MAKNAE [twd]

【45】

The sound of faint crying pulled me out of my sleep.

Pulling myself out of my bed, I go to the hall, and peer into the room beside mine.

"Carl?" I ask quietly.

The crying stops and it's silent for a few seconds before he shuffles around in the bed and sniffles a few times.

"Everything okay?" I ask into the darkness.

"Yeah.. Yeah.." he lies.

My finger taps on the doorway and Carl sighs loudly, sitting upright.

"No," he changes his mind.

Easing into the room, I check to make sure we hadn't woke Rick or Michonne up and close the door.

"You wanna talk about it? What was it?"

"I would say nightmare but.. It was just memories," he says, trying to laugh it off.

His shadow pats the bed beside him and I sit down, finally able to see a bit of his face in the dark.

"Judith.." he breathes out as though the name pained him.

I knew it. I could see her absence. But, it wasn't lost hope.

"Beth, Maggie, Taeyang, and I were together when.." I sigh, "Maggie and Taeyang went inside to get Glenn and Youngji. Beth and I were supposed to get others on the bus but Beth ran off. I tried to keep up with her, I just couldn't."

Resting my hand on his, I force a smile, "She said she was going to find Judith. Maybe she did and they're together."

"'Maybe'," he repeats.

"A maybe is better than nothing," I offer.

"Yeah. Maybe," he shrugs.

We fall into silence for a couple seconds before I get and idea, reaching into my bag.

"You carry that thing with you everywhere," he chuckles.

"I'm always afraid of losing it," I admit, "It's better I take it everywhere with me."

Pulling out my CDs, Carl peeks over my shoulder to inspect.

"You gonna give me a lesson on music?" he wonders.

"My batteries died the other night, so no," I frown.

Flipping to the back of the book, I sigh- heart aching as I pull the photos out. The only light we had was the moon's shine in the window behind us, but it was enough to recognize the faces we'd known for so long.

"How.." Carl whispers, scooting closer.

"Glenn found a camera. Before the flu hit, we took a bunch," I explain, handing him a stack to look through.

Carl smiled a bit as he flipped through the pictures. It was nice to see as I knew he'd been struggling ever since losing Patrick, then everything else fell apart so brutally.

I flip through the ones I had, smiling at the picture of Glenn and I in my hands. He was out there. He had to be. He's with Maggie and Taeyang. Safe. 

Then, my mouth went dry as I flipped to the next photo- Hershel's smiling face too much to handle.

I clear my throat, setting the pictures down and flipping through the CDs instead.

"I think this is the closest to a Daryl smile I've ever seen," Carl remarks.

"Only because he was flipping us off," I laugh.

He continues looking through the photos until he pauses, his eyes twinging to a feeling I didn't recognize. Sneaking a look, I see it's only a picture of Glenn and Taeyang together- Glenn's arm secure over Taeyang's shoulder as both held big grins that were only a motion capture of the laughter they were releasing when I snapped the photo.