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If you've got visions of the past,
Let them follow you down,
For they'll come back to you someday,
And I found myself attached to this railroad track,
But I'll come back to you someday.
--'Ghost Town' by First Aid Kit
The piston on the wheels chugged away underneath her as it always did, churning the greenery past her like a movie reel. Smatterings of sunlight brushed against her, and she took a deep breath of clean, life-filled air.
“You back already, sweet pea?”
Pure, sunlit love warmed her heart in her chest at the sound of his voice. It sounded like safety, and strength, and sureness. His face had the same effect, gentle smile radiating a comforting energy.
“You told me to come back when it was over. When everyone was safe,” Clementine reminded Lee. Safe was a word that hadn’t felt like it belonged to the real world in a long time. Safe was a state of certain kinds of half-dreaming where she could mould reality into a comforting shape and keep one ear pricked to the dangers of the real world. But she was starting to feel it at the school, where high fences and vigilant kids kept the walkers out and the raiders a distant memory.
He sat down beside her on the edge of the train car. “Mhmm, I did say that. And I’m always glad to see you, you know that. So. How’d it go?”
She drew in another breath and looked back out into the forest. “I don’t think I’m ready to tell that whole story yet.”
He nodded sympathetically. “Let’s get the scariest part out of the way first,” he suggested, putting his arm around her. “The rest of it won’t be so daunting after that.”
Clementine looked down at her legs and swung her feet out in front of her. Her foot. When they were dangling, she could almost pretend her left foot was still there, as long as she suspended her disbelief about how strangely light her leg felt. Her stump was so itchy underneath the bandages, inflamed with angry red scars that would inevitably heal wrinkled and pale. Her missing foot kept getting itchy, too. It was annoying. It was so annoying that she sometimes wanted to cry about it.
She knew that wasn’t the only reason she wanted to cry, but it was the only emotion out of the lot that she was giving any time at the moment.
“We match,” said Lee, chipper, and extended what remained of his own left arm, all bandaged up. She had hardly pictured him like this outside of her nightmares, accompanied by glassy eyes and ashy skin, but now he had a smile on his face, and he looked as alive as he ever had. For the first time in a long time, she imagined a world where he had lived and had to fight the tight wire that started coiling in her chest.
“Why did it work for me and not for you?” she asked, and she felt like a little kid again. Tiny voice full of righteous fury, raging against the big, mean world with nothing but delicate kindness and games of make-pretend and a gun fired from shaking hands. It wasn’t fair!
He sighed and rubbed her arm with his hand. “I don’t know, Clem. Maybe Junior was quicker or cleaner at swinging that axe. Maybe you just got lucky.”
She stifled a sob, and he pulled her closer. “You don’t have to hold it all in, honey. It’s what I’m here for.”
She could let go here. There was no one to hurt or feel burdened, there was no one she had to look tough for. There was just Lee, wonderful safe Lee, and she wrapped her arms around him and sobbed. He rubbed her back with his hand and murmured reassuringly into her hair until the tears and the shaking shoulders subsided.
She heard a sniff and pulled back to look at him. There were tears streaming silently down his face, and he smiled at her, taking his hand around so that he could wipe her cheeks with his thumb.
“Why are you crying?” she asked.
He laughed and shook his head. He didn’t answer the question, instead saying, “I am so damn proud of you.”
“Thanks, Lee,” she said quietly, facing the landscape once more. Her mind went to her pride, to AJ, who had been so unbelievably strong that she had to wonder where he’d got it from. She hadn’t even stayed conscious long enough to process why she was in excruciating pain after the axe came down. She could barely comprehend the amount of strength he’d had to get her back to the school, both in his little arms - dragging her like dead weight to the wheelbarrow and pushing her all the way home – and his frantic mind, thinking quickly enough to cauterise the wound and douse her in walker guts.
“I’m worried about AJ.”
Lee chuckled. “More than usual?”
“He went against what I told him,” she continued seriously, and he sobered. “And he saved my life. He proved he can be smart and strong on his own, but… he’s still a kid. He’s still learning. What if he doesn’t listen to me from now on?”
He hummed thoughtfully. “You’re right – he might not give you input on all his big decisions if he doesn’t trust you as much as his gut.”
Her heart sank. Was he really lost to her, just like that? Free to be misguided by the universe and by people who didn’t make as many mistakes as her?
“You know how you fix it?” he asked, and she looked up. He nudged her shoulder, “You admit you were wrong. Everyone’s always learning, and no one gets it right all of the time. If you tell him you know you screwed up, then he’ll see that you won’t make the same mistakes twice. Once he knows you respect his ability to make decisions, anything you say will be valuable advice again. Let him know he’ll never be done learning by showing him that you’re not, either.”
The train horn whistled. It seemed really far away. Usually, it was a signal that her time with Lee was ending, but he didn’t move.
“You don’t have to be perfect, Clementine, you just have to be there, and be listening.”
The rhythmic chugging of the train started to slow, and with some squeaking and groaning, they came to a halt in a wooded area with no platform and exactly one distinguishing feature.
“So this is where we’ve been headed, huh?” Lee sounded amused as he looked up at it, and she smiled. The treehouse was perched safely in the canopy at the edge of the clearing, out of reach of walkers – though not stray raccoons, she remembered fondly.
“I felt safe there. Back when my parents were around. And it’s where I met you.”
“Where you almost dropped a hammer on my head,” he corrected, teasing.
She laughed. “I didn’t though,” she reminded him.
He looked at the treehouse again. “Are we going up?”
She looked uncertainly at her legs, and then the shoulder bumping against hers in reassurance and support. “Let’s do it,” she said, and he cracked a smile at her conviction. AJ had already proudly showed her the crutches that they had found deep in storage at the back of the mostly-ransacked nurse’s closet, but for now all she had was Lee’s right arm solidly around her back and well-timed, well-placed hops.
He helped her to the tyre swing and she sat there while he tested the wooden rungs that were hammered into the trunk. They were sturdy.
“I want to rig up a swing for AJ,” she thought aloud, pushing herself gently back and forth.
“That’s a good idea,” Lee said, offering his hand for balance so that she could get over to the tree itself. “There’s something hopeful about a swing.”
He wasn’t wrong, although she had no idea why it was the case. The secret to avoiding hopelessness in the apocalypse – could anyone have predicted that it was a simple swing? She started planning the swing, where they might hang it and whether or not she had seen a tyre and a suitable length of rope around the school grounds.
She pulled herself onto the first rung and stretched her arms up as far as she could, trying to grab onto the big branch that her old swing hung from. Lee’s hand hovered over her back, ready to help her regain her balance if she needed it, and once she had a secure hold and hauled herself upwards, trying to leverage herself with the ball of her foot on the bark.
“Damn, girl!” Lee exclaimed. “Where’d you get those arms?”
She laughed a little breathlessly as she made herself upright, leaning on the treehouse landing. She flexed her free hand and boasted, “Archery and carrying AJ. It’s an intensive workout schedule.”
He grinned, then seemed to deflate a little. “Christa ever tell you about that time I scaled an elevator shaft with one arm?” he asked with something of an apprehensive smile. The rungs on the treehouse weren’t as easy to get a grip on as the rungs of a ladder, and getting to the top required a certain amount of upper body strength. He was going to struggle.
“Hang on,” she said, and ducked into the cabin and found the length of rope that she used to tie up “prisoners” with in her games. She came back outside and fed it around one of the sturdier overhead branches and down the side of the tree.
“Hammers, ropes – what don’t you have up there?” he joked, taking a firm hold of it. She pulled on her end, and he put a foot to the trunk. Slowly but surely, she hauled him up, feeling thoroughly impressed with her improvised pulley system. Once they were at the top, she invited him into the cabin, and he duly thanked her for her hospitality.
The treehouse was a lot more cramped than she remembered, especially with two adults squeezed inside, but they made themselves comfortable on the kiddie stools. Was it weird and backwards for her to be thankful she didn’t need as much leg room? Maybe it was good for her to see the positives. She picked up the little tea tray that was laid out on the floor.
“Got any bourbon I can fill that cup with?” Lee asked wryly.
“You can have coffee.”
“Liquor coffee?”
“Just coffee,” she said, suppressing a smile. The rich, bitter smell rose with the steam into the air of the cabin as she poured it out of the toy teapot. It was her dream world; she could do whatever she liked, and that included choosing the drinks.
As he sipped from his cup, he made a blissful face. “Mmm. Good call. I have missed the shit out of coffee.”
“Swear,” she teased, and he chuckled. She took a deep breath of coffee-scented air. “Thanks for talking to me,” she smiled at him, and his kind face, as always, was the reflection of a soft world that she hadn’t known for a long time. Maybe… until now.
“Any time, sweet pea. You know where to find me.”