When The World Caves In |C.G.

forty four

A/N: Theres a trigger warning for a very brief attempted SA scene. Probably less than a hundred words but I marked for you all in case you'd like to skip. That scene.

"Do you have something to say about my extremely comfortable and attractive shirt?" Michonne asks, brandishing a clean white long sleeve shirt. It kind of makes her look like a pirate. Carl laughs, pushing around his cereal.

The knock on the door belonged to her. There's an empty pit in my stomach that feels guilty for wishing it were Daddy instead. Wishing he used his skills with tracking to find us at this stupid house. I'm not mad at Michonne for finding us, hell I'm grateful she did. I'm mad that Daddy hasn't yet.

Maybe he is dead, maybe he's going the opposite direction. Maybe something is keeping him from finding me, I don't know. I just wish he were here with me. I wish Mr. Tubbins were here too. I've had him since birth, it's weird losing my childhood toy in a way that feels so final. Yes I'm a teenager and I don't really need him anymore but, Mr. Tubbins is a constant in my life. And when the constants in your life become not so constant, it hurts like a bitch. 

"No, no, no." Carl says through a smile. "It looks great." 

Michonne takes a seat at the table with us, pouring herself a bag of dried corn flakes and setting two bottles of water in front of Carl and I. The atmosphere in this house is odd, we're all plastering fake smiles on our faces, trying not to think about what we lost, about who isn't here. 

"I wish we had some soy milk." She says, filling the silence. I'm grateful for it. 

"Seriously?" Carl says with a disgusted look on his face, looking at Michonne in disapproval. 

"Yes, seriously." Michonne says. "Have you ever tried it?" 

"My best friend in third grade, he was allergic to dairy," Carl explains. "And everyday he would bring this soy stuff to lunch. I tried it." 

"And?" Michonne says, like she's an officer of the law. I wonder if this is how conversations would go at the Grime's household before everything happened. 

"I threw up." Carl says and I roll my eyes. 

"You ate 112 ounces of pudding yesterday and soy milk made you throw up?" I ask as Michonne calls his bluff as well. 

"First off, you helped." Carl defends himself, throwing his hands into that air. "Secondly, I didn't actually throw up but I almost did, I went like 'blegh'. Have you even had soy milk? It was so gross." 

"No." I admit before revealing, "I was lucky if we even had milk at home." 

"I mean literally, I would rather have powdered milk than to have to drink that stuff again." Carl says going on a tangent about how gross it was. Thankfully he doesn't choose to analyze my comment. "I would rather have Judith's formula--" 

Carl's face drops as he realizes what he says and it dawns on him that Judith was left to die. We all go silent, staring at the table for a moment before Carl gets up abruptly saying something about his book. I know better than to think he's telling the truth. He's leaving before we watch him break. The atmosphere is back to odd in an instant. 

Michonne and I sit at the table, stirring our bowls of cereal in silence before I look up at her. She was with Hershel when everything went down. The closest to the Governor other than Rick, and I know Rick didn't kill him. 

"Is he dead?" I ask her, breaking the silence. The tension settles over us like a heavy smog. It's suffocating. She knows who I'm talking about immediately, and I find myself glad that I don't have to elaborate who 'he' is.