After The End - Violentine

Snow Days and Birthdays

"Ok on three" a voice whispered in the darkness.

"One"

"Two"

The door crept open and the dim light of a candle shon inside

"Three"

"Happy Birthday" They yelled jumping up out of their hiding spots.

"Ahhhhah" AJ yelped as he leapt back in shock.

A burst of laughter soon erupted from everyone's mouths.

"Clem? What's happening, why is everyone laughing?" AJ asked a little confused.

Clementine looked down and smiled, "It's called a birthday party, your meant to have one every year on the day you were born, people would give gifts and have fun." Clementine said happily

AJ grinned, "does that mean I get presents?" He asked excitedly.
Clementine nodded and the boy ran off towards the piano where Louis was sat.

"Well, do you think he likes it? Violet said as she approached, Clementine knew that Violet and Louis had put a lot of work into organising a party for AJ, it wasn't often they got the chance to relax.

"Yeah, I'm sure he loves it, he's never had a party before." Clementine said with a smile.

Violet let out a relieved sigh and relaxed her shoulder. "Are you sure thought, I didn't think he."
The blonde was cut of by Clementine hand gently cupping her left cheek. She smiled sweetly and took her hand.

"You know you shouldn't worry, AJ loves everything you do, he even asked one of the supply teams to get a knife like yours." Violet giggled slightly and continued to follow Clementine into the room.
They sat down at a bench near the window, a low white light shon through the snow covered window.

Violet looked on at the party, Louis and AJ talking excitingly about different presents, Aasim and Ruby fiddling with the old record player and Omar and Willy who sat near a table filed with bowls of warm stew. As the blonde looked on Clementine sat and watched her, "That healed quite nicely." She said caressing her scared cheek.
"How old is that now? Two years?" She said
"Something like that, we've come along way from then." Clementine replied confidently.

Their convocation was disrupted when an exited AJ ran up to them, a huge smile plastered on his face.
"Louis said something about opening presents, can we do that yet?" AJ smiled, Clementine couldn't help but notice scar tissue on his ear.

Clementine smiled sweetly, "Sure AJ let's go se what everyone got you."

Clementine, Violet and AJ walked over to Louis who was standing next to his piano, a small group of slightly destroyed cardboard boxes. Louis passed over the first box and AJ opened it excitedly.

His eyes lit up as he pulled a wooden club filed with rusty nails out of the box. "I love it." The boy said happily as Louis patted him on the back.
"I call it Chairles Jr." Louis said.

AJ placed the weapon carefully down and rummaged through the boxes: he got a harmonica for Sam and Kara; a strange piece of carved wood from Willy; some comics from Ruby; a jar of some kind of special food from Omar and Aasim and an old red baseball cap from the Garcia's.

AJ placed the hat on his head and laughed. "Look Clem, I'm just like you." Clementine giggled slightly and smiled as AJ ran off to talk to more people. However Clementine's attention was dragged towards Louis who was waving to her.

Clementine walked over and before she could begin to speak Louis began to quickly talk, "So I was thinking that maybe I could go check on the girls in the infirmary because I don't want them to be worried that there missing out?"

Clementine quickly burst out into laughter and Louis was sent into a confused panic.
"What's so funny?" He asked.
"Oh my god, you don't have to lie to me, you want to go check on Sophie don't you." Clementine said with a goofy smile. Louis looked around and loudly hushed the brunette. "What! No! Yeah! But how do you know about that?" He whispered.
"Don't worry about that, go in sure AJ won't mind if you go for a minute." Clementine turned around to look for the birthday boy but she couldn't find him.
"Where's AJ, I swear he was here a second ago." She said panicked.
"I'm pretty sure I saw him go outside with Vi." The man said.

Clementine quickly walked over to the door and left the cheery music room and walked out into the harsh cold, her winter clothes helping slightly with the freezing air.

Looking around she carefully walked down the snow covered stair, that's when she noticed both Violet and AJ standing in the graveyard huddled together.

"Hey you two, your gonna catch a cold if you stay out here to long." Clementine said happily as she walked over.
"Oh hey Clem." AJ said without turning around, his voice considerably quieter than before. Clementine moved closer and wrapped her right arm around Violet and placing her left on AJ's shoulder.
"What's up kiddo?" Clementine asked looking forward at the grave markers.
"It's not fair." The boy said emotionally.
"There not here, they don't get to do the things we do." He added.

Clementine looked over at the markers. It's been months since anybody had died, the freshest graves belonged to Harry and Andrew; a few weeks after they had escaped from the cannibals they found to walkers in their clothes, one missing an eye, the other a bow strung around its back, they didn't seem to have any kind of injury but their faces were horrifically smashed in.

"AJ... I know that it's not fair, everybody has lost someone. Before you were born there was a man, he had a kid who was just a bit younger than you back before the walkers and one day he got bitten, his mother wanted to put him out of his misery but she couldn't bring herself to do it and she died. Then Ken- The man had to do something, he had to be strong. That man risked his life for me and..."
Clementine stuttered, a small lump developing in her neck.
"And he saved my life, he saved your life too. So whenever someone you love dies you can't look back and feel sad, you look forward and remember them, remember everything they did."

Clementine looked down at the boy teary eyed, it had been years since she had spoken of Kenny and his sacrifice. AJ nodded and pulled both Clementine and Violet into a hug. They remained there for a short moment before Violet spoke up. "We should probably get inside it is freezing out here." Clementine nodded and gripped her hand, Violet smiled sweetly and wiped the small tear form her eye with other hand. "Come on, I still have a gift for AJ."

I hate myself.
Sorry for taking another age to write this, hope you enjoyed. Remember I always love reading you comments.
-ZQ