Archive of Our Own ^beta

1.

Everyone knew the farmhouse existed but they were too scared to live alone and so far away from any of the communities so, it went untouched for years. It was a basic abandoned one with white paneling, the paint chipping off of it, and a shingled roof that was slowly falling apart. A small porch in the front with wooden floors and railings, some areas started to rot. Whoever had found it put down the Walkers in the house and got rid of their body, leaving the home truly empty.

Now, years later, after they’d defeated the Commonwealth and went to live back in Alexandria, Carl had decided to make use of it since no one else wanted to. With the help of some Hilltop residents and the new resources they got from the Commonwealth, they’d gathered up materials to rebuild the house, replaced the bad wood and painted some of the paneling, fixing up the inside as well. After a couple of months, scavenging for furniture and decorations, it was livable. 

The farmhouse was filled with little knick-knacks and old furniture, something you would usually find in your grandparents house. Floral patterned curtains and old green and beige wallpaper covered every room. Hand knitted quilts from people in different communities and some from Judith adorned every bed and couch, dried plants like flowers and leaves hung from the wall openings, separating one room to the next. They had a plethora of teacups and mugs, taking up space on an entire shelf in their kitchen. Pictures were hung up on the walls too. Now that they had the technology of the Commonwealth they were able to take photos, family ones, candid ones of friends, anything they wanted could be framed and hung just like before.

The farmhouse was settled in an open field overlooking endless land, faint trees could be seen surrounding it. Birds flew around the area sometimes pecking at the ground for worms, but that was as many life forms they got around. A barn was located behind the house - where it would be considered the backyard - and pens for different animals like sheep and cow were stationed all around the home. They mainly used them for their horses.

Hilltop was one of the closest communities but even then it was still far enough. It was peaceful, something Carl hadn’t felt in years.

Carl was sitting on one of the rocking chairs they brought over from Alexandria. It was the old one he used to sit on with Judith when she was a baby at their own house but, when his dad had died and they had no porch to put the chair on in their new house, they simply kept it in a storage house and didn’t touch it again until now. He was glad to have it back as he looked at the sunrise on the horizon. It blinded him a little, he didn’t mind it.

Carl heard the door open beside him and he looked to see Lydia, her hair still messy with bed hair and wearing a cardigan, holding two steaming mugs. She handed one to him as she took a seat beside him on the other rocking chair. He thanked her and took a sip. Chamomile tea, his favourite.

“Jude and RJ not awake yet?” He asked, looking back to the sun.

“You really think those two would be awake at this time?” She chuckled.

“Jude used to be awake all night, calling it her ‘prime hours’. That phase was a nightmare.”

“Well, good thing she sleeps now.”

“Yeah, you’re definitely right.”

The two watched the sunrise as they listened to birds chirping from different directions and the faint sound of the breeze blowing through the distant trees, taking sips from their teas.

“You didn’t wake me up.” Lydia spoke up. Carl looked at her.

“Clearly I didn’t need to.”

“You know I don’t care right? We all get them.” Lydia took a sip of her tea.

“I know.” Carl mumbled.

“Was it about Jude again?”

Carl nodded.

Even if it had been years Carl still had nightmares about Judith getting shot. He was always scared that he actually did lose her and he was just hallucinating her like his dad had when they lost mom. The only good thing was that everyone else could see her and talk to her too. She was fine, she was getting older. They just celebrated her fifteenth birthday last week.

“I already went to check on her.” Carl feels old. He’s felt old for years now.

“So she’s okay.” Lydia patted his arm that was resting on the arm of the chair. Carl is quiet, turning the mug in his hands. “What else?” Lydia had known him long enough to know his ins and outs. They both do with each other, it’s impossible to keep a secret.

“Thinkin’ about dad too.” Carl mumbles. Lydia looks at him in silence, a sign to keep going. “Scared that when we get back home he’ll be gone again…mom too.”

Lydia nodded. “We have the radio, you can call him later to make sure. Your mom too.”

Carl was still fiddling with his mug. He could see his reflection in the tea. It was faint but it was there, he could see himself enough to see his scar. He never wore his bandages anymore, unless he was having a really bad day and he couldn’t stand the sight of it. It rarely happened but it still happened. Maybe today will be a day he covers himself up. He’s not sure yet.

Carl changes the subject. “Any plans for today?”

Lydia sees past it, past his small smile and calm demeanour but she knows that if she were to push too much Carl would shut himself off. He knows that she knows and uses it to his advantage.

“After we call home I was thinking of going hunting? Could be fun. It’s nice today.”

Carl looks out to the field and the trees. The sun is higher now, no longer emitting an orange glow. It was almost blinding white. He should start breakfast.

“Yeah,” Carl replies, “that’d be nice.”

With that Lydia gets up from her chair, taking his empty mug out of his hands and places a kiss on top of his head.

“You stay here, I’ll go start breakfast.”

Carl is grateful.

2.

Lydia can feel it the minute he leaves. His warmth is gone and so is his weight. She’s a light sleeper, has been her entire life when she’s had to live and sleep outside and had to keep an eye out for Walkers even in her sleep. It was a hard habit to kick.

She opens her eyes to check the time. Four in the morning. Lydia doesn’t groan or complain though, she would never. Instead she turns around to see Carl huddled into a ball in the corner of their room. In the low light of the moon she can see that he’s shaking., his body almost convulsing while he shakes his head. She can hear him mumbling something but it’s so low that she doesn’t understand any of it.

“Carl?” Lydia whispers. Carl doesn’t lift his head up, he just backs up even more into the wall if it were even possible. It was like he was ready for it to swallow him whole. Lydia got closer, making sure that he could see every part of her: her hands, her legs, anywhere where she could hide something like a weapon. She’s not, obviously, but Carl doesn’t know that right now and she needs him to calm down. “Carl, c’mon it’s just me just look at me.”

Carl is still shaking his head and, now that Lydia is closer and can hear him, is muttering ‘no, no, no,’ and ‘don’t please, stop ,’ over and over again.

Lydia tries to think of something, anything, to get him out of whatever he was going through when she remembers his headphones and his cassette player. It calms him, she knows that, so she rummages through his things, then her things then their drawers until she finally finds them in his nightstand and popping in whatever cassette she could find before Lydai nudges his hands off of his head and puts them on, turning the volume up so that he can concentrate on the music instead of whatever he was panicking about.

It takes Carl a couple of seconds before he seems to calm down, his shaking becoming less extreme and his mutters stopping, replaced instead by deep stuttering breaths. He’s still in a ball but he’s less tight into himself. By the time he uncurls the sun is flooding their room with a soft glow, the one Lydia usually loves to wake up to with Carl curled up in her arms.

Today is not that type of day.

Carl peaks behind his messy hair looking up at Lydia who was sitting cross legged, her back against the bed. She sees that his eye is bloodshot, and his eyebag is dark.

Better? Lydia signs. Sounds might be too much right now apart from his music playing so she opts to sign to him.

Carl just shrugs. I guess.

Want me to take care of Jude and RJ?

Carl shakes his head. They’ll worry. I don’t want them to do that.

Why? Lydia asks, confused. They’re your siblings, they’ll worry. I’m worrying.

Carl doesn’t sign anything for a bit. Lydia can see him contemplating. He’s stubborn and she hates it sometimes knowing she’s the same way.

They’re just kids. They don’t need to worry like adults. Carl eventually tells her.

Lydia knows it’s a thing with him, to worry about his siblings living the same life he’s had to grow up in. He doesn’t want that, ever, it’s why he risked everything all the time just so that they could live a life he wishes he could’ve lived growing up. He knows that they’ve already been through things, Judith getting shot and RJ getting kidnapped by the Commonwealth during their time of war. Carl feels guilty about it a lot. Lydia tells him not to feel guilty about something out of his control. She knows it’s hard though, still feeling guilt about her mom killing all of his friends at the festival.

They’re just two sides of the same coin.

Then let’s go start breakfast. Lydia says, getting up from her place on the floor, Carl following immediately after. He’s about to take off his headphones, even though he’s still in need of them, before Lydia gently grabs his arm. Keep them on. Don’t force yourself for them. Especially them.

Carl nods before putting them back on.

Putting on her cardigan that was hanging from a hook behind their door she hands Carl his zip-up hoodie. He takes it and puts it on. Before Lydia steps out of their room Carl grabs her hand and trails his own hand down to only clutch her fingers. He’s spelling something with his free fingers.

C-L-A-I-M.

It didn’t take long for Lydia to figure out he was talking about the Claimers. That’s why he’d freaked out. She gives him a sad smile.

Sorry, she replies

Carl brings her hands to his lips and lightly kisses them. Without touching him she does the same to his bowed head.

They find Judith and RJ already downstairs sitting on one of the couches in the living room, RJ reading a comic book and Judith working on her latest sewing project. Carl gives them a good morning kiss before he goes into the kitchen to get their breakfast ready while Lydia gets their attention.

No touch.

They understand. They’re not too worried. Carl has Lydia, that’s enough for them to feel at ease. There’s always that feeling in the back of their heads though. They try to ignore it for the sake of Carl.

3.

Today, Carl covers his eye with a bandage.

Lydia doesn’t like it and she knows he hates it too, but something in him is stronger than the want to not wear it today.

They woke up around the same time. She woke up before him, his back facing away from her. He was still sleeping, if the heavy rise and fall of his back was any indicator. Lydia didn't wake him, instead she propped up her pillow against the headboard and grabbed the book she’d been reading the night before. She’d gotten better over the years at reading and was starting to be able to read difficult words but she still had issues with them. Carl still helped her like he did when she first started staying at Alexandria.

It was an hour later when she saw Carl move beside her, stretching his limbs to the point where they started shaking. He lifted himself up from his spot on the bed and sat there for a second. Lydia was concerned but she wasn’t going to let him know that, instead she kept herself occupied by her book.

Carl stood from the bed and made his way out to their bathroom, shutting the door behind him. Maybe to pee. Lydia wasn’t sure. She felt uneasy at his silence.

A couple of minutes passed before Carl emerged from the bathroom wearing a bandage wrapped around his head. He had less hair now, only brushing his shoulders, but it was still possible to cover it like he used to when he had hair that went down to below his shoulders. Lydia stared at him, she was about to say something, she needed to say something, but he just signed ‘no’ and that was that.

Now it was the afternoon. It was hot and Carl was playing games like ‘tag’ and racing with Judith all over the field while RJ and Lydia learnt to read bigger books together sitting on a blanket. RJ always read comics and they had a limited vocabulary, but now that they have the Commonwealth’s library he’s able to read more complicated books.

She looked up at Carl and Judith roughing it now, throwing each other onto the ground and getting their clothes dirty with grass stains and dirt. Judith was smaller than Carl but everyone knew not to underestimate her and her strength. Then, seconds later, Lydia watched as Carl's demeanour changed. His relaxed and happy face dropped into panic as he touched up and down his face. His bandage had moved a little and was now exposing his scar. They were a little too far into the field for her to hear what he was saying but by his movements, swatting his hand at Judith as he turned from her, Lydia knew he was telling her not to look at him; at it.

Judith backed up from him looking back and forth between him and Lydia as Carl readjusted his wrappings. Once he was done he started to walk towards her and RJ, dismissing Judith behind him telling her something that made her pout before joining him. They both plopped themselves on the blanket, Judith immediately asking RJ about his book while Lydia talked to Carl.

“We going back to our old ways? Should I go and find my old mask?” She jokes. It only makes her receive an angry glare. “Sorry.”

Carl sighs hard. “‘S nothing. You don’t need to get that ugly mask.”

Lydia picks at his fingers. “Well it’s something. Just a little hint? Please?”

“I didn’t have a nightmare if that’s what you’re asking.”

Lydia doesn’t buy it and he knows it.

“...It wasn’t a bad one. It was just there.” He relents.

“Well it’s bad enough for you to put that back on.”

Carl snatches his hand away. “It doesn’t matter. You said a hint, I gave you one.” He hoisted himself back onto his feet and made his way back to the house, throwing over his shoulder something about making some sandwiches for them. Lydia groans.

“‘S weird seeing him like that again.”

She turns to see Judith staring at Carl walking home. She has sadness in her eyes, something Lydia hadn’t seen in a while ever since Rick and Michonne came back.

“Yeah a little huh?” Lydia replies.

Judith nods. “Not even just the bandage, his attitude too.”

“Like what?”

“He was angry a lot when dad ‘died’.” Judith glances at her. “Not at first but…you know that.”

Lydia does know that. She remembers the grip he had on her the first time they met when she’d tried to kill Michonne. She remembers how he’d yelled at her and backed her into a corner of the cell she was being kept in at Hilltop the first couple of days before she moved to Alexandria. She’d never seen that type of anger, only used to her mother’s passive aggressive anger…and other forms.

It’s like they’re back during that time.

“Yeah.” Lydia settles for. “He’s just…going through something I guess.” That’s all she can do, is guess because Carl always refuses to talk about anything in great detail. He keeps it bottled up until it explodes and everyone has to pay for it.

“He’s not gonna get over it, is he?” RJ asks.

Lydia just shakes her head. “Eventually he will, you know that.”

RJ is still young. Judith is older.

“Okay.” RJ says and goes back to his book.

They pack up a couple of minutes later and find Carl setting up the last of their sandwiches, all stacked neatly on a plate with little toothpicks sticking out from them like a restaurant.

Lydia goes up to him, after dropping the blanket and RJ’s book onto their coffee table, and gives him a kiss on his cheek. “Thank you.” She says and smiles at him. With tired eyes, Carl does the same.

The rest of the day is spent on their own activities. RJ is still reading, Judith is tending to some of their horses, and Lydia and Carl are washing their dishes. They hadn’t done them in a while, it was about time. Carl was drying them while Lydia washed them. Carl wasn’t an extremely clean person, he just hated dirty dishwater, as opposed to Lydia who didn’t mind it and put her hands in worse textured things.

“Can I ask about it?” Lydia passed a plate over to Carl. Once he finished drying it he put it on the drying rack.

“You know what I’m gonna say, right?”

“I know. But I’m still asking.” She passed a mug to him. The same mug she’d given him that first morning when everything started to get worse. It’ll be fine.

Carl stopped drying for a second, the mug dripping water onto the counter.

“It was Ron.” He muttered, making sure that RJ couldn’t hear them.

It’s Lydia’s turn to stop.

Carl didn’t talk about Ron a lot. He told her about him maybe once or twice but that was it. They were a thing Carl said. He never liked to use ‘dating’ because it sounded too much like a normal teenager thing. ‘I was anything but normal’, he tells her. She knows.

Ron Anderson was a touchy subject. It’s something that she learnt really fast.

“Oh.”

“Yep.” Carl says as he pops the ‘p’ at the end. “He’s dead and the only thing I have left of him is this stupid fucking scar.” He laughs then looks at Lydia. “I can’t…I can’t deal with it today.”

Lydia just nods, understanding. “That’s fine,” at this point she’s dropped what she’d been washing and wraps her arms around his hunched figure. “That’s completely fine.”

Carl’s back is shaking. He’s crying. Lydia keeps rubbing his back.

“It was a good dream too.” Carl whispers.

“What happened?”

“It was the first day I met him. We played video games. I felt normal.”

Lydia nods against his back.

“That does sound nice.”

4.

If anyone asked Carl how much he loved his sibling today would be a prime example to tell them about.

RJ wanted to learn how to play baseball after reading a comic where some characters played a match. It’s so innocent, he doesn't know. Not like Carl or Judith. Lydia knows bits and pieces but RJ has been in the dark forever. They’re not about to show him the worst things now.

So, Carl finds himself rummaging through the entire house, in closets that they don’t use and crawl spaces with nothing to show for it. He checks their barn next.

It’s darker inside but he’s still able to see because of the sun high in the sky. Carl looks at the bottom of it first, in the empty animal pens and corners where shelves were propped up but nothing. He climbs the ladder that leads to the top of the barn, rickety wood planks form a path all over. There are still haybales filling the area up.

The wind is blowing through the holes and cracks; it’s whistling. The doors jiggle and creak with it. Carl pays no attention to it, he keeps looking. With bare hands he starts to lift some hay from one pile to the next, making sure he gets every nook and kranny to make sure that he’s not missing something right under his nose.

Then, he hears it.

Because of the first group that came and cleared all the Walkers from the house they hadn’t seen one in a while. It was the first place devoid of any, until now.

Carl whips around but doesn’t see the Walker that’s groaning. He’s still vigilant. He doesn't have a knife but he’s made it out of worse with close to nothing before. He could do it again.

Walking slowly around the top part of the barn, Carl takes careful steps and stays on alert, his ears ready to pick up any noise that doesn’t belong. He hears it again, in the corner. It sounds weak. Carl lifts up more chunks of hay and one hay bale before he finally sees the Walker.

It has blond hair. That’s the first thing he notices. It has blond hair, it’s thin, having been decaying for years now. It’s short too, to its shoulders. It’s wearing clothes one – or even two – sizes too big. Maybe they fit before it died but it’s clear it… she hasn’t eaten in a while. She’s slow on her feet, barely able to support herself up to make her way over to Carl who is standing in shock. He isn’t moving but he needs to move or else he knows he’ll probably die.

Instead of backing away though, he moves forward and slams her head into the wall. Again and again until she stops groaning and moving; until she’s truly dead.

Carl sits on the ground, hay that’s now splattered and soaked in blood. His hands are bloody now too, it’s been a while since. He thinks about what he told his mom, how he would’ve killed her if he could. The universe gave him that chance now he guesses.

Lydia finds him maybe hours or maybe only minutes later. He’s still staring at the Walker. She’s fretting over him, checking and double checking him for bites even though she knows it wouldn’t matter for him.

You can get an infection, you’re not immune from that, she’d tell him. Carl knows she’s right.

“C’mon, we’re going back home.” She lifted him up to his feet and helped him get down from the ladder, telling RJ that they’d learn baseball when they get back home on their way to the bathroom to wash off the blood on Carl.

One look at his older brother and he doesn’t complain.

Lydia removes his shirt over his head and tosses them in their laundry pile knowing she’ll have to do a lot of scrubbing to get all the blood off. She runs a small bath and takes Carl’s arms to dunk into the water. It immediately becomes red. Lydia grabs a washcloth and a bar of soap, soaking both of them before getting to work on his arms and hands.

She doesn’t ask like usual. Instead, she asks, “you still with me?”

Carl nods his head as he watches the blood wash off of his skin revealing his pale colour again.

They go to bed that night in silence, Lydia doesn't even read her book, instead she immediately wraps Carl into her arms and he in turn does the same.

Carl wakes up in the middle of the night for what feels like the millionth time this week. He has lingering images of a girl who had short blond hair and always wore a hair elastic around her wrist even though she didn’t really need it.

Carl doesn’t feel twelve anymore, but he knows Sophia will for the rest of time.

5.

Lydia thinks about a book she read back home once. It wasn’t one she really wanted to read but it was about the only one left that she hadn’t read yet.

The book depicted a woman who believed she was already dead. ‘Cotard’s syndrome’ or ‘Cotard’s delusion’ is what it was called. She saw herself in that woman. Living with the dead her whole life, believing that she was already dead in order to survive would do a number on anyone, especially a kid. There were days when she’d wake up and feel as if whatever she was living was just the afterlife already, that she had to go through hell just to get somewhere nice. She doesn’t eat or drink much during those phases because if she’s already dead why did it matter? 

It takes a lot for Carl or anyone to snap her out of it and even then sometimes she doesn’t until the next day.

Lydia isn’t surprised when Carl tells her that he doesn’t have a pulse one day.

It’s gloomier, clouds cover the sky preventing any rays from travelling down to the ground. They decided to stay in, Judith helping Lydia set up a fire in their fireplace while RJ picked out an album to listen to on their record player. It was well into the afternoon and Carl was still asleep. Lydia didn't mind, it’d been a rough week, he needed the sleep.

RJ holds up an old Queen album and Lydia smiles at him. “That’s a good one bud.” She opens the case and lets him put the vinyl on telling him to make sure that his fingers aren’t touching the inside of it.

The three of them are snacking on fruits when they hear a bang coming from upstairs. Judith turns pale and RJ freezes.

“Probably nothing, just tripped or something.” Lydia tells them to help them calm down. “I’ll go check on him.” She makes her way up the stairs and turns to the bathroom door. It’s the only one closed. She knocked three times. “Carl? You good? Scared Jude and RJ a little.” There’s no answer but some shuffling and faint grunting. Lydia tries the handle; it isn’t locked.

When she opened the door she wasn’t expecting the view in front of her.

Carl somehow got a hold of a knife – it looked like his knife maybe that’s how – and he was slicing at his stomach, specifically where his old bite mark is. He hasn’t gotten in deep but he could if he was desperate enough and it seemed like he was.

“Carl?” Lydia is horrified and, for the first time in her life with Carl, she doesn't know what to do.

Carl whips around and, now, Lydia can better see what he was doing to his stomach. Blood was already trailing down onto the waist of his pj pants making the colours even darker than before. He’s breathing heavily, his eye is shaking.

“Lyds!” Carl says, his voice a harsh whisper. “Lyds you need to help please you need to get it off it’s killing me, I’m gonna be dead tomorrow if I don’t get rid of it, please!” He’s frantic and he’s thrusting the knife towards her but she’s not taking it, it just stays in his grip. His knuckles are white.

“Carl, Carl it’s healed look,” she tells him, urging him to look back down to his bite mark. “It’s scarred, it can’t hurt or kill you I swear.”

Carl looks down and starts shaking his head. “No, no i-i-it’s bleeding, don’t you see? It’s bleeding, it’s fresh, i-it's gonna kill me please I can’t die…I don’t wanna die Lyds.” He crumples to the ground, Lydia follows with him. “I don’t have a pulse,” he says in a whisper. “Lyds I don’t have a pulse, I’m already dead right? I’m dead, I’m dead, I’m dead. I don’t wanna be dead Lydia, I don’t wanna be one of them, please get it out of me.”

Lydia takes his wrist and feels his pulse beneath her fingers. It’s faint because it’s the wrist. Instead she brings her fingers and Carl’s own to his neck just below his jawline. “Look. Feel that?” They both feel as his jugular vein pulses with each beat of his heart. “You have a pulse I swear. Your heart is beating, your blood is pumping, your organs are working. You. Are. Alive.” She says as she rests her forehead onto hers. Carl isn’t exactly looking at her but he’s not really looking through her either. He’s in and out of feeling both real and not, but she knows that he’s here and he can feel how alive he is.

“Dead things don’t bleed.” She whispers.

Carl’s breathing calms down, the knife clatters onto the tile flooring and he’s burying his head into Lydia’s shoulders. He takes some deep breaths, she can feel it on her skin. It reminds her of when a Walker would get close to her and she would feel their breath tickling her neck behind her hair when they groaned. She chooses to ignore it.

Lydia feels something wet on her knee now and she looks down at the blood that was now seeping onto the floor.

“Carl,” she starts gently. He doesn’t respond. “Carl, c’mon you’re bleeding everywhere I gotta patch you up.” He still doesn’t move. She decides to haul him off of her and prop him up against the bathtub, gathering up some toilet paper and applying it against Carl’s stomach. He’s not responsive so she takes his hand and rests it on top of it to keep pressure onto it.

Lydia scoured through every cupboard in the bathroom, knowing that they had some medical supplies just in case something were to happen. She didn’t expect this to be the reason why they were using them. She finds a case with a sewing kit for stitches and takes it out immediately, settling in front of Carl who was still unresponsive. Lydia manoeuvres his hand away from his wound and throws out the soaked toilet paper getting to work on stitching his wound closed. She has nothing to numb him with; it didn't seem like Carl cared.

“Why’re you doing that?” Lydia is at the last stitch now and she looks up to see Carl staring at her. “‘M dead anyways, you’re just wasting it.”

Lydia finishes the last stitch and packs everything up, covering the wound with a large bandage.

“You’re the most alive person I’ve ever met, Carl Grimes.”

The next morning Carl will tell Lydia about how he woke up and felt too hot. How it reminded him of the recently burning wood in the church his dad and mom brought him to, of the all encompassing scorching heat that surrounded them in what they thought were his final moments. How the next thing he knew was that he felt like maybe he actually did pull the trigger, so that his parents wouldn’t have to put him down, instead of waiting it out all morning only for nothing to change. He will tell her that he really did die in that church and has been dead ever since.

But today Lydia will help him feel alive and remind him to be alive: to eat, to drink, to talk to his very real and living siblings. She will help him feel alive just like he helped her by simply existing with her.

+1

They’re hunting again. It’s something they found out Judith likes. She loves being in nature just like Carl and explore all over, picking bugs off of trees and plucking worms out of the ground with Lydia. The actual hunting part she likes too. Tracking animals and sneaking up on them to end their life.

It’s a little gruesome but Carl won’t judge her.

They’ve been hunting a deer for the past hour and a half now. The first half hour was just finding clues and tracks for any animal, then, when they found the deer tracks they all got excited. Judith and Lydia were more skilled at hunting than both RJ and Carl so Carl let them go ahead while he trailed behind them with RJ. When the time comes it’ll be Carl to take the shot with his bow and arrow. He’s missing an eye but over the years he’s trained himself to shoot better and now he’s one of the best shooters in Alexandria. They’re still teaching Judith how to use it and build upper body muscles.

The trees around them were thick with leaves, bushes blocking their path at any turn but that didn’t stop the deer nor the group. Some of the bushes were packed with blueberries and strawberries to which RJ picked them off and dumped them in the basket he always brought with him. The sun was out again, shadows from the leaves flitting on them.

“Do you think we’ll actually catch it?” Judith asks Lydia.

“You kidding me? Of course, we’re just that awesome.”

“Last time we went RJ cried because of a bunny and it ran away.”

“I’ll just…make him look away when the time comes.”

They laugh together.

“I’m gonna look.” Carl looks down at RJ.

“You gonna cry at all?”

RJ shakes his head. “No, I’ll be brave.”

“You don’t always have to be.” Carl tells him.

“You were. Judith is.”

“We just, we grew up differently bud, and that’s okay. It means you don’t have to live with a lot of bad things.”

“I still wanna be brave.”

“And you can be, trust me.”

RJ nods. “Okay.” He looks ahead again. “I’m gonna look.”

Carl huffs out a laugh. “Okay bud.” He says with a pat to his head.

They hear a snap of twigs and all of them stop walking immediately. They can’t be sure if it’s a Walker or the deer they’re hunting so they’ll remain vigilant with eyes and ears open.

Carl sees Judith tap Lydia’s shoulder and points her ahead of them and he sees it. 

The deer.

It reminds him of when they were first looking for Sophia and he, his dad and Shane stumbled across a deer. Except that time its antlers were smaller and rounder than this one. The deer in front of them had giant antlers with pointy ends that would definitely kill them in a second if it were to charge at them and impale one of them. Carl comes up behind Judith and Lydia, the two of them making way for him to set up a shot as Lydia grabs RJ to stand beside her.

Carl takes an arrow out of his quiver and draws it back onto his bow. He takes his time, the deer is still, it isn’t moving it’s only eating the bushes on the ground, its ears flicking at every sound. Carl takes a deep breath, steadies his aim and lets the arrow go.

The arrow hits. It hits Judith straight in her chest.

Carl shoots up. He doesn’t understand. It hit Judith? Wasn’t Judith just beside him? He looks around and finds himself alone with no Judith in sight. That’s when the real panic sets in.

“No, no, no, no.” Carl repeats as he rushes over to where Judith fell. He sees his arrow, his arrow, sticking out from the ground covered by the bushes and, once he gets to her body he sees RJ’s instead. “RJ?” He whispers. No, it was Judith he shot, Carl shot her he knows it but in front of him is RJ, and his clothes are soaking blood.

Carl takes the arrow out because what’s the point of keeping it in if he’s dead? He’s delicate with it and throws it off to the side, ignoring some of the blood spraying onto him. The arrow head was soaked in it too.

Carl gathers RJ’s body into his arms. “RJ, bud c’mon you’re not dead,” he says. “RJ you gotta open your eyes for me okay? We got mom and dad waiting for us back home.” RJ doesn't open his eyes.

“RJ!” Carl is yelling now, and shaking his little brother's body, as he cries and wails, but he’s limp. He’s limp like Judith was when she got shot except she survived. RJ can’t survive. He doesn’t think Judith survived either and it was about time he got his other sibling killed. “RJ please, please c’mon don’t, don’t do this please !” RJ is limp.

Suddenly, Carl feels a weight on his back and can hear groaning behind. He drops the body in his arms, whipping around to tackle the Walker and swiftly kicks it down onto the ground.

“LEAVE ME ALONE!” He bellows, though he knows his demand will be denied. “Let me fucking go you! Piece! Of fucking! Shit!” He punctuates every word with him slamming the Walker into the ground. It’s still trying to grab him.

Carl is about to stab it in its head when he hears someone yell out his name.

“CARL PLEASE!”

He falters and suddenly there isn’t a Walker trapped under him. Instead, he finds Lydia with a look of utter horror, something he’s never seen on her face, not even when she was with her mom. She was terrified. She was terrified of him.

“Lyds?” There’s something stuck in Carl’s throat and it’s choking him. He barely gets her name out.

Lydia nods her head in a rapid motion. “Yeah, yeah, yeah it’s me Carl it’s me, please.”

“Lydia I-,” he looks down at RJ’s body. It’s just the deer. “I…I killed him, I killed him I swear I did.” Carl can only whisper right now.

Lydia gets up from the ground and directs his vision to RJ and Judith who were standing a couple feet away. They’re clutching each other; they’re shaking.

“You didn’t kill him,” Lydia whispers back. “You didn’t kill him or Judith I swear, they’re fine. It was just the deer. You only shot the deer.”

The thing is still choking Carl and it’s getting worse. He can’t breathe so, he coughs before drawing in a breath but the thing isn’t letting him breathe.

“Lydia I killed him, I really did.” Carl starts crying and he knows that he won’t stop anytime soon.

So, Lydia clutches him close to her and she’s holding him tightly, she’s holding him like he’ll disappear just like he did just now and Carl is grateful. He doesn't want to disappear again either.

Carl is wailing. He’s wailing like a kid when he’s almost thirty but he doesn’t think that he ever did cry like he was supposed to back then, so he lets himself cry and wail and clutch Lydia like a lifeline because he knows that everyone here right now, if they were to die, he wouldn’t be that far behind them in death.

They haul the deer back to the farmhouse, store it in the basement which they refurbished so that they could use it as a freezer. No one is really hungry tonight.

Lydia organises some food for RJ and Judith to eat and leaves them to their own devices. She knows it’s not fair to get them to fend for themselves, especially right now, but Judith looks at her and just nods. She understands.

It hits Lydia that she understands because this is her brother, that this isn’t the first time she’s seen him like this. That no matter how many years have passed he’s still healing, just like the rest of them.

Lydia nods back and drags Carl upstairs for a bath. She’s delicate with him, and she’s ready for him to tell her to stop treating him like he’ll break at any second but the thing is, is that she thinks he already broke. So, she’s delicate and titles his head back with the palm of her hand when she needs to wash his hair, and gently scrubs away any blood on his body with the softest wash cloth they own. Lydia uses his favourite soap that smells of vanilla. She dries him off while he sits on the edge of the tub and puts him into some pyjamas; clean ones, not the ones he’d been wearing when Carl sliced at his bite mark.

Carl followed behind Lydia, holding her hand as she brought him to their room. She laid him down into bed and followed right after, bundling them both into their quilts and blankets. They laid facing each other, Lydia grabbing him and holding him tight against her, his head under her chin.

Lydia hummed to him the song he used to hum to Judith as a baby then RJ when he was born. She knew it was something that his mom, his first one, used to hum to him as a baby too, she knew that it always calmed him. She can hear Judith and RJ talking among each other, definitely about Carl. They’ll talk about it, eventually.

Tonight they’ll stay at peace as much as they can.

Tonight their breathing will match each other at some point and they’ll feel like they’re one person.

Tonight there is no God and tomorrow they will stare at the sunrise on their porch.