Poker Face

Chapter 33 - Aven's Plan

"And what do you want us to do with the Sanctuary once you're dead?" Negan moved to lean his hip against the side of her chair, draping his arm over the back.

"I don't fucking die, darling," he hummed.

"You will." She finally turned to look up at him, a hint of anger still in her eyes that were otherwise full of genuine concern. "I know you're not going to stop being a dick," she began. He opened his mouth to retort but digressed with a shrug; he knew he was a dick and it was absolutely on purpose. "But if you're going to just chip away at peoples' patience, will you at least let me run damage control?" He cocked his head curiously at her.

"What do you mean?"

"You and your men make it clear your subjects have no choice but to obey," she began, "but that alone doesn't keep people from disobeying. I know it's probably on purpose that not one person talked to the Alexandrians like they were real people, but sometimes you have to level with the enemy."

"I'm leveling with them the best they deserve," he replied gruffly.

"It doesn't matter what they deserve," she retorted. "You and your men are completely unapproachable and if you want cooperation, you need someone the enemy can approach."

"You?" He narrowed his eyes at her. "You know, Dwight told me you got in his way when he was trying to do his job. Is that what you mean by fucking damage control?"

"He wasn't doing his job when I got in his way," she retorted. "It was actually pretty funny. He was acting all tough with one of the women from Alexandria, one of the ones we talked about, Rosita." Aven frowned, making a note in her head to rememember to write down Rosita's name. "The guy who opened the gate was standing right there and Dwight didn't look at him unless he absolutely had to. He got in this girl's face, grabbed her fucking cap off her head, and then emptied her fucking canteen."

"So you undermined him?"

"This is one of the women I'm almost certain we need to look out for," she continued. "That first guy you took out-"

"Abraham," Negan interjected. "Abraham and Glenn." Aven slid her notebook out of the bag on the back of her chair, scribbling down all the names. "And the widow...Maggie, I think." Aven nodded sadly as she wrote, vaguely remembering hearing Maggie and Glenn's names around the prison.

"Well at least we don't have to worry about Maggie anymore," she said. "But Abraham meant something to Rosita and she's angry enough. Then she has this chicken-legged, chickenshit little asshole trying to exert power he doesn't have over her while completely ignoring the big, strong man behind her who could absolutely fuck him up. He sent her to get Daryl's bike as a fucking over-compensation trophy or some shit and he poured all her water out without any provoking whatsoever from her. I took her canteen and gave her mine."

"And none of that was because you hate Dwight?"

"Just listen," she she insisted, getting her thoughts back on track and standing to face him, her expression serious. "I am almost certain Rick won't stay down forever and there are a few ways that can go. One, the Alexandrians attack with no warning. A few of our people die and we shut that shit down, but at that point I'm assuming you'd just raise the whole city and we wouldn't get their resources."

"And the alternative?"

"They find the person they think they can manipulate, the person on the inside who wants out, who they can come to thinking they can weasel their way in. Put their trust in someone who will immediately report back to you."

"...you?" Negan asked again, thoroughly confused.

"I've been laying some groundwork. Nothing major," she began. "Rick and Daryl especially seem pretty intuitive, they have a good sense of reading people on the surface and I think I can make them....not trust me," she thought aloud, looking for the right word. "I think I can make it so if Rick is going to rebel, he's going to come to me first, he's going to seek out the Sanctuary's weaknesses thinking I'm one of them. If I'm right about him, if and when he stops cooperating, he'll look for every angle until something works." She paced past him to the other side of the room in thought.