The Bell Tower

Two-Shot

"You should hold on with both hands first," Aasim said, reciting the words he had studied, "and then when you're comfortable you move to one hand and then, obviously, you won't need it at all but you'll need to be super careful on stairs and uneven ground for a while, even after you master that."

Clementine stared at her friends, speechless. Her eyes filled with tears. She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. "Thank you all... so much..."

Violet and AJ rushed in for a hug first, Louis not far behind, Ruby, Aasim, Willy and Omar wrapped their arms around the perimeter of the giant group hug. Clementine cried, tears of joy as she was surrounded by people who loved her and she loved them. She had almost given up everything to save them, thanks to AJ she didn't have to.

Now here they are, recovering as a group, living and helping each other as a group and Clementine couldn't be more proud of the group she helped to salvage. They were strong, they were friends, they were a family.

As they separated from their watery hug, Clementine turned towards Violet grinning, "Help me?" Violet took a crutch from Clementine as she hobbled down the stairs to the parallel bars. Once there Clementine handed her other crutch to Violet who already had her hand outstretched ready to take it from her.

Clementine held onto both bars firmly as she walked, tripping some as she went, smile never leaving her face.

"Can I play on them too Clem?" AJ ran down the stairs, grabbing onto one of the bars with both hands, picking his legs up and swinging.

"Not while Clem's using them bud," Violet said, coming up behind the boy, tickling him until he let go of the bar.

"Awwwww..." AJ whined as he scurried away to mess with something else.

For over a week Clementine spent every spare minute she had practicing, regaining strength, gaining balance, learning how to walk again. She was making excellent progress, making herself and everyone else proud.

Early one morning, Violet awoke sooner than she usually did. She would normally try and go back to sleep but they had been so busy trying to rebuild that she hardly had a quiet moment to herself.

Violet walked out of the dorms, wrapping her arms around herself as she went. Mornings were starting to get colder even though it was still warm in the afternoons. It was dark out, but you could just see the light of the sun on the horizon though it hadn't started to rise yet.

She opened the door to the bell tower and swore under her breath as soon as she looked up. There was Clementine, standing in the window, almost all the way up the tower. Violet could see that she was wearing her prosthetic. "What do you think you're doing??" Violet asked, "Louis and I put that pulley in for you weeks ago."

"I wanted to see if I could climb it now." Clementine grinned down at Violet, but Violet wasn't going to let her charm her out of the situation, she crossed her arms and glared up at her. "I'm getting pretty good on my peg leg," She affectionately referred to her prosthetic.

"Do you want to break your good leg?" Violet spoke sternly as she started her climb up the tower, "I swear, this is what I get for trying to enjoy a bit of peace."

"I can be peaceful." Clementine continued to smile.

"You bring chaos everywhere you go." Violet sat down on the windowsill next to the brunette, trying to hold on to her grouchiness but she felt it melt away as Clementine leaned in and kissed her on the lips.

"True... but you like it." Violet rolled her eyes, making Clementine chuckle. "I think i can make it this time. If you go first you can wait for me? Help pull me up if I don't make it all the way?"

"Why's this so important to you?" Violet sighed.

"I don't know..." Clementine said and Violet looked at her with a 'I'm not buying your crap' kind of look that made Clementine chuckle again, "Honestly, I don't know... I just really want to prove that I can do it still."

Violet stood up, dusting her pants off, "Scoot over." Clementine scooted as far away from where they needed to jump as possible. Violet made the jump easily and stood waiting, "Are you coming or not?"

Clementine beamed, "Yeah!" She moved back as far as possible and positioned her legs so that her final leap would be on her good leg. She took a deep breath and ran the couple steps on the windowsill before pushing off as strong as she could. She landed stomach first on the platform with a loud 'clang', her legs dangling from the edge. Violet reached to help pull her up, but Clementine denied it as she stood on her own. Violet frowned, readying herself to comfort the girl on her near miss but Clementine's face was still grinning. "I did it!"

"You sure did," Violet smiled back, admiring her girlfriend's positivity.

"What are we standing around here for, let's go enjoy some peace." Clementine said as she grabbed onto the handrails and walked cautiously up the remaining stairs, Violet following closely behind. They went to sit in the same spot they had weeks ago, in the same position they did weeks ago with so much having happened since then.

They silently watched the sunrise when Clementine spoke up, "I'm sorry for ruining your alone time, I really didn't think you'd be getting up this early..."

"My favorite alone time, is time with you." Violet smiled.

Clementine shook her head at the cheesy statement, "You are such a dork... but I love to be alone with you too."