A/N: After finishing Growing Pains, I already had a sequel planned out in the event I ever decided to pick this story up again. I knew that whatever the game did or the direction it took, I would still write this as I intended all those months ago. The finale to Season 2 has given me the push to follow through with this sequel, not just to carry on with Clementine and Luke's story within Wellington, but of a personal need to gain closure over a game that sadly disappointed me in it's finale, along with the death of a character who I wish had been given the chance to survive through until Season 3, and who I still cling to the insignificant hope that he will.

This is not a 'what if' story to what I wanted to see as an outcome for the game. This is still an A/U [alternate universe] taking place within the world of Season 2, so it'll help you to have read Growing Pains beforehand to understand some of the plot points mentioned here and there within this story, as it only follows through canon events up until Episode 2, with slight alterations. At the current time this story rating will be rated T, however please be aware this may change if and when things do take a violent turn. If they do, I may give a warning the chapter beforehand, as M rated stories will not show up within the main search unless selecting 'all-ratings'. So if you're not a user on this site and you're still old enough to be in the M section, just keep this in mind.

A special thanks to Sialark for being my little helper this time around. Seriously, aside from assisting on the grammar front, you've been a great help with your suggestions and even just finding Wellington Ohio was a big help too as I was so lost as to what Wellington to set this in. You are awesome T_T thank you!

So to everybody who craved more from the duo after their tale ended, this is for you...

The Walking Dead
Skin-Deep

Chapter 1: Sanctuary

February 3rd, 2006

The key was in the lock, and the door wouldn't open.

It was below freezing, soon to be dark and with another storm predicted to be hitting after nightfall, and there they had to be, stuck outside with the key to that property jammed in the lock and the front door not budging an inch.

One simple answer might've been to try breaking the damn thing down, but they couldn't really do that here. What kind of impression of them would that leave on others? The newcomers busting open the door to the house they'd just been given, and all because they couldn't get inside? That wouldn't be any fun to explain, or go down well with the folks in this town.

What did she say again? Push and…uh…

A small voice spoke out from behind, tired and impatient.

"Maybe we should try around back?"

The box of supplies was set down on the porch with a duffle bag dumped alongside it, and the door was given another try, with a reminder kept in thought to push and lift it up by the handle to work that temperamental lock. This time, the key turned all the way.

Finally!

"Nah, I got it."

To walk into a house that didn't reek of death, or carry the pungent smell of being unlived in for years...it had been a long time. Just walking through that door felt weird to not to be following through with those adapted instincts of survival that came with your typical apocalypse. There was a brief pause in those steps to enter that dim unlit building, the day's light almost seeming to fade faster than thoughts could gather while standing in that small hallway.

No dead were here; it was fine. Nevertheless, listening out for them couldn't help but be done, as if there was still an expectation to hear the dragging of rotten feet on those floors somewhere, or the broken-up rasps of hungry corpses from one of the rooms upstairs. The enemy hidden in a person's own flesh; they could escape the dead but not themselves. The threat was still amongst them in those walls, buried within themselves until a cure could change that…hah, as if problems like those could be solved so easily.

Maybe they were still just dreaming after two years; it sure felt it recently with the change in scenery.

The light patter of shoes sounded through the front door, each step creaking on those wooden floorboards where they stopped nearby. A moment went without anything, just silence…and then, something small latched onto that sleeve of his coat, tugging at it.

"Luke?"

He turned his head away, looking down at his side. Dressed in that flowery patterned coat she deemed as ugly as her matching pink backpack and scarf, those big gold eyes stared up at him worrisomely, a maturity shining through so sharply behind that young face, they didn't match up.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

It was by that Luke realized stupidly he had been standing there saying nothing for over a minute, and that was something that usually didn't go unnoticed by somebody as astute as Clementine. Luke never could quite catch a break.

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine. Sorry," he said, quick to get his head in gear again and went to carry in the box of supplies with the duffle bag he'd left outside, sparing a last look at that picturesque neighborhood buried in snow before shutting the door. Luke found himself acknowledging or rather reminding himself as he had a bunch of other times today that there were probably other people living in those houses too, with families or other mismatched survivors like him and Clem.

They really had neighbors too now, even though that sounded funny to think about…it was a shame, it should've been more of them here, that was all Luke could keep telling himself. If he handled things better, more of them would still be around and not just him and the kid. They barely even made it here themselves...

He turned back around to that hallway, sighting Clementine by the stairs, looking up to the second floor. She'd gone forward somewhat, but no further, not daring to climb those stairs or go wandering off to investigate the house alone. Something was holding her back from exploring, perhaps the same thing that had Luke stalling before.

Her right hand grasped onto her left upper arm, the stump of that limb still stirring guilt in Luke's conscience every time he saw it. From over one shoulder, Clementine's eyes caught his as she glanced back at him, her voice somehow managing to be assertive and nervous all at once.

"We should look around first, make sure it's okay."

She had no need to say it. He got it. This house was theirs, a home to call their own. But the past couldn't be cast so easily aside, no matter how safe this place, this entire town might be compared to outside away from lurkers. Those demons needed to be rid of first, for Clementine's own peace of mind.

Maybe because of his own need to rid himself of those demons as well, Luke didn't think twice on leaving that box of supplies and his duffle bag by that small table below those coat hangers and small mirror, which revealed Luke still looked like shit, but not as bad as he had when arriving in town.

"Wouldn't hurt I guess."

Three days, it was three days that they had been here in Wellington.

Most of it was spent isolated in one cold, austere office building, cut off from the rest of the town and houses and its inhabitants while being constantly monitored. It was like being in jail awaiting some trial with how they got treated, not that anybody was much of an asshole to them, thank God. Hell, the hospitality was decent after all the shit they had gone through, although part of it he figured was thanks to having Clementine there that caused everyone to be more lenient and less cautious towards them than they might've been if it were just Luke on his own.

They definitely hadn't been neglected during their stay in quarantine while being processed. He and Clem got given food that the starved pair couldn't wolf down fast enough, with fresh clothes to wear and beds to sleep in, not to mention access to a shower-now that'd been great. Although getting some shut-eye was tough, what with worrying their temporary accommodations and safety from lurkers and bandits would be just that: temporary.

They had both been pretty weak, probably why the usual Wellington protocols got delayed for a bit to let them get their strength back before they were interviewed. If that bastard Joe they met on the road was right about one thing, despite over-exaggerating the extremities involved, Wellington folk didn't let just anybody in.

"You'll be assessed separately. It's nothing major, just a couple of questions and details we need to know to help us reach a verdict. You understand."

'A couple of questions,' more like a couple hundred! The woman who interviewed him was this polite brunette named Susan, who didn't look half bad for her age; she'd wanted to know everything on his life before and after shit hit the fan. Everything from before was easy more or less, like his family, education, and jobs to any criminal convictions he might have had. The stuff afterwards however, uh, not so much.

"Have you ever killed anyone?"

This wasn't an easy one to answer. Indirectly speaking, a lot of Carver's men had gotten killed on carrying out that plan to escape from his community. It was a stupid fucked-up plan Luke should've thought out better with the others. They had set fire to one or two of the buildings where most the supplies and food were stored, hoping it might buy them some time with a good enough distraction to allowing them to escape through the fences usually always so heavily guarded. Luke however hadn't anticipated how strong the winds would be that night, and the fire quickly spread to the other buildings and turned the town into an inferno that got a bunch of his group separated and many friends killed trying to escape.

Luke didn't even want to imagine how many others ended up dead from that stunt, if not from the fire then from when lurkers crashed the party as well, bringing the fences down in their masses. They were deaths of indirect cause. Directly speaking meanwhile…

He'd averted his eyes from the woman across the table, to the window in that small room where the snow was still falling outside, where a town awaited beyond that high barbed wire fence.

"Once..."

"And, what were the circumstances involved?"

It brought the memories back in a flash; Clementine screaming out his name from the woods as he'd finished filling those bottles with water by the brook, the memory of the anger boiling in his gut after bolting up that slope to find Carver threatening to kill the kid. There wasn't time to tell him to stop, to do anything other than to strike. If Luke hadn't done what he did, Clementine would've been dead. It still hadn't made it any less easier. Months passed and Luke still felt the blood on his hands.

"The guy, he was about to break my friend's neck."

That Susan woman had looked at him with somewhat wide-eyed, before continuing to take notes.

"The girl that's with you, Clementine correct? Is she the 'friend'?"

"Yeah..."

"Tell me more. Who was this man?"

Yup, that was to be one exciting tale to tell.

Luke must've been in there for more than an hour, or maybe it'd been less. Honestly they hadn't exactly kept many clocks in that place and he'd failed to kept track of time. But when it was finally over, Clementine was already out from her own interviewing and had been sitting in that small cafeteria deserted of people, save for the guard by one of the doorways, distantly keeping an eye on them.

The kid had picked glumly at the food she had been given, not eating a bite. For them both having gained a ravenous appetite since arriving in Wellington, that didn't go unchecked.

"What if they don't let us in?" Clementine hadn't even glanced up from her bowl of oatmeal with a lollipop placed on the side of the tray for after, probably given as an extra to cheer her up.

Chocolate might've done the trick a little better.

"Then we'll figure something out," Luke had told her, drinking more of that coffee he'd wished was some decent liquor instead to relieve his stress. "As long as you get in, that's all that-"

Clementine had dropped her spoon, looking across the table, mad. "I'm not staying without you!"

"Clem-"

"You prom...you promised, Luke," The girl had said a bit quieter under that guard's watchful gaze, though she remained determined as ever. "If you leave, then I'm going too."

For the longest time since spotting Wellington through the trees to walking through those gates, Clementine hadn't let go of his hand. The brief time she did was ended when they were ordered to lay down their weapons that were confiscated before being escorted in by armed guards on either side of them. Hand holding wasn't really something he was used to with that girl, but he figured she was skittish about the situation so he hadn't made a fuss over it.

"You both need to be taken through for individual medical assessments. Make sure you got nothing to hide," one of the guards had said within minutes of them being in Wellington. Lurker bites probably sounded about right. Had to be sure they weren't bitten and bring to light any medical conditions they ought to be-knowing of. Rating the risk factors from one's health, kinda degrading and discriminating too, but when a lurker can rise from one person dropping over dead in this day and age, they had to be careful.

The thing was though, when the nurse came and attempted to coax Clementine away to follow, the kid's hand had gripped his even tighter, stepping closer to him as if stating her point, that she wasn't going anywhere.

"There's nothing to be afraid of sweetie, you're safe here," that nurse was to have assured her airily on talking to Clementine like she were five, and Luke could detect by the slight pout on her lips and the scowl of her brows she hadn't been happy being talked down to like that.

Regardless of that annoyance she went on turning to him, the silent question resonating in her features Luke read easily as the alphabet:

What do I do?

There wasn't really anything else that could be done. They'd had to cooperate with those people; no arguing about it. So Luke had simply loosened his hand, allowing Clementine's to slip free in her own time.

"It's fine, go on."

Reluctantly she had gone along with the nurse, glancing back several times with that child-like insecurity to seep on through the cracks over the possibility they might be separated permanently. The girl stressed over nothing though, because it'd been barely even half an hour before they saw each other again and her face lit up relieved to see him, but it made a point.

'You promised, Luke.' He did and he meant it all that time back in the hospital when it was just the two of them traveling by themselves. But as he knew they were new arrivals to Wellington, thinking about what good this place could bring to the kid and the uncertainty of his own chances of being let in after the stunned looks his interviewer gave him, Luke believed Clementine deserved better than trudging around in an apocalypse. So long as Clem got in, he thought, he'd've done something right.

However, Luke should've learned by then that the girl was as strong-willed and as stubborn as they came. When Clementine got an idea into her head and her mind was made up, she meant business so much so that sometimes nothing and nobody could convince her otherwise, not even him.

"You'd leave huh? Even if it's safe here, you'd up and go?"

Clementine had picked up her spoon again, nodding.

"Yes."

"And what if I tell ya I say 'no' and I leave anyway?" Luke probed further.

Having scooped up some of that bland looking oatmeal with her spoon, Clementine spoke very potently before eating it up.

"Then I'll come after you and kick your ass."

"Well, better hope they lend me a car then-ow!" and so had Luke spilled half of that coffee on himself as that small foot connected painfully with his shin. Stained right through that new maroon shirt he was given, and he'd been just starting to like it too. Thank poor coffee machine maintenance that water hadn't been too hot.

"I mean it, Luke. I don't wanna stay here by myself if they let me in," Clementine had said over his muttered curses at both the spilled coffee and a hurting shin. If she wasn't so sour faced about the whole subject of staying or going he'd've told her off. In fact he nearly did so until Clementine added something rather darkly that had him change his mind. "If, they let me in…"

Luke was no saint; neither was the kid. Clementine carried some heavy shit for her age. The stories she'd told him weren't things a person got over easy, especially for one so young. Wrongs had been done and mistakes made, but she wasn't made corrupt by it all. That's why Luke was so sure that whatever happened the people here would take pity enough for her to stay, because Clementine still had a good heart on her.

"Listen, the best thing we did was to've been honest; tellin' lies won't work in our favor. As long as our stories match up, there ain't much heat we can get from that," Luke had said, trying to dab some of the coffee from the front shirt with his sleeve, not having anything else to use. "You ain't a bad kid Clem, you'll get in."

She'd never said anything to that, just lost the appetite to eat again…until Luke threatened to take the lollipop away that is.

They got news back hours later on the verdict, and of course it was good news or else they wouldn't be here now, walking through this house. They got given some things, food and clothes, to help get them through the first couple days. The whole place worked on ration cards and coupons, but luckily no rent or tax which was great, but by no means was Wellington a resort.

This middle-aged guy named Darcy, who was one of the few people in charge that they were introduced to a little after being accepted in, had informed Luke on everything. "Now this ain't a prison camp we're running here, but we appreciate it when people contribute rather than slack off. You get food rations either way to stop y'all from starving, but work hard and you'll get an extra few benefits than those who don't. We'll let you get settled in for the first couple days, meet some of the folk around here; then once you're ready, I'd like you to come along with me to one of the farms. A guy with your experience, well, we could use the extra pair of hands helping us out over there. So, you interested?"

Even the kids were expected to work too, although not as vigorously as the adults and some of that work would take place within school time. That's something that surprised Luke too in that a school had been set up for the youngsters and Clementine was to attend in the next few days. Although from what Luke gathered, they wouldn't be all the usual classes that were once taught in school before all this. The Darcy guy that wanted Luke working for him was a little vague on the details, but Luke got a good sense that those newer classes were likely things that would've had Carlos flipping some tables if the doctor and his daughter were still here, God willing, they ought to have been…

So here they were in their new home. It wasn't that big of a place, "quaint" being the right word to describe it. It was comfortable for just the two of them and a damn lot nicer than Luke expected them to be given. Yeah, it wasn't so bad. The kitchen had everything from a stove and fridge, to the cutlery, plates and other things they'd need for eating like civilized people. And hey! No food rotting in the cupboards or in the fridge, now that was a pleasant change.

The living room had a worn but still decent-sized couch, along with a bookshelf that had a couple of novels propped on them, probably placed there like the other things for them when moving in, since everything looked relatively neat and tidy too. No TV, what would they watch anyway without a player or something similar, static? They had a few nice paintings of the area framed on the walls. Despite them being reprints and nothing famous that Luke recognized, they were still pleasant to look at. Whoever used to live here before had some good tastes in-

A small creak and a cold draft had Luke looking through to the kitchen where Clementine was standing out by the door to the backyard he'd previously seen from out the window. Again nothing big or fancy, but it was okay. High fences and a sturdy gate, those things always got taken into account first before the rest on offer.

"Looks nice don't it?"

"Yeah," Clementine said agreeably, as her head slowly slanted to one side. "What tree is that?"

"What, the one out on the lawn?" Luke went to check it was the one she was talking about, although really, there was only one tree in that whole backyard anyway and that bare stick insect of a tree with its branches weighed down by snow didn't look older than ten years at the most. "I think…yeah, I think it might be an apple tree."

"An apple tree?"

"Yup."

"I like apples."

"Well that's good."

"Mhmm," Clementine tilted her head to the other side, that happy twinkle in her eyes fading as she squinted unimpressed at the tree. "It looks kinda puny though..."

"Just like you then-ow! Hey! No stompin' the toes!"

After a quick look in that empty garage enterable from the kitchen, upstairs was next in their investigations, slash snooping about. No skeletons or lurkers in the closets up here neither it appeared. The bathroom was in working order. Water flowed out the faucets like those downstairs in the kitchen and at a test, the shower worked too. They definitely had electricity and heating somewhere. So long as the house didn't work on gas, no problems there with hot water…

His room was the door across the way from there or what Luke decided to call dibs on as soon as he saw the double bed in there that looked damn comfy. Yeah, like hell was he letting the squirt have that!

Somebody had given the room a fresh lick of paint, the smell of it filling his nostrils on walking in. It was modest, with a closet, chest of drawers and a desk by the window too. The bedroom looked plainer than the rest of the house, the whiteness of those recently painted walls bare of anything, with empty hooks where mirrors or photos might've hung once, as if things had been removed.

Give it time, he could fix that. Make it a bit more homey and lived in.

Outside on the street, Luke's eyes were sharply directed to the signs of movement, but it was just a couple walking fast on the sidewalk, probably rushing to get back home before the curfew. It reminded him, they'd have to close the drapes soon.

There was a phone on his bedside, with a list of numbers and a post-it-note attached that said: DON'T LOSE IT!

When Luke picked up the receiver, instead of stark silence, the dial tone rang in his ear. Darcy wasn't fooling him then, they'd even got the phones working too. A pity none of the numbers on that list were of local take-out places, now that would have been asking for too much. The list was of all emergency numbers, those for medical emergencies or house fires or just as bad, roamers-the name of the undead that the community here referred to them by.

'You say, 'lurker' and I say, 'walker,' right?' that sing-song voice of Clem's echoed in his mind.

Titles aside, Wellington didn't take the threat of lurkers any less lightly behind its gates. There were many safety measures in place, for those addressing concerns ranging from lurker or bandit attacks, to bite victims or those to suffer cardiac arrest, all of which he and Clem had to be briefed on before they even got here.

-If you witness the death of a member of the public, friend or relative where immediate action of CPR is not taken or failure of revival occurs: DO NOT DISCRIMINATE! If you are incapable of carrying out the procedure, leave the victim in an enclosed room if possible and seek help.

-If you suspect anybody of being bitten or concealing a roamer bite, report it immediately. Bite victims are not without human rights; respect those rights!

-In the event of a roamer breach, all civilians are required to gather at the extraction points throughout the town for immediate evacuation...

The list went on and on, covering everything Luke could think of, from even the simple rules of 'don't do anything stupid' and 'don't get careless'. When a heart attack or an accident like falling down the stairs could have you end up turning, it was easy to see why caution was viewed as being sensible. Your death could put others in danger, whether ended intentionally or not.

Kind of depressing really.

Luke's boot caught on the side of a rug placed at the foot of the bed where he'd just tossed his coat down. It was an ugly rug, real ugly and the damn thing nearly made him lose his balance too! Maybe that was its purpose to exist, solely to trip him.

"Piece of-" that curse was cut short when Luke went to push the ugly thing back in place with his foot, only to catch a glimpse of a small faint, yet dark stain visible on the floorboards it once covered.

What the...

Crouching down, Luke pulled the rug back, and almost let go of the thing at discovering that small stain was actually far bigger than perceived, a lot bigger.

Old blood.

The handle and lock for the door of that bedroom, he could see now it'd been changed. Divots were present in the wood from where the door'd been busted open, and there was a tack strip too, meaning there'd been carpet in here before that'd been ripped out. So the fresh paint was to...

Alright, perhaps this place did have a few lurkers in the closet after all, long dead buried ones. There went hoping the previous owners had gotten lucky and were elsewhere surviving. It definitely made settling in here that much more difficult. More than ever did Luke just feel naked in not having a gun on him, or even that machete at hand. They hadn't given them back, maybe to keep the peace around these parts and there was the fact that newcomers weren't allowed firearms, too. But that machete, as old and worthless as it was, it'd been his dad's and was the last thing he had left of his folks. He'd have to try talking to them about it somewhere down the line, see if some agreement could be reached to let him hold onto that blade, if just to keep it in the house. He could sleep better at night if it were here.

Leaning forward, Luke went to take a look under the dark space below the bed in case there were any other blood stains he should know about…there weren't, but he nearly shit himself at the sudden cry of surprise he heard, and the loud thump of something hitting the floor in the other bedroom shortly afterwards.

"Ah!"

"Clem!?" he was already up, crossing between those doorways to see what'd happened. Fortunately all was still well as Clementine was by herself and not in any immediate danger, especially not from any lurkers.

Odd thing though…

"Everything alright in here?"

"Hrm, sort of," the young girl replied, getting up sorely from where she'd been on the floor as if she had fallen over, or rather fallen down from somewhere.

Luke glimpsed at the backpack, coat and shoes dumped in the middle of the room, then took another longer look at the bunk bed Clementine was standing close to. Connecting up the dots, Luke crossed his arms and leaned his shoulder against the door frame.

"Clem?"

"Yes?"

"Tell me ya didn't try climbin' up that thing?"

"…A little."

"Cleeem."

A fussy glare got fired his way like a bullet, as she straightened up one of her socks that'd nearly come off. "I don't see what the big deal is. I've climbed ladders before."

"Yeah well you had both your arms intact back then-hey, c'mon," Luke stepped forward as that youngster reached for the wooden rungs of the ladder and started to go climbing up again. "Clem, just use the bottom bunk-"

"I can do it, Luke," she insisted as if she were a one man army and kept on climbing. Luke let up, yet still stuck around, pretty much ready to run and catch the kid if she had another hiccup. Luckily Clem coped well in adapting, learning to wrap her shortened arm around one rung for support before grabbing for the higher one with her right arm to pull herself up with.

Only once she'd lifted her whole body onto the top bunk did Luke chill out, smiling when the kid at last fell face first into the pillow and gave a small squeal of accomplishment.

"I always wanted one of these," Clementine muffled dreamily through that pillow.

Her bedroom must've belonged to some young boys once. The clues were in the navy blue wallpaper covered in the cosmos with details from cartoon planets and stars to little rocket powered spaceships. The second clue was there were all the stickers of baseball players, racing cars and so on slapped on those closet doors, but the biggest giveaway was probably the NO GIRLS ALLOWED sign that'd been recently dumped in the room's trashcan.

Two brothers, maybe not even older than Clem herself, were gone like that; both could have died with their parents in the next room. Luke hoped not, and honestly part of him preferred not to know. Hanging on to thoughts like those after two years of seeing the same deal a thousand times over, they could bring any man down if he dwelled on them long enough.

A long deep sigh was let out by Clementine, and Luke noticed the kid was getting herself more comfortable on her new bed and looking ready to drift off for the rest of the evening too.

At least somebody was making herself at home just fine and dandy.

Luke refrained from laughing as he went on over, nudging Clem's shoulder through the rails. "Hey now, you can't be havin' no beauty sleep yet. You ain't had y'supper."

With a whine and a scrunching of the eyelids, Clementine nestled her head further into that pillow, refusing to get up.

"I'm fine," she said dozily.

They had both nearly starved getting here to Wellington; another few days in that cold weather without a meal might've finished them for good. The kid wasn't such a skinny bean as she'd been, but Luke still didn't want to go leaving her without a meal in her belly first. She'd gotten that thin in the first place because of him for failing to find them anything to eat. It was time to start making up for that.

"Tell ya what, I'll go get something cooked up and I'll call ya down when it's done. How's that sound?"

Not even opening her eyes, Clementine gave a nod of her head, just conscious enough to answer him before Luke left and let her be.

"Okay…"

They weren't given much variation on the food front; it was mostly cans of soup, beans, and some oatmeal...oh! And they had a couple cans of spam, but Luke didn't think Clem would appreciate just having that cooked and slapped on her plate. She still hadn't forgiven him about the dog food.

So, vegetable soup it was then!

While it was heating up on the stove, Luke went around closing all the drapes in the rooms before flipping on the necessary light switches, another simple everyday norm to have back in his life: functioning light-bulbs.

The construction of the wall that surrounded all of Wellington was only completed five months ago, with the remnants of the older barricades still up here and there around town. The wall was built up of all sorts of materials; some areas were constructed from stones or bricks, while other sections were welded in place with scraps of metal and iron. It'd been a risky development that'd taken a lot of people involved and hard work to get it done, and there were many casualties during its construction from what he'd heard, but they'd followed it through and achieved the impossible in building something that would protect them from the outside.

Strong as that wall was, it wasn't that high; in some areas it only stood at just barely one and a half stories tall-the reason for why the lights outside were kept off at night and curfews got put in place, except for those on guard duty or at work. There were even noise restrictions in the areas for outside, especially for those living near the borders of those walls; basically no loud music or shouting at the top of their lungs; 'Hey lurkers, we're here! Come get us y'all!'

Lights and noise drew the dead, but those safety measures didn't do much for bandits if any were bold enough to attempt to break in, and some probably had since there was quite a bit of security patrolling the town day and night. They had to be careful; it was just the way things were...although, it might help if Luke didn't go setting the pan on fire and burning the house down; he doubted anybody would appreciate that.

It was stupid of him really. See, he went and left the soup alone for longer than intended, having gone to search out where he could switch on the damn heating and get this house warmed up. Once Luke had figured that out, he'd gone to check in that box of supplies to fetch out the flashlights, just in case they ever needed them in an emergency. The thing was though, that Luke hadn't realized they weren't the usual run-of-the-norm flashlights, but these cool gimmicky windup ones that he never had the fortune of using before. No wonder it was all Luke's fault, having let his attention be hooked on those things for so long like a little kid with a new toy.

And then there had been the basement.

He hadn't noticed it before in their check of the house, the door blending into the woodwork under those foyer stairs. He'd brushed against that slim handle by accident, and discovered it led down to another level. The lights worked down there, so there was no wandering into the dark like a dumb teen in a B-movie with a gimmicky flashlight on hand. There were no secrets to behold or much to see, because the basement was empty without a single thing kept in storage. Luke hadn't even bothered walking all the way down those steps, having seen all he needed to. In a way, he couldn't go any further, and it wasn't just the chill down there putting him off.

It was just like the one in his folks' home back in Alabama.

That'd been it, the thing which was the trigger to send his pulse racing and his skin breaking out in a cold sweat as he'd felt as if he were suffocating down there. Tripping on those steps, he'd turned and gotten out of there in a flash, leaning against that slammed shut door long enough to catch his breath and stop his hands shaking so profoundly.

'Get a grip of yourself, this is fuckin' stupid.'

By the time Luke got his shit together, he'd started smelling something burning and had promptly returned to the kitchen to discover that thanks to his little detours, what was left of the soup was now bubbling at the bottom of the pan and the kitchen was full of smoke.

Good times.

"Shit! Fuck!"

As if to add insult to injury, there was another post-it-note stamped on the side of one of the cupboards by the stove to have gone amiss while his eyes were stinging from the smoke…

FIRE ALARMS OFF - BATTERY SHORTAGE

DON'T LEAVE FOOD UNATTENDED!

Luke could've done with reading that a little sooner. Ugh, he had never been much of a decent chef anyway, couldn't even get something as simple as soup down to a T. Luke hated to admit it, but this house was starting to wear on him a bit and not in a good way. Jesus he could do with some sleep.

Anyway, there wasn't much left of that soup in the pan thanks to his doing. Luke didn't want to go serving it to Clem and just throwing it away would've felt like a real waste, so he put it to one side to have for himself and started again, this time, doing as the post-it-note said and not being a stupid ass about it.

If getting Clementine to rise out of bed was to be the easiest part in all this, he was to be sadly disappointed. When the time came to call the squirt downstairs, Luke got no reply. Despite having left that light on in her room, the girl had still managed to fall fast asleep in her bed, and when woken she still wouldn't cooperate. Luke needed to go as far as to find that lollipop left in her coat on the floor and pretend to be keeping that sugary treat for himself to finally get the girl to come down; it worked every time.

Never underestimate a kid and her sweet tooth.

"Cheating, cheater," Clementine exclaimed grouchily while carefully descending that ladder. Luke waited until both her feet touched the floor before leaving the room, pocketing that lollipop that he intended to hold onto until Clem had eaten her soup.

"Heard it all before squirt."

A sniff of the nostrils came from the girl to tag along not far behind him.

"Is something burning?"

"Uh, no?"

Another sniff.

"Yes there is!"

"I'm pretty sure there ain't."

Clementine did look real happy though, slurping down that soup after being assured it wasn't the batch he had burnt and despite all her fussing to be left alone to sleep. Luke couldn't really blame the kiddo. It'd been a crazy few months since leaving that cabin in Virginia and it was the real first time in a long time that they could relax without worrying about where they would end up next.

It was still a difficult thing to accept that they were really in Wellington. So frequently did that thought cross Luke's mind, he would ask himself again and again if they'd really made it, or if both had just perished all the way back in that blizzard. There had been too many times they'd been freezing cold and starving Luke had doubted in himself if they'd be able to keep going; but that blizzard, that'd been the real test of endurance.

Clementine, she was the reason Luke had kept putting one foot in front of the other, why he'd carried the kid when she was unable to go no further, despite being near to collapsing himself. He kept going because if Luke didn't get her to safety, then nobody else would, and everything before would've been all for nothing. He'd've rather died out there freezing to death trying to help that kid, than save his own skin by leaving her behind. It'd just been a right out miracle the blizzard broke when it did, and that they found what they were looking for not long after nightfall, or heck knows what would've happened.

That was one stroke of luck Luke was glad for, and so he hadn't given up so Clem could have a shot at living something of a decent life. Regardless, it didn't change the fact that there were so many things that couldn't be undone, that there was more than one friend Luke hadn't been able to save, too many to think about...

"I wish the others were here."

That kitchen table could've sat four people around it, an extra fifth or sixth squeezed in easy. It was almost strange with just the two of them there and they hadn't really said much while eating. To hear Clementine say that afterwards however, while Luke was washing up, it soon hit him why.

From Nick, Pete and everybody else, to Kenny and his lover; if they were here too, they'd all been celebrating; their energy would've filled that house with laughter and bad jokes, glad at finally being someplace safe away from what was out there. But they weren't here, and the absence of the others was felt more than ever, now after his and Clem's own excitement of being here wore off and reality set in heavy as that snow laden town...because it really was just them.

It was crazy, the whole thing was crazy. Out of everybody to have fallen, somehow only Luke was the last surviving member of both his family, and his old group to have escaped Carver's to the cabin with. Instead of being here with those he'd stuck by and survived with for years, the last companion Luke had left from it was the young girl he and Pete came across in the woods by mere chance a scarce few months ago.

The others, they should have made it. He failed to keep that whole group safe and had them robbed of a future with his reckless acts as a leader. Even Rebecca's baby that she'd begged him to save, he wasn't able to protect in the long run. Luke, he'd fucked everything up and he couldn't forgive himself so easily for that.

The chairs at that table shouldn't have been unoccupied. This house shouldn't have only two people living in it.

"Same...they uh, they'd've been glad to be here."

There were the crinkling sounds of a candy wrapper from a certain youngster, busy trying to unwrap the lollipop Luke had handed over as soon as Clem was finished with her soup. She was unsettlingly quiet where she sat now at that small kitchen table, appearing lost in those wandering thoughts of hers.

Luke chose to speak up. "Y'know my old man, he had this sayin' he'd never let slide for years; might as well have been his catchphrase the amount of times he went repeatin' it."

"Oh?"

Setting the last bowl to be washed clean aside on that rack, Luke dried his hands on the front of his jeans. " 'The sun don't shine on the same dog's tail all the time.' "

That sure received some criticism, if something short of pure bafflement from the youngster. "Wh…dog tails?"

"It means things don't always work out for the better, but to make the best of whatever life throws atcha," Luke explained, seating himself on the opposite side of that table. "He also said being an artist was as useful as a steering wheel on a mule for a career, but there ya go."

Clementine's mood seemed to perk up like a daisy to that, just a tad. "Your dad sounds like he was really funny."

"He sure was, more times than he'd be aware of. But heck, if you went and told him that upfront he'd've clipped y'ear for it," Luke said, amused at the sudden bewildered look the girl gave. "He was a real stubborn old fool, set in his ways and all that; he didn't like it when people weren't to his way of thinkin' neither, but he meant well."

What Luke wouldn't give for one more day, if just one more minute with both his parents. He couldn't say he had a bad childhood. His folks-they were good people, strict, but never abusive like the shit Nick and his mother Ruth had to put up with from Nick's bad excuse of a father for all those years. Nick used to say he envied him as a kid, for having such perfect parents...but they weren't perfect at all, no way. His dad's skin was as thick as his skull sometimes and his mom was so obsessed in keeping things neat and tidy that even in Luke's adult years she'd still made a habit of picking bits of dirt and whatever off his clothes whenever he came to visit; it'd driven him nuts. Dad meanwhile, Luke had one too many disagreements with him to dare put a number to, and on things that just seemed so pointless now.

They never deserved what they got, to end up the way that they did...

"My dad, he had a saying too," Clementine said slowly.

Luke looked over. "Really now, and what was that?"

The girl stopped picking at that candy wrapper, and making a face, she said:

" 'Don't ever eat yellow snow; it's really gross.' "

"Hah! Well, that's some sound advice right there," Luke complimented.

"I guess so...I thought he meant lemonade, like the lemon ice sticks we used to have in the freezer at home; it's why I never ate them," Clementine said breaking out into a little smile, her gaze hanging low. "Dad had this other saying too, about fireflies; I liked that one better."

Luke leaned back on that chair, resting an arm up on the table. "On the lightning bugs huh? Never heard one on those. How's it go?"

"Well, um…it's, it's not really a saying, it's just something Dad told me once not long after my grandma died. She was really sick for a long time and it wasn't easy for us. My parents wouldn't let me see her at the end, because she was really bad...but Dad, after the funeral he just said that with fireflies, it's better to remember them at their most-brightest rather than darkest and that it's the same with people too, because that's how they'd want to be remembered, and not as…not…"

Clementine didn't finish; it was enough. Her sad tired eyes were fixed on the lollipop she was still struggling to unravel after all those minutes picking at it, the frustration transgressing to her fingers as she started to get herself worked up over something as insignificant as some candy.

Luke reached over and plucked that lollipop out of her hand, unwrapping the thing and passing it back to her in no time; cherry flavor, lucky her.

"Thanks," Clementine said quietly, yet the candy didn't do much to raise her spirits. The girl was exhausted and looked more lost than ever without that baseball cap covering up that mop of curls. Luke still needed to get her a new hat somewhere, although there was little chance he'd ever find anything as good for a replacement. Clem adored that old thing of her dad's.

Possessions, however much they meant to a person, they couldn't replace the living, and it was those who couldn't be here now, that had the girl's eyes downcast gloomily.

"Clem, why don't you head on up to bed? That duffle bag out in the hall's got some of your stuff in with mine. Just take out what ya need and unpack the rest tomorrow if you want."

"…No, I can do it now, it's fine," the youngster said, that lollipop still in her mouth as she slid out from her chair. Quietly Clem crossed that kitchen, hesitating by the door for the longest time before she left completely with whatever remained unspoken.

At those small feet sounding on the stairs, having listened for some time to Clementine rummaging around in that duffle bag for her things, Luke finally let go of that breath he wasn't even aware he'd been holding. Propping his elbows on that table and burying his face within his hands, he inhaled deeply and sighed, feeling his own scars breaking open by the sharp ends of his conscience.

What the hell happened to yesterday...?

Even after checking all the downstairs doors and windows were locked for the second time over, Luke still hadn't felt comfortable calling it a night without some form of a weapon at hand. He knew that the house was as secure as it could get here, but he couldn't go resting his head on that pillow until he at least had something there within reach as a safety measure. That's why on having packed the last few things within that duffle bag of his away and being finished with getting ready for bed, Luke ended up returning down to the kitchen to go fetch a knife out from one of those drawers.

Although, it would've been nice if he hadn't met Clementine on the way back at the top of those stairs and given the poor kid a scare with him holding that blade like some serial killer.

"What?"

She was in her pj's, some girly princess stuff that didn't match with the criteria of the girl he knew and who had endured a lurker apocalypse for the last two and a bit years. The clothes given to them were done so out of consideration of gender, size and age, rather than out of personal preference. Likewise, some of what Luke was given didn't quite match up with his tastes neither, but at least they had clothes instead of just the stinky dirty things they waltzed into Wellington with that they'd been wearing for over a week; Luke could be thankful for no longer smelling as appealing as a rotting pig.

Ambivalently Clementine viewed that knife as if reminded of something, then glanced down at her hand holding that plastic bottle of pills, and held them out for him to take.

"I can't get it open," she said.

A doctor had prescribed the kid some pills to deal with the pain in her stump; two pills a day she was supposed to take. Clementine couldn't get the cap off because of the child safety seal on it, that, and having one hand didn't work well in her favor neither. She was still required to clean and change the bandages on her arm for a few more weeks until the stump healed up some more, but that was something the kid had learned to do by herself, even being able to tie up the bandages too with the use of one hand and her teeth.

Luke was starting to be convinced that the youngster was a work-in-progress Rambo. Although she still needed his help tying up her hair.

"Oh, uh," searching around for somewhere on the landing to rest that kitchen knife, Luke could find none. So! He just swapped it for the bottle of pills instead, leaving a slightly surprised Clementine standing there on the spot, awkwardly holding that pointy blade while Luke unscrewed the cap. Would social service have sure given him an earful for that.

"Here ya go."

"Thanks..."

Maybe it was from that short scare, or just the meds wearing off, but Luke noticed something was amiss about the girl as she'd gone to the bathroom to wash that last pill for the day down with some water. He thought maybe it was just from the discussion in the kitchen before, but...

"You okay?"

Clementine looked over her shoulder at him, her expression a troubled one, appearing to waver in confusion over something as she turned away, and just shrugged.

"My stomach, it feels funny," she said.

That bothered Luke, a little. "Like, the sick kind?"

"No, not really," clamping the toothbrush handle between her teeth, the youngster unscrewed the tube of toothpaste and applied it on her brush bristles with the use of that mirror for guidance, "Mm dunwo...wust, funmy."

Luke stuck around a few moments longer, before pardoning himself for the night, deciding she didn't appear to be in any serious distress. "Oh, well, be sure to holler if it tells any bad jokes."

"Hah-hah," came Clem's rather sarcasm-coated reply as he heard her starting to brush her pearlies.

Long after hitting the sack, and hearing that youngster turn in too and climb the creaky ladder of her bunk bed in the other room, it took a while for Luke to get some shut-eye.

Unsurprisingly he found himself listening again to the insides of that house and out while he lay there for seemingly hours, his mind unable to switch off.

There was rarely a time a person could get a good night's rest in an apocalypse, and there' had been a few times Luke had had that luxury after all this started. Heck, he still remembered that last night how things had been normal, when he hadn't been jumpy to every little sound he heard go bump in the night and worrying about what tomorrow would bring.

No, that night back in his old house when things were as normal as they used to be two and half years ago...Luke had been thinking about bagels.

Why were they round? Who in their right mind thought it was okay to punch out a hole in the middle of those baked goods and deprive him of one-tenth of a bagel?

Yeah, those were simpler times.

Wellington was different; it kept telling him to loosen up and let his guard down, but he simply couldn't. Luke and the others, they had all gotten so soft to it all when being part of Carver's community for the better part of two years. That town wasn't as safe as this place was, but behind those fences they hadn't been fighting lurkers day in, day out.

When they'd made their first escape, Luke nearly got bitten because he hadn't been paying enough attention to his surroundings when that lurker came out from the side of some parked trucks and almost grabbed him from behind. It was only thanks to Pete he hadn't been lurker food, but the man had really driven it home to him to keep his wits about him over such a stupid mistake. It took weeks being out there to really get used to it again.

How could Luke ever really let himself relax, knowing those things were still out there? Everybody in some way was a threat and until it was ever figured out why people kept turning when they died, Luke couldn't just forget about everything and go against the instincts that'd kept him alive until now. Perhaps that was the reason why it took such a long time for him to be able to fall asleep and let himself finally rest for the night.

Yet the night wasn't through with him quite just yet...

"Luke! Luke wake up! Wake up!"

The persistent poking at his cheek and the hand soon to be shaking his shoulder had Luke stirring from slumber sooner than he was up for, the panic from that familiar young voice bringing him out of that unconscious state faster.

Clementine was standing by his bedside, the door to his room open with the landing light still on, casting itself behind the girl like a halo, with her petrified face in the shadows, looking as if she'd seen much worse than just the dead walking.

There was no daylight seeping out from any of the drapes; it was still dark out.

Luke hastily prompted himself upright, shaking his head to try and wake his brain up and get with it.

"Clem? What's wrong?"

It wasn't lurkers, she would've said right out by now if it were. Those big gold eyes of Clementine's just kept staring anxiously seeking for his help, her arms contracted to her sides, with her feet locked together as though every wire in the limbs and joints of a doll had been strung back tight.

"Something's wrong with me," she said in a near squeak of a voice.

For a girl that'd become mentally hardened after the shit she'd needed to deal with, it was out of the norm for her to fret over nothing; the kid had the balls to sew up her own arm; she was that tough of a cookie. So when Clementine said something was wrong, she damn well meant it.

Leaning forward on his knees, Luke rubbed his face, still sounding groggy as hell. "Whaddya mean 'wrong'? You been sick or-"

"No! No, it's not...I don't know! I don't know!" Clementine whimpered unable to remain still as she scrunched her fingers. "It's never happened before; I don't know what to do. I think I ate something bad!"

She'd mentioned an upset stomach to him earlier not long after they'd eaten. It had to be that...Christ, there Luke went to mean well by letting her have the non-smoky batch and he only ended up giving Clem food poisoning possibly from a bad can of soup, and on their first night here too, of all the rotten luck.

'You have her locked in a shed, her arm cut off and now you go poisoning her. Great job, Luke! Betcha makin' those dead folks proud!'

Maybe it was just her digestive system still adjusting to the food here. They hadn't eaten much good stuff in a long time, let alone vegetable soup.

"Ate something bad? So, you been sick?" Luke inquired.

Clementine looked like she wanted to kick him again. "No, I just told you that!"

"So...like, diarrhea then?"

"Dia what?"

"Crappin', uh, uncontrollably."

"No, not exactly...and that's gross."

"Yeah, kinda the thing with diarrhea, it's a messy business. Trust me you don't-"

"Luuuke!"

"Right sorry, I'm sorry. Well if it ain't that, then what is it?"

"It's..." Clementine trailed off into silence, looking everywhere in that room except at him like a nervous little mess of a thing. No matter how long Luke left it for an answer, Clem didn't say anything.

What the hell was wrong with this kid? It wasn't like her to be hush hush and not talk to him. It was starting to get even Luke nervous just sitting here. Was he going to have to go and call out a doctor out at this hour?

"Look, you gotta be straight with me here alright? I can't help if you don't tell me what it is, Clem," Luke said gently, managing to get the girl to look at him to some degree. "Now speak up, what's wrong?"

Her lips thinned to a narrow line, with a watery sheen in those eyes as Clementine gave a couple of fast blinks, looking ready to cry in her reluctance to speak out as he finally sought out a confession in her.

"I'm bleeding."

"..."

"I'm bleeding and it won't stop!"

"Bleedin', wait, you cut yourself?" rubbing one tired eye, Luke reached out with his hand. "Here, lemme-"

"NO!" and like that Clementine backed away, refusing to let him even touch her, "It's not like that!"

"Not like what? Clem, the hell you-" Luke stopped mid-sentence, the words slipping away as it hit him like a truck on noticing the defensive stance that girl had taken up as she gripped the shirt of her pj's, right by her stomach...

Fourteen years back as a freshman, there used to be this cute blonde in high school he and Nick had the eyes for. Unfortunately that pretty blonde despised the two of them as much as toads in a pie, and had even thrown a shoe at the back of Luke's head to prove a point. Regardless of her dislike in him, there was a time that he recalled overhearing a conversation from that same girl with her friends in class while waiting for their teacher to show up, a conversation that'd been acid to his ears.

'I'm not kiddin', my mom didn't get told a thing. Nobody explained it to her because she only had my grampa, so like, when she started gettin' the cramps and everything she was really scared; she said she sat cryin' in the school toilets for ages because she thought she was dyin'.'

Combined with Sex Ed and every long term relationship Luke had in his lifetime, it was safe to say Luke knew enough about the female anatomy, from the good, the great, to the gawkily and unpleasant 'how bout we wait a week?' that on one occasion earned him a well-deserved slap.

To sum it up correctly: Luke was a fucking idiot.

Sliding his legs over the side of the bed, he leaned over tiredly on his knees as he pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to get himself to focus and clear his head.

"Clem, how old did you say were again? Eleven right?"

"And a half, yeah. Why? What has that got to do with anything?" the youngster asked suspiciously while he sat there quietly in thought.

Eleven to thirteen, wasn't that right about the time when...

"And just to clarify, does this uh, bleedin', happen to be comin' from where the sun don't best be shinin'?" Luke asked very carefully and after a long uncertain pause, Clem turned her head away with a small vocal yes in reply.

"And definitely not from your behind?"

Clem shook her head, cringing at him in disgust. "No, it's not."

That confirmed it for sure then; it was definitely not a cut, nor a stomach bug.

Shit.

Coughing dryly, Luke ran a hand through his hair to the nape of his neck, taking that moment to wisely process it all. "Your old friend, Christa, she didn't mention anything to you? Y'know, about the birds and bees?"

Clementine glared at him, her face flaring up pink. "I know what the birds and bees are Luke! I'm not a baby!"

"Alright! Alright! Jesus don't go bitin' my head off about it!" Luke spoke out defensively, with a studious gaze to follow. "It's just...you did get told about the other stuff, right?"

The fiery anger in the girl burnt out like a snubbed out cigarette as she stood there confused as hell, as if he'd just told her lurkers could fly. "What other stuff?"

So that was it; he had figured something was up. All those times Clem had been talking to Rebecca and feeling the baby's kicks against the woman's stomach, she'd never once appeared naïve to how the baby got there. The night he and Nick saved her from Nate as well, Clem had seemed pretty aware of the dangers that man had posed when she'd told them in that short truck drive how scared she'd been that the bastard might harm her and Sarah after Carlos died...yeah, she knew about the birds and the bees alright.

That woman Christa, whom Luke never got the chance to meet, Clem had said in the past she and her friend weren't on great speaking terms after losing her baby and the passing of her partner, Oma...Omid? She'd taught the girl a couple useful things, but a lot must've gone under the radar for that grieving woman to not bring up something as vital to the kid as this. Then again, losing people dear to you didn't always make a person see sense, and it'd sure sounded like Christa had burnt out from what Clem described of her.

'We weren't really friends anymore. We traveled around together, to lots of places, but Christa wasn't Christa anymore. She never forgave me for what happened, and times got really bad between us. In the end, I kinda just gave up...'

Clementine's parents...nah, she would've been too young to be given the talk when they were still alive. Sarah meanwhile, the fifteen-year-old was never vocal about it in front of the group, especially having been repulsed by blood. Unless Luke accidentally caught a whisper from Sarah to Carlos, saying she was in need of the proper girly things to deal with it, Luke knew nothing of Sarah's knowledge, and it must've been the same for Clementine too despite all her time spent in the company of that girl. As for Rebecca, she'd been too focused worrying about her baby most the time, and Sarita wasn't with them long before she was killed by Carver, so it was unlikely either woman had brought up that discussion with Clem.

The poor kid, nobody had explained a thing to her.

"L-Luke?"

"Right, sorry um, " he quickly cleared his throat again, wringing his hands together before he faced the worried looking youngster again. "Okay...alright, okay this might be a little difficult for you to buy into, but just trust me...you're fine; you are totally one hundred percent, fine. The thing you're goin' through right now, is just a...normal, healthyish thing for a girl your age to be experiencing and does by no mean make ya a grouchy buffalo. And no matter what anybody says, you, you are always right...uh...you with me so far?"

Luke may as well have said all that in Spanish for the good it did. Clementine just stared at him in scrutiny like everything he had just said came out as mumbo jumbo to her non-Spanish ears.

"I, think..."

His old man gave him the talk when he was a boy, but not this talk, otherwise Luke would've been a twenty seven-year old woman named Lucy. Damn it, where was Rebecca when he needed her? She would know what to say. This was way out of his level of expertise with talking to kids about this stuff.

It'd had some calming effect at least. Clementine didn't look so freaked out no more.

"So, do you...um..."

"What-no! I'm a guy, okay we don't do that. Got a whole different get up goin' on down there, y'know, genders and all," Luke explained trying not to laugh, "Just the ladies okay, 'cause of all the baby makin' stuff."

A poor choice of words; a very, poor choice of words.

Luke regretted them as soon as they came out of his mouth, as he watched those young eyes go frightfully wide as Clementine stammered out something in a panic he could never imagine that kid ever saying in his life.

"B-Babies? I'm having a baby!?"

"NO! No! No! No!"

"But you just said about the bees-the birds and bees!" Clementine sobbed out in anger, shaking her head as she clutched the shirt of her pj's tighter, "Nooo, no! It's not supposed to work like that, Christa said! We only held hands, that's cheating!"

Luke massaged his forehead, feeling the need to bang his skull against a brick wall, repeatedly. "Jesus fuck, you are NOT pregnant! Holdin' hands don't make babies, Clementine! This ain't yer damn run of the mill mutant cooties, so chill the heck out, and just...just, gimme a minute."

The girl glared at him with a pouty face, still nervous as she stood silently in demand of answers like he was a convict on trial accused of stealing the last bar of chocolate in existence.

How had Luke's life come to this? Really now, how did he get to be here, being awoken in the middle of the night by an eleven-year-old who didn't know shit about...argh, what would the others think if they were here now? They'd probably've coughed up their lungs at the hilarity of him being caught between a rock and a giant tampon. Nick, Pete and his folks would've found the funny side to it at least; they'd've never let him live it down.

This was going to be long night, no questions about it.

"W-Wait, where are you going?" Clementine asked when Luke had risen from the bed, pausing by the open door after walking by the kid.

"To go find ya somethin' so you don't go bleedin' Niagara Falls all over everything for one," Luke said with as little crankiness as possible, scratching the back of his head. "Then we're gonna go downstairs and we're gonna talk about this, without you yellin' stuff that'd get my ass thrown in jail."

He definitely didn't remember seeing any sanitary products in that box. Clem would have to get by with something until morning; maybe he could cut up one of those bath towels for her to use. Wait, how much did a girl her age need anyway...? Crap, he could really do with a strong drink right about now, alcohol or something. They didn't even have coffee in the house, just squash juice with zero percent alcohol and no caffeine, either.

'Why me...'

Clementine apprehensively stayed where she was, yet the panic was slowly receding in her eyes. "So, I'm not sick?"

"No."

"And I'm really okay?"

"Fit as a fiddle...a messy fiddle but-"

Clem turned her nose up at him.

Too soon.

"Sorry...c'mon, let's getcha sorted out and I'll tell ya what you need to know. No promises it'll be the best comin' from me, but we'll figure it out," Luke assured, and thankfully it did the trick, the youngster finally sounding a small anxious huff as she walked by him out the room, her shoulders slouched and her eyes narrowed out of annoyance for not being told everything right there and then.

"Okay, fine..."

This was not going to be fun. Oh well, time to man up.

"You don't have to do this you know."

"Pardon?"

It'd been the woman, Susan, who had interviewed him. She'd been the one to break the news of their admission into Wellington, but a short time later, Susan came up to him asking if they could speak in private while a female doctor was giving Clementine a final check up on her stump to make sure it wasn't getting infected and who would prescribe the temporary medication for it.

Now in the stupid part of Luke's brain on hearing Susan wanted to speak with him, Luke thought perhaps by some insignificant luck the lady wanted to ask him out on a date after unintentionally getting charmed by him during questioning. Her deadpan seriousness however quickly banished such expectations of scoring with the opposite sex in the near future, having gone cold turkey for eleven months and counting. No, what Susan had to talk about was much more important than getting laid, although some would say otherwise.

"I mean looking out for the girl, Clementine," Susan paused to adjust her glasses, peering over Luke's shoulder down the corridor someway of the room where the youngster had been left with the doctor. Those green eyes of hers had been sincere. "You'd be surprised, there's not a lot of people that would've done what you have, taking care of a child during all this; it's not an easy thing to do, I know that from looking out for my own while they were still…what I'm trying to say is: will you be okay? It's a big commitment raising a girl her age by yourself. You've done right by her in bringing her all this way, but don't go feeling like you have to keep doing this out of obligation anymore, because you don't. If you can't cope, there's support if you need it here, or others that could…well…"

Susan had been offering him a chance to bail out, for what might've scared most unmarried guys his age off: kids.

All those years fooling around with the ladies and Luke never knocked anybody up in that time, not even by accident that he was aware of. He didn't know shit about babies and had never had any younger siblings to take care of growing up, well except for Nick sometimes, but that was different.

Settling down? Having kids of his own? It wasn't in the cards yet, not with what he wanted to do with his life back before the apocalypse, when the cost of living was just having a decent enough wage to get by on. Luke had thought about it yeah, that it'd be something nice he might like to have someday and be like his folks, but he hadn't been ready for that life for what he saw as way off.

When Rebecca first confided in him nearly ten months ago with the news she was pregnant with Carver's baby, it'd been the first time Luke ever had to take on that responsibility for the welfare of a kid's future; it was one of the many driving forces behind his group's desire to escape that slowly corrupting community and find someplace for not only themselves, but also for that unborn baby. Family was the reason Carlos had also been so adamant to join their group in that escape, if to sustain the chance of a better future for his own daughter and keep her safe from the likes of Carver and his people.

That cabin had been the accidental discovery that'd turned out to be everything their small group needed; built far in the woods where not many would find it, having its own water supply and a river where they could fish for food or go hunting in that dense woodland terrain; it was perfect. The lack of lurkers and people around also made it an appealing location where they could stay hidden from the likes of Carver.

After a week on the run, that wooden paradise was a godsend.

"It's not that too old a cabin, still holding together well; with some time and effort, we can make this work," Pete remarked after the group had checked the building over and found it to be lurker-free. "An ideal place for the young'un to be born in, that I can say."

Before the sun had set on the evening of their arrival there, Luke and Nick had boarded the gaps up under the porch and locked the trapdoor to prevent any breaches inside the cabin from below; Pete had fixed the pipework in the bathroom so they had running water upstairs too, while Pete's sister Ruth and Alvin found those fish traps and fishing rods in the shed Luke missed high up on the top shelf; as for Carlos and Rebecca, they had focused on sorting out what supplies they had and what was on offer inside the cabin.

Even Sarah lent them a hand.

"Luke! Luke! Look what I found! You gotta see!" He had just shut the metal door of that stove in the living room at that fireplace, when the fifteen-year-old came racing down the stairs, holding a candle in each hand with a big smile on her face. "There's a whole box of them upstairs in one of the bedrooms, and there's lots of matches too! I'm gonna go tell my dad!"

"Hah, nice! Good job!"

Carlos however wasn't so pleased; all the man did was snap at the girl for not listening to him when he'd said to stay sitting in the living room until everything was done with around the cabin. When Luke and Rebecca had tried backing Sarah up on it, saying that she wasn't doing any harm and Carlos should go easy on her, the doctor had given them both the most seething pair of evil eyes any man could ever pull, with the warning in his accent-heavy voice so hostile, Luke might've been left nursing a broken nose if he'd pushed Carlos's temper any further beyond his self-control.

"Do not tell me how to raise my daughter! You have no right!"

Yeah, that soon shut Luke up and had him less inclined to speak up about his treatment of Sarah from then on out. It was kinda crazy the lengths Carlos went to protect his daughter from the outside world. The Doc had never let the girl out of that cabin without his supervision, and even then Sarah wasn't allowed to step off from the porch. The others brought this up several times in Carlos's absence, but nobody apart from Pete was bold enough to speak out about it to the doctor who made it pretty clear he didn't want their advice on raising his daughter. So, they all just buried their heads in the sand and let things lie.

The group had gone about their business the best they could. Over the seven months there at that cabin, they had long gotten set in their ways, and with Rebecca's belly swelling like a balloon, there'd been talks on taking up another scavenge run to one of the nearby towns to get some baby supplies gathered for the newborn. It was the day before they planned to do this, when the unexpected happened. Luke and Nick were returning from the river after setting up the fish traps when this teenage girl stumbled in front of their path from the underbrush. Her name had been Amy. She couldn't have been any older than eighteen, and was near skin and bones beneath her clothes like some kid with anorexia...but there was nothing much they could do for her, because she was bitten. The teenager had lurker bites all over her, all fresh and still bleeding, with the fever already kicking in and making her barely able to walk, aside from being on the brink of starvation.

"N-No! No! Don't hurt me! Don't shoot! Please don't shoot me! I d-don't…I don't wanna go out like that, not like Mom and Dad! Please!?"

She'd been on her knees, nose snotty and eyes streaming with tears as she pleaded not to be left alone for being so terrified of dying by herself. They couldn't just leave her out there, and Nick kept pushing at him to do something for her, so they'd taken the lurker-infected Amy back to the cabin, helping her walk between them.

Ruth, she'd sat with that girl in her final moments, making her comfortable on that sofa as she'd treated the teen with Carlos and keeping the teenager talking about her life for as long as she could as a means of comforting her, until that life in itself faded away with the girl's last breath. They thought it'd be simple, just to stay alert and keep the teenager confined to that living room until she'd passed on before dealing with her then. Yet even with Luke, Nick, Carlos and Pete present, they hadn't predicted how fast that girl would turn. Their group hadn't dealt with many bite victims, not even Luke himself except for a time he'd rather forget. The fact they weren't clear on was how much it varied from person to person how fast they turned once dead, and it'd been just like that, so quick they didn't have a chance to stop it; like a sudden snap of the fingers, their backs turned for only a moment discussing where to bury the girl, and the next thing they knew Ruth was screaming out at the freshly risen lurker biting down on her neck.

That same day, a few hours after bringing the teenager to that cabin, Luke, Nick and Pete went out, assisting a weakened Ruth to walk with them into the darkening woodlands as the skies above became bruised in dying sunlight, and Nick had to put a bullet in his mother's head before she'd turned. Nick blamed himself for all of it, getting soft over a girl like that. They all could have dealt with the situation better so Ruth didn't have to die as she did. Luke had even told Ruth more than once not to get too close to that dying girl, but she hadn't listened, telling him she had to be there, like any mother in her position would.

"That girl in there has lost everything. Maybe I've not been the best parent in the world, but she needs somebody right now, Luke. You see how scared she is; I can't just do nothing. I know it's difficult for you to understand, but I've got to do this."

Luke should've been more insistent, because that act of kindness from Ruth cost the woman her life. Seven months away from Carver's camp, and they'd still been amateurs in all this hell. If they'd thought more with their heads and not taken as much pity on that teenager, things would've been different. But still, to have shot that dying girl against her own wishes after finding her in the woods like that, Luke couldn't even...

Less than a week after that incident, with Ruth's passing still heavily engraved in the group's memories, Clementine showed up from virtually out of nowhere. There he and Pete were coming back from an unsuccessful hunt, and Luke had just seen her through the trees, with lurkers closing in on her fast.

No parents, all by herself and a suspicious lurker-like bite on her arm that had even Luke spooked at the risk of having a repeat of events—the reason why not everybody in their group was willing to jump in to help her like Ruth did prior. And yet, there was this unyielding truthfulness in that girl Luke wanted to believe; even when he wasn't sure, his gut told him Clementine weren't telling them no lies. So Luke went with that feeling like he had every other time in his life, whether for better or worse, and stuck up for that kid along with Pete, despite all the others not siding with them.

For once, things didn't turn out shitty going with gut instinct, although having the poor kiddo nearly chomped by a lurker in that shed might've been better averted if he'd talked the others around sooner into letting her out to treat her arm. It'd sure been a rocky road for most of them in trusting that young girl who had stolen supplies from them from right under their noses. Clem's appearance in those woods so soon after the first girl Amy appeared was also called into question, especially after the lurker attack at the river that had them lose Pete, and then Carver showing up at the cabin in their absence too.

"I don't like this, Luke, not one bit. How do we know Carver didn't just send her here to spy on us?" Rebecca had whispered like some alien conspiracy theorist while they were in the kitchen packing up what food they needed for the trip. "That could've been why he was here; Carver could've been checking in on us with her! For what we know he's using her to pick us off!"

Luke had almost dropped that can of corn he'd been retrieving out the cupboard from all the other cans of food. "Wha-do you even hear yourself? She's eleven Becs, she ain't some secret agent with a license to kill!"

"She might as well be! That girl snuck around and stole from us; she manipulated my husband and then took out one of those lurkers without any help. She might be small, but you've seen what she was capable of; that girl isn't as innocent as she makes herself out to be and I don't trust her, not when the baby's so close to-" Rebecca hushed up when the two-way door opened, the conversation soon continuing again as the pregnant lady saw it was just Carlos carrying in a rucksack of loaded supplies. "She was covered in Pete's blood for God's sakes. Nick says he didn't even see him get bit! The girl might've been lying to us and just made it up...Carlos, tell him!"

Luke was stunned. "What, c'mon, don't tell me you're in on this too, Doc?"

"I'm not one for jumping to conclusions, but there have been too many coincidences with this, Clementine, for them to be overlooked," Carlos said brusquely as he put that rucksack on, those straps adjusted accordingly by the doctor. "Sarah's well-being and the group's safety are my main concerns, and if Carver is somehow using her as a form of manipulation, it would be careless of us to-"

" 'Using her?' Carver's smart but that ain't his style and she ain't no murderer!" Luke protested. "Be real about this; sending in a wounded kid to do a job ten fit and able men twice her size could accomplish, that don't make a lick a sense! We're not soldiers; all Carver would have to do is surround this place and we're fucked, so why get a kid involved?"

"Well there's always the chance he could be threatening her, right? Something to..." Rebecca had cut herself off then, refusing to say any more of what only Luke and she had discussed: the elephant in the room they alone were aware of. It was crazy, that Rebecca was so stressed out about Carver coming for them to take her baby back, that she was convinced he'd have a little kid do it for him. What had she expected, that Clem would kill a bunch of them off and then snatch the baby once it was born? It'd sounded like a plot right out of a twisted horror movie.

Luke was glad the doc saw more sense.

"Which is why it's best we keep her with us," Carlos followed on with, oblivious to the secrets of that pregnant woman. "If she has any involvement with Carver, leaving her behind will only benefit him in locating our whereabouts."

"So we have her tag along so can her slit our throats in our sleep instead?" Rebecca had looked like she was going to be sick, clutching her belly protectively. "Nuh uh, no! No thank you, I don't want that adolescent brat anywhere near me."

Luke had almost slammed his hand down on the countertop. "Jesus, Rebecca what is wrong with you?

"What's wrong with me? Don't you-"

"Just think about what your sayin' okay. You wanna leave a little kid behind for Carver to find after the shit we all went through in that camp? What if you're wrong about her and she ain't the bad apple you make her out to be? You ever considered that?"

"Have you considered if she is, Luke? I heard the two of you talking last night. She might've convinced you with her little orphan act, but I'm not buying into any of it, not after what happened!" Rebecca's body had been physically shaking, wearing her anger like armor, protecting the vulnerability of what had the woman in near tears as she pointed that finger at him. "So don't you dare make me out as the crook in all this just because I value my baby's life more than hers. Ruth went mothering that lurker-bitten blonde you and Nick brought in and look where it got her: six feet under! Little Clementine can stay behind and rot as far I'm concerned; I am not letting that happen to me and my baby!"

It'd been up to Carlos to persuade Rebecca after that. It'd just been unfortunate that the walls of that cabin were as thin as cardboard and others in their group, including a slightly pouty eleven-year-old had heard much to the end of that discussion, particularly the 'that girl can stay and rot' part that had Rebecca red-faced with shame.

The doctor agreed that so long as Clem wasn't left out of sight, there's wasn't much the kid could do to them in terms of harm, but as far as Luke was concerned that hadn't been a problem because he was sure as hell that she didn't have anything sinister to hide. Sadly few saw things that way, as Carlos and Rebecca weren't the only two to share that wary mindset over the youngster. Nick was still on bad terms with the kiddo for not apologizing to him, and regardless of what Alvin thought, Rebecca had that man under her thumb where whatever she said went.

After Pete's death, Luke was the only adult in the group who was really willing to take Clementine under his wing and who trusted her enough not to believe she was being used in some grand master plan of Carver's. Besides the alternatives of abandoning that girl in the cabin to be left on her own, ditching her in the woods along the way to hiking up to the mountains seemed pretty nasty and downright cowardly in his opinion; no way could he have done that, and Luke would've been damned if any of the others had tried.

That unborn baby had Alvin and Rebecca.

Sarah had her father.

While Clem, she'd had nobody.

There was no family or anybody for her to look up to, and after Luke learned from the kiddo that Pete had found her friend Christa dead down by the river shortly before the lurker attack, it was apparent by then nobody else out there was going to be taking this youngster off their hands; one way or another they were stuck with her.

That's why Luke stepped up and took it upon himself to look out for the kid and allowed her to be part of their group, his decision being a lot more than just patching up for having locked her up in the shed.

'So, since you're pretty much on your own, what's your plan?'

'I don't know. I'm kind of on my own now...'

That night at the table when Clementine shared with him her story, Luke had seen a lost and lonely kid who wanted somebody to trust within this fuckery of a life they had all been thrust into, a kid with a heavy weight on her shoulders who needed somebody out there to listen and to understand what she'd been through.

'It was my fault, I just...sometimes people die because of me.'

But more than he was ever willing to admit to it, Luke just saw himself in her.

She was one of them, and that's all there'd been to it to Luke, regardless of what the others had thought. He weren't no parent, but he'd still kept an eye on the kid and made sure she ate enough with everybody else. If Clem asked to help out with gathering wood for a fire or water from a river or stream, Luke had let her and didn't baby the kiddo like Carlos did to Sarah. Oh sure the doctor had tried once everybody had warmed up to Clementine in those weeks traveling away from the cabin, but Luke wouldn't have none of it and funnily enough neither would Clem who didn't like being told what to do by the man...but perhaps, just maybe Carlos was right on that one occasion when Luke should've realized crossing an old eroded metal bridge with just a youngster to back him up probably wasn't the brightest nor safest plan he had ever come up with in his life, especially when that old eroded metal bridge in question turned out to be infested by lurkers too. But hey, if Luke had learned anything by that point it was that life was a bitch sometimes and had its fair share of surprises. Still, he did try to be a bit more careful with the level of danger he put Clementine in, although it uh, it couldn't always be helped.

Mistakes aside, Luke had always done his best for that girl every step of the way, and even looked out for Sarah those few rare occasions Carlos hadn't jumped down his throat to preach about parenting to him. When it came to stepping in for Rebecca in caring for her baby, Luke made a lot of effort on his part. It hadn't been a question of can or can't, Luke just did it. He was scared out of his mind and didn't have a clue what he was doing at first, but hell, he figured it out and had done all he could to keep that baby safe, because it's what Rebecca and Alvin would've wanted him to have done.

If that baby girl and Carlos's daughter were still alive and Luke had managed to get them here to Wellington along with Clementine, he would have still taken all three of those girls on and looked out for them without a second thought. For Luke, it was just a task he would've been all for taking charge of to respect the memory of his friends and carry on what they couldn't, whether he was the right man for the job or not...and he thought no differently with just Clementine on her own. He owed her big time to not go letting the squirt down. They weren't a real family sure, but, he'd be that for Clem if that's what she wanted, and for as long as she needed him there.

'You and me, we're a team now right?'

So really, Luke didn't have any other answers to give Susan that day, but the one...

"It's fine; we'll be fine."

February 6th, 2006

It'd been days since the sun had last shown itself, and only now could it just be bothered to creep out from the thin veil of those stenciled clouds. The snow had melted a tad, sticking like mushy gloop on the pavement, the tiles atop those houses, and the buildings they passed. Icicles were melting in their plenty, hanging precariously from gutters and street lamps that looked as though they might break off and hit an unfortunate somebody on the head. It was still mighty nippy out too, the breeze the morning had brought them never seeming to let up for a second and which had the branches of nearly every tree doing the drunken hula. Still, it was the first decent bit of weather dealt to them in a while, so Luke couldn't complain too much; it wasn't too bad a day to start things afresh.

But maybe what Luke could've really done with was to have been paying more attention with where he was going, rather than scoping the long stretch of that disused rail line he'd been stepping over, or he might've just seen that patch of ice a bit sooner, the same patch of ice that he was to walk right onto...

"Whoa!"

Which, to full fault of his own, resulted in him slipping over like some inexperienced ice skater as he went falling straight down on his ass in the middle of that railway crossing.

Of all the streets Luke had to fall in, it was one right in the heart of town where more than one person was out walking that particular morning. A handful of people witnessed him being the clumsy idiot that he was, those smiles and laughter contagious with one man from down the way even being bold enough to call out to Luke with mocking intent.

"Mind your step pal!"

Yup, what a great way to start the day, by making a fool of himself.

Heat burnt up on his winter chilled face as Luke went about picking himself up with a sore ridden hind and a stiff back from the contents of that dirty brown backpack having dug into his spine in the fall. It was nothing a bit of time wouldn't sort itself out with, but until then, he'd just had to cope with the fact he felt like he'd been thrown off a speeding train and impaled on a fence.

Wait, where was...

Luke tracked Clementine ahead of him, seeing that she was already off the railway crossing and heading further into town. The girl hadn't even stopped to ask if he was alright as she tried blending seamlessly in with the Wellington crowd, as if pretending they weren't acquainted with one another.

Well that weren't nice.

Luke just managed a chuckle, brushing the soggy snow off his coat and jeans. "What, too embarrassed to walk with me now?"

Clementine stopped and turned around, yet any efforts to go back for him were quickly abolished when she noticed the several pairs of eyes on her from those to have laughed at Luke's clumsiness and to have heard what the man had said. At the risk of being caught out for knowing the ice faller in question, the eleven-year old had bashfully scrunched up her face with a disapproving huff as she grasped her stump arm and impatiently waited for the other folks to go on ahead, and for Luke to eventually catch up.

Clem refused to even look at him.

"Idiot," she said.

The things Luke had to put up with sometimes.

"Whatever, kid."

There were few places to be looked at here in town where signs of life couldn't be found. It thrived here, with more homes occupied than those near the outskirts. There were many folks about, whether minding their own business, heading off to work or doing the school run with their kids. It kind of felt like the old days again, not quite, but as close as it could get. Luke had gotten more used to it after the second day, but it was still weird seeing so much activity and it not being the lurkers, or not having to reach for a gun every time in suspicion of others.

One thing definitely to not be missed in Wellington was that there were more amputees about than usually would've been seen in a town before all this. Back in his hometown, there used to be this old guy named Pierce who had lost both his legs in some car accident before Luke was even born who had to get around on a wheelchair most the time. Then there was this chick in college, Abigail, who'd had three of her fingers missing from a nasty pit bull to have attacked her as a child.

Before the apocalypse and before Luke had to off half of Clem's arm, they were the only people Luke had known or seen about with missing body parts. Just on that street alone amongst those commuters, he saw seven. A one-legged guy on crutches, with several of the others young and old with hands or arms completely gone. But the worst victim was a small girl he saw crossing the road with her parents, probably no older than eight. She didn't have any arms at all...

Sometimes Luke was just grateful to have air inside his lungs and to have been lucky enough to not have gotten bit. Heck, he'd probably be a lurker head right now if Joe had finished him off. Luke had the kiddo to thank for that.

There wasn't a single vehicle out on the roads, with people just walking nearly anywhere they pleased without worrying about traffic. Wellington reserved what gasoline it had for scavenge runs from what Luke had heard, and what little was to spare was used in construction equipment or emergencies. They couldn't afford to be wasteful on anything.

Walking down that street of stores, they saw painted signs were stuck in some of the windows or hung outside to cover up the original store logos, making evident that only about half of the stores were open and not all of them sold what they used to. Things like restaurants were long out of business, and there weren't many places selling food when people were surviving on rations and home-grown food. A noticeable addition to the apocalypse was the patch-it-up stores scattered throughout town, where if something was in need of fixing, that's where you went. Trading stores were the other big craze, where unwanted belongings could be exchanged for something else. Yup, it was amazing how fast Clementine had gone into one of those shops the day before when passing one specializing in clothes. She'd nearly yanked Luke's arm off from dragging him into the store so she could go swap her pink coat, scarf and even her backpack for something not pink.

That was probably one of the best things to come out of all this, in that Luke had never seen that kid so happy before. The scars were still there, but Clementine was getting through it like the tough little warrior she was. She'd been smiling a plentiful these last couple days, and she'd laughed a lot more often too. Still, Luke wished she'd stop telling every fine lady who talked to them that he'd locked her in a cold dingy shed. He could swear Clem did it just to get a reaction out of people, and to annoy the hell out of him. Seriously, how the heck was he going to score with anybody here if she kept scaring them off?

Oh well, maybe he'd get lucky at Darcy's farm while Clem was off at school, long enough to hit it off with one of the ladies there without that the eleven-year-old butting in.

"Now, you've definitely got everything right?"

"Yes."

"You sure, sure?"

"Yes."

"Even the things for your, uh-"

Clementine glared up at him, a stern look of 'don't you dare finish that sentence' present in such clarity it might as well be stamped on her forehead with one of those post-it-notes back home.

Luke held up his hands, and let the subject slide. "Okay, alright. Forget I said anything."

It was a fresh start for them both today come to think of it. Clem was having her very first day at school, while today was to be Luke's first day working at Darcy's where his agriculture skills were going to be put to good use. Luke was to be dealing with both the livestock and working in the greenhouses. The farm was just a few miles' walk from the town, near to the wall's border. Luke was supposed to be there right now, but with Clem just starting school and all, Darcy let him off on a shorter shift today.

It didn't mean Luke could stay in bed longer though; Clementine made sure of that when she pulled back the drapes in his bedroom and chucked a glassful of cold water in his face when he refused to get up and at 'em at her word. That girl had been bossing him around all morning, telling him to hurry it up so that she was practically pushing him out the front door...and why? Because she didn't want to be late for school.

The kid was out of her mind.

At least the townfolk here were generally nice and of the less crazy kind; no cannibals or bandits were always a plus. Luke hadn't seen this many living people since Carver's, and the few he'd spoken to seemed decent enough, but it was always hard to tell. He still tread with caution to every new face they met, and often had the habit of tracking people in the corner of his vision to be sure of where everybody was on a street or in a room, so as they couldn't pull a fast one on him.

Other than that, it was the usual chitchat here and there with people around town, but no connecting on a real social level, just chitchat. Maybe that would change once they got to know folks around here better and vice versa, since several had been a little wary of the two just as he and the kid were to them. Both of them were still very much the newbies here, outsiders...

Well, on the bright side they did nearly make friends with two of the neighbors, this lady and her sister, what's-her-name...well names didn't matter much, not after Clem pulled the shed stunt. The sisters hadn't spoken to them since.

"So, did you remember everything?" Clementine asked as she hopped over some ice. There were more folks in this part of town than before, the pavement getting busier with a small level of chatter resonating in the air from a few playful children and protective parents. They weren't far off from the school now.

Luke adjusted the strap of that backpack hanging over one shoulder. "Yeah, sure did."

Another patch of ice, and another hop over that. "Are you sure, sure?"

"As sure as-" Luke cut himself off, catching that mocking glee from the young girl and he immediately grabbed the back of her fur lined hood, pulling it down over her head until it was touching the point of her nose. "Oh I see how it is! Two can play at that game huh?"

Clem gave a small grumbling huff, throwing the hood back in its rightful place as she tidied up her hair...when unexpectedly she fell behind, slowing to small pattered steps, and then to nothing at all.

Luke stopped in his tracks. "Clem?"

Wellington Town Hall, it wasn't all that far from the school. Built in the 1800's and still retaining its original exterior architecture, the building used to hold an Opera House inside, but now was the home of the council. There were ten people who made up that council entirely and Darcy was one of them, as he was one of the few original people who used to live in Wellington from before. The council did all the decision-making and seemed like they had kept things together well. After being at Carver's camp and with how fast things all went downhill there, Luke was still a bit of a skeptic with some of those men and women, but hopefully having more than one person in charge wouldn't allow for the corruption of power to repeat itself.

Luke could see a couple of them now about to go in through the entrance of the town hall: a man and woman each dressed as smartly as the other. They were deep in discussion, too far out of earshot to hear, and Luke didn't recognize them given he didn't know every name and face in that council yet. For some reason though, those two people were the ones whom had drawn Clementine's attention away and left her standing there gawking at them, even after the pair were gone.

The kid looked almost...

"What?"

Clementine gave a blink, a perplexed look grasping her expression and not letting go as she kept looking over at that town hall from across the well-trimmed lawn laced with snow.

"I thought..." the girl went to say, but then just gave up and turned away to carry on walking. "Never mind."

McCormick Middle School, it was what any school should be: a prison for children who just wanted to stay out and play and not a place Clem felt the need to drag him out of bed at 6am for.

If only...

During the weekend when he and Clem were shown around, Luke learned there were only enough children to fill four or five classrooms, with kids of different age groups being taught together. Out of the one thousand population to have settled in Wellington, there were only a hundred or so children under eighteen. Instead of being a middle school, this building was used to teach kids of all ages, with an added kindergarten set up for working parents that had even fewer numbers. It was the sad reality of the times, that when placed in circumstances as these, children were often the unlucky ones to pay the price. Only in a safe zone like Wellington could they have a better shot at growing up, and maybe get that chance at a childhood again.

A thing like this was a rarity, just to see those children outside that school flinging mushy snowballs at each other and having a blast, while some of the older teenagers congregated together, chatting within their groups on benches and under trees. Luke hadn't seen this in years; it'd been too long a time ago since he'd been their age and gone through all this himself...only now, the role was different.

"You gonna be okay from here?"

Clementine's gaze remained unbreaking from that school and its children, her nervous eyes studying everything as if for the very first time. She showed no sign of leaving him to go join them. Clem simply stayed rooted there on that pavement, as though to cross from it onto the snow-buried lawn would be the same as stepping into another world.

Luke gave the squirt's shoulder a little tap. "Clem?"

Almost jumpily, Clementine peered up at him, those big gold eyes glinting with confusion. "What?"

"I said are you gonna be okay from here?" Luke questioned again, a little softer. "I mean, I don't mind goin' in with ya if-"

"No, no I'm fine. I can do it," Clementine said with a dose of bravery, but her mood soon sunk again noticing a mother and son a bit away from them who had just arrived. The woman was busy seeing her child off, the boy complaining at getting kissed on the check in front of his friends as he rushed out his said farewell and went bolting off to join the youngsters having snowball fights.

Clem's hand went up to the side of her head as if to grasp something, only to realize it missing and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear instead. It was a little habit Luke had seen from that youngster before, and which caused a spark of recognition to ignite in his brain.

"Shit, that reminds me." Swinging the backpack off his shoulder, Luke bent down to a puzzled Clem's height and opened the pack up, searching around inside. "This mornin' when I was goin' through some stuff, I um, I found a little somethin' hidden in with my things. Never been that much of a hat person myself; I figure you'd make better use of it."

"Oh?"

Retrieving it from the backpack and popping it into shape, Luke handed over that cap to the youngster. "It ain't much, but here."

It was dark blue, plain and nothing special, but a good enough a hat as any and still in pristine condition two and a bit years into the apocalypse. The cap certainly wasn't falling apart for what counted, and well, Luke did promise. Maybe it'd make her forget about the bike for a while; the amount of coupons from a wage to afford one of those was so mind-boggling that he'd have a better chance at earning tickets at the arcade.

All good things came to those who wanted, as they say.

Clementine's thumb traced back and forth over the material of that cap, studying it intently with her young face near unreadable. A near half a minute passed, and she still hadn't said anything.

Naturally, Luke assumed the worst. "That bad?"

"No...no. I like it, thanks," she said, both corners of her mouth curved upwards in the outline of a tiny smile; even her eyes seemed to smile with that glow in them.

"You sure on that? Y'know I can go swap it, maybe getcha something else?" Luke offered, reaching to take the cap back with an exaggerated slowness. "Actually, I think I saw a niiiice pink one back at that-"

Before he could even grab it Clementine pulled the cap away, tucking it snugly in place on top of her head with a prominent scowl. "No thanks, blue is fine."

There came a loud whistle and a holler, distracting him and Clem. The sound was from a teacher standing by the open doors of that school, this neatly dressed old man with spectacles. He was calling in the students for their classes, who'd one by one all stopped what they were doing and began heading over in clusters to the entrance.

The last of the parents or legalish guardians like himself to be dropping the kids off had long since gone on their way, and Luke, he had somewhere he ought to be too.

Time to go.

"Okay so I'll be gettin' off my shift early today to come pick ya up. If I ain't on time or there's a reason I can't make it-"

"I'm not stupid, Luke," Clementine said, impatiently gripping the sleeve of her coat. "I know the way back."

"Oh...well, well good, that's good!" Sliding his backpack over one arm as he stood, Luke gave the kiddo a pat on the back, edging her towards the school. "Now scoot already will ya? And no gettin' yourself into no trouble today...and uh, try not to go kickin' nobody neither."

"Unless they're an asshole?" Clem asked daringly, taking those smalls steps away from him. "I can kick them then, right?"

"Hah, sure, unless they're an asshole, but that don't mean you be kickin' everybody in there, okay?" Luke joked.

That cheeky smile of Clementine's widened as she'd turned away without another thing said between them. A short time later, that youngster stepped off from the pavement and went walking across the grass, hanging back suspiciously as the final few kids ran into the school entrance. A short glimpse back and quick nervous wave were cast Luke's way before Clementine disappeared inside, giving him little time in returning it.

The sound of a door being thrown open, and the mournful cry of a woman, had him suddenly turning to look over at one of the houses on the other side of the street. It was an elderly woman, collapsing on the front lawn outside of her home, teary-eyed and in great distress.

A younger male in uniform came out from the property mere seconds after, dressed in the garb of the Militia, the civilians who volunteered to do their part in protecting the town. The guy clearly wasn't that great in comforting the grieving woman, appearing almost wooden as he hesitated on whether or not to put an arm around her as he tried to say something to calm her down; whatever it was, it didn't work.

The source of the elderly woman's suffering was soon made evident as two other men in uniform exited the lady's house a while later, the two of them carrying out a stretcher between with a body bag resting on top.

"He was fine, I swear, he was!" Luke just caught the weeping woman saying to the young militia man, repeating the words again and again as if doing so would turn time back; if only that could be true...

The body bag with the unidentified deceased was being loaded up onto some old wooden cart used for around the town, when Luke had at last outstayed his welcome, an outburst from the elderly woman directed straight at him, despite all that distance between them. "What are you looking at!? Go on, get moving! Get out of here!"

With the Militia men setting eyes on him after concealing the body in that cart under a tarp, Luke gave a quick and probably unheard apology, and promptly hit the road, his ears still picking up that widow's crying some way behind him as he'd made sure not to look back as not to upset her further.

What was it his old man used to say when describing the youth of yesterday's modern world? 'Those kids were happy as dead pigs in the sunshine' was his dad's way of putting it, how they were living in blissful ignorance of responsibilities and everything, and how they were out of touch with reality. This all felt so temporary, like a stronghold in a storm that wouldn't last. Luke wanted to believe that this was it and things would get better...but to do something like that, he would have to live in the same blissful ignorance as the youths whom his old man once detested. That wasn't him; Luke couldn't just ignore it. To be lured into that way of thinking, would be the same as pretending the last two years had never happened.

No matter how long this lasted, one thing was for certain, Luke wouldn't waste it. Even with that in mind, it was still of no surprise to Luke that by the time he was on the outskirts of town, surrounded by nothing but those snowy farmlands without another person in sight, he couldn't help feeling his optimism fracture from those thoughts.

He drew a breath, pausing to glance back in the direction of town from where he'd come from. Adjusting that backpack, Luke carried on walking, that high wall inching closer as he got ever nearer to Darcy's farm where a day's worth of labor awaited him, and many more after that.

'One day at a time, right Nick...?'

November 17th, 2016

Sunlight floods through a dying storm, the thunder rumbling out from the faraway heavens high in those boundless skies as the last drops of cold rain descend on that land life fragilely clings to.

Silhouettes on a cracked, decaying road, overgrown by grass and a mess with leaves. Two figures walk together and alone, puddles splashing under mud-clung boots with bloodied clothes soaked through to skin and bone from the rain that finally relents.

The icy touch of the wind cuts across the open plains, the long grass rippling like rolling waves one after the other, as a foot catches and trips and the sense of balance is shattered.

A body falls, and doesn't get back up...