Chapter 33
Always With Me

Sometime in the night I woke unexpectedly. I wasn't sure what had prompted me awake in the first place, my eyes were merely blinking open a moment later without any explanation. Then I realized the fire was out. I didn't think much of it, though, and dismissed it to try and get a few more hours of sleep before my shift on watch. When I rolled over, though, my gaze swept over the outline of Carl's silhouette against the darkened window. For some reason he was pressed tight against it, watching something that held his rapt attention. I could also hear voices.

My heart in my throat, I got up and drew closer.

"Carl?" He jumped as I neared him, holding a pistole we had found earlier at the ready. "What is it?"

He relaxed at the sight of me and turned back to the window. "I thought I heard voices or a moment."

"So, did I."

"That's a relief. Thought I was going crazy for a minute."

I followed his gaze, seeing only walkers moving around outside, and there were a lot. Anyone wandering around out there, did so at the risk of their own life. I took a seat next to him. "Do you think there's anyone actually out there, or was it just a bunch of walkers, simultaneously moaning together and it just sounded like talking?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. After all I've seen so far, I'd believe almost anything, by now."

We shared a quiet moment as we stared out the window together, wrestling with our own thoughts. The guilt of neglecting to tell him the truth about me ate me up and I knew I'd find no peace until I came clean to him.

"I'm sorry." I finally said. "For not telling you about it."

I didn't have to elaborate. He knew what "it" meant.

I studied his face, and it seemed like he was debating on whether he would forgive me for the deception.

after a moment he just sighed wearily. "It's alright, I guess. I mean, I get why you didn't want it advertised. It really changes the game for us."

"Yeah it does. Still… I should have told you at least."

"Why me?" His head tilted in confusion and I kept my gaze on the darkness outside, consciously avoiding eye-contact.

"Well… I don't know. Because I guess I want to feel like I can tell you anything. You're my protective big brother, after all."

He turned away, looking back outside again as he weighed my statement.

"Don't." He said at last.

I looked up, confused. "Don't what?"

"Don't trust, Judith." He explained. There was a note of bitterness inside him with those words. "Don't trust anyone. It's just safer that way. You'll be safer that way."

His words took me by surprise. Surely, he didn't mean that himself. I mean I could trust Dad and Michonne and him at least. "Carl…?"

"Sorry," He said, shaking something like a bad memory from his mind. "It's just… too many things, you know? Too many disappointments."

We turned our attention back to the window, watching the shadows of walkers moving about outside. They really were a lot active at night.

"Do you really think there could be anyone out there?" I asked after a moment.

"I'm not sure. Maybe they've got blood-cloaks on."

"I think they'd need something stronger than blood-cloaks for that mob out there."

He only managed a small chuckle. My head leaned against the cool brick of the wall while I considered him. "Are you worried?"

"…I'm always worried." He admitted. "It never goes away, I just sort of learn to function with it."

"Do you think we should go home tomorrow, instead of going sight-seeing?"

"I dunno. It's probably nothing." He seemed to deeply want to be wrong about it. "Most of the time it's nothing."

"What's your gut telling you?"

He looked towards me. "Honestly? That it's nothing. That I'm overreacting due to paranoia. That I heard something that isn't there."

"Is that what you really feel or what you want to feel?"

"…Both?"

We shared a moment of silence. "I do want to go sight-seeing tomorrow, but it kind of feels like we should get back."

"Don't you have to find something incredible for Negan?"

"…Yeah." I muttered, glaring at me knees for the reminder. "I hate him."

"I do, too."

"Sometimes I think about that day… when you were going to kill him. Sometimes I wish I hadn't stopped you."

"I think about it all the time, too." He looked at his own knees. "I'm glad you stopped me. If you hadn't… You were… you were right. I never would have been able to kill him. It was stupid. I'm not a fucking assassin now and I was even less one back then. I would have died, and if I didn't, Negan would have come back here and did just what you said he would do; kill an innocent. Maybe he would have come back to kill you. Who the fuck knows?"

I glanced back outside, studying a corpse as it limped along, looking his tattered janitor uniform and wondering what sort of life he had had when alive. He was someone's family at one point. He had a job, maybe he even had kids. Were they still alive? Did they ever wonder about him? Or were they just wondering around the same as him now?

"I wish Dad were here. It doesn't feel right being out here without him."

Carl sighed. "You want to know a secret? Every time one of us leaves I can't stop worrying that something will happen back home or out here in the wilderness and we'll end up never seeing each other again."

"Don't worry." I assured him, knowing what he was worrying about right now. "Dad's fine. He's recovering. We'll see him when we get back. Trust me, Carl. I'd know if he was dead."

"Oh right… you're magical sixth-sense witch powers." Even after all these years he was still getting used to that. "See any ghosts right now?"

"No. I don't see them as often as I used to. Maybe because I'm… growing up—I don't know. They just don't visit as often anymore."

"Beth, Hershel, Glenn… Mom?"

"Beth and Hershel are quiet these days… nice and distant and quiet. Glenn's gotten worse over the years. I should do something about it, but I'm always afraid that killing Negan—avenging Glenn and Abraham, would just open up a whole bunch of other problems. What if Negan started haunting me the way the Governor haunted Michonne?"

"He's still around?"

"Not anymore at least. I banished him. Glenn refuses to go, though. It's harder when there's something linking them here… family and their killers and stuff. Maybe I'm just not enough witch to finish the job."

"Better witch than any I know about."

I managed the smallest of smiles towards that, but it didn't improve my downed mood all that well.

"Judith… have you talked to Mom lately?" There was a deep agonizing longing in his tone. He never asked about the people I saw, no one did. It was just too painful for them. But hearing him ask about it now, I could tell there were things he wanted to say that he never got the chance to before she left him for good. But lately, it felt like I was seeing them less and less.

I looked away, feeling tears burn my eyes. The last time I had seen anything of her was over half a year ago. "Not for a long time. The last time I spoke to her… I asked her if it was okay if I started calling Michonne Mom the way you do."

The silence between us was unbearably tense. It was easy for Carl to call Michonne that, but for me… I had wanted to call her it my whole life, but having the spiritual presence of our mother hanging over my shoulders constantly made it impossible. It felt like… I was insulting her memory. She died to have me after all and… it felt like I owed it to her to always see her as nothing less than the mother figure that we would have had if she ever had that chance. But I couldn't just ignore how Michonne stepped up to that place. There was no expectation from her to do that, she just did it, and it seemed as though she now had equal claim to that title as much as Lori ever did.

A lump formed in my throat while I tried to explain. "It's just… she's earned it, you know. She's been there and she's always taken care of us… but when I asked Mom about it…" The memory made me choke and the tears couldn't be held back anymore. "Carl… I don't think she's with me anymore."

I saw his eyes water. My own statement seemed to have brought him to tears right with me. He didn't say anything. Maybe he couldn't. Maybe sometimes you can't say anything but lean over and just hold someone. The same way my brother and I leaned forward and held each other, trying to share comfort and sorrow while we cried.