I think I liked you better when you didn't have a knife in your hand, Peaches

A cold, rainy night

Negan and Blake drove along the back roads....alone and silent, as the rain softened a little...the sky growing ever darker, as the night began to draw in.

The had been driving for at least forty minutes...seemingly going nowhere...both of them still obviously seething a little from their argument, just a little while ago.

Blake was sat on the far passengers seat, the furthest she could get from Negan, staring out of the window beside her, at nothing but the overcast woods that lined the road.

She felt sad...

Broken and hurt.

She knew all the stuff that Negan had said was true, and that he had only done all that because he was trying to help her. But that still didn't stop it hurting.

But Blake's tears had long dried now....feeling herself calming a little.

Although she was soaked trough to the skin still....the rain having drenched her from top to bottom....as it had done Negan.

She chanced a glance over at the bearded Saviour....as silent as ever.

In fact this was the longest they had gone without sniping at one another. Which Blake would have normally taken as a victory. But not now.

She turned back to the window, but as she did so, she felt the truck slowing...

Blake gazed up, watching as the vehicle ground to halt in the middle of the large dark road, that stretched out far ahead of them.

The pitter-patter of tiny droplets of rain on the windshield being the only sound they could hear.

Negan turned off the engine, and in-turn, the heaters that had been warming Blake's cold wet form up, even just a little.

But it was a long moment or two before he finally uttered anything, leaning back in his seat.

"I hope you realise," uttered the dark-haired Saviour giving a small, silent sigh. "...that you are the only person I let talk to me like you just did back there, Peaches."

That name...that name he used on her all the time.

The name that told her everything was ok.

She had abandoned the knife back at the outside of the store...not bothering to pick it up. For she didn't want to use it again. Not on Negan. Not now....after everything.

But Blake remained silent, her eyes falling down into her lap. She couldn't look at him right now.

Negan gave another sudden, more audible, sigh, running his hand down his stubbly face.

"Look, I know I acted like an asshole," he said, placing his tongue to his back upper molars tiredly. "But in the fuckin' stupidest way possible, I was only tryin' to make you see that you are more than just ol' Davey boy's fuckin fi-an-cée."

Leaning up against the driver's window beside him with his elbow, Negan turned to face her. His gaze serious.

"Look, I know I'm not innocent. An' hell I've done some things I ain't proud of, to get where I am today-"

At this, Blake scoffed, leaning against her own passenger door, mirroring his stance and staring over at him , raising her eyebrow in an unimpressed fashion.

But Negan ignored her, continuing.

"-an if he's what you want...what you really want...then I ain't gonna argue," he said in a growling voice. "But I swear to god. If he, or anyone else, lays another fuckin' finger on you, then there will be hell to pay. We clear on that princess?"