#but i'm writing this in a noisy hostel common room so i can charge my laptop

[justplainsalty]

How Soon is Now? 🌻

Me, wading through the angst muck like a pig in shit ☝️. I would not make this a song fic but it would be multichap and every chapter would have an epigraph with a section of lyrics.

[Insert footage of me deleting and rewriting this several times.] TIME FOR BULLET POINTS.

Tess falls pregnant in September.

Unfortunately, she does not realize this until early December. She had assumed she was pre-menopausal, and food has been scarce. She's happy to not have periods.

She and Joel have been busy, busy prepping for winter, doing as many runs as possible, stashing food away so they can survive until spring.

[More under the jump.]

She has an IUD. Had an IUD. It was due to expire anyway, but turns out it fell out sometime during her last two extremely hellish periods, when she'd been stuck shivering and groaning over the toilet for hours. (Thank god those only happen a few times a year.) She figures it all out when her breasts are tender and she can't feel the strings anymore.

Unfortunately part II, FEDRA requires pregnancies be registered, and bans abortions for people who fall pregnant from August through November. They have to keep up enough population to feed their supply chain, and the summer months are when resources are most plentiful for supporting births and families newborns.

Tess will have an abortion, one way or another. She refuses to be pregnant, refuses to go through that misery again, especially at her age, refuses to put their work on pause and leave Joel without a partner, refuses to risk death during the delivery process, refuses to bring a child into this fucking hellscape world.

She doesn't tell Joel any of this. She'll figure it out on her own, as soon as possible; he doesn't need the weight of this burden on his shoulders. And maybe, a part of her doesn't want to face what it would do their relationship. She doesn't know what the consequences will be, but she knows they'll show up if she doesn't act fast, and there will be a reckoning.

She starts taking more risks during their runs, and during their daily life -- drinking more, going out without Joel more, taking the more physically demanding route around and outside the QZ, provoking the people in the slums known to be happy to swing a fist at anyone so she can put herself in that path. She won't go to one of the dirty back-alley butchers with unsterilized tools. She'll figure this out on her own. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

Joel calls her out on it one day, and it's the knock-down drag-out fight of a lifetime. He gets her backed into a figurative corner. And the truth comes out.

Joel turns white and storms out. Tess gives him a minute, and then snatches up a bottle of moonshine that was for trade and storms out in the opposite direction. She won't wait at home for him to slink back, shitfaced and having whatever reaction he's going to have. She's glad Tommy is gone, if he was still here, Joel would be tempted to tell his brother.

She stays out as late as possible, going nowhere in particular, just stalking their usual paths around the QZ, ducking the checkpoints. It's so much harder without Joel, she'd forgotten.

By the time she gets back, she's hammered. She lies down on the cold, refreshing, disgusting tile of their bathroom and hopes, just this once, not to wake up in the morning. Her arm and the tile beneath her are wet. She's not crying, is she?

Joel is back the next morning. They're both hungover, so prickly with each other. It's not forgiven, and it's not forgotten. Even if they somehow seem to be in consensus that this pregnancy is bad and should be terminated, Joel's reasons feel so much more personal. He never wanted to be a father again. He doesn't blame her for getting pregnant, but he blames her for not telling him until whatever date it is, late December or early January. She doesn't understand why it's the case, but somehow, for him, that's worse. And he blames her for the foolhardy way she's been acting. And probably, on some level, the anger is probably covering up for his fear, so it's particularly vicious. It's hard not to take it to heart. He's angry at her. She starts to withdraw, to lash out. To assume everything from him is said and done backhandedly.

They don't patch it up. It's approaching February. Tess is probably close to five months along. Her body is changing; it remembers her last pregnancy from a lifetime ago, when her son was born, and is trucking along fast enough that she's looking quite far into the pregnancy. She hates every single day. Time is running out for her, for them.

As with everything in their lives, the best luck and the worst luck seem to collide and happen at the same moment:

Someone she crossed has snitched. One of their regular FEDRA clients warns them that FEDRA is coming to pick her up, now, tonight, to put her in custody until she can be screened by an OB/GYN, and possibly to be kept in "protective custody" until her little parasite is born.

They're out at a drop. Someone has changed their mind, doesn't like the terms. Ammo has been scarce this far from FEDRA patrols, so no one has guns.

Someone comes barreling at Tess. Normally Joel would step in front. He meets her eyes, looking sick, and steps aside, faking a stumble.

He lets them hold him back, sagging in their grip. His eyes and face are dead. He has gone away somewhere else.

She wakes up in FEDRA custody. She hurts all over. That fucker was thorough.

There's a doctor, comes in with a clipboard and a falsely sympathetic expression. No heartbeat. Sick relief warring with strange and unwelcome shame. Not for what she'd done, but for the how. For the expression she'd seen on Joel's face. For the fact that she'd put too much stock in blissful ignorance and gotten pregnant in the first place.

The FEDRA fuck can't keep her mouth shut:

Her fetus, their child. It was a boy.

A son, an heir, of their nebulous and unstable empire, of things that could be snatched away at a moment's notice, of nothing in particular.

Send me a made-up fic title and i’ll tell you what i would write to go with it!

#long post #i did a thing #tlou #if i were going to actually write this fic i would work harder to make it more in character and use better words #pls know that these aren't necessarily my 100% head canons for these characters; im just playin around. #but i'm writing this in a noisy hostel common room so i can charge my laptop #this is no thoughts just vibes bc i can't even hear myself think rn #ask meme #ask game #anyway i have a lot of thoughts about abortion and population control and birth control in the QZ so i could go all day #hahahaha highly reconsidering posting this. why am i so anxious about this. it doesn't feel quality enough. it feels Bad. #fuck it i can always delete later.