Lee knows there isn't much time left.
He can feel it, already; the cold spreading from his wrist. The numbness that's taken over his whole left arm and half of his body. He can see it; his wrist has turned white, the colour of dead people. The desire to rip and tear and kill the living thing in front of him, the one that matters most to him... His vision darkens, and he's forcibly brought back to reality. It's Clementine, little Clemmy, standing there, her eyes wide with fear.
"Put the handcuffs on me. Attach me to this," he says, jerking his head towards the metal railing beside him. He realizes that he can't see colours anymore. There's only white and black and washed out gray. It's like a permanent fog has settled over his eyes and he remembers that there used to be colours in this world - red, blue,yellow. Something amazing called a rainbow. Sunset. Waterfall. Words that don't mean anything to him since the apocalypse started. He remembers the colour red vividly though, the colour of blood in the sea of gray.
"What? Why?" Clementine gasps, and Lee feels like smiling. There's something that's not gray, and that is Clem's eyes. Her large amber eyes are fixated upon him, and Lee wants to cry out, it's beautiful. A ray of golden sunshine shining through the clouds.
Lee struggles to find the right words, to tell her that he will become a monster eventually. "No matter what happens, you're safe then." He wishes he was stronger, strong enough to not get bitten, strong enough to protect Clementine forever...
"I.. I don't know..." Clementine says, sounding as though she's holding back tears.
"Just do it, sweetie," Lee croaks. Clementine crouches down, holding the handcuffs. She's shaking like a leaf. "Make sure they're tight."
"I don't... I don't wanna do this," she pleads, slipping Lee's hand into the handcuffs.
She attaches the handcuffs to the railing, her hands trembling as they do so. "You have to. It'll keep you safe," Lee says. He's happy his worst fear won't come true - him turning on Clementine as she screams and backs away from him, crying out his name. He shakes his hand to check that he's secure. Whatever happens...
"You'll only have to deal with him now."
.
.
.
Her face is splattered with gruesome blood as she tries her hardest not to cry. Her breath comes in hitching sobs. Clementine stares at the walker she just killed, a monster who used to be a human being. She can't seem to tear her gaze away from him. "I did it. I got him," Clem says, sounding proud of herself. She looks up and smiles at Lee, her eyes filled with bittersweet happiness.
Lee knows he should praise her, but time's running out and he doesn't know whether he can hold on. Already he can feel himself slipping away, blackness passing over him as his world becomes darker. "Come here," he tells her. "Yeah... but you did this. Smart." He looks down at his handcuffs.
He can see her dress is dark, streaked with the guts of the walker. It was white when they first met. She bends down and retrieves the gun, and he's glad that he taught her how to use it. Clementine turns around and gazes at him sadly, clutching the gun in front of her. Lee closes his eyes and tries to gather his thoughts. He feels himself getting weaker and dying as the infection spreads through him, but he knows that he's still alive. For now.
"Hey," Lee says softly. "I might turn, honey." Clementine shakes her head, as if her act can deny the truth. "Lee... what are we going to do?" She's looking to him for an answer, but he can give her none. "My parents... It's so horrible." She sniffs.
"I can't imagine, sweet pea." Lee hated the way Clem looked when she saw her parents - or rather, walkers. She'd been holding on to the hope for so long, the dream that when she came to Savannah, she would find her parents waiting for her with open arms. They did greet her with outstretched arms - but not in the way she'd imagined.
Even Clementine's eyes are starting to get gray, and Lee blinks a few times, trying to hear what she says next. "And now.. you? PLEASE... please don't be one of them." Lee wants to comfort her, to swing her up in his arms and protect her from all the evil of the world. "Please don't become a walker."
But he can't protect her from himself.
"There's only one thing you can do. You know that," Lee says, furrowing his eyebrows and locking eyes with her. Clem's smart, smart enough to know what he means.
"I don't know if I can." Clem's voice is high-pitched and her mouth is trembling. Lee doesn't want to do this to her, doesn't want her to go through such pain of having to shoot him... but there's only one way.
"You have to shoot me, honey," Lee confirms.
Clementine shakes her head vehemently. "Lee, no..."
"It's okay. It's okay." Lee doesn't know if he's reassuring her or himself. "In Macon... the first days we met, do you remember?"
"Yeah, I do," Clem nods her head.
A burst of memories flash through his mind. Heading to jail. Meeting Clementine in her house, and killing Sandra. Hershel's farm and Shawn. Heading to Macon with Kenny and his family, meeting Carley and the others in his parents' drugstore... his jaw tightens, remembering how he had to kill the walker who was formerly his brother. Again he replayed Doug's death as he watched him get dragged away by walkers. The motor inn where they had stayed and how Ben and Mark had joined them. "I miss arguing at the motor inn," he recalls Kenny saying. Lee would give anything to be back there, where everyone was safe. From then on, it's all a blur as the people he helped, that he cared about, disappeared from his life. Carley. Mark. Larry. Lilly. Duck. Katjaa. Chuck. Ben. Kenny. Even those he met for a short while... Irene, Jolene, Brie. He feels a lump in his throat. It's long, the list of the dead.
And now there would be one more addition to it.
Lee tells Clementine about Irene. He tells her how desparate she was not to turn into a walker, how she chose to do it herself. He wants Clem to know that he doesn't want to turn into a walker and forget about everything. He didn't want to wake up as a monster. At least if he died now, he'd die remembering everyone. He'd die happy, in a way.
"Okay, Lee... I can do it. I can," Clem sobs. Her amber eyes are brimming with tears.
"Find Omid... and Christa. They're probably looking for us right now. Stay on high ground. Don't go too far. You'll find them," Lee says, trying to tell her everything she needs to know to survive. "They'll take good care of you." Clementine's face is streaked with tears and her shoulders heave. "And Clem..."
"Keep that hair short."
Clem nods decisively. "I will. I'll cut it myself." Lee manages a small smile, recalling how reluctant she had been to cut her long hair. Lee's so proud of her. She's come such a long way, his little Clemmie. She's grown up so fast. He wants to tell her how happy he is that he had been together with her for so long, how he loved her like she was his own daughter, how lucky he was the day he found her... He wants to, but he can't find the words to express himself. Instead he settles for something else. "Great. Good."
"And also..." Darkness passes over him again, and his vision goes blurry as his eyelids flicker. He can only see Clementine slightly now, through a narrow slit. Lee forces himself to stay awake, not to succumb.
"What, what is it?" Clem asks, desparate for his words. She's hanging on to everything he says, burying them in her heart. She treats these words like pearls, stringing them together into rivets and strands of precious memories.
"I'll miss you," Lee whispers. His heart aches as he says the words. They sound so final. He knows, of course, that this is the end of the line for him. It's their goodbye.
"Me, too," Clementine says, and it takes all his effort not to cry. He doesn't want to make this any harder on Clem, but he still can't help the tears coming as he sees her stand up and aim the gun at him. She looks so lonely, standing there by herself with her hat securely on her head. Lee strains to meet her eyes, to tell her that it's okay, that he was glad they were a team, that they had each other to cling onto... and hope.
It's the gold burned into his eyes when he hears the gunshot and everything goes black.
A/N: I cried while writing this again. I honestly did. This is based on PewDiePie's gameplay of this awesome game.