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.

4. Chapter 4: Thicker than Blood

A/N: This story has officially been revised and contains news scenes scattered throughout, and the final chapter has been cut into two chapters instead of one. For more information please visit my profile page for all the details.

This is a story that means a lot to me, more so having come back to it. What I did wasn't a rewrite; the story remains intact as it once was with only minor alterations, the biggest being in this final chapter with the removal of a certain lake, and a dream sequence I no longer found myself proud of. For what was once a 50,000 word story, has now exceeded over 70,000 words. There are plenty of new scenes added throughout, all with the intention of expanding on the story which I felt important to include.

Growing Pains was something I first wrote on the spur of the moment, with no clear direction of what I was going to do at first, so I wanted to make improvements and I hope that for old readers or new ones, you enjoy this new revised version. For those still waiting on Skin-Deep, the sequel to this tale, I'm sorry for leaving you waiting so long, progress on that will resume now.

I want to thank all the people who've read this before, and who will in the future, and to my friend and editor Sialark, who was the one who reached out and inspired me to give this story a tune up. Thank you.

---

The Walking Dead
Growing Pains

Chapter 4: Thicker than Blood

---

There was a good reason not too many people ventured into hospitals anymore.

They were once the places where the sick and wounded were treated, and where new life was brought into the world...and where it also ended too; the latter was the reason why they were where many of the dead originally started walking. Hospitals, they must've become false sanctuaries to those who were bitten or dying and were brought there as the world crumbled around them; this was why many were often packed with walkers and weren't safe to be in. Only people in big enough groups and with the firepower to match could clear out such corpse-infested buildings, and if that had already been done, well by then, there wasn't much left to take.

Somebody had cleared this hospital out a long time ago, for the hundreds of dead bodies dumped in the parking lot in huge piles were so decomposed, they were nothing but stacks of skeletons beneath those layers of snow. Inside the hospital was no better off, with as many bullet shells lying on those dirty floors as there were bullet holes in the walls. The horrible stench of death still hung rancid in place of the smell of disinfectant in here, with that once sterile environment now contaminated with the rotting dead; dried-up blood spilled almost everywhere from where the walkers were taken out, the blood of those victims that failed to escape them years ago.

This wasn't a nice place to be; a lot of people had died in here, far too many that the entire hospital felt like a graveyard with how quiet and empty it was. Clementine couldn't let this deceive her into believing the building was now safe; to think like that would get a person killed, and she really wasn't in the mood to get bitten again.

Something crunched loudly beneath Clementine's left shoe, and she retracted her foot, sighting those broken bones and torn pieces of clothing resting in one of the old dried splattered puddles of blood in that waiting area; handbags, coats and even missing shoes were strewn amongst the chairs and on the floors as the unwanted belongings that'd been left to waste away like the corpses outside.

Clementine had witnessed more than enough things out there to give her nightmares for life, but seeing all the carnage left over in here like some violent riot had broken out, it put Clementine at more unease than the usual dead corpse, just saddening her more. Maybe it was because of the amount of blood there was in here, and knowing that it was too much to be from one or a few human beings. Lots of people had been crammed into this area of the hospital, families torn apart and killed right before their eyes. Clementine just knew; there were too many strollers and toys in amongst everything else for there not to have been children here when the walkers attacked, children even younger than her.

There was a baby doll on one of the seats, flat on its back, splattered brown with those plastic eyes staring up at the ceiling with a toy pacifier still in its mouth. For a split second Clementine had seen Nicky there wrapped up dead in her blankets; Christa's face with endless tears streaming down it, holding her nameless baby boy when she'd buried him in the ground...

"Clementine," the whisper travelled through that deserted lobby, once filled with the dying screams echoing inside a memory that wasn't her own but just a depressing thought she didn't want to hang onto. Luke was standing near the doors by Reception, waiting for her to catch up. The tiny flakes of snow from their walk outside were still clinging to the fibers of his dark winter coat. Even within the shadows of that hospital, Clementine could still clearly see those bruises shaded on the left side of Luke's cheek and lower jaw from Joe's beatings, looking as painful as when Luke first received them. "C'mon, daylight's burnin'."

Clementine put aside the grieving thoughts burning in her mind, and hurried along, though not too fast as not to make herself dizzy and trip anywhere. Upon reaching her older friend's side, Luke carefully pushed ajar one of those doors, watchful of anything that might be on the other side, before signalling her to follow him through.

They had chosen to keep on going to Wellington, despite all to have happened with those strangers on the road. Clementine and Luke weren't really sure what to make of the camp up north anymore. A thriving community or an abandoned town with nothing left? It was a risk the pair was still willing to take to find out the truth, because when all was said and done, they had come too far now to give up, so stubborn they chose to be.

As predicted, the weather took another turn for the worse—it had been nothing but non-stop snow. It was still visible from every window of that rundown hospital, falling down over that town that just looked dead beyond the mist, as if frozen in time. The cold was one of the worst culprits to the pair, seeming to feed on all their energy each day; she and Luke barely made it half of what they usually covered in the past, although this was mostly due to Clementine herself having to take more breaks in between walking.

The two of them had been on the road four days now after leaving that farmhouse, and they had run into a major problem: her. She had been getting more worn out from all the trekking, where even a hill felt like climbing a mountainside, and her condition wasn't getting any better; in reality Clementine was getting worse, with her strength failing her sooner and more frequently with every passing day. Clementine tried her best to push on and to pretend that she was fine, but who was she fooling? Certainly not Luke, and not herself. And after she'd passed out again just yesterday, leaving yet another nasty bruise on her forehead after hitting the pavement, it'd become clear her problem wasn't about to wish itself away anytime soon.

This plan, it wouldn't work. Clementine could tell from the look on Luke's face he had realized this too. She was just too weak to be traveling long distances on foot. But what else were they supposed to do? Clementine didn't have enough time to recuperate when they were so low on food, and she couldn't push herself any harder than she already was, or else she'd end up collapsing dead from a heart attack. Luke might've been strong, but he couldn't carry her all the time, like he was having to already near the end of most days when she couldn't go on, and often against her protesting. What Clementine really needed was to get back to her old self again and to stop being a burden, but the only way she saw that happening fast enough in time for them to survive this trip was for her to grow fangs and drink blood like some stupid vampire.

Funnily enough, it was that tired sarcastic remark that Clementine had spoken aloud the previous evening after they called it a day inside that one-story house, that triggered an idea in her friend's mind; the idea was nothing of the supernatural kind, however it'd still been enough for Luke to have lightly shaken her awake within minutes of her head hitting the pillow.

"Your blood, what is it?"

Sleepily Clementine had rubbed her eyes one at time with a blurry look at Luke kneeling by her bedside, her half-conscious brain not really with it.

"W-what…?"

"Your blood type, Clem; you said about it once before, remember? Day before we got nabbed by Carver and his flunkies," he'd said more directly, eyes seeking for some recognition for what he was saying. "Overheard you girls talkin', mentioned you were the same; A-negative, A-positive?"

Sarah.

Right, they'd been reading the Guurgles novel all those months back at the campfire when their group was whole enough to be called that. The main protagonist in the story, Robby, discovered his blood type made him and other survivors of the human population immune to the trans-dimensional body snatchers invading their world. Sarah had rambled on about how she hated the sight of blood, and how once when Sarah had had a blood test she'd fainted just from the needle touching her arm. It'd been then also that the conversation on blood groups came up as well, because Robby's blood was the same blood type as Sarah's was, and coincidently so was Clementine's as well.

With a yawn, she'd sat up. "A-positive, it's A-positive."

"You're absolutely sure about that?" Luke asked with an interest growing behind it she couldn't have yet understood.

"I think so; Mom told me it when I had shots at school once, mentioned us and Dad were all A-Positives, triple A's." Clementine said, pausing when she saw the sudden change in her friend's expression, as if whatever she'd spoken registered. "What?"

What, Luke hadn't revealed; instead, he'd gone straight out the room and into the kitchen across the hall to where Clementine could see their gear was on the table. Taking out the map of the local area, Luke went about searching it for something, and it was Clementine's curiosity over what that something was that had her getting off her lazy butt to find out, tottering over half-awake into that cramped kitchen.

She had gotten to Luke's side near about the same time he'd pointed at a place on the map, sounding pleased. "There, just a couple miles from here there's a hospital on the outskirts of a small town; could be a mighty gamble, but if there's anything left in equipment to use for a transfusion, then it's worth a shot."

A blood transfusion, that's what Luke's plan was. People used to donate blood all the time; even her Mom was a donor once too, so what better a place to find blood than at a hospital? That was a plan that would only have worked when the world was like it used to be, and during the very early days of the apocalypse, not in the here and now.

Clementine had studied that tiny spot on the map, more skeptical than ever. "That's stupid; even if it's safe, they won't have fresh blood on ice anymore, Luke."

"There won't need to be," he'd said not the least bit worried, that'd had Clementine tilting her head at him puzzled.

"How come?" she'd asked.

Luke looked her way then, with a brow raised and a little twinkle in his eye as if he were some mastermind that'd just cracked a top-secret code.

"Double A's," he'd said; "We're the same, kid."

And that's why they were in this hospital, praying they didn't get munched on by walkers while they prepared to gather what they needed to in order to carry out that blood transfusion. It was just a simple A to B plan, on paper anyway, or, or an A-positive plan.

Their cautious steps slowing as to not create too much noise, they walked down that long stretch of corridor, wary of every door and adjoining corridor for anything non-living that might be there. Some of the windows were cracked or broken, allowing the snow to come in, creating much decay over the years from outdoor exposure.

It was disgusting here, seeing a once well-lit, squeaky-clean hospital reduced to a neglected bloody mess, as if somebody had taken bucketfuls of brown paint and splashed it on everything. In that corridor alone they crossed a wheelchair full of bullet holes, and not far from that were some gurneys with heavily stained sheets that stunk foul and rotten. She and Luke passed some elevators too, and Clementine's gut churned at seeing those metal doors smothered in dozens of dark handprints, but equally upsetting were those dirty footprints on the tiles from an old puddle of blood–something or rather somebody having been dragged down the stairwell, the trail disappearing down the steps into the shadows; or was it just that somebody had crawled up them? Clementine wasn't sure, and didn't really want to think about it…

Death, it just was always not too far away, and so was the smell of it here, just as bad as back in the lobby. Even for her, Clementine wished she could stop breathing in that musty stench. She was just glad there were no walkers here so they didn't have to put more guts on themselves as she had done to protect herself and Luke when he wouldn't wake up before; it would've been much harder gathering the supplies together now while trying to play it like a living corpse.

For another uncountable time, Clementine checked the gun was still in the holster on her hip adjusted to fit her; Luke had given them to her two days ago when they were fortunate enough to find another gun inside the locked desk drawer inside a house. It was the first time ever Luke really let her keep charge of a firearm, and it made sense, given what happened before with Joe. Clementine was grateful Luke trusted her with a gun now to let her hold onto one full-time, although she could've done without the compliment he gave that she looked like a little sheriff.

Really, stupid…

"So, where exactly are we supposed to look for all this stuff?"

"Anywhere and everywhere, really," Luke said with a slight shrug, keeping his voice as low as hers. He stopped to check down another length of empty corridor before wiping the dust off the long list of the directory mounted on the nearby wall, examining it. "If I took a guess, I'd be thinkin' the...Blood Donor Center? Might have some supplies there if there's anything left, maybe…"

If Clementine wasn't already pale from blood loss, then she sure felt herself going even paler now. "You mean, you don't know?"

Luke gave a weak smile. "Nope, not a clue! Me and hospitals don't have that great of a history; never worked in one, and the only time I was a patient was for gettin' a penny stuck up my nose over a lost bet."

Clementine hesitated. "Drunk?"

"No, hah...nah, I was a kid that time, your age I think."

"Um…"

"Look, don't be worryin' about all this; it's just some simple treasure huntin' is all," Luke said, shaking some of the snow from his hair on passing another one of those smashed up windows letting in the horrible weather. "We'll get some blood in you if we have to inject it through a damn syringe; you're gonna be fine.

"…"

Her life couldn't be in safer hands; really it couldn't.

---

They crossed very few walkers during their sweep of that hospital's first floor, with the dead being more of a nuisance than a threat. This was all except for a half walker, who had been a sneaky one, crawling out from some torn-down curtains once separating patients that inconveniently concealed that still-live corpse. Only by the sound of that very same curtain being dragged along the floor from behind was the pair alerted in time for Luke to kill the walker by crushing its skull in, just as it'd been reaching out to go take a bite out of his ankle.

That close call gave them both a real scare, and not long after they found the body of a woman who had shot herself in the head after becoming bitten near the neck. She must've been scavenging the hospital for leftover supplies like them, because her bag was full of medicines, something the dead woman had made certain that at least somebody else would benefit from, given that red arrows had been drawn on the wall in lipstick, pointing towards the backpack by her corpse, with a simple message written:

ALL
YOURS.

Clementine couldn't really tell apart many of the medicines in that bag; most the names on the boxes were too complicated for her to even pronounce, yet there was a special something that Clementine saw that she was in desperate need of, and that was liquid morphine! There were two bottles of the stuff, with some clean syringes in there too. At the right dosage Clementine's pain from her lost limb would finally be put at bay thanks to that woman, but because of Clementine's anemia, Luke wouldn't let her take any just yet, not until they got the blood transfusion done.

The dead woman's gun was empty, no other ammo on her, and the only food she had was some energy bars in her jacket containing raisins and nuts; it was something at least, and she and Luke were all too glad to scarf those things down and partly fill their empty stomachs before moving on.

After all this and a few little detours, they were to later end up at the Blood Donor Center at the far end of the building, and encountered another walker. It was a man who had turned recently, and by that Clementine meant maybe he'd turned a few weeks ago. The walker wasn't difficult to take down with just a swing of Luke's machete. The man that walker used to be must've gotten injured; a cord of intravenous line was still hooked up to his arm, with gross bandages hanging off the other and his exposed stomach bearing crooked stitches that made Clementine think of Joe's friends that she'd shot, and silently questioned to herself if they were still alive, and if she even cared if they were.

There was a blood-stained bag down by one of the many beds in that room, but it was empty. The bag was familiar, and Clementine recognized why, because it was identical to the one the dead lady had had, with all the medicine. Yeah, the woman's bag had been red too hadn't it, or had it been brown?

Could they have both been...

Seeing those maggots wriggling out from one of the walker's rotten eye sockets, Clementine forced herself to look away. "That thing, can we use that?"

Her doubting question was directed at the intravenous line-IV for short, and a bag of half empty fluid attached to a knocked down drip stand it was still hooked up to.

There wasn't much left in here; the small trolleys around the room used for holding medical equipment were all but bare. Apart from those beds, useless documents were scattered about the place, and some dust, but there wasn't anything worth taking. By the same bed with that bag, there was some equipment; it was some surgical stuff on a metal tray, like somebody had done a botched job in fixing the dead man up. The surgical stuff was useless though, because they were laced in blood and looked filthy like the bandages next to them. Even if they were washed clean, using them after being in a room with a walker—Clementine didn't like the idea of that, and anyway, surgery wasn't what they were here for.

"No, no I wouldn't count on it; I'd trust drinkin' stagnant dog piss first for what that thing's worth," Luke said, referring to the intravenous line. His attention focused on some unopened doors at the far back of the room, and he motioned at Clementine to follow. "Let's keep lookin' around in here; gotta be somethin' left."

There wasn't much though, not here. Whoever wiped out that mass of walkers had taken a lot of the medical supplies. It was definitely too big an operation for a small group of people, something that had Clementine again clinging to the hope that maybe it was those from Wellington, or from another community out there somewhere that might be safe to go to.

Regardless, the fact that some group had taken most of the good stuff didn't exactly help their own situation. It was just luck that however well-planned the past group's operation was, some things had still been left behind—either overlooked, or whoever was here before wasn't able to take any more. This was made evident not just by the woman's bag of goodies, but also by the discovery of the first item on their list of things to get that was stored in a room out back in a cabinet; it was a couple unused blood bags, so Luke had taken one and an extra just in case.

The rest of what they needed for the transfusion required nearly another hour of searching that hospital, checking through room by room on the first floor, and then taking the stairs to the second. It was a mess up there too, more windows broken or left wide open from where people had maybe jumped, with the bits of human remains that her and Luke discovered a few fat rats feasting on, ew.

When they found that one operating theater out of others they'd ventured into, it felt kinda weird to go in and find it completely spotless with no blood or anything like that, as if they'd both finally reached the end of some haunted house ride and escaped all the fake guts and people in their costumes. Still, it was particularly dark in there with no windows or light source, so Luke had to use a flashlight to look around. Upon checking, there were no walkers, and not much else; it looked like the place had been prepped for surgery or had been cleaned up after one. There was a bed thing, and some big lamps attached to the ceiling, and some odd-looking machines, but...

As Luke walked by to check the cabinets on the far side of the room, Clementine saw something catch her eye down by a metal trolley next to one of those nameless machines, the light reflecting off its plastic surface. Curiosity might've killed a cat somehow, but Clementine got rewarded for hers.

"Luke, over here." Her friend came at her calling, after Clementine had picked up the something hidden under the trolley that she'd seen. It was some IV lines, all packaged and unopened; it was just what the pair were looking for.

'Yes!'

Luke had only to check them over with his flashlight for a second to recognize that too, and smiled. "Yeah, that just about does it with those needles from the ward; nice job, Clem."

She and Luke didn't have time celebrate. It was just a few hours before sundown, and Luke decided it best they carry out the transfusion at the hospital itself in case of any complications. They didn't have any time to waste, so the duo chose a doctor's office on that same floor, one that was both clean and secure enough to carry out the procedure, but not boxed in like that operating theater. Here in this office, they had somewhat of a good look-out point to the front of the hospital and of the road going into town despite the poor visibility in this weather, but if anybody or anything came by, they'd see them.

Playing lookout however was the very least of Clementine's concerns, because even once Luke got everything set up and that needle was inserted into his arm, Clementine couldn't help getting a little nervous watching that blood flow down the IV line, draining into the very blood bag she was holding, the one Luke instructed her to keep turning from corner to corner so the warm liquid wouldn't settle.

"Have you done this before?"

Upon Clementine asking that, there was soon a familiar shaky laugh from her friend from up on that examination table, his response not one that did the job in reassuring her the slightest bit. "Not directly speakin', no."

Clementine stopped rotating that bloodbag where she was sitting in that chair, her wide-eyed fright having Luke quickly change his answer to a less joking one. "Carlos, he uh, I saw him do this stuff at the camp on a patient once; guy had gotten shot, lost a lot of blood, so Pete gave him some of his."

"Oh, okay," Clementine continued swishing around that blood that slowly but surely was filling up that bag. She wriggled her toes inside her shoes. "That's it?"

"Yup, just the one, but I got a sharp memory on me and it ain't that tough a thing to remember; like ridin' a bike," Luke said very optimistically, yet Clementine felt only more troubled, unable to prevent her eyes from drifting over to the diagram on the wall in that doctor's office; it was a diagram comprised of the human body that was half a man of muscle and sinew, and the other bones, too much like the corpses outside.

She sighed. "I wouldn't know."

Thirty minutes later and the bag was full, with Luke up on his feet again feeling a little lightheaded he said, but other than that fine. From there, came the next phase in the transfusion that left Clementine wishing she could face off against some walkers if it meant she was able get out of it. Like Luke had once said before amputating part of her arm, he wasn't a doctor; if he had handled things better, Clementine might not have lost so much blood in the first place. Knowing this, she couldn't put the blame on him, because if Luke hadn't done it, she'd be a goner, and Clementine sure would never have had the guts to cut off her own arm to save her life.

For Luke to give back some of what she'd lost, was probably his means of making amends for that, more than just helping her out so Clementine would be well enough to travel again; they wouldn't be here otherwise if Luke didn't want to help her.

So long as this selfless act didn't get her killed, then…

"Okay your turn, kid."

Clementine grumbled, wrinkling her nose as her friend grabbed her from under both arms and hoisted her up onto the examination table he'd been sitting on before. The sight of that blood pack hung up on that drip stand put her in no brighter mood.

"I'm gonna die," Clementine whined.

"Now that's no way to be talkin'; have a little faith in me with this would ya?" Luke said almost sounding tired towards the end of it, as his own words wound up turning against him when he leaned against that examination table not far from her as if he was just chilling out leisurely, yet his hand had grabbed the side of the table suddenly, too fast, as if he'd been quick to steady himself.

Luke didn't look too good come to think of it, almost pale.

"Are you okay?" Clementine asked in concern, studying her friend closely.

Luke, he just waved it off, yet he didn't stand up straight again, still leaning against the examination table for support. His words came out almost slurred. "Yeah I'm fine, it's cool; just gimme a sec."

Clementine remembered something then, how Mom had said the first time she had donated blood when she was younger, she'd almost passed out because she hadn't drunk enough fluids, and it'd been maybe half an hour or so before Mom was well again; that might explain Luke's condition. Even after drinking some bottled water before, giving up a pint of blood had still knocked him out, sort of.

"Maybe you should rest for a bit?"

"No time, gotta get this done now, or that blood will be no good," Luke insisted, slowly standing up properly again, staring at the bloodbag of his own personal homebrew a little dozily. "Let's just getcha hooked up, okay? Then restin', maybe I'll think about...yeah."

Given enough time to recover—somewhat—Luke rolled up Clementine's sleeve when she had tried and failed to do so with her painful stumpy limb. It took Luke ages to find a vein for that needle to go in, taping it to her skin like he had done so with himself, and before Clementine really knew it, whether she approved of this plan or not, she was being fed Luke's blood from that drip directly into her bloodstream.

In those first couple minutes, Clementine expected for something terrible to happen, like getting an allergic reaction or that the needle might pop right out of her arm and spew out blood like when she'd lost part of that limb back at the river in the woods. Yet, those minutes were to tick silently by and nothing bad really happened. If anything, Clementine thought she could feel the transfusion taking effect in a positive way, the once abnormal rhythm of the heart beating inside her chest beginning to gradually slow, not having to work so hard to pump the blood through her body. She was getting better, very slowly, but still, better.

Sure, the amount in that bag wouldn't cure Clementine and have her back to full health like before, but so long as it did some good in allowing her to make it the rest of the way to Wellington, then that's all that mattered; they had to make it.

Clementine lowered her head, flexing her fingers while she studied that IV line filled with the blood like some plastic artery, which in some ways, it kind of was. "Do you think there'll be people there?"

"Where, Wellington?"

"Yeah."

"…Dunno, tough to say," Luke said from across the office where he was sitting at that doctor's desk while he rested up as he'd said he would. He'd found a first-aid kit in here not long before, inside one of the cupboards above a sink, missed by the scavengers like a lot of things. Luke was still busy going through its contents that would definitely be a lot of help to them. "With all the rumors and people headin' that way, there's gotta be somebody up there; really all depends if they're friendly folk or not."

The dead man and his truck that they came across before, and the trio that tried to kill Luke and take her away on the same day, neither one had forgotten about that. On the one hand they had the dead man who'd supposedly been to Wellington and turned around, while on the other hand there was the couple and their friend that said there was still a fully functional community up there. Which was she and Luke supposed to believe, the man eaten by walkers or the attempted murderers?

"But, if they weren't nice people, wouldn't the rumors mention that?" Clementine asked.

"No, not always so. We all thought Carver's-" Luke stopped himself, eventually shaking his head as if to rid himself of the memories of that community. "Things get sugar-coated to the desperate, make folks hear what they wanna if it reels 'em in like fish. Better to keep an open mind on that stuff y'know? Expect the unexpected."

Clementine didn't have to argue with him on that. Joe and Martha, they'd been doing that exact thing to them in manipulating the facts of Wellington so they could get close enough to snatch her. But what if there was some truth in what they'd said, and more behind their reasons for trying to take her? If only she was better at reading people that were a challenge, then maybe Clementine could've figured that couple out better and their lies, yet like with Andrew and Danny and their mother at the dairy back in Georgia, Clementine hadn't a clue they were in danger until it was too late.

"Yeah, I know," she said. Balling her hand into a loose fist, she turned it over and opened her fingers again to her palm, noticing the healthier pigment in her skin was starting to come back; Clementine's head felt less foggy now too. "But, I like to think there will be something there, that it won't be all bad. Like maybe…maybe, they'll have lots of chocolate and stuff."

"Hah, well I wouldn't say no to that," Luke admitted with a chuckle, pulling out what looked like bandages from the first-aid kit, along with a couple other things she couldn't identify. "Gotta admit, some normality would be a welcome after all this. I swear, what I wouldn't give to play some pool and listen to one of those damn jukeboxes again; yeah, those were the days."

" 'Jukebox?' " Clementine repeated, the word foreign on her tongue.

"Sure, like for playin' records, but uh," Luke trailed off, and gave her an amused look. "What? Don't tell me yer folks never took you to a bar before?"

Clementine shook her head.

"Oh, well…well you were probably too young to be hangin' around those sorta places anyway," Luke said, quickly dismissing the subject and he went back to checking through that first-aid kit. "Best you didn't really; hell knows if you'd gotten yerself into the trouble me and boys did growin' up, you'd of ended up a real wild sprout, kid."

'Sprouts, yuck.'

Clementine swung her legs back and forth from where she sat, a smile eventually to bloom in her trying to imagine both Luke and Nick as teenagers, and failing miserably. "But you both turned out okay, you and Nick…well, sort of."

" 'Sort of?' Hah, that's mighty kind of you to be honest," her older friend said comically.

Clementine stared out the office window, just vaguely being able to distinguish through those blinds the tops of some buildings beyond the treeline, the town. "Well, you did lock me in a shed."

"Hey! Now that weren't my idea; I told ya that already," Luke said, his good mood snubbed out, looking over hurtfully. "C'mon, you always gonna be draggin' that up? Let sleepin' dogs lie."

Clementine rolled her eyes in pretend annoyance at that, yet deep down she couldn't help thinking of a certain dog from way back when, scavenging for scraps within the ghost of its owners' camp in the woods. The memory of that poor animal impaled and dead after she'd slit its throat to end its suffering, it made Clementine consciously grasp her arm just above her stump where a small part of the jagged scar from Sam's bite still remained beneath those bandages.

"I used to…I always wanted a dog, or a puppy," Clementine said after a while. "Mom said I couldn't because they were too much work and I wasn't old enough, so she and Dad gave me a hamster instead."

The face Luke pulled at that very moment was probably identical to the one Clementine had pulled all those years ago when she'd seen that fluffy little hamster for the very first time in her bedroom; all those weeks of asking her parents if they could get a puppy, and only a hamster came out of it. It was a lie to say she wasn't disappointed, but, she did warm to that hamster eventually.

"Oh, well, that ain't too bad." Luke said. "Whatcha call him?"

"Bubbles."

"And what happened to Bubbles the great?"

"…he died," Clementine said with a frown. "He was always escaping from his cage, because he liked being out, and he got electrocuted."

It was a just a hamster, an insignificant nothing nobody would care about was gone when there was so much death going around. But she missed him, she missed watching Bubbles run around in his blue hamster ball, stuffing tiny carrot pieces into his cheek pockets and grooming himself while he sat in her hands. It was all a simpler time when it was so easy to love a pet and not think of them as food. Now if Clementine caught a hamster, she probably would've eaten it.

"Oh…well, I'm sorry."

"Yeah."

Done with that first-aid kit, Luke set it aside for a moment, resting an arm up on the desk as he massaged his forehead, exhaustion making him look much older than he was. "Betcha would've been jealous of my folks then; had me a Labrador when I was five."

Clementine nearly fell off the examination table. "What, no way."

"Yes way."

"That's not fair."

"Doubt that; damn mutt could be a hurricane to control sometimes, runnin' about the place, barkin' all hours; sure liked chewin' shoes too," the enthusiasm in Luke's voice fizzled, the hand falling away from his face. "Didn't have him all too long, about a couple years before cancer got him, but he was a good dog; Sparks his name was."

Cancer, Clementine cringed at the word her parents and doctors used more than enough times from when Grandma was sick. "Did you ever get another dog after that?"

"Yeah, but she didn't last too long neither," the soft brown eyes of her older friend's twitched for a split second like a bee had stung him. Then he just seemed to shake it off. "Thinkin' of it, I had it pretty good; old man was on my case a lot sure, wantin' me to take responsibility over the farm, keep to family tradition and shit…and Ma, she had a temper when she needed it, always had to be doin' somethin', but they weren't the kinda folks that'd make ya wanna be skippin' town soon as you turned eighteen'. It was alright…"

"…and you had a dog," Clementine added enviously. "I mean, dogs."

"Hah! Yeah, that too; I was a spoilt sonuvabitch," Luke leaned his head back into that doctor's chair, deflated and weary. He spoke, his mind seeming miles away. "Never know whatcha got til it's gone; true about that. Never took nothin' for granted, but…could've done a lot more, I ought to of; maybe, thought things out better, I dunno…"

It hurt to hear that. Clementine related to that same feeling, too much; her parents, her friends at school, all gone. If she'd known the world would change, she would've been a better person, a better daughter…

'We'll always be friends, won't we?'

A better…

Luke rubbed his forehead, appearing as if he might drift away to the land of Nod with the way he was just sitting there with his eyes closed, before they snapped open again. He leaned forward slowly, a false cough as he cleared his throat, as if ashamed of himself.

"Sorry, kid. Don't mean to get nostalgic on ya."

Clementine's grip tightened on the edge of that examination table, as she stared out from the gaps in those dusty blinds to where the snow fell outside. The white haze of that winter consumed everything of that town not far past the hospital, as if the rest of the world had been erased from existence.

"Your other dog, what was her name?" she asked.

Luke answered after a deep pause.

"Sparky."

"That's…"

"Original, I know."

They didn't say anything else after that, mostly because Luke had slipped back into a state Clementine liked to call 'just resting my eyes' that a lot of tired adults had phrased to her, so, she decided just to leave him alone.

But while she sat there, that blood draining into her veins, the past never ceased haunting her of everything they had lost.

Friends, Clementine had a lot of those once, but, they always made a habit of disappearing whether they meant to or not. Friendship meant a lot to her, now more than ever without her parents alive. Without any friends, people to trust, a person had no one to rely on; they were alone and small in a big world with nobody there to enjoy the good times with, or help them through the worst.

That day after getting separated from Christa, Clementine must have walked for hours in those woods, lost, half-delirious from the dog bite and dehydration as she'd tried to find her way back to her friend, and couldn't; she succeeded in only going around in circles. As those woods had become darker and thunder rumbled like drums in the skies above, they'd all fed her insecurities, her fear that she might never make it out of there as a living person. It'd felt that same way when leaving Savannah, not knowing what would happen next…

Clementine didn't want to ever end up that way again, to be all by herself. Sarah's wish was once for them to be neighbors or living under the same roof, yet that wish had reminded Clementine of the sad truth that she was without parents, an orphan. It didn't mean much in a world like this where survivors band together in groups and became families themselves, but, no matter how far she'd come since all this had started, Clementine knew that wouldn't be enough in a place like Wellington.

If it was safe there, if it was run by lots of good people, she would be looked at as a kid again, a little girl that couldn't be taken seriously and would need to have decisions made for her. An orphaned girl couldn't continue being an orphan, and that was something that distracted Clementine a lot these days, along with the importance friendship held to someone, when they had nothing else left…

"Luke?"

It took a while for him to answer, but he did soon enough.

"Yeah?"

The words Clementine was going to say were gone suddenly; staring out at that snowy winter as she struggled to speak. She dithered too long, long enough that Luke noticed.

"Clem? What's the matter?"

Instead of answering truthfully, Clementine lost her nerve and just shook her head. "It's nothing."

"Really? That don't sound like nothin' to me," Luke said, trying to bring some cheer to the situation, but not doing a good job at it. "What's eatin' you? You're uh, you're not feelin' faint or anythin' yerself are ya?"

"Uh, no, not that."

"Then what?"

Clementine stared down at her legs from where they hung off the side of the examination table, her feet too high to be touching the floor. Her mind was cast back years ago, to a time she had once sat like this while on a moving train on the way to Savannah, watching the trees of autumn go by, and the dirt and stones blurring below her sandals where she could just see the railway ties of those old tracks.

She remembered Lee had been sitting right beside her then too, and she remembered something that he once said that day…

"You and me, we're a team now right?"

A confused blink came from Luke with a questioning frown to match, not quite getting at what she was saying as he sat up a bit straighter from where he was at that doctor's desk.

Clementine ignored him and the voice of doubt in her head that told her to quit while she was ahead, and she just carried on anyway. "Teams look out for each other, and they always stick together because that's what they're supposed to do. Even when they don't really have to anymore, they still do, don't they?"

It was from there, Luke seemed to catch on.

"Is this about Wellington?" he asked.

Of course it was. It'd been on her mind for months, even when she was with Christa as the woman barely held onto her will to live, just to make that trip for Clementine's sake.

After Luke and Pete saved her, Clementine stuck with that group despite their bumpy beginnings, because she'd had to in order to stay alive. Christa was dead, and she'd had nowhere else to go, nobody to look out for or to depend on if and when things got bad. When the others were gone, it made sense for her and Luke to stay together, because they were both travelling to the exact same place; they were on the same journey. They were a team, and he was her friend, her only friend.

If everything said about Wellington was true, that it was free of walkers, self-sustaining with a community, families even…what would happen then? What would they both do?

Luke wasn't family, not real family. He wasn't her Dad, he wasn't her brother, her cousin, or uncle either. They weren't family, and she couldn't do anything about it, if he left.

"No, it's…" Clementine tucked her good arm around her side to mimic crossing both arms, and she turned her head away from her friend, the words on the tip of her tongue to say it, only for it to slip away. "It's just…you're really bad at poker and I don't want them walking all over you, that's all…you suck."

Even with poor effort of an insult, Luke still laughed. "That's sayin' it a mighty harsh, ain't it? C'mon, it's only 'cause I let you win most times, alright? I ain't all that bad, Clem."

"Sure," from the corner of Clementine's vision, she caught her friend getting up from his seat, sidestepping out from the desk a little bit tipsily. As he was about to go over to where he'd left his rucksack on the counter below the cupboards, right there, spur of the moment, Clementine came out and said it, pulling the best countryish Southern accent she could impersonate, as she repeated exactly what she'd overheard Luke saying to himself the other day while he'd been shaving. " 'Dang it, how'd she go winnin' ten rounds in a row like that? Kid's worse than Pete!' "

It would've made Nick proud, for sure.

A single trip in his stride, Luke's foot caught the legs of one of the chairs by the front of the desk, dragging the thing out of place as he tripped; he was just able to catch his balance, but not the contents of the first-aid kit he'd been carrying that was spilled out on the floor. Undeniably, even with that mess made, there was no mistaking Luke's failure to keep a straight-face.

"Son of a...okay fine! Beginner's luck then."

"Beginner's luck two months running."

"Don'tcha get cocky."

Clementine smiled proudly to herself, yet it was a smile to fade fast as the funniness of the moment passed, and her focus was drawn upwards to the blood bag on the drip stand; it was half empty, if less than that…

"Guess that don't leave me much choice then."

Clementine looked back at Luke from where he was kneeling, gathering up the medical supplies he'd dropped. "What doesn't?"

"Well uh, not that there's any truth to it or anythin', y'know, flawless poker track record talkin' here, but um...see, see guys like us we uh, we can't be too careful in a game of cards; a real risky business, even for skilled pros like myself," cracking under her judging gaze, Luke coughed a cough that was as fake as his bluff, and he quickly scooped up the last of the supplies into his arms. "What I mean is, I reckon it'd be damn stupid not havin' a sidekick around to help out; in fact, sure would be wise of me havin' one tag along period, y'know back me up every once in a while even after, in case we gotta bail, that kinda thing; you get me?"

She got it; it took a little while thinking he'd lost it from the blood transfusion, but it clicked eventually. Spoken cryptically and like it was no big deal, but the message was clear.

Warmth swelled inside Clementine's chest. "You mean it?"

"Sure, yeah I do; I'd be a real piece of shit if I didn't," Luke said assertively, finally having everything stored away in that rucksack. "All those times you've gone and done stickin' your neck out on the line for me, I owe you big time, kid. Besides, I'm ninety-nine percent sure Kenny would be rainin' a shitstorm on me if I didn't at least…Clem?"

Clementine didn't hear him anymore, only saw what Luke was still yet to out those windows, the shapes that were emerging out from the misty-like haze of that storm out on the street. They came from the direction of the town, and there were dozens of them, no...no, no! There had to be much more than that, at least over a hundred, and more kept coming.

Oh no.

Following her gaze, Luke rushed forward to part those blinds, a curse escaping past his lips at seeing that herd of walkers spread out on the road and on a direct course for the hospital. The cold seemed to be slowing them down, but they'd still be here within a few minutes and would swarm this place in half the time once they were. She and Luke would be trapped in here.

Panicking, Clementine hopped off from the examination table with the IV line still connected to her arm, the painful tugging on that needle stopping her from reaching her friend by the window. "We gotta get out of here!"

There was no hiding from a herd that big in here, no way; they hadn't enough ammo to take on that amount of walkers either.

Walker guts, would they even work out in the snow?

"Luke!"

Snapping out of it, he'd looked at her and then at the blood bag, the thing still not empty. A final swift glance to those windows Luke was stepping hastily away from, he came on over and went about getting her unhooked. "Right, yeah I hear ya!"

Removing that IV line as safely as possible, Luke stored away into his rucksack what was left in that blood bag, along with the other hospital supplies they'd gotten for the transfusion; Luke said they'd just have to try giving her the rest of the blood later if it was still useable by then, although he hadn't sounded so sure.

Their coats back on and their gear ready, they'd taken their leave from the doctor's office as the herd was clustering outside the front of the hospital grounds. Already in that urgency to make an escape from that building, Clementine felt the difference in herself as the duo ran down that corridor, heading for the stairs; there wasn't any dizziness, and she could move better now without feeling so weak and shaky like she might collapse. The blood transfusion had helped; it had actually helped! Clementine might've been more relieved about that if not for the dead. Yeah, she could celebrate that later, if they had a later.

They were fast in retracing their steps, bringing them back to the hospital lobby in no time at all, but fast enough. The double doors by Reception hadn't time to close behind them before Luke was pulling her back upon them both discovering the entrance was a no-go; the walkers had beaten them to it, already piling into the hospital and filling that lobby.

"Fuuuck, move!" Luke shouted, and by the arm Clementine was dragged back through the doors, bolting down the hospital corridor they had previously come from. "We'll find another exit c'mon!"

They cut through the hospital where it would take them out the back, going to the first fire exit they came across on that south end. For the first time in a long time, Clementine was the one running ahead in the lead instead of Luke, her hand grabbing at the long handle on the red door with the sign above it saying 'Push to Open'. The winter hit her with a blast, her cheeks flushing red from the cold, air freezing up in her lungs. She pushed and pushed, but the door wouldn't open all the way.

"Ack! It's no good, it's stuck; something's blocking it!" Clementine looked back as Luke caught up, barely walking at a snail's pace on approach and looking out of it again. He wobbled in his strides in his last few steps, stumbling against the nearest wall that Luke clung to for the balance he couldn't regain. Roughly her friend dropped down on his knees, and he stayed there.

Clementine let go of the door, rushing to his side. "Luke! Luke are you okay!?"

"I'm fine, don't...fuck, thought I was past this," he groaned with his skin paler than before, and his lips a faint shade of blue; it freaked Clementine out. Luke didn't sound too good either, if worse than he'd been earlier. "Pete was right; this blood givin' thing really knocks the stuffin' out of ya don't it? How the hell are you still walkin' around, kid?"

Clementine wished she could've argued with that, because she'd had to deal with it a lot worse and for longer than he had. But there wasn't time for a lecture over what a big baby Luke was. The loud crash of glass breaking had Clementine's nerves even more on edge; it'd come from somewhere in the building, close. The dead would soon have this place surrounded! It'd be like Savannah again, trapped inside with nowhere to run. They couldn't afford that, not now!

"I won't be if you don't hurry up! We gotta go!" Clementine pulled at her friend's arm as hard as she could, trying to get him up. "Come on, I'll help you, but you gotta move! Come on Luke!"

At the sounds of more glass being smashed to pieces within the building, and of the hungry dead and their uneven footsteps shuffling in their large numbers through the halls with shadows creeping around the bend, Luke was coaxed into action, picking himself back up and shakily balancing himself out.

"Yeah, y-yeah okay! Don't feel all that much like takin' a nap here anyways. Help me with this."

Together they pushed on the fire exit door, managing to force it open wide enough to slip through the gap. Luke nearly stumbled again upon getting outside, holding onto the side of the big dumpster that'd been blocking the way. "Go on, I'm right behind you."

Clementine didn't listen, the sight of figures stepping out from either side of the hospital making her grab her friend's arm again to get him moving sooner than he was ready to.

"Not without you."

---

They got away. It wasn't easy, but they managed it. Luke wasn't able to run again just yet, still being wiped out. The best her friend was capable of was only a brisk walk, with short jogging spurts fast to end with him stumbling after getting lightheaded. Trying to gain distance from the herd did them no good; speed wasn't how they were going escape, or hiding either.

A tall steel fence running along the length of the road, that's how they got away. The dead could be scary sometimes in how they picked up the smell of blood like a bear could, or how they never tired once; but walkers weren't smart, they'd try to break a door down, rather than just open it by the turn of a handle.

"Luke, over there!" she'd tugged her dazed friend by the arm, having motioned him towards the fence, and he'd caught on too. Yeah, the final stretch of their escape was an easy one, by the simple act of bolting that metal gate shut behind them, so they couldn't be followed. That fence was built to last, resilient against the dead ramming up against it, gathering in their plenty. It protected her and Luke, but also it gave them enough time to focus on the details missed while fleeing.

While standing catching their breath, Clementine caught on to what made these walkers so different from other herds they had encountered, and that was that they hadn't been dead long. They had sunken eyes and faint graying skin, resembling more the starved crowds of people that hadn't eaten in days, not the shambling skeletons of unrecognizable corpses. And as those dead pushed up against the fence, their faces squashed between the metal pickets, Clementine saw the young and old staring back at her.

Among them, there was a girl nearly the same age as her, with long blonde pigtails; she could've almost passed for living if it weren't for the whites of her eyes. The dead girl and several other walker children were being crushed by the other adult walkers as more of the herd gathered at that fence, their small arms outstretched, fingers grappling wildly at the thin air, as if trying to reel Clementine in for help.

"Oh my god, Luke-"

"I know, I know!" He couldn't look at them, being the one between them to turn away, leaning over heavily on his knees as if threatening to hurl. "Jesus..."

The sight of those dead made Clementine want to cry. These people hadn't been bandits when they were alive, there were too many children. And there were tears in all their clothing, blood staining them, like they had been shot at. They were murdered, not even shot in the head to stop them turning.

'What happened to you?'

"We gotta go; too many of em' crowded like that's gonna bring the whole fence down with us stayin' here baitin' 'em like this...Clem, Clem are you listenin'!?" Luke had been yanking at her arm, forcing her to get moving, because she couldn't stop standing there, staring at those kids and the unfairness of it. Why couldn't things be different?

Brought out from her shaken state, she and Luke soon left the herd at that fence, disappearing into the smoggy mist of the trees to where the walkers couldn't follow. They traveled for as long as the remaining daylight allowed, she and Luke only passing a few more walkers along the way, hardly nothing. They were more decomposed and weak than the herd, their bodies too affected by the cold and decay to do much other than shuffle around stiffly and fall over themselves. By that point, Luke was feeling a lot better, and was able to take the walkers down without any trouble, as easy as squishing bugs.

Clementine felt sick thinking that.

"Y'know, it scares me kid," Luke came out with, while leaning against a wooden utility pole, one of many down that empty road through the woods, their cables laced in icicles, yet none big enough to be deadly if they'd fallen. The snowfall had finally let up, and Luke had been taking a short breather, but her friend had this strange look on his face, like, the over-thinking kind. It made Clementine uneasy whenever she saw him like that.

"What does?"

Luke wouldn't even look at her, choosing to kept his eyes steady on the walkers he'd downed instead as his shoulders sagged. His voice was distant, sad. "Gettin' used to all this."

The silence was too unsettling in the gust of that winter breeze circulating around them. Clementine hung her head until her chin pressed against the collar of her coat, her eyes staring dead at an iced up puddle in the road, the droplets of dark blood from those corpses splattered across it.

In a somber manner, she'd set her foot down on the ice, applying pressure on that slippery surface, until it finally cracked and split open under her shoe.

She couldn't say anything.

They found a canoe rental building as it'd been getting dark, after following the winding road along a frozen river. Canoes and kayaks were stacked out front, topped with snow; those boats and oars no use to them in winter and probably wouldn't be safe if any bandits saw them from the shore. There was nothing lost or gained, and yet, something told Clementine that if Kenny were still alive, he would've liked using those boats for travel in better weather.

She and Luke searched the small wooden building over, uncovering all the not-so-handy-things like lifejackets, swimwear, and a reception counter full of brochures about camping trips and riding boats out on that river, 'Fun for all the family!' they claimed in big bright letters. The smiling faces of picture-perfect parents and their children in those brochures and up on posters, they made an emptiness in Clementine's chest grow more hollow. Her old life with her mom and dad never seemed that perfect, not even her time with Lee. She didn't believe that thing existed, not even when times were better than this.

The old faint smell of urine from the restroom, the empty bottles and food cans littered about the building, the makeshifts beds from newspapers and cardboard, they were all signs people had crashed there before them, although none looked recent. Things were musty and dusty, nothing stashed there, the ash in the tiny fireplace all piled up, no signs anybody was about to pop back in at any second.

It was a no-brainer that it would do for the night.

Once getting a fire started, it came down to the task of using that liquid morphine. The type of morphine that it was, it couldn't be injected; that's all Luke knew thanks to Carlos, but what he didn't know and neither did she, was how much morphine she could have without overdosing. There was only so much time Clementine could wait, sitting there crossed-legged with her hand propping up her chin while her friend kept looking between the bottle of morphine and those tiny little numbers and lines on that needleless syringe, trying to figure out the dosage on his own like it were math.

"Luuuke," she'd whined, slowly dying of boredom.

"Alright, gimme a sec…okay, that oughta do it," some morphine finally drawn out, her friend had handed over the syringe. "If you start feelin' sick or anythin'-"

"I know," Clementine said, inspecting the morphine in that needleless syringe for a few seconds before squirting it down the back of her throat. The morphine tasted bitter, really, really bitter. But she didn't get sick at all and no signs of overdosing. A veil finally went over the pain in her stump by the time they'd sat down to eat.

Luke, being the fool that he was, suggested they should eat the can of dog food they'd gotten from the pickup truck, so it wasn't the last thing in their supplies to go. He even heated the stuff up with that stupid tiny fireplace, not that it did much good for the taste; it was worse than the morphine. They had both been gagging over each bite, only compelled into eating it all through the race Luke proposed, saying that the first one to finish their meal on those stupid plastic plates of theirs would claim the last stick of gum they had on them, gained from their time at the farmhouse.

Now that was one game Clementine let Luke be the victor of, because no minty chewing gum was going to make her eat that gross dog food any faster. Luke still ended up giving her the stick of gum anyway, which Clementine defiantly broke in half awkwardly with her one hand to share with him, which led them to play another stupid game in trying to blow bubbles. Of course, both didn't have enough gum for that, and Clementine had never actually learned to blow bubbles once with gum in her life…so no wonder that game abruptly ended with them both breaking out in laughing fits by Clementine accidentally spitting hers half out in a failed attempt to blow such bubbles, and the gum hit Luke right in his eye.

"See Clem, ya see? This is why we can't have nice things!" Luke said, the words coming out as more of a punchline to a joke than at the annoyance of his poor sore eye. He was trying to lighten mood, take their minds off what'd happened earlier, and what he'd said. For a while, it worked, Clementine could pretend things were fine, that things might be looking up for them now that she was well enough to travel; Wellington felt within reach now more than ever. But as much as they wanted to, it couldn't be buried and left there.

Her friend was troubled, and there was a lot on her mind too that she couldn't hold off on as their small moment of peace passed them by.

"Were they going to Wellington?"

It hadn't taken Luke long to realize who the 'they' was that she was referring to, giving only a moment's pause before he carried on stoking that fire to keep the flames high.

"I don't think so; they weren't dressed like travelers, and you don't see groups that big on the road much nowadays," had been his answer.

However much ground they'd covered, Clementine had still heard the dead in her mind; the loud metal clashes at that fence; the sickly cracking of ribs and bones from that dead girl and the other children being slowly crushed. Clementine didn't think she would forget about it for a long time.

She'd drawn her knees up to her chin, watching the fire be fed a new patch of brochures Luke had tossed in, smiling families burnt away to embers within seconds.

"They were shot," Clementine had said

"I know," her friend replied.

They'd watched the fire, speaking out on nothing else over that herd. She never asked if they could've come from Wellington, or if the people who killed them were still around. Clementine remained silent even as Luke finally chose to stand, taking his gun with him.

"I'll keep watch for a while. Get some rest"

Clementine hadn't, not much. She didn't sleep well that night while her friend stayed on guard by one of the windows until the early hours, as if anticipating the herd's return, or another danger that would arise to force them to flee for their lives all over again. Nothing happened, no monsters, only ghosts. From what rest Clementine did gain that night, she was frequently woken by the recurring dreams of seeing those children from the herd, alive and screaming for help at the fence; sometimes the children had taken on the appearance of her old school friends, of Duck and Sarah, Ben…

The worst nightmares were always those when she was back at home, being in an empty house, or seeing her parents leaving in their car where she would race out to stop them. Clementine never could catch them, and the dreams ended more or less the same; Mom and Dad would simply disappear, leaving Clementine on her own. She would call out to them, search high and low to track them down, until she could do nothing other than cry, begging for her parents to come back.

---

Although they were making good progress on their journey, their situation didn't get any brighter. Over the days things got worse, much, much worse.

Their first string of bad luck came when they got ambushed by bandits threatening to shoot the pair where they'd been standing. Clementine and Luke were only fortunate enough there were so many cars around to find cover behind, allowing them to run into a nearby convenience store where they barricaded themselves inside its storage room by bringing one of the heavy shelves down on that door. The group had still been trying to break in there as she and Luke climbed out that high window her friend had to give her a boost up to reach. They got away unscathed, but Luke lost his rucksack in the process, having needed it to stand on so he could jump and climb out too; they couldn't risk going back for it…

That evening they stopped to rest at a gas station, Luke refused to eat anything, trying to ration what they had, which was only one can of sprouts and the other a can of corn; it was all the food Clementine had in her backpack, because most of their food was back in Luke's rucksack. All he had left to show for his desperate actions was their map, the machete on his back, and their stupid toothbrushes he'd kept in his coat pocket, with a box of matches.

Her friend wasn't happy about it, angry at himself for hours after the incident Clementine was almost afraid to talk to him. They were in trouble again, neither said it, but they were.

"You should eat some too, Luke."

Leaning over the counter by the cash register, he'd snapped out of just staring off into space, or rather, staring at those empty aisles and freezers once containing snack foods and drinks of all sorts, now only accumulating dust and dead insects. All gone, nothing was here.

"Huh, what?" Luke's phrasing voiced confusion behind it; he hadn't been paying attention.

Motioning to that open can of corn with her spoon, Clementine had repeated her words again, but he only shook his head that time. "No, no I'm fine."

"But you're bigger than me," she'd insisted. "You gotta eat too-"

"I said I'm fine! Quit yer whinin' alright!" Luke practically yelled at her, enough to have made her jump. His temper diminished by her alarm, his tired features untensing, and he'd soon buried his face in his hands, a voice carrying defeat. "Jesus, don't be lookin' at me like that…I can make it one night without a meal. I'm fine."

It wasn't rationing. He'd lost most their gear and he was blaming himself, that's why Luke wouldn't eat. That wasn't a good enough reason to Clementine, no. Having been sitting crossed-legged on the counter by the window where the lottery scratch cards dispenser was, she'd scooched over to be closer to her friend. And there, she'd set the can of corn down, the sound of the tin making contact with that dusty counter gaining Luke's attention.

"You don't eat, I don't eat," she'd said.

He'd studied that can, then looked at her, his face blank as a slate.

"That blackmail?"

"Yes."

"Don't be like that."

"Then don't be stupid."

"Will when you stop bein' a pest." Irritably, Luke had rubbed his tired eyes. "I don't need lectures, not from you."

Clementine had remained defiant, continuing to keep that spoon held out to her friend.

"Then eat some."

She really thought he wouldn't, not with how long Luke left her hanging. Just as Clementine was considering giving him another talking to, or just leaving the food there where it was, Luke finally refocused on her and the offered piece of cutlery. It wasn't too long after he'd plucked that spoon right out from her hand, and grabbed the can, scrapping around inside for the corn he was unwillingly being forced to consume.

"Cheat," he'd grumbled.

The following day came their second string of bad luck. They were somewhere between fifty to sixty or so miles from the city of Columbus, when stumbling across a disturbing discovery, something similar to what she'd seen in one particular street of Savannah. It was a graveyard of decomposing heads, stuck up on poles and sticks by their necks outside a fence to some fortified junkyard or what'd once been used as one. There must've been hundreds there that Clementine counted, people killed and stuck on display like trophies, other than just a warning. Many of the heads were still alive, re-animated, the snapping together of teeth replacing the typical groans and croaks when the dead reacted to their presence, still craving flesh, even without stomachs.

Molly's talk of how the burdens of Crawford were killed and displayed in a barricade of bodies and impaled on spikes came flooding back. That graveyard of walker heads screamed danger to Clementine, and she and Luke were wise to turn on their heels and leave when they did. Too bad for them, they hadn't left fast enough, because they were spotted from somebody inside that junkyard, patrolling the fence.

Shouts alerting others to their location, a whole bunch of men and women came after them in their numbers, most laughing and taunting as guns and arrows were fired at both her and Luke while they had run for their lives.

One of those arrows, it'd speared right through the side of Clementine's backpack, impaling it to a nearby tree; a few inches more, and the arrow would've ripped through her coat, hitting her instead, but it missed, allowing her to wriggle her arms free from the straps of her backpack and keep running.

"Come out handsome! Where are you and your little girl at!?" one of the women had called out like a drunk partygoer from somewhere nearby, the other bandits shouting for her and Luke to give themselves up; it'd only driven them both to keep moving as they were pursued through the dense woods. The duo nearly got caught too, and probably would've been killed by those people, if they hadn't hidden themselves inside a storm drainage pipe beneath a road Clementine had only by chance noticed, the thing mostly shrouded by the foliage of those woods and snow; they were careful to hide their tracks.

They'd stayed hidden in there a long time, lying flat on their stomachs on the frozen ice in that concrete pipe, the both of them were freezing while they listened to those bandits come and go in their search of the area. When the light started to fade from the day and the voices were long gone, the arm wrapped around her back to keep her warm moved away, a signal from Luke it was time to leave, and with chattering teeth they'd emerged from their burrow of safety.

In times like those, Clementine struggled to figure out who were the lesser evil between the dead and living, and if there were any good people left in the world besides them; it didn't feel it anymore. All because of others wanting them dead, Clementine's backpack was gone too, and with it, the morphine for her pain, and that gross can of sprouts that was their only source of food left.

"Is this right anymore?"

"What do you mean?"

"Goin' to Wellington; maybe we shouldn't."

They had come to a crossroad early next morning, clear skies over a snowy countryside muted of color, a low mist having swept over the land like a heavy flood with no one and nothing for miles. The road signs marked the way, and they knew which direction they were supposed to go, yet Luke…

"Seemed like a good plan before; been tryin' to convince myself every shitty day it still is, but I ain't sure no more, Clem," her doubting friend had continued on with, taking in the sight of that smog ridden ground as he'd remained rooted there at the intersection where those roads converged. "We lost everybody gettin' here, and we're barely hangin' on. I don't know if we're way in over our heads or what. Maybe we should just turn back, and find someplace else to go."

The view of the road behind them from where they had just come from looked ghostly, their tracks still in the snow, leading off to where their prints became obscured by the low mist. The very idea of turning around had caused for Clementine to dig her heels into the ground. "But Wellington's not that far; we can make it."

"And if things ain't peachy when we do?" Luke had asked, the snow crunching underfoot when he'd turned to look back at her, hair unkempt and bags under his eyes from where he'd been up most the night unable to rest. "We're out of food, and we ain't been lucky catchin' game in these parts, not yet, and things ain't gettin' much warmer...tryin' to think ahead here is all, damn well ought to have sooner.'

Her fingers pinched at the strap of the flask hung across her shoulder; Luke had one too, found in a small store they'd slept in the previous night, and found not much else of use, nothing to eat. By then morphine in her blood had worn off, and Clementine was in a great amount of pain again from her stump phantom limb, something she could've done without in that time and place, along with the hunger already becoming a menace to her stomach.

"We'll find more food, like those fruit bars, and the truck. There'll always be something," Clementine had tried to say encouragingly.

"That's not…damn it kid, that ain't what I'm saying! We're treadin' thin ice here, I need ya to get that," Luke had replied, the harbored frustration ever present on his face also in his words. "We're puttin' ourselves on a one-way ticket someplace and we don't know what's there. I ain't saying we give up, maybe we just put it off til the weather's better, when we're better prepared."

"And go where?"

"Shit, I dunno, anywhere!"

Clementine had thought of her home back in Georgia in that instant, of running back up the steps to her house again. She missed it, dipping her feet in the cool water of the swimming pool in summer, playing with her friends on the tire swing, the time her Mom told her off for getting paint on her new dress, or mud on her shoes, or cheering with her Dad for his favorite baseball team on TV, even though the sport wasn't her thing. It was so far away now, and Clementine would never see it again, never go home…it wasn't home anymore without her parents there.

They kept going because of wanting a better life. If not for Carver, things might've been different; more of their friends might've survived. If they turned around, then all of it would feel like it was for nothing, everybody would've died for nothing. If Wellington ended up being nothing but a stupid fairytale, so be it, but at least then they would know that it was, and either way if it were true, they would still end up drifting, traveling nowhere.

"Anywhere we go will be the same. We won't be any better off," Clementine had said glumly, before locking with her friend's gaze. "We just have to be brave, Luke."

Her reasoning seemed enough not to be argued with, but not enough for him to be convinced. Stressed and probably as hungry as Clementine was, she'd watched as Luke paced off to the side, his hands having rested interlocked at the back of his tousled hair. When he at last turned around and spoke, it was like someone at the end of their tether, or, whatever that phrasing meant.

"It's your call, kid. What do you wanna do?" Luke asked.

Clementine's mind was already made up, her answer given in the form of taking those bold steps forward, towards the road they needed to take to their destination. She'd stopped after so many steps, having waited for her friend to follow, and he did.

---

Food...just thinking of the word hurt Clementine's stomach.

Their rifting through buildings, abandoned and wrecked vehicles beyond disrepair turned up nothing; there was no food anywhere. She and Luke had tried their best, yet failed to catch anything wild to eat, going so far as to waste a few valuable bullets trying to shoot down a grey fox that scampered out into the undergrowth where they were unable to follow. There were rats sometimes, lots of rats, but with the dead and corpses around for the critters to feed on, along with whatever germs they carried, the pair couldn't risk it.

It had gotten so bad, Luke told her off for eating leaves, warning her that some might make them sick, yet not being so sure himself which ones were safe or if they'd gain any nutrition from it. Water was all they had to fill their stomachs, and…and bugs, spiders. It was never enough, every morning they woke starving and with less energy to get them through the day. More and more was it a conscious effort to put one foot in front of the other.

They hadn't eaten in a week, seven whole days. Clementine had gone hungry many times before, the longest being at the Motor Inn…but this? She could feel herself wasting away, getting weaker. Her clothes became loose on her, her body thin from lost fat and muscle. And Luke, he looked just as bad too. He tried not to complain about it around her, their conversations having already thinned down the very basics of communication, and the few irritable exchanges brought on from hunger and exhaustion. In their malnourished states, it was becoming increasingly difficult to find their way to Wellington, even with a map at hand, more than once did they get lost, taking a wrong road or a shortcut that turned into anything but, with herds of walkers and a few glimpses of other survivors from a distance having them duck and cover, or take larger detours as to avoid them. If it weren't for that compass in Clementine's coat pocket, they wouldn't have even known if they were still going north.

They hadn't seen the sun in days, a thick blanket of clouds blocking out sky prominently as the snow and cold bore down on them through each passing day as they burnt down the miles. That morning they woke early to a blizzard raging outside. She and Luke had watched it from the safety of a Motel room window for nearly half the day, hoping it would die off, but it only seemed to be getting worse. There was only ten miles left to go, and at the risk of starvation…when they caught a brief break in the weather, they took advantage of it and got on the move ASAP.

The wind picked up again while they were on the road hours later; no buildings, no cover, nowhere for them to get out of snow and sleet hitting their faces, robbing them of warmth. It was a fight to keep going, and so easy for Clementine just to think about giving in. But they were so close to Wellington now, too close to turn around and go back the way they came.

There was no going back.

It was so cold out, her every step near to being dragged, with those powerful winds threatening to push Clementine down as she was hit with heavy lashings of snow. It was like being inside of a tornado, she had to keep one arm raised to shield her eyes from the elements, the visibility so bad that she could barely see Luke a few feet ahead of her, enduring that same battle to not let winter take them before they reached their goal. Yet little by little, the distance between them was growing as she fell farther and farther behind, struggling to keep up. She wasn't sure how much longer she could keep going.

A strong gust of wind suddenly swept through that empty landscape, forcing open the hood of her coat and hitting her face with a cold slap. Shivering, Clementine stopped to pull her hood back up, when something else came free from the top of her head. In a rush of panic, she looked over her shoulder, instantly spotting that irreplaceable keepsake she cherished most being carried off by the invisible hands of that taunting blizzard.

Her hat, Dad's old baseball cap.

"NO!"

Clementine went running for it, but it was already far out of her reach before she could even make a grab for it. She ran on stiff legs, trying to catch up. No good, every second that hat was being lifted higher and farther away into the sky, and in the end she stumbled and collapsed onto her knees, unable to do anything other than watch the last thing of her Dad's disappear into the whiteness of the storm…

'If you like it that much, then it's all yours; you can have it.'

'Really!?'

'Sure, it can be an early birthday present. The thing's been sitting on that shelf gathering dust for long enough, and it looks much better on you than in some collection; take it…just um, don't go giving it away to any of your friends, or trading it for cards! It has to stay in the family, okay?'

'Heheh, okay!'

"Dad…"

Clementine wobbly hauled herself up onto her feet, pushing herself to go after that hat with everything in her. Clementine had to get it back, she couldn't lose it again!

She didn't get far. Luke, he quickly put an end to her plans, grabbing Clementine before she could go anywhere.

"Clementine! Clem STOP!"

She struggled against her friend and her own stubbornness, her knees soon giving out, and this time she wasn't able to stand again. Low on energy as she was, Clementine still tried to break free; it wasn't too late.

"My hat! I gotta get it back! I have to!"

"It's gone, Clem! There's no findin' it in this!" Luke yelled through those loud winds, his face gaunt from the lack of food, yet his expression still harboring that of pity for knowing what that hat meant to her. "We gotta keep movin' okay, or we're gonna die out here!"

Only by hearing that, did it subdue Clementine enough to stop, knowing it was the truth. Still, no truth was enough to prevent her from scanning that blizzard, praying with the tiniest bit of hope that the winds might somehow bring that old baseball cap of her Dad's back to her, and that she'd see it out there somewhere. But Clementine may as well have prayed for it to have rained gold, because she could see nothing but the snow and harsh winter that would be the death of them if they tried to go looking for it.

Her hat was gone, and it was never coming back.

"But, b-but I need it..."

"I'm sorry," was all Luke could really say on helping her up, before his arm hooked behind her knees and the other over her back and he lifted her off from the ground. "C'mon, I'll carry you for a bit. Looks like you could do with a time out, kid."

It'd been an effort for him to do that and to pick her up, that for a brief second Clementine thought Luke was going to drop her as he'd once rudely done in the woods months before. Though even as that fear of such a thing happening passed, and Luke held her close enough to keep her warm, there was still that defiant part of Clementine that wanted to stand and keep walking, so she wasn't a burden to her friend who was suffering just as much.

Yet her voice came out sounding as nothing more than the broken frustration of the child that she was, as she'd wiped the tears from her eyes.

"I can walk, Luke."

She heard him give a dry laugh, a tired sort, as he'd continued to carry her through that vicious blizzard. "Don't go startin' that again."

Luke never listened, and eventually Clementine gave up asking for him to put her down. He walked as if she was the weight of heavy rocks, no ease as he pushed on through the weather, and complaining about the cold, but not much else. Clementine's eyes remained cast on the road behind them over her friend's shoulder as he carried her the whole way, still ever watching for the baseball cap in that storm she knew she was never going to be hers again.

'I wanna go home…'

---

The morning her parents went, it'd been really warm and sunny. It was early, that time of day when the sun hadn't yet risen any higher than those rooftops, creating shadows that stretched across the street that were the last escape from that already sweltering heat. People were out checking the mail, walking their dogs, or heading off to work. She really hadn't cared.

Clementine could still remember sitting at the bottom of the stairs in her unicorn pajamas, both hands tucked under her chin, staring enviously at that pile of luggage by the front door with everything packed and ready to go, none of which had been hers; she'd been really sad about that, really sad.

Sandra, a babysitter all the way from Marietta had already come over, intending to stay that whole week looking after Clementine while her parents went off to Savannah. They'd been talking in the kitchen over some morning coffee, both Sandra and Mom; her Mom was going over the schedule with the young college student in very fine detail as to when Clementine was to be dropped off and picked up from school, what she was to have in her lunchbox and to eat at dinner and to what time she had to be tucked in for bed at night.

While Clementine had listened to Mom go on over that long list of all the sugary snacks and drinks she wasn't allowed, all her innocent eight-year-old mind could think about, was just trying to figure out which bag of luggage she could sneak into without her parents noticing she was inside it. Unfortunately, Dad was to foil her attempts of self-smuggling, sunlight flooding in through the open front door as he'd stepped inside, sending a smile her way before calling out to Mom.

"Car's ready hon!"

"Okay be right there!"

Clementine had really hated saying goodbye to her parents that day. As a family, they had never been apart for so long before and the idea of spending the week without them was just too scary a thing to her then. If she'd really been misbehaving, Clementine might've tried to pierce the tires of their car with one of Grandma's old knitting needles as she'd thought about doing at the time if it got them to stay. They would've been angry with her, maybe grounded her and cut off her pocket-money too, but, at least they would have been with her at the start, and not hundreds of miles away.

"Are you sure I can't come?"

"Sweetie we've discussed this; we can't go taking you out of school again. And this trip is special for your father's and my anniversary, you know that," Mom had reminded her as she had many other times before, yet it hadn't gotten any easier hearing it.

So silly Clementine was in holding out for her parents changing their minds last-minute, she'd gone to help carry out Mom's small travel bag as they were taking their luggage out to be loaded into the trunk of their car. That little plan of hers wasn't a success, and there she'd been with them outside their house, the pavement heating up beneath her bare feet in the heat of that morning sun, soon to be seeing Mom and Dad off whether she wanted them to go or not.

"But I'll be good, I will! You won't even know I'm there," Clementine begged with the biggest puppy eyes she could muster. "Pretty please?"

"I'm sorry, Clementine, but you're staying; that's just how it is," Mom had said more strictly, as if her word was final on the whole thing. But when she'd looked down at her, Mom's face had softened again on viewing Clementine as the little girl she had been, one almost close to tears. It hadn't been long before her Mom had bent down to draw Clementine into her arms, for what was unknowingly their last embrace. "Oh Clemmy, please don't get upset; we won't be gone long. Your father and I will call you every day to check up on you, and you can call us anytime you like as well, whenever you want sweetie."

"Except after nine," her Dad had added when closing the car trunk shut with everything set to go, wiping the sweat on his brow before giving a teasing wink to his partner. "That's Mommy and Daddy's time."

"Ed!"

"What? She's not gonna get it, relax."

"Don't tell me to relax mister. You need reminding who's responsible for me having to impose the 'no swear rule' in our household after our little pumpkin learned a naughty word? Hmm?"

By the porch, dressed in her pleated skirt and fancy tank top, Sandra had snickered at the couple's bickering, quick to have covered her mouth with a small cough as Mom had shot a look over at the babysitter, who might've very well earned herself a reduction in her pay by the end of the week, if, she had ever gotten paid…

"Anyway, Sandra will be here if you need anything, and she'll take good care of you. So don't worry, you won't be alone." Having cupped Clementine's cheek, Mom had brushed the tears away with one thumb, giving her a light kiss on the forehead. "We'll be back before you know it; you'll be fine."

Clementine had watched her parents drive off after waving them goodbye, still standing on the sidewalk as their car had turned the corner down the far end of that street, and disappeared behind the houses of their distant neighbors. Even as Sandra called her in, Clementine remembered still wishing that they would turn around and come back. Yet the hours went on by as she looked out those windows, seeing the street come alive with people going about their lives, and her wish never came true.

Mom and Dad had kept their word about the phone calls. They rang home every evening before she went to bed, with Mom often having talked for ages about their time in Savannah and of all the funny little details too, although, not the special grown-up ones. While her dad, he had been more of the one to check in on how she was doing at school and with her friends, but he also made a lot of jokes too, like if she had redecorated the house yet, something Mom had been nagging him about helping her do for months.

Their last conversation together was the day before her parents were meant to come home. It hadn't really been anything all that special, and Dad, he couldn't even come to the phone because he was in the shower at the time. But Clementine still remembered hearing his bad singing from over the phone that she and Mom had giggled over a lot.

"Oh you would've loved seeing the sunset over on the bridge today; your Dad wouldn't stop taking pictures of it, or of me! I swear he was driving me insane with that thing, clicking away all the time; you know what he's like," Mom had said so fondly Clementine could hear the smile in her voice on the other end of that line. "So how was your day? Did you have fun with Sandra? I heard you baked cookies after school."

Home-made chocolate chip cookies, they definitely hadn't looked like cookies; the mixture had been a splushy mess that'd gotten burnt in the oven because she and Sandra left them in too long, so they'd both gone to the grocery store and bought some cookies from there instead. The conversation with the young babysitter on the walk home had been funny to recall.

'Um say Clementine, do you mind doing me a really nice favor and not tell your mom I nearly burnt the kitchen down? She's still mad at me as it is breaking those expensive glasses, and I'm really trying here. Think you could just keep it a secret? I'll buy you something from that ice cream van over there if you do!'

Clementine had glanced over her shoulder across to where Sandra was on the couch eating one of those supermarket baked cookies and watching TV, some soap opera that she remembered clearly made her want to puke over how cheesy it was.

She'd given ice stick in her mouth a chewing to, before answering her Mom.

"Yeah, we did; they were really good."

Upon hearing that, Sandra had given Clementine a thumbs-up and a smile along with it.

"That's great! I can't wait to…oh shoot, I'm sorry I'm getting another call coming through; it's probably work again. Listen, me and your father are going to be calling it early tonight so I'll speak with you tomorrow before we leave, okay? Is that alright sweetie?"

"Um, yeah it's okay."

"Good, alright well we'll see you soon. Love you pumpkin!"

That was the last time Clementine ever heard her Mom's voice, before the call ended, without the chance to say goodbye. She regretted not calling back.

The very next day on that Saturday, the reports started coming in on the TV about crazy people attacking others, killing them, eating them. It'd been like something from the horror movies her parents wouldn't let her see, and that's what Clementine had first thought it to be when coming down those stairs after waking up that morning. But upon finding Sandra pacing back and forth in the kitchen trying to call her own family in Marietta and freaking out after having been bitten on the arm from 'some creep' standing on the lawn that morning, Clementine realized that it was all real.

When Sandra started freaking out about the dead outside, Clementine gotten scared and had climbed up into her treehouse and hidden in there as screams and gunshots broke out in her neighborhood. She'd seen it all from that wooden window strangers and neighbors she once knew running for their lives out on what she could see of the street from her backyard, many speeding off in cars and fleeing on foot from the dead and loved ones who no longer recognized them. She'd heard Sandra scream too, but Clementine was too scared to help, afraid that she would be attacked by the monsters too that were chasing everybody else, and so she had covered her ears and blocked out as much as she could.

That treehouse she'd come to hate so much, it'd saved Clementine's life, kept her hidden from the dead that couldn't reach her. The only times Clementine was to ever venture down was to get the hammer from Dad's toolbox in the garage, and some food and fruit boxes from inside the house. She didn't go back in over those two days until Lee appeared, not even to go to the bathroom, frightened by the amount of blood in the kitchen, and the sound of somebody walking around upstairs who didn't respond to Sandra's name. Unable to locate the phone before she'd scrammed, Clementine had taken the walkie-talkies from the kitchen drawer, leaving the other one switched on inside for her parents for when they arrived home, so she could call to them and let them know where she was.

Clementine never wanted to accept Mom and Dad could already be dead. She was certain back then that her parents were still alive like she was, just trying to get back home from Savannah to be with her. Even by the second night she'd kept listening for their car, waiting to hear the vehicle pulling up out front. Those cold nights she'd fallen asleep curled up in a ball, after crying for hours clutching onto that walkie-talkie, how many times had she pressed that bright red button to call out to her parents, praying to hear their voices again? How often did she wake up tricked from a dream that they had come home?

"You've been, all by yourself through this?"

Clementine remembered her first memories of Lee, that man from the woods. She was out there because she needed to pee, too scared to go back in the house, and worried her parents would be mad she went out in the backyard. It'd become a routine, sneaking out into the woods through a loose board in the fence, and ensuring there were no monsters around before she did her business. The loud bang of a gun had startled her when on the way back to the fence, somebody shouting in distress, and when Clementine went to investigate, she'd spotted him from far off.

The man with a shotgun was all she had time to focus on when he'd shouted at her for help and she'd panicked and ran away. Being there then with Lee, face to face in her house after what happened to Sandra, Clementine had seen a great kindness in that stranger, a great deal about him from the way that he spoke reminding her of Dad.

Her babysitter was dead, but she wasn't really her babysitter anymore. Clementine understood Sandra had turned into a monster too and if she hadn't helped Lee, he might've died. Lee wasn't a bad person, he was a good guy and she realized she didn't have to be afraid anymore.

"Yeah, I want my parents to come home now."

There'd been a flash of emotion across Lee's face, surprise of a sort. And then he'd looked down at the floor, a grave sadness in his dark brown eyes. "I think that might be a little while, you know?"

She'd grasped her left arm, tears threatening to spill as the truth hit her with what she'd already known. Clementine had already been waiting so long.

"Oh..."

From where he was kneeling, Lee had come closer with words of warmth and support, words that were enough to stop her from crying on the spot when her gaze turned away from his blood-stained shirt, to the lifeless body of Sandra, no longer the young woman who had laughed and taken care of her just days before.

"Look, I don't know what happened, but I'll look after you until then."

Lee, if he hadn't found her and taken her by the hand, Clementine might have died up in that treehouse years ago, or out on the streets if she'd gotten brave enough to leave. She'd thought about it more than once, even after leaving her home. He had been there with her for only a few months, almost the blink of an eye, but she owed him too much that could ever be said in words. She missed him nearly every single day, as much as she missed her parents, because that's what Lee meant to her by the end when he died in Savannah. He was her family.

He said…Lee said he believed things would get better someday, that there would have to be something beyond all this, and Clementine liked to believe in that too. Wishing for brighter days, it was better than giving up and just waiting to die. For years she had lived to survive, her old life up in a treehouse, trying to hold onto what made Clementine, her. She was still waiting, longing for the day when she would finally be able to set her feet down on the ground and live again, really live again.

Maybe someday, she would.

---

'Do you think things will ever be normal again? Just like the way they were before?'

'Yeah. It may take a while but yeah, I do. Don't you?'

'I hope so…'

'That's good. You hold onto that hope. It's the one thing none of this can take away.'

---

"Clem, Clementine."

The blizzard was gone, the snow no longer being harshly blown in her face or eyes by those hurricane-type winds once making it so difficult to see. The night sky was now clear, so crystal clear of everything that when Clementine awoke she saw stars, hundreds of thousands of stars suspended above, unspoiled by the light population of the old days, with the face of that small silver moon lighting up the wintery landscape submerged entirely in snow.

Luke wasn't walking anymore.

Blinking with tired eyes Clementine lifted her head up from his shoulder where she had been sleeping, and looked up at her friend puzzled for why he was just standing there, refusing to carry her any farther.

"What is it?"

Luke didn't answer; there was no need to, for Clementine soon saw what he was staring at all the way down that long road that they had been travelling on for miles. It stood out against the whiteness of that fresh snow, extending its reach beyond the backdrop of those bare trees. It was a wall, the strangest wall she'd ever seen, built up of all kinds of bricks and stones, but a wall it definitely was. In the middle of that snow clogged road, where the wall had been built across like some barrier cutting through the land, there was what looked like a large metal gate.

It was this, and the road sign Clementine spotted not far from them that had her sitting upright in her friend's arms, her eyes growing wide as the breath caught in her throat at the words written there in bold white letters.

Wellington.

"Can you stand?"

Clementine nodded, soon taking those first wobbly steps forward after Luke put her down and she gazed at the wall far in the distance, hiding the sights of that town beyond it. Surreal, Clementine couldn't even explain it, the sacrifices made for them to finally be here. They'd made it, after it took so long to reach it, they were really here!

But no smile was to dawn on Clementine's face, too tired and too hungry to muster one, and there was something else too. With all the searchlights she could see, not one of them was illuminated. Even by that gate where she thought she could make out some crudely-made watchtowers, it was too far away to tell if anybody was up there. Everything around the gate and walls were deserted too, with not a single person out on patrol.

As glad as Clementine was to see it, Wellington just looked empty, as if there was no life there at all, abandoned with no one there like back in the hospital, or overrun like Crawford…

Clementine didn't like this.

"It's dark."

"It would be if they're smart; light attracts lurkers, remember?" Luke said as he joined her side. Although Clementine sensed he wasn't 100% sure if that was the case. Just a possibility, that's all it was. They didn't know anything, and wouldn't until they went there to find out. For once though, she just wanted to believe it, whether Luke believed that himself or not.

"I guess…"

It was quiet that chilly night, the soft breeze almost non-existent as it blew through the bare trees. No sounds of the dead or living to be heard, not even from all that distance away from the town. If the Wellington type were indeed the smart ones, then they'd know too that keeping noise at a minimum kept the walkers away as well; that was a tactic a lot of survivors used, if there indeed were others like themselves there.

Anxiously, Clementine glanced up at her older friend. "Now what?"

"Now? Well, we go and check it out," Luke told her.

Clementine locked her heels together, a gloved hand clenched. "No backup plan?"

"Wouldn't be sayin' howdy if there wasn't one," He said.

"And is there one?" She asked.

"Sure."

"So, what is it?"

Luke managed a smile, in spite of looking as physically drained as she probably looked too. "Oh the usual; not dying, playin' it friendly, you know the drill by now…although, you mind doin' me a favor?"

"What?" Clementine asked.

Luke held out his hand. "You mind givin' me that gun? Not that I don't trust you with it, but if there's any truth in what was said, it's better I be holdin' it; rather not give anybody a good reason to go shootin' you."

He'd used up all the ammo on his gun on some walkers days ago, chucking the thing at a whole group of them when escaping out from the building they'd made the mistake of going into out of a desperate attempt to find food. Her own gun, it only had a couple bullets left too…

They would be outnumbered if anybody in Wellington. She and Luke needed to come across as trustworthy to them, and if they weren't good people, if they were bad like the many others they'd met on their journey…well, after what happened before, they couldn't afford that to reoccur here, not now, not as they were.

It was those negative thoughts that had Clementine staring up at the faint bruises on her friend's face, and the small gash on his ear too, unwilling to give him an answer, or to surrender that gun.

"Hey, don't go lookin' at me like that, I'll be careful this time; you have my word on that. You can trust me," Luke said earnestly, his hand still out to her. "Clem?"

She glanced down at the gun on her hip holster, then back to him. Hugging an arm to her waist, Clementine spoke as if she were one of her school teachers addressing a student. "Only if you get me a new hat."

"Done."

"And not pink, I hate pink."

"Gotcha."

With a final stern look up at her friend, and not detecting a single trace of a lie on his face, Clementine undid the holster carrying the gun and passed them over to Luke, praying she wouldn't regret it.

As soon as he was done buckling that thing around his waist, Luke knelt down to speak with her at eye level. "Okay so, gonna set a couple ground rules here in case things go south, you all ears?"

"Yes," Clementine said with a nod.

"Good," her friend dawdled for a bit, looking immensely tired as he scratched his stubbly jaw line. "Just, don't be pullin' any crazy shit that'll get ya killed, alright? If I tell you to do somethin', you do it, like if I say run, you run. Just focus on gettin' yerself outta there if you have to, don't go worryin' about me."

"Only if you run too," Clementine said, adamant and unwavering.

"Yeah, I will be," Luke promised.

"And, no stupid crazy stuff."

"Ye…didn't I just say that?"

Clementine felt inner joy at what a dummy he sounded like then. She paused for a second as something pleasant came to mind, something that Sarah…

"A bike."

"Eh?"

"If it's nice there, I want a bike; a really shiny one."

Luke stared at her incredulously. "Seriously? There gonna be a blackmailin' around everything now? This is serious."

Clementine scowled. "I am serious."

"Ah…okay, fine; I'll get you a bike somehow too, jeez," Luke said, exasperated in giving into her demands. Lightly he ruffled the top of her scruffy hair, much to her dislike. "Just be keepin' yourself safe, okay? That's all I'm askin'; would like to keep my little sidekick in one piece, y'know?"

Clementine felt a smile tug faintly at the corners of her mouth, the first smile she'd given her friend in days. "Who's says I'm the sidekick?"

That hurt his superhero ego, enough that he looked genuinely surprised, if just for a few seconds before Luke mustered the vague presence of a smile. Quick he was to get his revenge, ruffling up her hair some more.

"Ya damn squirt."

The truth was Clementine didn't really care about the bike; she wasn't even sure if she was still capable of riding one with her arm the way it was. Clementine just wanted something to look forward to, anything to take her mind off the hunger and fear of what they both might soon be walking into. If things didn't turn out okay for them here, then this really would be it for them. She and Luke were at their limits, there would be no coming back from this, no backup plan.

This was it.

Clementine watched Luke straighten up, turning towards the darkest reaches of that wall beneath those stars, studying it with that same lacking optimism she herself had little of. "Guess we better be on our way then."

"Yeah," Clementine agreed quietly, and they soon were to be making tracks again, walking alongside each down that road to discover what was to be found at the end of it and their perilous journey to the north.

In the end after everything that'd happened and all they'd lost, all they really had to rely on was each other. There were too many lives snuffed out, families, friendships buried in the ground; there was only one thing left important to Clementine in this world, that meant more to her than breathing and keeping the memories of everyone else alive…and she wouldn't trade it for anything else, not even for something as shiny as a brand new bike. Whatever happened, would happen, and if she lived or if she died, Clementine would make sure for as long as she could that she didn't lose another friend.

A look up at Luke as they walked steadily on through that star-lit night in silence, with every step bringing them ever closer to Wellington, Clementine eventually plucked up the courage to do something she hadn't done since she was younger. She reached for Luke hand, her fingers curling slowly around his, causing her friend to glance down briefly to her in mild surprise. But that surprise was to go, with warmth and reassurance in its place as Luke closed his hand around her smaller one, squeezing it gently.

"You be stayin' close, alright?"

Clementine nodded with the sincerest smile, no longer feeling as afraid for what waited for them at Wellington, because they would look out for each other no matter what. They were a team now, and a team always stayed together.

She expressed that gratitude for that friendship in a single word, one Luke would understand.

"Ditto."

---

[To be continued in: Skin-Deep]