Work Text:
Carl tries not to mention his mother when his father is around. He knows that there were things going on between them for a long time before her death, and they thought he was too young to understand them. Maybe they were right about that, but sometimes he feels as though he didn’t have a chance to know either of his parents very well at a time when people were learning too much about one another. He wishes he had more stories and memories to share when Judith gets old enough to remember them.
His mother is still a sore point for his dad though, so he holds onto those stories and tells them to Judith when he is watching over her and the others are resting. He tries to take watch when they let him, and carry his sister as they move along the roads, and volunteers to do anything that might let the group see him as more than a child. His father has gotten a lot better at treating him as though he was capable, instead of just a dependent, but sometimes when people look at him Carl still thinks they hesitate over what his limitations have become.
The things he does are not childish, except when they are done by him; Michonne still shares candy with him, and Glenn still wants to read the comic books when he finishes, but when they do those things it is somehow more adult. His mom used to tell him that life wasn’t fair, and he knows that to be true, so he tries not to complain too much. Instead he watches and takes mental notes and tries to fill space between the other people in their adopted family. Sometimes he thinks that they are like the vagabonds in the stories his mother used to read to him; travelers with hardly anything to their names except each other. They each have a performance or task, and he is trying to take up the mantle of adulthood while they are all watching him practice.