Negan helps Judith with her homework and tells her a story from his childhood where he tried to take in stray dogs only for it to go badly for him when she asks for advice with dealing with Magna's group.

He is going to be monitored for a long time and will fight on the front lines against the Whisperers. Several years after the end of The Walking Dead, Maggie seeks out the help of Negan, revealing that Hershel has been kidnapped and taken to a walker-infested Manhattan by a man known only as the Croat. As the walkers converge on the courtyard area, the Saviors retreat inside the foundry to develop a new strategy.

When Gabriel tries to get Negan to confess his sins, he is evasive until he finally admits his greatest regret was his treatment of his first wife prior to the outbreak, stating she died of cancer and he could not bring himself to put her down. After the war and his imprisonment, Negan finds Lucille in the same spot that Rick cut his throat years ago. He expresses remorse for killing Glenn and says that, after nearly losing his wife and unborn child, he finally understands what he did to her. Explaining the situation with his wife (and revealing that he used to be a high school gym teacher in the pre-apocalypse days), we then get to see Negan and Lucille struggling to survive in their hide-out in yet another flashback. Fast-forward to their apocalypse hide-out, Lucille says she’s forgiven Negan for the affair and now just wants him to stay with her.

Negan comes up with a plan to use the walker virus to their advantage by coating their weapons in walker flesh, including Lucille. In " Here's Negan," continuing tensions between Negan and Maggie provoke Carol into exiling him to a cabin in the woods. We still don’t know how Negan came across the bat, or whether he had to use it to kill his reanimated wife, nor do we know how he came to become the leader of the Saviors. Negan leads a convoy of Saviors to the Hilltop when his car is rammed by Rick, who pursues him into an abandoned building.

After Rick is hit with the arrow, Negan and Dwight retreat to the rest of The Savior horde, hoping to devise a plan of attack against the remaining survivors at Hilltop.

After a walker attack kills Lucy's companions, Negan invites Lucy to join him on a quest to properly lay his wife Lucille to rest. He gives in and circles where they are on a map, and the gang goes after them: Negan is later freed after his intel proves to be correct, leaving him consumed with guilt at selling the doctors out. John's rifle " Charlotte", Molly's ice pick " Hilda", Louis' chair leg " Chairles", and David's machete " Mandy". According to the fourth installment of “Here’s Negan”, the story is a bit more sad than many fans would have expected.

Shoe now firmly on the other foot, Negan tells the now-restrained gang leader that he’s “got some stuff to get off my chest” and “this time, you best hope I never stop talking – cos when I do, something bad is going to happen”. As he and his Saviors leave Alexandria, Negan reclaims Lucille from Rick stating that he wouldn't want to keep Lucille. He keeps Daryl locked in a cell and hopes to break his spirit and mold him into one of his Saviors, but Daryl refuses to submit.