(Author's note: Sorry for the long wait on this one! I hope everyone enjoyed episode 4 - I definitely did! - and will enjoy the end of episode 1 of this fic! Of course, there are no spoilers for episode 4 in this, in case anyone was trying to avoid them.)
More injured survivors fill the room, overwhelming Carlos and two other medics that had arrived upon his call for assistance over his radio. None of them are anybody Clementine really recognizes; all adults, thankfully. Most of them guards, the others civilians who had gotten cornered by walkers and had been unable to protect themselves. It doesn't seem like this situation is getting under control anytime soon, she thinks.
Jake had passed out minutes ago, unable to stay away due to all the pain coursing through his small body. Probably for the best. She snaps her head up in alarm when the door slams open and Jessica runs inside, Luke following behind her at a slower pace. "What happened? Where's my brother?" Jessica demands as she spots Clementine. She comes to a stop when she finally sees Jake lying on the table, his skin as pale as a corpse and his breaths heavy and painful.
Clementine lets go of Jake's hand and stands up, unsure of what to do as Jessica begins to cry. She shrugs helplessly. "I'm sorry, Jess. I'm so sorry."
Jessica turns to Clementine quickly, her narrowed eyes red from her tears. "What do you mean?! He's gonna be okay, right?" The younger girl looks down at her hands, unable to break the news to her.
Luke steps in, placing a hand on Jessica's shoulder. "He's…he's bit. And it ain't lookin' good."
Jessica shakes her head. "So? They can fix him, right? Maybe he won't turn! That's…possible, right?" Clementine and Luke exchange worried glances over Jessica's shoulder before Clementine gestures for Jess to sit down by Jake. Jess does so, sniffling as she grabs his hand.
Clementine moves back so she's standing besides Luke, both of their arms crossed as they stare at the siblings in concern. "He's not gonna make it," Clementine whispers. "Once you get bitten, it's just over."
"We can't just tell her that. No way."
"But we can't let her think he's gonna be okay… That's not fair."
"How…?" Jessica asks, her voice quiet and choked. She doesn't look away from her brother, still lying unconscious on the table.
Luke and Clementine look at the girl in surprise and guilt, hoping that she hadn't heard what they were saying to each other. Luke sighs and rubs the back of his neck. "Your brother, uh… He was hangin' out at the comic store when the first couple of 'em broke in. And that's when it happened."
Jessica covers her eyes with her free hand and shakes her head. "I told him…" She mumbles, unable to go on as she lets out a sob.
Knowing what the girl is going through right now, at least partly, Clementine reaches out and pats her shoulder. The older girl doesn't react, just continues to cry into her hand.
Carlos walks over to Jake's table, his face solemn. "You three have to go." He says, glancing at Luke, Clementine, and Jessica.
"What?" Clementine asks, shocked.
The doctor sighs and takes off his gloves, shoving them into the pocket of his jeans. "We need to…quarantine the area."
She furrows her eyebrows, having never heard of such a word before. "What does that even mean?"
"There are six bitten people in one room. We have no idea if one of them, or if all of them, could turn at any moment," He clarifies, gesturing around them at his sick patients strewn throughout the area. "Which is why I'm asking every healthy person to head somewhere safer."
Jessica lifts her head and stares at him with wide, worried eyes. "I-I can't just leave him here! What're you gonna do to my brother?!"
He avoids her eyes and shrugs, replying honestly, "Bill will have to decide that. But if anyone turns…" Carlos pauses and shares a look with another fellow medic working on another injured person nearby. "We'll have to deal with it."
Clementine gapes at him in disbelief. "What does he mean? What does that mean?" Jessica asks, turning to Clementine in bewilderment.
She doesn't answer, instead turning her eyes back to Jake. All of the color had drained from his skin, from his lips, and had travelled to the vividly bloody mark on his side. Jessica follows her gaze and then looks back at Carlos, at the gun holstered to his hip, and finally understands his point. "You mean…"
"Carlos, that ain't fair," Luke insists. "These people, they all got families."
"My parents aren't even here." Jessica says, her voice rising as she glares at the doctor in betrayal. "They're out there risking their lives to save this camp! You can't just-just-"
Carlos holds up a hand to stop her and gives each of them a firm look. "All of you need to leave. It'll be safer out there, they're already getting this under control."
"Safer? But for who?" Clementine counters, crossing her arms over her chest. The doctor doesn't bother to reply and just shoos them over to the exit. She scowls but grabs Jessica's hand, pulling her away from her brother before she can even attempt to fight for her right to stay by his side. Luke comes to her aid as Jessica protests, using his strength to pull her out of the room. Carlos closes the door behind them and Clementine hears the click of the lock being slid into place.
Jessica goes limp and silent in their arms as she stares at the barrier keeping her away from Jake. Clementine keeps hold of her side even as Luke lets go, preventing her from crumpling to her knees. She rubs Jess's back and gives Luke a desperate look, as if to ask what now?!
Luke sighs and says, "Do ya…wanna come back with us to our place? Till all this is sorted out?"
The girl doesn't answer, just continues to stare at the closed door in front of her. He shrugs and lifts Jess's arm over his shoulder, gesturing for Clementine to do the same before leading them back to the garden area.
The first thing Clementine notices is that the sign is still there.
A fading yellow arrow held up by two long wooden pillars, the words 'Travelier Motel' inscribed on the center in black ink. She and Duck had always worried about the sign falling and crushing them as they colored together or played soccer. Well, she had worried; Duck had never really worried about anything. His constant enthusiasm and optimism used to annoy her, used to make her envious. But now…
The last time Clementine had been here, she had fled with the others in the RV to escape from the bandits and walkers that had stormed the place after a deal gone awry. A few walkers remain still, limping their way through the fallen makeshift barrier of boards and dumpsters surrounding the motor inn. With Christa and Omid by her side, though, they manage to take the ones they can see out with little difficulty, unlike the struggle that had taken place at the pharmacy earlier.
Christa pants heavily and uses the sleeve of her shirt to wipe the sweat off of her forehead. Omid puts one of his arms around her in concern. "You okay, baby?" He quirks an eyebrow, his voice rising in pitch as he makes a funny face at Christa's swollen belly. "And other baby?"
The pregnant woman rolls her eyes and pushes him away with a single finger to his shoulder. "I'm fine. I just need some rest."
"There's a couch over there," Clementine says, nodding in the direction of where the old, dirty thing still remained.
Christa wrinkles her nose as she spots the piece of furniture. "Not exactly clean, but it'll do." She begins to make her way over to the couch, Omid happily trailing behind her. The couch was soggy from the winter rain and filthy from abandonment, but Christa and Omid settle down with no complaints.
"I'm gonna look around." Clementine tells them, wiping the walker blood off her knife on her jeans.
Christa gives her an assessing look. "By yourself?"
"I'll go with you if you want, Clem." Omid volunteers as he begins to rise from his seat.
She shakes her head and waves a hand at Omid. "No, I can do it. And you guys need rest anyway, right?" Omid shrugs and gives in easily, plopping back down beside Christa and raising an arm over her shoulder.
"If you say so. But call for us at the first sign of trouble, alright?" Christa says sternly. Clementine nods and Christa allows herself to relax and lay her head on Omid's shoulder, smiling as he begins to say something about the last motel they stayed at while on their road trip.
Clementine, meanwhile, makes her way over to Lilly's former room. She kicks the door open fully, gripping her knife as she slowly inches inside. She jumps upon hearing a growl from the corner of the room and barely manages to dodge the walker as it comes barreling at her. She hits the wall hard, hissing briefly before shrugging off the pain and focusing on the walker still after her.
She allows the walker to get closer to her, its outstretched arms reaching for any part of her that it could grab, before darting to the right, dodging the small table red there. The walker bumps into the wall and is momentarily dazed, allowing her to come up behind it and stab it in the skull one, two, and three times.
The walker slides down the wall and lands in a heap on the carpeted floor as she yanks out her knife and backs away. Clementine shakes her head and walks over to Lilly's old bed, plopping down on the mattress so she can briefly catch her breath. She wipes her knife on the blanket and leaves it lying there as she turns her attention to the bedside table.
She slides open the drawer and pulls out a bible. Every hotel or motel room she had ever been in seemed to have one of these, though she had never really paid them any mind. Her parents hadn't been very religious, though Clementine personally believed – or wanted to believe – in the idea of a heaven somewhere out there, whether it be in the clouds above or an area no one alive knew existed. A wonderful place to live forever after such a tiring, awful life down on earth.
Clementine flips open the bible and spots a few notes Lilly must have scribbled down in a hurry, calculations and long, complicated names of medicine brands. Nothing really interesting or useful.
Before placing the book back in its original spot, she notices the objects that had been underneath it. She smiles upon seeing a few hair thingies – hairbands, Christa had called them – scattered throughout the drawer and picks them all up.
'Thanks, Lilly,' She thinks as she shoves the hairbands into the front pocket of her backpack.
After shutting the cabinet, she grabs her knife and leaves Lilly's room, now heading for the stairs. She and Lee had shared a room up here, the same room she opens now. When no walker lunges at her, she steps inside cautiously, her knife raised just in case.
The room is empty, decorated as plainly as all the other rooms in the motel. It had been a twin room, two single beds up against the wall for her and Lee to rest on separately. Neither of them had ever bothered to clean up after themselves, so the beds are still as messy as they left them months and months ago. Clementine doesn't bother to touch her side of the room, moving instead to Lee's.
He had insisted on taking the bed closest to the door, saying that if a walker managed to break in, she would be safe.
"But then you could get hurt!" She had argued, but Lee had just smiled and patted her shoulder and told her that he would be fine. And she had believed him.
Clementine sits on his bed and breathes in deeply before opening the cabinet beside it and looking inside. She pulls out a few pieces of paper, placed right above the usual bible, and holds them up in front of her face one at a time. A drawing she had made of Lee and Carley holding hands, Lilly and Kenny arguing in a rather exaggerated manner (Lee had taken the drawing from her, saying that he didn't want Kenny and Lilly arguing over who got to keep her hard work – "Lilly with the razor is a good touch, though," he had said, smiling.), and finally, her sitting on Lee's shoulders.
The last one had been hard to draw back then, but now it's just hard to look at without wanting to cry. She looks at the smile drawn on Lee's face before zipping open her backpack and gently placing the pictures inside so they won't get wrinkled, right alongside her photo of Lee and drawing of Kenny's family.
When she looks back into the drawer, she finds something beside the bible. Upon taking it out, she realizes that it's a camcorder. "The camcorder Carley gave to Lee…" She mumbles, remembering the night of their escape from the St. John's where Carley had given Lee some batteries for the device in question.
Carley had also given her batteries for her walkie-talkie. Which, in hindsight, wasn't a good idea, considering whom she would talk to over the stupid thing just a few days later…
Clementine lays back down on the bed and stares at the camcorder in her hand for a long moment. Was there even anything on it? And if there was, did she really want to see the contents inside? She takes a deep breath before hitting the play button below the screen.
She gasps when Lee's face, grainy and faded from the quality of the recorder, appears on the small screen. His mouth moves but no words come out, and she quickly upps the volume, desperate to hear his voice.
"-said it would be good to document my thoughts, so I guess that's what I'll do." Clementine nearly stops breathing as she hears him speak. It had been months since the last time she had heard his voice, and even then, he had been in so much pain, just barely holding on long enough to get her to safety.
Lee is sitting in his bed, his back propped up against the headboard, as he awkwardly records himself. "Ever since the St. John's, it's just gone from bad to worse. Kenny and Lilly can't stand each other, not after what Kenny did to Larry. Hell, I definitely don't miss the man, but…" He shrugs. "And with the bandits attackin' us, this place isn't going to last us any much longer. Kenny's about done fixin' up the RV, and he did promise Clem and I a ride to the coast. We might not be on the…best terms right now, but he and Katjaa care about Clem, at least."
He sighs and rubs his face. Clementine notices the bags forming under his eyes, the thinness to his face even after they found all that food in the car in the woods. "Clem… I'm worried about her. She's always been hard to read, but I know what she saw at the St. John's affected her. I shouldn't have let her go there, but I just wanted to find a safe place for her and for Duck and everyone else."
Clementine's hands begin to shake as he continues to speak. "With her parents…gone, I'm the only one she's got. And her, well, she's the only I've got. I'm not her dad. We both know that. But at this point, she's the daughter I never got to have and I'll do anything to protect her. If anyone tries to get to her, they'll have to go through me because...nothing's getting between us."
When they get to the garden area, the place is empty, the only light provided by the fire in the center. Luke pulls down the fence so that it nearly touches the floor, allowing other survivors in but keeping any walkers out, and stands watch nearby. Clementine, meanwhile, sits Jessica down in front of the fire and sits between the crying girl and Christa.
Christa eyes the gate worriedly, one hand rubbing her belly. "They all went out to help with the herd. Tavia said they've never seen one this big…" She glances at Jessica and whispers to Clementine, "What happened to her?"
Clementine sighs as she watches Jessica curl up into herself in grief, burying her head in her knees and trying to breathe. "Her brother…he got hurt when the walkers broke in."
The pregnant woman's eyes go wide as she realizes what Clementine is implying: her brother was bitten and wasn't going to make it. She purses her lips and shakes her head. "This place might not be as safe as we thought it was."
Clementine stares at the flames as they start to die out and finds herself unable to respond.
Omid opens the door slowly and peeks inside. "Clem, you ready to go?"
When there is no response, he and Christa exchange worried looks and step inside, their weapons drawn and ready. They pause when they see Clementine lying on the bed closest to the door, her eyes hidden beneath one of her arms and her hand clutching something tightly against her chest.
They stare at her for a moment before backing away and shutting the door again, deciding to give her some space, at least for now.
Next time on People Like Us, Episode 2: A House Divided
"How are you settling in?"
"This place is… better than anywhere else I've stayed in a long time, at least."
"It's not stealing. It's...borrowing. Just for a little bit. And it's necessary."
"She's my little girl. She's all I have left and I would ask that you stay away from her."
"She's gonna have to grow up sometime."
"You do not know what she needs!"
"I hate feeling useless. I need something to do, Bill."
"That can be arranged."