You're Too Young To Be So Broken

A Piece of the Puzzle

Mariana and Clem had been walking for hours but neither of them had shown any signs of wanting to stop, especially knowing that Conrad and Tripp could be trailing them.

They talked for most of the way but in the most recent hour both of them had seemed to fall silent, lost in their own thoughts.

Cocoa seemed to be doing okay, nothing appeared to be broken, but she was a bit shaken up from being held so roughly. Clem had been practically swaddling the kitty since having her back in her arms.

Meanwhile Clem was off in her head, wondering why Mariana would blindly follow her. If the tables were turned she know she would at least want to know something.

She thought to herself. Should she reveal a part of herself, tell something she hadn't even had the stomach to before? She would find out anyways, they were planning to invade The New Frontier when they were there the secrets would come out whether she wanted them to or not.

Better to come from you than those assholes.

Sighing, she came to a stop, confusing her friend.

"Uh Clem, we have to keep moving. Who knows where those bastards are right now." She glanced behind them, a bit nervous at Tripp and Conrad catching up even though they were in front of them.

"Can I talk to you for a bit?" Clem asked out looking to meet Mariana's eyes. The brunette girl went silent, figuring that whatever it was must have been important.

"I'm listening."

Clem nodded as she went to sit by an abandoned car, out of the sunlight so that they could talk comfortably. Mariana followed sitting beside her watching as Clem gently laid a sleeping Cocoa in front of her.

It was silent. Nothing but the slight breeze rustling through dead leaves could be heard. But even so Mariana didn't rush her, she waited patiently and in due time Clem began to open up.

"You need to know why I was with these people to begin with." It was a touchy subject and Clem wasn't even sure she wanted to go down that road, but regardless of if she wanted to or not she knew she had to. Sooner or later she'd have to open up her can of worms and expose the holes in herself, bring to light the very things that had broken her down for so long.

Mariana saw how hard Clem was struggling. She reached a comforting hand out to lay on her shoulder, making sure Clem was looking at her before she spoke.

"You don't have to. I'm not going to-"

"I have to. It's only fair, you even being with me right now is very dangerous." Still gazing into Mariana's eyes she continued. "I need to do this."

FLASHBACK

Clem had just gotten a rowdy Aj down for his nap. Duck had been gone all day, leaving Clem alone to tend to the needs of Aj. They had found a small place to lay their heads for a while, there weren't many people around and Clem liked it that way.

Sighing, she looked through Aj's belongings seeing that he had one more bottle of baby food left. It worried her to see, especially because baby food was extremely hard to come by.