Clementine x Fem!Reader | TWDG

Done Running (Part 15) | "That's the safe zone."

That morning, I headed to see Marlon, but heard barking coming from the headmaster’s office. I ran in and found Clementine and AJ backing away from Rosie. I rushed forward, Marlon also hearing the commotion and running in.

Y/n: Hey, hey, Rosie. Come on, girl. Over here.

Rosie runs over to me leaving the others alone.

Marlon: You said dogs brought back bad memories. I’m sorry, I didn’t realise you were so scared of them. But I swear, Rosie’s not as frightening as she seems.

He whistles her over from me.

Marlon: Sit, girl.

Rosie sits.

Marlon: See? She’s harmless. She just needs to get to know you, is all.

I walked forward, I offered a hand out.

Y/n: Here. I’ll show you. Do you trust me?

Clementine hesitates a minute, but then puts her hand in mine. I slowly pull it down to Rosie’s face.

Y/n: Get down to her level. Let her get your scent. It’s okay. She’s not gonna hurt you.

Rosie sniffs her hand for a second and then licks it affectionately.

Y/n: There you go. Now, whistle and tell her to lie down.

Clementine whistles.

Clementine: Lie down, Rosie.

Rosie bounds towards her bed in the corner and lies down.

AJ: That’s so cool.

Marlon: See? She really is harmless.

Clementine: Yeah. That was...pretty cool.

The girl sent me a smile and I turned red slightly, but gave a goofy grin back.

Marlon: And now Rosie will recognise you. She’s really well-trained. She was the headmaster’s dog back when this place was still functional. But when the world went to shit, he bailed. All the other adults did. Left us behind to fend for ourselves.

Clementine: Wow. What a dick.

Y/n: You got that right. But now it’s just us kids. And we’d like it if you and AJ were a part of that. You’re both capable, and we need all the help we can get.

Marlon: Here… This is the current state of our plan for gathering food.

He brings out a hand-drawn map and shows it to Clementine. I remembered drawing that with Tenn after numerous walks around the perimeter.

Marlon: We are starting to run short. It’s getting harder and harder to feed everyone in this school.

Y/n: Marlon… We could just expand the safe zo-

Marlon: No. No… We can’t.

Clementine points to the greenhouse on the map.

Clementine: The greenhouse…

Marlon: Ah, yeah. Uh, don’t get too excited about that one. We used to maintain it real well. Had plenty of vegetables growing. But it became overgrown, upkeep was impossible. Yeah, we, uh, we keep away from that now.

I glared at Marlon knowing he was lying. He didn’t want anyone going back there because it was overrun with walkers, not plants. Also the fact that the only adult that had stayed died there didn’t help anything.