"You're not going to story time?" Carl asked jokingly with a small smile McKenna just rolled her eyes before going back to the comic book in her lap. "You almost done with my comic book?"

"That depends, got any new ones?" she closed the book, keeping the page marked with her thumb, she only had two pages left but this was the last one of his that she hadn't finished reading yet and she would read it again if he didn't have anything new. She grew so bored at the prison sometimes. She used to move from place to place all the time-before the apocalypse that was. She was an army brat and her dad had been stationed pretty much everywhere in her fourteen and a half years of life. He had just happened to be stationed at Fort Benning when everything went crazy.

"Maybe, maybe not."

"You'll never get this back if you don't answer me."

"The thing is," he frowned. "I haven't read them yet."

"You know I'm a faster reader than you anyway."

"Fine, c'mon," he sighed. She grinned and stood from the seat in her cell. She tucked her hair behind her ear and went back to reading as they walked. Carl rolled her eyes, she always did that and then he had to make sure that she didn't run into any walls. A few weeks ago, when Michonne had brought back comics for the first time in a while, she was walking to his cell and reading when she did run into one of the metal doors. She fell flat on her bottom and ended up with a large goose egg on her head the next day.

"Done," she declared when they were nearly there. She handed the book back to him and grinned. "Did you get anything any good?"

"I didn't even look at them yet," he admitted.

"You mean you came all the way to my cell just to pester me before you looked at the comics?" Carl had grown accustomed to way of joking, she was the only one of the "kids" that was even remotely sarcastic and she always made the conversation interesting. And, she was the only one that he could talk about comic books with whenever he wanted, Michonne read them but she was never around. Once upon a time, he may have thought that it was a little weird that a girl was reading comics, but now he was just glad to have a friend with similar interests. Even Patrick was off at story time, which McKenna and Carl tended to make jokes about how silly it was.

"Did you like that one?" Carl held up the book that he had in his hand.

"It was pretty good, I didn't really like the ending though...It may be better if I read the other twelve issues first though," she shrugged.

"Probably," he laughed.

"It's better than anything in that library, I'm sure," she scoffed. "I half wonder how bad it is in there, y'know?"

"Wanna crash story time?" he smirked with a playful glint in his blue eyes.

"Yeah, let's go!"

The two ran for the library, dropping Carl's comic book off in his cell before continuing on their way. Carl held a finger to his lips, signaling for her to be quiet. She followed his lead into the library. She let the door click shut silently and they crept around the shelves. Carol read part of some book as they made their way to a taller shelf so that they could peak through the books and look at the group of children.

"Should I keep watch?" Luke, a little curly-haired boy asked.

"Yes, that would be good," Carol told him gently.

"Keep watch for what?" McKenna asked her counterpart. Carl shrugged his shoulders and continued to watch as Carol put a case on the floor.

"Today we're going to learn about knives," she announced.

McKenna managed to lose her balance and nearly fell backwards. Carl grabbed her wrist out of reflex and kept her on her feet. He rolled his eyes at her for the umpteenth million time. He realized her clumsiness by now but he sometimes wondered how she had lasted this long. She was always falling over her own feet or losing her balance for no reason.

The sound of McKenna toppling over a few books on the lower shelf was enough to grab Carol's attention. She was quickly to her feet and over to where the two children were standing.

"You're teaching them how to use weapons?" Carl asked, his voice picking up an angry tone.

"Carl," Carol started. "It's important...they need to know. Please don't tell your dad."

"I'm not going to lie to my dad," he gave her a look before heading towards the door, he couldn't believe her!

"You're not lying. This is important."

Carl turned to face Carol once more. "Shouldn't their parents at least get a say?" his hand touched the door and McKenna found herself following him. The last thing she wanted was to end up stuck at story time alone. It was one thing when she and Carl were crashing it together.

"Maybe if we knew what it was all along we wouldn't have thought it was so dumb, huh?" she joked.

"What happened to the rules?" Carl was annoyed over everything with Carol and McKenna knew to just let him get it off his chest. He always ended up telling her what was bothering him. He couldn't talk to his dad, it was like he was stuck in farm mode and he didn't want to hear anything concerning weapons or walkers. "I have to tell my dad..."

"Will he even listen?" she was well aware of farmer Rick.

"He'll have to...But he's busy now. Comic books?" he suggested. A smile crept back onto her features and they ran to his cell.

"I win!" she exclaimed tagging the bars first. She ran in and flopped onto his bed. She grabbed the stack of comics on the table beside it and shuffled through them. "Oo Spiderman." She held the stack out to him as he sat on the edge of the bed. "Go sit on the chair," she sighed as he leaned back onto her legs, resting his back against the walls.

"Nah, you stole my bed," he said. She grabbed the pillow from behind her head and smacked him in the head with it. "Hey!" he protested. She stuck her tongue out at him playfully.

"You're heavy, go on."

"You move, it's my bed."

"I got to it first."

Carl stared at her for a long moment. Her green eyes were always curious, they were always analyzing everything and moving, except in this moment, she was staring back at him.

"Fine, you win," he gave in and took a seat in the chair next to her. She blew a raspberry at him and began reading her Spiderman comic.

"Hey," McKenna tapped the table next to Carl to get his attention. He looked up from the book quickly and stared at her. "I'm hungry."

"Dinner should be about done..." he told her. "We can come back up here later."

"Okay, I've got dibs on the bed when we come back though," she smirked.

"Not if I beat you to it."

"We'll see about that."

They walked towards the cafeteria section of cell block C, McKenna lived in D block with her father and the woman she had adopted as her aunt, even though she had her own cell.

"What do you think we're having? Do you think that it would be too much to want some chocolate pudding right now?"

"That'd be nice, but I bet it's beans or something."

"Ew," McKenna made a disgusted face before realizing something. "I should probably go eat with my family...I haven't seen them all day. You know how my dad gets."

"Oh yeah," he agreed. He knew that he would end up sitting by himself because all of the other kids were from D and Beth sat with her boyfriend now and he didn't really want to see any more of his dad, he already had to work with him in the fields all day.

"Come eat with us, I'm sure they won't mind," she suggested. "It'll be fun."

"Okay," he agreed. She grinned and they both went off to D block.

"Hi dad," McKenna greeted, taking a seat at their table.

"Hey," he smiled at her. His green eyes matched hers and she had the same dark hair as him. "Hey Carl." William was glad that McKenna had made a friend, whether it was the apocalypse or not. She had never really had a friend throughout all of their moving. She simply didn't bother talking to anybody her own age because she wouldn't know them very long.

"Hi," Carl replied.

"I'll go make your plates," William rose from the table and walked into the kitchen area.

"Hey there munchkin," Marlene, a woman that William and McKenna had run across right before they found the prison, sat across from Carl and McKenna. "And munchkin two..."

"Real original," McKenna retorted. "You couldn't have come up with something a little bit more creative."

"Fine, Old McDonald. That better?"
"No, you already failed."

"You're such a smart ass," Marlene rolled her eyes. She was about thirty-five and had the darkest black hair McKenna had ever seen, it was pin straight and cut to where her neck met her head in the back. On her right side, it came past her chin and was a little bit longer. On her left side, however, it was chin length. She had striking, yet delicate features that nobody would expect somebody so brave and so willing to laugh in the face of danger to have. Her eyes were a dark color that for the longest time, McKenna thought were dark brown, but she later realized that they were hazel, and a beautiful shade of it at that. The inner ring was a darker brown, then the main portion of the iris was a dark green color with gold flecks, and the outer ring was a golden brown. She had olive colored skin and a petite, yet muscular figure. She was strong enough to carry the heaviest of guns without a problem, yet slim enough to be gorgeous. She typically wore dark colored, tight pants that she tucked into her black leather combat boots, with a looser v-neck shirt that could vary in color.

"Why thank you," McKenna grinned. Marlene rolled her eyes and turned her attention to Carl.

"And you hang out with her all day, short stuff?" Marlene asked with a grin.

Carl scoffed. "Yeah, and she steals my comic books," he playfully rolled his eyes. He liked Marlene, she reminded him of Daryl in a way. They were both sarcastic and brave. But, Marlene was a lot more open and she was better with people. Daryl had gotten better since they first met, but he still wasn't so great around strangers. They were both kind of laid back-unless you made them mad and they both were well equipped for this world.

Marlene gasped in mock horror. "Oo, McKenna's a bad kid!"

"How old are you? Like five?" McKenna rolled her eyes.

"But I read at a six year old level," she grinned. "Food!" she exclaimed as William came back. "Is that for me?"

"I don't recall fathering a giant preschooler," he sat down with his own food. "So you can go get your own."

The relationship between Marlene and William wasn't a romantic one by any means, it was more of a brother/sister bond. She annoyed him like the younger sister that he never had and that was the way that they liked it.

"Ha! I won this time!" Carl exclaimed, taking the bed.

"I'm not sitting in the uncomfortable ass chair," McKenna crossed her arms stubbornly. She grabbed her comic book and flopped down in the bed next to him. "Scoot over some."

"You're a pain in my butt," he then realized that he couldn't reach his comic book unless he reached over her. "Hand me mine?"

McKenna sighed like it was such an inconvenience and reached over to get the comic.

"What's ti about?"

"Zombies," he said. She looked over at him with a 'really?' type look. "Funny, huh?"

"Not really," she admitted. "I used to think that zombies were cool, until we landed in a world full of them." The silently read for a while, side by side in the small bed.

"Quit nudging me, punk," McKenna elbowed Carl back after the second time that he did it to her.

"It wasn't on purpose," he had finished his book a while ago, but he didn't feel like starting anything one. They were already reading by flashlight and he didn't want to have her move again.

"Liar." She closed her book deciding to be done for the day and put it on his table. "How's your bed more comfortable than mine?"

"I don't know."

She rolled over onto her side and readjusted the pillow. She didn't want to go back to her own cell, it was pretty far away. And, she figured that friends had sleepovers, that was what she had heard anyway. She didn't see why the apocalypse stop her from having her first sleepover.

"Good night," she murmured. Carl knitted his brow in confusion but then he realized that she planned on sleeping there. Though this wasn't typical, not that he knew of anyway. He was so disconnected from the old world he didn't even know what a sleepover was like so he picked up the blanket from the foot of the bed and threw it over them since they were lying on top of the other blanket he didn't see a point in freezing to death.

"Carl," he voice was quiet and her eyes stayed shut as she said it.

"Yeah?" he replied, watching her carefully.

"Never mind...Good night."

"Good night."

Rick walked up to the upper level to check tell Carl to go to bed, the night before he had stayed up late to read comics and he didn't want the same thing to happen tonight. They had to get an early start on farming tomorrow.

To Rick's surprise, when he walked into Carl's cell, he wasn't the only one in the bed. Rick could see long, medium brown hair from under the blanket. He almost said something, but he decided that having a sleepover was something normal, it was something a kid in the apocalypse wouldn't do, so he left them. He decided that it would be best to let William know where McKenna was.

AN: Hi guys, this is my first Carl/OC story, I decided that there weren't a lot of them and I'm starting to like his character a lot more so I decided to make this. I would like to credit DarkAngelsQueen for helping me a lot with this chapter, so thank you! Reviews are welcomed just don't be overly mean, constructive criticism is fine, just don't flame (I think that's the term for it).

~Michelle~