(Violet's Pov)
I looked to the letter a bit and I quickly put the letter away and look to Clementine who was looking at me.
"What was that?" She asked and I sighed and pulled the letter out and go over to it and hand it to her.
"So, she wants to meet you." She says and I nod.
"Yeah… but honestly right now I don't want to see her." I tell Clementine and she looked to me.
"I think you should, get her side of the story at least." She says and I look to the ground a bit and then back to Clementine as she hands me the letter and I take it putting it on the table.
"What does she have to say? She couldn't stand up to dad." I say and grabbed my cigarettes and hand one to Clementine who declined and I nod as I light mine.
"You think she was probably scared of him?" She asked.
"Why he never hurt her." I mutter.
"That you know of." She says and I look to her. We sit in silence for a bit and I take a drag of my cigarette and I look to the table a bit.
"Fine… but you have to come at least… I don't want to be alone." I mutter to her.
"That's fine." She tells me and I nod and finished my cigarette and look to Clem.
"You know what, let's go to a bar." I say and hit my legs as I get up.
"You want to go to a bar?" She asked a she got up.
"Yeah, I know a really good one." I tell her and I grab my things and look to Clem as she grabbed her stuff too. We walk out the hotel and head down the busy streets. Even at night this place was busy with people coming to have some fun for the night, especially during the summer break for any kids that were out of school. We finally get to a building with no windows and I knock on the door and someone opens the peephole and looks to me then opens the door.
"Welcome back Violet." Molly says and I nod as she let Clementine and I in.
"Hey Molly, oh this is-."
"Clementine, so good to see you again." Molly says and Clementine laughed as I looked to her.
"We know each other, though when did you move here? Last I saw you we were in Savanna." Clem says as Molly closes the door.
"Oh, been traveling around and got a job here, though I didn't take you for a lesbian." Molly says to her and Clementine looked to me.
"Yep, gay bar." I say and she laughed.
"Well, this is interesting, never been to one." Clementine says and we go take a seat and Molly joins us.
"Well, hey there Violet, when did you get back?" I hear and see Jane at the bar as she hands me a drink and asked Clementine what she wanted.
"Not that long ago, though we're only staying the week, Clem and I have to get back to Georgia." I say and take a drink of the beer.
"You got a new girlfriend?" Jane asked and I spit up my beer a bit and wipe my mouth.
"No, we're just friends, and co-workers." I stated and she looked to me with a raised brow then to Clementine.
"You're in the Army?" Jane asked and Clementine nods as Jane hands her the drink.
"Sniper, joined up with Violets group about a year ago, almost two." Clementine says.
"So when is Minerva coming to visit?" Molly asked and I took a big chug of my beer and looked to them.
"She died." I tell them.
"Oh god what happened?" Molly asked and I look to her.
"She got shot up, she wasn't with our group so I wasn't told the details, and I don't want to know." I say and Jane gets me another beer after I finished the first one.
"So why are you here? Thought you said you'd never come back." Jane asked and I took a drink.
"Came to visit my grandparents' graves, and show Clementine where I grew up… looks like they've been expanding our little town." I say.
"Oh god don't remind me, I hate it when girls bring their men in here, we had to start telling them to leave." Molly groans.
"Were they doing something bad?" Clem asked and Jane leans on the counter.
"Clementine, we are a safe place for the homosexual community, these were straight women bringing their boyfriends here… they sexualize us and one man tried to stuff money down Molly's shirt… we ain't a strip club and we aren't here to make their sexual fantasies of two women kissing true, we just want a few drinks after a long day of work and to chat." Jane explained and I took a drink of my beer as I look to Clementine.
"What if the guys liked men?" She asked.
"If two gay guys came in here, they'd want the same thing, a drink and to be by themselves to relax." Molly says and Clementine looks to me.
"But… does that mean I can't come here anymore?" She asked.
"I don't see a boyfriend with you, and you aren't causing trouble, so you can still come." Jane says.
"What she means Clementine is that there have been problems of people invading our safe space, here we can be shot or sent to jail for even being here." I say and she looked to me with shock.
"Why the hell-."
"Religious county Clementine, Laws make it this way for us, that's why we keep the door locked and you have to knock a certain way to get in." Molly says to her.
"Why don't you leave?" Clem asked.
"And let them win? Hell no." Jae says as she goes to help someone else and I drink my beer and set the glass on the counter. I patted my pockets and grabbed my cigarettes offering them and Clem takes one as does Molly. When Jane came back, I offered but she refused and I nod and light our cigarettes up and I clear my throat a bit.
"So, wait…. How did you find this place?" Clementine asked me and I chuckled and took a drink.
"Ran away from home and it was pouring rain so I took cover under the thingy… Jane was just about to leave but when she saw me, she invited me in… I came here when I didn't want to bother my grandparents." I tell her.
"Or get beaten." Molly mutters and I look to her.
"She knows Molly… she saw the scars." I say and set my glass down.
"You did?" Molly asked Clementine.
"Well, I was the only one that could dress her wound up." Clem says and takes a drink from her glass.
"You got hurt?" Jane asked and I nod and stood up and showed them the wound from the bullet.
"Fucking sick scar though." Molly says and I nod. I told them how it happened and how Clementine was a dead shot, we told them what we wanted to abut what has happened and they respected that we didn't want to tell much. We told them we would be shipped back out in August.
"Two months? That's a long leave time." Molly says and I had another beer in front of me. If I had to be honest, I was a bit tipsy at this point.
"Need to keep us happy, wars been four years going, fuck the pigs that stay here and make us fight." I say and drank a bit more.
"I agree, they want to make others fight but they won't go… but of course they don't care… that's why they despise us lady lovers, can't give them more people to send if we can't have babies." Jane says and we both laughed at this.
"Fuck yeah, a drink to that please." I say and Clementine laughs a bit.
"I think you've had enough." Jane says and I look to her.
"Aww come on Jane, I'm fine, I'm fine." I say and she looked to me and then gives me another beer.
"Your last one." She says and I look to her.
"I'm fine I can drink more, it's ok." I say and pat her shoulder and she laughed a bit and points to me.
"Last one, sorry." She says and I sighed.
"Alright, alright, but more in an hour." I say to her.
"No not more in an hour." She tells me.
"Aww don't be that way, I'm drinking for my other friends." I say to her.
"How about I buy you one last bottle at the liquor store, but one more." Clem says and I pump my fist.
"Yes." I say and they laughed as I took a drink and some of it spilt on me.
"So, Clementine, what is your type of guy?" Jane asked and I looked to Clementine a bit interested as well.
"Smart, strong, reliable, you know the standards." She replied and took a drink of hers and I look to Jane a bit.
"Why?" Clementine asked as she looked to Jane.
"Just interested, I like guys too but, eh." She says.
"Wait… you can do that?" Clementine asked and I bust out laughing and then fall to the ground.
"Serves you right for laughing at her." Molly says and I wave her off.
"Yes, it's called being bisexual, I mean there are other forms of sexuality as well that we know of, but that's one of the basics." Molly tells her and I laughed again.
"Y-You can… You can do that?" I laughed and I stand up and grabbed the table.
"Violet." Jane says and I look to her.
"Want to hear how Violet reacted when she found out you can like women?" Jane asked.
"Oh yes please." Clem says and I cover her mouth.
"No, no she doesn't she lies." I whispered to them. Clem takes my hand away from her mouth and I tried to put my hand back but she moved it away.
"Well, she had run away from that boarding school in Virginia and came here during the summer time." Jane starts.
"Shhh, I didn't run away I simply took my summer vacation." I say as I put my hand on Clementine's shoulder to hold myself steady.
"She ran away… and she came here for about a month, well she saw two ladies kissing and asked us about it." Molly says and I lean my head on Clementines shoulder. She pats my head gently and I move my head a bit.
"She said and I quote…. 'Well, I've never seen two girls kiss like they were married, are they married?' made Molly and I bust out laughing when we had to explain to her that no they weren't and she said 'Well they should get married, they seem happy.'" Jane tells her.
"Ah so she was the type to think they should be married first." Clementine says and I groan.
"I've only ever seen married couples kiss." I mutter into her neck and she laughed.
"I think it's cute." Clementine says and I move my head away from her neck and looked to Jane.
"We should be going; we have a lot to do tomorrow." Clementine says and looked to me and I nod and grabbed my wallet.
"Ah it's on the house." Jane says and I place a ten down.
"A tip than." I say and she sighed and puts the money away and Molly goes and opens the door for us and we leave. I would stumble a bit and then stand for a short time to make sure I didn't fall flat on my face. Clementine holding my arm to try and help keep me balanced and I look to her. We go to the liquor store and I look around as Clem goes and grabs a beer and I see a cat running across the street and I was about to go after it but I felt a hand stop me.
"Hey, come one let's get to the hotel." I hear and see Clementine and I smiled.
"But the kitty." I say and point to where the cat was but I don't see it and gasp.
"Magic kitty." I say and I hear Clementine laugh as she helped me to the hotel and I think as we walk.
"I was drinking for the others." I tell her.
"Well, you haven't had a drink in what? Three years?" She asked.
"Yeah, I deserved a damn drink." I say as she helped me to our room.
"Well limitation is best but you want to be sober when we meet your mother." She says and we get int the room and I lay face first in the bed and think a bit and turn my head to the side where Clementine was grabbing a change of clothes. I grabbed the beer from her and then get up so I could open it and I look to her after I took at her as she was grabbing a shirt.
"You are very beautiful." I say to her and she looked to me.
"You're very drunk." She says.
"Drunk mans talks are a sober man's thoughts." I mutter as I look to her.
"Well, you are not a man." She says and I finished my drink and then turn to lay on my back and look to the ceiling.
"But I like it when you call me handsome, don't know why but me being called pretty… feels weird… maybe it's because I've been around the guys to much." I say and look to the side at her.
"Well, you are handsome." She says and comes over to me and I look up at her.
"But only you can say it, no one else." I say and she laughed a bit.
"Alright, come on get out of those clothes and into your sleep wear." She says and I mutter a bit and grabbed the clothes from her and head to the bathroom. I change my clothes and came back into the room and I set my dirty clothes to the side and then lay back on the bed.
"Night Violet." She says to me.
"Night Clem." I mutter and fall right to sleep. When morning came, I woke up and rubbed my face a bit and then my head as it hurt. I sigh and get up from the bed and grabbed some clean clothes for the day. I took a shower, combed my hair and looked in the mirror a bit to see that I looked tired. I shake my head and leave the bathroom to see Clementine grabbing her own clothes and she looked to me and I nod a bit as she goes and gets changed as well. When she came out, I look to her and smiled a bit as does she. We leave the hotel and get to the diner and we are seated at a table ad then my mother came and sat across from us. The server gives us our menus and I look to it.
"How are you, Violet?" I hear my mother asks and I look up a bit from the menu.
"Do you really care?" I asked her.
"Violet." Clementine says and I set the menu down as I looked to Clementine.
"What, she saw dad hit me and did nothing." I say to Clementine.
"She just wants to know how you are." Clem says and I look to my mother a bit.
"Fine as can be." I mutter and look back to the menu and I hear Clementine sigh.
"Why did you come if you didn't want to talk to me?" My mother asked and I look to her.
"I didn't want to, but Clementine convinced me to." I tell her and she looks to Clementine and then to me.
"Are you two?" She asked quietly and I shake my head.
"She is a soldier like I am." I tell her.
"So, they did send you out there." My mother says.
"Was either that or prison, for something I didn't even do." I tell her then the serve comes and we ordered coffee and a simple breakfast.
"I tried to tell your father-."
"Well, you didn't tell him enough, man thinks I put the gun to her chest, Verdammter Scheißkerl (Fucking Shithead)." I mutter the last part. She looks to me and I look to her.
"Please don't speak like that." She tells me.
"He is." I tell her.
"He is a good man." She says.
"The hell he is, fucking bastard scarred up my back blamed me for his mother's death, and then hits me because I visited my grandparents, then he want's to act like a damn racist prick? I don't give a damn if he doesn't like me but don't ever act that way to my friends." I tell her getting pissed off and Clementine put's her hand on my shoulder.
"Violet hear her out please, don't argue with her." Clem says and I take a breath and look to my mother.
"I know you didn't kill your grandmother, I saw it when you couldn't talk to anyone, you were in shock, I begged them to… to send you somewhere so you could get some help from what you saw or heard, for god's sake I tried calling your name and when you didn't answer I thought you had gone deaf." She tells me and I look to her.
"I called the cops on your father before but they laughed, you think I didn't see the blood on your shirts? For god's sake I wanted to send you to my parents but they were worse and your grandmother was going through depression, she didn't want you to see her like that, for gods sake you weren't even supposed to be there that day but your stupid father wanted to hang out with his friends and get drunk." She says and I look to the table a bit.
"I wanted to take you away the first time I saw the blood but I have no money, your father spent it all." She says and I look to her.
"He use to be a good man… he got a job now." She says and I scoffed.
"Yet you have no money." I mutter.
"Violet." Clem warned and I sighed.
"He is trying." She says.
"After I left? He starts trying when I'm fucking gone, I will never forgive that bastard." I tell her.
"You don't have to, I'm not asking you to, but what I am saying is… you could still talk to me… I hadn't seen you in years and I miss my baby girl." She says and I look at her.
"And… I want you to know… you'll have a baby sister or brother." She says and I stand up.
"Vi-."
"No, no I' done with this conversation, that bastard treated me like shit but he's going to treat this one like a damn daughter of his? Fuck that, I was beaten, I was threatened, I was thrown out of my home and all he did was sit on his ass and drink away the money you earned, but now he decided to get a fucking job for this one? He's becoming a good man now when he had fucking… twenty fucking years." I say and I head outside as they both called to me. I didn't leave the diner's parking lot but I grabbed a cigarette and lit it as I waited for Clementine. She comes out after a bit and I look to her as she comes over to me.
"Violet-."
"I don't want to hear it." I tell her.
"Damn it listen to me." She says and I look at her.
"You have a mother who is willing to try and mend what you two have left of a family relationship, for gods sake you need to stop and you need to listen to her." She says.
"What relationship? She's having another child with that man, as if I never existed, well fuck them." I tell her.
"So what? It happened, you don't have to give a damn about your father but at least think about your mother and sibling." She says and I shake my head and look away from her.
"You know how badly I wish I could talk to my own mother? You have that chance." She says and I look to her a bit and then to the ground.
"Please just… talk to her, she's… she's trying." Clementine tells me and I look to her a bit and then finished my cigarette and pulled out another one.
"I'll be back in after this." I say and lifted up a cigarette and look to her and she nods as she goes back inside and I lite the cigarette. I look around the area a bit to see other cars and people walking around. I shake my head as I finish up my cigarette and I go back in to see that the food was just brought to the table and I go over to them and look to Clementine who nods and I go take my head and I look to my mother as she looked to me.
"When is the uh… when are they." I tried to ask as I motioned to her.
"Sometime in December." She says and I nod.
"So, um…" She stayed quiet and I look to her a bit.
"I'm sorry for getting mad at you… you did nothing wrong, you paid for the house I lived in and the bills… I just… don't like dad." I tell her.
"It's fine, you can be angry I didn't try hard enough." She says and I take a breath.
"No… you tried what you could." I say and then grabbed the coffee and took a drink.
"What do you do… in the army?" She asked and I set the mug down.
"Like grandpa." I tell her.
"A sniper?" She asked and I nodded.
"Yes… same as Clementine as well." I say and she looked to Clementine.
"You two must be very good at your jobs… I heard the war might be ending soon." My mom says and I scoff.
"You don't think?" She asked and I look to the woman.
"I'm hoping it would, but I doubt it… Clementine and I have to go back in August." I tell her.
"They send you home then take you away." She says and I take another drink of my coffee.
"It's our job." I say quietly and we eat our food. We chatted a bit longer and when we were done, we walk to my mother's home but I don't step onto her property and she looked to me.
"You can come in." She offered and I look to the house and then shake my head.
"No, it's fine." I say and she nods and heads in. Clementine and I began walking and I look around the area a bit.
"I can see why you love the garden so much." Clementine says and I chuckled.
"Yeah, not much here." I say quietly and she links her arm with mine. A truck goes right on past us at a high speed and then there is a screeching sound and I stopped and I turn a bit to see the truck backing up and I keep Clementine close to me and we keep walking till the truck stopped and I hear a door slam.
"Hey." I hear and keep walking.
"HEY!" I hear the man yelled and I freeze and turn to see my dad.
"Were you just at my house?" He asked getting mad.
"No." I tell him.
"Liar." He says and I keep looking at him and he looks down then looks to me and glares.
"Fucking around with a black girl?" He asked and I glare at him.
"No." I tell him.
"You lying to me?" He asked and he put his hands on his hip.
"Why the fuck would you care?" I asked him.
"I ain't having you taint our family heritage with this." He says.
"Yeah, well good thing I ain't having kids, though that would make you proud for once." I tell him.
"I… you…" He tried to say something but got angry and I keep looking at him.
"I hope our next child is better than you were." He says and I look to him as he looked to me and I look to the ground.
"That's uncalled for." I hear and look to Clementine.
"Shut it." I tell her.
"No, you know what Violet's done in the past four years? She's been getting shot at, she's been losing sleep, and she's been helping people, she's a damn good solider, she's a damn good person, and how the hell you with the way you're acting… how you could have a child that still wants to help people and still cares about people, when all you taught her was to be an abusive drunk." She tells him and he glares at her.
"You keep your mouth shut-."
"Or what? You'll have me hung for speaking out of terms? Fuck you and fuck the racist bastards in this state, people like you murdered my damn parents because you think you're better than us? Fuck you, you're so blinded by your bullshit that you can't see that you have a wonderful daughter, who has done nothing wrong but be your blood." Clementine says and my dad takes a step so I get in front of Clementine blocking him and I look up to him as he glared at me.
"Teach your bitch her place." He says.
"She isn't mine; she is her own person and she can speak how she wants." I tell him.
"You're lucky I don't have my gun." He says to me.
"You shoot her you go to jail for life you old fuck, I'll make sure of it." I threatened him and I was breathing hard my hands clenched in fists and he laughed at me. We stood there for a bit and a car comes by and my dad looks to the car and I see him move his arm and then someone comes up to us.
"Hey Richard, you remember Violet right?" My dad asked and I look to Richard.
"Yeah, what's going on, she bothering you?" He asked.
"Seems so." My dad says and I look to the ground a bit.
"Well, that seems to be an issue ain't that right Violet?" Richard asked and I glare at him.
"Remember this Violet, I'm known in this town, you can't do shit." My dad says.
"The army can though." Clementine says and I get back in front of her.
"Army?" Richard asked and he looked to me then to my dad.
"Oh yeah, trust me, they wouldn't enjoy the fact that the army's two best snipers were thrown into jail for stupid reason, and trust me, they'll believe us over you especially if they keep digging into our supposed case." Clementine says.
"Wait… you two are in the Army?" Richard asked and I look to him and nod a bit.
"Shit… I ain't messing with my people John." Richard says and I look to him as he looked to me then to my dad.
"The fuck?" My dad asked.
"John, stop, trust me they don't like it when service members get arrested and if they find out they were given bogus charges… ain't going to look pretty for either of us or this town, I ain't getting mixed up in this, so just go home." Richard says and my dad glares at me then heads back to his truck and slams the door and drives off.
"Just… stay away from your dad." Richard says and I nod and he leaves and I look to Clementine.
"I'm sorry." Clementine says and I shake my head.
"It's not your fault, look… let's just go back to Georgia, I'm done." I say and we walk back to the hotel.
"I… I shouldn't have said anything." She says and I look to her.
"No… he deserved it, you were right, he threatened you too so you had every reason to go off on him… kinda wanted to punch the fucker too." I tell her and then chuckled.
"… I told you I didn't care what people said about me but I just… I snapped." She says and I chuckle and hugged her a bit.
"Hey, least you snapped on him, it was funny now that I can look back at it." I say and she laughed too as she hugged me back.
"I'm sorry, it's so damn funny that… the fucking sheriff backed off." I laughed.
"He was the sheriff?" She asked shocked and I smile and nod.
"Yeah, he is." I laughed.
"Oh, dear lord I'm in trouble." She says.
"No, trust me, he knows better now." I tell her. I let her go and look at her.
"Thanks… for helping." I tell her and she nods.
"Yeah… mind if we stop at the bar, I think I need a drink." She says and I nod and I we grabbed our things and I go and pay tell the front desk that we were going and return the key to them. When done we went to the bar and I knock on the door and Molly opens it up for us and we get seated and Jane gives us our drinks. We explained what had happened to them and Jane and Molly laughed at this.
"Holy shit, you really went off on him?" Molly asked and Clem took a shot and nods.
"Jesus Violet has the power of a saint to not punch that bastard." She says and I chuckled at this.
"Hey you didn't punch him either, give credit to yourself." I say and take a drink of my beer.
"I should have punched him, I should have." She says and Jane gives her another shot.
"You said Richard was there too?" Molly asked and I nod.
"Yeah… fucking funny as shit when he told my dad he wasn't messing with us…. Fucking priceless." I laughed and set my glass down.
"So, you two are heading to the train station?" Molly asked and I nod as I took a drink and then Jane gets me another one.
"Yep… I might be back again to see grandma and grandpa… maybe my new sibling." I mention.
"Shit your mom is pregnant?" Jane asked.
"Yep… yeah." I sigh and take another drink and looked to the table.
"Train will be in soon." Clem says and I nod and finished my drink and pay for the drinks. I grabbed the suitcase and say bye to Jane and Molly and then we head to the train station and I pay for first class again even though Clem said she would pay I got to it first and as we get on, I stick my tongue out at her and she laughed a bit at this. I set the suitcase up in its spot and I take a seat and look to Clementine as she also takes a seat but right next to me and I look to her a bit and put my arm around her and she looks to me.
"You sure you're, ok?" I asked and she nods and lays her head on my shoulder.
"How did you put up with that for so long?" She asked and I chuckled.
"I asked you the same thing, didn't I?" I asked her and she nods.
"Same thing." I tell her and she laughed a bit at this and the train starts moving. We sit there for a bit and I look to her a bit. when the night came, I grabbed the pillow and blankets that are provided and put the curtains to the window closed so no one could disturb us. I set up the sleeping area and I look to Clementine as she just looked out the window and I go over to her and she looks up to me.
"Want to sleep?" I asked and she looked to the bed a bit and then to me.
"Yeah… got a few days till we get to Georgia." She says and I nod as we change into clean night clothes and I get on the bed and she does too. I look to the ceiling a bit and then feel her shift to where her head was on my chest and I look at her head a bit. I place my hand on her head and rubbed it gently and kept my eyes to the ceiling. We didn't say much really, I mean not much we could say. I ended up closing my eyes and before I could speak Clementine says something and I open my eyes a bit.
"Hm? Sorry can you repeat that?" I asked quietly and she grips my shirt a bit.
"Do you think the world will change?" She asked.
"The world is always changing." I say to her.
"I mean… do you think people will stop being assholes?" She asked and I look to her head.
"Sadly, it's impossible for that to happen, though maybe over time more and more people will chance that people like that will have to hide like we do." I say and she moves a bit so she's looking at me and I smiled a bit.
"I know it's stupid for me to even ask that but it's a nice thought don't you think?" She asked and I nod.
"It is a nice thought, it's a wonderful thought, just peace, not one ridiculing others, people minding their own business, no more wars… if that happened maybe we could get some honest to god work done on helping each other." I mutter and look at her more.
"If you did want kids though… would you want them to be part of the change or to be born when the change had happened?" She asked and I chuckled.
"Why are you asking that?" I asked and she shrugged.
"Just humor me." She says and I think.
"Well, if they could be part of the change that would be good, could show my family isn't all that bad… but I would like for them to not know of the struggles I had, I mean not go through it, they need to know what the world once was so history don't repeat itself you know?" I asked and she nods at this.
"It's sad… the fact that a lot of children that were over there didn't have a chance to be the change." She says and I pat her back gently and rubbed it.
"It is… it very much is." I whisper to her.
"After all this is done and over with… you should live with me." She says and sits up so I have to look up at her and I laughed a bit.
"What is so funny?" She asked and I look to her.
"You're not joking?" I asked and she looked to me.
"Why would I joke about something like that?" She asked and I sit up a bit.
"Why though?" I asked.
"Well clearly, I'm not letting you go back to the same state that awful man lives, plus where will the duck run around once it gets older? I have a home already, and I think AJ enjoys your company." She says and I look to her.
"What if you get a husband?" I asked.
"He'll have to deal with it." She tells me and I look to the side a bit and then back to her.
"It's an offer." She says and lays her head back on my chest and I lay back down and rubbed her head.
"I'd… it would be nice… can I think on it?" I asked and she nods. We fell asleep and then the morning came so we got up, cleaned up the area and a lady came offering breakfast and I grabbed a plate for Clementine and I. we sat down and ate our food and I would look out the window and Clementine would read her book. We would talk at night till we fell asleep and repeat the same thing until we finally got back to Georgia. We get to Clementine's house and I set the suitcase on my bed and helped her take her clothes to her room. The time would pass us by and on the last day of summer Clementine's parents offered us to go to the beach and we agreed. We had gotten to the beach and I was laying in the sand letting the sun hit me as I relaxed before I feel some sand fall on me and I chuckled as I get up and see Clementine and AJ with buckets of sand in their hands. I quickly get up and chase them as they ran.
"Be careful." We hear Carley say as I grabbed AJ and I took him to the waters and threw him in the ocean and he laughed as he swam around and back up to me.
"Do that again." He says and I pick him up and throw him into the ocean again and I hear Clementine laugh at this. I look at her as she was wearing a black and white woman's swimsuit and she goes and grabbed AJ and threw him into the ocean as well and he laughed as he swam up to her and asked to be thrown again. AJ would come up to me and then Clementine asking to be thrown in and we continued to play this little game before Lee called him over so we could eat something. I take a seat next to Clementine as Carley handed us a sandwich each and I thanked her and she nods and I look to Clementine as she talked to Lee. It wasn't long till We were about to leave though.
"Vilet and I want to stay a little longer." Clementine says and I look to her parent as they look to me and I nod a bit at this and they look to Clementine.
"Be back before dark or you'll get sick we will check up on you two in your hotel room." Lee says and we both nod and Carley leaves us our clothes in a bag and they head on out.
"Um… did you want to stay longer?" I asked and Clemetine looked to me and nods. We stayed at the beach to the point it seemed like we were the only ones here. We had gotten changed out of our wet clothing though but we kept our shoes off as we sat by the water. Clementine had her head on my shoulder and I looked to the sky a bit and then to the soft waves of the ocean.
"Violet." I hear and look down to Clementine and she looked to the ocean as well and then to the sky.
"It's really pretty tonight." She says and I nod at this. I couldn't help what came out of my mouth.
"Not as pretty as you." I say and I feel her lift her head up and I look down at her. I don't know how or why it happened but it felt so nice when she pressed her lips to mine in a kiss. I honestly didn't want it to end but she pulled away and I look at her as she looked back to the ocean. She looked nervous and I put my arm around her shoulder and she looked to me as I look back to her. I kissed her and she cups her hands to the side of my face and I keep kissing her till we had to pull away for air. She kisses me again and again I kissed her back and then pulled away. I look to her as she looked up to me and I look as she got up and smiled at me and I got up as well as we walked the beach a bit. she wrapped her arm around mine as we walked and I would look to her a bit as we walked and then to the front of us. I started to think too much I guess because Clementine looked to me as I look to her and she had worry on her face.
"Is something wrong?" She asked and I look at her and I shake my head no.
"No, I mean…" I stopped and put my hand to her side a bit and then I look to her a bit.
"Did you not like kissing me?" She asked.
"I did like it… it's just… I thought you… I didn't think you'd have those feelings for me." I admitted and she looked to me and then she kissed me on the cheek gently and I hold her a little closer to me.
"We should head back before Lee and Carley check our room." She says and I nod as we walked to the hotel and go into our room and change into a pair of night clothes. There was a knock at the door and Clementine went and answered it. I could hear her talking to Lee and Carley for a bit and then they left and Clementine closed the door and I look over to her as she looked to me. I smile and many more days passed us by before we had to go back to work. I was backing my ruck sack and the duck had gotten bigger and hopped on the bed and quacked at me.
"Hahah, they don't want you to go." Clementine laughed as she came in the room. She pet the duck a bit and it quacked at her too and ruffled it's feathers a bit.
"Same to you, ah but don't worry we will be back." I tell the duck.
"You never named the duck by the way." Clem says and I think.
"I honestly haven't thought of a good name, well AJ probably named them already." I say and the duck runs to the door as I hear the front door open.
"Well, hello there, having fun?" I hear Lee ask and then he came over to us and I finished packing my rucksack and looked to Clementine who had brought hers already in the room.
"I'll take you two to the train station." He says.
"Thank you, will AJ join us?" Clementine asked.
"Yes, I told the school he would be late so they are ok with it." Lee tells her and she nods takes Lee out the room and I look down to the ground to the duck and I bend down to pet them and they look at me.
"You're probably going to be mad at me for leaving, but hey you got AJ and Lee and Carley." I tell them and they quack at me and I chuckled as we leave the room and Lee took us to car and the duck hops in next to AJ and we laughed at this.
"Better than a dog." AJ says and I laugh some more as we get in and Lee drives us to the train station.
"Well, it acts like a dog." Carley says as she looked to us from the back seat. I nod and then pet the duck some more and we finally reached the train station and Clementine and I grabbed our bags and her family also got out to say they would see her soon. I waited on the side a bit before I get a hug as well from AJ and I look down to him and I pat his head.
"Come back and visit, ok?" He asked and I nod and I look around and whispered to AJ.
"I left some money for duck food and other things on the kitchen table at Clementines house… there's also a little extra if you want to get yourself some sweets as a thanks for watching them for me." I say and he nods and hugged me again.
"I'll take good care of Ducky." He says.
"That's the name?" I asked and he nods.
"Nice name." I say and stand up and looked to Lee and the others as I hold my hand out but Carley pulls me into a hug.
"It was nice meeting you, hope you come back to visit again." She says and I look to Clementine who nods and I nod as well and hugged her back and then Lee also hugs me. It was weird but I dealt with it Clementine came over and we said our goodbyes and we headed to the train, showing them, our tickets and we get on. We sat down and relaxed for a bit and I looked to the window as we saw wildlife mostly.
"We will be back home soon." She says and I look to her and take her hand in mine.
"Yeah… It was really nice, your family." I say to her and she nods. We stay silent as we traveled back to the country that was war torn and when we did arrive back, we were instantly put with a different group. We were issued our weapons and I look to see we had new scopes and I grabbed my old one from my bag as did Clementine and we took the new ones off and fixed our used ones on. We were taken to one of the new camps they had found and we had to guard the area, according to them the camp was abandoned so they brought any sick people here.
"Hey did you hear that there were gas chambers here?" I hear a soldier asked.
"Seriously? What use do they have for them?" One other solider asked and I look to Clementine as she just looked to the front as we guarded one of the buildings. Why they had us guard it made no sense to us but we just did as told.
"They put people in them you idiot." Another soldier says and smacked the boy on the back of the head.
"How was I to know? I just got here last week." He complained. I shake my head a bit and looked to Clementine.
"You'd think they would try to put us back with Louis and the others, not guard an empty building." I say to her quietly.
"Honestly I'm so use to the traveling around, this is taking forever." She says and I chuckled a bit.
"Well, we could ask each other questions." I say and she looked to me and sighed.
"Alright, we can play your game." She joked and I nod.
"Favorite color?" I asked.
"Well, it was yellow but now… I'm leaning towards purple." She says as she looked to me and I turned a bit red.
"Maybe a specific kind of purple… a Violet perhaps?" She asked and I clear my throat a bit.
"You don't say?" I asked and she laughed.
"Your turn." She says and I look to her as she thinks.
"Favorite book?" She asked.
"Oh, the one you read to me, you never told me the title of it, but I like that one… we never did finish it." I say to her and she nods.
"Well, we can finish it when we go back home." She says and I nod. We stood there and talked a bit, I found out that she really like apples, but not apple pie, that she once saw a family of racoons in her treehouse, and also the fact that she had a treehouse when she was younger. I was just about to ask her another question when we hear someone call to us.
"VIOLET!" I hear and look to see Louis as he crashed into me and gave me a big bear hug and I laughed and hugged him back.
"Hey Louis, are the others here?" I asked.
"Yeah, they are, apparently David had to stay back home longer to deal with something." Louis tells us.
"Hope it wasn't something too bad." Clementine says and they hugged each other. I look to see Ruby and the others come over to us.
"They have you guarding an empty building?" Aasim asked and I shrugged.
"Guess so." Clementine says.
"So where did you two head for leave?" Louis asked.
"We went to Clementine's home." I tell him.
"Oh? How was it?" He asked and we only told him to good parts, we didn't tell him about us going to Texas, or how I almost choked a boy out either. We also didn't tell him about us at the beach. It wasn't the time or place for that.
"Hey wait didn't David go to Georgia too? Shit last we heard his son got in trouble; did you know anything about that?" Marlon asked and I shrugged.
"No, we didn't hear anything, but he must have gotten his ass kicked." I mutter.
"What happened did you meet him?" Ruby asked.
"Yes, he was being rude and telling our stories as if they were his own." I tell them.
"How do you know?" Marlon asked and Clementine explained the situation to them.
"He's actually going around saying he was in our group?" Marlon asked pissed.
"Seems so, guess his dad had been sending him letters, I wouldn't be surprised if a soldier actually beat him for lying, these aren't the best times to do that." Ruby says.
"Especially if you talk to the older vets with major PTSD… it's quite scary." Aasim says and I nod.
"Oh yeah." I say and took a drink from my canteen.
"So, you go to any bars?" Mitch asked.
"Oh yeah, got drunk as hell." I say to him and he gives me a high-five and I chuckled. We talked for a bit before Clementine and I were allowed to leave and we head over to get something to eat.
"Dude when I got home I just went to any bar I could." Mitch tells me and I nod at this.
"So you have a pet duck now?" Ruby asked and I nodded.
"It's so damn cute, Violet got it a bed and even some toys." Clementine laughed but I just smile.
"It's my first pet, damn right I'm going to treat them like the king or queen they are." I tell them and they laugh.
"But do ducks even play with toys?" Louis laughed.
"Hers apparently does." Clementine says and they laughed.
"Hey, Ducky is an adorable fluffy creature that deserves the best." I say and take a bite of my cracker.
"You named it Ducky?" Mitch laughed.
"No, AJ did." I say and take another bite of my cracker.
"Oh well cool name for a duck." Louis says.
"Ya'll were going to rip on me if I named the duck that but her brother named it and it's cool? Low blow." I say and I hear Clementine laugh at this and I shove her a bit and she shoved me back.
"Come on if a kid gives animals names like that it's cute." Louis tells me and I glare at him.
"Oh yeah? What about your turtle hu? Geoff?" I asked.
"It's a badass name for a turtle." Louis says.
"Booo, weak name." I say and we laughed at this.
"So, I heard that the war could be ending soon." Omar says and I look to him.
"Been hearing that a lot lately, but they never said how or what is causing it to end… I think they just want people to be happy to think we can get home soon." I say and took a drink of my water.
"It would be nice though, just end this stupid shit, I mean why did this even start?" Mitch asked.
"Fucking the dude Carver thought all these people were after him since he got power, went crazy started to blame some people here and there then for some fucked up reason, I guess someone from a different region tried to assassinate him and so he started a war with them, and because we are part of that regions help line I guess you could say, they send us here to try and police the issue… well one of our own shoots at one of Carvers top men, they kill our solider and then more shit happens, it's crazy I tell you." I explained and finished my cracker.
"I thought it was because Carver started a cult." Aasim says.
"That too, some strange cult thing, he thinks he's the Shepard and we are all his sheep, that we need to be a part of his flock in order to be stronger." Clementine says and I scoff.
"Let me guess, he thinks he should have like… fifty wives as well?" I joked and then shook my head.
"That I have no idea about, but knowing him, maybe." Aasim says and I grabbed a piece of chocolate in my MRE and I hand half to Clementine and she thanks me for it and I grabbed a cigarette and offers anyone a cigarette as well.
"The New Frontier group has been causing issues too, them and Delta have been fighting like cats and dogs since we left, they bombed each other, and they're still fighting." Marlon says and shows us the map as I light my cigarette.
"I would say let them kill each other at this point but damn." Mitch says and I look at the map.
"Well seems like you all found each other." We hear and see Luke and nod as we look back to the map Marlon had.
"Hey Luke." Clementine says.
"Hey, I need to talk with you." Luke says and I look to her as she looked to him and she nods then gets up, pats my shoulder and follows him. I watch her go and then hear Louis snickering so I glare at him.
"Ooooh does little old Violet have a crush on Clementine?" He asked.
"No I don't we just became really good friends." I tell him.
"Oh sure, sure." He says and I shove him.
"No seriously it's great if you like her." He says.
"I don't." I tell him.
"Well if you aren't maybe I should show her my charm." He says.
"And that would be?" I asked and the others laughed a bit.
"Louis has a crush on Clementine?" Ruby asked.
"I ain't afraid to admit it, but yes, you think she'll go out with a guy like me?" He asked and I look to see him looking at me and I shrugged.
"I mean maybe, but trust me you have no chance." I say to him.
"And you would be such a great friend if you helped me, come on you got to spend two months with her, you work with her more than I do, come on details help a man out." He says and I feel a bit uneasy but we agreed to keep our relationship on the down low.
"Look I never asked her relationship stuff, we just hung out most the time." I tell him.
"Come on, at least tell me what her favorite food is, maybe I could go to Georgia and spend time with her." He says and I look to him.
"Well, she does love apples." I tell him.
"Oh cool, I got an apple pie thing with my MRE." He says and Clementine comes back before I could tell him that she doesn't like apple pies.
"Hey Clem, you want my apple pie?" He asked and she looked to him a bit then to the pie.
"Oh, sorry I uh, I don't like apple pies, but thank you." She says and Louis looked to me and I rubbed my face a bit.
"You said she liked apples." He says and Clem looks to me quickly.
"Yeah, apples, not apple pies." I tell him.
"I'm sorry it's just something about it that I don't like." She apologized to him.
"Nah it's fine, if I find any apples, I'll get you one." He says to her and she nods a bit at this. We got our orders that we would be heading out in the morning so we should get some sleep now or we will be tired for the trip. We all head to our tents, of course Clementine and I decided to share one but I didn't go in it as Clementine poked her head out to look at me.
"You ok there?" She asked and I nod and look to my canteen.
"Um… I'm just going to fill my canteen, does yours need to be filled?" I asked and she nods but gets out the tent and walks with me.
"Why did Louis want to know what food I liked?" She asked quietly as she filled her canteen up and I look to her.
"He's just wanting to know what everyone wanted, if he ever found something." I lied and she looks to me a bit and raised her brow at me.
"I know you are lying." She says and I look to my canteen a bit and hold it with both hands.
"He just… wanted to know." I tell her and she leans on the water truck as I go to fill my canteen. I feel her place a kiss to my cheek and I look to her as she looks to me and I smile a little.
"Tell me the truth Violet." She says and I frowned and finished filling my canteen.
"I am." I tell her and she looked to me and sighed.
"Alright, I'll let it slide." She says and whispers in my ear.
"But no more kisses while we are here." She tells me and before she could walk away, I grabbed her hand and sighed.
"He… kind of want's to… ask you out… I think." I tell her and she looked to me a bit and I kept looking at her.
"Oh, ok… well did you tell him I'm not interested?" She asked.
"I… I mean I told him he didn't have a chance but… hey he's a good guy, just doesn't like to listen sometimes, you know this." I tell her and she nods.
"And plus… we can't really be romantic out here, and they were kind of… saying I had a crush on you but we agreed not to talk about it here." I tell her and she nods.
"Alright, I get it… sorry for threating to take away your kisses." She says and kissed my cheek again and I smiled and looked around to see no one so I kissed her cheek too. We go to our tent and get some sleep while we could.