"THEY'RE BACK J." Mitch called out from where he stood watch, immediately jumping down from their makeshift watchtower to open the gate. Jamie startles from where she sat on the couch, her head knocking against Willy's.
Somewhere between watching the sunset and waiting (impatiently, she might add), she and the younger boy had fallen asleep. With his head resting at an awkward angle on her shoulder and her own resting on his head. Willy himself startles awake, a surprised noise slipping from his lips as Jamie rushes over to the gate.
In came Clementine, AJ, Violet, and Louis. It takes all of her willpower to not pull Louis into a hug. Instead, she stood there. Frozen. Watching as the small group fill into their courtyard. Louis flashes her a comforting smile—a sort of smile that said,'We're back!'. It was enough to wipe the worried look off Jamie's face at least, replacing it with a soft smile.
"Took you guys long enough." Ruby says, a chuckle in her words.
"'How poor are they that have not patience!'" Louis replies. And it sounds familiar, like something out of a book that Jamie can't quite place. The ragtag group places all their bags on the nearest bench top, inside was food.
"Holy shit." Jamie mumbles. Enough food to last them weeks—maybe a couple months if they were careful. It looked homemade too but she knew that there weren't any houses nearby. Not unless they made a long trip out—which she doubts.
Willy is the second to approach the bench, his eyes wide. "Aasim! Mitch! Check it out! Food!"
"That's like, a lot of food." Mitch comments, once he's reached the table.
"Observant as ever, Mitch." Louis' comment brings a light laugh to Jamie's lips. It was always a joy to see Mitch being made fun of for a change. In the nicest way possible, of course. Mitch shoots her a weak glare and she merely sticks her tongue out at him.
"I can't believe this. Look at it." Aasim says, stunned by the amount of food. Omar follows close by.
"You're our savior, Clem." Willy says, turning his head to face Clementine. There's a soft smile on his face as he says this—one of his rarer smiles. Usually reserved for Mitch, when the two had their cute brotherly moments from time to time. Still, she had to agree.
"He's right! This'll last us weeks. Maybe even more if we're careful!" Jamie exclaims, a rush of happiness running through her body. This was the luckiest breaks they've had in a good while.
"I owed you. You saved me first." Clementine says simply, but the large smile on her face says otherwise. She looked just as happy as the kids around her and this time, Jamie couldn't hold back the urge to pull the girl into a hug. "Woah—!"
"Thank you, Clem! Really!" Jamie exclaims into Clementine's shoulder, shaking the new girl slightly around. She pulls away slightly, a bit embarrassed by her sudden rush of energy. Clementine is still smiling though, maybe even more now, with Jamie's surprise hug. Jamie, now with flushed cheeks, smiled sheepishly at Clementine before taking a step back to look through the food with Willy.
"Call us even," Aasim nods, sharing a small smile with Clementine.
Brody and Marlon were last to arrive at the bench. While Marlon looked pleasantly surprised, Brody looked suspicious. Which was odd, since before the whole episode at the forest, she seemed to be really warming up to Clementine.
"Where did you find all of this?" She asked. Her voice sharp.
"The old train station. Clem knew where it was." Louis answered, motioning towards Clementine.
"Train station...that's outside the safe zone."
"But we ran into the creep that fucked up our rabbit traps." Violet adds, her eyebrows furrowing at the memory. Jamie freezes—so there was someone walking around in their forest. Messing with their traps and leaving them out to starve. It wasn't such an irrational feeling after all.
"Creep? What creep?" Brody presses on. Her eyebrows knitting together, the grim look on her face wasn't getting any better either. From where Jamie stood, she could see the way the gears in her mind shifted. Piecing everything together. Which shouldn't be much—since all they know about the creep was that he smoked bible pages and fucked up their rabbit traps.
"Clem say him smoking those nasty ass bible cigarettes." Louis answers.
"He had weird different-colored eyes." Clementine adds.
Brody's eyes wander from the food over to the gate. Jamie quietly makes her way towards Mitch; who was far too busy admiring the different jars to care about what Brody was interrogating the group for. She elbows him lightly, ignoring the glare she got in return.
"Why is she acting like this?" Jamie asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
"Who cares? Just Brody being Brody." Mitch whispered back, before holding a jar up to her face. "Look, they have peaches. Weren't you craving these a while back?"
Jamie makes a face. Because yes, she was craving them—a few months ago when Louis randomly brought them up. Something about preferring peaches over cantaloupes. She doesn't remember how the conversation was brought up but it did end with Jamie craving peaches for a good while.
"Did he follow you?" Brody questioned, again. It was beginning to sour the spoils but Jamie knew better than to stop her interrogation. And the other kids were doing a good enough job of ignoring her to look through the food.
"No," Clementine's eyebrows knitted together. "I let him have some of the food and then we lost track of him in a swarm of walkers."
Brody lets the words sink into her mind. "You just let him take our food? What the fuck?!"
All it took was that small outburst to stop everybody short. Violet herself startling on her spot. From her spot, she could hear Mitch sigh. His head shaking slightly. He whistles low, catching Willy's attention. The younger boy looks up, with a puzzled tilt of his head. Mitch nods his head towards another table and that's all it takes for Willy to understand.
Jamie spared one look at Brody. There was nothing she can do, anyway. If she tried to interject now, Brody would just yell at her. Like what she did to Clementine earlier in the woods. What was done was done, anyway. There was really no need to fight about the food now.
"Now he knows we're out here, and he'll come back for more!" Brody yells out, as the other kids, Jamie included, wandered off with the others to prepare dinner.
"I feel kinda bad for her." Jamie mumbles under her breath. She felt bad, feeling a tinge of anger at the way Brody was treating Clementine. The girl that kept them from starving the next few days. She could understand the paranoia—since she hated the feeling of being watched when she was out in the woods was enough to drive her mad. "...Why did she get sent here again?"
"How am I supposed to know?" Mitch asks back as he shoves a bowl in her hand. It's warm, already cooked. Jamie's stomach betrays her by rumbling at the mere sight of their dinner. "Just eat your damn dinner."
"Okay, okay. I'm just saying...she doesn't have to be this paranoid." Jamie sighed, settling down beside Willy while Mitch made himself comfortable by sitting on the bench top. Instead of on the bench—like a normal person.
—
"Are you free, now, Jamie?" Clementine asked, as she passed by the trio on her way back to the dorms. Jamie looked at her empty bowl and Mitch's half-empty one that she may or may not have been sneaking small bites out of before nodding stiffly.
"Oh! Right, you uh, you wanted to talk." She stammered, faintly remembering Clementine's request earlier that morning. Abiding to her request could be the least she can do, all things considered. Jamie stands up from the bench, saying her good nights to Willy and Mitch before turning to face Clementine.
"We can talk in my room if you want. Or your's." The three began to walk, AJ following behind curiously. "I heard Marlon put you in the twins' room. I hope that isn't weird."
"No, not really." Clementine shrugs her shoulders. "I didn't really know them. If anything, Isn't it weird for you?"
Jamie thinks. The other half of her room used to be Stephanie's room, anyway. It was weird for a bit, to have that half of space empty. Maybe it was a little different than the twins' room being occupied but she would've felt a little better knowing that the other half of her room was being used by someone that wasn't her.
"No, I guess I don't mind it." She finally answers with a shrug. "When my roommate, um...died, it would've been nice to have someone fill her side of the room...Sometimes Mitch would, actually. He would complain about it though."
Clementine chuckled.
"Oh! I can show you some of the pictures I've compiled. I hid them away before the others could use them for fire or something dumb." Jamie rolls her eyes. Books and useless papers were first used for fire when they ran out of gas. Jamie basically had to fight for some of her favorite books to be saved and, well, the pictures. The trio reaches her room and Jamie held the door open for her guests.
Some of her favorite pictures were taped up on the wall. It was a miracle that they managed to stay up for so long. As AJ and Clementine look over the small picture wall, Jamie looked around under her bed for the small box of memories.
"I didn't realize you knew Louis and Marlon for that long." Clementine comments, her eyes glued on the picture of the three of them. "How old were you guys in this picture?"
Jamie hums, finally finding the small box and joining the two to look at her wall. "Maybe nine or ten? ...Louis is missing a tooth there so I think we were ten."
AJ laughed at the picture. "Why did he lose his teeth?"
"He and Marlon thought it'd be smart to play chicken with soccer." Jamie explained, a nostalgic smile curling her lips. She remembered the day like it was yesterday. She'd finished playing softball with a few of the other girls so she went off to find Marlon and Louis. What she found was a sight that made her stomach ache for hours from laughing so hard. "Louis missed but Marlon landed a direct hit. His tooth was already loose, so I guess Marlon just helped him."
AJ's laughter only grows louder at her story. Clementine joins in, though her laugh is more like a chime. Not as loud as AJ's. Jamie can't help but smile, her hand reaching out to pat AJ on the head.
"Do you even know what chicken is?"
AJ shakes his head, still laughing. "Nope!"
"Well..." She began to explain the game. She thought that it was a dumb game before, even more so now that she's older. Even then, it didn't mean that she would try to talk Marlon or Louis out of playing the game. It usually ended with hilarious results—like, for example, Louis' tooth getting knocked clean off.
"That sounds dumb." AJ comments, once she's done explaining. Jamie nods her head.
"Glad we agree on that little dude."
Jamie pointed at another picture. One with her and Stephanie. She had long hair in that picture too, but this time, her hair was neatly tied into braids. Most likely Stephanie's doing—she always liked to play with hair. Her own and other people's.
"Steph was my first girl friend here. Space between the words." Jamie said with a small smile. "I shared the room with her until I didn't."
"How did she..."
"Just an accident. We weren't as experienced with fighting before and she just slipped up, got herself bit." Jamie shrugs, trying her best to act nonchalant. The memory resurfaces, though, in small flashes. Jamie only really remembers small, insignificant things from the day Stephanie got bit. Like, how it was a particularly hot day. Or the fact that she'd finished one of her books that day. Or that one stupid joke that Louis said that made Marlon snort. The small things; everything that lead up to and after Stephanie's death. "It happens. Like with what happened to the twins."
"Right..." Clementine looks at the box Jamie was holding. "What's in there?"
"Oh! More pictures. C'mon." Jamie motions towards the dirty rug in her room. She settles down, cross legged, and places the box in front of her. AJ and Clementine follow her, the three of them forming a makeshift triangle with the box in the middle. "Wait, you wanted to tell me something, right?"
"Yeah," Clementine smiles. "I just wanted to let you know that I'm not interested in Louis. Not like that, anyway."
Jamie sucks in a sharp breath, her cheeks growing red. "W-what—"
"I just thought that you should know." The other girl shrugs her shoulders. Despite the nonchalance in her voice, the smug grin curling her lips says otherwise. "You were making faces when we played the card game and I want to get along with everybody here."
Jamie inhaled and exhaled, trying to calm her pounding heart. She presses her open palm against her chest, feeling her heart pounding heavy against her rib cage. "Geez, Clem. You really know how to take a girl by surprise, huh?"
"Sorry, I didn't think it'd help to beat around the bush."
"In...Interested?" AJ repeats slowly, as if to test how the word sounds in his mouth. "Whats that mean?"
Clementine and Jamie share a look before bursting into laughter.
"Interested, means you like them." Clementine explains. "Like, you want to know more about this person."
"Oh," AJ pauses and she could see the way the gears shifted in his mind. "Then I'm interested in Louis too."
This brings another round of laughter between the two girls. It was hard to explain—especially to make it make sense for a little kid. Jamie doubts AJ even cared about all the mushy stuff the two girls were talking about.
"Y'know what, I think I might have seen a dictionary lying around somewhere. When I see it, I'll give it to you to read, 'kay?"
"What's that?"
"A book with every word and definition. So if you don't know the meaning of a word you can look it up there." Jamie explained with a small smile. It was enough to bring joy to AJ's face as he basically lit up with joy.
"Yes!"
Jamie turned her attention to the box. "So, what you guys see here is top secret. Okay? I kept some of these pictures are hidden- from the other kids because they definitely would've burned them to the ground."
Clementine chuckles. "Alright, I promise."
She tuts, holding out her pinkies for Clementine and AJ to wrap their own pinkie around. "Pinkie promise, you too AJ!"
Once Jamie was satisfied with their promise, she opens the cover of the box.
—
It was hard to tell how much time has passed. Since Jamie told the two stories she remembered. One about Aasim 'accidentally' burning this mean teacher's hair (the woman left after that and was replaced by an even stricter man). Another about a girl with braces—her name forgotten in Jamie's memory. Jamie talked about Mitch and Willy. How the younger boy basically became their little brother.
It isn't until AJ barely manages to suppress a yawn that Jamie realizes how late it's gotten.
"Oh shoot! I kept you guys in too long. We can continue this another time." Jamie says. It was hard to tell what time it was now, since clocks were a thing of the past. If she had to guess, her best bet was that it was somewhere between nine and eleven at night. "You guys get some rest, you deserve it after what you did."
"Right." Clementine pats AJ's head. "Thanks for...thanks for this."
Jamie nodded once, standing up to show the two out of her room. "No problem! Come again if you want to hear more funny stories. I wanna hear more about you too, Clem."
Clementine nodded. "Next time."
"Okay, good night!" Jamie waves at the two before finally closing her door. She collected the pictures tossed around her room and hid the box back under her bed. With a feeling of satisfaction, Jamie climbed onto her bed and closed her eyes.
[ ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED! ]
Memories.
Shared some with Clementine and AJ.