Louis had always thought the moon looked the prettiest when it was in its crescent form. People would say it was obviously the full moon, but Louis would shake them off. The crescent moon was definitely the prettiest. These were the kind of thoughts that ran through Louis's mind whenever he had patrol duty.
They'd spent years forming a sustainable settlement, but guard shifts were still required. He looked at his watch, an old Rolex he'd looted from a very rich looking walker, and saw the time. He only had five minutes left until his shift ended, so he started strolling back toward the main base.
Although Clementine and he had been among the group that actually created this community – which was called 'The Reach' – they had quickly realized management delegation was the smartest idea. He was still consulted on matters of high command from time to time, but he mostly focused his energy on their daughter.
Speaking of his daughter, as soon as he entered their makeshift tent, Louise launched herself onto her dad and showered him with kisses.
"Dad! You're back," she exclaimed, clinging to him like a monkey.
"That I am, little one," he replied, ruffling her hair. She had inherited her mother's beautiful curls. Thankfully, Louis had exclaimed.
Louise was now nearing her ninth birthday, which was coincidentally on the same day as Louis's. He'd gloated to Clementine for over a month when he realized, which only made his girlfriend roll her eyes. Their little girl was short, with curly hair and freckles all over her face. Louis would always claim, with a straight face, that his daughter would steal some of his own freckles over night, and she would always giggle and shake her head conspicuously.
"I've been waiting for you," she said, dragging him over to the mattress that was set on the back of their secondary tent. Being the founder of the community had its perks, Louis always thought.
"You have?" he asked, a smile tugging at his lips, "whatever for?"
She jumped on the mattress and sat cross legged, wide golden eyes staring at her father. "Can you tell me a bedtime story?" she asked expectantly.
Louis pretended to consider it, humming and scratching his chin dramatically, which never failed to make Louise smile. "I suppose I could take a couple minutes off my extremely busy schedule," he said at last.
"Thank you, daddy!" cheered Louise, pulling three pillows over to her side so she could rest comfortably. It was a widely known fact across camp that Louis himself was a pillow-hog, and his daughter was no different. Her room alone sported ten differently sized pillows, all gathered from some supply run or other at Louis's request.
"Now," Louise said, clearing his throat, "I'm going to tell you the story of how I met your mom," he said, smiling.
"Dad, you've told me that a thousand times," she said, rolling her eyes, reminiscent of her own mother when she was annoyed by Louis.
"C'mon, I know you love it anyway," he told her, booping her nose playfully and making her giggle.
"Alright, go on," she conceded as Louise started to delve into the story.
It had been a relatively normal day for Louis. He'd woken up and realized his best friend was missing, probably on a hunting trip with Aasim, and then decided to go to his favorite place in the school. He would always spend at least some time of every day in the music room, 'tickling the ivories' as he would say.
He sat down, determined to continue with the song he'd been writing. It already had an introduction, and the beginnings of a chorus. Stretching his fingers, he closed his eyes and started playing chords at random, tentatively playing arpeggios over some. He'd barely been there for an hour when a cry came from outside, startling him out of his reverie.
Springing to action, he grabbed 'Chairles' from beside the piano stool and bolted out of the music room. Once outside, he looked around frantically, searching for the source of the noise. He looked through the barred gate and spotted three figures bounding their way towards them.
"Open the gate!" came Marlon's unmistakable shout. Louis shook his head and ran toward the gate, unlocking it with his spare key. Once he opened it, Marlon, Violet and Aasim burst through, though they weren't alone.
In Aasim's arms was a small boy, no older than six, whose eyes were barely open. He didn't seem injured, but every couple of seconds, he would cough loudly. Louis turned to Violet.
"What the fuck happened?" he asked, raising his eyebrow at the girl.
"These two crashed their car near the train station, we couldn't leave them," Marlon told Louis, who turned to his best friend.
It was then that he noticed the second person they'd brought in. It was a girl. She was about their same age, wearing a leather jacket and a dirty bloodstained hat on her head. She had a nasty cut on the side of her head and her eyes were closed, her breathing even.
"She's out of it," Marlon informed them, "We gotta get her to Ruby, quickly."
Louis nodded and turned to Aasim, "Let me carry him," he said decisively. Aasim nodded at his friend and he gingerly placed the boy in Louis's arms. Louis and Marlon made their way to the admin building and raced up the stairs, yelling for Ruby.
The redheaded girl came out of the principal's office with a frown on her face, "What's all this yammering?" she asked, her hands on her hips.
"We've got wounded, Ruby," Marlon told her, gesturing to Clementine and AJ.
"Oh, crap," she exclaimed, eyeing the wound on Clem's head. "Bring 'em in here," she said, stepping aside to let them into the office.
Marlon set Clementine on a duvet, and Louis sat AJ down on the principal's chair. The small boy was slipping in and out of consciousness, so Louis called Ruby. "What's wrong with him?" he asked frantically.
Checking for his pulse and placing the back of her hand on AJ's forehead, she sighed, "It's okay, he's just in shock. We should let 'im rest while I look at the girl," she added, glancing back at an unconscious Clementine.
Louis nodded and lifted AJ gingerly from the seat, casting a last fleeting glance at the girl on the duvet before exiting and taking the kid to the music room. Once in there, he softly laid him on the couch and sat down on the piano stool, staring worriedly at the boy.
He'd been in there for hours, and by that time AJ had woken up. He had told Louis his name, and that he wanted to see Clem. Louis had unfortunately had to tell him that he'd have to wait a little longer. The face of disappointment on AJ's face was more than Louis could bear, so he had an idea.
"Hey little dude, how about I show you a song I've been writing," he asked, gesturing to the piano.
AJ looked at it warily, as if expecting it to jump out and attack him. "Don't worry, it won't bite," Louis assured him, pressing on of the keys and chuckling when AJ jumped back in surprise.
He started playing his song – which was still unnamed – to the little kid, and AJ seemed to enjoy it. He was eyeing the piano curiously, but he was otherwise calm. For over an hour Louis played every song he knew, and made up some short verses to fill the rest of the time. At some point, when he was back to playing his own song, he heart AJ squeal,
"Clem!"
Louis turned on the spot and saw her. Clementine was wearing a heavy bandage on her head, her curly locks of hair falling on her face over it. When she hugged the small boy, her smile lit up the room in a way Louis had never been able to explain.
"Hey there, watched your kid for you," he said by way of introduction.
"And the rest, as they say, is history," Louis finished off, making the motion of closing a book in mid-air.
"Wow," whispered Louise, beaming as her father finished the story.
"Wow indeed, little one," he replied, stroking her hair softly.
"Did you already know you loved her then?" she asked suddenly, cocking her head to the side. Love was still a new concept for her, and Louis was doing his best to teach it to her. God knew there was enough hurt and grief in this world already.
"Not really, no," he admitted, "I knew she was beautiful, but I didn't know I love her yet. Do you wanna hear the story of how I realized I loved her?"
Louise gasped at the question and nodded her head eagerly, "Yes please!"
"Alright, it all started one summer afternoon, and Violet had sent us on a hunting trip…"
They'd been walking for hours, and Louis was whistling a tune to pass the time. He heard Clem sigh for the third time that hour.
"Could you stop it?" she requested, "It's getting on my nerves."
Louis stopped and raised an eyebrow at her, "I'm sorry, your Majesty. I will attempt to lessen thy annoyance thus forth," he said in a pompous British accent. Surprisingly for both Louis and Clem, she started laughing. It wasn't often that Louis could hear his girlfriend laugh, so he just smiled at her.
"Okay, maybe you're not entirely annoying," she admitted, rolling her eyes and drawing her knife from her belt. They had arrived at the hunting grounds and were checking for sprung traps.
"You flatter me, Clemster," he said, flinching when Clem shot a glare in his direction, "Okay, not Clemster, gotcha," he said, nodding at her.
"Just Clem is fine, thanks," she told him as she snapped the neck of a rabbit that had strayed too close to a trap and was struggling in mid-air.
Louis flinched at the sight, but agreed with her nonetheless. They spent a while without saying a word, working on the traps silently. After about half an hour, Clem whistled and sighed.
"Finally, I think that's all of them."
"I think you're right," Louis said, looking around and nodding at the newly set traps. "We make a good team," he added, raising his fist in her direction.
Clem eyed him with a smile and shook her head. She took a step forward and stood on her tiptoes, planting a kiss on his lips. That took Louis by surprise, who opened his eyes wide and almost burst out laughing.
"What was that for?" he asked, a smile plastered almost permanently on his face.
"Good luck, I guess," she replied, a similar grin of her own tugging at her lips.
Louis raised his eyebrow and they laughed. They started making their way back, their hands inches apart. This time, their conversation flowed much more smoothly, with Louis making stupid jokes and Clementine actually laughing at some of them. At one point, however, she stopped and held out her hand for Louis to stop too.
"What is it?" he whispered, looking around them and seeing nothing.
"You hear that?" she replied, looking up at him.
"Hear what?" he asked, but then he did. Straining his ears, he could hear a distant beeping coming from the west. They looked at each other and nodded, starting to slowly creep towards the noise.
Once they got there, they saw a car in the middle of a clearing. Clem suddenly had a flashback to the last time she'd found an abandoned car in the middle of nowhere. "I think we should go, Lou," she whispered.
"Shouldn't we check it out?" asked Louis reasonably, already walking towards the car. It was an old Sedan with its windows shattered and its dash blinking with the symbol for 'low battery'. "No kidding, right?" said Louis when he saw it.
Clem couldn't fight him, so she approached the car warily and stood at its tail. The trunk was locked, and Clementine called for Louis to help her. His efforts were null, though, as the door wouldn't budge.
"Maybe we could find something to force it open with," suggested Louis walking to the back of the car and searching its inside.
"You really think there's gonna be something to –."
"Aha!" exclaimed Louis exiting the back of the car and approaching Clem with a crowbar in hand, "you were saying?"
Clementine rolled her eyes and let him through so he could work on opening the trunk. Unfortunately for them, it wouldn't be easy. When Louis starting making more noise, they began to hear the distinctive grumblings and moans of walkers; at least nine of them, Clementine gathered.
Clem unsheathed her knife and prepared to deal with as many of them as she could. "Get that trunk open, Louis!" she commanded, jamming the blade of her knife into a walker's skull.
She worked with effort to keep the walkers from Louis as she disposed of them. Once she had killed the fourth one, she heard a click come from the direction of the car. "I got it!" he exclaimed, gesturing to the trunk, which was ajar. He saw the walkers coming in his direction now, and he stood his ground.
He swung 'Chairles' twice, rendering the walkers' heads a pile of shattered brains and bone. Clem gave him an appreciative nod, but it took everything she had not to scream in terror. While Louis battled with two walkers at the same time, the trunk of the car started opening itself. Slowly, a walker hand burst through the gap and grabbed at Louis's trench coat, making him lose his footing.
"Louis!" Clem yelled, removing the knife from the head of her last walker and sprinting at full force in his direction. Louis barely managed to avoid the walkers' teeth, fending them off with his chair leg and grunting from the effort of keeping the third one at bay.
A boot sank into one of the walker's heads, producing a sickening crunching sound as it fell to the ground, and Louis was finally able to shove the remaining walker from off of him. As he swung 'Chairles' at the head of the fallen corpse, Clem stepped over him and drove her knife into the third one's face, which was way too close to his neck for comfort.
They stood silently looking at each other for a second, trying to bring back some air into their lungs. After the spell was broken, Clem jumped into Louis's arms and clung to him for dear life.
"Oh my God, Louis," she exclaimed, letting a soft sob escape her lips, "Don't ever do that again," she told him.
"I'm sorry, I lost my footing," he apologized, looking down in embarrassment. When he did, he saw his girlfriend sobbing into his shirt, telling him how stupid he was.
As he watched her, something inside him clicked. He didn't know how it happened, or why. He just knew that it did, and elation that prevented him from stopping the smile that crept into his face filled him at that moment.
"I love you," he said simply, making her do a double take. That was the first time any of them had said it, and she looked shocked; frightened, even. But after a couple of seconds in which a mental battle scrambled her mind, she closed her eyes and smiled.
"I love you too, Louis," she replied with a soft kiss.
"Ew dad, gross," exclaimed Louise, covering her eyes from the mental image of her parents kissing.
Louis had to laugh at her reaction, "Let's hope you think that way for a long time to come, little one," he commented, frowning slightly at the thought.
"What do you mean?" she asked innocently, raising an eyebrow the same way Louis always did.
"You won't know until you're 18," he told her, matching her expression to a tee.
Louise rolled her eyes at her dad and chuckled, tilting her head like she always did when she was starting to get tired. Louis looked at his daughter with a smile on his face, the memory of Clem's and his first kiss on his mind. They'd been waiting for the raiders to arrive for two weeks, and Louis knew Clem needed something to take the edge off.
Who knew it would be Clem taking Louis's edge off, he thought with a grin. The night she'd confessed her feelings for her had been the best of her life. Well second best, he thought, looking at Louise as she tucked herself in. She knew that her father could daydream for hours at a time when he had a stupid grin planted on his face for too long.
But he didn't care that he looked stupid. He reveled in the feeling of total euphoria he'd been in when she'd kissed him. It had been a soft kiss, as if she thought he might break from the force of it. Kissing his daughter's forehead, he wished her good night and stood to leave the tent, a smile still on his face.
"Dad?" came Louise's voice from behind him, making him turn and raise an eyebrow at her.
"Yes, gorgeous?" he replied. Her frown threw him off, but her next words almost shattered him.
"How did mommy die?"