Chapter 13

Carrie was inspecting her eyes, "Concussed. She'll be fine. Just needs rest for few days, keep out of light." Her voice a quiet rasp.

"Thank you, Carrie." Kenny was sitting next to her, the man released a breath he'd been holding since she was brought back to Howe's. The woman just nodded in response, rushing to grab a sip of water as she did.

"How ya feelin' sweetheart?" Kenny had been stressing out since they got back. She'd gotten quite the head injury when that man threw her at the wall.

Clementine shrugged, her head was still pounding and the lights were only making it worse.

Clementine had been out for almost two days at this point. When she finally woke up, Becca had been passed out on a chair next to her, and Kenny had been pacing around the room. Becca had left a few minutes ago to relay the good news to Bill and the others.

"I feel ya, I felt like shit for weeks after losin' my eye." Kenny chuckled for a second before apologizing for cursing.

She went to massage her forehead, and realized her hat was missing. Patting around for it, until Kenny took notice.

"It's at your friend's place, as well as all your other stuff. Doc ordered you stay there, once you woke up, until we can be sure you're better."

Clementine sighed in relief, she tried standing off the bed but the second her feet touched the ground she almost fell. Kenny had caught her and placed her back on the bed.

"Easy there squirt, it's gon' be awhile before you can walk normally."

"Should I take her, doc?" He looked over at Carrie.

The woman just held up a finger as she checked Clementine's vitals. The woman nodding and handed her some water.

"Soup in cafeteria." The doctor rasped, and then went back to doing whatever she was doing.

"Let's get you to your bed, and I'll bring you some food. How's that sound?" Kenny gently lifted her up into his arms and started walking out of the hospital.

Clementine smiled weakly, before hissing and covering her eyes from the sunlight.

"Yeah... concussions suck. Try to not go nowhere while I'm gone alright?"

They entered Shel's place and he placed her down on the bed with her hat on it. Clementine smirked at the man as he chuckled and headed out the room.

Clementine looked around the room before laying her head down on the pillow.

'This sucks.' She groaned as her headache flared up again. She stared at the ceiling trying to figure out a way to distract herself when the door opened again.

"Alright, time to eat Clem." Kenny helped her sit back up as he fed her soup. She tried eating it herself, but she only succeeded in shaking the spoon around and dropping the liquid back in the bowl as she lifted it.

"This brings me back to before." Kenny smiled sadly, Clementine didn't need to guess what he was thinking about.

"That Jane girl is the one who carried you out of that hellhole."

Clementine suddenly remembered that she had to ask Kenny about how babies were made. She pointed at her journal trying to get the man to hand it to her.

"Not now sweetheart, eat first, talk later."

Clementine pouted, but relented as he kept feeding her.

'I hate this.' Is all she could think to herself. The thought of having to be taken care of royally pissed her off.

Once the bowl of soup was empty, he handed her the notepad. She used the dim light coming from the slightly ajar door to write. She asked the man how babies are made and he just stared at her.

"Now why 're you askin' that Clem." Kenny coughed at the note.

'Shel's gonna have a baby.' It took a lot of effort for her to make her writing readable.

"You don't say." Kenny stared at her with a knowing look and crossed his arms.

'Of course it'd be obvious to him, he'd already had a kid.'

The man stared at her for a few moments, and then sighed.

"You really wanna know?"

Clementine didn't like the way he said that, but she wanted to know badly. She nodded, her face like stone to show the man she was serious.

Kenny sighed again, and gave her the "talk."

Clementine felt sick to her stomach after Kenny told her how it happens. The man had also taught her to avoid any adults, if she thought were trying to do something to her.

'Why were they doing that to those poor sheep?!' She screamed in her head internally. Kenny had softened at her reaction, misunderstanding why she was so disgusted.

"Yeah, some sick bastards out there."

She decided from then on, never to listen to one of Jane's jokes ever again.

Someone knocked on the door before entering, Becca stepped inside and Kenny stood up.

"Imma head on over to work, you watch over her now." Kenny exited the room as Becca sat next to her on the bed.

"I thought you were gonna die." Becca started crying and embraced the eleven year old in a bone crushing hug.

Clementine couldn't even resist as she didn't have the strength to do so, so she tapped the girl's shoulder to let her know she wasn't able to breathe.

"I'm sorry, it's just that I was so scared. And you helped me out so much when I killed that guy..." Becca was speaking at a mile a minute and Clementine was unable to keep up with her rapid speech. Becca kept talking for what felt like an hour, Clementine had barely been able to make out some of it as her headache would exacerbate every now and then. She pat the girl on the back and smiled tiredly, she was feeling really fatigued right now and wanted to sleep.

Clementine went to lay down, and tried pulling the blanket over herself.

"Lemme get that." Becca threw herself off the bed and placed the blanket over Clementine.

"I'll be right here. So don't worry about anything." Becca sat down on the chair next to her bed, and grabbed a comic book from under the bed. Clementine fell asleep the second her eyes closed.

It took only one day before Clementine was able to walk on her feet, though she needed assistance to get around without falling. Carrie was adamant about her resting though, and wouldn't allow her to move around. Ordering whoever was on break to make sure she wasn't trying to sneak around. Not that she could if she wanted, walking out the room would make her throw herself back in the room from just how badly bright lights hurt her head.

Clementine was reading a comic book right now, using the lighting that leeched into the room. She didn't bother reading the title but it seemed to just be about a superman character but evil. She wasn't particularly interested in the comic, but it was better than just doing nothing.

She really hated being unable to move around, it made her stressed, anxious, and worse, it made her bored. Clementine wished this concussion would just go away, but apparently it could take her two weeks or more, before she'd be back to normal. Carrie said it was because of how severe her symptoms were.

So here she was, doing absolutely nothing, unable to help or train or even just walk around the hardware store.

Someone knocked on the door and entered, Carrie entered carrying some equipment.

Clementine already knew what she needed and rolled up her right sleeve. The woman placed her equipment down on the bed and pulled out a blood pressure cuff, placing it over Clementine's upper arm, and placed her stethoscope in her ears. The woman also took her pulse as she started taking her blood pressure. Almost a minute passed when Carrie nodded to herself, wrote something down on her journal and packed the stuff up. She then checked her breathing, and finally grabbed a tiny penlight, snapping her fingers to make Clementine look at them and not the light. Her head still hurt somewhat from the sudden onslaught of light.

"Good." The doctor grabbed something out of the bag, and handed it to her. It was a pair of sunglasses, she guessed it was to help with her light sensitivity.

Carrie left the room after packing up, Clementine put the glasses on and opened the door some more. It certainly made it easier to actually look around the store and not flinch in pain. Some people she didn't recognize were walking around the store. New members of the community most likely.

It bothered her that she was missing important matters. She desperately wanted to be up and moving around again, but she understood that she'd just be making it harder on herself. Even if she hated it.

Clementine sat back down on the bed and got back to reading her comic book.

One week into her mandatory rest period and she was finally allowed to work lighter jobs. After she pestered Carrie about it until the woman got pissed off of course. Currently, she was in the armory just loading magazines and doing maintenance on their weapons. She took a look at some firefighting gear that was hung up. Bill returned to the fire station with a larger group and had wiped the area completely of any raiders. They brought back the uniforms, axes, other tools, and medical equipment.

She learned that Marcus had laid claim to one of the uniforms when the man entered the room an hour ago. He was planning to modify the uniform by making it more "badass and shit." He also had a cart of scrap and body protection behind him, so she guessed the absolute tank of a man was planning on making his own personal custom armor. Which was cool she guessed, the gas masks did have an intimidating look to them. She was pretty sure anyone would be terrified by a man that was six foot six, three hundred pounds of muscle, dressed up in armored firefighting gear.

Clementine went back to cleaning one of the shotguns they looted. It was a Remington 870 Police Magnum according to the markings on the side. The stock was missing, replaced by pistol grip, and the barrel was short judging by another they looted. There was also a shell holder on the top, blocking the sights for some reason. The gun just looked like someone decided to just make it look cool without a thought for usability. But guns are guns, and even this piece of crap could be somewhat useful.

She removed the shell holder on the thing, because all it was doing was preventing someone from using the sights. She then got to work dismantling it, the internals looked good, just needed to be cleaned a bit. She checked one of the shotguns of the same model that had were in bad shape. She dismantled it, noting the terrible amount of rust inside as well and took the stock from it, it would be better off on a working gun.

Clementine made sure to clean as much as she could before putting the working gun back together. Now sporting an actual stock instead of the "Wrist Breaker 9000" as she decided to call it. She then searched for literally anywhere else to place the shell holder. Screwing the attachment into the stock, she put a shell into the gun tube and cocked the shotgun twice to test the action.

Satisfied with the results she placed it on the gun rack and switched to another weapon. There were a few she didn't recognize, so she just placed them in a pile and drew a large question mark on a piece of paper in front of them. Clementine wasn't going to risk breaking them.

Someone entered the armory, "Howdy there?" It was a new guy, he was wearing some type of antique uniform with a cloak. Clementine waved at him and went back to work.

"I'm sposed to be workin' in the armory right 'bout now wit' a Bonnie. You Bonnie?" The man had a thick country accent.

Clementine shook her head, not looking away from the AK she was cleaning.

"Ya know when she's gettin' 'ere?"

Clementine did in fact know, but that wasn't supposed to be for another ten minutes according to the clock. The man was early, so she help up ten fingers.

"Well shit. Ya mind if I just sit then?"

She shrugged, she didn't really care as long as she could keep an eye on him so she pointed at a chair in the corner away from any guns.

"Aight... so what's a lil' girl like yaself doin' in a room like dis?"

Clementine just ignored the man at this point, he'd figure it out eventually.

"Ya don' talk much d'ya?"

And for the next ten minutes Clementine ignored the man's attempts at casual conversation, waiting for Bonnie to arrive.

"Hey, city mouse."

'Right on time.' Clementine waved at the woman with a relieved smile and exited the armory. She could faintly hear the country guy asking Bonnie what her deal was before the door closed.

Two weeks had passed and Clementine was finally allowed to work harder jobs again. She had never felt so glad to actually be working on patrol or lookout duty. Finally being allowed to exercise again was great as well, she noticed that she'd gotten a little pudgy in her face from the lack of activity.

Right now, Clementine was sitting on the north side of the rooftop. Her Springfield seemed a bit heavier than before, but she had no doubt about getting reused to the weight. Contemplating about the things she missed, and the information their community received from new members. She also got around to telling Bill about Jane's request, the woman had seemed a lot peppier because of it.

More trucks, and people mounted on horses had arrived and left, Bill had expanded Howe's reach past just the hardware store greatly. There were two outposts so far in Tennessee, the fire station way in the East, and some town nearby Howe's. The outposts had been extremely successful in attracting more people to their community, the amount of survivors numbering in eighties now. They grew the outposts with the newer folk, and trusted people lead each outpost, each head having a long-distance radio directly connected to Bill's.

Most of the people who joined up were relatively well behaved, but some were unable to gladly accept the way Bill ran things. Many of those people eventually saw reason and gave up on acting up, but some of them just left when they had a chance. She didn't really care either way, they were large enough to hold their own against any bandits or raider groups.

Bill had been holding off on teaching her anything for now as he was extremely busy. But he would still have her visit his office and watch him give orders or do paperwork.

She'd hadn't failed to notice of all the maps he had laid out on a board when she visited. He replaced many question marks on the map with green checks. Although each day it seemed that Virginia would be covered in more question marks. Borders drawn on the map of rumored communities, The Saviors, The Kingdom, Hilltop Colony, Alexandria Safe-Zone, Richmond, The New Frontier, and many others.

The news that came out of the state was damn near terrifying, it was practically an unending war zone, with communities rising and falling everyday. It seemed that everyday they were finding more and more refugees escaping the godforsaken state, the news only getting worse as time went on.

She knew they'd have to send scouts to the state at some point, but she just prayed that it calmed down by then.

A/N

This chapter is short mainly because there wasn't a lot to mention. I had a much darker plan for this chapter, but I felt it went a little far. All you need to know is it involved Troy getting brutally executed by Carver because of some information that Clem brought forward about the man when spying on someone else unrelated. I didn't go through with that idea as it was a bit too messed up of a chapter that way. So I decided to just make this chapter only about Clem recovering from her concussion instead.