⊱ 11 ~ ❝ mr. clean ❞ ⊰
〖season two, episode four〗

In the midst of Carl's potential life-saving surgery, Clem had passed out in the chair by T-Dog ⎯⎯ her body curled and wedged into onto the square cushion with her head propped up on the arm of the chair at an uncomfortably awkward angle.

Ultimately, it was the recognizable sound of the screen door creaking open and shut over and over, that woke her up. She had no idea how exactly she'd ended up on the couch with T-Dog nowhere in sight but was more worried about where everyone was going if they were leaving the building.

Having just woken up ⎯⎯ her eyes were still heavy with the tired feeling she hadn't completely swept away with sleeping. The morning rays of sunlight coming through the sheer white curtains didn't help her at all with wrenching open her eyes. It was once she'd sat up, and looked out the window again that she saw the RV and that was enough to send her sprinting.

Clementine hurried over, making sure she hadn't fabricated the visual in her tired state. She walked up to the screen door ⎯⎯ what she saw was real and on top of that everyone else she'd last seen at the church was also there. It felt like those moments in every Christmas movie where the kid woke up, looked out the window, and saw snow had covered his or her entire neighborhood on Christmas morning.

"We'd have lost Carl if not for him." The screen door snapped shut behind Clementine as she stepped up to the edge of the porch before the stairs. Momentarily hesitating to let the excitement bubbling inside unleash.

From a small distance away, Dale lifted his head to look at the girl while hugging Rick. He smiled seeing Clementine for the first time in over twenty-four hours. "How'd it happen?" He asked Rick but waved the girl over despite having a new conversation to pay attention to.

"Hunting accident. That's all ⎯⎯ just a stupid accident."

She hopped down the steps promptly. Her metaphorical compass was finally back within arms reach and she couldn't have felt more overjoyed. Now that Dale had welcomed her over with open arms, that joy couldn't be suppressed.

"Clementine." Dale smiled, bending over halfway to be closer to her level. Seeing her for the first time in a long time, he noticed a few things. Very thin layers of splattered dirt and sweat were across her cheeks and forehead. The tears she shed prior had streaked through the grime. Clearly, she was in desperate need of a good shower ⎯⎯ but Dale looked thrilled to see her anyway.

"Everything okay on the highway?" Clem hooked her arms around Dale in a hug ⎯⎯ she hadn't used to be one to hug people without being motivated by the person she was hugging, but it was needed for both parties.

Dale patted the girl's back softly, "Just missed the lovely, Clementine." A wide grin broke across her lips as she breathed out a quiet laugh at the compliment.

Rick then grabbed the girl's attention, softly grabbing her hand. "We're doin' a little memorial for Otis ⎯⎯ will you sit with Carl for me? Let him know where we are if he wakes up?" It wasn't a lie, he did want someone to be there just in case his son woke up again . . . but he also didn't want Clementine subjected to another heartbreaking scenario she didn't need. He had seen her back at the church, looking around at the tombstones like she wanted to find one with her name on it.

On the other hand, she wasn't too sure. She was still very scared to come face-to-face with Lori or Carl. "Are you sure?" She looked at him worriedly, gnawing on her lip, her eyebrows tightly furrowed close together. "I'll be good . . . I won't make a fuss." Clem muttered, kicking at the dirt frustratedly.

"This isn't a punishment, Clementine. He probably wants to talk to you . . . just as much as you want to talk to him," He said, calling the girl out when he knew deep down she missed Carl or at least the calm moment in the woods where they had all the time in the world to talk about mundane things like their favorite colors. It would've been a lie if she said she didn't want to talk to Carl ⎯⎯ it was just fear of him being mad at her that kept her from doing so, and the lack of opportunities to speak to him.

"Okay." She huffed a sigh, lifting her head again to look at him, but her eyes drifted past Rick, landing on Shane where he stood a couple of feet away, his hands tucked in the pockets of oversized overalls . . . and missing the full head of hair he had when she fell asleep. "What the hell happened to you? You look like Mr. Clean."

Shane chortled a laugh ⎯⎯ it was forced, clearly, but that much wasn't anything new. Clem didn't exactly expect him to be thrilled by her words, but as per usual she didn't give them much thought before they came out.

• ───────────────── •

Two chairs were set up bedside to Carl. Most likely a good hour after Clementine had fallen asleep, the surgery was finished. Those two chairs were where Lori and Rick had been posted up all night waiting for Carl to wake up or . . . the other option.

Clementine slowly walked around the bed toward those two chairs ⎯⎯ if she had to watch Carl she didn't want to stand in the corner the whole time. Waking up to someone standing in the corner of a room sounded like something out of a horror film.

She scooted the chair closer to the bed where she could sit close and keep an eye on the boy without bothering him . . . but that plan failed when the chair scraped across the floor and released an ear-piercing nails-on-a-chalkboard kind of sound.

Clementine froze holding both arms of the chair, halfway sitting down and half standing up hoping she could keep the boy asleep with pure will. Her hopes were futile when he flinched slightly at the noise, eyes opening barely. "What was that?" He croaked tiredly, his eyes squinted looking around.

"Sorry, the chair." She mumbled embarrassed, leaning back into the seat. It was too late now, he was awake ⎯⎯ but she all of a sudden wished she had lied right to his father's face and said she would sit with the boy and instead wait in the living room.

"Where is everyone?"

She looked to the window, gesturing absentmindedly. "Some funeral thing for the guy that shot . . . the deer." Clem shook her head disapproving of the words coming from her ⎯⎯ how much Carl actually knew about the whole situation was one giant question mark, and she didn't feel like she had the authority to go about explaining any of it.

A soft smile formed on the boy's face at the mention of the deer. "Did you see it?" He asked, turning his head to face Clementine fully without sitting up. She nodded, holding her hands in her lap, pinching the palm of her hand until thin crescent moon-shaped indents would remain from her fingernails. "I got so close to it . . . It was so beautiful."

The serenity of the scene had long disappeared from her mind when all she could think about was what immediately followed ⎯⎯ but the tranquility on his face from the memory alone made her wish she could go back for a couple of seconds and experience the beauty he was enraptured by.

If only she could hold onto that split second of time that radiated with life and innocence. She wasn't sure if she would ever be able to feel as purely alive as Carl seemed to.

A dictionary was what she needed for her to properly explain just how it all made her feel . . . she had a good vocabulary, but none of the words she had in her mind pieced together all of those emotions. It was the most childish she had felt in a long time to not be able to label her own feelings.

"I'm sorry you got hurt." She looked down at her sneakers, kicking them forward and backward under the chair.

Carl looked down at himself, where the sheet was pulled up to cover the bandage placed across his stomach. "It's okay, it doesn't hurt that much anymore."

"But it did." She argued, not liking his optimism that much when he was the one suffering.

He gave a quick nod like he didn't want to admit it to her. "I'm not mad, you shouldn't be either."

Clementine knocked the toes of her tennis shoes together ⎯⎯ the subject at hand was growing more and more awkward when of all things, Carl chose to talk about her feelings. Everyone was beginning to really annoy her with the constant asking about how she was.

Her family was dead, and that was final . . . but every time something else happened at least one person looked at her first to see how it made her feel. Who were these people and why did they try so hard to care for her? Was it all pity, and guilty conscience, or were they really just combatting the resentment of having an orphaned child to look after?

"I'm not mad," Clem grumbled discontent with his insinuation but fighting to smother that feeling to just have a normal discussion with him. It was the first time she was actually speaking to him since there fleeting conversation in the woods ⎯⎯ before the deer and the shooting and the running and the fear. She didn't want the limited amount of time to be spent talking about the moment she kept seeing anyway. "I'm not." She said once more, that time more to herself, but not believing it any more than she did the first time around.

"All right . . . you're not." Carl agreed, but whether he actually did was to be decided by both parties.

Clementine reached into the back pocket of her jeans and pulled out the thin pocket knife Carl let her hold while they walked all together as a group. "I still have that knife your dad let us carry . . . if you want it." She shrugged as she held it out in her fingertips, folded shut and harmlessly closed.

It had completely left her mind until then. How she was sitting made it so she could feel it in her pocket, and immediately remembered it was never hers to keep. Rick may have granted them both access to it for that short time frame, but for whatever sneaking suspicion, she doubted Carl was happy she got it in the end.

A pleased smile spread across his lips as a tired look overtook the rest of his face. Her sneaking suspicion was wrong. "Keep it ⎯⎯ just pretend it's a birthday present. Like your jacket." His eyes fluttered open and shut despite him having just woken up moments ago. It must have taken so much of his energy just to have such a simple conversation.

Clementine chose to stay quiet. He was actively fighting the sleep from taking over, and if he needed it that bad she didn't want to stop him from getting the rest his body needed.

She stared at the knife instead, wondering. His comment made her realize she had no idea when her next birthday was ⎯⎯ or how long it had been since she turned ten. How long had it been since the CDC? She couldn't have been sure, but she blinked her eyes shut hard at the thought of the CDC.

What happened prior to it was not something she wanted to think about on top of Carl being shot and Sophia being missing. It was unavoidable to remember when people looked at her with that pitiful look, or when someone accidentally claimed someone else was her mother or father ⎯⎯ but she wouldn't allow herself to mull over it till she ripped her hair out.

Lori stepped into the door as her son drifted off and turned her lips up into that motherly smile she had for any child. First, her eyes went to her son. She saw the state he was in and waved Clementine to come on out.

If attempting casual conversation with Carl wasn't awkward enough for Clem ⎯⎯ Lori showing up and asking her to come out on the porch to talk sounded way worse. However, she slowly got up out of the chair and followed the woman out of the farmhouse's side door and onto the porch.

Clementine stared out at the farm, seeing all the faces she recognized gathering amongst the few trees and parking their vehicles around the area. Running away from Lori was surely an option. She thought of doing so. But avoiding the woman was proving to be harder than she anticipated and she couldn't do it much longer.

"Come here." Lori patted the porch step next to her, beckoning Clementine to sit down. A dramatic huff came from her as she plopped down beside Lori and stared straight down at the dirt at the bottom of the steps. "What's wrong, sweetheart?" She asked leaning forward trying to get her to look at her.

"Rick told me to sit with Carl." She quickly rushed out defensively.

"No, you know what I mean." Lori reached out, tucking her hair behind her ear and out of her face.

She pressed her lips together hard like the words were burgeoning on her tongue but her mind was working to keep it inside. That wasn't something Clementine was good at though. So soon enough it flowed out with ease. "I promised." She murmured angrily to herself. "I said I'd protect Carl, but . . . look at him." Clem turned her head back to look at the screen door for a split second.

Lori smiled, a breathy laugh releasing from her lips. The reaction to Clementine's words only annoyed her but Lori's expression didn't falter at Clementine's scowl. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to laugh." She said looking out ahead of them for a moment. "Just ⎯⎯ you amaze me, Clementine."

As Lori's smile didn't disappear, neither did Clementine's displeased frown. What the mother meant exactly by being amazed by the little girl . . . Clem had no idea. She couldn't recall ever doing something astounding or groundbreaking in her whole life. But Lori wasn't one to lie to a child.

"Listen." She reached out, tilting Clem's head to face her and sliding the hair on the opposite side of her head out of her face. "I know it's not what you want to hear, but you're just a kid. You never had any responsibility to take care of my son. This wasn't something any of us could have controlled." Lori spoke firmly but with compassion ⎯⎯ she was to be heard at that moment but she would never intend to be rude to a child. "You blaming yourself does nothing but destroy you from the inside out. And, he's okay, Clementine."

Clementine's lips pursed into a sad pout as she fought everything inside. "I'm sorry." She whimpered, trying to turn away and keep her tears at bay and away from Lori's eyes. Clem was quickly wrapped in Lori's arms and succumbed to her feelings. With her face against Lori's chest, the only thing to stop her from crying was the shirt fabric immediately absorbing the tears. "I'm sorry."

• ───────────────── •

Everyone was calling the farm the base camp to set up a search for Sophia. They gathered over a map, pinpointing search locations and devising the plan for the next couple of days. If the search was unsuccessful they had somewhere else to look right after.

Clementine couldn't find the will in her to listen to any of it. She steered clear from the congregations of people picking apart their ideas and opinions on the matter. Even less intrigued on sticking around when Shane suggested Sophia would be found in . . . other conditions.

Instead, she decided to stick with two people she knew wouldn't disappoint her. T-Dog and Dale were wandering off with a wheelbarrow of empty milk jugs.

"No, what I said on the highway ⎯⎯ I don't know what that was, where it came from. That wasn't me." T-Dog spoke tiredly, his face gaining a light sheen of sweat from pushing the wheelbarrow out there. Clem walked up behind T, neither of them knowing she was there. "If it's okay, I'd rather you never told anybody about that stuff I said."

She skipped hopped into view, smiling up at them. "What stuff?"

There was one split second of awkward silence while T-Dog looked from Clementine to Dale. "No idea Clem. I couldn't get a word out of him all day." Dale shrugged nonchalantly, his face strewn with confusion. "Must be mixing his magic fairy tale dreams with reality."

Clementine giggled at Dale's joke, looking up at T-Dog to see him smiling at Dale just as happily. "Fairytale dreams?" She snickered, raising her eyebrows questioningly.

T-Dog laughed along with her as he pushed the water pump's lever up and down filling up a bucket. He grabbed a small ladle, scooped up some water out of the bucket, and lifted it for Clementine. "Here ya' go, froggy."

She used both her hands on either side of her head, holding her hair back out of her face as she leaned forward to take a sip ⎯⎯ Dale rushed over, slapping the ladle from T-Dog's hand and splashing the water across the ground. "Hey!" Clem exclaimed, jumping back away from the small wave of water flying out. "What the hell, Dale?"

"I wouldn't drink that if I were either of you." He insisted, pressing his lips together. Dale walked over to the opening of the well T-Dog right behind him and Clementine did not hesitate to do so as well. Not wanting to be the only one to not know.

Down the hole stood a walker, mindlessly stepping around the three-by-three-foot space in the water below. "Ew . . . what if I drank it?"

Dale gently placed his hand on her upper back, guiding her away. "Don't worry about that, Clem. You didn't. You're okay." He insisted, looking back at T-Dog. "Go get some help with . . . that. I'm gonna take Clementine to the RV."

"But I wanna see what happens!" She exclaimed dramatically, hoping T would agree with her when she looked at him pleadingly.

"C'mon, he's just lookin' out for what's best for you." T said finally tearing his eyes away from what swam below. "Don't be difficult now, froggy." She crossed her arms over her chest and turned away walking beside Dale all the way to the RV ⎯⎯ muttering under her breath about it being unfair and them treating her like a child.

• ───────────────── •

It wasn't too easy to associate time in the RV with anything joyful ⎯⎯ in fact she thought the last time she enjoyed a moment in the RV was the few seconds before Amy Harrison's downfall. She would force herself to do as the adults wanted and stay away from the well, but spending that time holed up in the motorhome didn't sound as doable.

"Sit down, Clem, I got something I think is yours." He waved her to take a seat in the booth.

Then she was intrigued. How exactly Dale got his hands on something of hers was a puzzle in itself not to mention what it could have been. She had her jacket, shoes, jeans, and the Linkin Park shirt . . . that was about all she had to her name.

She sat down on the booth, scooting close to the edge and craning her neck to see over his shoulder. Dale was rummaging through a drawer before closing it and opening another. "There it is." He turned around crouching down in front of her. "Put your hand out."

Clem opened her right hand, palm up. He hovered his closed fist over her palm like an offered fist bump before dropping something cool in her hand. It landed and he moved his hand away to clear the view entirely. There it was ⎯⎯ the wishing stone. Warmth blossomed in her chest and a smile curved into her lips. But as soon as she was filled with joy, she was immediately upset by the fact she had forgotten about it at all.

How could she have neglected the precious stone? It meant the world to her, but in just a few days she had completely lost any and all memory of it existing to begin with.

Anger was pretty much her main way of expressing anything as a child ⎯⎯ but that began to change when the last person she knew, from before flesh-eating freaks, died. She was still angry. Almost all the time she was, but other emotions became just as present, and it was a new thing for her. One of the many stronger presenting feelings was an all-consuming sadness.

There had been a few times Dale had witnessed the girl crying ⎯⎯ all of which were understandably upsetting circumstances. She was more well known for yelling but the sadness within her became clear. Having the rock in her hands was stirring it all up inside her and he could see it in her glossing eyes.

"Hey . . . it's okay." Dale tried to comfort her, moving one hand to his chest quickly. "Here, I found these too." He pulled her pair of glasses from the small pocket of his shirt. Gently he placed the arms on her ears and nudged them up her nose with his knuckle. "I ever tell you about my late wife?" Dale spoke hushed to change the subject to something more positive than whatever she may have been feeling inside.

Positive wasn't quite how she would have described the sound of it at first. But Clementine was entirely okay with leaving any discussion involving her tiny rock to be something kept inside her head. Nobody else needed to know the importance of it ⎯⎯ that much was reserved for her.

She sniffled hard, wiping her nose aggressively on the sleeve of her jacket. "No . . . you had a wife?"

Dale cracked a smile, wiping a tear from her cheek that managed to slip free. "Yes, I did. She would've loved you too." He nodded resting his hands on her knees and gently tapping his fingers on her jeans. "She always wanted a little girl, and one with your soul would've meant the world to her." A similar sadness was buried in his eyes ⎯⎯ he didn't cry, but Clem could see it when he stood up and looked around the RV, readying to head back to the well to help the others. "I'm sorry ⎯⎯ I don't have anything for you to read while you wait. Glenn has one of my books, and I forgot The Sound and The Fury at the CDC."

Clem scrunched her nose, adjusting the glasses without hands and squeezing her rock tightly in her hand. "It's okay. Thank you, Dale."

• ───────────────── •

A while later Carol came in, melancholic expression and the skin below her eyes glittered with wiped away tears. She stayed silent, spending her time doing the RV's collection of yellow dishes and once she was done with that she stepped into the back room.

Clementine didn't have the courage to say anything to the woman. Her daughter was missing and nothing a little girl said would make her feel any better. If anything, Clementine imagined Carol didn't want to speak to her at all ⎯⎯ Sophia had her mother left behind worried sick about her, but if Clementine had run off in the woods . . . well she didn't have any family left around to grieve her loss. 

She let Carol go about her tasks in silence and didn't speak a word to the woman. There was no reason to disturb her if Clementine was content anyway to sit there staring at her rock or out the window.

But when Daryl came in, holding a bottle with a white flower sticking out he seemed to have only one destination in mind. "You seen Carol?" He muttered to Clem, looking around with a piece of some plant stem in his mouth and holding the flower low by his hips as if he didn't want anyone to see he had it.

She flicked her eyes up at him ⎯⎯ Daryl was one of those people nobody could ever successfully explain as a human being. The personality of the man was a back-and-forth thing at least in the eyes of Clementine. He had called her a spoiled brat, but saved her from walkers on two separate occasions . . . three if she counted that night at the camp when he didn't personally do anything for her favor but as a whole helped others save many people.

Therefore, she couldn't quite decide herself if she wanted to entertain him being present in the flesh, but jerked her head to the side toward the back of the RV. "Back there." He nodded his head silently and Clementine almost thought it was his simplistic way of saying thank you.

"I cleaned up," Carol told him as he entered the back section. "Wanted it to be nice for her."

"For a second I thought I was in the wrong place." Daryl was quiet, it was a conversation he probably didn't want Clementine to hear. But she was just an overcurious girl and scooted to the opening of the booth and peaked around the corner to see the both of them.

Daryl set down the bottle with the thriving flower on the small shelf connected to the wall and continued looking around the space unsure of something. He had something he wanted to say ⎯⎯ and it seemed to be taking a lot to get it out verbally.

"A flower?"

Awkwardly, he shrugged, waving his hand toward it. "It's a Cherokee rose." Clementine was surprised that he of all people knew the name of the flower, but she was more concerned with why he was bringing it to Carol at all. "The story is that when American soldiers were moving Indians off their land on the trail of tears. The Cherokee mothers were grieving and crying so much 'cause they were losing their little ones along the way from exposure and disease and starvation."

Clementine was glad Daryl wasn't standing in front of her to see the complete shock on her face. This was a gentleness she'd never seen exhibited from him before and she immediately had so many questions for the man.

"A lot of them just disappeared. So the elders, they said a prayer . . . asked for a sigh to uplift the mothers' spirits ⎯⎯ give them strength and hope. The next day this rose started to grow right where the mothers' tears fell." Daryl explained, fidgeting with his hands. "I'm not fool enough to think there's any flowers bloomin' for my brother. But, uh, I believe this one bloomed for your little girl."

Empathetic tears filled Clementine's eyes as Daryl shuffled out of the RV, and she swiped them away, jumping up and following him hastily.

• ───────────────── •

"Daryl!" Clem shouted for him, running through the overgrown fields to keep up with his speedy walk. "Hey, I know you can hear me!"

He stopped, turning around to look at her ⎯⎯ a good distance away from the camp he had made up himself away from everyone else. "What you want?"

"Don't be rude." She spat annoyedly, crossing her arms. "How do you know all that?"

Daryl let out a scoff at her pestering him. "Why don't you go back to . . . someone else." He waved her off, turning and continuing his trek to his personal camp. But Clem didn't miss the way he stuttered over his words at the end, for a split second he must have forgotten she didn't have many people that wanted her around.

"Hey!" She screamed at him, making him glance back over his shoulder at her. With a smile on her face, she lifted her hand up ⎯⎯ all fingers clutched in a fist except one singular finger, the middle finger. It stayed up as she flipped the man off and spun around, marching away from him proudly.

It was just as long as a walk back to the farmhouse and even more boring completely alone. She squeezed her rock in her fist where it was inside her pocket. It was all the company she needed. Nobody wanted her around, and that was okay ⎯⎯ she could stand being alone.

The sun wasn't as high in the sky anymore and she had hurried her way back to where everyone else was, but the barn wasn't that far from anything else. So, her speed lessened when the likelihood of her being in danger decreased.

That was until she heard a faint grumbling sound from the wooden structure beside her. "Hello?" She called out confused, looking around for someone but nobody responded, but the quiet sound got louder for a second before fading out again. It sounded awfully a lot like the noises that filled the Atlanta camp that night walkers came from every which way.

She stepped up to the boarded-shut barn door and peeked through the thin crack. It was so dark inside that at first nothing was distinguishable other than shadows moving about. That was until the minimal light filtering through the small cracks in the barn lit up a sickly grey face.

It was a walker, and if there was one walker in there for sure, the other moving objects must have been walkers as well. Clem stepped back away from the doors before any of them could have clocked her nearness to their space. "Ew." She croaked disgusted by it ⎯⎯ but thinking it was boarded up just to keep the farm safe, and that everyone must have known.

She started to walk away, thinking about asking someone else about the collection of walkers inside. But Glenn saw her with a sour look on her face and walked over. "Hey, what's up, tiny?" He swiped his hat off his head and smushed it down on her head.

Her eyebrows furrowed instinctively, and everything on her mind was replaced. "Tiny?" Clem asked, squinting through the strands of hair sticking out of the hat in front of her eyes as she tried to comb them away.

"Yeah, how do you like it?" Glenn tilted his head slightly at her. She wasn't sure what specifically he was asking about but she also was struggling to see past her messied hair and the bill of the cap.

Clem lifted her chin to look up at him fully, seeing his full head of hair for the first time ⎯⎯ completely disheveled from having just taken his hat off. "You look funny." She laughed, shoving her hair out of her face successfully. "Your head looks naked."

He laughed along with her, swiping the hat back off her head ⎯⎯ happy that he had successfully wiped that glower off her face. "Well, I guess I'll have to keep it then."

︿

〈〈 𝐀 𝐔 𝐓 𝐇 𝐎 𝐑 𝐒 𝐍 𝐎 𝐓 𝐄 〉〉

﹀

It's low-key a painful journey to witness everyone being so unbelievably kind and caring toward Clementine when she can't fathom anyone spending their time worrying about her above anyone else. Like Clementine thinking nobody wants her around kills me so much. Time and time again people have shown that they want her to be okay but she is just so blind to it. Mistaking it as like people pitying her. She really just can not believe that when they express their love for her it's not because they think it's what she wants and it's actually because they really do.

Rick, Lori, T-Dog, Dale, and Carl = #1 Clementine defenders.

I really do love all the small happy Clem scenes in this chapter with all her fav people and Glenn cuz I needed her to have a scene with him.

Also, I know it's weird to have Clem know about the barn full of walkers before anyone else, but trust it does not affect Glenn and Maggie's storyline of finding out and the secrets because Clem for some reason brushes it off as nothing serious lmao.

This whole chapter was just made-up scenes pretty much so I'm kinda proud of it *blushing emoji* but it was kind of an impulsive publish, so i may or may not go back through some day and edit it a little bit.