Chapter 10

Clementine woke up feeling anxious, stepping outside her room, she noticed the sky was still dark, and a clock on the wall read that it was only two hours past curfew. She felt on edge, the argument between the two groups in the pen had her unable to shake the feeling like something terrible would happen today. She put her hat on and practically ran towards Bill's office. Knocking on the door a few times, she waited for a response.

"Come in." She entered the office hurriedly.

"Something wrong, Clementine?" Bill quickly noticed how she felt. She hurriedly went to sit down on the chair grabbing a piece of paper and a pen.

'There was arguing in the pen a few hours ago. Some of them were talking about escaping today. They're planning on using the herd from the South.' The writing was jagged, having been written without a care for being neat at the moment.

Bill read the warning with a frown. "Is it safe to assume that I already know who was involved in the discussion?" Clementine nodded, Bill sighed in exasperation right after.

"We'll keep an eye on them, make sure they don't get up to anything once the herd passes through. Anything else I need to know?"

Clementine started writing again just to make sure that anyone that wasn't involved wasn't hurt.

'Kenny's group, Mike, and Jane are against the idea.'

"Thought as much, the two groups were on the brink of killing each other before we got there. Mike's got a good grasp on his situation, wouldn't ruin that unless he was sure it'd be better for him, and Jane wouldn't take a chance on something that's less likely to work than it working, she's a survivor through and through."

"Go on back to bed, honey. Tomorrow's a big day, and I'm going to need you to come in early before Becca wakes up, need to teach you something before the lesson." Clementine nodded and returned back to her room to sleep. She wondered what the man wanted to teach her.

"Good mornin' Clementine." Bill greeted her, Clementine waving in response.

"The reason you're coming here before Becca, is I'm goin' to have you learn some hand signals, and other ways for you to communicate. It's inconvenient for you to only be able to communicate in writing, nodding, and body language. Especially if we're in a situation where we can't make noise or it's too loud to hear anything." Clementine nodded, she'd been wondering how she'd be able to communicate to anybody in a situation, where she wouldn't have time to write.

"Most of these I learned in the military, used to be a squad leader back in the day, before becoming an engineer." Clementine had no idea the man had a military background, but it made sense in a way.

"Let's get started with countin' to ten, now doing it the normal way works, but you can't always use your two hands, as you need to keep a hand close to the trigger at all times. Counting to five is the same as you normally do, but for three you use your thumb, index and middle fingers. After that, it gets a little more complicated, for six you touch the tip of your thumb and pinky, then raise your three other fingers. Seven, you touch the thumb and ring fingers, raising the other three. Eight, you place your thumb over your middle finger. For nine, you make a circle with your thumb and index fingers, and don't space the other three fingers out. Ten, you just do the same as nine, but don't raise any fingers." Clementine watched closely as Bill was showing her how to count to ten with one hand.

"You try."

Clementine remembered the steps, counting the numbers in her head as she did it.

"Good job, now someone might not know what those five mean, in that case just do the first five again."

Bill spent the next half hour teaching her different hand signals.

"That's about all the relevant ones you might need right now. Let's repeat it until you can do them without messing up." Bill had her repeat it for an hour multiple times, even after doing it five times in a row without a single failure. Clementine prided herself on having a great memory, she didn't forget things that much anymore. Ever since she'd lost the ability to speak

"Alright that's good, let's move onto something more audible. You might not be able to talk, but you can still click your tongue, whistle, snap your fingers, or make duck calls." Bill then proceeded to make a fist, that wasn't entirely closed, and cupped his other hand over the empty space. He then placed it over the side of his mouth and started making duck sounds.

"It might sound or seem stupid, but it's a good way to bring attention to yourself, without drawing someone else's attention and making them think there's people nearby, if you make sure your people know that you're the one doin' it."

Clementine raised her hand, the man chuckled at that.

"No need for that, what is it?"

'I don't know how to whistle.'

"It's easy, just practice blowing air through your mouth, then use your tongue to build pressure in your mouth, and your lips and cheeks to affect the pitch."

Clementine tried doing it for a few minutes, to no avail.

Bill chuckled at her failed attempts, "You won't get it right at first, it takes practice, and eventually you'll get it to happen." He reassured the girl with a smile.

Bill started rolling up his sleeve, "Anyways, since we've still got about... twenty five minutes to spare, how about you keep practicing hand signals. I'll say a word, and you do the signal relating to it." Clementine gave the man an 'okay' with her left hand.

"Freeze." She raised her arm ninety degrees and made a closed fist. The man nodded as she got it right.

"Move up." She lowered her right arm, her palm facing in front, and she moved it forward. The man nodding again.

They kept doing it until someone knocked on the door.

"Come in."

Becca stepped inside the office, excitement and nervousness showing in her face.

"Okay, since you're both here now. Here's the lesson for today." Becca was practically ready to explode from anticipation.

"Clementine, you will be teaching her everything I just taught you earlier. After that, I want both of you to go to the garage. There's something I have to show you two." Bill then left the office, leaving the two girls alone.

"Huh?" Becca was at a loss.

Clementine started writing down the words and numbers that the hand signals he had just taught her related to.

"So what are you supposed to teach me?" Becca seemed a bit irritated by the man just leaving it to her.

Clementine finished writing down everything. Starting the teen with counting to ten.

"Can't I just say the numbers?" Clementine shook her head. She pointed to the word enemy, and grabbed her right forearm with her left index finger and thumb.

"Oh, so it's if we have to be quiet." Clementine nodded.

Clementine started showing Becca one through ten, pointing at the numbers as she went. Then making the girl do it herself.

"Why can't I just use both hands?" Clementine thought for a second, before remembering she had her own gun, in her room. She pointed at the girl, and beckoned her to follow. Becca was about to speak, but decided against it. As they walked back to Clementine's room, Bonnie called out to them.

"What are you two doin'?"

Clementine looked at Becca, and signaled the girl to talk by shaping her hand like a mouth and mimicking a mouth moving up and down.

"Bill wants Clementine to teach me how to talk without talking, in case we're in a situation we can't speak."

"That's cool, um, I'll see you two later then. Get back to it you two." Bonnie left the two to go back to what they were doing.

Clementine walked into her room and grabbed her pistol, putting it into her waistband, and leading the teen back to Bill's office.

"I feel like I'm learning to be a spy in an action movie." Becca joked as they reentered the office.

"So what was the point of that?" Clementine pulled her pistol out, taking the magazine out, and pulling the slide back to empty the chamber. She then handed the gun to Becca, and made the girl count from one to ten. The teen tried to count past five with both hands, with the gun in her hands, before realizing it just made things needlessly difficult.

"This is much more in depth than I thought it would be." Becca's interest in the lesson grew, as she followed along with Clementine.

Becca repeated counting through one and ten, repeating the signals Clementine made. Clementine then made the girl do it by herself, until she got all of them right without messing up.

Clementine pointed at the word 'me', and then pointed a finger at herself, and 'you', pointing a finger at Becca.

Becca didn't need any help figuring those two out. They spent nearly forty minutes just going down the list of signals, after that, Clementine then had the girl repeat each signal without help for almost an hour, until she got them all right without messing up.

Clementine pointed at the word pistol, Becca made a finger gun, and pointed her arm up in a ninety degree angle. Female, Becca made a fist and placed it against her chest. Teenager, Becca flattened her hand and placed it just lower than her head. Friendly, the teen gave a thumbs up with a huge grin.

"Fuck yeah! Never thought doing stuff with your hands would be so complicated." Becca celebrated as she finally managed to get them all right twice in a row.

Clementine smiled, and clapped at the girl's excitement.

Becca calmed down after a minute, "Oh right, here's your gun back."

Clementine grabbed the gun from Becca's hand, and loaded the magazine and chambered a round. Becca stared at her doing it with envy, Shel had tried to keep her away from guns as long as she could. But one day, if Shel still had her way, Becca could get seriously hurt if she didn't learn. Bill could've forced it, but Shel was a good worker and Becca never outwardly complained.

"We should probably go now, huh?" Becca suggested as they'd both lost track of how much time it took for Clementine to teach the girl hand signals. Nodding, they both began walking towards the garage to see what Bill wanted to show them.

When they arrived just outside the door to the garage, they looked at each other as the loud sound of power tools rang out. Stepping inside, they bumped into Stan. Stan was an interesting guy, he was some kind of repairman or maintenance man, and he kept to himself mostly. He was a middle aged white guy, with shoulder length pepper hair, and a huge bushy mustache and beard. Stan was also tall, very tall and practically all muscle with a somewhat protruding belly. The man only graced others with his presence when he was needed. He spent most of his time working on building projects that required more finesse and tools, than the projects the people in the pen were subjected to. Today being such a case, as the door that Troy had backed into was no longer able to close all the way.

Stan stared at the two kids as they entered the garage. He was holding some type of power tool, and was standing on a ladder.

"Umm, hi?" Becca nervously greeted the man.

He looked them up and down, before grabbing his radio.

"Bill, they're here. O'er" His voice was deep, rumbly, and he spoke quietly.

"I'll be there in a few minutes, still preparing something we'll need. Over."

Stan just kept staring at the two as he clipped the radio back to his belt. He stood on that ladder staring for probably a minute, before getting back to work. The echoes of him replacing parts in the garage door hinges, and using power tools to install and repair parts that'd been broken by Troy.

The two girls looked at each other, Stan was very weird, and very strange.

They waited for around half an hour, sitting down on some chairs that were placed by a workbench. Becca suggested practicing the signals as they sat there, the teen had found herself enjoying the concept of speaking without using her mouth. Bill and Hank walked in, watching the two girls practice as they carried some boxes and cases towards one of the smaller trucks. Hank eventually left once they were done loading the truck.

"Becca, Clementine!" Bill yelled over the sound of Stan repairing the garage door. The two girls shot up from their seats and moved towards Bill.

"This truck here, is the one Bonnie'll be takin' you two in when you learn how to shoot a gun Becca. There's ammo, weapons, and anything else you might need in case you can't get back in time. I've already told Bonnie and she'll get you two once we leave tomorrow." Both of them nodded to the man.

"Now then, I know you're a bit disappointed that I just left the lesson up to Clementine today, Becca. So in order to make it up to you, you'll be learning how to defend yourselves without a weapon against a bigger opponent."

Clementine had been hoping to one day learn something like this, since she hadn't grown that much since everything started. She was probably only a couple inches taller than when she was nine, and she most certainly wasn't going to grow much taller later, much to her own dismay. Many days of being unable to scrounge something to eat, and two years of malnutrition had definitely ruined any chances of her growing to be anywhere near Becca's height when she got older.

Turning to Becca, the teen's eyes were practically burning from anticipation.

"Now against a male, you have one easy to hit and very painful target." Becca quietly snickered at that.

"Against a woman, it's a bit harder, they're not as physically strong as men, but they also don't have any easy to take advantage of places on their body to demobilize 'em. If you can, go for the eyes, kick their knee in, or go for the throat. You can do that as well after demobilizing a man, just as insurance he don't get back up anytime soon."

"Now, since you're so tiny Clementine, you have both the advantage of being hard to grab, but the disadvantage of also being unable to do much if they do grab you." She frowned at the comment of her being tiny.

"Becca, you're still growin', but this'll still help you out. Now-" Bill was cut off by his radio going off.

"There's been a fight in the pen, two of them got at it pretty good. One of them got hurt real bad though. Over" Vera's voice came through.

"Goddamn it." Bill cursed before picking up his radio.

"I'll be right there. Over." He replied with an angry sigh.

"We'll save this for later, follow me."

Becca looked disappointed at the sudden interruption to her learning to fight today. Clementine couldn't help feeling the same as well. Following Bill, they came across Bonnie about halfway there.

"We got Carlos working on the worst of the two, but it ain't lookin' good." Bonnie followed them as she spoke.

"He might not wake up anytime soon." The redhead looked at her nervously, for just a second, before turning back to Bill.

They arrived at the pen, the first thing Clementine noticed was the blood on the floor. She looked around and saw Luke all beaten up, his face swollen and bloodied. Then she saw Kenny, lying on a bed, Carlos and his group were next to him, blocking her view of the Floridian. She walked around to get a better view, the angered yelling of Bill towards the pen inhabitants wasn't even registering in her ears.

She first saw the blood, there was so much of it covering his face. Carlos was cleaning the man up, she watched as the blood was cleaned up. The left side of his face was extremely swollen, his eyelids were sinking into his socket. She didn't even realize that she had been nudging the man in some attempt to wake him up until someone brought her out of it.

"It's okay kid, he'll be fine." She didn't bother paying attention to who said it. She just kept staring at the still body of Kenny, his chest was still rising, but she didn't know if he'd ever wake up.

'I just found out you're alive, and now you'll die before we can even talk to each other.' Anger had built up in her chest, she felt something desperately clawing its way through her throat, as if it were trying to escape. She held it back, not knowing what the feeling was, instead choosing to just watch Kenny, in the hopes he'd wake up.

She sat there for a while, looking at Kenny's beaten but peaceful looking face, until she felt someone tap her shoulder.

"We gotta go Clem. Some walkers broke through the fence." Clementine gave her a dejected nod, stood up and followed after her. She took a quick look back as the gate closed behind them.

"Clementine, go to my office and rest. I'll be there once I'm done here." Bill was agitated, not towards her, but at the situation in the pen.

Clementine had already began walking towards Bill's office.

"Can I go with her, make sure she's doing okay?" She heard Becca ask faintly.

Clementine entered the room, sitting down on the chair, the door opening behind her as Becca entered.

"Hey Clem, you good?"

Clementine shook her head, she felt horrible, almost as bad as she felt during the first few months she was alone.

"Umm, well Bill said that he was gonna punish Luke and his group. If that makes you feel any better?" Becca waited for a response, getting none she sighed and sat down on the chair, next to her.

"According to Mike, Kenny was winning the fight, Luke just managed to stick a thumb in Kenny's eye and crushed it."

"Mike was the one who stopped it, that's the reason Luke has the bruises on his neck. He put him in a chokehold and threw him off Kenny." Becca tried rubbing the eleven year old's back, desperately trying to get the girl to respond.

"They got into a fight because Kenny tried stopping Luke from stealing from the armory. Troy apparently, forgot to close the gate all the way." Clementine clenched her fists at the mention of Troy. Everyday she started hating him more, but Luke, her image of the man had entirely changed. She felt betrayed, angry, and confused at the man's behavior.

'What would drive him to want to escape so badly?' A scowl formed on her face.

Becca suddenly grabbed under Clementine's arms and lifted the eleven year old off of the office chair and wrapped her in a tight hug. Clementine tried pushing her off, twisting and fighting, but the teen refused to relent.

Then the tears started falling, Clementine never thought she'd have another crying fit like this again. She hadn't truly cried since she was nine, only a few tears at sad thoughts or when she had to treat an injury or sickness she got.

Becca kept whispering words of comfort and patted her back. Clementine finally returning the hug, with her chest still heaving from the breathy sob she was letting out.

"You uh... feelin' better now?" Becca inquired when Clementine finally managed to stop crying.

She nodded, her opinion on Becca's character had now done a complete, and utter one-eighty. Sure the girl was still completely insensitive to the plight of others she wasn't close with. The two sat back down on the office chairs, in complete silence.

"Shel told me, a few years ago, that I had some kind of developmental disorder." Becca suddenly dropped out of the blue.

"I never really felt like something was different with me, but she said it's why I have problems acknowledging other people's feelings. Can't pick up on social cues or whatever, like if something bad happened to them or whatever."

'That explains a lot.' Clementine thought to herself.

"I just get angry at people a lot, or ignore their feelings. Shel understands me somewhat, tries to be patient or puts me down when I start acting up." She paused for a few seconds.

"I dunno... it's different with you or something." Becca had a soft smile on her face as she said that. The strange clawing in her throat that she felt earlier had returned, although she forced it back down.

"I just... I guess I just kinda relate to you." Becca admitted to the younger girl.

"I used to always complain about the lack of kids my age, but to be honest, I was worried about them treating me weirdly. Sarah, the glasses wearing girl in the pen, was the first person I met that was my age when everything started. I made her cry almost every single time we spoke to each other, not intentionally either, but one day her dad had gotten it in his head that I was trying to bully her. So he slapped me after I tried talking to her again."

'That jerk.' Clementine got extremely mad at that.

"I remember Shel getting super mad at him for it, but he never apologized. After that, he never let her out of their room until supper, and then they left with the others. I guess... I resented Sarah after that, for being a crybaby, and for being scared about everything." She rationalized.

"Then a couple months later you show up. At first, I expected you to be weird or like Sarah. But I was curious and decided to talk to you, and now here I am. Talking to you about my own problems, like you're the little sister I never had, in some attempt at making you feel better." Clementine eyes widened at the last comment. Becca had stopped talking after that, reflecting on what she just admitted to the eleven year old.

Bill walked in shortly after, sitting down on his chair roughly. She looked at his disheveled appearance, blood had splattered over his hands and clothes, his breathing was faster than normal. He sat there for a second, looking at Clementine before he finally decided to speak.

"Luke is going to be exiled tonight, sent out with nothing but the clothes on his back." He declared to them, Becca could've cared less though as she just gauged Clementine's reaction. The girl just nodded in understanding and gave a sad smile. She didn't want it to be this way, maybe in another life they could've been friends, maybe not.

"Kenneth'll be fine, Carlos said he's stabilized somewhat, but we're going cuff him to a bed, just in case he doesn't make it through the night." Bill informed, Clementine only gave a shallow nod to acknowledge the information.

"You two can take the rest of the day off, and when we get back next week, we'll continue where we left off."

"Yes, sir." Becca replied as she and Clementine exited the office.

Clementine followed Becca around as the teen tried figuring out what they should do. Eventually settling on some board games she found sitting on one of the shelves.

Night had finally fallen, Bill woke Clementine up so she could be there when Luke was thrown out. The herd would be arriving soon as well, possibly thousands of them, judging by the dust cloud they were kicking up.

Vera and Tisha dragged Luke outside the garage, he was covered in more bruises, cuts and swollen injuries, since she last him. The two threw him onto the concrete parking lot and reentered the garage.

'Guess that's where the blood on Bill came from.' Clementine couldn't find it in herself to care about the added injuries though.

"Today, someone we'd brought back to our home, to give them a chance at redemption and to contribute to the future of humanity. Squandered it, by attempting to break into the armory, and nearly killing somebody for attempting to stop him!" Bill angrily explained Luke's crime.

"But, no matter, tonight he goes, away from our community and out into the world with nothing." Bill snarled viscously.

"Close the damn gate, Tyler!" Bill ordered the man, the gate closing shortly.

Bill then left, the guards following him shortly after.

"Hey city mouse, try goin' to bed soon, okay?" Bonnie placed a hand on her shoulder, with a pained smile, before leaving as well.

Clementine exited the garage shortly after, and began walking around the store aimlessly. She found herself at the door leading to the roof, following the stairs up and walking towards the side the garage was on, she looked down. The herd had finally arrived, and some of the walkers had spotted Luke. The man was attempting to get on his feet, but his legs kept giving out. He then decided to opt for crawling away instead, but he didn't get far.

Screams, then nothing, just the sound of flesh tearing and the munching of dead jaws. Clementine watched the scene unfold, staring at the same place for an unknown amount of time. She watched as the massive herd finally passed completely through, the only thing marking their brief appearance was a mangled, unable to move, living corpse, where Luke used to be. She frowned at the sight, the clawing feeling in throat had only gotten stronger, like something desperately wanted to escape, but she refused to let it out no matter what. She instead, decided to look over the pen, Kenny had woken up at some point apparently, as he was no longer cuffed to the bed he had been cuffed to earlier.

'That's good.' She thought, as she left the roof to go to her room. The anxiety she had felt in her heart during last night had disappeared.

A/N

This chapter was a tough one to write, I wanted there to be a tension at the start, the idea that something bad would happen. I also didn't want to make it fully clear as to what that tension might be. It might strike as odd that Luke and Kenny would fight, but one thing season two shows, is that Kenny would do anything for Clementine, or AJ. Since, escaping would mean abandoning her to her death if they brought the herd, he'd much rather not go through with it, and he also already despises the cabin group, as Clementine wasn't there to tone things down or build common ground between them.

I spent the majority of the time just figuring out the Becca heart to heart section. The way she acts throughout her brief appearance in the games, had always struck me as someone who had a mild form of Asperger's. The insensitivity, lack of social understanding, and rudeness. She just struck me as mildly autistic, coming from someone who has many friends and family who are on the spectrum as well. You can replay through Shel's story in '400 Days' as well if you need to try understanding where I'm coming from. Like, call it what you will, but the girl has no understanding of what thoughts she should keep to herself. Big one being, joking about turning a group member into a watchdog when he dies.

Carver having a military background is just something I made up. I tried tying it into how he's so good at leadership, driving people to do what he wants. His high pain tolerance, knowledge of torture, the warped sense of humor, and his violent streak. Guy might've been CIA as well for all we know, but it also gave me an excuse to explain where all the Type-1 AK-47s came from. As they were practically drowning in them in the Middle East.

That's mostly all I gotta say right now, I read your review today, InfiniteGrandAdvancer, around about like an hour ago. Your ideas are scarily close to where I'm going with things, like the fighting skills part was uncanny, as I had wrote that section, literally twenty minutes after I dropped the last chapter.

We won't really see Sarah that much here in this fic, not for any dislike of the character or anything, but mainly because the Clementine I'm building here just sees no point. Seeing the girl as a Reggie situation, too far gone to help in any meaningful way. I also wouldn't consider her a sociopath, as she most definitely cares for people in Howe's, and wouldn't kill people all willy nilly. But after the Luke situation, the only people left alive within that group are ones she does despise, but she wouldn't go so far as to go Joan on them. More so, just try and stay as far away as she can from them.

Which speaking about Joan, I honestly don't actually know exactly how far and where I'll go with this. Like I personally don't mind ANF, but I know it isn't exactly a lot of people's cup of coffee. Although I also do believe at the same time, that Clementine really didn't need to be included in the season at all, like whatsoever, and if she wasn't there, the season would've probably resonated with people more.

I do have ideas for this Clementine in later seasons, that I haven't touched on yet, but I don't know if it'll really resonate that well, as I do want this fic to be dark. And the hopeful messaging the later seasons have, kinda makes it difficult to build something there that'd be on track with where I want to go with this. Like I could always go the one route some like to go and just have something absolutely diabolical happen to her that breaks her entirely, like a certain trilogy that I won't name, but it seems cheap. But I digress, as that's about all I have to say as of now.