rather than mathematics and computers which modern cryptography used). People were looking to hide caches of supplies and communicate their location to fellow members of their groups on buildings or street signs without worry of looting from third parties. On her travels, Sam had come across transposition ciphers (rearranging the order of letters, i.e. 'supplies inside' to 'pplessiu deisni'), substitution ciphers (replacing each letter with the one following it in a foreign alphabet, such as Latin or French), and Caesar ciphers (replacing a letter by shifting a number of positions further down the alphabet, i.e. a shift value of three - A becomes D, B becomes E).

Classic cryptography has been around for thousands of years and it was interesting to witness the resurgence. The ciphers she found were all of varying difficulty to decode with some being more complex than others. Sam had even come across a substitution cipher using the Phoenician alphabet (in Oklahoma of all places), the first alphabet ever conceived and in which Greek, Hebrew, Roman and Arabic were derived from. It was the only one Sam was unable to decrypt and she found herself half in love with whom ever had written it. The only way she could have been more impressed was if she had found one written in hieroglyphics.

Once people had realized there was no help coming and that they were on their own, they'd began raiding libraries and bookstores. Luckily, Sam didn't have a dire need for code books, since she was by herself, but she had always had an interest in the subject and took the opportunity to finally study it in-depth as she traveled. It was another skill to add to her repertoire should she ever need to use it - like now.

If Sam had the money and resources to do and become anything she wanted, she might've gone into cryptanalysis. With cryptography engineering or security engineering, she could've developed programs to help people keep their personal data safe - or maybe satisfy a popular childhood fantasy of becoming an agent of espionage, decoding encrypted messages of great importance for top secret organizations to stop terrorist cells or Bond-esque villains wielding weapons of mass destruction, holding the world hostage. But alas, mechanical engineering was more practical and her knack laid more with machines than computers.

Sam had employed a vigenere cipher with the keyword GOBLIN, and encrypted her notes and journals with it. A vigenere cipher was made up of a sequence of Caesar ciphers with different shift values. Once you understood how vigenere ciphers worked, they weren't all that hard to figure out. The process was just extremely tedious, enough to keep someone who wasn't all that determined to figure it out from taking her stuff or copying her work. It was also how she would ensure her place in the Sanctuary, because unless Negan had a decrypter on hand, or someone vaguely interested in puzzles and decoder rings as a kid, then he would have to rely on Sam to get what he wanted.

Originally, she had done it for leverage, but now that she had fully accepted her new place in the Sanctuary, it was her 'terms and conditions', her guarantee that she wouldn't be tossed aside should something or someone come along capable of keeping Negan's interest more than she could.

Sam jumped when Negan suddenly snatched up her blueprint in a fit of rage and crumbled it up into a ball and chucked it over her head, making the woman duck. He then stood from his chair, pulling himself to his full, intimidating height and commanding in a low tone:

"Get the fuck out of my sight."

The order warranted no response and the look on his face told Sam that any protest would not be well received, so she stood from her chair and left his office without a word.

When the door clicked shut, Negan collapsed back into his chair with an air of defeat, his legs stretched out in front of him. His hands came up to cover his face and he groaned into them.

'Fucking checkmate. Game over.'

Neither of them lost, technically, Sam still had herself and Negan - well, he had parts of Sam, but neither got everything they wanted. This conflict between them now felt off-balanced with Sam no longer resisting from her side, leaving Negan pushing against air. If this was truly the best he was going to get, then he supposed there was nothing left to do but collect his winnings and just go home.

Maybe he'd punish the little shit, maybe he wouldn't. He would decide later.

A knock at the door was the only thing that kept him from flipping his desk over as his anger fluctuated from a stewing simmer to volcanic. Praying to God that it wasn't Sam coming for seconds, for both their sakes, he barked at whoever it was to enter.

The door opened to reveal the greasy head and fucked up face of Dwight.

"How did it go?" he asked, taking stock of the room and noting how it looked surprisingly intact.

"Why the fuck to do you care?" Negan snapped.

The blonde shrugged his bony shoulders and Negan let out a sigh.

"Fucking went about as well as I thought it would."

When Dwight didn't give a reply, the older man stood from his desk and walked over to the entrance of his office, the blonde immediately stepping to the side to allow his leader to pass him.

"I'm going to go plow your ex-wife with my gigglestick until she can't walk. Lock up for me, will ya?"

Dwight turned his gaze towards the ground with a submissive nod as Negan patted him roughly on the back and snickered, walking off to seek out his wives. He had a lot of stress he needed to work out and he was sure a massage from Frankie and then a threesome with her and Sherry with plenty of ass play would fix him right up.

Dwight waited until Negan disappeared, collecting himself, before moving to step out of the office and close it behind him, but he stopped when he noticed something out of the corner of his eye. He looked down at the floor and saw the crumpled up blueprint. He released the doorknob and walked over to the blue ball, bending down until both knees popped. With careful fingers, he uncrumpled the paper until he was able to read what was on it. His brows knotted pensively as his eyes danced over the sketches and illegible writing before he folded it into a small square.

He tucked it away into his pants pocket and moved to leave the room, turning off the light and closing the door behind him, locking it.

~O~

Later that night, once Negan had calmed down enough to stand being in the same room as her without having a conniption, Sam was called to his bedroom to go over the new inventory numbers from the latest supply run. Negan barely said anything to her as he lowered himself into the plush leather of his couch and began writing in his binder. He gave Sam the paperwork he usually had her do and she sat in the lounge chair furthest from him. They worked in silence for the next couple of hours.

By the time Sam finished her work, it was almost midnight. She put her clipboard aside and leaned backwards over the back of her chair in a stretch, groaning as the joints in her spine popped. When she straightened, she rubbed at her dry eyes.

Dropping her hands and stifling a yawn, she blinked as her eyes refocused. She turned to look back at Negan, finding him slumped into his couch with his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes shut behind his glasses. Sam watched his torso rise and fall as he took in deep, even breathes.

She exhaled through her nose before hoisting herself up and walking over to the couch. Carefully, she leaned in and slipped Negan's glasses off so the frames wouldn't get bent if he shifted in his sleep, taking care not to let her fingertips touch the sides of his face. Glasses were important. His looked nice and expensive - not like her steeply discounted Costco frames from before the fall. She studied them, turning them over. Prescription reading glasses from an optometrist office - Negan was far-sighted. They must've been his from before, unless he was able to loot a pair with his exact prescription. She wondered how he was able to keep them intact through all this mess; a feat Sam herself hadn't been able to manage.

She cataloged this information before folding and placing them on the coffee table along with her finished paperwork where he would find them when he woke up. She switched off the lamp by his head and navigating her way towards the door in the dark.

As she walked away, from his resting position on the couch, without his breathing changing its easy rhythm, Negan's eyes slowly drifted open to watch Sam's departure without her knowledge. His face remained expressionless as she stepped out of his bedroom and closed the door quietly behind her.

AN: I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. Please let me know your thoughts in a review. I really appreciate the feedback!

~Scorpiofreak~