A new Dawn (Clementine x Louis)

Chapter Thirty-One - Nothing lasts forever

"Louis!", Clem cried out in agony and despair as she ran to the body lying in the dirt.
"No, no NO! Don't you fucking die on me!"
She turned him on his back, his whole face and front of his body were covered in mud, dirt and blood, it was impossible to tell if it was only his. She slapped him hard, tears streamed over her face.
"Wake up idiot!", she shouted in his face.
His eyes slowly opened and a weak grin formed on his face.
"No need to scream Clem, I ain't going anywhere...", Louis croaked and touched her face.
She hugged him and squeezed his body, he hissed in pain.
"That hurts like hell, easy there..."
Clem looked at the hole in his chest, blood streamed out of it so she didn't loose anymore time and pressed her hands on the wound to stop the bleeding. He groaned as her hands touched the sensitive flesh, ripped open by the bullet Barnes had fired.
"That sonofa-", he tried to say as a cough rippled through his body.
His eyes widened and started to glass over as the adrenaline sent him into shock.
"Clem I...I can't breathe!", he whispered and grabbed her hand.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck, HELP, Javi get Adrian here! He can't breathe!"
The man had run off already, Clementine could see him on the trench-line already, his baseball bat moved as fast as he did. Beneath her Louis had closed his eyes and she slapped him once more.
"Stay here goddamnit! I won't lose you, I just can't!", she yelled at him, her voice broke as she said the last three words.
His eyes opened once more and fixated her face and eyes.
"You know that you're the prettiest girl I've ever seen, how did I get so lucky to be together with someone like you?"
The tears were dripping onto his dirty coat even faster now, her heart was breaking apart by what was happening to him, she couldn't stand it to see Louis like that.
"Stop it Lou, don't talk like you would die, don't do that to me...", she whispered and pressed her face on his.
"Clem don't worry, everything is going to be fine, it's just a scratch.", he coughed, small drops of blood left his mouth.
"HELP GODDAMNIT!", Clem shouted in agony, the boy of her dreams was dying in her arms.
She heard like someone ran up to her and dropped a container next to the wounded Louis. Adrian fell on his knees and examined the teenager in the mud.
"What happened, Javi couldn't explain.", he asked Clementine in a hurry.
"Barnes shot him in the back while we didn't look at him.", she said, guilt rooted deeply in her voice.
She should have shot the man herself, she should have known that Louis' small caliber bullet wouldn't take Clint out for good. A shotgun slug would've done the job better and all of this wouldn't have happened.
"The bullet hit his lung, he's going into shock.", the doctor said while pressing Clem's hands on both of the entry wounds.
He yelled at two men to help him carry the half conscious Louis back to the field hospital. The men obeyed and lifted him carefully while Clem held the wounds. Louis let out a low scream as he left the ground and his ripped flesh was stretched till it hurt. They hurried to the tent with all the medical supplies they had collected and brought to the trenches.
"Put him down here", Adrian said and pointed at one of the operation tables, the two soldiers did as he said and lowered the teenager's body onto the steel plate. The doctor hurried around and grabbed the stuff he needed.
"You need to put this on his wounds.", he told the young girl and gave two big plasters to her, they were made out of a flexible plastic, it kinda felt like duct tape.
"And this will help?", she asked skeptically, just putting Band-Aid on wounds like this was a little bit too simple for her.
"Do as I say, these will stop air from coming into the room between his ribcage and lung, then I need you to hold him still, we have no narcotics, I'll have to do the procedure without or he's going to die."
She obeyed with a worried glance back to him, he had pulled out a strange device with plastic pipes and a scalpel. Her gaze focused on Louis, he looked back into her golden eyes, he was drowning in them.
"That's gonna hurt.", she assured him as she glued the plasters to his wounds, a pained hiss escaped his mouth as the cloth touched the damaged tissue.
"I just want you to know, I love you, just in case-"
"Don't, stop it, you'll get through this.", she responded as she glued the second bandage to his back, she was not ready to loose him yet.
Adrian nodded towards her and she knew what to do, she gripped the wrist of her boyfriend and pressed them onto the ground. The medic pulled out the scalpel and held it over the body beneath him, he hesitated as he turned his attention to Louis.
"This will sting but I need you to hold still, okay?"
Louis weakly nodded in response, his mind was drifting off already, he had lost a lot of blood. The hand moved to his ribcage and the scalpel cut into his flesh. The boy tried to not move a muscle but the pain was just too great, he passed out as the medic worked on him. When the cut was deep enough Adrian pulled out the pipe device and stuck one of the pipes into the cut, he put it in deeply, Clem was shocked by how much space there was. With a click the man turned the machine on, it hummed to life and started to suck out the blood from within Louis' body.
"The air and blood in the room between his lung and ribcage are preventing the lung from expanding, that's why he couldn't breathe. This device sucks all the air out and helps the lung to expand again, it's going to be fine now.", he told her but it was like he had cursed the situation.
Suddenly the heart monitor started beeping wildly.
"Scheiße, his heart is failing, do you know first aid?", Adrian cursed and ran to the other side of the room.
"Yes, I'll do it!", she yelled back and started pressing down onto Louis' ribs.
The beeping got faster and faster while Adrian rummaged through the stuff and pulled out a defibrillator. Right as he put the electrodes onto Louis' chest, the beeping got permanent, the boy's heart had stopped.
"Fucking hell, why is this happening?", he shouted angrily and activated the defibrillator, Louis' body was rattled by the electric stream flowing through it. Clementine cried even more, he was practically dead, his heart had stopped and he would come back as a shell of his former self.
"QUICK, GET ME THE SYRINGE THERE ON THE TABLE AND INJECT IT INTO HIS CHEST!", Adrian yelled in panic, Clem ran to the table and picked up the container, there was some sort of dark goo inside it but she didn't mind. Racing back to the table she stabbed the needle into the lifeless body in front of her.

The last two charges did it, Louis heartbeat came back after four minutes, it has felt like an eternity for both of them. When the beeping started again a cry of happiness left Clementine's mouth, the tears were still falling down her cheeks.
"We did it, holy hell this was close.", Adrian exclaimed as he wiped away the sweat on his face after reassuring that Louis was stable. Clem hugged him and didn't let go, she was so grateful for what he had done. He patted her back and put his chin onto her petite shoulder.
"Don't thank me, I wouldn't have done this without you."
She looked at him and remembered the syringe he held in his hand, there was not much left of the black liquid inside.
"What was that stuff?", she asked, her voice was raspy from crying and shouting.
The doctor played with the glass container and put it away into a shelf, there were two more of these syringes stored inside.
"That is all what remained from my research, it's the vaccine I made with my father. If we wouldn't have used it then Louis would've turned in the first two minutes..."
Her eyes widened, she had totally forgotten about his breakthrough.
"And you... you really used one for us? I mean, you could have kept it and researched more on it."
Adrian shook his head.
"I would do everything for friends."
Clementine hugged him again and nearly started crying again.
"Thank you, thank you so much."
"Nothing to thank for, it's a natural thing to do."

Her stomach suddenly felt like it had turned upside down, she ran to a bucket nearby and puked out her breakfast. The doctor came over to her and patted her back.
"Jesus, what's wrong?", he asked as she wiped the rest away from her mouth.
"I don't know, I'm feeling sick since the last week, I can't even stand up in the morning...", she answered and held her head, this feeling had started four days ago and it didn't want to go away. Adrian raised an eyebrow and seated her on a chair.
"Uhm, that may be a little intimate but do your breasts hurt, like they would be tensed or something like that?"
Clem was the one to raise her eyebrow now, the man was right, it hurt to put on her bra and it seemed like her breasts had swollen.
"Y...Yeah why?"
His expression became worried as a idea made its way to his head.
"Did you two have... you know?"
She blushed after a short period of confusion as she remembered her first time back when they were in Richmond, her reddened face was response enough for the man.
"Oh my god, Clem this is... Brace yourself, I think I know what bothers you...", he said and kneeled down until he was at level with her.
"What is it? Why do you look at me like that, did someone get bitten or what?", Clementine asked, concerned by the comforting way Adrian said all this. He cleared his throat and breathed in deeply as he told her what was happening.
"Clem, you're pregnant..."