The bench where she sits is damp and she feels a headache forming in between her eyes. But right now, Clementine could care less about the discomfort, or the muffled conversations taking place around her.
All she can think of is standing in the middle of the herd, her heart pounding in her ears and overshadowing the sound of the snarls and gunshots, her hatchet lifting up into the air and cutting through Sarita's arm with one, two chops. She remembers meeting Sarita's eyes and then both of them looking down at what remained of the woman's limb in unison, the bloodcurdling scream that made her blood run cold with the realization of what she had just done.
Walkers had been on Sarita in just seconds. And there was nothing Clementine could have done.
She remembers meeting up with Kenny and the others in the aftermath. He had been so glad to see her, rushing up to her in relief and patting her on the back.
And then he had asked where Sarita was.
Clementine had felt like an idiot for just staring at him, her mouth opening and then closing as she had tried and tried to think of the right words to say. She got bitten. I chopped it off. She screamed and screamed and they were there in seconds. I got her killed. I got her killed. But no words escaped and all around her it was quiet.
Kenny's uncovered eye stared back at her, blinking in confusion at her silence and then widening in realization. He shook his head and he started to mutter things she couldn't hear, his breathing coming out faster and faster and his hands flying up to his hair and clutching at the strands in grief. Clementine had to turn away from the sight of her old friend succumbing to his sorrow, unable to look at him now just as she was unable to years ago on the train and in the mansion. Too many lost and now she was all that remained.
If she hadn't have been so impulsive… they could have gotten out of the hoard and taken off her arm later, but then again, with Carlos gone… Clementine gulps, her throat rough and sore from thirst, as she recalls the doctor, overbearing at times yet kind and intelligent more often than not, going down in the escape, the bullet grazing his neck and sending him to his death.
His last words were telling Clementine to look after Sarah, and what great help she's providing, she thinks bitterly as she focuses this time on Sarah's absence. She and a few others had made it to the meeting place, but there was no sign of Sarah or Nick or even Luke (again).
Alvin, Carlos, Sarita… None of them can afford to lose whatever else remained of their group. Clementine knows that Kenny had been hovering closer and closer to his breaking point since the day they met again after two years of separation. Almost everyone he had ever loved was gone, and she feels the weight of the world on her shoulders upon realizing that she is the only piece of his life that is still alive and relatively well.
Rebecca was going to give birth soon and had just lost her husband and the possible father of her baby. No, Clementine thinks, Alvin was the father. Carver may have claimed it was his, but Alvin would have raised it right. I know he would have. But when Clementine glances at the pregnant woman, sitting across from her on another bench against the wall of the meeting place, Rebecca is trying to conceal the tears streaming down her face that she had to repress while they escaped from Carver's compound. There had been no real time to grieve, and while watching Kenny beat in Carver's face with the crowbar had lifted a weight off her shoulders, it couldn't completely make up for what had happened to her husband. Carver had been an awful man. And Clementine knew that more often than not, the nice people were some of the first to die… but at least the bad people eventually got what was coming. Sometimes.
And Sarah… She can't help but think of herself years ago, walking through Savannah alone, covered in blood that wasn't her own and crying silently, the gun which had taken Lee's life gripped tightly in her hand. But Sarah is different. Clementine made it out of Savannah and found Christa and Omid, who took care of her when she could barely function the first few weeks after Lee's death. No one even knows where Sarah is, or has any trace of where she could have gone to after running through the crowd of walkers in the aftermath of seeing her father go down. There was no way of telling if she was still alive, or dead, or worse and it was driving her crazy. The only friend she's had in years gone from her protection and broken promises and too many people dead because of her, her, her…
Clementine reaches up to adjust the hat on her head, a nervous tick she had developed over the past few years, but pauses when she grasps only air. It takes her a moment too long to realize that her hat is missing, and only a few seconds after processing this to feel her hands begin to shake.
She feels her heart begin to pace faster and faster as she looks around her, trying to see if maybe she had misplaced it somewhere. But suddenly she can remember the seconds immediately after watching Sarita get swarmed by lurkers, her screams turning into gurgles and then silence, overpowered by the sound of the snarls and swallows and chomps of the monsters. It had all happened so fast… Clementine had to dodge and duck and swing at every walker to try and find the others in the group, and she can remember finally approaching the end of the herd when a walker lunged at her out of nowhere and she had to act fast. She made it out, but her hat must not have. And there was no way to ever get it back.
The young girl knows she's being childish. It's just a hat, a stupid hat with no real meaning that she knows of, just a useless memento of the old days. But losing the hat feels like losing a part of herself that had already been cracked and beaten and was barely still standing as it was.
Clementine sighs and runs a hand through her hair. Or, at least, she attempts to. Her hair is quite literally a mess, clumps sticking out on the top and huge tangles of curls. Part of her is reminded of her mother, who used to take such pleasure in sitting her daughter down most mornings and carefully brushing through Clementine's wild hair so it could look tame enough for school. Her mother would often chuckle and call it the family curse, her own hair large and quite obviously cared for.
She yanks her hand out of her matted strands, wrinkling her nose at the greasiness and wishing not for the first time for a shower or even a river. Clementine feels eyes on her and looks up to see Kenny gazing at her with a blank look on his face. She opens her mouth, as if to say something, but shuts it just as quickly and looks down at her hands in her lap.
No time to worry about how stupid her hair looks without her hat concealing it. No time to think about how she just lost the one object she had that was associated with both her father and Lee. Right now, everyone was tired and grieving and lost at what to do next. Some things never did change.
They decide to stay for a few hours, just to make sure that if Sarah or Luke or Nick did eventually make it to Parker's Run, the lost group members wouldn't be alone. But so far, there's no sign of any of the three and Clementine can hear Jane and Mike quietly talking about packing up and leaving soon to her right. She knows there is no way that she is leaving, not with Sarah still out there. Luke and Nick can take care of themselves, being grown men, but Sarah… Carlos wanted Clementine to protect his daughter and she will do that, for him and for Sarah.
Clementine shakes her head and stands up, steeling her nerve as she walks over to where Kenny sits nearby. The man seems to be staring at nothing in particular on the ground, clearly lost in his thoughts, but looks up and meets her eyes as she approaches. The bandage covering his damaged eye is bloody and Clementine holds back a wince as she remembers Carver pounding the radio into Kenny's face over and over again, the wound on her cheek from where she tried to defend Kenny and got hit by Troy's gun stinging briefly.
He had done it for her… and then she got one of his last anchors killed just hours later. Clementine looks away guiltily, but comes to a stop so she stands in front of Kenny uncertainly.
The wounded man gives her a smile, albeit a weak one, and pats the spot on the bench next to him as an invitation for her to sit down beside him. She smiles back, relieved that he doesn't seem to be as much of a wreck as he was just a few hours earlier, and takes a seat.
"I'm-"
"Clem-"
They both speak at the same time, but stop abruptly and let the silence continue to spread between them. Clementine can't help but remember the old days, back at the motor inn or on the train or in Savannah, where she barely ever interacted with Kenny one-on-one. They never really had much to talk about, and she was closer to Duck and Katjaa anyway. When they both passed, there was nothing Clementine and Kenny had in common and their main conversations were about Lee or what to do next. It's times like this where she misses Lee the most, the way he was able to bring everyone together and mediate so easily… She tries to do the same, but two years into the apocalypse, people have either grown too hardened to care or too insane to reason with.
Carver had told her she was a natural leader, one of the strong ones like him, but she can't see herself as one at all. And she doesn't want to be like Carver, anyway. Part of her knew that staying to watch Kenny kill him was just a step in that direction, but the other side of her knew that she could never let herself become him when she had a much better mentor to follow, anyway.
She looks over at Kenny, at the red-stained cloth where his eye should be, and stands up and moves in front of him so they are relatively face-to-face. "We should probably…" Clementine gestures at the bandage, unsure of even why she wanted to see the injury. "Check and see how it is… if it's not infected or… something." She finishes lamely, biting her lip as she waits for Kenny's reply.
Kenny nods, giving her a small smile as she reaches around his neck to begin untying the bandage. "Weird seein' you without that dirty old thing on your head. Forgot what you looked like without it, actually. That big hair of yours…"
She tries to laugh, but she can feel her hands shaking and the fake smile painted on her face fumbling. "Clem," Kenny says, grabbing onto one of her shoulders gently and meeting her eyes with the only one of his that remained. "I told ya not to go blamin' yourself, alright?"
Clementine takes a deep breath and forces her arms to stop shaking so she can focus on untying the knot behind his head. "You didn't have to take the radio. Carver wouldn't have hurt me like this…"
He shakes his head, firm in his decision. "'Course I had to. No telling what that asswipe woulda done to you." She purses her lips but decides not to argue, part of her wanting so desperately to believe that this wasn't her fault. If Carver had kept going, if Bonnie hadn't have been there… another person would have died for her to be safe. And it was already too big of a list to begin with; it didn't need any new members.
Clementine manages to unfasten the bandage and pulls it off slowly, her eyes widening and her mouth opening in shock and disgust as she comes face-to-face with Kenny's eye - or, at least, what was left of it. His eye was swollen and shut tight, the skin puffy and a violent shade of red-pink. She could barely see the white of his eyeball through a small slit between his puffy eyelids.
"-how's it look? Am I still gonna be pretty when this heals?" Kenny's voice breaks through her surprise, and he lifts his head to look at her straight on. His face falls as he sees her grimace and gulp.
She plasters on a fake smile and attempts to giggle, but it comes out feeble instead. "Not…bad considering what happened."
The man gives her a somber look, and she knows that he wants an honest answer this time.
"Kenny…" She begins weakly, darting her eyes around to look at the others in the group who were beginning to notice their conversation. Rebecca, particularly, was looking at Kenny's wounded eye in horror and revulsion, while Mike caught her stare and looked away out of respect. "I…I don't think it's gonna heal just yet. I'm not sure when it's… it's pretty bad. Carlos-" Clementine clears her suddenly stuffy throat at the mention of the deceased doctor and father. "He mentioned something about a crushed… orbital? I don't know what that really means but it sounded serious."
There was a long pause where Clementine was desperately trying to think of anything else to say or do. She lifts up her blue jacket and rips off a strip of the purple long-sleeve underneath, stretching it out quickly and then tying it around Kenny's head so it covered his swollen eye once more. It wasn't the best patch job, but it would do.
"Thanks, Clem." Kenny says earnestly, then gives a small, rough chuckle. "This eye… It ain't like I got anyone to impress anymore anyway…"
Her breath catches at this mention of Sarita, so soon after what had happened. "Kenny-"
He interrupts her, voice carefully devoid of any emotion. "What happened, Clem? You gotta tell me."
Clementine thinks of all that she could possibly say. She could just tell him that Sarita was bitten, that there was nothing she could have possibly done but leave her there, not with so many of those monsters around, not with Carver's men still shooting all around them. Or she could tell him the complete truth: she tried to save Sarita and only put her through even more misery before she died. Reggie's tale had put false hope in her. After what had happened with Lee, seeing his amputated arm and then having to put a bullet in his brain when his attempt failed, it should have told her that cases like Reggie's were rare, but she hadn't listened to logic. Maybe if she had waited until they were out of the hoard, maybe then they could have actually cut off the arm and she would have had more of a chance. Or maybe she would have died either way. But in the end…
"We… I saw her get bitten." Clementine reveals, her voice sinking to a whisper as she sees the events flash through her mind again. "Back at Carver's camp. I panicked and I… I took my axe and I cut it off." She keeps her eyes planted on the floor, but she can feel multiple eyes on her as other members of the group listen alongside Kenny. "It happened so fast. I thought it would help, but she just screamed and they were on her in seconds. I'm so sorry, Kenny, I'm so, so sorry."
She looks up and her face crumples at the sight of her old friend, his eye closed in an almost perfect rendition of the look of hurt that came across his face the night he accidentally called her by his son's name. Clementine bites her lip and turns around, unable to look anymore and begins to walk away, back towards the road that they had followed to get to the meeting point. She hears someone call out her name, Bonnie maybe, but she just chokes out something over her shoulder about going off to find supplies and continues on her way.
The road is empty, almost suspiciously so, with signs that tell her of speed zones and of Parker's Run nearby, obviously what Mike meant by calling it a "tourist trap." She eyes the forest around her vigilantly and keeps a firm grasp on her hatchet, knowing that it was stupid of her to go off on her own just because she couldn't handle her own feelings.
She pats down her hair, letting an annoyed huff escape her mouth as it refuses to stay flat. Back when Lee had cut her hair, she had worried about looking like a boy, afraid to let go of all of her locks. But now, her hair was a bit of a pain and just downright embarrassing in its messiness. Keep that hair short, she would remind herself, Lee's voice echoing in her mind as she trimmed her hair down with the blade of a knife (or scissors, if she got lucky and found some). However, she would only really ever cut the parts of her hair that weren't covered by her hat, so it was no wonder that with her hat gone, she looked to be in a disarray. The family curse, she curses in her mind, though a small part of her feels happy to have at least one remaining aspect of her mother.
So lost in her thoughts, she almost misses the sound of snarls emerging from the woods around her. Luckily, it's only almost.
Clementine whirls around, whipping out her hatchet and looking around her for walkers in panic. Her alarm only increases as one walker turns into two, then three. Three? Where do they even come from? She backs away from the group of creatures, axe held in front of her as she tries to think of something to do, a way to escape.
She suppresses a scream as she hears sluggish footsteps behind her and feels bony fingers reach out and attempt to latch onto her hair. Clementine whirls around and slams the hatchet into the lurker's skull, kicking it away from her and dislodging her hatchet from its cranium in the process. Looking back in front of her, her breathing accelerates as the walkers begin to speed up after hearing the struggle that took place between her and their fallen friend.
Three of them against one of her. Not very good odds, Clementine thinks pessimistically, before throwing caution into the wind and swiping at the one closest to her with her weapon. The lurker doesn't go down, unfortunately, but Clementine swings again and buries the hatchet into the top of its head.
She yanks at the hatchet, cursing herself as she realizes it's lodged in the walker's tough skull. "Why does this always happen?" She whispers frustratedly, groaning in annoyance and apprehension as the two remaining walkers get closer and closer.
With one last hard jerk, the axe is free but the force of her tug sends her falling to the ground. Her mind is loud with terror, and she tries to scramble back onto her feet but is stopped by one of the walkers falling to its knees and grabbing at her ankle. Clementine gasps, kicking as fast and hard as she could. The walker's neck snaps back with the force of one of her strikes, its grip on her loosening, and Clementine takes advantage of the pause by lashing out with her hatchet and slicing into side of the monster's head.
When she looks up, she sees the final walker getting ready to land on top of her and barely manages to pull out her axe and hold it in front of her face just as the lurker falls. The blade sinks into it's skull and the creature goes still above her. Her hands shake with the effort of holding the walker, who used to be a woman probably in her late teens or twenties, but she gathers all the strength that remains from her fight-or-flight response and manages to roll it over so she's lying beside it now. She grimaces as she comes face to face with its rotting and smelly face and holds back a gag.
Clementine gets to her feet despite how her legs now feel like spaghetti strands, and pulls out her hatchet from the walker's remains with more of a struggle than before. Her exhilaration must be close to wearing off, she guesses.
Gazing at the road in front of her, she huffs in exasperation at yet another walker approaching her. "Really?" She hisses, walking up to it and dodging it's grasping fingers quickly. Moving swiftly, she hacks at whatever she can reach first, catching its shoulder and forearm before finally hitting the brain.
The walker collapses onto the floor and Clementine sighs, getting ready to tug at her hatchet for what seems like the hundredth time today when she's interrupted by a poke at her shoulder.
In a flash, her hatchet is out of the walker's brain and flying through the air as she twirls around. Whatever is behind her jumps back just in time to avoid the sharp blade of her axe from chopping off its - his? - arm.
"Holy shit, Clem, it's me!" Luke shouts, holding up his hands in surrender.
Clementine pants in exhaustion and drops her hatchet to the ground, giving him a cross look. "Why do you always do that?! Last time I just bit you, this time it could have been way worse!"
He shrugs wildly. "I don't know, how else would I've gotten your attention?"
Footsteps approach from behind Luke and Clementine looks behind the older man to see Nick coming on down the road, stopping beside Luke to hit him on the shoulder. "I don't know, man," Nick says, rolling his eyes. "Maybe you coulda just said something instead of scaring the shit outta her?"
"I wasn't scared." Clementine cuts in with a sharp look aimed at Nick. The man only shrugs, so she takes a deep breath and looks back at Luke. "Is… is Sarah not with you?"
His face falls in concern. "Shit, she ain't with you? After what happened to Carlos, it went crazy and Nick and I got separated from y'all. We tried to follow but the herd was on us and we had to go another way until they cooled down."
Clementine picks up her hatchet from the floor and rolls her shoulders to stretch them out from all the stress she had put herself through. "But you guys are both okay, right?"
Luke smiles at her and nods. "Yeah, yeah, I'm still just a little, y'know, tired but that's it. How's everyone else? They all with you?"
"Everyone made it out, except…" Her voice begins to shake and she clears her throat, attempting to disguise the pain in her voice. "Sarita… she didn't…" Unable to speak anymore, Clementine looks down, pretending to be interested in the gravel making up the road beneath her.
Luke and Nick share a long look and the shorter man tilts his head to the side, gesturing down the road. "Nick, ya think you could go off and meet with the others for us?"
Nick nods and leaves without a further word, making his way down the road toward Parker's Run at an easy pace.
Luke kneels down on the ground so he is level with the girl and meets her eyes. "I, uh, when Nick and I were tryin' to find you guys, we ended up goin' through Carver's place and I found this…" He reaches behind himself and pulls out Clementine's hat, bloody and trampled on but still wearable.
Her eyes widen and she takes the hat back quickly, looking down at the D etched onto the front and pursing her lips briefly at the new damage that had been inflicted on it. She lets out a small, happy breath and gives Luke a genuine smile, small as it might be. "I thought I lost it…"
He rubs the back of his neck and looks at her uncovered hair. "I was kinda scared… You never really seem to take that thing off, thought you mighta gone down with it."
"I've lost it before," Clementine tells him, still staring at the hat in wonder. "It belonged to my dad before all of this. I don't even know what the D stands for, I never bothered to ask. It was the only thing I had left of him… Each time I lost it, Lee returned it to me, every time. Even when he was… bitten, about to die, one of the last things he did was save me and give it back to me."
"It sounds like he was a great man." Luke comments quietly, and she nods in finality.
"He was. I miss my parents so much. I forget about them sometimes, how they talked and the way they laughed, because it's been so long, but I know they would have been so happy that Lee was there for me. Now I don't really have… anyone to take care of me." She shrugs her shoulders. "I guess I don't really need anyone to take care of me anymore. Christa taught me how to handle myself just fine, but she's gone, too…
It just seems like-" She breaks off to wipe at her eyes, mad at herself for showing too much emotion. "Like everyone who takes care of me, they become cursed. They either die or everyone they love dies or they go missing and I can't find them. Kenny… I didn't mean for Sarita to die, I just thought I was doing what was right!"
Luke puts his hands on her shoulders and pulls her into a hug, her head landing on his shoulder. "Clem, everyone around here knows that you are the toughest little girl left and you'd do anything to keep us safe."
"But I keep getting people killed!" Clementine chokes out, her voice muffled as she talks into Luke's shirt.
He shakes his head and pats her head, his fingers getting caught in the tangles of her hair. "That ain't how it works, Clem. All those people… they're your family. Family looks out for each other. It's the most important thing we have left nowadays."
She sniffles and nods in reluctant agreement, remembering their talk just a few days ago back in the woods, on their way up to the ski resort. Clementine takes a few breaths and pushes away from Luke's hold, looking him in the eyes when she says, "I'm the only he has left. Kenny, I mean. I have to take care of him or else I don't know what he'll do. When his family… He wasn't the same. But with Sarita, it was like he was finally starting to heal, but who knows what's gonna happen now. Everyone that's left… You, Kenny, Nick, Sarah, Rebecca… I don't want you guys to get hurt because of me."
Luke looks around them and raises his eyebrows at her. "Do you see all those lurkers around us? You took 'em all out before Nick and I even got here! Hell, Clem, I trust you with my life more than ever." He stands up and stretches his arms out, wiping at his eyes with his knuckles to try to feel less sleepy. "Shit, I could use some sleep. You ready to head back?"
Clementine looks up at him, her lips twitching up slightly at his admission of trust, and just nods. As they begin walking down the road, she reaches up and places her hat back firmly back on her head, feeling the security and warmth that it brings her rush back into her body in just seconds.
The last time someone had returned her hat back to her, it was moments away from saying goodbye forever. Now, though, Clementine can see at least part of her new group staying for the long haul. Don't jinx it, she warns herself, but walking down the road with Luke by her side and the others waiting for them, it feels like the start of a new beginning.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thanks for the idea, Legionary Prime: "Do you think that you could do a Season 2 one shot that involves Clementine losing her hat, but one of the cabin group finds it, especially considering its importance to her?" Title comes from Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide."
Luke has endless pockets that can hold many things at a time, including hats. Also, the ending is corny as hell but I honestly had no idea how to end it. Telltale is gonna crush Clementine's dreams by killing everyone in episode 4, I can feel it.
Fun Fact: Original storyline involved something waaaay longer that included Sarita actually living at the beginning and escaping with only Clementine, but eventually succumbing to her blood loss later. They have a long talk about life and love and stuff before Clementine has to put her out of her misery and then meet up with the group (actually, I had it so she made it to Parker's Run FIRST and meets Eddie's group, but eh). I still regret not doing that (I thought it would be TOO long. LOOK AT THIS "ONE SHOT"), but maybe I'll write that another time, if anyone wants to even read that. Thank you for reading!