*Author's Note* Hope you all had amazing holiday celebrations with your loved ones! If I don't post anything before then, HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Chapter 14:

Carl awoke to a sudden noise and sat straight up in bed. The room was almost completely pitch black except for the small flicker of the dim oil lamp on the nightstand. He grabbed the hilt of his knife from under his pillow and looked around the room, his eye slowly adjusting to the dark. He felt something soft move against his leg and he jumped as he looked down next to him.

It took him a moment to remember why Enid was in his bed but he smiled as it flooded back to him. She was sleeping on her stomach, her arms up around her head, her dark hair covering her face. The bed sheets were pulled down and her bare back was glowing in the dim light. Carl suddenly realized that he was naked still and so was she. He must have fallen asleep almost immediately after they had finished having…

"Sex, just say it." He thought, "Enid's right, you've done it now, twice! You should start getting comfortable saying the actual word. Stop acting like a kid!"

Carl laid back down, his head propped up on his pillow. He watched for a while as Enid's body rose up and down as she dreamed. He wondered what she was dreaming about, whether he was a part of those dreams. He reached out his hand to gently brush away the hair that fell across her face. Her nose twitched a little and her eyes fluttered open.

For a moment her eyes were startled but then they softened and her mouth curved into a smile against the mattress.

"Hey…" she said sleepily.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up." He said his hand moving down to rest of her bare shoulder blade.

She rubbed her eye and looked out the window, "What time is it?"

Carl shrugged, "I don't know, something woke me up. Probably someone using the bathroom down the hall."

She turned onto her side using the sheets to cover her chest. Carl wrapped his arm around her and she rested her face on his chest. He didn't really know what to say. What could he say? Could he really try to make small talk with someone he was naked in bed with? Was he supposed to talk about the weather? Luckily Enid beat him to it.

"I was so tired."

Her face moved up and down as he sighed, "Me too…sorry I passed out."

Her nose rubbed against his skin and she laughed quietly.

"What's funny?" he asked.

She turned her head and her eyes looked up at him, "You snore."

Carl felt his mouth drop open indignantly, "I do not!"

Enid propped herself up and rested her chin on his chest, her face brightening with a mischievous smile.

"You sure do, but not loudly. It's sweet actually."

She leaned forward and kissed him gently. As she pulled away she brushed the hair off his face and even though he wanted to, he fought the urge to stop her. She was looking at his face but the desire to hide his deformity was somehow not as strong. She looked down, her hair falling over her forehead. His fingers wrapped around a strand of hair that fell off her shoulder.

"Carl?"

"Yeah?"

Her fingers started lightly tracing his chest, "Can I ask you something?"

"Uh…sure?"

"Where is this going?" he thought anxiously. His hand started to move to his face but he stopped himself bringing his hand down to rest on her back.

"What happened to your mom?"

Her eyes shot up to meet his. Carl felt like his heart skipped a beat but he wasn't mad or upset. He wondered for a moment why she was asking but he realized maybe it was because of what they had fought about earlier that evening. Enid had lost her parents. He still wasn't sure what had happened to her, maybe this was her way of opening up about it.

"It's a long story…" he said quietly.

"Well, I'm not tired anymore…if you're willing to tell me."

"Well…" he let out a long breath, "my dad was in the hospital, in a coma when everything started. He had been shot while at work. My dad's partner, Shane…he got my mom and I out of the chaos and we headed for Atlanta. With everything that was happening, we thought my dad was dead. It was about two months later that my dad found us."

Enid was listening intently, her eyes never straying from his face as he told his story.

"Anyways, my dad's never really talked about it but I'm pretty sure my mom and Shane…they were…sleeping together."

"Oh…"

"She got pregnant and we were living like animals for almost a year…barely eating, moving constantly from one place to another, never being able to sleep soundly. One day we stumbled on this prison. It seemed like the perfect place to live. It had tall fences everywhere, a large fenced yard where we could grow crops, cells so we could sleep soundly. We cleared out most of it but one day something happened, someone let a bunch of walkers in and my mom, Maggie and I got separated."

Carl stopped for a minute. He could suddenly remember the sound of his mom's voice as she said her final goodbye to him, he felt the wetness in his eye and blinked hard.

"The baby started to come and our doctor was in another part of the prison, we were trapped. Something went wrong, I don't really know what. I still don't really know what happened but she couldn't have the baby normally. Maggie…she had to cut Judith out of my mom. My mom asked her to."

"Carl…I'm so sorry." Enid whispered softly.

"She passed out from the blood loss and the shock. I shot her…so she wouldn't turn."

After a few moments of silence Carl looked up at Enid, her eyes were glassy.

"…Carl, I don't know what to say…"

"You don't have to say anything. It happened…it's over. Judith is alive and healthy. I don't even know if Judith is my dad's or Shane's but she's still my sister and I would do anything for her and so would my dad."

Enid wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her cheek to his chest squeezing him hard. Carl felt the tear he had been holding back trickle down his cheek and he squeezed his eye shut. He wiped it away with the back of his hand and sniffed.

"Are you going to tell me what happened to your parents?" he asked tentatively.

She turned over to lay on her stomach, her hands pulling at a loose string on the pillow case.

"My mom and dad and I…we were doing pretty well for the first year or so. My dad had been a park ranger and a bit of a survivalist so we were pretty well prepared when everything happened. Our home was fairly remote so we were able to stay there for a few months without any problems. We started to run low on food though so my dad started venturing further and further out to find supplies. One day a herd passed our home and we had to pick up and leave everything in only a moment. That was the first time I had actually come into any real contact with the walkers. I felt so afraid, but more afraid that I wouldn't be able to save someone when they really needed my help."

Carl remembered the walker that he hadn't been able to kill which had ended up killing Dale.

"I remember feeling that way…"

"It was awful, but I learned from my dad how to protect myself. We ended up on the road for a long time after that. I'm honestly not sure how long it was. One day we found a car, my parents were trying to hot wire the engine when they came out of nowhere. My mom…she…"

Enid stopped for a minute. Carl could see the tear fall down her face.

"It's OK." He whispered.

She gave a deep sigh, "My mom locked me in the car and they were torn apart in front of me."

"Enid I'm sorry."

He wiped away her tears with his thumb.

"After that…I wandered for weeks just trying to survive."

Carl sat himself up more against the headboard, "All alone?"

She didn't say anything for a few moments. She was looking off into a dark corner of the bedroom. Carl could practically see the internal conflict brewing in her head.

"What is it?" he asked finally.

Her eyes snapped back to his, "Sorry…it's nothing."

Her face was void of emotion and her jaw was clenched.

"It's not nothing…what's wrong? You can tell…"

"It'll change the way you feel about me." She whispered so quietly that Carl almost didn't hear her.

Carl sat completely upright and turned to face her on the bed crossing his legs, the sheets twisting up around his waist.

"Enid, come here…" he held out his hands to her.

She hesitated but then curled her legs under herself to face him, her arm holding the sheet up to cover herself.

He took a deep breath, "Enid, I love you. Everything about you. Everything you say, do, everything you are. Nothing that you've done or has happened to you will change that because it's made you who you are now. Love…it isn't a perfect picture. I'm not perfect. It's written all over my face but you didn't abandon me. I won't abandon you."

She reached her hand out and placed it gently on his chest over his heart. Her fingers pressing into his skin softly. Her mouth curled up a little at the side and then fell again.

"I wasn't alone the whole time. At one point I ran into two men."

Carl felt his hands clench and his jaw tense up. He had a feeling he knew where this was going and the anger was already lighting a fire inside him.

"They touched me." She whispered as her hand fell from his chest.

Carl felt like his heart was breaking at the sound of the pain in her voice. His anger was burning his skin from the inside out.

"They tried to…tried to…"

"You don't have to say it," Carl whispered, "I know what they tried to do."

Enid let out a long sad sigh but she didn't cry.

"I killed them."

Carl couldn't quite hide the shock on his face. He had assumed she had never killed anyone…any living person at least.

"Good." He said quietly.

"You're surprised aren't you? That I've killed people."

Carl grabbed her hands and fit his fingers in between the spaces of her hands, "Honestly, yeah it's surprising. I've killed people too though…at least you killed people who deserved to die."

"Sometimes I wonder if there's actually any hope for us, for a future." She said thoughtfully.

"What do you mean?"

Enid shrugged her shoulders, "I mean for all of us, as people. Things have gone so bad, we've all done things we can never forget, never take back. The things we've had to do to survive, the things we've done for people we love."

Carl understood what she meant. Sometimes he felt that way too. "Sometimes I forget what the world was like before all this shit happened. It almost feels like it was a dream."

Enid suddenly smiled, her lips parting widely showing her teeth.

Carl couldn't help but be infected by her smile, his mouth curling up at the edges involuntarily, "What is it?"

"Sorry, I didn't mean to be such a downer…I was stupid to bring it up."

Carl pulled her hands up to his lips and kissed her knuckles gently, "You're not stupid…you've made me smile more in a week than I have in a year."

"Well you should know…" she said leaning forward, "that our stupid conversations mean more to me than you could ever imagine."

She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his, her arms wrapping around his neck. The bed sheet falling down around her waist. Carl's hands moved to her waist and he felt her push herself up onto her knees. She lifted one leg to land on his other side, he felt her push against him and fell backward onto the bed as she straddled him.

Her hair fell over her shoulders tickling the skin of his chest. He was already hard as the heat of her sex rubbed against him. His hands wound their way through her hair keeping her lips against his as she rocked her hips back and forth. Carl heard himself groan as he felt her wetness against his throbbing erection.

He felt her mouth leave his to whisper in his ear, "Do you want to fuck me again?"

It was so hot that Carl almost came right then. He turned her face so he could look right in her eyes. They were hazy, her face flushed and her mouth so incredibly sexy and swollen.

"I would fuck you all day and night if I could."

She sank her teeth into her lower lip. Carl grasped her hips and rubbed his erection against her one more time. She gasped loudly, her eyes closing and a smile spreading over her face.

"You make me want to do crazy dirty things Carl Grimes."

His name on her lips made him shiver with excitement. He kissed her hard before rolling her off of him so he could reach for some protection. It only took a moment and he turned back to her. She went to push back on top of him but he wanted to be in control this time.

He pushed her over onto her side, her back to him. She protested a little but he grabbed her wrists and lifted them up over her head holding them together against the pillows with one hand. He brushed her hair away to expose her long neck. He gently kissed her from behind her ear and down her neck as his free hand reached over to grasp her breast.

"Mmmm…" she moaned as he pinched and twisted her nipples.

He could feel her hips twisting against him. He could tell she wanted him but he wasn't ready to give in to her just yet.

His hand slowly trailed down her stomach to the bundle of nerves between her legs. He felt her hands try to break free of his hold but he held onto her tightly. His teeth tugged on her earlobe before whispering in her ear, "No…you're mine."

She opened her legs, her top one wrapping itself over top of his. He continued to move his fingers over her, his fingertips brushing back and forth over her wet opening. Her hips started to twist frantically, her breathing ragged. She was gasping now, trying to free her hands from his.

"Carl…please!" she begged.

He continued to tease her with his fingers without ever completely giving her what she wanted. It was the hottest thing he'd ever experienced. Hearing her beg for him, he couldn't take it anymore. He needed to be inside her.

"Please what?" he asked. His voice had become rough and throaty.

She was breathing so hard, she could barely get the words out. "Please…I want you…inside me. Fuck me…please!"

He couldn't wait any longer. He grabbed her thigh and pulled it up towards him, positioning her entrance just above his cock. He pushed himself deep into her hot, wet opening. They both moaned loudly as he entered her. Carl was overcome with pleasure. He had to use all his focus to breathe so he wouldn't come right away.

Her hands came free amid his distraction and he felt her reach back to wrap around his neck. He pulled out a bit and pushed himself back inside her as deeply as he could. He could feel her fingers tighten on his neck with every thrust.

Carl felt his eye close as he focused on the feel of her around him. He couldn't help but breathe in her ear.

"Fuck Enid you feel so good!"

He felt himself thrusting faster and he gripped her hip hard pulling her against him each time.

"Oh God yes!" she gasped.

He felt her fingernails dig into his skin but the pain only made it hotter.

"Oh my God, right there…Carl…harder!"

He lifted her leg a little higher and pushed himself even deeper, faster, just like she wanted. She was being so loud but he didn't care if anyone heard them. This was too good, too hot, he felt the pressure building but wanted her to come first.

"Holy shit…Carl! Fuck yes!"

He felt her walls contract hard around his cock and he couldn't hold back anymore. Her nails broke the skin as they climaxed together.

Carl and Enid lay together for quite a while as their breathing returned to normal, their bodies sticking to each other from their exertion.

"Your heart is beating so fast," Enid said quietly.

"So is yours." He whispered.

Carl finally pulled away to discard their protection and Enid turned over and settled herself in the crook of his shoulder, her face resting against his chest.

Carl felt his fingers twist around a strand of her hair, "You know what you said earlier…about whether you don't know whether there's hope…"

"Yeah?"

"Sometimes I wonder if living in this world is worth fighting so hard for…but then I look at you and I want you to know something…"

She looked up at him through her long dark lashes, "What?"

"I'd fight a war for you."