Delta Dawn

by skele-smol

The rescue was a failure. The kids, all taken. Faces from her past, people Clementine had thought long since dead have returned and the teenaged survivor has been forced into the tightest spot of her young life. She must lead her friends, her love and her family and fight alongside the Delta in a final battle against a scourge threatening not only their own but everyone's survival.

1. River of ghosts

Delta Dawn.

Delta, noun :

A piece of land shaped like a triangle that is formed when a river splits into smaller rivers before it flows into an ocean.

Chapter.1: River of ghosts.

"That way! The bitch went that way!"

Lilly's heart is pounding, ragged breaths rasping her throat raw. The chilly autumn air is unseasonably cold, making her throat feel dry, so uncomfortably dry, with every short breath she manages to swallow down. She wheezes as her burning lungs gasp for air and her legs feel numb and heavy, unsteady and painfully sore as every leaden footfall shakes through her. She throws a sharp turn and wades through ankle-deep ice water. Her clothes cling tightly to her lean form, plastered to her aching muscles and saturated in sweat and rain and muddied river water kicked high as she plunges deeper into the frigid river.

The loud splashing alerts her pursuers to her plan. Their voices, sneering from the darkness, rise up loud and excited like the baying of hounds snapping at the heels of a wounded hart.

"Crafty cunt thinks she can shake us along the river!"

"She can try, ain't gonna get her far with fucking grabbers and ankle-biters lurking in the mud and deeper parts." The vile and cruel laughter that accompanied the voice eddied and swirled around Lilly's ears, just as the river water did her ankles, the sinister words chilling her blood faster than the raw touch of the rushing water. "Always did want to hear that one squeal."

"Yer a sick sonnuva bitch, y'know that?"

"Sicker fucks than me out there. But I'll sure as shit give 'em a run for their money."

The asshole almost sounded proud of his inhumanity. His dark gloating voice and horrifying unspoken threats drove Lilly's legs to keep pumping, to keep fighting, just please, keep her moving. Keep her just out of sight, just out of range. Just enough for them to decide she wasn't worth it, to quit and leave her for dead. And then, in one agonizingly slow, terrifyingly sobering moment, everything changed. Lilly's foot beneath the water, the one she needed to throw out and propel her further away, didn't come up. Her ankle struck something gnarled and clawed, and whatever it was, hidden and unseen in the murk and muck, latched on tight.

Her world tilted on its axis and Lilly's perception of time slowed, everything sensible in the world became distorted. Everything around her was a blur, a blur that swirled out of existence. The moment suspended in the air felt like a lifetime until she closed her eyes and surrendered herself into the alluring embrace of gravity and everything came smashing through her senses all at once. Panic gave her back her voice and agony her touch. The brief moment she had spent beneath the water as she had fallen had granted her back her hearing as soon as she floundered to the surface. On her tongue and flooding her mouth was the tang of copper and the putrid stench of mildew and rot filled her nose.

"She's down! She ain't that far upstream. We got 'er now!"

She had to move. Now!

Plunging her hands beneath the water, Lilly dug at the fingers clutching her ankle. Her own digits already burning with the cold and fumbling clumsily under numbed, uncoordinated muscles as she fought to pry herself free. From the riverbank, a few inches above the waterline and her head, the earth heaved and writhed. Great globules of soil and silt tumbled and slid into the darkness of the water, eroding out to reveal a cavernous maw lined with boulder-like teeth, and a garbled hissing slithered from a ravenous throat, revealing to her the decaying head of a walker birthed from the mud.

"Sounds like a fuckin' grabber got her!" Her pursuers were so close now that Lilly could actually hear their footfalls crushing through the dense brush and tangles of brambles. Hear their twisted amusement and the cruel joy they felt for her plight. "Ya might even get yer wish of hearing the bitch squeal if that undead bastard takes a chunk outta her."

Fighting with the walker's grip was like fighting with a hydraulic press, the withered muscles were strong as cables of iron and the bloated flesh slick like oil. Every time Lilly managed to dig her fingers between its limb and her own either her strength failed her or she simply stripped away rashers of rotting meat. She wasn't getting free, not like this. So she made a choice. Fishing inside her jacket, she fumbled for the glock strapped to her ribs. Shaking fingers flicked open the snap fastening on the strap that held the weapon securely in place and then, acting on instinct, the woman pulled the sidearm from its holster, ejected, checked and slammed the magazine back into its housing with a grim weight settling behind her ribs.

There were three shots in the clip and one in the chamber, one shot for each of them… she needed to make them count.

Chunks of the built-up sediment and silt crumbled free and tumbled to splash noisily into the water as the nightmarish figure emerged inch by rotten inch from the terrain. Its hollowed-out eye sockets picked clean by hungry scavengers, writhed with the movement of subterranean invertebrates that had made the creature's skull their home. Setting her jaw and steadying her aim, Lilly took one single, cleansing breath deep into her lungs before she fired. The bullet discharged from the weapon on a breath of flame and a bellow of thunder, striking the rancid creature beneath its worm riddled orbital cavity, its jaw swinging slack in a hungry howl that died with it in a bubbling gurgle. Shoving the weapon back into its holster beneath her jacket, Lilly wasted no time submerging her hands beneath the frigid waters once more, tugging and prying the slackened talons from around her ankle.

She had to move and she had to move now!

The crack of gunfire had plunged the forest into ominous silence. Awakening more of the predatory, undead creatures from out of their lairs. Lilly's nerves jumped as a distant, bloodcurdling moan, followed by another and another and another set the fine hairs along her arms on end. Scrambling to her feet and testing her weight on her tender ankle, she watched anxiously as the forest around her slowly transformed into a lethal playground.

What had once appeared to simply be tree branches stretched out in front of her, formed a distorted illusion of limbs that seemed to reach out and grab for her flesh. Her chill pocked skin shuddered and trembled and she could feel her brain starting to defocus in her rising panic. Her eyes, wild and darting, searched the darkness and the unknown for a way out. She should go back… up there, into the forest where there were winding paths that ran in every direction but her instincts screamed for her to stick to wading through the water despite the hidden threats of walkers concealed beneath the liquid abyss.

Her hesitation cost her dearly.

Springing from the shadows, a large, hunkered figure splashed noisily into the river as one of the two men following her landed knee-deep in the water behind her. Fear rooted Lilly to the spot as slowly, he unfurled, her terrified eyes widening as he drew himself to his full height of six tall feet of lean, corded muscle. Across his face, a line stretched, his mouth carving a humourless smirk across dangerous features.

"Hello, Lilly."

Panic seized her as her feet slipped and slithered outwards on the wet riverbed, sending Lilly crashing to her hands and knees when she spun to scramble up the crumbling overhang on the bank. Digging her nails into the earth, grabbing roots, anything to help haul her exhausted and frozen body back toward the forest. Her lungs immediately ache with the shock of cold air inhaled too fast and her ankle screams in flames of agony all the way up to her knee with every pounding footfall. Behind her she can hear the man's braying laughter at her heels, crushing her hopes of escape, of survival and bringing tears of fear and humiliation stinging to her eyes.

"We got 'er now!" The bodiless voice taunted her. "Loop back in, she ain't going nowhere!"

Her heart beats frantically in her chest. The echoed throbs reverberated painfully in her throat, pulsed behind her eyes and thumped through her skull. It was all or nothing. Her final gambit. Her last stand. If it paid off, she'd be free. If not, well… she'd heard the screams of other women, filled with fear and agony, often enough to know what the alternative would be.

So she made her choice.

Branches attacked her, ripping at her arms and raking her cheek. Leaves crunched under her boots and broken boughs and tangled roots seemed to appear from nowhere with the intent to trip her, to stop her escape. Her long legs threatened to break from beneath her with every leap and bound, exhaustion finally creeping up on her, turning the small hurdles to looming fences. From the corner of her eye, skirting the very edge of her vision, she can see something large and fast-moving coming toward her. The other man, his thick head bent down and wide body barreling through the brush and ferns, raced alongside her like a deranged quarterback. It was over, but still, Lilly kept running despite knowing that her time was up. Her palms slicken with the cold sweat of fear, even her torn up breaths carried ragged edges of her voice. Her heart had started to race and she could feel her lungs screaming, feel the will of her muscles to push far beyond what any exercise could ever demand, this was a body and mind in full survival mode, and it was nothing but exhaustion and pain.

The next thing that Lilly was aware of was the impact that finally took her down. The solid weight of the man, who had chased her with such single-minded determination, slammed into her side with the force of a derailed freight train, a pained and surprised cry escaping her throat as her own body crashed violently to the forest floor. The force of the impact sent her unrestrained glock spinning from her holster, lost beneath the carpet of mulch and leaf litter and when Lilly twisted to dive after it, the man's mass landed heavily across her hips. His thick meaty fingers grappling her wrists down as he loomed over her, his sour breath hissing from between sneering teeth.

"Shhhh." His raw voice rasped brutal against Lilly's ear. "As much as I like yer struggling, yer gonna wanna keep it down. Biters'll be comin' after yer noisy little escape back there."

Lilly struggled harder against him. Her legs kicked wildly, toes scrabbling in the dirt for leverage so she could buck him off of her or so she could twist around and force a knee between herself and him and smash his ballsack back up into his throat. But her movements were too slow, too predictable and the man on top of her simply rolled his weight with her movements, riding the waves of motion as easily as a surfer cuts his board through the swell of the ocean. His powerful hands dragged her wrists down to her hips, arms pinned as he set her hands beneath his knees, his torn mouth curling as a whimper of pain bubbled from her lips, his heavy bones crushing down hard on her trapped palms.

"Betcha got a real pretty voice when yer screamin'." He moved his hands higher. One fist curling through the long hazel locks, wrapping and tangling the strands into knots around his fingers, the other braced to the earth, anchoring himself as the man brutally hauled Lilly's head back. His dark eyes dancing with perverse delight at the broken shriek that escaped her throat before the forced angle cut her voice off. "Betcher a regular little songbird when ya get going, ain'tcha? Pretty Lilly."

"Y'got her? She down?"

"Yeah, I got 'er." The morbid glee that tangled around such simple words made her stomach coil. And the next words had her bowels clenching tight, the coils in her guts tightening into nauseated fists. "An' that means I get first turn on 'er."

No!

She wanted to scream. To wail and cry and bellow. To bring down upon them both the deadly wrath of the shambling corpses lurking amongst the trees. She'd rather she be torn apart and devoured by nightmarish ghouls than be a victim of the beast that held her down now and wore a human mask. But she couldn't. Her throat was still crushed shut under his grip and all that she could feel was fear. Fear and anger. Furious, unyielding anger at the shadows cast from birch and bough that were already rapidly dissolving into the stroking fingers of nighttime darkness, a blanket to hide the man's monstrous actions. Furious that even the moon and stars seemed to turn away from her, from the fate that she was mere moments away from suffering. And then fearful once more when a quiet set of footfalls shushes through the mulching forest carpet, only a few metres behind the encroaching gloom.

The steps were cautious ones, precise and careful, the calculated kind of someone with combat training. Where most who crept quietly carried themselves with apprehension, these carried their owner with the quiet confidence born of training and experience. And, for a brief moment, Lilly's heart soared with the memories of her father. He had carried himself with the same such confidence as this person did, a military man with the experience of his service under his belt and pinned to his chest. For a fleeting second, Lilly allowed herself to forget that her father was gone, skull caved in and body rotting in a cannibal's meat locker so many states away. For a moment, she allowed herself to believe he had come to her aid, to rescue her, despite knowing he would never again step from the shadows and banish her fears with a gruff word and a brusque lesson to teach.

Her father was gone and whoever it was in the darkness, if they were even truly there and not simply a spectre that Lilly's terrified mind had conjured, wouldn't waste a bullet on business that was not their own…

… So why did she hear two echoing cracks of thunder? Two brutal shouts of death in the darkness that silenced the forest entirely in their wake. Why could she smell the acrid stench of burned gunpowder drifting into the air? And why did she scream as the man still straddled across her hips crumpled and folded over sideways, sliding from her prone form and dripped brain and gore from the back of his cracked open skull?

Lilly was given precious little time to process what had just happened before hands seized fistfuls of her jacket at the shoulders and dragged her free of the dead man. Hauling the shaken woman to her feet as, from the shadows, the face of her rescuer emerged. A man, stocky and scarred, with deep, dark eyes and a strong jaw stood before her, his firm fingers curled around Lilly's biceps, steadying her as another figure, this one much more harried than he, burst from the shadows that lead down toward the riverbank.

"Goddamnit, Garcia!" The second figure, a woman, hissed. Raised to her shoulder, a rifle was braced, her head tilted as she peered along the barrel and through the telescopic sight, scanning the shadows that heaved and sighed with rustling movement. "We agreed, no shots fired unless out of all other options. Did you even attempt to disarm?"

"Things escalated. I made a call." The man, Garcia, grunted. His dark eyes dropped down to the corpse and narrowed, kicking the split open head once before hawking phlegm and spitting. "Fucker got what he deserved."

"Maybe so, but three shots fired is gonna pull every last walker in for miles." As if on cue, the first hollow moan rolled through leaf and limb as a walker pushed and writhed from the shadows. Its sightless eyes roving and exposed teeth bared as torn fingers clawed and swung for anything it could grasp. The woman sighed, reaching for the blade strapped to her thigh as she nimbly stepped within grabbing range of the creature, the butt of her rifle slamming down on the wretched fiend's knee, shattering the brittle bone as the wicked blade bit deep into its skull. The reanimated corpse, now fully dead before it had even hit the ground. "We need to get ourselves gone before the herd arrives."

Garcia, ever the eloquent man, grunted once again though this time it sounded more a guttural agreement than one of simple grousing. He eyed his companion as she effortlessly put a second corpse down and readied herself to take down the next before he returned his attention to Lilly, his dark eyes taking on a hardened edge as he watched her test her ankle. "You're hurt."

Lilly returned his hard stare with a glower of her own. "Yes." She admitted, reluctantly. "I can still run though."

"Good." Garcia paced a few steps, kicking at the leaf litter until his toe caught on something heavy and metallic. Folding himself over and grabbing the uncovered weapon, he ejected the magazine, inspected the rounds before slamming the clip back into place. "Not got time to be dragging your sorry ass down to the boat." He offered the glock back to her with a sly smirk and a cocked brow. "And you don't have the rounds, or the grip on your weapon, to cover my ass if I gotta carry you."

Lilly usually would have spat a few choice words back at the man as she took her gun from his palm, snapping back the slide and loading a bullet into the chamber, but she was intrigued by the mention of their method of transport and her curiosity proved itself to be too much to stomp down. "You have a boat?"

The military man nodded once, wordlessly.

Nervous, Lilly's teeth bit down on the corner of her mouth, worrying at her lip. "What about a group?"

Garcia simply stared at her, dark intelligence glittering in his fathomless eyes. He was cautious and cagey, not prepared nor willing to voluntarily share more information with her than absolutely necessary. But Lilly could be cautious too, having escaped one dangerous group's clutches she was hesitant to place herself into the grasp of another. "Did you do what you did to help me or are you taking me captive?"

All humour drained from Garcia's features, his jaw squared and his next words came clipped and cold. "If I were taking you captive, why would I give you back your weapon?" His eyes darted to his female companion as she fell back, the tee line now little more than a writhing and heaving mass of grasping fingers and ravenous mouths and the silence filled with the slow drag and thump of withered limbs crashing through the undergrowth. "The way I see it, you got three choices. Two of them end with you dead, either you pop your skull or you get eaten. Or, you come with us." He paused, raised his gun and squeezed off two shots, covering his fellow survivor as she darted back far enough behind him to line up two headshots of her own. Two more broken bodies hit the floor before Garcia lifted his hardened eyes back to Lilly. "So, what's it gonna be?"

The hull of the Fitzgerald, its paint peeling and blistering from age and the Virginian heat, slices through the water with ease. It had been two days since Clementine had led the remaining teens from the Ericson's boarding school on a rescue mission against the Delta raiders. Two days since her noble intentions had ultimately ended in failure and capture for the rest of them. And two long, agonizingly long, days of travel upriver spent in a crushingly heavy and stifled silence.

Clementine paces the length of the cell like a caged beast. Stalking from the newly welded, barred door on one side to the dingey window and back again. Anxious energy, dark and storming, simmered in her leonine eyes as she glared at the reinforced steel sheet blocking her from reaching the floor bolt. Kicking out in irritation, the toe of her heavy boot slams up against it hard once, twice, three times before her cellmate shifted on the scratchy canvas cot in the corner. Propping herself up on her elbows as she craned her neck and narrowed her dilute green eyes at the brunette.

"Knock it off, wouldya Clem?" Violet's bladed reprimand slices through the tense atmosphere between the girls like a knife. Sharp and clean and leaving no doubt to whom the blonde's irritation was reserved for as she turned herself back to laying on her side, her back to Clementine as she continued. "You've already tried that shit once and it got you nowhere. So, just stop it."

Delivering one final kick against the steel, partially to expel the last dregs of her frustration and partially to spite the moody teen, Clementine backed up away from the door with her hands on her hips. "Would have gotten me somewhere." She seethed, tawny glare settling on the back of Violet's blonde head, the intensity of her scowl deepening. "If it weren't for you getting in my way."

She saw the way her barbed words hit and internally crowed in triumph as the blonde's willowy frame tensed and flinched. Though her mental gloating only lasted a moment before she found herself staring into storming oceans of swirling greens and greys as Violet launched herself from the cot and forced herself uncomfortably close to Clementine, invading her space as she planted herself nose to nose with the brunette. The number of fucks the blonde had for the younger girls level of comfort at this moment in time being precisely zero.

"Say that again. I fucking dare you!"

Lips curling back, Clementine returned Violet's fury tenfold. "I'm sorry, Vi. Did I stutter?" She took a deep breath before spitting the bitter words out like venom. "I could have gotten us all out. But you got in my way."

She expected the blonde to rage at her. To throw words laced with spite and fists curled in outrage. Her bruised jaw throbbed under the strain of her clenched teeth, a reminder of Violet's strength and explosive temper. She expected a repeat performance as she slapped the label of blame firmly upon the older girl. But she didn't expect to see the way that hurt and betrayal bled through the mosaics of colour or softened the hardened edges as a watery sheen glistened back at her.

"So what if I did?" Violet sneered quietly. Her chin lowered and her blonde bangs slid forward, curtaining around her face, a futile attempt at hiding the slight trembling of her lips. She clutched her hand to her chest, the one she had crashed into Clementine's jaw during their fight. Her thumb pad brushing idly over the split and bruised skin of her tender knuckles. "Did you ever stop to think how many of us might have died in the process?"

"None!"

"How can you be sure?"

The lack of heat in Violet's words was disturbing for Clementine to hear. Throughout the short time that she had gotten to know the blonde over, she had never heard the blonde sound so despondent. So limp and passive. Gone was the wild spirited and fiercely passionate girl that had fought for her and defended her when no one else would. Gone was the sweet and shy teenager who had blushed and stuttered and stumbled over her words when she had learned that Clementine had developed an attraction to her. And in her place stood a scared and hollow shell, not Violet but a husk housing a wraith. And, for the first time, Clementine could sense the broken trust Violet had for her. It smacked of that same vulnerability and guardedness that the blonde had wrapped herself up in when she had been shoved between herself and Marlon that fateful night. Forced to either trust someone who had betrayed her in the worst way imaginable or trust in someone she barely knew.

"How can you be sure that your plan would have worked?" She repeated, eyes down and voice cracking. "You're not invincible, Clem. And neither are we. Lilly has fully trained, fully armed soldiers. We have kids, ranging from what, six or seven years old to eighteen. They have guns, we have knives and bows. They have military training, all we have is spunk and spite and a fuck you attitude with only two weeks of practice."

"I have years of survival experience."

Hunched shoulders shrugged and still Violet kept her eyes aimed low, focusing on the zipper of Clementine's jacket rather than meeting her eye. "Yeah, you do. The rest of us don't. But that's not the point, Clem."

For a moment Clementine remains silent, then her hands rise to scrub up over her cheeks. Her palms grind against her eyes as her fingers crawl into her curls, the roaming digits tugging at the thick ribbons and coils, knocking her cap askew before dragging her hands down over her lips and chin and moving to fold her arms loosely over her chest. "So what is the point? What would you have us do, Vi? Hide away, like Marlon had you do?" The next words -words that she never thought she'd even think, let alone ever say aloud- flew from her mouth without hesitation. And she knew instantly from the look in Violet's eyes that they'd hit their mark. "Or would you have us give up, just like you did."

Violet shook her head and lowered her eyes. "I never gave up-"

The brunette snorts, the sound full of scorn and disgust. "Sure looks that way to me."

"I didn't!" Violet snarled. The anger in her eyes flared, igniting the green hues with a silver flame, giving her fury an ethereal beauty and savagery as she added spitefully. "Well, not on myself at least. I gave up on others giving a shit about me a long, long time ago, Clementine."

That last sentence hurled at Clementine packed a powerful punch. Carefully spoken and decisive, the blonde's words had an air of finality to them and no matter how hard Clementine might rail against them, it was clear that nothing she could say would change Violet's mind. Swallowing thickly, the brunette felt her shoulders sag, guilt and regret making her feel so incredibly small. "Even me?"

Violet paused, her shoulders tensing minutely as she leaned back against the cell wall, settling herself upon the cot and drawing her knees to her chest. Doing her best to ignore the chilled bite of steel seeping through her layers of vests and shirts to reach her flesh as she slid her shuttered gaze over to Clementine. "I'd be lying if I said that it'd never crossed my mind."

A heavy silence settled over the two girls, thicker than even the uneasy tension that had dominated the atmosphere these last two days. Unsettled eyes glanced unceremoniously around and each tried to avoid catching others glances as they passed by. It hurt Clementine to hear Violet admit that she had lost faith in her, no matter how brief a period of time or how fleeting the thought had been, the fact remained that the blonde had believed herself to be abandoned and it had been Clementine who had made her feel that disposable and helpless.

Beyond the cell door, heavy boots trudge slowly along the narrow corridor and a familiar dark face with flat, dead eyes appeared between the bars. Dorian. The hard-faced woman only paused long enough to check the integrity of the cell door with the heel of her boot and scowl wordless threats toward the captives housed within, ignoring those thrown back at her in defiance, before striding on to repeat her actions at the next occupied cell.

Clementine huffed an irritated breath when the woman moved on without a word, entirely dismissing the contempt and frustration roiling in the teenager's smoke amber orbs. Turning smartly on her heel, the brunette resumes her furious prowling, mumbling dark words and vague threats under her breath with each completed circuit of the narrow space. But when her sights fall upon her blonde cellmate, she stops short, boots stumbling as her heel clipped the floor wrong.

Violet sits in silence atop of the stiff canvas cot, her arms wrapped around her shins and her eyes pressed into the backs of her knees. She's so still, so rigid and silent, like a terrified child curling up as small as it could, hiding itself away from its parent's wrath. Hesitantly, Clementine eased herself onto the cot beside the blonde, dipping her chin and trying to catch a glimpse of the older girls eyes, uncertain of what she expected to read in their depths. But Violet's eyes were still partially hidden from her and what she could see held nothing for Clementine to read, although she did note the way that the blonde's spine stiffens when she touched the tensed shoulders.

"What the hell happened to you, Vi? What did they do to you to make you so scared of them? Every time Lilly, or anyone passes by, you look so frightened."

For an agonizingly long moment, neither girl spoke, and after another, longer moment of silence, Clementine wasn't even sure if Violet would even bother to offer her an answer at all. Not until the softest little call of her name, in the smallest little, voice snatches her attention.

"Clem," Violet sounds so distant, so tiny and lost as she called her name. The anger she had once felt now long since left her, making her sound so vulnerable, as well as so very tired. It made the brunette's blood run cold as she watches Violet's slender fingers claw into her thin sleeves, her knuckles bleaching white as her bitten back nails threaten to shred through the thread worn fabric covering her arms and rip into her own skin. "Did you know that there are walkers in the river? Like, walking under the water."

For a moment Clementine remained silent. Simply watching Violet carefully from the corner of her eye rather than directly and trying her best to appear as though she wasn't staring in horror -despite knowing that was exactly what she was doing- as the cryptic suggestion behind the blonde girl's words wormed their way into her thoughts. Behind her ribs, her heart hammers wildly and the bitter tang of bile rises into her mouth. In the half-light, Violet looks every part like the scared child that she sounds. Clementine's mind raced as she attempted to decipher the meaning behind the blonde's words, as it searched frantically for words of her own to offer her in comfort and all she can think to say is. "Yeah, I know."

"Creepy, right? It's like, nowhere is safe anymore." For the first time in days, Violet offers the younger girl a small, limp smile. The curve of her lips was there but the life behind it was painfully absent. And it was so very fleeting. As quickly as the edges of her mouth quirked it was gone and Violet was hiding once more, her face pressed back into her folded arms. "Nowhere."

Clementine's heart twists and sinks all the way down to her belly, wrapped up in a tangle of nerves and guilt. Slowly, cautiously, she reached out an arm and gingerly wrapped it around Violet's shoulders, pulling her in close as her fingers gently rub along her arm. Despite the heaviness in her stomach, it fluttered warmly at the feeling of Violet's body pressed against her own, relief stirring as the blonde sank into the warmth of Clementine's side rather than leaning away. And then a tiny appreciative sound escaped her lips, a murmured thanks for the simple gesture.

She had no idea how long they sat like that for. Quietly wrapped around each other until a chill rolls up through the bars of the door and then, just as the first bite of the cold wind nips at Violet's ears and nose -its raw touch creeping under her shirts and into her blood- and Clementine's hand moved down around her middle, tucking her against herself closer still. The brunette's touch was warm and her grip was soft and, within seconds, Violet allows her body to uncurl from around her own limbs and mould itself fully to Clementine's side. In her embrace, everything that had happened feels just a little more bearable and the blonde feels so much less lonely.

They both knew it was coming. Violet had seen it in the shy look that Clementine had offered her before she coaxed her face closer, gentle fingers cupping the angled line of her jaw and soft thumb pad sweeping against her high cheekbone. Hesitantly, the older girl peered up through shuttered lids and fluttering lashes. The swirls of emotion she saw, threading through golds and browns and hazels made her gasp and her heart skip a beat. Love and desire mingled with sorrow and regret, and all of it Clementine offered up to her without reluctance. But still, Violet turned her head before the younger girl's lips could find her own.

"Don't." She demanded quietly, her voice cracking under a swell of emotion, though it was more frustration than it was sorrow this time. "Don't kiss me unless you mean it."

The fingers that cup her jaw tighten fractionally, guiding Violet to meet Clementine's eye again, pulling her out of her head and back into the room as they then move to thread through flaxen strands. Her eyes are so different in moments like these, more soft and warming like the embers of a hearth rather than sharp and alert like those of a hunting leopardess. The emotions behind starfire eyes telling her that Clementine needs this, that she wants more of a connection with her, or that Violet does. Though, in reality, it's more for the both of them rather than for one or the other. And, if it were anyone else holding her sight so fervently, Violet would have dropped her gaze within moments but, with Clementine, she finds herself drawn in closer, wanting more than anything to let the brunette see past her defences. And then, finally, she murmurs the words Violet needed to hear her say so desperately.

"I do mean it, Vi. Why wouldn't I?" Her eyes dart to the faint bruising to the base of Violet's throat and shame floods her cheeks. "You're the reason I stayed at the school, why I came back to bring you home. We're a team and I need you."

With a sobbing breath bubbling in her throat, Violet buried her face into the crux of Clementine's shoulder, praying to god or whatever other deities that were prone to listening in on a mortal's desperate plea, that the brunette had missed the glossy sheen burning at the corners of her eyes. "Please, don't leave me alone again."

Sighing softly and bumping the apple of her cheek against Violet's crown, Clementine clenched her arms around the blonde even more tightly as a rough shout cuts through the silence and bounces down the empty corridors, alerting all to the fact that the ship had finally docked.

"Never," She rolled her head, her chin now resting on top of Violet's head. "I promise."