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

Bartering for Tampons

Days often seemed to pass by slowly at the Sanctuary.

Sometimes it felt to Blake that time did not quite exists here, in this space outside the realms of a normal existence. Like this was a different universe, prone to making minutes feel like lifetimes. And hours feeling like an eternity.

Negan had only been gone just a little under a day. But the looming factory building seemed to feel a lot different without the dark-haired leader here.

Not that Blake missed him or anything...

...of course not.

It wasn't as though she had spent the entirety of this morning glancing over at the fenced gates that led into the Sanctuary or anything...

...not at all.

After all that had happened between them over this past week or so, it felt good to be back on fairly good terms with Negan.

The air felt clearer between them now...and perhaps Blake had been right with what she had said, perhaps the two of them were just never meant to work out...

Blake couldn't have that happy life. It just was never meant to be for her. She wouldn't have kids, she wouldn't have Mia...and now she had come to terms with the fact that maybe she wouldn't have Negan either...but that was ok.

That decision was probably best for both of them.

This way, Negan could be with his wives, and Blake, well, Blake could just be here...living....

...for in this world...that should have been a good enough reason for survival as anything else.

Although all this reasoning with herself, all this telling herself that this was the right thing to do, did not stop her heart aching for him, even now.

It was early afternoon, and after spending a long morning in the garden outside in the hot-morning sun, Blake had come inside and taken a long cooling shower, washing herself perfectly clean...feeling more like herself again that she had in days.

Blake had never in her life done any sort of gardening, sticking to office work all of her adult-life and living in a city with barely any green space.

She had always been much more of a lipstick and high-heels kind of girl, rather than an outdoorsy type.

So it had been a surprise, even to herself, that she had taken so well to working in this garden of hers.

One of the older guys, Frank, who helped out down there too, had even called her a natural, but Blake felt like she was still far from that at this time.

But there was something about this work that she certainly enjoyed....but often did not want to dwell upon.

For gardening was about growing something...urging something from the ground up and attempting to make it as perfect as she possibly could...which was really what Blake had always wanted to do...if she had been able to have a family to do so.

But with two miscarriages, it would never happen for her. And so, this, growing, plants and crops and vegetables...this was the closest she would get to creating something good in this world. Something that she could be proud of.

Blake was, at this current moment, stood in her room up on the second floor, as the sun shone in through her large window, in just a white fluffy towel, her slightly damp caramel-hair clinging to her shoulders.

Plucking a matching pair of clean white underwear from her drawer, she paced over to her bed before removing her towel and shucking the lace panties and bra over her smooth curves.