Sometimes I wonder if this home of ours will ever feel complete.
It feels like half of my brain is missing, or the other half of my body. I won't be too corny and say it's the other half of my heart, but... maybe I'll be corny.
Most days, I just try to focus on how I'll manage without a leg. How to live, exactly. How to survive. Even the most mundane of tasks like sitting down at the picnic table or getting out of bed is a struggle, though at least I'm getting used to it. When Lee came to my rescue – purple, bloodied, and missing half his arm – he made it look so easy. Well… yeah, I knew he was dying. But the way he moved around and gestured his nub like his arm was still attached to it made it feel like he was still 100% Lee.
But today isn't like most days. I didn't want to get out of bed. I didn't want to sit at the picnic table. I didn't want to walk on those stupid crutches. I didn't want to see the shining sun, or breathe the crisp air, or even blink. All I wanted was to stay in the confines of my room. I wanted to lay there… cold, motionless, alone.
Like we left him.
Sometimes, I even hold my breath. I hold it, and I hope that we share the same state. The state of lifelessness; of emptiness, just so we could share something one more time.
But life picks up again, and air fills my lungs in a desperate gasp, and warm tears fall down my face because I can't be where he is. I've fought so hard, for so long just to see the daylight that he can't. And when I finally get some solace in the place I call home, it's without him.
We had so little to go. All we had to do was get back home to the others, and there, we could finally fall into each other's arms and breathe a sigh of relief. We could say "Hey, well would you look at that. We made it." And we could just exist, and exist, and exist, and without anyone trying to stop it.
But we didn't. We never will.
AJ brushed past me while I sat on the stairs, his head merely turned in my direction.
"We're going now, Clem. I'll see if I can find those pretty flowers again," he told me as he continued to walk.
"AJ," I called his name, watching him halt and turn to me.
"I know, I know, I'll be careful," he nodded determinedly, yet the roll of his eyes hinted he wasn't so fond of my constant worry. While I was still getting used to being legless, AJ was growing more independent by the second. I now learned to have trust in him, given what happened. But not being there for him like I always was? It horrifies me.
"Don't let go of Violet's hand," I firmly added. "Her vision is improving, but you know what Ruby said. She's still got a long way to go before she can get used to this."
"I won't. Violet said I'm good at it," he replied, a satisfied grin creeping up.
"At holding her hand?" I smirked, staring at him skeptically.
"Yeah, like Louis was. She said he wouldn't even let go of her hand when they were in the carriage. The one after the explosion," he told me, before his brows then lowered in sorrow. He tended to do that when it came to Louis. Once he remembered.
I let out a soft breath, my eyes instinctively shutting. I could sense AJ's remorseful eyes on me, pleading with me to please feel better. I was used to this, having to repress it all for the sake of everyone else. Because who would want to see their leader, the same person who lead them into victorious battle, cry and wail and lose her mind to her emotions?
"Get going, kiddo," I forced out, my eyes opening at the ground before me.
With a timid nod, AJ turned around and met Violet and Tenn by the gates for their late afternoon stroll. Ruby suggested I join them to get used to the maimed life, and usually I did. But today just wasn't one of those days. With a whistle here and a creak there, the trio took Rosie alongside them, left the premises and left me alone in the courtyard. Willy was doing god knows what down in the basement, Aasim and Ruby were on watch-duty, and Omar was collecting greens for tomorrows dinner by the greenhouse.
Sometimes, when I sat around watching everyone do their thing, it was like I could sense him coming up behind me. Like he was about to crack a joke or announce something very loudly to make his presence known. But every time I turned around, all I saw was empty space. Bustling winds and floating leaves. What was meant to be there, wasn't. What was meant to be, didn't exist.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see it. The makeshift cross that beared his name. Aasim carved it after AJ let him know why he didn't come home. I never thought I'd see Aasim throw up out of anguish over losing the person who knew exactly how to get on his nerves. It was shocking to see him break so violently at the reality that his friend was gone, given how rigid he was. I didn't have the guts to carve it myself. It was like that damn thing was calling out for me. Even after so many weeks had passed, I thought I would be over it, like everyone else that's left me. But it still called my name, like he did. So cheerful, so full of life, and zest, and love. I was lured to it, like a lamb to the slaughter.
I winced as I grabbed my crutches, pulling myself up to a stand. Hobbling down the stairs, I started heading towards the graveyard. When I first woke up from recovering, the realisation dawned on me. Every body or crudely crafted cross that sat in the graveyard were those of people who became examples. Human, above all other things, but examples of how to live.
Sophie's death taught me how valuable was the freedom to be who you are, even if it meant dying by the hands of the person you thought you could trust the most. You can't stop them from taking your life, but you can stop them from ever taking what makes you who you are.
Brody taught me to trust my instincts above all else. If your gut is telling you that something bad is going to happen, believe it. Prepare for it. Don't sit around worrying the whole time.
Marlon taught me that we don't always have the answers, and when we think we do, we can be wrong. He showed what it was like to be a compromised leader, and why to never become one.
Mitch taught me to fight for what I believed in, and to do it with the grit of your teeth and the whitest of knuckles. If you're going down, you're taking them all with you.
Minerva… Minerva taught me what it would do to me if I ever surrendered. Never let people control you like you're some caged animal in need of training. Die for your own mind, or you'll die by the hivemind.
And Louis… well… Louis taught me what it was like to feel as if I had everything in the world all in one place. He taught me everything all over again. How to breathe, how to think, how to feel. And it all felt new with him. Louis wasn't one person, he was ten people. Fifty people. A hundred. He was a thousand suns, a million beating hearts, a billion souls bleeding together as one. He was the happy ending in a sad novel, the best cartoons on an early Saturday morning, the one summer's day during a snowy winter. He was the epitome of life wrapped up in a spiffy, bourgeois coat and a leg-weakening piano composition.
He was… well, Louis. And Louis was mine.
As I stood there, eyes filling with the tears I had grown so accustomed to seeing, I stared at the carving of his name on the wooden cross. I lowered myself down to the ground, pushing my crutches aside, and sat across from his grave. My mind drew to the foul, abhorrent thought of his beautiful, gleaming face turning to rot where he lay; the arms that once held me stripped of the warmth and movement he so suavely emulated; the heart that was the drive of all his glory torn out from the chest that delivered his wonderful laugh. Corroding teeth embedding into every part of his sound body.
I cowered at the thought of it all. I hated that, sometimes, it was all I could think about. Sometimes, I couldn't stop it. The thoughts would race and the pressure would build up and like Aasim, vomit would pour out of me because I couldn't stop thinking about what I saw. Life suddenly slowed to a stop. It hurt – how painful he looked, the way his hand reached out for me, the sound of him crying my name, everything. It all broke me.
"I should've done something…" I mumbled as I shut my eyes.
But what was there for me to do? Deep down, I knew it was irrational to blame myself, but I couldn't let myself believe I was helpless in all of this. He didn't deserve what happened. Maybe I did. Maybe it should've been me. Maybe—
"I'm sorry, Clem," a voice spoke, drilling me out of my dismantled state.
My head snapped up, noticing a lonesome Aasim a little further down the pathway. His brows curved in pain, but his voice spoke firmly. I had to pull myself out of the wreck I let me fall into. He shouldn't see me like this.
"For what? It's not like it's your fault," I replied through my fading weeps, wiping my eyes once again. They stung.
"I know. I'm just sorry for what you're going through," he clarified, easing his way over to me. "It's the worst kind of pain."
I huffed.
"H-Yeah, sure feels like it," I grumbled.
Aasim grabbed both crutches and hoisted me back up from the ground, handing them over for me to lean on.
"It gets easier," he told me. "The more you face it, it helps. Soon there won't be anything left to say."
I looked down at the cross, barely able to glance away from it.
"That's what I'm afraid of," I admitted. Aasim's brows curved in again.
"Why would you be afraid of moving on?" he asked me as if it were the most absurd thing in the world. "Growth is good for you," he expressed, his hand landing on my shoulder comfortingly.
"Because I… I don't want to lose him to my memory," I admitted, staring back at the ground. "I keep pretending that he's just tuning the piano in the music room. Or that he's out on a hunt. That he'll walk through the gates sooner or later, when he's done being himself, and come back home," I told him. I knew I sounded delusional and I hated admitting it to him, but letting it be known was relief within itself. "I can't let him become just a memory."
Aasim paused for a moment.
"I get it," he nodded. "He's more than a memory, he was impactful. That we can agree on," he said as we began to slowly stroll away from the graveyard. "But that's exactly what he'll always be; an impact. So in a way, even though he's gone, he still lives on in the things he taught people. In you, in Ruby, in AJ. In the change he made in everyone's lives," he told me, his hand shoved in his pockets as he stared up at the sunset. He made a good point.
"What'd he teach you?" I asked, blinking my cold, wet eyelashes at the ground. Aasim began to smirk, shaking his head as he finally glanced up.
"Taught me how to enjoy myself," he replied. "Even if it didn't look like it. I thought he was so stupid and carefree that it was going to get us killed. But in reality, I just took everything way too seriously. Things that didn't even need to be serious. Like the way he ate dinner thinking he was going to choke, or the way he talked so loud even though we were in the dorms. I didn't let any Louis-behaviour go uncriticised," he relayed to me, before his expression began to fade, dawning into realisation. "I didn't let anything slide…" he muttered, pausing for a few moments as he stopped at the stairs.
"You regret it," I observed, glancing at him sympathetically as he swallowed.
"I should have told him how I really thought about him, how… how envious I was," he confessed to me. "Ignorance is bliss, sure, but… as much as I hated ignorance, he made it seem so desirable. Because all he ever was around me was blissful." He continued to stare at the ground. "He was the best of us—"
"Aasim," I took a sharp breath in, leaning my head back again. But as the verge of tears drew close, I was tired of crying.
"Sorry. Sorry, I'm—" he shook his head. "This isn't helping. I just… he's the reason why I told Ruby I liked her," he told me, causing me to blink in surprise. "And why I liked her. He was already a fucking goof before you got here, but when he met you, it was like he was on idiot-steroids. So I thought… if the happiest guy in the world could be even happier with someone by his side… then maybe I could finally be happy too."
I lowered my head, letting out a short breath.
"Are you?" I asked as I hobbled up the stairs. He stared at me for a moment before his eyes darted away.
"I don't know…" he pondered for a moment. "With Ruby, of course. All the time," he began to smile. "She used to be borderline psychotic when she first got to Ericson's. Like, feral as all hell."
"I'm sure she'd love to hear you say that," I began to chuckle.
"I know. Shitty thing to say about your girlfriend. But that's besides the point. One day, it's like she switched up out of nowhere. She's so… caring, you know? Sweet, compassionate, tender… And now that I think about it… it all kind of changed when they became friends. I mean, she definitely had to have all that already in her. But he sorta… unlocked it. Coaxed it out of her. There's a lot of Louis in Ruby, a lot more than I thought," he told me, scratching the back of his head.
"So you're saying if Louis was a girl…" I began to joke, a grin finally easing onto my face.
"Ew, no," he deadpanned at me. "Not even female Louis could—"
"I'm kidding," I huffed, before mumbling a curt "maybe."
Aasim glanced away for a moment, as if he were mulling over something serious. At least I managed to get a laugh out of myself. There hadn't been much of those in a long while.
"I haven't seen you go in there since it happened," he said, looking up at me from the bottom of the stairs. Sighing, I looked down.
"Too many memories," I spoke quietly. Aasim then followed me up the stairs.
"I—uh… still hear the music… sometimes," he told me, glancing at the doors of the administration building. "When I'm just about to fall asleep, in that weird, half conscious state."
I quaintly nodded my head.
"I do too. All the time," I replied, sighing once again. "In bed, in the greenhouse, down by the stream," I shook my head. "He was really good."
"Ruby thought she heard it for real," he said. "When you were on your walk with Violet last week. She swore on her grandma's grave that she could hear it, so she ran real damn fast to the music room. I couldn't stop her."
Worriedly, I glanced at him.
"What happened?" I quietly asked, but all he did was look to the ground for some notion of ease.
"You know what happened," he said, before I took a shallow breath in. I watched him peer back at the doors again, before his eyes edged closer to me. "Come with me," he said, backing away to it.
Blinking, I thoughtlessly followed him through the doors of the administration building. I thought he wanted to talk upstairs, maybe so Ruby couldn't hear something he didn't want her to know from the watch tower. But when we got through the doors and took a sharp right, I instantly halted and shook my head.
"No, I—"
"Clem, you're not doing this alone," he assured me. "You're tough. You're smart. You always have a game plan. But this isn't something you'll survive if you don't face it—"
"Aasim, I can't go in there—"
"Yes, you can. You can," he reassured me as he stepped forward. As I blinked, he swallowed hard, letting out a soft sigh. "I… heard my parents die over the phone," he suddenly told me, drawing my confusion. "Everyone was going crazy. Kids everywhere were screaming and crying. Most of the adults left or were being eaten just outside the gates. So to get away from it all, I locked myself in Ericson's office, and I used the phone to call my mom and dad…" he let out a shaky breath, glancing at the staircase. "And I heard them die," he spoke softly, as if the child in him had come out to say it. He stared down at the ground once again as I watched him mull over it.
"Why… Why are you telling me this?" I softly asked him, my brows furrowing.
"Because. I was where you are now," he replied. "I couldn't go into Ericson's office after that. For years, I didn't step foot in that room. If I needed Marlon, I got Louis to go get him. If someone even said 'telephone,' I lost my fucking shit," he scoffed. "Louis and I were on a hunt once, it had been years at that point. Just two fourteen-year-olds thinking we knew shit. We couldn't find any game that day and so he wouldn't shut up. At all. He just wouldn't shut up. He was complaining the whole time—"
I rolled my eyes endearingly at the thought of his incessant chatter.
"—and he kept saying he wished he could just call a pizza place or something and order food instead of having to go out into the wild and hunt. He… he was trying to be funny. Like always. But every single time he said "call," the less I could hold it in. I got so fucking mad. The last joke he made, I started cursing at him; right there in the middle of the woods. Then cursing turned into yelling. Yelling turned into pushing. Pushing turned into punching," he continued, shaking his head again. "He didn't fight back," he shrugged. "All he did was try to grab my hands. Kept telling me to stop, to look at what I was doing. And he kept… he kept asking me… "What did I do? What the hell did I do?" And I asked myself that too. Right in the middle of punching the shit out of him. You know… what did he do? Make jokes about ordering pizza? It was so absurd, and I knew it was so absurd… so I stopped. And as soon as I stopped, I could see the fear and… and the confusion in his eyes. All because I couldn't face what happened. Because of my trauma…" he paused for a moment, staring at the ground. "I was going to beat him to death... I almost couldn't stop myself. And all the yelling and screaming I had done, it drew walkers. His nose was bloody, his lip was busted. All that fresh blood was just… attracting them even more. There were so many close calls on the way back to school, and I… I didn't let myself forget what happened. If it wasn't Louis this time, it was someone else next time. I needed to face that room and face what happened. I couldn't let someone die because of me and my fucking problems. I wasn't going to let that happen."
Taking it all in, all I could do was stare at him in awe. In shock. I was utterly speechless as he glanced over at the corridor.
"It was killing me as much as it was going to kill him. And after I finally stopped hitting him, in the few moments we had before the walkers came, he asked me why I did what I did. He got up, backed away, and asked me… "What the fuck happened?" And… and all I could do was just fucking cry. I cried, and it was like he immediately understood. Even when I told him, and I told him everything… it's like he already knew."
"It felt like that…" I managed to croak out. "A lot of the time, it's like he just knew what I meant."
He nodded, before glancing back at me.
"He walked me into that room. He wouldn't leave until I said he could. He didn't get bored, he wasn't uninterested… he never left my side. You can't let it kill you, Clementine," he told me. "Once it kills you, it'll kill everyone. And everything we fought for, everything he stepped up for, it all goes down the drain. One day it's not being able to get out of bed, the next it's not being able to release the bow, or unsheathe the knife, or run away. And then it's over."
Breathing in, I nodded at him. He was right, and I understood clearly. Crystal.
"I… I can't let it be over," I started, crutching over to the doors. "He wouldn't have let me live it down if I did," I chuckled through my dwelling tears. "God…" I sniffled again, shaking my head.
"You got this," he encouraged me, following me up to the doors.
"I appreciate it. I really do," I told him. "I think I'll do this on my own."
Backing away, he held his hands up.
"You do what you gotta do," he told me. "If you need me, just shout. I'll be there."
Smiling, I nodded at him.
"Thank you."
It wasn't long before Aasim had left me to face the doors of the music room all on my own. Its mahogany wood radiated the familiarity Louis seemed to ooze, and it brought me back to the moment it all began.
Following the music.
I smiled to myself when I thought about how suave he tried to act in front of me. The way he played the piano as he spoke, the way he tilted his head at me – he was pretty much a dork in disguise. But the difference between him and all the other dorks was that it didn't matter how much I rolled my eyes, or laughed at his attempts to 'woo' me, he was going to try again, and again, and again until inevitably, I realised how much I liked him back. He just… had that affect.
As I breathed in one last time, I placed my hand on the door knob and twirled it. I kept my eyes shut the entire time I awkwardly jimmied myself through the door, crutches and all, and didn't open them until I knew I was fully inside. When I did, it was… exactly how we left it. The afternoon light bled through the windows and cascaded around the dingey room, illuminating it a bright, grapefruit-like orange. Purple painted jars were littered everywhere, sitting atop of book stacks, corner tables, and chairs. In the corner of the room hung the banner Tenn had painted, its edges beginning to peel off the wall.
'See you on the other side!'
I almost threw up right then and there. And last but certainly not least, my eyes drew to that old, out of tune piano. Some people were just synonymous with their own special items. Molly with that ice pick, Luke with his machete, Sarah with her glasses, Javi with his bat. Sometimes I wondered if he loved that piano more than he loved me. It was apart of him, and he was attached to it unlike I had ever seen with anyone before.
I let out a huff. It complimented him.
Hobbling over, our carving became clearer and clearer the closer I drew to it.
"That's, uh… that's a potato? …It's a heart. Yep. I see. It's a heart. That's… super cool. Really cool."
Sitting down at the piano, I shook my head. I couldn't believe he thought it was a potato, surely he was kidding.
"Louis," I spoke softly, before a scoff came over me. "Louis, Louis, Louis…" I cleared my throat. "Not the first time this has happened. I'm kind of an expert at talking to you when you're not here, aren't I?" I let out a small laugh. "It feels weird to sit here and talk to myself, but… let's just be insane for a moment, shall we?"
My smile somewhat strengthened before it dropped, again I let out a breath.
"It'll be winter soon. I know you were waiting for it just so you could tell everyone how not cold you were with your big coat," I huffed. "I never told you but sometimes, from the back, it looked like you were wearing a dress. Violet said she saw it too. I think if she told you, you wouldn't wanna find a new one, because you loved that freaking coat. You would just accept it because you knew it didn't matter how anyone else saw your coat. The way you saw it was good enough for you…" I began to smile properly. "I wonder where you got it from. You never told me," I huffed again. "Or, well, I never asked. I should have," I said, before my lip began to quiver again. "I should have… I… You know, I sit here, and I think to myself that… there were so many other great things about you that I never got to know. Things about your life that would have made me laugh as well as you do, or cry with you, or… I don't know. Lots of things. There was still more to know about you, Louis. We were just so busy or we were apart, you know, in those last few hours…"
I wiped my eyes again.
"You always wanted to know more about me. Always asking questions, like when we first played that card game. When you asked me if I ever had a boyfriend before. God…" I began to chuckle. "I thought you were such a dork for asking me that. I didn't want to be mean, but the way Violet rolled her eyes at you was exactly how I felt," I chuckled again. "Or when you asked me what I looked for in a guy. I wanted to joke with you, so I said brawn. And you flexed your stupid arm and winked your stupid eye at me," I continued to chuckle. "And that was the exact moment I knew I always wanted you by my side. Always. And I think you tried your hardest to be what you thought I wanted you to be, but… you didn't know I wanted you exactly the way you were. Everything you were was… amazing. A- And truthfully, I never knew what I wanted in someone until I met you. I never thought I'd want someone at all. You… you really surprised me on that one…" I huffed, sniffling as I wiped my nose.
I stared at the cross again, observing the way the letters formed his name. The more I looked, the hazier it became.
"AJ cried about you last night. During dinner. He just… broke down and cried right in front of us all… I've never seen him do that. He was so frustrated. I… I thought he bit his tongue or—or something, so I asked what happened and… and he was crying because the seat next to me was—um, was empty," I sniffled again, my voice shaking. "Everyone fit perfectly on the table, and… at the end was… was nothing. So he cried." I then let out a sigh. "You would've told me it was okay to cry, too. And believe me, I wanted to. But I couldn't let the group see me like that because you… you really know how to make me cry, Louis," I laughed through my tears as I wiped them. My lip began to quiver once again, and my smile deteriorated faster than I could keep up. "I miss you… I miss you so, so much…" I admitted. "It's not the same… it'll never be the same without you. I could've done more, but I didn't…" I choked up even more. "I need you here, next to me… telling me another joke… asking me another question… I need to see your smile, a-and hold you one more time because… I'm so fucking sorry…"
Sobs poured out from my throat as I buried my head in my hands. I could barely hear my own voice as it broke and quieted.
"God, I… I don't feel complete."
I cried.
"You were everything to me…"
And cried.
"This… this isn't home without you, Louis…"
And cried.
It was as if every trauma and every loss had all spilled out of me at the thought of Louis. I was broken. Not because I was maimed, but because I lost one of the most crucial parts of me. I spent the last half of my life fighting to live, but what was I ever living for? There was nothing. Nothing for AJ to hold, nothing for me to hold. No home, no family, nothing. Louis… was home for us. A home for everybody. He was like a beacon of light that suddenly went out, and all I had left was the same pitch-black darkness that would always be there.
What I would give to spend one more moment with him beside the piano, or being on watch duty with him, or watching him miss during target practice. What I had was insufficient of what I would give. He was gone. And contrary to the last seven years, you can't bring the dead back.
Not to how they were.
Not ever again.
I sat there and let myself lose control. After so long of holding it in, it sure does come out when it's ready to come out. It was like a thousand years of hurt had gushed out of me, and all because of some kid with a piano.
I could do that – minimise him. If I did, it was as if I was crying all for nothing. But minimising him had its own silver lining… it reminded me of how human he was, how humane he was. Like me, and everyone else, he was a spec in the vast, ever expanding universe. But unlike anything else, Louis meant more to me than any galaxy ever could. Louis was greater than any lightyear, brighter than any supernova, better than any milky way.
Louis was… Louis. And although gone, Louis was mine.
author's note: now THIS isn't aobt! :00
hello! i hope you're happy to see at least *something* from me despite its raw nature. i've been gone for quite a long time, yes, but i'm back with a one shot i wrote over a year ago a
few months after the last episode came out. i wanted to write grief and pain, and then coincidentally i had to go through it myself lol. hopefully this will take you back to the despair you felt when you first played that last ep and accidentally got louis killed like i did :)))))
i've got no idea if anyone in the fandom is even still active but i've been getting a few messages wondering if/when aobt will be updated so it seems like there's some stragglers. i'm hoping to get a new chapter of that out but in the mean time, enjoy this oneshot. i'll go over where i've been and why it's taken such a long time for me to get back into writing in the next update i do. enjoy! see u soon! :*
