The Sheriff and The Archer

Chapter Seven: Lean On Me

While walking to the minivan I pondered how I should wake up dear Carl. The normal way? A fun way? I grinned to myself as I thought of an idea.

I quietly pulled open the minivan door and sat in the seat beside Sheriff. The moonlight decided to shine right on his upper body and hair so I got a view of him sleeping.

He was wearing a dark blue plaid shirt, he - of course - had some dirt and blood on his neck and face. The hat sorta tipped over his forehead a bit and cast a small shadow down part of his left cheek. His face contorts a bit and he starts slightly moving.

"Mom... Judy... don't..." A few tears escape his eyes so I abort my little prank and start to shake him.

"Sheriff, Sheriff, Carl! Carl wake up!" His eyes pop open and he jolts up, but is choked by his seatbelt. He unhooks it and wipes the tears away. He starts to cry even more and I don't really know what to do in this situation so I fall to my knees on the floor of this navy blue minivan and pull him down with me. He instantly responds to my hug and buries his face in my shoulder, then the crook of my neck.

It's a little odd for me to be comforting him and we both keep murmuring, "I'm sorry" to each other and it's a big mess, but I'm okay with that. After a while he stops crying and just wipes his tears.

"Thank you," he whispers.

"What are you sorry for?" We say at the same time.

"You first," he says and motions for me to speak my mind.

"It's that... you said a couple names while you were sleeping and I figured you... lost whoever they were and I'm sorry you had to go through that. What could you possibly be sorry for?" I ask rather awkwardly.

"That I just met you, but depended on you and leaned on you. I don't think that you should feel any burden or whatever because I broke down. I'm sorry," he looks down.

"Carl, you don't have to be sorry that you lost people and are hurting so you broke a little. Everybody needs a little help sometimes and everyone needs a should to cry on," I smile at him.

He looks at me with those beautiful blue eyes and suddenly I feel like he's looking into my freaking soul, so I break eye contact. Carl opens his mouth a little like he wants to tell me something, but can't.

"You don't have to tell me about them," I whisper. His shoulders slump with what I think is relief. "You can tell me whenever you feel like... if you want to tell me at all." He nods and asks where everyone else is. I explain that I was sent outside to get him and that they're all in the house. He nods again and moves back a little. I didn't realize how close we were. Oops. I blushed and turned around to open the door I stepped out and walked inside with Carl a few steps behind. When we reach the door both of our hands touch the handle bar at the same time. I go into a little state of shock for a few seconds, but quickly recover and let him pull the door open. He holds it for me.

"Thanks," I mumble. We walk into the living room where there is a circle and Rick standing and talking. Everyone looks at us. You could barely tell Carl was even crying unless you look at him closely. But my shirt is soaked on my right shoulder, so I quickly move my hair to cover it.

Tara gives me an odd look, but I just look at Rick.

"Our priority is to find the rest of the group."

"No, it's Washington," the Irish man fought.

"We're not going anywhere without our people. You need us to help protect you. You guys weren't exactly doing the best on your own..." Rick trailed.

"We need to stay with them," the latina girl spoke.

"Rosita's right, Abraham," the man with the mullet looked up at the pacing Abraham. Okay so, I got two more names. The only name I was missing was the guy with the mullet.

"Umm..." I interrupted. "What's going on?"

"I'll explain to you later, sweetheart," Maggie looked at me told me. I nodded while feeling completely awkward. You shouldn't have said anything.

"We're going to DC, Eugene!" Abraham shouted. And bingo was his name-o! Eugene... Okay, that's all of the names. I hope they all know what my name is...

"I'm staying," Rosita said. Eugene nodded in agreement. Everyone looked at Abraham.

"Fine! We'll look for your people, then we go to DC," he huffed and sat down on the clutch next to Eugene and Rosita.

"Look, those people are our family. We need them. When we lost them... when we lost everything... the only thing you have in this world is other people, your friends and your family. We need to find our family, you understand?" Obviously the question was rhetorical.

Wait... so they lost people... recently. And those people are wandering around Georgia. Not having anywhere to go. I looked around at the group, swallowed a large lump in my throat, prayed to every fucking religion I could think of, and then I opened my mouth, "Do you - do you think they went to Terminus?"

BAM! AND SCENE! Cliffhangers are so fun! Sorry I haven't updated in a while (okay it was only three days but whatever) I was busy, then lazy, then I got a bit of writers block. And then as I was writing I thought wait... weren't Carol and Tyreese planning on going to Terminus? And viola, the ending of this chapter was created.

Did you guys like the Carl/Jade in this chapter? They're starting to become friends! And Jade's starting to feel the pull to the group! YAY!

Also, the dream that Jade had in the beginning of the chapter? Yeah, that's gonna happen more often.

And yeah this chapter was unedited, and that sucks, but Wattpad gets really slow when I try to get back to edit, so the others chapter are just barely edited also ): I'm gonna be better with that I promise