Clementine looked out in awe at the patchwork maze of colorful tunnels, big foam steps, and giant yellow slide swirling down into a ball pit standing in front of her. Everything and more had been walled in by a mesh material strung between large posts painted to look like scaffolding connected to a pair of towering decorative rockets that marked the entrance. The playground was beckoning to her, and Clem was ready to oblige it when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"We got to make sure it's safe first," reminded Sarah.

"Okay." Clem freed herself from Sarah's grip and raced towards the playground.

"Clem!"

"I'll make sure it's safe, you watch OJ for a second." Clementine raced past the entrance and immediately started jumping up the giant foam steps leading to the ball pit. "Hey!" yelled Clem. "Anyone in there!" Clementine banged one of the metal poles holding the mesh wall in place, making a loud clang that echoed throughout the area. No movement from the pit, nor did Clem smell even a hint of the walker's trademark pungent odor in the air, so she leapt belly first into the small sea of plastic balls.

Confident she had made enough noise to rouse even the laziest of walkers, Clementine pulled herself out of the ball pit and rushed back to the entrance, finding Omid's stroller but not Omid and Sarah.

"Sarah?"

"Over here." Clem hurried past the edge of the entrance and found Sarah and Omid in a small plastic playhouse tucked away beside the main playground. Sarah was sitting at the top of a short blue slide with Omid seated in her lap. "Clem, wait at the bottom to catch him."

Clem raced over to the slide and sat down in front of it. "Come on OJ, come to me, I'm right here." Omid smiled as he saw Clem clapping just below him.

"One, two, three!" Sarah helped Omid off the edge of the slide and the boy squealed as he slid the few short feet into Clementine's arms.

"There you go!" Clem caught Omid mid slide and lifted him high into the air. "Lift off!" Omid laughed heartily and hysterically as Clem kept him in the air for a few seconds before clutching the boy back to her chest.

"Bring him back up to the top and we'll do it again." Clem took a step towards Sarah, then flashed the older girl a devious smile. "Clem?" Clementine took off running back to the bigger playground, carrying a still giggling Omid in her arms as she did.

She took him up the big steps, through the ball pit, up a ramp, and into a maze of big colorful tubes. "This way OJ." Clem set Omid in one of the tunnels and crawled ahead of him, the boy eagerly following after Clem with a big smile. Luring Omid through the tunnels and helping him move higher into the playground, Clem found herself approaching the entrance of the big yellow slide, which Omid was speeding towards as fast as he could on four limbs.

"Hang on." Clem grabbed Omid before he crawled into the slide.

"Ah-duh-bah!" he cheered.

"You're gonna get to go, but we're going to go together." Clem sat down and inched into the slide. Peering deep into that dark spiraling tube, Clem felt a slight hesitation, but then she felt an eager baby trying to slide without her. "Okay. Here we go." Clem leaned back and pushed off into the slide.

"Whhoooaaa!" Clementine clutched Omid to her body as she spiraled downward through the dizzying display of twisted yellow plastic before being flung feet first into a pit of balls that she immediately sunk to the bottom of. Clementine couldn't stop laughing, struggling to breathe as she felt Omid crawling across her chest. The chuckling infant pushed through the multi-colored mess of balls until Clem found herself staring directly at Omid's laughing face, his big brown eyes overflowing with joy.

"I love you." Clementine pursed her lips and kissed Omid's forehead, prompting him to giggle even more. "Can you say love you? Love. You."

"Muh-boo!" exclaimed Omid.

"That's close enough," assured Clem as she ran her fingers through the boy's curly black locks.

"Clementine?" Clem took hold of Omid and sat up, startling Sarah as she rose from her hiding place amongst the plastic balls. "There you are."

"Hi Sarah," teased Clem in a playful voice.

"You scared me," said Sarah as she waded through the balls. "You shouldn't have run off like that."

"Next time I'll tell you when I run off." Clem's grin grew bigger. "I'm gonna run off!" Clem hurried through the balls with Omid in hand and raced back into the maze.

"Clem, wait up!" Clementine hurried back through the maze of tunnels, this time detouring into a small green section poking out past the edge of the playground. The girl set Omid down and then made a shushing sound.

"Be real quiet and we can hide from Sarah," whispered Clem as Omid smiled at her. Turning away from the boy, Clem looked to the plastic window built into this green lookout. They were a good ten feet off the ground, but there wasn't much of a view of anything but the edge of the dome that separated this playground from the rest of the world.

"Clementine?" echoed Sarah's voice from inside the maze. "Omid?"

Clem watched as Omid crawled towards the sound of his name being called, prompting Clem to grab him.

"No, no, let's stay hidden," whispered a playful Clem. "Just—"

Omid started laughing and Clem heard the nearby thumping grow louder.

"There you are," said Sarah as she appeared just outside the lookout. "What are you doing?"

"Having fun," shrugged Clem. "You're not?"

"Not as much as you are I guess." Clem moved up against the wall as Sarah crawled into the lookout. The bigger girl gradually squeezed into the tiny plastic box and even while just sitting, Sarah had to tilt her head since it brushed up against the ceiling.

"I can't remember the last time I was in one of these," said Sarah as she tried to turn her head. "I used to love these kinds of playgrounds when I was younger."

"But then you got too big?" asked Clem.

"Um, I guess?" said Sarah.

"You guess?"

"Well, I don't ever remember going to one of these and having trouble fitting in the tunnels. I just… stopped going after a while."

"Why?"

"I don't know. I guess I did it so many times, I kinda got bored with it."

"Are you bored now?" asked Clem.

"I don't know if I'm bored, but it isn't much fun when you can just barely move," said Sarah as she tried to cross her legs. "If I was any taller, I couldn't have even got in here."

"You might get taller," reminded Clem. "I guess I will too, and then I won't fit." Clem looked at Omid, who had crawled out of Clem's grip and was peering out the window. "And so will OJ someday."

"I guess it's a good thing you found this, so he could try it before he got too big."

Something about Sarah's words stung in Clementine's ears as she watched Omid eagerly tap his hands on the window. "It's not fair," said Clem.

"What?"

"Everything," said Clem. "OJ should get to do stuff like this all the time, not only once. And he should get to eat real ice cream, and all kinds of food, and play with other babies, and not have to spend almost his whole life in an RV. It's not fair."

"It's not really fair we have to kill lurkers and hunt for food and worry about bad people hurting us instead of going to school and spending time with our friends and our parents," listed a melancholy Sarah. "If we were just born like ten years earlier, we wouldn't have to do this stuff until we became adults."

"If we had been born a hundred years ago we wouldn't have to do this stuff at all," realized Clem.

"Yeah, but there were other horrible things that happened before lurkers," said Sarah. "I used to skim through those encyclopedias when we lived in Spokeston, and I kept reading over and over again about how millions of people died in this war, or how millions of people died from this disease, and I couldn't stop thinking about how awful it must have been."

"More awful than monsters that eat people and turn them into more monsters until that's all there's left?" challenged Clem.

"I don't know, maybe? Probably not," admitted Sarah.

"I just wish the walkers didn't come until I was a little older," said Clem. "There were so many things I wanted to try that I never will now."

"Like what?" asked Sarah.

"Well, I never even learned to ride a bike," said Clem. "My dad was going to teach me after he got back from vacation…"

"Maybe you could still learn?" suggested Sarah.

"Do you know how to ride a bike?"

"Um… no."

"We probably wouldn't have time anyway. And I'd have to do it outside where it wouldn't be safe and…" Clem sighed as she trailed off. "It's not fair."

"Life isn't always fair," reminded Sarah with a disappointed shrug.

"Yeah, but I don't have to like it."

"I don't either Clem." Sarah took a breath. "But… I'm really glad I got to meet you." Clem looked up at the older girl, surprised to see how emotional her friend appeared now. "Do you ever think about that? Do you ever think about how if things didn't go wrong, we probably never would have met?"

Clementine pondered the question. "Sometimes. I also think about how I never would have met Lee if things didn't change, or Christa and Omid, or… OJ." Clem looked over at the excitable infant, banging on the plastic window while awing at the unimpressive view. "But then I think about how I'd still have my parents and…" Clem bit her lip.

"And what?"

"And… I just wish I had them back instead," confessed Clementine in a shameful voice. "Is that a horrible thing to say? That I want my parents back instead of what I have now?"

"Of course not," said Sarah as she inched closer to Clem. "You were just a little girl when that happened, and you still are. A little girl should have parents. I wish I still had my dad sometimes, and it's terrible Omid doesn't have his parents. There's nothing wrong with wanting any of that back; for wanting things to be better."

"Even if it means we wouldn't be together?"

Sarah moved in close, which was made difficult because of how cramped the lookout was, and put her arm around Clem. "We are together," she said with a smile.

Clementine put her arm around Sarah and squeezed her tight, grateful for her friend's comforting words and even more comforting embrace. Looking over at Omid, Clem smiled as she watched him continue to marvel at the window, the small boy practically glowing in the dying sunlight.

"I wish this day could just last forever," whispered Clem.

"Me too," whispered Sarah. "But we should probably head back to the Brave before it gets dark." Sarah let go of Clem and contorted her way through the exit. Moving to collect Omid, Clem noticed he seemed content to stare out the window all evening.

"Come on OJ," said Clem as she carefully wrapped her arms around him. "It's time to go."

"Ah-buh-do?" said Omid.

"Yay, we'll do it again someday," said Clem as she moved Omid to the exit. "Hopefully."

Returning to the parking lot, Clementine couldn't help grimacing at all the smears and dents that adorned the side of the Brave, and looking at the flat tire again forced all the good feelings right out of the girl's mind. The vehicle also had a slight odor now thanks to all the gore caked on the front festering in the midday sun. Heading inside, the pair struggled to stow everything they took from the visitor center, having to push things aside and rearrange drawers as their humble little home got a little more cramped.

The one spot that wasn't cramped was their closet, barely cluttered with food at all anymore. They were also out of bottled water and had to use water from the sink. Sarah assured Clem the Brave's water tank could hold over fifty gallons and should still be full from when it rained yesterday, but it did little to ease Clem's mind.

Bowls of cold soup and glasses of water mixed with a flavor packet provided the girls with a meager dinner, and a bottle of formula was made for Omid when he refused to eat any soup. Clementine didn't blame the boy, she wasn't sure what kind of soup this was but it tasted like mushy paper; cold mushy paper. As Sarah urged Omid to drink some flavored water from his sippy cup in an effort to continue weaning him, the girls discussed their plans.

Tomorrow they'd check the visitor center's restaurants for any food, then leave the space center behind and return to the mainland. They needed to find a tire for the Brave, then figure out how to replace the flat one. They also needed to siphon diesel again sometime soon and Sarah wanted to see if they could find any books on auto maintenance. And of course there was the ever present need to find food.

After they had finished cleaning up and changing Omid, it was already dark, and the girl's prepared for bed. As Sarah tried to rock the infant to sleep in her arms, Clementine looked at their photo album. She briefly eyed her drawing of Lee, then flipped through the pages to the nearest blank one. Carefully she arranged their new photos inside; first her picture, then Sarah's, Omid's, and finally the photo of them all together. Tracing her fingers over the image as she set the photo inside, Clementine found herself wondering how long it would be until they were this happy again.