("Hey. Clem. Look at me. You trust me, right?"
"I… I'm scared, Kenny."
"Okay, hon. That's okay… that's okay.")
She wakes up to the right side of her face burning in pain.
Clementine winces as she moves her head slightly, bringing up a hand to delicately trace over her swollen cheek. "Uhh… Ow! Dang it…" She sits up and catches sight of the group sitting around the fire and it all comes back to her.
The events of what seems like just minutes ago rush through her mind. She remembers walking into the yard and seeing Luke on the floor, bruises and a defeated look on his face, while Carver paced in front of him in a quiet sort of fury.
She remembers the weight of the walkie talkie in her jacket as Carver counted, one, two… She remembers slipping a hand into her pocket to pull it out, a confession already spilling out, when Kenny grabbed it from her hand quickly and held it up for Carver to see.
She remembers the walkie talkie landing in Carver's hand with a quiet plop, she remembers the silence before Carver finished what he had been about to say. Three.
And there's no way she could ever forget seeing Carver slam the walkie talkie into Kenny's skull, over and over again. No way to block out the memory of Sarita's screams, of Troy's gun hitting her as she tried to help her old friend, of looking up and having to watch helplessly, for what seemed like hours but was really just minutes and minutes and minutes, as blood splattered the floor where Kenny lay.
And all she can see at that moment is Kenny's body laying there after Carver left, unmoving and barely breathing.
Clementine gets up from her bed, barely a bit more comfortable than the hard floor, and walks toward her group. Sarita's sobbing still, Rebecca's arm thrown around her in comfort, and Luke is just finishing talking to Bonnie, who is standing guard outside of the gate.
"What did she say?"
"She said she can get us out of the pen if we can get the PA system goin'. Second she hears it, she'll run over and spring us."
"That's great!"
"It's not great," Luke butts in, staring at Rebecca with slanted eyes.
Rebecca furrows her eyebrows and her lips curve downwards. "What are you talking about?"
"Look, I-I know part of this is my fault, I know. I was hungry, I got reckless tryin' to steal some food and got caught…"
Clementine interrupts him in frustration, "We can't stay here!"
"Look, I hear what you're saying, but it's risky."
Nick looks away from Luke to the rest of the group in agreement. "It is pretty damn risky, guys."
"Risky? Did you see what that son of a bitch just did?" Mike counters, incredulous. "Look, the plan works. Nothing needs to change. It's all set up. The hard part is done. This guy's fucking crazy! Who knows what he'll do next."
Luke shakes his head. "Yeah, but now we're dealing with a guy beat to shit, Sarita in no shape to do anything, and I'm a goddamn mess! Look, we should rest up, okay? We should bide our time, and we should wait for an opening."
"Bonnie's agreeing to help us tonight."
"And that doesn't mean she can't do it some other night."
"I don't know, you guys. Luke's making some sense." Nick agrees with his friend. "Maybe we should wait."
"No, we're not waiting." Rebecca says, scowling.
"Ain't nothing out there, you guys. Trust me, I looked! There's no food, there's no supplies, they picked everything clean-"
Clementine shakes her head and thinks back to the last memory she had before fading into unconsciousness. "Where's Kenny?"
Luke gestures to the side of the room. "Doc's over there workin' on him… It don't look good."
Clementine feels her heart drop just as Carlos walks up to all of them surrounding the bonfire, but she keeps her face blank and emotionless as she turns to look at the bed Kenny was laying on. She couldn't see his head right then, but she knew it was bad. No one could come out unscathed from such a beating. No one.
"You better fix him!" She tells Carlos anxiously, but then repeats more quietly. "You better."
The unease on Carlos' face set her more on edge as he replied, "I'm doing my best. His orbital is crushed. There's no hope for the eye. I got him as stable as I could, cleaned it, got some of the swelling down, bandaged it as best as I could… but until he wakes up… if he wakes up… we won't know if there's any damage to the brain."
Her blood freezes as she hears him utter that word. "If? If? What do you mean, if? He's gonna wake up, right?"
Luke speaks up then, his voice guilty. "Clem… Carver messed up Kenny pretty bad. Even if he does wake up-"
Clementine interrupts him sharply, her voice trembling despite herself. "Stop it! He's gonna wake up, okay?! He… he's survived before despite everything. He survived a herd of walkers by himself!"
The doctor scrubs his hands together, and Clementine's stomach squirms as she spots the blood stained on them. "Still, I don't think it's a good idea for you to see him right now, Clementine. It's not a good sight."
Clementine opens her mouth to argue but Luke interrupts her, his lips pursed. "Okay, look… maybe I'm just playin' devil's advocate here, but if… dammit, if… if y'all are serious about goin' tonight, then we're gonna have to start talkin' about maybe… leavin' some folks behind."
Her eyes widen and she can swear her heart stops. Sarita looks up at Luke then, shocked as well. "No!"
Luke continues, sounding frustrated. "There's no other way!"
Even Rebecca, who never seemed to agree with Kenny at all, expressed anger at Luke's idea. "This is bullshit!"
"Well, I don't like it either, but guess what? It's where we're at." Luke shrugs his shoulders, but not in an uncaring way. Clementine knows Luke cares about Kenny, despite their rather hostile start, and especially about her feelings, but she's still shocked he would ever suggest anything like this.
"Kenny and I are only here because of you people…" Sarita says shakily, from both anger and fright. "And now you intend to leave us behind."
Carlos begins to speak, but Clementine cuts him off before he can start. "No! We're not leaving Kenny!" She insists, both angrily and worriedly as she glances back at the bed. Kenny doesn't twitch, doesn't make any indication that he is hearing any of their conversation. Her heart begins beating faster and faster, and her palms grow sweaty.
Nick speaks up then, not noticing Clementine's growing panic. "I don't know the guy that well, but I know he'd want us to get outta here, 'specially you two."
"I'm not leaving without Kenny!" Sarita shouts at him, losing her temper quickly.
Carlos places a hand on Sarita's shoulder, but she shrugs it off, and all Clementine can think is that she and Kenny are a lot more alike than she originally thought. "Sarita, it's what he would want-"
"You have no idea what he would want."
"We can't just leave the guy… He took the blame for all of us."
"Tonight is the best chance we got to escape!"
They continue speaking, their voices growing louder and louder, but Clementine's ears grow muffled as she begins to walk over towards the bed, her feet shuffling at the pace of glaciers. No one pays any notice to her, even as her footsteps quicken and she stands over the man she met over two years ago.
She reaches up a hand to cover her mouth as she sees him. His eye is covered with a makeshift bandage that wraps around his head, and what isn't underneath the bandage is bloody and bruised. The walkie talkie Carver had used to harm him had left what seemed to be a huge dent in his skull. Clementine reaches out a hand to grab his hand, which rests on his stomach as he breathes ever so slowly.
His skin is cold and clammy in her grasp. The sound of the group's conversation fades into the background as Kenny shifts a bit, letting out a hiss of pain.
"Kenny?" She whispers, bringing up her other hand to touch his cheek. His beard, stained with his own blood, tickles her palm. When she looks at him, the eye that remains is still closed but his mouth is just barely opened. Clementine cringes as she sees a trickle of blood escape from between his lips. "Say something, please."
"Duck…?" Kenny whispers coarsely, his voice hushed and broken.
Clementine shakes her head rapidly, and she hears her heart pounding and pounding and pounding away. "No, no, Kenny, it's me, it's Clementine, please be okay, please…"
The man cracks open his remaining eye, just a sliver, but Clementine knows that he can't see her. "Clem… where's Lee? And… Kat?"
She grips his hand tightly as tears build up in her eyes and as her throat begins to clog up, barely managing to choke out, "Don't… Kenny, don't. You have to be okay, please. Don't leave…"
For a second, Clementine thinks that Kenny understands what she's saying. He inhales quicker and quicker, as if he couldn't get enough air all of a sudden. "It's okay… it's okay… We'll… I'll find…"
Clementine's voice grows louder as her hold on his hand tightens even further. "No, you can't go, please, not you too! Not after everything, please! We just-we just-we just found each other, you can't, you can't!"
Kenny looks at her, and for one quick moment, his eye seems clearer than ever before. She thinks of her final moments with Lee, back at the jewelry store, and remembers aiming her gun between his eyes and watching as he exhaled for the last time, his head lolling onto his shoulder and the world going still. Kenny's hand goes limp in her grasp and his chest rises, falls, and then comes to one final stop.
There's ringing in her ears. Her hands shake and her breaths come out faster and she can't understand why she can't stop breathing when Kenny isn't breathing at all, and why can't she find any air? It's as if Clementine was floating through space, the emptiness sucking her into a black hole, devoid of any oxygen, of anything at all…
She doesn't register the hands pulling her away from what remains of her friend, but it's only instinctual for her to just hold onto Kenny tighter. Unfortunately for her, the hands on her shoulders are too strong, and she feels herself being yanked away from the dea- Kenny, Kenny, Kenny.
Clementine attempts to grab hold of him again, but she's turned around and pulled into someone's arms, her face pressed against their chest and their hands coming to wrap around her. She squirms and begins to struggle relentlessly, thrashing against the person holding her even as they try to calm her down.
"Clem, shit, you need ta calm down, okay?!" She hears the person - Luke? - say, but the meaning of his words doesn't register in her mind. Clementine feels trapped, her arms stuck in between the two of them and she can't breathe, she can't breathe, what was happening-
She lifts her knee up high and feels it connect between Luke's legs. Luke doubles over, cursing in pain as his grip loosens and Clementine slips out of his hold. Clementine jogs back over to Kenny's side, pushing past Nick and Carlos and standing next to a sobbing Sarita.
Sarita doesn't seem to notice the girl at all. She just stands over Kenny's body and cries and cries and cries, her hands clutching the sides of his face desperately.
Clementine feels the shock beginning to settle in, and this time, she doesn't resist as she feels Nick grab hold of her shoulder and pull her away so she wasn't too close. Mike does the same to Sarita, although the woman struggles, just as hard as she did when Carlos had restrained her from protecting Kenny earlier.
Eventually, though, the woman gives up, breaking down in the tall black man's arms and crumpling down to the floor when her knees give out. The room is quiet except for her loud, heart wrenching sobs, but all Clementine can hear is her heartbeat growing louder and louder, as if it were about to explode right out of her chest at any moment.
("Sounds like it ain't been easy for you. I'm sorry, darlin'. I wish I coulda found you sooner."
"Christa told me you were dead."
"I am! This is all a dream!"
A pause. A chuckle.
"Sorry. Bad joke.")
No matter how hard she pinches herself, she doesn't wake up.
If only this was a dream.
Sarita is surrounded by Rebecca and Sarah, both of whom are trying to comfort her as she sobs into her hands. Clementine, on the other hand, is eerily quiet as she sits in a chair, staring blankly into the dying fire and ignoring Luke as he sits himself in the chair next to her and struggles to find the right words to say. Jane is laying down in her usual sleeping area, but Clementine knows she's awake, waiting for the group to get going and leave this place already. Mike is pacing back and forth next to the bed where Kenny still lays, knife in his hand and ready to be used in case… in case Kenny came back.
Oh god, Clementine realizes with horror. He's going to come back.
And not like how he came back before, just, what, three days ago? Two, nearly three, years went by with her and Christa and Omid while he was alive not knowing that Kenny was alive and well just a few states over.
Three days couldn't make up for the two years they had lost. Of course she would finally get to see him again, only to have him leave again just a few days later, and this time permanently.
"We were never really close before." She whispers, her eyes glued onto the smoke that drifted from the fiery embers of the fire pit.
Luke opens his mouth to comment, but wisely keeps it shut after a second of hesitation.
Clementine watches as smoke trails up from the bonfire, fading into the atmosphere as if it were never there. "When Lee was alive, back at the motor inn or on the train or in Savannah, we never really talked much at all. I was always with Lee and I was closer to Duck and Katjaa anyway. Kenny probably only looked after me because I was a kid and because he liked Lee." She smiles a little, bitter as it is. "I remember one time, back at the motel, we were all sitting outside, you know, just talking about anything. I mentioned how much I loved swimming and Kenny just…just lit up, a lot like Duck. He was a fisherman before all this, did you know that?"
She thinks back to how he was after Katjaa and Duck died, his insistence on getting to Savannah and starting a new life on the open sea. "He had this big plan… get to Savannah, find a boat, and start over somewhere new, somewhere safe. But then I got taken and Lee got bit trying to find me."
Clementine remembers meeting up with Christa and Omid out on the countryside, hours and hours after watching the life fade from Lee's eyes back in Savannah. For a long time, she was quiet, despite their inquiries about what happened with the man on the radio. But they did speak about some things, at least while Omid was alive. "Christa and Omid told me that Ben… this boy we met who got Kenny's family killed, he fell from the roof and he wasn't gonna make it. Kenny stayed with him and then walkers came and they told me he was for sure dead. Kenny hated Ben and he sacrificed himself for him."
Her lip trembles and she sighs. "I know how all you guys feel about him. He is impulsive and he can be a jerk, but he did good things too and he's the only one I have left." Her face crumples at last. "Was… He was…"
Luke stands up, pulls her up from her own seat, and pulls her into a long hug. She presses her teary face against his chest and imagines that instead of him, it's Kenny in front of her, saying goodbye. She never even got to say goodbye.
Luke rests a hand on top of her hat, still holding her as he murmurs, "I know he was special to you, Clem. But I know what he would want you to do right now… you and Sarita. He'd want us to keep going and get the two of y'all outta here and somewhere safer."
And Clementine knows that he's right. Kenny had sacrificed himself before to give Lee more time to find and save her. He knew full well that by taking the blame for the walkie talkie, he either would get the beating of his life or wouldn't make it out at all. Too many people had died for her to be safe…
Clementine moves her hands so they wrap around Luke's back. At first, Luke thinks she is attempting to tighten the hug, but suddenly, he feels a weight being taken off his back and hears the sound of his machete swinging through the air. Clementine untangles herself from him quickly and marches over to her fallen friend before Luke can even react.
"Wha- Clem, what are you-?" Luke asks, walking over to her cautiously with a hand outstretched in alarm.
She walks past Mike and stares down at Kenny, his skin pale, his face bloody, one eye covered and the other closed forever. She lifts the machete high up in the air and sinks it into his skull with no hesitation.
Sarita gasps from her seat and Luke comes to a stop where he stands, his arm still reaching out for her. Clementine yanks out the blade and it slips from her hands to fall onto the floor with a clang. She looks at Kenny one last time, the gash from the machete across the top of his head, and thinks that he looks more peaceful now.
Maybe a person is stuck on the earth until they die as a walker. Maybe Kenny is on his way up now. Maybe, right now, Duck is running into his arms and Katjaa is giving him a kiss and Omid is holding his and Christa's baby in his arms and cracking a joke and Lee is patting his shoulder and whispering a thank you.
But for now, in the concrete world… "Let's go," Clementine announces, turning around to face the others, now all standing and staring at her in shock and unease. "The plan is still on. We're getting out of here."
(Her cheek stings. Dirt is embedded in her palms from hitting the earth. Troy aims a gun in her direction and ushers her inside the truck.
"The hell did he do to you? Hey! Did he hurt you? Hey. Hey!" The door slams closed and it goes quiet.)
She leaps and lands on Carver, who is lost in the midst of his rant. Mike punches him across the face and Luke disarms the man quickly, pointing his gun at him and shouting at Carver to get back.
Carver looks around and watches as others in the group pick up their weapons from the ground and get ready to pounce. He holds up his hands and stares Luke right in the eyes. "Come on, Luke. This ain't none of your business."
Clementine walks over next to Luke just as Rebecca looks at her. "Clem, where… Why isn't Alvin with you? Where is he?"
She looks down for a moment, unable to meet the pregnant woman's eyes as she thinks back to her husband's final sacrifice. She remembers Alvin getting shot, but rising one last time to shoot the guard before going limp. And she remembers his last request to her: Keep my girls safe. Clementine meets Rebecca's eyes guiltily.
Rebecca doesn't speak as horror and disbelief flood her face. She looks at the ground and hunches over slightly, whispering in grief, "Alvin!"
Luke looks over at Rebecca, his voice sympathetic and hushed as he processes the death of his own friend. "Rebecca, I am… oh god, I'm so sorry-"
She lifts her head and ignores Luke completely, staring at Carver with vengeful eyes. "Kill him."
Luke looks at her in shock and doesn't reply. Carver shakes his head and smiles, as if amused at this new development. "Rebecca, Rebecca, sweetie, my god. How did we get here, you and me?"
Rebecca rolls her eyes, but her fury is betrayed by the shaking of her arms as she crosses them over her chest. "This is just a bit of a custody battle we got on our hands, here." Carver continues, arms still up in the air in surrender.
The pregnant woman looks at Luke impatiently, her voice firmer this time, "Shoot him."
Clementine looks up at Luke herself, her eyebrows set and her lips thinned and her voice blank. "Just shoot him."
He shakes his head in surprise. "What? No, I-"
She thinks back to everything this-this bully - this worse than a bully, worse than anyone she has ever met before, has done. She sees all of his actions in a checklist running through her mind. "Do it, Luke! After everything he's done!"
Mike steps up this time, nodding his head at her. "Just do it, man."
"There ain't one part of that son of a bitch I don't hate, but that does not make this right!" Luke counters, and Carver just raises an eyebrow in amusement at their argument.
Her blood boils at seeing his casual attitude. "There is no way he is leaving here alive, okay?! Not after what he did to Kenny, and Alvin, and Walter and Reggie and all of us!"
Sarah weakly suggests, "We can…we can tie him up? I can go find some rope…"
Rebecca snaps at her in her anger, "And have him come back for us? No fucking way. I want him dead."
Clementine's eyes drift down towards the floor, where she spots an unused gun near Sarah's feet. She walks over to the older girl and bends to pick up the weapon, aiming it at Carver in a heartbeat.
Luke takes a few steps toward her, a few words leaving his mouth in alarm, but Clementine pulls the trigger once, twice, and watches as Carver falls to the floor, one bullet in his leg and one in his stomach.
She walks around him until she comes to a stop in front of a small table, picking up the crowbar there and letting it rest in her hands for a few seconds. Sarita speaks to her then, unsure of what is happening, "Clem… We should go. You shouldn't have to do this."
Carver lets out a gritty laugh from his place on the ground. "That girl's already done more than you can imagine."
"You shut your mouth, Bill!" Luke shouts, but Carver just shrugs.
Clementine doesn't look at the Indian woman, just stares down at the crowbar in her hands as she considers what to do next. "After what he did to Kenny," Clementine says hollowly. "You don't want him to get hurt like he did?"
Sarita doesn't speak up again. She hears footsteps behind her and shakes her head. "I'm not leaving until he's gone for sure, okay?" She exclaims as she turns around in frustration.
However, she relaxes as she sees it's Rebecca approaching her. Rebecca purposely steps on Carver's injured leg as she steps by him, digging her heel in and smiling briefly as he lets out a sound of pain. The woman nods at her in approval, and then looks back at the group. "I'm staying, too."
"Look at you… You fuckin' ingrates." Carver mutters as a few members of the group begin filing out of the room. "You don't even know how good you got it."
Luke and Sarita hover next to Clementine, still trying to get her to leave the room. "Just…just leave him to the lurkers, Clem." Luke tells her, but Clementine stands her ground and shakes her head at him in finality.
Carlos walks up to them, knowing that her mind is made up. "Let's go."
He, Sarita, and Luke accept their defeat and make their way outside. "That's alright, you'll learn." Carver tells Luke as he walks by him. "Lambs to the slaughter… No shepherd to guide you. Clementine knows exactly what I'm talkin' about." He looks her in the eyes this time, and it sends chills down her spine as she recalls their conversation earlier.
(I'm not like you.
I know it when I see it. And we're more alike than you think.)
Clementine moves so she's standing in front of the man, crowbar still tightly held in her grasp. She doesn't look away as he continues to speak, his voice grave but somewhat approving at the same time.
"Atta girl. You ain't afraid to look it in the eye. You go with that feelin' ya got right now, Clementine. It's what makes you stronger than the rest of them."
Clementine stomps her foot on the ground, feeling like a whiny little child but having to release her anger somehow. "You don't know anything about weak or strong!"
He chuckles, albeit weakly. "Look at you right now… The very fuckin' definition of strong. Not like your friend. Kenneth, right?"
She stops for a long moment, her blood running cold as his words process in her brain. Clementine begins to breathe fast, in and out in and out, as she chokes out, "You don't know anything about him… He was better than you will ever be. A better father, a better leader, a better man-"
Carver interrupts her rant with a wave of his disinterested hand. "Raise my child right, will you? Don't surround yourself with weak fuckers like them."
Rebecca digs her foot in again, her eyes murderous as she grinds out, "It will never. Be. Yours."
Carver sneers at her, his voice dripping with contempt. "The fuck are you looking at, bitch? Don't act like you didn't love every second of it-"
He's stopped by the first slam of the crowbar into his face. Clementine plants her legs on either side of his chest and hits him over and over and over again. She feels like she's about to vomit when she sees his eyeball fall of of it's socket, but she steels her reserve and continues to strike him until his face is nothing but a bloody mess, with no remains of the man that used to be.
She drops the weapon to the floor after she's done, and it's clang echoes through the otherwise silent area. Next to her, Rebecca bends down and searches his body, pulling out a gun from one of his pockets and storing it away for her own use. Clementine takes a few steps forward and feels her knees shake as the weight of what she just did suddenly lands on her shoulders, pushing her down to the floor.
The pregnant woman rushes over to her, placing a hand on her shoulder and turning her head towards her in worry. She says something, her mouths forming the words, but Clementine can only hear ringing in her ears, similar to earlier, when Kenny fell asleep and never woke up again. When she looks down at her hands, she sees the imprints left behind by how tightly she held the crowbar as she pounded it into his skull, she sees red staining her fingers and her palms. It will wash off, Clementine knows, but it feels permanent, like a tattoo or an awful scar. As hard as she scrubs and scrubs, the red will always be there.
(In fact, I think you realize it… but you're not comfortable with it yet.)
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm so sorry I killed you, Kenny! Insert South Park joke here.
But for real though, I loved episode three so much. Clementine is really becoming a leader, and it's up to the player to decide whether she will become a monster like Carver or a hero like Lee (if that's how players played him). I think that if Kenny had died after the beat down, my Clementine, at least, would have wanted vengeance until right after she gets revenge and she realizes that she is becoming the very man she hates. Watching someone die is one thing, but doing it yourself is another. Lee was right when he said that killing people changes you.
Anyway, I'm sorry for any grammatical errors that you may find, this is fresh from tumblr and I don't have much time to edit. Thank you for reading!