Honestly, you couldn't remember how long Carl had been in Alexandria. Weeks, months, years, it all blended together, and since they quit making calendars when the world shut down, who gave a shit anymore?

Anyhow, you'd been there first. You arrived somewhere around a year before Carl, after your family got picked off like vultures to a rotting corpse. The analogy was fitting, you thought. You had stumbled here, cut up, dehydrated, and in need of serious sleep, and look at you, you turned out fine.

Well, mostly fine. You were...quiet, in a way. Abnormal. When more kids your age started arriving, surprised to see a lone kid like you, they had started to call you strange, freaked out mostly by the fact that you had survived on your own for a long time before arriving here. You didn't mind, though, and when you were forced together— at gatherings or at the makeshift "school"— people actually quite liked you. Or they just thought you were attractive (such as ron). Not that you cared.

What did that have to do with anything? Good question. Well, when Carl arrived, those weeks, months, whatever ago, he'd immediately taken a liking to you. The interactions were always awkward, and you never really said much besides your name and a reluctant recall of how you'd gotten here. He found you charming anyways, and always made the effort to have a conversation with you, and pick you first for chores and for assignments, and always invited you over, which went from annoying to actually...kind of sweet.

It had been sort of a routine with you two now. He'd barge into your room or find you doing your chores and vent to you, or just talk your ear off, or not say anything at all and just want to be by you. You had grown to appreciate his presence, even if you barely spoke to him, and contributed nearly nothing to the relationship besides an occasional sharing of food or comics. Which you both loved. You spent countless days side by side fingering through old issues and then trading.

Like I said, it had been a long time of being friends, or at least it felt like it, and up until this point, you were often inexpressive, and tended to communicate with your pretty eyes— which he wasn't complaining about. But your silent, inexpressive streak ended today, when Carl got a glimpse of your thoughts and feelings more than he had in your entire friendship.