Clementine studies history now. Well, study is such a tricky word. It makes her think of classrooms-and she hasn't seen one for, what was it now? Eight years? Nine? Sometimes she has trouble finding those memories, way back in the dusty corners of her mind. So many faces. Even Lee's sometimes slips away, pale and faded, until she gets the torn picture of him-the one she's kept all this time in her bag. Then she remembers, and even his voice seems to have a body again.
But she never forgot, at any point up to now, that he taught history. And here she is, studying history-well, reading any books she can find about it, even if she's slow at the whole reading thing-as if she were a student of his. In some ways, Clem thinks to herself, she always was, and still is. Funny, Clem thinks, looking at the book in her lap. How the small things are the ones that stay. She looks up toward the treeline in the distance and tries to remember Lee's last name. It takes a minute before the name Everett floats lazily into focus. "Yeah," she says with a laborious sigh. "Lee Everett."
"Who's Lee Everett?" Clementine hears AJ ask, a babble.
An answer rises in her throat, but all that comes out is a cough. Clem takes in the empty air around her, chilly and still. Her eyes dart around, looking for something else to focus on. Something other than his voice-so listless, kind of whiny. He was barely kindergarten age, some part of Clem thinks. Not even that, it adds.
Blinking a few times, Clem brushes some dust off the book and opens it without thinking. She's gotten much better at reading in the near-decade since she'd ever set foot in a school, but Clem still likes to read out loud when she can. "John Adams," she says, reading the title. "By David Mc…"
The name is stubborn. McCullough. Clem carefully eyes each letter, thinking about the way that they feel in her mouth, the way that they should feel. "Mc...Kullowg?"
"McKullowg! McKullowg!" AJ's voice half-shouts, half-sings, from somewhere behind Clementine. She turns to see if it's him-and it could be, after all, right?-but it's just the same boring greenery, the same boring trees, a squirrel that looks like every other she's ever seen in her life.
"No. Focus," Clem whispers to herself, and returns to the book. "John Adams, by David McKullowg."
She decides to read silently for now. It's a biography, but it's still kind of US history: like Lee taught, if she remembers correctly. Clem might forget his name one day, or his face, or the photo might fade, but she doubts she'll ever forget that Lee taught history and she studies it. And the more she studies it, the more she thinks that Lee didn't just teach history, but he taught her history, even when she thought he was just teaching her how to survive. As her eyes continue to scan the words on the pages, Clem thinks about how much these books she reads are just about survival. Well, that and caring. God, how much Clem has cared. How much she had to just to keep going. It seems so tied up with survival that Clem wonders whether Lee taught her that too. And reading about John Adams and Abigail Adams and all these other people, Clementine feels like they could just as well be survivors like those she's come across in all these years. Maybe they have. Clem imagines what John Adams would look like in this apocalypse. Probably not too different than Lee or Omid or Jane or even Kenny. A knife between his teeth, maybe, a hatchet in one hand, pistol in the other, wearing riot gear because of how deep in it all he'd go for his children or his friends.
Thinking of Kenny, she hears his voice, coming from somewhere deep within her, say dimly, bitterly, What about AJ. How much were you willing to do for him. Less of a question and more of an accusation. Clem quickly slams the book shut and gingerly slips it back into her bag leaning against the log she's sitting on. Time to move. Clem stands up and slings her bag over her shoulder, adjusts her cap, and starts to walk-as far as she can tell-northwest. She had never found Wellington after she shot Kenny, and doesn't want to. But she thinks north-the cold-is still probably the best shot at surviving. So is being alone, despite what she thought when she was little. I guess that applied to him, too, Kenny whispers. Clem tries to drown him out with the sound of her feet stepping on grass and her bag softly thump thump thumping against her back.
Then she hears a voice-an actual one-coming from in front of her just as she is about to disappear into the treeline. "Hello!" it says, quivering with...something. Joy? Fear?
Clem looks up, one foot taking a slight step back, the other slightly forward. It's a woman. Long curly hair. Dark eyes. Walking stick made out of a branch. Jacket that reminds Clem of the one she got at Howe's. Middle-aged face, almost elderly. The woman smiles warmly, and says, "How're you doing?" while she gets closer from between the trees.
"Hello," Clem manages to say. Her vocal cords feel tight, her throat dry.
"Well, I'll tell you, it's sure nice to see someone else. Gets old being around the same people, the same group, for so long, you know?" The woman's voice is a bit nasally. Midwestern, just like the other few people Clem's come across-but Clem thinks she can hear a bit of a Georgia twang in there too.
"Actually," Clem says, and her voice wavers a second before continuing. "I guess I don't. I'm kind of out here, uh, on my own?"
The woman's eyebrows furrow a bit, her mouth pulled in a way that suggests doubt. "Really?" she asks.
"Really."
"How old are you?" the woman asks, cocking her head slightly.
Clem suppresses a sigh. She'd been asked this so many times by the people she'd met after Kenny died and Jane eventually left who saw her alone with AJ. And she still got asked even after AJ-
"Seventeen," she answers, interrupting her thoughts, and leaving out the question mark that should come after her answer.
Instead of asking the usual follow-up question, And you're out here all alone?, the woman takes a deep breath, almost out of wonder, and says, "So you were just a little girl when this all happened."
"I guess so," Clem says with a sheepish, exhausted grin.
"Wow," the woman says.
There's silence for maybe a minute, and Clementine kicks imaginary dirt.
"I didn't come into your, like, territory, did I?" the woman asks, like an embarrassed houseguest. "I was just out taking a walk, clearing my head after my son and I had dinner. You know." This time she says you know instead of asking.
"Oh, no, you didn't," Clem reassures her. "I don't really have a territory. I'm always moving, I guess."
"Oh," the woman says, studying Clementine's general direction almost as intently as Clem was studying that book.
Silence again.
Then Clem suddenly asks, slowly, measured, "You have a son?"
"Yep. Twenty-eight. He had just graduated high school when those things started walkin' around. About the youngest person I've known since then. Till you, of course," the woman says playfully.
For a second, Clem wants to say that she can top that, and bring up AJ. But that doesn't count, Clementine knows. Not anymore. So, she just laughs along as best as she can.
The woman looks up at the sky and squints. "Well, I guess I better be getting back. He's probably waiting. My sister too. Always impatient with me, even before all this," she says, gesturing at the clearing behind Clementine. "Some things, some people, they never seem to change, I guess. You know?"
"Yeah," Clem says softly. "I do."
The woman looks at Clementine for a few seconds, and Clem almost swears-hopes, at least-that she'll invite her back to her group, or at least to walk with her back. But then the woman's eyes dart to the ground as she slowly turns, using her stick to steady her. "Anyway," she says. "It was nice meeting you, dear. Stay safe." A few seconds pass before the woman is gone among the trees.
Clem takes a ragged breath and crosses her arms, hugging herself a bit. There's a slight, chilly breeze coming from behind her. It tickles the back of her neck. It reminds her of AJ's breath when she'd carry him on her shoulders. Before she almost got him bit. Before she let those people take him. She wonders now, shivering, whether Lee would have done the same thing. Even if she can barely remember anything about him besides history, she has to wonder. She has to care, right?
But then Clem realizes how the evening has snuck up on her, and, without thinking, she starts to sprint away from the setting sun.