Salvation. The Walking Dead: Season Five.

Risks We Take - Part One.

*

Clementine blinked back swirling thunderstorms swarming her mind, the fragmented haze that had come with them receding to the point where she could make sense of the world around her as it trickled back into focus.

She tries to concentrate on the already booted senses while the edges of her vision continued to flicker and evade her. She could hear Lilly apologising. Maybe she was still dreaming.

"Ah, fuck. Hold him, I gotta get this shit up! I'm sorry for this, kid." Clementine turned her head a little to find the scene, realising in the process that she was no longer lying on her side.

She was propped up, her upper body resting on somebodys thighs. The slight movement was met with a soft touch, running fingers through her hair, water still dripping onto her shoulders.

"Oh, thank god. Welcome back, Clem... AJ, she's awake - No, give her a minute, let her rest" Violet said, but Clementine reached out anyway, swaying her hand slightly in its search for AJ to take it.

He obliged, holding it tightly but not saying a word, he didn't get chance to.

An inordinate amount of retching followed the moment and Clementine squinted hard to see the source of it. What she saw was rather disconcerting as a blurry Lilly knelt at Aasims side, fingers impelled to the back of his throat.

"Come on, kid, don't fight! You need to get your stomach up! Everything!" She said fiercely, appearing to twist her wrist in the process, probably searching for a grip on his tonsils. Whatever she was looking for she found it.

Clementine watched through frosted glass as Aasim bent double, breaking free of Sophie and Minnies restraints, and making some rather disturbing noises as he emptied out whatever he had swallowed over the course of that day. Which thankfully for Lillys sake couldn't have been much.

Still, she withdrew her hand rapidly at his evacuation, cursing in disgust.

"Ugh, fuck! Fucking disgusting!" She said, lashing her hand back and forth to shake off the excess bile Aasim had just chucked up. "This sure as hell better not be for nothing - hold him up again!"

Lilly continued to probe his throat and he continued to throw up in kind. But it wasn't something Clementine wanted to continue witnessing so she tipped her head upward, finding a more comforting bit of scenery to take in.

Violet wore a concerned smile, still massaging the hair back from Clementines forehead absentmindedly, tucking it over and behind her ears. It tickled the base of her neck, prompting Clementine to try and speak, but her throat was dry and it came out croaked.

"Cut it for me later? It's getting too long." She asked. Violet paused her caressing to answer with the retching from Aasim waning, almost empty.

"Sure, Clementine. Buzzcut?" She joked, following up her sentence with a prolonged set of Z's.

"No way! She'd look like an egg!" AJ giggled at their side.

"You're not old enough to know what an egg is, little man!" Louis asserted out of view, his voice too sounded hoarse and tired. AJ countered.

"Uh, yes I do! They come from chickens! I read it in a cook book." He said stoutly.

"Ah, but did that book tell you which came first?" Louis teased, managing to find humour wherever possible, even amidst poor Aasims plight.