The attic breaks my heart.

Not because it's decrepit or so hot and thick that it's hard for me to breathe, but because of the boxes to the left of where Beth and I enter. They're multi colored; blue, green, yellow, orange. The letters crawling across the plastic are marred with skinny cracks here and there, but that's not what makes my heart drop through the floor. It's the words. Three names I don't know with other things tacked to them like, childhood albums, wedding pictures, graduation albums. They're all no doubt full of smiles and family members that only used to die from old age or an unfortunate case of cancer.

I wanted to graduate.

I wanted to get married.

I still want those things. I still hope for them, too. It's dumb, I know it's dumb, but I do.

I clear my throat, direct my eyes back to the girl who led me up here, "So, why-"

"Help me get the window open."

I blink at the sudden interruption, but move to the pane nonetheless, watching my shadow in the yellow squares cast against the wood flecked floor. The warm air tinged with a slight feel of cold rushes into the torturing space the second we break the seal and I close my eyes as it blows against my skin and tousles the curls sweeping against my cheeks. When I open them again, Beth has disappeared, and I find her at the boxes I'd rather not look at anymore.

Even more so when I notice she's digging through the one that reads: Beth and Maggie - Childhood Albums. She pulls out two books - one red and the other white - before venturing back over to me and jerking her head towards the window. "Come on."

She tosses the binders out of the frame before following them, barely fitting through. I watch her gather them up in the crook of an arm and go to the railing skirting around the edge, sitting on it and letting her legs hang over. I follow, albeit hesitantly, setting my sword against the peeled siding and keeping my hand a short distance from it as I amble out into the direct sun.

I don't know why I don't swing it over my back. I leave it there and walk to where Beth sits, copying her position. The air doesn't smell like death up here. It smells like dirt and summer even though my cheeks are cold and I'm clutching the camo jacket against my bones. But maybe that's not only because of the breeze.

Her fingers, painted a bright yellow and chipping, lay the book where our thighs are only a centimeter apart. They reach for the red leather worn with dirt and something that looks like a coffee stain and the plastic crackles as it's stretched with the labor of opening.

There's a baby on the first page. Light pink frosting smears across its pale and flushed face. The eyes are wide and I don't have to look at them long to realize that the infant I'm looking at is Beth. They're like two large oceans shrunk down, waves gentle and calm. Now, they're harsh and detrimental, pushed by life's experiences.

I wish I had eyes like hers. Or like Carl's. I'm stuck with brown. And not like Glenn's eyes that have pieces of gold hidden among them. Mine are just...brown. Boring, regular, everyday brown.

I eye the scramble of wavy blonde hair dotted on her premature scalp and the large grin she sports as her chubby fingers dig into the cake smudged on the high chair she sits in. A girl stands in the background. The first thing I notice about her is the ripped jeans exposing her knees and part of her thighs. Her shirt is a dark, dark shade of green and exposes most of her stomach. The scowl her mouth is twisted into spoils her pretty features; green eyes outlined in black eyeliner and grey eyeshadow and brown hair cut just above her chin. The cigarette sticking out of her pocket doesn't go unnoticed by me and I'm thrown off by how young she looks. She can't be any older than me.

The familiarity of her doesn't hit until a few seconds after. "Is that Maggie!?"

Beth smiles softly. "Yeah. She...didn't like me for a long time. We didn't start to get close till her senior year. And then she went for college."

I turn my gaze to the white stick protruding from denim. "She smoked."

"For a year or two, yeah. Daddy made her stop at sixteen, said it'd ruin her life if she kept on doin it. She was mad at him for a while, me too cause I snitched, but it got better. She got better."

I don't know what to say, so I just nod and flip to the next page. It's another one of Beth, older, maybe nine or ten. She's wearing a white dress trimmed in a royal blue, trailing behind her as she runs from a boy that appears to be around my age. His hair is windblown and chocolate brown, disheveled across his forehead as he chases after the young version of the girl chuckling beside me. I can see his eyes, bays of clear blue water identical to hers. He's cute.

"That's Shawn," she says. That had been one of the names on the boxes, I realize with a pang. "My brother."

The words are on the tip of my tongue. I come close to not saying them, but can't hold back the curiosity. "Where is he now?"

There's a beat. She sniffs. "He's sick."

I go back, try to remember anyone mentioning there being someone sick in the house, hearing a cough, or seeing someone coming and going with glasses of water and medication.

Nothing. I come up blank. "Sick? Is he in the house?"

"Uh, no," Beth answers. I angle my head up to capture her stare. She looks younger somehow, with the bright blonde pigtails flowing over her shoulders and eyes big and vulnerable; a spitting image of the picture below. "Daddy keeps him in the barn. He and Maggie won't let me see him anymore."

My inhale gets stuck in my throat.

"What?" My voice is so small and afraid I'm not even sure she hears me. My eyes are bulging out my skull and I can't process anything except for five words. Over and over again.

The barn's full of walkers.

The barn's full of walkers.

The barn's full of walkers.

Beth's fingers trace over the page and she sighs. The action just seems creepy to me now. Am I hyperventilating? I think I'm hyperventilating. "My mom's there too. She got sick around the same time Shawn did."

The. Barn. Is. Full. Of. Walkers.

"Sick!?" It's the only word I can manage to blab out. It echoes in the air and Beth flinches back like it's shocked her. "That's what you think they are? Sick?"

She blinks at me like I'm crazy and I almost snap at her again. I am not the crazy one here. She is. "Well, yeah. They just need some help. Medicine."

I sputter for a good five seconds before I can get a grip on the English language. "Some help? Medicine? Are you insane? They eat people. Down to the bone. Have you ever seen that happen to someone? They're monsters. They take things you love, things you never thought you'd have to live without. People. They destroy lives! That can't be cured with, with medicine. You have to stab or shoot them." I point a finger against her forehead, right between her eyebrows. "Right. Here.

"Or you're gone. You get sick, you die, you come back as a monster. Your mom and brother aren't sick, Beth, they're dead." I take breaths, pull my hand away from her. Images flash in my mind, blurring together, a terrible concoction of blood and gore. "Just..just like mine."

I feel the tears spill over and onto my cheeks but I don't wipe them away. I just let them fall. And suddenly Beth is sobbing next to me and guilt drops into my stomach like a stone and I hate myself for what I've just said to her and done to myself. I don't know what to do anymore, I'm all out of anger towards her. It wasn't her fault in the first place, anyway. It's her father's for telling her that lie, giving her hope that things could be normal again.

I need to stop letting my mouth speak first.

I've always done that.

I cast my head down and find myself face to face with the picture again. I scan the boy's features repeatedly, imagining his voice, his laugh. The smile spreading across his lips on the paper is what I would classify as eye-catching. It's the main subject of the photo - well, Beth almost had him beat with the excitement she displayed in a baby face framed by a messy blonde braid. He looks carefree and happy and I'm glad that's all I get to know him as; a young teenager who loved living.

"I guess it'd be nice to think like that," I mumble in the sound of Beth's sniffles. "That they could get better, that you'd be able to hug them again, kiss them goodbye in the morning." I let out a groan at the hot tears that roll down my cheeks and join the others. "Why'd you even bring me up here?"

"I thought...I don't know." Beth admits, eyes like that river that'd I'd followed at sunrise those days I'd been alone. The sun reflects in them so beautifully that my fingers start twitching and I shove them together to stop it. "Things have been wrong for a long time and no one wants to accept it, I don't even want to accept it. But you do. I thought," She bites at her lip as she tries to formulate her words, wipes a hand across her cheek, her nose. "That it'd help. I don't know." She repeats helplessly, choking on another sob.

She's just as lost as me and I don't know how to fix something on her that I can't even manage myself. My eyes travel around to anything but her, absorbing the view. I'd been too distracted with whatever was happening here to consume it. There's so much land expanding from us and out in all directions, completely void of anything but a few shiny tractors and fencing. A windmill creaks with the force of the breeze and sends sun rays shattering against the grass. The cluster of trees that I've begun to call my camp has some members of the group weaving in between them, transferring clothes to different lines or just absentmindedly letting their feet carry them along as they think.

The red and white umbrella is a big splotch of color against the monochrome-like landscape. A shape moves along the top of the RV it sits upon, yellowish shade giving me the answer that it's Glenn still keeping watch. Dale's fishing hat is flopping on his head and it briefly brightens my mood. I still need to talk to that man; still need to figure out what happened to that baby he'd said his wife was pregnant with.

I hate the almost certainty that it's dead.

"I think I should go." I mumble into the air. This situation is getting worse and worse the longer we drag it out and I think it'd be better if we both stopped crying. I slam the book acting as a bridge between our legs closed and hand it to her with a heavy heart. "We'll talk later, okay? Hopefully about something different?"

Her answering smile is relieving and I find myself returning it despite the water gathering on both of our chins. "Later," she agrees. "Sick or not sick."

I tuck my hair behind my ear and swing my legs back over the rail and onto solid wood. "Sick or not sick." I agree. Maybe it'd be nice to do what she does. To pretend.

But, I realize as my hand wraps around the sheath of my sword, that's hard to do when everything around you screams never let your guard down.

I'm halfway down the stairs, submerged once again in the antique scent of the aged house and I still can't get it out of my head. Beth isn't who I thought she was. I'm not even sure who that was, but she's different.

Not good or bad, but just...different.

Sick or not sick. It's disturbing how that can apply to more than just physical sickness now.

I head back to the camp.

I have striking up a conversation with Dale in mind, maybe even washing and pinning up some clothes while trying to make decent small talk with Carol when my name is called from across the grass.

Carl runs up to me, hat shifting along his bangs and cheeks flushed pink from the minor adrenaline rush. His freckles stand out more against the color, more prominent than ever. Fingers adjust the rim to a better position before bright eyes sparkle at me. "Do you wanna play checkers?"

"Checkers?" Summers spent inside my grandfather's home return to my mind. Chewing on molasses cookies and helping plant the garden he treasured in the backyard, my dirty and old short overalls with marker doodles all over the denim, Mason screaming over colorful beetles crawling up his legs, the stone hard concentration on his face as we sat across from each other and moved red and black pieces across a board, the creaky wooden swing in the backyard, painted a burgundy that was admired by the grandmother that had died before her eyes ever met mine.

Carl's eyebrows furrow, the expression foreign on him. "Yeah, checkers. There's two sides and you move-"

"I know what checkers is, you troglodyte."

The boy blinks, wrinkles his nose in a way that has me smiling. "What is that?"

"Don't know, Mason used to say it a lot." It surprises me how easy it is for me to say his name around Carl, to remember the edge of laughter in his voice whenever he'd say it. "I said it like that because I wanted to know why you want to play checkers out of all the other games we could possibly play."

He shrugs, fingers picking at the unbuttoned part of his cargo pants. They're too big for him, rolled up against his ankles and hanging over his sneakers. "Sophia and I played it a lot."

The pit in my stomach clenches at the name and sudden glassy look in his darkened eyes. I bite my lip at the surge of pain I feel from the loss that surrounds this place, that surrounds me and clear my throat to hide everything I want so bad to go away, take a hike, jump off a cliff.

"Fine," I sigh. "Checkers it is. I'll whoop you anyway." He scoffs and I cross my arms challengingly. His cheeks are stretching with a smile and the warmth of the Sun is back on my skin. "What, you don't think so?"

He copies my stance, eyes narrowed but playful. "I'm really good at checkers."

"You wanna bet on it?"

"Okay," That smile shifts into a smirk and I immediately want to take back my offer because I know what's coming next. "If I win, you have to show me your sketchbook."

There it is. My mind vetoes the idea in favor of going to find Dale like I originally planned, but the competitive side of me is incredibly overpowering and I find myself nodding. "Fine. And if I win?"

Carl looks hesitant for a moment, his expression as ambitious as mine. "I'll give you a Big Cat bar."

"You have chocolate!?" My taste buds tingle with the memory of the food as my eyes widen. I hadn't had chocolate since a while before the news started swarming with cases of disease. My mom wasn't a health freak, but she was strict when it came to junk food in the house. It took awhile for her to accept my dad and I's trips to Millie's.

"My mom gave it to me on the highway and...I just haven't felt like eating it."

I know what he means all too well. The first time I saw a walker, arms almost completely void of meat, bones visible and covered in a dark color of blood, I didn't eat for a while. Mason offered me a granola bar scavenged from the rush out of our house and onto the road leading to Atlanta every morning and I'd take a bite, but no more after that. We switched roles on that the first time he decapitated one. I can still see the expression he'd had molded onto his face for days; eyes wide and alarmed, scattering to every single detail around the area, searching for something I'd never found out the identity of.

"Well, Big Cat's are my favorite," I'm starting to realize how one of us creates tension then the other demolishes it. It's becoming our thing and I know it's a rubber band that'll snap eventually. I know, but I want to ignore it for as long as I can. "I can't wait to take it off your hands."

He rolls his eyes and I mentally slap myself for getting lost in the color for a second too long. "Whatever," he says blithely, holding his hand out in front of him. The friendly hostility we've established melts off my skin when he extends his pinky out to me. I don't know why I want to burst into tears or why I want to hug him to death or why I want to go grab my sketchbook right now and show him everything, tell him all about what I've seen, what haunts me. "Shake on it."

I'm frozen in my spot, staring a this freckled hand. "You said that that's for kids." I manage to choke out.

"And you said that's exactly what we are. You're right."

The smile spreading across my lips is abrupt. I interlock my pinky with his and we shake before dropping our hands back to our sides. I'm unaware of the reason why he's made me so happy but then again Carl has this...air. It's hard to stay sad around him for an extended period of time.

Even when he mentions the checkerboard sitting on the porch of the farmhouse - where another meeting with Beth will ensue, no doubt - I nod along to his offer of playing it there because he's bright and the metal feel of the gun digging into my back isn't as strong around him.

We're just clearing the line of trees that mark the beginning of the camp, Carl talking about attempting to teach me how to read a comic again tonight, when I look up to a sight that makes my smile grow. Glenn and Maggie stand in the field that acts as a sort of front yard, lip locked and looking pretty darn happy. Before my dad died kissing would disgust me, but seeing it now reminds me that there's still life to live. If something like that can grow, then we can get through this hell.

Before I know it I find myself yelling out in a whoop, nudging Carl with my elbow in indication for him to join in. And then we're both screaming at the couple across the yard, who's broken apart to send us annoyed expressions that soon turn into unstoppable grins and shaking heads. "You're welcome!" I greet Glenn with a soft punch to the shoulder, my chest heaving with the small run I'd just undergone to get to him and the tiredness from using my voice.

I feel the strain in my cheeks caused by the stretch of my lips and it's a nice feeling; happiness. I never knew how addicted I was to it until it began to leave for days at a time with no note to tell me when to expect it again.

"Oh yeah," I turn to Maggie at the realization that I'd never actually had an interaction with her. It felt like I'd already known her for a while, thanks to the pictures. I stick out my hand. "I'm Nevaeh."

Her smile is pretty, green eyes like a forest in spring, sparkling in the light of the sun. She takes my hand in hers. "It's nice to finally meet you. Bethy told me she lent you some clothes yesterday."

"Nice to meet you too. Good job with the egg in the hat, that was hilarious."

She laughs along with Carl, who'd caught up and now stood beside me. Glenn, on the other hand, does not look amused. "Hey!"

"You guys made up; I can make fun of it now." That weight was lifted off of my chest and I feel...light.

We all crack up again, especially after Glenn starts grumbling, bottom lip poked out childishly and arms crossed against his chest. We head up to the house together, Carl close to my side and muttering out brags of how good he was at the game we were about to indulge in. I countered them quickly and in that process learned that the boy is terrible at comebacks. He'd get quiet for a second, stutter, then give up with that glare that I'm absolutely positive looks like a bunny.

But when we sat down on the old chairs set out on the porch, Beth and Patricia already rocking in the other seats set out and becoming invested in our competitive remarks to each other, I wanted to cry.

He was winning.

My stomach dropped when I realized the mistake I made on the board and I wanted to strangle him when he started laughing at my expression. "Shut your face, Carl."

He laughs harder, eyes completely shutting and crinkling at the corners. I really want to take a picture, not even draw, just capture him in the moment; hat laying lopsided against his messy hair, smile so wide that I swear I can feel it rubbing off on me. It's so unfair how easy it is for him to do that. He's a blazing fireball and I'm a snowbank sitting out in the dark after being pummeled by kids who'd started snowball fights but had gotten too cold to finish them.

Carl's giggles eventually fade out, and he's left breathing heavily in front of me with flushed cheeks and an amused spark highlighting that blue. "So..your sketchbook."

"No."

He sputters at the turn in my voice but recovers quicker than I thought he would. His eyes abruptly grow big, the bluest I've seen them since I'd gotten here. "But, we promised."

That did something to my heart. I sigh, avert my gaze to something else besides those pleading eyes. "Only three pages. Three." Just in case he thinks I'm trying to avoid it, just in case he doesn't understand how hard it's going to be for me, I add, "Please."

The silence that follows is loud in my ears.

"Uh, yeah." Carl eventually says. He clears his throat. I'm too afraid to look at him. I know that the girl I'm hiding behind curtains is shining through and the second I meet his eyes he'll see her. That's the main person I don't want him to know about. "Yes. Three pages. Deal."

I give myself time to recompose it's crumbled walls before angling my head up to give him a smile of gratitude. He returns it quickly, less large and consuming and more shy, but warming all the same.

I forget about the board of light and dark checkered squares sitting in the space between our bodies for a second.

There's a flash in the corner of my eye. It feels wrong when I tear away from Carl's grin. The shift in my attention is caused by Andrea and T-Dog walking up the dirt path leading from our camp in the trees. The blonde's lips are pulled thin and her eyes are slightly narrowed. "Where is everyone?" Her sharp tone shows the obvious annoyance displayed among her features.

I stand from my seat, sending it rocking against the porch with shrill creaks that barely register. "He still isn't back yet?" I ask her. Carl and I have been playing checkers for a while now, Glenn and Maggie quietly chatting away on the brick steps and Beth and Patricia speaking about the conditions of things on the farm. I hadn't given the man any thought, but now worry grips at my heart in that all too familiar way.

"I haven't seen him since he went out with Hershel," she says, looks away from me to communicate more to the others, "He went off with Hershel. Me, Nevaeh and him were supposed to head out to look for Sophia a while ago."

Carl's stare suddenly feels like burning lasers against the side of my face.

I try to focus on Glenn standing to distract from it, watching his brows furrow and mouth open to say something, only to be spoken over.

"Yeah you were." The voice is gruff, southern twang curling around the three words despite the small number of them. The man from breakfast this morning - the egg gobbler - stomps up a different dusty road from which Andrea and T came from and the first real glance I get at his face sends a spark of fear through my abdomen. His features are aggressive and all at once the courage in my voice is shoved down my throat. "What the hell?"

I don't notice Carol trailing behind him until she adds, "Rick told us he was going out." It's the loudest I've ever heard her speak.

The man walks closer to the rest of the group, his stomps against the ground sending small clouds of dust into the air. "Damn it. Isn't anybody taking this seriously? We got us a damn trail." A buff arm is thrown into the air and I absentmindedly follow the direction it leads.

Shane is smack dab in the middle of where his haphazard hand was thrown. I'm immediately captivated by the long gun held in his left hand, trailing up to the strap thrown across his opposite shoulder - the bag of guns, terrible at shielding the barrels of multiple firearms - before finally moving up to his face. Maybe it's the look in his eyes. The fire that can be seen even from where I stand. It's not the same one that was there when we'd clashed in the RV.

This one is more intense. It's madness, scrunched up in the angry contortion of his face.

Even before he opens his mouth or hands Daryl the gun, I know that he wants to do something bad. Not bad in the sense of stealing a cookie out of the jar before dinner when your mother repeatedly told you not to, death bad. I remind myself of the gun sticking out of my waistband, shrouded by the material of Mason's jacket. What would he do?

But I'd answered that question the second I met Shane, realized that he wasn't the same man as Rick is.

Mason would do whatever he could to protect the group. What was that in this situation? I don't know.

But I do know that I'm not as scared of walkers as I am of Shane right now.

I think about the words again.

Sick or not sick.

I wrote three different versions of this chapter, it's fine, we're here and we're published. It's not like it's been two months and four days or anything, fine fine fine. My son is dead, but this fanfiction will still go on because I can still milk this beautiful child's story. I just hope you'll hang on through my long and short update wait times to see how this fic unfolds. We hit 60 followers and I wanted to thank you guys for that because I love all of you for taking the time to sit down and read about this character who I struggle so hard to write.

To many more chapters and to much more Carl and Nevaeh being little cuties!

HAPPY READING