The group had been rushed back into their outdoor cell following the horrific torture they had been forced to listen to. Clementine and Sarah were both beside themselves, crying hysterically as Sarita tried to console Sarah and Rebecca Clementine. Kenny was sat with his head in his hands, completely shutting down, not able to process what had happened to his son, how useless he felt being unable to help. The rest of the group were much the same, even the two who had been prisoners before the group's arrival, Mike and Jane, and who didn't know Y/N.
It had been about ten minutes when the roller doors suddenly shot open, Bonnie raising them as Carlos and Vince carried an Y/N with one of his arms over each of their shoulders. The group looked in horror at the bright blistered crudely branded
MINE
across Y/N's abdomen. It was blistered and translucent, weeping at the same time as the red of his torso and face were bruised and swollen and bleeding in various places.
"There on the fold out" Carlos said hurriedly as he and Vince lowered Y/N onto his back.
"Quickly Vince, from the infirmary I need two of the banana bags, an IV drip and the course of IV antibiotics, as well as bandages and as much aloe Vera as you can bring" Carlos continued as he felt Y/N's pulse on his neck and counted against his watch.
"No! No way you can have all that!" Tavia said angrily as she stood pointing a machine gun at the group, ensuring they kept back.
"Fine. Then you explain to Bill why his asset has died. His pulse is slow, his breathing is shallow and he may have gone into hypovolaemic shock. Bill's words were 'keep my asset alive', were they not?" Carlos roared back.
Tavia didn't answer as Carlos turned to Vince and yelled "Now, Vince!" and the small man ran into the facility to find what they needed.
"Can you keep him alive, Carlos?" Bonnie asked with genuine concern.
"I hope so. It is quite lucky you had those medical supplies from that base you had me inventory or I sincerely doubt it."
"Go, Tavia, I've got this" Bonnie said to her colleague, who quickly nodded and left, terrified of the look she was getting from Kenny, even with a high powered weapon between them. Bonnie walked over to Rebecca and Clementine and knelt, saying quietly so only those directly around her could hear:
"You lot start thinking of a plan, as soon as that boy can manage it we are getting out of here."
—~—
Carlos had been working on Y/N for well over an hour when he finally stood and returned to the group who were worriedly sat around the drum fire of their shelter.
"How is he Doc?" Kenny asked. Carlos sighed.
"He's still critical but has stabilised. I've done what I can to bring him out of shock, I'm not sure if he's unconscious or in a coma, he was badly dehydrated and suffered a lot of trauma."
Carlos sat on the other side of Sarah as she dove onto her father, he squeezed her and tiredly continued:
"I've began an aggressive course of intravenous saline and antibiotics. We can't do much for the... the branding except keep it covered and apply Aloe Vera once a day when we change the bandage. The cut on his cheek from on the road, he will be left with that scar, it's too late to try and stitch it, but I've reduced the rest of the swelling where I could... it's... it's up to him now. Either he will fight through or it will be too much for him. Without a hospital there's not much more we can do."
"Thanks Doc. I mean it" Kenny said as he wiped away tears, Clementine asking sadly:
"Can I sit with him?"
Carlos nodded and Clementine was instantly up, taking a seat next to an unconscious Y/N and squeezing his hand. Carlos watched her leave the immediate vicinity and said quietly to the others:
"We need to have a guard watching him all night, just in case it's too much."
Clementine sat and stared at Y/N's unconscious body, bruised and beaten, burn marks on his ribcage above the bandages around his torso and felt tears drip from her eyes again. Y/N was always her rock. He was always the strong one, no matter how bad a situation was he always made her feel like everything would be ok, she had never even seen him afraid.
Now she wasn't sure if he would even wake up.
"Please Y/N. Please don't leave me. I love you. Please don't go" Clementine whimpered before she broke again, sobbing as she squeezed Y/N's hand.
—~—
Clementine had suffered a night of nightmares and broken sleep. She was exhausted when it was time to get up and sadly saw that Nick was next to Y/N and he still hadn't woken up.
"He's fightin' Clem. He's fightin'" Nick had said quietly. Clementine had wanted to stay with him but of course she wasn't allowed to. Carlos insisted on staying though, and was allowed, to keep the 'asset' alive.
—~—
Clementine had been tasked with taking supplies out to Kenny and Mike, who were working on shoring up the expansion, watched over by Wyatt. She had been going back and forth all day and it was nearly finishing time. She was walking back to the main compound and was grabbed from behind and dragged into the boarded up comic book store she had been walking passed.
Clementine bit down hard on the hand that was covering her mouth, and was about to swing for the balls before she recognised the pained cries of the bitten would be abductor:
"Ow damn it stop. It's me."
"Luke?" Clementine said happily in shock.
"Yes! Man... bit the hell outta me. Think you drew blood. Come all this way... This is... this is the welcome I get."
Clementine was on Luke in a second, hugging him tight and bringing a smile to his face as he chuckled:
"Well I missed you too. Listen we ain't got much time. If I'm gonna get you guys out then-"
Clementine broke down, much to Luke's shock as he hugged her again and asked:
"What's going on Clementine? What happened? Are you-?"
"They tortured Y/N for days Luke. For days. Burnt him last night. We don't know if-"
Luke squeezed Clementine again, shocked at the actions of the people in the camp. Bill was bad, Troy was bad, but the rest? He tried to get back on track:
"You don't have much time. I need you to get me a walkie, Clem. Can you do that? Meet me here tomorrow? If I can figure out their rotations maybe we can figure a way out of here."
Clementine nodded just as they heard Wyatt yelling:
"Clementine? Clementine where are you?"
"Go, quick. Meet me tomorrow" Luke said as Clementine nodded and quickly walked out the store.
"There you are. What were you doing in there?" Wyatt asked with his usual nervous tone.
"I had to go somewhere and cry, Wyatt. Y/N might never wake up. He's looked after me everyday for the last three years. Protected me. He might never wake up. You let Carver hurt him, Wyatt. Why did you do that?"
Tears streamed down Clementine's face as she spoke, Wyatt staring at her with guilt, shame, fear:
"I-I-I- I didn-"
"Wyatt you got the stragglers?" Troy suddenly blared into the radio.
"Y-y-y-Yeah Troy" Wyatt replied.
"Well h-h-h-hurry up dipshit. I'm hungry" Troy snapped back.
—~—
Clementine was dropped into the cell and the shutter locked behind her, Rebecca handing her a bowl of rice and beans she had made up for Clementine from their usual dinner.
"How's-?"
"No change" Carlos replied walking over from where Y/N was still unconscious. Clementine's face dropped but Carlos spoke again quickly:
"No in this case no change is good, Clementine. He doesn't have a fever and his vitals are stable. He's fighting through the worst of it and hopefully he'll wake soon."
"Good the sooner my boy can move the better" Kenny said aggressively as Rebecca sighed and Mike snapped:
"So you wanna ring the dinner bell for a herd of walkers to show up? How is that better?"
"'Cause this place'll be fucking chaos when that thing hits. No one'll be payin' any attention to us. And that's when we go. That's our opening. We just gotta figure out a way to draw 'em to us."
"Clementine see if you can talk some sense into your father in law would you?" Rebecca sighed again.
Clementine lit up like a Christmas tree. Kenny was cut off from his rant as he looked at the teen in shock.
"Somethin' you wanna tell me darlin?"
"Uh-um- Maybe Luke could help us... he's outside. He wants a radio to help keep an eye on the guards." Clementine said through blushing cheeks.
"Thank you! That's the plan I vote for" Rebecca smiled.
"You know about Luke?" Clementine asked in surprise.
"We saw him grab you. Tried to keep Wyatt distracted" Mike replied as Kenny nodded.
"If Luke can tell us what's going on with the guards, we can use that to pick a good time to escape. We could use the PA system. Turn on the outside speakers if you're insistent on dragging the herd here as a distraction. Please tell me we won't have to do that thing though, Clementine? To walk through them?" Rebecca sighed.
"Walk through who? The walkers? You insane?" Mike asked with skepticism.
"Actually I do it all the time" Jane said as she approached the group for the first time.
"First words I ever hear you say, and it's just some crazy, stupid shit" Mike snapped.
"Hush. What do you mean exactly?" Sarita asked.
"When you cover yourself in their smell, rub the walker guts all over you. They can't tell you from one of them" Jane smiled.
"Oh god we are gonna have to do the thing" Rebecca said as she covered her eyes.
"Wait. How do y'all know about this?" Kenny asked.
"Y/N figured it out" Clementine said with a sad smile, looking over at her best friend.
"What?" Kenny asked shocked.
"It's how we got out of the Marsh House. After Y/N had fought through the herd and killed I don't know, fifty of them, he was covered in their blood and guts. After he killed the guy who kidnapped me he covered me in walker guts and we just walked out of Savannah, straight through the herd."
"Well fucking done, son" Kenny said proudly as he turned and looked where Y/N laid.
"We still have to find a way to get in the stockroom and get a radio" Rebecca replied.
"I got a plan for that, too. Come on, kid. Gonna need your help" Jane smiled at Clementine. She led the girl to the corner of the enclosure, where a rope was hanging from the roof.
"We just need to use the winch. She can just climb up from there. Then just drop into one of the skylights over the stockroom. There are shelves and stuff for you to land on, so... you probably won't fall to your death" Jane chuckled.
"Great" Clementine sighed as she was boosted up by Mike. She grabbed onto the end of the rope and stepped into the winches hook as Mike pulled the other end, raising Clem until she was able to reach the broken emergency access ladder and pull herself up to the roof. She looked out to see the herd converging on the complex, and it numbered in the thousands.
"We need you awake, Y/N" she sighed, quickly sneaking to an open skylight and climbing down.
For once the plan went off without a hitch, no guards were around and Clementine carefully climbed down, grabbed two radios and climbed back up before anyone came around. She quickly climbed down the ladder and jumped when Mike told her to, Mike catching her safely.
"Best go to bed. I'm on watch for your boyfriend. Keeping a close eye on him."
He chuckled as Clem lit up bright again. She walked over to Y/N, who appeared to be sleeping peacefully, and leant down, kissing him on his cheek that wasn't covered by a plaster, and whispered:
"You keep resting Y/N. I hope you're having good dreams. I'll hopefully see you awake in the morning-"
She leant down, even closer to his ear to make sure no one heard her:
"I love you."
She quickly walked to her bunk and laid down, Kenny asking "Well?"
"I got them" Clementine smiled.
"Good job, Clem" Kenny smiled back.
"I told you you probably wouldn't die. Nice job" Jane chuckled.