diamonds|carl grimes

23 - ❝your song❞

He nodded in confirmation and Elle wordlessly left his side and approached Carl's. When she passed him in silence he didn't say anything, just walked alongside her to their destination.

Now there was a lot more going on between the two then what met the eye. They looked like a pair of friends comforting each other, and they were, but that wasn't all. Neither had forgotten their last conversation before their separation.

"Stuff that boyfriends and girlfriends do," he corrected himself. "I love you Elle, how could I not? I thought I made it pretty obvious when I kissed you in the woods."

"No," Elle jabbed her finger towards him, still standing a fair distance apart. "You don't get to be all gushy and proclaim how much you love me. This isn't a fucking two-thousands chick flick."

Carl thew his hands up in the air as he gasped in disbelief and yelled toward her, "I don't even know what that means!"

"It means that... it means that you are a piece of shit who let me feel like an idiot... like an idiot for however fucking long it's been... and I... it's not... it's not fair..."

But there wasn't much to discuss when the fact that they had no food or water took president over their possible relationship. And the unresolved trauma was starting to add up a bit.

Or at least Elle thought that Carl thought it would be inappropriately timed if he brought it up. Elle though, she didn't care. She excelled at saying things at inappropriate times. But she was done trying. If Carl wanted to, he would.

"It's a bad time to ask you to be my girlfriend, right?"

Oh. He just said that.

Oh.

So maybe she hadn't given him enough credit.

"Have you met me?" she said, pausing her steps to look back at him. She mustered up all the strength she could and offered him a bright smile. "I don't understand the concept of bad timing."

"So that means it isn't a bad time?"

"Ask me and find out."

Carl was slightly taken aback by her shift in demeanor. But if anyone else saw they wouldn't have been shocked, they would've been surprised it didn't happen sooner. Any time the two love struck teenagers were near each other, they lit up. It was only a matter of time before Carl reignited Elle's spark, even if it was only temporary for now.

"I never watched any of those two-thousands chick flicks you were talking about so I don't know exactly how this works," Carl said, struggling at hiding his grin.

Elle crossed her arms across her chest, narrowing her eyes at him in a teasing manner.

"Oh you've got jokes now? I thought that was my thing."

"Don't expect any more," he warned her. "It took me the entire time you were at the hospital to come up with that one."

Elle dropped her hands to her side and her smile turned to a look of awe. Had he really been thinking about it for that long?

"What?" Carl asked in response to the look on her face.

"I just," Elle started, not being able to find her words. "I don't know, there's like, I want, y'know, just, you planned that joke?"

"Anything to make you smile," he told her.

And he meant it. Carl Grimes would do anything to see a smile on Elle Coleman's face.

Then he added on, "You are aware that I've been madly in love with you since we met, right? Because you look confused and that's making me confused."

Confused wasn't an efficient enough word to describe the emotional rollercoaster that Elle was currently riding. She was trying to balance and process everything that was affecting her. The sorrow and pain from watching Beth die paired with losing Tyreese and Bob, the constant worry about Tommy, she hadn't had a conversation with Maggie or Daryl since the events at the hospital, and she had a voice nagging in the back of her head wondering where she stood with Carl.