┌───────────────────┐

└───────────────────┘

A L I C E

ALICE DUNLAP DIDN'T KNOW what was going to come of all of this. She still didn't even know how she survived what happened at the prison. All she knew was that she'd stumbled across a woman who led her straight to knocking on the door that stood between herself and her only chance of ever getting those answers.

It was clear to Alice and Michonne that Rick and Carl shared the same, if not worse, luck navigating life having nothing but the clothes on their back. Rick seemed pretty badly beaten, forcing himself into an early recovery as there was no time for healing after what'd just happened to his home. Alice knew only that much—that the Governor was what happened to the prison. Michonne offered the girl more details but they weren't needed nor digestible enough for the girl's softened core.

Once the two reunited with Rick and Carl, however, the ugly details surfaced as Alice unwillingly pieced together that Judith was not with the two remaining members of her family. Everyone in that house knew that something was missing, but nobody dared to speak of it. Ignorance was the easiest way of moving on—if they even could.

Alice was more than familiar with the avoidance of grief. It became her means of survival. The girl, so far, had only let herself grieve when it was absolutely unavoidable. And even then was she still a bit aloof to the custom.

She'd seen what happened to Elliot with her own two eyes, only getting to mourn for a few hours before succumbing to his same sickness. And the disheveled scene she woke up to didn't allow the girl much time to dwell on anything other than her own panicked confusion. But now that Alice knew what happened to the prison and was sitting across the table from a sister-less Carl Grimes, the feelings surrounding her brother's death were finally beginning to creep back in.

The girl's eyes snapped away from her bowl of dry cereal as she could no longer tune out Carl and Michonne's banter when the woman sat down at the table. "I wish we had some soy milk."

"Seirously?" The boy's face turned into nothing short of a scowl at Michonne's simple suggestion.

"Yes, seriously." Michonne said through a wide smile, not letting Carl's grimace keep her from speaking her mind. "Have you ever tried it?"

"My best friend, in third grade, he was allergic to dairy," Carl began entertaining Michonne's antics, as per usual. Alice noticed herself becoming more engrossed within the silly subject, as a shy smile lifted at the corners of her lips. "And everyday he would bring this soy stuff to lunch. I tried it—"

"And?" Michonne challenged.

"I threw up!" Carl raised his eyebrows.

Alice quickly followed Michonne's lead as the woman laughed at the boy. "Yeah, right."

"Alright, alright." Carl admitted. "I almost threw up. But I was like—" The boy lurched forward, mimicking the sound of a gag, which only further entertained Alice, cleansing her mind of everything that should've been running through it.

"It was so gross. I mean—literally—I would rather have powdered milk than have to drink that stuff again." Carl exaggerated. "I would rather have Judith's formul—"

And just like that, the room fell silent. The three could no longer hold onto the smiles that they had no business wearing in the first place.

The boy began shuffling around, quickly lifting himself from his seat and abandoning his half-eaten bowl of dry cereal flakes. "I'm going to go finish my book."

After a few moments of recovering from the harsh emotional blow that the two had just endured, Michonne and Alice finally glanced at each other from across the table. It was as if the two were silently asking the other which one of them should be the one to handle this.

It was clear who was better suited for the situation. Only one person at that table knew what it felt like to lose a sibling. Coincidentally, it was also the same person who had been long overdue for a conversation with the boy, ever since the minute she walked through the front door.

Alice released her spoon out of her flimsy grip, letting it sink into her bowl. "I wasn't hungry, anyways."

☆

It didn't take Alice Dunlap very long to find where the boy had hidden himself. Although she had never seen the second floor of the house, she was quite familiar with what a ransacked, cleared house should look like.

Usually every door was to be left wide open, eliminating the possibility that there was a threat waiting behind it. But one door in particular was closed, creating a stillness about it and causing the girl to suck in a breath as she simultaneously knocked on it and cracked it open.

Upon entering the room, she first noticed several video games scattered across the floor, wondering whether or not Carl had done that in a fit of rage. Surely someone else in the house would've heard it. Her eyebrows furrowed as she pulled her knife from its thigh holster, realizing that the boy was nowhere to be seen.

Alice crept around a corner, quietly pressing her back to the wall before peeking into a closed-off area containing the bed. A brief squint allowed her to spot the tip of a boot that'd obviously been attached to someone's foot. Succumbing to her suspicions, her posture loosened as she slowly rounded the corner and approached the bed, letting her free hand trail along the wall.

There Carl was, sitting with his back pressed against the wall—only a thin pillow separating the two. He was reading a well-worn comic that was crinkled at every edge.

Alice knew that he could see her, though the boy didn't bother to remove his eyes from the page. She tilted her head and holstered her knife. "Can I sit?"

Carl didn't answer her. His silence was accompanied by a heavy face, leaving the girl to feel iced out in a completely different way than she was used to from Carl. She sat down anyway, folding her achy arms around her knees. She sat close to the edge of the bed, her body running parallel to Carl's, as she faced him.

The boy turned the page, with a simple flick, his eyes seamlessly switching sides as he began to look at the back of the next page. "Why are you here?"

Alice fended off any nervousness within herself, offering the boy a shrug. "Do you want me to leave?"

"You didn't answer my question." Carl's tone remained unbothered as he continued to stare at his comic.

"I'll answer yours if you answer mine." The girl mirrored his stubbornness.

Carl let out a sigh, finally removing his eyes from the page and meeting Alice's gaze. They were glassy and red, in recovery from any expressed emotion that the boy intended to keep behind that closed door.

"No." He admitted.

Although, deep down, Alice knew the answer to that question, she never expected the boy to be so honest about it. His one word came as a comfort to the girl, whose face remained blank until she realized that it was time to hold up her end of the bargain.

"I'm here because I get it." Her face softened as she offered the boy whatever she could of a smile. She continued to circumscribe the subject, because Carl knew exactly what—who she was talking about. "And getting it really sucks."

"Yeah," The boy let out a huff of breath as he closed his comic, now offering his undivided attention to the girl. "It does."

Alice felt somewhat of a spotlight on her as Carl finally added his presence to the conversation. Normally, the girl would've fumbled her words and not known what to say. But, unfortunately, she'd had enough practice with loss to know what someone in his position would want to hear.

"At least we know, right?" Her lips twitched with a saddened smile. "That they won't have to live like this—like us. All of this pain and suffering—it's over for them."

Carl swallowed a lump in his throat before hiding his gaze from the girl underneath the rim of his hat. The two sat in a heavy silence for more than a few moments before Alice thought it best to leave the boy alone with his feelings.

She shifted around a bit, gently bumping into Carl's leg as she struggled to stand from the tight space. But before she could stand from the bed, something stopped her. "What about when we don't know?"

Alice turned back around to face Carl, as he was now looking up at her. She slowly settled back into her spot, not quite minding that her leg was touching his, this time. "What do you mean?"

"Your dad," He started. The boy briefly looked like he was regretful of the words coming out of his mouth, but continued to speak after examining Alice's complacent face. "You don't know where he is. How do you move on from that?"

The boy seemed to hit the bullseye with his words, asking the one question that'd constantly rattled Alice's mind. She'd never really let her self be vulnerable with anyone in any sense, but it was like the boy had just taken a hammer and chisel to the walls she'd built for herself.

Alice's mouth opened with the intent to speak—to lie—but nothing came out for a few moments. She shrugged.

"With my mom, it was just over." Carl hesitated, slightly shaking his head. "But I had to keep going. I did keep going. I don't know if I could've done that if—if I didn't know."

The girl then remembered what Elliot once told her about Carl's mother. It was the one feature of his past that began changing her perspective on the boy. And now, she once again found it shifting her perspective on Carl, as the boy never dared to speak to her about what happened to his mother, before.

"I guess, to keep going, I tried to turn the not knowing into a good thing." Alice shrugged as her innermost thoughts made their way to the surface. "Like if I didn't see it, then nothing bad really happened, you know?"

Alice didn't know what kind of response she expected from Carl, but it most certainly wasn't his despair-filled blank stare that was laced with pity.

"Nevermind—it's stupid, really." The girl retreated. "I know that my whole family is dead. And even if they aren't, there's no chance that I'll ever see them again."

"But you'll never know for sure." Carl said.

Alice couldn't tell whether or not he was making a statement or asking a question. Although it felt like nothing short of a surrender, the girl nodded.

"Would you want to know?" He asked. "If you could?"

"I've never really thought about it." Alice shrugged. "It's not like I'll ever have that opportunity, anyways."

"But hypothetically," Carl leaned forward, pulling his knees inward and resting his folded arms on top of them. The boy seemed tense at every angle. "Would you want to know? If you somehow could?"

Feeling put on the spot was an understatement to how Alice felt, in that moment. For the most part, she'd never even considered the possibility of seeing her father again. But a smaller part of her—a part that fed off of her like a parasite—burned with a curiousness about his whereabouts. This smaller part held some sort of hope-filled denial of the ugly truth that Alice had become too familiar with.

The larger part of herself—the part that assumed that her father was dead just for the sake of moving on—was how she was still alive. She would've never went with the governor if she felt that there was even a small possibility that she'd ever see her father again. Alice and Elliot never would have stopped looking if she was being led by her inner minority.

Alice Dunlap was torn.

Here she was talking about how knowing was the silver lining when it came to death. Knowing came with a lifetime's—however long a lifetime even was—worth of grief, but it also came with no longer having to worry. It came with the relief of a loved one no longer being condemned to a life lived on what was left of the earth.

The truth was that Alice Dunlap did want to know, but only if it was by reunion with the man—if the outcome was happy. But happiness was not something that was handed out freely in the aftermath of the world. The girl, deep down, knew the truth. Although she didn't know how, she knew what happened to her father.

And Alice Dunlap, after having just lost her brother and her home, would rather be curious than informed.

"No." Her voice cracked. The girl folded in her lips, shaking her head. Although truthful, her answer flooded out with an innocent grace, knowing that the circumstance would never be anything other than hypothetical. "I don't think I could handle it."

"Well I'm here," Carl slowly blinked as he stared into her eyes. He reached his arm out, placing a hand atop her bent knee. "Even though I don't get it."

The girl laughed a bit at his comforting joke as she rapidly tried to blink away her building tears. She shook her head. "It's not like this is anything new. You don't need t—"

"I want to." He insisted, lowering his head to meet her dropping gaze.

Her laughter quickly subsided as she came to realize the sincerity in his eye contact. "Why?"

After a few moments of silence, Carl seemed to recoil in on himself. He removed his hand from Alice's knee, returning his forearm underneath the other, atop his knees. The boy shrugged. "The same reason you're here, right now."

Though Alice Dunlap didn't know what his words meant, she knew what he was saying. She knew that because she felt it too—whatever Carl was talking about. She instantly understood because she, too, would never be able to convey such new, confusing feelings.

It almost seemed absurd how the two had gone from absolutely dreading talking to one another to communicating despite emotional circumstances and a lack of words. What was even more strange was that the girl had thought that her dream made the boy something he wasn't—that it had built him up in her mind. She'd never expected to endure the hollow feeling in her gut as she watched Carl Grimes transcend even her most catered dreams, right in front of her very own eyes.

The two stared at each other, knowing exactly what the other was feeling yet having no idea what thoughts were actually going through their head. For the sake of their childish nervousness, it was probably for the best.

It was now that Alice remembered that her leg was slightly touching Carl's, and the feeling didn't seem to be something that either of them really minded. The effortless contact brought a comfort to both of the touch-starved teens.

"Knock, Knock."

Two words replaced every bit of comforting warmth that Alice felt, with an immediate panic, as the two immediately began shuffling away from one another. Although they weren't doing anything wrong, they both let out sighs of relief as they made their way off of the bed and out into the room, before Michonne could spot them.

"I'm going to see what I can find in the other houses." The woman started, motioning between them with her pointer finger. "I thought maybe you two would want in."

Michonne glanced over at Alice, as if to ask how it went with Carl. Normally the girl would've offered some sort of non-verbal answer, but not even she knew what just happened.

After a few moments of Michonne's offer dangling in the air, and the two exchanging awkward eye contact, Carl cleared his throat, with a shrug. "I could use some fresh air."

───── ⋆✩⋆ ─────
2714 words
April 12, 2023
12:01 AM

A/N

first things first: THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH FOR 10K AAHHH (well now 11k bc this update is late but whatever) THAT's INSANE BC THIS BOOK LITERALLY HAS LIKE NO PARTS ??

this is like the most dialogue they've ever had. I felt like they needed a REAL conversation where they share and bond before absolute mayhem (hehe)

also he... like... almost told her about her dad and she had no idea that it was NOT hypothetical LOLOL

and this wasn't necessarily like a romantic realization where they fell in love.. they don't know what it was and I DONT EVEN KNOW WHAT IT WAS xoxo I feel like me not knowing really came through in my writing but it's safe to say that they actually gaf about each other now and have a personal bond

sorry for this update being a week late but I was busy with a bunch of exams and the holiday and family and all of that jazz. but I'm back and I have a week off of school so I've been making so many edits that I can't post until I release the next few chapters (seriously I have like a dozen)

also do you guys remember that girl that I said was copying me a few author's notes back... I caught her lacking bc she unblocked me to stalk me and CAME UP ON MY FYP LMFAO but I was messaging my mutual so I didn't see it and she blocked me before I could block her first. but then it happened AGAIN and I blocked HER this time so hopefully she leaves me alone bc now I have three of her accounts BLOCKED.

anyways I literally love you guys and I expedited this chapter so that it was only a week late!! I've been working so hard and I JUST WANT TO MAKE MY LITTLE HONEY BUNS (you) PROUD OKAY?!?

WARNING: NEXT CHAPTER CONTAINS THE ATTEMPTED SA SCENE FROM 4X16 !! IT ENDS AT THE FIRST ☆

☆vote bc chaos will ensue in the next chap ☆