"How long have you had that gun?" Carl asked, eyeing the holstered pistol on Clementine's belt after driving a knife through a walker's skull.

Clementine shrugged. "Since all this started, I guess, but it wasn't mine back then. It was with our group since the walkers came along. That was back when there were hordes of them."

Carl nodded. He'd never asked about Clementine's past specifically. Like Enid and him, she had obviously gone through hell to make it as far as she did. Out of giving her space, he'd decided to wait until she was ready to tell him and the others.

"Not many walkers left," he remarked, looking down at the ugly, skeletal thing on the ground. "Just after we left Atlanta, we ran into a horde on the highway and had to hide under cars."

Immediately, he regretted bringing up that painful memory. That had been the last day he had seen Sophia alive. During the car ride out of Atlanta, his parents had remarked about their short-lived trip to the Grand Canyon when he was a baby, and promised to take Sophia and her mother Carol there someday.

Then the horde had come along and Sophia had run off into the woods. The next time Carl had seen her, she'd been one of those mindless, unthinking monsters. He liked to believe that she didn't suffer, but he'd always struggled to convince himself. As he grew older, he hadn't been able to help but wonder what could have been. As great as Enid was, sometimes he still missed his friend.

"Carl?" Clementine's voice sounded distant to him. "Carl? You okay?"

Carl snapped back to reality, realizing he'd been staring at the dead walker for who-knows-how-long. He shook his head, almost laughing at how ridiculous it must have looked because of his unkempt hair.

"Sorry," he said. "Just a flashback."

"Carl, don't pull that stuff with me from now on, okay? I don't wanna have to tell your dad and girlfriend that you had a fit out here."

Carl gave her a reassuring smile. "I'll be fine, but thanks anyway, Clem."

Clementine had taken a liking to Carl and Enid immediately after reaching Alexandria. They, along with Carl's group, understood the world better than the Alexandria survivors had when she'd arrived. Plus, she'd enjoyed watching their nervous, god-awful flirting as they'd tried pretending not to like one another.

But it also made her envious. She'd been eight when the walkers had shown up, and hadn't even been able to experience a crush. Her mother had once told her that God did everything for a reason, but she'd always wondered what possible reason God would have for making people eat each other. The old world couldn't have been that bad, could it?

After reaching Alexandria, the old world had become something unknown or strange, like something out of a fantasy novel. Like Carl, she'd found Alexandria's school as a strange thing, but she guessed that that was just the way of the world; people couldn't just 'survive' forever. After finding some history books on a scouting trip, she'd read about the Roman Empire and how bad Europe had been after its fall. People eventually moved past surviving and started focusing on other things. Maybe it was just human nature to try and change the world, no matter how good or bad it was.

"You give me hellYou for going quiet and then you do the same," Carl said, smirking. "Hypocrite."

Clementine rolled her eyes. "You've been quiet for the entire walk back, so you're the hypocrite."

They grinned at each briefly before finishing the walk back to Alexandria in silence. Clementine liked the long walks. She'd once been tense every time they left, but they were encountering walkers less and less now, and she'd found herself relaxing enough to enjoy the silence and the freedom that came with being outside of Alexandria's walls. That was something the walkers could never take away.

They didn't bother going in through the main gate when they finally reached Alexandria. Unlocking and re-locking the gate just to let in two people was just a waste of time when they could easily climb a tree and jump onto the platform on the inner side of the wall.

Carl went first, telling Clementine to "watch and learn" as he climbed, even though she'd done it a hundred times already. Being the newest kid in Alexandria, the others still saw her as some kind of rookie even after she'd told them about the treehouse she used to have. Sometimes she missed that old treehouse that she'd camped out in for three days. The memory reminded her of a time when she was really happy, and her months at Alexandria had been the closest thing to that.

She'd never slipped while jumping from the tree to the platform, until today. Her foot hit the metal platform then slipped. She gave a shout of surprise and grabbed the railing on instinct while her feet dangled in the air. She felt her hat slip and took one hand away to grab it and push it onto the platform.

Before she could grab the railing, Carl took her hand and pulled her up and over the wall.

"You didn't have to do that," she grumbled, reaching for her hat but clutching only empty air. "Where's my hat?"

Carl peered over the inner edge of the walkway and pointed. Following his gaze, she saw her hat lying upside down in the grass below.

"Probably a bit dirty," Carl said in a falsely casual tone, one that barely masked his annoyance at not getting a thank-you. Clementine felt a twinge of shame at being so rude, but was still annoyed at being rescued when she didn't need it.

"Whatever, it's safe," she said bluntly, pulling herself to her feet and climbing down the ladder to the ground. She brushed some dirt off of her hat and shoved it roughly back on her head as Carl climbed down and trudged off back toward his house. Clementine briefly considered spending the night at Glenn and Maggie's instead, but decided against making a big deal.

"Carl," she said as she walked behind him, "I'm sorry, okay? I appreciate you helping me."

Carl ignored her, which only irritated her. Taking deep breaths, she forced herself to stay calm.

"Carl, I mean it!"

"Just drop it," Carl grumbled. "Don't want my help? Then next time I'll let you fall."

"That's not fair," she replied, growing irritated at Carl's attitude. "You know I don't like having to depend on people, that's all it was. Honest."

"It's fine," Carl snapped.

"No Carl, it's not fine. Turn around and look at me!"

Carl wheeled around, glaring at her with her one good eye. "What? What do you want? For me to just stand there and let you get hurt? We've gotta look after one another. We gotta depend on one another."

"Depending on me is gonna get you killed!" Clementine snapped. "Why can't you people understand?! I can depend on myself, so don't bother putting yourself in harm's way for me!"

Carl's visible eyebrow shot up in surprise and his jaw dropped as Clementine stormed past him. Without another word to him she stormed toward the house, hoping that Rick and Michonne wouldn't notice the inevitable icy nature in the house.