Bite Me. // Carl Grimes

Two - "Don't let me go."

Carl thrashed around in his father's grasp as he practically dragged him back to their house where Michonne waited patiently with Judith. But to Carl it barely felt like home anymore.

Lydia had lived with Rick and Carl, she'd had her own bedroom and allowed Glenn and Maggie to have their own home together. She didn't want to drag her older sister down, especially considering she was married with a baby on the way.

That was the worst part of it all, Lydia could've had a part in that, she could've helped to raise Maggie's child and be the aunt that it deserved; she could've had a part in Carl's life, in her own life. The Grimes boy knew that, he could've been a part of that too, something greater, and that idea destroyed him.

The simple sight of her bedroom as he walked by it as slow as ever made his heart fall into the pit of his stomach. The framed picture of the two of them, her drawings pinned to the walls, the plastic joke ring he'd given her left ownerless on the dresser. It all belonged to her.

Oh how badly he wanted to forget her, but he couldn't she was a part of him just as he'd been a part of her, and he knew he'd have to learn to live with that even if Lydia wasn't able to.

But she would be, he just wouldn't come to know it until much later.

"I should never have let you go." Carl sighed quietly as he lay down on his ex girlfriend's bed, his eyes stared up at the ceiling, "I should've put you down."

For a while he lay there in silence wrapped up in her bedsheets with tears in his eyes, it hurt, it hurt so bad. The blue eyed boy remembered so clearly how they'd used to lay there together reading comic books like the pair of nerds they were, they could sit together in silence for hours and hours, reading and holding hands, it felt like he'd been stabbed when he even thought about it.

He remembered how they'd lay there whilst gazing at the stars through her bedroom window. He remembered all of the kisses they'd shared right there on that very bed, and the simple memory itself made him want to burn any trace of her out of his head.

"Carl?" Michonne spoke upon entering Lydia's bedroom, "What are you doing in here?"

"I can't do it anymore. She's gone and I didn't protect her, I didn't do anything! I didn't even put her down, I just let myself get shot and-"

"Don't talk like that. There's nothing you could've done Carl, I'm sure wherever she is she knows that."

"I-I know... I just wish I could've done more." He wiped away the tears with his sleeve, "I tried to put her down and my dad stopped me."

"You saw her?"

"She was right outside of the gate, I almost did it but he grabbed me and when I looked again she was gone."

"I'll make you a promise but it has to be a secret. You got that?"

"Got it."

"Tomorrow you and I will go look for her, she won't have gone too far away from the walls, and we'll put her down and bury her just like she deserves."

"You'd really do that for me?"

"I'd do anything for you Carl."

"Thank you." The brunette boy cried, "Thank you..."

On the other side of the fence, Lydia, or the walker version of Lydia that still had her conscious trapped inside of her, looped in circles behind the fence. She couldn't leave Alexandria, it was her home and everyone she'd ever loved was there, the poor mess of a child was drawn to it.

With a soft groan the walker girl stumbled back and fell down onto the soft  mossy ground, and there she realised, exactly where she lay, that she could see her old bedroom. It was empty, or so it seemed, and it was only as the child was about to force herself to her feet that she caught sight of a light turning on in her room, illuminating its way through the dark, and revealing to her the boy she once loved.

"C-C..." She tried to yell but no words came out only a letter, but it was still the most she'd been able to say since dying.

"C-Ca..." Lydia tried again

There wasn't much use in trying to talk, she'd lost that opportunity a long time ago. She lost that opportunity when she decided to go out into a sea of walkers with her boyfriend, she would've followed him anywhere, where soon enough she died.

She remembered her death like it was only yesterday, how she'd been but then was forced to witness Ron, one of her best friends, dying before her very eyes. And to top it all of she had to endure the pain of seeing her boyfriend be shot, even in her last dying moments she reached out to catch him.

The poor girl wasn't even sure if he was alive until she'd saw him at the gate only two hours earlier.

"C-Car..."

For a while Lyds lay on the grass watching as Carl cried in front of her bedroom window and desperately wiped at his eyes with the sleeves of his shirt. He looked so unhappy and it made her heart hurt to see him that way. He was making her feel things again.

"C-Car-l." It was the first word she'd spoken in two months

And as terrifying as it seemed, and despite her knowing that Carl couldn't see her in the darkness beyond his bedroom window and beyond the fence, as she said his name, she could've sworn he was looking right at her.

Silently upon hearing something outside of his bedroom window, Carl wiped his eyes one more time before he peered out into the abyss of darkness. There was nothing. No one was there as far as he could see.

Carl was looking right at her and he had no idea, the girl he'd dreamed of and once loved was stood on the other side of the metal fence. And her mind, just as her heart and soul were, was coming back to life.

With a sigh, he opened her bedroom window and climbed up onto the ledge above it where for a while he cried and talked to himself. It was a sad sight and it broke Lydia's suddenly beating heart to see.

"I shouldn't have let you go." He cried

"Then don't." She tried to say but no words came out, "Don't let me go Carl."

Lydia tried and tried but there was nothing, once again she was voiceless. It was only as Carl climbed down from the room and back into his bedroom that the sounds left her throat.

"C-Carl."