(Clementine's Pov)
I look to the door as does Violet. I didn't know if the knocking was real or if we just imagined it, but then there was another knock at the door and Violet looked to me as I looked to her. I moved off of her and went to answer the door to see AJ along with Tenn.
"Oh, uh hey you two." I say to them.
"Sorry, we just wanted to sleep in here with you guys." AJ says and I raise a brow at them and then look to Violet who shrugged.
"Uh sure but do we need to bring in-." I didn't finish before they came in and I see the large amounts of pillows and blankets in their hands. They drop them to the floor and then leave the room and I look to Violet again.
"Oh god." She says and then the boys come back with a few more stuff.
"Pillow fort." Tenn says and I nod.
"Ah, got it… need help?" I asked.
"Yes." AJ says and I chuckled as both Violet and I helped them with their extravagant pillow fort. They then said that we all would be in this fort for the night and we agreed as we went into the fort and I looked to the roof of the blankets and AJ along with Tenn were asking Violet if she could play her guitar again. She agreed at this point and had grabbed her guitar and just started to play a soft melody. I had my head by her lap and the boys were drawing. I would look to Violet some times and she was just playing her guitar and it was just relaxing.
"I'm going to head back to town tomorrow." She says and looked to me.
"Got to get a guitar for AJ." She says and I look to see AJ as he looked to Her.
"Really?" He asked.
"Sure, that's if you still want to play." She says and he nods.
"Yes." He says excited and I smiled at this.
"So, what's with the wedding rings?" Tenn asked.
"They're friendship rings, we had a whole argument on it." AJ tells him.
"…Those are wedding rings; those are way to nice to be friendship rings." Tenn says and both Violet and I laughed.
"Well next time we will find plastic ones." Violet tells him.
"I'm just saying, those look like wedding rings." He says and I look to Violet who just smiled.
"Are you and Clem going to get together?" AJ asked.
"No." We both say and she went back to her guitar.
"Why not?" He asked.
"We just don't want to be together." I tell him.
"But why?" He asked and I look to Violet as she looked to me.
"Well, would there be any difference if we were together?" She asked him.
"Maybe." He says.
"Well, what would the differences be?" I asked as we just looked to the boys and we let them sit and think for a bit.
"Well… you'd be happy." Tenn says.
"We're already happy with how we are right now." I stated.
"You wouldn't leave as much." AJ says.
"I already said I was going to stay, but even if we were there might be times I'd still leave." I tell him.
"Violet would be happy." Tenn says.
"Again, already happy with how we are." She tells him and they went silent for a bit and they looked to each other.
"Well wouldn't it be nice?" AJ asked and I look to him a bit and then sit up.
"By any chance did Louis put you two up to this?" Violet asked and I look to her then to the boys.
"No he didn't." They both say quickly.
"Wait, why would he put them up to this?" I asked her and she just went back to her guitar.
"Why would Louis put them up to this?" I asked again and she looked to me a bit.
"Well… remember when I thought the boys locked us in the greenhouse?" She asked.
"Which we didn't." AJ says.
"And I said I was sorry." She says and he nods.
"Well turns out it was Louis that locked us up in there… apparently we needed to talk in his opinion." She tells me and I look to her and then to the boys a bit.
"Did he put you two up to this?" I asked and they were quiet.
"I'm not mad at you two just be honest with us." I say and they nod a bit and I look to her and she looked to me as she stopped playing her guitar and then she set it to the side and looked to the boys as she patted her legs a bit.
"Ok, so… Clem and I WERE together-."
"WHEN?!" They both asked a little excited.
"Well, that's not important, it's in the past, just know that at one point we were together but we aren't anymore." She tells them.
"But, why? Was it because of Violet snoring?" Tenn asked and I laughed and Violet placed a hand to her face as she groaned.
"No, I've gotten use to that." I say and she shoved me.
"It's not like I do it intentionally I just had a really good sleep." She says and I laughed a bit.
"So, wait, what caused you two to break up?" Tenn asked.
"Hmm, just something happened that caused us to end it." She tells them.
"That's a lame excuse." AJ says and I look to him a bit and I rubbed the back of my neck.
"Not really, let's just say Clementine has a charm to her that could cause people to go to war for her." Violet says and I shove her and she laughed.
"So, you got into a fight?" Tenn asked and I rubbed the back of my neck a bit.
"There was a fight that happened and well, let's just say it cause us to rethink a lot of things and just be friends." She tried to explain but both the boys kept asking a lot of questions, like who caused the fight? What happened to cause the fight? Why did we fight? When did the fight happen? Trying to gain as much information as they could but neither of us giving them a clear answer as to who, when, where, why and so on.
"You two aren't giving us to work with." Tenn says.
"Yeah, that's not giving us information." AJ says and I smiled sadly.
"It's not something we want to talk about, it was just a bad argument." I tell him.
"But how are you still friends?" Tenn asked.
"Why wouldn't we be?" Violet asked.
"You two broke up, aren't people usually not to hang around their Ex's?" Tenn asked.
"Well to be fair we didn't fight with each other just with another person." I stated.
"Was it Minerva?" Tenn asked and we both look to him a bit.
"No, it wasn't your sister." Violet said.
"Then who was the person you fought with?" AJ asked and I decided that it was time for all of us to go to bed.
"Alright that's enough questions for tonight, we all need to go to bed if we are going to be heading into town tomorrow." I say.
"But we have more questions." AJ says and I shake my head.
"Nope, time for bed you two, come on we let you stay up longer than you should have." Violet tells him and they tried to argue but Violet said if they didn't then they couldn't come into town with us which surprisingly got them to hurry and lay down and close their eyes. I look to Violet as she had left the fort and I followed her as she put the guitar up and she looked to me then looked to her bed and I helped her grab the pillows and blankets for us. We went back in the fort and laid down for the night.
We were woken up to the sound of the boys getting up. I moved a bit but realized that Violet had moved in her sleep and had her arm around me and my head was under her chin. I moved in a bit but then realized who was near us so I moved a bit and sat up as best as I could. I saw that the boys were not in the fort and I look to Violet a bit and then left the blanket fort so that she could sleep more. I go out to see the boys had gone over to Omar who was making breakfast.
"Morning Clem." He says and I nod.
"Morning to you too Omar." I say and he smiled a bit.
"Hope you like oatmeal." He says and I smiled.
"Anything warm to eat is great, especially when you make it." I tell him.
"Why thank you Clem… how did you sleep?" He asked.
"Good actually, again I'm surprised I'm up at this time." I joke and he laughed.
"Well, it is a surprise indeed but I'm glad you are here with us Clem." He says and I look to him.
"Really now?" I asked and he nods.
"Yeah, it's nice having you here, especially when you make people happy." He says and I look to him.
"Well, a specific person." He says and I rubbed the back of my neck.
"Anyway, the boys Violet and I are going to head into town, is there anything you'd like for us to get?" I asked.
"If you can find a simple cook book that would be great, with all the new spices and vegetables we're growing in the greenhouse I could use some new recipes." He says and I nod.
"Can do… actually we should go check the traps today too." I say.
"Oh Aasim, Marlon and Mitch are going to do that, Willy Ruby and I are going to check the fishing traps." He tells me and I nod at this. It was about an hour before we all sat at the table and ate the meal Omar had prepared for us. When we were done Louis took the bowls and went to go clean them since he was going to be staying here while we all went out. I grabbed my bag as did the boys and Violet and we all went out the gate and started walking to the town.
The boys kept trying to ask us more questions on what cause us to not be together anymore and we just changed the subject but ten minutes they would try and bring it up again. We again changed the subject and they decided to give up just for now and they got in front of us and I look around a bit. when we did reach the edge of town, we saw a bunch of Walkers as they were walking around.
"They weren't here yesterday." I say and we looked around a bit.
"Think that James guy is around?" Violet asked.
"That's the only thing I can think that would cause a bunch of Walkers to be here when they weren't." I say.
"Does that mean we will see him again?" AJ asked.
"Maybe… though right now I don't want to run into him." I say as we went to the side and I grabbed my knife. Violet grabbed her own knife and we killed two Walkers and helped cover the boys in the Walker guts and then we covered each other. We walked down to the town and in the heard. When we got close to one of the buildings a few Walkers decided to block our path bumping into Violet who stops in place and I look to her as she looked to the Walker. It came close up to her face and I along with the boys look to her as she backs up slowly.
The Walker took a step closer to her so she stopped and it came up to her face and she looked to be holding her breath. The Walker then backed away and began walking again making me almost sigh in relief and she looked to me and the boys as she goes to the door. We get into the store and barricaded it then Violet takes a seat on one of the counters.
"Holy shit." She laughed and I look to her.
"That was a bit weird." I say and she nods at this.
"Was it sniffing you?" AJ asked.
"Probably, must have not covered myself that good." She says as she looked to the blood on her clothes.
"Well, we don't have to worry much, we should use a cow catcher next time though just to be safe." I suggest and she nods and we get to work on finding whatever we could. I found a few books for Omar to use, some were even for outdoor cooking since we didn't have an Oven or stove to work with and it got me thinking.
"You think we could get some electricity to the school?" I asked as I look to Violet who was looking at something AJ was showing her. She turned to look at me.
"I don't think so, why?" She asked.
"Well, we have a river, but the bad thing is we don't really know how to work with electricity." I mutter as I looked to how to make a water powered generator.
"I mean we are pretty smart so we could try, it would be great but I think we have gotten so use to how things are it's just not a need for it." She says as AJ went over to Tenn.
"That's true… I remember the cabin where there was a wind turbine, and then some generators… oh that might actually be good." I say thinking out loud.
"But wouldn't that need fuel? And hasn't that stuff gone bad by now?" She asked as she came over to me and I sigh a bit in defeat.
"Yeah, you are right, I forgot about that." I then looked to her a bit as she looked to be thinking as she grabbed a book on the Water generator and she puts it in her bag.
"If we can get the river to be a source it wouldn't hurt to try, we can dig up the ground to hide the wires or whatever we use, so it's not a bad idea, plus it can give us something to do." She says and I nod at this.
"Plus, we can try and get some water to the school so we don't have to keep leaving to water the plants in the greenhouse." She says and I nod at this. There was some banging on the store windows and we turn to see that there was a few Walkers trying to get in and I look over to the boys as they look to the windows as well and we go over to them.
"You guys get what you need?" I asked and they nodded. We go to the back to try and find an exit and Violet tried to get the door opened but it wouldn't budge and I look around to try an find another way out. There was an emergency exit that was slightly open and I wave them over and we exit out the store this way. There were a lot of Walkers and they just kept walking around as if there was nothing going on around them. We went to go and grab a Walker until we hear a scream and I turn to see a Walker had grabbed Tenn and AJ was pulling his gun out before Violet and I both ran over.
I grabbed AJ's gun and Violet had kicked the Walker in the shin making it fall to the ground and she grabbed its hand to get it off of Tenn. I grabbed my knife and went up and stabbed it right in the mouth before it could bite him and it instantly went slack and I pulled the knife back. I looked to Tenn as he looked to the Walker and I look to Violet. But before we could say anything there was a bunch of Walkers coming at us and I look around to find a ladder and I pulled Tenn up as did Violet and I take them to the ladder and then AJ ran up to us. We let AJ and Tenn go first and Violet stabbed a few Walkers that were getting close to us and I stabbed a few myself before Violet shoved me to the ladder.
"Get up there." She says and I look to her as she shoved a Walker back and I hurried up the ladder. I could hear Violet behind me and we get to the roof of the building and take a breath. Violet hurried over to Tenn as she looked him over and then she grabbed her bag off her back. I hurry over and see the bite on his arm.
"Fucking hell." I hear her mutter.
"Vi-."
"Shut up." She says as she took her belt off and I hurry to help her.
"What's going on?" AJ asked worried.
"AJ stay back." I tell him and I looked to Tenn as he wanted to cry.
"Hey it's ok, it's going to be fine." I tell him and he looked to me. I tighten the belt and then went into my own bag as I grabbed the first aid kit and opened it up.
"I'm bitten, I got bit, I'm sorry it came out of nowhere." Tenn says.
"It's going to be fine." Violet tells him as she hurried and grabbed her knife and I look to her as I help hold Tenn down.
"Tenn this is going to fucking hurt like hell." I tell him and he nods with tears in his eyes and AJ came over and gave him something to bite on so he wouldn't yell. We made sure we had everything before Violet started to cut a little at the top of the bite and he was muffling his screams and I look to him. I then look to Violet as she kept cutting until finally his arm was off and I hurried and grabbed the peroxide and made sure the belt was basically a tourniquet. Tenn had passed out and Violet and I quickly got to work on him wrapping his arm up and AJ looked worried for his friend and I look to him as Violet wrapped the bandages on his stump and looked around.
"Shit… shit ok, how are we going to get him down from here?" She asked and AJ then went to look for any way for us to get Tenn down safely and she looked to him.
"Fuck… how… it just…" She tried to say something and I look to her sadly then I look back to Tenn as he was breathing which was good at least. The only issue is, did we get the bit in time? We can't cut him again it was already painful to do. Honestly why was it so hard to see a kid in pain but yet I've seen plenty of adults suffer.
"Is he ok?" Violet asked and I look to her then back to Tenn.
"He's still breathing, he's just passed out, we just have to get him back to the school, Ruby can help him." I say and she nods and AJ runs over to us.
"There's a truck butt up against the building, we can go down that with Tenn." He says and I nod as we packed the supplies up and Violet picked Tenn up and we hurry over to where AJ saw the truck. I looked to see it would be a bit difficult to get Tenn down but not impossible. I helped AJ down to the truck first and then I went down. Violet and I worked to get Tenn down and then she would come back down. She would grab Tenn from me as we go down the truck and we ran past a group of Walkers as they growled and gargled and we hurry into the woods.
When we got to the half way point we saw that none of the Walkers were following us so we could walk at this point. It wasn't a slow walk though, we had to get Tenn back to the school. I looked to him and saw he was getting a bit pale but I put that to the blood loss and I looked to the stump he had. I then made Violet stop but before she could protest I looked to see he was still breathing and I opened one of his eyes just a bit and then closed it and look to her. She looked to me and I motion for us to keep moving and we finally get back to the school.
Violet hurried and took him to Ruby who instantly made her take him to his room and I stayed behind with AJ so he didn't follow them. The others asked what was going on and we told them that Tenn had gotten bit but we had to cut his arm off.
"Jesus fuck, is… is he ok?" Aasim asked and I look to him and then to the ground. I didn't tell them that his eyes were yellow, I remember Lee's eyes being yellow as he was dying. And it hurt. Honest to God it hurt to know that Tenn had to deal with the pain of his arm being cut off and it did nothing to help him. Was it because he was smaller? It took a while for Lee to be affected by the bite he got but he was bigger. I asked Omar to watch AJ as I head to the door and I could hear arguing.
"HELP HIM!" I hear Violet yell and I ran over to them.
"Violet, he's to far gone." Ruby says.
"WE CUT HIS DAMN ARM OFF, HE…he's not going to die, he can't fucking die that's not fair." She says and I come up to them.
"Clem tell her we got the bit in time." Violet says as she looked to me and Ruby looked to me and I look back to Violet.
"Vi-."
"No… no he's going to be fine, he's… none of you." She tried to say.
"Violet he's… it must have affected him after than from what I've seen, When Lee got bit, it took a while but… by the time he died he was pale like Tenn and his eyes were yellow." I tell her and she looked to the door and I see the tears in her eyes. I look to Ruby as she looked to Violet and I could hear Violet cry.
"He's only twelve… he's just a kid damn it." Violet cried and I place a hand on her shoulder and she shakes her head. She then goes into his room and I look to Ruby who also looked sad as she looked to the door. she looked to me and we decided to give Violet some space and some time with Tenn. We head out to the court yard where Ruby explains what is going on and that Tenn might not make it. AJ looked sad at this but I stopped him from heading to Tenns room. Explaining to him that Violet was there with him and that they shouldn't be bothered and he looked sad at that.
"You were supposed to be watching him." I hear and look to Louis.
"We were-."
"HOW THE HELL COULD YOU LET HIM GET BIT!" He yelled at me and I glare at him.
"YOU THINK IT WAS INTENTINAL?! YOU THINK I WANT TO SEE A KID DIE?!" I yelled at him and he glared at me.
"YOU AND VIOLET DIDN'T KEEP AN EYE ON HIM AND NOW LOOK AT WHAT HAPPENED!" He yelled and I was so close to punching him in the face. This fucker has been nothing but a pain in my neck and he's pissing me off right now.
"You shut the fuck up Louis, you have been nothing but a pain in the ass, you have been acting like a brat ever since that day by the cliff, and I am so sick and tired of your fucking mood swings, you have been a whining brat and for the love of god the fact you lived this long is a fucking miracle in itself." I say as I poke him in the chest and he looked to me glaring.
"You weren't there, you didn't see what happened or how it happened, for fuck sake Violet is covered in his blood, VIOLET HAS TO DEAL WITH LOSING TENN, SHE'S IN THERE RIGHT NOW WITH HIM TRYING TO KEEP HIM COMFORTABLE, YET HERE YOU ARE TRYING TO BLAME ME?!" I yelled at him and before he could speak, I shut him up.
"NO, YOU DON'T GET TO SPEAK! YOU CAN SHUT YOUR DAMN MOUTH LOUIS, I AM NOT GOING TO HAVE YOU BLAME ME FOR SOMETHING THAT HAPPENS, SOMETHING THAT NO ONE WANTS TO HAPPEN, ESPECIALLY TO A FUCKING CHILD SO SHUT UP!" I yelled and he looks to the side a bit and I look to see the others looking at us and I shake my head and I back away from him. We all were quiet for who knows how long and then we hear the doors to the dorm open and I look up to see Violet as she walks out. She didn't stop over to anyone but she heads over to the graveyard and I look to Ruby as she goes over to the dorms and I get up and head to Violet.
She was looking down at Brody's grave and then she looked to me then back to the grave. I come up next to her and I see the tears in her eyes and I wipe them away and she shook her head gently. I didn't like seeing her like this. I wish I could take this pain away from her. I know this feeling and I would do anything to make sure she never felt this pain again.
"Uh… I need… to find the shovel and uh… we need a grave marker." She says quietly and I look to Brody's grave a bit.
"Did he turn?" I asked.
"He told me not to let him… but… I… I thought… he'd get better… but he didn't… I couldn't… not when he knew it was going to happen." She says and I look to her. I moved in front of her and she looked down at me and I hug her gently and I could feel her tears hitting my shirt as she had her head on my shoulder.
"I… I don't know if it was right." She cried and I rubbed the back of her head as she gripped my shirt and I would shush her gently.
"Shhh, it's… it's hard I know… I know." I tell her gently as she cried more. We stood there for a good while before I took her to her room but Louis stopped us.
"Move, now." I tell him and he looked to me then to Violet who just didn't look to anyone only to the ground. He did move and I go and take Violet over to her room and helped her lay in her bed. the blanket fort was still up and I think it was going to be staying up for a while. I don't think either of us would have the heart to take it down right now. I do go in and grabbed the pillows and blankets for her and I set the pillow under her head and lay the blanket on top of her.
I feel her grab my hand as I leaned on the bed a bit and she didn't look at me but I take a seat on the bed and rubbed her back gently. I told her not to worry about the grave and that the others and I would work on it but she didn't say anything but she did nod at least. She held my hand more and I look to her sadly. The room door opened and I look to see AJ as he came in. He was also sad and he comes over to us but stopped at the blanket fort and he decided to go into the fort.
I look to Violet as she looked to the fort and I kiss her head gently and she looked up to me and I pat her back gently and she let my hand go. I head out of the room and out to the courtyard. I see as everyone kept silent and I go over to the graveyard and get to work. I dug and dug the grave I was about halfway done when Aasim and Mitch came over and helped wit the rest. Aasim had already made the cross and Mitch finished the rest of the grave. I then went with Ruby as we went to grab Tenn's body and I made sure it was wrapped up in the sheet. I saw the stab wound in the side of his head and the knife was on the other side of the room.
We go and take Tenn to his grave and we gently set him in the hole just as Aasim had placed the grave marker in its permanent spot. Marlon had grabbed the shovel and placed the dirt on top of the body and I rub my neck a bit at this. I never been to a funeral, this was all new to me and I know that you say stuff but what could any of us say? It's a terrible thing to happen, especially to someone they thought of as a brother, and for AJ a best friend. The others had said a few words and I look to see Louis as he looked mad. I know Violet and AJ couldn't come, this was hard on them, especially Violet. He was the last thing she had of Minerva, that was like her little brother, and to lose someone that close it hurt.
They couldn't be like me. When I had to deal with Lee I had to hurry and leave the jewelry store, I had to find Christa and Omid, I couldn't take the time to cry, I couldn't bury Lee, I couldn't do any of this for the people I lost. I was on the road, I was always surrounded by Walkers, I was always moving that the concept of a funeral was never an option for me. When we were all done, I went back to the room and nothing had changed I locked the door and I go over to the fort and saw that AJ was asleep and then I went over to the bed and Violet was still awake.
She looks to me a bit and then scoots over in the bed and I lay in the bed with her. She covers me in the blanket with her as she held me to her. I didn't stop her; I did put my arm on her side and rubbed her back gently. She placed her head on my chest gently and I just held her as she held me. We didn't say a single word to each other. What could we say? What could I say? Nothing. There was nothing I could say that could make her feel better.
She just stayed right there, her head on my chest and I could feel some tears hitting my shirt but she made no sound. I would rub her back gently as I tried to calm her down though I don't think it worked at all because she still kept silently crying. I could feel her crying to curl up so I would move a bit as I tried to keep her calm. I felt bad because I didn't know what to do. Was this enough? I don't know. Should I ask her if this was enough?
"I'm sorry." She says quietly and I tried my best to look at her.
"Why are you sorry?" I asked.
"I… I don't know… I feel like I have to say sorry." She says and I nod a bit at this. I kissed her head gently and she shifted a bit to get closer to me and I just let her do that. It took a while but she had finally fallen asleep and I just looked to the window a bit and looked to the stars. Why did this have to happen? Especially to Tenn. I don't think we will ever know or have the answer to that. I look back to Violet and I slowly close my eyes as I tried to get some type of sleep.