The Youngest Greene (Carl Grimes fan fiction)

Chapter 29

After that one night, I volunteer to take watch as often as I can, avoiding everyone. I do observe a lot of things though. Sasha and Bob and their new relationship, Carol and Daryl and their not yet romantic but strong relationship.

I realize that I haven't seen Jenna since the prison, and I was to selfish to remember her. I don't know what has become of her.

I find myself remembering from a long time ago, me ending that mans life that his walker son had bitten him. But it's almost like it doesn't count. He wanted me to shoot him. He was dying.

I watch as Michonne and Daryl walk out the gate by themselves to look for just about anything. Food, water, guns, a safe place, a car, you name it.

The gun that I was given to take watch with doesn't seem very important to me; if there was a walker I would probably let it kill me.

I look down at the multiple bruises on my legs, most of which I don't remember what they're from.

The tan gauze that Abraham wrapped around my ankle is still there, fully visible due to the flip flops I'm wearing.

Flowers are fully in bloom all over the lawn, the grass way to tall because it hasn't been cut in so long. The sun shines, the sky a clear blue with a few fluffy clouds in it.

I feel so depressed. About my father. About killing a man. About life.

I've been so caught up with feeling guilt that I've almost ignored Carl lately, and just after our relationship began.

The hotel door swings open bit but I don't turn my head. Steps creak along the porch towards me and then someone plops down beside me on the swing and I finally turn my head.

"Beautiful day." Rick says observing everything.

I nod my head, looking back at the seemingly picture perfect day.

"Oh who am I kidding, I didn't come out here to talk about the weather with you." Rick says sighing. "I don't have any idea how to have a heart to heart with a teenage girl, but I suppose this will be good practice for when I need to do this with Judith." He says.

I raise my eyebrows at him. Rick wants to have a heart to heart with me?

"I'll try to make it easy." I say and smile lightly at him, this being the first time I have spoken in two days.

He chuckles and rubs his beard lightly, looking all around the horizon with his watchful blue eyes.

"I wanted to talk to you about... killing. Not walkers, people." He says, his eyes coming to my face for a split second to assess my reaction and then flickering back to the road.

"Oh." I say lightly. I can feel myself crawling back into my shell, the shell built with guilt that I had broken out of for just a few seconds. I pull all my hair onto my left shoulder and run my fingers through it.

"I know what you're feeling. I felt it with the very first person I killed. But you know something? I couldn't even tell you who it was or how many people I've killed now a days." Rick says seriously.

"Sometimes," He says pausing for a minute as if to think of what he wants to say. "Sometimes you have to make a choice. You have to protect yourself and the people you love, and there is no way to get around it." His southern accent slips through as he's speaking, but I cling to his words.

"I just.." and this is the part when I start crying. "I don't know how to let go of it." I say finally coming to terms with it. I wipe the tears off my cheek with my fingers.

"Why did you kill him?" Rick urges me, trying to help me let go of it. No one really knows why I did besides Tyreese, and I think he's left it up to me to tell everyone when I want to.

"I was in the cabin. He got the ropes off his wrist and started choking Judith, and threatened to kill her if Tyresse didn't leave the house. There was walkers everywhere outside. He thought I wouldn't do anything because I was a defenseless little girl with a hurt ankle. And I.. I killed him. And he begged me not too." I sniff loudly and wipe more tears away.

"You were not wrong. You were completely right." Rick says.

"But how was my life of more value than his?" I say desperately. There it was. The question that had been nagging me and eating away at me for what seemed like an eternity. Why was it better that I kept living, and not him?

"That's a stupid question." Rick says, but he doesn't say it in a harsh way at all.

I sigh and wipe more tears away from my eyes.

"I miss my Dad." I say bringing on another round of tears.

"Your father was a good man." Rick says squinting his eyes as he accidentally looks directly at the sun.

"You have so many people that care about you. My son, for example, is desperately in love with you." He says.

I smile. "He's not desperately in love with me." I say, laughing lightly.

"Deny it all you want, but he is, and right now you're breaking his heart."

"I haven't been very nice to him lately have I?" I say and Rick shakes his head no.

"Judith is asleep in the house and I have nothing to do. I enjoy sitting out here in this sunshine so much though." Rick says winking at me.

"He's in the back woods." Rick says smiling widely at me.

I hug Rick quickly and start to walk back there, but then I turn around again.

"Rick, Judith is gonna have a pretty great dad to talk to when she is a teenager." I say smiling at him.

He smiles at me and then I speed walk to the back yard.

Although my ankle hurts, I feel like I'm walking on a cloud. I know it will never fully leave me, but the burden has been lifted from me temporarily.

I walk as fast as I can to the backyard of the place. Glenn is on watch back there, and for the first time in what feels like forever, I smile at him.

He looks a little bit shocked, but then he returns that smile.

I notice a small trail going into the woods, so I decide to follow it. Hopefully Carl went down this path.

I walk down the path, my hair swaying back and forth around my shoulders.

The path comes to an end at a stream that's really pretty. It has a small waterfall near a bunch of rocks, and a bridge to sit on.

There on the bridge is a boy sitting with a sheriffs hat.

I walk down the bridge and sit beside him, a smile stretched across my face.

"Hey." I say shyly. I adjust my legs and sit Indian style.

"Hi." Carl says glancing up at me. His legs are dangling off the bridge, but they aren't touching the water.

"I'm really sorry about how I've been acting and what happened the other night." I apologize. "I just needed some time to figure things out."

"Oh. It's ok." He says staring down at the stream.

I find his hand and intertwine our fingers.

"I'm really sorry. I wasn't considerate of who I was hurting." I say looking into his eyes this time.

Carl smiles at me and then kisses my cheek and I know he has forgiven me.

I look out across the water, almost happy. We sit there for a long time, just catching up on each other's lives.

Little did we know, we were being watched.

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(Thank you for reading and voting for my book! Xoxo- Isabella (: )