The Final Step (Clementine x Fem!Oc)

• Take Us Back | Chapter Four •

Tenn: Uh, yeah.

AJ: Huh.

Emma: Can’t really blame them. We probably scared all of you.

Feeling the weird sense of death seemed to bring out my more empathetic side because looking back on the past events that had led up to this, I began to see the other side much more clearly. AJ shooting Marlon out of nowhere, especially when we were the first new people they had seen in nearly forever after being sheltered for so long, it must have freaked them out. Made them feel angry. Made them feel helpless. We probably didn’t do them any favors.

Clementine: What made you think of that?

Tenn: Aasim said you knew how to survive. He could just tell the school would be safer with you there. I voted for you because I liked you, but his reason, it was better. I just… I just thought you all should know. Aasim was right. We were safer. We were more scared than we let on, when you met us. You made that go away.

Emma: We appreciate that, Tenn. Really.

Clementine: It’s really nice of you to say. Thank you.

Tenn: That’s okay. Now that we’re out of danger and going back home, it just made me think of it.

I sighed to myself, knowing that Clementine’s eyes were trained on the back of my head as well as AJ’s. We weren’t completely out of danger, or at least I wasn’t, but Tenn was right. They were getting back home.

AJ: I like Aasim.

Tenn: If Marlon was still in charge, we’d be taken away to wherever. Or dead. Instead, we fought back. Because you both showed us how. We weren’t safe with Marlon. Even in his “safe zone” we were just… hiding.

As his sentence ended, nobody had any time to answer because a crunch of leaves beneath a shoe sounded from behind a tree. I furrowed my eyebrows, pulling out my guns from my holsters, Clementine grabbing my knife from my sheath and we both aimed them towards the direction of the echo.

Before I could even pull the safety off, Louis stepped out from behind the tree, adorned with a sheepish smile and his hands up in the air. I let out a breath of relief, smiling widely and quickly putting my guns back into my holsters.

AJ: Louis!

The four of us rushed over to him, hugging him tightly and he returned the favor, now smiling with more joy than anything. He let out a slight groan from the impact of four people holding him around the middle, but as soon as he settled into it, he was okay. Peaceful.

Louis: You’re not dead. That’s good.

Emma: You really think we would be?

His eyes rested on my face, slipping slightly to my wound on my shoulder, but when he saw me watching he wiped the frown off his face and kept up a smile.

Louis: Well, no… I was pretty sure you were gonna go all Indiana Jones on those walker asshats before getting everyone back home.

Clementine: Did everyone else escape?

The boy averted his eyes from me, not wanting to slip up and look at my wound again, but it was too late, damage had already been done. I knew it from everyone who saw the wound, they were just waiting for the clock to chime and me to drop dead. I couldn’t blame them, I was waiting for it too. It was going to happen at any point and it wasn’t going to be pretty.