A/N: Please listen to 'You' by Keaton Henson for this one. :)


6. If you must mourn


Sarah has never killed anyone before.

She was always afraid. That's something neither of them could ever remedy, even to save their own lives. To most, fear is just an emotion – something that traps you in your darkest of moments, momentarily blinding all remnants of content. But for Sarah, it isn't something so simple to escape from. It's just not that easy.

It had taken months for Clementine to finally get her to start killing walkers, and that alone is hardly all there is to fear in this world. People are the real enemy, and she had made sure a long time ago that Sarah understood that.

She's gotten better at it – doing what needs to be done in order to survive. It had become clear to Clementine over the years, and she only wishes her own self still possessed that purity that had been lost so long ago.

But Sarah never wanted to hurt anybody. She wouldn't, even if her own life depended on it.

And that's why Clementine finds herself unable to breathe, the very moment Sarah's finger had released that trigger.

The image of her friend pointing a gun in her direction, tears streaming down her reddened face as she stares into oblivion still haunts Clementine's mind. But she has to get to her. She won't make the mistake of letting her go, not this time.

"Sarah?!" Clementine cries as she bursts through their house's front doors, nearly stumbling on her own feet from the panic she feels inside.

She'd lost sight of the girl in a heartbeat. Without an idea of where Sarah may have gone, Clementine had never run so fast in her life. She knows Sarah doesn't want Clementine to find her, but her thoughts naturally shoot to the only place she can imagine her going to.

After a quick glance down the hallway, she checks the bathroom first, as it's the room closest to the front door when she races inside. Then she runs to the living room while advancing further inwards, followed by the kitchen, but Sarah is no where to be found.

The clouds have turned gray now, the halls so much darker than before the two of them had left. The silence of the house only quickens her labored breaths. Clementine's own worried voice echoes as she repeatedly calls out Sarah's name.

The possibility that she isn't even here is beyond terrifying. If that be the case, Clementine won't have a clue of where to look afterwards. She doesn't dare let her mind wander to that place, though. Not yet.

"Sarah!" she yells once more, bounding up the narrow staircase with thudding steps.

Clementine had seen the look on Sarah's face. She was… horrified with herself. As if she were afraid of her own hand as she held that trembling pistol.

To Clementine, Sarah had always been predictable, in a way. She could expect her to cry, like Sarah had once done after her first animal kill. She'd cried after the first nightmare of her undead father, and the first time she'd spoken of her mother. After it all, Clementine knows her so well that she can only foresee those familiar reactions.

But after this, after taking someone's life, when all Sarah had ever known is witnessing constant murder happen to the people around her, she's ultimately found herself on the other side, and there's no telling what she'll do. Clementine's darkest thoughts alone are what keeps her a fraction away from losing her own self as she frantically runs through the house in search of her.

She doesn't trust Sarah to be alone, not after what just happened.

Her head shoots into the doorways of every room upstairs, never fully entering them, but merely clutching onto the doorframes. Pacing her way down the hall, she's desperate for an answer she fears won't be heard, and Clementine groans in frustration when another appears to be empty.

As she reaches the master bedroom, she hears something, like a strangled noise that surely didn't belong to her. She finally stops in the center of the room, listening intently as everything around her turns still. Another muffled cry reaches her ears after a moment, and Clementine slowly gazes over her shoulder towards the nearby bathroom door.

At a slow pace, she warily steps towards it in complete silence. Sarah's distant sobs are barely audible, gradually growing louder as Clementine gets nearer.

She stands inches in front of the door now, her forehead nearly resting against it while she gazes down at her own feet, hesitating.

An agonizing while passes by where she only continues to listen to Sarah's soft weeps, unsure whether she should let her be. Eventually, Clementine takes a deep breath, and softly knocks on the door.

"Sarah?" she asks, her calm and gentle tone drowning out the hidden worry she feels inside.

There's no response. Sarah only continues to cry quietly, as if Clementine isn't even there.

She sighs.

She can't expect Sarah to talk to her. Clementine knows this feeling more than one would wish to admit in their lifetime. Killing is not something you can ever forgive yourself for, no matter how much time passes afterwards. She recalls the countless days of her own life where Clementine had been so at war with herself for the things she had done - the people she'd killed intentionally, or the deaths she hadn't meant to cause.

But no matter how many times she'd convinced herself she wanted to be alone, and locked away from the rest of the world as some sort of punishment, she didn't. Not really.

No one ever wants to be alone.

And as Clementine remains there standing helpless, she wants to say something. But for the second time that day, Clementine finds herself too shattered to speak.

So she lowers herself to the ground to lean her back against the bathroom door, pulls her knees up to her chest, and waits.

If Sarah doesn't want to talk, she won't push her to, but at least Clementine will be here when she's ready.

With hardly anything between them, Clementine has still never felt so far away from her, and she wonders how once more in their lives, she had somehow found herself on the wrong side of the door.


"Oh, no, no, no…" Sarah mutters in frustration, her words distant and muffled.

Her eyes widen at the worrying sound of Sarah's voice, the deep concern within the pit of Clementine's stomach rising with every passing moment. "Sarah?" she raises her voice. "Are you okay?"

"Go away!" Sarah shouts back almost all too quickly. She sounds weak, and Clementine instantly knows that she's been crying.

Two weeks have passed since a raging storm forced them into an abandoned farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, and only a little while longer since they'd fled from Carver's camp.

Clementine doesn't want to admit it, but if she's honest with herself, Sarah isn't doing too well. Carlos' death has taken a toll on them - less so than before, but it has nevertheless.

Everything had seemed okay for a little while. They'd briefly talked about it, agreed to distance themselves from the memories of the past in order to survive, but Sarah has a habit of telling Clementine she's fine whenever she's caught staring at the ground for too long. It can't be more obvious how much of a liar that makes her.

Disturbingly, sometimes Clementine will be talking to her for several minutes and Sarah will not have even noticed she's in the room with her. Her anxiety hasn't improved much, either.

So when Clementine had gone upstairs to check on her in the middle of the day, she couldn't help that sheer panic she felt before she was even able to reach the top of the stairs, just from Sarah's faint noises.

From the other girl's expected reply, Clementine heavily leans against the door with a slight roll in her eyes at the fact that Sarah would of course try to brush off whatever is wrong. "Come on, open up," she sighs, her voice calmer this time.

Then Clementine nearly jumps at the distant sound of shattering glass. The startling noise is silenced all too quickly, only to be followed by loud clattering soon afterwards.

"What's going on in there?" With a hammering heart, Clementine pushes her weight off the door to rattle the knob once more, as if it will open somehow. Frustration builds up inside as she stands stuck in the hallway.

"I said go away!" warns Sarah once more, anger evidently rising in her tone.

Clementine knows that she's treading on thin ice by pestering the matter, but she still can't find herself to listen. Sarah's words do nothing but cause her to be more concerned.

Sarah groans in frustration once more, the soft hiss that comes afterwards sounding as if she's trying and failing to be quiet about it.

"Sarah!" Clementine exclaims, suddenly so much more fearful from the girl's pained noise. She briefly glances around her, unsure what to do, before yanking out the knife from her waistband as a solution comes to mind. "I'm—I'm coming in. Just hold on." She's trembling as she jams the blade between the door and its frame, attempting to push in the lock.

"No—please don't!" Sarah begs frantically, but Clementine has already barged into the room.

Then, she sees the blood.

With hardly the time to take a single step inside, Clementine freezes in her tracks immediately after swinging the door open, a hand still gripping the doorknob as her muscles remain completely unresponsive to what's in front of her.

Her thoughts scramble into a mess of disarray. The shattered glass, the stained knife, the scattered pills, and the bright red handprint that has been smeared across the tiles - it all hits her like a brick in the face as she pieces the scene together.

And Sarah… she sits as a crumbled mess in the middle of it all, tears streaming down her face, blood trailing from her wounded wrists and dripping off her fingertips.

"Oh my God…" Clementine breaths as she stares wide-eyed. Her gaze doesn't meet Sarah's own, but continuously darts back and forth across the bathroom floor.

"Get out!" Sarah sobs.

At the unexpected volume, Clementine is finally snapped back into reality to notice Sarah shifting forward on the ground, as if trying to stand. Yet, Clementine is so unsure of what to do that she just stays there, and Sarah is screaming words at her that her scattered mind can hardly process.

"Get out, get out, get out!"

Clementine jumps when she suddenly finds the door inches from her nose, the bang echoing throughout the house as it's slammed shut in her face.

The hallway turns dark, and everything goes quiet again, but Clementine still can't find anything in her to react. She only gawks aimlessly after the closed door while left completely speechless. She's breathing heavily now, the reality of it all finding her once more. She doesn't even remember whether she had been pushed out of the room or not.

Whatever she just saw, Clementine clearly wasn't meant to see, and she definitely hadn't been expecting it. To even think that she had been downstairs this whole time, completely unaware of what had been happening above her... How far would Sarah have gone if she didn't get here when she did? The thoughts alone physically hurt her.

Momentarily, Clementine shuts her eyes, exhaling slowly when red flashes back at her. She has no idea how much time has passed with her just standing there until she's finally calmed herself down.

A part of her wants to go back in there, but then she remembers Sarah's hurtful words, and decides that she'd rather not make her any more upset than she is. But she can't just go away knowing that Sarah…

She tries to shake the thought away.

A good few minutes pass by where she debates turning around. She respects that Sarah needs space right now, but Clementine has to at least know that she's okay. So after much contemplation, she finally musters enough courage within her.

Practically cowering in hope that Sarah won't scream again, she hesitantly knocks on the door once more. "Sarah… please talk to me," she says finally, desperate for at least some sort of response.

Sarah's not crying anymore. At least, Clementine can no longer hear anything. All that her pleading words are met with, is complete silence.

"I know you can hear me," she insists after a few moments, leaning into one hip as she speaks.

Barging in when Sarah had specifically told her not to had only made the girl angrier with her, and now she's being ignored. Clementine sighs softly to herself.

Even with the assumption that Sarah can't be convinced at this point, Clementine still refuses to leave. Instead, she slides her back down the door until she's sitting on the other side, and crosses her legs underneath her while chewing on her lip.

"Look, I…" Clementine begins again after a minute, her volume raising slightly so that Sarah can hear her. "I-I'm sorry about what happened," she says. "I know you're… in a lot of pain right now. And I know that… he meant a lot to you," her voice softens, attempting to structure her words in the lightest way possible. "But hurting yourself is not the answer."

She glances over her shoulder at the door against her back, waiting for some kind of reaction from the girl on the other side. But she doesn't hear anything.

"This… pain that you're feeling? It's not forever," she continues. "Sometimes it might take longer, but it always goes away in the end."

Clementine knows it's a difficult thing to hear, especially when you feel like your whole world has shattered around you, like nothing remains worth living for. She doubts Sarah believes her, who probably isn't even listening to her right now. Sarah doesn't know much about Clementine's past, but she just hopes that Sarah knows she isn't making up words. She really does understand.

"Look, what I'm trying to say is… things will get better, okay?" Clementine scrambles to explain, and the desperation she feels is suddenly so evident in her tone, as if she is begging Sarah to listen. "I know it doesn't seem like it right now but you just have to trust me on this."

She doesn't speak again for a while after that, and her fingertips are fidgeting against each other now.

Then familiar faces that had once disappeared into the woods suddenly fade back toward her memories, faces that now only haunt her dreams as she sleeps.

The boy had already been gone, but his mother, she hadn't come back out after that.

She didn't understand it at the time. It had happened so long ago, but Clementine can't shake the thought of the same thing happening to her friend.

It had come from grief, and right now Sarah is in a horrible and dark place that Clementine knows is so hard to get out of.

Then her eyes begin to water as her mind drifts too far. The tears don't fall though, and she has to scrunch up her nose to stop it from tingling.

"I'm not giving up on you," Clementine reassures. Her voice cracks unintentionally, fading until it's barely audible, but she prays Sarah is still listening to her. "Just please… don't do this to yourself," she says, and it takes everything to muster her next words, "I don't wanna lose you, too."


With their backs leaning against opposite sides of the door, Sarah's sobs eventually fade into nothing, and Clementine slowly drifts away from consciousness.