Surviving out there
Spoilers for ALL TWDG. Clementine and AJ had been in Wellington for eight years, until the community finally fell. Now it's back to survival of the fittest, but what do an eight year old and Clementine have against a run down, picked clean world? It's time to put their survival skills to the test, but AJ is starting to ask Clem about his family. Is he really ready to know?
"Clementine! Clementiiiiiiiiine!" Clem suddenly heard. She was sat, slumped in her and AJ's section of Wellington - enough for two sleeping bags, supplies and a target range worth of space - cleaning her gun.
"AJ?" She said, looking up. A small child with curly black hair escaping from beneath an orange baseball cap came running towards her, grinning.
"I was talking with Jasmeena, and she like, has cake. Like, they've literally found actual ingredients to make a cake! Can you believe it? How awesome is that?" He was bouncing up and down. "Jas says that it might be like, flat and a bit gooey because she had to bake it over a flame, and the flour might be no good, but still - it's cake!"
Smiling wistfully, Clem sat up to face AJ. "I can't remember the last time I ate cake..."
"I do!" Beamed the energetic AJ. "It was my fourth birthday, and it was your turn on the rota to leave and go hunting for 7Q, and you found some old storage unit and there was cake! Only, like, a little bad."
"So I cut the bad bits off, snuck it in and we had it all to ourselves, I remember." Clementine was grinning wildly. She quickly lifted AJ off his feet. He squirmed and struggled, but at 19 Clementine was strong. They were both giggling in the end. "Ah, I miss treats." Clem sighed as she put him down.
AJ's eyes widened. "So, wait, you weren't kidding when you said that, like, back before the bad time, people could just go to places and buy as many treats as they wanted? That was all true?"
Clementine nodded. "Sure as. They were called stores. Not just treats, either. Clothes and food and meds and all kinds of super cool stuff. I found some stickers the other day, the ones I put on our packs. Those came from a store once,"
AJ looked mesmerised. "So, can we have some of Jasmeena's cake or what?"
"Did she say you could?" Clem asked. AJ nodded. "And did you say please and thank you?" He nodded again. She grinned, nodding. "Go for it. Remember, only a little bit. You didn't make it, it's not yours."
AJ was beaming, a ball of energy. He began to run to Sector 6Q, where his friend Jasmeena stayed, but tripped. Getting up, his hair tangled inside his hat. Clementine frowned. His hair was getting too long, as was hers for that matter.
She took out a pair of scissors and began to snip to the right length. The strands of hair standing out visibly in the snow. Wellington didn't have a roof, so during the late winter months Clementine had a make shift roof of her own, covering her's and AJ's section with a bit of scaffolding and poles.
Shivering, she pulled on a black jacket with badges of rainbows and sunshines and more that AJ had traded from Jasmeena in exchange for food one christmas.
No, there wasn't a roof, but there was a wall. A great big wall that towered over her. Clementine often wished she could go the other side; for good, or at least for fun, not like on hunting trips. Well technically she could; this wasn't like Carver's camp. She could leave if she wished. But it wasn't for the best. Christa and Kenny, and all those what-ifs and maybes and buts, they were all gone now. She had to stay this side of the wall. Not only for AJ's safety, but her own too.
"Clementine! Look!" She suddenly heard. AJ came charging back, two pieces of cake in his hands.
Clementine waved, brushing dead hair from her shoulders and re-tying them into small bunches. "Amazing," she grinned, taking her slice. AJ wolfed his down in two bites.
"That was the tastiest thing I've ever had ever!" He grinned. "Even if the bottom was a bit gooey,"
Clementine grimaced at what was to come. "I'm glad. Hand me your hat, Alvie."
His look of happiness quickly faded into horror and suspicion. "...why?"
Clem sighed, lifting up a pair of scissors. "Why do you think?"
"No. Nuh uh. Haircuts are stupid!" AJ protested, coving his hair with his arms.
"You can have my piece of cake if you sit still and let me do this," AJ frowned, contemplating. Eventually, he picked Clem's cake up and munched on it happily, shrugging.
Untangling his hat, Clementine placed it on the floor and began to snip at AJ's hair.
"Why do we have to cut our hair anyway?" He asked.
"So walkers can't grab us so easily."
"But the walkers are out THERE, and we're in HERE. I can grow it super duper long and it won't matter, because there aren't any walkers inside Wellington," groaned AJ.
Clementine shrugged as she continued to snip. "You can never be too careful Alvie. Communities don't last forever,"
AJ shrugged. "We've lasted nine years."
"The world lasted billions of years before the walkers."
"Why do we even need guns, besides for hunting. We don't need to kill anyone, or anything, so why can't we just stay here till we grow old and die?" AJ huffed.
Clementine sighed. Had she been this inquisitive with Lee? "Because, AJ, if we grow old and then die, our brain hasn't been destroyed, so we would come back. If we don't have guns to prevent them from happening, then that one person could infect all of us. And like I said, places like this don't last forever."
"So that's why we constantly have all our stuff packed up?"
"Essentials. You'll thank me when this place goes to rubbish and we're not left with nothing but the clothes on our backs and a weapon each."
"Okay." He sighed, looking down. She finished cutting then brushed off any excess hair. She shooed him away. "All done."
Alvin Junior stood up, feeling his hair. "Thanks Clem," he put his cap back on. "Clem?" He began.
"Yeah?" Clementine said, looking up.
"Jasmeena is always talking about her mom and dad. Who's my mom and dad? Are you my mom?"
Clem couldn't help stifling a laugh at that. "No, no I'm definitely not. Your mom and dad...they're..."
Clementine took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and remembered. Something that hurt to remember (then again, all her memories hurt). When he's grown, you tell him about his mommy and his daddy, and all the people that tried to keep him safe.
"AJ they're..." She got cut off by a scream. A loud, excruciating scream like one she hadn't heard since before Wellington. Quickly, she picked up her gun and handed AJ his.
"You okay to shoot AJ?" She asked, quickly getting to her feet. He nodded - shakily, a little unsure - but he nodded. "Good." Others had taken the same stance, wandering closer to the screaming. Until it stopped.
And turned into groaning.
"Shoot! It's a walker!" Clem exclaimed, firing at the dead man's head. It went down, but the groaning didn't stop.
Through the speakers, an announcement rang. "The entirity of sectors 4Q, 6Q, 9R and 14P are infected. We are giving all non infected thirty seconds to evacuate the surrounding areas," grabbing AJ's hand, Clementine ran backwards, her gun still pointing to the small hoard of walkers.
"No! No Clem! We have to go back for Jasmeena!" AJ insisted.
"She'll...She'll get out! We've got to keep going AJ!" Clementine insisted. Suddenly, a timer came blasting down from the speakers. 10...9...8...
"AJ keep going," there were screaming and shouting. More loved ones lost.
7...6...5...
They were back at their section in sector 7Q. If Clementine knew anything about survival, it was that you had to learn from past experience. The outbreak wasn't contained in the first days - so why would it be now? And Sector 6Q was alarmingly close to 7Q...
Clem was just thankful she'd cut AJ's hair.
"AJ! GET OUR BAGS!"
"What?" AJ looked horrified. "We can't leave, it's sa-"
"-Safe? Look at this! This isn't safe! Quickly AJ! This is not a request!" Clem didn't like to be dominant to AJ, but she had no choice. She wasn't going to die just because she was too soft to yell a command.
AJ ran off and returned with two back packs and a couple of kit bags, the same style that Edith had given Kenny 8 years ago when she had to make the choice whether or not to stay with Kenny, or do what was best for AJ.
Her heart felt tight in her chest from that memory. At least this has been the best choice for eight, almost nine, years.
AJ threw Clem's purple backpack and the green kit bags to her as he slipped on his own backpack. The countdown had finished, and bombs had been detonated. Anyone, living or undead, in sectors 4Q, 6Q, 9R and 14P were gone.
The throwback had killed, but for others that it didn't obliterate, it didn't touch the brain. "Shoot, they're just mass producing walkers!" Exclaimed Clem.
She looked left, right and straight to the doors. All were blocked by walkers, screaming families or shrapnel. "WHERE DO WE GO?" AJ yelled over the screeching and groaning.
Clementine continued to look around, but in the end there was only one way.
"Up."
"What? Are you, like, crazy? We can't go up! Last I checked, we can't fly!" Yelled AJ.
Clem took a pickaxe from inside her jacket, looking at it thoughtfully. "No, we can't. But we can climb."
AJ looked skeptical, and terrified, but there wasn't any other way out. There was a stray piece of rope, which she used to tie her and AJ together. "Will this hold?" AJ asked.
"It had better," Clementine shrugged, heart pounding in her chest. The adrenaline was pumping through her as she stuck the pickaxe in a metal board and kicked upwards. She latched on to another board, freed the pickaxe and continued to climb. AJ was screaming loudly; Clementine was doing her best to hold her yelling in too.
When they got to the top, Clementine dared to look down. She couldn't help the small scream that escaped her lips then. "We're in trouble," she whispered. Thankfully, AJ didn't hear.
"Jasmeena!" AJ suddenly cried. "NO! NO JASMEENA!" At closer inspection of the ground, Clementine saw AJ's friend Jasmeena, just 9 years old, and her older sister becoming food for an angry looking walker. The walker that used to be a living being not five minutes before, that Clementine probably often interacted with.
She didn't know what to do, so she kept climbing, just a couple of feet till she reached the top.
"AJ, AJ, I know you're upset, but you have to listen to me." He looked scared; tears streaking down his face. She took her hat off, and his, then stuffed it in her bag. No point risking them flying off. "Come on kid, you trust me right?" AJ nodded. "Then we need to do this. I've got the pickaxe securely over the other side, okay? When I say so, we both hurl our body weight over the other side."
"Are- are you crazy?" Stammered AJ. "We'll fall and die!"
"The pickaxe is in the wall, and I'm holding onto the pickaxe. We've made it this far, so we can do it, okay? This is the toughest part, then we're half way there." Slowly, AJ nodded, and Clem forced a grin at him.
"Okay, on three. One...Two..." She pushed down on the wall and threw herself over the other side. AJ screamed, and she did a little too, but Clementine kept ahold of the pickaxe. They were safe. Kind of.
"Are you okay AJ?" Clementine asked, looking down at him. He was tearful, and clearly distraught, but nodded. As long as physically he was okay. Clem could address his mentality later. She began to scale down until they firmly landed into the snow.
AJ was shaking with cold and stress, crying hard. They looked back at the walls one last time, till it truly sunk in that she was on her own. Well, they were alone. No more community. No more safe sleeping. No more friends. Just survival of the fittest outside.
"We have to go. Who knows if those walls are gonna break!" She tugged AJ's hand, running far away into the trees. Memories came bombarding back at her, but she fought them off. Eventually, she had to put AJ on her back to keep them at a good pace.
AJ knew how to shoot a gun, he'd killed a couple of walkers before. He knew that food was limited, and so were meds. AJ knew how to survive. But he hadn't seen anything so awful - a full scale walker attack in which one of his closest friends was killed - before. Clementine had survived before the safety of Wellington, AJ had never, apart from when he was a baby. It was new and terrifying. She was the same age when she got exposed to all the Hell of a world of the undead. At least AJ had a training advantage.
Clementine ran. She ran till her lungs burned and vision blurred and and limbs ached. Ran till she couldn't hear the gun shots or groaning of walkers of screams of dying living.
Setting AJ down, she slumped a kit bag against a tree and sat on it, trying to catch her breath.
"Clem- clementine?" Stammered AJ. He was sat on a bag too, huddled into himself.
"Yeah?"
"Do you- do you think Jasmeena is okay?" He looked up at her, tears drying on his cheeks.
Clementine sighed, pulling AJ forward. "Look, I really, desperately want to say she might be but...you saw what happened, AJ. Jasmeena's gone." She heard him sob, so pulled him closer to her embrace. "It sucks, I know. AJ...we might not be able to go back to Wellington. Which means we have to do some travelling." She took out their hats, putting her's back on before pushing AJ away.
"AJ, remember how you asked about your family before..." He nodded. "Still wanna know?" He nodded.
Clementine put his hat aside and went looking for wood. She wasn't gone long. The pieces were still a little damp from the snow but, with a little coaxing from her lighter, she got a fire going.
"Where do you want to start?" She asked him.
"Was I with you when you were with Lee?" He asked her.
She shook her head. "No, I mean...do you want to start with when I met your parents, and their group, or when you were born?"
AJ shrugged, looking down into the fire. Sighing, Clementine began. "I suppose after Omid died. We should start there.
Christa and I got separated after some bandits jumped us. For a few hours I was alone, even got mauled by a dog. Then, when a whole load of walkers came down on me, two guys called Luke and Pete came out of the woods. Shooting and stabbing, they picked me up and took me back to their cabin.
No one trusted me at first. The dog bite looked like a walker one, so they locked me in a shed. Your mom hated me especially,"
"So my mom wasn't a nice person?" Scowled AJ.
"No! She was really nice, it just took her a while to trust me."
"Why didn't they trust you?"
Clem hung her head. They were just getting started and it was still far too difficult for her to recall. "There was this man; William, or Bill, Carver. He ran a place much like Wellington, except you were forced into labour, and you could never leave. They managed to escape, but he wanted them back. They were on the run from this guy, and were worried I was with him and was just trying to scope them out."
"Oh...so why-"
"We're just at the beginning here AJ. I escaped and fixed my arm, so when I proved I wasn't bitten they allowed me into the group. It was made up of six adults called Luke, Nick, Pete, Alvin, Rebecca and Carlos, then Carlos's teenage daughter, Sarah."
"Were any of them my parents?" AJ asked. He was shivering, but he closed in on the fire as he spoke.
Clementine nodded. "Rebecca and Alvin. That's why are you're called Alvin Junior, after your daddy." AJ smiled weakly, still looking into the fire. He outstretched his hands to warm them; Clem did the same. "Luke was real nice. Nick was confused. Alvin was okay. Rebecca hated me, and so did Carlos. Sarah was...different, and Pete was great. At first.
The next day I went fishing with Pete and Nick. There were dead all over. As in, actual shot-in-the-head dead, not walkers. Till, eventually, walkers did descend on us. Pete got bitten and died. Nick was an emotional wreck."
"That sucks."
Clementine sighed. You don't know the half of it, AJ. "So I ran back to the cabin without Pete or Nick. Luke and Alvin, your dad, had already gone looking for us. When hearing what happened, your mom and Carlos insisted to go look too, which left me alone with Sarah.
...AJ, the thing about Sarah was...uh...she was real sweet. But her dad had tried his hardest to protect her to the point she couldn't really function without him. Totally dependant. Couldn't hunt or shoot or fix a wound...so I had to lie about what was happening. But not before she took a photo of me and her, then asked to be shown how to use a gun. I tried, I did, but then there was a knock at the door..."
"Was it that Carver guy?" AJ asked, sitting up. Clem nodded. "What happened?"
"He came in, scoped the place out, found Sarah's Goddamn photo, then left. When the group came back it was clear it wasn't safe to stay in the cabin, so we went off. Five days we walked, till eventually we found a bridge. Luke and I attempted to cross it, till we got attacked by walkers. When we eventually finished fighting them, we met a guy. He was super nice, but before he could help us, Nick...he...he was still a little emotionally unstable. Shot the guy straight in the neck."
"Oh my God!" Exclaimed AJ.
She carried on explaining uninterrupted till she got to Kenny. "He was still alive! Oh my God! That rocks!"
His reactions were appropriate, until she got to Carver's camp. "So why did this guy have an obsession with mom?"
"Uh..." Did she tell him? It wasn't something that, essentially, he needed to know. "He was crazy, AJ. He thought that you were his son, not Alvin."
"But...but he's not my dad is he? The crazy guy isn't my dad?"
Clementine shook her head. "No AJ, Carver is most certainly not your dad. So, where were we?"
"Luke had just spoke to you in the comic store." AJ explained.
"Right, so then Troy tells me to go up to Carver's office. I do, your mom is leaving as I go. Crying. When I get there your dad, he..." She huffed, looking directly at AJ. "Alvin Junior, you know your parents aren't..."
"...Alive? Yeah, I..I do." Just as his tears had dried, a single tear slid down his face again.
"Well, he's in a chair. Beaten up and bloody and bruised and..."
She carries on until they reach the Civil War site. "So Sarita is bitten?"
"Yeah. When I tried to talk to Kenny about it, he was screaming and yelling it was my fault."
"It wasn't!" AJ insisted.
"I know, but..." She shivered and shook her head. "Okay. So your mom is about to have you, so we're looking for a place so that she can, you know, do that."
"Gross!"
Clementine carried on, talking about the museum and the Racoon, Jane and the gift shop and refusing the rob Arvo, then when they got to the deck she skimmed over the details of Rebecca actually giving birth, as well as Jane and Luke's little session, which she now realised (after a bit of explanation from a few people in Wellington when she was thirteen) was a little more than just 'kissing and stuff'.
"You were born, and you were super cute. Jane left some time after that. It was getting cold, so we set off the next day to try and reach the city in the distance. Who knows how many supplies that were there, but...Arvo was there. We didn't actually take his things, but he wasn't too happy about being roughed up by Jane. There was shooting and firing - and eventually, we won. Luke got shot, and it was a wonder you didn't go deaf after hearing all that gunfire, but we came out okay."
"What did you do with him? He seems super mean!"
"Well, AJ, in amongst all the firing...your mom was so weak and cold after giving birth. She died of hypothermia."
"But, but that means her brain didn't get destroyed!" AJ exclaimed.
"I...I had to shoot her. She was a walker, okay? Your mom was a wonderful person who, if I thought was still alive, would never kill. But you were in her arms, AJ! If we left her, you'd have been bitten."
He looked distraught; tears pouring freely. "It's okay, I understand Clementine."
Taking a deep breath and relighting the dwindling fire, Clementine explained how Jane returned and Kenny nearly killed Arvo. How Luke drowned under the ice and Bonnie, Arvo and Mike all ran off and abandoned her.
"Arvo even shot me."
"What! That ass!"
"Language, AJ." Clementine scolded.
"When I was unconscious, I had a dream about Lee. When I woke up, Jane and Kenny were in the car, arguing over some random shit. Eventually, we had to stop..."
Clementine carried on explaining, until she got to the fight scene with Kenny. "So Jane told you and Kenny I was dead?" AJ exclaimed after a moment.
"Yeah. They got pretty brutal. Eventually, I knew I had a choice. Remember, I thought you were dead, so I could look away and give Jane the punishment she deserved, or recognise she still needed to live, and Kenny was getting out of hand and shoot him. I didn't want to do either, but two alpha leaders couldn't coexist together. So I looked away, I couldn't kill Kenny."
"So he's alive?" Frowned AJ.
"The story's almost over. We found you, crying in the backseat of the car. We began to walk North and, after a few days, found Wellington. They weren't accepting entries. They were at full capacity. So Kenny persuaded them to let the kids, you and me, in." She nodded to his hat. "Told me that, when you were old enough, to make you wear this thing. It was his own hat. I remember, he said to me, when he's grown, you tell him about his mommy and his daddy, and all the people that tried to keep him safe. So that's what I'm doing. Me, Kenny, Rebecca, Alvin, Carlos, Sarah, Jane - in her own way - Bonnie, Mike, Luke, Nick, and so many others...they all tried to keep you safe, before and after you were born."
"And now Wellington's fallen." He breathed.
Looking around, Clem saw that - whilst it wasn't dark - the sun was drawing in. "C'mon, we've been sat here too long. We need to find shelter for the night."
"We could...we could try and find Kenny! Or Christa! You said they didn't die, right?" AJ beamed.
"I said I didn't know what happened to Christa, and sure, Kenny was alive when I last saw him, but that was eight years ago. The outside is a dangerous, picked clean society. He might not have made it AJ."
"But- but..."
She handed him is backpack and kitbag, stomped out their fire, and took hold of AJ's hand. "Okay, kid. We have to go. Come on,"
"Where? What now?"
Clementine shrugged, looking around at the wilderness of a forest covered in snow. "Now? We walk, AJ. We walk."
This was a little silly, but I just loved the idea of Clem and AJ surviving in the outside world together as she tells him about his family. Imagine if they actually found Kenny or Christa? Haha!
Please review, no hate please.