The gun slowly moved more towards his middle, and Carl took a moment to find the right words. If he wanted Judith, he had to play along. But what was there to say about where he came from that didn’t apply to every settlement? It had only seemed so special to them because they’d been on the road for so long, and not because it really was some promised land. Michonne had once described it as living in a Pottery Barn, while she’d been trying to teach him about their kitchen’s pasta arm and why exactly it was so funny.
“There’s three settlements close together.” He explained. “Alexandria, the Kingdom, and the Hilltop.”
“My dad runs Alexandria...it’s almost like things were before,” Carl said, though the words were a bit more practiced than they were completely earnest. As much as he wanted to love it as passionately as his father did, Alexandria would always be the community with Halloween parties and people playing dress up to him. It would always be the place that just didn’t feel right, didn’t feel natural, and was supposed to be everything they’d ever wanted.
“We scavenge and farm...just like everyone else does. There’s a gate around it. That keeps out the walkers.” Most of the time. “They put solar panels in before everything so we have electricity and hot water...” Carl paused in his description to look over the woman’s expression, gauging if this was what she had meant by her demand. She’d probably wanted something more than that. Something more intimate and revealing.
He sighed. That sort of sharing wasn’t really his forte.
“Judith was born the year after everything happened, before we found Alexandria. She was...” Carl paused again, before pushing forward towards the issue of where the little girl actually was. He didn’t want to expose that weakness any further than he already had. “She’s with Negan, isn’t she?” He prompted.