⊱ 17 ~ ❝ deja vu ❞ ⊰
〖season two, episode ten〗

Sitting on the bed, legs criss-crossed and her hand tucked in her pocket methodically flipping and turning her rock. Beth basically ignored her presence the whole time ⎯⎯ but that was fine. Clementine didn't care.

Sometimes all you need is to sit in your own misery to be able to pull yourself out of it. That was a fact that Clementine knew well enough to be able to execute without a problem. However, she was itching to talk to someone. It had been quiet for so long that she wasn't sure her words would come out properly if she tried.

"Knock, knock," Lori called out, opening the door with a tray in hand, and setting it on the nightstand beside Beth. 

It was the first time Clem had seen Beth actually acknowledge someone. That was a step in the right direction. Lori passed Clementine one of the plates from the tray, holding a sandwich while Beth's plate was full of chicken and sliced tomato and cucumber.

"How 'bout this . . .  you ⎯⎯ uh. You eat up all your food, we'll get you up and out of here and go take a walk. What do you say?" Lori offered, as she stood with her hands on her hips, facing Beth. "It'll do good to be outside.

Clementine took a bite out of her sandwich, nodding contently with the taste and awaiting Beth's response as she chewed on her food. It sounded relatively nice. She would happily accompany the two of them on a walk, but it was about Beth's mental recovery, and having a child towing along might not be all that appealing.

It took a couple of seconds for Beth to give any indication that she actually heard Lori. Her eyes were gazing in a random direction ⎯⎯ as if she could see past the reality she was in and see into space. Looking between the molecules of her current existence.

Only when she finally spoke, it wasn't necessarily a response. It was a completely different topic. "You're pregnant? How could you do that?"

Eyes widening at her words, Clem set her food back down on her plate and looked up at Lori, trying to distinguish just how hurtful that might have been to the woman. She attempted to be lighthearted, messing with the fabric of her shirt puffing out of her jean's waistband. "Uh, I don't really have a choice."

Still looking elsewhere, an almost amused look formed on Beth's face ⎯⎯ but it was hard to tell. She looked drained. More tired than Clementine had ever seen another human being, minus her father. That was a different situation though. Beth was a different kind of exhausted. It wasn't something that could be physically healed with a mythical cure or bandaids.

Grief couldn't be stopped. It was something that wouldn't go away.

"You think it'll make a difference?"

"Of course, it will," Lori confirmed, sounding so sure of herself. "You eat something. Clementine, you coming?" She asked her arm out in a physical gesture to allow Clem a space to walk ahead of her and out of the bedroom.

Looking at Beth, and then back to Lori, Clem shook her head. "No, I'll finish my sandwich and bring my plate out." Lori hesitated, but allowed it and left the bedroom with the hope that not just Clementine would be eating her lunch.

• ───────────────── •

Both girls stayed quiet for a long time. Clementine stopped eating and was pinching the crust of her sandwich off into a pile on her plate. She was trying really hard to stew over her words. Spent the whole time thinking about what Beth said, how she must be feeling, and how it all made Clem, herself, feel.

Only after did she peel her lips apart to speak. "That wasn't very nice . . . you know." Clem finally allowed words to come out. If it was anyone else she probably would have said it differently. She probably would have said, in the moment, how disrespectful it was to insinuate Lori was wrong to allow herself to carry a child.

This was different. Beth was different. Beth was kind. She gave Clementine a doll and made her a peanut butter and jelly when she was wallowing in her guilt ⎯⎯ it was easier than Clem thought to give Beth the benefit of the doubt even if it was Lori who she spoke negatively to. 

"What?" Beth croaked, finally dragging her eyes to fully meet Clementine.

She stuttered over her words, feeling intimidated all of a sudden that Beth was acknowledging her as a whole and not just a voice speaking to her. "What you said. About it not makin' a difference."

The teen stared, deadpanned at Clementine ⎯⎯ not an ounce of the same kindness she'd given her either of the other two times showing in her face. "You think it will?"

Clem shrugged timidly, pulling her hands out of her pockets and leaving her rock where it was, instead messing with the frayed pieces of her jeans. "I don't know . . . we can't tell the future, but, I like babies." She said, coaxing the corners of her lips up into a thin smile.

An almost annoyed sigh rumbled from Beth's parted lips. "That's good. You should have hope. You're still just a kid."

"You're a kid too, you know," Clementine said, trying not to drop the smile when Beth called her a kid. Would people ever take her seriously? Would she really just always be seen as some kid that they were lugging around to keep safe? 

Again, a sigh rippled from Beth as if she had re-realized the fact she was indeed a minor. Fifteen or sixteen, Clem couldn't remember, but a kid was a kid. Nobody deserved the pain any of them had gone through, let alone as someone who wasn't even an adult.

"Doesn't matter⎯⎯"

"It matters." Clem insisted immediately, no longer able to stop the frown from taking over her expression. Beth could have been trying to say more, that would never be known, but Clem couldn't stand hearing someone say that. It was too familiar. An uncomfortable sense of deja vu was settling over her. She'd had this argument before. "People matter, you matter."

"You really think that?" Beth asked. She didn't just ask a simple question. It was a question laced with about a thousand other questions that Clem couldn't possibly answer all of them. Silence overtook the space once more as if Clementine had never spoken a single word to Beth in the first place.

The first thing to come to mind ⎯⎯ the reasoning for her insistent deja vu, was burgeoning on the tip of her tongue. She forced herself to freeze and let her truly think about it. Was it worth it? Would it make a difference? But even all that mulling over the words didn't stop them from surging out the second she opened her mouth. "My dad didn't . . . he thought it was best to only worry about yourself, family."

A brief look passed over Beth's eyes as if she was unsure how to approach that, even when she was stuck not feeling much empathy for anything. "You don't sound much like him."

Clementine's frown deepened, recalling all the times people had told her she was the spitting image of her mother's child self. Everyone was sure Clementine would grow into one beautiful woman, just like Marie Holloway. How people always said the only difference was Clem's inability to keep her emotions under control ⎯⎯ that was one thing she did get from Jim.

Every feeling he had would come in the strongest form for him, in the last month or so Clem had with him, his personality dulled. The only thing that could really get through to him was seeing Clementine act like him. Seeing Clem act out on her feelings like he had dozens of times before.

"Yeah, maybe not." Clem agreed quietly, the small happy feeling she had in her stomach fading into an abyss of nauseating discomfort.

"Where's your dad now?" Beth asked, her tone still lacking much of any feeling toward what she was saying or being told.

Tears burned her eyes, but Clem just managed to keep them at bay long enough for them to dry away. Her voice cracked on the first word ⎯⎯ physically paining her to say it out loud. "Got bit. Had to leave him behind."

At some point, Clem stuffed her hand back in her pocket and squeezed her fist around the rock inside. So hard that if it wasn't smooth she would have surely scraped her palm . . . stuck wonder if Beth was kind of right.

Maybe she was right and maybe she was dumb this whole time to view a silly rock as an extension of her family. She suddenly felt, very silly for having it in her possession.

Clem released the stone into her pocket, letting it put a little weight on the fabric as she stood up, took her plate, and left the bedroom without another word.

Lori spotted Clem storming into the kitchen almost immediately, turning on her foot to see her as she set the plate on the counter where her sandwich had only three bites at most taken out of it. "You didn't finish. Did Beth eat?"

"No." She grumbled in response, leaving the kitchen faster than she had walked in and going all the way back to the made-up camp within the group of trees.

Alone was exactly how she wanted to be. She missed the quarry, and being able to go down there whenever she needed some peace and quiet. A place where she couldn't even hear her thoughts because it was that serene.

The closest she had to that was to traipse into the woods, but she didn't want to end up like Sophia by making a dumb decision fueled by her desire to get away from everything. Her tent would have to do. She'd probably be stuck listening to people walking by or other meaningless conversations, but it was the best she could do.

When she had woken up that day she intended to spend the day with Lori, watching over Beth, helping if she could, and trying to relax knowing Rick and Shane were taking Randall far out somewhere to ditch him like an unwanted puppy.

Instead, there she was again, craving seclusion and wanting a moment where she could just let her emotions out without anyone seeing. Sat on a folded-up fleece blanket, staring at her little wishing stone sitting on the mesh tent flooring . . . crying for her family. The people she could remember ruling her entire world. The same four human beings that she once saw every single day for every one of her ten years alive. The same four people she'd never see again.

Oh how badly she missed them ⎯⎯ but crying whilst looking at the rock . . . a stupid rock, made her feel angry. Even then, the tears didn't stop. She cried because she was sad, she cried because she was angry. Then she cried because she didn't know how she felt anymore or how she should feel.

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〈〈 𝐀 𝐔 𝐓 𝐇 𝐎 𝐑 𝐒 𝐍 𝐎 𝐓 𝐄 〉〉

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I'm really annoyed that this chapter is so short because the scene with Beth is very important to me. If I could have, I would have put it into a different chapter, but I don't want to mix episodes.

I just feel like because it's so short, it makes the scene with Beth look very half-assed in my opinion. Like it was a spur-of-the-moment decision for Clementine to tell Beth about her father, or for Beth and Clem to have a discussion at all. BUT this scene was literally planned since before I even finished rewriting Oh My Darling season one, so pleeasseee love the scene as much as I do. <3

Also, Beth having no empathy for what she's saying or being told has nothing to do with Clementine. The girl is incredibly depressed. You know what she does this episode when Clementine isn't around, so do not take the way I wrote that scene as saying Beth was being a shitty person.

She was a child reprocessing a grief she never had the opportunity to understand.

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