Negan stared straight at Rick, measuring the man up. He was certainly up to something. That quiet, haunted look, that concealed the occasional challenging glance when he thought Negan wasn't looking... It was a big deal, and Negan was determined to tear it out of him sooner or later, get him back to something resembling human that wasn't so thoroughly defiant.

He cocked his head, held his breath, waited until Rick really needed him to speak, and then made his proposal.

"Okay. So I have an opportunity for you. You get a slightly better deal, access to luxuries--alcohol, cigarettes; free movement around the compound. And nobody can touch you. If they touch you, I burn them."

He leaned slightly forward across the table, gaze as intent as a laser.

"You can marry me. Become - heh - another one of my wives. So long as you don't mind me dressing you up the way I wish to. Keep you clean shaved, neat and tidy."

If Rick had thought that Negan was soft on him before, he probably couldn't have imagined that his intent went this way. But here it was. The offer. The best offer he was going to get.