Bitter & Sweet (A Carl Grimes Fanfiction)

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"I just wanted to stop by and see how you were all settling," after Rick opens the door to find Deanna she steps in to take a look around the living room, where everybody was packed in, "Oh, my. Staying together. Smart." "No one said we couldn't." She smiled, "You said you're a family. That's what you said. Absolutely amazing to me how people with completely different backgrounds and nothing in common can become that. Don't you think?" Sam sat across from Noah and next to Carl at the dinning room table. The house reminded her of her old one, "Everybody said you gave them jobs." A small soft 'Mm-hmm', "Yeah. Part of this place. Looks like the communists won after all." "Well, you didn't give me one." Deanna can't stop looking at everyone, Sam looks away towards Carl, getting anxious under her stares. "I have. I just haven't told you yet. Same with Michonne. I'm closing in on something for Sasha," Sasha barely glances over, "And I'm just trying to figure Mr. Dixon out, but I will. You look good." She leaves as suddenly as she came. Rick closed the door.

"So do you think we could live here?" Carl asks as they explore upstairs to be alone. Sam hesitates, "I-I want to believe it's a good place. What about you?" Carl couldn't hide the grin on his face, the moon peered in too bright, "I don't know, I just wanted to hear you talk again." Sam shook her head like she should of known, "why?" "Just needed to make sure you weren't done talking to me." Sam turns away and goes to a bedroom, turning on the light she examines the walls, all the posters are ripped down. Like the posters were more important when walkers are eating their relatives.

"Do you ever wonder what high school would of been like?" Carl hopped on the bed. "I was a freshman when everything happened." Carl sits up, "really? Will you tell me about it?" Sam sits down, "do you know what a freshman even is?" He shakes his head, waiting for her to tell him everything, "9th grade, the lowest of lows in high school. Everyone says Freshman are the bait, the new prey. Seniors are the top dogs," Sam sits down on the window sill closing her eyes, trying to remember, "in my high school, they had a 'make a freshman cry week' where all the upper class an competed to make some little freshman cry," she opened her eyes to look at Carl, he was in awe with every word. "Did they try to make you cry?" Sam smiled, the memory replaying in her head, "they tried, a few seniors, dumped my tray on my lap on the 3rd day of school. Unfortunately for them it was sloppy joe day, and luckily for me it didn't make it to my pants. I caught it," she paused, she never said this much in months, "by the plate. I took the top bun off and smeared it across the leader of the group's shirt, hated me for it, but was too afraid to do anything about it to me." Carl frowned, "my old friends told me high school would be great." 

"It is. Unless you're targeted." Carl got up and sat by Sam, "well I sure wasn't feared." Neither was my brother. Carl didn't pick up on it, "I was less than feared. Didn't have very good comebacks either." "What grade?" "5th." Sam nodded, "my brother wasn't good at comebacks either. Sensitive too." Carl looked at her defensively, "I'm not sensitive." "My brother was, he was small for his age, sensitive and tender-hearted." Carl hesitated, "was he bullied?" Sam made an 'uh-huh' humming sound, "but he had me. He was vulnerable, too nice, kinda like you," Carl looked offended, "the too nice part, a lot reminds me of him by just looking at you."

Carl doesn't know what to say. "You could imagine what he did during that week. Except they did much worse to him, because what I did to that senior he took it out on me through my brother. Made him bawl, which was funny for them at the time."  "Kids are cruel." Carl said. "Teenagers are vicious predators that feed on the weak, my brother was the weak," Sam told him, "we're you?" It took him a minute to realize what she meant, "yeah I guess I was." "Kids are cruel," Sam mimicked him. "Yep."

After meeting the old people down the street, that really liked Judith, Sam and Carl met Ron. Sam thought he was nice, but he talked a lot. "We're almost always here after school, so you can come by any time," Ron tells them as they climb up his steps up to, Sam could guess was his room. "You go to school?" Sam remembered the conversation last night, she opened up a lot, and now she didn't feel like talking. "It's in a garage. Little kids go in the morning and then it's us in the afternoon. Probably you two, too, right?" Carl glances over at Sam, "Probably." They enter a room with a nice size bed, with little kid monster print on it and 2 other kids around the same age as Carl, maybe a little older. Sam realized how she looked like a teenager herself, just tall for her age. "Guys, this is Carl," he gestured to Carl, "and Sam. Carl, Sam this is Mikey and Enid." Mikey smiles brightly at them, "Hey." Enid doesn't even take a glance, "Hi." "Enid's from outside, too. She just came eight months ago." Carl then took a rolled up comic from his back pocket, "Oh, um is this yours?" "Sorry. We didn't know you guys got that house. We mostly just hang out there and listen to music," Mikey apologized, "That's Enid's." Enid looks up only then, gives a single glance at both of them and snatched it from his hands. Sam didn't like her, she wanted to scold her for being so rude.