The Walking Dead Season 2

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Y/N woke early, his arm round Clementine still, but she had turned during the night, facing him, hugging his torso as her face was nuzzled into his neck.

Y/N felt something. He wasn't sure what, but it was a cross between warmth and giddiness and happiness. He smiled, genuinely smiled, at her beautiful, peaceful, sleeping face before he checked himself.

Where did beautiful come from?

He felt overwhelmed and decided retreat was the better part of valour. He slowly got out of bed, extracting himself from Clementine's arms and legs. He was relieved- Clem was always a deep sleeper. He stood and dressed, again rolling up his sleeves on his tight jumper before he felt his stomach rumble.

He checked in silently on AJ who had slept through since he woke for his 3am feed Y/N had taken, and went into the kitchen.

There was a small gas powered oven on the kitchen side that Y/N checked was working. He looked into a cupboard and found a small pan. He grabbed a few dominoes from their box and placed them in his pocket before quietly going out for a walk. The sun was just coming up and people were emerging, going about their business. Many nodded or said good morning to Y/N who wasn't used to such pleasantries.

He walked down the dirt street and came up to a shop just opening its doors with a lot of food inside. There was cans, jars, fruit, a lot of vegetables- even eggs.

Y/N suddenly remembered something delicious that he would have at his friend Jacob's house. His mom Martha always made a breakfast skillet when Y/N slept over. He may not read or write but he had a great memory.

He walked through the aisles quickly, picking up an onion, a carrot, a capsicum, three potatoes, a bunch of celery and six eggs. He took them over to the counter where a middle aged lady with greying hair smiled at him.

"Good morning honey, you wouldn't be Y/N, would you?"

Y/N looked at the lady surprised and nodded, replying:

"Yeah, uh I am..."

"Beth. I met your friend Clementine with Edith last night. Sweet girl. You looking to fix yourselves some breakfast?"

Y/N was taken aback by this stranger's friendliness, but nodded.

"Yes ma'am. Gonna surprise Clem. We haven't really had anything that either I didn't hunt or came out of a can for a while."

"Oh that's sweet. Make sure you look under your sink for a small green container. Put all your peelings and shells in it, we collect and compost everything we can to help grow more. Now that will be twelve bones please" Beth said with a smile.

Y/N pulled the dominoes from his pocket and placed them down, Beth picking up on his flustered nature.

"That's far too many honey, forgive me for speaking outta turn, but can you not read?"

Beth saw a look of shame immediately grow on Y/N's face and she quickly moved to reassure him:

"It's ok hon, it's just I used to be a teacher and I can recognise the signs. Here let me show you."

She picked up a twelve domino.

"See how this has three dots this way, and then four that way?"

Y/N nodded. He could count, he wasn't stupid. He just got flustered when he had to look at pages, or dots.

"That's 12, which is the max a bone can have, ok?"

Y/N nodded and smiled, thanking Beth as he returned home. Clementine was still asleep, as was AJ. Y/N set to work, cutting up the vegetables and began cooking them in the skillet. When the veg had softened he cracked in the eggs and as they cooked he disposed of the waste in the green container and then used a bottle of water to make AJ a bottle. As he shook the formula through he felt arms around his waist from behind, a head against his back and a heard a 'mmm.'