Author's Note: I really hope you enjoy this, this was very fun to write and it was also my first fic. I basically raised Clementine throughout my life and this idea popped into my brain so...WHY NOT??

i WrOtE tHiS aT 2aM bEcAuSe...StReSs! ;)

(If you have any complaints, please use constructive criticism as I'm looking to improve and nothing else.)

:) have fun :)

Everything was fuzzy. Clementines' ears were ringing and her head was pounding like a hammer to her skull. Her memories were all muddled together and her leg ached. The last thing she remembered was AJ standing over her with an ax, tears on his face and blood on his clothes. But why? What happened?

Everything was dark. She must be dead. She was probably dead. Right? The only logical explanation for AJ to hold an ax over her head was for her to have been bitten. That must've been what happened. But how? She couldn't exactly recall what had happened these past couple...years? Days? What was going on?

Everything was muddled. Everything was a mess. Thoughts were swirling in every direction and Clems' head began to throb even harder. Damn it. After all these years. After all those near misses, Clementine had always told herself that there would always be a last time. A last mistake. A last close call. But she never really believed it. Turns out she ran out of luck. Everyone had to eventually.

She got bit. She got bit. Goodness. Just like Lee. Did AJ have to shoot her? Most likely. How else would she end up in this situation?Shegotbitshegotbitshegotbit.

No.

The reason her leg ached was clear but she couldn't do this now. She had to focus. What was going on? Where was she? All Clementine could see was darkness. If this was it—the afterlife was...boring. Clem was getting impatient. She wasn't used to doing nothing for such a long period of time (except when sleeping, of course, ). She'd lost a lot of people. Wasn't she supposed to see them again or something? Clementine tried opening her eyes and was surprised at the white ceiling fan bedazzled with stickers that greeted her. She used to have one just like it when she was a kid. The bright light burned and Clementine squeezed her eyelids shut. A pang of nausea hit her.

"Clementine. "

What? Who said that?

The voice sounded familiar, but she hadn't heard it in years.

"It's time to get up honey," chided the voice.

The voice was soft and familiar and it made Clementine want to stay in that moment forever. It felt like velvet. Yes, velvet. Silky and smooth and familiarly safe. Something familiar and safe just within her grasp. Clementine couldn't remember much, but she knew this feeling wasn't very common. Why couldn't she remember anything? Questions clouded Clementines' mind and the feeling of safety was soon overtaken by doubt. She felt panic rise up in her chest and took and a deep breath.

Trying to regain control of her limbs, she tried to move her toes. She felt lighter than air. Clementine was vaguely aware she was on a bed. Or at least laying on something soft. The sensation of her body sinking into the mattress was an unfamiliar one. She felt her eyelids begin to droop, lulled by the sense of security—false or not.

Suddenly, there was a flash of light behind her eyelids, and Clem jolted straight up, reaching for her gun. All the memories of the past few year came rushing back to her in a matter of seconds, searing behind her eyelids painfully. Burning themselves into her memory. Clementine sucked in a breath and looked down at her trembling hands, trying to calm them down.They were surprisingly small. She raised her eyebrows in confusion.

Was this delirium? Was she insane? But how could she be insane when she was dead? Assuming she even was?

"Clem, honey, you're up!" Came the soft voice.

Clementine directed her eyes to the person who was talking to her. As soon as she saw her, Clem's eyes filled with tears.

"Mom." She whispered.

Clem couldn't believe it. Her mom was right in front of her. Alive. Human. After all these years. This couldn't be real. Could it? No. She saw her parents. They were walkers. Her mother's soft smile lit up the room and Clementine felt her heart twitter with hope. Now Clementine knew she was definitely dreaming. Next to the door was a long mirror and Clem flinched in surprise. She looked eight years old. She was eight years old. Again?

"What's wrong honey?" Asked her mother, knitting her eyebrows in concern.

Clementine backed into the wall reaching for her knife out of instinct. She was disappointed but not surprised to only grab a fistful of a pink embroidered night gown. Her lack of strength worried her.

Her mother gave Clem a worried look and grabbed her hand and Clementine flinched.

Worry clouded her mother's eyes and she led Clem towards the kitchen tutting and worrying . The hallways looked strange but Clem felt like she had been here before. Of course she had, this was her old home. But still...

"Are you sure you're okay? Do you want anything to eat?"

Clementine, out of habit, asked, "Is there enough for everyone this time?"

She regretted the words as soon as they came out of her mouth. But who could help it? She was used to asking that question.

Her mother pouted and put a hand on Clementines' forehead. "Of course there's enough, sweet pea."

Clementine's eyes filled with tears as she recalled the old nickname. She had never forgotten that name but lately ,she was more used to "Goofball" coming out her mouth.

She only realized she said it out loud when her mother gave her a questioning look as she set down a plate of peeled apples in front of her. So many memories rushed towards her and squeezed her heart with such force Clem thought her chest might pop.

Clementine didn't know she was crying until she felt a warm tear slide down her face. She usually wasn't a cryer and didn't expect the tears running down her face. But then again, she didn't expect to wake up eight years old all over again but here she was. A startled expression was frozen on her mothers' face but she soon got the cue and walked away from the counter.

The front door opened, jolting Clementine out of her thoughts. It was her dad. The rush of relief caught Clem by surprise and she ran and hugged him, hanging on to his shirt.

"Hey,kiddo." He teased.

He took his off blue baseball cap and placed it on her head. It startled Clem for a second. Then she realized what the hat was, and let the familiar feeling envelop her head. Her dad took notice to her tear-stained cheeks and looked at her mother in bewilderment, confusion and slight amusement . Clementine shook her head and hugged them both as if it was the last time she would ever see them again. Being truthful, it probably was.

She would really have missed this a lot if she had been old enough to remember the details. The trees swayed with the wind outside and the treehouse stood with all of its iconic glory. It was where she first met Lee. She had helped him kill her babysitter all those years ago.

She had referred to them as monsters and justified their actions by saying they weren't human anymore. She still did that. That's the only way she could live with herself. But usually, she felt no remorse. When you turned, you weren't yourself anymore. Just a shell of a body. It was a cruel thing to let someone turn. Especially someone you loved. That's why she shot Lee and why she had asked AJ to kill her. (Did he?)

A bird chirped, knocking all of Clementine's thoughts into a dusty corner of her mind. She could hear her neighbors playing in their backyards and the ice cream trucks' music playing faintly on the other street. This only made even more tears stroll down her cheeks. Clementine felt impossibly small.

She felt safer than she did in a very long time. At that moment, she felt eight years old again. And for a split second, everything was going to be alright. Apocalypse or not. But of course, these moments don't often last long. As Clem pulled away, wiping her tears on her arm she looked over at the calendar. A red "X" was scratched only three days away from today. It had been underlined multiple times and it had clearly been planned for a while. A sense of dread hit her in the gut.

It was 3 days from her parents Savanna trip.

Clementine had to do something. She knew ahead of time what was going to happen. Maybe she could stop them. Maybe she could gather some supplies and hunker down in the treehouse with her parents. That sounded like a reasonable plan. Something in the back of her mind made her hesitant to execute this plan, however.

If her parents were with her the day Lee would stumble upon her treehouse, would everything go on as planned? They wouldn't go to the farm, nor the motel, the van, or the train, Savannah, Howe's, The New Frontier, and—NO. She was getting ahead of herself. Clementine couldn't possibly convince them to stay and even if they did, she wouldn't have met the people who practically raised her and eventually led her to AJ.

And Erikson...

Clementine hated her for admitting it but...

She would be willing to trade her parents for her original experiences. Her experiences definitely weren't the best and her childhood was far from normal, but everything that had happened made her who she was today. This didn't mean that Clem didn't love her parents with all her heart...but deep down, she knew this idea wouldn't work. She felt a sense of dread gnawing at her stomach.

Clem let out a sigh, hugged her parents, whispered,

"I'm so sorry."

And everything went dark.