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Carl wakes up with RJ’s foot in his face. Which isn’t too unusual. One tiny baby toenail digs into the inside of his nostril. It would be horrible if it weren’t so expected at this point. Carl tries not to move too suddenly as he slips out of bed. He is careful with RJ in a way he does not need to be with Judith. At least she is big enough that he doesn’t need to worry about her. When he was younger, he was terrified of holding her, convinced that if he breathed on her wrong, she would die immediately.
When Carl is sure that Judith and RJ are still asleep, he climbs out of bed, sliding carefully from underneath their pudgy limbs wrapped around him. Judith whimpers as he dislodges her little fist from his shirt, and RJ whines when Carl slides him off of his chest and next to Judith. They wrap slowly around each other, and Carl starts packing their shit. They’ve been staying with Maggie for about a week now, and Carl’s gotten pretty good at telling when adults are at their limit. Three babies under five in one house is a lot for anyone. Especially a lady like Maggie. She’s busy most of the time, caring for Hershel and doing… everything. Everything. She does runs, cooks, cleans, and helps settle interpersonal disputes. She does a lot of stuff, even if Carl can’t quite name all of it.
Maggie is serious. It reminds Carl unnervingly of Shane some days. He mentioned Shane to Maggie once, and she’d stared at him blankly. It was then that Carl realized she didn’t even remember Shane.
Today, Carl will move the three of them into Gabriel’s guest room. He has two in his house. Both are supposed to be for folks who need sanctuary, but everyone knows at least one of the rooms belongs to Carl and his siblings.
The Grimes kids- Carl, Judith, and RJ- have become oddly nomadic. It’s not like they have much stuff to carry with them, and There’s no limit to the number of places they can stay. Gabriel and Coco are chill, too. Or at least more chill than Maggie is these days. Even if Gabriel’s raising Coco to be a little Jesus freak, just like him. Carl likes to map out where they will go ahead of time in his head. They don’t stick around anywhere for very long. RJ and Judith are small. They are small enough that they still get underfoot and annoy people left and right. Even with Carl to look after them, they can be a hassle. People have stuff to do. They have responsibilities. They never stop reminding Carl about everything they went through, how hard they all work. Even when they aren’t reminding him, it sits at the back of his mind. He remembers it every time he sees the crow’s feet in the corners of Gabriel’s eyes or the way Maggie’s hands shake so hard that she can’t even hold a cup of coffee anymore.
Daryll and Carol are gone now, too. That makes things even harder. At least when they were around, it wasn’t just Carl taking care of RJ and Judith. Well, that was a lie. Carol and Carl never got along very well. Maybe it was the memory of Sophia that hung over their heads. Or perhaps it was the way she watched Judith. Carl wasn’t stupid. He knew what adults did when they were sad. They put that sadness onto other people. He was waiting for the moment Carol tried to take Judith and RJ away. The moment that she decided he was a threat or that she didn’t need him. He’d seen what she’d done to Sam. The way she’d terrorized that kid. Then, when the chips were down, he didn’t know how to act. There was only the blind terror she’d instilled in him.
Carl lost an eye because of Carol because of how she’d treated Sam. He’d lost friends, too. He knew what happened to Lizzie and Mika—had heard her muttering about it in her nightmares. When they stayed at Gabriel's, he used to listen to confessions through the vents. He’d listened to the whole horrible thing. He hadn’t been a kid in a long time, but there was a difference between a child soldier and a threat. One that Carl would never know if he crossed. How long would it be before Carol put him down?
Carl missed Daryll with a sharp pang, too. He missed the way he laughed, how he looked at Carl like he was proud of him. How he held Judith and RJ like they were something precious. Carl had trusted Daryll in the way he’d only really trusted Michonne. His Dad and Carol- they were loose canons. But Daryll and Michonne? They were steady, warm, and thoughtful in ways that no one else was unless they wanted something.
Carl packs everything. By the time he’s done, Maggie’s guest room looks damn near spotless, even with the two babies curled up in rumpled blankets in the middle of it all. Judith is curled around RJ like he’s a teddy bear. She’s got a funny little frown on her face. There’s this dimple that only ever appears when she’s made at the corner of her mouth. It reminds Carl of his Momma. He can’t remember much of what she looked like now. He doesn’t have any photos any more. But he thinks she had dimples. He repeats what he knows about her some nights like a mantra. Her name was Lori Grimes. She had a sister, and she liked the taste of buttered toast. It was her favorite breakfast. Or at least the one he remembers her eating the most. Buttered toast and a poached egg. When she held Carl, it felt like everything was right. Like he was loved. Hugging his dad used to feel the same way, but that changed after those days when he got sick, and Carl thought he was on his own. Hugging his dad didn’t make him feel safe anymore. It felt like hugging a walking corpse. Then, after the claimers- after Alexandria, the Saviors- it felt like hugging a wild animal. One that was just as likely to sink its jaws into Carl’s throat as it was to tell him he was loved.
Judith comes around slowly. She opens her eyes and sits up, jostling RJ awake. He starts to whimper, and Carl is there. He’s not very good with babies, but he’s gotten good with RJ. He’s easy to take care of. Mostly. Half the time, all he needs are cuddles. He’s always looking for the faint memory of his time in Michonne’s belly. He likes it when Carl lets him curl up on his chest, one tiny ear pressed against it. Carl keeps one hand on his back, and if he’s quiet enough, he swears he can hear the faint beating of his baby brother’s heart.
Judith crawls out of bed as Carl tries to soothe RJ, who slowly settles into a relaxed calm on Carl’s chest. Eventually, he grabs the loose strands of Carl’s hair where they slip out from his ponytail. Judith pouts when she sees all of their stuff packed up. She knows what that means by now. “Where’s Dolly?” She asks.
Carl grabs the onesie he’d left out for RJ, mentally preparing to wrestle the little guy into it. If he could, he would leave the little guy naked. But if he does that, someone will say something. Maybe they’d assume that Carl doesn’t know what he’s doing. Perhaps they’d try to take RJ and Judith from him. The thought makes it hard for Carl to breathe. His dad and Michonne are gone. So is everyone else, replaced by new characters in the neverending circus that is Carl’s life. His siblings are the only stability left, and what will Carl have if they’re taken from him?
Carl begins the neverending fight of forcing RJ into clothes. The old onesie will need to be washed. Most of their clothes need to be cleaned. Father Gabriel is one of a handful of people with an actual, working washing machine. No dryer, though. Carl is always the one who winds up doing everyone’s laundry when he stays with Father Gabriel. Maybe that’s why he’s still allowed to stay with him. For all the shit Carl talks and how cagey he can be, Gabriel still puts up with him ‘cause Carl does laundry, and when he’s over there, he’ll cook and clean, too, showing up at every single service like a good preacher’s son, even if he isn’t Gabriel’s kid at all. He can pretend, though. Carl thinks Gabriel likes it when they pretend. It’s not anything new. He’s spent years pretending to be someone else. Someone quiet. Someone smart.
Carl thinks for a minute, trying to recall where he put Dolly. Every second that slips by, Judith starts looking more and more pouty. “Check the pillow case?” Carl tells her quickly, trying to do the snaps on RJ’s onesie as he wriggles away, praying that the doll will be there and that he’s temporarily averted Judith’s next tantrum. She’s just as good at pretending as Carl is. She can be sweet and kind around most adults. The second she’s alone with Carl, everything is a disaster. Even a hair out of place makes her burst into tears. Carl wonders, some days if it’s his fault. Then he remembers how she was those days he left after they found Enid’s head on a pike. He doesn’t have the words for what happened ‘cause he knows he didn’t go. But Judith and RJ were with someone else while he buried Enid, and after that, there’s nothing but a strange blank space where the next few days should have been. When he came, she was crying in his arms, clinging to him while Morgan watched. He looked haggard. More than he usually did, anyway. He told Carl later that Judith had spent the entire time crying for him and refusing to eat.
“Found her!” Judith crows triumphantly, holding Dolly up. The sight of her holding the damn thing makes Carl smile for a second. She loves that thing. Dolly is a pretty blonde thing in a pink dress. Daryll once told Judith that she looked like Dolly Parton without the tits, and the name had stuck, though sometimes Judith would change it to Holly or Harmony. Always something with an H.
RJ starts trying to undo the buttons when Carl is done with them. When his chubby little fingers can’t entirely undo them, he pouts, wriggling and cooing unhappily. He’s an active little guy. More than Judith ever was, he was always pulling himself along the ground or trying to escape Carl’ attempts to dress him. He never does it when Maggie dresses him. He sits still, like the little fucking angel that Carl knows he isn’t, smiling up at her. Maggie always falls for it, too. If she didn’t have her kid to look after, she’d probably be the one to do all of this.
“Have you gotten dressed yet?” Carl asked Judith as she started pulling out all her toys from the pillow case Carl had tossed them in.
“Don’t wanna.” She told him, taking out one of RJ’s teething toys that he didn’t even need yet and scrutinizing it closely.
“We gotta. We’re going to Gabriel’s later.”
Judith dropped the teething toy, grabbing Dolly by the hair. “I wanna stay here.”
“I know.” Carl ensured pillows bracketed RJ so he couldn’t roll off the bed before he went to sit by Judith. “But we’ll be back again soon.” She liked it when he was at her level, so if he could,, Carl always sat when he talked to her.
“Gabriel’s is stupid. I hate having to do prayers.”
Carl sighed. She was in a mood. “If you don’t get dressed, we can’t get breakfast.” He reminds her. That usually works. Usually, Judith likes to eat. At least she likes to eat when Carl gives her the food. She gets anxious when other people try to feed her.
“No!” Judith throws Dolly at him. “I don’t wanna eat!”
“Hey!” Carl tried to catch Dolly. She flew past his outstretched hand. He folded his arms, trying to make his voice deep like his Dad’s. “Judith, get dressed. Now.” His fingers sunk into the soft flesh of his arms, and he wondered if he could crawl out of his skin if he gripped tight enough. Maybe he’d leave it in a crumpled puddle on the floor and run away into the forest. He hated how his heart squeezed when he had to be responsible. It wasn’t fair. “And what have I told you about throwing things?”
Judith stared at Carl. He stared right back, and slowly, her eyes beaded with tears, and suddenly, instead of a little girl, he was staring at a small, wrinkly ball of emotions. “I don’t wanna go!” She sobbed. “It’s not fair. How come Coco and Herschel all get to stay in the same place? I wanna go back home!” She was sobbing so loud it seemed like it echoed in Carl’s head. Then he realized that RJ was crying, too. It was so loud that it seemed like it drowned everything out. A lump formed in Carl’s throat, and he suddenly found that he couldn’t breathe quite right. He knew exactly what she meant when she said she wanted to go home. The house in Alexandria still sat abandoned—where Carl, Judith, Michonne, and Rick had all lived together—the house where RJ was born.
Carl didn’t unpack his stuff for two weeks after they arrived, convinced that something horrible would happen. When they finally had to leave, he’d forgotten to grab one of his fancy eyepatches. It had all kinds of pretty embroidery on it, and it matched those stupid cowboy boots he’d eventually had to give up ‘cause the heels were so worn down that he couldn’t wear them anymore. At the time, he'd thought he could grab it later. Same with his favorite blanket. The fleece one that Michone traded five cans of baked beans for. It was still there, gathering dust, and every time Carl thought about it he could feel that same horrible, helpless feeling as it welled up inside of his chest. The same feeling he’d felt when he sliced into his Momma. The same feeling he’d felt when he thought that walker had bitten him or when he woke up without an eye.
Carl wondered what his dad would do. He knew what Shane would do. He knew how Shane would backhand Judith if he were here right now. It was the same way he would backhand Carl when he was a little kid, terrified of the world and unable to stop sobbing no matter how hard his Momma hugged him.
Carl knew what his dad would do, too. How he’d scream, or cry, or something. Michonne would turn the whole thing into a joke, and his mom…
Carl wanted his mom.
Carl stood and walked out of the room. He stood in the hall momentarily, trying to regain control of his breathing. Everything was faint around the edges, and he wanted his mom so badly that it ached. He wanted the way she held him and how she used to slip him little treats, even when things were rough. The smell of her in his nostrils- how had she smelled? He realized, with a sharp pang in his chest, that he couldn’t remember her scent anymore, or the shape of her when she held him.
Judith and RJ were still crying. There was noise in the kitchen upstairs to the left. Maggie would show up if Carl didn’t get them to be quiet soon. Then she’d give him that talk. That same fucking talk everyone had given Carl since he was ten years old about how he was supposed to take care of Judith. About how he was supposed to be a good big brother. But Carl was tired. There was a difference between caring for his siblings and whatever he was doing now.
Carl breathed in… and out. He thought of Enid. His thoughts always went back to Enid when he got like this. Before they even started dating, she’d found Carl having a panic attack and coached him through it, her thumb tracing JSS into the palm of his hand, telling him to focus on things he could feel. He cataloged them, one by one. He felt the wood beneath his feet through the holes in his socks. He felt that stinging ache in his hip from that fall he’d taken a few days ago, tripping over one of Judith’s toys. He’d laid on the ground for what felt like hours until the pain had subsided, and he felt like he could walk again. He breathed the strange, mildewy smell. Like mothballs, but not. It always seemed to hang around Maggie’s house. His tongue traced across his teeth, feeling the tops of them. One was missing from when he had to get it pulled.
Carl breathed in… and out and turned around to face his siblings. He closed the door quietly behind him. He picked up RJ first, settling the minute Carl held him again. Then, he knelt to rub Judith’s back. He could feel every knob of her tiny spine as she cried. She was too skinny. During shower time, when Carl had to coax Judith into washing herself, he could always see the faint outlines of her ribs. She made him sit on the closed toilet seat every time to protect her in case walkers appeared. He’d stopped trying to convince her that walkers wouldn’t show up. It was easier to hang out in the bathroom and swab himself off with a towel while she was in the shower.
Judith leaned into him. She was still wailing. Her tears formed a massive wet patch on his shirt.
“I know,” Carl told her placatingly, even though he couldn’t understand what she was blubbering.
“-Miss Michonne-”
Carl felt a pang in his chest again. He inhaled deeply. Of course, she missed Michonne. “I miss her too.”
Judith carried on like that for a while until Carl’s shirt was soaked with her tears, and RJ had gone between fussy and half asleep at least a dozen times. The poor little guy was probably hungry.
Carl was hungry, too, but he elected to ignore that.
They sat on the ground when she was done—just the three of them.
“Why did she have to leave us?” Judith asked, leaning against him.
“I don’t know.” Carl answered for the millionth time. He used to try to come up with an answer like everyone else did when Judith started asking questions. But that only ever made her angrier. So Carl began to answer the way he wanted to. There was more he wished he could say. But he didn’t think Judith would understand how Carl felt about Michonne. Carol and Michonne had been the only mommies Judith had ever known. She’d never had a real mom, not like Carl. She didn’t have anything to compare to how the women in her life came and went.
At least Carl remembered consistency, no matter how faint it was. The recollection of a better time. A room of his own and a mom who always showed up. “She’ll be back,” Carl told her. That wasn’t a lie. At least, he hoped it wasn’t.
“She will?” Judith sniffled.
“Yeah.” Carl nodded. “And when she’s back, she’ll probably have dad, too.”
“Tell me about dad?”
“He was a good dad.” Carl bounced RJ as he started wriggling around again. One tiny fist smacked his nose, and Carl finally just set RJ on the ground where he could scoot around.
“What did he do?”
“Well,” Carl cleared his throat. “When you were real little, he used to give you piggyback rides.”
“Like you do?”
“Yeah. Except he was, like, a million times taller.”
“How tall?”
“So tall you could see past the tops of the trees.”
“And he loved us, right?”
“Yeah. He loved us so much.” Carl took Judith’s hand in his own.
“Tell me about the pancakes.”
“Oh, he made the best pancakes,” Carl smiled. He always forgot about that, didn’t he? “He used to make them so big that they took up the whole skillet.”
“And there were chocolate chips in them, right?”
“Not just chocolate chips. He put chocolate syrup on trop, with whipped cream, and sprinkles.”
Judith sniffled. “I like sprinkles.”
“When he gets back with Michonne, we’ll have pancakes.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.” Carl knew that was a lie. Cause he didn’t honestly think his dad was coming back. Carl knew how these things went. When people left, they usually left for good. When people left, it was generally because the adults were lying about them being dead. Maybe that was the worst part about still being a teenager. The adults were always lying ‘cause they didn’t think Carl could handle it, as if Carl hadn’t been handling it since he was ten.
“I’m hungry.” Judith said, finally.
“I thought so.” Carl stood, picking up RJ. Judith didn’t let go of his hand. “Come on. Let’s go eat breakfast.”
For a moment, he thought about what he was meant to feed them. There would be milk and mashed-up fruit for RJ. Judith was trickier, though. Bread, maybe? There was always bread. Carl would eat once they got to Gabriel’s. His food was better than Maggie’s, who always gave Carl the side eye when he ate more than she thought he should.
Carl’s hip ached when he stood, picking RJ up. “Why don’t you carry me anymore?” Judith asked, leaning against him.
“You’re too big,” Carl told her. Her tiny fingers were gripped around two or three of his. Carl wondered when his own hands had grown so big. They looked like his dad's hands, now. The kind of rough, calloused hands that came from a lifetime of just trying to survive. If Michonne were here, she'd probably say something about how big Carl had gotten. She'd make some terrible joke about him growing like a weed, or tying a brick to his head to keep him from getting any taller, and Carl would laugh because Michonne always made him laugh.
"Will I be tall someday?" Judith asked.
"Maybe," Carl shrugged. He looked at Judith and he wondered how it was possible that she was already six. That was the sort of thought that probably belonged to a parent, though.
Carl didn’t have any parents left, though, did he?