A/N: Hi! I managed to pre-write the next chapter before I left for the weekend. The next chapter will probably be out Monday, but Tuesday for sure. Enjoy!

"Jane?" Clementine called, walking up the stairs with AJ in her arms. She had just finished checking the perimeter, ensuring the fences were secure and no walkers would be able to enter. Her friend had mentioned she wasn't feeling very well earlier and wanted to take a nap, so the young girl was careful not to wake her up. "Are you feeling okay?"

Clementine paused outside the door to Carver's old office, listening for any reply. There was no answer from inside.

"Jane?" she tried again, pushing the door open. "The perimeter is—" She stopped mid-sentence, eyes widening in horror at the scene before her. Instead of lying on the ground napping, Jane was hanging from the ceiling by a rope around her neck. Her usually-warm eyes were vacant and glossed over, and she began growling and reaching for Clementine, jaw snapping hungrily.

"Jane, no!" she cried, tears springing to her eyes and falling down her face. "No... Why? Why..."

With shaking hands, she reached down and drew her gun. A sob wracked her small body as she put her finger on the trigger, aiming the barrel at Jane's zombified head. "I'm so sorry," she sobbed.

She closed her eyes, then pulled the trigger.

BAM!

"Gahh!"

Clementine jolted awake, a yelp escaping her throat before she could stop it. Her breath came in quick, shallow gasps as she tried her best to shake the horrible image of an undead Jane from her mind. Her gaze immediately snapped to said woman, afraid she might have woken her. Much to her relief (and surprise), her friend was sound asleep. She actually looked peaceful. Clem had noticed Jane wasn't sleeping very well for the past week or two, so she was glad her companion was finally able to get some restful sleep.

She felt moisture on her cheeks, and as she reached up, she realized they were tears. She must have been crying in her sleep. As her heart rate began to return to normal, she suddenly became aware of another noise in the room: quiet gasps for air and a few sniffles, as if someone was crying and trying to conceal it. In the wake of her nightmare, she had almost forgotten that there was a fourth person in the room. She looked up towards the other side of the room. Her eyes struggled to adjust to the darkness, but she vaguely could make out the shape of Lilly hunched over, shoulders shaking slightly.

She almost laid back down and tried to get back to sleep, because why should she care that a traitorous thief is upset? But just as she turned over to get comfortable, something within her tugged her to stand. Maybe it was her conscious, maybe it was pity... Or maybe it was some ghost or spirit of Lee or something of Lee that was still with her, silently urging her to show compassion. She liked to think it was the latter, anyways.

Carefully, so as not to wake Jane, Clementine rose from her place on the ground and quietly walked over to where Lilly was still tied against the metal desk.

"Hey, uh, Lilly?" she murmured quietly, not wanting to wake Jane or AJ. The other woman's head snapped up in surprise. She clearly had not heard Clementine approach, nor was she expecting her to talk. Her arm instinctively tried to move to her face to hastily wipe away the tears, but that wasn't really an action she could perform with her wrists bound behind her.

"What?" Lilly whispered, looking in Clementine's direction but not meeting her gaze.

"Are you, uh... Are you okay?" Stupid question considering she was crying, but the eleven-year-old couldn't think of anything better.

"Yeah, I'm fantastic," she muttered sarcastically. "Never been better."

A long silence ensued, neither knowing what to say.

"Just go back to sleep," Lilly finally prodded. "I know you hate me. You don't have to pretend otherwise."

The young girl considered this. Did she really hate Lilly? The cold, bitter, angry part of Clementine said yes, absolutely. This woman intentionally killed one of her friends and selfishly jeopardized the rest of their group. But the compassionate side of her—the side Lee had helped cultivate and nurture—said no. Lilly made a couple mistakes—big ones, mistakes that irreversibly changed or ended lives. But so had she and probably almost everyone else alive at this point. She had done things she regret and had gotten people killed. Not on purpose, granted, but dead is dead whether it was intentional or accidental. When it came to survival, she was sometimes given only seconds to make a life-or-death decision; and sometimes, in the heat of the moment, it just wasn't the right call. Hating Lilly for making a couple bad calls when she herself—and others she called friends and remembered fondly—had done things just as bad or hurtful.

"I... I don't hate you," she offered honestly, nervously fidgeting with her shoelace.

A bit surprised by this, Lilly looked up at the young girl. Her eyes searched Clementine's, looking for any hint of dishonesty. Why wouldn't she hate her? Hell, if she was Clem, she'd hate herself, too. She had fucked up big time, and she'd probably gotten some of their former group members killed because of it. But as she looked at the girl, her soft brown eyes radiated authenticity. She seemed a bit uncomfortable and nervous, but she seemed to mean what she said.

"Why?" she scoffed, looking away from the girl in front of her. "I killed Carley in front of everyone and fucked the whole group over. You have every right to hate me."

"I know," Clementine acknowledged, "but I don't." In a way, Lilly was her last remaining connection to Lee. Sure, they hadn't all been together for very long, but she was the last person alive—to Clem's knowledge, anyways—that had known Lee. That wasn't the sole reason she had chosen not to kill her earlier, but it was certainly a thought in her mind.

"I'm sorry, Clem," Lilly choked, her voice sounding so small and defeated. "I never got a chance to say it to anyone who might have cared, but I really am sorry. For... everything."

"It's okay," the girl said, shrugging her shoulders. It was a rather nonchalant action for the magnitude of the wrongdoings, but she supposed there wasn't much of a point in holding a grudge anymore. What happened was done and over, and no amount of anger or bitterness towards her would change it. She still didn't trust Lilly, but the other woman's tears and shaky breaths tugged at her heartstrings a bit.

"No, it's not," she refused, shaking her head. "I was a total bitch the entire time we were together. Yeah, I had personal shit going on, but so did everyone else. It's no excuse for... for what I did. Believe it or not, I... I actually didn't mind Carley. She was nice enough and pulled her own weight. But in the moment, I just... God, I don't know. Every bad urge I've ever had just... Came to the surface, and I had pulled the trigger before I even really realized what I was doing, and then I... Lee, for some reason, let me back on the RV, and my thanks to him was driving off with it a few days later. I just... I don't know what I was thinking. That entire time we were together, really. Fuck." A small sob escaped the woman's throat, but she bit her lip and looked away, forcing it back down.

"I never meant to hurt anyone," she continued after a couple seconds, even quieter than before. "I know that's probably hard to believe, but I really didn't want to hurt anyone. Especially you," she added, glancing back up and meeting Clementine's gaze. "Or Lee. God, I wish I could take all of that back. You have no idea how many nights I've spent awake, just thinking of all the possible ways I could have reacted better and just not... I don't know, fuck... And just not have been such a selfish coward."

The girl held Lilly's gaze for a moment before looking down sadly. She considered asking why Lilly had shot Carley, but she wasn't sure the woman would have the answer. Although she missed Carley, the woman was dead and gone. She supposed it didn't truly matter why. Not in today's world, anyways. So instead, she asked the other question that burned itself into her mind. "Why did you take the RV and just... Leave us all like that?"

Lilly visibly winced, eyes snapping down to the floor. "I... I guess I was just... scared," she replied sullenly, returning her gaze to Clementine. "That's a lame answer, I know, but it's the truth. Or at least the best answer I have words for."

Clementine nodded, and the two slipped into silence. Fear was an understandable reason for acting rashly. Not an excusable one, but understandable in the human sense. She didn't think there was a single person alive who hadn't done something they regretted out of fear or survival instinct, herself included.

"I... I asked Lee to come with me, you know," Lilly finally stated, breaking the human silence.

Clementine looked up in disbelief. "What?"

"Yeah, I... I said I was leaving, and told him to come with. He said okay, and... And I told him to go get you, and then we could leave. But when I saw him walking towards everyone, I just... couldn't shake the feeling that he was going to tell Kenny or someone else what I was planning. And then when I backed up and started driving away, and I saw the look on Lee's face... Fuck, I should've just trusted him. I'm such a fucking idiot."

What? Is she being serious? Clementine thought to herself. Lilly had asked Lee to come with her, Lee had agreed, and Lilly had wanted Clementine to come? She couldn't help but wonder how different the past two years might have turned out if she and Lee actually left with Lilly.

Maybe Lee wouldn't be dead...

No. She could not think about that right now.

"Lee's dead," the eleven-year-old stated simply. She wasn't really sure why she had chosen to share that information—it just came out without thought.

Lilly bit her lip and looked down again. She had assumed Lee was dead, but hearing it out loud felt like a punch in her stomach. "Yeah, I... Figured he didn't make it when I saw you weren't with him. He was a good guy," she added, the image of Lee attempting to give her dad CPR. "He tried to help my dad, even after all the shit the guy put him through. How... What happened? she asked tentatively.

"He got bit," she answered flatly. "We were in Savannah, and I was stupid and ran off with a creepy guy because he said he knew where my parents were. He got bit trying to find me. I... I had to shoot him." Clementine felt tears prick her eyes but she did her best to bite them back. Even after two years, Lee's death still haunted her darkest thoughts and nightmares.

"Shit," the other woman sighed. "I'm... I'm sorry."

"Yeah. Thanks."

She hated to ask any more questions about their former group, but she wanted to know what had happened to them. "What about... everyone else?"

Faces of their former group members flashed through her mind. "They're all dead," she uttered. "Duck got bit, Katjaa shot herself right before Duck died, Ben died in Savannah at some point, and Kenny..." Clementine paused, the most recent death still fresh in her mind. "Kenny kind of lost it and was about to kill Jane, so I... I shot him. He's... dead now, too."

Although Lilly had never cared for Kenny, she knew he meant a lot to Clementine. They had their differences, but at least he always tried to keep Clementine out of harm's way. "I'm sorry," she repeated sadly. "So you were just... by yourself that whole time?"

Clem shook her head. "We met this couple, Christa and Omid, at the railroad where you... Ya' know," she muttered, referring to when Lilly stole the RV. Lilly looked remorseful at the implication. "After Lee died, I was with Christa and Omid for a while. Omid got shot trying to help me, and then I was with Christa for a year or so. But we got separated in the woods one night when these men came and chased us. I tried looking for her for months, but I... I don't know where she went, if she's even still alive. I was by myself for a little while after that, but I met this other group. That's where I met Jane, and that's... AJ's mom was in that group, too. They all died except for me, Jane, and AJ. It's just been us three for the past few months."

"I shouldn't have left," Lilly admitted a moment later. "Or I should've at least waited for Lee to come back with you. I can't help but wonder if any of those people would still be alive if I wouldn't have left. Would've been an extra pair of arms, anyways."

"I don't know," she admitted. Maybe Lee wouldn't have died... Ugh, stop. There was no use dwelling on what-ifs. It did a person more harm than good these days.

"I really am sorry," the older woman whispered suddenly, voice breaking as she spoke. "I, I know that doesn't make up for what I did, and I've spent the last two years coming up with so many better ways I could've handled things. I'm just... I never meant to hurt Carley or you or Lee or anyone else. I was in a bad place, and I reacted before I stopped to think. I don't expect you to trust me again or anything, but I'm just... really, really sorry."

The young girl considered this for a moment, then stood and crossed the room. Lilly, thinking Clementine was still mad at her, hung her head, several tears escaping her eyes. A few seconds later, however, the girl returned with a pocket knife. She reached for Lilly's bound arms and carefully sawed through the rope, freeing her wrists.

Realizing the magnitude of the silent gesture, Lilly pulled her hands to her face and cried into them, trying to muffle the sound of her sobs. Tentatively, Clementine reached out and pulled one of her hands away from her face, taking it in hers. It was wet with fresh tears, and the gesture seemed to produce more.

She knew in her heart that Lee would have forgiven her (eventually, anyways), and there was really no use in holding a grudge any longer. The woman was clearly extremely remorseful.

"I forgive you."