(Violet's Pov)
It's been days since I had come back home and I was currently laying in bed with Clementine as the soft pitter patter of rain hit the roof of the house. I place my face by her neck and held her waist a bit. She moved gently and closer to me and I kissed her neck gently. I hear her mutter in her sleep a bit and I smile a little and just hummed a bit as I closed my eyes a bit.
"Hmm, what was that?" I muttered quietly.
"Hmm, love you." She says quietly and I smiled.
"Love you too." I whispered and she moves closer to me.
"You have work in a few hours." She mutters and I smile sadly.
"Yeah." I say quietly.
"Hmm, call out." She mutters and I laughed a bit.
"Just a few more months." I tell her and she groaned a bit.
"Fine." She mutters and I chuckled at this. When my alarm went off, I got up and got ready. Clementine had coffee with me and made some breakfast. I ate the food and then headed to work after giving her a kiss and that's what my life was like for the next few months. When I finally was at my last week of work, my friends had come to visit me and we were currently at the twin's baseball games.
"COME ON DIANA!" Louis cheered and I watch as she got on the pitcher's mound and I watch her.
"YOU CAN DO IT!" AJ yelled and I look to Lura as she gave Diana a signal and I see Diana nod. She throws the ball and it didn't even look like it was spinning. It was a strike and we cheer. Lura throws the ball back to her sister and the game had been going so well. They were ahead by three points, nine to six.
I was clapping as Diana got another batter out and Lura threw the ball back to her. I kept watching the game more and I feel a bottle of water touch my face and I look to see Clem as she nods and I take the bottle of water and looked to her and then took a drink of the water. When they were at the halfway point of the game we went to go and talk to the girls a bit.
"You two good?" I asked as Clem hands them a water bottle each and they nod.
"Yeah, though I wish Diana could make her pitches softer." Lura jokes as she moves her hand a bit as if trying to sooth it while flicking it. Diana laughed a bit and pats her sister on the head.
"Hey, I have to throw hard when you tell me to do a knuckler, so suffer." Diana tells her and I roll my eyes at these two.
"You two… well you two make a great team." I tell them and they nod.
"So, are we getting ice-cream after this?" Lura asked and I smile and nod.
"Hell, yeah can we Clem?" I asked my wife and she looked to me a bit.
"You already said yes so yes." She tells me and I smirked at this.
"Anyway, keep up the good work you two." Clem tells them and gives them each a hug and I give them hugs as well. We went back to our seats as the game started again and they were tied up for a while. They had two strikes for the final batter and it was Lura. She was looking a little tired and I hear as everyone was chanting for her. I could see her looking over to us and I watch her a bit before they called a quick timeout.
Clem and I went over to the fencing by their dugout and Lura looked to her coach as he was complaining a bit to her saying something about how she better not choke and I glare at him.
"Lura come here." I tell her and she looked to the coach then to me and she comes over to me and Clem.
"You, ok?" I asked and she looked back to the pitcher and then to Clem and I.
"Look, doesn't matter if you win or lose this game, don't listen to the coach if it's stressing you out." I tell her.
"But if we don't win, we don't go to state." She says worried.
"Hey, hey look at me." I tell her and she does as she wiped her eyes and I look back to the pitchers.
"She likes to throw high balls by the third strike, you already have one, just calm your breath and cancel out the noises, even the people cheering for you. Take a deep breath." Clementine tells her and Lura does that then exhales slowly like her mom told her and I nod a bit as she looked to us.
"I know how you feel, but just think of this as any other game, no state, no nothing just like how you played with your friends over at Hershel's farm remember?" Clementine tells her and she nods.
"Good… now what are you going to do?" I asked.
"Keep calm, and relax…. Ok I think I'm good." She says and I nod as she runs back to the batter's box and we stay by the fence to watch her more. She relaxed a bit and when the ball came, she swings the bat and the ball goes flying.
"YES!" Clem and I cheered and the announcer calls it a home run as it goes over the fence.
"THAT'S MY GIRL!" I yelled and clapped as her and the other play cross home plate and Diana runs up and hugs her sister. When they finished talking to the other team, we all go over to them.
"You were so lucky, that was an amazing game." The pitcher tells Lura and she nods.
"You have really great fast balls I'll admit I was scared." Lura tells her and she nods.
"Hey maybe you and your sister can come play a few games with us, after you guys win state." The girl says and the twins nod to her.
"I'll teach you how to throw some knucklers, give us more of a challenge with your arm." Diana says and I couldn't help but smile. The girl nods and then heads over to her team as they were getting ready to leave and the twins look to us and gives us a hug.
"We're going to state." Lura says and I nod as I hugged her.
"You two were amazing out there, just like Clementine." Lee tells them and they smiled.
"Alright, let's get that ice-cream." I tell them and they laughed at this. We head on to the old ice-cream and candy shop and I paid for everyone's ice-cream cones. We decided to eat outside and I watch the girls as they talked to their mom about what they can do for their next big game. I look to the ground a bit and I eat some of my ice-cream and look to the shops a bit.
"You'll be able to make it to the game right Papa?" I hear and look to the twins and I nod.
"Wouldn't miss it." I tell them and they smiled. When we were all done, we head on home and the girls go and take their showers and head to bed early. I was sitting on the couch and I look to Clementine as she comes over with some tea and I smiled a bit as she handed me a cup. She takes a seat next to me and I look to her as she drank some of her tea and I look to the girls' doors.
"So, since we have to go out of state for their game, we have to get a hotel-… Violet?" I hear and I look to Clementine as she looked to me.
"Are you ok?" She asked and I nod and take a drink of my tea and then I grabbed a cigarette and lit it.
"Yeah just… I missed out on a lot." I mutter and looked to the tea and then shake my head and took a drag of my cigarette.
"Hey you're here now, and they don't mind they understood." She tells me and I look to her a bit. If I'm going to be honest, I didn't feel much like a parent to the twins. I was gone for their major mile stones, I missed their first game, their try-outs, I missed out on their life and I felt bad. I rubbed the back of my head a bit and then flicked the ashes in the ashtray and cleared my throat.
"I didn't do much on raising them." I tell her.
"You were overseas." She says.
"I could have said no… I just… forget it." I mutter and I feel Clem place her hand on my shoulder. There was then a knock on the door and Clem and I get up and she opened the door and we see Louis and the others.
"Hey the twins up?" Louis asked.
"They went to bed early or at least to take a nap, come in you guys." Clem tells them and they come in and are sure to keep quiet. I go and make them something to drink as they chatted with Clementine and I lean on the counter a bit. I don't know why I felt tired but I did and I shake my head and bring the cups over for everyone. Louis was talking about throwing the girls a victory party tomorrow which was Saturday. We said that if the girls did get up soon we could ask them, I'd much rather have them rest tomorrow then throw a surprise party for them.
Clementine went to turn on the Television and I relax in the couch a bit as I closed my eyes for a bit. Or that's what I tried to do but it was a little hard with a lot of people around. I open my eyes as I see the news on for the weather update and I watched it a bit.
"Looks like another rainstorm tomorrow." Brody says and I nod and sit up a bit.
"We can plan the party at a different time, I don't think we should chance it tomorrow." Louis says and I nod in agreement.
"We can also make sure if the others can come too, I know AJ has work tomorrow morning and he works all day since one of the workers is out." Clem says.
"How is he liking his job?" Ruby asked.
"Oh, let me tell you, he told me someone brought in a snake, and the damn thing had eaten a towel, how did it even get the change to do that?" Clem laughed as did the others. I look over to Ducky's old bowl and then the old duck comes waddling out the room and I smile and I get up and I grabbed them. They look up to me a bit and I smiled as I go and take a set on the couch and she relaxed on me.
"Hey where is home wreaker?" Louis asked.
"In the room with the girls, they love their room." Clem says.
"Surprised your duck is still alive." Mitch says and I look to him.
"I mean, ducks usually don't live that long you know." He says and I nod.
"I think she's just hanging in there." I say as I pet Ducky on the head a bit and she looked to me and then relaxes as she fluffs up her feathers and closes her eyes a bit.
"You and me both." I mutter and closed my eyes a bit.
"You tired? You can head to bed you know." Clem says and I wave her off.
"I'm good." I tell her and she places her hand on my eyes and I chuckled.
"If you fall asleep it's your fault." She jokes with me and I move her hand from my eyes and smile a bit at her.
"So, you get out in three months… how's it feel?" Louis asked and I shrugged.
"Like I'm busted, but hey I still get to work with the military once I'm done, my old job asked if I wanted to come back, though I think I want to take some time…. to relax and spend time with family." I tell him and he nods.
"They must really like you at that office." Ruby says and I nod.
"I get to travel for work and help build things too, they are making homeless shelters for everyone since the turnout from the last war, and this one is still on going, so might as well… take the job." I tell her and she nods at this. We chatted for a bit and they headed off to bed and I take Ducky to the room and lay them on their bed. I come back out and finish the tea and cleaned the cup. Clem comes up and hugs me a bit and I turn around and hugged her back.
We then head off to our room and just lay in the bed and I look to the ceiling a bit and then I look over to Clementine as she looked to me. I kissed her gently and she kissed me back. When we pulled apart I place my hand to her cheek gently and she looked to me and I smiled at her. We then hear the girl's door open and I chuckled a bit.
"Looks like they're going to be up." I tell her.
"They're teenagers, let them be." She says as she hits my shoulder gently and I roll my eyes.
"I'm just going to simply have a chat with them, haven't talked to them in so long." I tell her and she sighs but nods. I get up and head out the room to see Lura reading a book and Diana was asking her what happened next.
"I think the guy tries to break in a horse." I tell them and they look to me and I smile a bit.
"How are you not sleeping?" Diana asked and I shrugged.
"The fact I want to spend time with my girls I suppose." I tell her and they make some room on the couch and I sit between them.
"Good game today you two." I tell them.
"Oh, this was better than any game, the rush and everything." Diana says and I look to Lura a bit and I place my hand on her shoulder and smiled at her.
"You both played great in my opinion… still don't understand the game but it looked fun to me." I tell them.
"You should come practice with us, Mama Clem does." Diana offered.
"Hmm, sure I can do that. So, we were wondering if you two want to have a small victory party, it might rain tomorrow but we can find another time." I tell them.
"Sure, that sounds fun, we should do it at the park, or here." Lura suggests.
"Well, it's up to you two where you want it." I tell them.
"Hey do you think we can have grandma come? Your mom." Diana asked.
"Well, we'd have to tell her what day than so she can come and visit, she's getting a bit old." I tell them.
"We can have it next week Saturday." Lura says and Diana agreed.
"Alright, sounds good than." I then looked to the side a bit and rubbed the back of my neck.
"So how are you two?" I asked and Diana laughed a bit.
"Fine… what about you?" She asked and I shrugged.
"Tired but that comes with being old." I tell them and they both laughed a bit and nod.
"You don't talk much hu?" Lura asked.
"Hmmm, going to be honest, I don't know much about you two, I mean I remember you use to love the teddy bears I got you, and that you two like to fake cry but that was when you were babies and tots…. I feel bad that I missed out on a lot of your lives and I'm sorry for missing your first games, and all that." I tell them.
"It's fine, you were busy." Lura says and I sighed.
"Doesn't mean I can't have regrets of missing out on you two growing up." I tell them both and they look to me. I felt my chest tighten up a bit and I rubbed my hands together a bit.
"Are you ok Papa?" Diana asked and I nod a little.
"Yeah, yeah I'm good just… just a little um… emotional." I tell them with a slight chuckle and I rubbed the back of my neck. Clementine then came into the room and I stand up a bit and I clear my throat.
"I'm just gonna go outside real quick if that's ok?" I asked.
"Oh uh, yeah, I was going to head over to Lee's, but if you're going out mind heading over there for me?" Clementine asked and I nod.
"Yep, I'll be back in a few." I say and then exit out the front door. I walk over to Lee's and I take a few breaths and rubbed my face a bit.
"Oh Violet, hello." I hear and look to see the man himself and I just nod.
"Are you ok?" He asked and I nod again but then I look to him and I shake my head no. He looks to me and then comes over and places a hand on my shoulder.
"What's wrong? Are you ok?" He asked.
"I… I don't know I… feel like a terrible parent, and it's sad that… that they're understanding of it, the girls should hate me… I mean, isn't that what they're supposed to do? I don't know." I tell him honestly and I look to him.
"Do you want them to hate you?" He asked.
"No… well… I don't know, I mean… I feel like they should hate me, I mean I wasn't as active in their lives, I was away majority of their life, I mean Clementine should hate me too, I just… I don't know Lee…. I just… God." I mutter.
"You just have those kids that can understand that life can be so different… they still know you are busy, that you have a job that requires you to leave from time to time, but they still love you, and they understand… lot of parents wish they could have kids like them… but I understand that you feel the way you do, you don't like the idea of absent parents because you dealt with that." He explained.
"They weren't really absent." I mutter.
"Your… well the man that your mother was with might have been in your life but he was a negative impact, he was the emotional absents, our mother was a physical absents." He says and I just keep my eyes to the ground.
"I… I shouldn't feel scared but I am… I mean I get out of the army soon… I don't know what to do after that…. I mean the girls will be off to college soon." I explained and look to him a bit.
"Yes, that is true… but look at it this way, you can still talk with them on the landline." He tells me and I nod a bit.
"Yeah… um anyway Clem said something about you uh… oh damn didn't even ask what for." I mutter and he laughed.
"It's ok, I got it, she needed some eggs and flour." We then head to the house and he hands me the items and I thank him for the talk and I head back to the house. As I come in I see Clementine in the kitchen and I go over to her and she turned to smile at me as she grabs the items from my hands.
"Can you imagine that in a few weeks you'll be home for good." She says and I tilt my head a bit as she gets to work on the food.
"Um… yeah uh… About that." I say and she looked to me a bit.
"I uh… was wondering… if… maybe I could uh… work at the bakery with you? Until I can find a better job you know?" I asked and she giggles a bit.
"Yeah, you can help at the bakery, oh try this." She says as she holds out a spoon and it looked like chocolate batter. I take a bite and smile as it tastes like hazelnut.
"Oh wow, that's good." I say and she smiled and hands me the spoon and I put it in my mouth as I stand next to her.
"It's a hazelnut chocolate, grandma Everett loves this, I found it in her old recipe cards." She says and I nod. I then take the spoon from my mouth and look to Clementine and she looked to me and I look to the chocolate a bit and I hear her laugh and I look to her.
"Would you like some more?" She asked and I nod gently and she smiled and gently grabbed the spoon and puts some more of the chocolate on it and hands the spoon back to me. I put it back in my mouth and I watch her and help her.
"No that's salt." She laughed as I was holding the jar and I then took a sniff and looked to her.
"No, it's not." I tell her.
"Oh? Then taste it." She says as she crossed her arms with a smile. I roll my eyes and then put a finger in the jar and placed the white crystals on my mouth and it was indeed salt but I kept a great poker face and looked to her then back to the jar.
"It's salt, isn't it?" She asked and I look back to her and I nod a little. She laughs and gently takes the jar and I mutter a bit.
"Little salt won't kill a thing." I mutter.
"It will if it's a cup for sweets." She says and sets the jar on the counter and I chuckled a bit.
"I'm guessing the girls went to bed?" I asked and she nods a little.
"They uh… they feel bad." She tells me and I look to her.
"I… was it because of what I said to them?" I asked.
"They wouldn't say exactly what you said… only that you were upset that you don't know much of them." She questioned a bit and I nod.
"I mean it's true… I am upset that I don't know much about them, but I'm upset that they are a bit understanding of it." I explained.
"Do you need to talk about it?" She asked and I shook my head.
"No, Lee and I talked a bit." I then held the spoon and Clementine smiled and she gives me a little more of the chocolate and I smile.
"You really like the hazelnut." She says and I nod.
"My grandmother made home made cookies with hazelnuts… I guess it's just the nostalgic feeling… I mean she didn't have much so… it was rare but when she did have some, she'd always make sure my grandfather and I had three each." I explained to Clem and I leaned on the counter a bit and then look to her as she looked to me.
"You really miss them, don't you?" She asked and I nodded.
"I do… I really do." I tilt my head back a bit and chuckled.
"I… I remember when I ate all my cookies once and my grandfather still had one cookie left… he made sure my grandmother wasn't looking and he broke the cookie in half and gave me the bigger half… she must have had eyes in the back of her head because she told him he was going to ruin my dinner with all the sweets he was giving me." I laughed a bit and look to the ground.
"He… he told her that half a cookie wasn't going to hurt… turned out it did." I chuckled and look to her.
"And now you can eat pretty much anything." She says and pats my stomach and I laughed.
"Yeah… I keep forgetting they grew up in a time where they had to ration food… felt so bad that I couldn't finish the dinner so I just sat at the table… I think they felt bad because to them I was punishing myself." I tell her.
"Is that so? Well, you seemed pretty upset with yourself." She says and I nod a little.
"So, my grandmother told me that she would put it in the fridge and I could eat it in the morning if that would make me feel better… it didn't but I didn't mind having it for breakfast." I tell her.
"But you still had fun." She says and I nod.
"I did… I always had fun there…. might not have had much but anytime I was there that's where I had a childhood… picking the strawberries in my grandmothers' garden, digging holes in the back yard with my grandfather looking for buried treasure… going fishing, helping plant the roses in the garden too." I tell her and then rubbed the back of my head.
"You know, I remember my mother and I use to make some apple pies on Christmas." She says as she works more on the cakes.
"Your… Mother… biological?" I asked and she nods and smiles.
"Yep… and on Saturdays my dad and I made pancakes, it was tradition at that point… I miss them." She says quietly and I place my hand on her back and she looked to me with a small smile.
"I… are they buried?" I asked her and she nods gently. I think a bit and then look to her.
"Do you… want to visit them?" I asked and she looked back to the cake batter a bit.
"They are buried… but I don't know where… they are in unmarked graves." I frown a bit at this and she looked to me.
"I mean I know where but I never had the chance to get them headstones… and it's been years." She tells me and I look to her with a frown.
"Why didn't you-."
"Tell you?... it's still hard to talk about this… I know I was eight but it still… bothers me." She says quietly and I rubbed her back gently. I think for a bit and I kissed her cheek gently and she looks to me and smiled gently before she kissed me on the cheek.
A few weeks would pass and currently I was at home relaxing on the couch for a bit. I didn't have work to go into today since I retired and Clementine said I could start work at the bakery when I wanted to, which will most likely happen in the next week or so, can't stop working I suppose. I then feel someone sit on my stomach and then another person sat on my legs and I crack open and eye to see the twin and I chuckled at this.
"Well hello girls, how was school?" I asked a I tried to sit up.
"It was good… was wondering if you wanted to go out with us?" Lura asked and I raise a brow and shrug a bit.
"Sure, anyplace in particular?" I asked as they got off of me and I sit up and grabbed my shoes.
"To the ball park." Diana says and I raised a brow.
"Do I need to get a mitt and bat?" I asked.
"Yep." She says and they both just head to their rooms and I rubbed the back of my head a bit. I put my shoes on and then I see Clementine come in and she has a bat and cleats and I raised a brow at her.
"Ah so the girls were able to get you off the couch." She jokes and I chuckled.
"Yeah, guess we're all going to play some baseball?" I asked and she nods.
"Yep, though I think it's because there is going to be a scout at the next game, so the girls want to be prepared, they got Louis and the others to join in." She says and I chuckled and nod.
"Well, uh… I need to get some gear?" I asked.
"I have a bat and mitt for you, just need to get you some cleats at the store." She says and I nod as we get ready and the girls come to the living room. We all get in the car and I head to the sports shop and we look around for a pair of cleats.
"Well, if it isn't the wonder twins, you two need more gear?" A woman says as she comes up to us and I'm looking at the cleats.
"Nope, just getting our Papa come cleats." Diana says and I look to them and the woman looed to me. she seemed to have stepped back a bit as she looked to my face and I looked away a bit. I knew she was looking at the scars on my face.
"Oh uh, what size are you sir?" She asked quietly.
"Um… size eight, eight and a half." I say quietly and I hear the woman leave. Clementine then comes over and she has some other baseball stuff and I couldn't help but smile a little.
"Alright, got some spare mitts for the others, and a two spare bats since Louis is bringing his own along with Aasim and Mitch." She explained and I nod at this.
"Ok, and here are those cleats for you." I hear but I don't turn to look at the woman and Lura comes in front of me with them and I take a seat and try them on. I stand up and walk a bit to see how they feel and I nod at this. When we were done Clementine went to pay for the supplies and I head outside with the girls and they look to me.
"You, ok?" Diana asked and I nod.
"Yeah just… got so use to people knowing about my scars that… I forgot they were even there." I tell her. Clementine then comes out and I grab the supplies and I put them in the car and we head to the old baseball field and I see everyone there. The field was just dirt in the shape of the standard diamond and there were some dugouts as well for some form of shade as we were in an open field.
"Alright let's get this ballgame going." Lois says as we walk up to him and the others.