Young and Young at Heart (The Rewrite of The Walking Dead Game: S2) [TWDG/TWD]

74. Nostalgia

Clementine kept marching forward, too tired to maintain anything other than a brisk walk at most. Looking over at Sarah, she saw that even the older girl was starting to waver, clearly exhausted from today's events. It was still cloudy out, which meant it was still pitch black, the girls' only source of light the lantern on Sarah's back.

Looking around, it didn't seem like they were missing much. This area of the highway was almost entirely bordered by forest. The road started tilting northwest, making Clem wonder if they had gone too far and already past Saint Christopher's. There were still cars lining the sides of the road, which meant at the very least Shaffer's had been through here before.

Feeling the wind pick up again, Clementine shuddered. The raincoat didn't provide much warmth, and even though the smell was a little more distant than when Clem smeared her clothes, it was still there, making her feel sick. Longing for comfort, Clem moved in close to Sarah and grabbed her hand.

"My hands are dirty," warned Sarah. "From the—"

"I don't care." Clem could feel the filth from the walker on Sarah's hand, but she also felt Sarah's soft warm skin and tightened her grasp. Then Clem felt Sarah's fingers wrapping around her own hand, which made her feel a tiny bit better. "I'm so glad I found you," professed an emotional Clementine.

"Me too," whispered Sarah. "But, what do we do if we don't find Nick and Christa?"

"We'll find them," insisted Clem. "We just got to get to Saint Christopher's."

"But what if we don't find it?"

"I don't know," confessed Clem in a weak voice.

"I... I'm sorry," spoke Sarah. "I shouldn't ask you things like that."

"It's not that. I just don't know. I don't know what to do."

"Well... we'll just keep going for now," reasoned Sarah. "We're not even there yet, so we don't need to think about that right now."

"Yeah, let's just not think about it." Clem walked along with Sarah in the dark. She found the eerie silence unnerving, and was glad when Sarah said something.

"Clem, can I ask something, about what you said before?"

"What did I say?"

"About your parents." Clem frowned. "If you don't want to talk about it I—"

"It's okay," assured Clem. "Just ask."

"I was just wondering, if Christa's not your mom, who is she?"

"Just some woman I met."

"That's it? She wasn't like, an aunt, or a friend, or—"

"I didn't meet her and Omid until after the walkers."

"Omid wasn't your dad, he was Christa's husband?"

"Yeah. Well, boyfriend, but close enough. You would have liked him. He was really nice, and really really funny. And he liked kids, a lot."

"And, he and Christa have been taking care of you this whole time?"

"No, not the whole time," recounted a saddened Clem. "My parents... they went on vacation to Savannah and left me at home with my babysitter Sandra, and that's when everything changed. I was just getting ready for bed, when I heard Sandra screaming. I went downstairs, and there was all this blood in the kitchen, and Sandra was lying on the ground, or I thought she was."

"She... she was a lurker," concluded Sarah.

"I didn't understand what was wrong with her. She kept chasing after me and I kept telling her to stop, but she wouldn't. Eventually I ran out into the backyard and went up to my treehouse. I pulled up the ladder, but she was still there, so I just stayed up there, all night, alone..."