Last Day on Earth, Part Two: Scary Words.
Carl gets back with his dad, no Morgan in sight. Sasha asks them where Rhys is with very wide and vulnerable eyes, and they both explain it to her very carefully, like she might just burst if she realises he's not coming home yet. She storms off after that. Enid meets them at the gate where Abraham is standing on guard duty. Rick stays to speak with Abraham while Carl wanders off with Enid, telling her what happened on the road with a voice tired and worn as trodden gravel.
"Sorry that you couldn't find him," Enid says, drawing circles on Carl's back with the flat of her palm as he hunches forward, the two sitting in the hidden, overgrown gazebo.
Carl stares at her over his shoulder with this empty look that scares the hell out of her.
"I'm not sure what happens now," Carl finally says, so quietly anyone else would miss it.
Enid shrugs with her whole body. "We wait."
Carl nods. He hates that word and all the stillness that always follows it. He's not a waiter. He has never been. Carl would rather cut his way through a horde hundreds deep or walk a thousand miles without water or company, anything but waiting on something he can't control.
A sudden hale of rain beats down and slips through cracks in the gazebo's planked roof, they try to ignore it, but when they're almost soaked through to skin and bone, the teens are forced to retreat from their hidden nook. Splitting up to find something worth their time while they conquer that big scary word.
-Carl's POV-
When I get home, I search for you.
I know you're not here, but I look anyway. I let myself into your house, Maggie doesn't speak more than a smile and whisper of acceptance when I walk to the stairs, to your room.
The surface of your desk is scuffed and scratched where you have pressed too hard with pencil and pen getting excited over new ideas or lyrics, or doodled absent-mindedly with a knife like you used to at the prison. The scars of your creativity are hidden under notebooks bound by colourful threads of yarn and string, unfinished songs singing unheard on torn-out and scattered pages. Some of the pages are crumpled and thrown at the bin lazily with creative discontent. Some pages are just scrunched up ready for the trash but still on the desk, a second thought spared for them, creases running up and down their lines like wrinkles on weathered hands. But they've been saved, saved by you. Given a second chance by you. I read them all because I know you'd let me if I was able to ask you.
I want that second chance now.
I gently run a finger across the taut strings of the guitar that Noah got you, leaning against the windowsill, a breeze humming down its neck. The one you hate to play because it makes you sad. Makes you think about how we lost him and how you lost your parents that taught you to tame these instruments. I used to make you play it anyway because you would somehow lose those feelings in the sounds you made, and you would smile like a cat, like you didn't realise how clever you were. I loved that smile. The smile you didn't know you had until I pushed you a little further.
The note I strum sounds out of tune, but I wouldn't know how to fix it.
I find clothes that still smell like you scattered across the room. Each one is different. I can tell the ones you've slept in; they smell warm and sweet, worn in their creases, like you do before you get ready for the rest of the world, the smell you only have in the morning or at night before a shower. That smell makes me want you in every way. The smell of you without all the rest. I find the one that smells most like you, a blue flannel that I know you love. I breathe it in, and it smells of you from the hem of its sleeves to under its collar, that lavender soap you use, spices and smokes from meals you've cooked, a musky sweat from where you must have refused to take it off on a hot day. I hold it close, burying my face into its familiarity.
I breathe you in, but you're still not with me.
I lie in your bed with your clothes and belongings and thoughts. Surrounded by you as I miss you. I dream that if I keep my eyes closed, you might appear, you might come back to me in some form like you always do. When I finally open my eyes, I stare up at a faded poster on your wall for a band I know you like. I gave it to you on our second day here, and you had smiled up at me. I wanted to kiss you then. The way you smiled at me.
Do you remember?
-Enid-
Scott finds Enid in the pantry doing her chores. She stays quiet as a mouse, like she does around most people. He tells her Maggie's looking for her.
Despite the weather, Enid strolls herself to the french doors of 99's kitchen, feeling sad and strange knowing that Rhys isn't going to answer.
She can see Maggie sitting at the kitchen table with a face lost in thought. Enid pulls her overly long flannel sleeves up past her hands and knocks.
Rain is still drizzling from grey clouds, Enid practically jumping over the doorstep when Maggie opens up.
"Erm, Scott said you were looking for me?" Enid remarks, doing a peculiar shake to rid delicate water drops from her long brown hair.
Maggie smiles with pursed lips, nodding as she shuts the door behind her.
"What's up?" Enid asks.
Maggie hands her a pair of scissors, saying, "I need some more help," before inviting her further inside.
After fifteen minutes of sitting at the kitchen table, lots of awkward snipping sounds and almost taking off Maggie's ears twice, Enid finally asks a question, not enjoying cutting Maggie's hair in silence.
"Are you scared?"
"Scared?" Maggie frowns, turning her head the best she can to see Enid, her cheekbones tensing ever so slightly.
"You know," Enid focuses on the cutting. "Rhys is gone, and Glenn is gone. Aren't you scared about them being out there?"
"Are you?" Maggie questions calmly.
"Yeah," Enid says after a quick breath.
"Why?" Maggie asks with her southern twang.
Enid shrugs her whole body at the question, apologising when she cuts a handful of hair too short. "Glenn looked out for me when we were out there before the horde went away. Rhys is my friend, and so is Mikey." She uses her hands to turn Maggie's head away when she feels herself getting emotional. "Why aren't you worried?"
"Glenn will be okay. He'll look after Mikey," Maggie says to her, nodding only to stop when Enid tells her to. "If Glenn didn't go after Daryl to help, then he wouldn't be Glenn."
"What about Rhys?" Enid asks.
Maggie's breath hitches. "It's my fault he left."
Enid stops cutting, puts the scissors down on the table and moves around Maggie to sit with her at the kitchen table.
Enid frowns. She hasn't read Rhys' letter. "I thought Rhys left because of Carl?"
Maggie shakes her head, hair sitting much shorter on it now. "He got beaten half to death at the slaughterhouse... then he had to watch Dennise die. Rhys needed me, and I wasn't there after all that."
Enid just nods because she's the last person to lie. She knows Maggie's right.
"Why aren't you worried about them, though?" Enid asks again.
"Because," Maggie tilts her head, "Glenn has been on a hundred runs, and Rhys knows that if he doesn't come back so I can apologise, I'll kill him myself." She smiles, pointing to her head. "Now finish up."
Enid stares at her hair. "Oh, I'm done."
Maggie picks up a hand mirror, looking at herself, the brown hair cut up above her ears. She manages to smile at herself.
"I like it," Enid shrugs again, getting up and standing behind Maggie. "But why'd you want it so short?"
Maggie takes a long breath, taking in her new appearance. "I have to keep going," she tells Enid. "And I don't want anything getting in my way."
They smile at one another through the little blue mirror in Maggie's hand, but then Maggie's face goes sour.
"Man, did I get it too short?" Enid bites her lip nervously. "I only used to cut my dad's."
But that's not what's wrong. Enid Realises as much when Maggie folds in half, falling from the chair and clutching at her stomach with a high and guttural shriek.
"Maggie?!" Enid shouts, her face turning pale, panicking and not knowing if she should run for help or stay with her.
"Ba— baby," Maggie manages. "The baby!"
A/N
Really sorry about the wait on this one folks! I've been without WiFi for almost a week now! It's been dreadful and I've had to go stay at a friend's house just to get this uploaded! Hopefully we'll be back up and running on Friday, so fingers crossed next chapter will be up on time!
First time Enid perspective! It's not going to happen a lot, aha, I just wanted to have some Maggie stuff in there this chapter, and also wanted to show these two bond a little before we jump into season 7.