#for someone who works in accounting calculating the sizes of these gifs should NOT have been that hard

[plus-size-reader]

A Different Kind of Savior

Carl Grimes x Plus size!reader

Word Count: 1408 words

Warnings: none

Summary: Reader is Negan’s daughter. She leaves the saviors, but gets lost in the woods, where she comes across someone she’d known under much different circumstances.

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Perhaps running away hadn't been the smartest plan in retrospect, but there was a war coming...and you didn't want to be in the middle of it. As far as you knew, your dad was dead, the sanctuary was swarmed with walkers, and everyone you knew was going to die.

You had no reason to stay there, so without word to anyone, you snuck out one of the back entrances.

In all honesty, you didn't really expect to make it that long on your own. You'd had your daddy protecting you every single day, inside those walls. You didn't know how to fight, or how to scavenge food for yourself.

There was no way in the world that you'd make it more than a few days, even with luck.

But anything was better than being trapped in those walls to watch everyone you'd ever known, get devoured by the dead.

You weren't going to sit back and watch that.

Even death would be better than that.

You stumbled a little bit as you ran through the woods, trying your best to be as quiet as possible. You didn't want to alert any more walkers than you already had...especially because you couldn't fight any of them off.

There was no way that you would be able to do it on your own, you knew it and luckily for you, Carl knew it too.

He knew who you were, he'd recognize that pretty face anywhere. He'd seen you a thousand times before during interactions with Negan and the saviors.

Every fiber of his being wanted to just turn around and leave you there. He should have, he knew that. You'd never done anything for them and you were one of the saviors, Negan was your father.

By all accounts, you were the enemy.

But as he watched you, and saw how rattled you were, how scared you must have been, he knew that he couldn't leave you alone. Enemy or not, you were going to die out there if he left you.

There was no way you could make it on your own. Not after everything, you didn't even have a weapon you. What kind of person goes out alone, without any sort of protection?

It was stupid at best.

Still, something had to have happened for you to be out there and the least he could do was find out what.

"Hey!" he called, startling you at both his close proximity and volume. You were horrified at first, assuming that he was likely going to try to kill you.

After everything that you two had been through together, on opposite sides of a war, he should have killed you. If you had been anyone else, you would have killed him.

But you weren't.

You had always held the belief that there was enough death in the world without people manufacturing more. If there was one thing that you all had in abundance, it was corpses.

However, your dad had always been a fan of rules and the world going just as he wanted it to. Every move he made was calculated, and without fail, everywhere he went, there was bodies.

No exceptions.

You just couldn't do it anymore. It was too much death, too much danger and you needed a way out.

Not that it was going to matter once Carl made his way over to you. There was no way for you to explain your reasons to him. No way that he was going to actually listen...

Would he?

"Carl?" You asked, though you already knew it was him. It was the best way that you could think of to break the ice without making a fool of yourself.

Without hesitation, you brought your hands up in surrender, all in an effort to let him know that you weren't a threat. The worst way to die that you could think of would be over a misunderstanding like that.

"What are you doing out here?" he started, his hand resting on his gun in his belt, though he had no intention of using it. He needed to have the upper hand here, no matter what.

It didn't matter if you were unarmed, or shaking like a leaf...he had to keep up a front, at least until he knew what you were doing out here.

You, on the other hand, had nothing to say at first. Where were you supposed to start? There was no good options, not really.

"I left. My dad is dead, my friend are all going to die and I couldn't just wait around-" you tried, stopping due to your voice getting stuck in your throat. The very idea of it was almost too much.

You'd lost too many people already.

He nodded, reaching his hand out to you. There was something so gentle about the look in his eyes, and something so comforting about it all, that you took it without even realizing it.

Neither of you really knew what was happening, but both kept running with it. As far as Carl could tell, there was nothing dangerous about you, and you certainly weren't in a position to turn away his help.

You both knew that you would die alone so it was a mutual decision.

Carl could take you back to Alexandria and help keep you alive, but it was all going to have to be done under the radar. There was no telling what Rick or the others would do to you if they found you there.

Perhaps Carl was more inclined to forgive you but that didn't mean that they all would be.

Still, he knew that he couldn't leave you alone.

It wasn't an option.

"Why didn't you leave me out there?" you wondered, as you approached the sewer gate. It would lead you right under the town and it was the best place to hide you until nightfall when he could get you into the house.

He couldn't risk any of them seeing you.

The question caught you by surprise. Carl wasn't sure how to answer you, and maybe that was because there weren't the right words to answer you with.

There was nothing he could say that would make any sense because he didn't have a reason.

Carl didn't want you to die...that was as good a reason as he had.

"Your dad is a bad guy, but that doesn't mean that you're bad, I couldn't just let you die out there" his voice was quiet as he pried the gate open, letting you into the dank, dark sewer pipe.

It wasn't pleasant by any means but at least you knew that you'd be safer here than anywhere else.

It was much better than being alone out there.

"Thank you, are you sure its-" You started, but he interrupted you, already knowing what was going through your mind.

"I killed all the walkers down here, you'll be safe" he promised, taking your hand in his own absentmindedly, leading you through the muck with no problem at all.

It was interesting how, even down here, in the middle of actual hell, you felt safer with Carl than you did within the walls of the sanctuary.

Something about Carl balanced you out and made you feel whole in a way you never had. With him, you weren't the princess that your mother had raised and your daddy had spoiled.

With him, you were just you.

You were a normal teenage girl that just so happened to be in the middle of the end of the world.

It felt right, even though everything about it was so clearly wrong. 

"I'll be back as soon as the sun comes down to get you, just stay quiet until then" he prompted, settling you in on one of the ledges, where you'd be away from the nastiness that was lining the bottom of the pipes.

It was going to all work out, you knew that, so you nodded. You were going to do as he asked, because you trusted him.

It was strange to admit it, but you knew that it was the truth. Carl had given you more reason to trust him than you'd had for quite some time.

All you had to do was sit tight and wait for the sun to go down...

Because tomorrow would be so much better than yesterday, and the day before that. If nothing else, you were sure of that.