Bitter & Sweet (A Carl Grimes Fanfiction)

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Rick was extremely late, sweat beamed off of him, Morgan trailed behind. "We got another wall done," Rick said happily as they entered the room. He spotted the wheel chair first, he stopped then looked around the table. "Carl turned around to face him, "hey dad." He gave him a pathetic smile. Rick cracked a smile then came around to sit in the chair next to his son, "shouldn't you be resting?" Denise put down her glass, "I thought it was time for him to get out of that room. Gain strength in his legs again." Rick nodded, "how do you feel?" Carl gave his dad a more confident and reassuring smile, "I'm fine dad."

"We're going to start with PT tomorrow," Denise spoke up after awhile of everyone enjoying the meal. Sam looked up to see Denise announcing this at the table, she wasn't sure was such a brilliant idea, considering. But she couldn't help but ask out of curiosity, "what's PT?" "Physical Therapy," Carl answered for her, playing slightly with his half eaten food, "I had to do it when I broke my arm when I was six." Rick nodded, recalling the memory in his head. "How did you manage that?" Carl cracked a small smile, "my friend had a very steep hill behind his house."

"You broke your arm by falling down a hill?" Sam questioned, trying to imagine how that could be possible. Carl nodded, "into his house, and his house was on a hill too so it had the concrete cement that peaked out with metal poles that poked out of the concrete. My arm went through one." He let out a laugh, "broke in 3 places." Rick nodded, "your mother," he gestured to both of them like she was Sam's mother too, "was escorted to the hospital after she got pulled over." Carl nodded slightly looking back down at his plate, "I remember."

"Well," Denise broke the awkwardness, "I think this physical therapy will be a lot different." Carl gave her a confused look, "first we have to get you back on your feet," he nodded, "but after that, we have to focus on your sight. Your PT will be mostly focusing on depth perception, and depth sensation." Carl looked at Michonne but it looks to seem that she understood. "Is that important?" Glenn was the one to ask. "Very," Denise took a sip of water, "perception is the visual ability to see everything in 3 dimensional, and depth sensation is where you'll be able to see how far something is, the distance." Carol and Maggie started to clean up, the chatter quieted down, to over listen the conversation between Grimes and Denise.

Carl tried to quiet his groan of annoyance, "but I'm pretty sure I see everything the same, just out of one side of my face." Denise nodded like she was expecting and preparing for this, "that's the problem right there. Our brains contact each eye differently, one for dimensional, and one for sensation, and since you lost a eye you could have lost total control on how far you see and how fast something is coming at you. You could think that something is a foot away but really it's all the way across this room, especially when it's coming at you." Rick stacked as many plates on top of each other as possible, trying to help clean up. "That sounds wonderful," Carl said sarcastically, still sitting down. He watches everyone going in and out of the kitchen taking in dishes and getting containers out to pack up leftovers.

"Eat," Sam snapped her fingers in front of his face. Carl glances down at his plate full of peas and half eaten mashed potatoes, "I want to help." Rick walks over picking up Carl's plate and giving it to Carol, "will you pack this up for him to eat later." When Carol reaches for it, neither had a good grip on it and it crashed to the floor, the plate breaking unevenly in half, the food going everywhere. Maggie rushed to get the broom and Carol, Rick and Rosita were on their hands and knees picking up the pieces of glass. Sam got up as Maggie cam out with the broom and dust pan, "I got it Maggie." Maggie smiled with gratitude, "thank you Sam."

Carol gave Carl a sympathetic glaze. "It's okay, I probably wouldn't have eaten it anyways. But it was good," Carl corrected himself, "I'm just really used to jello." Carol nodded smiling, "I'll make you a new plate just in case." She vanishes in the kitchen. Carl leans toward the table gripping it to pull himself on his feet. He steadied himself, keeping his weight up by his arm strength. He let one arm go so he was standing on one foot, but still mostly keeping himself up by his upper body strength. Sam vanished in the kitchen next, he heard the water running and chatter. If I could just make it to the door...- As he took one step forward, his whole body was taken from him as he crumbled to the floor, he tried to grab ahold of a chair to lift himself back up, but it just came down with him. He caught himself before his head hit the floor, but the chair still made a big *bang* sound.

Michonne and Rick who where cleaning the floor stood up immediately, instinct to pull out their guns. Carl merely waved at them, as he sat up, his legs useless. Michonne rushed over to help him up as everyone filed out of the kitchen to see what the commotion was. Denise hurried over when she saw Carl, "what happened?" With a small movement of Michonne's arm around his waist, she hoisted him up. "I'm fine. Just fell," he gave her a tiny smile to show the proof of his okay-ness. "Let's get you back to your room," Denise suggested, bringing over the wheel chair. "I want to walk," Carl protested slightly. People made it back inside the kitchen, Sam stayed out. "We'll get there. Just not today," Denise reassures.

The next couple of days are spent inside that house and in that bedroom Carl came to know quite well. Physical therapy became a daily thing, now walking (to Carl's relief) Denise was now focusing on Carl's eye coordination.

"Let's go outside for this," Denise holds up a kick ball with a bright smile. Carl nods and heads out, Sam was out with his dad working on the fence and what ever people needed help with around the community. They move out more in the street across from each other. "Ready?" Denise asked as she lifted the ball. Carl kept his eye on it, he studies it telling him self he'll catch it. Of course telling yourself you're going to do something compared to actually doing it is 2 totally different things. So when the ball came straight at him, Carl watched it trying to determine when he has to lift his arms and grab it. The ball was getting close, so he lifted his arms by instinct to catch it.

Except he didn't catch it, the ball was on the ground seconds before Carl even lifted his arms. He looks down as the ball bounces lightly before starting to roll away. "That's alright," Denise jogs over to get the ball, "late reaction, is all." Carl scoffed a little, "I would be screwed if that were a walker." With the ball under her hip she stood up straighter to look over at her patient, "maybe. But it wasn't a walker," and like she needs to prove it she holds it up, "just a ball." She starts to walk gesturing at Carl, "come on, plenty of day light left, to the basketball hoop." "That's not a basketball," Carl points out. "I know who has one," Denise says.

The basketball hoop looks to far up for anyone to make a shot, Carl decides. And like everything in the world wants to prove him wrong Denise makes a shot. Carl looks over at her a little shocked. She shrugs, "my brother used to play." Carl held out his hands wanting to catch it, once Denise got them all back. She walked to over to him, a good foot maybe more away from him; this was his last record from catching something. Denise must realize this and takes a small couple of steps back. She throws it and Carl desperately tries to catch it. It takes him a second to realize he did. He smiles widely. "See you're getting better already."

Taking a step back he aims at the net, he tries to let his eye adjust, getting blurry then double then clear, he watches as the ball hits the frame of the back board and bounces off. "Was I close?" "Eh....not really, but you're getting there. Let's focus on catching." She turns back to him, the basket ball now in her hand, standing a couple of feet away from him, "ready?" Carl nods, arms out. After a few times of catching it, Denise takes another step back but puts that basketball down and picks up the kickball which is slightly smaller than the b-ball. "Ready?" She repeats, which Carl nods to again. The first throw he doesn't catch, it goes off and on of catching and dropping, and almost catching, to catching and catching and catching until Denise takes another steps back and throws again. After Carl catches again a few times, with a wide smile on her face she puts down the kick ball and pulls out a tennis ball out of her bag strapped to her waist.

She takes a step forward before throwing. When Carl catches it his first try he looks up at Denise with a big smile. He jumps slightly when he hears sudden clapping from behind him, he turns around to face Sam, and Glenn's smiling faces. "He's getting better," Denise exclaimed. "We can see that," Sam said happily.