Three Orphan Pilgrimage (The Alternative to TWDG's Final Season) [Walking Dead]

57. Crossroads

Clementine felt herself tensing up as her locked her fingers behind her head. The girl fell to her knees and tried to control her breathing as her thoughts turned to the gun strapped to her ankle. In a flash, her hand went for the weapon and she pulled it from its holster with incredible speed only to fumble it as she aimed it forward, causing the gun to slip out of her fingers and bounce across the carpet.

"Shit..."

Clem picked up the gun and returned it to the holster on her ankle. She assumed the position with her hands on her head and tried drawing again. This time the gun got stuck on the holster, and then again next time. Sometime after a dozen attempts, Clem found herself able to at least reliably remove the pistol from its holster while in this position, although not nearly as quickly as she would have liked.

"Mah-bah." Clementine looked aside to see Omid was staring at her.

"OJ? When did you wake up?"

"Mah-bah," repeated Omid as he reached one of his arms through the bars of his crib.

"You want something?" Clem searched around for whatever Omid was reaching for, but didn't see anything between him and where she was sitting.

"Mah-bah," repeated Omid as he kept stretching his fingers out towards Clem. Following where his hand was pointing, she realized Omid was reaching for the gun in her hand. "Mah-bah." Clem hastily holstered the gun and stood up.

"No, you don't want to play with that," insisted Clem as she approached the crib. "Here, just play with your rattle or Elma," said Clem as she pushed the toys in Omid's crib closer to the boy. "Okay, just play with them and—"

"Mah-bah." Clem felt Omid tugging on her pant leg and immediately jumped back a few steps.

"No!"

Omid flinched in response to Clem's outburst, then started crying softly right afterwards.

"I'm sorry OJ, I'm so sorry," said Clem as she moved to pick up the boy. "I didn't mean to yell, I just—"

"Dah-buh-mah-dee!" cried Omid as he crawled away from Clem.

"I'm..." Clem watched as Omid hid under his blanket, sobbing softly. "I'm sorry." The girl sighed to herself, then left the bedroom. Heading back to the front, Clem grabbed the stool and returned her ankle pistol to the cupboard. She checked to make sure it was unloaded first, fully aware it didn't even have a magazine in it.

"Everything okay?" Clem saw Sarah staring up at her.

"Not really," admitted Clem as she put the weapon away. "OJ tried reaching for my gun. It wasn't loaded and he didn't get it, but it scared me and... I raised my voice, and now he's mad at me."

"What were you doing with it again?" asked Sarah.

"I just wanted to... practice something with it," said Clem as she removed the holster from her ankle.

"Practice what?" Clem found herself unable to answer Sarah, instead she quietly turned away from her friend. "I'll go check on Omid." Clem watched as Sarah stood up and headed for the bedroom. "If there's anything else wrong, you can talk to me about it, both of you." Clem looked over at Patty in the driver's seat, who had no reaction to what Sarah said. The older girl left the room and Clem sat down in the passenger seat.

"Hey Clem..." Patty said in a quiet voice without taking her eyes off the road.

"Hey Patty," said Clem in an equally quiet voice as she looked out the windshield. There were dead trees on both sides of the road and little else. "See anything?"