this is straight, self-indulgent crack. also, carl isn't necessarily dead, because if you've read my works in the sophia series (which you should, but i'd recommend skipping right to book 3, sophia's journey, because the first two were only okay, and the first chapter of sophia's journey contains a summary of the series so far.) but if you've read those, you should know i love pretending carl is dead, but i can never manage to actually kill him.

.Enid.

I knew something was wrong when I started throwing up. I've never had a weak stomach, and I didn't get sick often. So the first time I vomited, it was a red flag. A red flag that, as Maggie smoothed my hair back while I knelt beside a toilet, even despite her growing belly, I assured her just had to be something I'd eaten. Even with the creeping feeling I had of being off, I ignored it.

I ignored it the rest of the week, too, even as I kept getting sick. Maggie only grew more concerned, but I tried my best to tell her I was fine. Stress is bad for the baby, and the last thing I wanted to be doing was adding anymore stress to her plate than she was already dealing with.

Life at the Hilltop was… well, it was living, and in the times we had, that was a pretty good place to start. I guess I could have been considered lucky; I had food, water, and a place to sleep every night. My parents had died, and I had no other blood to speak of, but I had Maggie, and she cared about me. In a way, I'd had Glenn and Sasha too, but the time I'd spent with them had turned out to be brief. It felt almost like I was cursed, that caring about me had shortened their time.

Besides Maggie, though, I had Carl. I... didn't really know what Carl was to me at this point, but I knew that I cared about him, and he cared for me. We never talked about what we were, but we were something. The thing between us, it had started with smiles, and laughing, and soon, there was kissing, which had eventually led to a lot more than just kissing. It wasn't like what I'd had with Ron, it was… different. It was real, and when I was with Carl, I felt something in my chest, something I'd never really had before.

The last time I'd seen Carl had been when he and some of the other Alexandrians had come to Hilltop. They hadn't stayed too long, and when I'd seen him off, I'd been surprised when he kissed me, right in front of everyone else. It wasn't the first time, especially not since we'd, well… we'd had sex the last time we were together almost two weeks ago, and it hadn't been the first time. We hadn't been open with everyone else about our relationship, but most people had probably guessed. They likely didn't realize we'd been sexually active, and for that, I was grateful. I really wasn't ready for whatever conversation that would earn me from Maggie.

But anyway, I was throwing up.

When it started, it was maybe another week or so since I'd seen Carl and the rest of the other Alexandrians. Despite everything in my body trying to tell me to look into it, to think about it, I brushed it off, and I continued going about my business as normal. I kept watch on some days between lunch and dinner, cooked meals either with or for Maggie, spent some time by Glenn's grave, staring at the pocket watch that used to be his. The only difference was that, on top of all of those things, now I got sick in the mornings, too.

I did my best to tell Maggie everything was fine, and I did my best to believe it, too. That was, until I was searching through my room one afternoon, trying to find a specific shirt, and a box fell out of my dresser. Curious, I picked it up, and when I turned it over in my hands, it clicked.

The box was, of course, my stash of tampons. At first, nothing seemed amiss about that, but then I realized how long it had been since I'd actually opened the box. I hadn't had my period at all the past month, without noticing. The week I was supposed to have it, I'd been too busy either trying to help Maggie or running off to Oceanside with Aaron to think about it. Now though, it seemed glaringly obvious that my period was late. And if my period was late…

Holy crap.

. x . x . x .

So my period was late, and usually, that meant one thing.

At first, the idea that I might be pregnant sent my blood cold, and I tried to deny it. I was only sixteen, I was too young to be pregnant. I mean, yes, I knew it happened, but how could it happen to me?

The denial quickly faded into panic, and I realized that oh, this really could be happening to me right now. This led to several minutes of pacing about the room with wide eyes, trying to figure out what to do.

In the end, I realized that before I made any rash decisions or freaked myself out, I had to be sure. Being sure meant, of course, taking a test, which I didn't have any of.

So my first mission was to find a pregnancy test.

I checked both the bathrooms in the home I shared with Maggie first, but there was none. I guess she didn't really have a use for them considering that Maggie already knew she was having a baby, but still.

From there, I made my way to the doctor's office. At the moment, it was empty, but I was still careful as I snuck inside, so as not to be seen. I really didn't want to have to explain why I was doing what I was, not to Maggie or anyone else.

It was easy enough to get inside, but once I was in there, the real challenge was trying to find the test as quickly as possible and get out of there.

I had to search nearly every shelf, and all of the cabinets, to find one. It didn't help that I had no idea what they looked like, and therefore, didn't really have a clear picture of what I was trying to find. I looked through every row of boxes, every rack of supplies, before I eventually spotted them between a package of menstrual pads and some condoms. The irony of either was not lost on me, and I quickly snatched some of the tests before booking it out of there and back to the house as fast as possible.

Maggie still wasn't home when I got there, so I rushed up to the bathroom. Once I got there, I noticed that the hand that held the pregnancy tests had begun to shake. Doing my best to ignore it, I ripped the box open and dumped a thin, white stick into my free palm.

It seemed so small. So small, in fact, that it was hard to believe that this thing in my hand had the ability to change my life. Well, okay, the stick itself didn't really change my life, but it had the power to show me what was coming my way in the future, and that was a lot to think about.

After "appropriately taking the test", which mean squatting on the toilet and holding the stick up while trying not to pee on my own hand, I shook it off and placed it on the bathroom counter. The box said I had to wait for a couple minutes before the result would appear, so I hunkered down on the tiled floor to wait. I had no way to set an alarm to tell when the time had passed, so I counted the seconds under my breath instead, heading leaned back against the wall with my hands clasped in my lap.

Maybe it was because I was counting, or why I was, but either way, the time seemed to pass slowly. The longer I waited, the more my foot began to tap against the floor, until it was shaking my whole leg, and I felt nervous with the anxiety simmering in my chest.

By the time I'd counted to 240, four minutes, I paused. That was how long the box told me to wait, but now? It felt like I couldn't move. Something in head was yelling at me to grab the test, to see what it said, but I couldn't move. Instead, I stared.

When I was finally able to lift my hand, I reached out and scooped the test up in shaking fingers. My breath caught in my throat as I picked it up. Turning it face up, I glanced down at the little window on the test.

Looking back up at me was a little red plus sign. A positive.

My eyes widened, and instead of dropping the test in shock, my grip went white-knuckle tight. Instantly, my brain went into denial again.

There's no way. We only had sex a couple of times. Nobody actually gets pregnant on their first few times, right? This can't be happening, it can't.

I could feel my arms starting to tremble, and warmth picked up behind my eyelids. Test still in hand, I climbed to my feet.

"I have to hide this," I whispered, quietly. "Maggie can't see this, they can't see this. I can't-"

Panic settling in caused me to pick up the pace a little bit as I scurried up to my room, scanning the space for a place to stash the stick. After a moment, I settled on the bed, and I lifted my mattress up to shove the stick underneath.

Once the evidence was hidden away, I took a moment to stand over the bed and catch my breath. "Nobody needs to know yet," I mumbled. "I can figure this out. I'll make this work, it'll be okay."

In a moment of nearly comedic timing, I heard the door downstairs open, and slow footsteps enter in. I could tell by the way they walked that it was Maggie, and a few seconds later, I heard her call my name.

Steadying myself, I made my way out of my room and towards the sound of her voice.

"Hey," she greeted, cheery enough, and I shoved down the paranoia in my head. "I managed to snag some extra pasta to make for dinner, are you hungry?"

The idea of putting something in my body instantly caused my stomach to churn, and I blanched. "Um, no," I stammered. "I- uh, not really."

She turned to look at me, and her eyes softened. "Are you still not feeling well?" She asked, and after a pause, I nodded.

"Just a little nauseous," I lied, even though hiding the truth from her caused something uncomfortable to curl in my chest. "Is it alright if I just go to bed?"

Her brow furrowed. "That's fine," she replied. "Are you sure you don't want something? Anti-nausea meds?"

"I'm okay," I assured her. "Just need to get it out of my system."

"Okay," she hummed, but something in her voice still sounded concerned. Excusing myself, I made my way back to my room, climbing into bed.

Lying there and staring at the ceiling, I was hyper aware of the test still lying underneath me, and I felt a little bit of resistance in my chest dissolve as several tears made their way to my eyes, spilling out over my cheeks as I began to cry, being careful to stay quiet so Maggie wouldn't hear.

Eventually, I calmed down, curling into a fetal position on my bed and pulling my knees up. After a while, I dozed out, falling into an odd sort of half-asleep state, and napped for several hours.

When I woke up again, it was dark outside. Figuring myself to be the only one awake, and realizing I had to pee quite badly, I slipped out of my bed and started towards the bathroom.

After relieving myself and washing my hands, I started to make my way back to my bedroom, when I realized the lights were still on. I turned to see Maggie sitting at the kitchen table, staring right back at me.

"Enid?" She said, and when I looked up at her, she was holding the empty pregnancy test box, the one I'd left sitting on the top of the trashcan in the bathroom. "I think we need to talk."