against the tide we struggle with the skin we’re in

[willrememberthat]

Who: Clementine and Lee
What: Clem wakes up after being unconscious for a week and a trip home.
When: January 2nd
Where: Clem's room
Rating: S for Sad, most likely. And spoilery!



Clementine wakes up with a sharp, startled gasp. She immediately regrets sitting upright in her bed (her bed? a bed? both seem wrong) because it sends a sharp pain down her arm. Her head hurts too, but that pain is a new one. Still, her arm calls her attention first and foremost. She looks down, past her blood-stained sleeve, cringing at her sloppy stitching. The bite still weeps, and she can see in between the puckered flesh. Better than before, but still bad. Probably safe from infection, but the pain is still the same.

Paradisa. That's where she was. Worlds away from that cold, broken shack.

Did she have to worry about sickness here? No, most likely not, but that thought doesn't comfort her. Paradisa. She's back, years later. There aren't any walkers here. No reason to scan the room for weaknesses in the walls or eye the windows as if something will crash through. She reaches up for her hat, only remembering when her hand touches her hair that it's never been here with her. It took it. She'd been okay without it--if only she had that knowledge at home. She could have been more willing to part with it, and things would be different.

There were a lot of things she'd do differently.

But being here again means that she left. Somehow. Everything is foggy, but between her aches and pains she can feel a pressure squeezing her chest. She went home. She never, ever, ever wanted to go home. A little taller, a lot thinner, and a lot more tired is the girl that's come back. And she feels guilty for it.

All she can do is sit in a bed in a room that's both familiar and unfamiliar. The brightly colored bedding and toys littering the corners seem like they belong to someone else. They used to be hers. Are hers? She has no idea.

Comments

[rightchoices]

This has been one of the toughest weeks of Lee Everett's life. Of course, he'd thought the same when he'd been going through the murder trial; he'd thought it again that first week after the walkers had started roaming the streets, and countless other times since then. This had made every single one of them pale horribly in comparison.

The stakes were different now. His own life was over, no matter how hard he clung to the shadows of it here, but it was a different story for the little girl who was supposed to be in his care. Except she'd been asleep, hadn't stirred for days, and the this particular brand panic was one he had stopped being so used to months ago.

It's mere minutes after Clementine wakes up that he's slipping back into her room - he's never out of it for long - clearly exhausted but freshly washed, and out of habit he nearly moves to the chair that's sitting not far from the side of her bed. Except she's sitting, and her eyes are open, and his breath catches uncomfortably in his throat.

He stops where he is, momentarily frozen. In a moment, Lee will notices the changes, the age, the thinness, but for now all he can focus on is the fact that she's awake, her eyes are open, and that she's here.

"Morning, sweet pea."

It comes low, and there's absolute no way to mask the relief dripping from his voice.