(Clementine's Pov)
I woke up slowly and felt Violet running her hand through my hair gently. I slowly move closer to her and felt her move a bit so she could place her hand on my side and her hand gently placed on my back. I didn't want to move from this spot. Again I felt safe when I was with Violet but I knew I had to get up so that I could leave. But did I really want to leave?
"Morning." I hear and then look up a bit to Violet but she didn't move her head as she kept running her fingers through my hair.
"How early?" I asked.
"Hmm, maybe two, three give or take." She says quietly and I nod and place my head back to her and I closed my eyes again.
"Five more minutes." I tell her and I feel her nod gently.
"Ok." She says and I just stay with her. If I did stay would we do this every night? Would we just have these silent peaceful moments? I would like that. It was nice, it was relaxing, and if I have to be honest it felt nice when she rubbed the back of my head or ran her fingers through my hair. I guess the five minutes were up because I feel Violet move her hands away from me and I look to her as she moved up in the bed and move the blanket.
"A week." I say and she looks to me and I look to her.
"What?" She asked.
"I'll be back in a week… not a month, not two, a week… and… I'll stay." I tell her.
"Are you sure?" She asked and I nod as I sit up a bit and we were face to face.
"Yeah… I have to get use to staying somewhere, and… you did say this was my home too… and I like this." I say and gesture around us.
"You… make me feel safe and I haven't felt this way in years, and… I don't now." I say as I place my hand to my head as I tried to think.
"Hey, what did I tell you?" She asked as she looked to me and I look back to her.
"To not force myself." I tell her and she nods.
"Right, don't try to force yourself, just gradually ease into staying longer." She says and I look to her.
"Fucking hell." I mutter and I feel her move in the bed so she was behind me her legs on each side of me and she hugged me. I feel her place the side of her head on my shoulder and I grab her one hand gently.
"Do you think you could stay another day?" She asked.
"I don't know." I tell her honestly.
"… How about I go with you till we reach the city limits… just a day out, and if you feel like you want to come back and not leave then we can head back here… I told you we all would understand." She says and I nod at this.
"Alright… do you want to get more sleep?" She asked and I nod. We shift a bit in the bed so I was laying on top of her. My head was under her chin and she had one hand on my back and her arm on the back of her head as we laid in the bed.
"Why am I like this?" I asked quietly.
"Like what?" She asked as she rubbed my back.
"Confused… confusing, just… I say I'm going to leave but I don't want to, but yet I do." I tell her and she shrugged a bit.
"You just don't know what to do, again it's fine, and this is what you are use to doing." She tells me.
"But it makes me look stupid." I mutter.
"No, it doesn't, it's new for you, trust me anything new that happens it makes people look stupid but in reality, it makes sense in a weird way." She tells me. I keep quiet for a while but we still just laid in the bed and I closed my eyes again. I tried to get any type of sleep and when I did, I would just wake up again. I tried to go back to sleep but all these thoughts began to bother me. I feel Violet shift a bit but I didn't open my eyes as she moved out from under me. I hear her leave the room before I opened my eyes a bit and I sit up in the bed. I moved the blanket to see that the stars were still out and I lay back in the bed and just looked to the top bunk.
I didn't want to get up, I didn't want to move but I felt like I had to. I do end up getting up anyway and I go to leave the room but the door opened and I see Violet as she had opened the door and I look to her as she looked to me.
"You, ok?" She asked and I nod and she moved out of my way and I just look to her.
"Um… would Ruby be ok with us uh… using one of her uh." I tried to explain and Violet laughed quietly as she pulls the Joint out.
"I asked, you seem a little tense." She says and I nod as she comes in the room and closes the door. she also locked the door too.
"Just so the boys don't come in." She says and I nod and she even went and grabbed one of her old jackets and placed it under the door cracks and then went to open the window. I followed her as she took her seat by the window and I take a seat next to her. She lights up the joint and then hands it to me and I take it gently and took a hit.
"I also snuck some chips for ya, so if you get hungry." She says and I nod a little and hand her the joint. She takes it and that's all we did was just pass it to each other before it was gone.
"I remember my school telling us about how drugs were bad." I mutter as I was laying my head on her lap and she laughed a little at this.
"Yeah, same here… they had a whole program for it." She says and I feel both her hands in my hair.
"But how can this be bad?" I asked.
"Eh depends, I mean I guess it depends on who you are and stuff, my grandma called it Devil Lettuce but I know she smoked it back when she was a teenager." She says.
"Hypocrisy." I mutter and she laughed.
"No, because she said I could try it once… she only said that when my mom or dad were around, she was cool about it." She says.
"Your family was weird." I mutter and look up to her and she nods.
"Yeah… Yeah they were." She says quietly and I felt bad.
"I'm sorry it's not my place to say that." I tell her.
"Oh no it's fine you are right, they were weird." She says and I feel her rubbing my head a bit. it felt nice and relaxing.
"Answer me this." I say and we look to each other.
"Why is it, that Louis thought you had to back off when the thought of Minerva being alive was a thing?" I asked and she looked to be thinking.
"Hmm, maybe he thought I would get back with her… if that's what you are asking." She says and I look to the side.
"But people aren't the same as they were." I tell her.
"Yes, that is true, people change." She says.
"I mean I told him this, I get that he says he is sorry but is he really sorry?" I asked.
"Maybe, he's not really the type to… respond normally at things like this… I mean he got his parents to divorce by making it look like his dad was cheating on his mom." She says and I sit up quickly and look to her.
"He did?" I asked and she nods.
"It's not my story to tell, I shouldn't have said anything." She says.
"Wait hold on." I say and I tried to sit up and she helped me a little.
"He broke his own parents' marriage up? Why?" I asked.
"It's not my place to say." She tells me again.
"Well, what can you say?" I asked now wanting to know. I mean he broke his own parents' marriage, then he breaks mine and Violet's relationship.
"…. He was stupid as a kid, that's all I can say." She says.
"But… he did that then look what he did to us." I say to her.
"He thinks he can get away with it." I tell her.
"He is sorry about it, trust me he regrets doing it to his parents and us, but again I can't really say anything on it with his parents." She says and I shake my head and lay my head back onto her lap. She ran her hand through my hair again.
"It's stupid." I mutter. She laughed a little and I look up to her as she was looking to the door and I look to the door too.
"Well, that's life, stupid stuff happens." She says and I nod. I look back up to her and she looked to me and smiled at me. I don't know when but I did end up falling asleep. I was woken up when I hear a soft snoring sound and I open my eye to look to see Violet as she had fallen asleep while sitting. Her head was leaning back and I couldn't help but giggle at this and I poke her cheek making her wake up and look around the room and then she looked down to me and she smiled.
"Have a nice nap?" I asked and she laughed at this.
"Yes, I did, and you?" She asked.
"Yes, I'm really surprised that I woke up before you though, hell must have frozen over." I joke and she laughed again.
"Must have." She says and I nod. I get up from her lap and we both stretched hearing our joints crack and pop. I then went and grabbed my bag.
"Mind waiting for me to pack up a bit?" She asked.
"Yeah, I can wait." I tell her and she nods. I look over to see that the stars were still out but fading away showing that the sun will be up in an hour or so. When she finished packing, we head out to the courtyard and no one was up or out yet. We exit out the gate and start walking to wherever the outskirts of town was. It was honestly a good walk.
"So, if you do plan on leaving for a week, where do you think on going?" She asked.
"Hmm, maybe just the next state over, if I'm going to be gone a week, I have to make sure it's that week." I tell her and look to her. She nods at this and smiled a little at me and then she looked to the front of us. As we kept walking, I feel her grab my hand gently and I look to her.
"Is this ok?" She asked and I nod.
"Yeah, it's fine." I tell her and she nods as we kept walking. I look at her from time to time. The way the morning sun hit her at the right angels, made her look really good.
"You're very pretty." I tell her and I can see the red on her face as she blushed.
"I'm not, pretty doesn't sound right." She says and I shake my head at this.
"Hmmm, gorgeous? Breathtaking? Handsome?" I asked and she laughed at this.
"I… I like handsome… I am a bit manly ain't I?" She asked and I look to her.
"It's not bad, I like the way you look… but looks aren't just the only thing." I tell her.
"Oh? And here I thought you liked me for my good looks." She jokes and I laughed.
"It's a plus, but… to be fair I like who you are, you're nice to me, you're brave in your own way, you told me to not think about you when we were protecting the school, that on its own makes you selfless, and I don' know but that on its own just made me fall for you more." I tell her.
"Aww, me selfless? Never heard of her." She says and we both laugh.
"Anyway, you just made me think a lot, but in a good way… I never thought I would like someone, I mean… you make me feel safe, you do a lot for me even if it's just talking to me, you're a wonderful person and to be honest… if we can't work things out, if we never date… if you ever do find someone else, I hope they make you happy." I tell her and we stopped near the edge of the woods and I can feel her looking at me.
"Honestly, you make me feel happy… I don't think I'll find anyone that could make me as happy as you did… even if our entire two weeks was just all of us working to keep a bunch of weirdos from taking us." She says and I look to her.
"And I know it's bad to try and compare but… you would be number one on the list of people I've dated." She says and I laughed a little.
"How many people have you dated?" I asked.
"Hey I have dated a lot, have you not seen all the girls just dying to meet me?" She asked and we laughed.
"You got a Walker girlfriend?" I asked and she gasps as we started walking.
"How did you know about my side girl Becky?" She asked and I laughed, I laughed so hard I had to let go of her hand to hold my stomach.
"Jesus fuck." I laughed and she laughed too.
"D-Don't worry… she's cool… hahah." She laughed and so did I. When we did calm down, we would look in the old buildings for a bit, there was even a small Mom and Pop shops where we went in and look around.
"Have… you thought about getting married?" I asked and she sputters a bit and I look to her.
"Well Clem that's a bit fast for me and Becky don't you think?" She asked and I laughed.
"I mean, have you ever thought of it?" I asked.
"Well, yeah I have but in this world? I don't think it matters… least we don't have to worry about paying for a bunch of stuff like the venue, the food, the dress or in my case a suit." She says and I look to her.
"I don't think you'd be the type to wear a suit." I say and she nods.
"Just give me one of those shirts that look like one and I'll be happy, oh god we don't have to worry about paying for all of that stuff." She says and I nod.
"Would my mom have liked for me to have a wedding sure, probably at the old church we had to go to." She says and I look to her as she picked up one of the old toys they would have in these shops.
"Would she have been fine if you were marrying a girl?" I asked.
"Probably, to be honest I never told her I liked girls." She says and I nod and we waked around some more.
"I didn't think about it, but do you think we should have left a note?" She asked.
"You didn't leave a note? The audacity." I say and she chuckled at this and I watch her. She would just look around the store more and that's what we did, we would look at each store and we even got to a mall before we decided to take a break. We had gone to one of those shops that sold beds and she took a seat on one of them and I sat next to her.
"What uh… what made you think about marriage?" She asked. I shrugged a bit and then looked to her.
"I mean, wouldn't it be nice if people still did that?" I asked.
"Well yeah, I remember hearing that weddings were nice and all." She says.
"And uh… well… I don't know." I say and wave it off. It was honestly stupid to talk about it now. I feel her get off the bed and she stood in front of me and I look to her. She looked to me then to the side a bit and then she looked back to me.
"If… you want… um… depending on how things go… we could… have one? But honestly Ruby and Aasim might be the first ones to have a wedding… unless we beat them to it, heard that gay people get married quicker." She joked and I look to her.
"Is this your way of proposing?" I asked and she turns red.
"No just uh… well I mean we aren't even dating so I mean… um." She stopped and I smiled a bit and get up.
"Well, I would be honored to be the maid of honor for yours and Walker Becky's wedding." I joke and she laughed.
"Mrs. Becky Walker." She laughed and shook her head a little. She looked to me and I look to her. I don't know why but I place my hands on the side of her face and she just looked to me and I kissed her. It took her a bit but she kissed me back and I feel her hands holding me by my sides. When we broke apart, she went to my neck and I moved my hands away to the back of her head and she kissed me on the neck. After she did, she picked me up and sat me on the bed as she kissed my neck more.
She then moved her head to look at me and I kissed her again and she kissed me back. I feel her move her hand to my leg and when we pulled apart, she looked to me as I looked to her. I gently stroked her cheek and she leans into my hand a bit. I kiss her again and she kissed me again but then she stopped.
"Fuck I'm sorry." She says and I look to her.
"Sorry for what?" I asked.
"I shouldn't… we shouldn't… I don't want you to feel bad." She says.
"Well, I was the one that kissed you, so doesn't that mean I want to do this?" I asked.
"Yeah, but not uh… you know." She says.
"Sex?" I asked.
"Yeah." She says quietly.
"We don't have to, at least not here." I tell her and she nods and I kissed her cheek gently. It was a while before we had left the Mall and hours later, we reached the state lines and I feel her hand let go of mine. I look to the sign and then to Violet as she looked to the sign as well. I looked to the road a bit and then I fix my backpack a bit.
"…I don't think I want to go." I tell her.
"You sure?" She asked and I nod.
"Yeah." I say and look to her and she nods and we head back to the school. Was this the right choice? I feel like it is, I was happy at the school, I was happy with Violet, I feel a little better at the thought at staying with her at the school.
"You know, if you ever feel like you need to leave it's fine." She tells me and I look at her as we walked.
"And… maybe I'd come with you if you want, but not for to long." She says and I nod.
"That would be nice." I say and she nods at this. We stop at a few more places and there was even a jewelry stop. It reminded me a little about Savanna and I just stop and looked around the place a bit.
"Everything good Clem?" Violet asked and I look to her and smile.
"Oh, just thinking what you and Becky would want for rings." I joke. She comes up next to me and looked.
"Hu, surprised people haven't taken some of this stuff." She says as she picked up a neckless.
"Why would people take all this?" I asked.
"Oh, you know, some people think that if events like this happened, we would use gold and silver in exchange for goods and stuff, gems too." She explained.
"Alright how do you know all about this stuff?" I asked as she set the neckless down.
"Books, remember the ones I grabbed? One of them was an apocalyptic survival book, that and where I lived people always talked about the end of the world and what to do… lot of crazy people who thought the world was ending type shit." She says.
"You lived in a strange town." I say and she laughed.
"Just a little strange, but yeah." I say and look around the shop. I would look to her a bit and she looked to me a bit and then she came up to me.
"Hold your hand out." She says and I do just that and she looked to my hand a bit and then she looked to me.
"Close your eyes." She says and I roll my eye and close it. I feel something slip onto my finger and when I opened my eye I look to see a ring.
"Holy shit, right on the first try." She laughed and I do as well.
"Is this how proposing works?" I joke and she looked to me with a smile.
"Nah but it's my own special way." She says and I look to her and she turned red.
"I mean, no just uh… in a friend way." She says and I smiled a little. This is what I like about her. She's funny in her own way, she makes me laugh, she makes me feel like I could do anything. All the little things she does makes me smile.
"Oh? Are you sure?" I asked and she looked to the side a bit and then to me.
"I mean… I don't want to push anything so for now think of it as a promise ring… or a friendship ring, until we make things official you know?" She asked and I nod.
"Sure… now let's find one for you." I say and we get to looking. When we found one that she liked and that would fit her she and I then began to head to the school. When we finally get back to the school it was close to being dark out.
"WHERE THE HELL COULD THEY BE?!" We hear as we get to the gate.
"I have no idea, they aren't in the room and we looked everywhere even by the traps and shack, the greenhouse." I hear and we walk in.
"CLEM!" I hear and AJ comes running up to me and gives me a hug and I hugged him back.
"Holy shit, where have you two been?" I hear and look to Ruby.
"We just went into town for a bit." Violet tell her.
"FOR A WHOLE DAY?!" Louis yelled.
"Well, I mean-."
"You didn't even say you were going into town, what if something happened?" He says to her.
"Hey we are fine, nothing bad happened, yeah I should have said something but come on, we didn't get hurt." She says to him.
"Look I asked Violet to come with me, if anything it's my fault." I tell him.
"No, I went on my own, look everything is fine, and we found some batteries, flashlights and other stuff, so it's not like we didn't get anything." She says as she takes her bag off and sets it on the ground.
"So, everyone calm down, please." She tells them and they do calm down a bit. I look to see Ruby looking at Violets hand a bit and I showed AJ all the stuff we had found.
"Where did you two go?" He asked.
"To the state lines, I forgot how close to the state lines this place was." I tell him and I see him look to my hand a bit but he said nothing about it. We grabbed all the stuff from our bags and set them up in the supply room and then we had dinner before it was my turn to take the first watch shift. Vilet was with me and AJ also decided to join us which Violet was fine with as she taught him how to play the guitar a bit.
He was plucking the strings like Violet told him and he looked happy about it. the fact he was having fun made me think how much fun I could have too. I look to Violet as she was telling him how to move his fingers on the neck of the guitar to make different sounds and he was having more fun.
"What's that on your guys fingers?" He asked and we both look to him.
"Oh these?" Violet asked as she held up her hand.
"Yeah, what are those?" He asked.
"Rings." I tell him as he looked to me.
"Rings?" He asked and I nod.
"Friendship rings." Violet says and he looked to the both of us and I nod.
"Yeah, we found them and thought why not." I tell him.
"Oh, cause I heard Ruby whisper to Aasim something different." He says.
"What did they say?" Violet asked.
"Well, they said something like 'When did they get wedding rings? Are they married now?'… are those wedding rings? Did you lie to me?" AJ asked as he looked to the both of us and Violet laughed.
"No, no these aren't wedding rings, rings can mean a lot of things AJ, for Clem and I it means we're really good friends." Violet tried explaining to him and then he nods and gets up, hands the guitar to Violet and goes and looks in the court yard.
"THEY'RE FRIENDSHIP RINGS YOU DINGUS!" He yelled and Violet started to laugh.
"Oh my god." She gasps.
"THOSE ARE WEDDING RINGS, DO NOT LET THEM LIE TO YOU!" Ruby yelled and then Violet looked to me and smirked as she gets up and points to Ruby and Aasim.
"I GOT MARRIED BEFORE YOU AND PYRO BOY TAKE THAT!" She yelled.
"NO, YOU DIDN'T!" Aasim yells.
"YES, I DID, I MARRIED BECKY!" She yelled.
"WHO THE FUCK IS BECKY?!" Mitch yelled and I laughed as I got up.
"HER WALKER GIRL! I WAS HER MAID OF HONOR!" I yelled and we were laughing.
"BULLSHIT!" Ruby yells.
"NO, YOU'RE JUST MAD!" Violet yelled as she laughed.
"WHY WASN'T I INVITED?!" Louis joined in.
"CAUSE I ONLY NEEDED ONE WITNESS, MY HONEYMOON WAS TODAY!" Violet yelled.
"WHERE IS THE PROOF, PICTURES OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN!" Louis yelled.
"I CAN'T AFFORD A PHOTOGRAPHER!" Violet yelled and we all laughed and stopped our little yelling contest. As we sat back down AJ looked to us and Violet rubbed his head.
"Did you really marry a Walker?" AJ asked and Violet laughed again.
"No, it's a joke Clem and I made." She tells him.
"It would have been nice if you two did get married." He says and I look to him.
"Why?" I asked. He shrugged and I watch him as he looked to the guitar and Violet was strumming away.
"Cause if you were married, you would stay here with us." He says and I look to Violet as she looked to him never stopping her strumming.
"I mean even if we were I wouldn't stop Clem from leaving, but I get what you are saying." Violet says as she kept strumming.
"Oh… so it would just be the same." He says sadly and I smiled a little.
"Well just so you know I'm still here, and I don't think I want to leave." I tell him and he looked to me.
"Really?" He asked and I nod.
"Yeah… anyway have you drawn anything new?" I asked and he talked about what he did and said he would show me all the drawings he made when we finish our shift. I would look to Violet as she kept strumming away and looked out to the woods. She looked so content if that's the right word to use. Our shift was done and we all head down and Violet even brought her guitar. By the time we had to head to bed Violet and I went to her room and she took her boots off and I go over to where she had placed her guitar. I look over to her as she locked the door and I grabbed the guitar and sat on the bed and she looked to me.
"Can you teach me?" I asked and she smiles and nods as she comes and takes a seat next to me on the bed. She told me what each string was called, and let me get use to plucking them. Then she would teach me how to make different pitches with each string by putting a little pressure on them on the neck of the guitar. She told me the knobs on the top were to tune it but that I didn't need to since she had already done that.
After a while and I don't know how but she was behind me as she held the guitar in front of me as she played it a bit. She would then let me play a few cords, though not at her level she said I was doing good for a first try. She would play the guitar more and I relaxed a bit and leaned my back against her front. I was happy, this was nice.
"You feeling tired?" She asked.
"I'm feeling relaxed." I tell her.
"That's good, I'm glad." She says and I nod and she kept playing. It was a while until she stopped and I turn to look at her and she looked to me and smiled and I smiled back. She moved the guitar to the side and I feel her hug me gently. I place my hands on her arms and I feel her kiss my cheek gently.
"Sorry if you didn't like that." She whispers.
"It's fine." I tell her. We sat like this in silence for a bit and then I moved so I was facing her. She looked to me and then I kissed her. She kissed me back and we would pull apart and then kiss again once we caught our breaths. I feel her move her hand up my shirt a bit before there was a knock at the door.