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M E G A N

A tear falls onto the aged, wrinkled sheet that holds the detrimental words that have been sitting still for years upon years. However, the tear isn't mine, as I've so far managed to keep my emotions underway, for the sake of the emotional child underneath my arm.

Judith's body shakes with a gentle cry, as her gaze stays locked on the letter. All this time apart from the girl has somehow made me forget what exactly she'd lost, that day. Guilt courses through my veins at my overwhelming urge to cry, considering my composure is the only thing keeping her few tears from turning into a sob.

As the adult in the situation, my grievance can wait. Just like Carl would've wanted, my job, in this moment, is to be fun Aunt Meg—to be there for the girl when she experiences every ugly part about this world.

"Carl spent his entire last day just having fun with you," I start. My arm squeezes Judith tighter, as she leans her head on my collarbone. Her sheriff's hat falls off, in the process, landing on the floor with a soft thud. "He really loved you, Jude."

The girl sniffles, removing her head from the crook of my neck. She looks me in the eyes, her own quickly filling with tears, as I move a piece of her tussled hair behind her ear. "Carl really loved you too, Aunt Meg."

My overwhelming urge to cry instantly turns into a stiff battle to keep my tears down. The backs of my eyes grow heavier and heavier, as my mouth gapes open.

The words spoken from the lips of a sad child, seem to carry me through the entire spectrum of human emotion. It's almost as if, for all of this time, my body has yearned to feel this way—to feel these emotions and this comfort. Judith says words that strike the same chord as the words of her brother used to, as she speaks for him.

I can mutter no response, as my lip begins to quiver. My facade begins to crumble, just before the young girl, as the strength I've tried to convey becomes overpowered by the sad eyes of Judith Grimes.

But just before my building tears begin to fall, the front door to the house opens. Enid walks out into the living room, wearing an urgency about her. "Judith, your mom's out there looking for you."

"Okay," The girl mutters. She then wraps her tiny arms around my upper body, giving me a tight squeeze before releasing me and picking up her hat, placing it back on top of her head. "I'll save you a seat at the movie tonight, Aunt Meg."

I choke down whatever I can of the pulsating lump in my throat, and offer the girl a welcoming smile. "I wouldn't miss it."

Judith takes one last look at me, before wiping her eyes and letting Enid guide her out the door, with one hand on the little girl's upper back. The second the front door shuts, my need to hold back my tears vanishes and my walls begin to crumble.

"God," Enid starts, closing the front door behind Judith. The woman gently huffs, as she begins to turn toward me. "Michonne was worried s—" Her words come to a halt, as she takes in my quivering lip and watery eyes.

Although surprised by my burst of emotion, Enid asks no questions as she shuffles to my feeble side. The woman knows the exact essence of my problem, and that it has everything to do with the little girl who just walked out the door.

The woman grabs at the duffel containing my old things, ready to move it away from my feet, so that she may sit across from me, on the window sill. A small clink sounds out, just before Enid can take her seat, and she bends down to investigate the noise.

"This fell out of the side pocket." She picks up the small item, holding it in between the tips of her thumb and her pointer finger, as the dainty item doesn't need much force to be lifted.

Enid holds the object up to the light, examining it closely, as I wait for my tears to come to a halt and rid my vision of their cloudiness. The upper half of my face tenses as I finally squint at the small, metal object. For just a moment, the lone pull-tab of a soda can confuses me, leaving me to believe that a piece of trash has somehow ended up in my bag.

And in the next breath I intake, I'm forced to combat a sob, as I recall where exactly that pull-tab came from. Although so long ago, seeing the can of lemon-lime soda—bare of its means of opening—sitting atop the full trash can, just a few hours after Carl'd left for the run with Heath, perplexed me enough that I still remember it, to this day. He'd taken the pull-tab with him, and even kept it after all that time.

My lips fold inward, as I sluggishly grab the pull-tab from Enid's grip. Through teary eyes, I switch my gaze from the memorabilia in my palm, up towards the face of the one who awaits answers. "This is from the night of our first kiss."

"Oh sweetie," Letting out a sigh, the woman scoots farther alongside the window sill, so that our knees touch. She wraps an arm around my shoulders while I allow myself to fully shrink into her comforting touch. "Carl would be so—beyond proud of how far you've come. I know I am."

"Thanks," I allow a saddened chuckle to cut through my sniffle, as I shrug. "I just never thought that I'd have to come this far without him."

Enid sighs, squeezing me tightly, allowing her chest to sink into a deep sigh. "You're never really going to be without him. You know that."

My watery eyelashes send the cold tears that'd been collecting on them, cascading down my cheeks as I take a glance down, unclenching my fist. The stinging tears only numb so many of my senses as all I can focus on are the striking contents of my opened palm.

The frail, metal pull-tab represents history that I didn't even mean for it to capture. It's a reminder of who was the first person to share my successes—to try and take away the suffering from my losses.

Carl Grimes was the first person I'd thought of the day when I found the stale chips and the flat soda. He was who I wanted to celebrate it with. And it was a rude awakening when—for the first time in a long time—he wasn't there for me. In that moment, I'd realized that I'd needed Carl for more than just surviving, when I didn't even want to need the boy, in the first place.

Ever since that moment, I'd struggled to let him in, despite the fact that I wanted more than anything to just settle with whatever feelings that'd accumulated inside of my cluttered brain. He was always right there, waiting for me to, just, feel. Whatever it was—whether it was good or bad—he was ready for it, because it meant that I was letting him in.

Years later, the person I'd leaned on for so long is no longer around to feel with me, as I face all of the emotions that come along with the aftermath his very own death. And although Carl is not around to witness what a mess I've become over his loss, I guess his mission has been accomplished one way or another. Carl Grimes, much to my dismay, has taught me how to feel.

Enid's chest rises and falls, as she keeps a tight grip on her grieving friend—the woman being no stranger to having to comfort me, after everything that happened.

"Yeah," My eyes stare straight ahead, as I curl my fingers over the metal in my palm, and tuck my fist back into my curled-up chest. Through my sticky, drying tears, my gaze rests upon a desk at the corner of the room, hoisting a fresh pen and notepad, just waiting to be used. "I know."

☆

Several people file into the dimly lit movie theater alongside their unfamiliar counterparts, in anticipation that a cartoon will raise spirits enough to unite several communities into one. The smell of freshly salted popcorn lingers in the air—the scent giving off the same, fresh heat from the popcorn machine in the back of the room.

Judith, Enid and I sit in the front row, waiting as all of the seats in the theater slowly fill up with other excited families. We were the first ones in the auditorium, because I promised Judith we'd get to sit in the front, after barely getting to see her during the fair.

I've spent the last few hours of my day trying to make peace with all that's happened, which somehow managed to release the tension in my shoulders that's been building ever since this whole thing started. And by the start, I mean that day at the prison, when I was first told what this all was—when I first stumbled upon Carl Grimes.

For a lack of better words, I seem to have made my amends with Michonne, one of the two people I've held the most of a grudge towards, ever since Carl's untimely death. Although no admittance of guilt was directly exchanged between us, enjoying the fair in her presence, before she left for the Hilltop, is more than I've given her in years.

And as for the other half of that problem, Siddiq, I had yet to get a moment alone with the man, to let him know of my unexpected change of heart, before the King announced that the movie was about to start.

"Aunt Meg," Judith's voice barely sounds out over the several mumbling voices in the theater. I tilt my head closer to her high-pitched voice. "How long has it been since you've seen a movie?"

"A long time, Jude." I inhale a heavy breath, letting my chest rise and fall, before I turn my head towards the little girl. "A very long time. I kind of forgot what all of this was like."

Judith stares up at me, showcasing a wide smile that shows off her missing tooth. "Then it'll be a first for the both of us."

No words leave from between my lips, as I offer the girl a smile, before once again facing forward and staring into oblivion. The gratified feeling within me fills me with a warmth that hasn't been cast over my body in years. For so long, I've struggled to be content. I've struggled to allow the good things to come into my life, even though they've been right there, in front of me.

In this moment, with the darling girl who's the embodiment of all the innocence her brother once had, back when his group first stormed into the prison. The same glimmer in her eyes, that I'm sure Carl would've given anything to be here to see.

My thoughts get interrupted by the voltage sound of all of the lights shutting off, followed by the excited clapping of everyone in the theater. Judith grabs my hand, shaking it out of excitement, as everyone else continues to clap. My eyes dart from the black screen to the girl, as I feel her squeezing touch.

The rim of her nearly pokes my face, as I turn toward her. Using my other hand, I reach over and pluck the sheriff's hat off of her head, before placing it in my lap. "Your hat is blocking the people behind us, Jude."

The girl emits a giggle that echoes into the back of my mind as my thoughts begin to consume me. My eyes stay glued to the golden tassels on the hat resting atop my legs. Her hat. His hat.

Looking at the obscure item of clothing reminds me of everything that's happened just underneath it. The brain it once encapsulated, and all of it's beauty. The brain it now encapsulates and all of its purity. Everything about the leather hat has stayed the same, despite everything that it's been a witness to.

The hat—it sort of sits with me, as the projector buzzes with its start, casting a bright cartoon onto the screen in the front of the room. Everyone continues to clap as the cartoon characters begin making a ruckus in the background of my thoughts. And I sit, within all of the commotion, in the still, isolated company of the hat.

It's almost as if it's an entity—someone that's sitting here, experiencing the movie with me. Someone that should've lived to see this day, as to follow through the events of our make-believe first date, that we'd once dreamt about. In our simple minds, a movie would've never been possible. Living this long would've never been possible. And it wasn't. Not for Carl Grimes.

In a way, he is sitting here with me. He's made it to this day. Through me—through Judith. Through the stupid, sweaty hat that I used to make him take off when we first arrived at Alexandria. He's here. He made it. I made it, even though this is not what we had planned.

"Megan," Enid chimes in with a whisper, coming from my other side. "You okay?"

In my few seconds of thought, I failed to take into account the melancholic smile on my face, as well as its accompaniment of straggling tears. Although comforted by the eye contact I seem to be making with the hat, the overwhelming history behind it is just that: overwhelming.

I pull my eyes from the leather, looking at Enid, and offering her a nod. My quivering lip trembles with a different emotion. An emotion that is finally anything but mourning or grief. An overwhelming emotion that soothes my body, yet makes it want to heave all at once.

She offers me a warming smile, leaning her whispering voice closer to my own, over the volume of the beginning of the cartoon. "Why don't we go get you cleaned up?"

I take in a deep breath, allowing air to reach the bottom of my lungs, for what seems like the first time ever. Beginning to situate myself, I allow my thumb to run over the material on the surface of the sheriff's hat, before reaching over the arm rest and extending it back over towards Judith's lap.

Stifling down whatever I can of a crackling, shaky voice, I lean to my other side, facing Judith. "Enid and I are going to the bathroom. Do you need to go?"

The little girl shakes her head in response, barely wanting to tear her eager eyes away from the characters on the screen. I allow myself a small chuckle, before sniffling and tapping Enid on her arm. "Okay, let's go."

Enid and I begin shuffling around in our seats before slowly standing up, trying to remain as discrete as possible, as we shuffle our way past Judith's seat. But just before I fully pass the girl, I manage to catch her eye, with a playful grin.

"You better save our seats."

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2589 words

A/N

Irish Goodbye: when someone makes an exit without advance notice or saying goodbye

... I think we ALL know what's about to happen to Megan and Enid...<333 don't hate me

I would say that I'm sorry for what I'm about to do to Megan off camera... but I'd be lying <3 I am a SUCKER 4 sad endings !!!

also, YES, that tiktok I posted of that Judith and Megan scene in s11 was a blatant lie... GOT U

I've had this ending planned since February (it's now October) and I've been SO excited bc I've never seen this ending or anything like it in a Carl fic...anyways, the next chapter is the epilogue... and not to alarm anyone, I have the most top secret GIF to end all top secret GIFs at the end of it...

I'm so sad that this book is coming to an end, but I think that it's time that I begin to branch out and try new things after shoving Carl and Megan down your throats for so long LMFAO (me saying this yet working on a new Carl fic lololol)

thank you guys so much for reading/making it this far in EE!! you don't know how much it means to me knowing that I have readers that think like me and enjoy the same types of stories as me!! this book is not everyone's cup of tea, by any means, so you literally rock if you're reading this <333

next part is the epilogue, and then after that I have some ~ miscellaneous ~ parts (I'm not sure if I've said what they are yet in other A/N's but I'm keeping it a secret in this one xoxo) and then EE will be done...

until I potentially come back in the future with an alternate ending xoxo

ily guys and once again, thank you for reading!!

☆vote if u know how to read☆