"What the fuck is it now, Buttercup?" Negan sighed.
                          
But at his words, Mia gave a pout, raising her chin and staring at him directly in the eyes, just like Blake did.
                          
"Eggy hav to howld mai hand," she said in a bossy little voice, suddenly stretching her tiny paw up towards him.
                          
That had been the hand that just a second ago had been clutching a soggy piece of toast which she had dropped somewhere within the gloomy Sanctuary corridor. She had course then proceeded to whine almost non stop about how she had lost it, until Negan had given a tired huff, reassuring he'd get her another piece later just to shut her the hell up.
                          
"Jesus, Darlin'," Negan uttered in frustration, running a hand down his long bearded face.
                          
But Mia gave another little scowling pout at his tone of sheer uncooperation.
                          
"Eggy hav to howld mai hand," she scolded. "Bwakey say."
                          
Negan suddenly shifted his jaw from side-to-side, knowing he would not have a leg to stand on if Peaches ever found out he had defied her wishes when it came to the kid.
                          
And so, grimacing and giving a loud, carrying huff, Negan marched back over to Mia, his gloved hand curling quickly around the toddler's sticky one.
                          
At once Mia looked happy, as Negan clicked his tongue in irritation.
                          
Jeez, here he was, the leader of this fucking place, being given orders by a damn kid!
                          
But he knew that despite his annoyance, all this was for Blake. He would have done anything for her, and in turn, the kid too...
                          
...his mind almost immediately drifting to the caramel-blonde woman, hoping that she had listened to him and gone to see the doc as promised.
                          
Hell, there was a lot of things that could be wrong with someone in this world. So all Negan could hope was that Carson could figure out what was causing these episodes she was having. Hell, he had seen for himself the way her eyes had drifted out of focus, the way her breathing had become shallow, the way all of the colour had drained from her face.
                          
She had been struggling, and surely it wasn't just the impact of Mia in her life that was causing all that?
                          
The tall, dark-haired man let out another huff now as he began to walk slowly with the little girl waddling along beside him, her tiny fingers clutching onto his gloved ones tightly.
                          
It looked like a busy morning in the lot, with a few dirty-clothed workers wrangling the dead behind the fence, and a nearby truck that had obviously just come back from one of the nearby sites laden with supplies, being unloaded by several of the burly lieutenants.
                          
Negan liked his regime running on time and in good shape....with everyone knowing their place and pulling their weight. And this example proved to be no exception to that.
                          
"Who dey?" asked Mia as they walked past the neary fence, with her peering around Negan's knees curiously to get a better look at the dead rotters chained and welded to the iron and chain-link railings.
                          
Negan tutted.
                          
"Well," he said in a calculated voice, lifting the hand that was holding Lucille and scratching at his stubbly cheek with his finger, picking his words carefully. "Those sorry fucks are bad fuckin' men...well, they used to be at least."
                          
Mia, her little mouth forming into a perfect o-shape peered up at the nearest one who was snarling and snapping its filthy jaws in her direction.
                          
"They scawy," she said in a very quiet voice, causing Negan to follow her line of sight.
                          
Hell, he realy did fucking feel for the kid....growing up in this damn world and not knowing anything different.
                          
But Negan gave her tiny paw the smallest of squeezes, causing her to look at him, her eyes big and round.
                          
"You don' worry about those fuckers, we clear?" he said leaning back on his legs and offering her a reassuring smirk. "You see all my men out here?"
                          
He gestured to the lot full of lieutenants and workers with the spiky end of Lucille.
                          
"Well they're here to protect you, you understand that, beansprout? Me an' Peaches too," he said in low voice, warmer than it normally sounded, as Mia stared up at him. "And....Lucille here also knows a thing or two about keepin' people safe."
                          
He held up his barbed wire covered baseball bat, the metal wire glinting in the morning sunlight.
                          
"So if you ever run into any trouble," he said nodding his head and grinning. "She'll come runnin'. You understand?"
                          
Mia gave a nod, although Negan wasn't quite sure if she did understand.
                          
But nevertheless the kid seemed satisfied, her attention moving onto the next thing all too quickly.
                          
She bobbed along on chubby little legs pulling him with after her, before stopping and pointing with great interest at a large black, familiar object, on the floor just over to their left.
                          
"Wha tha?" she asked excitedly. Forgetting completely about the snarling and frightening walkers over to her right....
                          
....as Negan gave a heavy sigh and a hard roll of his eyes.
                          
"That's a fuckin' tire," he replied, once more.