Hope - A Louisentine Story

Chapter 2

Description: After finding out about the baby, Clem, Louis and Aasim must go out in search of extra supplies. Clementine has a revelation that could save them all.

Wordcount: 2856

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"Will you let me walk by myself, Louis?"

It was the third time Louis's hand had grazed hers in an attempt to help her up over a fallen trunk. She heard Aasim chuckle from behind them and she glared in his direction. The man made a motion of zipping his mouth and continued strolling, suddenly very interested in his shoelaces.

"I'm just worried, is all," Louis said, attempting to keep his distance as per her request. "Are you feeling okay?"

Clem chuckled despite herself, and smiled at her husband. "Like I told you a half hour ago, I'm fine," she reminded him, patting his shoulder. "I'm not letting anything happen to the little guy."

"Or girl," he added, smiling broadly.

"You're really hung up on that, huh?" Aasim said, finally having the courage to speak to them as he caught up.

"Dude, having a daughter would, like, make my world," Louis exclaimed, stumbling over his own words.

"Yeah, but a boy is so much easier to deal with," Aasim argued, "Look at AJ, for instance."

"I'll have to give the point to Aasim here," Clem put in, making Louis turn to her and frown. "A boy might be a little terror when he's younger, but once a girl gets to puberty, we'll be dealing with a whole other level."

"Okay, you guys are crazy," the freckled man said, shaking his head. "Plus, we weren't that great when we hit puberty," he added, gesturing to Aasim and himself.

"Are you sure you really ever hit puberty?" teased Aasim. Both he and Clementine laughed, and Louis rolled his eyes, though he didn't really care. It had been exactly a week since he'd found out he was going to be a father, and his elation had not quite vanished yet.

The sun was already at its highest, and the warm feeling of the spring weather was washed over them like a cloth. After the grueling winter they'd endured, this was a welcome change of pace. As they finally found the wooden fence through which Clementine had crawled a week earlier, Aasim lifted a rather heave looking board out of the way and let Clementine and Louis through. After a quick scan of the perimeter, Louis held the board high for the other man to crawl through the gap.

"We really should scour the area a bit more," Aasim suggested, looking around. "If the convenience store still had stuff in it, who knows what other things we might find."

"I agree," said Clem nodding, "I'll go check the rest of the store. I didn't get a chance to sightsee last time," she chuckled.

"Alright, I'll go check the south part of the neighborhood," Louis suggested, running his hands through his hair. Clementine kissed him on the cheek before setting forth into the store ahead of her, rotting carcasses of dead animals lying around decaying corpses. She heard Louis mumble something to Aasim as she entered and started walking the aisles, examining the shelves.

Most of the stuff she saw were empty containers of various products, long expired or ransacked in the first lootings when the world first went to shit. Birds flew through the cracked windows, perching themselves on the high beams of the store. Twenty minutes of useless searching later, she had only found two cans of peaches and half a bag of baby formula. "Hope this doesn't go bad before she's born," she muttered to herself, startled when another voice followed hers.

"So you think it's gonna be a girl," Aasim said from behind her, deftly catching the bag that fell out of her hands in mid air.

"Damn it, Aasim," she swore, slapping him on the shoulder. "You scared the shit out of me!"