OH MY DARLING! || LOUIS

9 | PANDORA'S BOX.

"THEY'RE BACK J." Mitch called out from where he stood watch, immediately jumping down from their makeshift watchtower to open the gate. Jamie startles from where she sat on the couch, her head knocking against Willy's.

Somewhere between watching the sunset and waiting (impatiently, she might add), she and the younger boy had fallen asleep. With his head resting at an awkward angle on her shoulder and her own resting on his head. Willy himself startles awake, a surprised noise slipping from his lips as Jamie rushes over to the gate.

In came Clementine, AJ, Violet, and Louis. It takes all of her willpower to not pull Louis into a hug. Instead, she stood there. Frozen. Watching as the small group fill into their courtyard. Louis flashes her a comforting smile—a sort of smile that said,'We're back!'. It was enough to wipe the worried look off Jamie's face at least, replacing it with a soft smile.

"Took you guys long enough." Ruby says, a chuckle in her words.

"'How poor are they that have not patience!'" Louis replies. And it sounds familiar, like something out of a book that Jamie can't quite place. The ragtag group places all their bags on the nearest bench top, inside was food.

"Holy shit." Jamie mumbles. Enough food to last them weeks—maybe a couple months if they were careful. It looked homemade too but she knew that there weren't any houses nearby. Not unless they made a long trip out—which she doubts.

Willy is the second to approach the bench, his eyes wide. "Aasim! Mitch! Check it out! Food!"

"That's like, a lot of food." Mitch comments, once he's reached the table.

"Observant as ever, Mitch." Louis' comment brings a light laugh to Jamie's lips. It was always a joy to see Mitch being made fun of for a change. In the nicest way possible, of course. Mitch shoots her a weak glare and she merely sticks her tongue out at him.

"I can't believe this. Look at it." Aasim says, stunned by the amount of food. Omar follows close by.

"You're our savior, Clem." Willy says, turning his head to face Clementine. There's a soft smile on his face as he says this—one of his rarer smiles. Usually reserved for Mitch, when the two had their cute brotherly moments from time to time. Still, she had to agree.

"He's right! This'll last us weeks. Maybe even more if we're careful!" Jamie exclaims, a rush of happiness running through her body. This was the luckiest breaks they've had in a good while.

"I owed you. You saved me first." Clementine says simply, but the large smile on her face says otherwise. She looked just as happy as the kids around her and this time, Jamie couldn't hold back the urge to pull the girl into a hug. "Woah—!"

"Thank you, Clem! Really!" Jamie exclaims into Clementine's shoulder, shaking the new girl slightly around. She pulls away slightly, a bit embarrassed by her sudden rush of energy. Clementine is still smiling though, maybe even more now, with Jamie's surprise hug. Jamie, now with flushed cheeks, smiled sheepishly at Clementine before taking a step back to look through the food with Willy.

"Call us even," Aasim nods, sharing a small smile with Clementine.

Brody and Marlon were last to arrive at the bench. While Marlon looked pleasantly surprised, Brody looked suspicious. Which was odd, since before the whole episode at the forest, she seemed to be really warming up to Clementine.

"Where did you find all of this?" She asked. Her voice sharp.

"The old train station. Clem knew where it was." Louis answered, motioning towards Clementine.

"Train station...that's outside the safe zone."

"But we ran into the creep that fucked up our rabbit traps." Violet adds, her eyebrows furrowing at the memory. Jamie freezes—so there was someone walking around in their forest. Messing with their traps and leaving them out to starve. It wasn't such an irrational feeling after all.