⊱ 15 ~ ❝ a state of shock ❞ ⊰
〖season two, episode eight〗

Dusted-up dirt clouded in front of the barn. The bodies falling, people walking around, and just the soft breeze . . . accompanied all together kicked up the dirt into the air.

It surrounded Clementine where she sat on the ground beside Carl, the minuscule flakes in the air making her arms itchy without her jacket on to shield her skin. Only moments ago the Greene family made their way back to the farmhouse ⎯⎯ assisting Beth who was very clearly taking the situation at the barn, the hardest of them all.

Rick, Shane, and Glenn followed close behind, and as they grew further away, Clem could hear Shane's voice carry. He was yelling about something . . . again. Whatever it was, she didn't want to know for the first time ever. It didn't matter to her anymore. If Shane was mad about something, she was plenty sure of herself that he was not in the right.

The side of any altercation that Shane was on ⎯⎯ she couldn't see ever allowing herself to agree with. Even more so after he managed to find a way to take Dale wandering off with the guns and twist them into something that was Clementine's problem. She had yet to tell anyone about it other than her vaguely saying he was yelling.

Dale walked around, making sure all the walkers were not going to ever stand up again. They wouldn't. They were really gone. No going back.

Clem stood up, wiping the dried-up dirt off her hands and onto the thighs of her jeans. Beside her Carl and Lori had been talking and she could hear it but didn't fully listen to any of it. She let all the information go in one ear and straight out the other.

It was about Sophia, but she didn't need to be paying close attention to know that much. Obviously they'd be talking about her. She was right in front of them, lying on the ground flat on her stomach ⎯⎯ unmoving and limp, with a blanket overtop her body.

Having seen her stand up, Lori sits up straighter. "Where are you going, sweetheart?"

Her shoulders lifted in a shrug. The tears stopped coming awhile ago and she almost felt numb. If you had told Clementine when she bolted for the doors along with everyone else back in the CDC, she would come to discover that Jenner was right about one thing at least.

That way would have been much more compassionate.

She could still hear Carol beg for the man not to let her daughter die in that way . . . Clem wondered if Carol was thinking the same ⎯⎯ that Sophia's final days would have been much more kind to her if they had stayed in the CDC at detonation.

Clem felt it in her bones that she was next. She thought that, if she had survived this long, surely Sophia could. But, maybe it was the opposite without her knowing. If Sophia couldn't survive alone in the woods ⎯⎯ how would Clementine ever make it through this world alive? She wouldn't. And Clem was more sure about that than anything else.

"Clementine?" Dale called out her name, reaching out to brush his hand over her arm to get her attention. She had been staring right through him. A hum came from her. That was the only response he got. "Why don't you come with me back to the farmhouse with me?"

She finally looked up at him, nodding subtly, and glancing back at Sophia's body where it still was. "Dale?" Lori interrupted before the both of them could walk off.

"Yeah?"

"Could you take Carl up to the house?" Lori asked, reaching behind her son to run her fingers over his head. "I want you to rest."

Carl nodded, standing up. "Okay." The three of them walked side by side, speaking not a single word ⎯⎯ for the sake of both children. Dale surely could think of plenty to say but decided quickly that based on the look of them, they didn't want to hear any comforting words.

At least he could tell Clementine didn't. Carl wasn't as much of an open book. He wasn't crying anymore, but who knew what that meant for his internal feelings. Besides, he had his parents that he more likely than not would rather speak to over Dale.

• ───────────────── •

There was some sort of semblance of a funeral. Bodies were buried. People stood around ⎯⎯ Hershel also said a few words for the lost souls. It all blurred together. Clementine was back at the farmhouse with Carl within the hour.

While Carl lay down on the couch for more rest, Clem sat in the kitchen on a stool pulled up by the island countertop. Maggie was cleaning up the kitchen and Beth was doing the dishes ⎯⎯ using the chores to take their mind off of what happened at the barn.

The world kept spinning.

Every day more people die. They had long before the dead came back to haunt them all, but it became a much more prevalent thing. A looming dread and grief to turn the survivors inside out until even if they were alive . . . they no longer felt it. Clementine was thankful she hadn't reached that quite yet. She'd lost her family and that had pulled a part of her inside to shreds, that part would never return, but she had others too. Rick, Lori, Carl, T-Dog, Dale, and Beth too ⎯⎯ they all cared about her, and she cared about them. With them, she'd be fine.

Maggie finished wiping off the counter, glancing at her sister who had yet to say a word, and then at Clementine who never had much to say around her in the first place. "You thirsty, sweetie?"

She gave a curt nod, licking her dry lips realizing she was definitely thirsty only after someone asked her.

A glass cup from the cupboard was grabbed and Maggie held it under the running faucet. It filled up quickly, and as she passed it to Clementine she immediately stepped out of the kitchen and into the dining room where Glenn was.

"So if your group leaves, you wouldn't stay?"

Clem frowned at the sound of it but didn't say anything. It would have hurt a little to consider him letting the rest of his group leave without him ⎯⎯ if she wasn't overwhelmed by other things. Sophia had yet to leave her mind. The abrupt mentioning of her father before all hell broke loose also stung more than necessary.

What she did know was that she wanted to stay away from Shane. After him ransacking the RV and shouting at her . . . she didn't have the courage to be within his proximity without anyone else around.

If Carl hadn't accompanied her and Dale up to the farmhouse, she would have told Dale about the altercation . . . but Carl didn't need to hear that.

Clementine lifted her glass cup of water to her lips, sipping it slowly. Her heaving for air had made her mouth dry ⎯⎯ and water was finally helping that go away. It was quiet. She could faintly hear Maggie and Glenn's conversation continue, but they had gotten much quieter.

Good, she didn't want to hear it.

Out of the corner of her eye, Clem saw Beth's legs buckle beneath her . . . and whatever dish she had been holding onto clattered into the sink loudly. Clem nearly dropped her glass of water as she quickly set it down and scattered off the stool, shouting for help. "Guys!"

• ───────────────── •

Shock. A state of shock. That was what Lori assumed Beth was in . . . and it occurred to Clementine that she probably was too ⎯⎯ not as unmoving or wordless or emotionless. But, shock was the best word to describe it.

Beth lay in the bed Carl had used only days ago. Not saying a word, not moving, and not expressing anything in any other way. It was dead silent in the bedroom, but Clem could hear the rest of them talking elsewhere in the house.

Nobody could find Hershel. The one person who had the best probability of helping Beth, and people were scrambling to find out where he had gone. So, they crowded into his room. Maggie, Glenn, Lori, Rick, and Shane.

It felt wrong. Intruding on the man's space when he wasn't around to object to it. Clementine didn't want to do that. What felt worse, was that of all people, Shane was among them. He had no right. The sole person who caused all of it was sifting through the grieving man's belongings for clues like a game of mystery.

Clem sat on the edge of the bed, peeking out of the doorway when she heard people walking. The house was like a maze, but she knew where she was going. She left the room where Beth was and made it to the hallway toward Hershel's room ⎯⎯ finding Shane, Lori, and Rick huddled together in conversation.

"So you're seriously gonna go after this guy with everything that's going on, huh?" Shane asked a ghost of a smile on his lips ⎯⎯ as though he found Rick funny for wanting to go find Hershel.

She felt sick. Sick to her stomach with anger and fear and sadness . . . it was too much. Nauseating, almost. If she let herself stew over it too long, she'd surely need to throw up.

"He's right. This is not the time to head off, not today. You don't always have to ⎯⎯" Lori tried to talk to her husband, trying to portray that he shouldn't have to be the one putting his life on the line every time something bad happened ⎯⎯ every time Shane messed up.

"I'm not arguing. It's the least I can do for Hershel after we ⎯⎯"

"What? After we what?"

Clem . . . scared to her bones, but far more exhausted at having to listen to the damned man speak ⎯⎯ snapped. "After you." She gritted out, her mouth turned into a grimace at his very being. Chalking all of the unfolding issues before them as one big fallout of Shane's own existence. "You are the fucking problem."

She stepped back into the bedroom where Beth was resting ⎯⎯ the door closed in front of her, only realizing she had been the one to slam it in all three of their faces after the fact. Beth didn't need it.

The all too subtle insinuations that Rick shouldn't go help Hershel would have been enough to break Clementine if it were her father ⎯⎯ and it had been her father once upon a time. None of it was anything she had wanted to hear, therefore she knew Beth shouldn't have to. She was already in an utterly frozen state . . . nothing that could come out of Shane's mouth would make either of them feel any better.

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〈〈 𝐀 𝐔 𝐓 𝐇 𝐎 𝐑 𝐒 𝐍 𝐎 𝐓 𝐄 〉〉

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Not me cracking and breaking my own heart when I list off all of Clementine's current favorite people and realize all of them die, and not only that but almost all of them die RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER.

I can't take it. Why do I do this? It wasn't me, blame the mental illness.

I AM STILL SICK AS I AM PUBLISHING THESE TWO CHAPTERS, SO I HAVE NO IDEA HOW LONG IT WILL BE TILL I PUBLISH ANOTHER. In just a week I'm supposed to be gone for a couple of days to visit family, so I may not be able to write until January <3

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