Carl Grimes was a sad story right from the beginning.
No one said this out loud, not sober at least. But when time had passed and everyone had the age and wisdom to look back on the chaotic first few months of the outbreak, they would wonder when Carl's tragedy began. Some said it was Lori's death, or shooting Shane. Sophia's disappearance. But it started earlier than that. Earlier than the prison, the farm.
It had been Atlanta.
Back at the Atlanta camp when supplies seemed plentiful in Glenn's spider-like reach, the adults would gather around the fire with a few bottles of beer. Tongues would wag about this and that before finally settling on the question nobody wanted to answer.
Could the children ever recover from this?
During the day, they smiled indulgently at Carl, who ran and showed off critters he had caught in his pudgy hands. But privately, they knew that one day, Carl Grimes would cry tears that would be eagerly drunk by dry, dusty cheeks, each freckle like a little desert. One day, Carl Grimes would feel pain that would be beyond a physical wound.
One day, Carl Grimes would feel heartbreak.
It helped, at first, that Carl wasn't the only kid there. Sophia's presence, though quiet, was reassuring; her plain little face had it etched there, the silent message that hovered over the group.
You're not alone.
Sophia seemed to have fallen into the routine. Whenever things got too hectic she only needed a hug and occasional kiss from Carol and she was alright. But Carl was different. He was a boy, and a mother's kiss could not substitute what a father's teachings did. Boys always wanted to do things, to get out in the world and explore.
But this world wasn't for exploring. Not anymore.
But that didn't deter him. He had that breathless young energy of a child, asking things like What's thta? Why's that? What's that thing's orientation to the other thing and why is it important? At least he had Shane for that. Shane, who took over while Rick was still bedridden in the hospital. Shane, who gave all the attention a ten-year-old boy needed in the absence of his father and the natural world.
"It's a miracle!" Lori gushed to Dale one day.
Dale's eyes, usually warm, grew cool as he looked at her. "Better hope not," he grunted. "Trouble with miracles is, they don't last long."
Dale was right, of course. He always was.
Shane had given Carl the dangerous glimmer of hope, something that would be ripped from the boy like a rug from his feet again and again. Carl would barely have time to scramble up before the next one would be yanked out, and the cycle would repeat until he would run out of the will to stand.
His mother, his last anchor, slipped through his fingers when before he had been balancing her precariously on their tips with less care than he'd imagined. He'd taken her and all her coddling for granted. His mother's last breath was his sister's first, and he sure as hell was going to make sure that breath wasn't wasted.
After the prison burned, Carl did not stand again. He willingly shut down, aware of his surroundings but at the same time completely oblivious. He was on autopilot, much in the same way the walkers were.
Eat. Shit. Sleep. Eat. Shit. Sleep.
His father had said they were the walking dead, but Carl was just now beginning to realize what exactly that meant.
Eat. Shit. Sleep. Eat. Shit. Sleep.
He wasn't the same Carl who'd once been catching frogs with Shane or scrunching his face at the bitter taste of alcohol from his mother's wineglass. Whoever that Carl was, he was gone. It wasn't the Carl who helped sharpen wooden talons at Terminus, or the Carl who angrily went against his father's admonitions while he lay, nearly comatose, on the couch at the safehouse. It certainly wasn't the Carl who watched Maggie pull his baby sister from his mother's body, who had been sliced open like meat at a slaughterhouse.
It was, however, the Carl who ate 112 ounces of pudding on a roof with one shoe missing, with a walker groping blindly for him in the window behind.
A/N: So this was a Carl Grimes tribute, I guess. He's always been my favorite character, so it irritates me when people rag on him for getting in the way or something. Anyway, this story can also be found under the same title by rnadison on AO3.