Growing Pains

by GlowingDoves

She and Luke were all that was left, with every day a struggle to survive and reach a place of safety in the north that was too many miles away to count. So often Clementine had seen it happen, death claiming the lives of friends or complete and utter strangers, the lives she failed to save…and now, it was her turn.

2. Chapter 2: Limbo

A/N: My original intention was to always stick with Episode 1 of Season 2 for the grounds of this story, yet after Episode 2 reintroduced Kenny and other plot points and so much character building, it felt necessary to include more from that season. I really liked what the episode did with a number of the characters, and to date A House Divided is still one of my most favorite Walking Dead Episode from the game. So although this is still very much an A/U with its own set of differences, there is some familiarity here.

But without further ado, enjoy :P

---

The Walking Dead
Growing Pains

Chapter 2: Limbo

---

It was snowing again.

It had snowed the day before yesterday, and the day before that too. Back in Georgia when Clementine was little, this much snow would've been a sight as rare as rainbows; they had been lucky to get even snow flurries a few days in the year, it was that rare.

There used to always be so much of it in the Christmas movies or on the news, back when TV sets weren't blank empty boxes of nothing. Clementine often, if always, had envied those people in other states who made a fuss about having so much snow, especially near Christmas with all the festivities. She used to hope that one day it would snow enough to close her school down, so she could go have some snowball fights with her friends and ride sleds and make snow angels all day long, without boring homework to frustrate and hurt her poor brain.

Years ago, Clementine might have sprung from the bed and run to that window in excitement, her nose pressed to the glass with a giddy smile on her face at seeing that farm and the fields and woodlands beyond them transformed into something almost magical by that snow. All too eagerly she probably would have run down those stairs, tugged on her coat and boots to go to play outside before her parents had even woken up, if, they had still been alive.

Yeah, that's what the old her would've done if things were like they used to be when the dead didn't walk.

Lying there in bed curled up on her side, watching those tiny snowflakes fall from outside that window, Clementine didn't feel much of anything that resembled close to joy. In the weeks traveling further up north, so much snow have fallen that Clementine couldn't stand it anymore, nor the cold that it brought along with it. She never would've thought it before then, but she just wanted all that snow to melt and to feel the sun on her face again. But this chilly weather was why they had come this far in the first place, because the colder it got, the slower the walkers were. Snow was to be expected, yet still, Clementine didn't think she would hate it this much, and the cold hadn't exactly done them many favors so far. Maybe if it hadn't been for that stupid snow, she never would have…

There was a creaking on the stairs, someone coming up from the first floor, and shortly afterwards from the corner of Clementine's vision, she saw Luke appear in the doorway of that bedroom, giving that open door a friendly knock.

"Can I come in?"

He was carrying something; it was a steaming bowl of what looked like spaghetti, the smell of it making her tummy ache and her mouth water. They had been running low on food these last few days before coming here and Clementine couldn't remember the last time she had actually had a warm meal that wasn't from a can. She hadn't eaten since the night before her hand got chomped, nearly over a day ago. Even with that in mind Clementine kept her lips sealed shut as the lack of appetite returned when recalling those previous events to lead them where they were now, caught within this long wait on her life and if it would soon be snuffed out by the end of that wait.

What did eating matter, if she was just going to turn anyway?

Clementine's attention went back to that window, watching more of the snow fall from those white clouds as the effort to speak was lost.

"I'll take that as a 'yes' then," Luke said, choosing to walk in anyway, holding out that bowl to her when he reached her bedside. "Here, I thought you might-"

Before he could even finish, Clementine scrunched her nose up and pulled the blanket over her head; the sight of her bandaged stump hidden beneath it caused her empty stomach to churn.

Those strong painkillers Luke found in this house did their bit in numbing the pain, a little. Unfortunately like everything else the pills were in short supply and would soon run out leaving her to bear the full brunt of pain from that severed stump if Clementine was lucky to last that long. The freakish thing was Clementine could still feel it there, her hand and the part of her forearm that were missing. She didn't know if that was a good thing or not; she'd never known anybody who had lost a limb before…at least, back in the old days. With Lee, there had been little time for them to talk after he found her at the hotel, and those memories still ate at her conscience.

"C'mon, you gotta eat something," Luke said with some encouragement, but her hand only gripped that blanket tighter with her body curling up into a smaller ball.

Eyes fixed on that ugly stump of hers, Clementine spoke.

"What's the point?"

Luke was lucky in finding this place, after carrying out that amputation and escaping those walkers. Clementine had lost a lot of blood, a minor error on Luke's part as he hadn't tied the tourniquet on her arm tight enough when hurrying to get the two of them safely away. When he had stopped to readjust the tourniquet, it was about that same time he had spotted this farmhouse in the distance. Most the supplies people needed to get by were already taken with just the bare scraps left over, but it was still well-defended with the high hedges and stone walls to keep the walkers away. So long as they didn't start up a disco with booming music and flashing bright lights, they would be safe.

Clementine's stump had been cauterized and washed up, and her clothes changed with some fresh ones in her backpack, since those she had previously been wearing were too soaked through with blood. There wasn't anything else that could be done, but to rest until she got her strength back and hopefully recovered.

Christa had told her once that they hadn't cut off Lee's arm until nearly an hour after he was bitten; for Clementine, it'd been maybe a few minutes, and unlike Pete, they'd had a means to stop the bleeding. The only advantages Clementine had had were time and a bit of luck. Still, waiting around was never her favorite thing to do.

Luke was quiet for a while, sincerity spoken when he finally broke the silence.

"It's been over a day, Clem. If you were gonna turn, you'd be showin' it by now."

She could only clench her jaw tighter shut, unable to accept it. There was no definite assurance that she was in the clear; for all they were aware of, they may have only slowed the process down and that was why Clementine didn't have a fever, not yet. All people bitten by a walker were overtaken by the infection at different times depending on their immunity and could turn hours or even minutes after dying. That was one disturbing piece of information Carver had given her during their stay at his camp, and why he always aimed for the head in every person that he killed.

She hated Luke for trying to stay positive for her sake, and she hated him taking part of her arm off too, even if he had no choice and had apologized about it to her after. Clementine just wanted to know everything would be okay, without getting her hopes up.

"I'm not hungry."

Luke didn't give an immediate reply to that, dithering for a while before she heard that bowl be placed down on the nightstand. There were no signs in his voice of disappointment at her stubbornness, no, in fact when Luke was to finally talk again, he almost sounded amused.

"Really? Well, that's a darn shame. If you've got no appetite, I guess you won't be wantin' any of this then."

At first Clementine thought he was talking about the spaghetti until she heard the sound of a wrapper as Luke began walking away to leave the room; it was a noise that was enough in tempting her to peer out from the top of that blanket.

In Luke's hands, she saw something. "What's that?"

"What, this?" he said, acting a little too surprised as he held it up from where he stalled briefly near the door. There she saw it, a candy wrapper.

It was a hazelnut bar, the ones she and her mom used to like.

If not for the blood loss, Clementine would have sat up faster. "W…W-We have chocolate!?"

"Sure do. Found a few of 'em downstairs wedged behind a shelf stacked full of coffee; figure the scavengers didn't have a taste for anything caffeinated," Luke told her as he casually passed that candy bar from hand to hand like it was a basketball. "I went and tried one, they still taste pretty good."

Chocolate was a luxury nowadays. Survivors like themselves were always picking off the good stuff, savoring the tastes of foods that would soon be too far gone past their expiration date to be edible anymore. Even chocolate would be claimed a victim to this eventually. It's just what happened when nobody was growing or producing food anymore.

The last time Clementine had tasted chocolate was from those chocolate coins Sarah discovered in the box of decorations at the ski lodge, and secretly shared them with her after a pinky swear not to tell the others. Before that it was when Omid came across a small box of chocolates in an apartment that he, Christa, and Clem had happily eaten together those few weeks before he died. But the last real chocolate bar Clementine had eaten was back when Chuck introduced himself, giving one to her and Ben after…after Duck got bit, and Carley murdered.

"Can, I-"

"Nuh uh, okay you know the deal," Luke smirked and pointed over at the bowl of spaghetti on his way out. "Eat up and it's yours, but only if you've picked that bowl completely clean. I won't accept anything less."

"But, not even-"

"Nope!"

He was already heading downstairs before Clementine could protest further, perhaps to go off and make something for himself or to hold her candy bar at munch point.

From the doorway to that bowl, Clementine's gaze fell, slowly resigning herself into picking it up and resting the bowl carefully on her lap. It must've been ages that she stared at that spaghetti, watching the steam disperse from it little by little and that pleasing smell too much to resist on an empty stomach.

Her hand taking a hold of that fork, she twirled the stringy spaghetti around it, and ate. It tasted a little stale, nowhere near as good as that chocolate bar probably would be right about now with its hazelnut creamy center…and…and..

Why did Luke have to bribe her with her favorite chocolate? This wasn't fair.

"Cheater," Clementine said, only to pull a face when she heard Luke yell out to her from all the way downstairs.

"I heard that!"

Shoot, double shoot...

---

The weeks were tough after the incident with Carver and his crazed little community.

Without the others around, it was just Clementine, Luke, and Nick left to take care of the baby. They'd all done their best to make it work, searching through houses and what little was left in the stores for formula, diapers, blankets, and all the things a newborn needed; they had even gone as far as to read 'first baby' books to brush up on the basics of looking after the child. Yet, Rebecca's words came back to Clementine every time that newborn cried, leaving her with doubt over the little girl's future and Clementine's own.

What world was this to be raising a child up in?

Christa and Omid, they had once had those same concerns for their unborn baby, having wanted to find both a decent and safe enough place to bring their child into the world to raise him right. The couple had gotten Clementine involved too, teaching her the little things like how she would have to warm up the milk and check the temperature of it on her wrist, to how to she would need to change diapers too. It was done all so Clementine could help them and be a sister to 'little Omid,' as the man himself used to say with a droll humor that annoyed Christa to no end.

Cradling Rebecca's baby in her arms, it'd felt like Clementine was going through the scenes all over again; déjà vu, wasn't that what they called it?

Caring for a newborn in an apocalypse was both a challenge and a risk when on the road, constantly moving with the threat of bandits and walkers everywhere. Aside from what Christa and Omid had taught her, Clementine had no real experience with looking after a baby, and books only helped so much. When it came down to it, an eleven year old with two guys from the country who'd never settled down with anybody while chasing dreams of hitting it big with their home-brewed liquor brand...let's just say that combined, they still weren't the best of people out there left to be taking on the role of parents.

The trio had done what they could; they'd had to for Rebecca's sake, who had begged Luke with every last ounce of strength in her after being shot to save her unborn child; it was a promise they all kept for as long as they could.

"Becs didn't want it dyin' with her, the baby..."

It'd been the second night out on the road. They were inside a small church on the outskirts of some Virginia town they were too tired to go trudging into, and when it'd been getting too dark to see even a hand in front of their faces, they had just decided to stay there until morning instead. It was cold in that church, mostly since one of the stained glass windows were broken, letting in a constant draft. There had been a walker they needed to get rid of too before they could get settled down for the night, the reason why it'd smelled so gross in there. Not the best place in the world to find shelter, but better than outside. At least they did find some candles to give the group some light, a plus since none of them had any flashlights on them. The truth be told, they barely had much of anything, if enough to feed themselves and the baby. This would change when they got to the town the next day, but that night had felt like things might never get better.

Maybe it was from that and the brutality of things to have come to pass as well, that Luke came out with what he had while both he and Clementine were sitting on the front pew near the altar; it was kind of weird, in the sense that up until then Luke had never really confided in her about his troubles, not the real deep stuff that kept his mind silently ticking . He'd had a lot to get off his chest and Clementine had seen something had been troubling him for a while after their escape, so when from out of the blue Luke started talking like he did that night, Clementine had just sat quietly and listened.

"I ain't ever had to do something like that before, cut somebody open like...I couldn't just leave her, not without tryin'. Nick thought I was crazy, I mean it fuckin' was! We were choking on smoke, the whole place goin' up and there I am tryin' to cut some baby out of a dead woman before it can go dyin' too. I almost bailed; I came that close to givin' up and savin' my own skin I was so sure they weren't gonna make it."

Luke had been holding the baby, the sleeping infant wrapped up in two blankets to keep her warm. The baby had looked so tiny and fragile there in his arms, too fragile for a world like this...

His hand had gone to the infant's face, the back of his forefinger stroking that small chubby cheek. "I didn't have no clue she was even alive when I pulled her out, or if she was a she or he y'know? We just had to go like that; we left Rebecca behind. I don't know what the hell happened; everything just went to shit so fast..."

It'd been Luke's plan, his idea of the distraction to keep Carver and his men busy that went beyond anybody's control; he blamed himself for that, for as much as Clementine blamed herself for not handling that night better as well as other things in her life. After Pete's death, Luke was the one that took charge of the group. Even after Kenny joined them for a time and the two bumped heads occasionally, the group's safety was always Luke's top priority. That was why that night dealt such a heavy blow to him after losing half of their group, because Luke was the one that put the plan into motion.

Clementine's thoughts had lingered on that pregnant woman for a while, remembering the last thing the fearful Rebecca had said to her before they got split up— reassuring Clementine everything would be okay. Although what Clementine still couldn't figure out, was if Rebecca had really just been saying it more to herself to stop herself from shaking as she'd clutched a hand to her swollen belly, afraid for that tiny life growing inside her.

They hadn't really gotten along in the beginning, but Clementine really missed Rebecca; she had reminded her too much of Mom.

"Rebecca, she wasn't still..."

"No, no she was already gone by then, thank god," Luke had said softly, not wanting to wake the infant he couldn't tear his eyes away from. "But I still can't stop thinkin' about it, y'know? Like, maybe I could've handled things better, for everybody."

On one of the pews across from them, Nick had been asleep, looking restless and uncomfortable lying there with one foot on the stone floor and both arms wrapped around himself to stay warm. It was the first bit of sleep he'd gotten since their escape and Nick was still in a lot of pain. There wasn't much they could do for him, other than to keep cleaning the wound and wait for it to heal up...the mental scars Nick had sustained however, weren't as simple.

Nick lost his eye, and for what? Just talking back, saying something Nate hadn't liked, so the psycho had some of Carver's men hold Nick down while he'd gouged out that eye from its socket, with the others in their group threatened by the same fate if they'd tried to intervene.

Clementine hadn't been there when it happened, but she'd seen Nick afterwards sitting there away from the others, the man so traumatized by what had been done to him, he wasn't himself...

'We're gonna die in here. They're gonna kill us, Luke, every last one of us! It's worse than before. Don't you see, we're being picked off. They'll never let us go!'

They had lost Kenny and Sarita two days earlier, and on the same day Nick was hurt, Alvin had gotten his right thumb sliced off by Carver. It'd been at Carver's office in the town hall, where Alvin got broken the news that once the baby was born, he would have no part in raising it, leading to the dispute that had followed and which had cost Alvin dearly. If that wasn't bad enough, Carver had warned him that for every time in the future Alvin tried to do the same again, he'd have another of his fingers chopped off until there was nothing left.

Luke had once said Carver wasn't that bad of a man, yet Clementine couldn't believe that. Whatever good people used to be there in that camp had long left or been killed, and if Carver and his followers had once been good people, then the apocalypse hadn't changed them for the better. Clementine and the others had been prisoners, not part of that community who worked them like slaves. Carver would never have forgiven Luke and his friends for escaping the first time, and viewed all new additions brought in with them as part of the same flock. They were on a death sentence waiting there, and they'd all known it...

Looking up, that crucifix above that altar that had been almost creepy, resembling an old mannequin strung up to be left to decay; the light from the candles glimmered low, making the shadows around the crucifix have a life their own.

Clementine had spoken her mind.

"You did the right thing."

Luke had briefly looked over at his sleeping one-eyed friend of twenty-years, only to turn away again and hang his head in shame. "I wish I could believe that, Clem. Really I do."

"Carver was a bad man. He would've killed us," Clementine insisted. "We had to get out of there somehow, Luke. You saved us-"

"And what cost, losin' the others? I didn't exactly go savin' them did I? They trusted me with their lives and I only went and got 'em killed anyway. I made a bad call and fucked it all up, and they paid the price." He'd caught himself, stopping any more from spilling out about things that couldn't be changed. Eyes shut, Luke had pinched the bridge of his nose, as if trying to clear his head. "Sorry, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have...aw shit."

The baby was awake, her tiny cries starting up from the once aggressive voice to have scared her. Luke had tried hushing her, yet his efforts were to fail, and he soon looked at a loss of how to calm the baby girl down. He still hadn't been all that good with the infant at the time and neither had Clementine, but that still didn't stop her from hopping to her feet to help anyway.

As if that two-day-old were as delicate as glass Clementine had carefully taken the baby from Luke, and in her arms she'd gently rocked that infant back and forth like Clementine did when she was little with her dolls. By some luck it worked, the baby slowly settling down again as she gradually drifted back off to sleep.

So innocent and oblivious to the world they were in, that infant had no idea how fortunate it was to be alive then, and of the fate of her parents she would never know. But Alvin hadn't really been the father; even after learning the child wasn't his and promising to stand by Rebecca whatever happened, that baby wasn't Alvin's flesh and blood...

"Is it true what Nick said? Is Carver really going to come after us?"

Luke hadn't seemed like he knew the right answer for that, if there even was a right answer.

"I don't know...things were an awful big mess back there; it might keep him busy a while," Luke had said, rubbing the back of his hand across his brow, the fatigue from that day setting in on the man who looked like he could've done with some rest. "The best we can do is to keep movin', no stickin' around like the cabin. The more distance we get from Carver and that town, the better."

That was how Wellington came back to being their goal.

The camp up north, it was where their group was traveling to weeks before they got caught by Carver, the place Kenny told them about and where Clementine and Christa previously were going to. After their escape and their group being so small, they wondered if it was worth the risk to keep going there with winter fast approaching and now having a little baby with them. Nick thought it was a stupid plan, but Clementine, had insisted they should do it. Rebecca and Alvin would've wanted the same thing for their baby girl, and waiting around for a better time in the year and for the baby to grow up just didn't seem like a good idea.

Luke had been on board with her decision as well, believing it was the best way forward for them and the baby. Yet Nick, despite being coaxed into setting off up north with them, no longer was so convinced Wellington held all the answers...

---

"We should name her something."

Nick didn't even spare Clementine a glance from where he'd sat on that couch, his fingertips patting at that dark eye patch he still hadn't gotten adjusted to wearing at that point, just as much as he hadn't liked his new cap, having favored his old one long since lost after the incident with Nate.

"Why bother?" Nick had asked dully, his remark receiving a scornful look from Luke who'd been busy checking the last of the windows in that living room were secure in that darkening evening.

"Jesus Nick, do you have to talk like that?"

"Talk like what? I'm speaking the truth here," Nick had stated bluntly, taking a swig of his beer; it was the last can discovered in a small stash a few days before that he'd fast drunk up. "Admit it; you've been thinking it too. The baby's fucked; we're all fucked. The whole lot of us will be corpses before we ever make it to Wellington; I don't know why we're even trying."

They'd been fortunate with the truck the two men used to escape Carver's camp that first night, but it'd run out of gas hardly an hour later after picking Clementine up. They weren't able to find any fuel to top it off with, as nearly every gas station and car in the area was drained empty of gasoline from scavengers with the same plans in mind. It was the same deal nearly everywhere else, with any working cars long since taken by other groups out there. Because of that, they could only continue their journey on foot and as a result it meant taking even more risks. Every few hours the baby had needed feeding and her diaper changed, and often the infant cried when needing one or the two. This was dangerously inconvenient in a world full of walkers, when a crying infant could draw unwanted attention from the dead to their tiny group.

Looking out for themselves and the newborn in that first week was hell, with too many close calls with the walkers to go speaking about. Nick was the one to have started admitting defeat to the whole plan of going north, and why he'd drunk up that alcohol so quickly like it was soda. In fact, Nick's quickly growing drinking habit had Luke ending up talking some sense into him in private earlier that day, a "talk" that left Luke with a fresh bruise on his cheek below his right eye that evening.

"'Cause it's the best chance we got right now, that's why. And we're all that baby has for a future too, and I ain't leavin' her with just anybody we come by," Luke had said tensely as he'd gone to fetch the candles they'd taken from the church, his fists clenched tighter on having passed by his friend, yet thankfully kept his cool. "If so how about you just can the attitude, alright?"

Nick looked as though he'd wanted to say something back to that and none too nicely a comment at that. It was only because he'd caught Clementine staring at him from where she was sitting on the other couch with the baby in her arms, that Nick held off whatever was on the tip of his tongue, and just snorted, soon to down more of that beer.

"Whatever, doesn't change nothing."

There were a lot of secrets Clementine kept to herself, and one of them was that she had seen enough death to not believe in silly things like happy endings anymore. Though when she'd looked down at that tiny baby wrapped up in that pink cotton blanket, with those beautiful brown eyes staring up at her as she suckled from that bottle of milk Clementine held, she remembered thinking: how could she imagine that baby not growing up?

She hadn't wanted to see that come true, not when that baby girl was so full of life; seeing Christa bury her own child had been enough…

"So, you got any names in mind, Clem?" she'd heard Luke ask her while he'd gone about lighting those candles on the table one by one with some matches. "Rebecca and Alvin mentioned a handful of names in passin' to us, but nothin' solid; it can be your call if you like."

"Oh, well um…" Clementine had fallen silent, because she hadn't really thought about any names in particular, or that she would even be the one to get the honor in naming the baby like that.

It was an important thing, giving a person their name. It couldn't be anything silly like a name for a hamster or a goldfish; it had to be something special. That was what Clementine was so mind-boggled over at the time, having never been given such a responsibility before, and not a single one of the names Rebecca and Alvin mentioned had stuck to memory, zilch.

Both her parents had told her lots of times growing up how they'd decided to call her "Clementine" because it was all to do with how they first met. Her Mom had dropped a paper bag of clementines when tripping on a dodgy bit of pavement and her Dad had just happened to be one passing by, and so he'd helped Mom to her feet, and in picking up the bag of clementines as well. No more said or done, the pair went on their way...but that following week her mom had done the exact same thing again, in the same part of town with the same fruit and assisted by the same stranger on his way home from work as usual, whom had commented they really should stop running into each other like that.

The rest to come those years after, well, it was history really.

Seeing Nick slouched there, that scruffily-dressed man both physically and emotionally drained after those months in losing both his mom and Pete and the rest of their group—he had reminded Clementine of Kenny and all that man had lost…but, Nick had also reminded her of herself too and the family Clementine was without. If it weren't for Omid and Christa stepping in after discovering her parents were dead and Lee and everyone else disappearing from her life, Clementine wouldn't have any ideas where she might've ended up. Even when they too were gone, she still found hope in others to keep going.

That was how the name suddenly came to Clementine then, a name that needed to give somebody else hope and a purpose to hold onto, rather than just a bottle to drown their sorrows in.

Focusing her attention on that little baby almost finished with her milk, Clementine answered carefree her friend, yet with a smile of sneakiness on her face.

"I was thinking...I was thinking of maybe calling her, 'Nicky.' "

The two men's reactions had differed greatly from one another; Luke cursed as he'd burnt his fingers on a lit match, while Nick had promptly choked on a mouthful of his beer he'd been about to swallow, coughing and gagging as he'd pounded a fist on his chest.

"Wha-the hell you are! Over my twitching maggot-filled-corpse!" Nick had almost shouted, extremely ticked off. Any of Clementine's shame for having caused that young man's outburst had soon vanished on spotting Luke was leaning over that table by those candles, his shoulders shaking in silent laughing fits of hysteria.

It hadn't taken Nick very long at all to notice that his buddy wasn't on the same page as him. "Shut the fuck up, Luke! Luke, shut up! This is serious!"

Luke did manage to get a hold of himself, eventually, wiping the tears from his eyes with a cheery smile Clementine hadn't seen in a while. " 'Nicky,' huh? Well it's got a nice ring to it, I gotta say."

"What? Come on, Luke! Don't tell me you're in on it with the brat too!?" Nick protested, a visible twitch below his left eye becoming prominent. "Nobody's naming no baby after me; no babies, no cars, no dogs, nothing! You got that?"

"Yeah...maybe you're right, probably best we don't go confusing names here," Luke admitted regrettably and crossed his arms with a slight shrug, giving her an apologetic look. "Sorry kid."

"Okay," Clementine said glumly, and returned all her attention onto that cute nameless baby still drinking from her bottle...who hadn't been nameless for very long, for as she'd looked up again, Clementine had seen Luke still had his arms folded in front of his chest, a playful grin crafted on his lips as he'd starting silently tapping at his chin.

"...Nicky Jr. on the other hand-"

"Fuck off Luke! Didn't you hear what I just said!?"

---

Nick, he once told her he hated being a screw-up, and that there were things in the past he had done that he wasn't proud of. Clementine had seen it first-hand when he nearly shot her with his hunting rifle by accident back when they first met, and that same itchy trigger finger of Nick's had killed an innocent man who was just trying to help them out. But what Nick really kicked himself for the most was failing to protect his own mother and not being able to save Pete.

After what'd happened at Carver's and losing more friends, Nick had been starting to give up. It'd been like what Luke had once said to her about how Pete was the last anchor to family Nick had. But like Luke had said too, it was a tough world without people in it to trust and Clementine just wanted to shoo away those gloomy rain clouds hanging over Nick's head, so he could see that there was still a life left for him and he had friends that cared about him. That was why Clementine was happy about Luke approving the name, "Nicky" for the baby, not that the same could be said for Nick; he'd been convinced the name was picked as he quoted "to piss him off" but it wasn't that at all. The truth was, it was to get Nick more involved in caring for that baby, who for the most part, had distanced himself from the infant, not wanting to get too attached in case the worst happened as it had to everyone else.

It'd been kinda funny those first couple days, a sort of running joke with her and Luke really, who both would announce a little over the top to the other "Time to feed Nicky some milk!" or "Nicky's stinky; must need a diaper change!" within Nick's vicinity, who would promptly send them a glare and warn them with empty threats to knock it off. But little by little, Clementine had started noticing the change in the man, the good kind. He didn't bluntly ignore the baby as much as he used to. Whenever she or Luke asked him to hold the infant, he did so in a more relaxed way without that stiffness to his arms as if he'd previously been holding a bomb...but probably the biggest change, was that Nick stopped making such a fuss over the new title for Rebecca's baby.

Yet, it'd been that one night Clementine woke up to hear Nicky crying like so many other sleepless nights, that she discovered her and Luke's efforts had finally paid off. Barely half-awake she'd wriggled herself out from the sleeping bag laid out on the floor of that kitchen diner that their tiny group decided to crash in, when she got the surprise of her life to see that Nick was already awake, scooping the crying infant up from her make-shift crib inside that box, as he'd gently rocked Nicky in his arms like the rookie he was, trying to calm the little baby down.

Clementine hadn't been able to do anything other than stare, almost in a state of shock by the scene, but Nick soon snapped her out of it.

"You just gonna sit there or are you gonna help me out?"

"Uh, sure," she'd sheepishly nodded, glimpsing over at Luke who'd remarkably still been asleep despite all the baby's crying…or maybe he'd been pretending, because come to think of it he hadn't been snoring; Luke, he always snored.

Faking it or not, Luke had just stayed out of it, so it'd been just her and Nick to attend to the baby's needs. Clementine didn't let him see it, but she'd been happy, just glad Nicky had won him over with her adorableness. Of course Nick couldn't change a diaper to save his life and Clementine had to show him how to feed her correctly after warming up the milk on that small portable gas stove they had, but like her Dad used to say: Rome wasn't built in a day.

Clementine liked to imagine Nick might've been a good dad one day, whether to that orphaned baby or one of his own if he'd ever found anybody. Sure it may have taken him some practice—lots and lots of practice—and he might not have been perfect (nobody was), but Nick, he would've tried his hardest at what he was capable of and trying was better than doing nothing. Or maybe he wouldn't have been a daddy at all, happy as he was. Clementine would never know, because the next day that they headed out…walkers…

That morning had been peaceful, just the four of them traveling on their way without seeing a living or dead person anywhere in sight and no buildings visible for miles. It had been so easy just to pretend that the world was normal again out there in the countryside, as if they were just hitchhikers out on a little adventure of their own, and soon they'd go home again, even though that wasn't true.

The hills of those meadows were mounted high to where the sun had not yet risen beyond, leaving them within cool shade of that morning. Yet peaceful as it was to be there too, it'd reminded Clementine too much of Savannah when she'd left that night by herself, with how quiet and empty her surroundings were then...leading her to the first inkling that something was wrong; the second came some minutes after while taking a break from treading on that overgrown path, when they had looked up to see lots of birds in the sky, many flocks of them flying high overhead, and all coming from the same direction.

"Maybe they're um...migrating?" Clementine mentioned on remembering the word correctly, yet the two men hadn't seemed so convinced.

"Nah, can't be. It's too late in the year for that," Luke said after he'd finished changing the baby's diaper, "Maybe, something's...no, they sure don't look like-"

It'd been then that Nick, not far from them on watch, had suddenly coughed in disgust, pinching his nose. "Ah fuck! What the hell is that smell?"

"The baby?"

"No not the baby. That ain't shit man; it's like some fat-ass elephant died or something," Nick exclaimed, his eyes weeping at the stench being carried on the wind, that soon was within Clementine's and Luke's range of picking up.

"I smell it too; that sure ain't no diaper." Luke stifled a cough, "It's rotten."

Clementine recognized it almost immediately; it smelled like Savannah. And not long after had they all noticed the shapes moving on the top of the hill where the sun was just coming up, blinding them from seeing the true numbers of the undead that were right on the other side.

Waves to a full-blown tsunami, that's how Kenny had described it, the herds of walkers that clustered together from a few dozen, to hundreds, to even tens-of-thousands. It'd happened in Savannah, the sound of the train drawing uncountable numbers of the undead to the city that packed the buildings and streets. There were other massive herds out there too that wandered the lands, and if caught within them, there was no getting out, not unless you had a means of masking your scent.

There were thousands that day, a sea of walkers that rose up from the top of that hill like an army, stumbling and falling over each other as they had descended towards their tiny group where they had both seen and heard the undead a moment too late. Nothing had been scarier than running through the long wet grass with the sounds of that starving herd behind them giving chase. The walkers were slow, yet their numbers and relentlessness were their strengths, because they never tired and never stopped. If she, Luke, or Nick had stopped for too long or tried to fight, it would have been their deaths.

They ran for what felt like miles, Nick having to dump his bag when they got back on the road to carry her on his back because Clementine couldn't keep up with the pair any longer. They were out in the country with little cover, and the mass of walkers were too far spread out to ever hope getting past them without being spotted. Once one part of a herd moved in a certain direction, the rest would've followed in their plenty and all it took was one walker, one, to see or hear them.

Their only hope was to find someplace that they could hide and wait for the herd to pass. On the highway they got that chance, finding a coach bus among all those abandoned vehicles gridlocked together on that road. Luke had given Nicky to Clementine as they'd climbed aboard, he and Nick pushing those doors shut behind them after they'd checked the coach was clear of any walkers inside. The pair had still been out of breath from their run by the time they'd all crouched down on the floor between those seats, just after Clementine had seen the herd through those tinted windows beginning to appear from around that small hill on the highway.

The four of them must've been in there for hours, staying as quiet as they could, while outside the shuffling of hundreds upon thousands of feet from the risen dead walked, their bodies bumping into the side of the coach bus like rocks on a metal rooftop that rocked the vehicle about. It was horrible, waiting there for them to pass, their hearts beating fast and afraid that enough walkers might push the doors of that coach bus open and they'd be swarmed within seconds, or that baby Nicky would wake up crying at any given moment and draw the dead to their hiding place.

It'd been a miracle Nicky hadn't made a peep, sleeping through the whole ordeal in Clementine's arms peacefully, while she, Luke, and Nick were anything but relaxed. Yet that massive herd eventually was to move on, still searching for the lunch that they'd lost as the group's hideout remained blind to the dead.

A relief it was when they didn't hear the moans and groans of those walkers any longer, Luke choosing to be the one to cautiously get up and to check they had indeed gone, where Clementine was soon able to breathe easy again at the answer he gave.

"I think it's safe."

Nick stood at the first chance he got, stretching his stiff limbs. "About damn time too, I need to take a piss."

"I said I think it's safe, don't mean it is!" Luke whispered irritated at his friend, "So how about lowerin' it down a notch?"

"Fine, whatever. Let's just get the out this thing. It stinks like a hellhole in here, worse than the lurkers."

They all should've been more careful, they should've...

See, they'd been cooped up in there for so long cramped on that floor, that they were all just wanting to get out, Nick especially who had the weakest bladder than any guy Clementine had ever known. It was why Nick had been the one to exit the coach bus first, squeezing his way by Luke after the pair forced those doors open again as he'd rushed to leave without properly checking both ways first. Or maybe he had, maybe Nick had looked, but the lack of a right eye caused him to not check all of that blindside in his vision…the blindside that concealed the female walker that had jumped on him the moment he'd stepped off the coach, knocking him down onto the road before he had a chance to fight it off.

"Nick!"

Luke was fast to react, jumping from the coach bus steps to pull the walker off that was attacking their friend and brought his boot down hard on its skull, killing it for good.

The attack was all over in a few seconds. Yet even with quick thinking on Luke's part, it…it hadn't been enough; both he and Clementine were soon to realize that when Nick had staggered up, his bloodied hand holding the side of his shell-shocked face, with that single eye of his wide open, unable to focus on either one of them.

"Fuck, oh fuck…"

The walker, it'd bitten Nick, had sunk its teeth right into his cheek and his lower jaw, leaving him looking like somebody who had been mauled by a wild animal, and in reality, it wasn't all that far from the truth. It'd happened so suddenly. One second Nick was fine, and then the next he was a man on death row, with nothing that could save him or undo the unjustness done to him. But the most painful thing about it was, just knowing in that heartbreaking moment that that was it for him; Nick wasn't going to make it…

Nick, he had been such a wreck, in disbelief by it like they all were as he'd slumped down against the side of that coach bus, staring at the blood smeared on his hand from the nasty bites of that walker slowly beginning to bleed down his neck and stain the collar of his shirt. He hadn't even tried to play it tough, or laugh bitterly at the hand death had dealt as he'd done so lots of other times getting drunk after his mom and Pete's death.

The day Nick was bitten, he'd cried…

"Don't leave me here man. I don't wanna fuckin' die, not here!"

When you get bit, you get put down; that was what Nick had once said those months before outside the cabin. It's what Carlos had done for Alvin when he had got bitten at Carver's camp during their breakout, and what Pete had done for Christa when Clementine had found what was left of the woman down by the river. That was always the meanest thing about having a friend or loved one bitten by the undead; there was no way to help them, except for one. But as Nick had begged for the same not to be done to him, for them not to ditch him on that highway to die on his own, Clementine could only think back to her parents and Lee and if there had ever been a time that they too had feared death with that same helplessness. If Lee had been that way in the jewelry store back in Savannah, crying to her like Nick did now, Clementine couldn't have pulled the trigger. That's why there was no way she could've shot Nick then, even if she did have the gun on her at the time rather than just the infant, who Clementine had held closer to her more than ever.

A single hopeless look up at Luke had proved he was in that same frame of mind, not able to kill the friend he'd been best pals with for years and who he'd forgiven a hundred times over for all his stupid mistakes and brash behavior. He couldn't abandon Nick; of course Luke couldn't do that. Even if it were in vain, Luke had still chosen to take the hand of his crying friend, and pull him up...

"C'mon, let's get movin'."

And so they'd walked.

In fear of a second wave of undead, the group stuck on the highway for a bit where there was at least more cover in case they needed it. They'd soon come by Nick's bag that he'd dropped earlier, trodden and dirty from the walkers. He'd stopped to retrieve what little food and supplies were inside to give over to Luke, but Nick hadn't bothered to bring the bag with him, remarking there wasn't anything else worth taking.

Off road into fields, to hillsides they later trekked, stopping every once and while to change the baby's diaper or feed her more milk. Nick had sat detached from them every time they took a breather, refusing any food or water Luke offered him, or even having the bites on the side of his face cleaned up.

"Don't go wasting it on me; there's no point," Clementine had heard Nick once say to Luke while she'd been feeding the baby.

Nick hadn't given much in the form of conversation either, with rarely uttering a word during those hours of near complete silence after he'd been bitten. What few words Nick did share had been out of earshot for Clementine, as he'd spoken with Luke. But it was obvious with even all that silent treatment Nick was scared; it was clear as day. Just like Pete, Nick was afraid of dying; he wasn't ready to go and he didn't want to…who did?

With every passing hour Nick's health began to fail him; he walked slower and slower as the day wore on, his skin turning sickly pale and that once bright blue eye going empty as the fever was to stricken his movement. By the last few miles Luke had to help him walk with Nick's arm over his shoulder, supporting his friend with every step that was taken.

Near sunset, when they got to that wooden bridge over the stream running through the meadow, that'd been it for him. Nick couldn't go any further.

"Man, this blows," he'd said more to himself than to them. Wheezily Nick was to cough, small sputters of blood brought up from his lungs as the last of the strength in his legs was taken and he'd asked Luke to set him down, leaning him against the side of that bridge just as they'd made it halfway across.

"What uh, what do you want to do?" It was clear what Luke's question entailed, if Nick wanted help to…

He hadn't though. Weakly Nick had just patted the gun in the holster on his hip from where he sat on those planks, finally given in to the fate he couldn't escape from.

"I'll take care of it; you two just go."

"You're sure?"

"Yeah…well, no. But, ya know…"

When Clementine thought no more tears would be shed, Nick had looked about ready to cry again and so had Luke, who'd knelt down to give his friend one final hug that Nick had been too glad to return, patting his buddy on the back.

"Get those two to Wellington for me, alright?"

"Sure, Nick."

"And…no getting any eye patches; they suck balls I'm telling ya."

That'd gotten a short laugh out of Luke, however short-lived it was. "I'll bear that in mind."

Goodbyes were what Clementine hated the most ever since all this started. To never see somebody again, it always made her sad. Too often there was never a chance to say the words 'goodbye' before seeing them off, whether to some faraway place or to their deaths that was often, if always, anything beyond peaceful or humane...

Nick looking so unwell and soon to be joining the dead, it had tightened something painful in Clementine's chest as memories stirred, thinking of every person who had died that she wished she could've done or said something to before it was too late.

No sooner had Luke let Nick go did Clementine step over and sit down on her knees, cradling the baby Nicky carefully in one arm as she'd encircled the other around the back of Nick's neck and hugged him too, uncaring if she'd gotten blood on her or that he stunk of death.

"I'll miss you, Nick."

He'd been a little slow in reacting, not used to her being so affectionate towards him. But she'd soon felt that hand rest on her back, his weary voice having sounded grateful to her.

"Going soft on me? Not like you," Nick had said in his attempt at humor, though it did nothing to stop Clementine from letting go, not until she was ready to.

Baby Nicky had cooed happily between them, blissfully unaware of what had been going on around her. And lightly Nick had reached a pale hand over, brushing the tiny dark ringlets of the infant's hair.

"Been thinkin', 'Nicky' isn't such a bad name," Nick had confessed to her, although Clementine was sure he'd long taken a liking to that name before having spoken about it then. Still that smile of a dying man had been an honest one and nothing else. "Be sure to keep it, okay? And er, to tell the little rascal where she got it from, and...and, whatever. Just, make it good."

It had taken Clementine's all not to cry as she'd nodded.

"I will, promise."

Not a bad place to die...those were the last words that Clementine heard Nick ever say before she and Luke had unwillingly left him there on that bridge, his head leaned back, staring up at the sky painted in so many colors of oranges and golds, with a mixture of both content and sadness on his face at its beauty.

Nick had still been staring at it when Clementine had looked back over her shoulder on them reaching the top of that small hill, Nick's head turning slowly in their direction as if sensing her eyes on him…or maybe, he had just been waiting for them to disappear completely from his view.

Inevitably they had gone, Clementine having to be coaxed by Luke to turn away from their ill parted friend, as they had walked down the other side of that hillside, by which point Clementine could no longer see Nick or hear the trickling of that small stream; there was nothing but the sound of that cold breeze and the sight of more grasslands to where mountains and forests waited miles ahead.

As loud as thunder, a loud bang from a gun going went off in that countryside, sending crows flying up from the branches of a nearby tree, as Clementine's legs fell still, paralyzed by the emotional pain on having another huge part of her be torn out, as the baby started to cry.

Another friend, gone...

---

SMASH!

Fragments of the porcelain bowl shattered, landing everywhere on the floor with the leftover strings of spaghetti and a single fork. The room wouldn't stop spinning long enough for Clementine to pick them all up, or even herself for that matter. She'd hit her head on the way down too, when she'd passed out on going down those last couple of steps on the stairs. There was just blackness and then here she was, lying on the floor with her head pounding and her body hurting like she'd fallen off a high wall.

Not good.

"Clem? Shit, Clem!"

Luke came rushing out from the kitchen, where she'd been meaning to go to. He was there by her side in a flash, a hand on her shoulder as he gently turned her over onto her side. It was so difficult to focus on his face properly. Clem kept feeling like she was slipping, that she'd black out again.

"Oh fuck, fuck! You alright? You didn't break nothin' did ya?" Her friend asked, the words just barely stringing together in her head. Her stump stung super bad, more than usual; she must've knocked it in the fall. Apart from the aches and pains though, nothing felt broken that she could tell.

"No, I don't..." Clementine went to slowly sit herself up, but the dizziness and weakness in both her arms and legs just came back tenfold and she ended up resting her head back down on the floor, clenching her eyes shut to try and make the spinning go away. She didn't want to lose consciousness again; it was scary.

"C'mon, lemme get you up," she'd heard Luke say as he'd gathered her up in his arms and carried her into that small living room where he'd laid her to rest on that couch. It smelled of old people, or maybe just old in general. It's not like anybody went around cleaning abandoned farmhouses like these anyway, since all the owners were either long dead or out there somewhere like her and Luke, trying to get by and find somewhere to belong again.

Clementine heard Luke muttering something as he went walking off...wait no, he was pacing back and forth, and he sounded really stressed too like he usually did when he freaked out on stuff. "Fuck, fuck, what did Carlos do again, what did he...oh!"

She opened her eyes to see Luke grabbing the pillows from the couch and propping them under her legs to keep them elevated. She saw Mom do it once when a pregnant friend of hers fainted. Clementine didn't know why that helped fainters; it was just something people did. Did Luke even know?

"Alright um, water, I'll getcha some water; supposed to keep hydrated, I think, yeah," Luke said more to himself than to her, and he hurried off to the kitchen probably, as he called out to her. "Just be stayin' right there okay, don't go movin' anywhere."

Like Clementine could if she tried. Nope, she felt more than happy just staying put for now. It'd been a mistake trying to go so far as she did. Clementine wasn't okay, she knew it. When she could barely walk to the bathroom by herself, that said enough that she wasn't at her best. She went to push herself and pushed too hard, and now here she was, all for being stupid for wanting that chocolate bar sooner.

Clementine heard Luke coming back, near to the time she felt something drip down from her forehead to her brow. There was red on her fingers when Clementine pulled her hand away to check what it was, and had felt the broken skin of a small gash right near her hairline.

'Snap.'

It must've looked as bad as it hurt, because when Luke saw it too, lifting her cap up for a better look, he'd let out a soft curse, before setting the glass of water down on the coffee table as he left again.

"Hold on, I'll go get somethin' to clean that up with."

---

"Y'know, it'd help sometimes if you listened to me, kid. I told ya to stay put; you're not well enough to be movin' yet."

Clementine refused to say anything, stubbornly staring up at that ceiling while Luke dabbed the blood away from the cut on her forehead with a damp cloth. It wasn't anything serious, not enough to need stitches; she'd had enough of stitches to last her a lifetime. Still, it was blood lost that she couldn't afford to lose, even if it was only a few drops. Clementine was just borderline surviving right now, and she was lucky, all considering.

"Still mad at me huh?" Luke said, sitting on that coffee table by the couch where Clementine was like some bed-ridden patient. He'd started cleaning that cut with a disinfectant wipe next from their first-aid kit; it stung a little, but it was tolerable compared to everything else Clementine had dealt with as of late. "It's fine, you can say it; I'd probably be mad at me too."

The phantoms from the missing half of her limb played games with her head; the heart in her chest juddered out a few irregular beats at the same time, leaving Clementine anxious it might stop beating completely.

'Why was Luke even bothering?' was the question that kept coming to mind.

Clementine felt awful.

"Am I dying?"

Luke stopped cleaning the cut on her forehead. "What?"

"Am I dying? I feel like I am," Clementine's eyes fell on the shelf of books where she could see an antique clock thick with dust; not a single tick sounded, its metal arms frozen on its face to a quarter to twelve, never to work again. "Lee fainted when he was sick, so that must mean I'm sick too."

The disinfectant wipe used up, next came the band-aid, her friend careful in applying it to her forehead. "I wouldn't think so; it's probably just anemia."

"Anemia?"

"Yeah uh, y'know, people get it sometimes, I think like anemic...I dunno. You must've lost a pint or so of blood and that'd leave any kid your size out of commission easy." Luke explained, pausing to check her forehead for a temperature before closing up that first-aid kit. "You ain't got no fever, so let's take that as a good sign."

Clementine wished she could believe that. Her old group had all thought similar of Duck when he was bit, that it was something the boy might overcome. Lee figured maybe it was like a cold, that those when bitten could fight off the infection if they were strong enough; Katjaa meanwhile, she'd clung onto her son as much as the hope that his allergy of bees might save his life, while Kenny just flat-out refused to accept anything was wrong...

Duck never got better, the hours went by, the miles covered by that freight train getting them closer to Savannah, and her old playmate just got sicker and sicker. Through all Duck's silence in his refusal to speak, there had been only one time that he'd looked at Clementine, and all she'd seen was a hollowness there in those boy's eyes, eyes that'd once been so bright and playful.

There was no more hiding bugs under pillows; no more playing tag, or drawing pictures together; Death had claimed all of that, like it had of everyone she cared about.

"It was my fault."

Luke looked over surprised, just as he'd gotten up to go; his brows knitted together in confusion, like he didn't understand what she had meant. There were so many things she'd done wrong.

"Nicky, it was my fault she died," Clementine confessed, running her fingers over the band-aid lightly. "I woke up near feeding time, but I was still really tired, so I just went back to sleep thinking she'd cry and we'd wake up, but she didn't."

Barely a month, that's how long it'd been since Nicky had died, the last one from their group. It wasn't fair, after everything they had lost Clementine wanted that baby to live so much. She'd dreaded the same thing occurring again after Christa's son was stillborn, causing the woman to frequently vent out her grief on Clementine when she could be bothered to speak.

A second chance to make things right, to be that big sister she never got to be for Christa's baby, but that too had been taken from Clementine. And Luke's silence, it was already making her fear the repercussions of that failure all over again.

"Please don't be mad."

"What, why the hell would I be that? Clem it weren't your fault," Luke said, sitting back down on that coffee table, his expression mournful from a loss she could relate to oh so easily. "Stuff like that, it just, it is what it is, okay? You can't stop it from happening. You didn't make Nicky sick; she'd have ended up like that either way."

Clem rubbed her tired eyes, her voice cracky and dry. "Are you sure?"

"Pretty sure...like, 99% sure; no medical degree talkin' here too but-uh anyway, forget about that, that's not important right now." Luke reached over and straightened up her Dad's baseball cap on her head. "You did what you could, we both did, and Becs would've been proud of ya for that. So don't you go thinkin' those thoughts; there ain't anythin' else we could've done."

It wasn't that fake lying sort of lie he gave her, the type people used to try and help a person feel better when really the blame was still theirs. Luke meant it, and Clementine hated that; she didn't deserve forgiveness.

"Here, you better drink this," Luke said with a change of subject, picking the glass of water up from the coffee table. "It'll do you some good."

Clementine's mouth felt drier just looking at that glass, but to get up was something that quickly became a troublesome task indeed. Even just going to move stirred up that dizziness like a whirlpool inside her head along with a weakness in every muscle. She needed her friend's assistance to sit up, an arm on her back keeping her steady until Clementine had drunk down a few gulps of that cold water that was as cold as this house, or was it just her? They were dressed up warm; it had to be her.

"You just sit tight for a bit and get some rest. If you need anythin' be sure to be lettin' me know; no more playin' the fugitive, kid," Luke instructed after he had helped her lie back down again and threw that shawl lying on one of the other seats over Clementine for some well needed warmth and comfort.

For a while she was left alone to her own accord, studying the insides of that once loved farmhouse as the snow fell silently outside those bleached white windows to nothingness. And then, from the kitchen, Luke made a return, snapping her drifting mind into alertness again. "Almost forgot, I figured you might be wantin' this. Try not to go scoffin' it all at once alright."

It was the chocolate bar, the one he said she could have if she finished the spaghetti. Only now did that cheating tactic make Clementine think of the times her Mom and Dad said she couldn't have dessert if her dinner wasn't all eaten up. They were all a bunch of cheating cheaters, and Clementine missed that; she missed her parents.

'I don't want to die,' the thought resounded loud and clear in her head as she held onto that hazelnut bar as if it were something of pure riches. The heart still beat unsteadily in her chest, and only time would tell if it would keep beating so she could enjoy another chocolate bar like this again, and keep on living.

If only Clementine could just...oh...

"Luke? Hey Luke?"

Her friend stopped in the midst of sweeping up that broken bowl and spaghetti down by the stairs, the man looking prepared as if ready to console Clementine in another heart-to-heart talk. But all Luke got was her, still couch-ridden as she held the bar of chocolaty goodness above her head with a sad frown.

"I can't open it."

---

It happened few days after leaving Nick in the meadow, at a time when they thought things couldn't possibly get much worse than they already had. Luke had been trying his best to keep both their spirits up, but losing so many people and in such a short frame of time wasn't something a person got over easy; neither one had forgotten, not any of it. Besides, Clementine had been through this before.

They'd spent two days sleeping rough outside, getting little rest because of keeping watch and being woken several times by Nicky for milk and a diaper change. They were really feeling the strain with just the two of them out there by themselves, and more often were they avoiding confrontation with the dead whenever necessary...

"We can take them easy."

It'd been just three walkers on that woodland road, that's all; one was dressed like a police officer, and the other two just looked like an old lady and man, maybe; they were too far away to tell for sure. Even from that distance they'd stunk rotten.

The walkers were feeding on some people who hadn't been dead long; they'd been bandits judging by the scarfs and hats shrouding their faces. It was their supplies they were interested in, their packs loaded to the full with stuff, maybe ammo or food? And their guns lying there among the bodies of lifeless walkers shot down. Clementine was sure that that alone would be enough to convince her friend they should try when they had so little of those things themselves.

"Maybe, but I don't like it," Luke eventually said to her suggestion, refusing to take any course of action from where they were crouched low behind that burnt-out car.

Clementine had looked up at him, whispering in that same hushed tone. "What if we draw them away with sound and grab an extra gun? Then I can help."

"Nah, can't risk it. Sound or shootin', it might draw more lurkers, or any bandit friends hangin' around here. And those guys might be turnin' soon, and then whaddya know, it's two on six," Luke stole a glance at her and the snoozing baby in her arms, and despite being tired from staying on watch most the nights before, he'd still had a crack at humor. "Or maybe, one and a half on six."

"I'm not a half, I can help!" Clementine insisted.

"Not with the baby you're not. We still got ammo, it'll just have to do for now," Luke said as he slowly backed off, keeping crouched low and quiet so the walkers wouldn't be interrupted from their meal and pursue them.

Yet she hadn't gone with him, not straight away.

"But, but the-"

"I said 'no', Clementine!" He hissed, his tired eyes urging her to follow him and go. "Look, let's just find another way around, and get movin'; there'll be other chances like this and probably lurker-filled too, but I ain't risking it on that many and with a baby with us, now let's go!"

He was right, even if they didn't find much in ammo or guns afterwards, the baby's safety came first. But it was after a while being caught in her own thoughts that Clementine realized it wasn't just the baby Luke was looking out for; he'd been worried about her too.

The first snowflakes had begun to fall that evening on arriving in that small neighborhood of a few houses: a small reminder that Christmas was just around the corner. Thanks to some lucky scavenging around those buildings, their food supplies were stocked up again, and they still had more than enough formula for the baby. With finally a roof over their heads keeping them out from the cold and without that many walkers seen around, it'd been a nice place to stop for a while.

And better yet, they'd found something else.

"Hah! I don't believe it; this thing's still got some juice left!" Luke had said like a kid with a new toy. And Clementine thought he was supposed to be the grown-up between them. It was stupid, that ancient car hadn't even looked road-worthy; it'd been rusted and falling apart inside that garage, yet the smooth hum of that engine said otherwise. After all that time, they had a functioning vehicle again.

Adjusting her arms around the fidgety Nicky, Clementine leaned over from that open car door, checking the fuel gauge. "It's almost empty."

"Yeah, but it might give us a few extra miles yet, and that's a few extra miles off our feet!" Luke killed the engine, taking the key with him as he stepped out, looking rather pleased with himself. "Only car in the neighborhood and the thing works, hah, that's luck for ya there."

Clementine turned her attention back to that rust bucket, that despite looking like a rust bucket, the wheels were shiny and new, and the inside of the car seemed okay, sort of. "I still think it's junk. It looks all funny."

"That's because they were just restoring it is all, see from all the equipment they got over there and the carjacks? Probably just hadn't gotten to doin' the exterior yet," tucking a hand under his chin, Luke went around to the front of the car, like it were a wonder to behold. "Looks like an old Cadillac, 60's I think. Y'know my gramps he used to have all these-"

Clementine stared at her friend very blandly in a way that soon cut him off, as Nicky gave a little gurgle in her arms, those tiny baby's fingers clinging at the zipper of her coat. Fact was, it was getting late; they hadn't slept well in days and had spent the whole afternoon scavenging around that neighborhood. So, as far as Clementine was concerned, a history lesson on cars at the time was a very big 'no thank you'.

"On second thoughts, scrap that for now," Luke cleared his throat, assertiveness replacing dorkiness as he clapped his hands together and stepped by her to head on back inside the house through that garage door. "Let's get crackin' in securing this little humble abode for the night; Nicky'll be needin' feedin' soon."

No surprise on that, the baby girl had been trying to put the zipper of Clementine's coat in her mouth, despite the pacifier being in the way; it'd been a while since Nicky's last feed and her waking up had often been a sign she was getting hungry.

Clementine had nodded, carrying the infant with her as she followed her friend on inside. "Okay...but, what's an 'abode'?"

"It's a sayin'," Luke explained with a yawn.

"Okay, what does the abode have to do with anything?"

"I dunno, it's just what you say. Work with me, kid; kinda fallin' asleep here as it is."

They'd decided they would stay a few days in that house, allowing them to rest up before moving on. Clementine was fine by that, and just happy not to be spending the night out in the cold again. Yet sad it was, Nick's absence from his recent passing was still felt and didn't allow for peace of mind to be accepted in so easily when Clementine still missed him and the others.

Over a month, that's how long it took for them to be traveling without their friends from that cabin. The times Clementine had seen Luke and the others joking about something were replaced by quieter times now, much quieter. That deck of cards Luke kept on him were played no more, the games of poker between friends just a memory. Instead, most evenings after Nick's passing, Luke had started going over those maps with Clementine, not just to be sure they were on the right tracks, but so that Clementine was also aware of how to navigate and where to go in the event anything happened to him; it was a possibility she didn't want to consider.

Luke wasn't one to wallow in despair and no way was he a weak man, but he wasn't made of steel either. The recent death of his childhood friend had hit him hard, though he tried not to show it, not like he had when he'd spoken to her in that church all that time ago. They needed to stay focused if they wanted to make it to Wellington, and that meant keeping their heads held high. Yet Clementine found that even those who were used to staying on such mindsets still needed a little booster every once in a while, especially when it was that someone's birthday...

It had been that evening, Clementine had seen Luke sitting there in the kitchen quietly rather out of himself, unaware that Clementine could see him from where she was leaned over the banister on those stairs. Maybe he'd thought she was still napping up in the bedroom with the baby and could do without having to pretend he was dealing with it all better than he let on.

That spaced-out look on Luke's face had immediately gone when he'd heard her coming down the stairs, a smile to have welcomed Clementine when she'd entered the kitchen.

"I figured you'd be out longer; sleep well?"

"Mhmm," Clementine had nodded, her arms tucked behind her back where they were to stay, waiting for Luke to take notice.

It didn't take him too long. "Whatcha got there?"

At that cue, Clementine walked on over to her friend, sliding one of her arms out from behind her back…and so had she set that familiar deck of cards down on table in front of him, the deck she had taken out from his rucksack.

Luke had stared at those cards, and then back at her to where he'd raised curious a brow. And Clementine, with a quick glance down at her feet, had then chosen to reveal that small bag of jelly beans to her friend.

"I found them upstairs; you wanna try winning some?"

She still remembered how much Luke looked like he wanted to laugh at that offer at a game of cards with her with jelly beans as the winnings. Out of all the games those men played together, candy was never the thing on offer, and that was the first time the two of them ever played a game of cards by themselves. Clementine had almost thought he'd turned it down, but Luke soon had motioned his head at the chair across the table, and, beaming with a victorious smile Clementine had gone to sit herself down while Luke started shuffling those cards.

"Just 'cause the others ain't here, don't mean I'm gonna go easy on ya, kid," he'd confidently stated, causing Clementine to roll her eyes as she'd carefully poured out those jelly beans onto the table so they didn't go everywhere.

"Sure," she'd said unconvinced, and sure enough, Luke had soon eaten his words and not jelly beans.

A half a dozen quick rounds of poker they got in before Nicky's cries upstairs ended their game…and Clementine had won most of them, gobbling up a few of the jelly beans that Luke did win just to annoy him, and also because Clementine liked jelly beans too. Although, the jelly beans had gone rock hard from age and didn't taste all that nice as she remembered. But the game still succeeded in cheering Luke up lots, even if he was a sore loser.

---

If one thing kept them preoccupied when they weren't traveling or trying to get by, then it was Nicky. No matter how bad things got, seeing that smiling baby girl with that cute button nose of hers, it'd made all the difference for Clementine. She and Luke had really been getting the hang of all that baby stuff too, working as a team just as good as they were at killing walkers. Nicky might've been small, but that was the advantage to it; she wasn't too heavy, slept for the most part and aside from the crying, stinky diapers, and the smell of baby puke on their clothes, caring for that baby wasn't such a bleak prospect as it had been when they had first escaped Carver's camp. Despite adding looking out for a baby while surviving against the undead, they were slowly managing to cope.

"Wipes," Luke had called out like a doctor in theatre while Clementine handed over each of the tools needed for that complicated operation they were used to performing by then, and so was that baby girl who laid there on that changing mat, not giving a poop that she'd pooped out so much poop into her diaper.

Poop was just as gross as walker guts, and as messy.

"Baby powder."

Out Clementine took that small tub of baby powder from her backpack, the stuff soon to have been puffed up into the air everywhere thanks to her friend applying too much as usual; it'd caused even little Nicky to give out a few tiny coughs.

"Crap, sorry, sorry...uh, diaper."

Foggy-eyed with powder, Clementine purposefully chucked the fresh diaper at Luke's head, but he'd caught it, unwrapping the diaper and putting it on the baby.

"Trashcan."

Nose pinched, she held out the trashcan at arm's length as Luke slam-dunked that dirty tied-up diaper where it belonged with all the other dirty diapers they'd had to change on Nicky that evening.

"Annnd done! Think we set ourselves a world record there!" Luke announced while he buttoned up that baby girl's bright purple sleeping suit, matching to the color of her pacifier, both of which Clementine had picked out for her from the drawer of new baby clothes in one of the other houses; the price tags hadn't even been taken off them yet. Somehow that just made Clementine sad, thinking those clothes might've been for a baby that never got the chance to be born before the dead took life from the living.

Grown-ups, they talked about how they felt bad for kids growing up in a world like theirs now. Even if she missed school and being a kid, Clementine felt worse for the babies like Nicky who were just lucky to be born and yet were still too young to survive on their own, and learn to adapt like Clementine had. That baby was born into hell and she had no idea of it. They could've escaped walkers or killed any that'd been seconds from harming them and Nicky would just sleep on or stare bug-eyed up at them, unaware of how many times she'd cheated death.

That baby might've been small, but she had a big heart on her and that was what Clementine loved most about her. If there was anything Clementine remembered most about Nicky though, was that despite the age of two and half weeks, she was incredibly picky. Nicky liked her hugs, being wrapped up snug in her blankets and only ever went to sleep if somebody sung to her; if they didn't, Nicky would cry and cry until someone did before walkers came knocking. In those few weeks babysitting, Clementine had sung more nursery rhymes than she had in her entire life. Nick had never sung to the baby, saying that he had the singing voice that could skin a cat, and hadn't really wanted to make a fool of himself. Clementine meanwhile, wasn't exactly gifted, yet she'd still made the conscious effort to sing those songs for Nicky that her Mom and Dad had taught her when she was little, humming the parts she couldn't recall or making some entirely up.

Hands down, it was Luke who was the one with the best singing voice and one that Clementine secretly was jealous of too. Whenever it was his turn to take care of Nicky during the night, he would sing some old country songs, those Clementine never recognized and was too shy to ask the titles of, but she had enjoyed listening all the same. It would take her back to the days her parents used to sing together on those long car trips when away on vacation, or back to that brief time in the Motor Inn when her old group had all sung around that campfire for a laugh, until Lilly told them to stop, in case the noise drew walkers to the camp.

She never admitted it, but if things were like they used to be, she could've easily imagined Luke being one of those singers on the radio, back when they had working radios. And Nicky, though barely half a month old, had liked Luke's voice too, showing it in the way she'd focused her bright brown eyes on him and nothing else. The infant had really favored him for that talent of this, dozing off a lot quicker whenever it was Luke that had sung to her as she had that night when she was rocked to sleep.

The last time Clementine had seen Nicky alive was when she'd tucked that baby girl to bed inside that woven laundry basket being used as her crib. As Clementine had stroked her cheek ever so gently before kissing Nicky on the forehead goodnight, she had wondered if they would be like this in Wellington too, like a family. If there really was a chance for a normal life, or the closest they would ever to get to one, would they all stay together as they had? Clementine wished that they could've, together with Nick and the others, everyone.

Getting that baby girl to Wellington, getting all three of them to Wellington, it'd seemed doable. After all the people who had died, that baby deserved to have a future; all three of them deserved that much...but, it would never be the three of them.

It'd stopped snowing when Clementine arose that morning at first light, the snowflakes long settled on the edges of the windows in a white powdery frost as the world outside and the house within felt unsettlingly still. Something was wrong; she'd just known it straight away as she'd sat up on that bed, her body briefly shivering not from the cold, but the unease within Clementine on looking to that empty baby bottle near the laundry basket on that small table.

Except for that one time after they'd turned in for the night, Nicky hadn't woken them up.

"Luke, LUKE!"

In the other bed her friend had come to, quick in getting up when he'd seen Clementine over by the basket, her shaking arms huddled around that bundle of blankets with the gray-skinned infant inside.

Nicky wasn't moving.

"Give her here," Clementine had held the baby out as Luke had carefully lifted Nicky out from her arms, but Clementine could tell by how rigid the baby's body was that they were too late; her lips pale beneath the pacifier, without a single rise to fall from her small chest.

Nicky didn't die from a walker bite, nothing as cruel or barbaric as the deaths of their friends and family. No, Rebecca's baby had died from natural causes, from the very thing that used to haunt thousands of new parents in the old days, and probably still did for the few that survived long enough to bring new life into this ruined world.

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or what most called it; Crib Death.

They couldn't have saved her; they couldn't have known. And that was the worst thing about it, that they weren't able to prevent that little baby girl from dying…

Luke had buried Nicky in the backyard of that house later that same morning, after having to make sure the infant wouldn't turn, something that had been difficult for him, and that he hadn't allowed Clementine to be a witness to.

While she'd sat there in the living room, listening to the sound of Luke digging that tiny grave out back, Clementine took notice of the small wooden cross hung on the wall above the mantelpiece. She had soon gotten up, dragging a chair over to stand on so she could remove the cross from its hook. Taking the small pocket knife from their things, she'd carved Nicky's name onto that cross, just feeling enough in that numbness of emotions at having that baby buried, that Clementine could be grateful at least Nicky's grave would be marked, a dignity the others never got.

'How am I supposed to raise a child? I mean, how can anyone now…? Everything is so fucked up.'

'I think it's possible.'

'How do you know?'

'Well, I'm still here.'

They'd failed Rebecca, that's all Clementine could keep thinking about, so tangled up in her own thoughts that the knife accidentally slipped in her grasp on carving out the letter 'C,' slicing the side of her thumb. It'd stung, but Clementine hadn't done anything about it, didn't stand up to go and wash it clean and get a band-aid. She had just stared emptily at that little cut, watching the dark liquid seep out from between the broken skin, and had let it bleed...

After that cross was set in the ground at that grave on what used to be a flowerbed, Luke had suggested they could still stay the extra day, to give her the time she needed before moving on. Yet Clementine refused, just wanting to get as far away from that place as possible. They had rested up enough, and it was best they didn't stay and waste what daylight they had to travel on.

So there they were, planning to move on from that small house and that ghostly neighborhood. Because she was so out of it, Luke had chosen to go down to the brook just a few minutes' walk from there by himself to refill their bottles of water, while Clementine stayed behind to gather up the last of her things into her backpack, leaving behind those baby clothes and other belongings of Nicky's they had no need of anymore.

Luke left her alone so she could say goodbye, even though she hadn't really said anything that could be considered saying a goodbye, she couldn't even cry. Clementine had just sat perched on the edge of the bed, staring at that empty basket still carrying the indents where Nicky's body had laid, as Clementine's thumb ran along the edges of that pacifier, unable to tear her mind away from the memories of that sweet little girl that should've still been breathing with her.

At hearing the sound of the door open downstairs and a little sooner than expected, down Clementine carefully set that pacifier in the basket, staring at it a moment longer with a silent prayer somehow Nicky would get a second chance in another life somewhere better, before Clementine left that room to go meet Luke.

There was a little problem with that though, the problem being that when Clementine had gotten to the stairs, she only made it halfway down when she was greeted by the barrel of a gun.

"Well, fancy meeting you again young lady."

She never thought she'd see that man again.

They had been reckless, reckless and stupid in believing no repercussions from the incident at the camp some weeks before would follow them this far. But they had lived in a false sense of security from that, security that was ripped right out from under Clementine's feet in an instant on finding Carver standing at the bottom of those stairs with that prized revolver of his pointed directly up at her.

He'd looked a total mess, like a tramp; thin with barely any weight on him, clothes dirty and his stubble grown out into a thick beard that was as poorly maintained as his hair...and with a mad-eyed look harbored in him that reminded Clementine so much of the stranger from Savannah; Carver may as well have been the same guy.

No others were with Carver that day, either dead or having long abandoned their leader that they had finally seen him for who he was, and who had fallen into a far worse frame of mind since then. His calm exterior had crumbled to ruin, for all Clementine saw that day was just a broken man, a man still driven by the same goal that he would do anything to achieve and at any cost.

That fact terrified Clementine more than that gun.

"Got nothin' to say to me, huh? I can't really blame you. I'm not much of a pretty sight to see; I have you and your traitorous friends to thank for that," Carver had said to her slyly, the scratching of his fingers on his beard having sounded like sandpaper to her ears, with the stench of filth coming off him so strong that Clementine had been able to smell him from all the way from up those stairs. "The truth is I've been trackin' you for some time; trail nearly went cold too, but then I found your friend, what's his name…ah, never liked the boy much anyway; always complaining about somethin', a downright coward if I ever saw one and I've seen plenty."

Clementine remembered Nick in that moment, of him rested propped up against that bridge where she and Luke were forced to leave him behind; she remembered the sound of the gunshot, carried across the countryside from his life having ended by his own hand...or, or had it been? Might it have been Carver all along? Could he have been following not far behind them those days before as well? Clementine never uncovered the truth, but she didn't want to think the last person Nick saw was that man standing over him, rather than his best friends that cared about him.

Clementine held onto that banister with such a death grip, the ends of several of her fingernails cracked against the wood. The air caught in her throat, unable to speak, frightened that at any second Carver would shoot her right where she stood and her life would be over.

But he hadn't. Carver was too proud a man, lost in the moment of proving to her what fools she and Luke were. He'd been hunting them from the very start, from the very instant he'd seen Luke and Nick drive off with the newborn in that truck, the same truck Carver was to later find abandoned. He'd known of their plan to go to Wellington after all the group's talk of it and the direction they were heading, and that it was only a matter of time before he caught up to them whether on the road or at their destination. Scarier still, Carver was even aware of the fact little Nicky had been a girl from some unwashed baby clothes they'd left from somewhere they'd stayed prior, even down to the small pink hat they'd forgotten by accident in one such place. Carver announced all of this to Clementine as he'd held her at gunpoint, the man sounding nothing but deluded as if searching for them and his baby girl had finally driven away what little sanity he had left.

A more insane Carver was much more lethal than a lesser sane one.

"You can't even imagine how long I've dreamt of seeing her, my own flesh and blood. They all thought they could keep her from me, but not anymore. They stripped me down to rags and obliterated my community and all we'd worked for, but I'll get it all back, everything," very slowly Carver had climbed those stairs, never taking the gun off her as he'd smiled with that false kindness that did nothing to hide who he truly was. "As much as I really appreciate you two going out of your way to take care of my little girl, I think it's about time I take over from here, being her rightful father and all. So if you'd do me the honors in leading me to her room sweetheart, I would be very much obliged."

Clementine nearly had a heart attack, edging back a step with legs shaking at the realization of his words revealing no deceit behind them, but longing at the mention of his child…

Carver, he had absolutely no idea his baby was dead.

He must've been aware Nicky was with them until recently for him to have risked pulling a stunt like that, especially if he'd discovered the places they'd stayed in previous nights; coming across those baby things like used diapers that would've separated them from other survivors out there. For all Clementine and Luke could've known, Carver might've been stalking them for days, watching them from that very house just waiting for the right time to drop in, when Luke had conveniently stepped out.

But what Carver hadn't seen was the freshly dug grave out back in the garden and it was that hidden truth which was the only thing keeping him from pulling that trigger. Yet Carver wouldn't have underestimated her again, not for a second time as he had done back in his camp when he believed he could change her and failed. The only trick Clementine had up her sleeve was bluffing, a little talent of hers that thanks to her friends and playing those few games of poker they invited her to, she had gotten pretty good at it since her first encounter with Carver.

Worried at what might have happened if she said nothing, somehow, Clementine pushed herself into finding her voice again. And bluff, she did.

"Why should I? You'll just kill me anyway."

There was only another smile given from the man to her by her boldness as Carver stepped closer. "That's an interesting point you make there. But you see I have no intention of killing you my dear, or spilling more blood than I have to."

Kenny's death flashed in her mind, at the horrible moment Carver had slit open his throat as punishment for challenging him to a fight. It hadn't been Kenny's fault, the others had tried to calm him down, but he'd just mentally lost it over Sarita's death when she had been murdered right in front of everybody by that same monster who claimed it was Kenny's doing for being a loud-mouth.

Kenny had just charged at him, throwing punches left, right and center until one of Carver's men whacked him in the back of the head, stunning him long enough for Carver to get the upper hand and kill him as punishment for his actions. It'd been torture for Clementine and the others to go through as they'd been forced to watch her old friend bleed out on the ground in the middle of town while they were held back at gunpoint; no shouting or words were strong enough to stop any of it before that blade was drawn and the chambers of that revolver were emptied into Kenny's skull.

The blood, there'd been so much blood...

Clementine had let go of the banister, her palms sweaty as her eyes briefly flicked beyond Carver to the windows near the front door, searching for signs Luke and if he was coming back; there were none. "W-Why not? I'm just a kid, you don't need me for anything."

"All these questions. I could always tell you were a smart one Clementine, and those are the sorts of people I just so happen to like, so long as they do as they're told," Carver said just three steps away from her, that gun close enough that if it had gone off, the damage would've been fatal to her. "You've done good for my girl, it only makes sense to keep you around rather than Luke, now doesn't it? And I'm sure with some persuasion you'll be willin' to come along quietly, isn't that right? "

One person on their own couldn't take care of a baby, not in this world. That was the only reason Carver even considered the idea of keeping her around, so there would be someone else there to help. An eleven-year-old Carver believed he could easily control more than a grown man like Luke, if Carver took Luke out of the picture, then Clementine would've had no choice but to go with him if she wanted her and Nicky to survive...or so he must've thought.

She'd seen how he worked, warping people's minds with well-chosen words and both visible and veiled threats. The younger they were, the more likely they were to be convinced into his way of thinking, out of willingness or fear. But Clementine wasn't weak like Sarah, and what little belief Carver had that there was still a chance of corrupting her mind because of her age, he was wrong.

All said and done though, Clementine wasn't tough like Lee or Luke to risk fighting to take that gun out of his hand. If Carver wanted to, he could've beaten her half to death if it got her to cooperate with him. Carver was the one pointing the gun at her, not the other way around…

Clementine could only bite down on her tongue to stop herself from saying something stupid; silence Carver took for compliance.

"Good, now please be a dear and kindly show me the way," he'd motioned with that revolver forward, to usher her up the stairs with that skin-crawling sneer. "No funny business now, Clementine. I got my eye on you."

Her mind had been racing a mile a minute, her pulse going just as fast as she'd nervously turned around and walked slowly back up those stairs with Carver following right behind her as she wished with every step she took closer to that bedroom Luke would come back from the river in time to save her. She was seen as a valuable asset to Carver, but that wouldn't last once Nicky's death was revealed. Even if Luke had returned in time, Carver would've just used her as a hostage long enough to put a bullet in his head like he had done with her before. They would've both died without a plan.

Clementine couldn't rely on Luke, only herself.

Upon finally bringing Carver to that room where the basket was up on the table by the window, it was by that point she'd caught sight of that slightly ajar door to that cramped bathroom adjoined to the twin bedroom she and Luke had shared with Nicky. It was her only chance…

Making sure to not to let her eyes give anything away, Clementine gazed over at that basket from where she stood at the foot of those unmade beds, and pointed. "She's in there, in the basket."

Smiling like some proud father, Carver had taken the bait straight away and walked right by her, all too eager to officially meet his child and hold her in his arms after all that time, the same child he must've believed Clementine wouldn't have dared to go running off without. If Nicky were still alive, maybe, that would've been true…

But she wasn't!

In the time it took Carver to look into that woven laundry basket and discover nothing but those blankets and the pacifier inside, Clementine had already bolted for the bathroom, slamming the door shut and twisting that key residing in its lock before he even had a chance to stop her. The impact of that man's body colliding with that door seconds later on the opposite side made Clementine jump back in alarm, near falling into that ugly green bathtub as Carver shouted threats out over the heavy pounding of his fist on that door.

"Clementine! Open the door, Clementine! OPEN THE DOOR!"

The revolver soon fired when his reasoning failed; chips of wood blasting out everywhere when Carver tried to shoot open the door's lock, each bullet fired through just missing Clementine by inches.

Or maybe, he'd just been trying to shoot her.

Pumped full of adrenaline, Clementine wasted no time in stepping up onto that toilet lid to push open the small narrow window above it, her body just small enough to squeeze through it and escape as that bathroom door was kicked open behind her with a loud bang.

No time to think, Clementine just went, sliding down the snow-covered tiles of that garage, her body rolling off the side of the roof to land gracelessly on some bushes below that broke her fall. Tumbling off, scratched up by twigs, she'd looked up to see Carver by the window, getting his arm out with revolver in hand to fire. But she'd taken off, already being too far gone down the street before Carver could muster any decent aim. That was what one of Carver's men had joked about to his friends back at the camp after all, when the guards keeping watch on them hadn't been aware that their leader was listening. The man had laughed about how Carver couldn't shoot long range because of his vision, or something...whatever it was, it was a joke that'd gotten the man beaten to a bloody pulp by his leader for such disrespect, and he was never seen again after that by anybody.

That sharp memory of hers paid off and saved Clementine big time, for she'd soon heard Carver let out a curse and retract his arm, not firing another bullet from that gun as she'd fled.

It hadn't stopped him though, no way.

That front door was to be thrown open by the time Clementine was at the intersection, her heart thudding in her chest at seeing Carver running from the house, his face ablaze with lunacy and fury as he'd given chase, growling between gritted teeth like some feral dog.

To be caught wasn't an option, but to run was. And run she did with everything in her, sprinting through the small open gate to the woodland path beside the last of the houses at the end of that neighborhood, nearly running right into the arms of a walker Clementine had to swerve to the side of to avoid getting munched. That wandering corpse was to only hold Carver up for a few seconds, as she'd glimpsed back to see the enraged man shoving the walker out of the way, knocking the clumsy corpse over as he ran at full speed after her, faster than she'd ever known him capable of going.

Clementine had been headed for the brook that Luke had gone to, the one someway along off that winding trail and down a steep slope through the trees. Clementine hoped that she could get to Luke before Carver got to her first, but he had been gaining on her quickly, the path loose with rocks and covered in ice beneath the thin layer of fresh fallen snow. The elements slowed her down even more; no matter what Clementine had done, she just couldn't run away fast enough.

But she was close, so close to the brook that she could hear it.

Clementine had gone to open her mouth and shout out into the woods for her friend's help…only for nothing to come out, as if she'd been punched in the gut. It was all because she'd remembered something.

The gun, Luke had given her the gun! The pistol that had only half a clip left in it, he'd left it with her in that house for protection while he'd gone to get water for their trip. Clementine had been stupid though, she'd never picked the thing up from the kitchen counter, not even when she'd gone upstairs in a daze over Nicky, as she hadn't been thinking straight. What a great thing to do, as if she hadn't learnt her lesson the last time when it got Omid killed.

Luke, he had only the machete on him and that was it. Bringing a knife to a gun fight-that machete, it wouldn't have done anything up against a loaded gun, and if Carver were to have found out from the both of them what'd happen to his baby, he would have thought twice about shooting them dead.

Running to Luke, it had been a mistake. She'd realized he would only get hurt too, and with every bend in that path through those trees, Clementine was afraid she would see him strolling back up that hill with those bottles of water. She'd been luring danger right to him! And then, there'd been the festering panic at that time of the unknown, that what if Luke was already dead? What if Carver had killed him before he'd gone into the house and he just hadn't said?

She couldn't take Carver on her own; not without a weapon. She'd been running out of both time and energy, with Carver close to catching up to her that Clementine almost thought she could feel him breathing down her neck. With her lungs heaving with exhaustion, muscles burning as the cold flushed her cheeks red; Clementine had soon spotted that cut away through the dense underbrush in those trees, hearing the sound of the brook flowing somewhere nearby clearer than ever.

In that moment she'd made her choice, and that was to protect her friend.

Keeping her head fixed forward as not to draw attention to the hidden trail, Clementine ran straight past it. As that man closed in on her and with her body near out of stamina, Clementine had sucked in a deep breath of air and screamed out the name of her last and only friend left in the world, and had prayed that he'd still been alive to hear it.

"LUKE!"

Carver had run by the hidden trail too, relief temporally having flooded her thoughts when he did, a relief that was soon gone some few strides after when Clementine's foot slipped on a frozen puddle on the path she saw one second too late. She'd fallen down painfully on her side, bashing her elbow along with her hip as part of her face was scratched up by the rocky ground.

Frantic, Clementine went to get up again, when she was struck in the back of the head by Carver's revolver, just as she'd been about to stand. Without mercy he'd kicked her in the stomach too, hard, the impact knocking both Clementine over onto her back and the air from her lungs. Before she was able to catch her breath, that hand closed tightly around her throat as Carver pinned her to the ground.

"Where is she? Where is my child!? ANSWER ME!"

Clementine couldn't have given one, even if she'd been able to speak, there wouldn't have been an answer worth saying to have gotten Carver to stop. He was too far gone in the head; a truth or lie, he might've killed her anyway, left her to die on that path in the woods for not letting up where his baby was or being able to accept Nicky was dead. Or maybe he'd already known...

Her legs kicked uselessly against him, scratching at Carver's wrist desperate for the air being choked out of her. When Clementine failed to say anything and did nothing other than struggle, Carver slammed her head against the ground from where she laid, spots appearing in her vision as the ache in the back of her bruised head intensified tenfold.

Those dark eyes filled with nothing but murderous intent like they had been the day he killed Kenny and Sarita, Carver had shoved that gun in her face, words hissed out between his teeth with his breath stinking putrid. "I'll ask you nicely again, where is she? Tell me now, because I've just about had it with you and your games girl!"

Clementine's lungs had been on fire, hardly able to focus on what he was saying as all she'd been thinking of was about getting away before she was strangled to death. She'd clawed a hand at the earth, trying to find a heavy enough rock to smash into the side of Carver's head, yet Clementine could clutch at nothing but icy pebbles and dirt; her arms too short to reach high enough to even poke her thumbs in Carver's eyes as Christa had once done to a creep who'd snuck into their tent. In those dying efforts, Clementine grabbed a handful of those tiny stones and chucked them at Carver's face. Despite many of those stones falling on her, it'd done the trick, blinding the man long enough for Clementine to lift one of her legs out to kick him off. Gasping and coughing she'd crawled away.

She didn't even make it onto her feet when that arm wrapped around her and Carver pulled her to him into a chokehold, threatening to snap her neck like a twig as another scream was silenced by that hand to have clamped over her mouth.

"You little wretch! So that's how it is, huh? If you won't talk, then why don't we go and ask the farm boy where she is? I'm sure Luke will be far more negotiable when-"

A sickening wet crack, like a blade cutting through a watermelon, and a warm liquid splattered across Clementine's head from behind. The arm around her neck slipped away, that hand over her mouth falling limp along with it, allowing her to breathe again as she fell forward onto her knees. And like a puppet with its strings cut, Carver collapsed down dead on the ground next to her, blood pouring out from the gaping hole in the back of his head like a disgusting water fountain. But all she could see were those eyes, those eyes of Carver's just staring blank and lifeless up at her with his face contorted in shock that was to stay frozen there, even in death.

He was gone...

A thick puddle of blood was spreading out from the man's split open skull, near to reaching Clementine there on her hands and knees when she'd nearly screamed out at someone suddenly grabbing her arm. She had almost gone to fight them too, until she'd seen that it was Luke, looking and sounding worried as hell as he'd pulled her up.

"Clem it's alright, it's me!"

She'd been too shaken up to say much, just able to give short answers to most of what Luke was to ask her that day over what'd happened, and he'd looked shaken up too, not able to stop trying to rub Carver's blood off himself even when she was sure she couldn't see any. Clementine was just glad they were still alive, but scared too, at how close they'd been to that being a different story.

If it was true in Carver being alone, they hadn't waited around to find out. They'd gone straight back to the house, gotten their things and left in that rust bucket of a car that only got them fifteen or so miles before it packed up on them, but at least it got them some distance away from that place. Yet from then on they were more vigilant than ever, never separating like that again and always, always watching each other's backs.

All the while, Clementine kept questioning to herself how it had all come to this? How come...how come, it was just they who were the last ones left? There were so many times Clementine thought about that day in the cabin when Carver showed up and wished that she'd grabbed that knife or locked the door so he couldn't get inside in the first place. Too often as well, did Clementine wish that she had told Lee all those years ago that she had seen Ben behaving strangely in those days before the bandits attacked; that one got to her the most.

So many regrets, so many things. How different might their lives have been if not for those mistakes? Or maybe, nothing would have changed at all, and Clementine would've still been journeying alone with Luke; family and friends lost on both sides, with the past never going away and future just a hole in the ground waiting for them to fall in. The closer they got to Wellington, the more did that old saying 'too good to be true' ring in her ears.

Walkers, cannibals, bandits, and twisted psychos; when would it ever stop? When would they be free from all this?

---

Two and half years ago when Lee died, Clementine hadn't left the jewelry store, not right away. To see her parents dead as walkers and then for him to go too that same day, the one and only person she ever came close to calling a second father, it had been too much for her young mind to take. In a naïve belief and in refusal to accept the truth, she thought that maybe if she stayed there long enough holding Lee's lifeless hand in hers, time would go back to the way things were before when everything was fine, or just maybe, Lee would wake up again and they could leave Savannah together. But Lee wouldn't ever wake up, Clementine had made sure of that when fulfilling his dying request not to turn into one of those things...

Lee had always been there through thick and thin right from day one; she'd felt lost without him, as if her life would end too and she was just waiting for it, for all of it to end. But then, she'd remembered all the things he'd said, how he'd encouraged her to be brave and keep on living, and Clementine knew she couldn't just stay sitting there. Lee wasn't coming back.

It had taken Clementine god knows how long to summon the strength to stand again, trying to remember where Lee had said to find Omid and Christa as she'd cut open that dead security guard with some broken glass and rubbed the coagulated blood onto her clothes. She'd looked back at her dead friend one final time, before climbing those stairs to the unknown as her journey out of Savannah began; crossing over rooftops, sneaking along alleyways and walking tearfully among the crowds of undead, until rolling fields she'd wandered through, teeming on exhaustion into that dawn.

When she had learned from Omid and Christa how Lee got bitten, Clementine blamed herself for it nearly every single day, just as much as she blamed herself for every other life that could've been saved if she had been more careful.

'It wasn't supposed to be this way, why….I told you, I said to keep it on you at all times! I said Clementine!'

Christa's words still cut her deep, grief-stricken from Omid and unable to trust Clementine with a firearm ever again. The woman fell into more despair when her child was born stillborn weeks later; the smiles and laughter all gone by then, with her friend becoming a ghost with each passing day that wanted to up and vanish. The only thing keeping Christa going was the promise she made to Lee to look out for Clementine; maybe that's why she was so set on them going to Wellington, not just to find them safety, but to be free of that responsibility so she could just...

The times Clementine saw Christa holding that switchblade in her hand at night, when she'd believed Clementine was sleeping; the days the woman went without saying a word or eating anything, even when they had plenty of food on them, they were things of everyday life for the both of then, as was Clementine's fear for that woman who could no longer look at her with warmth in her eyes.

Christa wanted to die, she never shared that with Clementine, but she didn't have to for Clementine to see the hope and will to live that had burnt and died in her. Christa, had reminded her frequently to be grateful for every new day they lived to see and to be grateful to still have air in their lungs. Yet those nights where sleep did not come easy, if worrying about walkers or what Christa might do to herself, Clementine silently questioned if it was all worth it, if it would be better just to hold her breath and slip away, rather than keep fighting if it would just lead to nothing.

To give in and die? If that was what Clementine had really wanted, she would have done it by now. She felt it from deep inside that even when times were tough and more frightening than any make-believe monsters under the bed, Clementine still wanted to live. As much as it pained her, she wouldn't let past mistakes change her or the loss of so many to force her down into giving up on living. Lee and her parents, they would want her to keep surviving, to keep fighting. For them, Clementine would continue doing that for as long as she possibly could.

Nobody lived forever; everybody died sooner or later. Clementine was well aware of that impossibility to defeat death permanently, it was just that…she was scared that when her time eventually came, it would be one where she was in pain, whether from disease or being eaten alive by walkers, or somebody just trying to murder her in cold blood. She was afraid of that day coming, after all the friends and family gone from her life, Clementine really did feel like she was just waiting in line to be next.

If she was going to die, then…

That drunken dizziness overwhelmed her in that first attempt to stand up that early morning. Clementine soon sat her butt back down on the bed, hugging that blanket draped around her shoulders as she waited for the room to stop spinning before trying again, slower. Walking with small careful steps in case that faintness returned, Clementine was able to hold her own that second time, and felt a little happier for it as she could get around better than those days before.

If only when standing at the door however, she hadn't accidentally reached for the knob with the wrong hand, or rather stump. Some habits just weren't willing to be forgotten so easily it seemed.

Mentally cursing herself, Clementine opened the door of that bedroom with her right hand instead and not with a stump, and stepped out onto the landing. From all around, the farmhouse was quiet and it was almost peaceful…well, all except for those light sounding snores coming from the bedroom across from hers. The door was open a crack where she could see Luke sprawled out on that double bed, the blanket half off him with a bit of drool in the corner of his mouth too.

Yep, definitely asleep.

Smiling a little, Clementine did her best to remain quiet, avoiding those few creaky floorboards on her way to the bathroom as she carefully shut the door behind her. Up on tiptoes, her hand retrieved the thermometer from the cabinet, catching her half-awake reflection in the mirror when Clementine closed it. Sticking the thermometer under her tongue, slowly she sat herself down on the edge of that bathtub where, she began to count in her head. Forty seconds and then an extra twenty more just to be sure as Clementine rubbed her tired eyes and peered up at that small grubby window, where clouds floated across the blue above that farmland that she could see beyond the thick chunks of snow melting down the glass.

Luke had used that same thermometer over the first couple days that they had spent here at the farmhouse; every morning and evening and right before bed he used it. Like clockwork he'd asked how she was feeling too, if she needed anything, if she was hungry…it got really annoying. Yet on the third day when Luke stopped taking her temperature, Clementine still found herself waking up and doing it herself as she did this morning like every other before she started her day.

A routine done out of paranoia, or just being extra careful? Clementine never could figure it out, but when she was to check that thermometer again as she'd done before, she relaxed just a little more each time.

'No fever.'

Her feet carried a little lighter, back into the cabinet the thermometer went and hopefully for the last time she thought to herself as she left that bathroom to get dressed into some fresh clothes and wake a snoring Luke up.

If Clementine was going to die, then it wasn't to be anytime soon, not just yet.