Chapter: 1 Memories

Negan Smith is a fictional character. He was the leader of the Saviors, a group of survivors in the Sanctuary that oppresses other survivor communities and forces them to pay tribute to him. After Rick Grimes and his fellow survivors agree to begin a trading relationship with the Hilltop Colony, they are ambushed by the Saviors and forced to obey Negan's orders to give the Saviors half of their supplies, as the other communities do. Initially obedient, Rick and the others secretly conspire with other communities in the Washington, D.C. area to prepare for war against the Saviors. After his defeat at the hands of the allied communities led by Rick, he is incarcerated for years until Carol recruits him as a reluctant ally against the Whisperers. After Negan kills the Whisperers' leaders Alpha and later Beta, the other survivors reluctantly accept him as an official member of their community.
Prior to the outbreak, Negan lived in Reston, Virginia and was the coach of a local high school, He is happily married to his wife, Lucille, but nonetheless has a mistress on the side who doesn't know he is married. During an argument, Lucille collapses and he rushes her to the hospital, where she is diagnosed with cancer. but he refuses to leave Lucille's side. Lucille dies when the power goes out, short-circuiting her life-support machine; moments later, she reanimates as a zombie. He flees the hospital and finds a boy being trapped by zombies and helps to dispatch them with a fire extinguisher. In return, Negan asks the boy to kill Lucille for him. He also takes a baseball bat from another survivor and wraps it in barbed wire and names it after his late wife Lucille.