Forever and Always

Rain and Outbursts

I woke up in the tent, next to Carl. The steady beat of the rain pounding against the tent filled my ears.
Without moving, I stared out of the small flap.
I wanted to enjoy this for as long as possible. The only problem with this was we were in the middle ova zombie apocalypse, and even through the weirdness of it all, it still got weirder.
The Walkers seemed to have disappeared and the rain wouldn't stop. everything seemed so unreal nowadays.
I cuddled up against Carl and he stirred slightly.
"Are you up?" he asked, voice low from resting all night.
I nodded against his chest.
We just lay there listening to the rain for a while, until we heard a disruptance in the steadiness of the water.
Daryl and Glenn approached our tent and came inside with serious expressions.
"We've been thinking all night about this." Daryl started, his eyes dark and his voice thick in its southern drawl.
Carl and I say up and looked at them.
"About what?"
Glenn replied,"We don't want you guys out by yourselves anymore. Yesterday was a close call and we don't want to press our luck."
Carl glared at them while I just stared.
"You don't think we can handle ourselves?" Carl asked.
Glenn sighed,"That's not what we sai-"
"But it's what you inferrred."
I placed my hand on Carl's as if to let him know that he needed to calm down.
He took the message,"I don't care what you guys say. Joce is my running partner and it's going to stay that way."
He turned to his small bag and pulled out his comic book.
I turned to Glenn and Daryl,"We got this, okay? We can protect each other."
Glenn started to protest, but Daryl knocked him with his shoulder.
"Alright, we're going on a run for baby supplies. Take care of the babies while we're gone."
I nodded and looked at Carl. He was too involved with his book to be paying any attention to anything that was going on.
As soon as the two men left, I walked over to the distant boy.
"Carl, cmon. We gotta go get Judy and Jacob."
He closed the book, careful not to lose his page and shoved it under his shirt before walking with me to Glenn and Daryl's tent.
The babies were in their makeshift cribs, sleeping when we walked in.
We both found spots in the grounds and sat in silence.
Not really one for awkward moments, I broke the silence.
"Back in the tent, you got really defensive. Why?"
He shifted and opened the book on his lap.
"Uh, I'm talking to you" I said, slightly annoyed.
He turned to me,"I just didn't want them to change it."
"Why?"
"Because they made it seem like I couldn't protect you." he sort of shouted.
"They made it seem like I didn't protect you yesterday. They made it seem as if that sorry excuse for a human didn't try to stuff his-"
"Okay." I said as I walked over to soothe him.
He had been starting to scream and tears were welling up in his eyes.
Yesterday, he had acted like it didn't matter to him. I knew that he was pretending. No one could walk away from that kind of assault and not feel upset at all.
I wrapped my arms around him as I glanced at the babies to make sure that Carl's outburst hadn't woken them up.
Carl fell into my arms and heaved loud, wet sobs into my shoulder.
"It's alright. We'll always be there for each other. Forever and always."