“Let me think for a minute,” she answers, her voice barely more than a whisper.

Killing the walkers one by one is out of question. She remembers doing it more than once before, but only when there are ten walkers tops.

Old-fashioned method of covering themselves in guts could work, but they’d need to get close to at least one walker first. That didn’t seem like a very likely option when the things are all huddled up together, shouldering past each other against the fences of the ranch.

Gabe nudges her shoulder, a thoughtful expression on his face, but says nothing.

“What?” she asks, exasperated.

“Well, I think I…I have an idea. How good are you at climbing?”

Clementine sighs. “Climbing what?”

“Trees,” Gabe answers with a shrug, his cheeks coloring a little. He gestures around them with one hand before saying, “There are tons of trees surrounding us. If we use them, we can get past the fences and into the ranch.”

This time, it’s her face that colors slightly. “I had a treehouse, before the walkers. And…and when L—I mean, when I first found survivors, I was hidden up in the trees. But it’s been a long time.”

“You think we can try, though?”

“I don’t really think we have other options,” she says with a sigh, running her hands over her face. When they start preparing to climb the nearest tree, she blurts, “You know, I once met this woman. Molly, I think. She was a great climber. She had this tool that helped her around, and she even named it.”

Gabe jumps up and up and up in the tree, offering her a hand all the while. “Yeah? What happened to her?”

Just don’t think about what you’re doing, she tells herself, repeating it like a mantra. It doesn’t matter that it’s been a long time, she still can do this sort of thing.

“I have no idea,” she answers Gabe, focusing on their conversation. “She left our group without saying anything. Never heard of her again.”

“That’s a good thing,” he tells her with a small smile, encouraging her to keep going. “Means she can still be alive, right?”

“Yeah, maybe.” When her eyes search for the ranch again, she has to suppress a gasp. They moved a lot, and are definitely getting closer to their destination, the herd and AJ. “But there’s something I know for sure—the last time I was on a farm, it was bad. So be prepared for anything.”

“Bad?” Gabe’s voice wavers. He clears his throat the next second, and she smiles at how he really wants to look strong. “How bad? What I should be prepared for?”

“Anything,” she repeats. “I mean it.”

He nods. “But what happened?”

“I…we were starving. There just wasn’t any food left, and people were starting to fight,” she tells him, closing her eyes for a moment when the memories threaten to overwhelm her. “Until this family appears, out of nowhere. They wanted to trade something—gas, I think. They swore they had lots of food, enough to feed our entire group for months.”

When she pauses, her eyes still closed, her body refusing to move to the next tree, Gabe approaches her quietly. He touches her hand with his, just a small sort of contact.

“And then?”

“We went with them, of course,” she continues. “Once we got on the farm, they wanted help with some things. It was fine. But…but then a guy got hurt. The family said they would help him, make sure he got better. But when we asked if we could stay with him, see if he was alright, they wouldn’t let us. My—uh…Lee…one of the guys in our group figured out what was happening by the time dinner was served.”

“What dinner has to do with anything?”

Clementine smirks at him—though there is hardly any humor in her face. “He—the injured man—was dinner. If it weren’t for Lee, I’d have eaten his flesh and never realized the truth.”

All color leaves Gabe’s face—and he swallows one, two, three times.

“What?!” he asks in a shrill, high-pitched voice. “The guy was dinner!”

“Keep your voice down,” she hisses, eyes flying to the herd again. It’s so much closer to them, but the walkers are still unaware of their presence. Dinner.

“But they ate a person!” Gabe exclaims, though his voice lowers a little. “How—why—I mean…why would someone eat a person?”

Clementine shrugs. “It doesn’t matter. I only said that to prove a point—which is, keep your eyes open and stay sharp. We don’t know what we’re going to find on that ranch.”

Though Gabe remains silent, she can almost hear his thoughts—I don’t want to become dinner, I don’t want to be eaten…

She didn’t find it funny back then—and she really doesn’t find cannibalism funny now either—but it’s…amusing how life can suck sometimes. It’s like they have two choices—be eaten by a dead monster who was human once upon a time; or be eaten by someone that’s still human but acts like a monster.

Their conversation is cut short when they reach the fence, the walkers right under their feet. Clem barely breathes at all. She looks at Gabe in the eye, and gestures for him to start climbing to the inside of the property.

He does, his face pale and sweaty. The moment his feet hit the ground with a dull thud!, she smiles.

But when it’s her turn, one of her legs is already over the fence and her heartbeat is crazy and—

A walker grabs her ankle. And tugs her down, surprisingly strong for someone whose limbs are pretty much rotten.

She wants to scream. But still, her instincts are stronger, and her mouth just hangs open, no sound coming out at all. If she screams, more walkers will notice her. And if that happens, it’s over. She’s done.

But she isn’t done just yet.

Something—someone, possibly Gabe—kicks the walker through the fence and pulls her to him at the same time, successfully saving her from the walker’s clutches.

Or kind of.

Since the thing’s hand is still attached to Clementine’s ankle. She kicks it angrily with her free leg, and the hand lands on the other side of the fence, in the middle of the walkers. They are not even startled by it, the stupid things.

“Damn,” she whispers, taking a deep breath. When she looks at Gabe, he’s completely unsettled, staring at the walkers, breathing in ragged puffs of air. “Gabe, it’s okay now. Thanks. You…thanks.”

He shakes his head. “I-I n-never touched one of t-them before.”

Carefully, Clementine wraps her hand around his, trying to ground him to reality. When it doesn’t work, she tiptoes a little to get taller and kisses his cheek.

She’s careful not to allow it to last more than three seconds, but it has the desired effect nonetheless—Gabe stops staring at the walkers to move his bewildered gaze to her, and his face colors.

“Wow…” he says, touching his cheek with two fingers. “Can you do it again?”

Clementine blushes—but still manages to roll her eyes at him. “Yeah, maybe some other time. If you’re lucky.”

Sometimes, she feels like Jane is still with her. Whispering what to do, how to act around boys. It’s…scary. But she’s grateful for Jane’s presence. Real or imaginary.

“Come on now,” she says, gesturing to the ranch ahead of them. The path is clear, every walker behind them. For now. She has no idea how long the fence will hold them—her history with fences is that they’re never really good—but it’ll have to do. The mission is go to the ranch, take AJ, get out, go back to Richmond. Easy.

After they’ve walked for a while—and the small, wooden house is near—Gabe whispers, “It’s super quiet now, isn’t it? I can’t hear the muertos anymore.”

“Better this way.” She shrugs. “But if it makes you feel better, we’ll need to get past them again once we grab AJ.”

“Yeah, it doesn’t make me feel better at all.”

“We can check the barn later, see if there’s a car here or something. I need a car anyway.”

Gabe pauses—and when she stops walking to look at him, he’s staring at the ground like it was personally responsible for every bad thing that ever happened to him.

“Gabe?”

“You’re going to leave, then?” he asks—almost accuses her, the hurt flowing freely in his voice. “After everything…after everything we’ve been through, you’re just going to leave us?”

“No!” she exclaims, raising her hands. “I just…of course I won’t leave. Javi already made me promise to stay. It’s just that having a car is important. I’ve been looking for one—this way, I can go to other places more safely. Get supplies. And stuff.”

“Not like it matters to me anyway,” he mutters, shouldering past her. “Let’s just…keep walking.”

Clementine frowns and runs to catch up with him. “Gabe, I’m really not going to leave. Why are you acting like that?”

“You’re not going to leave because Javi asked you to stay. Even…even if Kate asked, you’d probably listen to her.”

“Yeah. I would. And that’s a bad thing because—?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It clearly does!”

He comes to a halt, almost making her run into his back. When he turns to finally look at her, Clementine can swear there are tears in his eyes.

“It…I’m just never enough, am I? If I asked…it’d be different,” he mumbles, covering his face with both hands. “Look at how well it went I asked Dad to stay. People just…people just don’t stay for me.” His accent gets thicker the more nervous he gets—and by the end of his last sentence, Clementine can barely hear what he’s saying.

But she does hear his words. And it hurts her to see someone like that. Especially because, really, she doesn’t understand it. If people are staying, they are staying. It doesn’t matter who asked.

Gabe reminds her of Sarah—so easily hurt, so open about everything.

She used to do everything for Sarah, didn’t she? But what usually cheered the girl up? She can’t remember. Too many bad memories muddling up the good ones.

Taking a deep breath, taking a leap of faith really, she walks closer to him, her hand coming to rest on his dirty cheek. Looking at them now, though, they are both dirty. Covered in mud and dry leaves and blood from their scratches.

“I…” she swallows, trying to make the words get the hell out of her mouth. “I always thought…I’d be alone.”

His eyes jump to hers, and she swallows again. God, why is this so hard? Why her legs feel like they’re going to make her fall on her knees from their shaking?

But she needs to do this. For him and for her. She opens her fingers over his cheek, caressing it like Christa and Omid used to do with each other. So long ago. How is it that she even remembers little things?

“I always thought I’d be alone,” she repeats, keeping herself focused. “Then I met you.”

It’s not something she was planning. Not at all. Especially not after all of Javi’s teasing and Kate’s knowing looks. But still, Javi and Kate and everyone is far from her mind when she gently pulls his face towards hers, closing her eyes after he closes his. Then she touches her lips to his.

Differently from what she had thought, it’s…weird. Not kissing him, but kissing. It’s wet. And different. She never ever touched her lips to someone else’s, had absolutely no idea what to expect from it.

But the thoughts fly out of her mind when she realizes just what she’s doing. She’s actually, honestly kissing someone. Gabe. She just never…she was being honest with him, before. She never thought about this sort of thing. But it just felt so natural, fitting.

Wet and odd or not, it was still nice. A good memory to treasure among so many bad ones. She hopes it’ll become a good memory to Gabe, too.

Finally, when she doesn’t know what to do with herself anymore, she breaks their contact. He doesn’t let her go completely away though, not yet. Instead, he does something that, to her, seems like instinct alone—he bumps their noses together, earning a smile from her.

“That…” he whispers after bumping their noses one more time and letting go of her free hand. “That…did you mean it, Clem?”

Clementine nods, not finding her voice just yet. Then, after clearing her throat, she answers, “I’m more serious right now than I’ve ever been.”

“Wow.” A smile covers his entire face and he looks—he looks…like he’s glowing with happiness or something. She feels a strange bubble in her heart, too. Something that she never felt there before. Clem doesn’t have a name for it, though. “Wow, Clem.”

When he offers her his hand to hold, it’s shaking so much. She looks down at hers to see it shaking, too. How…how is it that her body can react like this? It never reacted like this to anything. Never.

Smiling to cover her sudden nervousness over her acts, she grabs his hand and they start moving again. If they find AJ today…then she doesn’t think her heart had ever been this happy. It never really had the time to be happy.

She thinks that maybe, maybe now she understands Kate better. Why she clings to Javi every time she can, why the two of them are always together. But she also understands what feeling like this regarding someone means—they could be separated at any time, for any reason at all.

Look at Christa and Omid, Luke and Jane, Kenny and Katjaa. It’s always like that.

Her heart aches at her pessimist thoughts, and she honestly tries to brush them off. Crush her fears. But when it doesn’t happen, she just tells herself that all it means is that they need to enjoy the time they have.

She thinks about the good memories they already have—and the new ones to come. They’ll have to be enough, won’t they?

With everything inside her hurting, she squeezes his hand as tightly as she can.

“Are you…okay?” Gabe asks, pausing for a second to look at her.

“I’m okay,” she promises, nudging him so they can keep moving. “Just thinking about old things.”

Old friends.

Who aren’t coming back.

“You want to talk about it?” he offers with a smile.

But shakes her head. There are a few things…that she’s just not ready not share yet. Maybe one day she’ll be able to tell him what she’s afraid of, how she doesn’t want history to keep repeating itself. But now is not the time.

“Later. After we’re back in Richmond, we can talk about it.”

As an answer to her once again making it clear that yes, she’s going to stay, he squeezes her hand like she did before.

Funny, Clementine realizes, how easy it is to hold hands with someone. There might be walkers everywhere, but she still finds it nice.

The house is so near now—but Clem thinks they are starting to walk slower.

“Can I ask you something?” Gabe suddenly asks, looking down once again.

Feeling bold by their earlier actions, she touches his face again, lightly, until he looks up in her eyes. “You can always ask me anything.”

“Even if it’s silly?”

“Of course.”

“What…what are we going to tell Javi, Dad and Kate?”

She frowns. “I honestly don’t know yet. Maybe we could just keep it quiet for a while? You know, keep it between us. Like it’s…something that’s only ours.”

“I…okay,” he says with a nod. “I like having it as something that’s only ours.”

Clementine returns his nod, and they make it to the house in silence. Once there, she’s all for busting the door open and running inside like a mad woman until she finds her goofball.

But Gabe is more…delicate about it. He knocks.

She’s more than a little surprise when someone actually opens the door—at least a little bit of the door—with a rifle in hand.

“What do you want?” the voice asks. A woman—like Javi had mentioned, right? “Who are you?”

Clem takes a deep breath. “Dr. Lingard told us you were taking care of a little boy. AJ. We’re here to take him back to…the new frontier.”