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C A R L

CARL GRIMES HAD NOT yet known what it was like to miss someone who was sitting right in front of him. This world was do-or-die and there was no time for petty disagreements or even the most tragic of betrayals to get in the way of what two people felt for each other.

But, in Alexandria, it seemed like he had all the time in the world to miss someone and not do anything about it. There was nothing to be done about it.

Despite what she wanted, Alice Dunlap needed to be rid of the boy. He felt guilty that the girl still cared for him even after all he'd put her through.

Carl Grimes had gone through a lot of hard things during his life, but not knowing how Alice was feeling about him, about Alexandria—all of it—was destroying him. There was so much he wanted to know and so much that he wanted to tell her about this place, but indulging in those selfish desires was not what she needed, right now. What she needed was to be safe, and as long as she was behind these walls, Carl couldn't find himself asking for much more.

Alice had finally gotten her cast taken off. The boy noticed that she'd often wiggle her fingers back and forth, not even realizing that she was doing it. It seemed like a new nervous habit that she'd picked up, upon the newfound freedom of her lower arm.

He watched as she concentrated on the textbook in her lap. The two were supposed to share the lone book, and Carl was silently waiting for his turn.

Carl figured that she could go first, as she would always finish their assignments exponentially faster than he did. Alice, overall, was much better at the whole school thing. It was just another one of the things that was so typical of her. Without anything to do trapped behind these walls, Alice had found a forced affinity with their schooling. Not to mention that she was naturally smarter than Carl.

The boy felt guilty for having gone outside the walls once before, knowing how captivity seemed to be treating Alice. He'd caught Enid making her escape and followed after her, to no avail. Carl wanted nothing more than to clue Alice in on the shenanigans, but was forced to keep yet another secret from the girl.

The focus on the girl's face as she tended to their homework led Carl to believe that she was actually making progress under his harsh stare, which the boy knew could never be true.

"D—Did you know that the eye is the fastest-healing part of the body?" Alice's eyes flicked to meet his.

Alice was finally speaking words to the boy. It was such a peculiar sight, and the familiar feeling of the girl waiting for a response had become foreign to him. "What?"

"Did you kn—"

"I heard you the first time." Carl stopped her and slightly shook his head. "Is that from one of the homework questions?"

"No," The girl began to squirm. "I just read it and thought it was interesting, that's all."

Carl had never seen the girl in such a state. Alice Dunlap was an honest girl. If she was feeling something, she was going to say it. He didn't know why she was acting so awkward.

It was almost as if domestication had taken the direness out of their conversation. There was no need to get something off of her chest if they were no longer exposed to death at every turn.

"Oh."

"Yeah," She started, once again. "Well, really, it's only the cornea. But I still th—"

"Alice," Carl furrowed his eyebrows. "What's going on?"

"Nothing," She rapidly shook her head. "It's just..."

The girl continued to hesitate, prompting Carl to impose more of his curiosity onto her. "Just what?"

"We don't have to be friends or anything, alright?" The girl admitted with a sigh. "It just doesn't have to be so quiet."

Carl could not fathom the words that had just come out of her mouth. Actually, he could. He'd replayed scenarios like this over and over in his head dozens of times, but he never thought he'd ever get in close enough quarters with the girl to have a conversation of such depth.

"You don't think we're friends?" He tried to stifle his surprise.

Alice averted her eyes, as if the sight of the repercussions of her words was too much to handle. "Can you really blame me?"

"Yes," Now it was Carl who began to squirm. "I can."

The girl let out a huff, seeming to be in disbelief of Carl's attention to the subject.

"Do you really feel like we aren't friends, anymore?" The boy persisted.

"I kind of tried to kill you." The girl hesitantly met his desperate gaze. "You know, back at that barn."

Carl remembered every detail of that rainy, warm night. That was the closest to Alice he'd been in so long, and probably ever will be again. That was also the closest he'd been to death in a very long time. The boy would never say it out loud, but he would not have blamed Alice had she pulled that trigger.

"I shouldn't have snuck up on you like that." He objected.

"It's not just that." Alice shook her head. "You know it's not just that. Ever s—"

"Ever since I ruined it," Carl admitted. "Our friendship."

Alice seemed to stop in her tracks. There was no circling around the subject anymore. Now, it was on display in such avoidable words.

"Ever since we got here." She started again. "It just h—hasn't been the same between us."

Carl Grimes was painfully aware of how things had been between them, upon their arrival to Alexandria. He exerted more energy not speaking to her than he would if he spent every waking moment having her within his sight.

"Do you want it to be the same?" Carl suggested.

He knew that it could never be the same. He also knew that he wanted it to be the same. Maybe, this one time, he'd be doing the right thing by respecting her wishes, and it would make it easier to avoid her, had it turned into a mutual agreement.

Alice inhaled. "Do you?"

Ever since their arrival to Alexandria, what Carl wanted was not of the most importance to him. Alice Dunlap, deep down, knew what he wanted.

"You didn't answer my question." He said.

She hesitated. "I'll answer yours if you answer mine."

Carl wanted nothing more than an answer from her. One simple word could be the difference between the end or resumption of a friendship. One simple word, in this world, could've made the difference between life and death.

"Alice, I—"

A knock on Carl's open bedroom door startled them. Both of their gazes flicked toward Glenn standing in the doorway.

The man smiled at the two, as they stared at him with slightly widened eyes. "Alice, we're leaving in five."

"Okay," Alice's eyes darted anywhere around the room, in order to avoid Carl's glare. "I'll see you in a few."

Carl had, so-far, managed to avoid the girl, much to her dismay. He could justify the pain he caused her as long as he was doing it for the greater good.

But, now that the girl was no longer going to be behind the safety of the walls, the boy was beginning to wonder if everything he'd worked so hard for had been in vain—if he'd unknowingly wasted his last few weeks having the privilege of existing in a world with Alice Dunlap in it.

☆

The remnants of a heavily-missed friendship were what kept Carl Grimes from completely boiling over after Alice was allowed to go on a dangerous run, earlier that day. The things she'd faced between the departure and entrance through the front gates were also what kept Carl from sleeping peacefully, that night.

The chance at reconciliation from the girl whose avoidance took every ounce of willpower from the boy was what sent him across the street, right up to Alice's door. And the question of her well-being was what raised his sleeved wrist in front of her door, letting his knuckle tap on the wood.

Carl was going to go visit Alice after her run, regardless of what happened. There were too many things left unsaid, and one-too-many things said—things that he could never take back.

But what always happened, happened. People died and the ones who lived wished they hadn't. Any anger that the boy held towards the girl never stood a chance. He could never find it in himself to stay mad at her.

After the two teens fumbled around their misguided words for a few minutes, Carl found it easier to sleep on Alice's uncomfortable floor than in his own bed. Knowing that he was between the girl and whatever could come through her door—for one night—had become Carl Grimes' equivalent of counting sheep.

While Alice's safety was what helped the boy fall asleep, the hard, stiff floor wasn't of much help in the boy staying that way. He began to toss and turn, shortly after the cusp of his deepest sleep.

Lacking the energy to fully awaken, the boy desperately tried to coax himself back under, in between repeatedly lifting his head to make sure that Alice was still asleep. And asleep she was, deeply.

The girl clung to her pillow, a lazy arm tossed over the sheets, nuzzling the side of her face into it as if her life depended on it. Her chest slowly rose and fell, in sync with her silent breaths of deeply-breathed air. Her parted lips and fluttering eyelashes captured Carl's attention, resolving his groggy worries of an interrupted slumber. If his rest was going to be cut short, he was glad that she was the one bearing the scissors.

The sun had not yet risen, leaving the rays from the moon cascading upward and onto her ceiling.

He sighed, wiping at his eyes with his fist, before allowing himself to roughly flop back down onto the pillow. In sync with the boy's head hitting the pillow, something else created a thump on the floor, just underneath Alice's bed.

Carl turned toward her bed, using his tired arm to move the bed skirt.

The item was in a bag that no longer concealed its identity as the boy took it in his fist, blinking his droopy eyes a few times. The weight of the item was of too much familiarity that it was no surprise when he overturned the bag and let it slip into his palm.

It was her gun, in all of its glory. The same one he'd gotten back for her, after Terminus. The same one she held to his throat, underneath the downpour outside of that barn.

Carl Grimes wasn't what was kept the girl soundly asleep, it was the weapon just underneath her fingertips as they dangled over the edge of the bed. His lack of knowledge of her schemes further proved how far apart they'd grown from one another. He'd been keeping his ventures outside the wall a secret from her, as well. The distance had, unknowingly, become mutual.

The boy didn't know how to feel. On one hand, he was impressed that she'd taken matters into her own hands. On the other, this action displayed her lack of commitment to this place. And he wanted nothing more than for Alexandria to be something that just finally worked.

Alice Dunlap had finally found a way to leave a sour taste in his mouth.

Carl rolled his eyes, letting out a huff. He slid the gun back into the pouch before reaching his arm underneath the bed skirt and fastening it back into its hiding spot.

The last thing that Carl needed was for Alice to think that he was going through her things.

Once he safely tucked the gun back into the bed frame, he let out a deep sigh, before looking back up at the girl. She was asleep so peacefully, as if she hadn't rested in months. The boy wondered what other secrets she'd been capable of keeping—what mischief stirred around behind her closed eyelids. Someone so delicate could become capable of so much more once hardened by the outside.

The boy immediately softened after just a few seconds of his distaste for her. He almost hated the way that he'd become so in tune with her every move.

At the end of the day, she was just a scared girl attempting to take back what was hers—grasping onto the control that she never had.

An emptiness traveled down along the boy's chest as he realized that this must've been how Alice felt about him. Rationalizing the secret-keeping between friends that had once been so honest to no one but each other. It seemed impossible for the two to ever truly stay away.

Carl stared up at the sleeping girl with furrowed eyebrows, thinking about what a shit-show they'd become. He began to realize that they were never anything more than said disaster.

Carl Grimes and Alice Dunlap were over before they even met each other.

Although there were only a few feet and a few harsh feelings separating the two, they were destined to be in two different worlds, living two different lives. She could never bond to someone who'd kept such a thing from her. He could never make it up to her.

The boy came to the conclusion that visiting Alice, that night, was a horrible idea.

He deeply sighed, letting his stare on the girl linger for a few more moments, before begrudgingly pulling himself up onto his feet. Within the darkness, he meandered about, being careful not to bump into her nightstand. The boy quietly placed one foot after the other as he slowly headed for the door.

"C—Carl?"

The boy's shoulders tensed before he turned around. "Yeah?"

Alice seemed to be mostly asleep, harnessing furrowed eyebrows and closed eyelids atop her face which she just barely removed from the flattened pillow. "Where are you going?"

Her cracking voice traveled through Carl's ears. It somewhat soothed the panic that caused him to stand up, in the first place. Although the thoughts still lingered heavily in the back of his mind, the flattery of her concern was almost euphoric to the boy with the bed-head.

For a moment, he felt like a monster for even thinking of leaving her alone—to wake up without the company she so-desperately needed that night. Deep down, the boy knew what needed to be done, but of all the responses cycling through his head, only one could manage to make its way to the surface.

"I was just looking for..." Carl began to shake his head as he trailed off. "Another blanket."

"Oh," She let her head of tangled hair sink back into her pillow. "They're in the closet—second shelf from the top."

Carl quietly let out a scoff of a laugh to himself. "Thanks."

He knew that Alice could no longer hear him—that she was no longer listening because the guarantee of his presence rocked her back to sleep.

And to Carl Grimes, this was a good feeling. This interaction was not nearly as loaded as the rest—at least not loaded with hard feelings. It bore the true desire harnessed between the both of them, only peaking through within minimal words.

Without taking her blanket advice, the boy advanced back toward his spot on the floor, feeling comforted against the hardness by nothing other than Alice's moment of honest nervousness.

☆

It was with a sharp jolt that Carl Grimes had finally lifted his head off of the pillow. For a split second, he didn't know where he was. His groggy eyes searched the room, before he could feel the hard floor underneath the palm of his hand. The aching in his back was a reminder of where he spent the night and who he spent it with.

After a few forced blinks, the boy caught sight of another blanket layered atop the one he was already covered in. His eyebrows furrowed as he continued to search around the room for the only other person who could've been responsible.

The sun had fully risen and Alice was no longer in her bed. The bedsheets were thrown open, leaving the wrinkles from where she'd slept to be exposed.

The sound of the faucet running continuously echoed from across the hall, and the boy finally tuned into it. Presumably, this was the noise that had broken the boy out of the comfort.

After staring blankly around the illuminated room for a few seconds, Carl finally brought himself to his feet, bringing his pillow with him. His steps dragged as he approached the girl's bed. After tossing the dented pillow back where it belonged, the boy quickly took fistfuls of her sheets in his hands, aiming for the bed to have been made by the time she got back.

The fabric that'd once had a place in Carl's hand, had quickly been dropped back into its sloppy place as the boy caught a glance of something more intriguing.

He let his legs urgently guide him toward Alice's second-story bedroom window, as he carefully peered through the glass. The distant figure was moving quickly as repeatedly they glanced over their own shoulder.

An unwilling smirk arose across Carl Grimes' face. He was granted an attempt a chasing her once before, which was of no purpose. Finally, he'd caught her in the act, quietly bouncing on his heel and fleeing down the stairs to follow after the human embodiment of a mystery:

Enid.

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2998 words
July 24th, 2024
11:55 PM

A/N

1. I am sick

2. Does anyone know how to download (pirate) music onto Apple Music?? I recently got back into my old faves and 2/3 of them are literally jail-worthy as of late so I need to stop giving them my streams

I was literally going to make a post about how Carl grimes' entire existence is boiled down to badlands by Halsey, crybaby by Melanie and the entire the NBHD discography, and that has since been VERY FOILED

3. hope you guys liked the chappy (I'm wet coughing like a toddler as I'm typing this)

☆ vote or I stfg I'll kill one of them off next chapter. I. mean. it. ☆