A/N: Okay guys thanks again for the continued support.
Obsessed naruhina fangirl- You do make some valid points and as for taking over the camp or fleeing it... I don't know at the moment it would be great to see them overthrow the camp and take control but then Lee's wise words would come back to haunt me "Always keep moving" I felt the cabin group were presented at their best when moving (A House Divided), and Christa and Clementine survived for 16 months on the move. So I still don't know if they could make it a safe haven or not... either way keep the ideas coming!
And as for Cluke... no, no do not even speak of it! That shipping makes my skin crawl... Luke may be something of a character I no longer care about (episode 4 is too blame, before that I found him interesting and likeable enough, one of the reasons why I re-winded to episode 3) but still him and Clem as a couple is something I can never see (and it's wrong on every level) so my opinion on "Cluke" is very negative, personally I'd prefer a big brother- little sister relationship. (I don't know why people try and turn every friendship into a romance... ugh...)
AquaDestinyEmbrace- Thanks, Stephanie was a last minute choice to bring back but I saw Roman's body at the river and thought I'd tie up some loose ends. I also liked Stephanie as a character and wondered why she would steal from her original group with no given reason, so this story will give her a voice and more story to follow...
Right, long note aside on we go...
Clementine caught the general gist of the conversation through Kenny's rapid and hissed whispering that carried across the pen...
"...we all know it's high time that girl was taught how to survive..."
"... Kenny please..." Came a plead from Sarita.
"... Sarita, we all know it so we can't tiptoe around this shit any longer, that girl is a ticking time bomb she's gonna herself or us killed..." Came Kenny's snarl of a reply.
"Do not take that tone with me Kenny" Sarita snapped back at him.
"I'm sorry... it just..." Kenny said more clearly as Clementine approached, no one seemed to notice her as of yet.
"It's just nothing, what Carlos' wants for her is what he wants, you can just butt in!" Luke argued back, looking over at the bunk's Clementine saw Carlos bent over Sarah as he muttered some soothing words to her, as she was curled into a fetal position trying to sleep.
"What's happening?" she asked finally revealing herself as the others heads all whipped around at the sound of voice.
"Look here Luke, Clementine's younger than Sarah and she can look after herself better than all us adults combined, so your point about Sarah being a little girl are fucking invalid!" Kenny argued to the red faced younger man, whose dark eyes were boring into Kenny.
"You don't get it! Sarah's different from Clem, I don't know if you clocked on but she has autism" Luke informed the group.
"Look I don't know shit about autism, but the girl ain't disabled it's all in her head and Doc's mollycoddling of her ain't helpin' matters!" Kenny roared to an enraged Luke... "Oh Boy another jolly argument between these two..." Clementine thought sarcastically taking a seat empty for her next to Rebecca.
"Kenny and Carlos got into a fight over his treatment of Sarah" Rebecca brought up Clementine with the latest news as Clementine nodded and accepted this, well she was being spoken to again. This was a start.
"Look we don't know how bad Sarah's case is! Carlos does! His a doctor and Sarah is his daughter and his problem we can't butt our heads in their personal business" Luke told the Floridian harshly as Kenny glared back at him, just when Clementine thought they had found common ground over her distaste of her too.
"Yeah well their personal business got that girl in the greenhouses killed today, she'd be dead in a minute if she was out there!" Kenny bellowed jabbing a long finger towards the eerie herd just outside the barricade. "You can't just blame Sarah for what happened today, that was Bill murdering anyone just to get the community against Clem" Luke finally seemed to be speaking some logic that caused Clementine's head to perk upwards.
"You don't blame for me for all that's happened then?" Clementine asked hopefully, was this forgiveness?
"No we can't blame you Clem, seeing that herd out there... maybe it was for the best added to the fact Rebecca could give birth at any second" Luke told her softly, now her allies were truly returning to her side.
"His right Clem" Rebecca said in the same warm tone "If anyone's to blame it's me... I mean if Bill hadn't have been hunting me and the baby down none of us would be here" she said sadly as she shook her head and looking down to her bump and gasped "Ooh, she's kicking again" she said a little wearily as Sarita got up from her chair "Do you need anything to drink?" She asked as Rebecca shook her head "No, I'm... I'm fine" Rebecca replied.
With that over, Kenny got back to the point "This isn't about whose to blame, what remains is that Sarah can't look after herself! That's what were talking about" always straight to the point, Kenny wanted something done about it, he was a man of action that didn't like to wait around, at times this could be his greatest flaw.
"It-ain't-our-business" Luke seemed to breathe one syllable at a time in a pent up rage building inside of him.
"Look can I have a say in this?" Mike asked, he had been silent the whole time along with Nick who watched the discussion with black ringed eyes, yet now he spoke up and before anyone could reply he dove straight into a speech
"Look, if were all gonna band together as a group we can't single out each other and blame each other for shit that goes down. We start doing that we start thinking like Carver and none of us want that. But I agree with Kenny on this one that girl needs to learn something. Can't you see Luke? we'd be doing her more good than harm than by instructing her and showing her what the world is really like" Finishing the speech Mike looked around at the group one by one.
"Give the man a medal, how is it a guy we just met knows more about what's good for Sarah, than the guys who've known for years or probably longer" Kenny praised Mike while shooting scalding daggers towards Luke and Carlos. Carlos was still bent over Sarah, whereas Luke returned Kenny's intense glare.
"Look... I have faith in Carlos, I believe he knows what's best for Sarah, that's all I'm saying, you'll end up getting her killed" Luke argued.
"Yeah, you have faith in Carlos, but none for me" Nick snapped sourly from the corner and too himself, yet no one overhead this quite rumble.
Clementine grew more and more irritated by Luke's stubborn stance on Sarah's condition, before he could open his mouth once again, Clementine found herself speaking up once again
"Look! Sarah has to grow up eventually Luke! I made that deal with Carver so he can't kill her and in here she might be traumatized by what she sees but we can help her prepare for what's out there!" She yelled giving her very clear opinion on the matter as Luke's face sunk.
"She's right, maybe we can all prepare for a better escape plan while in here" Sarita suggested making Clementine smile as she had a vote of confidence.
"I dunno you guys... Carlos won't like this..." Luke muttered defeated, realising he was fighting a losing battle.
"So!? Is Carlos you knight in shining armour Luke!? I don't give a damn what he wants!" Kenny yelled aloud.
"Will you be quiet over there! She can't sleep with your yelling!" Carlos shouted angrily back at the group huddled around the fire.
"We need to talk about her with you actually... Carlos" Kenny told him, Carlos seemed to freeze in place, he stood up with a face of thunder and seemed to stomp down on the cracked gravel in the pen. He reached the fireplace as everybody held a collective breath at what he was going to say (or scream) at them.
"I can hear every word you say, she can hear every word you say. Stay the hell away from her" he hissed with loathing pouring from his caramel coloured eyes.
"Carlos..." Rebecca began in a "let's just try and talk it out sensibly without shouting" voice.
"No, she's my daughter and I will look after her" Carlos concluded with a powerful twist he turned to return to his daughter who Clementine could see was now silently crying on the bed and was holding her hands over her ears, as she whimpered and trembled.
"Someone has to try and convince him, or speak to her" Kenny instructed of the group.
"Well she's terrified of most of us other than her dad" Rebecca told the group at large.
"I could try to speak to her, she considers me a friend after all" Clementine offered however before anyone could reply a hated voice shot like a bullet through the pen "Hey! Quieten it the fuck down in there! Unless y'all wanna be walker mush!" Troy bellowed with his gun ever present on him as his charcoal black eyes steamed with hatred for the people in the pen. Everyone remained silent as Troy opened the shutter training the gun on the group.
"Jane! You're needed for a job up front!" Troy yelled at her, all heads turned to seemingly invisible short haired woman who had kept completely to herself (and had so far) hadn't muttered a word. At Troy's request she stood up silently and proceeded out of the shutter, Troy's black eyes slithered all over her body as she walked out and he closed shutter behind him with an all too familiar rattle.
"Now get to bed the rest of ya!" He commanded back to the pen dwellers before walking off after Jane.
"Wonder what the hell that was all about?" Kenny wondered aloud staring after them, "Whatever it is, there something fishy about that Jane woman, do you reckon she could be spying on us" Rebecca asked the group.
"I don't think so, I think she's just wary of us" Clementine answered, she knew Jane had good intentions and was not going to let the group fall suspicious of the mute woman, yet Clementine could really use Jane's support as of now.
"Well there's nothing we can do, we better just get some sleep" Kenny told the group, as one by one they drifted from the chairs back to their beds, the dreaded noises of the walkers filling in the void of conversation as they tried to sleep, a few "good nights" were exchanged as everyone managed to settle down after an action packed day. After a while the faint sound of gunfire was heard by the pen dwellers who were still awake and that this point this only seemed to be Clementine herself and Sarah (who was still sniffing slightly).
Finally (triple checking that Carlos was asleep) Clementine whispered "Sarah..."
She saw that behind her rose tinted glasses Sarah's eyes shot wide open "Clem..." she whimpered.
"I know the sounds of those guns are scary, but it's been a scary day huh?" she asked of the nervous teenager.
"Yeah, it's been a really scary day" Sarah agreed still trembling from head to foot, as the face of Becca flashed through her mind, with this she had one goal in her mind...
"Clem, I want to learn to how survive like you. Like the rest of the group was saying, I know it's going to be scary, but everything's been scary... so..." she didn't really know what she was getting herself into and she was disobeying her father. But this was something Sarah knew she wanted, she wanted to be tough even if she knew it was going to be really, really hard...
"That's good Sarah" Clementine praised her as they both stared at each other through the black haze of the night.
"Do you want to hear the next part of my story?" Clementine eventually asked when the gunfire grew too heavy.
"Yes please" Sarah said sweetly as she laid down in bed, as Clementine finished off the tale of the St. John's. The yellow station wagon they stole supplies from, the weeks at the motel following, the bandit attack, leaving it all behind, and she got up to the point of Carley's shooting.
"I thought you said that Lee liked Carley, so how can she just die?" Sarah asked in horror.
"I don't know Sarah, when Lilly shot her we were all shocked, but sometimes a person you love just dies with no goodbye. Lee was so sad after she died, but he stayed strong for me and I knew I had to be strong too..." Clementine was saying, feeling herself get more fatigued as her "bedtime story" had finally put Sarah into a slumber (an uneasy one, yet still a slumber).
The herd hadn't torn the barricade down, by the sounds of things the community would easily pull through this gigantic herd and now Carlos and Sarita were living beyond there past life expectancies, this one thought made Clementine smile.
Guess she had managed to change things for the better. For now.