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

Homecoming

It was dark by the time the trucks finally pulled up into the illuminated Sanctuary lots, just over an hour and a half later.

Negan, slumped against the passenger side window, not having said a word to anyone since Alexandria, gave a hard gulp as he dragged a gloved hand down his tired and lined face.

He had been lost back there, for a moment.

So sucked into the idea of revenge...

Of payback.

His walls had come up again and every little bit of anger and rage he had been holding inside since the loss of Lucille had come flooding out of him.

He hadn't always been hard. Once upon a time he had fallen in love, gotten married, done all that soppy shit. But years of bitterness, of not getting promotions, or having to watch Pete next-door get that new company car, while Negan was stuck with his beaten up old pickup, well, all that had gotten to him.

And then after years of hoping and talking about having kids....being told by the doctors that, for him and Lucille, that would never happen...that bitterness had become something more. And Negan had taken advantage of his wonderful wife's good nature, screwed around on her, stayed out late drinking, becoming an all-round asshole.

He had been far from the ideal husband. Not knowing how good he had it until everything around him crumbled.

It was then, after the loss of his wife, that Negan had put up walls, looked out for no one but himself under the pretence of 'saving people'.

That had been until Blake had showed up in his life, breaking down every barrier he had built up around himself.

She had been hurt and bruised and broken, and had survived it all. And for a moment he had seen a strength and compassion in her that he had once seen in Lucille.

It was hard to compare the two women now, but Negan knew that it was likely that if the pair of them had ever met, they would get on like a damn house on fire.

Blake was his everything these days. And Negan clung to the idea of her, even when she wasn't around him. Her warmth, her love. Something Negan hadn't experienced for a long, long time.

She had given him his heart back.

Found him, when he had been so, so lost....

...just as she had just a few hours ago...over that radio.

She had brought him back. Saved him from the blood and brutality.

Even if only for a moment.

The truck he was riding in, driven by a silent Dwight, pulled slowly to a halt, and Negan now heard the blonde man at his side switch off the engine and pause, as he waited obediently for his next orders.

But Negan wasn't in the mood to give any.

For it was likely they all could see the emotions he had gone through today, the fear, the anger, the rage...

Did they understand? Negan certainly hoped so.

"You did good today, Dwight," Negan murmured grasping up Lucille from the seat next to him with a stiff sigh. "Make sure you an' the boys take the night off, hell, you've earned it."

Dwight at once gave a grateful nod in reply, as Negan shoved open the truck door, hopping out, his boots landing on the dusty asphalt below.

He felt tired, his throat feeling hoarse as he swung Lucille up onto his shoulder, taking a few long-legged strides towards the wide metal doors that led into the cool interior of the dimly lit factory.