Carver had told her that a storm was coming, his hand heavy on her shoulder and his breath too close to her ear as they looked out over his compound. Well, that wasn't even the half of it.
This, this was not a storm. This was a hurricane. A hurricane of death and Clementine was stuck in the middle of it.
The plan had been to help Luke, who had gathered a group of survivors outside of carver's compound, release walkers onto Carver's compound and make a quick getaway. It was supposed to be simple.
But everything went wrong. Clementine had two jobs: one, to steal the walkie talkies necessary to communicate with Luke. and two, to make enough noise to summon a hoard of hungry lurkers.
Of course, since nothing ever goes right nowadays, she and Kenny get caught out past curfew. By Carver and his overly muscular lackeys, of course. The slap she receives across her face sends her crashing down to the floor, her vision blurring as one of the men pins her hands to the floor, climbing over her and getting too close to her for her comfort. As hard as she tries to kick and head-butt him off, he doesn't budge. She turns her head and watches through dazed eyes as Kenny is wrestled to the ground, as his eyes meet hers and light up in fiery anger.
"Let-let go of her, you fu-fucking sick fucks!" Kenny manages to strangle out with each kick he receives from Carver and another one of his men. Clementine screams as her hat is knocked off and a large, rough hand yanks her hair so her neck is bared. With one of her hands free, she immediately moves it to the man's face, scratching as hard as she can. But he doesn't budge.
When they're done, Clementine and Kenny are left there, bruised and bloody but still alive. Kenny, just barely, but Clementine… she just feels empty.
Kenny leans on the younger girl as they limp back to their assigned cells. Sarah gasps as she lays her eyes on Kenny's blood-matted hair and the vivid bruises across Clementine's face, but when she tries to ask, Clementine just lays Kenny down on one of their measly sleeping mats and sits down next to him. Sarah shuts her mouth and goes to fetch her father.
Carlos comes in. Clementine doesn't look at him as she hands him the walkie talkies Carver and his men had miraculously not found as they beat her. She just lays down next to Kenny and closes her eyes.
When she wakes up, Carlos has patched her and Kenny up as decently as he could with the limited amount of supplies he had smuggled out of the first aid tent he had been assigned to work in. Kenny looks like death warmed over, his face covered in dark blue bruises and cuts from one of the men's wedding ring. Clementine reaches up to her own face and feels the sting as she brushes against a bruise that is no doubt as horrid looking.
Kenny doesn't say anything as he meets her eyes. He doesn't have to. They had never been too close when Lee was alive, but after what they both went through, they understood each other more than ever.
It's at that moment that Carlos enters the room, holding a tray covered in a few breakfast foods. He places it in front of Kenny and Clementine but before Clementine can grab an apple, he touches her shoulder. Clementine flinches and her entire body freezes. She takes a few deep breaths and when she turns to look at the doctor, he looks her straight in the eyes.
"Are you sure you still want to do this, Clementine?" he says. She looks at the walkie talkie in his hand, looks back at him, and nods firmly. Carlos stares at her for a few more seconds and then slowly places the radio in her open hand. Clementine just turns back around and continues to eat.
After she's finished, she slides the walkie talkie into her back pocket and picks out a sweater that had been given to Sarah by one of her new friends in the camp. The sweater looks the opposite of how she feels, with bright rainbow stripes across the chest and a sky blue background, but at least it's bulky enough to keep the walkie talkie hidden and keep her warm in the near-winter chill. Clementine bends down to pick up her hat from the sleeping mat and is about to put it on when she runs her hand through her hair and stops. She was missing a clump of hair.
The sound of snarling walkers grew louder and louder as she and Rebecca run down the dark hallways of Carver's compound. Their plan of luring walkers into the camp had worked, but the group had fractured, Carlos heading off to find Sarah, Kenny off to find Alvin wherever Carver had taken him, and Nick off to find Luke and his back up. Leaving Clem to be the one to take care of the pregnant woman… whose baby had just decided that right now was the best time to be birthed.
Rebecca clutches her stomach as Clementine gestures for her to quickly enter a dark, empty room. She slides the lock into place and turns around, watching Rebecca lay down on the floor and take long, deep breaths. "Clementine… she's coming, you have to hurry…"
Clementine thinks back to months and months ago, of kneeling down in front of Christa, who had been in almost the exact same position. Of Christa biting down on a towel to keep from screaming too loudly, of the blood staining Clem's hands afterwards. No matter how hard she she had scrubbed her hands, all she could see was red.
She looks around the room, but the only things she sees are a few rags and a cardboard box. How helpful. She takes off her jacket and places it under Rebecca's head as a pillow to prop her up a bit. Rebecca looks near tears as she struggles with each contraction she feels, and barely manages to choke out a command for Clementine to help her get her pants off.
The girl can't even find herself to care about seeing much more of Rebecca than she had ever wanted to see at that moment. Instead, she picks up the rags from the floor and then looks at Rebecca. "You should use these…to cover up your yelling."
"Are you fucking crazy? Do you want me to choke to death?"
"If you haven't noticed, we're still hiding from Carver and if he hears you, he'll find us and I don't think either of us want that." Clementine pauses. "And i've been through this before. You'll be fine. Just listen to me-"
It's at that moment that the doorknob twists. Luckily for Clementine and Rebecca, the lock holds and the two women go quiet. Until they hear someone knocking on the door. "Dad?! Rebecca?! Clem?! is anybody in there?"
Sarah. Clementine sighs in relief and rushes to the door, quickly pressing her ear to listen for anyone else that can be outside before opening it and dragging the young latina inside.
"Have you seen my dad? And…is Rebecca having the baby?!" Sarah exclaims before Clementine can manage to shush her. Clementine places a finger in front of her mouth and Sarah covers her own, whispering an apology.
She and Sarah sit down by a sweaty, panting Rebecca, who had ended up using the rags after all to bite down her more loud, pained noises. "Carlos went out looking for you! But we don't have time for that right now! We need to find him, he's a doctor, he's the only one who can help her get through this!"
sarah looks at rebecca and then pushes her glasses up her nose in determination. "No. I can do it." clementine sends her a disbelieving look. "No, I'm serious! I've seen my dad work on his patients before. Never anything like…well, this, but I can help her get through this until you can find my dad and bring him here."
The eleven year old doesn't look completely convinced, but as the sound of yelling and snarling from outside grew louder and louder, she knew that one of them would have to go out there and find Carlos while also dodging walkers and an insane man, and that could definitely not be Sarah. "Alright. I trust you." Sarah's smile is small and brief but still full of pride. "I'll…I'll go out there and find your dad. Just keep the door locked and if anyone comes in, take Rebecca and run."
Sarah nods and Clementine heads toward the door, about to twist the knob when Sarah stops her. "Wait!" Clementine turns to look at her. Sarah's eyes trace over the bruises still dark and obvious on her face. "What if you run into Carver or other people in the group before you can find my dad? It's too dangerous!"
Clementine had thought about this too. And despite the chill it sent down her spine, she just straightens up even further. "Don't worry about me, worry about Rebecca! I'll be back, I swear!" Clementine squares her shoulders and opens the door, making sure to lock it and shut it behind her as she takes off down the hall.
Run, run, run, don't look back, keep your eyes in front of you, avoid any dead ends-
"Clementine… just tell me where she is. And you or any of your friends don't have to get hurt."
He sounds closer than he was before, goddamn her tiny legs, goddamn him and his terrifying words curling around her and choking her as she struggles to breathe with slap of her feet against the ground.
He's not even running. He's strolling along and taking his time, gun held casually in his hand as he follows behind her, as if he expects her to run out of energy soon or screw up.
"I had hoped our little lesson yesterday had taught you not to hide things from me…"
Clementine stumbles a bit as she nearly runs into a wall in front of her. Left or right? As Carver's footsteps grow louder, she makes a quick decision and turns left. Please don't be a dead end, please...
Panicking, she opens the second door she sees and runs inside, looking around her for anything she could use to her advantage. She can't hear Carver, at least not yet. Hopefully he went right instead of left. But she can't take chances on hopes and wishes.
Mop, bucket of dirty water, a few dirty rags, a rickety chair… If there had been a light bulb over her head, it would have lit up at that moment. But she had to work fast.
"I know you're here, Clementine… there's no use trying to hide. Just come out and I won't hurt you." Carver says as he walks down the hallway. He sees the slightly opened door and raises his eyebrows, smirking. "Come out, honey." He turns the doorknob and pushes the door open-
Bang! The bucket of filthy water hits his head from above, both drenching him and making stars twirl in front of his eyes. Clementine pushes him out of her way as she sprints out the door and back down into the hallway, torn between laughter as Carver splutters in the other room and crippling anxiety as she realizes that her little trick isn't going to have him down for much longer.
She tries every door down the hall, but unlike the second door, they all seemed to be locked. Shit, shit, shit… The last door twists open and Clementine glances down the hallway, only to shriek as she sees a wet Carver running her way, red with fury. She hurries inside and locks the door just as he pushes himself against it with all of his weight.
Clementine can't understand his rabid screaming, but she can understand that if Carver keeps hitting the door like that, it will break down and she will be completely trapped in a room, alone, with a vengeful, pissed-off man. She looks through the room for any windows, any weapons, anything that could either give her a fighting chance or a quick escape.
A few slams later, the door finally breaks and crashes to the floor. Carver runs inside, snarling and furious. His enraged red eyes dart over to the closed closet in the corner immediately, and he grins wickedly as he tears the closet doors open. Carver pushes aside the clothes inside and raises his gun triumphantly until he realizes that his target… wasn't there?
His confusion is interrupted by a painful blow to his head, enough to send him falling to the floor. Carver's gun clatters out of his grip and the eleven year old kicks it far away from his reach. Even with the world spinning, the crazed man still fights, albeit weakly. Clementine aims for his ribs this time with her crowbar, causing all of the air from Carver's body to rush out of him in a fit of painful coughs and chokes.
Clementine climbs on top of him, pinning the incapacitated man down onto the floor as the end of her crowbar slams into his head over and over again. The man desperately searches for anything around him, and when he finds nothing, he claws at her legs and sides. His attempts get weaker and weaker, but Clementine's hits only get stronger and stronger. The girl doesn't feel empty. No, she feels more full than she had ever felt in her life, full of some emotion she couldn't describe. Something she had never felt before in all her years on this planet.
Eventually, Carver's arms fall to the floor and he lay unmoving. But Clementine keeps sending the crowbar into his skull, until his face is bloody and unrecognizable, until his skull is shattered to bits and pieces. Clementine doesn't stop even then. There's red splattered all over her face and her upper body. There's a metallic taste in her mouth and she realizes belatedly that it is blood, and that she doesn't know if it's Carver's or if it's hers.
When she finally drops the crowbar and collapses next to Carver's corpse, she has long lost track of how much time had passed by. Had she only been beating him for a few minutes? A few hours? A few days?
Time felt like it was frozen at that moment. When Clementine looks down at herself, she sees blood all over her hands, all over her shirt, even on her neck. She doesn't even want to think of how much red is on her face. She can't help but think of the last time she saw Lee, back in the jewelry store in Savannah, where she had killed a walker with a bat and its blood had gotten all over her. When she looks back down again, her hands are shaking.
Clementine scoots to the opposite side of the room, leans against the wall, and closes her eyes.
When she wakes up, it's to a voice coming from the radio she had dropped during the struggle with Carver.
Clementine's eyes widen as she scrambles to pick up the walkie talkie, wondering if it was perhaps Luke trying to communicate with her. But when she brings the walkie talkie closer to her ear, she realizes that she didn't recognize this voice.
"Is anyone there? Helloooooooooooo?" the voice on the radio says, their voice lifting at the end. The voice quite clearly belongs to a young boy around her age, so there goes the hope of it being Luke.
Clementine hesitates before she presses down on the button and speaks. "Who are you? Where are you?"
The boy over the radio stays silent, though the static coming from the talkie just grew louder. "Have you seen my dad?"
She sighs heavily in annoyance, raking a hand through her hair and getting frustrated as her hand got caught in the tangles. "I don't even know who you are, how would I know where your dad is?"
"Just tell him that mom and I miss him. But we don't want to see him any time soon, okay?" The boy finishes firmly, and before Clementine can yell at him to tell her who the hell he is, the static stops and the radio falls silent once again.
Clementine's eyes slide shut once more.
The next time Clementine wakes up, It's to heavy breathing coming from the walkie talkie.
Clementine speaks into it quickly, "Who is this? Where did you go? Who's your dad? How do you know me?"
The person doesn't speak up, just continues to breathe, in and out, at an infuriatingly calm pace. Clementine repeats herself, this time more fiercely, "Tell me who you are!"
The person finally makes some noise, but it's not what Clementine is expecting to hear. What comes out of the radio is a heart wrenching sob. "Oh god, honey… what happened to you? What happened to you?"
Clementine is taken back by the sobbing and by how familiar this voice sounds. This time, instead of the little boy, it's a grown woman. "Wh-what? Where did the boy go? Who are you?"
The woman continues to cry. "This world… you shouldn't have to see this. You shouldn't have ever gotten hurt like he hurt you. What type of world is this?"
Clementine blinks in confusion and then narrows her eyes in suspicion, touching the bruise across her face with a few gentle fingers. "How did you know about-"
"Clementine, sweetie, just remember that I'm so proud of you. You're the only good thing left in this world. Don't let it bring you down like it did to the others. Please." And the walkie talkie goes quiet. Clementine realizes belatedly that the woman had known her name. But before she can panic, she feels herself slipping back into unconsciousness.
When Clementine wakes up again, it wasn't to a voice or to static from the radio. Rather, it was a natural awakening. Clem is pretty sure that this has been the most sleep she's gotten in weeks. Too bad she had to pass out multiple times for her to stay asleep for once.
She scrubs her eyes free of that gross sleep substance and ignores the blood caked on her cheeks and hands. When she tries to stand up, her legs shake and she falls back to the floor. Clementine presses a hand against her stomach, hearing it growl and just now realizing how hungry she was. She moves the hand to her forehead and hisses at the heat there. How long had she been in this room? Her vision is blurry and Clementine feels so drowsy that she has to lie down and just look at the spinning ceiling.
The radio statics and comes back to life once again. "Clem? Are you there?" The voice, this time, belongs to a man.
Clementine picks up the radio slowly and whispers, her words slurring together, "Luke? Carlos? Kenny? Is that you?"
The voice doesn't reply to her question, and instead keeps talking once he realizes she is there. "Are you okay, Clem?"
She thinks for a long moment, and then nods. "Yeah…I think so."
The voice laughs. It's a deep laugh, too, and as a matter of fact, his voice is deeper than Luke's and smoother than Carlos'. "We'll get you patched up all good as new, okay, sweet pea? You just have to hurry and get out of there."
His words hit her like a punch to the gut. Sweet pea? She hadn't been called that ever since… "Lee? Is that… is that you?"
The voice breathes, in and out, in and out, and then chuckles softly. "God, I miss you so much, honey."
Tears rush to her eyes and she feels choked up, her heart beating fast enough to burst out of her chest. "Lee…I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry." She clutches the radio tightly as she cries, her other arm coming to wrap around her body as she rocks back and forth on the floor.
"What for, sweet pea?" Lee asks, confusion lacing his voice.
Clementine stops her rocking and uses both hands to grip the radio, her grasp strong enough to nearly crack it in half. "I… I killed you. I was too young and too stupid and I got you killed. You and Omid and - and I just…" She closes her eyes and sniffles. She can taste salty tears in her mouth. "We all tried to make it work… back at the motor inn, on the train, in Savannah… but I ruined it… and there was no time left to make it right again. There's never enough time…"
Lee is silent. The room is silent, except for Clementine's sobs. The static doesn't stop. "Clem… I just need you to… of..." The static grows louder with each word Lee speaks, until she can't hear him at all.
Clementine lifts her finger up from the button on the walkie talkie. The static stops and the room is quiet once more. She uses her sleeve to wipe off the tears and snot on her face, lays the walkie talkie face down on the floor and looks back up at the ceiling again.
The door opens and Clementine doesn't even try to get up and reach for the crowbar across the room. She just lays down and counts the cracks in the ceiling, even though she had already determined that there were two hundred and twenty three.
"Clementine? You in there?" the person whispers, and then gasps. "Holy shit…"
Thirty five, thirty six, thirty seven, thirty eight, thirty nine, forty…
She hears footsteps approaching her where she is laying down but doesn't turn her head to look at the man as he kneels down next to her. "Clementine… come on, kid, we gotta get…" Luke.
Clementine turns to look at him at last. He looks at the blood splatters on her face and then at the bruises that had turned a shade of purple-green. Luke looks furious for just a few seconds before his face morphs back into one of worry. "Can you walk, Clem?"
The girl sighs and props herself up on her elbows. "Yeah, just…help me up, maybe?"
Luke pulls her up easily and holds out his hands in case she collapses. Clementine's legs wobble but she stays standing, though she finds herself leaning against the man as they begin to walk toward the door.
Luke is saying something about Sarah and Rebecca and the baby but his words enter from one ear and out the other like fluid. Clementine nearly trips on something on the floor, but luckily Luke is there to stop her from hitting the ground.
Luke bends down to pick the object up and then makes a sound of surprise. "Hey, it's a walkie talkie." He looks at clementine. "Did Carlos give you this?"
She nods and Luke hums. He presses down on the button and tisks. "Damn, it doesn't work. Could always use an extra one of these…" He drops the defunct radio back down on the floor.
He begins to walk but stops when he realizes Clementine has frozen in place. The girl's eyes are wide as she looks at the radio next to her feet. "Clem? What's wrong?"
Clementine shakes her head and murmurs, "I guess it…it must have broken when…" She looks to the other side of the room to where Carver's body lays. He doesn't even look like the man he used to be, just a body with a beaten in, bloody face.
Luke gently uses one of his hands to turn her head away from the sight, careful to avoid her bruises. He makes sure to look her in the eyes when he says, "Hey, kid, come on. Carver was a bad man and you were just defending yourself. He woulda killed you and the rest of us."
She shakes her head and musters up a small smile, albeit fake. "No, no, i know that. We should just go." Luke still looks worried, but he returns her smile and they continue towards the door. Clementine doesn't look back at the corpse behind her, steps on the walkie talkie for good measure. No more turning back. It's all forward from here.
WARNINGS: VIOLENCE. Clementine and Kenny get beaten up pretty badly by Carver. Clementine later gets her revenge and kills him brutally.
This was originally posted on tumblr. It was slightly edited to include capitalization and to fix some errors in grammar. I wrote this after rewatching an episode of the TV show that I stole a few lines from and slipped into this fic. I loved this scene in the third season of TWD and I drew a lot of inspiration from it. Clementine needs a few Rick Grimes breakdowns after all the shit she's gone through. :( Thanks for reading!
Also, fun fact: the sweater Clementine wears was originally supposed to be one of Alvin's big sweaters, but I changed it upon seeing the promotional pictures for episode 3. :) Other fun fact, the people on the radio before Lee were Duck and Clem's mother.