"Will you let me walk by myself, Louis?"
It was the third time Louis's hand had grazed hers in an attempt to help her up over a fallen trunk. She heard Aasim chuckle from behind them and she glared in his direction. The man made a motion of zipping his mouth and continued strolling, suddenly very interested in his shoelaces.
"I'm just worried, is all," Louis said, attempting to keep his distance as per her request. "Are you feeling okay?"
Clem chuckled despite herself, and smiled at her husband. "Like I told you a half hour ago, I'm fine," she reminded him, patting his shoulder. "I'm not letting anything happen to the little guy."
"Or girl," he added, smiling broadly.
"You're really hung up on that, huh?" Aasim said, finally having the courage to speak to them as he caught up.
"Dude, having a daughter would, like, make my world," Louis exclaimed, stumbling over his own words.
"Yeah, but a boy is so much easier to deal with," Aasim argued, "Look at AJ, for instance."
"I'll have to give the point to Aasim here," Clem put in, making Louis turn to her and frown. "A boy might be a little terror when he's younger, but once a girl gets to puberty, we'll be dealing with a whole other level."
"Okay, you guys are crazy," the freckled man said, shaking his head. "Plus, we weren't that great when we hit puberty," he added, gesturing to Aasim and himself.
"Are you sure you really ever hit puberty?" teased Aasim. Both he and Clementine laughed, and Louis rolled his eyes, though he didn't really care. It had been exactly a week since he'd found out he was going to be a father, and his elation had not quite vanished yet.
The sun was already at its highest, and the warm feeling of the spring weather was washed over them like a cloth. After the grueling winter they'd endured, this was a welcome change of pace. As they finally found the wooden fence through which Clementine had crawled a week earlier, Aasim lifted a rather heave looking board out of the way and let Clementine and Louis through. After a quick scan of the perimeter, Louis held the board high for the other man to crawl through the gap.
"We really should scour the area a bit more," Aasim suggested, looking around. "If the convenience store still had stuff in it, who knows what other things we might find."
"I agree," said Clem nodding, "I'll go check the rest of the store. I didn't get a chance to sightsee last time," she chuckled.
"Alright, I'll go check the south part of the neighborhood," Louis suggested, running his hands through his hair. Clementine kissed him on the cheek before setting forth into the store ahead of her, rotting carcasses of dead animals lying around decaying corpses. She heard Louis mumble something to Aasim as she entered and started walking the aisles, examining the shelves.
Most of the stuff she saw were empty containers of various products, long expired or ransacked in the first lootings when the world first went to shit. Birds flew through the cracked windows, perching themselves on the high beams of the store. Twenty minutes of useless searching later, she had only found two cans of peaches and half a bag of baby formula. "Hope this doesn't go bad before she's born," she muttered to herself, startled when another voice followed hers.
"So you think it's gonna be a girl," Aasim said from behind her, deftly catching the bag that fell out of her hands in mid air.
"Damn it, Aasim," she swore, slapping him on the shoulder. "You scared the shit out of me!"
"Sorry, I was just checking in."
"Did Louis put you up to this?" she asked irritably.
"Nope, I'm just as worried as him," he promised, nodding. "Besides, we wouldn't want anything happening to Louis Junior here."
"Believe me, if it is a boy, we're not calling him Louis Jr." she said. "One of him is enough."
"Amen to that."
Chuckling, they kept rummaging through empty boxes, coming up empty most of the time. Once they cleared the store, they left what little supplies they'd found in a box near the entrance so as not to forget them. As they walked out of the store and toward a broken down house, Aasim sighed.
"You know Louis is just looking out for you, right?" he said, casting a sideways glance at her.
"I know," she admitted. A squirrel perched itself on a dumpster, staring at them as they went by. "It just gets annoying at times. He knows I can take care of myself, right?"
"He does," Aasim assured her. "But I think he's scared."
"Scared? Why?"
"Well, he's always been pretty terrified of what could happen to you," he explained, frowning. "Don't tell him I said that."
"I won't, don't worry," she said, smiling at him. They entered the house through a huge gaping hole that led to the living room. Planks were scattered around the place, rotten splinters sticking out at odd angles. Clem spotted a teddy bear lying on a moldy mattress in the corner of the room, and half a children's book, most of its pages scattered on the floor.
"What I'm saying is, he's now doubly terrified of what would happen to you and the baby, so just cut him some slack."
"I guess I should," she admitted, kneeling beside the mattress and taking the teddy bear. Its left ear had been ripped off, and its synthetic fur was spotted with mud and grime. She turned it in her hands, imagining the small hands of a baby holding it, chuckling at nothing in particular. "Hey, Aasim?" she asked suddenly, standing up.
"Yeah?" he called out from the kitchen, where he'd been searching. He came out holding three cans of beans, and almost dropped them when she saw a tear falling from Clem's eyes. Clementine never cried… "What is it?"
"What if I'm a terrible mother?"
Taken aback by the question, Aasim shook his head. He stepped forward, setting the cans on a splintered coffee table, and placed a hand on her shoulder. "How can you ask yourself that? Have you seen AJ?"
"That's different," she argued, looking down and fumbling with the teddy bear's ears. Aasim took note of it.
"How so?" he inquired, genuinely intrigued. He leaned against the wall and studied her expression.
"I didn't know what I was doing half the time," she began, "and in his first years I had a lot of help." Looking up for the first time and locking eyes with Aasim, she said "I don't know if this was the best idea."
Pursing his lips, Aasim sat beside her on the mattress. He looked at the teddy bear in her hands, and was reminded of one he had a child. His had been called Fuzzy, and he would have him in bed every night. His mother said it was his lucky bear…
"I don't think you had much choice in the matter," he said slowly, attempting the comedic route that Louis would have taken. "These things just happen."
"It doesn't make it any easier," she said bitterly, placing a hand on her stomach. "I've travelled with pregnant women before, and it always ends up badly."
"I don't think you've ever told me about that," Aasim said slowly.
"Rebecca, AJ mom," she began, closing her eyes. "She was in a lot of pain. She got too weak to walk, and ended up dying from blood loss shortly after having AJ."
"I'm – I'm really sorry, Clem… Look, I can't say I'm an expert on this stuff," he said, looking sideways at Clem. "But you both know you have our full support on anything you might need."
"Thank you, Aasim. That really means a lot to me."
"As for your fears as a mother," he added, nodding. "I think you should have that kind of conversation with your husband."
Clementine felt a chill rise through her spine at the mention of the word husband. She was still not accustomed to being married, though it was a pleasant sensation to say the least. She stood up, Aasim following her lead, and set the teddy on the coffee table. The sun was slowly making its way to the horizon, a sweet orange hue bathing the sky. The outline of the moon was visible already on the eastern side of the sky, awaiting the sun's departure.
As they walked into the store, they were greeted by a smiling Louis, who was holding a box full of cans in his arms. Gaping at him, Clementine said, "Where'd you get all those?"
"I found a hoarder's stash of food down the road," he informed them, gesturing to a rather run down house at the end of the street with his head. "Had to take care of the dude's corpse, but it was worth it."
"That's awesome, Lou," Aasim exclaimed, taking the box from him. "I'll take that; you can get those other supplies we gathered earlier."
"Wow, he's always such a gentleman," Louis muttered to Clem, who chuckled. They followed the man through the parking lot, Aasim a few paces ahead of them. Louis lifted the wooden board for Aasim, keeping it up for Clem. "After you, milady."
"Shut up," she said, rolling her eyes and trying to hide the smile that crept up her face as she crawled through the gap.
As they walked, Clem noticed Aasim getting father and father away from them, picking up his pace. The leaves rustled under his weight, and the crickets around them had begun their nightly song to accompany them. Sighing, she turned to her husband, "Hey Lou?"
"Yeah?" he said, offering her a half smile. She loved when he did that; almost as if he already knew what she was thinking and was bracing himself for she would say.
"How do you feel about all this?" she whispered, her hands instinctively going to her stomach. She thought by now she'd have a bump, but so far there wasn't much. After finding out about her pregnancy, she started reading every book available on the subject. As Aasim had put it, they were not taking any chances.
Louis let out a tired breath, casting his eyes upwards into the black void of the sky. The shining stars were like diamonds in the sky, untroubled by the struggles of man. He searched that void, looking for answers that would not come. Looking down, he smiled. "I'm happy."
"I didn't think you would," Clem noted, actually glad that had been his reaction. "I thought you'd freak out and run away or something."
"Oh, I'm fully freaking out," he assured her, nodding vigorously. "I'm just a master of hiding my emotions."
"I see," she mused, chuckling. "So you're really not running out on us?"
"Clem, it pains me that you'd even consider me doing that," he said, shooting her a fleeting glance. "I'll be there for you every step of the way."
"I'm glad," she whispered, stepping over a tree and brushing away Louis's helping hand at the same time.
They fell silent for a while, enjoying the beautiful clear night. Crickets still surrounded them; the only sound other than that of their footsteps softly crunching the leaves that winter had so desolately blown away. They still had a ways to go until they reached the school, Clem realized ruefully. She heard a sigh from her left and turned to Louis.
"What is it?"
"Nothing, it's just," he trailed off, his eyes somewhere far away she couldn't quite place. When she stared at them, his dark chocolate brown eyes felt like a pool she was being sucked into, its depths completely unknown to her. Sometimes she wondered how his mind worked; all those fateful memories from his childhood safely stored away in fear that they would be unleashed.
"Just what?"
"Sometimes I wonder why you'd even be with me to begin with," he blurted, his walls crumbling and his face scrunching up in a frown. Before she could retort, he cut her off. "I know, I know. You love me, and I love you too. But this is a whole new different thing. How do we know I'm not gonna be a horrible dad?"
"How can you say that?" Clem exclaimed, Aasim's words coming back to her in that moment, the truth in them becoming clearer to her. She stopped and grabbed Louis by the shoulder, halting him before he stepped over one of the ropes they'd set up as traps near the school. Ahead of them, Aasim just kept walking.
"How do I know I won't become my dad?"
"Excuse me?"
"I've told you about my dad…" he trailed off, frowning. The faint moonlight shrouded half his face in darkness. "How can I be sure I won't turn into my dad? He was a shitty father, and I'll probably be an even shittier one."
Closing her eyes, Clem reached out for him, their fingers intertwining. She drew small circles on the palm of his hand, shaking her head. "Louis," she began. "You are the most kind-hearted person I have ever met. I said so a month ago, and I'm saying it again. You've been a huge influence on AJ and me, and I cannot think of anyone more different than your dad."
The freckled man looked up, a faint smile creeping up his face. His brown eyes met her amber ones, and in them he found sincerity; he found understanding. "You really think so?"
Chuckling, Clem stood on tiptoes and kissed the tip of his nose. "Absolutely, doofus," she assured him. "We'll work on this stuff together, like we always do."
"Together," he repeated, nodding and planting a kiss on the back of her hand. They heard Aasim calling for them from up ahead, and they quickly caught up with him, standing by the gates of the school. From outside, the walls now looked much sturdier than when Clem had arrived here. A couple of years ago while scavenging, they'd found a surprising amount of barbed wire in an abandoned warehouse, and it now decorated most of the perimeter of the school.
"Tenn, open the gate!" Aasim called. A loud thud was heard from the other side, and the barred gate slowly inched away from them. Once they were through, Louis and Aasim helped Tenn close it back up again, and Clementine set down the boxes they'd found on the table. She examined the food closely, making a mental inventory of their profit.
"I don't know about you, but I don't think peaches and beans are good for a baby," Louis said from behind her, a frown replacing his usual smile. "We really need to start stocking up on baby food, and fast."
"I know," she sighed, looking back at him and lowering her head. "This is already getting difficult, and we're not even close to the hardest part yet."
"We're not?" he asked, his voice raising and octave and causing Clementine to roll her eyes.
"You didn't read those books Aasim gave us the other night, right?"
"Uh," he stuttered, "They're in our night stand?" he guessed, grinning cheekily at her.
"They're not even in our room," she said, chuckling. "Don't worry; I'll catch you up tonight. Basically, we need a load of stuff. Not only food," she lamented. Sighing heavily, she leaned into him, wrapping her slender arms around his waist, Louis using her head as a headrest. She usually did this when she was tired, the soft thumping of Louis's heartbeat a soothing tune in her ears.
"How in the world are we gonna get that stuff?" he mused, sighing.
"I don't know," she whispered, closing her eyes. Suddenly, an idea lodged itself in her mind. It was so simple; she didn't know why she'd waited this long to figure it out. "Fuck, I'm so stupid."
"I think that's my title, thank you very much," he joked, startled by her sudden jump.
"Shut up," she said, quickly racing to the admin building without saying another word. He stood there for a moment, watching her disappear into the building, until he sprung to action. He followed her up the stairs, rushing into the principal's office.
"What is it?" he called out to her, watching her frantically search the desk in the corner of the room.
"Here it is!" she exclaimed, producing from one of the drawers a map of West Virginia. She set it on the desk and flattened it out, searching for something.
"What is it, Clem?" Louis repeated with frustration, following her fingers as she browsed it.
"This!" she exclaimed, pointing at a small dot on the map and looking back up at Louis, a glint of hope lighting up her golden eyes. Louis stared into her eyes for a moment, lost in them. Blinking rapidly when he realized she was addressing him, he looked at the map. Beneath her finger, the dot had a single name written over it:
'Richmond'