(AJ's Pov)
I was looking down at the ground, by the tree Violet, Clem and I had planted. Flowers had grown over in the garden, no one to tend to them anymore. I still remember that day.
-Three Years ago-
I had just come home to visit Clementine again; it was Violet's birthday and I had made sure to be here on time for our trip. I had come in through the gate and I look to see Minerva and the others outside at the picnic table. I see Liz over on the steps of our house and she looked up to me then to the others. They all looked to me and I look at them. It was Minerva who came up to me. She looked tired and she takes me over to the table and we take a seat.
"Um… where is Clementine?" I asked as I looked around. Hoping she was in the shop.
"AJ… Clementine is um…. She… passed away last night." Omar says and I look to him. I laughed.
"Ok, she put you up to this, 'got to get AJ to not cry' am I right?" I asked and they look to me and I could hear Liz sob and I look to her as she looked to the ground and I look to the others.
"H- no, no you are all lying come on." I say and they had this serious look on their faces.
"…. How?" I asked.
"She had a fever and it wasn't breaking… and she just… we made sure she just… went to sleep." Ruby says and I looked to her then to the house.
"Did you… have to." I wanted to ask but then shook my head. Did I really want to know.
"I think it's best that you don't know…. Just know she went peacefully." Ruby says and I nod at this and look to the house.
"We were going to bury her today." Aasim says and I nod slowly.
"Willy already made the cross, you can stay here till… everything is done." Minerva says and I look to her and nod. The adults left and Liz comes over as she looked to the table and I look to her.
"Were you here?" I asked.
"I… got here when they said Clem… was just sleeping." She says and I nod and look back to the table.
"… AJ… is it wrong for me to think I lost a mom?" She asked and I look back to her but she kept looking to the table.
"No… you're my little sister and she was our mom." I tell her and she just nods and I looked over to the garden.
"We should get her some flowers." I say.
"Did she have a favorite?" She asked and I lean back a bit and rubbed my head.
"Violet's." I say quietly.
"Oh… I'm sorry." She says and I shake my head.
"It's fine." I tell her. We sat in silence for a while and I put my hands together. Minerva came over and I look up to her then to the flowers in the garden.
"Did Clem… say anything before… she." I tried to ask but stopped.
"She said a few things… when we thought she was getting better she wrote some stuff down for you and Liz… I uh… I can give them to you later?" She asked and I nod at this.
"Yeah… Later would be best." I say and look to her.
"She did say she would miss you two." She says and I feel tears in my eyes.
"I… I had a gut feeling I should have been home earlier but… I thought I was just… I thought I was overthinking it." I tell them.
"It's ok, she knew you'd come home but… she didn't want you to see her like that." She tells me and I nod.
"Of course, not… they never want me to." I say quietly and I get up.
"AJ." She says and I shake my head.
"It's fine… I swear it's fine, I get it… I honestly would have never wanted them to see me like that if I was in their situation." I tell her truthfully. When everything was done, they let us in the back and I saw a bunch of flowers on both Clem and Violet's grave and I feel my chest hurt. I didn't know my real parents but the stories I was told I knew they would have loved me. Clementine and Violet were my parents, my mom's. They took care of me, and tried to teach me. I still remember what they taught me. who could forget those lessons.
"Anything you want to say?" I hear and I take a breath and I think.
"Clem… I have known Clementine for a very long time, since I was literally born in this type of world… yeah we had our arguments here and there, Yeah I fucked up a lot but she was there to help me understand why I messed up and how to improve… she's…. one of the best moms I had… and… I'm going to miss her… I know we all are going to miss her." I say and everyone agreed. Everyone else got a say and when we finished Omar went to cooking. It was a sad day for everyone in this group.
-Present Day-
I look to the cross with Clementine's name on it and next to it was Violet's cross. I rubbed the back of my neck and looked to the side a bit.
"They said you fell asleep… did you feel anything? Did you come back? They didn't tell me… this place got too depressing and then… Ruby and Aasim passed on… Omar… and last Minerva… are you all together again?" I asked as I looked back to the cross and I take a deep breath.
"I hope so… I hope… I hope that heaven is real… and that you're all there… back at the farm… when we were all just happy." I say and I feel a hand on my shoulder and I look to see Liz as she looked to the graves.
"Fucking hell." I mutter and moved away.
"AJ." She says and I look to her.
"You know… life liked to throw us a curveball?" I asked her and she looked to me.
"Yes." She says and I chuckled.
"Ma and Mom… they tried… Mom… was so little when she took care of me, that I thought I had to help take care of her when I was little… and Ma… to this day I still blame myself for what happened to her… that I failed her, that it was my fault she was broken because of Joan… that I should have said something too when Luke decided to say what he did…. That I am a failure of a son." I tell her and she hugged me.
"You're not, AJ I know I wasn't with you guys for long but… I saw the happy moments; I saw the good and the bad… my old group didn't care whether a little girl died or was abandoned… but your parents… They were so nice to me, even though I could have been a threat." She says and I laughed a bit and rubbed her head and she looked to me.
"You still could be, I got my eye on you sis." I say and she punched me and we both end up laughing.
"AJ, you did what you could, they did what they could, just…. Remember the good times." She tells me and I nod.
"Same to you." I tell her as we walk to the gate and I look to it.
"Still can't believe you were able to make this sign." She says and we look to the metal plaque I made.
"It wasn't easy but since your boyfriend was able to teach me… I think I did good." I tell her.
"He is not my boyfriend." She says and we shove each other and took a look at the gate for a bit.
"Oh, my bad, your soon to be boyfriend." I joke and she laughed. When she stopped, she looked to the plaque a bit and then touched it.
"You think I could be buried here?" She asked and I look to her.
"It's ours, no one else, so yeah… why would you think you wouldn't?" I asked.
"I mean… I wasn't with you guys long." She says and I look to the sign.
"Liz, you're family… plus it's easy for us to come visit now with the community we built." I say and she looked to me.
"You'll always be apart of our family and family stays together." I tell her and I see the tears in her eyes.
"I didn't even cry this much when my own mother died." She says.
"I make things sad, sorry." I tell her and she shakes her head.
"No, no it's great that we can talk about all this stuff." She says and I look to her then back to the plaque.
"This is the Family and friends of AJ and Liz Everett, though they may be gone, they hope to meet again one day." I hear and look to see Jessica and I smile and then a little girl runs up to us.
"Hey Clem." I say as I pick up my daughter and she looked to the gate and tried to grab it.
"Woah… want to meet Grandmas?" I asked and they just nod and I chuckled as I looked to Jessica and she nods as we head inside and I take her to the grave and set her down. She walked up to it and taps the cross and I smile.
"Clem, Clem." She says and I chuckled and nodded and she looked to the other grave marker and I watch her.
"Vi, Vi." She says and I smiled and I feel my chest tighten.
"Yep, Clem and Vivi." I say and we all take a seat and Jessica hands us some sandwiches and I chuckled.
"So, thinking about building a home close by? That way we can make sure no one tries to get in?" Liz asked.
"Yeah, that sounds good, we can be close by, let Clem here visit the family… be easier to bury us here." I say quietly and they look to me.
"When I… pass on can you make sure I'm next to Clementine and Violet?" I asked as I looked to the crosses. Clem went up to them and set down her little cup then came back and I chuckled softly.
"Of course…. I'd like the same too." Liz says and I nod at this.
"Deal." I say and we laughed and Clem laughed and I rubbed her head gently.
"Hey want to show Clem the family photos?" Liz asked and I nod. She gets up and heads into the house and kissed Clementine's head. Liz comes back and hands the book to me and Clem takes a seat in my lap and I opened the book.
"There is grandma Clem." I say pointing to Clementine and then to Violet.
"And Vivi." I say and she taps the book.
"Vivi." She says and I nod and show her more photos and it was starting to get dark out and I could see the sun setting. Clem fell asleep in my lap and I looked to the graves a bit.
"AJ you ok?" I hear and look to Jessica as she takes a seat next to me and I look back to the graves.
"Yeah just… I miss them… I wish they were here to see Clem, and I wish… I could have done more… I mean with Clem it was age and stress and a fever from being sick…. And with Violet… I should have stepped, I should have beat the hell out of Luke… fucking glad he's dead." I mutter.
"AJ… I get it, you're upset… and you miss your parents very much… but hey… they would be proud of who you are… I mean think about it, you have done so much in all these years, you have built a community, you've worked on the solar power we have, you got the river to flow through the community for hell more power and filtering it, God AJ they would be so god damn proud of you." She tells me and I look to Clem a bit.
"And you have a beautiful daughter." She says and I chuckled.
"Well, she has your genes too." I say and she laughed a bit then lays her head on my shoulder.
"AJ… they loved you till the day they died and even now they still love you." She tells me and I smiled a bit.
"You'll miss them, it's part of life." She says quietly and I nod sightly.
"I just wish they could have met Clem… I wish she got to meet them… I think it might have helped Violet." I say and rubbed my daughters back as she moved in my lap and I look to the crosses.
"Do you want to meet the others?" She asked and I nod a bit and she takes Clem from me gently.
"You guys should get some sleep." I say and she nods and takes Clem inside and I go to the garden and Grabbed some flowers for them.
-Thirty Years ago-
"And these are roses, they're hard to grow but I think we can make this place a beauty, don't you think so Clementine?" Violet asked as we worked in the garden.
"It would be very beautiful." She says as she comes over to us and they kissed and I gagged a bit.
"Oh come on AJ, you'll be lovey dovey one day." I hear and look at Violet and gagged and she laughed.
"He just doesn't want cooties." Clementine says and Violet laughed. She then picked a flower and handed it to Clementine who gladly took it and smelled it.
"Hey AJ, Tenn and I are going to the fields to see if we can find a tractor." Willy says and I stand up.
"Can I go?" I asked.
"I don't…. you know what, hell yeah, make sure you have your gun though, Willy Tenn same for you two as well." Violet says and I nod and we run into the house and grabbed our things. We head out in the field and look around. We didn't find a tractor but there was this very large machine and I look at it a bit.
"Hey d you think the others could get this working?" Willy asked and I look at it.
"Not unless they have a book, we were lucky with the solar panels." Tenn says and I nod.
"I think they could use it some how." I say as we climb up on it and I see a key.
"GUYS A KEY!" I say excited and they come up.
"Turn it." Willy says.
"But what if it turns on?" I asked.
"It looks like it won't move, the wheels are rotted." Tenn says and I shrugged and turned the key and the machine came to life.
"WOAH!" We all yelled and I smiled and Willy looked out the door and so did it when we saw a lot of Walkers.
"Fuck." Willy says and I grabbed my gun.
"No don't, we don't have enough." Tenn says and I think. The machine began moving a bit as Willy stepped on the gas though it was slow moving due to the tires it was moving.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"We have to move it away from the farm." He says and the Walkers came closer. I then look to the side to see the truck coming by and ramming into the Walkers. I saw Louis, Minerva and Aasim in the truck bed as I see the window go down and Violet grabbed onto the machine and climbed up.
"WHAT ARE YOU THREE DOING?!" She yelled and I was scared as she looked to the Walkers as the truck drove.
"MOVE!" She yelled and I did as she opened the door for us and the truck came back. I got in the back along with Willy and Tenn and I could see Violet trying to shut the machine off but it looked like the key wasn't working and she hit the wheel and then grabbed something making the machine stop moving at least. She hurries out and gets in the bed of the truck as Clem drives us back to the farm and I could see Violet looking at the Walkers and I see them surround the machine. When we get back to the farm, we all get out the truck and I see Clem talking to Violet and they looked angry.
"YEAH, I KNOW I TOLD-…." Violet stopped and rubbed her face. She then looked to us and we ran into the house and I hid in my room. I don't know how long I was in there for but I hear a knock on the door.
"AJ… it's Clem." I hear and I look to the door and it's opened up a bit and she peeked her head through. I look back to the ground but I hear the door close and I look back up to see Clem with a plate of snacks and she comes over to me and takes a seat offering one to me. I take the carrot and I munch on it a bit and look to her.
"AJ, we aren't mad." She says.
"Violet looked mad." I say and I look to her and she looked to me.
"She… she was scared, we all were, that machine was… is loud." She says and I look to the ground.
"She thought she was going to lose you three, because she was the one to say it was ok." Clem says and I look to her and she looked to the door.
"And I was scared… that the machine would have… rolled over or trapped you three… just like Shawn." She says and I look to her a bit.
"We were just so damn scared AJ." She says and I hugged her and then I hear a knock on the door and I see Violet poke her head through and I feel Clem move her hand and Violet comes in but she doesn't move from the door, but made sure it was closed.
"…. I'm sorry for… yelling at you AJ it's just…. The machines was loud and I thought… I thought you three." She tried to say but I get up and go over to her and give her a hug and she hugged me back.
"I'm sorry, we didn't know it would work." I tell her.
"No need to be sorry, you three were just curious and I get it." She says as she moved a bit and we looked to each other.
"But still." She says and looks to me.
"I'm sorry." She says and I nod and I bring her over to Clementine and we all take a seat.
"Ok… so you and I will be working on the garden for the next few weeks, Clem's idea." Violet says with a smirk and we laughed at this.
-Present Day-
I looked to the flowers more and then head to each grave and placed a flower on each of them. When I was done, I decided to go into the center of the trailer park and I look around as I remember what we had done here. Everything we have done to try and improve this home, this community. The good and the bad times that happened here. I take a deep breath as I walk along the side of the wall and looked to it. The patches that were made, how Violet and I worked so hard on this wall, how she taught me and how Clementine taught me many things as well. I put my hand on the wall and saw it was breaking a bit. I'll have to patch it up in a bit. I look to the gate and walk up to it and open it then close it then open it again. It was fine but I had to make sure.
"All because of a stupid gate." I mutter and closed the gate and looked to the houses. I head into mine and look around a bit and I take a seat on the couch where as Liz was asleep on the recliner. I smile a bit and cover her with a blanket then take a seat on the couch and look to the old books that Clem and Violet had collected over the years and I see some pictures on the wall. Clem and Violet had made this a home. Though to Violet it use to be a broken home I'm glad we were able to change it for her. I lay on the couch for a bit and look to the ceiling for a bit and place my hands on the back of my head as I closed my eyes and fell asleep.
"Hey AJ." I hear and look to see Clem and Violet looking at me and I run up to them and give them the biggest and tightest hug I could give them. I feel one of them put a hand on my head and the other hugged me back. I pull back and see Clementine looking at me with a big smile and I look to Violet who was also smiling but not as big.
"You got big… and a beard?" She asked and I laughed as I pulled back and wiped my tears from my eyes.
"Fuck I know I'm dreaming but I don't want this to end." I tell them.
"Sorry bud, but you're going to have to wake up." Violet says and I look to her.
"So, how's our grandchild?" She asked and I laughed.
"She is… a handful but… she's wonderful." I say and they nod.
"Well, she is your kid." Clementine says and I smiled.
"I know… I'm probably making this all up but… it's nice talking to you two… like Clem said… she had a dream and talked to Lee… is this my dream?" I asked.
"Well yeah, but we aren't here to give you advice on surviving… might be weird for you to hear this but Clem said Walkers aren't really a thing." Violet says and I nod.
"And you have done a lot… and we want you to know…. Jessica is right…. We are very proud of you AJ." Clementine says and I nod at this. They smile at me and Violet gives me a hug and I hugged her back.
"I've always been proud of you son." She says and I cried. I just let it all out and I cried in her shoulder as I hugged her more and then I looked to Clem as she put a hand on my shoulder.
"I miss you two… I miss everyone, I know… I know about death but… it hurts… it hurts so damn much because I grew up with you guys and you raised me, and… you two have taught me so much." I tell them and Clem kissed my head and I feel Violet place her head on mine.
"It's fine to mourn AJ, let it out… when you wake up just let it out." Violet whispers and I nod.
"Oh, and don't be thinking about dying too soon, we heard ya'll talking and I don't want to see my son here until he's lived a full life." Clem whispers and I laughed.
"I won't… I promise." I tell her and I move a bit.
"And, I know we have said this but…. We are proud of you." Violet says and I nod.
"I needed to hear that…. Thanks." I tell them.
"Anytime." Clem says and I look to them. I see them fading and I was scared but I know I was waking up. They waved to me as I finally woke up.
"Hey." I hear as I wake up and look to see Liz.
"Hey." I say and sit up.
"I had the dream… with Violet and Clem." I tell her and she looks at me.
"Same." She says and I nod.
"They told me to cry." I say and I chuckled and rubbed my face.
"I think you should." She says and I nod.
"Just not now… coffee?" I asked.
"You think there is still some here?" She asked and I get up and we go look. We found some but it wasn't a lot and I grabbed a cup for her and looked around.
"Well… we should be getting back home, so we can get that lumber and start building here." She says and I nod. Hours would pass and we finally leave and I make sure the gate is locked up and we head on back to our home. We weren't to far from the trailer park so it was a quick walk. We could have gone slow but the faster we got home the faster I could get to work on building near the trailer park. Time and time would pass us by and the house was built and Clem was running around with our dog and I was working on the food grilling.
"Dude, I need the recipe." Kambell says and I look to him.
"Sorry but it's a family recipe, only I and one day Clem will know it." I say to him.
"Come on, it's so damn good." He says and I chuckled.
"I'll be sure to send you home with extra." I say and he nods as I eat some of my food and I look to Jessica.
"Honestly he hasn't told me any of them either, but I'll stick with my baking." She says and I chuckled and kissed her cheek and then looked to her.
"You know, I always gagged when my moms would kiss…. But they were right." I say and she looked to me.
"About what?" She asked.
"That I would be lovey dovey." I say and she smiled at me. I look to see everyone happy, healthy, chatting and having a good time. It was the one thing my family dreamed I would grow up with. I finished the food and I go to the table and I grabbed my glass and tapped it. Everyone looked to me and I take a breath.
"Everyone I hope you enjoy the food; my mother Violet would be glad if you loved her food, and uncle Omar for being the chef god." I joke and Liz raised her glass at this and I smile.
"Today… is in memory of my mother's… they never celebrated their wedding anniversary only their one year… but it's when Clem and I officially became part of the Ericson group… where I became a part of their family… and that's what we are here for, is for friends and family… and the wise words that was once spoken, though we may never see them again, we hope to see them again one day… and that we are here to tell their stories, so people remember them just like we did… to know what thy had sacrificed for us to be here right now… with new friends and new family… making a community." I say and think a bit.
"We have grown and changed in this world and I hope we make it better." I say and raised my glass.
"Here, here." Everyone said and we all take a drink and I take a seat as we all chatted and had a great meal. It reminded me about when we had these meals back at the farm. How we were all happy and no worries to bother us. But now we truly can make the world a better place. Again, even though my family may be gone, they helped me be who I am today, they helped make this world too by helping me, and same goes for the others. When everyone finished and left, I looked to the trailer park and looked at the plaque one more time and put my hand on it.
"Thank you all… for helping me, teaching me… and being the best damn family, I could ever have." I say and look to the houses through the gate and I smiled.