Thanks to Assassin's Creed Master, leafs nation, heidipoo, and newcomer kesarkuch for reviewing! And in reply to leafs nation, it may or may not have much of one. That's actually part of the reason for this story (except for no choices). :)

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Clementine woke up and looked over at the bed beside hers, only to find that it was empty. Lee and Kenny must have left to get supplies early again. Clem got out of bed and fixed herself up for the day.

Walking outside, she found Carley on watch and Ben and Duck talking (more like Duck pestering Ben). Lilly and Katjaa were most likely still in their respective rooms. Duck turned and noticed his younger friend walk down the stairs, and he ran to her.

"Hi, Clementine!" he chirped. "Do you wanna play tag? I'll be It this time, and I'll give you a head start!"

"Okay," Clem smiled. "Come catch me, Duck!"

The two children were chided by Carley not to shout, and they were able to obey, chasing each other with only laughter escaping their lips.

It was now approximately a week after the St. Johns' incident, and things were mostly quiet except for a couple of minor incidents. Clementine was now nine years old as her birthday had been three days earlier, but the only person she had told was Ben, as she didn't really want to annoy everyone by announcing that it was her birthday.

The day before Clem's birthday, she realized that her walkie-talkie had been able to get through to someone. A man. This was one thing that she didn't tell anyone, not even Lee. She thought about the first conversation the two had had, four days ago.

"Hello? Hell...o?" at first the walkie-talkie was breaking up, but seemed fine after a moment.

Clementine was coloring alone when it happened. "Hello?" she spoke softly into it.

"Are you the people who stole from my car?" the man on the other side seemed to hiss.

The nearly nine-year-old gasped. So the car wasn't abandoned! "No, no sir!" she replied innocently. "I told them not to steal...I told them! But only my friend Lee listened to me!"

At that, the man took on a more gentle, fatherly tone after a pause. "...What's your name, little girl?"

"I'm Clementine. I'm eight, but I'll be nine tomorrow."

"Ah, so you must be a big girl, huh?" The man was talking to her like she was five, but she didn't notice or care.

"What's your name?" Clem inquired.

"I'm a friend, honey," the man replied. "Are you safe?"

"Yeah, my friend Lee keeps me real safe!"

Clementine didn't know how it happened, but she ended up telling this strange man about her lost parents, the group, and a lot of things that had been going on lately. There was a long silence, but the man spoke up again.

"I'll help you find your parents, Clementine, sweetheart," the man assured her.

"You will?" Clem got excited.

"Of course. I'll arrange for us to meet, somehow..."

It wasn't long before Duck and Clementine got bored of tag, and the two kids went off to do their own things. Clementine was on her way to color with the chalk when she saw Ben walking towards her. He gave the now nine-year-old a nervous smile as he knelt down next to her.

"Hey, Clem," he greeted awkwardly. "I, uh, found these stickers in a drawer in one of the rooms, and I thought you might want to use it to decorate that walkie-talkie of yours, or something."

Clementine took the stickers of a sun and a pink flower gratefully and gave Ben a wide smile. "Thank you, Ben!"

"Heh, you're welcome," Ben got up and strode away, his face looking afraid the moment he turned his back to the little girl.

It was well into the afternoon when Clementine heard the noise of her walkie-talkie again. She picked it up, hoping that the nice man on the radio had found her mom and dad yet. "Hello?"

"Hi, Clemmy, how are you today?" the man's gravelly voice drawled out.

"I'm good," said Clementine. "Did you find my parents?"

"Not yet, sweetheart. Where did you say they were, Savannah?"

"Uh-huh," Clem nodded. She looked up briefly and saw that Lee and Kenny had finally returned from their nearly day-long supply hunt. "Lee just came back, can we talk again soon?."

"Okay, Clementine, we'll chat again soon," the man replied.

She nodded again. "Okay, bye!"

"Good-bye."

Clementine ran over to greet Lee. "You're back!" she cried. "Ben found some stickers in a drawer, and I put them on my walkie!" She held up the said device excitedly. Lee gave her a smile in greetings.

"Hey sweet pea, that's neat," Lee told her. "I'll find you in a minute."

Clem nodded and walked away with a smile still on her face. She watched at Lee walked into Lilly's first-floor room and got her walkie-talkie back out. "I'm back! I just had to say hi to Lee."

"Back already, Clemmy?" the man teased lightheartedly.

"Yeah," Clementine looked over and heard arguing coming from Lilly's room. "Kenny and Lilly are arguing again."

There were some mutters that Clem couldn't understand, but then the man spoke loud enough for her to hear. "I'm sorry to hear that, darling. Now...what was that hotel your parents always stay at? You told me it was The Marsh House, am I right?"

"Yeah, that's it!" the little girl exclaimed.

"Okay. I'll look out for your parents and meet them at The Marsh House, okay sweetie?"

"WHAT I KNOW?!" Lilly was heard screaming from her room. "I know that you're not above murder! I know that somebody has been stealing our supplies! That's right, STEALING! And I know that the list of people I can trust gets SMALLER EVERY DAY! Now everybody get out!"

Clementine jumped and stared in the room's direction, watching as Lee, Kenny, and Katjaa exited the room.

"Clementine?" the man asked.

"What?" Clem spoke into the walkie-talkie. "Oh...okay."

"Wonderful. Shall we continue or talk tomorrow?"

"Yeah, tomorrow sounds good," Clementine responded.

"I'm going to go now, I'll let you know when I've found your parents," the man added. "Good-bye."

"Bye!" Clem exclaimed, and put away her walkie-talkie. She went over to make some more drawings with some chalk. Maybe even do leaf-rubbings, like her teacher had shown her. She had been coloring alone lately, since Duck was starting to get bored of coloring, he had told her.

"Hey, Clementine, guess what!" said boy ran over to her after a couple of minutes.

"What?" Clem looked up.

"Lee and I are playing detective!" Duck cried. "I'm Dick Grayson...that's Robin."

"He colored with me yesterday," Clementine pointed out with a smile, holding up a piece of paper.

"Coloring is boring!" Duck pouted, but only for a mere moment. His happy expression returned, and then he ran off. "Bye!"

The nine-year-old gave him a strange look for a moment, shaking her head. She then shrugged and continued her leaf-rubbing until she saw Lee kneeling down beside her little table. "Hey, Clementine."

"Hey Lee!" she cried, always happy to see him.

"You didn't accidentally break a flashlight, did you?"

Clementine frowned. "No. Did Duck say I did?"

"No. Did, uh, Duck break the flashlight?"

"I don't think so. He's just always blaming me for stuff."

"Like what?" Lee inquired.

"Putting a bug on his pillow!" Clementine made a false-disgusted face.

"Did you do that?"

Clementine smiled, remembering how she had run out of the room and heard Duck's scream only a few days prior. "Yes."

"What's that you're working on, Clem?"

"It's called a leaf-rubbing," Clementine explained. "My teacher Miss Moore showed us how to do 'em when we went to the Botanical Garden once!" She proceeded to lift the leaf and paper, and held it up for Lee to see. "See, it's the same! Umm...kind of."

"That's really something," Lee replied, interested.

"I'll make one for you, too!"

After a pause, Lee spoke again. "Do you like it here?" he wanted to know.

"I don't...like it here."

"Do you want to leave?"

"Where are we going?" Clem asked.

"Somewhere else."

"I don't know," Clementine thought about it. "Maybe if I knew where?"

"Yeah, that'd be a good thing to know," said Lee. "I'll talk to you later, Clem." He got up.

"Okay." Clementine went back to her leaf-rubbing, wanting to get started on the one she would make for Lee. She also wanted to make a couple for Ed and Diana, when that nice man on the radio found them.

She looked up and saw Lee talking to Carley, who was giving him a smile. Much to her surprise (and delight), Carley walked over and planted a kiss on his cheek, whispering something in his ear. Clementine grinned, she now wanted to draw them holding hands later.

Not long later, she noticed Lee practically pulling Kenny to the side, telling him something that she couldn't hear. He looked surprised, then pissed, and then there was an unreadable expression as he went to sit back down next to Katjaa.

Lee walked back over to Clementine's little table, and knelt back down.

"Clem, I need to talk to you for a second."

"Okey-dokey," the little girl nodded.

Lee seemed to think about it, whether or not he should tell her. But that was only for a moment.

"The day you and I met, I was in a car accident," he reminded her.

"I remember, your leg was bleeding," Clementine pointed out.

"The car I was in was a police car, and I was on my way to jail for committing a crime."

Clem's eyes widened slightly, and she looked down. She remembered Carley saying something in the drugstore about knowing who he was and what he had done. That was when she realized that this was what she had been talking about.

"I need to tell you now, because I don't want you to hear it any other way," Lee informed her.

"Okay," said Clementine. She fully understood now.

"Do you...have anything to say?"

"I don't think so," Clem replied truthfully.

"You can, uh, go on back to your things," Lee told her, getting up.

Clementine nodded and continued on with what she was doing. When Lee was gone, she picked up her walkie-talkie and tried to get in contact with the man again. She wasn't sure if she should tell him about Lee. "Hello?"

There was no reply. Clementine tried a couple more times, but to no avail. The man was probably too far away now, if he was heading to Savannah.

She noticed Lee approaching her for a third time. "Clem, do you have any pink chalk?"

"No, it's gone somewhere," the little girl frowned. She'd wanted to draw some nice flowers with chalk earlier, but couldn't find the pink one.

"Hmm..."

"Do you want blue?" Clem asked, hoping that Lee would color with her again.

"No, no, it's okay," Lee got up.

Aww, oh well, she thought.

"Psst...Lee!" Duck whispered beckoning the thirty-seven-year-old man over.

Clementine watched Lee and Duck go towards the gate, and after a high-five and firmly telling Duck to stay behind, Lee went behind the gate. Clem wondered what he was going to find out there, hopefully the pink chalk.

The moment he disappeared into Lilly's room was when the pandemonium began.

"WHO THE FUCK THOUGHT IT WOULD BE OKAY TO FUCKIN' TAKE OUR STUFF, HUH?"

Several masked bandits suddenly entered the motel with guns in hand. Katjaa and Kenny stood up with their arms out, and one of them grabbed Duck, dragging him over, refusing to let go despite Kenny's loud demands.

Clementine gasped and tried to run, but another bandit, a woman, grabbed her and sat her on her knees next to Duck. Now, the children, Ben, Katjaa, Kenny, and Carley were on the knees, all of them having guns pointed to their heads.

"Y'ALL BETTER GET YOUR ASSES OUT HERE!" the same bandit continued as Carley dropped down. "WE AIN'T FUCKING AROUND!"

Lee! Lee, where are you?! Clementine thought, truly scared.

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And there's the first chapter of Episode 3, Long Road Ahead. Please review! :)