Sorry, sorry, sorry I'm a horrible fan fiction author. I'll explain in a little more detail below. On top of everything, this is shorter than normal. Take me out for flogging now.

I don't own The Walking Dead.

They had all eaten dinner together, a veritable smorgasbord of canned goods. Though Beth knew they were lucky to have it, and each other. Still, she elected to sneak off to be alone after they had finished. As much as she enjoyed the company, there were times she felt the need to be alone with her thoughts. After all, it wasn't as if any of them could really understand what she was feeling.

She settled against a wall, facing what had once been a display of paper towels. She wondered vaguely if they would be worth the space they would take up. They were bulky to carry around, but if someone were injured, they would wish they had them.

"Hey."

Beth looked up from her nails that she had been picking at absent mindedly. She smiled as she regarded Carl, as tall as she was now, but still completely dwarfed by the hat on his head. "Carl." She responded, with affection, but also a healthy dose of wariness, as the expression on his face was wrinkled in solemnity.

"I think we should talk." He responded, his arms crossing across his chest.

Beth's breathing caught in her throat. Had he noticed her… affection towards Rick? Was he angry with her? "Okay." She agreed, her legs stretching out in front of her.

Carl sighed, and sat next to her on the ground. His head gave a gently thump against the wall behind them, and it pushed his hat forward on his head. He grabbed it in his hands, staring at it absently before finally lowering it to the ground beside him. He shook his hair roughly, pushing his long bangs out of his eyes.

"You have PTSD." He said it so matter of factly that it took Beth a moment to process it. No one had ever phrased it like that to her either. The terminology scared her, and her instinct was to deny it. But as the words settle into place within her, she knew it was true.

She nodded. "Yes. I do."

Carl echoed her nodding gesture. "I get it." He whispered, his cheeks reddening as his eyes bored a hole into the ground in front of them. "After I had to put down mom." He added as explanation.

Beth silently cursed. Of course he understood. She had gotten so used to being alone with these problems, she had forgotten that she wasn't the only one who had known hurt, who had done things that haunted them.

Beth scooted closer to Carl, and took his warm hand in her own. Their fingers intertwined, and though he didn't meet her gaze, she saw the edge of his smile quirk up in a grateful grin. "How did you… move past it?" she asked carefully.

Carl scoffed, as his thumb absentmindedly smoothed her skin. "I haven't. I don't know that I will. I'd like to tell you it gets a little easier every day, but it doesn't. Some days are like it never happened, and some days the weight of it hits you all at once, knocking the wind out of you, leaving you to wonder if you'll ever breathe normally again."

Beth swallowed as tears pricked at her eyes. As much as she appreciated that he wasn't sugar coating it for her, Carl had essentially just confirmed her worst fears. This was the new normal; this burden would follow her around for the rest of her life. Worse than that, however, was the knowledge that Carl had been feeling like this. For months, and as far as she knew, he had been dealing with it alone. Rick had certainly never mentioned it to her, and he would have at this point. If not the boy's father then who would be there to help him?

"Do you… have nightmares?" She asked warily. She knew she wouldn't want to answer these questions if it were the other way around, but she also needed to know these answers, for the both of them. Still, Carl noticeably winced at the question.

"Yes." He answered honestly, if not succinctly. His grip tightened on her hand. "I see it so clearly sometimes. I see my mother broken in front of me. But the worst part isn't what I see. It's that same feeling I had then, gripping at my heart. That I failed to save her- and that if I don't dig deep and find some semblance of bravery and put her down, I'll fail again. And she'll turn into the one thing we've been fighting against."

Beth nodded fiercely, even as tears ran silently down her cheeks. "Yes. Yes I know what you mean." She knew her words would be of little comfort to him now, but maybe there could be some peace knowing they weren't alone. Or at least, they were alone together.

She remembered her own nightmares, and that same moment of decision. She was knelt before him, and she could either take it or fight. She had chosen to fight in the moment, but sometimes, in her dreams, she didn't. Sometimes she did what he told her to do. Sometimes Rick never got to her. Sometimes she even died. Her worst nightmare had been when Billy had slit her throat only after he'd had his way with her. Even though she died, she could feel the blood seeping from her body, pouring over her. Rick had come in the door then, and she had looked at him with cold dead eyes.

The cold hand of anxiety gripped at her heart then, and any semblance of composure fled rapidly. Heavy sobs wracked her body.

"Shit." Carl mumbled. He pulled her into his embrace, and she folded in on herself. "Beth I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…"

But Beth shook her head rapidly. "No, no, it isn't you." She mumbled between sniffled breaths. "I needed this desperately. I needed to know it wasn't just me."

Carl bent his narrow frame towards her and pressed a small kiss into her hair. "It isn't just you."

The two of them stayed together like that until Beth's tears dried. Even with her head buried in Carl's shirt, she knew that he had shared a few silent tears with her as well. His next brash sentence startled her out of the comfort she had found, however.

"We should probably talk about your intentions with my father."

Beth sat up suddenly, and was relieved to see an impetuous grin on his face. "Oh, shut up Carl." She laughed, slapping his arm. "Do you care?" she asked quickly, and he quirked an eyebrow up at her.

"Of course I care. Once upon a time, I had earmarked you for myself, if you'll recall." He smiled at her, but there was no malice in his tone.

Beth wrinkled her nose at him. "Thanks for that. That's not weird at all."

He laughed at her joke softly, in a way that reminded her of Lori, and her gentle understanding. "No, I don't really care. It's more than a little weird though Beth. Dude's old as fuck."

Beth's instinct was to tell him to watch his language, but she knew they were far past that now. Instead she just laughed. "Yes, dude is old as fuck. Good thing there's no way he could outlive me."

Carl nodded solemnly at the reminder that they were all already on borrowed time. "It's going to be hard for him. He's going to try to fix you." He whispered, a blush again creeping up his neck. "It's why I never told him how hard it's been… some things aren't able to be fixed."

Beth said nothing, but lulled her head on his shoulder.

"I know."

Okay, so this is not the chapter I wrote to go here. That chapter is written, and will probably be the next one I post, though likely not in its current form. They WILL go on their date, worry not. I just don't like their date as I've written it. Its not bad, its cute, but not what I wanted. I'm probably overthinking it. As I am wont to do.

Here's my issue, and I'd love your feedback on it. Rick doesn't get it. He can't, not really. And that's okay, most of the time people don't. But I felt like Beth needed SOMEONE who did. But I worry about accidentally writing Rick into a corner, as someone who will never 'really' understand the person he proclaims to love (eventually). That's not how I view him, but its a little tricky. So bear with me.

I hope you guys liked this. I liked the idea that Carl would get it. They're never going to have a normal relationship, because Beth can't really be a step mom to him, she's like 6 years older. That's silly, and everyone knows it. I thought why not embrace it, and really establish a trusting friendship instead? So that's what I'm doing.

Thank you guys for reading, it means the world to me.