Beauty in Death - The Walking Dead

-twelve-

Scared of You

After Carl had taken down the kid who had been trying to flee from the prison, Rick took his gun away. He claimed that it was for the best, and that Carl needed to learn how to solve problems without his weapon.

At first, he had been angry that his father had taken his gun, but after a while, he realized that he really didn't need it. Not anymore. The prison was more secure than it had ever been, and with the people from Woodbury coming to join them, there were more people to protect the fences.

Carl hadn't spoken to Chloe since the ambush on the Governor's soldiers. It was actually more like she hadn't spoken to him. He could understand why, what he had done to that boy, it wasn't right. But Carl was tired of not being able to talk to his friend.

He knew where he could find Kacy, in the library. Maybe he could convince her to talk to Chloe. Carl walked down the halls of the prison and made his way to the old library. Usually there were a couple of kids in there, and the council met in there whenever they needed to.

Today, it seemed like there was a meeting. Glenn, Maggie, Sasha, and Hershel were already there. Hershel looked up when Carl came into the room. "Uh... is Kacy in here?" He asked.

"She is." Hershel nodded. "In the back corner, reading I think. Don't take too long, we're about to get started in here."

Carl nodded and thanked Hershel, and then walked to the back of the library. Hershel had been right, Kacy was sitting in the corner with a book in her lap. She seemed pretty engulfed in whatever story she was reading, Carl almost hated to interrupt her.

"Hey, uh, Kacy?"

She jumped and looked up at him. Her eyes went wide and she quickly glanced back down at her book. Carl frowned.

"Can we talk?" He asked. "Please?"

Kacy sighed and then closed her book and got to her feet. She placed it back on the shelf delicately and picked up the other stack of books she had set off to the side. She began putting those back, too. "What do you wanna talk about?" She asked.

"Chloe."

"What about her?" Kacy placed another book on the shelf.

"She hasn't spoken to me since... well, since." Carl shrugged.

Kacy scoffed and turned to her friend. "Well yeah, you killed a kid right in front of us, you freaked her out," she replied.

Carl looked at her, his eyes were wide. "Did I really... scare her?" He asked.

"Yeah."

Carl shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. He had scared her. That's why she wouldn't talk to him, because she was too afraid to. He sighed and looked back at Kacy. She looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

"... What?" He asked her.

"Oh my God."

"What? What is it?" Carl asked.

"You like her," Kacy said. "Don't you?"

"W-what?" Carl stammered. "Of course I don't!"

"You do!" Kacy couldn't help but giggle. "Oh, this is amazing! You have a crush on Chloe!" Carl covered her mouth with his hand.

"Keep it down, would you?" He told her. "Agh!" He tore his hand away and looked at it. "You licked my hand, seriously?"

Kacy grinned and Carl wiped his hand off on his jeans. "You like Chloe." She repeated.

There was no point in trying to keep it in anymore. Carl sighed and looked at her. "So what if I do?" He said and then sighed. "Look, will you just not say anything to her? Please?"

Kacy tapped the cover of Fahrenheit 451 and grinned at Carl. "Sure, I won't say anything, on one condition," She said.

Of course there's a condition, Carl thought.

"What?" He asked her.

"You have to apologize to Chloe," Kacy states firmly. "You two not talking to each other is really starting to get on my nerves."

"Sure." Carl nodded. "Just tell me where she is."

➵

Kacy told Carl that he would find Chloe in their cell, cleaning her gun. So, he headed that way. He was thinking about what he would say to her, and hoped that the moment she saw him she didn't just get up and leave.

He found his way up the stairs and to her cell. Kacy was right, Chloe was sitting on the bottom bunk, cleaning her gun. She didn't look up, so Carl just assumed she hadn't seen him yet.

Okay, you've got this... He took a deep breath and then knocked on the doorframe. "Hey, uh, Chloe?" He asked.

She looked up, but didn't say anything. Now that Kacy had pointed it out, he could definitely see the underlying fear in her eyes. It wasn't prominent, but it was definitely there.

"Look, I, uh, I came to..." Why was it so hard to talk? He'd thought about exactly what he wanted to say on his way to her cell, but now that he was actually here, he couldn't seem to say anything.

Chloe tilted her head, but remained silent. Carl looked at her, and he felt a small twinge in his chest. God, how was she able to do that? All she'd done was tilt her head!

Carl took a deep breath. "I came to apologize," He said. "For what happened when the Governor attacked us, for what I did to that kid." Carl looked down at his feet. "I didn't mean to scare you."

There was a moment of silence. Carl didn't know how to fill it, he hoped that she would.

"You shot that boy." Her voice was soft. "You killed him."

"I know."

Chloe looked down at her hands and then back up at Carl. "Why did you do it?" She asked. "He was handing his gun over, he was standing down. Why did you—?"

"I thought it was the right thing to do," He cut her off. "We had this friend, before the prison. Dale. I was out in the woods and there was this walker, I ran away, I didn't kill it. It was the same walker that ended up killing him." He sighed. "And there were prisoners here at the prison, my Dad didn't kill one of them and then he ended up being one of the reasons why my mom died. Same thing for the Governor. Dad was in a room with him, and he didn't take him out. And then he came back and killed Merle."

Carl scratched the back of his head. Chloe was only just now realizing that he wasn't wearing is hat like he usually did. "I killed that kid because I thought that... that if I didn't, he would come back and kill someone else." Someone like you.

Chloe looked at him, and then got to her feet. "I forgive you," She said.

And for the first time in nearly a month, Carl smiled.