(AJ's Pov)
Clementine and I had the car packed up and ready to go. We had decided that instead of one day to celebrate hers and Violet's wedding anniversary that we were going to do something we all had planned to do years ago.
"Ya'll sure you have everything?" Ruby asked and I look to the trunk and nod.
"Yep, first aid kit, nonperishable foods, some fresh food as well for the beginning of the trip, extra clothes in case, bags, a tent if we want to camp for a bit, fishing poles if we want to fish, and many other things." I say as I closed the trunk and looked to her.
"And walkie talkies." She says as she hands me three of them and I nod as I go put them in the car.
"Now the car has enough fuel for maybe half the trip." Aasim says as he comes over to us and hands me a gas can and a rubber tube with a pump.
"Just incase you need to get any gas, though it might be bad." He says and I nod.
"Better than nothing." I say and also set it in the car.
"Ready to go?" I hear and look to see Clem as she comes up to the car and she looked to me then to the others.
"Yeah, I'll get Liz, she's still sleeping." I say and she nods as she gets in the car but still talked to the others as she took a seat in the driver's side. I go into the house and see Liz laying on the couch as she held the pillow to her. I take a breath and picked her up gently with the blanket and pillow. It was a bit hard but I was able to do it. I took her to the car and laid her in the back seat and she cuddled into the pillow and I look to Clem and I think a bit. Sasha then jumps into the back of the car on the floorboard and lays down near Liz and I pet the dog.
"I have one more thing to grab." I tell her and she nods as I head to the house and I go into my room. I grabbed a small item and I head back to the car and took a seat in the passenger's side. Clem then began to drive and I grabbed the map and looked to the roads we were on. We had decided to leave early in the morning, though we didn't have to deal with traffic that Clem talked about, it was nice to leave at this time.
"First stop, Arizona." She says and I look to her and I nod as I look back to the map.
"After that California." I say and tell her to take a left since this direction would take us to a car graveyard. As Clem continued to drive, we played some CDs in the cars stereo and it was soft music for now while Liz still slept.
"It's fascinating you know." Clem says as she had the window down letting the air flow through the car.
"What?" I asked as I have my arm out my window making the wind hit it as I moved my hand against the wind.
"That Liz looks so much like Violet when she was younger." She says and I look to Liz in the rearview mirror.
"Mary looked like you." I say and she nods.
"It's so strange though... you know?" She asked and I shrugged. I didn't think it was weird at all.
"I don't think it's weird, but I don't know much." I say and Clem looked to me then back to the road.
"Violet... always mentioned about me having a family, I thought it was weird that she would ask if I wanted a baby, but I guess I forgot that she couldn't have kids of her own, that and she was scared and wouldn't go near a guy with a ten-foot pole." She joked and I laughed at this.
"But I get it... She wanted me to be happy you know but I was happy with what I had." I hear her.
"You aren't happy anymore, are you?" I asked. She sighed at this and kept quiet as she drove.
"I miss her AJ... I miss her so much, I never felt like this... when you were taken from me it didn't feel like this, when Lee died, when I saw my parents as Walkers, it hurts... it hurts a lot." She tells me and I sit up a bit.
"That's because you loved her so much, even her faults, you still loved her." I tell her and she wipes her face.
"She should be here, we had wanted to do this for years with you, but we just... stayed home." She says and I think.
"She was scared to leave if I have to be honest with you." I tell her and looked to the road.
"She was scared that Joan was still out there, scared that if we left, we all might have been taken to another community and history will start all over again, granted she had her moments where she did leave and had no problems with it, maybe it had to do with the fact that she was going alone, she'd rather herself get hurt than the entire family." I tried to explain.
"She didn't like talking much when it came to her past." Clem says and I look to her.
"She talked as much as she wanted, and I'm fine with it." I tell her.
"I'm not... she could have talked to me, god AJ I thought she was cheating on me back at Joans... the fact I ever thought that about her makes me sick of myself." She says and I rubbed my neck.
"Well, I don't know much about relationships, but... you know she never would have cheated on you." I say to her and she sighed.
"I know... stupid woman was too loyal for her own good." Clem mutters and I chuckled a bit.
"She was very loyal... she worried about others than herself, I mean when she got bit, she was more worried on getting me back home safe than to cut her damn arm off earlier." I say and think.
"When we went hunting, we would always talk to each other, she asked me how I was, how my day has been going... but I don't think I ever asked her how she was, how she was feeling... are we bad people?" I asked.
"You aren't, you don't... really understand these things, hell I'm in my thirties and I still don't understand anything." She says and we hear some shuffling in the back and I turn to see Liz waking up.
"Where are we?" She asked as she rubbed her eyes.
"Almost out of Texas, actually we should stop by some cars, see if we can try and use the gas." Clem says as we pull off to the side and she shuts the car off. Liz yawns and I step out the car and grabbed the gas can and pump from the back floorboard.
"Alright, let's get to work." I say as we go up to any cars.
"It's so nice out." Liz says and I nod. It was a cool day not to hot not to cold, just the perfect weather. There was some birds chirping as well and it reminded me of when Violet and I went hunting during these days.
-Flashback-
"Alright AJ, now we want to get a big one, I'd say a five point would be good for now, but if we can get a bigger one that would be fine as well." Violet says and I nod to her as she takes me to the woods.
"You think Clem will be ok?" I asked.
"Of course, she's just tired right now, but you and I both know Clementine is a tough woman." She says as we walked some more. it was a nice day and we stopped by the river a bit.
"It's so nice out." She says as we take a seat on the ground and she picked up a rock then looked to me.
"Not talking much today hu?" She asked and I just nod at this. She then pats my back gently.
"It's ok to not talk but I'm just going to annoy you." She jokes and I look to her.
"It is a nice day." I say and then she throws the rock and it skips along the water and I look to it as it dropped by the third skip. I look to her as she picked up another rock and she looked to me then to the rock and smiled as she stood up.
"Wanna learn?" She asked and I nod as I set my gun down and she finds me a flat rock and hands it to me. She told me what to do and I throw the rock like she said but it just dropped into the water. She laughed a bit and hands me anther flat rock telling me to try again and I did but it dropped into the water again and I start to get angry and I grabbed a random rock and just threw it.
"Hey woah." She says as she grabbed my hand.
"No need to get angry." She says.
"It's stupid, I can't do it so it's dumb." I say and she laughed.
"AJ giving up? Never thought I would see the day, but I'm not going to let it slide." She says as she hands me another rock.
"I can't do it though." I say to her.
"Practice and patients AJ, you're throwing to hard and forward." She explained and then grabs another rock and she skips the rock again and looks to me. I sighed as I looked to the rock and then to the water and I throw the rock again and this time it skipped two times before it fell into the water.
"There you go, see, now what would have happened if you gave up?" She asked.
"I would have never skipped the rock?" I asked and she laughed.
"Exactly." She says and I grabbed another rock and skipped it again. When we stopped, I grabbed my gun again and we walked more into the woods to find our food.
-End Flashback-
"You ok there AJ?" I hear and look to Clem and I nod.
"Yeah just... remembering when Violet taught me to skip rocks when I was little." I tell her.
"I remember when you told me that, then we went to the creek and you showed me." She says and I nod at this. We got some gas and I look at it and it wasn't much so we go to other cars to try and get some more gas. I look to the side a bit and I see Clem as she looked inside a car.
"Is there anything good?" I asked and Liz pops her head out the window of the car I was working on.
"I found a candy wrapper." She says waving it in my face and I chuckled as it flew out her hand and Sasha chases after it. I then hear Clem chuckle as I look to her.
"Oh my god." She says as she comes over to us. I see in her hand as she had a disco broccoli toy.
"Remember this?" She asked and I grabbed the toy from her and look to the broccoli man.
"What is that?" Liz asked.
"That is Disco Broccoli, the coolest dude that has some rocking tunes." I say and Clementine laughed at this.
"Goodness it's been so long since I had a disco broccoli toy." I say and I chuckled as Sasha comes running around.
"Should find her some dog toys." Liz says and Sasha runs around the area and I look to the gas can as it fills up a bit.
"I also find this." Liz says as she holds up a shoe.
"Is there another one?" Clem asked as she leaned on the car to look inside.
"No, just the one, but it smells." Liz says and throws the shoe back into the car.
"I'm going to look around more." Liz says as she gets out.
"Don't walk too far." Clem says and I look to see her as she picks at the vest a bit.
"You know, I forgot that was even hers." I admit as I head over to the next car.
"Heh... yeah I did too, I've worn it for so long... doesn't even smell like her anymore." She tells me and I look down a bit and pull something out of my pocket and hand it to Clem as she looked to me. She looks to it and it's Violet's dog tags.
"Her... dog tags." She whimpered and I look to her.
"I'm sorry I didn't mean-."
"No, no it's fine I just.... Oh god I didn't think about grabbing them." She says and I lean on the car a bit.
"I didn't know if I was even allowed too." She says quietly and I look at her as she holds the tags close to her. I watched her as she clutches the tags and then puts them in her vest pocket and looks to where Liz is. She was running around with Sasha and I set the can down and leaned on the car a bit. When they were finished, we all headed to the car and Clem filled up the tank and we started to drive again.
"So where are we going?" Liz asked.
"Well we are going to a place called the Grand Canyon." Clem says as she keeps driving.
"What's so great abut it?" She asked.
"Don't know, never been." I say.
"Have you been thee Clem?" Liz asked.
"Nope, but Violet wanted to go... we're also going to head to the beaches in California." I tell her and I look to the road a bit.
"What if there are Walkers?" Liz asked.
"I mean there are Walkers almost everywhere, Elenor and the others did that." Clem mutters and I look at her.
"Are you mad because a Walker got Violet?" Liz asked and Clem takes a breath.
"I'm.... I'm mad that a Walker did get her but I'm mad that they are still around because people... even myself are a bit delusional." She says.
"What does that mean?" Liz asked and I look to the road and chuckled a bit.
"It basically means you think of something that could never be true I suppose, like Elenor and many others thought they could find a cure but in reality, what would happen?" Clem asked and I think.
"It would be ok for someone freshly bitten, but someone that's too far gone, wouldn't that be hell?" I asked and looked to Clem.
"That's where the delusion is." She says and I rubbed my head a bit.
"It would be nice though." Liz says and then Sasha barks.
"Yeah, it would be nice... But we don't know how anything would turn out these days." She says. We would talk for a bit as the music played as well, it was relaxing as we kept driving.
"Surprised we haven't run into another group." I joke.
"Oh, please don't jinx us." Clem jokes and we laughed. Night came quicker than expected so we decided to pull off to the side near a campground I pointed out earlier. We get to a spot and Clem turns the car off and we get some things unpacked and Liz went to grab the tent as Sasha ran to the lake nearby.
"Well, she's full of energy." Clem says and I nod as I help Liz with the tent. We all set up the tent together and I grabbed the fishing poles just as Clem got the fire started, Liz grabbed the tackle box and I get everything set up.
"Time to get some fish." I say and we all headed down the lake and fished for a while.
"So, after this trip what else are we going to do?" Liz asked.
"Probably head on home, not like we could really do anything else." I say as I reel in the line and saw nothing on the hook so I put some bait on and cast the line out again.
"We could head to Georgia go and visit Lee, haven't had the chance to do that in a long time." Clem says.
"Oh shit, I didn't think about that." I say.
"Who is Lee?" Liz asked and I look to the girl as she looked to her line a bit.
"He was a mentor to me; he took care of me when Walkers were just a new thing." Clem tells her.
"Oh, so he was your dad?" She asked.
"Well, yes, a second dad to me... he taught me to keep my hair short, how to shoot, to try and be neutral when helping others, He's the reason I'm still here... He died because of me though." Clem tells her and I look to the ground a bit.
"He got bit by a Walker when I listened to a stranger telling me he was with my parents... it's one day that lives in my mind forever, even when he was dying, he was still trying to keep me safe, still teaching me till he died." She says.
"He sounds nice." Liz says and I Clem laughs a bit.
"He use to be a teacher too, for a college too, when we were at Crawford, he said we could have a classroom for ourselves and there would be no homework, we never got to do that." She sighed and then she reeled in her line as she got a fish and it was a big one.
"You got one." Liz says excited and Clem smiled.
"Just two more and we can have some roasted fish." Clem says and I look to the lake some more. The water was calmly splashing against the land, it was so relaxing to just sit here and not have to deal with any drama, no Walkers bothering us, no people, just a nice relaxing night.
"Hey remember when Violet took us night fishing on the boat?" I asked Liz.
"Yeah, it was really fun, the stars were in the water when she turned the light off, it was so pretty." Liz says and I nod and smiled at the memory.
-Flashback-
Violet, Liz and I were currently on the boat out in the middle of the lake, we had two big lights on to help us see better and not accidently hurt ourselves with the fishing poles. It was calming and we could hear some frogs croaking here and there. The splashes in the water as the fish would swim to the surface to catch any insects that landed on top of the water as well. Violet helped Liz with her pole and Liz casted the line herself and Violet pats her back gently then grabbed her own pole to cast out.
I was watching as the fish would splash the water near us and Liz had mentioned something about how the fish were just saying hi to us and I laughed at that. We were out here for a good amount of time and caught about eight fish in total.
"Hey you two wanna see something cool?" Violet asked and I look to her as I reel in my line and was about to put another bait on the hook.
"YES!" Liz shouts and Violet laughed as she got up making the boat shift a bit and I watch as she goes and turns the front light off and then heads to the back of the boat.
"Now when I turn this light off you should see the stars in the water." She says as she shuts off the light and it took a bit for our eyes to adjust and indeed the stars were in the water and I look to the image.
"Woah, so cool." Liz says and I look to Violet as she puts her hand in the water making it ripple the image of the stars and I just looked at it. I put my hand in the water as well and Liz copied us and then she splashes the water a bit and Violet chuckled at this.
"We should fish at night more." She says quietly and then she takes her hand out the water and I just keep my hand in.
"What if a fish bit our fingers?" Liz asked and then quickly took her hand out.
"Some people use to fish with their hands, put some stuff on their arms and lay in the water looking for fish, mostly catfish." Violet explained.
"Really? That's so weird." Liz says and Violet laughed a bit at this and so do I.
"Yeah, but it was fun." She tells us and I look to the water some more.
"Well we should be heading home." Violet says as she turns the front light on and starts up the boat.
"Aww come on just a little longer." Liz And I both asked and she looked to us and then nods as she turns the boat off and I turn the light off and we look at the water just a bit longer.
-End Flashback-
Once we were finished getting our food Clem went and grabbed some other food for us to eat with our fish and Liz put some sticks in the fire. I look at the fire for a bit and then I started to clean the fish just how Violet taught me. I had finished up the fish and put them on some skewers and set them by the flame so they could cook. We sat in silence for a bit as the fire crackled and look to Clementine as she started to heat up some of the soup in a small camping pot. I grabbed another pot and grabbed some water from the truck and some coffee. I take a seat by the fire and get to work on the coffee and we talk for a little bit.
"So what is at the grand canyon?" Liz asked.
"I just know it's a really deep hole in the ground." I tell her and looked to the girl as she pets Sasha.
"Why go somewhere so boring?" Liz asked.
"I have no idea why Violet wanted to go, only that her and her grandparents were saving up for the trip." Clem explained.
"She wanted to go on a boring trip?" Liz asked.
"Liz, it's not that, they probably had other plans while going on the trip, like where we're doing, we're camping, probably going to go into other towns and look for some cool stuff, plus we're going to go the beaches too, so it's not like we're going to one place." Clementine explained.
"Oooh ok." Liz says and I smiled.
"Speaking of, Liz did you travel a lot with your parents?" I asked.
"Not really, we only went as far as the group would allow us." She says and I look to the water as it boiled and I work on the coffee as Clem worked on the soup.
"Soups done." She says as she grabbed the bowls and poured us some soup and the fish was done as well and we each grabbed a fish and ate it with our soup. The coffee was finished so I grabbed a cup for Clem and I and I handed Liz a water bottle and she drank some of it and I took a drink of my coffee.
"This is so good." I say and then chuckled as I set my cup down.
"Could we do this every year?" Liz asked.
"Of course, heck we should go all across the states, go to the landmarks." Clem says as she set her bowl down and pulled out the map. I saw Clem patting her vest and then she pulled out a cigarette and I look to her as she lights it and takes a hit.
"Clem." I say and she looks to me and smiles a bit.
"It's only one." She says and then looks back to the map.
"But... you know you shouldn't." I say and she looks back up to me and I look back at her.
"It's just one." She tells me again and then marks something on the map then takes the cigarette to flick the ashes away. I watch as she works on the map and I look back to the fire.
"Violet wouldn't-."
"I know she wouldn't but she's not here anymore, now please stop bringing her up." She says and I look to her as she just stared at the map.
"I'm sorry." I say and she sighed and puts the map away and looks at me.
"I didn't mean to... say that I just... I know she wouldn't want me to damage my health, she... didn't want me to when she caught me smoking before... fucking hypocrite." She laughed and I look to her.
"She smoked... She drank... She didn't ask for help when she-." She stopped and put her hand to her face and I hear her sob a bit.
"She didn't... ask for help... for gods sake did she not know how it made me feel?" She asked and I look to the side a bit then back to her.
"I think she did but... with everything going on so quickly she just... thought it was the only option." I tried to explain.
"She was bit on the side... and for a fucking hour I didn't do shit because she didn't tell me... I wish I could ask her why but... I don't know." She tells me and I take a breath and twiddled my thumbs a bit.
"She probably didn't want you to worry about her anymore, she's had moments where she told me that she didn't want you to worry about her... she also thought that... you could handle her being gone." I admitted to her and she looks to me.
"How could she-."
"Because she thought you were stronger than her.... She thought you could deal with it because she felt she wasn't that important to you, doesn't matter if you married her, she still had her mind set on that it was just a pity marriage since Louis said it was just a phase for you." I tell her and we look to each other.
"She... thought you could do it because if you couldn't... I couldn't." I cried and wiped the tears from my eyes. I hear Clem move and then felt her sit next to me. I feel her wrap her arms around me and I cried some more.
"She's supposed to be here, why didn't I just speak up? I did before but why didn't I when Luke said that? For fuck sake he knew nothing about Violet but said that to her?... God damn it, I'm a piece of shit." I admitted to her.
"No, you aren't... you are not, and... I should have spoken up too... all of us should have but I was in such a shock that he said that... Luke was so nice." She tells me and I wipe my tears again.
"I still should have said something... if I did, she wouldn't have gotten angry, and she wouldn't have gotten bit." I say to Clem and I look to her and she hugged me tighter.
"It was my fault, she got grabbed as I ran to the fucking closet." She says quietly and I look at her.
"They grabbed her bag... I shot some but... didn't matter, she was already gone... just wish I could have made it comfortable for her." She says and it got me thinking.
"You aren't going to shoot yourself, are you?" I asked and she looked to me quickly.
"No... no god no why would you-?"
"Violet said she would if either of us got bit... her grandma did it when her husband passed away... I just don't want to be alone." I admit to her.
"No... I'm not going to shoot myself... I couldn't do it even if I tried." She says as she let's me go and I look to her.
"Is it scary?" I asked and she looked to me.
"Yeah, it's scary." She tells me and I look to the lake.
"...What if she was a Walker? Do you think we would know?" I asked.
"If we were a Walker?" She asked and I nod.
"I don't think so." She says and I take a breath.
"... Do you think... Do you think that she... got bit on purpose?" I asked and we look to each other.
"Why would you think that?" She asked. I look to the fire for a bit and shrugged at her question.
"Maybe she didn't like being my mom too." He says.
"What? Of course, she loved being your parent." Clem tells me and I shrugged.
"I know it's stupid to ask that but I just... I don't know why I'm thinking she wouldn't." I admitted and looked to my hands.
"She loved you like a son AJ, she was so proud of you, she was happy when you asked her how to work on the bike, she loved to teach you new things, heck she loved it when you asked her stupid questions like, why was the sky blue." Clem laughed and I look to her.
"It's blue cause the ocean is blue." I laughed and so did she.
"She didn't know a damn about why the sky was blue." Clem laughed and I look down.
"It's funny, how she could make jokes with not knowing things." I say and smile a bit. we sat in silence for a bit and then decided it was time for all of us to go to sleep. As the days passed us by, we finally reached Arizona and we got to the grand canyon. As we get out the car Sasha and Liz ran up to the bars that kept people from falling down it. I had only seen pictures that Violet showed me in the old travel books that we had found. I go up to the bars and look down to see how deep it was and I moved back a bit because I felt a bit sick and I hear Clem laugh.
"Makes you feel uneasy hu?" She asked and I nod.
"It's because you're high up." She tells me.
"Really?" I asked and she nods and I look over to Liz who was looking down the canyon while laying on the ground.
"So cool." She says.
"Why doesn't she feel sick?" I asked.
"Maybe she's been in high places before, or because she's laying, couldn't really tell you." Clem admits and I nod and I decided to try it out and I lay on my stomach and look down but I still felt sick and I backed up.
"Ugh." I mutter.
"You just don't like heights." She laughed a bit and I get up.
"I mean it is scary." I mutter.
"Yeah, it can be." She says as she takes a seat next to me. I look back to what I could see and it was just mostly dirt and rocks for miles and I look around a bit.
"Hey look a Walker." Liz says and we both hurry to get up and look around and then back to Liz as she pointed down and so Clem looks over the railing and I do as well carefully and there indeed was a Walker with what looked like climbing gear.
"The heck?" Clem mutters as we back away and Liz comes over to us and so does Sasha.
"Why were they climbing the walls?" Liz asked.
"I have no idea." Clem says and I look over to the car a bit then back to the canyon.
"We should head out, got a while before we get to the beaches." Clem says as she starts walking away and we headed back to the car.
"Aww but it was so cool." Liz says as she gets in.
"We'll be back, on our way back home." Clem tells her. She starts driving again and I was navigation the way. As we kept driving, I would just look to the road signs and the houses or shops we passed. The music playing in the car was from a different CD we had found when we passed a music shop, there were so many and then one song comes on and I remember it.
"Hey wasn't that the song Violet played when she left to find those people?" I asked.
"It is... it's a Salena song." Clem tells me and I nod as we listen to it.
"Now I'm dreaming with you tonight." I hear Clem sing silently and I look to her as she sighed.
"it's a nice song." I say.
"It is." She replied and then we didn't talk much after. We kept listening to the music and I would show her where to go. When we finally reached California Clem drove to some house by the beaches and we decided to stay here a few days at least to rest up. We head in and I look around as Sasha ran around and onto the couch and Liz looked out the windows.
"Hu, not to damaged, should be safe to stay here." Clem says and I nod as we go and barricade the doors just to be safe. We decided to get to work and make some dinner since night was coming and I was working on the vegetables and I look to the side a bit to see Liz and Sasha asleep on the floor.
"Cute." I hear and look to Clem as she looked over to them as well.
"Sasha got attached to her quickly." I say as I get back to work.
"She did." Clem says.
"Is it cause she looks a bit like Violet?" I asked and Clem shrugged.
"Maybe she thinks that that's Violet's kid, I have no idea, never really had a dog long enough to know what they could be thinking." She tells me and I look to her a bit as she washed the vegetables and handed them to me. I look to the potato and I start to peel it with a knife just how Clem taught me. We finished up dinner and Clem asked me to go wake Liz up so I go over to the floor and shake her shoulder gently and she wakes up.
"Foods done." I tell her and she nods as we do and grab some food to eat. We sat in silence and I would look out the glass beach doors here and there. I then look to Clem as she had a map out and was showing Liz where we were.
"The beaches look nice." Liz says and I nod in agreement.
"It's going to be fun, just have to make sure we're careful though, Walkers can be under the water." Clem explained.
"They can?" Liz asked and we both nodded.
"Yeah, it's scary." I say and I eat the stew.
"That's so weird." She says and I nod.
"I didn't know it either till we saved Clem." I tell her and she looked to me.
"Clem needed to be saved?" She asked.
"Yep, Was kidnapped by a bunch of raiders years ago, AJ and the others came and saved me, it's how I lost my eye." She explained as she pointed to her eye.
"I thought you wanted to be a pirate." She says and we both laughed at this.
"Nope." She says and Liz looks to her.
"Can I see?" She asked and Clem nods as she takes her patch off and her eye was a bit scared up and it looked like a milky white color.
"Woah, that looks cool." Liz says and I look at Clem as she put the patch back on.
"I always hated it, still do." She says and I look at the food a bit and then ate some more.
"Oh, I'm sorry." She says.
"No, it's fine." Clem tells her and Liz nods as she finishes her food. We all finished and I cleaned up the dishes. We all ended up going to sleep, early and I was just looking up at the ceiling my hands on my chest as I tried to think of anything. I close my eyes a bit to try and get any form of sleep.