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

An accident

Blake was lying down. That was all she knew...

Her mouth felt parched and her entire body felt sore and bruised...like she had gone ten rounds in a boxing ring.

It took her a long moment to realise why everything was still dark....slowly fluttering open her eyes.

She gave a hard, painful gulp and blinked a couple of times...staring up, as sunlight danced across the white ceiling above her.

Blake took in a deep breath, filling her lungs with well-deserved air, realising at once that she was in her room at the Sanctuary.

The window was obviously open, because a warm breeze seemed to dance across her face as she shifted beneath the white sheets that lay across her, turning her head to the side.

"Jesus fucking Christ, Doll-face," came a sudden lazy voice. "I thought you were never gonna wake up. I have been bored out of my fuckin' mind sittin' here waitin'. I mean there's only so many ways I can read about what face cream I should be usin' or how many time a day I should be drinking green fuckin' juice."

Blake gave a frown, her eyes travelling across the slouched form of a person she recognised very well.

Blake pulled her dry and parched lips apart, making to say something, but she just coughed...unable to speak.

Negan, who was sitting on a small, rickety chair, beside her bed, with his boots propped up on the mattress beside her, reading from a severely-outdated Women's Health magazine, gave a huge roll of his eyes.

"Jeez, sweetheart," he huffed in a voice of faux-resentment, a grin twitching onto his lips. "I mean, is it not good enough that I fucking save your life....but now you got me fuck' waitin' on you hand and foot too?"

With that, he placed down his magazine, grabbing a large ice-cold glass of water from his side, raising himself off the seat as he did so.

Blake pulled herself up into as much of a sitting positon as she could manage, allowing him to hand her the drink.

She was so desperately thirsty, but as she made to lift her right hand, she noticed it feel sore and was bandaged at the wrist. She looked at it in disbelief.

"You almost cracked your fucking skull open, as well as sprained a wrist and broke a couple of ribs while you were at it. Gave me fuckin heart attack too, when I saw you lying there, out of it," came Negan's low drawl, answering her question before she could ask it, as she raised her other hand, taking the water from his grasp and taking a grateful glug. "But hell, I've come off worse in bar-fights that that. And the Doc has said you're doin' ok."

The water slipped down Blake's throat, quenching her thirst within seconds. And it was a moment later that she placed down the glass once more on the night-stand beside her with trembling fingers.

Her head pounded thickly in her skull...and as she lifted her hand to it, she found it was bandaged roughly, her hair feeling almost matted with blood at the back.

She winced to herself....as she remembered what happened....

She had been going to take a shower...she'd had her towel and a change of clothes...

But two blue eyes suddenly shone bright through her memories....causing her stomach to jolt uncomfortably and her heart begin to pound.

"So...." uttered Negan in a cool voice, settling himself back into his seat and replacing his boots back onto the bed. "...before I get back into readin' seven ways to get beach-body ready this summer, you want to fuckin' tell me exactly what happened, Peaches?"