October 11, 2018: Damage Control

Carl could see the infirmary in front of him as he ran with Desi's body hanging in his arms. He reached the front door and tried to turn the knob. It was locked. With all the force he could muster, he kicked the door in as hard as he could. It broke apart from the frame and Carl ran inside.

"Bob!" he shouted as loud as he could while laying her body on a gurney. "Bob, help, please!" Bob ran down the stairs in his boxers and a t-shirt, holding his gun in his hand.

"What happened?"

"I found her in the water!" Carl said breathless and still panicked.

"Do you know how long she was in?" Bob asked as he checked her pulse.

"No. I have no idea."

"Is there anything else you know that can help me?"

Carl looked from Bob to Desi, then back to Bob. "We...we were drinking," he replied. "We drank a lot of whiskey late last night. I blacked-out though. I don't know if she passed out before me or after me. I just woke up and saw her in the water."

"So you have no idea how long she was under?"

"No. She could have been in the water for a 30 seconds or five or six hours. I have no idea. I got her out and did CPR for a minute but thought I should get her to you instead of doing more CPR."

"Sasha, Rosita!" Bob yelled. "Get down here! I need your help!"

Sasha and Rosita came bounding down the stairs, coming to Bob's side. Bob quickly explained the situation to the two women as he put a trach tube into Desi's mouth, then down her throat.

"Is she alive?" Carl asked with desperation.

"Yeah, she's alive. But her pulse is weak, her pressure's high and her lungs sound pretty bad," Bob replied as he continued to work. "Carl, I need for you to go get Ezekiel."

Carl stood still, frozen in place. He hadn't thought of Ezekiel. He hadn't considered that this horrible incident would affect someone besides himself. The realization that he was going to have to tell Desi's father what had just happened made him feel sick to his stomach.

"Go! Now!" Bob shouted at Carl. Carl finally left the infirmary and ran to Ezekiel's house.

…..

October 14, 2018

Carl was back at home with his mom and his dad. He lied on the sofa feeling sick once again. He was going through the withdrawals again. He was trying to get himself sober again and again, he was miserable. Sweat poured down his face and he trembled.

Rick walked into the room and pulled a chair over to Carl, sitting down next to him. He picked up a clean rag and dipped it into a basin of water on the coffee table. He wrung it out and placed the cool rag on Carl's forehead.

"Thanks Dad," Carl said breathlessly.

"No problem," Rick answered. "How you doin'?"

"I'm okay."

"Well okay's pretty good these days."

"I mean, it's not as bad as getting shot in the eye but pretty bad."

"Well, I guess everything's relative," Rick said smiling down at him. Bob said days one through three of detox are the worse and you're on day three. By tomorrow you should be feeling better."

"When can I leave here? I should be with Desi. I want to see her. I should be doing something to help...anything."

"You're right where you're supposed to be. You need to focus on getting well yourself." Rick looked away from his son. "Besides, Ezekiel still doesn't want you there."

"I can't blame him," Carl said, hanging his head down with shame. "I've really screwed things up, Dad. I've screwed everything up."

"You'll be okay. You'll get through this."

"I'm not talking about me. Right now, I don't give a shit about myself. I'm talking about Desi. I nearly got her killed. She could die and if she does it'll be my fault."

"Carl," Rick said looking at his son straight on, "It's real unfortunate that you've inherited my guilty conscience. You take everything on your shoulders whether it's your fault or not."

"This is my fault."

"I'm not saying it is or isn't."

"She was at home and I told her to come out...so we could talk. If I hadn't gone to see her, she'd probably be fine right now."

"Whether it's your fault or not, the real question is, where do you go from here? Do you want to pile on the guilt and keep letting it poison you along with the drinking and drugs? If that's what you want to do, I can't stop you." Carl said nothing. "Or do you want to decide to grow up and get your life in order? I can't make you do that either. This is all on you. I can be there for you. I can support you. I can love you. But none of that is going to get you through this if you don't make it happen."

Carl looked down with an anguished expression. "I don't know if I can, Dad."

"I've seen what you can do, Carl. You can do this. I know you can. You're strong and you're determined. You're not the type of person that takes the easy road. We wouldn't be on this island if you were."

"But since I've been here, I've been taking the easy road. That's all I do. I haven't made one good decision in years. Right now I feel the opposite of all those things."

"If you weren't strong, I'm pretty sure you would have a bottle in your hand right now. Usually the path to deeper strength leads you down some darker paths first." Rick took the rag from Carl's head and dipped it into the basin of cool water again. He rung it out then put it back on Carl's forehead. Rick looked him in the eye then turned away. "You know, you're not the first person to have an addiction and you're not the first person to beat one."

Carl narrowed his gaze and studied his father intently. "Did you have some addiction I never knew about."

Rick looked out the window. "No not me but my dad did."

"Really?"

Rick nodded. "I remember my dad drinking. Drinking a lot. After he was discharged from the army, he worked as a mechanic. He worked real hard...tryin' to provide for his family. He worked ten, twelve hours a day, six or sometimes even seven days a week trying to make ends meet. When he'd finally get home from work, he sat on the sofa and drank. It got a lot worse after my little sister died but we all just went on with it like it was normal. It became normal. Every day he'd drink a sixpack of Schlitz. I still remember that red and yellow logo on the can. On his bad days, he drank a lot of bourbon too.

"One day when I was about eleven and Uncle Jeff was about thirteen, we were fighting." Rick chuckled softly. "I remember we were fighting about something real stupid too. Remember it clear as day. We were arguing about which one of us had ridden their bike furthest away from home. My dad hated noise and he hated when we'd come into the living room when he was trying to watch the news. He told us to cut it out but we didn't listen. We just kept goin' back and forth about how far we'd ridden our bikes. My dad snapped that night. He'd slap us around quite a bit - nothing serious. But that night was different. He completely lost control. He picked up the lamp off the end table and slammed it into Jeff's head over and over again. I cried and tried to pull him off but he threw me against the wall and went back to wailing on Jeff. My mom finally came into the room and hit him over the head with a frying pan. I'll never forget that either. The image of her hitting him with that frying pan is etched in my memory. It seemed like something from a cartoon." Rick chuckled again ironically.

"Anyway, my mom drove us to the hospital. Jeff had a concussion, a tooth knocked out and a broken nose. His face was covered in cuts and bruises. She lied to the doctors and nurses and said he wiped out on his bike. Doctors back then didn't push too much for abuse investigations. Probably wouldn't matter if they had. The next day while my dad was at work, she went home and packed our bags. She took us to my grandma's and that's where we stayed for a few days. Until my dad knocked on the door, tail between his legs and begged her to come home with us. He said he hadn't had a drop of booze since that night and that he never would again." Rick paused thoughtfully.

"What happened after that?" Carl asked hanging on his father's every word.

"We came home and he kept his promise. I never saw my dad hold another drink in his hand. He was a good man, my dad. He lost his way. He lost his way for a while but he found it again. We all lose our way sometimes. I have, you have. But we can find it again."

"I want to Dad. But wanting to doesn't always mean you can. I tried this a few days ago and then I snuck out the other night. I was hell-bent on finding booze. Then when I saw Desi had whiskey, it was all over. I felt completely powerless when I saw the whiskey in front of me and I gave in. I want to quit, I swear I do. Especially after what I let happen to Desi. I just don't know if I can."

Rick looked at his son with great love and devotion. And Carl could feel it. He felt all that his father had for him in that moment. The love and the devotion but also the pain and anguish he had. Everything his father had done, the life he lived, the choices he had made were all about him. Every difficult decision made was with Carl and his daughter's very best interest at heart. He would easily trade his life for any one of theirs. Nothing could ever make him stray from being the man his children needed. "You can, Carl. You can. And even if you don't, I'll still be here."

…..

October 22, 2018

Clementine knocked on the door of the Grimes home.

"I'll get it!" Eva shouted as she ran down the hall as fast as she could. She wrapped her chubby fingers around the doorknob and opened the door.

"Hey Eva," Clem said with a bright smile on her face.

"Hi Clementine," Eva said as Clem walked into the house. "Clem, can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Why do you have the same name as a orange?"

Clem laughed, not knowing how to answer. "I don't know. I guess my mom and dad must have really liked oranges."

"Well what if they liked blueberries? Do you think they would have named you Blueberry?"

"I don't think so, but you never know," Clem replied, trying not to laugh again at the 5 year old girl's preposterous questions. "Either way, I'm really glad they didn't name me Blueberry."

"Sometimes my momma and daddy call me Cupcake. I like when they call me that because cupcakes are good. They call Judith pumpkin though. I don't know if pumpkins taste good though."

"They taste good in pumpkin pie but even pumpkin pie isn't as yummy as a cupcake. What do your mom and dad call Carl?"

"They just call him Carl," Eva said in all seriousness.

"Oh, okay," Clem said smiling and looking around the room. "Is Carl here?"

"Yeah, he's in the backyard helping my daddy with stuff."

"Okay well I'm gonna go out there to see him. I'll talk to you later Eva."

"Bye!" Eva shouted as she ran down the hall and back into her bedroom.

Clem walked out into the backyard and saw Carl sawing a piece of wood. He didn't notice Clementine at first but when he finally did he stood up straight and wiped the sweat off his brow.

"Hey," he said, laying down the saw and walking towards her.

"Hey yourself," Clem replied as she nervously shuffled her hand into her back pocket. "How have you been?"

"Not too bad," Carl said, nervous himself. "I'm sorry I haven't been to see you. I haven't been at our fishing hole in a while. Actually I haven't really been anywhere but around here."

"Well that's a good thing, right?" she asked, looking up into his flushed face.

"Yeah. It's a good thing."

"So do you think we could go for a walk or something?"

"Actually, I'm not supposed to leave the house."

"Really?" Clem asked with confusion.

"Yeah really," Carl replied as he pursed his lips and raised his eyebrow. "It's kind of like probation or a house arrest type deal. The council says I have to stay here for four weeks and then after that, they'll review things again."

"Wow. That sounds serious."

Carl nodded, feeling embarrassed by the situation. "Anyhow, I can't leave but we can still talk."

"Okay," she said and smiled.

Carl walked up to his dad and talked quietly with him for a moment. Rick nodded and patted Carl on the back. He walked towards the house and smiled at Clem as he walked inside, closing the sliding patio door behind him.

"My dad said he'll grab his lunch now so we can talk," Carl poured a glass of water from a pitcher and handed it to Clem. He poured one for himself and promptly gulped half of it down. He sat down on the concrete slab and she sat next to him.

Clem sipped her water then looked over at Carl shyly. "I'm sorry I haven't come by either. I've been wanting to. I just wasn't sure if..." Clem shook her head and sighed. "I've really missed you Carl."

"I've really missed you too, Clem. More than you know. It's been almost two weeks since I've seen you. It feels even longer than that though."

"I know. I'm sorry I haven't come to see you. So much has happened and I just wasn't sure how to deal with it all." There was an awkward silence between the both of them. They both had so much they wanted to tell each other but if they actually said it all out loud, there would be no turning back.

Clem finally rallied up the courage to say what was on her mind. "I'm sorry for running away from you on Merry Island. I handled that badly and it would have been better for both of us if I had just stayed and talked it all out with you. That's what I should've done. You deserved that."

"I'm the one who handled things badly." Carl set his glass down on the porch and folded his arms across his knees. "The truth is, I've handled a lot of things badly for a long time."

"Don't be so hard on yourself."

"I think the problem is that I haven't been hard enough on myself."

"That's not true Carl. It's one of the things that frustrates me the most about you. You're constantly beating yourself up...telling me, telling yourself what a piece of shit you are. How you'll never be able to figure things out. Acting like you don't deserve to be happy...or loved."

"I'm not talking about feeling guilty, Clem. There's been plenty of guilt going through my mind for a long time. I'm talking about just holding myself to some kind of standard...being accountable. I've just been doing whatever the hell I want and it hasn't worked out very well for anyone. It's time I grew up and started acting like a man. Like the man I should be."

Clem looked into his face with compassion and sincerity. "If you never changed one thing about yourself, if you never fixed all these things you think are wrong with you, I'd never turn my back on you. I'm here with you no matter what."

"I know you are. But that's not who I want to be anymore. I don't want to just be the person others are here for. I want to be the person that's there for the people that I love too. I want to be the person my dad says he sees in me. I want to be a person that others can look up to. Especially Judy and Eva. I want to be that person for you, Clem."

Carl grabbed a blade of grass from out of the ground and twisted it in his fingers mindlessly. "The night Holly died, she knew how broken I was right then. She told me to not let her death, or the baby's death, take me away from being the man I was supposed to be. But I didn't care what she wanted then. I don't think I was even listening to her. All I cared about was what I was losing. I'm not sure if I even cared that she was losing her own life. I just cared about how losing her and the baby would make me feel. And since then, I haven't cared about anything important. I did exactly what she asked me not to do. I tried drowning my grief with alcohol. I just didn't want to feel anything because it hurt too badly. And then as if hurting myself wasn't bad enough, I hurt others too. I hurt Desi, and in a way that I can't ever make right. I'll have to live with that. But whatever mistakes I've made, whatever hurt I have, whatever demons I'm dealing with, I've decided that I'm not going to let them take me even one more step away from being that man."

Clem smiled up at her friend. "I see that man in you too, Carl. I always have. Even when I was a little girl at the library I thought to myself 'how great is Carl Grimes?' I thought how you were brave and smart and always tried to do the right thing. I saw how you were ready to take on the world and how you wouldn't let anything stand in the way of doing that. I saw how you cared about your family...even how you cared for Holly. I never stopped seeing that. It's why I've been hard on you. Why I've always told you the truth. Because I see that man too."

"I'm glad you see him. I'm starting to catch a few glimpses of him myself." Carl smiled. It was the first smile Clem had seen on his face since coming to see him. She returned the smile with one of her own.

Clem's hand rested on the porch as her legs stretched out onto the grass. Carl put his hand on top of hers and looked over at her. She stared back, first looking at the black patch covering his right eye, then the piercing blue of his left eye. She was lost in his ethereal gaze and didn't come back to reality until he spoke again.

"Clem."

"Yeah," she replied, shaking her head slightly. She pulled her hand out from under Carl's and sat up straight.

"I'm sorry about..." Carl turned away, embarrassed again. "I'm sorry for kissing you the way I did."

Clem opened her mouth to speak but didn't know what to say.

"I want to try and be honest with you and I owe it to you to tell you what I was thinking."

"You don't have to explain, Carl. I get it. We were alone...talking and sharing things we never shared before. We were drinking all night. You got caught up in the moment..."

"Is that what you think happened?"

"I mean...look, what do you want me to say Carl? You have a reputation with lots of girls. What am I supposed to think?"

"You think that I just got caught up in the moment and that I just wanted to sleep with you?"

Clem stared back and shrugged her shoulders.

Carl stood up from the porch. He paced to the maple tree in the center of the yard then came back. He dug the toe of his boot into the grass. He looked around before finally turning his complete attention back to Clementine.

"Clem, I'm in love with you. It's that simple."

Clem stared back at him, stunned by what he had just said. She was fighting the urge to run away again. His confession was unexpected and it scared her. This wasn't her best friend wanting to fool around, this was her best friend professing his love. Carl loved her. That possibility hadn't even crossed her mind. As apt as Clementine was at maneuvering herself through life's trials, she felt her abilities were useless at this particular emotional crossroad. She was dumbstruck.

Carl read the look of confusion on her face. He looked down. "It's alright if you don't feel the same way about me."

"I...I don't know how I feel."

"It doesn't matter right now, Clem."

"What do you mean it doesn't matter? I may not understand all this or know how I feel but I know that it does matter."

"I just mean that right now I need to focus on myself. I need to quit thinking that I need a woman in my life...to take care of or to work out my issues with. It's not fair to you and it's not fair to me. I need to be by on my own for a little while and just take care of myself. And I have a lot of work to do."

Clem looked away, her heart sinking into her stomach. She felt another unexpected emotion when it came to this revelation: disappointment. Just when she discovered that Carl loved her, he told her that he wouldn't be with her.

Carl sat back down next to her. He moved his hand to her face and pulled her gaze back to him. "I mean it when I say I love you. I mean it completely. But I need to prove it to you. I don't want to just tell you that I love you, I want to show you. And the best way I know how to show you is to start by making myself the kind of man you deserve. The kind of man your parents and Lee would be proud to have you be with. The kind of man my family knows I can be. Even if you never feel the same about me, I still want to be that man. I want to earn you, Clem."

"I'm not sure that's how it works."

"I've managed to do a lot of things that haven't worked so at the very least, I'll be consistent," Carl smiled.

Clem nodded slowly, still very uncertain of everything she was feeling. She looked carefully at Carl before finally standing up and turning away. "I have to go. I'm supposed to help at the schoolhouse after lunch."

"Okay." Carl stood with her walked her back inside. "Hey before you go, I have something for you."

"Really?"

"Yeah really."

"What is it?"

"It's a surprise. I found them in the cellar here when I was cleaning it. Give me a second." Carl walked quickly down the hall and returned moments later. He held out in front of him a box made from burl wood. "Open it."

Clem lifted the hinged lid and looked at the shiny and sharp metal laying atop the black velvet lining. She looked up from the box and into Carl's face. "What exactly are these?"

"You've pretty much perfected fishing and I know you're getting bored with the guitar," Carl said smiling at her. "They're throwing knives. I thought you could use a new hobby."

"I don't think I'd be very good at using throwing knives."

"Sure you would. You're good at everything."

"You'd be better than me at something like this. Why don't you want them?"

"I told you, I have a lot of things I need to work on. Besides, I wanted to give you something."

Clementine slid her fingers around one of the six identical knives and looked at it closely. She saw her reflection in the lustrous metal and smiled. "Throwing knives. Okay," she said nodding. "I don't know how good I'll be at this but I'll give them a try." She smiled at Carl as she laid the knife back in the box and closed it. "I guess a hobby like this could come in handy some day."

…..

A/N: Good heavens I have missed all this! I took a fabulous vacation to Florida and Georgia. I actually went to the set of TWD in Senoia. I walked down main street in "Woodbury" and saw the outside walls of "Alexandria". It was so much fun! Then school started back up with my kids and I've been so busy. Anyhow, sorry to bore you all with the details of my life but I just wanted to let you know why I haven't been around. Hope you enjoyed this chapter. Drop a comment to let me know what you think of it. God bless y'all!