Carl grimes sat upright, awoken from a bad dream.
It was Jane, running, sprinting towards him. He could almost feel the fibres of her hair, the softness of her hands - the taste of her lips. But before he could even get close to her, she was gone, and his eyes were open.
He didn't scream, or thrash. He just sat, soaked by his own sweat. Running one hand through his long hair, he sighed. He knew he wouldn't be able to sleep again after that, so he got up, taking a seat at his desk.
Too hot. He was too hot. He practically ripped his shirt off, because any second longer in the thing was sure to strangle him.
He peered into the mirror, looking at his foggy reflection. He looked rough, and he was. He felt like it, at least. The lines and creases defining his face seemed to have darkened, and his hair was matted and frizzy. Grabbing his brush, he sloppily combed through his locks, still staring deeply into his own eyes.
"Stop." He said, almost startling himself.
"Stop it, Jane. Leave me alone." He wasn't sure what it was then, why he thought, or even said these words. Truth was, they didn't help. They just made him angry. Angry that everything happening around him was uncontrollable, and, even after a year in Alexandria, he couldn't move on. He told himself, on his second day here, that he would push it away.
And he did, but only around the others. It was times like these, late at night when everything would come ricocheting back to him, and she would scream for him in his dreams. She would invade his thoughts, his mind, all at once, making it impossible to get any sleep.
He just accepted it now, because pushing it away made it worse. The other kids here didn't like him. They were scared of him, but what would they think if they knew what went on in his bedroom at 2am?
What would his dad think? What would he say?
Carl thought he was strong before Jane. Now, he wasn't so sure. Because how can one person, one that hasn't been seen in nearly 2 years, affect anyone this much?
No one else suffered like Carl did. Not on the surface, anyway. No one else except Carol Peletier.
Carol missed Jane every night, and every morning. But she didn't regret not looking for her.
Not one bit.
She truly believed that Jane was gone, which made it so much easier to just grieve. Hope is a dangerous thing for anyone like her to have.
Carl decided to just get up now, getting dressed and ready for the day. Raising his curtain, he realised the light was just beginning to scratch the surface of the sky, and in-between the spots of dark cloud were breakthroughs of brilliant purples and pinks.
Today was no normal day. Today was Jane Peletier's sixteenth birthday. He knew this, but the thought occurred to him that she probably didn't, wherever she was. He thought for a moment, still staring at the sky.
Fuck it. I'm going out there.
Grabbing his gun and his knife, he tiptoed out of the house he shared with Rick, Michonne, Judith and Daryl. He left, leaving only a note that scribbled: going out will be back soon. Carl
He clambered over the wall effortlessly, and ventured into the forest. It was only a ten minute walk to the old barn they stayed in, just before discovering Alexandria.
He looked around the outside of it, the wood still as rotted as it once was. He had been back several times since their arrival at the town, each one as boring as the next. There was nothing in that old thing, and he didn't see the point in going in and taking in the smell of fertiliser for nothing.
Walking straight past the barn, he continued on, into the thicker parts of the woods.
Hearing a walker, he unsheathed his knife and wasted no time piercing its skull, it's head deflating like a balloon on contact. Gross. As the blood splayed all over his hands, he cursed. One thing about the apocalypse: you're never clean.
Then, something came into his head. Something so stupid and outlandish that it couldn't work, or even start to, but his mind was already set.
It was really just for him, for his mind. Maybe, after wards, he would finally be at peace. He just wanted some sleep.
Dragging the walkers body and slumping it down, resting by a tree, he carefully sliced its stomach open. The blood spilled out over his ungloved hands and the floor beneath them. Shoving one finger deeper into its intestines, he raised it up and onto the tree. The white patterned bark stained crimson, and quickly as that.
Carl let his finger go wherever it wanted to, and when it was done, he stepped back and admired what he had just written.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY JANE
would she see it? No. He knew that.
But what did it matter?
Once he marked one tree, he couldn't stop. Every walker he found, he marked a new tree, each time with different short messages revolving around Jane. With each birch he got closer and closer to Alexandria, but before he was too close, he turned back.
He didn't want to speak to anyone today. He just wanted to be on his own. So, he followed his path of trees back to wherever he was before.
He didn't mark anymore trees, he was done doing that for hours. Instead he just walked, to nowhere in particular. He was hoping in his head that if he walked far enough, he'd just come to the end of the earth and fall right off, into deaths warm arms.
Until, he spotted his father. Who actually was standing on the edge, but not of the earth. As Carl jogged closer, he recognised the few people with him to be Glenn, Daryl, Michonne and...Morgan??
"Dad?" They all turned round at Carl's entrance, and Rick looked confused.
"Carl, what are you doing here?"
"I needed fresh air-" he said, stepping closer to what Rick was looking down at with disbelief. Rick and all the others, turned out to be standing on the very edge of a canyon, filled with hundreds of thousands of walkers.
He had never seen this many before. Not even in Atlanta, at the start.
"Holy shit."
★
They all hurried back to Alexandria to warn the others and come up with a plan. Carl's thoughts about Jane and his sleepless nights were long gone, because all that was playing in his head was the image of the dead entering Alexandria.
Rick and Michonne drove one car back whilst the others sat crammed in the other. Daryl rode alongside them, monitoring the walkers who were blocked by a toppled over trailer.
"I'm worried about him." Rick said, checking his wind-mirror.
"I thought he'd gotten better, or at-least a little bit by now. But, I've caught him awake at midnight the past few nights and, I don't think that's good. I thought he had something going on with Enid, until I saw him crying the other night. He was just sitting at his desk, but his head was in his hands. I don't know what to do, Michonne. The kids not coming back."
Michonne sighed. Jane was funny, and she missed her little laugh, though probably not so little anymore.
"Just give him time. I think he really loved her, And not just a little bit. The loss of his mother and Jane just piled up ontop of each other. Plus the others like Beth, Tyreese, Lizzie and Mika. He knew them all. The boy has been through hell and he's only sixteen."
"I know that, I...I just know she won't come back and I wish he knew too. It's tearing him apart, Michonne. And I have to just sit and watch. Just the other day, he was telling Judith stories about Jane. She can't really understand them, and obviously he knows that...but it doesn't seem like he's getting anywhere with this."
"He's a good kid, Rick. He does what he's told, he's not afraid. He sets the others in their places but is still kind about it. I think he'll be just fine. And who knows, maybe she will show up on our doorstep one day."
Michonne says, looking out the window at the passing trees.
Once they reached the gates, they threw them open, and they were shocked to see what was left inside for them. Dead bodies laying around, walkers everywhere....
Rick ran through the bloodbath, sprinting for their house. Rick knew Carl was thinking about the same thing he was: Judith.
The door to the grimes's house burst open, Rick and Carl dashing in to see baby Judith sitting on the floor in-front of an armed Enid.
"Enid!" Carl exclaimed, not hesitating to embrace her.
"I thought you were dead," she said, beaming at him. Throughout the past year, Enid and Judith made everything a little more bearable.
"Thank you for keeping Judith safe." Rick said, and Carl bent down to pick her up, stroking her hair.
"We have a long day ahead of us, I hope you kids are ready."
★
ℐ𝓂 𝓈ℴ𝓇𝓇𝓎 𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓈 𝒾𝓈 𝓉ℯ𝓇𝓇𝒾𝒷𝓁ℯ 𝒾 𝒶𝓂 𝓈ℴ 𝒷𝒶𝒹 𝒶𝓉 𝓌𝓇𝒾𝓉𝒾𝓃ℊ 𝒸𝒶𝓇𝓁𝓈 𝒸𝒽𝒶𝓅𝓉ℯ𝓇𝓈 𝓁𝓂𝒶ℴ 😭