Fairy Tale
Author's Note: This was written as part of Yuletide 2012, for thetidebreaks. It's centered on the friendship between Clementine and Lee and while it does feature a fair bit of dialogue from the game (POV scenes, yay) it does also try and fill in some gaps in canon. I'm uploading it here too since this fandom could really use more fanfic!
There's a man walking in the kitchen and he might not be alive.
It's not the first man who's tried to get into her house recently. There was that other one, too, but he didn't even try the door handle. He must have been pretty stupid, because Clem had left it unlocked so she could sneak in for food, like the stale cereal she was living on. She couldn't stay in there for long because of San… that… that monster, who used to be someone she knew but not any more.
(If she doesn't think of her name, it's easier to pretend she never knew her. She didn't see how it happened and she doesn't want to know.)
But this guy walked in through the door, so he's probably okay because he worked it out. A few days ago, she'd have been scared because strange men weren't supposed to just walk in your house, but now it's okay because a man is way better than a monster. She still ducks below the window of her treehouse, though, just in case, and tries to watch him while being as out of sight as possible.
And something tells her it isn't so bad, that maybe after how horrible the last few days have been things might start getting better now. It's not her parents, but it's a person. That's something. Even before he finds the other end of her radio, she knows things will change.
The man looks real. He's the first thing that's seemed real in days.
The man's name is Lee. He's pretty nice, letting her go along with him, but maybe it's as she helped him with… with the monster (only they're meant to call them walkers now) because Clem hadn't realised she was still in the house. She'd kind of hoped she'd just go away or something and find some other place to trash.
No such luck.
Now they're together with all these other people at that motor home, and everyone looks after her but especially Lee since he kinda looks out for her first, like Katjaa does for Duck. He's always there to help but he trusts her, too, and doesn't spend all his time telling her off because he's not her dad. Duck's always being told by his dad not to touch things, but she's allowed, and nobody shouts at her either. Without the walkers and the smell and the hunger it'd almost be okay.
She knows she'll be safe with Lee there, because he's saved her before and he says he'll do it every time so the walkers can't get her. But he talks to her too, about proper things and not just "did you see any walkers?" or "hear any funny noises?", but actual questions like about first grade. She wishes she was back there and only reading books about all these walkers, the kind where it seems like it might be bad but then some prince will come along and rescue everyone and it all ends happily ever after.
Clem has never been the biggest fairy tale fan, but she lies awake at night thinking about them now, trying to wish it into being. It isn't working so far. It's the opposite of working.
Sometimes Clem has nightmares.
She's standing alone in a place where everything looks wrong. A forest hangs around her, the trees closed together and the colours so bright it looks wrong. It's like one her of her old drawings, with the sun shining down brightly and the leaves a perfect shade of green that has never existed in reality, and certainly doesn't now.
Life now is walkers and dirt and hiding. It's running and looking for food and knowing what to look for in case a walker sneaks up and you need to hit it to get away. It's not this paradise that isn't paradise, where she can look for miles, but she can see nobody.
She hears a noise that's as familiar as breathing now, the grumbling of the walkers, and spins around. The colour is bleeding out of this picture, those bright green trees rapidly fading from green to yellow to brown to black. Everything is dying, and walkers are creeping out from behind the trees from openings that were never there, and she's all alone and for a moment it's the worst thing in the world -
But when she wakes up, Lee is always there, and he chases the nightmares away.
She's not looking forward to going to the dairy because new things are scary these days; you never know what's there. She goes, though, as Lee went ahead and she trusts him more than anybody else. He knows how to deal with walkers and he lets her duck behind him when things are getting bad and then nothing can hurt her.
At first she isn't too impressed, but then she sees a swing. Wow! It's been a long time since she saw one of those, and her face lights up.
"Lee! Look!" she calls, spinning around to look at him, and a fond smile is fixed on his face too. "It's a swing!"
"Sure is," he agrees, and gestures her forward as if she's someone really special (you first). She beams.
She manages to get there before Duck and sticks her tongue out at him playfully. He grins back, with that goofy expression he never seems to lose. "Ooh! Dad, Dad! My turn next!" Kenny just shakes his head, but he's smiling too so they both know he'll do it.
She jumps on the swing and Lee grabs hold of the rope and pulls it backwards a bit then lets go, starting her off. She grins. She can close her eyes, and for a moment it's almost like being back at a park on a normal day with all other children playing around her and everything being normal. It's not her mom or dad pushing her, but that's okay, because Lee's a good a guy as them anyway and he's been looking after her just as good as they would.
(She still misses them, but there's no point saying that. Everybody is missing someone these days. They don't have time to whine about it. Besides, she's got Lee.)
"You okay, Clem?" says Lee.
She opens her eyes again, daydream over. "Yeah. I didn't think I'd ever see a swing again!"
He laughs. "Guess you don't realise how much you miss these kinds of things until you see them again."
"Yeah," she says again, although seeing it again is making her think about the past too. She'd been trying to avoid that. It doesn't do anybody any good. But this whole place is like that, with the trees and the birds singing… and it's kind of nice.
She twists around to look at Lee. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah. I'm just a little worried about Mark."
She wrings her fingers. "Is Mark going to be okay?" He had to be okay. Their group has been so… so good for months now. They'd saved people and were doing pretty well. Okay, so other people were still getting hurt out there and that was horrible, but it was like they were in a bubble where nobody could hurt them. They were hungry, but they could live with hunger. She doesn't like that the idea of being safe might be about to disappear.
"He got lucky out there. Could have been a lot worse." One of the things she likes about Lee is that he's always honest, and doesn't treat her like she's a stupid kid who can't understand anything. She knows it could have been worse, too. She just wishes he hadn't been hurt at all.
"Are you going to find the people who hurt Mark?" she asks, because if they hurt him, they could hurt anybody. Like her, or Lee. She doesn't want that to happen, but she doesn't want Lee getting hurt going looking for them either.
"We have to make sure they don't hurt anyone else," says Lee, because he thinks like her, too. He wants everybody to be safe too.
"Be careful. I want you to stay lucky, too."
"Ever since I met you I've had good luck, so don't worry."
She grins. "Okay."
Lee says, "What do you think of the dairy?"
"It's pretty. It reminds me of how things used to look before."
"Yeah, it does."
Lee keeps pushing her on the swing. She's quiet for a moment, then asks a question she's been wanting to ask for a while now, but been a little bit scared of the answer. "Do you think things will ever get back to how they were?"
"Yeah. I'm not sure when, but one day things have got to get back to normal."
Clem beams, because if Lee believes that, maybe she can kid herself that it's true, too. She can't imagine living like this forever. It's awful. "That's good. I hope it's soon."
"Me too."
But things don't get better. They get worse, and worse, and worse and it's so fast that she feels like she's blinked through a moment and moved into some other time. One minute everyone's okay and living that fairy tale life at the motor inn, then blink. Mark's gone. Blink. Carley's gone. And Lilly (but not gone like that). Blink. Duck. Katjaa. Maybe next time she closes her eyes, Lee will be gone too and she'll be almost on her own, like her nightmare.
(And each time someone… dies… part of her thinks, "at least it's not Lee", and she feels awful, because they're her friends too and you don't wish that about friends. But Lee is the one who always looks after her and who fixes everything, so she needs him. They need him.)
It's… lonely. Lee's doing his best, too, but Kenny is so sad and Ben… she doesn't even know what's wrong with him. Maybe he's just hurting because he liked everybody as much as she did. Lee's trying to help them, but she has to hide from Kenny for a while because it's so weird to see him without Duck, to see him angry and upset and careless. It's not the Kenny she knows at all. So while Lee tries to sort them out, she's all alone.
It'd be really bad if it wasn't for the Radio Man. It's the only secret Clem has, and she doesn't really like that it's a secret, but he'd asked. It'd been a shock when he'd started talking, when one day she'd been tracing drawings in the dirt and the radio had crackled, "Hello." She hadn't been sure about answering, but now they were friends.
"Everything's going wrong," she tells him in one talk. "People are dying and it's horrible and I don't even know if we're going to make it to Savannah."
"Savannah?" says the guy.
"That's where we're going, I think. You know… where the boats are."
"You're heading to Savannah?" It's kind of annoying when he repeats himself, like he thinks she's forgotten what she's just said. "Well, isn't that nice. I'm in Savannah too, you know."
"Really?!" Clem feels a smile blossoming on her face. "Then, then you can help me! I'm looking for my parents."
"In Savannah?"
"Yes!" she says impatiently. "They were on vacation. You know. Before."
"I'll keep an eye open. What do they look like?"
She describes them, and there's such hope in her heart, because much as she loves Lee, she really wants her parents back now. Maybe… maybe part of her hopes that if she can just find her parents, maybe everything can magically go back to normal and they can go back to their house and she can go back to kindergarten. And she can remember her new friends, and Lee can come by and see her, but there'll be no more walkers and everything will be just peachy.
Some new people join their group so it isn't quite so lonely any more, but she doesn't like the old guy too much, because one of the first things he says to her is, "That'll happen to you," just out of nowhere, right after Duck dies. She stares at him, wide-eyed.
"Huh?"
But he moves on, while she can't get it out of her head. Lee gets really mad about it when she tells him; he clenches his fists, and she's never quite seen the expression on his face before. She just knows she doesn't ever want to see it directed at her. It's kind of scary.
He storms off to find Chuck, but when he comes back in, he's frowning instead. She hopes Chuck didn't say anything mean to him, too.
"…There are some precautions we have to take," he explains. She can tell he's trying to be gentle, but it hurts to hear that Chuck is maybe partly right. She doesn't want to think about dying. Maybe she's being selfish, but the thought scares her more than anything. It's not about the dying, but what happens after dying. Clem doesn't want to be a walker, but she supposes nobody else wants to be one, either.
If something can stop her being killed, she isn't going to complain about it. "Okay, yeah, that makes sense." She nods.
He smiles. "Don't worry, sweetheart."
It's nice of Lee to say so, but she can't stop worrying. Maybe Lee realises that too. She'll feel safer if she does something, just so she can say to herself, I'll be okay, I did that thing and that means I'll be fine!
"What do we have to do?"
It all sounds quite logical when Lee says it:
Plan for Savannah (well, they already have this, Clem thinks. She's going to find her parents. She's said that from the beginning. Maybe the other guy can help her, and Lee too; he's always been so nice about her parents…).
Protecting herself. That one will definitely be good. Hitting walkers with something nearby is okay if there's something to hit them with, but sometimes there isn't and then she knows she'd be trapped. Lee's always got to her in time so far, and the others have helped, but maybe one day… well, it will be good to learn to look after herself, just in case.
Tidying her up. This one is confusing. She's pretty tidy. As tidy as you can be, anyway, when you don't have many things, you're running and baths don't exist any more. Clem hasn't even seen a tap in weeks. Lee explains it's so walkers can't grab her, though, and that seems like a great idea.
So maybe Chuck's an okay guy after all. Lee seems to think so, and she trusts him, so maybe the guy just has a funny way of showing he's worried about them all, too, even though he just met them.
"You have to learn to protect yourself," Lee says again.
She knows that one. "Like hiding or running away, got it." Or hitting walkers with things when you panic, but that doesn't seem like a good thing to say. She's a big girl. She's not going to say she gets frightened sometimes now, even if they all know she does. Fear won't change anything.
He shakes his head. "I mean with one of these," and he gets a gun out of his pocket. She stares. Guns aren't really strange anymore: she sees them all the time; with walkers around you can never be sure you're safe without a gun and a bunch of bullets, but normally the adults handle them. She's just a kid. Nobody trusts her with a gun, she's not sure she'd trust herself, but now with the way Lee's holding it out to her, it's clear he's giving it to her. Her hand feels frozen at her side.
"Don't be afraid of it," Lee says. "It's just a thing. Here, take it. But know where your finger is all the time, and don't put it on the trigger unless you want to hurt somebody."
She won't be forgetting Lee's orders in a hurry: he knows how to use a gun, she's seen it loads of times, and she knows guns aren't toys. And while part of her is still terrified, there's another part that's smiling, because she can really help now. And Lee trusts her to help, like she trusts him. It's the best feeling.
"Okay." She takes it, and it feels different to how she expected. It's not like a toy gun; it feels real, somehow. Her arm sags downward as it weighs more than she expected, but it makes sense; it's metal, not plastic.
"See, it's not scary!"
"It's heavy."
"You'll get stronger."
He explains the gun to her in terms she understands, so she can use it properly without worrying she's doing it wrong. She kind of hopes she'll never have to use it, but she knows they'll never be that lucky with walkers. They're always around, and sometimes hiding won't be enough. He helps her to steady her hands and fire the gun, and she can actually do it! Lee's so obviously proud it makes her burst into a smile too. She did good.
(Part of her thinks, "What would mom and dad say?" But they wouldn't want the walkers to get her either. And as they cut her hair, even as Lee explains it will help and as much as she knows it's right, she wonders if they'd recognise her now from the little girl they left behind.)
"If three months ago I'd have known what you'd be seeing, I don't know if I'd have taken you with me," Lee says a while later.
Clem blinks. The thought of not having met Lee is actually really scary. She'd have never met such a good friend, but also, what would have happened? There were all those walkers nearby, and Sandra (it's long enough ago now that she can think the name without it hurting) inside her house, and maybe one day she'd have gone in for food and… and…
"I probably would've run out of food," she says.
"You damn near starved with me," he says, and he looks sorry. She doesn't quite understand why: they didn't, and she understands that there isn't really loads of food lying around any more. They aren't the only desperate people who need food and grab it at the first opportunity. It's a life skill. (Clem hated the stealing at first, but as time goes on she can sort of… block it out and pretend it doesn't happen. Because they have to survive somehow, don't they?)
"I'm glad I came with you."
He smiles again, but he doesn't answer. Clem knows, though, that he's glad she's there too. "We're a team," he tells her later, as she reminds him of that plan to find her parents. And they are: a good one.
Later on, the radio crackles. "I'm still looking, Clementine," the man on the other end says. "I think I've almost found them. I'm at a hotel. Just you wait."
"Great!" she says. "Thank you so much."
"When you get to Savannah, you come and find me. I know we'll find them together."
"Lee might not like that," she says. "He's going to help me find my parents too. He promised."
"Lee?" His voice sounds funny, but Clem can't work out why, or what it means. She just knows it makes her frown.
"Yeah, Lee."
"Lee is…?"
"He's my friend! He looks after me. He's looked after me since he found me. He stopped the walkers from getting me. He's my friend," she repeats.
"Right," he says. "Right. You remember, Clementine, you can't tell Lee about me… or I won't be able to help you find your parents any more."
"I said I won't," she says. "I made a promise." She doesn't like the lying, but since she made that promise, it doesn't really matter. She can't say anything, and since now he might be able to find her parents…
"Good girl," he murmurs. "Well, stay sharp, Clementine. I'll keep in touch."
"Bye!" she says, but by then, the radio has already sunk into lifelessness. He's cut it off.
"Why did we leave him?"
Molly spins around from loudly opening cupboards and drawers, hands twitching towards her pockets. She's so jumpy. Clem thinks that maybe if she was bigger, Molly would have tried to hurt her before she really saw her, but Clem's small and easy to see in the light from the doorway.
"Geez, kid, don't do that!" she says, but her face looks funny, like she's trying to hide a smile.
"Why?" she says. "Lee's all alone with all them walkers, maybe he's really hurt!"
"You know why," Molly says. "They'd have got us, too, if we just stood there. You know what it's like out there, kid. You don't stay alive by being nice."
"But he's my friend."
Molly pulls a face. "Even for friends."
Maybe, Clem thinks, this is why Molly is all alone. Maybe she ran… or someone ran from her. But Clem can't leave friends to walkers… it's just not right. She's not sure she could leave people she didn't like to them, either. Nobody deserves what the walkers would do.
"But…" Her voice trails off. What can she say, really? She doesn't think Molly will understand.
"Look, kid," Molly says, her voice softening. "Your friend, Lee, he's a strong guy, right? I'm sure he'll be fine. He's not going to sit there and let them kill him, especially not with a weapon – and I gave him one. He'll be fine."
"I saw," she says. "I saw him open that manhole and I was worried he'd fall and get hurt, and you and Kenny pulled me away before… before…"
"Do you believe in him? Do you think he can look after himself?"
"Of course he can!" she says crossly.
A smile. "Then you don't have anything to worry about, do you?"
Bizarrely, Clementine starts smiling too. "I guess not. Thank you! I'm… I'm sorry if I was a bit mean. I'm just worried?"
"Mean?" Molly laughs. "Kid, for a while I dealt with assholes every day." Clem grimaces at the swear word, but it's not like Lee; she doesn't know her well enough to point it out with a wry smile. "You're just honest – and there's nothing wrong with that."
They both smile at each other again, and then, suddenly shy almost, runs from the room.
Lee will be coming back. And she's going to see what she can do to help.
Clem dreams of a story.
She's trapped in a tower. The walls are endlessly white, there's nothing to look at and all she can do is walk up and down and worry. At first she thought the door was locked, but she can't see a keyhole. She has a funny feeling the door won't ever open again.
At least the bad guys can't get in, either.
There's a window. It doesn't have glass it in, and she can lean out, but it's too high to jump. She tried to climb up and sit on it once, but she was frozen there, by fear or magic or both.
One day, she looks out of the window and sees a man, staring up at her. She's so surprised to see somebody that she almost forgets to talk, but luckily he starts the conversation.
"Hello!" says the man, and it's too far down to see his face. She can't make out any features. Maybe it's some prince or some knight, a hero who can solve everything all by himself. "I'm looking for someone."
"Who are you looking for?" she shouts, and he actually hears her. It shouldn't be possible, but it is.
"A girl I promised to look after," he says. "She got lost, and I have to find her."
"I think I can help you! I have an idea."
She reaches up to her short bundle of hair and unfastens the hair tie. As she grabs hold of the hair, it lengthens in her hands, like she's pulling fistfuls of hair out of her head but they aren't coming out; they're just stretching. She fixes it in a long plait. The man waits patiently; he can't see what she's doing, but it seems he trusts that it's something that will help.
"Here!" she calls, and leans over so that her hair tumbles down the wall and reaches the man. "You can use it like a rope and climb it!"
"Thank you," he says, and he starts climbing. It doesn't hurt; she can't even feel his hands, and he climbs up there easily.
"There!" She turns around with a smile. "You did it, Sir Kni-" She cuts herself off. He's no knight. He's not a prince either.
"Clementine!" the man says, and breaks into a smile. Clem wakes up with an image of Lee's face hovering in front of her eyes before ducking out of reach, and it hurts more than ever that he's not there.
(Not long after, Lee really does show up and rescue her, but it's not a fairy tale at all. Because a fairy tale ending is too much to wish for, really, isn't it?)
It all collapses at once. It isn't just one thing; it's everything. There's a crowd of walkers pressing around them and at any minute they might realise something's wrong, then she sees her parents and part of her wants to run to them while the other part wants to run in the opposite direction and never stop running. She thinks it can't get any worse, but then Lee murmurs something too quietly to be heard, and she turns around from her trance to ask him and he's fallen to the floor, unmoving.
"Lee!" she shouts, but he lies there like he's deaf. She grabs his only arm and shakes it. "Get up, get up!"
Some of the walkers turn. Clem had panicked, and now she realises that shouting was a really bad idea. She's given them away. She stares around her in desperation, and sees a shutter just barely open. It isn't far. It's the only option. She drags Lee best as she can, her arms too small to lift him and straining from even the effort. She thinks she might be scratching him up pretty bad, but Lee would understand. It's better to be hurt than dead. Clem's learned that.
She doesn't know quite how she gets him there and wrenches the door open a little bit more, just enough that they can fit through. She's never had that kind of strength before, but maybe desperation has brought out something in her that nothing else can. She can't die, and neither can Lee. He's only at that stupid hotel because of her in the first place. She practically slams the shutter down behind her, breathing heavily.
Her mom and dad are dead. She has to keep focusing on Lee, because when she doesn't, it's all she can think. They're dead. This is it. Nothing's ever going to go back to normal again, even if all the walkers go away. She doesn't have anyone left except Lee.
One of Lee's fingers twitches. She jumps at him, right in his face.
"Lee! Wake up, please don't be dead, please no."
His eyes begin to open. She'd hoped that would make him look better, but it just makes him look worse. His face is grey and pinched, and his clothes are covered in blood and who knows what else. He looks like he couldn't get up to save his life, but that's okay. They have time. Nothing else can get inside with them.
"Lee! I was so scared… I… I thought you'd left me… I… I saw my parents…" She's crying now, and she's angry at herself because she never cries. Crying doesn't help solve anything; it just makes you even sadder than before. This is what a world filled with walkers has taught her.
"It's a good thing," he says.
She blinks, hoping she's misunderstood. He wouldn't say… maybe he didn't see them before he fell over (except it wasn't really a fall, was it? Clem knows what a fall look like, and this wasn't one. But it can't be anything else. She can't let it be. He just found her again!). "Lee, they're dead! They really are."
He doesn't seem surprised. "But you know," he says, voice still a croak. "You're going to be sad for a very long time, but you know what happened to them. When we get somewhere safe, let it all out."
Lee's willing to let spare her a moment to cry, and the kindness makes her want to cry even more. "Okay. Okay."
His eyes look a bit more focused now, roaming around the room she's shut them up in as if he expects a walker to appear any minute. She waits for a 'good work' for managing to get him away from all those walkers, or a 'thank you', because that's the sort of guy Lee is. But instead, he says seriously, "Clementine, we have to get out of this room as fast as we can."
Clem wonders if he hit his head; he must remember how bad it was out there. Maybe he'd forgotten? "We can't! There's thousands of them outside!" she reminds him.
"We have to. I'll protect you; we'll push through them."
They'd been trying that before, but it hadn't worked. And… and Clem's not sure she wants to go back outside right now. If she sees her parents again, with that blank expression on their face showing they don't even recognise her, she thinks she might scream, and then they really will be dead. "No, no, that's crazy!" She's as stubborn as Lee when she thinks it's needed. "I saved you; we're safe here. I locked us in."
"Get that door open." It's Lee's giving an order voice. She's heard it before, but not directed at her… at least not without a walker in front of her. She's so used to it, she begins moving before she's even really understood what he's said. You don't argue with that voice, because it saves your life. Lee's done it before, and he'll do it again.
The problem is, it won't open. It's jammed, and the strength Clem had to get it open in the first place seems to have left her. She's just a little girl again, feeling smaller and more useless by the minute. "I can't!"
"Do it!"
"It was only a little open when I found it. I closed it to keep us safe."
Lee shuffles over to help. It's not a proper walk. Even back when she'd met him and he had a sore leg, she'd never seen him walk so bad. He even tried to run on it, then, and got by okay. Now, it's almost a crawl. "Pull on three," he says. "One. Two. Three."
She does, but it doesn't work. She didn't think it would, and she doesn't think Lee thought it would either. Even if he looked okay, he still only has one arm to pull with. But it seems they had to try. She can't say she's sorry it doesn't work, though, since it means the walkers can't get in either. They're too stupid.
"Clementine, honey," Lee says, and his voice is so soft she knows something's wrong. She hopes it'll just be something about her parents… nothing will surprise her about them anymore, so maybe it won't be so bad. It's nothing to do with that, though, and she feels it so much more as it's really so much worse: "My arm is gone because I cut it off."
It takes her a minute to understand, because the words he is saying don't make any sense at all. "Why would you do that?"
"Because I was bitten, Clem."
The world seems to stop for a moment. No. No, no, no. She's just lost her parents (she lost her parents months ago). It's horrible, but she can manage with Lee; he's looked after her for so long, and she'd quite happily stay with him and help out forever. But now Lee, too…? It's impossible.
"Please, no. No," she babbles, "That's not true."
"Yes, it is." He's being so kind that it's cruel.
He must see her panic, because he says, "It's going to be okay. You're going to be okay. We just have to think."
She wonders if he sees her guilt, too. If she hadn't talked to that man… if he hadn't taken her and wouldn't let her see Lee… if he hadn't had to fight through all of those walkers to get in, maybe he wouldn't be bitten, and everything would be… okay, if not good. And she wouldn't have to close her eyes and see her parents with all those other walkers, and knowing they were just the same and maybe one day somebody would have to shoot them to be safe…
She breathes, and tries to calm down. "Okay." She looks around the room too, and points at an area she'd spotted before, but had barely taken in during her panic. "I think there might be a way out over there."
"Good. Good girl." He starts pushing himself up, and it looks so painful she wants to tell him not to bother, but there's no time for that now. If they don't get out… "Let's go. I might be a little slow."
Lee's helped her so much, she knows she can help him too, and eagerly runs over. "I'll help you. I got you. You can lean on me if you have to. " She helps to steady him, but he still needs to feel his way along the furniture to even make a step. He's getting worse, and she's beginning to realise that pretending isn't going to make it go away.
"I'm okay, I'm okay…"
"I thought I was helping by bringing you here."
"Oh, you did, honey." He sounds so surprised she has to turn and stare, as it's obvious she's got something wrong. "It's awful out there, they woulda chewed me up…"
She hadn't thought about that, but it's true. If she's saved Lee from that, then at least she's done something good.
"It was hard," she admits.
"I don't know how you did it but you did good, okay?"
She feels Lee fumbling next to her. "Keep going; we're almost there." He manages a few more steps, but then he just tumbles over and she can't get him up this time. He can't even get himself up, though she does try. "Get up, Lee, the door's right here!"
"I can't."
"You have to!"
"Clem, I can't move. This is it for me here."
"Please try to get up," she says tearfully, but she knows he's trying. She just can't admit it, because if she does it's like saying she knows it's too late to save him.
Lee can't die. He just can't.
As he tries to push himself up the wall and can't even manage that, though, it's obvious he's just getting weaker and weaker. His face is only getting greyer. He's still trying to help her, but he can't do anything now but give out orders. She's good at following them, though. Lee's already taught her so much, and now's when some of it is going to be tested.
She follows Lee's instructions with a heavy heart, because this is it, she can hear his voice faltering and she knows he's sick. He's really sick and she doesn't want him to die but she's realising that he will, now. That's what he's been trying to tell her. He doesn't have long left. She wants this moment to last forever, since at least Lee will be there, but time is running out now and she has to hurry and tears are running down her cheeks because this is all wrong.
Even barely able to move, Lee is still fighting to protect her when that walker goes for her. But Clem has learned to look after herself, now, and him being there is really all that she needs. She can do it, but only thanks to Lee.
She gets to her feet, a dead walker next to her and gun and keys in hand, and turns to look at Lee. She doesn't want to go. He looks like he's only still awake because he's trying, really trying, for her.
"Hey," he says quietly, as she kneels down in front of him so he can get a good look at her. His eyes don't seem to be working so good any more. "You're strong, Clem. You… you can do anything."
But only because of you, she wants to say, but she doesn't want to make him sadder. So it's the other thought, the other worry, that she mentions. "But… I'm little."
"Doesn't mean nothin'. You're going to see bad stuff, but it's okay."
She's seen plenty of bad stuff happen to people she cares about, but it's the people she cares about the most it really hurts with. Her parents. Lee. "My parents… it's so horrible."
"I can't imagine, sweet pea."
"And now you…? Please… please don't be one of them. Please don't become a walker."
Soon, she thinks, all the people she cares about will be walkers, and she'll be the only person there. And the worst bit is that she could run into any of those people (her mom, her dad, Lee…) and they could kill her, because she's just a person to them and that's what they do. It's nothing special.
"There's only thing you can do. You know that…"
Is he suggesting…? Or even stranger, offering…?
"I don't know if I can," she admits, voice even smaller than she is.
"You have to shoot me, honey," he tells her, and this order is the one that makes her freeze up.
"Lee, no…"
"It's okay, it's okay. It's for your safety, Clem. If you don't get out in time."
"But I can wait until then."
"No, honey. You can't. You can't risk it." It's obvious how much Lee cares, letting her to do this, and telling her he won't be mad about it. Part of her thinks she cares too much to hold a gun to his head (it's totally different when it's a walker, or a bad man, but this is her friend, who'd been like a dad to her), but the other part thinks she cares too much not to.
"It is like Larry, huh? I know you did it to protect me."
"Yes. You just have to do it. It'll be okay. You don't want to see me like one of them."
Lee doesn't want to be a walker, either, any more than she wants to see him as one.
"Okay Lee," she says, and now she's sobbing openly because it's all so unfair. The walkers and the dying and the people and her friends and she's lose everything now. Everything. "I can do it. I can."
"Find Omid and Christa," he says, so at least it seems that they're okay. He hasn't said anything about the others. That probably means… no, not more people. "They're probably lookin' for us right now. Stay on high ground. Don't go too far. You'll find them. They'll take good for you."
She'll find them. This… this might be one of the last things Lee says, so she has to treasure it, like it's more important than any jewels.
His advice isn't over yet. "And Clem… always keep moving. You're going to want to find some place like the motor inn, but that's just not safe."
"Why not?"
"Those places are just targets. Move. As much as you can."
It scares her, the idea of never being able to call anywhere home and having to travel all the time, with barely anybody she knows, but she knows Lee is right, too. How often have the walkers found them in buildings? Or if not walkers, bandits? Because even though there are walkers now, there are still bad people out there too. There's just more bad guys than ever.
"And also…"
He doesn't say anything for a moment, and his eyes drift closed. Is he… "What, what is it?" she asks, hoping to prompt him.
"No, don't worry… All right…"
She wants to ask what he means, maybe it's really important, but she knows time is running out and he looks so tired… maybe he's too tired to say any more, even if they both know he's probably not going to wake up from his next nap.
"I'll miss you," he says instead.
"Me too," she says honestly, and tears are streaming down her face. She wants him to know how much he means to her, too. She can't give advice like her gave to her, but she can give him that. She hopes it'll make him feel better, in some small way.
She stares to get up, the gun still clutched in her shaking hands. She still can't believe it's come down to this… how has it...
She raises the gun and points it at his forehead. Lee's eyes are drooping, and his breathing getting slower. Clem stands there and points that gun with a heavy heart, and counts the breaths.