Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

xxx

Faithful 'til death, said our loving Master,
A few more days labor and wait;
Toils of the road will then be as nothing,
As we sweep through the beautiful gates.

Farther along we'll know more about it
Farther along we'll understand why;
Cheer up my brother, live in the sunshine
We'll understand it all by and by.

-W.B. Stevens

xxx

"Inmate 125, report to processing. Everett report to processing."

Lee wrenched his eyes open, wincing as light flooded his vision. As the familiar, yellowish stain on the ceiling came into focus, Lee wondered if he had imagined the crackling voice above his head calling him to freedom. He sat up slowly in his bunk and had a look around. Four walls of concrete. Three other sweaty bodies. Two sets of bunk beds. One toilet.

"Yo, Everett," came a voice from below, "you deaf?"

Lee climbed down and landed on the cold floor. He could feel three pairs of eyes staring at him. So the voice hadn't been in his head. They'd all heard it too.

His bunkie clambered out of his own bed, giving Lee that signature death glare: it wasn't his fault, really. That was just his face. "You really gettin' out," he said in a hushed kind of voice.

Lee let his words sink in, the weight of them making him feel lighter, somehow. I'm getting out.

"How much you had again, Everett?"

"Two." Lee struggled to keep his fingers from shaking as he laced up his boots. "Two years I been in here."

"Shit man, I got four left," grunted Jenkins from the opposite end of the cell.

Death Glare slapped Lee on the shoulder, hard. "Take care, a'ight? The world out there ain't as nice as us."

Lee's right knee throbbed, reminding him of the time when one of the St. John brothers kicked it in because Lee had "looked at him funny" in the food line. He figured he could handle anything outside of the crazy of prison, but Lee appreciated the thought just the same. "Thanks, man."

A few minutes later Lee was following a guard at least twice his size down the flickering corridor, cells on either side, curious eyes following him. He felt like he was moving through a dream, arms loaded with a stack of paperwork and a pile of street clothes. Regular jeans. A generic sweatshirt. Sneakers. It was odd to imagine himself wearing anything but orange or grey.

"Go on through there." The guard nodded his head in the direction of another lit hallway. "Get dressed. Fill out your paperwork."

The guard positioned himself outside the door and didn’t make any move to accompany the prisoner. Lee watched him for a moment. "You want me to go through there alone? I haven’t done so much as taken a shit by myself in two years."

The guard rolled his eyes. "Look, I've got a breakfast sandwich that's getting cold."

Lee stepped tentatively through the doorway. The guard didn't move, didn't give him a second glance. A weird sort of thrill ran through Lee's chest, it felt like the inside of his skin was lined with dusty old light bulbs and they were slowly flickering on. Lee came to another concrete room, this one with at least three windows on the far wall. He could see the morning light pouring in, a pale eggshell color. It was so quiet here: natural light didn't buzz like the florescent ones did. He was alone for a total of three minutes, enough time to change out of his grey sweats and into the too-big street clothes before another C.O. rounded the corner. Lee followed without a word, noting how the place seemed to brighten as he moved forward, even the concrete felt less suppressive.

Lee stopped at the front desk as the C.O. behind it shoved a clipboard under his nose. "You can fill out your release forms on this."

Lee rolled up his sleeves to he could take the pen and scribbled quickly, willing his hands to stop trembling so much. The two guards' eyes were glazed over as they waited for him to finish. When he handed in the stack, the C.O. slid a pad of ink across the counter. "Fingerprints," he ordered.

Lee knew the drill. Thumb in the ink, thumb on the page. Pointer finger in the ink, pointer finger on the page. So on. So forth. It was almost nostalgic; the acidic smell reminiscent of his first day at Meriwether County.

"Looks good," the guard grumbled, slipping an envelope across the counter. "There's your bus fare."

Lee waited for the guard to change his mind, to take the envelope back, to tell him that there must have been some mistake. No, you're not getting out today. Didn't you hear? You've got another year on your sentence, motherfucker. Now get back in your cell or you're getting a shot.

The guard looked at him expectantly until Lee took the envelope.

The inmates were allowed out in the yard once a day. Sometimes they played touch football or cards at the deteriorating picnic tables. There was a track too, but it had been off-limits for the last few months because of flooding—although Lee had the sneaking suspicion it was because of budget cuts. But there was something liberating about stepping on grass outside the chain-link fence. He made his way to the end of the lane settled in the backseat of the white van. No handcuffs.

"Any plans when you get to Macon, free bird?" asked the driver. Lee could see the blues of his eyes flicker in the rearview mirror.

"A hotel, probably." Lee watched the chain-link fence recede and trees rise up on either side of the van as it pulled forward.

"I got a nephew in Macon. They grow 'em good there. He's top of his class in everything, wants to be a social worker or something like it. Can you imagine? Kid must have one hell of a tolerance level, I'm telling you."

Lee shifted in his seat.

"I followed your case, y'know, and I think you got the raw end of the deal what with that mess you got yourself mixed up in. Beatin' on a guy doesn’t usually get you much depending on your situation, but beating on a senator—" he inhaled sharply through his teeth "—suddenly you've got a year and a half extra on your sentence."

Lee remained silent, the pit in his stomach growing ever deeper.

"I've driven a bloke who got busted for beating on his wife, only got two years. The same day a man nicked Mrs-Next-Door-Neighbor's mailbox while backing out of his driveway. Four years. I couldn’t tell you how the system works, no siree." He glanced back at Lee, eyebrows raised. "For the record, I always thought you were innocent. I dunno what I would have done if I been in your position." He adjusted his rearview mirror again, ignoring the static humming from the radio. "Wanna know how I see it?"

Lee wished his driver would keep his eyes on the road. "What?"

The driver lowered the volume on his police radio, quieting the voices asking for dispatch. "Could be you just married the wrong woman."

Lee let out a sigh, forcing himself to keep his focus on the outside of the van and not on the sick feeling in his stomach. Or she married the wrong man.

"Sometimes things are out of your control, son. You gotta roll with the punches, accept the hand you're dealt, and that's that. I've seen my fair share of folks who went mad when they thought their lives was over." He tsked and removed his eyes from the road to look Lee in the eyes again. "You've got a new day ahead of you. Don't waste this one."

They arrived at the bus station an hour later. Lee stepped down from the van with nothing but a wallet in one pocket and his release form shoved inside the other. He was hit with a wave of familiar smells and a symphony of horns honking. The people bustling past didn't give the ex-convict a second glance. On the contrary, it seemed they had mastered the art of avoiding eye-contact, failing to notice the sun pouring onto the pavement or the sweet smell of coffee on the wind.

It didn't just feel like a new day dawning, it felt like waking up after a long, long sleep.

Chapter Text

It was strange to be sitting in a space with less than fifty people crammed into it at a time. Back in the prison, solitude was a rarity and usually only found if you decided that you could forfeit the extra two hours of sleep and take a shower instead. Even then there were guards wandering in and out of the bathroom, poking their long, suspicious noses over the thin shower stall curtains to make sure you weren’t planning a heist or hoarding contraband in there.

But here on the public bus, Lee could make himself comfortable at the very back without eyes watching his every move, ready to call out “Inmate!” every time he scratched his chin wrong.

The funny thing was that it wasn’t getting any easier to breathe, even with less bodies taking up oxygen. Now that the nightmare was finally over, Lee wasn't sure how to shake himself awake, haul himself out of bed, and pick up where he had left off. But where had he left off, anyway? A hotel. That had been the plan, vaguely. It was the only thing he could do considering he had no one to go home to, not anymore at least. He considered crashing with his parents, but that idea had only lasted about three seconds before he promptly trashed it.

The bus screeched to a halt and the doors swung open, jolting Lee out of his thoughts. A weedy little man boarded, scanned his surroundings with nervous watery eyes, and finally took the seat closest to the door.

Lee leaned his forehead against the windowpane as the engine jerked back to life. It felt cool and sturdy against his burning skin. The words of his chatty driver echoed in his head as pedestrians whizzed by the window in a blur of color. "I've seen my fair share of folks who went mad when they thought their lives was over."

The familiar screeching sound of the brakes were a call back to reality as the bus doors swung open again. Lee glanced up, vaguely curious, as a little girl ghosted in, tiny hands clutching the straps of a backpack. Short, wild hair pinned under a purple cap, she couldn’t have been more than eight years old. She walked with her head bowed and shuffled past the three other lone riders, whose eyes flicked curiously in her direction as she passed. The girl slipped into the seat diagonal from Lee and huddled near the window, bookbag safely on her lap.

Lee watched the door and waited for someone else to board the bus. Mom. Dad. Babysitter. But the bus driver yanked his lever, slamming the doors shut. The engine roared to life and they were moving again.

Something woke up inside of him, turning over and raising its head. Lee kept one corner of his eye on her, watching as she unzipped her pack to peek inside and zipping it back up again. He had the sudden urge to lean forward and ask if she was lost, but recoiled as he realized how that would look. Hell, if he had seen a big, lone man talking to a lone little girl it would definitely raise some red flags.

Still, he kept an eye on her.

The bus continued onward, emptying the passengers one by one until only Lee, the little girl, and the beanpole of a man up front remained. Her feet dangled above the floor, and she kicked them idly as she reached into her pack again and extracted what looked like a large grey box. She leaned into it and whispered something. There was a sudden spurt of static and then silence. Beanpole-Man kept darting his eyes from the girl to Lee and back to the girl before fixing his gaze forward again. Lee didn't like the shifty look in that motherfucker's eyes.

Not one bit.

A few tense minutes passed with nothing but the roaring of the bus in their ears before the girl spun her head around to look Lee directly in the face. The effect was instantaneous. Her amber eyes locked with his, so intense that he felt his heart jolt in surprise. "Excuse me?" she asked in a quiet voice.

Lee blinked. "Uh…yes?"

"Do you know where we are?"

He glanced to his left, regarding the worn route map plastered to the metal wall. "Heading towards Macon." Lee regarded her curiously from the top of her baseball cap to the tips of her little shoes. "Are…are you lost?"

She started to shake her head, but stopped. Her curls bounced softly.

"Where are your parents?"

"In Savannah, I think. Where the boats are?"

All the way in Savannah? What’s she doing this far out?  "Did you get separated or something?"

"No…no they left me with Sandra." She went quiet then, hands clasped over her walkie-talkie. "Daddy never answers his walkie. I think they're lost.”

Lee swallowed. What the hell kind of babysitter let a little girl wander off on her own like this? "What's your name?" he finally asked her.

"Clementine."

"Hi, Clementine. I'm Lee."

Lee glanced at the driver, who seemed quite oblivious to the fact that an unaccompanied little girl had boarded his bus at all and was now shivering like a leaf in the back. The silence was cut by a loud hiss as they came jolting to another stop. A few more bodies clambered onto the vehicle, and on instinct Lee left his own comfortable spot to slip into the seat next to Clementine. She seemed relieved by his presence, which was a good sign. The engine coughed, spluttered, and they were off again. "How long have you been away from your house?"

Clementine wrinkled her eyebrows together, thinking hard. "Um…since breakfast, I think."

About five hours, then. Lee racked his brain for a plan of action, cursing himself for chucking his cell phone just before being incarcerated. There was no need for cell phones in prison unless you wanted to be given another year on your sentence. It wasn’t like he had anyone to hold onto it for him, anyway.

"Macon. Next stop is Macon," called the driver.

Lee looked down at Clementine, who had turned her shining eyes on him. "You've been by yourself since this morning?"

She wiggled her feet anxiously, "Yeah. I wish my parents would come back."

"You know, it's not safe for you to be alone like this. Sandra might be wondering where you are."

She cocked her head to one side. "She doesn't live at the foster home, too."

Lee shut his mouth, brain finally putting the pieces together. "Oh…" Her parents left her with a babysitter and never came back. He wondered just how long she had been in foster care, waiting for them to show up. He knew one thing was for certain: there was no way in hell he was going to leave her on this bus alone. When Lee spoke again, his voice was gentle. "Look, I don't know what happened to your parents, but I'll look after you until we get you back home."

Macon! All out for Macon!"

Lee stood from his seat and after a moment Clementine followed, slipping her hand into his. It felt so fragile, tiny and warm almost like a little bird. He led the girl carefully down the slender aisle, down the steps, and safely onto the pavement. She didn't let go.

Lee recognized the brick exterior of the police station like he recognized a good slap in the face. He hadn't been half a block away from that same station when he was carted in, but it was Clementine's best bet. Lee started in that direction, shortening his stride so the girl could keep up. The station seemed to grow in size as they approached, and the paranoid little voice at the back of Lee’s mind insisted that he would be recognized, that he may as well have been wearing the orange jumpsuit and everything.

Lee felt the sleeve of his fresh-out-of-prison sweatshirt unroll as they walked, slipping over their clasped hands. Clementine stole a shy glance upwards, eyes laughing.

"That's a nice hat," he told her.

She lit up. "My dad gave it to me."

"That's neat." He forced a small smile.

Lee had to push away the feeling of dread as he led Clementine through the doors of the police station and approached the front desk, quickly so he wouldn’t have to linger in another government facility for longer than he needed to.

xxx

Lee waited with her all afternoon.

He didn't have to, the officers told him. They would hold the girl until her legal guardians came to collect her, but Clementine's grip on his hand was unrelenting. She told him that she didn't want to wait alone, even though there were quite a few officers more than willing to sit and do puzzles with her. Instead, Lee helped her take apart and re-assemble a 100-piece picture of a mystical backyard complete with a tree house and a lily pond. Clementine said that she used to have a tree house, too.

The officers working here today didn’t seem to recognize Lee, to which he felt relief wash over him. He knew that if someone did, those apprehensive eyes would be back. “We’re going to have to ask you to leave, Mr. Everett. According to this, you have a criminal record. Leave the girl, we’ll take it from here.” It was never said.

After they had exhausted the puzzle, the officer behind the desk pointed out a small refreshments station with coffee and hot cocoa, insisting that they help themselves. Lee couldn’t remember the last time he had coffee and felt every nerve in his body ignite as he took that first sip. He even let Clementine have a taste, and couldn't hold back a grin when she recoiled, face puckered.

“Yuck,” she sputtered. “That’s gross.”

"Clementine? Your ride is here."

Clementine looked up from the foam cup to an officer and a striking woman with dark skin and high cheekbones. Clementine averted her eyes quickly from the woman, focusing very intently on Lee’s cup of coffee instead. "Do I have to go back?" she whispered after a moment.

The woman let out a tired sigh as she knelt down to Clem-level. Something about her hard features and serious brow suggested that this was a woman to have as a friend rather than an enemy. But when she spoke, her voice was surprisingly gentle. "Honey, we've been worried sick all morning. What were you thinking running off like that?"

Clementine stuck out her lower lip in a pout and clutched the straps of her backpack stubbornly.

“Clementine.”

“I was trying to get to Savannah.”

The woman pressed her lips together in a hard line. “We’ve been over this. You don’t ever go anywhere alone.”

“But I had my walkie. I had to get closer to Savannah for daddy to hear me on his…” her voice trailed off as the woman’s angry eyes bored into hers. Clementine hung her head.

After a moment, the woman got to her feet and turned her gaze on Lee instead. Mr. Everett, is it?" she asked in a tired voice.

He brushed off his jeans and stood to shake hands. "Lee."

She looked from his shoes to his sweatshirt, a suspicious glint flashing across her face. He stiffened. It felt like he was back under inspection. "I'm Christa, head of social services down at Pine Homes Foster Care. They told me you found her riding the bus alone."

Lee folded his arms across his chest. He didn’t like her accusatory tone. "I did."

"You know you're not supposed to take lost children away from where you found them, right?"

"I wasn't about to leave her alone on a bus."

"Did you try to call the police instead? Don't you have a phone?"

He hesitated. "No."

"Everyone has a phone."

He felt a strange surge of resentment well up in his chest. "What are you trying to say?"

You know exactly what, her expression insisted. When she spoke to Clementine, her voice was stern but not unkind. "Did this man take you anywhere today?" she asked.

Clementine’s head still hung in shame. She shook it from side to side.

Christa straightened. "No stops along the way? He didn’t ask if you wanted a ride to Savannah? Did he—?”

Lee couldn’t hold his tongue another second longer. "Look, I was just trying to do what was best for the girl. Maybe I should have done it differently, but the station was the safest option for her at the time. I only wanted to keep her safe."

A moment of tense silence filled the space between the three of them until Christa's sigh of relent broke it. "Fine," she breathed. "I just…I was just making sure. Part of my job, you know."

Lee felt his shoulders relax.

Christa watched Clementine shift nervously from foot to foot. Her expression had considerably softened. "Although I get where she's coming from. I do. If I was told my parents were still out there, I wouldn’t want to be held in a home instead of out looking for them. Huh, Clem?" Christa brushed a hand through Clementine's wild hair, at least the ends that poked out of her cap. "She's…been through a lot and I'm glad you found her when you did. Really. I don't know what we would have…" her voice trailed off lamely, shoulders slumping from their rigidness.

Lee held up his hands. "It's all right. I get it. I guess if she was mine, I would be just as worried."

They exchanged meaningful looks that were interrupted by a tug on Lee's sleeve. He looked down, falling into the depths of Clementine's shimmering eyes. She said nothing, only clutched his sleeve.

"You’re not in trouble, okay honey? Let's get you back to the home," prompted Christa, holding out her hand. "How does lunch sound?"

Clementine shook her head, dark curls brushing against her ruddy cheeks. Lee took the hint from Christa and knelt down to speak one-on-one.

“Hey,” he said softly. This wasn’t going to be easy. The girl’s quiet eyes searched him fretfully, almost knowing what he was going to say. “You be good okay? No more running off. Christa wants to protect you.”

“Like you did, right?” she asked him.

“Right.”

She still held onto his long sleeve, watching the red folds move through the fabric. “Do you have to go, too?”

His heart leapt up to sit in his throat. “Yeah. But I’m really glad I met you, Clementine.”

Clementine smiled, brightening a little bit. “Me too.”

He let go of her hand, warmth lingering in his palm, and watched as Christa led her away.

Across the floor.

Through the doors.

Gone.

Lee lay wide awake that night in his hotel room—his temporary home—watching as the bluish light of the television flickered and sent shadows dancing on the tacky, floral wallpaper. Every time he closed his eyes, she was there, amber eyes threatening to swallow him whole.

Chapter Text

The house was small, bright, and empty. Morning sunlight streamed in through the windows of the entryway, landing in streaks on the naked walls and wood floors. Bags of clothes and books sat in the living room, slumped over, waiting to be given permanent homes. There was a quaint kitchen through a low-hanging doorway and a set of stairs that wound to the top floor.

Dust danced through the slanting bars of sunlight as Lee nudged the front door open with his shoulder, boxes tucked under his arms. He set them down with a grunt, wincing as the loud clang of baking dishes and cooking pots clambered within. He straightened to his full height and breathed the place in, catching the distinct scent of cigarette smoke. Lee made a mental note to get some candles on his next trip to Save-Lots, maybe they would help to mask the smell.

"Grab me the pliers, hon?" Lee heard someone shout outside. "I think I almost got it."

"Dad, can I play on it? Huh? Can I?"

"Duck, if you don't stop getting in my way I swear I'll chuck you clean over that fence.”

Lee stretched his arms up over his head and winced as a loud crack followed. He had chosen a neighborhood with plenty of activity on purpose. Just a few nights alone in that hotel were enough to make him realize that he was not ready for that amount of quiet yet. Rubbing his hands together, he wandered over to the window and surveyed his street. Minivans rolled out of driveways and bikers pedaled by, the spokes of their wheels flashing in the morning sun. Lee’s next-door neighbors—the ones who had been making a racket all morning—seemed to be getting an early start. One of them had his head shoved under the hood of an old tractor as he shouted instructions back to a blonde woman. She sat on the front steps, waving off a skinny kid who was bouncing around both his parents. Too much noise was better than none at all.

Lee spent the rest of the morning putting away what little possessions he had, waiting around for a sofa to sit on or a bed to set up. At noon his stomach growled insistently, so he extracted a squashed granola bar from his back pocket and shoved it in his mouth.

"Anybody home?" called a voice from the front of the house.

Lee craned his head to see who had stepped in. The man had a suspicious look on his mustached face, greying hair shoved under a baseball cap, and he was up to his elbows in grease. When Lee rounded the corner, he could almost feel the man’s eyes hot on him, inspecting and wary. "I don't usually bug neighbors but…well the wife said it'd be nice if I did. I'd shake your hand but…" he flashed his hands in case Lee hadn't seen the black smudges on his palms.

Lee wiped the crumbs off his own hands and came cautiously into the entryway. "Name's Lee."

"I'm Kenny. Outside is Katjaa—" he gestured out the window to the blonde woman sitting comfortably on the porch, "—and that there's Duck."

Lee blinked. He wasn't sure if he heard correctly. "Duck?"

"Yeah. Ken Junior, but we call him Duck. Nothing fazes him, like water off a duck's back, y'know? Though frankly I think it's because he as dumb as a bag of hammers."

Just then, a freckly kid around ten poked his head through the doorway. He had skinny limbs and eyes too big for his face. "Dad, can I please play on the tractor? Just for a second? I asked Mom and she said I could. Pleasepleaseplease?"

Kenny rolled his eyes in exasperation. “Oh, for god’s—fine. Don’t touch any of the buttons or you’ll be sorry.”

Duck let out a "Yes!" through his teeth and bolted in the direction of his driveway.

"Seems to make it up in enthusiasm, though," Lee commented.

Kenny chuckled. "No kidding."

Lee paused, wondering if he had anything to offer his new neighbor—a drink perhaps, he would kill for a beer—but knew that there wasn't anything in this house but dust in the corners and quite possibly mold on the ceilings. He didn't think he'd be having company this early on in the day, much less in his new life.

After a moment Kenny hitched up his jeans, swearing under his breath as he realized that the grease had rubbed off on them. "Listen, there's actually another reason I came over. I, uh, I was hoping I could get your help with that tractor?" He jerked his head in the direction of his driveway, where the motionless hunk of metal sat like a sleeping giant. Duck was perched in the driver's seat, hands on the wheel, spurting noises omitting from his mouth. "I think the breaks must be rusted over, and I could sure use an extra pair of hands to help me push it into the grass. Get it out of the way.”

Lee didn't have much else to do besides wait around for his furniture to arrive. There was no couch to sit on or a bed to put together. He rolled up his sleeves. "Sure, I'll lend a hand.”

Kenny nodded curtly and led the way across the grass towards the tractor. He let Duck remain in the driver's seat and press lightly on the gas pedal as Kenny turned the key in the ignition and braced his hands on the back. Lee followed his lead and together, they heaved their weight on the metal giant until the wheels screeched over the pavement and sliced through the grass. Duck's "wheee!" went on even after the tractor had come to a stop. Kenny wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. The task hadn't taken a minute and yet Lee's limbs were shaking when it was done.

Kenny grunted, gesturing appreciatively to the front porch. It looked like Katjaa had brought out a pitcher of an icy drink and she was pouring four glasses full. It wasn't beer, but Lee gave her his profound thanks as he downed it in two gulps. Lee was relieved that Katjaa looked at him with a non-judgmental eye as he brought her up to speed, leaving out the fact that he was fresh off the prison bus. He didn't want to think about what that detail would do to his budding reputation.

"Kenny and I moved here last summer from Fort Lauderdale," she explained. Her voice was easy and pleasant, edged with an accent Lee guessed to be European, though he couldn’t be sure. "It certainly was an adjustment."

"Duck likes it well enough," Kenny chimed, pouring himself another glass of lemonade. "It's a good neighborhood, especially if you're lookin' to raise a family. You got kids?"

It wasn’t new by any means, that sharp inward stab that struck at the oddest times, set off by the most trivial things—the smell of lilies, seeing a happy couple in the street, the sound of a woman laughing. Lee swallowed. "No…no kids."

"Would've liked one, then?"

Lee shrugged in an attempt to brush off the nauseous feeling. "Y'know.”

Katjaa shot Kenny a reproachful look and redirected the conversation down a lighter path. "So, Lee, where do you work?”

This wasn’t a particularly helpful topic, either. “I used to teach history up at the university.”

She blinked in polite interest. “That’s wonderful. Teachers are so underappreciated these days.”

Lee hesitated a moment, mouth struggling to form the right words. He knew he would have to tell them everything eventually, being neighbors and all. The longer he concealed his story, the worse it was going to be. “No, I uh…I used to. I was laid off a little while ago.”

Kenny seemed to perk up real quick, eyebrows raised all the way up to the rim of his hat. “What were you fired for?”

"Ken,” Katjaa hissed

“It’s a reasonable question, Kat.” He turned back to Lee, eyes squinted doubtfully. Lee couldn’t help but wonder if this was the reason he had been invited over here: A Welcome-to-the-Neighborhood Interrogation. “People get laid off all the time. Good people, even. When the economy’s this bad, there’s no telling what’s around the next corner, y’know?”

“Uh…yeah.”

Kenny leaned in a little closer, a strange expression caught between curiosity and wariness. “Or you could have broken a rule or two, right?”

Lee stood there dumbly, jaw hanging open. “I…”

CRASH.

It pierced the air like a gunshot, edged with a sound like a thousand tiny knives grinding together. When Lee turned around, it took him a moment to realize what was wrong, but then he saw it: the tractor had managed to flip onto its side—engine gurgling and sputtering—Kenny’s boy wedged between it and the grass.

Duck didn’t seem to grasp what had happened, either. He lay there stunned, unable to raise his head more than an inch off the ground. His mother’s scream was the thing that made him realize that something was terribly off about lying with a mouthful of dirt and blood.

Kenny sprang off of the porch, tripping over his own feet on his way to the yard. Lee was hot on his tail, making a beeline for the overturned hunk of metal spitting out black smoke. “Shitshitshit.” Kenny’s eyes were as wide as saucers as he turned them on Lee, his hands raised and trembling as if they were ready to punch the tractor rather than lift it up.

“You get that side, I’ll get this one!” ordered Lee above the grinding of the gears. “I’ve got it leveraged, we lift on three!”

Kenny, spurred by the urgency in Lee’s voice, obeyed and shoved his fingers under the metal.

“One, two…” Lee dug in his heels, “…three!”

They heaved it, groaning and straining under the weight. After a few seconds of stasis, the tractor raised a few inches off the ground, enough for Duck to crawl through. “GO!” Kenny growled through clenched teeth. Katjaa appeared immediately to his left, hands gripping Duck’s wrists as she yanked him out and across the grass. Lee’s arms were beginning to tremble violently, but he made sure the kid and his mom was at least five feet away before letting out a shout of release. He and Kenny let go, the metal monster crashing back to the ground with a note of finality.

Shaking from his head to his fingertips, Lee reached underneath the tractor and forced his arm into an unnatural arc. He finally felt it: the warm metal of the keyring. With a lot of coaxing, he managed to yank it out of the ignition. The great beast sputtered, gurgled, and finally stopped altogether. Lee gave the old tractor a prod with his foot for good measure

“Mom, I’m fine.” Duck was struggling against his mother’s arms, as she was trying to hold his squirming form in place.

“You’re not fine. You bit your lip—look there’s blood everywhere.”

“Mom…”

“Does it hurt when I do this—?”

“Ow!”

She raised her eyebrows in an “I told you so” kind of way.

There were a few scrapes and bruises where the tractor had pinned him down, but Duck’s skinny build had saved him from being crushed, if only by a centimeter. When Kenny had finished scolding Duck and was certain he was all right, he wandered back over to Lee, thumbs in his pockets. His eyebrows were furrowed together, his lips pressed in a thin line underneath his furry mustache. “Thanks, Lee.” Kenny extended a calloused hand and Lee shook it. Kenny’s grip was firm and his gaze unflinching. “Really. Thank you. You saved my boy.”

Lee nodded, glad that the suspicious glare had faded completely out of Kenny’s eyes. “Anytime.”

Kenny broke the handshake after a solid ten seconds, “I’ll deal with all of this later,” he waved a hand in the direction of the overturned tractor. “I think it’s gonna take more than two guys to lift this motherfucker.”

Lee nodded in agreement, his shoulder throbbing uncomfortably. He was going to feel that tomorrow.

The sound of a roaring truck broke up the silence as a large moving van pulled up to the curb.

“Hey, you need any help unpacking, neighbor?” asked Kenny.

Lee was glad to accept the help, but even more eager to leave the subject of his employment behind.

Chapter Text

Lee had not slept soundly for three years. Whenever night came around, he would often lie awake, eyes on the ceiling so he wouldn’t have to confront the ghosts. Every night for three years his body hit the mattress like a rock, but his mind spun like a movie reel. Every night for three years, he willed himself to fall asleep, willed the voices to stop screaming. Just once, Lee wanted to close his eyes and see nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing. The nightmare always followed the same set of rails: a velvet darkness, a flash of bronze skin and a sound like knives on metal. Lee would wake up out of breath and convinced that there were five figures watching him from the shadows. He stared at the ceiling until his eyes burned and he waited for the morning to break.

xxx

Lee swore under his breath and recoiled his hand from the coffee pot. He stuck his burned fingers under the faucet and let the cool stream of water wash over them. With a glance at his watch and another uttered profanity, he decided to skip the coffee and head right for the car instead. Late. His probation officer was not a patient man, in fact the last meeting they had had ended with his officer chucking a paperweight at the wall because of Lee’s “attitude.”

The last couple of weeks had been hectic. Not only did he have to check in with his probation officer often, Lee had also been forced to schedule at least three job interviews each week. His house had nearly failed to pass inspection the first two times on account that his furniture had mostly consisted of cardboard boxes. Lee had watched television sitting on the hard living room floor. He fell asleep the first night with cracker crumbs in his beard and a neck so stiff he could hardly turn it the next day. One of the only consolations was that Lee felt he had a very strong chance at getting another teaching job at the community college. It was no Georgia State, but maybe the community college would be a bit more lenient with his criminal record. He supposed he had to hold onto some form of hope.

As Lee ran out to the driveway and slid into his car, he nodded to a disheveled-looking Kenny who had stumbled out of the house in his robe and slippers to get the paper. Kenny had not asked Lee again about prison, but the neighborly relationship they had struck was like treading on ice. The last thing Lee needed was for his neighbors to treat him like a felon.

The trees on either side of the moving car thinned as he left the safety of the suburbs and back into the city. The social worker’s office was small, wedged between a laundromat and a Chinese restaurant that smelled faintly of rotting fish. The parking lot was only suited for about three and a half cars, so Lee drove down the cracked street until he found an open space under a tree. He double-timed it back to the office and burst through the smudged glass door.

“Name, please,” said the woman behind the front desk. She looked decrepit and sour.

Lee wiped the sweat off of his forehead. “Lee Everett,” he said.

“You’re late.”

Lee glanced at his watch. “I’m right on time.”

“That’s not what my clock says,” she snapped, jerking her head to where the clock hung sadly in front of some floral wallpaper. “Mine says you’re five minutes late. This doesn’t look good on your record, you know.”

“Well, neither does going to prison,” he said.

She did not crack a grin.

Lee cleared his throat and continued, “I have an appointment with Mr. McGovern.”

The woman’s glazed expression scanned the rest of the visitors, who sat sweating and coughing in her chairs.

“Go on in, then,” she said.

Lee took the familiar route around the desk and down the dimly lit hallway. He knocked once on the door and waited for the gruff “come in” before turning the handle. Mr. McGovern had hair white as a ghost and a scowl that could curdle milk. He sat hunched behind his desk, behind the name plate that read, Larry McGovern: Head of Probation Offices. Lee took his seat without a word and waited.

Larry looked up over his spectacles. “You’re late,” he said.

“Sorry,” said Lee, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead. “Parking lot was full.”

Larry grunted and shuffled through a stack of papers. “I’ve got another appointment lined up in five minutes,” he growled, snatching his pen out of its holder and placing it on the form before him. “So let’s get this over with.”

Lee clenched his jaw. It was one thing to be stuck with a probation officer who was plain nasty—there were plenty of unpleasant guards at the correctional facility. But an officer that hated him by default? That was just unfair.

“Where didja interview this week, Everett?” Larry asked.

“Georgia Tech, Middle State, and Macon Community,” said Lee.

Larry raised his bushy eyebrows and said, “Georgia Tech doesn’t hire felons.”

Lee clenched and unclenched one fist. “Yeah. I figured that one out,” he said.

The sound of Larry’s pen on the paper scratched in Lee’s ears.

“I’m gonna tell you right now,” said Larry, “you won’t get much luck looking for a teaching job. They don’t like jailbirds mixing with their kids.”

“Macon Community seemed interested. They said they could overlook my record,” said Lee,

Larry snorted, shaking his head as the pen continued to assault the paperwork. “I said it before, apply for landscaping or stocking shelves or some shit; somewhere you won’t have to be seen. You said you got parents who run a store?” Larry asked. He flipped agitatedly through the folder and extracted a piece of paper. It was riddled with Lee’s parents’ names. “A lot of incarcerated individuals ask family to help their sorry asses.”

Lee looked pointedly at Larry’s nameplate and said, “No.”

Larry blinked, leaning forward. A challenge. “No?” he asked in a sort of growl.

Lee did not feel like explaining to Larry that he and his parents hadn’t spoken since he was incarcerated. It was probably the first time Larry’s face ever came close to a smile, although it looked more like a grimace.

“Not on good terms, eh?” Larry asked.

“I’ll have a job by the end of the week,” said Lee.

Larry’s expression was one of annoyance. “I know your type, Everett,” he said knowingly, “Cocky. Dangerous. No good.  I don’t understand why you only got two years on your sentence. You were put in solitary confinement enough times to earn you another three, in my opinion. This system is fucked.”

Larry flipped through some more of the paperwork, a slimy grin gracing his mouth.

“You liked to pick fights in prison, didn’t you?” Larry continued. “You beat up more than one of your roommates when they so much as looked at you funny. Why is that, Everett? Didja like feeling the bones crack? You liked watching the blood run down?”

Lee gritted his teeth. “I am not dangerous,” he said.

Larry narrowed his eyes and said, “Seems to me you didn’t learn shit in prison.”

Lee stood up so fast his chair toppled backwards. He had had enough of this place. Chest heaving, Lee stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind. It took him a moment to catch his breath in the hallway. Red dots pulsed behind his eyes, his hands trembled, and there was a familiar pounding in his temple that rattled in his bones. Lee squeezed his eyes shut and breathed in for four seconds, held for seven, and exhaled for eight. He did this a few times until the pounding dissipated and the tightening in his chest released.

“I am not dangerous,” he told himself firmly.

“What?” said a small voice.

Lee jumped, wildly scanning for whoever had seen him handle his episode. At the end of the long hallway stood a little girl with a purple baseball cap. She was staring at him with eyes as big as teacups.        

Lee could hardly believe it. “Clementine?” he said. “What are you doing here?”

Clementine took a shy step forward. “I’m with Christa,” she said.

Lee blinked down at her bushy head of hair. Part of him figured that the little girl had simply been a dream all this time, but here she was, proving him wrong. 

“Christa found me a foster family,” she continued. 

Lee felt himself deflate marginally, though he was unsure why. “Oh, did she?” he said.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, giggling as he tugged down the rim of her hat.

“I’m, ah, just looking for a job,” he said. “Lots of paperwork to do, you know.”

Clementine wrinkled her nose. “Sounds boring,” she noted.

Lee chuckled. “It is.”

They were interrupted as Christa herself stuck her head around the corner, her dark brows furrowed together. “Clem, who are you—?” she said, stopping mid-sentence when she saw Lee. “Oh. Hello, Lee.”

Lee lifted his hand in a greeting, glad that Christa did not look quite so suspicious to see him this time.

“Hey, Christa,” he said. “How are things?”

She shrugged. “Same old. We’re still painfully overcrowded at Pine’s, so I’ve been working double shifts,” she said rather tiredly. “Gotta get these kids into good homes.”

“Clementine here says you’ve found her one?” he said.

Christa opened her mouth and closed it again. Her eyes flicked down to Clementine. “Clem, let’s go back to the waiting room. I’ll get you a cocoa,” she said.

Clementine led the way out of the hallway and back to the lounge. Christa and Lee fell into quiet conversation behind.

“The family chickened out,” Christa hissed in his ear.

Lee was glad that Clementine was busying herself at the coffee station, dumping a mountain of marshmallows into her foam cup.

“Those fuckers,” Christa continued, arms folded tightly across her chest. “It keeps happening. These assholes insist they’re going to take a kid and then what do they do? They decide to have their own fucking kids and we’re just supposed to be flexible with their schedules. We’ve got kids who have been abused or left behind without anyone else in the entire fucking world, is it too much to ask a family to make a little room?” Christa said, face deepening in color. “Sorry,” she mumbled after a minute.

“Don’t be,” said Lee. “Just remind me not to piss you off.”

She gave a weak chuckle. “Poor thing,” she muttered, glancing in Clementine’s direction “It’s happened so many times already. She doesn’t say so, but she doesn’t much like the foster home.”

Clementine was slurping from her cup and flipping idly through the pictures of a magazine.

“What about her parents?” said Lee. “She told me they were missing. Any luck finding them?”

“She told you that, huh?” said Christa. “Haven’t heard anything.”

“Sorry,” said Lee.

Christa shrugged. “It’s just hard to hook up uncertain cases like Clem’s. Families want kids who will stick around,” she said.

“Are you staying here too, Lee?” came Clementine’s voice.

Lee jumped, wondering if Clementine had overheard the conversation. She was such a quiet thing.

“Ah, I do have some things to take care of,” he said.

He couldn’t stand the way Clementine’s eyes fell to the floor

“But, hey, I think I can stay for a while longer if you want to do a puzzle or something,” he added quickly.

Christa did not object. In fact, she almost smiled herself.

xxx 

Spending time with Clementine became the highlight of Lee’s week. Sitting on the scratchy carpet putting puzzles together surpassed any of the unpacking and job searching by far. Admittedly, he had felt a little hesitant to offer up his services of babysitter for the morning, since he knew what people must have thought of him. The secretary watched him warily as Lee handed Clementine a napkin after she had spilled some cocoa over her hands.

Despite the dirty looks, Lee had no other intention than to watch over the girl. 

“Are you a teacher?” asked Clementine as she picked up another 100-piece puzzle. She had already completed two.

“I was,” he said. “How did you know that?”

Clementine squinted her eyes as if it was obvious. “You wear the same kind of shirts my teacher used to.”

Lee looked down at his plain blue button-down. “You’re smart,” he said. “I have to find another teaching job, though.”

“You didn’t like your other one?” she asked.

“I liked it fine. But I had to quit,” he said.

Clementine separated the blue puzzle pieces from the green ones and frowned. Her dark eyebrows furrowed together. “Lee?”

“Yes?”

“Christa said you went to jail.”

Lee’s hands froze over the scattered puzzle pieces. He had hoped that Christa didn’t know about his criminal record, but it was looking like she had known more than he gave her credit for. What had persuaded Christa to expose him? For that matter, why had she left Clementine alone with an ex-convict?

Lee glanced around, hyper-aware of his audience. “I did,” he finally said, voice low.

Clementine played with a puzzle piece, turning it over in her small hands. “Why?”

Lee didn’t think he would be having this conversation with the girl today, or any day for that matter. But he didn’t want to lie to her—he had had enough of that.

“I hurt someone,” he said.

Clementine picked up another puzzle piece and fit it together with the one she was holding. “Why?"

“Because he hurt me.”

“Was he a bad man?”

Lee dug up the memory and was hit with the scent of blood. “Yes.”

Clementine went quiet, staring down at the small piece of the sky in her palm. He waited and wished she would say something. Anything.

When Christa returned she was holding a stack of folders, and there was something different about her face. It took Lee a moment to realize that she was actually smiling. “Lee? Would you come here a minute?”

He did, and made sure Clementine was out of earshot before he hissed, “You knew I was a convict?”

“I work for the state,” she replied as if it was obvious. “Background checks are kind of my thing.”

“Well, you didn’t have to tell Clementine!”

“You’re a good person, Lee, and Clem doesn’t have a lot of good people in her life right now,” she said.

“So you can tell her that I tried to kill a guy but you can’t tell her that she’s not getting out of the foster home after all?” he snarled.

“But she is!” said Christa, eyes alight. “Because you’re going to be her foster parent.”

At first he was certain he had heard her wrong. “Excuse me?” he said.

“If you both want to, obviously,” Christa added quickly. “Trust me, I wouldn’t suggest it if I didn’t one hundred percent believe you were safe.”

Well, that was a first. Lee glanced over his shoulder to watch as Clementine quietly colored. The idea was insane—he couldn’t imagine taking care of someone else, let alone a kid. But Lee imagined Clementine at the overcrowded foster home, coloring with broken crayons, and his heart broke a little.

“What would it take?” he asked Christa.

Christa admitted that the process would not be easy for an ex-convict, but it was not impossible. He would need a steady job to prove he could provide, he would need a letter of recommendation from his boss and one from a friend.

“I’d be happy to write you one,” she told him. “My word’s as good as gold.”

She overloaded him with checklists and information about the whole process, and the more Lee listened the more possible it all seemed. He felt something ignite inside his chest—something long-since forgotten. He had hope, and he would be damned if anyone took that away.

Chapter Text

Sometimes Lee wondered if his days would be easier if he woke up back in his old cell.

Prison was not like staying at the Hilton, by any means. Prison hauled your ass out of bed early in the morning, herded you to your three square meals, and shoved you outside to get some physical activity. Fights between inmates were optional, but almost always in action. Then, at the end of the day, prison shepherded you back to your cell and plunged you in darkness. “Lights out, no talking,” came the guards’ voices through the bars. If you were lucky, you’d fall asleep to the symphony of snores. If you were unlucky, as Lee often was, your reeling brain would keep you awake, poking and prodding and refusing to shut up until the sunlight streamed in through the book-sized window. Prison had been abysmal, to say the least. But there was something almost tranquil about not having to think about his actions outside of the correctional facility. In prison, he had already made his way to the bottom of the barrel—he was already caught and tried, and there was no other way to go but up from there. Now that he was out, and especially with the prospect of becoming someone’s guardian, there was room to fall again. There was something to lose.

Lee fixed up the house on most mornings when the neighborhood was still quiet and he had no nine-to-five to get to. Now that his furniture had arrived, the place was looking more homey. Lee was less prone to imagine ghosts mulling about the empty rooms. One particular morning, he poked his head into the unoccupied guest bedroom—the only room without furnishings—and imagined a small, Clementine-sized bed up against the far wall. He imagined a writing desk in the other corner—for her art and puzzles and books. What kind of books was she interested in, anyway? He had never thought to ask.

It had been one week since Christa’s suggestion of becoming Clementine’s foster parent. Lee had played along, humoring Christa’s insane idea with nods and “maybes”. Inside he thought, who would willingly let an ex-convict take care of a little girl? An unmarried ex-convict with no kids, no less? Even though Christa claimed it was possible and promised to send him over some of the paperwork, he knew better than to get his hopes up. The pile of rejected job applications on the counter taught him that much.

Thank you for your interview! We regret to tell you…

Mr. Everett, we are sorry to inform you…

…not a good fit…

…policies against felons…

…convicts interacting with the students…

…safety concerns…

Still, as he pushed couches into place and folded extra blankets, Lee imagined Clementine’s bright amber eyes watching him from the kitchen table, nose over a bowl of cereal. He saw the top of her baseball cap poking from behind the easy chair as she flipped through a favorite book (he would have to ask her what that was). He heard her stifled giggles from an unknown location, like she was ready to pop out of a closet and surprise him.

As Lee lost himself in these imaginings, the phone’s song rudely pierced his reverie. He whacked his shin on the coffee table in his hurry to answer the phone.

“Yes?” he said through clenched teeth, keeled over his leg.

“Mr. Everett? I’m calling on behalf of Human Resources here at Macon University.”

Lee froze, still crouched over his throbbing shin. “Oh, right.”

“We were all very impressed with your interview, and your application and references were solid.”

“Oh, well, thank you,” Lee held his breath, preparing for the inevitable We’re sorry to inform you…

“As you know, we have policies about applicants with criminal records, but here at MU, we believe that you’ve paid your debt to society and are a talented, learned teacher. We want to hire you as our Civil Rights History professor here on campus.”

The pain in Lee’s shin dissolved into something akin to electricity sparking in his veins. He had gotten so used to disappointment that he had never even imagined this conversation taking place. After a spell of dumbness, he was able to say, “Thank you. So much. You won’t regret this.”

“We are excited to have you on our team. I am sending you an email as we speak. It has all the details you’ll need to get started with us.”

“Thank you. Again.”

“Of course, Professor Everett. Welcome aboard.”

Lee hung up the phone, forgetting about the nasty bruise that was sure to be forming on his shinbone. He sank to the floor, phone dangling loosely from his hand, and for the first time in years, he laughed.

xxx 

Since the day he landed the job, Lee knew that he had to get his ass into gear. He returned again and again to the checklist Christa had given him the day of his last visit to probation offices. The checklist came with a folder—a thick one—filled with names of people to call and questions to ask and what kind of forms to fill out if he was going to become a foster parent.

Parent.

The word was foreign to him.

Over the next few days and weeks to follow, Lee referenced Christa’s checklist—he had taped it to the refrigerator, and since he didn’t have any photos to put there, Christa’s chicken-scratch writing would have to do. Every time Lee went to grab a beer, there was Christa’s list with little checkmarks he had scrawled next to each completed task:

Foster Parent Checklist: Lee Everett

1. Get a respectable job

Check.

Lee had already started his work at MU and besides getting back into the swing of the workplace and writing up lesson plans, he made an extra effort to prove how normal he was to his fellow professors. He never considered himself a very outgoing guy, but he knew he had to get these people to like him.

It was something he had learned in prison: if you wanted to be left alone you could do one of two things. One, you kept your head down and remained anonymous. No one’s going to beat up someone who stands out about as much as a brick in the wall. Your other option was Two—and this one was a bit riskier: you met the eyes of your opponent head-on. Most guys in prison were more likely to leave you alone if you made them know you weren’t going to run with your tail between your legs. However, this sometimes resulted in guys thinking you were stepping on their territory, challenging them. In that case, you brawled, and that was never pretty.

Lee had decided to go with the riskier of the options now that he was out in the real world and society was not in favor of fist fighting. The technique seemed to be working out for his benefit. Lee said hello to nearly every professor in the department and made sure to join in on conversations in the breakroom between classes. On one occasion, he caught snippets of gossip about “a convict on staff” and Lee cut right into that conversation with a friendly, “Want to know what I was in for?”

The comment shocked the circle of teachers into silence, all except for the Journalism professor, Carley, who snorted into her coffee. Lee heard no more about his conviction amongst the staff ever again.

2. Two reference letters (I’ll write one for you, so get the other one from your boss once you’ve worked for a bit)

Two weeks into his new job, Lee knew it was a bit too soon to be asking for a reference letter. But he also knew that as long as he kept the rest of the staff on his good side word would spread. It was another lesson he had learned when he was incarcerated: the guards all talked. Whether they showed it or not, they knew all of the inmates’ names. Unfortunately for Lee, he didn’t have the most glowing rep in the prison amongst the guards, and he knew this because they would always say things like, “Where you going, Everett?” and “I want to see those hands, Everett,” and not forgetting “I don’t need a reason to give you a shot, so shut the fuck up and get on the ground, Everett.”

Lee planned to ask his boss for a reference letter on his evaluation date. He could only hope that word traveled as fast in the college as it had at Meriwether.

3. House Inspections (your probation officer needs to sign off on a few things for me)

This was the only checkpoint Lee was nervous about. Lee had visited Clementine and Christa at Pine Homes multiple times a week, mostly to gauge what Clem would feel about coming to stay with him. It was obvious that Christa was doing her best to keep the foster home nice and friendly-looking, but the place looked even sadder than Lee’s empty home.

“They cut back on funding,” Christa had said with a roll of her eyes. “Big, fat surprise.”

During his visits, he usually found Clementine coloring at the chipped coffee table in the living room. She was surrounded by torn couches and a small television that only seemed to play three channels. She colored with broken crayons and dried-up markers, but she was always happy to see him—always excited to show him what she had been reading lately. He knew next to nothing about decorating a bedroom for an eight-year-old, so he quizzed Clem on favorite colors (purple), favorite animals (she was torn between dogs and dragonflies), and favorite books (something called Harry Potter). In turn, she asked him his favorites (blue, bears probably, The Prophet). Whether or not Lee was successful in decorating ideas, playing with Clementine was always a perfect way to end a day.

Lee and Christa had both agreed not to tell Clementine about his registering to become a foster parent—yet, anyway. “She’s gotten her hopes up too many times,” Christa informed him. “We’ll wait until you’re official.”

“If that ever happens,” Lee replied, knowing that he still had to get Larry McGovern’s approval, and Larry was about as reasonable as a pissed-off wolverine. But if Christa was a tough as she looked, hopefully she could convince the old grinch to sign the paperwork without much question. Maybe she had a secret, charming side Lee didn’t know about. He could only pray.

xxx 

The morning of Larry’s inspection came much too quickly. Lee had been up most of the night cleaning every crevice of his house, making it appear as homey as possible. His hands were still specked with the purple paint he had been using to decorate the guest bedroom, and he scrubbed his palms as best he could before his probation officer showed up. Lee was grateful that Christa would be there to balance out Larry’s general unpleasantness. Maybe, with her help and if he played his cards right, Lee could win this thing after all.

The banging on the front door signaled Larry’s arrival, and Lee straightened the pillows on the sofa one last time before letting his officer inside.

“Morning, sir,” Lee greeted, stepping back to let him in.

Larry grunted and stuck his abnormally large nose over the threshold, as if expecting some kind of Home-Alone-style booby trap to meet him. When he deemed it safe, he stepped inside, a clipboard clutched in his meaty hands. He immediately scribbled something.

“Shouldn’t we wait until the social worker gets here before we start?” said Lee quickly, listening to Larry’s pen scratch the paper.

“She ain’t coming,” Larry replied, not looking up. “I do these inspections on my own.”

Lee froze, and he immediately knew that Larry had done that on purpose. He just had to have all the power, didn’t he?

A smug look crossed Larry’s face. “Got a problem with that, Everett?”

Lee plastered on a fake smile, imagining his fist colliding with Larry’s monstrous jaw. “No. Not at all.”

Lee stiffly led him down the hallway for the grand tour. When they reached the living room, Larry made a point to explore every single inch of it, taking detailed notes that filled a whole page. Lee leaned against the adjacent wall, arms crossed, waiting for the imminent sounds of disapproval. He needed Christa there—a voice of reason to back Lee up. Larry didn’t trust Lee as far as he could throw him.

Trapped in silence, Lee was forced to watch as Larry sauntered around and touched every book on the shelf, tested his weight on the armchair, and squatted to check every outlet. Larry was looking for ways to mark Lee down—probing for any scrap of evidence that would prove Lee was not fit or responsible enough to take care of a kid.

“Not much reading material for children,” Larry noted, picking up a copy of The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery. “You like this history shit?”

“Well, I am a history professor,” Lee replied.

Larry tossed the book back on the shelf. “When that Christa told me you wanted to be a foster parent, I almost shit myself laughing,” Larry said, chuckling at the fond memory.

Lee twitched, but said nothing. If he was going to convince Larry of his cleanliness, Lee knew that he had to keep his mouth shut.

“I’ve got books for the girl,” Lee said instead of what he was really thinking. “They’re in her room. Well, they will be when I’m done with it.”

“Oh, so you’ve actually got a room for her, huh?” Larry said in mock surprise. “Honestly, I was expecting a box in the corner or something, maybe a water dish.”

Lee inhaled slowly, held it, and exhaled.

“Follow me then,” said Lee, leading Larry up the staircase. The sharp smell of paint stung his nose as they entered what would soon be Clementine’s room, if all went well. They entered the freshly-painted lavender bedroom, shoes crunching on the tarps. A warm breeze blew through the open window. “Gotta wait till the paint dries, but she’s got a bed, a desk, and a dresser.”

Larry scrunched up his nose at the smell. “Where are these fabulous pieces of furniture? How do I know you’re not using this room for something else?”

“Like what?”

“I dunno. A meth lab? I’ve known a lot of ex-cons who’ve jumped right back on the drug train once they were released.”

It took everything in Lee’s power not to punch a hole in the wall. Wordlessly, he led Larry to his own bedroom and waved his arm in a “no meth labs here” kind of way. Leaning opposite of his own bed was a single mattress, an unassembled bedframe, a small desk and a set of white drawers.

“I can’t really keep her furniture in there while I’m painting,” said Lee, tapping the bedframe for good measure.

Larry scoffed under his breath, pretending to write something on his clipboard before skulking off.

When every room had been scoured and Larry had at least twenty pages of notes to flip through, they adjourned back to the entryway. The way Larry was shaking his head did not bode well.

“Can’t say I was expecting much, Everett,” he said, licking his thumb with a flourish before turning yet another page. “Honestly I’m surprised I haven’t found anything that could land you back in jail. Most ex-cons find their ways back there eventually. In your case, it could just be a matter of time.”

“Great. So do you think you could sign off on the paperwork then?” asked Lee, arms folded in a tight knot.

Larry “hm-ed” and pretended to pour over his notes. “I don’t know, Everett. I mean, on paper you seem all right. But there’s no way I can know that for sure.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Lee snarled.

“What the hell did you just say to me, Everett?” Larry said, narrowing his eyes. He took a step closer so Lee could smell his rancid breath. “Go on. Say it again.”

Click went his pen.

Lee averted his eyes to the shag carpet, jaw clenched so hard that the pain shot up to his temples.

“That’s what I thought,” Larry said, straightening so his massive body blocked any sunlight poking in through the windows. “I’m not liking this attitude of yours, this superiority your carry around. You think you’ve still got your rights, huh? You think you can just be like everybody else. Blend in, right? I’m one of the only ones who knows what you really are. So stop this act—” he waved his hand around at the empty walls “—and stop pretending that you deserve any of it. You’re still a convict in my book.”

Lee trembled. His fingernails dug into his palms.

“Go on,” coaxed Larry. “Hit me. I know you want to. Give me a reason to throw your ass back where you belong.”

Knock, knock, knock.

It was one of those moments that Lee could only call “deliverance”. He exhaled his relief while Larry growled at the interruption, grumbling all the way to the door and throwing it open.

“And who the hell are you?” Larry demanded.

It was Kenny, staring up at Larry with an expression of bemusement. Lee’s relief soon turned into mild panic. The last thing he wanted was his neighbors to know about his criminal record—they had been getting along so amiably lately.

“I’m looking for Lee,” said Kenny, lifting the rim of his cap so he could see Larry against the glare. “You the plumber or something?”

Larry puffed out his chest, and Lee wondered how awkward it would look to slam the door before Larry had a chance to say anything. Instead, Lee stepped between them, hands on the doorframe. He knew he looked anything but casual.

“Hey, Kenny!” he said a little too loudly. “How was the fishing trip?”

“Wasn’t so much of a trip,” said Kenny. “Pretty sure Poseidon had that giant fork shoved up his ass or something—we were weathering storms for a week. Good haul, though. Nice to get away for a while.”

“Good, good,” said Lee. “You need something?”

“Yeah. Wondering if you had an air pump I could borrow? Duck blew his bike tire out again.”

Lee suddenly felt Larry’s hand at the scruff of his neck, yanking him out of the way. “So you’re a neighbor, huh?” demanded Larry.

“Uh, yeah,” said Kenny. “He giving you trouble, Lee?”

That familiar, slimy smile spread across Larry’s face. “No, no. I just had a few questions for you, if you don’t mind. Come in.”

Kenny stepped over the stoop, shooting Lee a confused glance. “Who is this guy?”

“No one,” Lee snapped.

“I’m doing a little house inspection,” answered Larry easily. “Could you tell me a bit about Everett here? He ever caused you trouble?”

“What?” asked Kenny, looking from Larry to Lee. “No, of course not."

“He ever show any signs of aggression?” Larry asked, making another note on his clipboard. “Y’know, ever lose his temper? Ever threaten you or your family? Any stealing? Shady activity?”

“Why the fuck are you asking me these questions?” demanded Kenny. “Lee, who the hell is this guy?”

“Larry McGovern,” said Larry, sticking out a hand to shake. “Everett’s probation officer.”

And with those three words, Lee knew that he had lost. Kenny stood between the two, speechless, expression hard to read.

“I can see he left out that little bit of information,” said Larry, cutting through the silence. “Yup. Everett’s fresh off the prison bus. He didn’t tell you? And get this, he thinks he can register to work in the foster system.” Larry laughed a gut-busting laugh. “So. If I could get some information from you, it will be easier to decline his request, understand? I know you don’t want some ex-con strutting around your neighborhood.”

Kenny was quiet for some time, staring at nothing. When he finally did speak, it was in a tone both steady and low. “First day I met him, Lee here lifted a goddamn tractor to save my boy. He’s been nothing but a solid neighbor. He’s got a job already too— don’t you teach history or something?—so he’s a productive member of society and shit. Far as I know, Lee’s been the best damn neighbor a guy could ask for. I wouldn’t try to sabotage that if I were you.”

Larry’s jaw hung so wide open that Lee could have fit a tennis ball in there. Larry stood shaking, face red like he was ready to blow a fuse. Then, muttering curses under his breath, he scribbled something down on new sheet of paper, tore it off, and thrust it in Lee’s hands. He made a dramatic exit down the front steps and into his car, which roared away in a puff of black smoke.

Lee looked down at the form Larry had signed: it was a statement of approval to register as a foster parent. He had passed the inspection.

“Thanks for that, Ken,” said Lee, eyes drinking in Larry’s scribbly signature. “That guy’s had it out for me.”

Kenny nodded, swallowing. “So…uh…what was it you were in for, anyway? It wasn’t for touching kids, was it?”

“Oh, come on, man.”

“What? I gotta ask!”

“No. I was in a fight. Almost killed the guy.”

Kenny paused again, eyes flicking from Lee’s hands to his face. “Hm,” he said.

“And I didn’t say anything when I met you because…well, you know I was worried…”

“Look, man,” said Kenny, cutting him off, “we all do shit we’re not proud of. You just got caught doing it. And that was years ago, right? I’m not concerned with the things we did before. It’s what life’s got us doing now, Lee. Shit.”

Lee nodded.

“Is Duck safe around you?” asked Kenny.

“Of course.”

“Then shut it. You don’t owe me any kind of explanation. Now go get me that air pump.”

After Lee handed Kenny the tire pump, Kenny paused in the doorway. “So who’s the kid? You know, the one you want to adopt or whatever?”

“Name’s Clementine.”

Kenny nodded his head. “Well, when you’ve got her all settled, come on over for dinner. I want to meet this girl of yours.”

Lee shook his hand, smiling. “Can do.”

Chapter Text

The old pharmacy didn’t look any different. The flickering “Drugs” sign had been there since Lee was born, and even the ancient posters hung up all along the windows were the same. They proclaimed “Pharmacist on Duty” and “Get Your Flu Shots Today!”. It gave the place that mom-and-pop charm despite the worn brick and broken neon. The only big difference was the entrance: two shiny glass doors had replaced the old cracked ones. Lee could see his car reflected in the glass from all the way across the street.

The last time he had spoken to his father had been in front of the old doors.

Lee wrung his hands on the steering wheel and cast the drugstore another sidelong glance. He didn’t know what he intended to do when he drove up that morning. He had to be at the foster home in an hour to get Clementine, so this detour was not only unexpected but inconvenient. Nearly all of his nightmares took place on this very street corner, and they only worsened when he was in that prison cell.

“Get the hell out of here, Lee.” His father’s voice still echoed in his ears. “Do your time. Maybe prison will knock that violent streak out of you.”

Lee could see bodies mingling inside the drugstore, silent as ghosts. His hand hovered over the door handle for a moment. He tried to imagine the loving reunion between himself, his brother, and his parents. He tried to conjure up a happy image full of hugging and teary-eyes and apologies, but Lee’s mind went blank and the voice of his father came back clearer:

“Get the hell out of here, Lee.”

Lee recoiled his hand and started the engine, the tires screeching on the pavement as he sped away.

xxx

“Just one more signature and we’re done here.”

Lee made a final scribble on the dotted line and breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s it?”

Christa gathered up the paperwork and slipped it into a manila folder. “Yup,” she said. “Everything’s signed, I’ve got all your letters, your signatures, and your information right here.”

“Thank god.” Lee dropped the pen back in the Pine Homes cup with slight flourish. It had been yet another long day of preparations, but all he had left to do now was pick up the girl and take her home. It was strange to think that today had arrived at all. It had always seemed more like some distant mirage than a real thing.

“Sorry about all that, by the way,” Christa said in an undertone as she slid the folder into a rickety desk drawer. “You really pulled it off.”

That was something that Lee didn’t think he’d ever hear. “Thanks,” he said. “For everything.”

Christa came around the desk to shake his hand. “Hey, as long as she’s happy and safe, I’m good. Seriously, my husband and I were debating whether to take Clementine in ourselves until you came along.”

“Where is she?”

“Saying goodbye to her roommates.” Christa looked towards the office doorway. “Though to be honest, I think she can’t wait to get away.”

Lee could only hope that he lived up to Clementine’s expectations as a capable guardian. He certainly put in the work, but would it be enough?

“Clem, you ready?” Christa called.

She appeared a moment later, and it was probably one of the first times Lee had ever seen Clementine look this excited. She obviously didn’t have much to her name, but Clementine clutched her walkie-talkie in both hands and hitched her little backpack higher on her shoulders. Christa came over and tugged the brim of Clementine’s hat. “You got everything?”

Clementine nodded, hair bouncing. “Yeah! And I put new batteries in my walkie, too.”

Christa adjusted one of the zippers on Clementine’s backpack, lips pressed tightly together. “Lee’s going to take good care of you.”

Clementine nodded. “Until they find my parents, right?”

“Sure, honey. But until then, Lee’s going to watch over you. You’ll be fine, and call me anytime, okay?"

“Okay.”

Christa hugged her briefly and tightly before stepping back to clear her throat. “Go on, then.”

Clementine went over to Lee and took his outstretched hand.

“Make sure she takes her vitamins,” Christa said as they turned to leave. “Every morning.”

“You got it,” said Lee.

“And Clem, have you got your toothbrush?” said Christa.

“Yes, Christa,” Clementine replied, rolling her eyes a tiny bit.

“Brush your teeth twice a day. I’m not kidding,” said Christa.

Clementine tugged on Lee’s arm in the direction of the exit.

“And for god’s sake,” Christa called after them, leaning out the front door, “go to bed at a reasonable hour, you hear me? No later than nine!”

Clementine jumped into the backseat of Lee’s car. Christa was yelling something else unintelligible, so Lee waved and pretended he could hear as he slid into the front seat. He craned his neck around to see that Clementine had buckled her seatbelt, backpack sitting on her thighs. He had to take a moment to really see her there.

“All set?” he asked.

Clementine clutched her walkie-talkie a bit tighter. “I think so.”

xxx 

Lee brought Clementine right up to the little house he’d spent weeks preparing. He was proud of the flowery bushes lining the walkway, even though he hadn’t done anything to make them grow like that. Clementine followed him closely, the static from her walkie-talkie hissing softly as he pushed open the door and led her over the threshold.

“Here we are,” said Lee unnecessarily. Clementine squinted down the dark hall, so he quickly leaned over to flip on the light switch as they ventured forward. “Living room,” he noted, gesturing to the sofa featuring a new woven blanket and a stand for the television.

Clementine gave him what looked like a smile, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. She quietly ambled about the room, touching the thick blanket on the couch and staring up at Lee’s massive bookshelf.

“There’s mostly grownup books over there,” he said. “But that’s why you’ve got your very own upstairs. Want to see your room?”

Lee never considered Clementine to be a noisy or even a talkative eight-year-old, but she was clever and never had a problem talking to Lee before. He hoped that she would feel more welcome once she saw the bedroom he had ready for her.

Clementine stepped cautiously inside the room, eyes wide as she gazed at the purple walls, the fluffy bed bedecked with pillows, and the small bookshelf—the one Lee had just managed to put together that morning. This is where she went first, crouching to see the full collection of Harry Potter. She ran her fingers over the spines.

“Have you read those?” Lee asked, desperate to get some kind of reaction out of her. She used one hand to touch the books and the other to grip that walkie. Lee wished she would put it down for a moment, but then immediately felt bad for thinking so.

Clementine pulled out the thinnest of the books and ran her hand over the new cover. “The library only had Prisoner of Azkaban,” she said.

“Now you’ve got the whole series,” Lee said as brightly as he could. “How about that?”

Clementine gave a small nod and put the book back on the shelf, trading it for her walkie-talkie again. Lee stared down at the tiny grey box with a twinge of annoyance.

“Why don’t we put that down for a bit and take a snack break?” he tried.

Clementine touched the dials hesitantly. She didn’t usually cling to the walkie as if her parents were going to pop out of it. Lee sighed and led her back down to the kitchen where he made her a peanut butter sandwich, unsure what the next course of action should be. She ate at the kitchen table quietly, unenthusiastically.

This little girl was a puzzle.

“Help yourself whenever you’re hungry,” he said, more to fill the silence than anything else. “Or, ah, let me know first. Just so I know you’re not spoiling your dinner, or something.”

Clementine nodded, nibbling off the crust of her sandwich like a little squirrel. That reminded him of something, and Lee got up to grab the bottle of Kids Gummy Vitamins Christa had left with him. “You didn’t take one of these today, right?” he asked.

Clementine took the gummy without protest and popped it in her mouth. Lee sat across the table and watched her eat for a minute.

“You keep that on all the time?” asked Lee nodding to the walkie standing upright on the table.

Clementine nodded. “Daddy said he would contact me when they got to Savannah. I can’t miss him.”

Lee let out a huff through his nose. If her parents hadn’t contacted her now, there was little chance of Clementine ever getting a word from them. The longer she held on, the more it was going to hurt.

“Has Christa said anything else about your parents?” he tried.

“She says that the police are still looking. They were last seen at the docks.”

“Then why haven’t they tried to contact you?”

“Maybe their walkie is broken.”

Lee bit back a remark about how if the police haven’t found her parents, they were probably lost. He couldn’t bring himself to say such a thing, after he had come so far with her.

“Where are your parents?” Clementine suddenly asked.

“They live in Macon,” Lee replied tersely. “I don’t see them. We, ah, didn’t leave things very good when I left.”

“Because you went to jail.”

He had nearly forgotten how sharp she was. “Well, that’s certainly part of it.”

“Your family is close, but you don’t want to talk to them.” Clementine placed her chin in her hands and glanced back to the noisy walkie. “I just want to see if mine is okay."

Lee looked into Clementine’s shining eyes and breathed out a sigh. He didn’t much feel like lecturing about how much more complicated it was than that, but she did have a point. He folded his hands on the table. “All right, Clem. It’s good you’re being vigilant about that. But may I make a suggestion?”

She looked suspicious. “What?”

“Can we not have the walkie-talkie on the table while we’re eating? I would like it shut off, please.”

He waited on bated breath for her response. He didn’t know what the protocol was for setting house rules, or if she’d even listen.

Clementine looked from Lee to the grey box and slowly nodded her head.

“Thank you,” he said, anticipating the white noise to vanish.

But instead of turning the dial, Clementine took the walkie in both hands. “May I be excused?” she asked promptly.

Lee looked at her unfinished sandwich and he deflated a little bit. “Oh. Sure, Clem.”

Clementine pushed herself back from the table, hugging the walkie-talkie to her chest as she retreated up the stairs. Lee heard the soft click of her bedroom door closing.

xxx

Lee hardly saw Clementine for the rest of the day. He decided to give her space as much as possible—it was all a lot to adjust to for the both of them. When he knocked on the door around dinnertime, she said she wasn’t hungry. Even when he suggested they get a pizza, Clementine seemed more interested in keeping to herself.

Now I’ve done it, he thought. I fucked it up.

He didn’t know how to set dinner rules, so instead Lee went to his room and tried to focus on grading papers. He switched on the desk lamp and felt his eyes burning as he scanned a thesis on the Union Army in the Civil War. None of the words registered—he didn’t realize he had been reading the same line over and over again until the clock insisted five minutes had passed. He promptly gave up and rubbed his temples. It was only 7PM, and he had already managed to screw up the connection he and Clementine had spent so long building. He never imagined that he would make it this far. All those weeks working and planning and struggling to make it all work, all those hours spent tirelessly fighting against a system that was wired against him—all of it could be lost if he wasn’t careful.

“Shit.” Lee eased up from his chair and made a beeline towards the door. He threw it open and nearly ran right into a tiny person.

“Agh!” he cried.

“S-sorry!” said Clementine. Something slipped out of her hand and thudded on the floor.

“No, no, it’s not your fault, Clem.” She was like a tiny ghost in her white pajamas, and it took Lee a moment to realize that she didn’t have her hat on. Her hair framed her worried face in wild curls without the baseball cap to hold it down. “Just surprised me is all,” he continued.

“Well, you surprised me, too.” she said.

“Fair enough.”

Clementine wrung her hands together and seemed to be making a great effort to look anywhere but his face. Finally, Lee lowered his voice and asked, “What’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

He blinked. “What for?”

She shrugged her tiny shoulders, bottom lip trembling. “I’m…scared.”

Something broke inside of him. “Oh…oh, honey.” Lee knelt down and on impulse, wrapped his arms around her. Clementine fell into his shoulder and sobbed quietly. She fit perfectly there. “It’s okay, Clem. You’re okay,” he said. For the first time all day, Lee didn’t feel like he was ruining something. Holding her there, muttering reassurances into her ear—it all came quite naturally.

When her sobs had turned to faint sniffles, Lee loosened his grip and sat back to wipe her eyes. “You have nothing to be sorry about, okay?” he said.

“I won’t have my walkie-talkie at the table. I promise.”

He patted her hair affectionately. It bounced. “I’m sorry, Clem. I only said that because I wanted to spend time with you, that’s all.”

Clementine gave a shuddering sigh. “Me too.”

“It’s normal to be scared. This is a new place.”

She nodded. “I like it better than the foster home, but it’s too quiet.”

Lee knew exactly what she meant. “It’s nice to have another person here, even though she’s a little person.”

Clementine wrinkled her nose as Lee reached towards the floor to pick up what she had dropped, but on second glance, it was not Clementine’s walkie-talkie like he had expected. It was a book. “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” he read.

“Christa used to read to me before bed,” said Clementine shyly. “I haven’t read that one yet.”

Lee’s face broke out into a genuine smile. “Come on,” he said, taking her hand and leading her back to her purple bedroom. It really was a nice color. The moonlight fell in through the window leaving the room glowing like a soft, lavender field. Clementine climbed under her sheets and Lee made himself comfortable on the edge of her bed. As he cracked open the book and began to read, he noticed the sound of static had disappeared.

Chapter Text

“Eat up, Clem. We need to be at the school in ten minutes.”

Clementine shoveled another spoonful of Cheerios into her mouth as Lee poured hot coffee into his thermos. He had taken the morning off from work to get Clementine registered at the elementary school and hoped the transferring process wasn’t nearly as complicated as registering to be a foster parent was—that had been a nightmare and a half.

“When’s the first day of school?” Clementine asked. She didn’t look particularly cheerful.

“You start in two days, so Monday.”

“Do I have to?”

“You don’t like school?” he asked teasingly.

She wrinkled her little nose in response.

The last few days had certainly been an adjustment period, but Clementine finally seemed to be opening up more. She talked at the table during meals, colored at her desk, and had even gone out to play with Duck. The two drew flowers and dragons on the sidewalk with a bucket of colored chalk Lee had picked up at Save Lots. Even though Duck pressed down too hard and ground up the chalk into powder, Clementine said she’d gotten even by putting a beetle down his shirt. She seemed to be having a good time living here, and before bed, Lee was always sure to read her another chapter of Harry Potter. It was the perfect way to end their days.

Lee filled up Clementine’s glass with more orange juice and watched as she moodily tapped her spoon against the table.

“I don’t want to go to school on a weekend,” she said.

“Well, count yourself lucky you’re not a teacher,” said Lee, taking a sip of his coffee.

“Why?”

“Then you’d have to go to school in the Summer.”

Clementine looked genuinely sorry.

“And since you’re tough enough to go to school on a weekend, I have something for you.” Lee opened the kitchen drawer and pulled out a page of stickers spattered with colorful leaves, bugs, and an assortment of flowers. Carly, the journalism professor at the college, gave them to him for Clementine to have.

“I got these for my students,” Carly had said, “But I think your girl will appreciate them more.”

Lee handed Clementine the colorful page and watched her eyes widen. “Why don’t you take out your walkie?” he said. “I thought you’d might like to decorate it.”

“At the table?” she asked, blinking in surprise.

“Yes.”

Clementine took the stickers, eyes alight. “Thank you!” she said, and came around the table to hug him.

He smiled. A truce.

Later when the two made it to Lane Elementary School, Lee caught a glimpse of Clem’s walkie as she slipped it back into her book bag. It was decorated with pink and yellow flowers.

xxx

Lee had never in his life enrolled a second-grade child into a school district, and didn’t think it would take more than an hour. But the news of his recent release from prison raised a few eyebrows from the staff, and earned him a few interviews with security, the secretary, and the principal herself. They had him bust out his paperwork, his letters of recommendation, proof of employment, and the note from his probation officer saying that Lee was not dangerous.

“It says here you were incarcerated recently,” said the sour-looking principal, adjusting her glasses so she could squint down at the paperwork.

“Recently released,” Lee corrected.

“For assault?” the principal pressed.

“Yes.”

“And how did you end up being her foster parent? Must have been an ordeal.”

Lee was glad Clementine was holding his hand at that moment. It helped keep his breathing under control.

“With all due respect, ma’am,” he said, “I’d rather talk about Clementine’s registration.”

He thought the principal would argue or give him a snide look that said, “Well I’d rather talk about the horrible things you’d rather leave behind.” That’s how Larry did it. But to Lee’s surprise, the principal shrugged as if she was only curious.

After four hours of running from one interrogation to the next, Lee deemed Lane Elementary a Pain in His Ass, but at least he had passed every test of character it had thrown at him.

Lee and Clementine’s final visit was to the nurse’s office, which consisted of two white rooms, a desk, and a measuring stick on the wall shaped like a giraffe. The nurse checked Clementine’s height on this, and Clem was excited to see that she had grown a whole inch in the last year. For Lee, it was just nice to sit for a moment without being drilled about his personal criminal history.

“Everything looks good,” said the nurse after checking Clementine’s heartbeat. She pulled a lollipop from the bear-shaped jar on her desk and handed it to Clementine. “If I hadn’t run out of clementine flavor, I would have given you that! But I bet you hear that all the time, don’t you?”

Clementine rolled her eyes a tiny bit but politely thanked the nurse for the lollipop anyway.

The nurse then turned to Lee, who instinctively braced himself. “Do you have Clementine’s medical records on hand, Mr. Everett?” she asked in her sugary-sweet tone.

Lee handed her the files Christa had given him, and the nurse looked at them for less than a second before sealing his fate with, “These look a little out of date.”

Lee sighed. Of course they were.

“You’ll have to see your family doctor and get these updated, preferably before school starts if you can.” The nurse flashed another smile and handed back the files.

“Couldn’t you sign off on Clem’s records?” Lee asked, knowing the answer.

The nurse tilted her head to the side in a pityingly kind of way. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Everett, but I can’t. This checkup is mostly a formality. Give me a call once your family doctor has given your girl the updated paperwork.”

Lee didn’t feel like mentioning that he had no family doctor and had no idea how to get a hold of one. That was one more thing he had to add to his list of things to do before he could be a capable ex-convict parent.

“Are you okay, Lee?” Clementine asked on the car ride back.

Lee hadn’t realized he was being so quiet. “I’m fine,” he told her, flashing her a reassuring look in the rearview mirror.

xxx

Lee was forced to put his search for a doctor on hold that evening, since Kenny was hosting a barbeque next door as sort of a goodbye to Summer. The scents of burning coals and charred hamburgers drifted over the fence as Lee and Clementine pushed through the gate separating the two backyards. Clementine skipped ahead with a big glass jar Lee had dug out of his Tupperware cabinet for her to catch bugs with. She’d filled the bottom with grass so that “they wouldn’t get hungry.”

“Why do we call them lightning bugs?” Clementine asked when he had dug out an old mason jar that looked big enough.

“Because they flash like lightning,” he’d told her.

“My mom said that they called them ‘fireflies’ where she grew up,” Clementine replied, popping off the lid to stick her nose into the jar. “I think I like that better.”

 “You know, I think I do too.”

Clementine sat at the table with the jar, peeling stickers from her sheet and sticking them on the lid. “How long do they live?”

“Not long.”

She frowned. “That’s not fair.”

Lee had patted the top of her hat. “That’s life.”

Lee waved to Kenny, who stood at the grill wearing a bright red apron proclaiming “Kiss the Cook” in white letters. Kenny waved back, and coughed as he inhaled a mouthful of grill smoke.

“Evening, neighbor,” said Kenny once he had found his voice again. “You want cheese on your burger?”

“Make it a double,” said Lee, grunting as he sat heavily on a nearby chair.

“Rough day, huh?”

Lee nodded, and profusely thanked Katjaa as she delivered him an ice-cold beer. Lee took a long sip and watched as Clementine and Duck peeked into bushes and tufts of grass.

“Dad!” hollered Duck from across the lawn. “Where are the lightning bugs?”

“They’re sleeping,” Kenny told him. “Just be patient.”

Duck let out a long whine and shoved his face back into a bush.

“Clem’s good at keeping him in line,” said Kenny.

Lee felt himself smile just as Clementine handed Duck the mason jar.

“I’m glad he’s got someone to play with,” continued Kenny a little quietly, flipping a burger so it hissed.

They watched the kids play for a while as they waited for the final guests to arrive. Earlier that week, Clementine had asked to invite Christa and her husband, so Kenny extended the invitation. “The more the merrier,” Katjaa had assured Clem. “We don’t have much family around here, so we really appreciate you all keeping us company.”

When Christa did arrive, it was probably the most refreshed Lee had ever seen her. She’d always looked like she hadn’t slept in days, and with the foster home on her shoulders, Lee couldn’t blame her. But tonight, she was almost glowing, a rare smile on her face as she greeted Clem with a tight hug.

“How you doing, sweetie?” Christa asked.

“Good,” Clementine replied.

“You excited about school?”

“Not really.”

“Is Lee being good?”

“Yup!”

Lee came over, frowning. “Of course I’ve been good,” he said, feigning hurt.

Clementine giggled, and skipped off to continue in her search for fireflies.

Christa’s husband, Omid, gave Lee a very firm handshake. He was on the shorter side, but made up for it with a brimming smile and welcoming energy.

“Heard a lot about you!” Omid told Lee. “The ex-convict, right?”

“Uh, yeah,” Lee replied awkwardly.

Omid laughed. He had a very contagious laugh. “Don’t worry, man. Christa says if we couldn’t take Clementine, she’s glad you could. Don’t tell her I said this or anything, but it’s hard to get her to trust anyone, so well done.”

“I appreciate that,” said Lee.

“It ended up working out, considering we’re expecting and everything. I mean, of course we would have taken Clem if you didn’t work out, she’s such a good kid, but—”

Lee held up one hand, stopping him. “Wait, I’m sorry, did you say you guys were expecting? As in…?”

“Omid!”

Omid flinched as Christa crossed the length of the yard and made a beeline right for him, eyes narrowed.

“Eavesdropper,” he muttered.

Christa reached out and gave Omid a good slap on the arm. “What did you just say?” she growled, shoving him for emphasis.

Omid massaged his shoulder. “Ow! Watch it!”

“I barely touched you. And we agreed not to tell anyone yet,” Christa said.

“I think this counts as spousal abuse,” said Omid, cowering slightly behind Lee, who wanted to stay as out of this as possible. “And it was an accident!

Christa shot Omid an angry glare, but couldn’t seem to stay that way for long. She sighed and turned to Lee. The rest of the party had gone quiet to listen. “Um. Well. We’re, ah…”

“Pregnant,” Omid said.

“Three months,” Christa finished.

There was a moment of tense silence, and then Katjaa’s excited gasp broke it. Scattered “Congratulations!” floated over the yard, Lee gave Christa a one-armed squeeze, and even Kenny let Omid hug him for a second.

“This is wonderful news!” Katjaa exclaimed, tearing up as she took Christa’s hand. “Oh, a brand-new little life. I’m sorry, am I crying?”

“All right, hon,” said Kenny tersely. “Don’t smother her.”

Katjaa ignored her husband and pulled Christa aside to hand her a glass of lemonade and chat by the cooler. Christa looked slightly awkward, but pleased. It was nice to see people who barely knew each other give this kind of support. Lee wasn’t used to that.

As the party continued, Lee went to stand beside Kenny at the grill again, hoping this was a good time to ask about parenting.

“Exciting news, huh?” Lee said.

Kenny gave a grunt and nodded, eyes fixed on the sizzling meat and skewers. He flipped a burger that looked more than done, as if he was just looking for something to busy himself with.

Lee cleared his throat. “Hey, ah, would you happen to know of any good family doctors by any chance?”

Kenny turned to look directly at him, expression suddenly hard. “Why? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing like that,” said Lee. “Just need to update Clementine’s medical information for school.”

Kenny’s shoulders relaxed. “Oh,” he said, and went back to flipping burgers. “Sorry. Yeah, we can give you the info for Duck’s old doctor, though we’ve switched to a specialist recently.”

Lee wondered if it was his place to pry—he knew how touchy Ken could get. The two turned their attention to the yard where the kids were playing, kicking up their feet in the grass. Soft blinks of gold in the darkness signaled the arrival of the bugs, and Duck let out a shout of victory.

After a full minute, Lee felt brave enough to ask, “Why a specialist?”

He was afraid he wouldn’t get an answer for a minute. Then, Ken let out a heavy sigh and in a measured voice said, “Duck’s cancer is back.”

Lee didn’t know what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t that. “Oh,” he managed to say, throat tightening. “Shit.”

Kenny took a long swig of his beer without taking his eyes off the kids. “Yeah. Shit,” he agreed.

“What kind? Do you mind me—?”

“Leukemia. He’d been in remission for a year, almost to the day.”

Lee shook his head. He never would have guessed. though he supposed he’d never asked. “He’s such a happy kid,” Lee said.

They watched as Duck clasped his hands in the air. Golden light flickered between his fingers and landed briefly on his toothy grin. He peeked between his thumbs and shouted, “Got one!” to no one in particular.

Ken visibly softened a bit. “Katjaa wants him to do the chemo again, but I don’t know. He really hated being sick all the time.”

Lee took another much-needed drink. “Hell, I don’t blame you.”

“But he’s a tough little guy. I have no doubt we can beat this thing again.” Ken finished his drink and wiped his mustache with the back of his hand. “Anyway, the doc says Duck’s got optimism coming out his ass, so Katjaa and I gotta be the same, right?”

Not knowing what else to do, Lee patted him on the back. “Yeah. And hey, you need anything, you just let me know. Clementine too. We’re here for you guys. Okay?”

Kenny cleared his throat gruffly, eyes fixed on the burning coals in the grate, red and dormant. “Yeah.”

Once dinner was ready, Duck asked if he could put the jar of fireflies on the table. Kenny allowed it, and the jar glowed softly as they ate burgers and corn and talked about new jobs and new babies and football and Civil War History. Apparently, Omid was a huge fan of the subject, so he and Lee monopolized the conversation for a solid twenty minutes before Christa practically begged them to stop. Duck happily stuffed his face and tried to shove two hot dogs up his nose, and Lee had never seen Kenny laugh so hard.

It wasn’t until Lee and Clementine were waving goodbye that Lee realized that he was no closer to finding Clem a doctor, but he decided that it was okay. There were problems out there bigger than him.

Chapter Text

Lee stopped at the bright red door, face-to-face with a festive autumn wreath. He shifted the pie in his hands, wondering if it was too late to get back into his car and drive home. Not only would he have the whole pie to himself, paired with a couple of beers would make him a full meal right there. He could watch the game by himself, have a few, and turn in early. A perfect Thanksgiving.

“Lee? Are you gonna hover outside my door all evening or are you gonna come in?”

Lee sighed. So much for that plan. “Hi, Ma,” he called back, letting himself in.

The heat inside the house was stifling, like walking into a brick oven. Lee was assailed with a blend of smells ranging from sweet potato to potpourri, and he tried not to inhale too deeply. Despite his efforts, he felt dizzy, and resisted the urge to turn around and stick his head back outside where he could breathe.

Lee made his way towards the kitchen, automatically stepping over the floorboard that squeaked. It was habit--ever since he was a kid, he’d taken care to avoid the board that announced to his sleeping parents that he was wandering around past his bedtime. He knew every corner of the old house, but he’d never felt less attached to it.

“Did you redo the kitchen?” Lee asked, noting the marble counters and stonework around the oven. It certainly was an upgrade from the rickety wooden surfaces, albeit an unfamiliar one.

“Sure did,” his mom answered, chopping vegetables in a steady rhythm, “Six months ago.”

Had it really been that long since Lee had been here? He cleared his throat awkwardly. “I, uh, brought a pie. Pumpkin.”

Mom finally turned around to face him. He could see lines creasing her face where her smile usually sat. “Janelle’s not with you,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Thought you might not notice,” he replied. It was meant to be a joke, but he couldn’t make anything sound funny these days. “She’s in New York this week coordinating a wedding.”

His mother always had this way of making him feel like she was disappointed. With what, he couldn’t say. Probably everything. “You couldn’t bring your wife over for one meal with her family? I can’t even remember the last time I saw Janelle.”

“Don’t bother the boy, Ma,” came the deep, booming voice of Lee’s father from the living room. “Lee knew that his girl didn’t want to be tied down when he married her.”

Lee glared in the general direction of the living room where he could hear the faint cheering of a crowd from the television. “You don’t need to put it like that,” he said.

“And don’t ask about when we’ll have grandkids,” his pop added. “She’s a working woman. There ain’t no time for kids, or for husbands.”

“All right!” Lee’s voice reverberated off the newly furnished kitchen. His mother jumped at the sudden outburst, dropping the knife she was holding so it clanged to the floor. Pop stuck his head in to see the damage.

“You did not just shout at your mother.” Pop’s voice was dangerous.

Lee inhaled deeply to put out the fire burning in his chest. He shouldn’t have been surprised with this kind of reaction--his parents were not known for their subtlety. Lee tossed his store-bought pie onto the counter next to his mother’s decadent puddings and slipped out of the kitchen’s sliding glass door to the backyard. He welcomed the chilly air and made himself comfortable on the stoop where he could oversee the whole yard. His parents’ neighborhood had exploded with color: deep reds, sugary oranges, and warm yellows peppered the overhanging trees and grass. He could remember piles of leaves taller than he was, though he had only been six or seven. The memory seemed like it was from another lifetime.

“Ma kicked you out of the kitchen?”

It was Benji, a beer in each hand and a grin on his young face. Lee took the bottle gratefully. “I left on my own,” Lee replied.

Benji chuckled and settled on the damp porch beside him. “They’re happy you’re here, really.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

“You’ve just been kind of absent lately, I think. I don’t blame you.”

Lee snorted. “I’m a teacher, Benji. It’s not like I have a lot of free time to help out at the shop.”

“I’m not talking about that.” Benji sipped his own beer, but didn’t go on.

Benji was someone Lee could enjoy the silence with. He didn’t feel pressured to fill the empty gaps between conversations, it was enough to simply exist.

After a minute of watching the shadows stretch across the lawn, Benji spoke again. “So, Janelle,” he said.

Lee knew the question was going to pop up sooner or later, even after such a nice long silence. He finished his beer before standing up. “Let’s walk a bit,” he said, hoping to get out of earshot of the house where his mother could undoubtedly hear them from the kitchen.

They headed towards the creek, which stretched across every yard in the neighborhood and wound down to the old bridge where they used to toss rocks. The canopy of trees above had provided a welcoming shade for those scorching summer days when they were boys, but now Lee could see the stars poking through the barren branches and drying leaves.

“So?” Benji pressed.

Lee took another drink and inhaled the night air so it froze the inside of his nose. “She wants me to sign divorce papers.”

There was that silence again, only this time it carried more weight. Lee continued walking; hoping the sound of crunching leaves would fill it up somehow.

“I’m sorry,” said Benji. “Man, Ma and Pop are gonna be pissed.”

Lee gave a dry laugh. “I don’t think I can disappoint them much further.”

“There’s no way you can make it work?”

“She didn’t want kids. I did. I guess we both thought we could change the others’ mind.” Lee clutched his empty bottle in his hand. The glass was bitingly cold.

Benji’s hand landed heavily on his shoulder and wordlessly, they headed back to the house. Lee was grateful that he didn’t have to explain beyond that. He didn’t much feel like telling Benji that his wife sometimes came home smelling like someone else or that he’d yelled at her more times than he’d care to admit.

With Benji, none of that needed to be said.

xxx 

November brought icy winds so strong that there was hardly time to enjoy the colorful leaves before they were ripped right off the trees. One night left an unexpected sheet of frost for the next morning, and Lee had to bundle Clementine up with four layers of sweaters before sending her off to wait at the bus stop, shivering alongside her classmates.

“Now, you should be warm enough until I can buy a winter coat,” Lee told her. “You’re not allowed to freeze okay? I just got used to having you around.”

“Hey!” laughed Clem, trying to wriggle out of the scarf he was wrapping around her face.

Lee drank a scalding hot cup of coffee on the way to work and refilled his travel mug once he reached the teachers’ lounge. He had been jittery all week for non-caffeine related reasons, so he figured it didn’t matter either way. The lounge was decorated with paper turkeys and cardboard leaves, as if Lee needed a reminder.

“You not a fan of the décor?” It was Carley, the journalism professor. She was pouring pumpkin spice creamer into her coffee with a wry smile on her lips.

Lee shrugged. “Reminds me of how they decorate Sunday School classrooms.”

Carley stirred her drink, the spoon clinking against the ceramic mug. “Come on. Hand turkeys? You’ve got to admit that’s pretty cute.”

Lee returned her smile, but he really wasn’t in the mood for the holiday.

He trudged through the day, checking his watch every ten minutes as if it would somehow give him more time. Because the students were testing, his job was to sit on his ass until the hour was up and then tell them to “Have a good break.” He almost wished his students were not so laser-focused on their tests. At least if they were rowdy it would give him something to do. But his mind wandered and kept returning to his mother’s house on the edge of the creek, leaves dead and brown and littering the lawn.

“Have a good break, Professor!” called some of the kids on their way out the door. Lee waved distractedly, sliding the ready-to-be-graded tests into a folder. The lecture hall hummed quietly and it was these rare moments alone that the feeling of being suffocated returned, and the memory of his brother nagged him. He knew that if he put this conversation off another day, his insides would probably rot.

“Fuck me,” he growled, shouldering his bag and making a beeline for the glowing Exit sign.

How many days had passed since his release? A hundred? Maybe more? And how many of those days had Lee thought about the business he’d left unfinished and the words he’d avoided? He was hardly aware of getting into his car and driving faster than the speed limit suggested, and when he saw his station wagon’s reflection in the Pharmacy’s glass double-doors, he hit the brakes. Lee followed his feet right up to the old place, heart pounding against his ribcage. The tiny bell sitting atop the door announced his arrival, and it seemed to ring much louder than tiny bells should have been able to. Lee stepped into the uncomfortably warm store, the shelves of vitamins and supplements closing in too tightly on either side. The strong smell of medicine enveloped him as he walked down the tiny aisles.

“Can I help you with something?” came the low voice from behind the counter.

Lee turned towards his father, who took a long moment to peer through his glasses as if making sure he wasn’t seeing a ghost. “Lee?”

“Yeah,” Lee said, hands in his pockets. “How are you, Pop?”

Pop came around the counter, cane tapping the linoleum floor. His back had a rounder curve than Lee remembered, so Pop looked like a large bear hunching over the ground in search of a small, easy meal.

“Lee,” Pop growled. Not a question this time. “A little late, don’t you think?”

“What do you mean?” Lee asked, even though he had a pretty good idea.

Pop shook his head from side to side, already in disagreement. “I really think you’ve missed your chance, son. I’d get out of here before your ma sees you.”

Lee had not expected a prodigal son type of reunion. He knew his father was too proud to drop everything and fling his arms around his son in a tearful embrace. Honestly, Lee didn’t know what he expected, but he had hoped it wasn’t to be sent back on his way.

“Pop, let me just say one thing,” Lee began.

“No, no. You’re done.”

That’s when Lee’s mother came in from the back room, arms filled with papers and folders, which she almost dropped on seeing Lee. Her wide brown eyes darted from him to her husband and Lee had the sudden, primal urge to reach for her.

“Ma, please let me say something,” Lee said quickly.

She was thinner than he remembered. Her voice was hollow, as if the sweetness had melted due to too many hot days. “I don’t know what you want from us,” she muttered.

Lee held up his hands in a gesture of surrender, not unlike the time when the police showed up at his front door some years ago. “Please.”

“There’s nothing you can say.”

Lee’s throat stung. “I came here to tell you that I’m sorry. I’m sorry I treated you the way I did all those years. I’m sorry I shut you out. I’m sorry I landed myself in prison. I’m sorry I couldn’t be here for the…for the funeral.”

Whether there were customers mingling behind the shelves overhearing everything, Lee never knew. The air hovering between himself and his parents was charged and ready to burst, rain coming in the form of tears down Ma’s face. She leaned on her husband, both of them broken pillars Lee had thought used to be so strong.

“Our son is dead,” Pop said, voice straining. “And you weren’t here.”

“Don’t you think I wanted to be?” Lee said. “Do you think I wanted to be in prison when Benji died?”

His mom choked back a sob. Pop held her tighter in his gnarled hands. “You need to stop right there, boy,” he warned.

“Fuck you!” Lee was trembling. “I tried everything in my power to get furlough. You can’t possibly blame me for not making a good appearance at the funeral. I loved my fucking brother, and I didn’t even get to say goodbye!”

“ENOUGH.”

Pop’s voice was like a blast of thunder. Lee shut up quick, panting furiously, waiting for the next blow.

“Maybe this will finally teach you what I could never get through your head,” Pop said dangerously. “Your actions have consequences, Lee. You could have been there to say goodbye to your brother if you had not let your anger get the best of you.”

“Wait—”

“Don’t interrupt. Now, you can keep blaming the system for your problems, or you can accept that you made a mistake and now you’re paying for it. Don’t be angry at me or your mother. You’ve got no one to blame but yourself, and that means you’re the only one can bear that burden.”

Lee wanted to bite back with everything he’d been holding on to since Ma had called him in prison with the news. But every hurtful word and spiteful thought evaporated in the moment that Lee realized that, for once, his father was right. His parents had not put him in prison. Lee’s parents hadn’t kept him from calling them or Benji while he was in there. Lee’s choices were all his own. He knew he’d always have to earn their love and respect, and he’d blown it at every turn.

Lee had come to his parents’ store hoping for an ounce of understanding, but it was clear that he had ruined any chance at redemption. No one else was responsible.

Without a word, Lee nodded a goodbye to his parents and left. His reeling thoughts were on mute as he drove down the street, suspended in blissful silence.

It was only when he turned down the secluded back roads did he slam on the breaks and let the sobs rack his body.

xxx

Quiet mornings were rare and always welcome. Most Mondays were spent rushing around the kitchen, throwing together lunches and making sure Clementine had her homework completed before sending her off to the bus stop. Today, however, Lee sipped his coffee and watched as a sprinkling of snow fell quietly onto the front lawn like powdered sugar. Perhaps there was one thing good about Thanksgiving break.

Unfortunately, the days off left too much time for thinking.

Clementine entered the kitchen bleary-eyed, but pleased at the newly fallen snow. Lee watched her eyes brighten at the sight of the glittery lawn.

“Can we go sledding?” she asked.

The corner of his mouth twitched. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that there probably wasn’t enough snow to support a sled. “Why don’t we get you a real winter coat first?”

Clementine nodded eagerly.

They skipped the car and went on foot to The Coat Barn—Clementine’s insistence—and she spent an hour trying on things that doubled her in size and made her look like various types of marshmallows. Lee sat and waited patiently, eyes going to the window more often than not. Clem finally settled on a light blue one with a fuzzy collar, and he bought her a hot cocoa for the walk home.

“Where are we going, Lee?” Clementine asked suddenly.

“What do you mean?” he replied, then realized where he had led them. The street was nowhere to be found; only trees huddled together. A brook babbled somewhere nearby. “Oh. Sorry, Clem. I guess I didn’t realize where I was going.”

Unfazed, Clementine hopped over to where the water slithered between the stones, watching the silvery reflections dance on the surface. Lee sat on a nearby rock, hands together, knowing exactly why his feet had taken him to this place. From here he could see the cedar tree that he and his brother used to play tic-tac-toe on. The carvings were still there, sharp and deep and almost black against the white trunk.

“Lee.”

Clementine’s voice brought him back to the present. Her big eyes shone with concern. This girl didn’t miss a beat, even when he’d been trying for days to hide what was really going on inside. Since the confrontation, his heart felt blocked up. Nothing was getting in or out.  Even Clem couldn’t make him stir up a genuine smile.

She had sensed something was up.

“Yes, Clem?” Lee asked. He didn’t bother to sprinkle a sweet note in his tone.

Clementine brushed snow off of her hands and came to sit on his rock, swinging her little legs inches above the ground. “Are you sad?” she said.

He gave a weak chuckle. “Is it obvious?”

“Yes.”

Lee exhaled, his breath turning to a cloud and promptly dissipating. He redirected Clem’s attention to the cedar tree—anywhere so she wouldn’t be looking at his face. “My brother and I used to play here,” Lee told her.

“Do you miss him?” she asked.

He couldn’t remember telling her that his brother was gone. “Yes,” he said honestly. “I feel…bad that I wasn’t here when he died. I’ve made some pretty bad mistakes.” Lee wasn’t sure if he should be telling Clementine any of this at all, but it was pouring out with nowhere else to go.

“That’s okay,” said Clem easily.

“It’s not. I abandoned my family, and I’ve made too many mistakes to get them back.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Clem, I shouldn’t be—”

“Was I a mistake?” she said.

Lee blinked, caught off-guard by the question. “What?”

Clementine gazed up at him, dark eyelashes specked with fallen snow and cheeks pink from the cold. She was the only person that could have this effect on him; that immediate warmth that spread over the blockages in his heart. Something melted inside.

“Of course not,” he told her.

“I would still be at the foster home if you hadn’t found me. You read books with me and we do puzzles, and you let me bring bugs into the house. I want to find my parents, but I like having you as my family too.”

Lee let her simple little words sink down to his core. Maybe he had left ruins in his wake and he’d never be forgiven for the things he’d done. But maybe, just maybe, there was room for change going forward. His parents’ love had conditions, but his love for Clementine had none.

Lee swallowed warm tears and pulled Clem close, muffling her laughter in his jacket and nuzzling her hair.

This was his redemption, or at least, his chance at it.

Chapter Text

Lee sat at the coffee table, half grading tests with his trusty red pen and half watching River Monsters on the Discovery Channel. It was better than flipping to Ice Road Truckers, which was one of those shows that was so mind-numbing that it separated his soul from his body. On the bright side, now Lee knew to watch out for giant catfish the next time he went swimming in Nepal. His red pen hovered over his seventh test of the day and Lee watched, transfixed, as Jeremy Wade wrestled a catfish as long as he was.

“That’s a big fish,” came Clementine’s voice from behind, small and startling.

“Yeah,” Lee agreed, wincing as the catfish whacked Wade in the face with its muscular tail.

“Can you help me get gum out of my hair?”

“I’ve missed my calling,” Lee muttered to himself, staring down at the tests marked with mostly wrong answers. “I should have been a catfish wrangler.”

Clementine’s tiny hands gripped his shoulders, shaking him. “Lee?”

He pretended not to notice, hand stroking his beard thoughtfully as Clem continued to shake him. “What do you say we move to India and hunt catfish?” he asked. “You’re small enough to ride them, and probably too big for them to swallow you.”

Clementine laughed in exasperation and shoved him as hard as she could. Lee barely moved, but she toppled over onto the sofa. “Gum!” she repeated, pointing unnecessarily to her hatless head.

Lee tore away from his show to take a look at the damage. Sure enough, he saw a gooey pink wad hopelessly stuck in the middle of Clem’s wild dark hair. He brushed some curls aside.

“Ow!”

Yup. Definitely gum. “Sorry, sweet pea,” Lee said. “How did this happen?”

Clem closed her eyes as if the memory was still too raw to revisit. “We were playing hide-and-seek on the playground, so I hid in the slide.”

Lee could easily put the pieces together from there. “I see,” he said seriously. “Well, I do have one solution, but it’s a pretty tricky operation. It’s only been attempted once in the Everett family household.”

Clementine listened intently. “What is it?” she asked.

Lee stood up so papers fell from the coffee table and fluttered to the floor. “Peanut Butter,” he said.

Clementine didn’t seem nearly as jazzed. “You’re putting peanut butter in my hair?” she asked with a note of distaste.

“I’m pretty sure it was peanut butter,” said Lee. Actually he wasn’t one-hundred percent sure what his mother had used on Benji when they were kids. It could have been mayonnaise for all he knew.  “Anyway, I think that’s all we have. But it’ll be fine, it washes right out.”

Clementine pouted. “I’ll smell like a sandwich.”

“Better than smelling like bubble gum and spit.”

Lee took Clem into the bathroom and perched her on the edge of the tub where she sat with a defeated look on her face. He went into the kitchen and gathered the necessary supplies for gum extraction: peanut butter, a spoon, some paper towels, and a jar of unopened olive oil he happened to find in the back of the cabinet. On his way out of the kitchen, he passed the mayonnaise and in a moment of spontaneity, grabbed that too.

Clementine was definitely going to smell like a sandwich by the time he was done with her.

Lee re-entered the bathroom with his arms full of condiments and stopped abruptly to assess the scene. At first everything seemed normal: Clementine was exactly where he’d left her, sitting innocently on the tub. The biggest difference was that now she was holding a pair of shears in one hand and a chunk of what he could only assume was hair in the other. He could see the sticky pink of the gum peeking out from the handful.

They stared at each other for quite some time, Clementine frozen as if Lee could only see his prey through movement. After a full minute, he cleared his throat. “Um, honey,” he began slowly, “did you just cut your hair?”

Clementine’s eyes darted from the scissors and back to Lee. “I don’t know,” she stated.

He placed his armful of questionable supplies on the sink, keeping his tone light as he continued the interrogation. “You do realize that now you have a section of hair missing, right?” he asked. “I’m going to have to cut more off if you want it to be even.”

Clementine shrugged. “At least I don’t have mayo in my hair.”

Lee sighed. “Give me the scissors, missy.”

He used an old towel to drape around her shoulders—not that it mattered much, since she was already sprinkled with bits of hair—and used a comb to brush out the snarls.

“Have you done this before?” Clem asked with a note of apprehension in her voice.

Lee met her eyes through the mirror. “Maybe you should have thought of that before you decided to play god.”

Clementine moaned and Lee began to snip along her first jagged cut. It was just a hair trim, right? How hard could it be? He worked in relative silence and watched as her curls fluttered onto the tiles.

“I’m gonna look like a boy,” moped Clem.

“Shush, now,” he said. He could see the round tips of her ears poking through her hair now, or lack of hair. “Did you finish Duck’s card?”

Clementine nodded as much as she was able to. “Yup. I put some glitter inside.”

Lee chuckled. “He’s not going to like that.”

“I know,” she said, grinning.

Duck was staying at the hospital for the weekend thanks to the chemo, and Kenny mentioned how nice a visit would be. “It would help take his mind off things,” Ken had said. “But if you two can’t make it, we completely understand. Don’t want to put you out.”

Lee was friends with Ken for long enough to know that he only asked for help when he really needed it. “You won’t be able to keep us away,” Lee had promised.

“Do you know if he’s doing better?” Clem asked.

“The doctors are hopeful,” said Lee, repeating Kenny’s words, although Ken was known to have optimism in fierce quantities. Sometimes Lee wondered if his friend was hiding more than he let on.

Lee ran the comb through Clementine’s hair once more with a flourish. “All right, Clem, you’re done.” 

Clementine sat up to look into the bathroom mirror and immediately slumped. “Do I look dumb?” she asked.

Lee was thankful for her natural volume, because he knew he hadn’t made very even cuts. Her brown locks curled around her ears, face, and hugged the base of her neck. Lee smiled. “No, you look very cute,” he told her, kissing the top of her head. “Now go get ready. We’ve got a long drive to Atlanta.”

xxx 

Lee didn’t like hospitals, but the thing he hated most about them was the stinging scent of alcohol and cleaners spritzed around like perfume, creating a cloud to envelop him and seep into his clothes. Not only did the smell burn the inside of his nose, it made him think about how strong it had to be to cover up the smell of the sick and decaying. That made it worse.

Lee and Clem’s first stop was the front desk, where an irritated-looking lady pointed them in the direction of the Children’s Cancer Ward. When they walked in through the double doors, the change in tone was immediate. The walls were painted bright blues and oranges, printed with yellow hands all along the length of the ward—a definite contrast to the surgical whites and greys associated with the rest of the hospital. Clementine followed the handprints, occasionally stopping to measure the size of her hand compared to the sunshine-yellow print.

“They’ve got a playroom!” Clem said, pointing to a bright room with a red slide, beanbag chairs, and books overflowing from every crevasse.

“They sure do,” said Lee. He wasn’t sure just how much energy Duck had at the moment, having poison pumping into his veins and all. But maybe Clementine could take him by the playroom later for a change of scenery, if anything else.

Lee knocked softly on Duck’s room, and it was Kenny who answered the door. He looked disheveled with his hair greyer than usual and purple bags hanging under his eyes. “Hey, you two,” he said with a strained smile. “Glad you could make it.”

Katjaa waved from her place at Duck’s side. Her blonde hair hung limply around her sloping shoulders, unwashed and unkempt. “You’ve got visitors, sweetie,” she told Duck.

Clementine was the first one to approach the edge of Duck’s bed, shoving the Get Well Soon card into his lap and looking at him expectantly. Duck was as thin as bones and pale as a sheet, a little tube running from his arm to a plastic bag hanging by his head. He looked Clementine up and down for a minute and wrinkled his nose. “What’s wrong with your hair?” he asked pointedly.

Clementine glared and shoved her hat further down on her head. At least some things didn’t change.

“Nothing’s wrong with it,” she said defensively. “I had to cut it.”

“It looks bad.”

“Duck!” scolded Katjaa.

“At least I have hair,” Clem retorted.

“Clementine!” said Lee.

But Duck only laughed and rubbed his balding spot. “Yeah, well at least mine doesn’t get in the way anymore.”

Kenny shook his head. “It’s nice that you two are still getting along.” Then, he leaned in so only Lee could hear. “Sorry about that. Chemo hasn’t made him less of a little shit,” he said fondly.

“Unbreakable spirit, that kid,” Lee said, watching as Duck opened Clem’s card. On cue, glitter spilled out all over his hands and lap. Her laugh filled the room. “So how’s he doing?” Lee continued in an undertone.

Kenny grunted. “I dunno, Lee. My boy’s so fucking cheerful while me and his mom are…” he trailed off with a vague shrug, eyes landing on Katjaa. She was usually one of the most cheerful, patient women Lee knew, with her bone-crushing hugs and homemade hot cocoa and her endless love towards the kids. Now she looked like someone had let the air out of her, making her thinner, paler, deflated.

Defeated.

“Chemo’s not working so well,” Ken continued quietly. “Katjaa doesn’t see why we should keep torturing our boy with something that’s not doing shit.”

“I don’t blame her.”

Lee stood silently by Kenny, watching the kids throw pinches of glitter on each other and covering the pristine bed sheets with silver sparkles that would never wash out. Kenny’s face suddenly scrunched up, contorting under some unknown weight. He quickly covered it with a shaking hand and turned to face the wall. Lee could hear his quiet sobs reverberating off the plaster. Reacting on impulse, Lee took Ken by the arm and led him out of the room. “We’ll be right back! Gotta get some coffee,” Lee called over his shoulder before shutting the door.

Once they were safely out in the hallway, Ken grunted and wiped his face with the back of his sleeve. “Thanks,” he mumbled. “Didn’t want the kids seeing me…you know, like that.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Ken took a few deep breaths to compose himself, his greying mustache fluttering with each shuddering exhale. “You ever lose anyone, Lee?”

Lee leaned up against the wall so he wouldn’t have to look Ken right in the eyes. “Yes,” he said.

“You ever lose a kid?”

Lee swallowed. “I hope I’ll never have to.”

Kenny’s mustache was trembling again. “Doc says he’s got a procedure in mind that could make or break him.” He looked right at Lee then, eyes vehement questions. “If it was your girl, what would you do?”

Lee’s chest tightened involuntarily. It was a thought he didn’t want to entertain even for a moment. He closed his mind against images of Clementine, her wild brown curls completely gone, her tiny body wasting away in a hospital bed too big for her. There would be no need for impromptu haircuts.

“I…” Lee’s throat was dry. “I would give my girl her best chance.”

Kenny seemed invigorated by this answer. “My boy’s gonna fight, Lee. I’m not letting this sonabitch cancer take him away from me.”

They stood here against the wall for a minute longer and watched patients and nurses roll by without a second glance in their direction. It was almost comforting to know that they blended right into the fog of uncertainty that existed within the walls of a hospital. No one judged the way Ken held back his tears, no one questioned their motives. For now, they were left alone.

After a time, Lee patted Ken on the back a bit gruffly. “You still want to get coffee?"

“I’ll have it in a vat,” said Kenny, already making a beeline for the cafeteria, Lee on his heels.

xxx 

It was tough to convince Ken and Katjaa to leave the hospital to get some rest and maybe some food. Even when Lee promised not to leave Duck for a second, Katjaa remained stubbornly at the hospital bedside, arms crossed, convinced that something horrible would happen while she was gone.

“Come on, hon,” Ken coaxed. “You haven’t slept in days. You need to eat. Lee will call us if there’s a problem.”

Katjaa’s eyes didn’t leave the bed. “What if Lee doesn’t know what to do in an emergency?”

“We’re in a hospital, hon.”

“What if something happens?”

Kenny ran his hand tiredly through his hair. “We’re in a hospital, hon.”

Katjaa pressed her lips together so tightly that they turned white. “One hour.”

“You need three.”

“Two.”

Knowing that was probably the best he could do, Ken nodded. “Fine,” he said.

Once his parents were gone, Duck tossed some glitter up in the air. “Can we go to the playroom?” he asked, eyes shining hopefully. “Mom never lets me.”

Lee flagged down a nurse before obliging Duck’s request, and when she gave the go-ahead, Duck practically leaped out of bed.

“Go slow,” the nurse warned as Duck immediately keeled over. “And take your IV.”

Lee and Clementine flanked Duck on either side as they shuffled down the hallway to the playroom. Even though he was tethered to his rolling metal pole, that didn’t stop Duck from immediately plopping himself at the bottom of the slide so Clem could roll balls and stuffed animals down into his lap. Lee sat on the sofa nearby, watching carefully, grateful for a quiet moment.

“Lee? Is that you?” said a woman’s voice he recognized as—

“Carley?” Lee stood to greet his fellow professor, who had something clutched in her hands. It looked like a microphone. “Uh…you here for karaoke or something?”

Carley laughed a little too loudly and tucked a brown strand of hair behind her ear. She seemed nervous. “No, actually, I’ve been given my first assignment for WABE Atlanta News. I’m doing a piece on the new children’s ward.”

“News?” It was only then that Lee noticed the big guy standing behind Carley, a massive camera perched on his equally massive shoulder. “I didn’t know you were a reporter.”

“More like aspiring reporter,” she admitted. “I’ve been interning for them for a couple months, and now they’re finally letting me cover a story. I mean, it’s a small one, but…”

Lee didn’t much like that camera lens pointing in his direction. “Living the dream, huh?”

She laughed again, eyes darting from Lee to where the kids were now chucking cars down the plastic slide. “Hey, um, do you think you could help me out? I was hoping to get a few interviews with the kids and parents. You know, just answer a few questions about your experience in the ward?”

Lee shifted uncomfortably. “Well, I’m a terrible interviewee. And I’m just babysitting Duck and Clem today anyway.”

“How about a few shots of the kids playing, then?” asked the cameraman.

“Perfect!” said Carley, sliding into her position in front of the slide. “If you could get the ‘Playroom’ sign in the shot, Doug…”

Lee shifted as far out of the line of fire as he could. It wasn’t because he considered himself un-photogenic—he did—but the last time he was on television, he’d been in handcuffs, blood on his shirt and a scowl on his face. No, it would be better if he blended as much into the background as possible.

“You kids want to be on T.V.?” asked Doug. “If it’s ok with your pop here?”

Clem and Duck both cheered, and it was impossible for Lee to refuse. “I guess so,” Lee said. “Just, ah, I’d prefer not to be…”

No one seemed to hear him over their chatter, and in a matter of seconds, the camera was rolling.

“I’m Carley Vigil,” announced Carley right into the camera. Her nerves seemed to have dissipated as she now stood with still confidence and a wry smile. She was in her element. “I’m reporting to you from the newest edition to New Wings Cancer Treatment Center here in Atlanta. This children’s ward is a sanctuary for families battling cancer and receiving treatment, and provides a variety of services that…”

Lee was only half-listening, as he was inching towards the farthest wall.

“…and here in the newly furbished playroom, we have Clementine, and, uh…” Carley’s eyebrows wrinkled, “…Duck?”

Duck promptly quacked and flapped his arms.

“And here to provide us with some adult supervision, I have Lee Everett, who—”

Lee froze in his tracks as he felt the camera aim directly at his head. “Um…”

“So Lee, could you tell us a little bit about the brand-new playroom? What do you like most about it?”

Lee was a deer caught in headlights, as the saying went. His gaze darted from the dark, bottomless depth of the camera lens and back to Carley. She was staring at him expectantly, smiling in a “please do this for me” kind of way. Why hadn’t he worn a bag over his head?

“Uh, well…” Lee began, looking frantically for something to comment on. “…the walls are kind of nice.”

The camera panned to get a good shot of the walls, giving Lee a moment to kick himself.

“Um, yes! They’re newly painted, right?” Carley jumped in. Lee could see in her dulling eyes that she was regretting choosing him as her insider.

“I think so,” Lee said lamely.

“The slide’s my favorite!” chimed the small voice of Clementine, who had popped out of nowhere to get her close-up. “Lee’s too big to play on it, though.”

Carley looked positively relieved as she knelt to Clem-height for an exclusive interview. “And what else do you all like about the room?”

“The books! And that thing,” Clementine said, pointing towards a big, squashy beanbag chair where Duck was sprawled out on. “But Duck’s hogging it, and I’m not allowed to be mean because he’s sick.”

Lee slipped back out of the shot, overwhelmingly thankful that Clementine was cheesing it up for the camera so he wouldn’t have to. Maybe Carley would edit out his interview completely before airing. At least Clementine was having a blast telling Carley all about how she managed to cover Duck’s hands in glitter, to his great dismay.

When Carley had gotten all the footage she needed, she thanked Lee profusely for his good sportsmanship. “Tell your parents to turn on the T.V. at seven!” she said, winking at Duck.

“I’m gonna be famous!” he said with a fist-pump.

As Lee had hoped, Ken and Katjaa didn’t mind that permission wasn’t asked for Duck to be featured on television that night for the town to see. The way Duck’s face lit up at seeing himself on the big screen even brought a soft smile to Katjaa’s pale lips.

 Yes, maybe in special cases it was better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission.

xxx 

Lee tucked Clem in that night with a promise that he’d take her to a hair stylist if she really wasn’t a fan of his haphazard hack job.

“No, I like it,” she said, snuggling deeper into the covers. She’d put her short curly locks in pigtails that now rested at the base of her neck. “It’s not in the way anymore.”

“I like it too,” he said, kissing the top of her head before turning off the lights.

Lee lay awake that night thinking about Ken’s family and the feelings of uncertainty that still lingered from the hospital visit. Restless, Lee got up in the middle of the night to make himself Sleepytime tea, and then got up again to pour it into the sink. He’d forgotten he didn’t like tea. It was during this second walk to the kitchen that Lee felt a sudden chill breeze claw across his arm. He stopped and sniffed the cold air, knowing he hadn’t opened a window all winter. Could he have left the door open?

Then, he heard a thump he recognized all too well as the sound that preceded someone bumping into the coffee table. His shin had made that sound one too many times, usually followed by a steady stream of swears. But the sound was an unmistakable warning.

Someone was in the living room.

Chapter Text

Lee held his breath, ears ringing as he leaned towards the living room. He hoped the sudden noise was nothing but a figment of his imagination; something his tired mind conjured to keep him on his toes. But there was no denying the slight creaks of the floorboard beneath the carpet and the tiniest shift in the air.

Another creak, closer this time. Lee was frozen, foot still hovering over the bottom stair. Hardly thinking, he slipped down the rest of the way and pressed his back against the closet door in the hallway, hoping he was out of sight. Lee owned a baseball bat, but his gut twisted as he realized that it was still packed away in the garage somewhere. With his phone sitting on his bedtable upstairs, there wasn’t much he could do but keep quiet for now.

Lee stiffened as a tall shadow rounded the corner of the hallway, quiet as a ghost. A sliver of moonlight fell across the intruder’s masked face, revealing eyes so blue they were almost transparent.  Lee pressed himself harder against the closet until the man shifted his gaze to the stairs and began the ascent.

Clementine.

The man was barely on the first step when Lee exploded from his hiding place and threw his arms around his neck, wrapping him in a chokehold like a python around its prey. The man let out a strangled sound, arms flailing in a desperate attempt to break free. He was thin, but surprisingly strong as Lee flung his weight away from the steps.

“No…you…don’t,” Lee growled into the man’s ear.

The two wrestled all the way to the kitchen, weights battling and crashing against each other. They knocked into the refrigerator, bumped against the sink, and finally hurtled into the kitchen table. Lee heard a small crack and felt fire shoot through his hand as his wrist met the wood.

“Fuck!” Lee yelped, recoiling. The man took this opportunity to scramble out of his loosened grasp and stumble towards the living room. Gritting his teeth, Lee barreled after him right into the dark. In the time it took for his eyes to adjust, the front door had already been unlocked and was flung open, a silhouette taking off across the front lawn. Lee sprinted after the masked man, bare feet slamming onto the snow-covered ground, and ran as far as the end of the street. Breathing raggedly, he strained to hear the distant warning of a car alarm blaring in the distance, too far to trace.

He was gone.

Lee stood shivering in his thin t-shirt, cradling his injured hand, and stared out into the night, daring the stranger to reveal himself again.

“Lee?”

Clementine was shuffling down the icy street, her purple quilt wrapped around her shoulders. The sight of her bleary eyes wrenched Lee back to reality. He didn’t ask her what she was doing out here, instead he quickly jogged through the snow and scooped her possessively into his arms. Her face was radiating heat onto his neck, and he clutched onto her for dear life as he made his way back to the house.

“Who was that?” she asked, voice muffled against his shirt.

Lee said nothing, too shaken to speak. She was safe.

xxx

It wasn’t until all the action was over that Lee finally did call the police. Though there was only one cop car in the driveway, it was enough to light up the whole neighborhood in neon reds and chemical blues. Clementine dozed in Lee’s arms as he spoke to the officer. He had to manually move her head a couple times because the end of one of her pigtails kept getting caught in his open mouth.

The officer asked all the standard questions and Lee answered them to the best of his ability, even though everything had happened so fast that he knew he’d missed some crucial details. As he wrapped his throbbing hand in an Ace bandage, he assured the officer that all the doors and windows were locked prior to the break-in, that the burglar hadn’t taken anything, and that he had disappeared in the direction of the main road.

“And you attacked him first?” asked the officer, a stony-faced woman with a gaze that could cut glass.

“Yes. I didn’t want him anywhere near Clementine.” Lee held Clem a little tighter at that. “I’m not gonna be arrested for defending my property, am I?”

“I have to ask, but we prefer folks call the police before taking action.” The woman clicked her pen and made a note. “You got any enemies, Mr. Everett?”

He considered his ex-wife. He considered the senator. He considered his parents and Larry. “No,” he said.

“Can you give me a description of the intruder?”

“Tall. Thin. Eyes like a fucking corpse.” At that, he checked to see if Clementine had heard his vulgarity, but she seemed to be asleep.

“I’ll put the word out for guys with ‘eyes like a fucking corpse.’ You got anywhere else you can stay tonight, Mr. Everett?”

There were very few places that Lee felt welcome nowadays, but he told the officer that he’d give his friends a few calls. For Clementine’s sake, he was willing to wake a few people up in the middle of the night if he had to.

He felt incredibly lucky when Christa answered her phone on the second ring.

A half-hour later, Lee was tucking a very sleepy Clementine into bed—specifically, a mattress on the floor of a half-painted bedroom. Even in the darkness, Lee could see the place where the walls glowed a light shade of sunshine yellow and where the paint met the off-white of the wall. Over in the corner Lee could make out a pile of wooden beams he guessed was supposed to be a crib. The room looked half-done, like someone had been interrupted.

Christa and Omid had set up a place for Clem to sleep in the room that would soon belong to their baby’s, and Lee would take the fold-out couch in the living room. Clementine was laden with thick, floral comforters, and it didn’t take long before she was fast asleep.

Lee left the door open a crack and, not ready to sleep just yet, joined his hosts in the kitchen where Omid was boiling water for tea. The place was small but warm, lit by a single light over the round, wood table. A vase of carnations sat here, dried-out and faded pink. There was a crooked-looking cross stitch on the wall that read, “Be Nice Or Leave.” Lee couldn’t imagine Christa sitting long enough to thread needles, but then again, he didn’t know what it was like to be pregnant.

“We really appreciate you having us,” Lee said, settling himself heavily at the table. “Didn’t want to bother Ken and Katjaa with this.”

“It’s our pleasure,” Omid insisted from his place at the stove. He dumped teabags in three separate mugs, and even though Lee wasn’t usually a tea person, he would have drunken anything to stop the shaking in his hands and the pain drumming from his injury.

Christa sat at the table, eyes glued to her growing belly. She massaged it absently and said, “Really, it’s fine. Glad you two are safe.”

Omid came over to hand them both a steaming mug. Lee took a hesitant sip and immediately burned his tongue on something peppermint-flavored. Christa didn’t touch hers, only nodded distractedly. “I can’t imagine someone sneaking around in my house,” she said. “Did the guy take anything?”

“No,” said Lee. “I mean, it’s not like I have much to take.”

“He didn’t look at the T.V.? Stereo?” asked Omid, taking a seat of his own, opposite Christa. “You have anything valuable stashed away?”

Lee shook his head. “Not unless you count my dad’s old humidor, and even I don’t want that.”

Christa scoffed. “What an idiot, creeping around without knowing whether the house was loaded or not. If I was gonna risk it, I’d hit a place I knew had something good.”

Omid cleared his throat loudly. “Hon, don’t say that.”

Christa shot him a look. “I’m not actually going to break into a house.”

“Okay, well, sometimes I can’t tell whether you’re serious or not. Just don’t joke about that.”

“That’s why it’s a joke,” Christa said.

The silence that followed the exchange was so uncomfortable that Lee could practically feel the heat radiating between their gazes. Out of pure awkwardness, Lee took another sip of his tea, ignoring the scalding temperature.

“Well, I’d better get to bed,” Omid finally said, standing up as if to cover up the unease. “Early day tomorrow.”

Christa opened her mouth as if to say something, but seemed to think better of it and closed it again. Omid came around the table to plant a kiss on her forehead. “You coming to bed soon?” he asked in an undertone.

“In a bit,” she replied.

 “Thanks again,” Lee offered, just as Omid made his way to the main bedroom and disappeared behind the door. Omid’s mug of tea still sat untouched on the opposite side of the table, and the steam curled quietly up towards the ceiling.

“I should get your bed ready,” said Christa abruptly, getting to her feet with some effort. Lee knew better than to offer his help—she seemed more likely to swat his hands away than to accept assistance. Instead, he followed her to the living room where she shoved a pillow into a clean pillowcase and unfolded a sheet too big for the couch. She worked in tense silence, spending the whole of five minutes fluffing pillows and readjusting the cushions. Lee waited as patiently as he could, but couldn’t shake the feeling that she was avoiding something.

“I can finish up here,” Lee said at last, to which Christa froze with her hands clenched around the ends of a quilt. “You should go sleep.”

Christa shifted, eyes flicking to the door Omid had gone through earlier. She bit her bottom lip, fingers turning pale with how hard she was clutching the blanket. “Uh. But your wrist.”

“It’s not like I broke it.”

“Oh. Right.”

Watching this unfold was agonizing, so Lee swallowed his discomfort and said, “Listen, uh, I know it’s none of my business or anything, but is there something up? If you didn’t want Clem and I spending the night, you really didn’t have to offer.”

Christa blinked. “Oh, shit. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…I promise it’s not you guys. You and Clem are always welcome here.” She sank onto the corner of the sofa and rubbed her temples. “I’d just rather wait until he’s asleep before I go in.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s going to want to talk about the—” Christa sighed. “About stuff.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” said Lee quickly. He wasn’t too keen on sticking his nose into their business, but then again, Christa had never looked this distressed before. She’d grown puffy bags under her eyes, as if she’d been crying instead of sleeping for the past few nights. She looked thin besides the baby bump jutting out from her middle, and the way she leaned her head back exposing her throat suggested that she’d been beaten by something.

“I guess you could call it a rough patch,” said Christa at last, hand on her belly. “I…we need to work things out. Make some decisions. That’s all.”

Lee knew he shouldn’t press any further, not when Christa was deliberately avoiding eye contact like this. He’d only known Christa and Omid for a few months, but in his wildest dreams he couldn’t imagine the two fighting over anything; Lee had never even heard Omid raise his voice in Christa’s general direction.

Lee sank beside her. “You and me…we’re friends, right?”

Christa chuckled dryly. “I mean, yeah. I probably wouldn’t have let you into my house otherwise. Do you think we’re friends?”

He thought about it. “Yeah.”

She smiled. “So. What advice have you got for me, friend?”

“You can’t give me any more information?” he asked.

“Nope.”

Lee huffed a sigh. He knew he wasn’t great at these heart-to-hearts, but that wouldn’t stop him from trying. “I just know from experience that without good communication, it’s not worth it.”

Christa picked at her cuticles. “I guess you’d know what with…your wife and all.”

He didn’t think that Omid would be cheating on Christa, but then again, he hadn’t thought his own wife would be sleeping with another man. Was that the problem? “That’s probably the best I can do for now.”

“No other words of encouragement? No more wise tidbits from an old, weathered soul?”

“I am not that old.”

She snickered. “So hypothetically, if one day I decided I needed someone to talk to about my crap, I could come to you?”

“Hypothetically, yes.”

Christa seemed comforted by that and said nothing else on the matter. She lingered in his company for a bit longer before heading off to bed, leaving Lee to stare at the unfamiliar ceiling and try to convince himself that he was tired enough to sleep.

If Christa and Omid couldn’t work things out, what hope was there?

xxx

While it was kind of Christa and Omid to open their home to the cause, Lee knew that he’d feel much better when he’d gotten out of their line of fire. The couple obviously had some kinks to work out, and the sooner Lee got Clementine home and out of their hair, the better. He decided to get an early start the next day so he’d have time to head back to his house and make sure it was safe enough to bring Clem back. Unfortunately, Lee was more wiped out than he thought and slept right through the two alarms he’d set. He awoke to the sharp scent of coffee and sat up to see that someone was holding a mug of it right under his nose.

“Hey, Clem,” Lee said through a huge yawn. He sat up, muscles groaning in protest, and took the mug from Clementine’s hands. He glanced at his watch to see that it was eleven in the morning. So much for getting a jump on the day.

“We saved you some pancakes,” said Clem. At least she looked like she’d slept well. “Omid put bananas and chocolate chips in them.”

“I hope you don’t mind!” came Omid’s voice from the kitchen. “Christa doesn’t usually approve of chocolate for breakfast, but I thought we’d bend the rules this morning.”

Lee got to his feet and followed Clem to the table where Omid was setting down a plate of pancakes and eggs. Without trying to, Lee noted the sluggishness in which Omid worked and the redness burning in his eyes.

“Christa working today?” Lee asked, downing his coffee black.

Omid hesitated. “She just had some…errands to run,” he said.

Lee couldn’t shake the overwhelming feeling that some unseen foundation had been shaken. Omid kept occupied flipping pancakes until he had enough for an army, and the frenzied way in which he worked suggested that last night’s talk might not have gone very well.

Now more than ever, Lee knew it was vital to get himself and Clem out of the way.

When Lee was finished breakfast, he left Clementine in Omid’s care temporarily and headed back to the house to see the damage. Lee fumbled with his keys at his front door, his left hand useless thanks to the bandage, and glanced over his shoulder at the spot where the intruder had disappeared just hours ago. There were still footprints dotted across the snow-covered lawn. Lee looked about the neighborhood, wondering if any of the other homes had been broken into, and could see no other footprints in lawns or signs of distress. He poked his head around to see Kenny’s driveway, but there were no cars in sight and two newspapers on his un-shoveled walkway.

It didn’t look like the family made it home from the hospital last night, and he wasn’t sure why, but the thought made Lee uneasy. He went inside his house and shut the door, hurrying to open the blinds so he wouldn’t have to be in the dark a moment longer than necessary.

He checked and double-checked all the doors and windows, and considered every crevasse with the flashlight he wished he’d had last night. As he was feeling the space under Clementine’s bed, his mind went to the intruder again: a spindly silhouette with a pair of the most hollow-looking eyes he’d ever seen.

“What the fuck did you want?” Lee snarled, shining his flashlight into the closet. The house was empty, but the feeling of being watched still lingered like the shadows dancing on the walls.

A sound like ripping paper suddenly pierced the silence, sending Lee’s heart bursting from his chest. Fingers gripping the cold metal of the flashlight, he listened to the steady stream of disturbance and followed it all the way to Clementine’s bedside table. He opened the drawer, only to find her walkie-talkie sitting harmlessly on the bottom, emitting that familiar white noise Lee knew so well. His shoulders relaxed a bit, and he reached down to switch the device off when another familiar noise reached his ears, hidden between the layers of hissing.

Lee snatched up the radio and pressed it against his ear. Was someone…breathing?

Lee pressed the button on the side. “Hello?” he demanded. “Who’s there?”

As soon as he had heard the faint exhale, it vanished back into white noise. Nothing. Lee shut the radio off and dropped it back into the drawer, shaking off the paranoia that was seeping down to his bones like rain through his clothes.

xxx 

Lee and Clementine sat inside the warmth of the car, watching the sleet fall steadily from the gray sky and pile at the base of the windshield. They watched the windshield wipers swipe back and forth across the glassy expanse, making a clear view of the rest of the hospital parking lot before the sleet hid them from view once more. Freezing rain trickled down the car windows and left little rivers trailing behind. Clementine breathed onto the frosty glass and dragged her small finger in swirls across her icy canvas.

“You have your books?” Lee asked her, hands still on the steering wheel.

She nodded.

“You have your gift?”

She nodded again, silently.

Lee sighed. They couldn’t make Ken and his family wait any longer. Sooner or later, they would have to face the music.

“Okay, then,” said Lee, finally yanking the keys out of the ignition and feeling the car engine shudder then still beneath him.

He and Clementine half-ran into the building, avoiding freezing puddles and stomping their feet so they wouldn’t track snow inside. They trekked to the children’s ward of the hospital, shoes squeaking despite their attempts not to disturb the quiet linoleum hallways. There was much less bustle today, as if the ward itself was lying in wait. Lee felt Clementine squeeze his hand as they reached Room 103. He wished he could offer some kind of comfort before they entered the room, but the way his stomach was turning didn’t bode well for words. Lee squeezed her hand back, and together they went in.

“There they are!” Kenny beelined right to them. He reached out to shake Lee’s hand and recoiled as he saw the bandage. “What happened there?”

“Just a sprain. Tell you later,” Lee said quickly. He didn’t want to steal Duck’s thunder and nodded over to the hospital bed. “How’re you feeling, buddy?”

It was strange to see Duck hardly moving. He was a thin as a skeleton, sitting up from under a creased linen sheet—a stark contrast to the brightly colored Get Well Soon balloons floating around his bed. Whatever hair he had before was gone now—even the scraggly eyebrows that once framed his huge, dark eyes. Even his freckles had faded. He said nothing, only grinned.

“The doctor’s got him on something already,” said Katjaa from his bedside. “He should be ready to go into the operation soon.”

Lee nudged Clementine gently. “Clementine’s got something for you, Duck,” he said.

Clementine shyly approached the bed, rifling through her backpack and pulling out a small stuffed animal with a bow tied around its throat. She placed the stuffed mallard right on Duck’s lap and said, “It’s you, but not as funny-looking.”

A low sound that could have been a chuckle reverbed from Duck’s throat. Kenny laughed too, and Katjaa let out a choking noise.

“That’s sweet of you, Clementine,” said Katjaa, trembling fingers wiping her eyes. “Very sweet.”

Lee wasn’t completely sure what the operation entailed. All Kenny had told him was that Duck’s case of leukemia was a special one—and by “special” he meant “shitty”—and since he wasn’t responding to the chemo, this procedure had a very small chance of prolonging the time the boy had left.

Or everything could crash and burn right here.

Despite the chances of Duck’s recovery being small, Kenny and Katjaa bubbled with positivity. Lee could see piles of books and puzzles on the bedside table, a stack of movies in the corner, and of course, a sea of balloons and flowers left by well-wishers. Lee could see two small suitcases shoved under the couch in the corner, and knew both Ken and Katjaa hadn’t left Duck’s side in weeks.

It was not long before a nurse entered the room with a squad of blue-clad workers to take Duck away. Three men began to push the bed out into the hall, and everyone else followed suit, Ken staying close to Duck’s side to whisper little encouragements into the boy’s ear. Lee, a few steps behind, caught the end of one of Duck’s slurred statements:

“…scared, Daddy.”

“Everything’s going to be fine, son,” Ken whispered back. “I’ll hold your duck for you until you get back, okay?”

Lee swallowed hard and fell back a few steps, allowing Ken and Katjaa to whisper their “I love yous” privately.

They followed for as long as they were allowed, until the double doors reading “DO NOT ENTER” stopped them in their tracks. They watched Duck’s pale face disappear behind the glass and saw a thin hand raise in a tiny wave. Ken and Katjaa stood motionless before the door for another minute. The stuffed mallard hung limply from Ken’s hand.

“He’s going to make it,” Ken said, arm slipping securely around Katjaa’s shoulders. “We have to believe that.”

Katjaa’s head shook slowly. “I don’t know if believing is what he needs right now.”

“It’s all we got.”

The doctors said that the operation could take hours, so the party of four retired to the waiting room to set up camp. Lee immediately offered to go get some coffees so he wouldn’t have to sit, and his previous visits to the hospital made him familiar with the layout even though he was in another sector of the building. Lee took his time and opted for the stairs rather than the elevator—too much anxious energy. He returned with the three coffees and one cocoa and passed them out to the grateful recipients. Katjaa had Clementine on her lap and read to her from Green Eggs and Ham. Ken seemed to be listening too, rough hands still clutched around the green and brown duck. When the book was over, the loud tick of the clock filled the gray room in place of Katjaa’s soothing voice.

“Do you remember the time Duck tried to jump off the roof?” Ken said suddenly.

Everyone looked up.

“He tried to do what?” asked Lee.

Ken was definitely grinning underneath his mustache. “He’d tied a sheet around himself like a cape and thought—” he snorted, “—he could ride the updraft like goddamn Superman.”

Katjaa scowled. “It was dangerous,” she said. “He got a sprained ankle, and it could have been much worse. Ken, stop laughing, it is not funny.”

But Ken was already giggling like a madman, keeling over his stomach with guffaws that wracked his body. Seeing Ken lose it made a laugh bubble up out of Lee, and he clamped a hand over his own mouth to stop the flow of mirth.

“You’re right, Katjaa,” Lee tried to say between breaths. “It’s not funny, but…” It was amazing how easily the image came to his mind: skinny-limbed Duck perched on a rooftop with a floral sheet billowing in the wind. Lee burst into another cackling fit, Ken following right along.

“Did I tell you about the time he tried to steal a turtle from the dentist’s office? Like, a live one?” Kenny continued.

“No, he didn’t.”

“You can’t make this shit up, Lee! He took the little guy right out of the tank when no one was looking and tried to sneak it out under his shirt.”

They erupted in laughter. Even Katjaa hid a giggle.

“The kid was sopping wet, but he just smiled like no one knew exactly what he was doing!” Kenny was crying, hooting gleefully.

This went on for at least another hour, as they all swapped their craziest Duck stories and laughed until their sides ached. It was a wonder that Duck had lived this long at all, thought Lee, though he wouldn’t say that out loud. 

At some point between the tickings of the clock, the laughter had died down and left the party trapped in their timeless cloud, sleet still dripping rhythmically down the windowpanes. Hours dragged by in empty cups of coffee and magazines, puzzles and card games. The cold clock on the wall insisted it was keeping time, even though Lee was certain that the air had gone stale.

When she had finished three jigsaw puzzles, Clementine got up from the linoleum floor and slumped over to where Lee sat, climbing up onto his lap and settling her heavy head on his chest. Lee welcomed her company and hugged her close, kissing the top of her hat.

“How much longer?” Clementine asked softly.

Lee lifted his gaze across the seating area to look at Katjaa’s sleeping form, her head resting on Ken’s slumping shoulder. “I’m not sure,” Lee replied. “It could be a while.”

“Katjaa said that the operation might not work,” said Clementine.

“Yes…that is a possibility.”

Clementine stirred. “I…feel bad. I called him a crybaby when I put that bug in his shirt that time.”

He smiled. “Oh, he knows you didn’t mean it, sweet pea. It’s okay.”

He was certain he could feel the fluttering of her heartbeat against him, and amidst the cold seeping in through the windows, she gave him her warmth.

“I’m glad I have you,” he whispered.

She looked up at him, smiling under the brim of her cap. “Me too.”

Clementine dozed there, snuggled against his chest, and remained this way even when the doctor entered the waiting room to announce that the operation was over. The doctor revealed nothing but neutrality in her voice and expression as Ken and Katjaa leapt up to follow her out the door.

“Well?” Lee heard Ken say from the hallway. “Tell me he’s okay, doc.”

Lee didn’t budge from his spot, afraid to wake the girl from her sleep. He closed his eyes and listened to the rain, to Clementine’s breathing, to the pulse of his own heartbeat—anything to distract him from the tick tick tick of that unrelenting clock ticking down to zero.

Chapter Text

Coffee: the elixir of life, as Lee’s brother used to call it. Though Lee usually took his black, this early morning he opted for a splash of creamer and didn’t realize it was hazelnut-flavored until he took his first sip. It was a little too sweet for his tastes, but as Benji used to say, “Caffeine in any form, my brother,” and this day of all days, Lee could have used the boost.

It had stopped raining today, but that didn’t account for much because the roads had already frozen over. Lee could hardly see his front lawn thanks to the frost coating the kitchen window like a scrim, and he could only pray that he’d be able to get out of his driveway. Lee downed the rest of his java and set the ceramic mug in the sink.

Clementine came down a minute later, sans baseball cap, and wordlessly handed Lee a yellow piece of construction paper. On it, she had drawn a curly-haired girl, a freckly boy, and a dark sky full of glowing fireflies.

“Do you think Duck will like it?” she asked.

Lee kissed her cold cheeks and pulled her in an embrace. “He’ll love it,” he told her.

Lee helped Clementine into her blue jacket and buttoned up his pea coat—the only nice coat he owned—and together they braved the cold and piled into the car. He fumbled with the dials to get the heat working, and when he could no longer see his breath, Lee backed carefully out of the driveway, shifting into four-wheel-drive as the tires slid on the glassy streets.

The two drove in relative silence as thick flakes began to fall and settle onto the hood of the car. Lee flicked on the windshield wipers, glancing in the rearview mirror where Clementine sat with her picture in her lap.

“Did I ever tell you about how my brother lost his pinkie toe?” Lee asked quite suddenly as the car’s wipers pushed piles of wet snow out of view.

Clementine made a disgusted little face, which made him chuckle. “No,” she said. “What happened?”

“It was the first snow of the season, and Pop sent Benji and I out to shovel the driveway,” he began, the memory materializing faster than he could tell it. “We finished early, so we did all the usual snow day stuff: snowball fights, forts, snowmen.”

Clementine’s interest was piqued, so he continued. “We were having so much fun, that when Ma called us inside, Benji refused, and told me that he was going to ‘stay outside all day, and Ma wasn’t going to do anything about it.’ That’s when I had the brilliant idea to—” Lee snorted, unable to help himself, “—to build him into a snowman so he wouldn’t have to go inside.”

Clementine’s jaw fell in disbelief. “How?” she asked.

“He picked a spot in the yard and I just piled snow all around him; his arms, his legs, even his head.” At Clem’s disapproving expression he added, “Don’t worry, I poked him some airholes.”

“What did you tell your mom?”

“I told her I thought Benji had come inside because he wasn’t anywhere in the yard. She and my pop immediately went outside looking for him; down the street, in the woods near the house, the neighbors’ yards, everywhere. This went on all day, and at one point, they even called in the police to help them look.” Lee burst out laughing, tears stinging his eyes as he recalled the hordes of adults running around the neighborhood looking for his brother. “And the whole time, Benji was right under their noses, posing as the ugliest snowman I’d ever seen!”

At that, Clementine’s face broke and her smile lit up his rearview mirror. She laughed, too; a musical sound.

When he’d gained control of his breathing again, Lee said, “He finally revealed himself around dinnertime when he was getting hungry, and I don’t think I’d ever seen Ma that angry. She hauled him over to the hospital, and they said he was completely fine except for the frostbite in his feet.”

Clem gasped. “So they took off his toe?”

“Yup.” He could see the image clearly: Benji reclining on a hospital bed like a king, giving Lee the thumbs-up as Pop dragged him back into the hallway for a stern talking-to. “We were stupid kids, obviously, and I never want you pulling a stunt like that. But being idiots together was worth the missing toe, he told me later.” He sighed, breath fogging the window. “Good memories are really important, Clem. Hold onto those.”

He heard the shift of her coat as she snuggled into the backseat.

When they arrived at the hall, Lee parked in the space right next to the car he recognized as Kenny’s. He and Clementine practically sprinted towards the building to outrun the oncoming snow.

“Why do I have to wear a dress?” asked Clementine. She sported the thickest tights she owned, but still shivered as she rushed to keep up with Lee.

“Because we want to look nice, sweetie,” Lee replied, already regretting wearing his thin dress pants. The wind was cutting through him like he was made of tissue paper. They reached the building and he yanked open the door, the sudden warmth suffocating him for a moment. As he ushered Clementine inside, he noticed a figure standing on the nearby curb, snow beginning to rest on his head and shoulders like he was a statue.

“Why don’t you find Katjaa?” Lee told Clem. “I’ll be inside in a minute,”

When Clementine had disappeared into the building, Lee shoved his hands into his pockets and jogged over to the man, who on closer inspection, he recognized as Kenny. His greying hair straggled out around his ears, which were red from the bite of the wind. Lee checked his pace before cautiously approaching his friend.

“Hey, man,” he said, hand gently resting on his shoulder. “It’s cold out here.”

Kenny seemed to just realize that Lee was there. He turned, a look of pleasantness on his face. “Lee!” he said. “You’re early!”

Lee glanced at his watch. “Yeah. Maybe a little.”

“Well, we appreciate it. Y’all are like family, you know.” Kenny leaned his head back to stare at the white, formless clouds. “Duck was just telling me how much he loves the gift you guys got him. The stuffed mallard? He says it’s like a ‘little him’.”

Lee pressed his lips together, constricting his grip on Ken’s shoulder. “I’m glad he likes it.”

Lee wished he could shepherd Ken where it was warm, but the man seemed frozen in place, looking at the sky, eyes glossy, not there. He was already gathering a dusting of snow.

“You want to go inside?” Lee asked after a minute of stillness.

Kenny closed his eyelids against the sunless sky. “It’s…it’s too warm in there.”

Lee tugged him gently. “Come on. We’ll go together,” he said, tone light, and pulled Kenny away from the sidewalk and back towards the hall. They went inside, and Kenny dazedly removed his coat for Lee to hang up on the nearby rack. The light trickle of a piano floated in as they entered the sanctuary. Katjaa and Clementine already sat in the front row, and the men quickly joined them.

“Did you give Duck your present?” Lee said to Clementine in an undertone.

She nodded towards the casket. From here, Lee could just make out a splash of yellow paper and a stuffed duck sitting on the pale boy’s chest.

Lee put his arm around her as they waited for the service to start.

Chapter Text

Christmas came and went, although no one was in the mood to celebrate. Lee and Clementine spent the day safely indoors by the hearth, while the icy world raged outside. They saw none of Kenny, and none of Katjaa. In fact, the house next door almost looked abandoned with its dark windows and empty driveway.

Despite the cold atmosphere hovering over the neighborhood from the loss of the duck-footed boy, Lee did his best to keep spirits high in the Everett household. He kept Clementine entertained with cookie-baking (the kitchen was a disaster zone by the time they’d managed one batch), showings of The Muppet Christmas Carol, and as much cocoa as they could drink. She loved the sketchbook and colored pencils he’d gotten her and filled up a picture book’s worth of pages by the time evening rolled around. Christmas Day existed in a warm bubble; as though the worries of the outside had been muffled under a thick blanket of snow. But by the next morning, the snow had melted, leaving Lee and Clementine squinting under the harsh light of reality.

Bah, humbug, indeed.

xxx

“Are you sure you want to bring books to a slumber party?” Lee asked Clementine, sticking his head in her bedroom. She was kneeling on the floor in front of her suitcase, trying to shove three small volumes between her pillow and pajamas.

“I like reading,” she replied, rearranging her clothes so the books might fit.

Lee leaned on the door frame, amused. “I'm sure they'll have plenty of games and movies. You won't even have time to read.”

Clementine seemed to consider this. "I'll just bring one," she said decidedly.

It was New Year’s Eve, and both Lee and Clementine had been invited to their own respective parties. As much as Lee had enjoyed spending the holiday break more or less hiding from the rest of the world with Clementine, he’d decided that it was probably in his best interest to get out and socialize before the year was over. Originally, his plan had been to stay home and watch the ball drop from his couch, but Clem had insisted otherwise.

“If I have to go to a party, you have to go to a party,” she’d said.

He’d groaned. “Do I have to?”

“Yes.”

And so, on New Year’s eve when a light snow fell to cover up the ice lingering from Christmas, Lee put on something other than the sweatpants and tee he’d been sporting over the break: clean jeans and the thick grey cardigan he’d gotten the last Christmas before he’d been incarcerated. He couldn’t remember who had given it to him but seeing as he couldn’t think of a person from his life before that would be happy to hear from him again, that was probably for the best. When Clementine was all packed, he dropped her off at her classmate’s house.

“Have fun,” he said while she slung her pillow over her shoulder. “I’ll pick you up in the morning.”

Clementine leaned over the seat to give him a kiss before heading off along the path of stringed bulbs towards the front door. A rectangle of warm light fell onto the lawn as the door opened, letting Clementine inside where hordes of children thundered past in a game of tag. Lee waved one more time before the door closed, taking the light with it.

He had a party of his own to get to, whether he liked it or not.

It was Christa’s friend who was hosting, so Lee was more like a plus-one than an actual guest. He navigated the downtown streets and ended up at a brick apartment building that poured forth music from every gleaming widow. Lee was forced to park in an old lot four blocks away and braved the cold back to the party. The door to the apartment was already open a crack, so Lee stomped off the snow from his boots and went inside.

His presence was immediately known. “Lee Everett’s in the building!” someone called over the waves of chatter and pulse of music, and Lee looked wildly around for who among these complete strangers had outed him. It almost reminded him of the house parties he’d attended back in college when the only two ingredients you needed were a keg of beer and a space to pack a hundred sweaty bodies into. The other party guests—all sporting paper hats strapped to various body parts—raised their drinks drunkenly in his direction, none of which looked familiar enough to have known his name. The only face he could recognize in the sea was Christa’s, and she was grinning to beat the band. She was swimming in one of the gaudiest Christmas sweaters Lee had ever seen, her neck wrapped in colorful beads and a pair of useless, glittery sunglasses were perched precariously on her nose. She lurched through the crowd of bodies towards him and threw her arm around his shoulders.

“Hey, man! How’s it been? How’s the nugget?” she slurred.

Lee stumbled under her sudden weight. “How’s the nugget?” he repeated blankly.

“The kid! Clementine!”

“Oh! Uh, she's great. She’s at a slumber party.”

“Awesome!” she shouted, patting his head. “That's so great. Kids are great.”

Christa was either very excited to ring in the new year, or she was sloshed. “Christa, have you been drinking?” Lee asked, and when she hollered at someone across the room—directly in his ear—instead of answering his question, he switched tactics, “Where’s Omid?” he asked, loudly. Lee craned his neck to see over the tops of countless hats and waving arms, and realized how fruitless the search for her husband would be.

“Who fucking cares?” Christa said, and Lee only just noticed that she had a bright red cup clamped in her hand. He caught the distinct smell of honeyed booze on her breath as she shouted, “C’mon, you need a drink!”

“Yeah, well, you sure don't,” he said, snatching the cup from her grasp. “I don't want to tell you how to live your life, but don't you think you should take it easy? Maybe lay off the alcohol when you're—”

Christa shoved him playfully in the shoulder, nearly losing her balance. “Dude, I’ve been drinking since, like, three. I am one-hundred percent fine.” She then tripped in the direction of the kitchen, no doubt to pour herself another of whatever sugary cocktail she’d been downing all evening, despite the undeniable fact that the last time Lee had seen her, she’d been pregnant. What friends were these if they let her drink herself stupid?

“Christa, wait—” he started, but she had already disappeared through the forest of tangled arms. He tried to follow, but a boisterous conga line had formed and cut him off from the kitchen. Someone dragged him by the shirt, and in a very confusing instant, he was suddenly swept up in the dancing throng while “Call Me Maybe” blasted on full volume throughout the complex.

He had never wanted to leave a place more in his life.

Lee spent the better part of an hour searching for Christa and staying as close to the walls as he possibly could. He knew that Christa was a few years his junior, but he didn't count on her friends acting as rowdy as a frat house on homecoming. He was fairly certain that adults this age had no business climbing on top of a fridge, but that didn’t seem to stop the man gripping his sloshing plastic cup in his teeth from trying his damndest to do so.

I’m too old for this, Lee thought, watching as a gaggle of white boys tore off their shirts for a game of beer pong on the deck, despite the dropping temperature.

He poked his head in and out of rooms, past some 20-somethings smoking a bong—wow, he hadn't seen one of those in a while—and into the connecting apartments where the party was rapidly spilling into. Lee could not help but think that Clementine and her other 8-year-old friends were probably having a much better time at their children’s party than he was.

It was when Lee was slipping away from a keg stand competition that he finally stumbled on Christa. He found her on the floor of the bathroom down the main hall, curled up half-asleep next to the toilet. Her New Year’s sunglasses were tangled in the rat’s nest of her brown hair. The sound of the door snapping shut woke her up—head popping off the cold tile with a start.

“Whazzat?” she mumbled, spitting the end of her ponytail out of her mouth. “Izzit the New Year?”

“Yup. You missed it.”

She looked genuinely upset for a second before narrowing her blurry eyes. “Liar.”

Lee sat on the edge of the bathtub, fingertips pressed together. Now that the initial rush of the alcohol had worn off, the feeling of deep regret was apparent in Christa’s bleary eyes. She lolled her head over the mouth of the toilet and promptly vomited.

“How’re you feeling?” Lee asked, offering her a square of toilet paper.

“Like someone took a piss on my soul,” she growled, wiping her mouth. “Who was the asshole who told me drinking would numb everything? I feel a thousand times worse.”

Lee handed her another square. “Whose party is this, anyway? I feel like we’re going to get crashed by the campus police.”

“I think her name’s Molly? Or Margaret? I don’t really...”

Lee ran a hand over his face. “You dragged me to a party with people you don’t even know?”

“We had a class in school together,” she said, shrugging weakly.

Lee rubbed his temples in a circular motion. Although he hated being here, he equally didn’t like the idea of Christa being at this shitshow party all by herself—not in the state she was in. “What the hell is going on, Christa? What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Judge me all you want, but I didn’t want to spend New Year’s in that house thinking about how much Omid must hate me and how I...” Christa’s eyes became glassy, and she turned towards the door where a chorus of “Don’t Stop Believing” echoed back. When it seemed like they would remain undisturbed, she suddenly asked, “I can still come to you with stuff, right? Is that offer still good?”

Lee reached over to untangle the New Year’s sunglasses from her hair. She flinched as the plastic tugged a strand loose. “It’s always been good,” he replied.

The tension in Christa’s face lifted slightly, and she leaned her head against the tiled wall, hand resting on her stomach. Lee hadn’t noticed before in the craziness of the party, but her once-round abdomen had considerably shrunk since the last time he’d seen her. One look at her sunken face and he already knew the answer.

“No baby,” he said.

Christa’s shoulders rose and fell. “No baby,” she replied.

Lee didn’t have a surefire method of comfort in the best of times, but he knew he was especially useless perched on the porcelain tub while his friend sought solace in the tiles on the walls. The jovial chorus outside the bathroom had faded into a hum, as though the celebration was miles away.

“I went into the clinic a week ago,” Christa said, voice surprisingly steady. “Apparently the baby had a weak heart. He—it—wouldn’t have made it.”

He. It had been a boy.

“I knew something wasn’t right for a while,” she went on, “and Omid and I had been fighting about it for months. He wanted the baby to make it so badly, but the doctors were all saying the same thing. I guess I didn’t want to get my hopes up.”

“Shit,” Lee uttered. “I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, well,” she glanced towards the frosted window near the ceiling, eyes going anywhere but on him. “That’s that.”

Lee couldn’t do much else but shake his head, unable to empathize but desperately wishing he could offer her something. Anything. “Omid must be worried about you,” he wound up saying.

She scoffed. “I doubt he’ll forgive me.”

“Forgive what, Christa?”

Lee had never, ever seen Christa cry before. To him, she was the stone-determined, independent social worker who ran a foster home full of kids almost single-handedly. Without her, he never would have gotten past his asshole probation officer to become a foster parent. He never would have gotten custody of Clementine.

But either Lee had struck a nerve, or she’d been on the brink of collapse for too long. Christa’s face scrunched up uncharacteristically and she cried, hot tears leaving shimmering trails down her dark cheeks. She cried and cried, body convulsing with the sobs that she had probably shoved down too deep inside herself, and the dam had broken. On impulse, Lee knelt to her level—the icy cold floor radiating through his knees—and he placed a hesitant hand on her upper back. It was a solid ten minutes of soothing before Christa lifted her head and emerged from the crooks of her arms, face puffy and eyes red.

“He thinks I didn’t care when I went through with it,” she mumbled at last. “But I did. I’ve never cared so fucking much.”

“Have you told him that?” he asked.

“No.”

“Why not?”

Christa picked at the hole in her jeans. “Because I’m an idiot who can’t process emotions, that’s why.”

“Hush,” Lee chided. “He’s probably worried sick about you.”

She wiped her nose with the back of her sweater sleeve. “I know. All he wants to do is talk, and all I’ve wanted to do is scream and throw shit.”

Lee tore five more squares of toilet paper off the roll and handed the bunch to Christa, who mopped up her face. “I don’t think Omid would care if you screamed and threw shit,” he said.

“Yeah, I know,” she muttered. She tossed the tissues towards the trash can and missed the target by a foot. “He’s a rare guy.”

The mirror above the sink began to vibrate, and the telltale sound of a countdown interrupted their heart-to-heart.

“...three...two...ONE…” Muffled voices were creeping up through the cracks and seeping through the walls, reaching Lee and Christa at their isolated spot. “...HAPPY NEW YEAR!!”

Christa nodded weakly to the door where flecks of gold confetti were spilling under. “Hey, look at that,” she said. “We made it.”

“Happy New Year,” said Lee, although he wasn’t sure “happy” was the right word. Perhaps something more like “bittersweet” or “resigned”, maybe even “adamant”, but none of those had any sort of ring to them. He wasn’t an English professor. “Any resolutions?” he asked.

“Lee, I don’t even know if I can get my ass up off this floor.”

Lee stood up, knees creaking from stasis, and offered her a hand. “I think that’s a great resolution,” he told her.

With a grimace that edged towards being a smile, Christa clasped his palm and let him help her to her feet.

xxx

Christa had taken the bus to the party, and Lee wasn’t about to let her crash on someone’s couch, so he opted to take her home. She was still shaky standing on her own, so Lee let her lean on him as they exited the bathroom, grabbed their coats from the pile in the living room, and made their way towards the front door as the masses sang in their passing:

“Should Old Acquaintance be forgot,

And never thought upon…”

Lee and Christa shivered all the way to his car—huddling like penguins in the fresh-falling snow, the chorus of partiers fading as they moved further away.

“...is thy sweet heart now grown so cold,

That loving breast of thine…”

“I’m really sorry I didn’t go to Duck’s funeral,” Christa said as he pulled out of the parking lot, turning down the crystalline streets. “With everything going on I just...I couldn’t.”

“It was only a funeral,” Lee said, turning up the heat on the dial. Cold air shot out of the vents. “Duck wouldn’t have cared.”

“I can’t imagine losing a kid, not like that,” she mused, watching her reflection. “I guess I should be thankful I never got that far, but I don’t know.” Christa sank deeper into her jacket, looking pale and thin, but lighter, somehow. “Hey, you’ve gotten really good at the whole consoling thing, by the way.”

“You think?”

“Yeah. I remember when you used to call me in a panic whenever Clementine was crying,” she said, and laughed. “And now look at you: giving haircuts and going to parents’ night. Crying doesn’t even scare you anymore.”

Lee chuckled along. “Well, she makes it easy.”

“You think you’d ever want to adopt her?”

Lee’s heart skipped. “Could I...do that?”

Christa shrugged. “Why not? If her parents were alive, they’d have showed up by now. I can’t think of anyone else who could be a better dad for that kid.”

Lee watched as the pink and blue neon of the city flashed across the hood of his car, and as much as he wanted to embrace the elation creeping up at the thought of adopting Clementine, he held it at bay. There was still the matter of that walkie-talkie her parents had given her. She was certain her parents were still out there, and until she had concrete proof, she would never put it down long enough to embrace Lee as a permanent guardian. It didn’t matter how much he might have loved her. She wasn’t really his yet.

Christa noted his bated silence. “She’ll come around, Lee. She already looks at you like you’re the world.”

The air from the heater finally got warm and helped to thaw Lee’s fingers as he silently gripped the wheel. He felt Christa’s hand pat him on the shoulder. “And who knows? Maybe things will be different this year,” she said. “I mean, look at me. I’m off that floor and everything.”

“True,” he mused, shooting her a slight grin. Maybe this year, things could change.

Lee finally dropped Christa off at her house, and Omid’s car was sitting in the lit driveway. She braced herself against the door, as if she could melt into the car seat. “I don’t think I can do it,” she said, casting Lee a worried look.

“Yes, you can,” he said simply.

She blinked in shock at the bluntness of his answer, before a flicker of a smile came across her tired face. “Thanks, old man,” she teased, and before she could have second thoughts, Christa pushed herself out the car and headed for her front door, slipping once on the snowy walk. Lee expected Omid to greet his wife, but hardly expected him to burst out of the house in slippers and immediately throw his arms around Christa. She folded into his embrace, and together, they disappeared inside.

Lee took this as his cue to drive back to his empty house and fall right into bed. He’d pick up Clementine from the party early tomorrow morning and they’d have a nice breakfast together.

And maybe the subject of adoption would come up.

Chapter Text

With the month of April came showers like Macon had never seen. The rain fell down in sheets, and shattered against the rooftops with a force that knocked shingles loose. High winds screamed through the treetops, tearing up the leaves that had only just begun to appear, and the streets coursed with rivers through the neighborhoods, carrying fallen branches and debris in their currents. The East coast usually prepared for the gales that traveled up from the Atlantic—the Summer storm season was just around the corner—but even a whiff of a hurricane this early in the year was almost unheard of. The coast scrambled with preparations for securing their homes, their businesses, and the phrase “possible evacuations” was tossed around the news stations like it was going out of style.

Despite the weatherman’s warnings and the downpour of rain one Monday morning, the public schools opened their doors to late busses and grumpy students. Afraid the wind would blow Clementine away if she waited at the bus stop, Lee took it upon himself to drive her to school, even though the flooding streets made the short drive three times as long. He’d only just walked back through his front door when he received a phone call from Lane Elementary asking him to come back and pick her up, on account of the toilets overflowing with rainwater in all the ground-floor bathrooms. It seemed that the school district had grown a conscience, after all.

Lee and a pack of soaking-wet parents were shepherded into the elementary school’s gymnasium, where they were met with hordes of children wearing rain coats of every color on the rainbow spectrum. Lee scanned the echoing space for Clementine’s class, and finally located her sitting on the floor across from a girl with glasses, their hands flashing as they clapped and sang:

“A sailor went to sea, sea, sea

To see what he could see, see, see

But all that he could see, see, see

Was the bottom of the deep blue sea, sea, sea!”

When she caught sight of Lee, she waved goodbye to her classmates and trotted over to greet him, excitement sparkling in her eyes.

“We’re walking home?” she asked as they stepped out the double doors and into the rain.

“Uh-huh,” Lee replied, reaching down to tug her hood up over her hat. “The streets are flooding fast.”

This didn't seem to phase Clementine in the slightest, and she sloshed cheerfully through the ankle-deep puddles, the bright yellow of her rain boots glowing underneath the muddy waters. “The teachers say there’s a hurricane coming,” she said. “Do you think they’ll close the schools forever?”

Lee’s hand quickly stretched out to snatch her collar just as her foot slipped on the curb. “Come on, you love school,” he teased.

She wrinkled her nose in blatant distaste.

Clementine’s early arrival home, though not unwelcome, did put a damper on Lee’s plans for his day off. He had been betting on a day of solitude—one where he had plenty of time to think about how to breach the subject of the big “A” word to Clementine. With new evidence suggesting the permanent disappearance of her parents according to Christa, it made perfect sense for Lee to adopt. The police may have found her parents’ car buried somewhere in the Savannah swamps, but no parents: no Ed and Diane.

It took Lee weeks to piece together his thoughts. Whether or not her parents were alive somewhere, Clementine would remain stubborn until she had cold-hard proof of their deaths. Lee wouldn’t risk upsetting Clementine by forcing her nine-year-old hand.

But that didn’t mean he couldn’t open up the conversation.

“Hey, Clem?” he asked when the two were safely towelling off in the bathroom.

Clementine peeked out from under the fluffy blue towel he’d dropped on her head. “Uh-huh?”

Lee hesitated. He must have gone over this dialogue in his head three hundred times. “Do you...like living here?”

She nodded. “Yeah, it's good!”

“Good,” he repeated. “And...living with me? Is that good too?”

Her smile came as a huge relief. “Uh-huh!" 

Lee felt his stomach lurch as his main point approached. “So...if something happened where your parents couldn’t come home,” he paused to gauge her expression, “would you still like living here with me?”

Clementine’s gaze went to the floor, and for one frightening moment, Lee was afraid she might start crying. But when she looked back up, her eyes were quite dry.

“Live with you? Forever?” she asked.

He nodded. “Yes.”

“But only if my parents don't come back?”

“Only if.”

Clementine was quiet for a long time, the oversized towel still draped over her damp curls and shoulders. Lee could see the gears in her mind turning, her small mouth pursed in the same way it did when her homework called for her to solve long-division. Lee waited patiently, watching for any change or flicker of expression.

Clementine slowly opened her mouth. “I think—”

“SONOFABITCH!”

There was a deafening CRASH right outside, and Lee felt his shoulders deflate—he’d have recognized that Florida-drawl anywhere. Tearing himself from Clem, he pulled back the thin window curtain to see Kenny in his driveway, struggling to attach a blue tarp to the back of his pickup. It was fruitless to be fighting against winds strong enough to tear the shingles off the neighboring houses, but it seemed that Kenny was more than willing to put Mother Nature in her place. He wrestled with a bungee cord as though it was a writhing python, shouting incoherently as torrents of rain whipped him backwards.

“What’s Kenny doing?” asked Clementine, standing on her tiptoes to see the mountains of boxes peeking out from the back of the pickup. Kenny swore loudly as he slipped and landed ass-first on the wet driveway. Clementine visibly flinched. “Should we...help him?”

Lee sighed in mild defeat, knowing that it would be some time before the subject could be breached again. With his momentum already shot, he decided to shelve the conversation. “You stay here,” he said, and went to put on his jacket again.

Kenny was soaked to the bone and red in the face when Lee sloshed across the lawn. Lee wordlessly jumped in, and with the extra set of hands, they were finally able to secure the tarp over the truck, but not before half the boxes were reduced to soggy cardboard.

“Going somewhere?” Lee shouted above the storm, tying off the bungee cord.

Kenny wiped water from his red eyes. “Yeah,” he said. “Moving. I'm heading for the coast.”

Lee wondered if he had heard him wrong, or perhaps the storm had muddled his receptors. “You do realize that the storm’s worse over there, right?” he said.

Kenny brushed past him and went to yank the driver door open. “I’m not a fucking idiot, Lee.”

Lee grabbed the door handle before Kenny could shut it. “Right,” Lee said, “because only a sane person would pack up and move to the coast in the middle of a damn hurricane.”

“Thanks for the help,” Kenny snarled, “now close the door.”

Lee tightened his grip and gave Kenny his most unmovable gaze. “Tell me what you’re doing.”

“The fuck’s it look like I’m doing?” Kenny reached out to snatch the handle, but Lee dragged it further out. “Close the fucking door, Lee!”

“Something must have happened!” Lee flicked his eyes to Kenny’s house, where the lights had all gone out. “Where’s Katjaa?” he asked.

Kenny’s murderous stare faltered, his head tipping forward listlessly as water droplets trickled off the brim of his cap. “She left,” he said simply.

Lee blinked, and he felt his fingers involuntarily loosen on the cold metal. Kenny sat shrunken and dripping in the driver’s seat, his hand still clamped around his key, as though he’d been frozen in place. A flash of lightning illuminated his sunken features, and Lee could clearly see that any fight Kenny had had before was now long gone.

“Come inside,” Lee finally said, stepping back. Kenny only hesitated a moment before sliding out of the front seat and splashing down onto the driveway. The harsh pattering of rain hitting the tarp followed them all the way across the lawn and up to Lee’s front door.

xxx

“I thought you guys were in couples’ therapy.”

Kenny didn’t drink the coffee that Lee had thrust into his shivering hands, and instead let the steam curl around his unshaven jaw. They were camped out in Lee’s living room, Kenny steadily dripping onto the sofa and a towel hung over his slumped shoulders.

“We were,” Kenny replied. “And then we weren’t.”

Lee ran his hand along his beard. “When did she leave?”

“‘Bout two days ago.” Kenny reached into his pocket and extracted a folded, slightly wet piece of paper. He handed it over to Lee, who silently scanned the goodbye note. “Bet she was planning to abandon ship for months,” Kenny uttered.

“She just couldn’t handle it,” Lee said, studying the slight tremble in Katjaa’s cursive handwriting. “She says she felt ‘trapped’.”

“Oh, and she didn’t think I felt trapped?” Kenny spat. “I can’t stand living in that house with my boy gone—forget about living there alone. At least I was trying!”

“I know you were,” Lee said as consolingly as he could. Kenny leaned his head in one hand, shoulders trembling. The months had done a number on him. Lee hadn’t seen Kenny much since the funeral, but it seemed that every time they’d bump into each other outside or cross paths at the corner store, Ken looked more shrunken, more deflated, and sometimes passed without casting his friend a single glance.

“Doctor Vernon said that a lot of couples have a hard time staying together when their kid dies. I was trying my damndest, and Katjaa...it was like she wasn't even there anymore.” Kenny looked despondently at his mug, as if wishing he was drinking something much stronger. “I need to get out of here, Lee,” he continued, the fighting edge in his voice returning for a brief second. “I used to work with a guy in Savannah, he can get me on a fishing boat, and I can find a place when I get there...whatever, I just need to go.”

Lee knew that look Kenny was giving him, and that same sense of desperation echoed somewhere from the deepest recesses of Lee’s chest. It was the same look Lee had seen in his own reflection the day he was arrested: he remembered his own face glaring back in the bathroom mirror as sirens wailed from down the street. Those eyes hadn’t been his own; they’d belonged to someone ready to fight, like a wild dog forced into a corner. Lee knew that if the police hadn’t caught him, he may have done something earning him a lifelong sentence. But at the time when nothing but rage coursed through his veins, “fight or flight” seemed like perfectly valid options.

What Kenny needed was someone to keep him from making the same mistakes—someone Lee had needed all those years ago.

“Okay,” Lee said at last. “I’ll help you.”

Kenny sank back onto the couch, and it seemed like the tide had ebbed for one relieving moment. “Thanks, Lee.”

“We’ll leave once the storm lets up,” Lee continued, and when Kenny started to protest, he cut him off. “Look, you don’t need to go back to your house tonight, but if we’re going to risk our lives driving right into the storm, I’d rather not be dead when we get there.”

Kenny didn’t like it, but he agreed on the condition that they leave the next morning at the latest. It was not ideal, but if it kept Kenny from going off the deep end, Lee decided it would have to do. He left Kenny on the couch and went to the kitchen to see if he could scrounge up some food to pack for the long drive ahead. Clementine was already there, sitting up straight at the kitchen table, her walkie-talkie standing next to the salt and pepper.

“I’m coming, too,” she said.

Lee froze with one hand on the refrigerator handle. Of course she’d overheard everything. “I don't know if that’s a good idea, Clem,” he said.

Clementine squeezed between him and the door to stand defiantly in his way. “Why not?”

“Because,” he said sternly, “the storm’s worse over there.”

“You and Kenny are going.”

“Well, we’re adults, so we get to make bad decisions.” Lee reached around her to grab a bag of apples. “You’re staying here with Christa and Omid.”

He felt her grip the bottom of his shirt. “But my parents are there somewhere,” she insisted. “I know they are now.”

Lee busied his hands with shoving apples into a lunch sack, holding his tongue against everything he knew would do more harm than good. She was a smart girl; surely she must have known that there must have been a reason her mom and dad hadn’t come home. She must have known that her family was here, with him. The thought of adoption had been tossed out the window to make room for the one-in-a-hundred chance that her parents were alive.

Taking her to Savannah meant that her hand was slipping away from his, and Lee hated himself for thinking that.

“Please let me come?” Clementine begged.

Lee sighed and knelt down to her level, which he realized had become second nature. Maybe, just maybe, if he took her along, that would be the confirmation she needed. She would see that her parents were no longer in the picture. She could move on.  “All right, you can come,” Lee told her. “But you have to promise to do everything I say while we’re there.”

She nodded enthusiastically. “Promise!”

“And,” he continued, “keep in mind that we might not have too much time to spend looking for your parents. We don’t know if evacuations have started.”

“But we can look a little bit, right?”

He hesitated. “If there’s time,” he said, an appease at best, but it seemed to satisfy her. Clementine threw her arms around his neck in thanks, and whirled away to snatch her walkie off the table.

“I’m going to go pack!” she said, and disappeared in a flurry up the staircase. Lee watched her go, fighting the tension rising in his throat. Was it fair for him to put her in the path of the inevitable disappointment?

No, it would be fine, he decided, turning back to the counter to make a list of supplies for the trip. He opened the drawer beside the phone, fishing around for a pen that worked and a small pad of yellow paper.

Food, flashlight, blankets, first aid kit...

Rain pelted against the kitchen window, trickling down Lee’s reflection. Even if his reasons for taking Clementine along stemmed from a selfish place, it didn’t matter. Soon her mind would be at ease.

And so would his.

Chapter Text

“I don’t motherfucking believe this.”

Kenny leaned out the window of the pickup, gazing down the mile-long line of cars crammed together like cattle. He slammed his hand on the horn. “Where the fuck are y’all going?” he shouted, earning a chorus of honks and some nasty rebuttals in return.

“Um, Ken,” Lee said, flashing Clementine a glance. She was strapped into the backseat, eyes wide. “Maybe ease up on the swearing a bit.”

Kenny revved the engine impatiently, forcing the truck forward until he was almost grazing the bumper ahead. The road trip from Macon to Savannah was not supposed to last longer than two hours, but the weary travelers had been crammed into Ken’s air-conditionless truck for at least five, inching along the rain-soaked freeway and ready to scream from exasperation. Even with the warnings of pre-evacuation chaos from both Lee and the news, Kenny still acted surprised with the state of the roads. Even the path to get into the city was packed.

Clementine sat snug between her backpack and a few boxes of fishing equipment, playing idly with the dials on her walkie-talkie. The closer they came to the seaside city, the harder she clutched the tiny grey box, occasionally leaning down to listen into it. She was so engrossed that she hardly seemed to mind the droplets of rain pattering in through the cracked window. She wiped the moisture off the walkie with her jacket sleeve and continued in its adjustments.

“Well, finally!” Ken said as the cars ahead sprang to life, leaving an open stretch of road. He stepped impatiently on the gas, only to balk as a cloud of greyish smoke burst out from under the hood. “No…” Kenny muttered, stepping once again on the gas pedal. The engine roared angrily, and another puff of smoke burst in front of the windshield.

“Ken,” Lee warned, “take this exit.”

“That’s a back road, it’ll lead us to fuck-all nowhere,” Kenny insisted as a line of horns blared at them from behind. The car jerked forward, speeding along and leaving a trail of dark smoke to evaporate into the humid air. “FUCK!”

Clementine let out a small, fearful noise from the backseat, and that sent Lee over the edge. He yanked the steering wheel out of Kenny’s grasp, sending them careening down the exit ramp, off a dirt road, and through a row of prickly shrubs before Kenny slammed on the breaks. Everyone jolted forward, seatbelts straining against their chests, and Kenny finally regained the sense to wrench the key out of the ignition.

Once the car was stopped, Lee wasted no time pulling Clementine out of the backseat and giving them plenty of space away from Ken’s ticking-time-bomb of a vehicle. Lee and Clem took shelter from the rain under a rotting lean-to nestled between a group of beech trees. Ken remained at the car, head shoved under the still-smoking hood.

“Ken, get away from that thing!” Lee called above the downpour. Kenny either hadn't heard Lee, or he was pretending not to.

“Is the truck going to blow up?” Clementine asked, shaking some water out of the ends of her pigtails.

“No,” Lee said, concerned about that exact thing happening. “Ken?”

“Keep your shirt on!” Kenny growled, shutting the metal hood and stalking over to the wood shelter, drenched and seething. “Shoulda known something like this would happen.”

“It’s going to be fine,” Lee said, determined not to let Kenny spiral. “We’ll call a tow.”

“Great. That’ll take another five hours of waiting around with my thumb up my ass.”

Lee clenched his teeth. The entire trip had been filled with nothing but Kenny’s incessant complaining, and all Lee wanted to do was drop his role of peacekeeper and give him a good slug in the face. “You haven’t even got a house to put all this shit—sorry, Clem—this stuff,” Lee said. “So I think you can survive a few more hours without seeing the ocean, okay?”

Kenny gave him a particularly nasty glare. He ripped off his cap and threw it into the mud. “I am not waiting for a tow truck!”

“Fine! Then we’ll just sit out here until the hurricane blows by to fuck—fuck, sorry Clem—to mess us up. You’re really thinking Ken—!”

The quarrel was suddenly punctured by the sound of tires crunching on gravel as an old cattle truck rounded the bend and stopped in the middle of the clearing, right in front of the lean-to. Kenny and Lee shut their mouths to watch as a stocky man in a weathered coat dropped down from the driver's seat, wrinkled face contorted in a glower. He lumbered over, not seeming to mind the rain pelting against his ghostly-white hair.

“You folks touch my shed?” he asked, voice a slow, deliberate drawl.

The three were rendered speechless at his sudden appearance, and accusation.

“Uh,” said Lee.

But in a moment, the man’s sternness ebbed away, replaced with humor glinting dully in his eyes. “Relax. I saw y’all veer off the road and could hear you spattin’ a mile away.”

Kenny—now hatless and soaked like a drowned rat—crossed his arms stubbornly. “And you are?”

“Name’s Chuck,” said the man. “Charles, if you're fancy. I own a car shop up the road a ways. On the hill.” He craned his head around towards Kenny’s overstuffed, slightly smoking vehicle and scratched the stubble on his chin. “Y’all ain’t getting out of the city in that thing.”

“We’re not getting out of the city, we’re getting into it,” Ken retorted.

“Into it?” Chuck raised his bushy eyebrows in mild surprise, scratching the dark stubble on his chin. Thankfully, he didn’t press for details—seeing as Kenny still seemed ready to blow his top—and instead offered to take a look at the vehicle. Because Ken showed zero signs of welcome, Lee spoke up instead; anything to maintain that peace he’d almost disrupted.

“Thanks, Chuck. We could use the help.”

xxx

The downpour lightened and a weak, pale sunlight peeked through the trees as Chuck began his examination of Ken’s pickup, worn toolbox sitting in the mud by his boots. Since the truck was no longer in immediate danger, Lee took this as an opportunity to grab the backpack full of snacks out of the backseat, knowing that he would have completely forgotten about eating food if Clementine hadn’t mentioned that she was hungry. Kenny had wandered off down a dirt path alone before Lee had time to offer him a sandwich, but it was just as well. Lee was not eager to continue their conversation. After making sure Clementine was fed with an apple and half a peanut butter sandwich, he headed back to see Chuck under the hood and up to his elbows in grease.

“What’s the diagnosis?” Lee asked.

Chuck shrugged, extracting himself to wipe his blackened hands on his jeans. “Worn spark plug. Easy enough fix. Oil was leaking, too. I’ll see to that. Nothing’s exploding today.”

Lee sighed with relief. “You’re a lifesaver.”

“Y’all moving or something?” Chuck asked.

“Not me. Kenny.” Lee hesitated, before adding, “He’s been through a lot recently. Needs a fresh start, I think. Clementine and I will help him unpack, then take a bus home.”

Chuck made a hm sound. “Timing’s not so great, but I can understand that. As for you and the girl, there ain’t much public transportation out of the city at the moment. Most folks are heading to safe zones.”

“What about you, then?” Lee asked, unable to keep the challenge out of his voice. “You look like you're ignoring the evac notice, too.”

“Not ignoring. I’ve been weathering the summer storms out here for more’n a decade.” Chuck dropped a blackened screw into his pocket before fishing out a clean one to replace it. “My cabin’s set up on a hill. I’ve got generators and food, and a plan in case the tides really turn.”

Chuck cast an easy glance towards Clementine, who was sitting by herself under the beeches, munching on her apple and twisting those walkie dials. “Who she hoping to talk to on that thing?” he asked.

Lee’s spirits were rapidly ebbing away as the reality of the hurricane came upon him, and he wasn’t sure he wanted a stranger telling him what he already knew—that surely he must know the danger he was putting Clementine in just by being here, that surely her obsession with finding her lost parents was anything but healthy. But either because Chuck had a face he could trust or simply because Lee had no one else to confide in, he relayed his condensed version of the story: Clementine’s missing parents, how they came together, and how Clementine was certain Ed and Diane would pick up their walkie-talkie at any moment to confirm their aliveness. Chuck listened in silence, tinkering with the engine as Lee felt himself talk longer than he did during his Civil Rights lectures at the college. When he’d finished, Chuck gave no real indication that he'd heard, but Lee almost didn't care.

“There’s no way her parents are somehow still wandering around down here,” Lee said at last, leaning his back against the car so rainwater soaked through the back of his jacket. “It’s crazy. Right?”

Chuck hmed again and reached into the toolbox to rummage noisily around for something. He didn't speak for a minute, and Lee didn't prompt him even though deep down, he longed for some kind of sage advice.

“So this girl ain't really your daughter,” Chuck said at last.

It was a statement, not a question, and Lee couldn’t help feeling slightly betrayed. “She’s my girl,” Lee replied.

“But you ain't her real dad. She's been trying to get her real dad’s signal since I got here.” Chuck ripped off a square of duct tape, ignoring the heat radiating from Lee’s direction. “And you brought her along into the heart of a storm knowing she’d get her hopes crushed.”

“What would you have done?” Lee hissed, checking his volume even though his blood was beginning to boil. “Should I have told her that her parents are rotting in a ditch somewhere?”

“Have you had an honest conversation with the girl? Are you really going to help her look for them?” Chuck asked.

Lee paused, letting the questions hang like steam in the air for a minute. Everything Chuck had said so far was right, although it pained him to hear it. “She’s just a little girl,” he retorted weakly.

Chuck stopped his fixing to turn and face Lee; watery eyes tired but firm. “Look, I’m certainly not the one to ask about raising kids right. Trust me.” He dropped the roll of tape back into the box with a frown. “All I know is that when you bring a kid into uncharted territory, you gotta prepare her. You gotta treat her like a person, not some fragile thing. She ain’t little, she ain’t a girl, she ain’t a kid. She’s a person who needs to know the hard truths about her situation, not whatever sugar-coated nonsense you’ve been feeding her.”

Lee shut his mouth, chewing on the wisdom and fighting the urge to retaliate. He hadn’t told Clementine that her parents were definitely still alive or anything of a falsely hopeful nature. But then again, he couldn’t remember having a candid conversation with her about the trip—about her own thoughts. Why was she so sure that her mom and dad were alive? He was so certain that Savannah would give her the closure she needed to come running into his arms. Perhaps his intentions, while not innately bad, sprouted from a manipulative place. He didn’t like to entertain the idea that Clementine would be taken from him—or worse, that she would reject him.

“A conversation would be a start, then,” Lee said. “It’s...good advice.”

“I don’t mean to tell you how to do your job.” Chuck shut the metal hood of the car so droplets of water sprayed in every direction. “But sometimes you don’t know you’re pushing someone away until they’re miles gone, y’know?”

Clementine only sat ten feet from him, but the distance seemed much further. “Yeah. I do.”

“Especially someone you care about more than you do yourself. I can certainly see that.”

Lee didn’t ask how Chuck personally knew the depth of this feeling, or how he seemed to be able to read Lee like a book. But the understanding that passed between them was as tangible as the mud seeping into the bottoms of Lee’s shoes.

xxx

Lee insisted on paying Chuck for his work, but the old man wouldn’t hear of it.  “Y’all just stay safe out there,” he said, gripping Lee’s hand with his calloused fingers. “You and that girl of yours need a place to weather out this storm, you come and find me. Don’t you go being polite about it, y’hear?”

Lee shook his head, almost reluctant to welcome the gratitude washing over him. “Thanks. For everything,” was all he could say.

Chuck extended his hand in Kenny’s direction, so he would have to take a step closer to shake it. With his opposite hand, Chuck removed a worn little card from his jacket pocket and handed it over. “You need a mechanic again, you gimme a call.”

Kenny uttered a noncommittal sound of assent, but Chuck would not release his hand, staring intently at his face as Kenny refused to make eye contact. “We’re neighbors now, y’know,” Chuck said with finality.

With a sort of agitated nod, Kenny took the card and tucked it into his back pocket. “Thanks,” he mumbled.

Even Clementine approached Chuck to shake, and a glimmer of amusement passed over his wrinkled features as her tiny fingers disappeared in his large, leathery hand. He bid them all “so long” and lumbered back to his truck, disappearing behind the bend as curiously as he had come.

“Right. Let’s get this show on the road,” Kenny urged, and everyone was ushered back into the pickup, which started up with no problem. They merged back onto the crowded highway, and this time Kenny kept every comment to himself as the truck purred along the asphalt. At some point as they were inching along, Clementine dropped asleep against Lee’s backpack. He watched her breathing in the rearview mirror, her flushed face gleaming with a sheen of sweat, and for some reason the serene picture made his chest tighten with anticipation for the heavy conversation that was to come.

“Hey, Lee? You and me, we...uh…” Kenny began, keeping his eyes carefully on the road. He searched for the right words, mouth opening and closing with what seemed like intense effort.

“We’re good,” Lee said, and Kenny visibly relaxed into the driver’s seat, fingers loosening on the wheel. They sat in comfortable solitude as a few raindrops broke through the humid atmosphere and drizzled into the open windows, ushering a brief coolness into the hot car. Lee closed his eyes and welcomed the rain, even knowing that the storm couldn’t remain dormant for much longer.

Then, amongst the sound of the engine running, the Atlantic crashing in the distance and the telltale roll of thunder, there was a noise like a radio broadcast from a nonexistent station. Lee was just reaching for the volume dial on the dashboard when,

“Hel...lo...Helloooo there?”

The sudden voice came from the backseat, veiled by a layer of crackling static. On shocked impulse, Lee reached around and grabbed Clementine’s walkie-talkie, careful not to disturb her sleep. She had always put batteries in the thing, and since he’d known her Clementine played with it and talked into it, but he’d never heard someone talk back.

“Is it picking up a stray signal?” Kenny suggested.

Before Lee could respond:

“I can’t wait for you to get to Savannah, Clementine. I’ve got your parents right here. They’re so excited to see you.”

“Who the fuck?”

“...and you be sure to find me at the Marsh House, whether Lee wants you to or not, okay? Don’t want to spoil anything. Now, what I need—”

Static suddenly washed out the audio, and the radio signal went suddenly dead.

The two looked at each other, and Lee could see his own horrified expression reflected in Kenny’s brown eyes. Seeing Clementine whisper into her walkie-talkie had become as normal as drinking coffee at breakfast. What he’d never thought to ask was if anyone was whispering back.

xxx

“Can’t I just hold it?”

Lee set down Kenny’s fishing gear on the front stoop of the small house and grazed his hand over the walkie, which was clipped securely on the outside of his jeans. It looked so innocent when it was quiet: worn and grey and peppered with pink and white flowery stickers. It was as well-loved by Clementine as any Harry Potter book or stuffed animal. To think that she had been talking to a strange man for all these months through it made Lee’s stomach churn so much he was sure he would vomit.

“I promise I won't use it,” she pressed, but one hard look from Lee and she knew the answer was “no”.

Kenny had made some fervent phone calls while sitting in traffic, and luck finally turned as he contacted an old fishing buddy, Mark, whose family had evacuated for good. “Feel free to use the house for a bit,” he’d said, “if you have a death wish.” The truck had carried them through the steadily flooding streets into the heart of Savannah, and they had begun to unload in front of a rather large ranch-style house with all the doors and windows boarded up. Kenny had found the key shoved under a flowerpot and thus they began the hurried process of unloading in the ankle-deep waters in the streets.

All Lee wanted to do was contact the police—and even then, he wasn’t sure how they could help him catch whoever was luring Clementine into the city. The best thing he could think to do was haul her back out of the dangers of Savannah, but that option looked less and less probable as the storm intensified and the flood waters rose in the lower elevations of town. He seethed quietly as he dropped the last box in the damp entryway, and Kenny locked the heavy doors behind them. The wind whistled through the cracks, the ceiling groaned with the weight of rain, but otherwise the sturdy house provided some shelter from the encroaching storm.

“No power,” said Ken, flicking a light switch. “Figures.”

Lee peeked through one of the wood slats hammered to the bay windows and searched for any signs of life moving in the sheet-like rain. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting—someone to emerge from the shadows to snatch Clementine by her collar, maybe—but something familiar and angry was pounding against his temple, and he knew he could get no rest from it until she was safely out of Savannah. “How long is this storm supposed to last?” he asked.

“Dunno,” said Kenny, poking his head into every room and frowning. “Probably a few days, at least. Look, all the furniture is covered up. Mark really hauled ass out of here—place looks abandoned.”

Indeed, every chair and couch had been draped with a white sheet, so the first floor looked inhabited by misshapen ghosts. Kenny sank onto the shape of the sofa, his glassy eyes staring past the beige floral wallpaper. After a moment, he reached into his pocket to hand over the old-fashioned silver phone.

“Not much charge left,” Ken said. “But see if you can give the cops a call.”

Lee took the cell phone, turning it over once in his hands. The battery in the corner glowed a warning shade of red. “Thanks,” Lee said, to which Kenny simply touched the brim of his cap in weary acknowledgement. Leaving him alone with his thoughts, Lee retreated back to the front hall where he flipped open the phone and began to dial.

“You can’t call the police!” piped Clementine, who Lee had hardly noticed sitting amongst the luggage and crates of canned food.

“Hush,” Lee said, straining to hear ringing on the other line.

“But you can’t! He said he’d hurt my parents if I told anyone!”

Lee lowered phone from his ear. “Who is ‘he’?”

Clementine visibly faltered, then quickly continued with the same feverish gusto. “Please, Lee! I have to know where they are.”

“No, you don’t have to anything. I can’t tell the police anything if you don’t tell me anything.”

Clementine leapt up and grabbed the ends of Lee’s jacket, yanking hard, eyes blazing in a way that Lee had never seen from his quiet girl. “He’s the only way I can see them! You said you would help me get them back! You promised!”

His patience tested, Lee snapped the phone shut. “Now you listen to me: I can’t even begin to express how dangerous it was for you to be talking to a stranger in the first place without telling me. This man might want to hurt you! Do you understand me?”

“But—”

“I said do you understand me?!” Lee’s voice rang through the cavernous hall like a crack of thunder. “This is a job for the police, not a little girl. We are not staying in this godforsaken place one second longer than we have to. Do you hear me, Clementine?”

Clementine stared at him for a few full seconds, and Lee could almost hear Chuck’s words echoing through his head—his sage advice that had gone sailing out the window. Clementine’s fingers loosened on his jacket, her face scrunching up as she tried not to cry and failed. As hot tears rolled down her cheeks, she flashed Lee one venomous look before turning on her heel and disappearing into the bathroom, slamming the door and locking it with a spiteful click.

There wasn’t time to entertain the feelings of contrition that had crept up during his outburst, so Lee channeled his fury into slamming the phone buttons and waiting for an answer. He paced the hall as the emergency hotline transferred him from line to line, every robotic voice told him the same thing:

“We’re sorry. Safety officials are not currently responding to emergency calls during mandatory evacuations.”

Lee kept at it, hoping to speak to a real person, hoping to reach some sort of service that would carry him and Clementine back to Macon. It wasn’t long before the dinosaur phone flickered and died in his hand, and Lee could hardly be disappointed as he went to hand the phone back to Kenny, who raised his head curiously from his resigned spot on the sofa.

“There’s no transportation heading out of the hurricane zone,” Lee said in response to Kenny’s wordless question. “I never should have brought her here.”

“Shit, Lee, take my truck,” Kenny replied, resting back against the couch with his hat over his eyes. “The streets are bad, but after getting you both stuck here, it’s the least I can do.”

Lee nodded, too tired to refuse. He sank next to Kenny, limbs groaning with fatigue. “I keep thinking back to all the times I saw her playing with the radio...all those times when she’d whisper into it or ask me for new batteries. I remember thinking I heard someone breathing out of it once.”

“This ain’t your fault. None of us saw it. I bet Duck didn’t even know, and those two were thick as thieves.”

“And then, that night when that burglar broke into the house—” He suddenly vividly remembered the thin figure slinking up the staircase and remembered seeing the flash of whites in the stranger’s eyes. An icy pang of realization sliced through Lee’s insides as the pieces fell together. “Oh, fuck…”

“Uh, Lee?” Kenny said in a tense voice. “Where is it?”

Instinctively, Lee’s hand went to his hip, where the walkie-talkie had been moments before. He leapt up from the couch and practically sprinted to the bathroom door, where he slammed on the wood with his fist. “Clem? Clementine open this door now!”

No response. Lee jiggled the doorknob, but it wouldn’t budge. Blood coursing like lava through his veins, he took one step back before aiming a kick right below the old-fashioned lock. The wood splintered, and the door shot away from the frame, swinging open to reveal an empty, dark bathroom glistening with rainwater that poured in from the window, open just enough for a small girl to squeeze through. Lee sloshed through the puddles forming on the green tile to wrench open the window the rest of the way.

“CLEMENTINE!” he cried, but his voice was lost on the wind. “No, no, no!”

A flash of white caught his eye, and before he could draw breath, Lee darted to the front door and flung it open, ignoring Kenny’s shouts of protest. Lee raced along the grass skirting the house and waded through the ankle-deep flood waters towards the side yard, where he fell to his knees and picked up Clementine’s white and purple baseball cap. He gripped the fading fabric, fingers grazing the familiar stitching as he felt sobs threaten to choke him.

Then, above the shrieking winds and downpour, the sound of static creeped up from somewhere nearby. Lee inclined his head slightly to the left, where he could see that small, sinister grey box sitting in a box of storm-ravaged petunias. Lee grabbed the walkie, as though watching himself from afar, pressed the button and said, “Where the hell did you take her, you sick sonofabitch?!”

He hadn’t expected a reply, but when one came, he didn’t jump:

“I took her where you can never hurt her again, Lee,” said the voice.

Lee gripped the walkie in his fist. “You lay a finger on her, and I’ll kill you. Do you hear me? I’ll fucking kill you!”

“Lee, what’s going on?” Kenny had rounded the corner of the house, and his eyes shot open wide as he laid them on the walkie-talkie clutched in Lee’s fingers. “Where’s Clem?”

Lee had either lost the signal, or the stranger had decided the conversation was over. Lee clicked the button a few more times but knew it was useless. “She was taken. He took her. That sick bastard took her.”

He could feel Kenny staring at the back of his head for a long while as Lee ran his thumb over the torn purple brim of Clementine’s cap. It was odd how calm he felt, how his hands didn’t shake as he clutched her possessions—as though the surging, rioting haze of fear was suddenly cut by one ringing thought, one objective. He had blood in his heart and blood in his brain, and every molecule of his being felt it like the roar of the churning ocean behind them.

“What do you need?” Kenny asked, his voice low and resolute.

Lee exhaled the breath he’d been holding and squared his shoulders, turning to face his friend. “Help me get her back.”

Chapter Text

Lee remembered Savannah as a bright, sparkling, seaside city. He used to come with his ex-wife on some weekends to enjoy the view and restaurants on River Street, and even remembered passing by the grand Marsh House every time they visited. The storm season always brought the imminent winds and rains, but never had Lee experienced this first-hand account of ravage. Gale force winds tore off the rooftops, power lines sparked as they crashed into the sweeping waters, and the branches of the once-proud trees were ripped from their trunks and sent to crash into whatever lay in their paths.

The storm had claimed Savannah as its victim, but it hadn’t claimed everything in it yet.

The Marsh House was halfway across town, and Kenny’s truck could only carry them part of the way, as it was not equipped to handle flooding this high. It sputtered along through the streets-turned-streams, churning up mud and debris until the tides turned fiercer and Ken made the decision to pull over just before a small Toyota was carried past them. Lee jumped down into the water and shouldered his pack—a small bag carrying the only flashlight, some water bottles, protein bars, and a meager first aid kid. There hadn’t been much to pilfer in Mark’s abandoned house, so their supplies were limited. With hardly a sane thought to spare, Lee and Kenny left the truck behind to be taken by the undercurrent and pressed forward on foot against the ferocious winds. They sloshed through the knee-deep waters, poking around for higher ground and keeping their eyes open for any flying debris heading their way.

They had only been at it for a few minutes when Lee felt Ken snatch the collar of his jacket and yank him aside. Kenny’s mouth moved, but whatever he was trying to say was promptly drowned out by a barrage of thunder.

“What?!” Lee shouted, hand cupping his ear.

Kenny gestured wildly and, a few blocks away, Lee could make out a collection of towering powerlines, swinging like black strings against the swirling grey sky and spurting showers of blue sparks into the city below. Lee didn’t need to hear what Kenny was saying to know that they needed to get out of the water, or else risk getting barbequed. He made a beeline for the highest point in sight—a small house sitting on a slight incline—and the two tore open the side door to duck inside.

The damp walls muffled the cacophony of noise, if not marginally, giving Lee and Kenny a moment to catch their breaths. They found themselves in a dark living room with all the windows boarded up and furniture damp and musty. Lee could feel the shift of wet floorboards beneath his feet.

“It’s a minefield out there,” came Kenny’s ragged voice somewhere from Lee’s left. “We can’t be trudging through the waters. Get your bearings. We need a new plan.”

Lee paced, unable to keep still, one hand ghosting the silent walkie at his hip. He wondered if he should try to make contact again but knew that every ounce of his energy was better spent moving forward. He leaned towards the front window and peered through the crack between the two boards hammered across it, scanning the dim city for any sign of the hotel.

“I didn’t think the city would be this deserted,” Ken muttered, joining him at the window. “I guess I...I picked a pretty bad time to make you guys haul me out here. Wasn’t thinking straight, was I?”

“It’s not your fault,” Lee said, “I didn’t take you to Savannah so you could throw your life away. If you want to get out of here—if you want to get somewhere safe—”

But Kenny cut him off with a brisk slap on the shoulder. “You’ve always had my back, Lee,” he said seriously. “You were always there when it mattered, through everything with Duck and Kat...what kind of friend would I be if I wasn't there for you now?”

Lee nodded silently, not trusting himself to speak.

Kenny turned back to the city. “And you’re sure he’s holding her at this Marsh House?”

Lee wiped some beads of water from his forehead. “It’s our best bet.”

It was growing dark fast, and soon the only way Lee would be able to locate the stranger’s hideout would be if he stumbled on it in the dark. He dug the flashlight out of his pack and handed it to Kenny. It illuminated a small hallway leading into an adjoining kitchen. “Look for a map and batteries, lanterns, whatever,” Lee said, already moving forward to tear open every drawer in sight. “Then we gotta move.”

Kenny obliged without question, dust and particles dancing in the dim beam of light as he waved it into every corner and across every surface. The previous owners seemed to have left in a relative rush, as the fridge had been left open revealing shelves of decomposing meat and vegetables. Lee exhaled sharply through his nose to stave off the acidic smell and, eyes having adjusted to the darkness, he left Kenny to ransack the kitchen while he hurried down the damp hallway. He felt the support of the floor sink strangely under the mildewy carpet. The floors were corroded to hell.

“...L-Lee?”

Lee’s heart jumped. He knew Clementine’s voice anywhere, even though it was ringing through a cloud of static. He grabbed the walkie-talkie, nearly dropping it in his haste. “Clementine! Are you okay? What’s—?”

There was some muttering, a scuffle, and then a man’s voice:

“Clementine is fine, but I’d choose my next words very carefully if I were you.”

“What do you want from me?” Lee grit his teeth. “Whatever it is, I’ll do it and you can let her go.”

“This isn’t a kidnapping, Lee.”

“Then what is it?”

“It’s a rescue.”

Click. They were gone. Lee slammed the button a few more times in vain, his temple pounding like a jackhammer in his skull, and time seemed to slow down in that instant where the static disappeared.

Lee did not boast about how he used to fight in prison, at least, he didn’t like to think he did. He told himself that he only fought out of necessity: to protect his things, to defend someone who couldn’t defend themselves, and to make it obvious that he was not one to be messed with. In prison, it was best to keep your head down, at least until your house was threatened. Of course, there were times when the idea of hitting something just for the hell of it sounded tantalizing, and as much as he denied it, Lee definitely threw a few punches purely to feel something pliable crack under his knuckles. He had spent the better part of his sentence trying to convince the officers that no, of course he wasn’t dangerous, he’d just had “an episode” is all. And the attack against the man sleeping with his wife? A crime of passion. He hadn’t known what came over him. Wouldn’t you have done the same thing?

But the dreadful truth was that, in those moments, he had meant every contemptible thing he’d said to his wife. He’d meant every blow he’d unleashed on her lover, and had Lee not been stopped, he knew he would have killed the man. His rage had boiled over and, while he couldn’t remember intending to smash his fist into the other man’s nose, damn if it didn’t feel good to see it happen. The thought that he was capable of that depth of hate was what scared him most. He was angry and those roots ran deep—farther down than any prison chaplain could reach.

It wasn’t until the moment Clementine was taken that Lee’s rage had resurfaced and transformed into something else entirely. Every other time he’d felt overtaken, it had been reactionary—a release valve satisfied by the offender’s blood. But now? He felt an overwhelming sense of purpose to protect, and his rage served as the fuel. It was that prison chaplain who once told him “Greater love hath no man than this”, and it was only now that he—  

Lee was jolted out of his revelation as a sound like a gunshot broke the silence, and before he could utter a scream, the rotting floorboards gave way beneath his shoes. He was suddenly falling, his vision blinded with white light before he crashed into icy water.

The moment Lee touched down, the world went starkly silent. He felt nothing, heard nothing, as though he'd been plunged into a small, noise-canceling box. It was almost peaceful...

Then, air flooded his lungs and his eyes shot open to see the form of Kenny at his left, straining to lift something three times his size. Lee’s head had broken the surface of the water, and he tasted salt on his tongue as he tried to move, but something heavy kept him down. He saw it before he felt it: a support beam pinning his arm to the ground like a moth’s wing against a board. The sight of his left arm from the elbow down had disappeared under the cloud of blood in the waters.

“Lee!” said Kenny, almost dropping the beam in surprise. With a grunt, he lifted it upwards, just enough for Lee to slide his arm out. Ken released the jagged beam, and it splashed with a note of finality. “Shit, Lee, I thought you were dead!” he said, voice dripping with relief. “You fell through the floor and just stopped moving, so I thought—”

And then Lee finally felt it: a fire blazing from the tips of his fingers and climaxing into a thick, spike-like pressure driving through his forearm. He trapped a scream between clenched teeth as he saw the serrated edges of bone slicing through skin. Kenny shone the flashlight on Lee’s blood-soaked arm, face going pale. “Fuck…”

“Fuck!” Lee repeated. He trapped his scalding arm against his abdomen and swayed from the sudden movement, certain that every bone had been crushed to bits. He was only vaguely aware of Kenny dragging him to the staircase where the water couldn’t reach, and then stepping around Lee to disappear up the stairs.

Lee drifted in and out of consciousness as the waters swayed hypnotizingly below, and he heard her voice—her small, scared voice—whispering in his head. She’d tried to contact him. She was alive. He had to find her. He had to find her now.

Kenny reappeared, his arms laden with what looked like the entire bathroom medicine cabinet. He shoved gauze around the puncture and Lee swallowed a strained scream as red bloomed through the white.

“There’s just so much blood, man,” Kenny was saying, recoiling as Lee doubled over, spitting out a mouthful of vomit. “I don’t wanna put too much pressure...Lee, your arm’s crushed…”

Lee wiped his mouth with his trembling right hand before gesturing to his backpack. “I think there’s a tourniquet in there. Just stop the bleeding.”

Kenny visibly swallowed but unzipped the bag and extracted the first-aid kit they’d taken from Mark’s house. “We keep this on too long and you’ll lose your arm.”

“Just do it,” Lee hissed.

As Kenny worked tightening the black strap above Lee’s elbow, Lee set to work wrapping up his wound in gauze and medical tape, adrenaline working as one hell of a pain suppressor. He grabbed one of the rags Kenny had brought down—an old long-sleeve shirt—and wrapped it around his shoulder and back, creating sort of a sling that held his useless arm flush against his torso—anything to get it out of the way. With the tourniquet cutting off precious blood flow, his limb pulsed like it had its own separate heartbeat.

“Are you sure you’re okay to keep going?” Kenny asked, helping him to his shaking feet. “You look like shit.”

“I’ll be fine,” Lee growled, the pain somehow sustaining his resolve. “We gotta get out of this place, get to higher ground.” Instincts heightened—by either pain or fear or both—he looked up at the gaping hole in the ceiling, carved out from his fall. “If we can get to the roof, we’ll be able to see River Street from there.”

Kenny pursed his lips skeptically, but one glance at Lee’s grim expression and he bit back whatever remark he’d had. “I saw a fire escape by the kitchen window,” Ken offered.

Lee stepped around Kenny and ascended the staircase without a second glance behind.

xxx

The rooftops presented a different set of obstacles than the streets had. Lee led the way, stepping precariously on broken shingles with Kenny in tow, and the blistering winds threatened to throw them off at every turn. With only one working arm to offer balance, Lee stumbled every few feet, but miraculously never fell, even when they made their first leap over an alleyway and onto the adjacent building. The faded gold letters spelling out “The Marsh House” loomed at them from the jawline of the churning riverside. Lee leaned over the edge of his perch to gauge the distance—though it seemed just a breath away, there was still a whole road’s-width of distance between him and the hotel, and one misplaced step would send him crashing into the rushing waters that had swallowed the cobblestone streets of East River.

“Look for a way across,” Lee called to Ken, already scanning the flat rooftop for anything he could use. All he could see on the flattop was a collection of devastated brushes and war-torn paint cans. They had blown every which way, staining the gravelly ground with streaks of sky blue—whatever project they were meant for had been abandoned, along with the rest of the town. Lee kicked the supplies aside, but no painting ladder had been left in the exodus. Just as he was considering jumping straight into the floodwaters and risking electrocution, he caught sight of a dark skeletal structure at the end of the roof: a wide metal sign proclaiming “Maccabe Imports”, stretching from his building to the store adjacent.

“I’m going,” he told Kenny, adjusting his sodden sling and wincing as a fresh pang of nausea dazed him for a moment.

Kenny squinted through the haze of rain as a drumming of thunder rose around them. “This wind’ll blow your crippled ass clean off of it,” he said.

“There’s no other way.” Lee was already heaving himself onto the edge of the building, grasping the end of the rickety structure with his right hand. He slunk across the rusting metal, and heard Kenny let out a yelp of fear as Lee’s foot slipped once on the beam.

“You’re crazy!” Kenny cried.

“I’m fine,” Lee grunted, adjusting his position. “Another arm would just get in the way.”

“Jesus Christ, Lee.”

The sign swayed dangerously in the storm, but Lee’s grip remained steady as he sidled along, heart in his throat. He kept his gaze fixed on the other side, even when the beams beneath his feet groaned with empty threat. He’d already fallen once. What was once more?

It was when Lee was two-thirds of the way across that the bridge did break. His stomach lurched as he dropped, but he was just able to scramble to the other side and throw himself onto the lip of the wall just as the sharp metal collapsed and cut into the grey waters. It wasn’t until he looked back at Kenny that the weight of his decision settled in. Lee hadn’t figured this would be a one-way ticket. He saw Kenny wave his hand from across the way, but nightfall was making it near impossible to see anything without the occasional burst of lightning.

“I’m sorry!” Lee called, his sudden surge of adrenaline vanishing as Kenny’s outline began to fade behind a veil of fog.

“I’ll find another way!” Kenny replied, barely audible over the howling wind “Go get that girl!”

Lee wasn’t sure if Kenny was able to see him nod, or if Kenny understood the depth of his thanks. Lee pushed against the wind until his friend was completely out of sight.

Time only existed in the disappearance of daylight, but other than that, Lee had no concept of the seconds ticking by as he scaled up and down the buildings lining River Street, feet crushing the concrete beneath them. The night was thick and pressed against his eyeballs, but he didn’t need to see anymore. Drenched to the bone with water, caked with Atlantic salt, and soaked in his own blood, Lee entered the Marsh House through an upstairs window.

The walls muffled the blast of storm and the carpet softened his lurching footsteps as he quieted his insides to listen. He walked and waited for a voice, an exhale of breath, anything to alert him to the presence of another human. He imagined the tide rising floor by floor, dragging every piece of hotel furniture into a watery grave—he could only hope that his girl didn't exist among them.

It was quite by chance that he stumbled on the Welcome mat in front of Room 203. It was the only hotel room boasting a touch of domesticity, but the sight of the mat made hot bile rise in Lee’s throat. He shoved the toe of his shoe under the rubber and flipped it aside before letting himself into the room. It was furnished in shades of dull green from the rosebud wallpaper to the faded sofas, but the first thing Lee’s eyes fixed on was a grey walkie talkie sitting on the varnished coffee table in the center of the floor. Besides the lack of Clementine’s stickers, it looked identical to the one he had clipped to his pocket. He made a move to approach when, all of a sudden, the cold press of metal to the back of his neck stopped him in his tracks, but it was the familiar voice that chilled him to the bone.

“Hello, Lee.”

Chapter Text

Lee slowly turned to face the man, who pressed the mouth of his gun right in the center of Lee’s forehead. Lee wasn’t sure who he had expected—certainly not someone so normal-looking. He was quite lanky and angular, with eyes too blue and too big for his face. He looked like someone Lee might bump into on the bus or in the break room at work, and as much as Lee wanted to strangle the man, he found himself staring at the loose stitches of the man’s painfully ordinary brown cardigan. After a minute of sizing each other up, the man’s dull eyes glinted down to the makeshift sling cradling Lee’s arm.

“You look horrible,” he said, as casually as though he was commenting on the weather.

Lee had been trying to forget the shape he was in. “Where’s Clementine?” he asked, taking care to plant his feet so he wouldn’t sway. He couldn’t show an ounce of weakness.

The stranger frowned, as though offended by the question. He didn’t answer it. “Empty your pockets,” he said, “and we can get started on—”

“Let me out!” rang a muffled voice from behind a closed door, the bathroom perhaps. “Who’s out there?”

Lee opened his mouth to tell Clementine that it was him, that he was here, that everything was going to be okay. But the barrel of the gun against his temple stopped the cry dead in his throat. The stranger put his finger to his lips and called back, “Quiet please, sweetie,” before steering Lee to the dresser standing against the wall. “Put your things here.”

Chewing his tongue until he tasted iron, Lee dumped his small pack onto the table, his water bottle, Clementine’s hat and her walkie-talkie. When the stranger seemed satisfied, he led Lee to the coffee table, and they took their seats across from one another. Lee sank into the worn green armchair and waited for the other to speak. It could have been just another job interview.

“You don’t know who I am,” said the stranger matter-of-factly.

Oh, he had a few ideas, but Lee knew it was better not to voice them. He might have been stupid enough to walk through a hurricane, but he didn't want to tempt fate much further—not while she had a heater. “No. I don’t know anything about you.”

The stranger adjusted his grip on the pistol, so it rested on his knee, still pointed straight at Lee’s abdomen. “That’s right. You don’t know me. I’m not some kidnapper, Lee,” he said. “I’m not some thief or killer. I’m not a…a villain. I’m just a dad.”

There was a long moment of thick silence, and through it Lee could just make out the thundering of rain against the roof of the hotel. Everything going on out there seemed so far away.

“Have you ever hurt someone you cared about?” the man asked.

Lee considered this, and despite his stubborn desire to remain silent, he replied, “Yes. Of course.”

“Who?”

Benji, Mom, Pop, Janelle, and— “Clementine,” he admitted. “The girl misses her parents. I’m not them.”

The man nodded, satisfied. “My wife,” the stranger said. “I hurt her. So bad. She said he was too young to take out hunting, we got separated in the woods and...when I came back without him...the look on her face…” the man’s even tone suddenly hitched up, defensive, “...it said, ‘you’re a monster’.”

His eyes trailed to the ash-colored walkie perched on the table between the two of them. Lee couldn’t help but feel relieved whenever the man’s piercing eyes left his for a moment.

“I went walking in the woods a lot after that. Maybe I hoped I’d find my son. That’s stupid, right?”

“No,” said Lee.

“You have to say that because I’m pointing this at you,” the man said with a small smile, giving the firearm a playful little shake. Lee didn’t crack a grin. “In the woods, deep in there, there’s this dirt road with a turn—a sharp one—and if folks aren’t used to driving it, they miss it all the time. When a car did come speeding along one day, I expected it to hit me. Maybe I wanted it to.” The man shrugged lamely. “But it didn’t. It swerved off the road and went careening into the woods—made a mess of the foliage, too. I followed it down, down, down, all the way to the mouth of the swamp. The car had crashed right into a cypress, crushed the whole front half of the car. Lots of blood. If they’d been locals, they would have known about that turn.”

Lee listened with rapt attention, his rapid heartbeat pulsing all the way down to the tourniquet strangling his upper arm.

“I went to go see who the poor devils were, so I grabbed the driver’s wallet—I was not robbing them,” he added venomously, as if Lee had suggested it. “It was one of those wallets with all the plastic sleeves for pictures, you know what I’m talking about? Every single one of those sleeves was stuffed with pictures of this guy’s wife—the lady next to him—and who I assumed was his daughter.”

Clementine’s parents. It had to be them. “And...and they were definitely dead?”

“I know you want to paint me as some sort of murderer, Lee. Sorry to disappoint you.”

“What did you do with...with Ed and Diana?” Lee asked, trying to keep his voice low and steady. Saying their names out loud made it all the more real.

“I gave them a proper funeral, of course.”

Lee wasn’t sure what that meant, or if he wanted to know. “You didn’t tell the police? You didn’t report their deaths?”

“If I’d told the police, they would have thought I had something to do with it. Everyone already thought I’d killed my own son. I had to stay off the radar, for Clementine.”

Lee gripped the arm of the chair until he felt fabric scratching under his fingernails. “What do you mean?”

“The moment they were dead, I knew I had been out on that road for a reason,” said the stranger, voice climbing with conviction. “This was my shot at taking back what I’d lost. I had to find Clementine and take care of her. Who else would be better? So, I went to Atlanta, but by then,” he glared pointedly at Lee, “you’d already swooped in.”

“You think I stole her from you.”

“The two of us had a plan, but once you came along, she refused to tell me where you were keeping her. She used to talk to me about everything over the walkies.” His fingers were twitching on the glinting trigger. “We had a...a special bond. A connection. Like me and my own kids had.”

“You told her you had her parents. You lied to her.” Lee clenched his jaw so hard he heard teeth grinding in his skull, but the stranger didn't seem to notice. He was looking past Lee’s head with a fond, dreamy look on his face.

“I did find where you were keeping her,” he said, and with a chuckle added, “and to think, it’s all because I decided to watch the News one day.”

And then Lee remembered: Carley’s segment on the children’s cancer ward, aired on the 7 o’clock news featuring Duck, Clementine, and himself, broadcast for all of Georgia to see. The realization made him feel sick to his stomach.

“It wasn’t hard to find you after that,” the stranger continued. “I had your name.”

“So, you broke into my home,” said Lee, unable to hide the furious rasp in his voice. “To take her.”

“She wasn’t yours to have in the first place.” The stranger took an exasperated breath as though Lee just wasn’t getting it. “We’re alike in a lot of ways, aren’t we, Lee? When our lives fell apart, everyone we loved abandoned us. They just couldn’t see past our nature.” He ran his long forefinger over the jagged metal of the gun, grimacing. “The difference here is that I wasn’t the one who tried to kill someone—I did nothing to deserve what I got. You did. If anyone’s the monster here, it’s you.”

There was a blink of movement behind the stranger’s head, and Lee’s breath caught as he saw the door of the bathroom ease open, and a little hatless girl poked her head out. Lee fixed his eyes back on the stranger, heart hammering, but the image of Clementine had been burned into his mind.

“Lee, listen to me. I need you to hear this before what happens next.” The man leaned forward, his expression oozing concern, sympathy even. Lee didn’t dare steal another glance at Clementine, but knew she was creeping closer. “I can take care of her,” the stranger continued. “We can have a family. I know how to be a dad, you know.”

Lee leaned deliberately across the table. “That’s not going to happen,” he hissed. “You’re insane.”

But the man didn’t seem to hear him. He just smiled, eyes crinkling just so. “I think I’ll be good for Clementine,” he said. “We’ve both lost people. We understand each other. She’s not my Lizzy, but she’s sweet. She wouldn’t hurt a fly—”

It was at that moment that Clementine had grabbed a nearby lamp and cracked it against the side of the stranger’s head.

“ARGH—!”

Lee took advantage of the distraction and exploded from his chair. He launched himself onto the man, grasping for the pistol, but the stranger anticipated him with a foot in the gut. Lee crashed to the floor, crying out as a fresh spasm shot up his broken arm. The man was on him in an instant, jabbing the jaws of the gun into Lee’s face—so close he could almost feel the heat of it. They struggled against each other’s weight, straining and bearing their teeth like wolves caught in a scuffle, until Lee extracted his knee and sent it up into the man’s ribcage. Something cracked, and Lee kicked again to send him careening into the doors of the closet.

“You—!” The stranger cocked the gun and fired, missing Lee’s head by an inch as he lunged to grab it away. Each had a hand on the weapon—white-hot from the shot—and Lee channeled all his power into keeping it away. His ears rang.

“You’re...the...monster,” the stranger snarled, right before pulling the trigger.

Warm, crimson blood spattered across Lee’s chest, and for a terrifying moment he thought it was his own. When the stranger slumped to the floor and didn’t move again, only then did Lee realize it wasn’t. He stood over the body and caught his breath. The man’s silvery blue eyes were still open, as though surprised, as blood bubbled from a hole in his neck.

“Is he…gone?” Clementine stepped forward from behind the overturned dresser, eyes wide and shining. Lee had lost track of her in the skirmish.

“Yes,” he said.

Clementine hesitated, and for a moment Lee was afraid she would back away. But then she broke into a run, and Lee closed the space between, kneeling in time to catch her in an embrace. She buried her face into his shirt, quiet sobs wracking her body.

“I’m sorry,” she said between sniffles. “I’m sorry.”

Lee held her as tight as one arm would allow. There had been moments when he thought he’d never hold her again. She felt so fragile and thin against his chest, like a brittle leaf threatening to snap. “It’s okay, Clem,” he said, kissing her head shakily, so as not to break her. “It’s okay.”

He held Clementine until her sobs subsided, until she pulled away to stare at his bloodstained sling and the misshapen arm underneath it. “Y-your arm,” Clementine whispered. “What happened? That’s...so scary.”

“I had an accident,” he said, looking her up and down, checking for any sign of injury. Clementine was ashen and trembling, and her tights were dirty and torn from sloshing through the rain, but otherwise she looked in one piece.

“Did he hurt you?” Lee urged softly.

“N-no,” she replied. “Not really.”

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” Lee told her, unsure of what else to say.

Clementine inched closer, hand closing around the bottom of Lee’s jacket. “He was going to kill you.”

And take you away from me. Lee placed his hand on her damp curls. There was no time to think about how a man could transform into something so fueled by desperation and self-delusion. There was no time to think about what he said about the two of them being cut from the same cloth, no time to dwell on what might have happened if Lee had listened.

She was staring at the closet doors, broken off their hinges, the stranger lying in a crumpled heap at the base. People shouldn’t have been able to bend that way. Lee was tempted to cover Clementine’s eyes, like his pop used to do to his little brother during the vulgar parts of movies. It was such a bizarre thing to think about, especially considering she’d already experienced something much worse than a film’s interpretation of a real bloodshed.

“It’s bad out there,” he said, not sure why his voice had taken a hushed sort of tone. It wasn’t like the stranger had earned Lee’s respect now that he was dead. “So, stay close to me, okay?”

Clementine nodded, and the way her wet bangs stuck to her cheeks made Lee wonder if she was missing something. He went back to the dresser, which had been bumped and had sent all his belongings scattering across the floor, and picked up—

“My hat!”

Lee placed the purplish cap on her head, and whether it was because of the hat or her smile, Clem looked marginally like herself again. He grabbed his rucksack from off the floor, and the movement sent a razor-sharp pain shooting up from the cinched belt twisted around his arm. Lee swayed, eyelids suddenly feeling very heavy. He was fading, and he knew it, but there wasn’t time for that. The waters were rising, and he had to get Clementine out of Savannah as fast as he could. After slipping through the second-floor window and up the grated steps of a fire escape, Lee ushered Clementine to the flat-topped roof, moving in a trance. The rain still fell, but at least she wasn’t in danger of being swept away by the flood below. From atop the Marsh House, Lee squinted out over Savannah, now almost black under the veil of night.

It was then that Lee felt the ground shift under his feet as though he was standing on a moving platform instead of asphalt.

No. Not now. You need to get her to safety first. You need to—

The shadowy city blurring before his eyes, he lost all sense of balance and felt himself lurch as the ground rose up to meet him. For the second time that day, Lee fell out of consciousness.

xxx

“Please wake up. Please don’t be dead.”

It took more effort to wrench his eyelids open this time around. When he finally did, Clementine was kneeling over him, hands clutching his jacket in fistfuls. She was outlined by a faint glow—the moon was just visible through the haze of clouds.

“Lee!” she said, giving a shaky sigh of relief. Everything hurt. Staying awake hurt. “I was so scared. I-I thought you left me.”

Lee heaved himself into a sitting position, grunting as his muscles strained with the effort. He felt the stickiness of blood blooming up from his wound and knew that whatever energy had carried him to Clem was ebbing away. He leaned against the high brim of the roof, the brick scratching the back of his head, and tried not to let his eyes close. He wasn’t sure if he would be able to open them a third time.

“I...I wouldn’t do that,” he told her, trying to smile. Even talking seemed to sap his strength. He sank his palm into the gravelly roof and pressed. He gasped as spots danced in his line of vision.

“What’s wrong? Lee, y-you’re bleeding.”

“I know, honey.” Some of the blood on his coat wasn’t his, but most of it was. “I don’t think I can move.”

She shook her head hard. “No, don’t say that. You can.”

Breath was becoming harder to take in. “I don't know. This might be...as far as I can go.”

Clementine pressed her mouth into a line—the way she did whenever she was gearing up to climb all the monkey bars in one go, or when she was determined not to let that girl at school get under her skin. “You need to get up, Lee!” she told him, wrapping both hands around his good arm and squeezing so hard it hurt. “Try!”

Her plea rattled him to his core, and so for her, he tried. Lee dug in his heels and struggled to hoist himself away from the ground, head spinning and limbs aching. He’d barely moved an inch when his grip faltered, and he crashed back down.

“Honey, I don’t think I can,” he said on an exhale. “You...you’re going to need to get help on your own.”

Her face contorted into a glare, eyes gleaming. “I’m not going. Not if you can’t come with me.”

He didn’t have the energy to argue. Using as little movement as he could, Lee gestured to the rucksack, which was soaking in a nearby puddle. “Just...just focus on sending out a signal first. Okay?”

She didn’t look happy about it, but Clementine followed where he pointed. She opened the pack with trembling hands and emptied its contents, holding up one of the long, reddish tubes to inspect it in the moonlight.

“That’s a flare,” he told her. “Hold it away from your face...good girl...now pull the tab…”

She did, and there was a spitting sound followed by a pop of orange light. Clem buried her face in the crook of her elbow and held the torch aloft, where it showered sparks and smoke and cut a blazing path through the darkness. It hissed for a lengthy minute, the light falling around the two of them, giving the impression of warmth even though Lee was sodden with blood and chilled to the bone.

“Should I do another one?” Clementine asked when the flare had run out.

At least, that’s what he thought she said. Lee’s head was so heavy, he could feel his chin bumping against his chest. Too much blood gone, too much strength drained, heart weakening by the minute. But she had what she needed now, whether she knew it or not. “Good girl…” he found himself mumbling, and felt Clementine drop down beside him, splashing water. He knew her face better than he knew his own: every place that was round, every freckle sticking out like a star in the sky, every area where the light reflected. He knew those sad, amber eyes as the ones that never failed to swallow him up. What would he have done without them? Who would he have been without her?

“You’re strong, Clem,” he said. She needed to know, just in case. “You...you can do anything.”

Clementine wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “D-don’t say that, Lee. Kenny will find us. You’ll see.”

“No matter what happens...you can handle it. You can.”

The dams broke, and Clementine began to cry. He could see her tears catching the meager bit of moonlight, and they shimmered on her face like pearl streams. “What happened with my parents…” she sobbed, and it was the first time she’d uttered a word about them since he found her. “Th-they’re dead for sure.”

“I’m so sorry...I can’t imagine, sweet pea.”

“And now...you?” Clem choked, and Lee’s insides screamed to reach out for her. His arms remained stiff. “Please…” she begged, “please don’t leave me.”

Was he dying, or just drifting into sleep? He couldn’t distinguish one from the other. “Clem…” Her name felt familiar on his parched tongue, and he held onto the feel of the consonants for one last time.

“What?” she urged. “What is it?”

His mind flickered like a lightbulb against a weakening fuse. Kenny will find you. Omid and Christa will help you. Don’t blame yourself. Grow up. Be strong. Stay safe.

Instead, he said, “I’ll miss you.”

Clementine gave a few shuddering breaths, thin shoulders heaving with every one. “Me too.”

As long as she knew, that was all that mattered. Lee released, letting his eyelids finally shut, and was only partially aware of her presence curling up beside him. With Clementine there to give him warmth, Lee drifted into sleep.

Chapter Text

It had been one of the wettest springs recorded in Georgia history. The rain sank into the earth and turned the land into a bog. But spring soon washed by, which exploded into a muddy summer that came like a hot breath and cooled into autumn. The drop in temperature solidified the mire, and by October, the ground was finally dry enough to stand on.

The blue skies hung clouds so low that they left shadows stretching along the prickly grass. The leaves died, leaving remnants on the sidewalks that crunched underfoot. Clementine liked autumn. It reminded her of a simpler time: summer barbeques coming to a close, raking the leaves that spilled over from the tree in Kenny’s yard, watching Lee grade papers while she pretended to do her homework…

Seasons were an easier thing to count—months just as well could have been years. In her head, she counted almost three seasons since the night in Savannah. Three seasons since she’d seen Lee.

Well, that was only half-true. She saw Lee plenty of times after the night on the rooftop: his face had been plastered all over the news for weeks, and his name was uttered in whispers of adults.

“After a tip from concerned citizens Charles Jackson—a local—and Kenneth Hammon, authorities have located the victims thanks to the use of a signal flare. One of the victims has been identified as Lee Everett…”

“...ex-convict accused of voluntary manslaughter...”

“...a body found in the Marsh House…”

“...evidence of a struggle…”

“...killer…”

The deaths of her parents were hardly mentioned on the news. Next to the thrilling showdown between Lee and her kidnapper—or “The Marsh House Maniac” as the media had readily dubbed him—there was hardly room for an obituary. But Ed and Diana were dead, with or without the deserved recognition as Clementine’s loving parents. However, by the time their funeral came around Clementine had no more tears left to cry. There was still a raw ache that creeped up whenever Clem thought about them, but it had been so long since she’d seen her parents—since they’d been there—that it almost felt like another lifetime. Those were the parents of a different girl entirely.

When she remembered that Lee had wanted to adopt her, that’s when the real tears came.

She felt horrible for that.

xxx

Clementine wandered up the pathway from the car to the concrete building, occasionally going out of her way to step on a crunchy-looking leaf. Christa and Omid followed a few paces behind, the low murmur of their voices fading into the sound of the highway rushing somewhere. Clem caught them whispering a lot lately, as though she was too fragile to handle whatever they had to say. She tugged on the sleeves of her blue hoodie and didn’t wait for them to catch up, even when she reached the front doors and pushed her way in.

“We’ll be in the waiting room!” came Omid’s call from behind. Slightly embarrassed for rushing ahead, Clem nodded without looking and slipped further into the facility to sign in, following the small crowd of visitors. She was ushered into a small box-like room with a wall of smudged windows, and she promptly took a seat where she was directed. The chair’s metal legs were uneven and rocked back and forth with every shift of her weight. Clem did her best to remain still, which proved difficult thanks to the fresh set of jitters. She tried to look anywhere but the other side of the window, pretending to be interested in the grimy, curly-corded telephone hanging on the side of her little cubicle. That was when a sudden thumping noise yanked her out of her distraction. Someone was tapping on the wall of plexiglass, a man with soft eyes and a thick black beard.

“Lee.”

He was smiling at her, like she’d see him do a million times before. He didn’t say anything, only pointed to the side of the window where the phone hung. She held the receiver to her ear and leaned in to hear him say,

“Hey, sweet pea.”

Her immediate urge was to reach out for him, but that wasn’t happening thanks to the wall that cut between them. Lee looked different, scruffier. She’d never seen him with a beard that thick before—he’d always kept it trimmed and close to his jaw, but now his chin disappeared under hair like a steel sponge.

And his left hand was gone completely. She felt like she should have noticed that first. All that remained of his limb was a stump from the elbow up, which she could just see poking out from under the sleeve of his tangerine jumpsuit. She’d always been told not to stare because it was rude, but she couldn’t help but remember the last image she had of him: bloody, hardly breathing, an inch from death. At the time she was sure he had been dead, even when the rescue team showed up. “He’s not gonna make it,” they’d said over and over. She had to keep reminding herself that this Lee in front of her was real, even if he was sitting behind a wall of glass, even with an amputated arm and more facial hair than she was used to.

“Your beard,” was all she could think of to say. Three seasons apart, and that was the best she could do.

He moved his jaw around, as though to showcase it. “You like it?” he asked.

She thought about lying, then shook her head no. His chuckle reverberated over the line, and the rich sound released the tension in her shoulders. The last time she’d heard that sound was in her memories.

“I’m so happy to see you,” he said.

She clutched the phone tightly. “I missed you, too.”

She then asked him how he was doing—a stupid question, she thought, since he was in prison—but he didn’t make it sound like it was so. He said things were fine, a little boring, but he was reading lots. He told her that he’d blazed through the first four Harry Potter books twice each, since the prison library only had those four in stock. She promised to send him the last three from her personal collection, and he replied, “I’m gonna read the entire library by the time I’m out of here.” She was sure he’d meant it as a joke, but she couldn’t bring herself to laugh at it.

He then asked her how Omid and Christa were. Fine, she said. She wasn’t actually sure, but assumed they were worried about her.

He asked how she liked her room. She said it was okay, but too yellow. She was a little nervous about asking Christa if she could repaint it, since it was supposed to have been for someone else.

He asked if she’d made any new friends at school. She hesitated. It wasn’t like she was never invited to things—in fact, there was a fall festival coming up at the school with corn mazes and pumpkins and candy. But she couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone to a sleepover or played with the kids at recess.

He asked how she liked therapy. He couldn’t hide his concern behind that beard of his. Fine, she said. The lady was nice, and Clem was taking something to help her sleep now. He seemed relieved to hear that.

Running out of pleasantries was what Clementine was most afraid of, and when the conversation reached an inevitable lull, she found herself looking around the prison for something to fixate on, from the sticky concrete walls to the place where Lee’s left arm receded into a misshapen stump. She reminded herself not to stare but meeting his eyeline would be just as bad—if she did, she would remember the night when she thought his eyes had closed for good.

“Oh, honey, don’t cry,” came his static-edged voice from the receiver.

She hadn’t realized she was. Clem swiped her arm across her face. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

She had mastered the art of avoiding eye-contact, and shoving everything down into a dark corner somewhere, like she did instead of cleaning her room. Now her closet was full to bursting, and she wasn’t sure that she would be able to close the door and hide it away much longer. “It’s my fault,” she told him, the words hitting her like someone else had said them. “It’s all my fault.”

“Don’t say that,” he said.

“But it is.”

“You did nothing wrong.”

“People keep telling me that, but it’s not true.” She wanted to pound her fists on the glass until it shattered. People were watching: the guards against the wall, the visitors, and inmates on the other side. She didn’t care. “I was so stupid.”

Lee moved close so every exhale fogged the scratched window. She shivered under his soothing gaze and almost wished he would say something cruel. “Listen to me.” His voice was stern, like it got when she was awake past her bedtime. “You can’t live the rest of your life staying stuck in the things you did before. I...did that for a long time.”

“You’re in here because of me.”

“I’m in here because I made a choice, but I would do it again if it meant keeping you safe.”

“I don’t want to be safe,” she said. “I want to be with you.”

He blinked at that. “Me too, Clem,” he whispered. “More than anything.”

She cried for a bit. Her tears were hot and splattered onto the table below, leaving starburst-like patterns on the grimy surface. The sound of Lee’s breathing through the receiver soothed her.

“Do you remember what I told you?” he asked when Clem was finished.

“I don’t know,” she mumbled.

“Yes, you do.”

She did. His words had echoed in her head since Savannah. She took a shuddering breath. “You said I was...strong. But I’m not,” she said, pressing one hand against the glass as if he could actually feel it. “I just feel...sad. And like I have to keep going, even though it feels like nothing will ever be the way it was before.”

She waited in hurt silence as he looked on, a strange expression hidden beneath watery eyes and a beard-cloaked smile. After a few long seconds, his voice returned.

“That’s what makes you strong, Clem,” he said quietly.

She stopped and looked at him—at him looking at her. Something inside lifted, though she couldn’t describe what or why. Everything she had shoved inside the closet had spilled out, broken shards strewn on the ground around her. But in a way, it was…good. From here she could see the mess for what it was: a chance to take all those bitty broken parts she had inside and build something new.

She could try.

xxx

Visiting hours came to a close all too soon. Clementine said a reluctant goodbye, and promised she would return next week with as many books as she was allowed to carry in. As she turned to follow the guard out of the visiting room, she stole one more glance back and carved the image of Lee’s beardy grin into her memories.

An autumn breeze cooled her hot face as she stepped outside again. The sky was a crystal blue, framed with maple leaves so yellow they could have been gold. She walked between Christa and Omid to the car, her hands enveloped between theirs, and swung them a little as they went. Omid asked Christa—in a normal voice, not a whisper—if an ex-convict was allowed adopt a kid. “Hypothetically,” he verified.

It depended on the circumstances of the incarceration, Christa said. But for Lee, she couldn’t see why not. She squeezed Clem’s hand at that.

They piled into the station wagon and eased onto the highway, autumn rushing by in sunset hues. It was a little chilly, but Christa didn’t tell Clementine to shut the window against the cold, spicy air. They asked what she and Lee talked about, and she gave them a little insight, but not all. There were some things she wanted to keep between herself and him.

“Could I have a ride tomorrow?” she suddenly asked. Omid’s eyes flicked in the rearview mirror.

“Do you have another session?”

“No.” Clementine splayed her fingers against the silky wind. “But there’s a hayride at the school and everyone from class will be there. I thought I might go.”

She saw the two exchange surprised looks. They didn’t comment, but Omid reached back to give her knee an affectionate little shake.

A lot could change in three years she thought, leaning out the window so she could catch the teasing scent of a bonfire somewhere in the distance. A lot could change in a season, too; the dry, solid ground was proof of that.