(Vincent's Pov)
I lifted my head up from the water as the current kept dragging me down the river and fast. I looked around as I tried to find something to grab onto but there was nothing at the moment. I tried to get closer to the land but that didn't work and the water splashed in my face once again and dragged me under the water. I came back up and coughed up some water and I felt something hit my back hard and I turn to grab whatever it was and it was a boulder. I held on and looked around as best as I could and I saw some walkers rush past me from the currents pull and some water crashes into me and I cough more as I look around more for anything.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck." I mumbled as I look around more and I see some trees off to the side that were leaning down low enough for me to grab. I move as best as I could from the boulder and another walker passes by and grabbed my arm and in fear, I let go to grab my arm from the walker. I hit it and miss the tree but I was able to grab a log off on the side as the walker grabbed my leg and tried to bite it. I kicked it a few times in the head before it finally let go of me and I pull myself up onto the log and I coughed a few times and shivered from the cold and being soaking wet didn't help. I pulled myself up more and I finally got to the land and I laid on the dirt as I look to the star.
"Fuck." I mumbled as I hear walkers and get up slowly and fall back down because my leg hurt like hell. I groan silently as I move closer to the tree and I look at my pant leg and pulled it up. There wasn't a bite mark on me and I was glad for that.
"Oh, thank god." I say to myself as I get up slowly and lean on the tree. I think my ankle was just twisted and if it was broken well it wouldn't matter it wasn't going to get better any time soon. I grab a stick that was strong enough for me to lean on and I walk slowly in the direction I had been dragged from. The sun was just starting to raise up high in the sky and I cough a bit.
"Fuck… probably got a cold." I mumble to myself as I walk more and I get to the bridge. I look around and don't see a lot of walkers, maybe two to three of them so I walk quietly past them. I saw a long fence on the side and I shake my head as I walk in the direction of the school. I have no clue how long I was walking but I got closer and closer to the school and I heard some talking.
"We have to go find him god damn it." I hear and it sounded like Clementine.
"We will, I promise we will." I hear Louis say and I stop as I take a break and take a seat. My head was pounding, I don't feel good my ankle hurts and I just wanted to sleep.
"GUY!" I hear someone yell as I finally black out. I have no idea on how long I was out for but I wake up a bit to see Ruby looking me over.
"Oh, thank god you're awake." She says and I cough a bit as I try to sit up and she helped me up a bit.
"Here take these." She says and hands me some pills and I take them and drink the water she gave me.
"How… How long have I been out?" I asked as I looked to her.
"Two days, well Three days now." She says and I nod and cough more and I cover my mouth as I cough more.
"I'll go get Clementine; she's been so worried about you." She says and I shake my head as I cough more and I close my eyes a bit.
"S-sorry." I cough as I look at her again.
"It's fine, we tried to keep you warm." She says as she pulls the blanket closer to me and I shiver a bit and I look to the wall.
"Shit, sorry um… where is Clem?" I asked as I looked at her.
"She's outside I 'll go get her for you." She says and I nod as I pull the blanket closer to me and I look outside to see some snow and I shiver more and I look around and I get up slowly and felt a boot on my leg and looked down to see just that. It was a medical boot that we had left in the nurses' office and I cough a bit as I get up and the door opened just as I got to my closet and I opened the closet door.
"Vincent, lay back down." I hear and I turn to see Clementine, and Ruby looking at me, Ruby covering her eyes and I look to see I have no shirt on and I grabbed the jacket and put it on.
"S-Sorry I was… c-cold." I stutter out a bit as Clementine came up to me and took me back to the bed.
"You need to rest." She says.
"I am… I am." I try to say but I cough again and sneeze as I cover my mouth and nose and I close my eyes a bit.
"I know." She says and I Hear the door close as I put the blanket over me and cover myself up more and I shiver a bit.
"I can ask Omar to make some soup, I mean he's making soup but you know what I mean." She says and I chuckle a bit.
"Ok… yea." I say and I lean on her a bit and she rubs my back a bit as I try to relax as best as I could.
"What happened?" I asked as I close my eyes a bit and listen to her.
"When you fell in the water Louis was about to dive into the water to get you." She says and I chuckle a bit and I cough again.
"R-really?" I asked and I felt her nod a bit and I hold her hand.
"Yea… I don't know what happened to you but I know that Willy called out to us and we saw you leaning on a tree… god you looked like death." She says and I chuckle a bit at this.
"Sorry." I mumbled.
"Don't be… Tenn blamed himself for what happened to you." She says.
"I need to talk to him." I mumbled as I pulled the blanket closer to me and I shivered a bit.
"When you get better." She says and I nod as I open my eyes again and look at the window.
"It's snowing a lot." She says and I nod.
"That's bad." I joke and she nods and I look to her.
"You been keeping warm?" I asked as I touched her and she nods.
"Yea, we have the fireplace in the music room going constantly." She says and I nod.
"Yea, I can feel that." I tell her as I do feel a bit warm.
"We boarded up the windows a bit to keep the whole building warm, and we got the greenhouse started, but we can't plant anything yet, and we did get some spare wood for inside and outside." She says and I nod again tiredly.
"I'll go get that soup." I hear and I stop her as she moves a bit from me. I pull her to me and I hug her.
"Vincent?" She asked but I kept quiet for a bit.
"You ok?" She asked and I nodded as I let her go.
"Sorry I just… I just wanted to hug you." I say and smile a bit as she smiles back to me and she nods a bit and leaves once more to go and get the soup. I look to the side and watch as the snow falls and I cough a bit again and I cover my mouth as I do. I slowly get up again and sit at my desk and watch the snow and I see something walking by the school and it didn't look like a walker to me. I get up more and I see that the person was wearing a bright jacket I get up more and look closer that is until the door opened. I turned to see Clementine with some soup as she looked to me.
"Can't stay in the bed hu?" She asked as she came over to me and I looked at her.
"Hey, did someone else come to the school while I was out?" I asked and she looked at me and then went over to the window.
"Oh, yea that's Mariana, Gabes sister, she was taken by a member in Jones Group when they escaped the walls of the New Frontier." She says and I look to see the girl come in the gate and head into the building.
"So, her brother doesn't know that she's alive?" I asked and she nods as she sits down next to me and sets the soup on the desk and I looked to it then her.
"Omar says to eat this, you'll feel a lot better." She says and I nod as I take the spoon and eat some of the soup.
"You know once you get better, you can meet Mariana, she's really nice, well to me she was." She says and I chuckle.
"Oh?" I asked and she smiles and nods as I finish up half the soup. I look out the window again and I rub my head a bit as I watch the snow more.
"Yea… it's ok that she stays right?" She asked and I nod a bit as I watch the snow more. As time passed, I finally got better and was able to walk around more; I was finally able to formally meet Mariana as I walked around the school more. Ruby checked up on me and I was currently sitting by the fire in the music room strumming my guitar for AJ as him and Tenn drew on some spare papers we had found. Tenn was teaching AJ how to draw eyes and I stopped playing as Louis came walking in.
"You ok?" He asked me and I nod as he sits at the piano and slowly presses on a few keys as I watch him.
"Hey Vincent…. Remember the song that Minnie would sing to us?" Tenn asked and I look over to him and nod.
"Yea… she called it what? Um… don't be afraid or something?" I asked as he looked at me more and nods a bit.
"Yea that's it." He says.
"Why do you ask?" I asked him about this and he shrugs.
"I miss hearing it, but." He tried to say and I look to Louis and the other kids came in the music room to get warmed up from the snow. Louis started to play a few keys of the song and I looked to my guitar and I sighed a bit.
"Come on Vincent, you know the song better than I do." Louis says as he continued to play it.
"I… fine I'll sing the damn song." I say as I set my guitar down and I looked to Clementine who looked at me with a smile. I close my eyes a bit as louis replayed the beginning of the song and I tried to remember it. I keep my eyes closed as I started to sing.
"Never mind the darkness…. Never mind the storm…. Never mind the bloodred Moon…. The night will be over soon." I sang a bit as I opened my eyes and looked at the flames a bit.
"The night will be over soon… bush away the sorrow, Bush away the tears, sing away your heavy heart, the night will be over soon, the night will be over soon." I sing again and look to everyone and then away as Louis continued to play his piano.
"For every night go quiet, and every moon grows blue, beyond the dark comes something new, the sun will be rising soon, the sun will be rising soon… the sun will be rising soon." I finished as I looked down at my legs and I remembered when Minnie would sing the song. I look at Sophie from the corner of my eye and she is just watching Tenn and I rub my face. I already mourned for Minnie once, but then I found out she was alive, then she's gone again and I can't help but feel sad that she's actually gone and this time it was for good.
"That was really nice." Mariana says and I nod.
"Yea?... Minnie use to sing it a lot when we were all scared… when all this started or when kids were afraid of the storms…. She was so sweet and kind and…. God she never wanted to hurt walkers, she wasn't able to." I tell her and I looked to everyone then turned back to the flames.
"The Minnie on the boat wasn't the real Minnie, she was long gone and…. Then…. She was gone." I say and look at my hands a bit.
"We know you miss her." Ruby says and I shake my head a bit.
"I already mourned for her; I shouldn't be sad that she's gone now." I say and I look at Sophie a bit as she just looked to Tenn.
"She did miss all of you guys though…. When we got to the delta, she tried to convince them to never come back here to take you guys, to send us back too… but you know that didn't work." She says and I look away.
"Family is important, especially in this day and age." Clementine says and I look at her.
"Yea… I miss my Ma and Pa, even though they sent me here." Ruby says.
"My parents were probably worried when they heard about all this." Louis says and everyone talked about their parents, all excepts, Clementine, AJ, and I.
"I… I heard my mom say she loved me one last time… on an answering machine back at my house… when she was in Savanna." Clementine says.
"What about your dad?" Louis asked and I looked to him as he gave her a sad look.
"She told us how a crazy man bit him and they were in a hospital…. He was long gone." She says with a tear in her eye and I went over to her and I hugged her gently on the side.
"I never knew my parents." AJ says and looks at us.
"But Clementine has told me a lot about them, so I know what they were kind of like, and plus Clem acts like my mom so I have a new mom." He says to us and I smile a bit as Clem hugged him gently.
"And Vincent can be your dad." Louis joked and I punched his leg as everyone laughed at his comment.
"If he wants too, I don't mind." He says and I nod to him.
"Thanks AJ." I tell him and he smiles as he gets closer to Clem to keep warm. I took my jacket off of me and I place it on them both and I watch the flames more.
"That would make you his crazy uncle." Aasim says.
"And you the weird Grandpa." Louis says to him.
"Wait how did I become a grandpa?" Aasim asked and I chuckled.
"Ah it would be more like Ruby is our mom." I joke and she looked at me.
"Ok so, I would be AJ's uncle, Ruby would be his grandma, Aasim would be the grandpa cause him and Ruby should totally date now, Omar is the awesome dad that makes a mean meal, Sophie would be his sister and Tenn would be his brother." Louis says and I chuckle.
"Then Clem and Vincent are his parents." Louis says and again I shove him.
"Ok crazy guy, thanks for our fascinating new family tree." I say and he nods.
"Your welcome I try my best." He says.
"Wait, you forgot Mitch and Willy." Tenn says as they came in through the door.
"Oh right, Willy is AJ's new cousin, and Mitch is… also AJ's cousin." Louis says and they look at us confused and I chuckle.
"Louis mad a new family tree with all of us." I explained and they nod as they sit by the flames too. The room was a comfortable warmth for all of us as we just sat around and talked a bit.
"When all of this started, Gabe and I had no clue as to what was going on, I was about seven and he was eight." Mariana says and I nod.
"So, our… our grandfather just passed away too… from cancer… and I was so… stupid but he opened his eyes and he was awake and I went to get him some juice like he always gets when he wakes up… I was going back and my grandma was telling me that he was… sleeping." Mariana explained and I watched her more.
"I told them no, he was awake and they were shocked… then we all went to go check on him… next thing I know uncle Hector was trying to talk to grandpa and grandpa attacked him, then Uncle Javie and my dad stopped my grandpa and my grandmother just… he bit her when she got to close and it was on the face… my father went to take her and Hector to the hospital and that was the last time we saw them." She tells us and I sigh a bit.
"How did you guys find out?" She asked us and I rubbed my arm.
"We… we were all at the old lake just a mile from here, because we were good we got to go swimming there… anyway a strange man came walking and of course one of the other kids wanted to be an ass and fuck around with the man while the rest of us wanted to just leave and tell the teachers about it… but then the man turned and there were maggots on his face and just…. he took a huge bite out of… shit I think it was Eric?" Ruby says and I nod.
"He took a huge bite out of Erics' neck and we all took him back after Louis and I both shoved the man away and we all just ran…. But all the adults except for Mrs. Martin." I say and I look to everyone.
"Eric died and we were all freaking out as Mrs. Martin went to go call an ambulance but then he got up and Vincent checked on him asking if he was ok." Omar says.
"But then Eric attacked me and… Louis hit him in the head with an old chair leg and we though it knocked him out but… it killed him... again." Aasim says and we all look at her.
"We had no clue what was going on till the radio announced that the dead were walking and people were dying… the other teachers never came back which pissed us all off, that they were going to leave us all to die here…. After that Mrs. Martin taught us as best as she could with medicine, mostly Ruby though since some of us were just…. angry." I say and rub Clementine's side a bit as I watched everyone.
"Or we didn't believe any of it, like the little kids had no clue and when we tried to explain it, they said we were lying about this and that they didn't have to listen to us…. After that the older kids started to take charge and we just… tried to keep the kids safe." Mitch says and I rub my neck.
"After time kids started to die and we just… kept trying to live." Louis says.
"My babysitter and I hid in my treehouse when the dead started to walk… Sandra went to go try and get some help but she ended up getting bit and she went into the house and locked herself in, it was a few days later when I heard a car crash and I didn't leave until a day later to check it out and I did go and checked it out… that's when I technically first met Lee… he was telling me to call for help there was a shooting…. I was scared and ran back to my home and back in my treehouse… he came over the fence and I had a hammer in my hand ready to drop it on his head if he came up the ladder and I hear him say something about filling my tea cup with bourbon." She says and I chuckle a bit at this information.
"Anyway, he got in my house and I look through the door of my treehouse and see he found my dad's walkie talkie… I then talk to him on it told him to keep quiet and that the monsters could hear him… he said his name was Lee, I told him I was Clementine, he was thirty-seven years old, and he asked me where my parents were… I told him they left me with a babysitter and I see Sandra from behind him and all I did was shout and hide in my treehouse again…. I heard him yell and I… grabbed the hammer and handed it to him as he bashed Sandra's head with it, over and over till she stopped moving…. After that Lee asked if I was ok and hugged me as I was scared, his leg was hurt so we left at night not knowing about how dangerous it was but we found Shawn and the officer who were in my neighborhood and we helped them and Shawn took us to his farm." Clementine says and I hold her to me. She looked up to me a bit and I look at Sophie once more.
"Met a lot of people over time, lost a lot of people… AJ and I are the last of our original groups." She says and I look as AJ had fallen asleep on her and she held him close.
"When AJ was taken away from me… I was so scared and so mad… I started to hate people, I hated anyone that tried to wrong me, or I would stay away from people, it's all I could do… but when I found him again… I cried, I… I kept him away from people too after all he had been through… they had him locked up in a damn locker for fuck sake… if I hadn't come, he would have died." She says and I look at her again.
"I'm sorry you and him went through that." Louis says and I nod agreeing with him on this.
"You know, it's only a few more weeks till Christmas? We could have a little Christmas Party?" Louis says and I hold Clementines hand a bit.
"Sounds fun." Willy says and I nod a bit and I just look down at our hands link together and I think.
"You know what's really good at Christmas?" Ruby asked and I look to her.
"What?" all the kids ask and I just look at clementine who looks back at me and we both smile at each other and I feel like chuckling.
"Weddings." She says and I hear laughing and I look around confused.
"Wait what?" I asked and looked around.
"Ruby says weddings are good on Christmas." Mitch laughed and I think.
"What? Wedding are nice, I remember my sisters and I would talk about the winter weddings." Ruby says and I look at her and rub my neck.
"Yea but they use to be comfortable with heaters, electricity, and so on…. Wait why are we talking about weddings?" Aasim says and I smirk.
"Ooooh is Ruby suggesting something for her and Aasims future?" I asked her and she turns red.
"No, I remember just having fun with my sisters when planning out their wedding." She says and I chuckle at this.
"Weddings are nice though." I say and everyone looked at me.
"Thank you." Ruby says and I nod as I think.
"I actually remember there was a wedding in my town once, it was of an elderly couple…. they were both males, and the had a beautiful wedding, white and gold with red roses here and there." I say and I chuckle.
"And one of them wore a suit with white frills and said 'Why yes this is my wedding dress and also my Sunday best'." I say and Clem giggled.
"He waited years to say that on a Sunday…. They got married a week after gay marriage was legalized, they waited years for their moment to proudly display their wedding into the papers…. but you still had people who didn't like it." I say as I slowly stroke the back of Clems hand with my thumb.
"So, you saying you want to marry Clementine? Oooh double wedding." Louis says and I look at him and let go of Clems hand and try to stop him.
"No, no, no, let's not get ahead of ourselves." I say.
"So, you don't want to marry Clementine?" He asked.
"Wait that's not what I."
"So, you do?" Ruby asked and I look to Clem who's laughing at this.
"Ok, hey calm down you two." Clem says as she stops them.
"Come on a wedding would make us all happy." Louis says.
"Then you marry your chair leg." I tell him.
"Maybe I will." He says and I shake my head.
"What is a wedding by the way?" AJ asked and I look to him.
"It's a nice get together of two families becoming one." Louis says and AJ looked at him a bit.
"So, we can be a family?" AJ asked as he looked to Clementine and me.
"I mean we can be a family without a wedding." I say.
"But everyone says that weddings are nice, and you did too." He says and I rub my neck at being trapped in this.
"Well, yea, they can be nice but not everyone gets married with a wedding, my parents got married through a courtroom…. Wait hold on why are we only talking about Clementine and I? what about Ruby and Aasim, or Louis and his chair leg?" I asked as I looked to everyone.
"Hey I don't care about weddings, but if I can set off some fireworks, I could care a little." He says.
"Oh yea, fireworks." Willy says and I groan as everyone laughed as I laid back careful to not hit the flames of the fire.
"I didn't even propose to you and they want a wedding." I say and Clementine laughed a bit and pats my head gently.
"It's ok." She says and I look at her. As the days passed and we worked a lot to keep everyone warmed and fed, I slept in my room and Clementine would sleep with me, AJ would also sleep in here sometimes when he was scared or when it was a bit to cold, the other kids would come in as well, like I said before I was smart to not bust my windows at the time. But at this time Clementine and I were alone in my room and I was watching her as she was reading a book that she had found when we went on our run this afternoon. She was laying her head on my chest a bit so I could also see the pages and read along with her. I am a slow reader though but she didn't mind that; I was rubbing her arm gently as the candle was our only source of light.
"Strange book." I say as she nods a bit.
"I think this is one of those romance books that my mom used to read." She says and I chuckle as I close the book and she looked up to me.
"I may not be able to take you on an amazing trip to the distant lands of this world but we could take a walk once the weather gets warmer and I can pick some flowers for you." I say and she kisses me and I smile a bit as I kiss her back. It didn't last long till there was some knocking on the door. I sigh a bit and I left the bed and opened the door to see Louis looking
at me.
"Something up?" I asked.
"Yea there's people snooping around the gate." He whispers and I nod as I look to clementine and then him.
"I'll be out in a bit, just keep watch." I say and he nods as I go and grab my boots and put them on.
"Something up?" Clem asked as I finished tying up my boots.
"Louis says some people may be snooping around the gate, just going to go with him to make sure that no one is." I say as I grab the jean jacket Clem had found for me that had some wool lining on the inside to keep me warm. I watch her get up and I stop her.
"No, it's fine, I got it, relax." I tell her.
"No, I can help, besides, what if it's Kenny and the others?" she asked and I sigh and nod.
"Alright be quick." I say and she nods as she goes and grabs her jacket and shoes and I start to walk out and I grabbed my rifle. I look around as the snow falls a bit more there's got to be at least a foot of snow on the ground by now as Louis and I begin to walk to the fence and I look around.
"Hello?" I asked as I opened the gate a bit and look around and see a flame light, and I look to Louis and then I see Clementine who had her pistol in hand and I point to the light. Louis and Clementine both nod and we head out the gate and Louis locks it and we head to the light to see what was going on. It took us a bit as we hid from the light just in case people were around it, I hold my rifle out as I look and I see a familiar green army jacket.
"Kenny." Clem says as the man turns and so do the others.
"Clementine." He says as she comes up and hugs him.
"Nice to see ya'll again… want to come back to the school? It's warm." I suggest and Kenny looked to me and rubbed his neck.
"I uh… if that's ok with ya'll." He asked and I nod as we take them to the school.
"You should know that you guys are welcomed to stop by any time." Louis says and Kenny nods.
"Thank you, and we didn't know we passed the school." Javie says and I look around a bit.
"It's fine." I say as we get to the gate and I think.
"Hey do you guys know a Mariana, by any chance?" I asked as I looked to them.
"Uh… my niece?" Javie asked and I nod and he looked to me then Clementine and back to me.
"You…. You aren't?" he asked and I shook my head.
"But right now, she's asleep and so is everyone else, we're really tired from working and ya'll do need to warm up." I say as Louis opens the door for them and we all go inside the school as I go to the music room and set some more wood on the flames to keep it going. I stand next to it as the others get close to the fire and Clementine stands in front of me and I hold her waist gently.
"Um." I hear and look at Kenny and I move my hands away. Much to Clementines' disappointment that is and I don't blame her, I wanted to hold her to me.
"So anyway, ya'll can stay in here to stay warm, and we will head to our rooms, the wood is there if it starts to die down if any of you decide to stay up or anything." I explained as I pointed to the fire. They nod as they get comfortable and I nod as I go and get them something to eat. Clementine followed me and helped me with the bowls and I look at Louis who was tired.
"Hey man, go to bed, Clementine and I got this." I say and he nods a bit as he sets his chair leg to the wall and heads to the dorm rooms and I nod as I help clementine with the bowls and spoons and we head into the music room and we got the food ready and handed the group of people the food.
"So, my sister is Alive still?" Gabe asked and I nod.
"Yea, she was walking past the school and well, we let her stay when she recognized Clementine." I explained and they all nod.
"This is amazing." Javie says as he looked to Gabe and Kate.
"Well thank you for taking care of her." Kate says and we nod and I look to the window a bit to see that it was still dark out.
"Alright, Clementine and I are going to head to bed, if you need anything you know where we will be, your old rooms haven't been touched so if you want to head to them the doors are open." I explained and they nodded as they ate the rest of their food and got warmed up by the fire. I took Clementine back to my room as I opened the door for her she pulls me in by grabbing my jacket and she kissed me. I kiss her back and I chuckle as she giggled.
"What's so funny?" I asked.
"Your beard tickles." She says and I chuckle again.
"Is that so?" I asked and she nods and I kiss her again and she giggled again and I pick her up and I take her over to the bed and lay her down on it.
"You know, we can be very quiet." I say and she looks to me and thinks.
"Maybe." She teases and I kiss her neck a bit and then there's another knock on the door and I sigh a bit as I stand up and open the door to see AJ with his disco broccoli toy that he had when he first came her.
"Hey bud what's up?" I asked.
"I uh… had a bad dream." He says somewhat ashamed and I look at him a bit and let him inside the room as he looked to the ground.
"Hey no shame in bad dreams, I still get them." I tell him.
"Is that why clementine sleeps with you? She scares the bad dreams away." He says and I wanted to laugh as Clementine looked at me and covered her mouth a bit to keep her laugh from busting out.
"Yea, she really helps with bad dreams." I say and I pick him up and I set him on his bed and I look at him.
"You want to sleep in here tonight?" I asked and he nods a bit and I nod back as I cover him with the blanket and I rub his shoulder a bit then his back. It helped him relax as I kept rubbing his back till, he finally fell asleep and I slowly got off the bed and went over to Clementine who looked at me as she scooted over on the bed and I laid next to her. I wrapped my arms around her waist and look at her as she looked to me.
"You know, it isn't a lie but you do act like a parental figure for AJ." She says and I look at her.
"Yea?" I asked and she nods and I kiss her cheek gently and she looked at me more.
"You know, when everyone was talking about weddings and stuff it got me thinking." I say and she looked at me and I pull her closer to me and I look at her.
"If you and I last…. Till the spring… or summer… MAYBE…. If you would like… we could? Have a small wedding?" I suggested and she looks at me and I rub her hip gently. She thinks for a bit.
"You don't have to answer me now, you can tell me in the spring or summer, it's your choice." I tell her and she nods.
"Alright, I'll tell you in the spring." She says and I nod as she then kissed my cheek. I turn in the bed real quick as I blow out the candle and turn back to her as we both finally fell asleep.