As the group of dispersed, the sound of chattering voices began to fill the Lodge.

Clementine left the sitting area and followed Kenny with her eyes as she peered over her shoulder. Between the three men, Kenny led the way, his voice booming and echoing off of the wooden walls, as he spoke of the features of the building. Nick lagged a few inches behind Luke, his shoulders hunched forward as his gaze lingered towards a wooden bench near the entrance. Originally, Clementine hadn't realized that everyone else had left their bags and weapons near the door, because she still curled her fingers tightly around the purple nylon strap of her bag, just in case.

Nick on the other hand, left his rifle sitting on the bench accompanied by several of the bags, blankets, and jackets that draped over the other weapons.

Clementine stopped, watching Nick's stilted movement as his gaze slid from the rifle to Kenny and then to Luke. Then, suddenly and as if he never stopped, he continued to listen to Luke and Kenny go back and forth; from what she could hear, Luke was asking questions about the Lodge, his voice distant and nearly suspicious in its tone.

But… Nick…

Clementine gripped her wrist as she scanned the rest of the room, and attempted to pretend that she hadn't been eavesdropping. She clenched her fist and sighed inaudibly as she aimed one last, well-meaning glance over her shoulder towards Nick, and then stared forward again in the direction of the kitchen counter towards the other side of the room.

Nick was a grown man, but she still felt… something. Responsibility, maybe. Five days wasn't enough to even begin to dull the pain of losing a loved one – and Clementine knew that feel well enough that it felt more familiar than her own childhood home. But she also remembered Pete's words –

Would you promise me to look out for Nick? I love that stupid kid… No matter what you think… He is a good boy.

She shook her head, her hands trembling at the thought of Pete's corpse and the grip that he had on her before Luke finally himself out of whatever shock he felt –

Think about something else. Think about anything else that isn't –

Clementine immediately snapped herself back to reality before she could finish her thoughts. She realized, that moment, that she hadn't moved from her spot near the couch, too lost in her obsessive thoughts about things that she wished she didn't have to think about. At the sound of humming, she turned again, grateful to hear something else.

Kenny's so-called "lady friend", the woman he called Sarita, lingered near the Christmas tree and the stairwell, and then began to loot around in a beaten up cardboard box labeled GLASS ORNAMENTS – FRAGILE. The song that she was half-singing and half-humming sounded familiar, though Clementine couldn't immediately place it.

Matthew, on the other hand, disappeared off to another part of the Lodge just as quickly as he had appeared on the bridge. But, Clementine thought, no else seemed to be worried; maybe Matthew would just go back out to the bridge and keep watch. There was a lot about separate groups that she didn't understand – and not just Luke's group. Being around only Christa for several months hadn't exactly been great for developing an understanding for other people, in Clementine's opinion.

Everyone else had begun to spread out and attempt to get comfortable. The Lodge reminded Clementine of a weird cross between someone's cozy house and a small hotel, so it made sense for everyone to drift as far apart from each other as they could. At some point, the rest of the group had to be feeling at least somewhat claustrophobic, whether it was physically or emotionally. Clementine sure was; it would be nice to take a breather in a safe, quiet room.

The dining area was a bit outside of the sitting area, and held several old wooden picnic tables. Just a few feet away were two different bathrooms – a women's and men's. A few feet further away was Walter, who stood behind a long, wooden counter. On said counter was a small, portable burner that a large metal pot rested on, presumably full of something that would hopefully feed eleven people comfortably.

Clementine gazed at the Christmas decorations that had been strewn across the wooden pillars, a few rows of dim fairy lights – several of the lights burned out – that she would have expected to go on the tree instead. A small smile came to her as she remembered the lights that her father would spend at least a few hours trying to wrap around the outside of their house. In the Christmas before the outbreak, he had hung them on the outside of her old treehouse.

It had been such a beautiful time of year, and for that brief second, she felt the tightness in her chest at the thought of it now.

"Hey Clementine," came Walter's voice. She looked up to see him carefully rest a wooden spoon against the rim of his pot. "Settling in well enough?"

She nodded, turning her gaze to the decorations on the front of the counter: the word JOY spelled out with a red J and Y, with a small wreath as the O. "Yeah, thanks."

"Excellent!" Walter shared the same beam as Clementine. Then, as if he had heard Kenny's suggestion earlier, he asked, "Want to help me prepare a little dinner?"

There was a brief moment where Clementine stepped up just a little bit closer to the counter and found herself just barely able to see high enough to look in the pot. It was that time that she was hit with a familiar smell – more than one, actually. Something sweet, like fruit, and something else, more savory… of course, beans. She hadn't ever exactly cared for that smell, and after the encounter with Sam…

Well, beans were not a particularly appetizing meal.

It was some type of brown beans – a lot of them – and something else that was mixed together with it, something that she guessed was either peaches or sweet potatoes. Clementine found herself inadvertently pulling a face at the concoction in front of her. Quickly, she tried to force herself to look ignorant. No one could afford to be picky these days, as much as she almost wanted to do.

Walter didn't appear convinced. A cheeky grin came to his face, but he didn't push the issue and instead began stirring the concoction again.

"So, how do you know Kenny? He and Sarita have been a huge help."

"It's… a long story. I guess." Clementine shrugged, remembering the entire situation. "I met him the day after the outbreak started. We slept in a barn that night and the next morning, he told me I was lucky I didn't have spiders in my hair." She could laugh about that memory now, at least a little bit. But of course, her eight-year old self had not been as enthused.

Walter, on the other hand, appeared as he were trying to avoid laughing at this remark. He nodded and tapped a small amount of salt into the pot. "That sounds exactly like something he would say, even now." He placed the salt shaker down and began stirring the meal again. "But I am glad you have at least one person here to know… connecting with people is… so important – especially now. I don't know what I'd do without Matthew…"

Clementine didn't respond. She wondered if she should ask to help him with whatever the hell he was cooking, but she was still much too short to do much of anything, and it looked like Walter had it all under control anyway –

"You remind me so much of my students." Walter blurted out. He held a similar expression that Clementine saw in Kenny earlier: one as if he were remembering a fond memory, yet almost sad at the same time. Children were a rarity these days, as Christa had once put it. To see one made for either pleasant experiences in knowing that humanity wasn't dead, or made Clementine (and any other children around) extremely vulnerable.

Slowly, Walter began to stir his concoction again. "I taught for twenty years. I've taught every grade from kindergarten to eighth – but fourth grade was my most recent. That's about the grade you'd be in, correct?"

"I guess. I'm eleven, but I started school late because of when my birthday is." Clementine traced the sharp edges of the counter idly, avoiding touching the burner and the metal pot. "Was Matthew a teacher, too?"

Matthew did seem to be that type of person, though Clementine could vividly remember seldom having a male teacher, or even ever seeing them. On the other hand, maybe Matthew was an anomaly, just like Walter.

Maybe that was how he and Walter had met. Although, on the other hand, with Walter's attitude towards people, even after the onset of the outbreak, Clementine wouldn't have put it past him to simply befriend and share a dwelling with random people. After all, that was what he was doing now.

Walter stirred the peaches-and-beans concoction a few more times, then nodded. He grabbed the salt shaker and tapped it several times into the pot.

"He was. He used to teach art, but sometimes he would come into my classroom and help me teach English." He chuckled, and smiled, as if remembering something particularly pleasant. "Matt was debating going back to school to teach English at a middle school. Didn't work out, obviously."

"He taught at a school," Clementine began, watching Walter's continued stir of the concoction, "but he wanted to go back to school… to teach more school?"

"It… does sound like a bummer when you put it like that, doesn't it?"

"Yeah. I liked school, but… it was… hard sometimes. "

"Hm," Walter shifted his spot, then peered up from the pot with a raised eyebrow. "What did you have trouble with? Math?" The look on his face, Clementine thought, seemed to be all knowing – the same kind of the thing that she could easily recall seeing in one of her teachers before the outbreak; that all-knowing smile was all-too familiar.

For a brief moment, Clementine also smiled in response to Walter's knowing nature. "Yeah," she murmured, "Math and everything else."

"Everything else?" asked Walter, lifting his eyebrow, "Surely there's something you're good at."

Clementine merely offered him a shrug in response. Remembering a lot of events before the outbreak was difficult; her memories had become hazy over time, especially when she didn't constantly dwell on them. She couldn't remember ever being over grade level for math or reading – her memory of it was always just barely meeting them.

"Recess. Lunch, maybe."

Walter chuckled and shook his head. "Unfortunately, that's something you can put on a report card."

He tapped his wooden spoon on the rim of the pot, then allowed it to lean against the outside. He paused for a moment, then spoke in a low voice, "I can't imagine what it's like growing up in all of this… I thought some of the kids' lives were hard then." His expression seemed to darken within the second, and a cold dread filled the pit of Clementine's stomach. "And they were, but this is… difficult."

Being reminded of the hellish world outside was one of her least favorite things.

She shrugged, hesitating in the sudden remark. "I'm not dead yet."

Walter's expression from before stayed mostly the same. He sighed, but nodded slowly, not immediately looking up at Clementine.

"That's the goal." he spoke in the same low voice, then tried to lighten his tone. "It's all we can do, after all."

Clementine stood up straight. She looked him in the eye and cocked her head. "Everyone underestimates my ability to stay alive."

"I expect you use that to your advantage?"

"… Sometimes."

"Smart girl."

Clementine had to admit that this compliment from Walter took her aback. He seemed so much like the kind of man who valued honesty to such a large degree that this seemed like the last thing he would say. But he valued what he must have thought was her cleverness .

Oh yes, she was going to like this one.

Walter pulled out a metal spoon from a drawer tasted just a bit of the pot. "Hmm… almost done." He pulled open one of the drawers next to the burned and pulled out a second metal and then teasingly asked, "Would you do me the favor of tasting the first course, madam?"

Clementine's stomach turned when she looked down at the pot of mush. She remembered now what Walter said earlier, about how all they had were cans of peaches and beans. And she also remembered how Matthew simply remarked that he would rather eat dirt. Now, she was saying nothing about Walter's cooking ability – maybe Matthew was just particularly picky – but peaches and beans together had to be, quite possibly, one of the strangest combinations she had ever heard. She dearly hoped Walter was joking.

"… What… is it?"

"Le Walter Surprise." He grinned, tapping the wooden spoon on the edge of the pot. "An autumnal, legume salad with a peach roux."

Clementine may have understood some of those words… separately.

"It's peaches and beans." Walter shrugged, now completely serious, yet somewhat sheepish. "It's all we've got."

Trying to avoid showing her slight disappointment, Clementine attempted to look anywhere except at Walter. Her gaze fell on the can of peaches that sat next to the burner, and Walter seemed to take immediate notice. He held it up and pointed to the picture of the little girl on the can.

"Striking resemblance."

Surely, he had to be referring to the pigtails on the little girl and nothing else. Clementine glanced at the can and hardly suppressed the unimpressed glare on her face. If there was anything that she learned from the last week of being around Nick and Luke, it was that this was the kind of thing that they would come up with and never let go.

"Anyway," Walter turned off the burner and took the pot by the handles. "I'll take it from here."

He removed it to another counter, and Clementine stared down again at the photograph on the peach can.

Surely, she didn't actually look like that little girl, right…? … Right? Clementine immediately made a mental note to find a pair of scissors and cut her pigtails shorter than the little girl's. Or maybe just cut them off entirely. Keep your hair short, Lee had told her.

Yeah, she should follow that advice.