(Violet's Pov)
I looked over to Clementine as she raised my rifle up and pointed it at the deer. I kept a look out on any Walkers, which lucky us there wasn't any around. I then looked at the deer but a twig had snapped and of course the deer ran away and I sigh as Clementine would look at me and I smiled a bit.
"I don't know what did that." She says and I shrugged.
"Probably a squirrel little bastard." I muttered and she laughed a bit as she handed my rifle back to me and she grabbed her cane and we walked in the direction of the deer. We walked a bit in silence so I decided to try and start up a conversation.
"Sooo, how's life?" I asked.
"Oh, you know, same old, same old, trying to live, helping people as best as I can, trying to make sure my old wife doesn't lose her hearing too soon." She jokes and I groan a bit.
"Ok so what I found a grey hair this morning, that doesn't mean I'm a grandma." I say and she laughed.
"My poor old woman." She says as she pats my back and I look at her.
"Oh, come on, you're going to get grey hairs soon too you know and I'll start making fun of you." I say and she shakes her head.
"Nah I got the good genes; you won't be seeing a grey hair on my head till I'm in my Seventies." She says and I chuckled a bit as we take a moment to stop so she could rest up her leg a bit.
"Leg becoming a bother?" I asked and she nods a bit.
"Yea but I can't do anything on that, it's not as bad though trust me on that." She says and I look to her a bit as she waved me off.
"So, how's life?" She asked me and I think.
"It's going good, once we finally get this deer though that would be great." I say as I looked to the woods.
"I'm still sorry." She says.
"You don't need to apologize, it's not your fault, other animals just want us to stay out longer." I say as I look at her once more and she stands up a bit and begins walking.
"I'm surprised you didn't go back on your promise though." She says as we climb over a log and I help her.
"I wouldn't have heard the end of it from you if I had broken it, though I'm still very much against it at this time but I can't do anything now." I say and she smirked at me as I
"Oh yea, you would not hear the end of it." She says and I nod at this knowing already.
"Anything else?" I asked and she thought a bit as we began walking after she got her feet on the ground.
"Well, lets see." She says as she thinks a bit and I look to her and I hold her hand a bit as she takes a quick look at me and I pull my hand back.
"Sorry I um."
"No, its ok, I'm just a bit surprised." She says and holds her hand out to me. I look at it a bit then I take it in mine and we walk some more and I look for any signs of the deer passing through but just my luck there weren't any.
"So, have you been ok on the seeing things?" she asked and I looked to her.
"Hmm they come and go sometimes, it's bothersome when it happens." I say as I look to her and I take her cap off and place it on my head and she laughed at this.
"Well, if you ever have them again just tell us that's all I ask of you." She says and I nod.
"So wan to head into the town to see if we can get anything good?" I asked and she nods as we head into the direction of a small town and I look at my map a bit and we finally get in the town.
"Literal ghost town." I say with a whistle and Clementine nodded as we head into the direction of the grocery store and I let go of her hand as I take a look around.
"Think we could find a Twinkie?" She asked and I looked to her.
"Craving sweets?" I asked and she nods a bit.
"Haven't had any since Texas." She says and I nod as I look around.
"I once heard that twinkies could last in a nuclear blast." I say out of random.
"I heard Roaches, but we aren't going to talk about that while looking for Twinkies." She says and I laughed a bit as I get behind a register and I get up.
"Welcome to the grocery store, what can I help you with?" I say jokingly and she looked at me.
"You can help me find the damn twinkies." She says and laughed a bit.
"I'm sorry ma'am but it seems that we don't have any, may I offer you something else?" I asked.
"Hmm how about kisses?" She asked and I looked around.
"I don't have an-." But before I could finish, she came up to me, grabbed my face in her hands and kissed me on the lips and I kissed her back. Once we pull apart, I smiled a bit at her and I chuckled.
"Well god damn, thank god we're in a apocalypse." I say and she looked at me as I come over to her and I lift her up and she yelps a bit as I sit her on the counter.
"Violet." She says and I kiss her again and she put her hands on my face and I smirk into the kiss a bit and I move my head down to her neck and I kiss her there too.
"Hey not here." She says.
"What afraid a Walkers is going to see you naked?" I asked and she slapped my shoulder and I chuckled as she looked at me as I keep my hand on her waist a bit and I looked at my vest on her.
"Looks good." I tell her.
"Oh this? Yea my wife gave it to me." She says.
"I'd like to meet her you know to tell her I want you all to myself." I say as I go back to her neck and kiss it a bit.
"Hmmm, well she'd have to tell you kindly to back off, she's very protective you know." She says playing this little game and I couldn't help but smile a bit. But like all good things it had to end when we heard some cans falling and I look to the side to see nothing. So, I pulled away and looked around as Clementine grabbed her cane and also looked around. I move back from her slowly as I pull my rifle up and look around the store a bit but saw nothing. I saw where the cans fell though so I went up to them and looked around to see the back door to a butcher's area and I look to the direction of Clem and I walk back over to her.
"See anything?" She asked and I shook my head no.
"No but they might be in the Butcher's section of the store, we should just head out to the others." I say and she nods as I help her down and grabbed my bag as I grabbed her hand to leave the store. It took us a good while before we got back to the trucks and I look to see them packing up from our camp and I shook my head when Omar and them looked to us.
"Nothing hu?" Minnie asked.
"No, we lost the deer a few hours ago, we can find some fish though when we get to the school, most of our old traps might have already been sprung or tampered with." Clementine says and we all nod as we get ready to go again.
"Damn, that's right well when we get there, we can clean the area and reset them if we can." Aasim says and I agree on this and I look at the map a bit and nod as we all get ready to leave. I helped Clementine into the truck and then I get on the bike and head out first with the others following me. I would take a look around when we get to a sign that said welcome to Virginia, and I head into the direction of the school. I remember how to get there since I was the one to help with taking down the sings that would lead to the school. We had to take any papers too that even showed the school existed, it was a long and painful process since we didn't really get a lot of trips into the town to know where all the stuff showing where the school was located. I will say one thing that was pretty smart of Marlon to talk about when all the adults had left us. I looked to see AJ and Aasim drive on both sides of me and gave me a signal to slow down, to which I did and I took my helmet off and looked to them both.
"Hey, one person should head to the school to make sure it's all cleared out, just don't want anyone of the kids getting hurt." Aasim suggested and I nodded as I looked to him.
"I'll go." Minnie suggested and I look to her in the back.
"Yea I can scout up ahead with Minnie and make sure it's clear, just keep the walkie on and I radio for the all clear." I say and he gives me a thumbs up as I put my helmet back on and start to drive again, when we got a good distance from the school but far enough so they couldn't be seen and I could still radio them I then waited for Minnie who hopped on the back and we went ahead and drove some more.
"So, I never asked, when did you start riding?" She asked.
"I don't remember, all I remember is Clementine teaching me how to fix it up is all." I say as I ride more. We finally get up to the school and I shut the bike off and then I get off as well as Minnie follows me and I look to her then to the old schools' wall. I took a look around and didn't hear anything, I didn't see anything in the court yard either.
"I think it's good." Minnie says.
"Well we still have to look inside." I say and she nods as we head inside the gates and take a look around. The place looked so untouched for years and I look around some more and head to the old cellar doors and look inside and around. The place was clear so I then headed to the main school building with Minnie who came out the doors.
"Nothing inside, looks like no one has been here since us, that's really rare." She says and I nod and I look around to see some of the school being taken over by vines and I nod as I grabbed the radio.
"Hey the school is clear, ya'll can start heading this way now." I say and I look to the gates as I head out to get the bike, I heard the trucks come up and looked to see them coming in the direction of me. I get on the bike and head in once they all got in and I shut the bike off as Willy and Omar got the gate to close them. I go over to the truck and I helped Clementine out of the truck. She fell a bit forward so I had to grab her a bit and she looked up to me as she turned red.
"Fell for me eh?" I asked and she stands up a bit and hits my shoulder.
"Ok smart ass." She says and I smile as I looked at her and she kissed me and I kissed her back. We pulled back a bit and I think a bit.
"Want to check on our old room?" I asked and she nodded her head as I help her out and into the old dorm rooms. I took her to our old room and I looked around it a bit to see nothing had changed in all these years.
"Well damn I'm surprised." I say and I head to the bed and I lay on it and sigh a bit as I closed my eyes.
"Oh god this feels good." I say and I hear Clem laugh a bit and she came over to me and I look at her as she gets on the bed with me and I hold her to me.
"You about to fall asleep?" She asked and I nod a bit as I close my eyes again.
"Yea I might." I mumbled as I relaxed a bit. It was a while before I opened my eyes and see that Clem was asleep. I slowly get up so not to wake her and I get off the bed and grabbed my bag and looked for my cigarettes. I grabbed one from the pack and lit it up as I walked out the dorms and to the courtyard to see the others sitting at the picnic table talking. I looked over to not see Minnie anywhere.
"She went on patrol a while ago; she'll be back though." Louis says and I nod as I go sit next to him and I see the map on the table and I take a look at it.
"We're going to make a stop at the old farm see what we can get there if that's ok." Aasim asked and I looked to him then to the map.
"I'll come with."
"No."
"I will come with, whether people want me to or not." I say as I looked to see Ruby looking back at me.
"I just need to head out is all." I say and looked at the map more.
"I'll come to then." AJ say as I look to him and I nod.
"Ok… we can head out in the morning than." I say as I looked for any disagreement but there was none. I looked to the gate as I hear it open and I see Minnie coming inside and she walked up to us.
"I took a look around the wall, there was a patch broken from age but I blocked it off for now." She says and I nod.
"Good… anyway we can just head out in the morning and get the rest there to stay a while." I say and they all nodded at this. As the others went to get some sleep I went to stay on lookout and I feel someone next to me.
"You ok?" I hear and I nod as I turn to look to AJ and I smile as I rubbed his head.
"When did you get so big?" I asked.
"When I got older."
"Ok smartass save the theatrics." I say and looked the woods to see nothing really.
"You really want to head back to the farm?" He asked and I nodded.
"I want to at least make Tenn his grave… seeing the cross in the back of the truck is getting to me." I tell him and he nods.
"Understandable… I'd want to do the same… I miss him." He says and I nod.
"Yea… he was your first real friend." I say and he nods.
"Well, one that was my age, Clem will always be my first friend." He says and I nod a bit at this and I look around a bit.
"What do you miss about him?" He asked me and I think.
"How he thought different, always trying to think about the good things in life, how he could take death and just… make it ok I suppose." I try to explain.
"He made it seem like when we die, everything would be normal, we'd all be back at the school, doing what we would always do, or maybe out of the school and not having to worry about Walkers or killers and stuff… he made death sound kind of easy." I say.
"Yea… I remember when he drew me and Clem in this home with Minnie and Sophie, when he thought they were gone, he even added the supposed walkers that killed them in the picture too… I don't think I will ever understand how he could think like that." He says as he pulls his legs close to his chest and I watch him a bit.
"People take death in their own way of coping… I get angry now but before I just… didn't do anything, that's why I was sent here because I… I just didn't want to feel sad, but I didn't know how to feel that way when my grandma did that." I looked to the woods again as I breathed a bit.
"What about now?" He asked.
"What do you mean?" I asked back as I take a look to him.
"How do you feel about death now? I know you taught me about heaven and hell when we were back at the farm but… I don't know." He says and I take a good look at him.
"I think when we die, we do end up in heaven, like I said, you and Clem will go there, as for me though… after all I've done, there's no damn way I'll be seeing the pearly gates." I say to him honestly.
"I think that's a lie though… why make you suffer and end up in a place you don't belong… after what Joan did to you, after what you did to keep us alive." He says and I shrugged.
"I don't know kid… I just think that I will end up that way, though I could be wrong but… I won't know until it happens."
"What would you do if Clem died?" He asked.
"Shoot myself." I answer him immediately.
"I can't… I thought I could live without her but… you and Clem and even Mary are the only things in my life that keeps me going… but Clementine…. God I love her so much AJ." I tell him and he nods a bit.
"What if I ever got bit?" he asked.
"I'd do anything to save you." I tell him.
"What if you couldn't?" he asked and I feel like crying.
"Can we not talk about this please?" I asked and of course he nods as we keep watch. Hours pass and the light of morning starts to shine on and I help AJ up. We go and pack our things and I watch as Minnie comes up to us.
"I'm coming, so it's going to be you, AJ and me." She says and I nod.
"And me." I hear and looked to see Mary.
"Why don't you stay with Clementine?" I asked.
"I want to come, please Violet? Besides we can go in twos and watch each others backs." She says and I nod a bit.
"Ok, but please I want you kids to be careful." I say.
"Yes Mom, I mean Violet." AJ says and then walks away from me and to the gate and I chuckled a bit.
"Damn Violet, being a mom must be hard." Minnie teases and I groan a bit.
"Stop it will you." I say and we all begin walking.
"What I'm just saying, being a full time parents must be hard." She says and I think.
"Not really, I mean when we had to teach AJ about uh… well yea it's hard." I say as I see AJ shiver a bit at the conversation we once had.
"Don't remind me, it was awkward." He says.
"Yea well you shouldn't have told me you liked a girl in your class." I tell him.
"Can we please not." He says and I chuckled a bit at this.
"ok, I won't embarrass Goofball anymore." I say and he groans.
"Mooom." He says and I chuckled as we walked more.
"So why are we walking to the farm?" Minnie asked.
"Got to save the fuel for now, I don't remember if any of the gas stations here still had any, and I don't thin any is still left in the big gas tank on the farm." I say and she nods.
"Alright that's fair." She says and I watch as AJ and Mary walk in front of us and they talk about some random things that they could.
You'd think people would run out of things to talk about these days." Minnie says and I nod.
"Yea, you'd think… but hey we can talk about lots of things, like… how was Florida?" I asked.
"Oh god, don't remind me, one time there was a bad storm that came through after Delilah was born we joked and I called her the sea witch for years." She says and I laugh a bit.
"I swear those kids are cute and all but they can get annoying." She says.
"Yea but AJ and Mary are good kids, even when they were younger, I gave Mary some candy when we first met, I always use to have hard candy to give to AJ when he was younger." I say.
"You are acting like a grandma at that point." She says and I shook my head.
"Well… ok maybe I was but hey, what kid doesn't like candy?" I asked.
"I'll give you that, when Aasim Jr. and Delilah had candy for the first time they thought it was the best think in the world." She says and I nod.
"I would trade anything at this point for a chocolate bar." I admitted as I looked around for any danger.
"Really?" she asked and I nod.
"Ok well not anything, I mean exchange a good for a good." I tell her and she nods a bit as I look at her.
"Yea, was hard to find some coffee in Florida, mostly found sweet tea powder but that's pretty much it." She says.
"I use to make Apple juice for AJ and Clementine, god she was so happy when I gave her an apple, those are her favorites." I say as I remember that day.
"And I bet you still love chicken nuggets." She says and I nod and smile.
"Till the day I die I will always love that food." I say and looked at AJ and Mary.
"What do you think you would be doing if we never left the school… to the farm you know." She asked and I think.
"Probably trying to get over Clem leaving me." I say and looked to the ring on my finger and I sigh a bit.
"She wouldn't she's to much in love with you, I mean hell she hasn't left you in years, that means something." She says and I nod a bit at this.
"Yea ok, I'll give her that, but she's to nice on me, granted I don't mind that and she has gotten on to me about certain things but… I sometimes wish she wasn't, sometimes I wish she would leave me, I mean I have been a dick for a while." I say as we get closer and closer to the farm.
"Took us a few days to get there but we found a shorter way so we should be there but nightfall in two days." I say as Minnie kept silent and I look ahead.
"That's good, lucky we found that way years ago." She says and I nod at this. We take a few stops here and there and we did a little hunting as well as we got a few rabbits for all of us, it was about nightfall two days later as I said when we got near the old farm house and I looked to see that it appeared empty but we still kept our guard up. It wasn't long till we reached the house and I stayed in the front yard as I looked at it. I shook my head a bit as I went to the door and opened it slowly and the first thing, I saw was Tenn. and I closed the door.
"No one has been here." I say and look to the others and they nod a bit as they also go to the door.
"I'm going to go work on the grave um… ya'll can go in the back way I'll get Tenn.'s body." I say.
"You work on the grave and I'll get Tenn." Minnie says and I looked to her and I nod a bit as she enters in the house and I go out to the barn and grabbed a shovel. I get to work on the grave a bit and it was by the hill where he liked to draw most his stuff. I didn't cry and I couldn't cry, I don't know why I didn't, maybe it's because I've cried to much for him already I suppose. I finally finished the grave and looked to Minnie who had a bundle in a sheet and I sigh as I remember it wasn't a full body, just bones.
"I got him thank you." She says as I hold my hands out for the bag and I nod as I place my hands to my side and I watched as she placed the bundle in the hole. She then got the shovel and covered it up and I just stood by and watched.
"I've mourned him for so long… it's kind of easy right now but not really." She says and I look to her and I nod.
"I had to Bury my parents." I say and she looked to me.
"They were walkers, they were still at my old home and I didn't want them to stay like that… was scary really." I say and she nods.
"Clem probably didn't bury her mom and dad." She says and I nod.
"Yea… yea but… she got to bury Lee at least." I say and we finish with the grave and I place the shovel in the back as marker and I then went into the house with Minnie. A few more hours had passed as we got settled down and I was eating out of the can food we had and so did the others.
"Seems like we can easily get the panels fixed again and we can have power coming through." AJ says and I nod.
"Yea, for a few days at least, but we'd have to get back to the others soon you know." I say and they all nod at this and I looked around the old place.
"Thirteen years ago to this day." I mumbled.
"Hm?" I hear and looked to them.
"It's been thirteen years since I've known you AJ, I think today is when you and Clementine came to the school." I say and he looked to me.
"I… it has been a long time." He says and I nod at this and I smiled.
"So, in a few weeks you'll have met me than." Minnie says I nod to her as AJ does as well.
"Brody will have died in a few days along with Marlon, and a few weeks after that Mitch will have been dead." I state listing off the days as I think more.
"And my birthday will be coming up soon too." He says and I chuckled.
"That it will." I say and we all looked to each other.
"Well… Lets head to bed, I'll take first watch." I say as they get ready to head to bed. I would keep watch for a few hours and then Minnie took my shift and I went and laid on the couch as she would talk and I would talk with her till I fell asleep. I don't know how long it was but I was woken up by a jolt to my shoulder and I quickly get up only to be hit in the head with something hard. I fall to the ground and open my eyes to see AJ, Mary and Minnie all tied up as they looked to me in horror and I looked up to see Joan.
"Well, seems I found you, so predictable that you'd come back here." She says and I looked at her scared as one of her men kept his gun on me.
"Ho-."
"How did I know?" she asked in a mocking voice and I looked to her.
"Seems I need to refresh your memory." She says as she grabbed AJ and pointed a gun to his head.
"DON'T!" I yelled and then was hit with the gun again.
"Do you remember now?" she asked and I looked at her then to the gun on AJ and I nod.
"Yes… yes I do." I say.
"Then tell me." She says as she let her grip on him slack a bit.
"Y-Your group came here before… killed Tenn." I say and she nods as she let AJ go and she came up to me.
"You know we waited days for you Violet, you were supposed t meet us in our spot when we had people attack us, some people died while you just went about to do what you pleased." She says and I see her grab a bat from her lacky and she stood up and looked to me as I stayed on the ground.
"You let your people die." She says and I look as she swings the bat straight down onto my chest probably breaking a rib in the process.
"VIOLET!" Minnie yelled out as I cough from the hit and I take a few deep breaths as she hits me again and I move to the side a bit so she hit my shoulder instead, I was then flipped back to my back and I was hit again and again.
"MOM!" AJ and Mary yelled and I looked to them as I got kicked in the face and I was laying completely on my back. I looked up to the ceiling as I coughed a bit, I felt some blood come from my mouth but I don't care.
"Oh, that's so sweet, they called you mom as you lay here, about to die." Joan says as she takes another swing at me hitting my leg and then chest and even my face.
"FUCK!" I yelled out in pain as I coughed and I saw some more blood come out of my mouth and I just coughed more.
"STOP IT!" Mary yelled.
"Shut her up." Joan says.
"My pleasure." I hear and looked to see a man pointing a gun to Mary's head and AJ was about to move.
"NO!" but it was to late.
"MARY!" I yelled as I watched her drop to the ground. A bullet hole in her temple. Dead.
"MARY GET UP!" I yelled and I heard Joan laugh as I looked at AJ to see him frozen in fear and I looked up to Joan who took another swing at my chest.
"I'd suggest your boy keep his mouth shut or he's next." I hear her say but I also hear AJ crying.
"YOU KILLED MY SISTER!" He yelled out and I looked to the side to see him struggle and then the man pointed the gun at him.
"Don't… please don't." I begged as I tried to breath and I looked to Joan.
"Don't what?" She says.
"Don't… don't take his life… please." I begged and she looked to the man who moved the gun away from AJ's face and I looked to Joan more as I tried to breath.
"See I can be nice, isn't that right Violet?" She asked and I nodded a bit as I looked to see Minnie staring at Mary's body in horror.
"Y-Yes Ma'am." I said between a few coughs and she smiled at me as she stroked my hair a bit. I didn't move, it would only make her angry.
"Good girl, now how's about you come along with Me and your real family and we leave them be hmm?" she asked.
"DON'T DO IT VI!" I heard Minnie yell.
"Shut up." I say to her and she looked at me. The tears burning my eyes as I looked to Mary.
"Please… please shut up." I begged her and she looked to me as I looked back at her and I coughed a bit more and shut my eyes tightly and I looked back to Minnie then to Joan.
"I.. I'll go… let them go first." I say and Joan looks to me then to them.
"Sure, we can let them go, since you're being so corporative." She says and the lackies grabbed AJ and Minnie and pulled them away.
"Please… don't hurt them… just let them go." I say and she looked at me.
"I'm not going to hurt them sweetie." She says and places her hand on my cheek and I wanted to move away but I couldn't she might hurt them if I didn't do what she wanted.
"Mary… I… Mary." I say quietly as I looked to her body.
"Lessons had to be taught, you know how it is these days Violet, people won't listen to you if you don't show them the consequences." She says as she lifts me up after she tied my hands together.
"She was just a child…. She… She didn't have to die." I coughed a bit and looked to Joan.
"Oh….. but she did, she was being a pest by not listening to what I had told her to do, and you know how much I hate not being listened to." She says to me.
"That… that doesn't mean she had to die." I cried as I looked to Joan.
"Don't worry, she's with her mom now, isn't that a good thing?" She asked and I just looked at her as she moved away from me and talked to the others. I heard a truck going and I just stared at Mary's body.
"We burn the body." I heard.
"NO!" I yelled and they looked at me.
"Bury her please… please don't burn her please don't do that to her." I begged and one of the men looked at me, he actually looked at me with pity.
"Do as she says, least we can do is bury the kid." The man said and I got a closer look at him as he came by me.
"Delta." I said and he looked to me sadly and then grabbed Mary's body.
"I want to bury her… please just… I want to." I say and he looked to me as I looked back to Mary.
"I'll ask Joan." He says and walked away and I just looked to the ground. I heard people walking in and out and then I feel a gun tap my foot and I looked up to see Delta as he looked to me.
"You can bury her." He says and I get up as best as I could. I coughed a few times and he grabbed for me but I back up a bit stumbling.
"Don't… don't touch me." I say and I begin to walk to the door and I see Mary's body wrapped up. I go up to it slowly and bend down to my knees and looked at the cloth covering her face. I then pulled out an old photo from my left chest pocket as I looked at it then to her as I moved the cloth to place the photo in her cold hands. It was a photo of me and her when we were back at the old community with Joan, we were playing a game and Clementine had to take a photo of us, saying memories might as well be made if they're good ones. I felt the tears prick my eyes as I looked to the cloth covered in blood again and I finally sobbed.
"Fuck… fucking hell." I say as I looked to see one of the men holding a shovel out to me and I get up slowly as I grabbed it. I began to dig and it took me a while to finally make a proper grave for her. They set her body down after I had gotten up and out of the grave. I watched as she laid there and honestly, I wanted to cry some more but I had to be strong. I looked around to not see AJ or Minnie.
"Your kid and friend are being taken to your camp." Delta says and I glared at him.
"Don't give me that look, you were supposed to come back, and you didn't." He says.
"So, killing a little girl is just fine in your book…. Fine." I say as I glared at Joan who was ordering people around and I look at him.
"If anything happens to AJ or Minnie, or anyone in my group, I will make sure you all fucking get tortured I won't have fucking mercy on any of you." I tell them all as they glared at me. I meant what I said by my statement, I'll kill them all.