Clementine's POV

It's been at least two and a half months since we've moved into this place – two whole months, and we've had maybe four walkers stroll by. I haven't felt as safe and protected as we are now since before this whole mess began. Sure, we've had the occasional group of survivors wander on over to our little slice of paradise, but ultimately any that we've come across have ended up moving on. Whether it's because of our… less than friendly attitudes to strangers, I'm not entirely sure. But three's still the magic number, and we'd prefer to keep it that way for the most part.

We really haven't needed to talk about getting a bigger group because for the most part, what we've got is working. We've got a routine going here; a system, and it's finally giving us a sense of normalcy. Well, if you can call three girls living together in a house they found in Texas to escape the dead normal.

But why would we want to shift up the dynamics now? Just like Lilly and Jane had told me before – the more people you have, the more dangerous it gets. Better to stick together with people that you know have the same goals in mind as you do, and it doesn't hurt when they both care about you as much as you do about them.

However, my latest attempt at a prank on the two women didn't exactly have the desired effect that I had originally hoped it would… Cleaning the main floor of the house is a pretty crappy punishment.

But the looks on Jane and Lilly's faces after I had sprayed them with silly string? Totally worth it!

Right now though, I'm not exactly cleaning the house – mainly just sorting through some of our weapons and ammo. We've got a big stash of weaponry around this house, and we always make sure that we leave them in the same spot every single time. That way, we won't lose track of anything and can always make sure that we're safe. Having a rifle go off in the living room because we left our stuff lying about would be really stupid, not to mention really loud and dangerous.

Let's see… pistols on the left, hunting rifles in the middle, machine guns on the right… I never actually use anything but a pistol, but maybe I can graduate to the more heavy-duty ones someday. It's the ammo that gives me the most trouble though. I always forget which bullets go with which gun.

"I think you've served your sentence for long enough," Jane comments, wiping the last of the silly string from her hair as I turn my head and see her wander into the kitchen with me.

"No she hasn't!" I hear Lilly call from the bathroom, causing me to blush slightly from embarrassment.

"It seemed funny at the time…" I say with a sheepish shrug, trying my best not to scatter the ammunition around as Jane comes over to look at my progress. "I should know this stuff by now."

"You've got the pistol bullets mixed up with the rifle ones," she points out, correcting me as she switches them around on the counter. "Other than that, you're good to go. I think we should all hit the hay. Come on."

"Awww…. Can't I stay up for another hour to watch TV? Pleeeeease?" I ask dramatically, getting a friendly chuckle out of Jane as she rolls her eyes.

"Hell, if we still had television, I don't think that I'd be coming out of the living room anytime soon," she comments dryly, following me as I start to roll down the hallway. She looks upon me for a brief second of sadness, but immediately brushes the face away as she catches me staring at her.

"Could we… try it again?" I ask pensively, gesturing down to the wheelchair as she bites her lip. "It's been a while, so… maybe they work now! I can feel my legs, Jane, I know it. Please?"

Running a hand through her now silly string-free hair, Jane nods and bends down in front of me, just like before when we tried this.

"Easy now," she says, putting her hands underneath my armpits, "just like before, alright? We'll go slow on the count of three. Ready? One, two, three!"

Extremely wobbly, Jane starts to lift my body up out of the chair as I place my hands firmly onto her shoulders. There are butterflies in my stomach again as I feel myself getting out of the chair, and for a second I feel free. Maybe today's the day that I'll finally not have to stay sitting down, and that Jane and Lilly won't have to constantly feel like they're carrying excess baggage around!

"That's it… easy does it," she encourages as I see Lilly step out of the bathroom with a heavy heart. "Okay… can you try moving your left leg forward for me?"

Nodding hesitantly, I look down and try my best to move my leg forward; extremely scrawny as they are since I haven't used them in so long. It turns out that I'm not completely paralyzed as we had once thought, but that doesn't mean that I can walk properly.

The evidence of this is clear as I try to step forward and end up collapsing right into Jane's arms; almost falling flat on my face as I discouragingly squeeze my eyes tightly.

"Damn it…" I choke out, holding back tears as yet another attempt at this fails. "God… damn it…"

"It's alright, Clem. I've gotcha," she soothes comfortingly, a trait that I'm proud to say I helped develop within her over the past few months or so. "You're getting closer, I'm sure of it. We just might need to wait a little while and then – "

"Please don't lie to me, Jane…" I mutter into her shirt, feeling Lilly wrap her arms around my stomach and pulling me back into the wheelchair. "We both know this isn't gonna work… Why bother getting my hopes up?"

Giving me one last sad look, Jane puts her hands in her pockets as I silently roll into my room on the main floor; shutting the door behind me and getting ready to sleep.

But no slumber comes to me as I continue to stare at the ceiling; so many thoughts clouding my mind.

….

It's about thirty minutes or so before I hear my door creak open a little bit, noticing that Jane's popped her head inside with an apologetic look on her face.

"Sorry… I was just checking to see if you were asleep yet. Lilly's got lookout duty for a little bit, and I just wanted to make sure you were alright," she explains, nodding her head and preparing to exit again. "I'll leave you alone."

"Jane, wait…"

Turning towards me, Jane pokes her head back in as I fiddle with the blanket that's on top of me.

"Could you… could you stay with me for a bit?" I ask shyly, suddenly feeling more like an eight year old girl than the tough, survivalist twelve year old that I'd become. "Please?"

"Oh, umm… sure, alright," she nods quietly, stepping inside and pulling up a nearby chair to sit beside me. This woman's turned into a lifeline for me, I swear. "So… what did I get into trouble for this time, huh?"

"You suck," I joke, playfully sticking my tongue out at her as the both of us relax a little bit.

"Seriously though," she continues, looking at me with intent, "is there anything wrong? You seemed pretty upset tonight."

"Jane, I'm not… I'm not a burden, am I?" I question, the mood turning kind of sombre as I sit upright to talk to her. "I mean, isn't that why you wanted to leave Sarah? Because she couldn't handle living in a world like this with the way she was?"

"Clementine, why are asking me this?"

"Wouldn't it be easier for you and Lilly to just… leave?" I continue, ignoring her question as I stare into her eyes. "If there's a herd of walkers that comes by like what happened at Howe's, then I'd just be slowing you guys down! How am I supposed to move out there in a freaking wheelchair?! You and Lilly constantly have to help me get around, and… and you shouldn't have to…"

"Clem, listen to me," Jane orders firmly, placing a strong hand on my shoulder that demands my attention. "You're not a burden, okay? You're the furthest thing from being a burden, and I wouldn't abandon you even if you were. I made a promise to you, remember? And I'm not gonna give up on you if you haven't given up on me. This is just something that'll take some getting used to, and we'll make it work somehow."

She's right in a way. This is a test, not only of my physical abilities, but also of my will and character. It's also a test of how strong our friendship has truly become, since if this had happened when she first met me, I've no doubt that Jane would take off and leave me to face the world on my own. Lilly would've probably ended up doing the same thing.

But these are my friends… the closest and last ones that I've got, and for that I'm eternally grateful.

"Jaime felt the same way at one point," she recalls, going off into her own little world as I listen intently. Jane doesn't really like to talk about Jaime too often, so this must be a special occasion. "When all of this shit started happening, I wanted to take her away from it all and just head off to an island or something – some place where we could start from scratch and not have to worry about what others thought of us. We tried to get a boat out to the Atlantic, but there was no way that we were getting out there. Too many people had the same idea. But Jaime just constantly thought that she was… bringing me down and getting her into trouble. I'd try to convince her that she wasn't the problem, but she'd never listen to me."

"I'm sorry, Jane… that must've been hard."

"…yeah, it was for a while. She wasn't built to live out in a world like this – she never got the independence that I did after getting kicked out of the house," she recalls, twirling the nail file loosely around between her fingers. "But she just wouldn't shake that belief – Jaime literally thought that her being alive was going to get me killed as well. And she kept repeating that so fucking much that I started… believing it. So on the day she died, we got cornered by a big group of walkers and had to make our way up to the roof. I took one look into her eyes… and a part of me snapped in half."

"I knew what she wanted… I fucking knew, and I gave it to her…" Jane rants, having not told this part of the story to me or to anyone as far as I know. She rubs her eyes to prevent any tears from coming through. "Left her to die like a fucking animal, and I could hear her screams in my head for a year until I just… stopped. I stopped caring about people; stopped caring whether people lived or died. The only thing on my mind was trying to survive. For what, I still don't know, but it worked for a while. Moved from place to place until I ended up getting to Carver's camp. You know the rest."

I don't really know what to say that could comfort the woman, even though she probably came in here thinking that she was supposed to be comforting me – not the other way around.

But my gut tells me that I need to do something; anything to try and make her feel better about the whole situation. Losing your family's the worst feeling in the world by far, and no amount of words can really help to stop the constant ache in your soul.

However… I'm not sure if this is inappropriate of me to say or not. Here goes nothing, I guess.

"Jane…" I tell her quietly, taking her hand in mine and squeezing tightly; desperately hoping that this goes over well. "I… I've never had a sibling before. Maybe… maybe you and I could be like… sisters?"

The older woman looks upon me for a few seconds, not saying anything as she studies my face. Was that too soon, or was it rude of me say something like that? God, how could I have been so stupid?!

My guilt only grows as Jane puts her head in her hand and starts sobbing… loudly. Yeah, you heard right – the calm, collected Jane is bawling her eyes out at the mere suggestion that we could be siblings. What a sham I've just suggested!

"Oh no, Jane, I'm so sorry…" I apologize, feeling even worse as I think that she's found that remark offensive.

But she really takes me by surprise when she shakes her head and squeezes onto my hand tightly.

"No…" she replies, her voice muffled as she tries to calm herself down a little bit. "I… I'd like that… Thank you, Clem. I mean it…"

Leaning my head against her shoulder, I sigh as the relief washes over me; thankful that that went better than I thought it would. I had thought for sure that Jane would've lashed out at me for even suggesting that. Nobody could replace the sister she had lost, and that me trying to pretend to fill the gap would've been an insult to her memory.

But then I realize something important – we've been like sisters ever since we came back to Howe's.

"Do I have to sign a contract or something?" Jane jokes, sniffing as she wipes her eyes with her sleeve. "Make this official or some shit?"

"I don't think so," I smirk, a mischievous gleam in my eyes as I look up to her face. "But just so you know, that means that I get free piggyback rides from now on."

"Is that right?" she comments, rolling her eyes as she sits up on the bed with me. "Well, it's a well-known fact that as the older sister, I get to take your rations for myself whenever I please."

"You just made that whole thing up!"

"Nope, that's the rule," she tells me as I give up on trying to change her mind. I really hope she's joking about that… "How's about this – instead of either of those things, we make a vow to pull pranks on Lilly whenever she's not in a shitty mood? I know you can come up with something better than silly string, Clem."

"Deal," I smirk, nodding my head as we chuckle and shake on it. "But wait… if we're both sisters now, then what does that make Lilly? Can she be a sister, too?"

"Yeah, I guess…" Jane shrugs, looking out the window and seeing that she's still sitting on the porch with a rifle in her hand. "She can be the naggy sister who constantly tries to rat you out and tells you to eat your vegetables. I bet she'd get a kick out of that."

Nodding, I quietly yawn as Jane sets me back down in a more comfortable position to sleep.

"Get some rest, kiddo," she tells me, standing up as I watch her start to make her exit. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Night… sis…" I whisper without thinking, causing her to slightly smile and nod towards me.

"Yeah… you bet," she finishes, shutting the door and leaving me to my dreams.

AN: Alright, I'm gonna stop it here for now, since… drumroll please… I'm going to try and do a sequel to Why Did You Come Back at All! That's right folks, part two is going to come eventually, as soon as I figure out where to take it. I'm pretty sure that the first chapter is going to take place after what happens right here, so hopefully all will go well with it. Considering the amount of awesome support and love that I got from the last story, I don't think that that'll be much of a problem :)

Anyways, stay classy my faithful readers, and I'll try to think of some interesting twists that I can do for part two! I'll keep this story as unfinished in case I think of some more one-shots to do. Until then, thanks for reading!

Leafs nation