Stale M&M's (recently plagiarized as "Sweet Tooth") The Walking Dead Fanfiction

34. Season 5 ~ The Closet on the Sixth Floor

Summary: On the last day before leaving Atlanta, the boys find a few quiet moments to enjoy their free time together.

CW: Sexual references between minors, not written graphically or explicitly, obviously, but the implications are there all the same.

~

At some point the next afternoon, Oliver visited Carol in her room down the corridor. She was sitting at the chair beside the window. Oliver peered out, pressing his fingers against the cool glass pane. The city was foggy that day, and cooler than usual. They could hardly see the empty streets below.

"I'm looking forward to getting out of here in the morning. This place makes me feel a little claustrophobic. Reminds me of CDC."

"Least you're above ground this time."

Carol smiled stiffly. "So, you wanted to talk to me?"

Oliver nodded. "Wanted to make sure you're okay."

"Have to be."

This didn't feel as comforting as he'd hoped.

"That Mika's?"

Oliver followed her eyes to his wrist, where Mika's red bracelet now lived after he'd managed to adjust it to its widest length. Lizzie's watch was too small to wear, but he kept it in his pocket to tell the time.

"I think about the girls all the time," he admitted. "Sometimes it feels like they're still around. They're never gonna leave, like the smoke and the fires. They just... follow us."

Carol frowned at him, then softened her expression. "I said something like that to you before you woke up. Did you hear me?"

"I... I don't know."

"It's amazing, isn't it? What our minds hold onto... or don't."

Oliver watched her. "Are you sure you're okay, Carol?"

"Yeah, I told you—"

"No, I mean... are you really okay? I'm scared you're gonna disappear again. I don't want you to leave me."

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay."

"It's not, Oliver." She rubbed her forehead, frustrated. "I'm sorry you want to trust someone like me so much. Trusting me doesn't usually end up well for people. The last time someone trusted me, I lost her on a highway."

Oliver watched the tears roll down Carol's cheeks. She wiped them dry quickly, sniffing and sitting up straight to steel herself.

"Children aren't supposed to die before their parents," she said, softly and sternly at the same time. "We're not built for that kind of loss. It's something that destroys you."

"Is that why you left me? So you wouldn't lose me?"

"I... I couldn't just sit around and watch you all die. I can't. That's what happens now — we don't get to save people."

"Yeah... guess."

"Aren't you angry with me?"

Oliver just watched the window and sighed. "I'm just tired of being left behind."

Carol began to cry again.

She said Oliver's name.

She said, "Look at what I did to you..."

He frowned at her. "Dawn shot me."

"If I hadn't wound up here, you wouldn't have gotten shot at all —what— what, you're just going to shrug? You're just going to sit there and shrug at me?"