Living with the Dead.(twd)

Bad At Goodbyes. (188)

CARL'S POV.

I sit at the table with Dad, Michonne and Jenna eating lunch. Judith is napping upstairs.
I stare at my plate and lift my fork, moving my food around the plate but not eating it.

I didn't realize I was bouncing my leg up and down in a rapid movement until Jenna put her hand on my leg to stop me.
I look up and everyone is staring at me.
"What's got you in such an anxious mood?" Dad asks.

Oh you know, I have to sneak off without anybody noticing me, so that I can meet up with my girlfriend who I haven't gotten to speak to in over a month because she's being held hostage by some asshole.

I shrug. "Nothing."
"How did you get on in your physics test Jenna?" Michonne asks.
"Actually, better than I thought..." I stop listening to their conversation and let my mind drift.

Last night I stayed up late, scenarios playing in my head of all the things that might happen when we finally meet. I have so many questions to ask her but somehow I know I won't have enough time to ask them all. Negan will notice she's gone.

I've gone through stages of panicking that maybe we translated the code wrong. So even at four in the morning I ran downstairs to check the message was right. It was. It still said.

Six miles west from Hilltop.

A loud knock on the front door made me jump in my seat with fright.
"I'll get it." I mumble, pushing my chair back, making a squeaking noise against he floor.
I walk into the hall and open the door.

"Enid? What's wrong? Why do you have bags on your back?" I question.
She stands in the doorway awkwardly, almost self-consciously.  She quickly glances past me to check nobody is looking or listening in. She grabs my arm and pulls me out into the porch. I close the door behind me.

I lean against the pillar of the porch while she sits on the swing.
"I'm leaving." She breaks the silence.
"What? No. Why?"
"Look, its a long story, but I came here to say what I have to say. I didn't know you and Madison were having a ... you know... a baby an-"
"We're not. She is." I snap frustrated.

The questions came from everyone the second Negan left and if I have to explain myself once more about excluding myself from this 'situation',  I think I'll go insane.
"But the baby is yours?" She asks.
"Technically." I shrug.
"Okay. I'm sorry for getting in the way, before, even before you knew she was pregnant. I'm sorry. But yesterday when Negan was here, Madison and I were talking. Negan was inside your house and Madison was sitting, waiting on this very swing." She tells me, patting on the wooden swing to prove her point.
I raise an eyebrow, immediately curious.

Madison doesn't hate Enid but after she caught us almost kissing she's not exactly her favorite person either. So why would Madison want to talk to Enid ?

"I told her I was thinking of leaving. I'll go to the Hilltop to help take care of Maggie. Madison told me to keep an eye out for Daryl if he ever showed up there and to give this to Maggie." She says, handing me a slip of paper.
I turn it around and it's the same damn scan. I immediately hand it back to her.

"She said maybe Maggie would want to see it, to let her know she's okay. She also told me to get Maggie's scan from her room and bring it to her. It might help her... emotionally, you know, after everything."

She stares at me in silence for a few seconds, frowning in concern.
"Was it as bad as it sounds?" She asks and I immediately know she's talking about the night we met Negan and he killed Abraham and Glenn.
I shake my head. "Worse."
She nods. "Sorry."
She stands up from the swing and I block her path to the steps.