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

A bedtime story

Blake sat on the edge of the bathtub staring down the toddler who was currently splashing around in an inch or two of warm water, giggling and babbling to herself.

The caramel-blonde woman was absolutely enamoured. She knew that.

But Blake still knew that all this, it was only for tonight. Then tomorrow the Saviours would go out again and look for Mia's family.

For having a family...having children in this world.....well, it was a pipe dream...something she knew would never come true. Not for her...

Blake had miscarried twice.

Once, a long time ago, just a few months after she had met David....

Back then, it had been a stupid mistake, and the pregnancy hadn't lasted long. The doctor's had said it was just how things went sometimes. And that had been that. Just a blip on her life...but nothing that she wouldn't get through.

But her second time was about three years into her relationship...when many of her friends around her were falling pregnant themselves...having kids....having the perfect little families.

Blake had wanted that too...and it had happened by accident...surprising both her and David....

But she had been happy...excited...yearning for this kind of life...

But Blake had been just coming up to her second trimester when it had happened again..........blood......a panicked rush to the hospital...and then...

...nothing...

....just a feeling of hollow emptiness....

....of impossibility.

David, of course, had told her it was for the best. That they would never have been able to afford a kid anyway, not before he had gotten his art studio at least.

So they had never tried again....Blake knowing that it would probably never happen anyway....and David asking her to make sure she was taking her birth control pills properly.

But Blake had never forgotten what it had feel like to run a hand over her belly....to feel something growing inside her...something that was hers...that was special....

But she knew it was likely to never happen to her again. Not that she would ever risk trying anyway.

God knows what would happen if you miscarried in the world in the state it was...and Blake just gave a hard gulp, trying not to dwell on it, as her fingers now trailed through the clear water on the bottom of the tub.

She shook herself. She needed to stop this. Dwelling on a story that had long since passed her by.

She had more important things to think about now.

Things that were here, sitting beside her.

Blake peered down at Mia giving a small smile, and lifting her hand, stroking back her tiny tuft of mousy-hair.

She was the sweetest thing, peering up at Blake, her mouth fixed into a tiny O-shape.

But before either of them could say another thing, there was a sudden creak from across the room and a tall, dark figure appeared in the doorway.

Blake smiled as she looked at him, in that dusty old leather jacket of his, sloping into the room, Lucille now oddly absent from his hand. But instead he carried a small plastic cup and placed it down onto the counter beside the bathroom sink.

"Warm milk," Negan said, throwing Blake a look in return. "Seein' as I'm practically your fuckin' errand boy these days."

Blake poked her tongue out between her teeth, before biting her lip.