AJ's Story Continued

Back To A Normal-ish Life

~4 months after the events of The Finale Season~

'I still can't believe that Clementine is still alive' I think to myself 'Sure I was the one who cut off the walker bite.. But its still weird to see she's missing a leg and still alive but I'm glad she's here walking with those wooden legs... Clem calls them crutches.. But that sounds weird to me' I look over from the watch tower towards Clementine to see that she's sitting on the steps of the admin building talking to Violet, their probably talking about the big scavenging mission that's planned in a few days. Louis then joins them and passes them a small piece of paper before Clem and Vi start to laugh 'Louis probably told them a funny joke' I think as I chuckle to myself. It's weird that Louis can't ever talk again, I know that the raiders cut out his tongue and Clem says that you need your tongue to talk, but it's still weird to me. But Louis is still the funny person I know, even without a tongue.

"Okay AJ, you've done your watch for today, I'll take over now" Aasim says as he approaches the bottom of the ladder.
"Okay, Thanks Aasim" I reply as I carefully climb down the ladder.
"No problem little guy" Aasim responds with a smile "Now how about you go and get yourself a drink for all your hard efforts, just go to the kitchen Ruby should be in there and she knows where we store the water so just ask her"
"Okay, will do" I says as I make my way across the school yard and over towards the sheltered area outside the dorms, and go through the door on the furthest left, that has cracked glass for a window, and scratches all over the wood, all probably from when walkers crawled under and through the gate the night when Lily and the raiders attacked the school. I continue down the corridor that's mostly empty apart from the odd piece of rubbish, and take a right into the school's kitchen. The kitchen is really bare with not much in there other then the counters, a fridge which Clem said they were used to keep food and drink cold, coffee machine and old bread bin that looks rusty as hell.

Ruby is stood next to the counter and looks to be checking off a list of some sorts.
"Hey Ruby" I says
"Oh hey squirt" Ruby says in a cheerful tone "how was your watch?"
"Eh it was okay" I mutter "I was abit boring, same old stuff trees and a few walkers, nothing dangerous"
"Aww well that's good, so did you want something?" Ruby asks me
"Oh yeah, Aasim told me to come and ask you for some water, so could I please" I ask in a innocent tone
"Oh yeah, sure thing let me get you one of the water bottle" Ruby walks away from the counter and goes to across the kitchen and opens up one of the higher up cabinets to retrieve a water bottle "Welp not much water, only 4 full bottle left" Ruby says as she closes the cabinet door and makes her way back over to me.

As Ruby makes her way back over to me to give me the water bottle. I begin to get curious with what Ruby was doing with the list, so I grab a nearby stool and climb on top of it and crouch on it so I'm able to see the counter top (same height as Ruby now) and grab the pad of paper that has the list on. I start to read it: Ammo, food. The list goes on with all different types of supplies.
"Here's your water squirt" Ruby says I her southern accent as she places the bottle down on the counter. "Thanks Ruby" I say "urmm so what's this list for?"
"Oh this old thing.." Ruby trys to say with a laugh "it's nothing really, well nothing you need to worry about... But can you do me a favour?"
"uhhh yeah sure" I say in a questioning tone
"Okay great can you get Clementine and Vi to meet me near the green house.. And you can come if you want" Ruby asks me
"Oh yeah sure, no problem" I respond as I grab the bottle from the counter and make my way towards the kitchen door.

As I enter the school yard I walk pass the schools flag poll that ones must of had the Ericsons boarding school flag but is now replaced with old pillow case made into a flag that has the words 'Fuck Off Raiders' painted onto in in red paint. As I make my way towards Clementine I hear someone behind me yell my name.
"HEY AJ" the voice yelled. I turn around and see Willy sitting on one of the picnic tables playing around with a knife and a old piece of bark.
"Oh hey Willy, what ya doing" I ask as I start to walk over him.
"Well I found this piece of bark near the school walls just outside the gate and well... This knife used to be Mitchs and I'm gonna carve something in the wood for him" Willy explains
"Oh yeah..." I say as I stand and check out Mitchs knife "I think he'd like that... And I remember that knife.. The day that Clementine woke up he did a trick with it... That was cool"
"Yeah it really was... I wanna try to learn that trick but I'll probably cut one of my fingers off" Willy said with a laugh, showing he was clearly trying to lighten the mood.
"Yeah that would be cool..." I say with a half laugh "anyway I gotta go do something"
"Okay then I'll get back to this" Willy says as I turn around and start to walk towards the main admin building.

Within seconds I've reached the foot of the admin buildings steps. Clementine and Violet are still sitting their talking, in fact their so into their conversation that they don't notices I'm standing right in front of them until I make a noise to get their attention.
"Oh Hey Goofball" Clem says
"Heya AJ" Violet says in her raspy voice
"Hey Clem, Hey Vi" I say in response to their greetings "Ruby wanted to talk to you guys and she told me to tell you to meet her near the greenhouse"
"Oh really" Violet says in a concerned tone "shit is everything okay?"
"Well damn... We better get over there, sounds like somethings going on" Clem says as she reaches down to grab her crutches and attempts to stand up, but in her attempt she misplaces the foot of one of her crutches on the edge of a step and nearly falls but Violet grabs her arm and pulls her towards her and into her arms.
"Woah woah be careful there Clem" Violet says sounding concerned with a worried look on her face.
"Yeah yeah... I know I'm still getting use to them" Clementine says gesturing towards the crutches which lay at the bottom of the steps.

Me and Violet decide to help Clem down the rest of the steps, just to be safe. Then we make our way round the back of the admin building and towards the greenhouse, which is only a 10 minute walk from the rest of the school. On the way there Clem and Vi talk about more ideas they can use to hunt but end up realising that non of them would work so they give in and the rest of the walk is mainly silent.

When we reach the greenhouse I see Ruby pacing back and forth near the front of the building and then she stops a looks down at a pile of dirt that has a small cross coming out of it. Its obvious that she hasn't notice us walking towards her.
"Clem... What's she looking at..."
"Oh... You know how I said that we found the schoos old nurse as a walker in the greenhouse... Well that's where I help Ruby bury her" Clem says "She's the one who taught Ruby all she knows about medical stuff and how to treat different cuts or injuries"
"Oh... Okay then" I say in a quite voice.
We then walk up behind Ruby and we all wait silently for her to notice us. Violet obviously couldn't deal with the longing silence so she walks up to Ruby and puts her hand on her shoulder "Hey Ruby... Did you want us to come back in a few minutes" Vioet says in a quite and concerned tone.
"N-no I'm fine... Just one second" Ruby says as she pulls herself together and wipes away a few tears then turns around to face us.
"So Ruby... AJ told me that you wanted to talk to us about something..." Clem says in a worried tone "so did something happened?"
Ruby is looking at the ground when she says "Well somethings not exactly happened... More like somethings slowly been happening"
"Oh shit... What... Did someone get bit" Violet says concerned.
"Vi... Calm down" Clem begins to say "Okay Ruby what's been happening... If it something personal then you can also keep it a secret and not say but if its something that affects the whole groups safety and survival then you have to tell me"
"And remember if something scares you just say Fuck off to fear" I say trying to give Ruby some bravery or make her laugh or just simply calm her down.
"That right AJ" Violet says "you've just gonna be brave and tell us Ruby"
Clementine then takes Ruby's hand "Cmon Ruby you can trust us" she says
Ruby looks in to Clementines eyes "O-okay... Well urm we've lost lots of our food and water.. B-because of me" Ruby says through ragged breathes.
"Well don't worry about us four can go scouting and scavenging right now and make up the supplies" Clem says in a reassuring tone and a smile.
"N-no you don't get it..." Ruby just manages to get out "All our seeds for the greenhouse, our fresh Vegetables, every is nearly gone we have a weeks supply left and it's all because when I was carrying a crate of our supplies I tripped and that crate fell into the campfire from the other night and that was most of our food and bottles and now it's gone... Because of me"