'The Walking Dead' is set to go through some big changes following season 8, with a new showrunner in the form of Angela Kang stepping in to work on season 9, and Scott Gimple moving to a more senior role. Following recent reports that revealed actress Lauren Cohan hadn't yet signed on for more episodes of the series following the season 8 finale, fans began to discuss whether Maggie Greene would be killed off in the back-end of the current batch of episodes.

Lauren Cohan will likely return for 'The Walking Dead' season 9Lauren Cohan will likely return for 'The Walking Dead' season 9

Cohan has been a huge part of 'The Walking Dead' since her debut in season 2, eventually forming a relationship with the now-deceased Glenn Rhee (Steven Yeun) and falling pregnant with their child. To this day, Maggie is carrying the baby whilst leading The Hilltop and doing her all to protect not only herself, but those she's now responsible for.

Seeing Maggie claim such power has been a brilliant evolution of the widowed character, so to see her killed off at this point would not just be disappointing, but harmful to the overall narrative being told. Fortunately, it now looks like this won't be the case.

TV Line claims that Lauren hasn't expressed any desire to leave 'The Walking Dead', despite reports that she was going to meetings for pilot episodes of potential new shows. They go on to cite multiple sources as claiming the actress is now in active negotiations to extend her contract for season 9 and further into the future, but with production on that season not set to start for another few months, the talk could go on for some weeks before anything is set in stone.

At this point, with Carl Grimes (Chandler Riggs) bitten on the abdomen by a zombie and presumably headed out the door, it would be a real shame and blow to the series to see another leading character cut out of the story in quick succession. It's something we've seen before in the series, but losing Carl AND Maggie would probably be the biggest punch to the gut for viewers so far. Let's hope it doesn't get to that point.

More: Robert Kirkman Defends Decision To Kill Off Carl In 'The Walking Dead'

'The Walking Dead' returns to AMC in the US on February 25, and to FOX in the UK on February 26.