⊱ 06 ~ ❝ to live for the rest of eternity ❞ ⊰
〖season one, episode five〗

The sun had risen only after the resurrected beings stormed in through the outskirts to wage war upon the innocence of families and friends gathering together for dinner. A desecration that permeated the land and haunted the people still standing.

Carnage was left behind everywhere ⎯⎯ in the facial aspects of the survivors, blood stains, and all the bodies that littered the ground. Most were left with blood on their hands, literally, or across their faces in specks of dots. Even the children left the night stained ⎯⎯ if not with blood on them ⎯⎯ then with images that would never fail to appear in their minds at the worst times.

Clementine was spared ⎯⎯ physically. No harm was done to her literal form, but her psyche wouldn't ever let what she saw go.

The memory of the night was stained in the shoulders of her jacket. Even with her jacket being a dark shade of burgundy ⎯⎯ the blood still covered the full expanse of her shoulder's dark red cloth, in a just barely darker shade. On top of that, she had dirt rubbed into the front of the jacket.

While everyone else was up in the camp Clementine fled to her sanctuary, the quarry.

She didn't care to ask anyone for permission, make sure people were okay with it, or even tell anyone where she was going to ensure her safety. Being alone for the time being sounded more comforting than anything anyone could attempt to give her ⎯⎯ and either way she only wanted it from her emotionally distant father.

The quarry was her safe space, but she also felt safe around people before last night's horrors. Being surrounded by people stronger and bigger than her should have been all she needed to not get attacked the way she did ⎯⎯ but she did.

Safety no longer felt real ⎯⎯ even if she was having the worst day known to man because of her father spilling their family's doom to the entire camp ⎯⎯ she still somehow felt safe with the people around her. With all the meant who seemed to be ready to go down swinging and the many women who made her feel welcomed... All of them made her feel safe, but now it was gone.

She could no longer bring herself to believe that anyone would ever be safe again in the state of the world.

A world where no matter how hard you fight for your lives as long as you can, people still drop like flies. Only leaving behind pain and suffering in their wake.

Clementine shrugged off her jacket for the first time since before if it wasn't for a shower ⎯⎯ or the camp's pathetic excuse for one being a washcloth, bucket, and tarp hung up for privacy ⎯⎯ if anyone wanted to actually get butt naked.

She dunked the whole jacket under the water, sitting on a rock that peaked out from the water high enough for her to sit and just get her pants a little wet.

It wasn't the same jacket it was when her brother, Miles, bought it for her ninth birthday with all the money he saved up from mowing the elderly's lawns.

That day only existed as a pipe dream now. The cake she got her mom slaved over for hours to resemble a frog as closely as she could get it. Jim had also put so much effort into decorating the whole dining room with ribbons and streamers.

No balloons, Clem was very adamant about that back then. She detested the loud pop that came from the blown-up balls of helium when squeezed too hard and Archer ⎯⎯ her other brother ⎯⎯ loved it. She could bear it for his birthday but refused to have to deal with it on her day.

Clementine left her rock and glasses in the RV, in a drawer tucked away where it couldn't be witness to any more destruction. It was just a stone, but a part of Clementine felt her mother so closely connected with it. To the point that she couldn't see past relating it to her mother having to be the one observing the chaos.

The last thing she wanted was for her mother to see her little girl washing blood out of her clothes. In whatever place the souls of the dead ended up, she hoped her mother wasn't watching over her right then.

She dug her nails into the fabric, trying to scratch out the dried liquid and dirt from it. Dunking it back into the water she looked down at her nails, seeing a mixture of dirt and blood built up underneath ⎯⎯ Amy's blood.

Her hands trembled and her mind began remixing the memory into a version where she was the one clawing into Amy's skin.

In a quick frantic motion, Clem swiped her hands on her knees, trying to scrape the dirty mixture out from beneath her nails. Her skin crawled at the feeling of it and even once she had gotten all of it out from under her nails, her insides felt sickly just at the thought of the blood and dirt being there.

She squeezes her eyes shut trying to shove away that feeling, grabbing back onto her jacket with two tight fists.

To say the least, she was growing more and more overwhelmed by the day. Even all the little things were starting to feel harder to ignore. Tiny things like the holes in her socks, the grime that got stuck in her nails, and the sun reflecting off the surface of the water.

"Stop it." Clem scolded herself, opening her eyes and squeezing the cloth.

She twisted pieces of her jacket over and over, ringing out as much water as she could. By the time she had used all her strength to squeeze out all the water, it was still wet and unwearable unless she wanted to suffer through the feeling of being tightly confined in a soggy fabric.

Clem bunched it up in her hands and set off back to the main camp ⎯⎯ realizing not even the skyscraper-high stone walls of the quarry could protect her anymore.

• ───────────────── •

Daryl seemed to think the best idea was to blow Amy's brains out from a distance. The distance ⎯⎯ was the crucial part of the idea since Andrea hadn't given any mind to the few people rotating in and out of approaching the grieving woman.

Others were trying to gather the walkers in one pile, and the other bodies ⎯⎯ that were living not even twelve hours ago. If they weren't doing such, they were part of the group discussing Amy's nearing fate.

The girl was bit ⎯⎯ and now she was gone ⎯⎯ and there was only one more step to commence before they had nothing to worry about. The turning.

Clementine observed, holding onto her jacket still and letting it slowly dry in the sun. She couldn't stop the walker from dragging her out of the RV, there was no way she'd be able to help move any of the bodies.

"Wake up, Jimbo. We've got some work to do." Daryl ordered, seeing Morales struggling to drag a body without any assistance ⎯⎯ when Jim was close enough to help.

He was just staring up at the tops of the trees brushing at the sky in the wind. The withdrawn look was back in his eyes, but he'd somehow sunken further away and Clementine couldn't be bothered to try and snap him out of it anymore. She wouldn't parent her father.

Instead, she sat by the dead fire, watching her father tiredly. Nobody had gotten any sleep, and when Clementine was already struggling to sleep through the night ⎯⎯ not getting any at all really weighed on her.

Just past her father, she could see Daryl and Morales dragging a man towards the fire, where they were burning the walkers. Glenn stopped them short. "Hey⎯⎯ Hey⎯⎯ woah, woah, what are you guys doing?" Glenn adamantly waved at them to stop.

Clementine didn't know his name but she recognized him as the man that often took Dale's place on top of the RV when the older man was doing something else. Either way, it was clear based on the flushed state of his skin that he was living when the dead came knocking.

"This is for geeks. Our people go over there."

Geeks. Clem pondered on the word ⎯⎯ she didn't like it much. Rick called them walkers, which so far Clementine had thought was fitting, considering they shouldn't be walking at all. Irony.

Morales hesitated at Glenn's words, his morals conflicting with the hands of the man giving him the most assistance. Daryl pushed forward, dragging the man closer to the fire. "What's the difference? They're all infected."

"Our people go in that row over there, we don't burn them!" Glenn gritted his teeth, tears pricking in his eyes as he pointed to the proper pile as he faced the hillbilly-red-neck who had clearly established anger issues. If it weren't for the circumstances, Clementine would've considered giving Glenn a round of applause. "We bury them. Understand? Our people go in that to over there."

For the time being, Daryl sealed his lips shut ⎯⎯but that restraint didn't last long at all. The second he and Morales finished pulling the body to the other pile, Daryl aggressively dropped the weight he carried.

"You reap what you sow," Daryl muttered, a glazed look of anger appearing in his eyes.

"You know what? Shut up, man." Morales shouted back.

"Y'all left my brother for dead! You had this coming!"

Clementine stood up, she would not let him claim these people deserved what just happened to them ⎯⎯ especially not with Andrea only a few feet away mourning the death of her sibling. "You are fucking delusional!" She shouted, pointing at him.

Daryl scoffed, swiping his hand through the air angrily and pointing at her. "Keep your thoughts to yourself, spoiled brat."

Without another thought, Clementine swiped up the closest thing and propelled it toward the back of the younger Dixon brother's head. It bounced off the back of his head and clattered to the floor ⎯⎯ all he did was look back at her with an angry look on his face before stalking off.

It wasn't until she looked around, seeing people looking at her, that she realized she had used the toy car that Carl very rarely played with to throw at Daryl.

Carl's eyes were wide in surprise, looking over at the car now feet away sitting on the ground. "Sorry..." Clementine rushed out, plopping down on the log next to Carl, defeated.

The boy awkwardly looked around and back at the girl. "Uh... It's okay."

• ───────────────── •

Jim wandered around, helping where he could, and when finished dragging one body he moved over to help Jacqui.

Her knees pressed into the dirt beside the rigid form of a deceased man. Meanwhile, Jim, arms outstretched was reaching to grab the limbs of the body ⎯⎯ but both of them started whispering.

Not a word of it was audible from where Clementine sat, but she could tell by her father's facial expression that it was something she wanted to know. At the same time she was considering walking over there to find out herself, Jacqui stood at her full height abruptly, not following Jim's lead with moving the body.

Something was wrong, and Jacqui was quickly making it more clear to the rest of the group. "Then show me." The three words were louder than any other spoken before that. Clementine heard it, and judging by the many turning heads, plenty of others heard her as well ⎯⎯  and those three words didn't bring many positive conclusions in anyone's head.

Jim slowly stood up straight, his face glistening with sweat from the heat and looked at the woman pleadingly. He took a minimal glance around the people surrounding them, his eyes for only a split second flitting over his daughter sitting a good ten feet behind Jacqui.

There was the slightest movement seen on his lips. Two words or two syllables ⎯⎯ Clem couldn't lip read, but she didn't need to know how when Jacqui quickly declared what the altercation was about, taking precautionary steps back.

"A walker got him. A walker bit Jim!"

Everyone straightened up at her words ⎯⎯ many of them encircling Jim within seconds.

Clementine stood, but her feet didn't move. If anything she felt more like the veins in her body were branching out from the bottoms of her feet ⎯⎯ forming roots that penetrated the ground and would keep her in that place frozen in shock for the rest of eternity.

Perhaps she'd grow into a great oak tree and be a part of the forest, to be a part of something better than what her human body could participate in.

"I'm okay. I'm okay." Her father chanted, taking steps every which way, but there was a person to catch him in every direction.

Daryl stepped up, pickaxe in hand ⎯⎯ and Clementine suddenly wished she had thrown something much heavier at his head. "Show it to us." But even Daryl looked a little fearful of a secretly bit man.

They surrounded him. Bees to honey. She could breathe, but she held her breath instead. Bit? Her father ⎯⎯ being bit? No. That's not how it was supposed to happen. Clementine and her dad were supposed to be the sole survivors of the Holloway family ⎯⎯ and if not ⎯⎯ Clementine was expecting her to be the one to go. Not him.

The last time the Holloway family of five was all together they were running. Everywhere they looked walkers faced them with a hungered look in their eyes.

Marie Holloway put her life and the lives of her three children behind her husband ⎯⎯ Jim led the way to safety multiple times already and she trusted him to do so again. He did his best.

The only reason they were in that situation was because of Marie's awfully determined mindset to find her terminally ill best friend ⎯⎯ who they never did find. But Jim never would've blamed his wife for her search being what got the ball rolling.

Clementine was the smallest and slowest of family members, so Marie carried her daughter the whole way, her two sons between her and their father, and Jim carried a duffle bag full of minimal belongings ⎯⎯ the rest of their belongings were about five blocks in the other direction in the trunk of their car, on the other side of the street full of walkers. Impossible to get to.

Walkers cornered them, forcing them to run in between two houses, where they were faced with a dead end. A wall of wood blocked their way, and as Jim climbed over it the walkers started funneling in through the small area.

Marie set down her daughter in front of her, closest to the wooden door, and looked back at the ever-approaching group of dead ones. Miles and Archer stood close beside their mother, fear-stricken faces as they could see them coming.

Suddenly, Jim wrenched the rusted metal latch bar up and to the side, unlocking the old wooden fence gate, and pushed it open ⎯⎯ but it was too late. Half the amount of walkers were there and they shoved into the four people, reaching and grabbing.

Clementine screamed as a hand grabbed onto her wrist and tugged violently, at the same time another one of them came up behind her mother, sinking its teeth deep into her shoulder. Marie had nothing to do but push her daughter forward, through the door that her husband was trying to shove open with all his strength.

The girl made it through, and despite Marie being pulled to the ground, she let out a sigh of relief and shoved Archer forward too. Miles had already disappeared from her eyesight, knowing her eldest child was already gone all she could do was push her still-living child towards the door.

At once, the rest of the walkers pushed into the tight space, slamming the wooden door shut hard before Archer could make it out ⎯⎯ going down with his mother.

Jim grabbed his daughter and bolted.

This was the final straw. All five of them were meant to die that day ⎯⎯ a brutal death given to them all by dozens of famished dead, craving only the pain and suffering of living human beings with nothing more than the will to survive. In her heart, Clementine felt she was next. There was no way to know when, how, or why, but every fiber in her being knew then that they never were supposed to survive.

She was even more sure of the fact that it couldn't be just her ⎯⎯ alive and meant to live for the rest of eternity. No. She couldn't. That couldn't be what was supposed to happen. She had to go too.

Jim quickly tried to fend off the people approaching with a shovel, holding it defensively, the same way he did just yesterday up on that hill to Shane.

Both Rick and Shane closed in on Jim with a gentle yet stern attitude ⎯⎯ calm down, put the shovel down, Jim.

The only one not worried about their tone was Daryl, who rightfully only cared to see the bite for proof, shouting, "Show it to us!" Repeatedly.

It didn't matter though how gentle or aggressive they were being, Jim knew he was a dead man. The knowledge of it was shown in his eyes as he weakly shielded himself ⎯⎯ with or without them being the ones to put him down.

"Dad?" Clementine shouted, confused, but uncomfortably aware of the reality. The roots that had confined her to her spot snap, freeing her from that limitation ⎯⎯ but quickly, Lori jumped into action, stopping the girl from approaching the crowd of shouting, confused, and fearful men.

With the woman's arm around her waist, Clem couldn't move any further and was stuck watching once again.

T-Dog managed to walk up behind Jim, grabbing the man by the elbows and causing Jim to drop the shovel. Glenn scooped up the shovel, sliding it out of reach.

The raggedy old shirt, still stained with oil from his job before the outbreak, blood from the night, and dirt and sweat from the labor he had put in so far today. There was no way of knowing for sure where the proof was on Jim's body, other than a small blood spot on the surface of it.

Daryl surely had no idea, so he just yanked it as far up as he could, exposing Jim's torso in full, revealing his unnaturally pale skin compared to the rest of his slightly tanned but mostly dirty limbs.

Within the paleness of his torso was a singular impression of teeth sunken into the left side of his torso, surrounded by a faint smear of blood from being concealed under the shirt for so long.

Now with it being proven, Daryl quickly stepped away from Jim as if the bite was contagious.

"No!" Clementine screamed, thrashing in Lori's hold, kicking her feet in the dirt, and heaving for air to reach her lungs. Her pleas were futile, reaching nobody who could turn back time. There wasn't a soul standing in that camp that could do anything for her father ⎯⎯ the end of his story had already been written. "NO!"

Jim turned to face his daughter ⎯⎯ truly looking at her for the first time in a long time. The girl's eyes were almost the exact replica of his wife's eyes, making it hard for him to face her, even if she was his little girl.

He missed the women and two boys he lost, every day. To the point that, until last night, a part of him had forgotten his daughter survived that day at all. Last night was when he finally saw her again ⎯⎯ when it was almost too late ⎯⎯ but now it truly was too late. After he went off to help other people, he lost his second opportunity to make it up to Clementine. To cherish his daughter the way he knew he should've.

Even Lori looked distraught. She and Jim weren't anything close to friends, but any mother could look at a child destined to lose their last parent and be filled with sorrow. She knew what it was like to look in the eyes of a child and tell them their father was gone ⎯⎯ she had to do it for her own son.

The difference ⎯⎯ Carl had his mother and even Shane to care for him when he needed his father. Clementine would be left with nothing. Nobody.

"I'm okay." Jim repetitively attempted to reassure her, eyes still locked on his daughter. It didn't matter how many times he said it though... It didn't change a damn thing.

• ───────────────── •

Not even half an hour later,  everyone ⎯⎯ not including Andrea, Jim, Amy, and the children ⎯⎯ had congregated to discuss the downfall of Jim Holloway.

Clementine sat by the fire, facing the trees, and pressing the palms of her hands into her knees. Just a little bit ago she could recall wanting to run into her father's arms and wish away his impending doom. Hug the bite in his flesh out of existence.

Now, she could no longer stomach looking at him.

Daryl was of course the first to suggest killing him before the virus could. "I say we put a pickaxe in his head and the dead girl's and be done with it."

"Is that what you'd want if it were you?" Shane harshly turned to Daryl, expecting Daryl to think about what he said.

"Yeah, and I'd thank you while you did it."

Tears came with rage, and she stared straight into the greens of the leaves and blues of the sky with the salty liquid streaking down her cheeks, and her jaw clenched as she tried to control her breathing.

With a soft, sorrowful tone, Dale put in his opinion subtly. "I hate to say it ⎯⎯ I never thought I would. But. Maybe Daryl's right."

Dale seemed to share Daryl's opinion, which in return had Clementine's entire body tensing with shock. She was most definitely not expecting him to agree with Daryl of all people, the person who wanted to put an end to both Jim and Amy.

"Keep your voice down." Lori hissed venomously as she stood and approached the circle of people, leaving Clementine's side. "You're talking about a little girl's father."  She tried to speak quietly, hoping Clementine didn't hear any of it.

"Jim's not a monster, Dale, or some rabid dog."

"I'm not suggesting that⎯⎯"

"He's sick. A sick man." Rick forcefully emphasized his words, silencing Dale with a brutal glare ⎯⎯ he didn't want the girl to hear anyone calling her dad a dead man like Daryl had called Amy. "We start down that road, where do we draw the line?"

Unconcealable sobs wracked through Clementine's bones, rattling and shaking her. All the events of the past twelve hours were currently hitting her like a truck, backing up and running her back over until all that was left was a flattened-out piece of roadkill on the highway.

Ed Peletier's verbal abuse against Clem and the other woman ⎯⎯ and his physical abuse against his wife. Shane pummeling Ed. Jim working in such sweltering heat people were prepared for him to keel over and die of heat exhaustion. Jim told everyone about the gruesome death of her mom and brothers. Walkers overrunning the camp. Clementine was attacked by a walker, twice. Watching Amy get torn into. Getting rescued by her father and thinking his true self was back only for it to disappear again.

After all of that, still, it got worse. Her father got bit.

"The line's pretty clear. Zero tolerance for walkers, or them to be."

"What if we can get him help? I heard the C.D.C. was working on a cure."

Clementine tried to suffocate the hope that bubbled in her chest at Rick's words. What if he was right? Rick made it back to his family after everyone thought he was dead. Maybe her whole family would be reunited one day. But Shane squashes it.

"I heard that too. Heard a lot of things before the world went to hell."

From where she sat, nobody could hear Clementine begin whispering to herself, "Please, please, please." Begging someone but no one at the same time for... something. For what? Nobody would ever know for sure. To go back in time, for them to stop talking about it, to disappear, or maybe even ask Daryl to do her a favor and put the pickaxe in her head? None of them sounded like bad options, but all were far from the realm of possibilities.

Lori crouched back down beside Clementine, placing her hand on her back, and brushing her fingers through the ends of Clementine's hair. She closed her eyes, willing her brain to allow her imagination to picture something good. To picture it wasn't Lori ⎯⎯ a random woman who cared about her for some unknown reason ⎯⎯ instead her mother.

"What if the C.D.C. is still up and running?" Rick asked, facing Shane with a hint of desperation.

"Man, that is a stretch right there."

The C.D.C. was a long shot. Shane was right about that ⎯⎯ but a shot is a shot. Clementine didn't feel confident in it but knew it was her father's only chance.

"Why? If there's any government left, any structure at all, they'd protect the C.D.C. at all costs, wouldn't they?" Rick looked around, silently begging for someone's support. "I think it's our best shot. Shelter, protection⎯⎯"

Shane cut off Rick before he could finish his sentence. "Okay, Rick, you want those things, all right? I do too, okay? Now, if they exist... They're at the army base. Fort Benning."

Instantly, Lori's hand stills on Clementine's back, flattening against her spine, and looking over her shoulder at the two men. While attempting to comfort Clementine, she noticed the girl's breathing slow to a calmer state ⎯⎯ so she wasn't ready to remove her hand if it meant possibly keeping her calm. But she had to speak up. "That's one hundred miles in the opposite direction."

"That is right. But it's away from the hot zone. Now listen to me. If that place is operational, it'll be heavily armed. We'd be safe there."

Clementine shook her head. Safety was a damn lie.

"The military were on the front lines of this thing. They got overrun. We've all seen that. The C.D.C. is our best choice and Jim's only chance." Rick argued, whispering the last couple of words to try and avoid Clementine's ears.

But it hit Clementine just as hard as the rest of the conversation, forcing a muffled sob from her lips. Lori quickly picked up her movements of rubbing her back, leaning closer, and trying to face the girl. "It's okay sweetheart. It'll be okay." She looked back at her husband, this time with a stern tone. "Enough."

Everyone in the circle dropped their gaze to the dirt, before glancing around at each other. Lori made herself loud and clear, they were to stop discussing that man's fate as long as Clementine was there to hear it. Sure, she knew Jim was bitten, running out of time ⎯⎯ but Clem didn't need to listen to them debate on how to deal with him.

Except one person didn't seem to grasp the importance of Lori's single-worded demand, and instead threw the concept of shutting his mouth out the window.

"You go lookin' for Aspirin. Do  what you need to do..."

Clementine regrettably looked back over her shoulder, seeing Daryl spin around to face her father, raising his pickaxe into the air with the full intention to slam his brains beneath the point of it ⎯⎯ all while shouting, "Someone needs to have some balls to take care of this damn problem!"

In an instinctive movement, Clem slapped her hands over her ears and squeezed her eyes shut tightly, putting her back to it immediately. Clem could see the pickaxe slam into her father's temple with a sickening crush ⎯⎯ Jim fell dead with no more sickness, no more pain, no more thoughts, and no more having a father ⎯⎯ but all of that only existed in the great expanse of her forever-overthinking mind.

Instead, all that was actually heard was the click of a gun. Rick had pulled back on the hammer of his Colt Python. Clementine took a chance, prying open her eyes and looking back again at the altercation.

Now, the pickaxe was suspended in the air over Daryl's shoulder ⎯⎯ instead of being firmly implanted in Jim's skull as she expected. Just behind him, Rick Grimes pointed the barrel of his Colt Python directly at the back of Daryl's head. "We don't kill the living."

Daryl slowly turned to face the cop as Shane stepped in front of Jim, body blocking him from Daryl's wrath.

"That's funny⎯⎯" Daryl spoke hoarsely. "Comin' from a man who just put a gun to my head." He spit angrily and lowered the pickaxe to his side, still holding on firmly.

"We may disagree on some things, not on this. You put it down. Go on." Shane ordered Daryl from where he stood behind him.

Rick quickly escorted Jim into the RV, out of the open area as if just being out in public was a risk to his life. Giving the sense of snipers lining up within the trees, whoever gets between the eyes gets the prize.

It was painful to sit there, watching someone protect your father when you could hardly look at him without imagining every walker that had inflicted harm upon her or someone she cared about. He'd be one of them in no time.

Lori moved in front of Clementine, brushing her hair out of her face. "You can cry, scream, talk ⎯⎯ do what you have to sweetheart. It's okay, just let it out."

Clementine looked at Lori, examining her eyes, trying to hold back her tears ⎯⎯ but she couldn't ⎯⎯ not anymore. They came like an unleashed damn, breaking free from her eyes and letting out the pain she'd been swallowing.

"I know..." Lori hushed the child comfortingly, wrapping her arms around her.

• ───────────────── •

The reanimation of Amy Anderson was long awaited, but it happened ⎯⎯ right where she was left on the dirt with her sister leaning over her. Amy rose from the dead, literally, and grabbed onto her sister. Sadly, it wasn't out of a reunion but instead out of an imperative desire to eat. The woman was no longer who comforted Clementine in the RV.

Perhaps if Clementine wasn't all consumed with the state her father was in ⎯⎯ she may have felt some way about her friend transforming into a monster. A wolf in sheep's clothing, but the sheep was the innocent facade of a woman who deserved so much better.

After her sister put a bullet in her head, she was laid to rest with all the other lost souls. Buried in one of the many holes Jim had managed to dig. Clementine didn't accompany any of them, she sat in the passenger seat of the RV, randomly glancing to the back room where Jim was.

He was progressing into worse health the longer he fought the infection ⎯⎯ smacking himself awake, muttering unintelligible words, and grunting in pain. It hadn't occurred to Clementine that Amy may have been spared to die from bleeding out before the infection started to hit.

By late evening, the decision was made. Everyone would be packing up and heading for the C.D.C. for the slim chance of saving Jim's life the next day. Clementine failed to get any sleep once again, tossing and turning in the RV's kitchen booth while Jacqui frequently went back to check on Jim who was most often staring out the window muttering at himself to stay awake.

That morning though, just before they set off, the Morales family revealed they would part ways, wanting to find their family instead of risking the family they already had for someone else. There were no hard feelings ⎯⎯ other than the little bit of sadness that came to Clementine at the thought of never seeing one of her few friends again, Eliza.

So they parted ways and started the long drive for the C.D.C. ⎯⎯ Jim's one and only chance.

Jacqui stayed by Jim's side even in the daylight, using a wet washcloth to try and ease his raging headache and cool him down, but every other bone in his body seemed to be in agony as well. A part of Clem thought Jacqui only cared for Jim to try and make up for telling everyone he was bit ⎯⎯ but Jacqui was a good person. She had not a malice bone in her body.

Many hours into the drive he visibly was much worse. The shape he was in never stopped declining. Every pothole and the uneven pavement of the road had the RV swaying, ricocheting the movements in his bones, sending a wailing moan of pain every time.

The whole drive, Clementine sat in the bathroom on the floor, covering her ears and putting her face in her knees ⎯⎯ attempting to block out the tortured noises of her father being in excruciating pain.

We just have to get to the C.D.C. and it'll be okay.

She tried to comfort herself ⎯⎯ there wasn't anyone else who would. All she had was her ability to calm herself down, which was a severely lacking ability.

As the minutes went on, Jim only got louder. The pain was only increasing with the drive, and he had officially lost his ability to conceal that pain and was left wailing.

Then he caught a break from the pain being inflicted by the drive when the RV's radiator hose started to fall apart again. The front of the RV began puffing with smoke and all the vehicles slowed to a stop on the side of the rose.

Clementine exited the bathroom out of curiosity, at the same time her father unleashed vomit into a bucket. Jacqui quickly ran out of the room going to get help from those outside.

It wasn't normal for Clem to feel so uncomfortable being alone with her father. But it was the longest she'd been in the same proximity as him ⎯⎯ with him knowing it ⎯⎯ since he got bit. She loved him dearly, but couldn't stand looking at him anymore.

How he was covered in sweat but still clutched at the fleece blanket over his legs ⎯⎯ and the shade of his skin was growing closer to the hauntingly grey color of the walkers. If she didn't look at him, maybe she could pretend it wasn't happening.

"Baby girl..." Jim croaked, weakly raising his hand and beckoning his daughter toward him. She didn't budge, frozen in the doorway and all the sadness within her dissipated and got replaced with anger. "You're gonna be okay."

Clementine subtly shook her head ⎯⎯ not to disagree, but because she didn't want to hear it. Her being okay wasn't what mattered. Right in front of her, he was dying. A painfully slow death and he was wasting his breath on telling her she'll be okay? A scream itched in her throat. She wanted to smack him, shake him, yell at him ⎯⎯ but all of the above wouldn't help anyone.

"Sweetie." A sternness returned in his voice, but it was pathetically weak. He couldn't even bring the strength in his voice to sound like the father he was. But with the power of a hundred men, she forced her eyes to meet the dull, tired, and umber eyes looking at her. "I love you."

"No."

She stormed out of the RV within a second. No, she would not listen to him. All of it sounded awfully close to a goodbye and hell if she would let him play it off right in front of her.

The C.D.C. couldn't be far. They had been driving for hours it felt like ⎯⎯ Clementine was growing more sure by the second that he would make it to the C.D.C. so she left the room and didn't look back at her dad.

Words couldn't form on her tongue, for the first time ⎯⎯ ever. She had nothing to say other than, "No." She shoved past Rick Grimes as he walked in, slipping past everyone and walking back behind the RV, and sat on the bumper.

Clementine wasn't ever good at crying in front of people ⎯⎯ it was as if she missed the mechanism that allowed emotion to surface when others could see her. Physically she'd feel it, be consumed by it, but could hardly ever cry in front of anyone. It was a subconscious choice.

Being completely alone was when the emotions felt easier to release. Earlier, Lori had practically pried the tears out of Clementine's eyes, consoling her like the mother she was until even Clementine's subconscious couldn't hold back.

Tears didn't have a chance to form in her eyes when a voice reached her ears ⎯⎯ floating out the open RV window directly from the room Clementine had just stormed out of.

"Oh no. Christ." Jim begged before Rick could continue the insinuation that they'd be driving again soon. "My bones... My bones are like glass. Every little bump⎯⎯ God. This ride's killin' me. Leave me here. I'm done. Just leave me."

Clementine looked up at the sky, begging ⎯⎯ someone to stop this.

"I don't think you know what you're asking, Jim."

"I do. And, Rick, I gotta ask somethin' else of you."

She stood up straight, listening closer. "Anything, Jim." The sheriff croaked, unsure of promising.

Even from outside, she could hear the shakey breath her father inhaled. "I'm dying... And I need⎯⎯" He coughed painfully, making Clementine flinch at the hacking sound as he tried his hardest to get the words out. "Please. Take care of my little girl for me... I see you with Carl. You're a good father⎯⎯ You're a good man." The words choked out, struggling to both breathe and talk simultaneously. "Give her what you can. The life... The life you would fight to give to your own daughter. The things that I can't."

Clementine bit at her nails anxiously, she couldn't let this happen. They couldn't just leave him. She wouldn't let them.

"Leave me. It's on me. It's my decision."

Rick stayed silent for a whole five to ten seconds, contemplating before weakly saying, "Don't worry."

At that moment, Clem wasn't sure if he meant, don't worry ⎯⎯ you'll be fine. Or don't worry ⎯⎯ I will take care of her. But either way, his decision was made, that much was clear.

• ───────────────── •

The overall emotion of the group shifted as both cops helped Jim out of the RV and onto the side of the road where they let him sit underneath a tree.

Clem stood back by the RV where the grass met the pavement ⎯⎯ unable to bring herself to step past that line while everyone gathered around the man, saying their goodbyes. The other children stayed in the Jeep Cherokee, watching from a distance.

It couldn't be happening. Clementine was sure this was all one big and twisted imagination her mind had cooked up. Any second she would wake up sweating and scared, but when she did her father would be lying in his sleeping bag next to her. Yeah, that had to be what was happening.

Jacqui was the first to greet Jim, pressing a kiss to his cheek and going back to the RV. She sat on the steps, crying for him.

"Stop it!" Clementine shouted at the woman mercilessly. "We aren't leaving him here. Stop fucking crying!" The ten-year-old girl screamed hysterically, losing all empathy for anyone else's feelings on the matter. For fuck sake, that was her dad, and she couldn't even bring herself to cry ⎯⎯ why was she? If anyone should be able to overrule her father's decision to be left behind, it should be her.

The rest of them began retreating from Jim, having said their farewells. He denied a gun from Rick, and turned to his daughter, attempting a smile as he looked up at the leaves above him. "It's gonna be okay..."

That's enough. Clem thought, breaking past the line from where the grass met the road and marching up the slight incline, her jacket tightly tied around her waist. "Get up!" The words cracked in her throat, not giving the intensity she was feeling in her gut. "Get the fuck up!"

"No, baby girl. This is my last stop."

"No." She protested, swiping away Shane and Dale's reaching hands. They were attempting to slow her progression to her father ⎯⎯ but she wasn't done.

"She needs to say goodbye," Lori called out, waving Dale and Shane to stop their movements.

Clementine whipped around to face the woman. No other person in the camp had shown her so much generosity as Lori had ⎯⎯ but then she felt betrayed. "I'm not saying goodbye! What's wrong with you?"

Rick crouched down beside the girl, looking at Jim who was just a few feet away. "Clementine..."

"No." She repeated, venomously, shoving his hand away too. Anger had never felt so all-consuming in her entire life. Nothing could ever compare to the fire burning inside of her. "Get in the goddamn RV, Dad. You can't⎯⎯" She gasped for air, watching Rick and her father share a knowing glance.

Before she had the chance to say anymore, Rick hooked his arm around the girl's torso, lifting her up and carrying her down the incline with her back to his chest as she kicked and screamed. "Put me down! Put me down!"

"Please take care of her," Jim said, a ghost of a smile still on his lips.

He was watching a man take his daughter away from him and he had the audacity to smile?

Clementine screamed bloody murder ⎯⎯ what was this? Pity? A man suddenly signed up to be her guardian, but why? He was supposed to be the good man, and suddenly she found herself wanting to hate his guts. Rick knew right from wrong, he made that clear when he chose to save someone's shitty brother over staying safe with his wife and kids ⎯⎯ but here he was about to leave her father on the side of the road. She couldn't breathe.

"This is what I want, baby. I'm gonna be with our family. With momma, Miles, and Archer. We'll be waiting for you ⎯⎯ but you're strong, baby. You're stronger than me, sweetheart ⎯⎯ and I know you're gonna fight like hell because that's what your mother always taught you to do." Even in his weakest state, he talked as loudly as he could, knowing if he was gonna say it, his daughter had to be the one hearing it.

What would have been verbal plea's came out as something else, she had no more words to use. Nothing else to yell or beg ⎯⎯ all she had was her anger released from her lungs in wails.

And then they were leaving her father on the side of that road exactly where he asked to be ⎯⎯ no matter how much she kicked and screamed.

• ───────────────── •

In the arms of Lori Grimes, the mother thought the girl never would stop screaming. It was beginning to get to a point where they thought she had gotten hurt ⎯⎯ but the pain was inside.

There wasn't a wound to patch, medicine to dull the ache or any surgery that could heal the agony she was in. But Lori did her best to console the girl ⎯⎯ she held onto her gently shushing her and running her fingers through the girl's hair.

At one point, the girl fell silent, passing out from exhaustion. She'd run her energy dry and having not slept for more than just a few hours the night prior ⎯⎯ not even her rage could keep her awake any longer.

Clem awoke from her sleep, almost forgetting everything. Almost. She nearly thought it was her mother holding onto her, but no. She pictured her father to be the one in the driver's seat, but no.

The Jeep Cherokee came to a slow stop by the curb outside the C.D.C. along with the rest of the vehicles.

Lori set Clem on her feet just outside the passenger door, getting out and opening the backseat door for her son.

People filed out of their vehicles, many of them gazing at Clementine as if to see if she had survived her own turmoil. Rick picked her up and put her in the passenger seat of the Cherokee with his wife and then they all drove away ⎯⎯ anyone who wasn't in the vehicle had no idea how the girl was for the rest of the drive.

Ahead, the C.D.C. stood intimidatingly, the whole front of it looked like one gigantic mirror. All around it was covered in rotting bodies and the remnants of the military once being there. It looked like maybe Rick was right about the military defending the C.D.C. as long as they could, but apparently that time frame had already run out.

Everyone shuffled alongside each other, sticking within six feet of the next person at all times. They'd seen what happened when people weren't with the group when Amy was plucked off first. They took their time moving through the C.D.C.'s wide cemented drive that led from the road to the front door. Slow steps and precautionary glances around like the land was littered with mines.

All the corpses were piling on a scent that nobody could avoid. Most of them pressed their noses to their sleeves or lifted their shirt collars over their nose. Clementine reached down for her jacket sleeve that was tied around her waist and lifted it to shield her face.

The stench of decaying skin surrounded them ⎯⎯ bringing Clementine increasingly close to throwing up whatever was left in her stomach.

"There's nobody here," T-Dog called out quietly, standing at the back of the group with Daryl.

Rick was frantic as he looked around, he didn't want to admit he had led them into a dead end ⎯⎯ literally. "Then why are these shutters down?"

"Walkers!" Daryl bellowed, raising his crossbow to put down one of the closest.

Both Lori and Carol grab onto their children, pulling them close. They whimpered in fear, shrinking into the arms of their mothers.

"You led us into a graveyard!"

Within the panic, Clementine sighed. It felt almost more comforting if the C.D.C. was a dead end instead of a place that could've helped her father. If there was nobody here then Jim would've died anyway ⎯⎯ but if there was a cure inside that could have saved her father... She didn't know if that was a fact she could cope with.

Or it could've been the fact she had already screamed out all her feelings leaving her throat raw.

"He made a call." Dale attempted to defend Rick against Daryl's increasing rage.

"It was the wrong damn call!"

"Just shut up. You hear me? Shut up. SHUT UP!" Shane commanded, pointing in Daryl's face before turning back to Rick. "Rick, this is a dead end."

The hope for C.D.C. helping her father had dwindled to nothing the second they left him on the side of the road ⎯⎯ but there was still some possibility that it would be a place for the rest of them to find sanctuary. The longer they stood there contemplating, that chance was disappearing as well.

Perhaps she was wrong completely about the rest of the Holloway being doomed. It was beginning to seem it was just all of humanity who stood on a creaking trap door unknowingly. Awaiting their death.

Whoever may have been in control of how long their survival would last was just playing a game ⎯⎯ flicking the level to open the trapdoor only to drop a few at a time.

Flick ⎯⎯ Mom, Miles, Archer.

Flick ⎯⎯ Amy, Dad.

Nobody knew who was next, and eventually, it wouldn't matter at all who was next because they'd all be too far numb to recover from the losses they'd already faced. All of them already had their death sentence written in stone, it was just the date that kept changing.

Everyone was scared to die. It was visible on their faces and in their tone of voice and how they cried. Clementine only feared everyone else dying ⎯⎯ being completely and utterly alone was her true fear. Every day she seemed to get closer to experiencing that fear firsthand.

"Do you hear me? No blame." Shane tried to get through to his best friend ⎯⎯ facing him with a strong look in his eyes, a silent plea to get moving.

"Shanes right." Lori gritted out, "We can't be here, this close to the city after dark." She held onto her son's shoulder, ensuring herself he was there.

"Fort Benning, Rick. Still an option."

"On what? No food, no fuel. That's one hundred miles."

"One hundred and twenty-five. I checked the map."

The desperation in Lori's voice for her husband to pull it together was loud and clear as she raised her voice. "Forget Fort Benning. We need answers tonight, now."

Carl whined in fear, squeezing his mother's hand with one hand as Clementine reached out to grab his other hand. When the walkers overran the Atlanta Camp, Carl held onto Clem's sleeve and now she would reciprocate the comforting hold. Neither he nor Sophia deserved to feel this much fear, and if her father was there he'd tell her not to worry about that ⎯⎯ but he wasn't.

Despite being younger than both children she felt worried for them. Sophia had just lost her father as well ⎯⎯ a deadbeat, abusive, piece of shit ⎯⎯ but her father nonetheless. Carl lost his father just for him to appear out of thin air and keep risking his life for the people around them. All three of them didn't need any more of this fear and pain.

"I'm scared too." Clementine forced out, despite the words scraping against her dry throat, she pushed the words from her lips and squeezed his hand harder. All while thinking, I'm scared for you. Carl returned the squeeze gently, his eyes filled with tears.

"Come on let's go."

"Let's get out of here."

"Let's go. Please."

People begged, reaching for Rick, yelling at him to go. He was just another man and they all looked to him like he knew all the answers.

Lori spun her son around, facing him in the direction of where they came from. They had to get the hell out of here. As he moved out of Clementine's reach, their hands slipped out of each other's grasp.

A walker that wasn't there when they first walked up lay on the ground, with one of Daryl's arrows firmly planted into the center of its forehead. A dime-shaped hole that had a weak stream of dark red liquid sliding down her temple and mixing into the woman's dirty auburn hair. Her eyes were a fogged green, staring straight up into the sky ⎯⎯ void of anything. The longer Clem stared at those eyes the more she felt like they were moving to stare right back at her.

"The camera ⎯⎯ It moved."

She spun around instantly, as nosey as always to try and figure out what he was talking about ⎯⎯ but she ended up stumbling over the long-gone woman's outstretched arm when the tip of her shoe didn't raise quite high enough to step over it.

Clementine stumbled, losing her balance faster than she could try and gain some of it back, falling onto her hands and knees. The palms of her hands scraped against the textured pavement at a painful speed, as well as her knees through the thin fabric of her jeans.

Everyone turned to investigate Rick's claim, not noticing the girl fall ⎯⎯ much more preoccupied with the incredibly hard-to-believe statement about a camera when half the vehicles they come across don't even start.

"You imagined it." Dale counteracted, wanting to get out of there before it was too late.

"It moved."

Clementine pushed up off the ground, standing to her full height and wiping her hands on the thighs of her jeans. It was annoying having to be the child that people were forced to look after ⎯⎯ so she was more happy nobody noticed her fall than anything else.

She lifted her gaze, looking around and landing on a moving figure. It was over ten feet away, but instantly her breath caught in her throat. It wasn't the only one. There were many closing in on them, roughly the same amount as what she'd seen in the camp ⎯⎯ more spread out.

The distance didn't feel nearly far enough for Clementine's personal comfort. Her fingers twitched anxiously ⎯⎯ seeing the walker that had dragged her out of the RV instead of the one that was actually in front of her. It had come back, to finish her off.

A second walker got close to the first, this time being the walker that ended the life of Amy Anderson. Even though it wasn't close enough to touch her, Clem could almost feel the hand around her ankle and the two on her shoulders.

"Daddy..."

The singular word pleadingly left her lips before she could think about the unlikelihood of him coming to rescue her ever again. He managed to save her that night, like a true hero out of the comics her brother loved ⎯⎯ he swooped in and eliminated the threat on the innocent life of his daughter.

But he wasn't at the C.D.C. and neither was her brother.

All around her the people who had survived the massacre of the Atlanta camp were yelling, but none of the words directly infiltrated her ears. It was only noise overlapping with other noise.

Her heartbeat reverberated in her ears ⎯⎯ pounding for her to move. Ancient drums of warning against her ribcage. A warning for the approaching walkers who had their eyes set on Clementine with a baleful intent. Warning for the impending doom once concentrated on her father, now rotating to hover over Clem like a dark cloud.

The rest of the group would never forgive themselves if the orphaned girl died while on their watch. When everyone had their back turned.

But not everyone had their back turned.

An arrow whizzed a few feet over her head, straight into the eye of the first walker then seconds later, another into the second.

Clem turned around, looking at Daryl Dixon with wide eyes. No other in the group used any weapon with arrows ⎯⎯ and he was always spending his spare time cleaning the damn things. She'd never expected him of all people to come to her rescue.

It wasn't until both walkers had been put down that she realized how close they got to her, if Daryl didn't look at the right time, she probably would've been someone's dinner by now.

He pretty regularly tried to ignore the existence of the girl, so when she looked back just to clarify it did come from him ⎯⎯ he didn't look at her. Daryl watched the bodies drop a little over six feet away from her and turned back to the group. Not giving the girl a visible second thought. He was just putting down a walker.

It wasn't for her sake ⎯⎯ never for her sake.

When the world started to turn on its axis at a much more frightening speed, Clementine didn't know till it was too late. Not until she was already losing most of the people who meant everything to her, in the whole universe. The first time she saw a walker right in front of her was the same day the beings that ripped her family off the plane of existence.

And while Rick pleaded with a robotic system for the lives of his family, friends, and those he was coming to know ⎯⎯ Clementine could only think of how in the hell she belonged with the rest of them. With the people who were fighting for survival and happiness. How did she end up here completely alone, and yet surrounded by people who for some reason wanted to keep her alive?

"You're killing us!" Rick roared, his voice cracking with the pain he was feeling deep down. His screaming only evolved into more incoherent versions of itself as he got dragged away from the metal shutters locking them out.

That was when his unrelenting hope finally came to use.

The shutters rose with a loud clanking noise, and Clementine could no longer hear the drumming in her ears.

A bright white light beamed out of the risen door. A light that immediately brought her back to her family. She'd only been in a church once ⎯⎯ left with a sour taste in her mouth at the odd man's preaches.

But that didn't change how religious Clementine's beloved grandmother was. She spoke highly of a man named God. A greater being and what he had done for the dead and alive people. How he loved everyone and only the truly evil would be sent to hell.

The night before she passed she spoke of a light so beautifully blinding that it was almost painful to look at but hurt more to look away.

Clementine looked at the light in front of her. She wondered if that exact light was what was devouring her then. An unnatural illumination of bright white shines out of the doors. The fluorescent lights contrasted so deeply against the darkness of night that surrounded them.

She looked around at the people who stood with her. They appeared to be seeing the same light as her. All of them would be the last thing she'd ever see. The people who ⎯⎯ for a variety of reasons ⎯⎯ seemed to care about her.

︿

〈〈 𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄 〉〉

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Hope you liked it <3

Saw an edit a while ago saying Jim was the saddest death of Season One, and while Clementine would majorly disagree with me on this ⎯⎯ I think it was obviously Amy. Like, who could be more sunshine and rainbows than that woman, and her little backstory of Andrea never making it to her birthdays... Girl probably had abandonment issues out of the wazoo. Just wanted some toilet paper like damn.

I post edits for this story on tiktok!

Fanfic Editing Account: thinn.skinned.wp