Request by @scrlttz (Sofia) ! Thanks so much for the request, another super fun one to write! This is the longest one I've written! :)
Also, I decided to watch Carl's death scene on YouTube before I rewatch the episode (I'm rewatching TWD) thinking the more I watch it the easier it will be, yeah that was awful. I had to take a whole break from my life for like a half hour so I could cry.
Word Count (including bold text): 3018
"Hey," Carl says, wrapping an arm around my shoulder.
I look at him and smile. "Hey." I rest my head on his shoulder as we trudge through the woods following Daryl, Rick, and Michonne. We're going hunting and haven't quite made it to our destination yet which is why Daryl isn't yelling at us to shut up.
"You need to stop," he whispers in my ear.
I look up at him confused and slightly hurt. "What?"
"You need to stop," he repeats.
"Stop what?"
"Being so adorable," he smiles, kissing the top of my head.
I laugh and say, "Carl you scared the shit out of me."
"I know," he says with a smirk, squeezing my shoulder.
Suddenly I hear a groan to the left of me. I turn my head and see a couple walkers in the distance. "Rick?" I whisper. He looks at me and I point to the walkers.
"We should be fine for now," he replies. "Just stick together."
I nod and we keep walking. I keep checking the walkers to make sure they don't get too close. Carl notices and assures me, "They're too far, we'll be fine."
"I know," I whisper back, even though I really don't know. After another few minutes of walking I look over and see a herd of walkers making their way towards us. Where the hell did they come from? "Rick, there's more," I point out.
"Shit," he mumbles as he sees all of them. "We have to go, there's no way all of us can take them on."
No one argues and we start running back through the woods, but more and more are closing in on us.
Carl grabs my hand. "Make sure I can see you. Stay in front of me."
I start to panic but Daryl finds a way to try to sneak past them, as long as we do it quickly. Many gunshots are firing and we stab the ones that get too close to us. I hear a couple gunshots in the distance, but I look and see our group is all together. That's when I feel a sharp pain in my chest and instantly fall to the ground. I'm stunned for several moments and then I reach my hand over to where the pain is and feel warm, sticky blood coat my hand. "Carl?" I try to say but it only comes out in a hoarse whisper. A couple of walkers stumble over to me, and I'm thinking this is it. This is how it ends. But then they fall to the ground after Carl shoots them in the head.
"Sofia!" Carl yells, kneeling down beside me and noticing the hole in my chest. "No, no, no, no, no! Sofia, oh my God. We have to get you back, you're going to make it." Tears form in his eyes and I can tell he hopes I make it. Carl tries to scoop me up but Rick tugs on his shoulder. "Dad? Can you help me we have to bring her back!"
Rick's face just drops and it looks like he's trying to find words. "Carl..." he trails off. "We have to go."
"What? We can't just leave her, Dad! We can't, help me!" Carl tries to pick me up again but he's too much in shock to lift me.
"Carl! We have to go!"
Carl starts crying now and he looks at me. Rick starts pulling him away and holds him back from me as he keeps yelling.
"No! Sofia! No! I'm sorry... I'm sorry..."
Rick finally pulls Carl away and that's when everything finally goes black.
I open my eyes slightly to a dark room that is only lit by the outside light peeking through the window. My eyes feel heavy but when I realize that I'm in an unfamiliar room my heart starts racing and I sit up immediately, which causes a shooting pain in my chest, making me wince, and the blanket covering my chest to fall. I place my hand to the pain and feel a cloth bandage. I steady my breathing as I take in my surroundings. The door is open and I see a man approaching me which makes me yank the blanket up even though I'm still wearing a sports bra and push myself as close against the wall on the side of the bed as I can.
He's looking down at something in his hands when he walks in the room and stops and smiles when he notices me sitting up. "You took one hell of a shot, there," he says.
I don't say anything and just stare at him. My eyes follow his hands as he places a towel, medicine, and a bandage on the table next to the bed.
"My name's Pierre," he says, opening the jar of cream and putting on rubber gloves. He points at my wound and frowns. "I'm sorry... I saw the dead, I heard voices and I wanted to help. I was going to lead you guys here for safety. I missed one of the dead and hit you instead. Took you in. We'll fix you up and bring you back home, yeah?"
I'm still shaken up so I don't say anything, but I nod slowly. I don't get a bad feeling from him at all.
Pierre smiles. "Lost a finger in the process." He holds up a bandaged hand that's tinted red. "Son of a bitch bit my finger right off. Had to cut a little more off so it didn't spread, of course." He notices me looking from the medicine on the counter to his hand and adds, "My wife was a doctor, before all of this. Taught me as much as she could before she, you know. In this world it's cancer you would least expect to kill you."
"Sofia," I finally get the courage to say. "My name, I mean."
"Well it's nice to officially meet you, Sofia," Pierre says with an outstretched hand. I keep one hand holding up the blanket and shake his hand with my other one. "Oh, I'm so sorry I'll be right back let me get you a shirt." He rushes out of the room and comes back in a few minutes later with a gray hoodie. "I had to throw out your shirt. I didn't look, I was just trying to save you as best I could. If that bullet woulda went a centimeter to the right, you wouldn't be alive right now. May I?" He motions at the bullet wound and I slide the blanket down slightly. Pierre peels the tape off around the bandage and then slowly removes the cloth. "Healing well," he whispers to himself, which makes me feel better.
Suddenly I have a burning question. "How long was I out?"
"Almost a week, but it's not a big deal. There was no exit wound so I had to dig a bit for the bullet, but you're healthy to say the least." Pierre wipes the area around the wound with a damp towel and I wince a bit, clenching my teeth together. "A bit sore, I'm sure." Finally he puts the medicine on another cloth and places it over the wound, then puts more medical tape to hold it in place.
"Thank you," I whisper.
"Of course, it's my fault anyway. I'll make you something to eat and you can put on your shirt, okay?"
I nod and he slips out of the room and I pull the shirt over my head. I take in my surroundings even though there's not much to see. Looking out the window I see that the road is right outside of the house, which means we're not tucked away in the woods somewhere. Carl floods my mind as I think about the woods. The pain and panic in his face...
Pierre comes back with a plate filled with mixed fruits and a slice of toast. "Here, eat what you can and if you're still hungry I can get you some more."
I shake my head. "No, this is perfect. Thank you. Do you grow a lot of food here?" I ask, questioning the fruits.
Pierre nods. "I was a gardener. My wife and I made a good apocalypse team," he laughs.
I smile and start eating, not realizing how hungry I actually am until now.
"Where do you live? Or where is your camp?" Pierre asks.
Pierre is extremely kind but I'm not supposed to give away our location. I don't want this to be some sort of plan where he kills my family.
"Oh, no I'm sorry! I was just going to help you get home. I'll leave and come back here after, and we never have to see each other again. I'll even give you the guns and knives and I'll walk with you with no weapons at all. It's just nice to see another face around here that's not completely ripped apart and full of maggots," Pierre explains.
I realize that what I was thinking was stupid and say, "No, it's fine. I trust you." I take a deep breath and move my empty plate to the table. "I live in a town called Alexandria. It has giant walls surrounding it and many houses. It looks just like a regular town," I smile, remembering home.
"Do you know how to get back if we took the route where I found you in the woods?"
I nod. "Yeah, it's not too far from there."
Pierre smiles. "That's good, it's the first time I've actually been in those woods. There's a store across from those woods farther down, and when I heard you guys and the dead I tried to help."
"You could have gotten killed," I say quietly.
He nods. "I'd rather die with a purpose than by sulking behind these walls."
I smile. "So when are we leaving?"
"If you're up for it, maybe tomorrow or the next day-"
"What about today?" I blurt out, only thinking of Carl.
"Sofia I know you're anxious to get home, but you just woke up and..."
"I'm fine. I can do it. I'm not trying to rush out on you or anything, I just need to get back home to everyone." Carl.
Pierre thinks for a moment. "Okay," he finally says. "But I'm bringing you back here if you can't do it."
"I can," I insist.
Pierre sighs and rubs his face, and I can tell he's thinking I'll get hurt even more. "Let me pack a bag. I have your bag over there," he points to my bag that is leaning against wall. "I'll meet you in here when I'm done. Try to stand and walk a little, especially before we start going."
I do as I'm told and stretch my legs. At first I feel pain, but the more I walk and start moving the more it goes away and it's not too bad.
Pierre enters the room again and hands me a knife and a gun, which I accept. "Thank you again," I say.
"It's no problem!"
When we step onto the porch I squint from the brightness of the sun. Pierre leads me down the road and we stop about twenty minutes later at the store he was talking about.
"You still good? Do you need to rest?" He asks me.
I shake my head. "No, I'm good to keep going. We can't be too far now." My stomach flips with excitement and nervousness. They all think I'm dead. What if Carl moved on already? What if they don't want to take me back? What if they think I'm working with Pierre to take over Alexandria?
We trek through the woods and reach the spot where the walkers almost killed us. Some walkers are scattered throughout the woods, dead, and I have a flashback of laying on the ground in confusion while Carl hovers over me screaming for Rick. I shake the thought away and we continue walking through the woods.
"Pierre," I say.
"Hm?"
"If we go this way," I point to the left, "We'll hit the road and we can take the road back." The thought of this brings the butterflies back again. I've been with this group from the beginning, so why am I so nervous now?
I step onto the pavement and take a deep breath in, and then exhale. The cloudy sky starts to rain so I lift my hood over my head, Pierre following my lead. Finally, I can just make out the walls and I freeze. I take a bandanna and use it to cover my face, making me less noticeable.
Pierre stops a couple steps ahead of me when he notices that I stopped. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing... I'm just- I guess I'm just nervous."
Pierre smiles. "Come on, they're going to be overjoyed to see you alive." He ignores the bandanna, thankfully.
I smirk and continue down the road.
"Don't move!" A voice yells from the tower. "Who the hell are you and what do you want?" I look up to see Rosita and Maggie pointing guns at us.
"Don't tell them it's me just yet," I whisper to Pierre.
He subtly nods. "We just happened to stumble here. I don't mean any harm." He slowly takes out his weapons and tosses them to the ground in front of him. I do the same.
Maggie and Rosita don't say anything, they just look at each other. Finally Rosita nods to someone on the ground and the gates slowly open. Guns are pointed at us in every direction, and as soon as we make it into the walls people are already closing the gate. I look around with my hood and bandanna still on and notice Carl and Enid standing together staring at us. My stomach flips when I see him, but I also feel a pang of jealousy seeing Enid standing so close to him. Maybe I was right about him moving on so fast...
"Why are you here?" I hear Rick yell, and I turn my attention towards him.
"This is just a safe community. I've been living on my own forever, I'm sorry, we didn't mean to disrupt you and your people," Pierre says sincerely.
Rick looks at me and asks, "How old's the girl?"
"She's-" Pierre starts.
"Seventeen," I whisper.
"Seventeen. She's seventeen."
"Do you have any weapons on you?" Rick asks.
Pierre shakes his head and so do I. "No, none."
Rick nods, thinking. "Okay. I'm going to need to talk to you before we continue on with anything else. Can we see your face?" Rick asks me.
I don't say anything and Rosita tells me this time, "Take off the hood and bandanna so we can see your face."
I hesitantly reach up and pull my hood down, and slide the bandanna off of my chin, tucking it in my pocket. When I shyly look up guns are lowered, sighs of relief are heard, and some 'Sofia!'s are said. I turn towards Carl whose mouth drops open and he looks like he has been stunned.
"Sofia," he whispers. Through the happiness and chat of the town I could hear Carl's whisper. As he steps to me slowly I can see tears forming in his eyes.
A huge smile plasters my face and when he sees this he starts picking up his pace to a run to get to me. When he finally reaches me he grabs me as tight as he can into a hug, sobbing into my shoulder. My chest is in pain but I don't care and I start crying into his chest as he rubs his hand up and down my back, still gripping me extremely tight.
"Oh my God," Carl whispers. "I thought you were dead... I thought..."
"It's okay. I'm okay," I whisper back, squeezing him just as tight.
He pulls away from me and holds my face in my hands looking into my eyes. "You're real. You're really here! This isn't a dream."
I shake my head and smile with tears in my eyes.
"How... I don't care, this week has been hell without you, Sofia." He places his lips on mine softly and kisses me until he runs out of breath. "There'll be more of that later," he grins.
I suddenly forgot that Enid was with him and I look over him at her. Instead of frowning, she's smiling at me.
"I fucking love you so much. I'm never going to let that happen again. I promise," Carl says, kissing my forehead and bringing me into a hug again.
"I love you too, Carl. So much." I pull apart from him. "Can Pierre stay?"
"Who?" He looks at me in confusion.
"The man I was with. He saved me. Can he stay?"
"He can stay. I'm sure my dad will let him. Can I see it?" Carl asks.
I shyly hide my face and pull down the shirt a little to show Carl the bandage. He rests his forehead on mine and gently rubs his fingers over it. He then circles the skin with his finger around the wound and smiles.
"You're in the club now."
"Huh?"
Carl places his hat on my head. "Since you got shot, you're in the club now and get to wear the hat."
I laugh and look into his eyes. "It looks better on you, Carl." I kiss his cheek and return the hat to his head.
"Please don't leave me again," he whispers seriously.
"Never," I whisper back. "Never again."
Please forgive me, I don't know how bullet wound care works and I had to Google it a bit. Also I just thought of the hat part and I'm like ya I gotta add it. Hope you enjoyed! :)