rrickgrrimes8 - Tumblr blog

rrickgrrimes8 · 1 year

Text

all that's been found

pairing: joel miller x platonic!f!reader

summary: joel would do anything to bring you home.

warnings: angst, swearinggg, descriptions of past injuries, mentions of kidnapping

a/n: sorry this took so long and it feels kinda rushed agh oomf (sorry but i am tireddd) but on a brighter note THANK YOU for all the support, i read each and every one of your comments and inbox messages and i am so so grateful, this is dedicated to all of you beautiful people mwuah

part two of all that's been lost

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

Joel Miller was exceptional at many things.

His aim was impeccable, his strength and speed were more than enough to knock out opponents in a fight, and he could think on his feet faster than most people. In terms of survival, he had little to improve on, despite his damaged hearing and his weary joints, courtesy of age and injury.

But it turns out that maybe fatherhood wasn't like riding a bike, and he still had a lot of room to improve.

When the two of you had arrived in Jackson, there hadn't been much time spent before Maria was already whisking you away, leaving him alone with the brother he had travelled the country for, the brother he hadn't seen in years. And yet as soon as you were taken out of his sight, all he could focus on was your safety, old instincts already rolling in, his nerves still in hyperdrive from all the danger you had encountered together over the past few months. It took Tommy almost two hours to finally get Joel to focus, to properly talk to him, to stop paying attention to every sound in the distance in case it was you screaming for help.

"What," Joel challenged, raising an eyebrow at the look his little brother shot him after he nearly shot out of his seat for the 7th time in the past 20 minutes.

"Nothin'," Tommy murmured, averting his gaze as he raised his hands in mock surrender. "Nothin'."

Joel knew full well that you were more than capable of taking care of yourself, and he had been consistently reassured by Tommy that Jackson was civilised, secure and safe, but there was still something gnawing away at him, a feeling that something with you wasn't quite right.

Maybe it was the look you had shot him as Tommy and Maria gave the two of you a tour of Jackson, the one that he knew was meant to be supportive and joyful, but seemed forced and mask-like. Or when Maria had pointed out how there were other teenagers in town, and you had shrugged, politely brushing her off when she suggested you meet them once you had both settled in.

You had seemed strangely on edge throughout the whole tour, as if some part of you was rejecting the town, and whilst Joel couldn't blame you for your aversion, he so desperately wanted you to like it. He was desperate for you to feel safe, to feel comfortable after you had spent so many months under constant threat, all because of him, all because you had followed him and Tess out of the QZ. All the bloodshed, all the danger, all because of him, his shortcomings and his failings, his inability to protect you from the world and all it's cruelty. But here, in Jackson, where there were patrols, houses, hot water, teenagers; you weren't just free to live a safe life, you were almost free to live a normal life, one where you could have friends, watch movies, go dancing, pick up hobbies and learn instruments, do everything he would have wanted for you if the world had just been a little kinder.

With Tommy's convincing, Joel eventually attributed your initial lack of enthusiasm to remnants of wariness, your instinct to be cautious an understandable reaction after all you'd been through.

"She'll settle right in," Tommy told Joel confidently. "Plenty of teenagers here. It'll just take some time."

"Yeah," Joel nodded slowly, praying Tommy was right. Everything you wanted, everything he wanted for you, was right in front of you, if only you'd let down your guard and accept it. "Time."

As dusk fell over the town, Tommy brought Joel back to the house he shared with Maria, where she was waiting alone. Joel's eyebrows instantly furrowed at the sight of you not by her side, but Maria quickly cut him off before the words even left his mouth.

"She's across the street," she explained, a sense of gentleness detectable in her tone. "The house has been empty for a while, and I got the sense she wanted to be alone. I offered her one of our spare rooms, but she didn't seem too keen on the company."

Joel hesitated, turning his head to glance out the window towards the house you inhabited. The lights were all shut off. You must have already been sleeping, which was out of character for you, but it had been a long day. If Maria was right, and all you had wanted was to be alone, then the last thing he wanted to do was burst in and ruin one of the first moments of solitude you'd been granted in months. Despite every instinct in him fighting to walk over to that house and make sure you were okay, he forced himself to turn away from the window, reminding himself that you were likely glad to finally have a break from his constant hovering, considering that it was never safe enough to be out of each other's sight previously.

You can check on her tomorrow morning, Joel told himself. First thing tomorrow.

Pushing away the gnawing feeling that had only grown stronger as time had passed, he bid goodnight to Maria and Tommy, turning his attention to the fact that he could finally have a hot shower again, that he finally had access to clean clothes and a comfortable bed. And tomorrow, after you had gained a full nights worth of rest - something you had been deprived of for months, thanks to him - he would be able to take you around the town once more, and know that he was finally surrounded by family.

You had never once blamed Joel for the hardships you had faced during your travels, and had even gone so far to attempt to dispel his worries and guilt, which he had never vocalised but you had detected anyway. But your reassurances towards him were futile, unable to believe your claims that he held no responsibility for the new scars that decorated your skin, the fresh nightmares that had flourished in your mind and tormented you at night, that he had only ever protected you from those dangers and had not been the reason you had been exposed to them in the first place.

Your voice would be drowned out as he was consumed by the memory of how a raider had sliced you with his knife whilst Joel was fighting off the others, bright red blood blooming from the wound, spilling out like an unstoppable stream, an ugly jagged scar marring your skin, taunting him even months later. Or, instead, he would see your mouth moving, but only be able to hear the screams that had been ripped out of your throat, violent and blood curling, as you fought desperately to get out from underneath the infected that had launched itself towards you, its mouth widening as it prepared to make you like them, to rip you away from Joel.

Once, whenever Joel closed his eyes, all he would see was Sarah. His failures. But now, he also saw images of you, each near death experience that brought you dangerously close to the brink until his brain would take that extra step and plague him with scenarios where you were lost entirely, slipping through his fingers like water. It was like every time Joel tried to sleep, he was reminded that everything found can be lost. And despite the fact that you had only ever proved to be a blessing for him, maybe some higher power was just waiting, waiting until the right time to thrust him back into that darkness, alone and more afraid than he cared to admit, and that was something he didn't think he would be able to bear for a second time.

He was up before the sun the next morning, his body used to constant vigilance, not yet acclimated to the safety and homely atmosphere that Jackson promised. Joel wasn't sure he ever would be, if he was honest, but he would stay here for you if it meant you would finally get a real chance to be happy and protected.

The house was still dark when Joel went downstairs, already prepared for the day, ready to cross the street to your temporary home. He knew he should let you sleep in, let you be a little lazy and self indulgent since this was one of the first times in your life you'd had such an opportunity, but his impatience finally won him over as he told himself that you'd have plenty of time for such luxuries in the future.

He wasn't surprised when his knock to your door went unanswered; he expected you to still be asleep anyway. As he let himself in, he noted to remind himself later to reprimand you for leaving the door unlocked. Safe town or not, it was still important for you to keep your guard up somewhat.

The house was completely dark around him; there was basically no sign that you had ever been here at all. You had left everything untouched in the kitchen he walked past, and the living room he went through. No trace of you had been left, and Joel's heart clenched at the thought of you tiptoeing through the empty house alone, feeling like a stranger in your solitude.

He took his time making his way up the stairs, taking in the house, wondering if there would be room for him in the future, if you would be willing. Maybe he was misreading everything, and you were actually grateful to have arrived in Jackson, the town not just providing you a sanctuary safe from infected, but freedom from Joel, from his constant hovering. You no longer needed him to watch your back; maybe your entire relationship had existed purely out of your shared need to survive, and you saw practical value in him, in the knowledge and skills he exhibited that you did not own yourself, and now his usefulness had run out. You could stop pretending, you could drop the facade.

The thought nearly made him want to turn around, to flee the house, and maybe he would have if he hadn't already seen the room before him empty, the door wide open and exposing your absence. There was no question on if you were merely sleeping in a different room - they were all empty too, their own doors ajar, and the one before him had rustled bedsheets, messy and unkept, evidence of you.

Panic spiked in him immediately, and Joel surged forward, pushing the door open even further until he was standing in the middle of the room. He instantly took note of your lack of belongings scattered around the room, your bag and shoes nowhere to be seen. Where the hell were you? You weren't upstairs, and you couldn't have been downstairs. There would be no reason for you to be wandering around the town, it wasn't even light outside yet.

His heart rate steadily climbing, Joel stormed out of the room, almost sprinting down the stairs as he called your name over and over to the empty house, praying for you to emerge from one of the shadows, half expecting you to be waiting for him in the kitchen, complaining that he had walked right past you. You had to be here, you couldn't just be gone, you had to be somewhere, you wouldn't leave.

After searching the downstairs quickly yet thoroughly, Joel made his way back across the street like a man on a mission, flinging the door open as he called for Tommy, his voice booming and heavy with urgency.

"Tommy!" Joel's voice echoed throughout the silent house, and it wasn't long before his younger brother stepped out of the room he shared with his wife, eyebrows furrowed.

"Joel?"

"She's gone." The words didn't feel real, flying out of Joel's mouth in gasps as he struggled to catch his breath, the world getting smaller and smaller around him as his throat tightened. "She's gone, Tommy. She's not there."

"Wait, wait," Tommy attempted to soothe his brother as he ran downstairs to meet him. "What? She can't just be gone, are you sure-"

"She's gone, Tommy!" Joel shouted, consumed by the frustration that he seemed like the only one who gave a damn that you had suddenly gone missing overnight. "She's gone, and you said this place was safe, you said she would be fucking okay on her own-"

"It is safe, Joel!" Tommy yelled back, desperate for Joel to listen to him and calm down for a moment. "It is, she must have left on her own-"

"Why the hell would she do that, Tommy?" Joel retorted, furious at the suggestion. You had been taken, you were probably trapped with some psychotic killer, a raider that had followed the two of you and slipped through the walls, and Tommy was claiming that you had just left? "She wouldn't leave, not without saying anything, sure as hell not in the middle of the goddamn night-"

"Okay, okay!" Tommy conceded with an exhausted sigh. "Calm down, it's just important for us to consider the possibility before we assume the worst."

But the worst had already happened for Joel. Regardless of whether you had been snatched in the night, whilst Joel had naively given you space, or you had high tailed it out of Jackson of your own free will, you were gone, and the chances are that you would be dead soon if you weren't already.

"It's worth looking into." Tommy continued, taking advantage of Joel's brief silence. "Was there any sign of struggle in her house?"

A different kind of feeling started to twist around in Joel's stomach, replacing the urgency he had felt moments ago, as he reluctantly dug through his fresh memories of the pristine house, how untouched and neat it had looked, how he had noted signs of your presence had been essentially non existent, hesitant to answer the question, knowing the implications it carried.

"No."

Tommy knew as well as Joel did that you, a survivor from birth, wouldn't have been taken by strangers without a fight, without leaving shattered glass and damage in your wake. The increasing likelihood of your absence being of your own volition was becoming more and more apparent with each second that ticked past, and all Joel could focus on was the twisting sickness in his gut, the knowledge that you likely had left all on your own - without so much as a word or a warning - making him so ill he felt that he was about to collapse, like the world around him would crumble right along with him.

"We'll go down to the stables," reasoned Tommy. "She must have taken a horse. It's still early - we can catch up if we hurry."

Did you want them to catch up? As the realisation grew clearer, Joel felt like oxygen was escaping him, his lungs breathing in nothing but emptiness. But there was no time to deliberate why you had orchestrated this, why you had so carefully slipped away in the middle of the night; you were in danger, you were exposed out there, all alone with nobody to cover your back. Joel would drag you back, if he needed to, he would leave Jackson and not look back if that's what you wanted, he would let you have this sanctuary to yourself if his presence was truly what was driving you away - but you had to be alive, you had to be able to take everything the world was offering you after all it had ripped away.

⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

Joel called your name out as loud as he could, his voice carrying in the wind, but there was still no response.

He had been searching with Tommy for hours, and yet the search had yielded nothing. Tommy had sent a few other patrols out in scattered directions, instructing them to either convince you to return to Jackson, or to find Tommy or Joel as soon as you were found so they could convince you themselves. Despite Joel's arguments that you should be brought back regardless of whether you agree, Tommy insisted that you shouldn't be brought back against if it was against your wishes.

"There's nothing we can do if she refuses, Joel." Tommy had argued, watching helplessly as Joel paced around, shaking his head in furious disapproval.

"She could get killed out there!" Joel nearly spat, in disbelief at his brothers apparent negligence. "She's a kid! You just wanna leave her out to fend for herself?"

"Of course not," Tommy defended. "But I'm not draggin' her back kickin' and screaming."

But Joel would. He would if he had to, promise you he would leave as soon as you got back to Jackson, let you have your own life far away from him. Anything to get you back, to get you shelter, especially with winter rapidly approaching, the sharp chill of the unforgiving season already present in the air, seeping through the seams of Joel's thick coat. He didn't even want to think about what would happen if he didn't find you by the time snowflakes would start descending from above, leaving you helpless, at the mercy of the cold.

"Maybe we should split up!" Tommy shouted at Joel over the wind, which was growing steadily stronger, the branches of a nearby tree swaying around in the air. "There's a pretty small abandoned village by the river you can check out, but I'll go ahead in case she kept going straight."

"Alright," Joel agreed hesitantly. "You tell me if you see anything."

Tommy nodded at Joel's instruction, riding ahead on his horse, leaving Joel to scout out the houses that lined the side of the river.

⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

You were exhausted.

You thought you would have been used to the physical exertion after travelling so much with Joel, but you hadn't slept in days since you had spent the previous night waiting up for the town to fall asleep, and now it was catching up to you. You refused to stop, though, the flat plains stretching out around you for miles, making you an easy target from anyone who would spot you from a distance. You didn't have Joel watching your back anymore, and you were painfully reminded of this with every yawn, every heavy blink.

It was still early morning, the sun barely up, and you couldn't help but wonder if Joel had found your empty room yet, discovered that the stables were missing a single horse, that your belongings were nowhere to be found. You weren't worried that he would look for you - you knew he wouldn't, and that was what stung the most.

You already knew you couldn't go on like this for much longer. Your body felt like it was ready to collapse under the weight of your thoughts alone, all your energy dedicated towards the self hatred that had filled your chest as you relived your relationship with Joel in your head, enlightened by the new information and perspective that you were never going to mean what he meant to you, trapped in a cycle of self pity and blame.

All you wanted was to find shelter, somewhere where you not only could rest physically, but somewhere you could hide, tucked away from the world so you could sit with your thoughts, go through each memory you had collected from your time with Joel and Tess, relive them over and over until the sting had faded from them. Whether you would be left with a faint warmth or a numbness once the hurt had ceased, you couldn't be sure, but anything would surely be better than feeling like the fool you were now. More than the pain you felt for ending the relationship you shared with Joel so suddenly, you felt humiliated in a way you refused to blame Joel for, and so you once again blamed yourself.

When you saw the village in the distance, you nearly cried in joy, instantly redirecting your horse in that direction. It was completely deserted, the old shops raided and destroyed, but there were a few houses that lined the streets for you to pick from. They all resembled the houses you had seen in Jackson - which was unsurprising considering they were all typical suburban houses - and so you chose a shop instead, one where the least amount of windows were shattered and the doors weren't ripped off their hinges.

In the back of the shop, where the light didn't reach and the shadows consumed you, you tucked your knees up to your chest, your back and head resting against the wall behind you. You allowed your eyes to flutter shut, and you hummed to yourself lightly, allowing the darkness to swallow you up until suddenly you were back in Boston, and you were curled up on that old ragged couch, facing away from the world and pretending. Pretending that you were protected and cared for, that you were a part of something. You were back in a time where Tess was only metres away from you, her voice carrying through the apartment as she reprimanded Joel, and you had never set foot in Jackson, had never laid eyes on the names on the chalkboard, and you weren't haunted by the sight of any reminder.

Hours must have gone by, with you still hidden in that corner. You were jolted out of the sleep you hadn't even realised you had slipped into by calls of your name in the distance, echoing through the abandoned town. Your breath caught in your throat as you instantly recognised the voice, even in your groggy state.

Joel grew closer and closer, until you could hear him just outside. You seemed frozen in place, unsure of what to do, suddenly feeling very small. Your palms were sweaty as you waited for him to pass by, not knowing if you actually wanted him to, knowing he wouldn't go into the shop and check for you, that he'd stride right by and miss you if that's what you chose.

But that wasn't what you wanted. He was here. Joel had come out to look for you, and the thought stunned you, contradicting each and every prediction you had believed. Was it possible, if he was here, that it was because he wanted you back? Wanted you to return to Jackson, to be a family? No, it was impossible. You weren't his daughter, you never would be.

But if that was true, why was he here?

You clambered to your feet, your joints stiff from the cold, finally responding to the man who had come all this way to search for you.

"Joel?"

Instantly, you could hear him stop outside, jumping down from the horse and rushing in. You saw his silhouette before he saw you, rapidly looking around the shop, cloaked in a big brown jacket that made him resemble a brown bear. As soon as his eyes landed on you, hidden in the corner, he rushed towards you, pulling you into his arms with a fierce warmth you had only witnessed from him a few times in your life, holding you close as if you would slip through his fingers the moment you parted. You hesitated momentarily before giving yourself permission to sink into the hug, melting into the man before you, burying your face in his jacket as you wrapped your arms around him with equal fierceness.

When you eventually pulled away, he fixed you with a hard glare, fury fuelled by fear bubbling in his dark brown eyes.

"What the hell are you doing out here?" Joel started, a lecture visibly brewing behind the wrinkles in his forehead as his voice escalated in volume. "Do you have any idea how idiotic you've been? Why the hell would you leave Jackson in the middle of the night?"

"What the hell am I doing out here? What the hell are you doing out here?"

"Are you kidding?" Your question only seemed to spur on Joel's fury. "Do you have any clue how terrified I was to go to your house and find you gone? No message, no note, just missing! I thought you'd been taken, I thought you'd been killed-"

"Well why would I stay?" You argued back with a similar intensity, defensive over yourself and your own actions. "It's not like Jackson is my home, like I've got fucking family there. I'm better off on my own, anyway."

"Oh yeah, you've proved that." Joel scoffed. "Holing up in an exposed shop in the freezing cold, real smart."

"You didn't answer me. Why the hell are you here?" You narrowed your eyes at him. "You've got a home in Jackson. You've got a family. What the hell do you need me for?"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Joel snapped back. "Jackson is where you need to be, it's safe for you."

"I don't give a shit if it's safe," you gritted your teeth. "I'm not going back."

Joel sighed, biting his tongue as he looked down at you, seemingly reconsidering his words as he hesitated to continue. When he spoke again, his words were softer, his tone transformed into a plea rather than a reprimand, a change that didn't go unnoticed by you.

"Look, kid." Joel couldn't seem to meet your eyes as his anger melted away. "If you want me gone when we get back, I'll go. I'll leave Jackson, and I'll let you stay there on your own. I mean, I can't blame you, needin' your own space after being stuck with me so long-"

"Wait, what?" You interjected in disbelief, but Joel continued, ignoring your intrusion.

"-and the important thing is that you get back to Jackson safely, and you stay there. If you can't do that with me there, then I get it. That's okay."

"Joel," you murmured. "What are you talking about?"

Joel sighed again and hung his head to face the ground, struggling to get the words out as he spoke to you.

"Well, that's why you left, ain't it? You didn't wanna keep bein' stuck with me?"

"No, Joel." You couldn't believe what you were hearing. "Joel, I left because I- I thought you were going to tell me you didn't want me near you anymore."

"What?" Joel's head shot up and he looked you dead in the eyes, his own wide in shock. "Why would you ever think that?"

"Because I'm not your daughter." Your throat felt like it had a lump in it the size of Russia. "I'm not your family. I'm just some kid that- that followed you out of Boston when you didn't even ask me to."

"How could you think that?" Now it was Joel's turn to be frozen in disbelief.

"Because it's true!" You scoffed, throwing your hands up in the air. "You- you have a family, Joel! I was only ever someone who just leeched onto you. I figured it was better for me to leave before you asked me to."

"Kid," Joel swallowed, his eyes glassy. "You're wrong. Look, I'm not great with this kinda stuff, but I need you to understand, you- you are my family. Always have been."

The corner of your lips curled up in a slight smile as you looked up at him, sniffling slightly as you struggled to keep your face from crumpling at his admission, at finally knowing that your fears were wrong, that you had a family and he was standing right in front of you, begging you to come back with him, that he was delusional enough to think that he had been the problem.

"Really?"

"Really," Joel confirmed, the previous queasiness in his own stomach dissolving as you looked at him. "Always, kiddo."

You shuffled your feet around, looking around the store you were standing in, knowing if you kept looking at Joel you would probably burst into tears.

"I'm sorry," you murmured slowly, the reality of your actions dawning on you as you thought back over the past 24 hours. "I shouldn't have left. It was stupid."

"You're okay," Joel responded, nodding his head slightly as he spoke. "You're safe. That's all that matters."

You smiled at him slightly before stepping forward and burying your face in his jacket once again, Joel not missing a beat before wrapping his arms around you. You prayed that through this, you could convey all your love, all your gratitude, in a way that you would never be able to using words. For all the protection, all the care. You closed your eyes as you breathed him in, and for once, you didn't mentally transport yourself to any illusory fantasy, any moment in the past or in your head.

For once, you just allowed yourself to be here, and you basked in the warmth of having someone who loved you, who would prove all your deepest fears wrong, who would search through the freezing cold to find you, and who would always do anything to bring you back home.

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

some people who requested to be tagged :

@meli-blacky @code-roevember @randomstory56 @o-sacra-virgo-laudes-tibi @imonmykneessir @sofsofsposts

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rrickgrrimes8 · 1 year

Text

you’ll find the key

▹ — joel miller x platonic!f!reader

▹ — summary: part five of if the door wasn’t shut — after feeling hopeless, you decide it’s time to heal

▹ — a/n: guys, i apologise for the wait! usually it doesn’t take me so long to write but this was a bit of a struggle!! i hope it lives up to any expectations :( i love you guys sm <3 pls leave ur thoughts + feedback and if u would like to see anything else in this series !!!

▹ — warnings: bad mental health, arguments, like two much needed hugs, so many apologies (my brain is failing so please tell me if there’s anything i’m missing!!!)

▹ — general taglist: @auggiesolovey @just-kaylaa @evyiione @lemonlaides @fariylixie0915 @erensloveinterest @dazedshoon @faceache111 @randomhoex @canpillowscry @sleepygraves @pedropascalsrealgf @star-wars-lover @coolchick333 @soobsdior @ilybbg @rvjaa @oliest19xx @pedropepsi @sunflowersdrop @truthfuleeyours

masterlist

PART ONE | PART TWO | PART THREE | PART FOUR

∘₊✧───── ───── ───── ─────✧₊∘

It was still storming outside.

Snow was coming down in heavy bouts, swirling all over the place with the force of the wind, and it was almost a goddamn blizzard. The ground was covered in it, and if it weren’t for the people already out in the streets, using shovels to dig away the snow in front of doorways, you were sure everyone would’ve gotten snowed in.

Not that you were going anywhere, anyway.

You hadn’t left Jesse’s side since you had gotten back to Jackson, after Tommy had a talk with you. They told you he was going to be absolutely fine, that all he needed was rest and to keep the wound clean. You still worried about him.

Part of you, despite knowing that what happened wasn’t your fault, still felt guilty. Out of the two of you, you were the more experienced one, and you should’ve known better, right? Should’ve caught wind that something wasn’t quite right sooner? You should’ve done something, protected him better, maybe?

You didn’t know exactly what you could’ve done differently, and you tried not to think of the possibilities, because the last thing you needed was to drown in guilt when you already felt bad enough.

Tommy’s chat with you hadn’t helped, either, and you know it was only because he cares, but it still hurt. The way he had looked at you, so angry, and scolded you for going back out there, for going after Joel when you and Jesse had barely made it out yourselves. He had called you irresponsible, which you would’ve argued against, if you hadn’t felt so guilty over the events of the day, if you hadn’t been worrying about Jesse.

You didn’t want to think about him being right, about how you could’ve gotten Jesse killed today, or yourself, god — Joel could’ve died, trying to save you. But was that really your fault? You wondered if everyone blamed you for Jesse getting hurt, as much as you blamed yourself.

“Are you really brooding, right now?” Jesse croaked, startling you from where you stood at the window beside his bed, staring out at the swirling snow. You turned to him, seeing his raised eyebrows, and felt almost thankful about the annoyance that arose when he looked smug, like he was right. “Unbelievable!”

“I’m not brooding, you asshole.” You murmured, unconvincingly. Jesse grinned, shaking his head at your denial.

“Oh, you so are.”

“I should’ve let them finish the job.” You responded flatly, breaking into a smile when Jesse laughed. The quiet lingered for a moment, both of your smiles slowly falling as the weight of everything that happened registered between you. “I’m sorry.”

Jesse’s eyebrows furrowed as he looked at you, his fingers picking at the edge of the blanket settled over him. “For what? Saving my life?”

“No, Jesse, I should’ve never put us in that situation. Especially after Pete left. I know better.” You replied, stepping towards the guy who had quickly become your best friend. You shook your head, eyes flickering around the room, until they settled on him. “Tommy took me off patrols, anyway, so.”

“What?” Jesse questioned, mouth hanging open. “Why?”

You stared at him, blinking in your confusion, and you tilted his head back to check his eyes were focused, that he wasn’t concussed, or something.

“Do you not remember what happened?”

“I remember just fine, thank you.” He responded, eyebrows creased as your hand left his forehead. Both of you wore incredibly confused expressions, neither knowing what the miscommunication between you could be. “Why would Tommy take you off patrols?”

“Jesse, you could’ve died.” You said, watching his face for the reaction, as if the information was new to him.

“Yeah, but that wasn’t your fault! You’re the one who saved me, who got me out. I don’t understand.” Jesse said, voice raising as he got slightly heated. He lowered his voice when he sat up, and pulled at his stitches, hissing in pain.

“No, I got us into it, and I was lucky to get us out.” You told him, as if it was a confession, and you frowned. You didn’t want to think about what could have happened to Joel, didn’t want to say that for once, the world had been on your side, letting you get him out, too. You didn’t voice it, but you don’t know what you would’ve done with yourself if he had died, trying to save you.

Jesse shifted, voicing your name, but you stopped him, smiling tightly in his direction. “It’s fine, Jesse. It’s for the better. Besides, means I’ve got more time to do my pottering.” You teased, though the words didn’t quite reach the way your teasing usually sounded. “Anyway, Dina showed up.”

“What? Why? Did she actually?” Jesse asked, his eyebrows raised as he looked to you with suspicion, like you were about to be making fun of him.

“‘Course she did. Whole town knows what happened, and she was worried about you.” You said with a grin that didn’t meet your eyes.

“The whole town?” He questioned, shutting his eyes and dropping his head back with a groan when you nodded your confirmation. “My family are so going to kill me, aren’t they?”

With a laugh, you reached forward to mess up his hair, “Oh, Jesse, you sweet thing. We’ve already devised a plan on how we’re going to do it.”

He slapped your hand away, glaring, but a smile pulled at his lips. He knew it wasn’t true, knew you were just entertaining his dramatics. What he didn’t know, was that his family had already been in, had already scolded you for getting their golden boy into trouble.

You moved back to the window, seeing a man across the road had given up on shovelling the heavy snow away from his door. Something heavy had settled on your chest, and you took a deep breath to try and get some oxygen past it. You didn’t blame Jesse’s family for what they had said to you — if you had been in their position, you probably would’ve been the same. They hadn’t quite approved of you, anyway, so you didn’t take it too personally. You were more than aware of everything you had done wrong.

Somebody cleared their throat in the doorway to the room, and you turned away from the window to see Joel stood there. He nodded his greeting to Jesse, a tight smile on his face.

“C’mon, kiddo, Tommy wants you to head back to the shop.” Joel said, repressing the sigh that wanted to leave his chest when you only nodded, stepping away from the window with a final glance outside.

“Well,” You said to Jesse, trying to muster up your best smile, “Duty calls, I guess. Feel better soon, okay?”

He called your name when you walked away, passing Joel as he stood beside the door, but you ignored it, feeling that weight grow heavier. Joel followed after you, a frown on his face.

You knew the route out already, and figured Joel was just the messenger, but he followed along, a few steps behind you as he limped on his injured leg. The wind was harsh when you opened the door, and you shivered when snow was immediately blown in your face. You lingered in the doorway, both hesitant to go out into the awful conditions, and feeling bad for leaving Joel hurrying on his bad leg.

Joel didn’t say it, but you knew he was here because Tommy didn’t want to see you. You couldn’t say you were surprised — not after just how angry Tommy had gotten. His face had been red, the steam pouring from his ears practically melting the snow around him, and it was the first time he had ever yelled at you.

“You doing okay?” Joel asked, hesitantly, as he paused in the doorway beside you, watching you as you wrapped your coat tighter around you. He knew that nothing was fixed, not even close, but there was something.

“I’m fine, Joel.” You replied, and he could hear the exhaustion in your voice, the way it pulled on your words. It was easier to hear than it was to see, but he just caught the slump to your shoulders, the way you held your eyes shut for a moment, before going to brave the snow.

He walked beside you as you headed towards the ceramics shop, your pace a touch slower than usual. You shoved your hands in your pockets, eyebrows creasing when you realised you must’ve taken your gloves off at some point. You tried not to sigh when you realised that they were probably lost, and just decided to chalk it up to another disappointment in an incredibly frustrating day.

When you arrived at the ceramics shop, it was a mission to get through all the snow that had started blocking the door. You would probably be snowed in, by nightfall. Joel helped you get rid of as much of it as possible, his gloved hands doing most of the work after your bare ones become too numb to continue.

You opened the door, feeling heavier than you had in months, and left the door open as you moved to the back of the shop, turning on the heater that sat there. You let your hands linger in front of it, just gritting your teeth at the sting that followed from warming them too quickly.

Joel lingered in the doorway, frowning at you, and furrowed his eyebrows as he called your name, watching your turn to face him. “I’m sorry.”

You gaped at him, stunned.

“You should have gotten a choice. It wasn’t my place to decide that for you, or to leave without havin’ a conversation.” He continued on, his words jumbling the slightest bit. “I still think you stayin’ was the best thing for you, the safest thing, but for whatever it might be worth, I am sorry.”

When your silence lingered, Joel nodded tersely, and stepped away, smiling tightly as he left the shop, shutting the door behind him. You blinked at the closed door, unsure what to do, unsure if you should have said something. But even if you should’ve, what would you have said?

It wasn’t okay, not in the slightest, and everything around you seemed to be crumbling. Tommy wasn’t speaking to you and Maria would be more than upset with you, too. Jesse was in the infirmary, and that was on you. And even as you looked around the ceramics shop, all you saw was cracked paint on the walls, and dust that settled no matter how many times you wiped it away.

Hell, even the misshapen plates and bowls on the shelves just made your chest hurt. You didn’t feel any sort of pride for this place, anymore, and it was painful. It stung at the deepest parts of you, and you just settled down on the dirty floor in front of the heater, holding your head in your hands as you blinked back tears.

Why did you think you could do this?

∘₊✧───── ───── ───── ─────✧₊∘

Initially, you didn’t intend on avoiding Jesse.

In fact, you had plans to go and visit him the day after everything went to shit. It was just that when you opened the shop door, the outside looked far too unfriendly, and you knew his family would be in his infirmary room.

Perhaps it was a cowardly move, staying at the shop, locking the door and pretending the outside world of Jackson didn’t exist. Really, you were going to go and see him the next day. Swore to yourself that you would. But when the next day came, you didn’t even attempt to unlock the door to leave, figuring that it would be best to just leave him and his family to it. Dina was probably with him, too, so your absence wouldn’t be felt all too much.

Each day you said you would go, started with you justifying your staying in the shop. It went the same way, waking up and thinking you should go and see him, but the moment you got into the front of the shop, you thought better of it.

You blamed it on everything but what it actually was. Whether that be the snow, the heater in the shop that broke, the concept of him having quality time with his family… you used it all to reassure yourself that he didn’t need you by his side.

Besides, you knew he wouldn’t be in the infirmary for long. And by the fifth day, there was a knock against the shop door, barely heard over the howling wind outside. You remained in the back room, telling yourself it was probably nothing important, and after the heater broke, you couldn’t afford to open the door, anyway.

Even with the door closed, your breath misted in front of your face, and you had to rub your hands together more than once to generate heat, especially considering you seemed to have misplaced your gloves.

On day six, you kept all the lights off, and didn’t bother to poke your head around the doorframe to see who was knocking at the front door. After a few moments of loud knocking, his voice called out your name, and you were sure he was likely squinting through the shop window, trying to catch sight of you.

You barely even noticed the way you held your breath so it wouldn’t cloud the air, and alert him to your presence. You pretended the harsh exhale after he left was just a sigh of exhaustion. In some ways, you guessed it was.

By day seven, he knew what you were doing.

“Open the door,” Jesse yelled, still knocking wildly against the wood, and you were sure he was peeking in the window, too. “I’ve been to Tommy’s, the dinner hall, the greenhouses, the stables, hell — I even went to Joel’s. I know you’re here, stop hiding.”

You stayed in the back room.

After a while — much longer than you expected, especially given the still-awful weather — Jesse gave up, leaving the door at last. You frowned at the empty can of food in front of you, chest aching from the cold and everything that had happened over the past few days.

You hadn’t left the shop in the past seven days, surviving off of the short supply of long-life food in the cupboards. But that was your last can of it. As much as you knew you would have to leave, have to go get some more food in order to survive, you still didn’t want to. You didn’t want to see anyone, didn’t want them to see the shame that was so visible in the curve of your frown, the dip of your brows.

It made it easier to hide, knowing Jesse was the only person looking for you. There had been no sign of Tommy or Maria, which pained you, but didn’t surprise you. Part of you wondered if they’d ever speak to you again, but you didn’t want to linger on the question, too afraid of the answer.

It was day eight that you had no other choice — the temperatures were dropping even further, and with no heater it was becoming too cold for you to take. The need for heat and food led you to the dinner hall, which was surprisingly empty, and you settled at your usual table with a plate of cooked food, feeling the chill that had begun to settle in your bones fade.

Most people would be staying inside their homes, the cold too much to bear, so you were surprised when Ellie waltzed into the hall, eyes scanning the room as she made her way over to grab herself some food. You dipped your head when she began looking in your direction, and clutched at the fork in your hand, holding your breath.

“So you are alive.” Ellie drawled, settling down in the seat opposite you with her plate in front of her. “You know your friend has been coming ‘round for the past few days, won’t leave us alone.”

You shrugged, not knowing how to respond.

She sighed, poking at the food on her plate. “Thanks for going back for Joel, by the way.” She pretended not to see the way your head snapped up, eyebrows furrowed as you looked at her.

“I wouldn’t leave him to die out there,” You said, after a moment, the words hesitant as they left you. “Especially when he went to try and help me.”

Ellie nodded, shoving food into her mouth, and you quickly followed her action. The silence between the two of you stretched uncomfortably, and you hated how everything had changed. Why couldn’t they have just let you come with them? Why did they have to push you so far away?

“He’s a good guy,” Ellie said, a frown on her face. “He makes stupid decisions, but only because he cares about us.”

You looked at her, wondering when the two of you had grown up. You remember the jokes you had shared during your travels, the way she had been able to make you smile even when doing so seemed impossible. She had made life in the apocalypse almost bearable, and now here you were, sat at the same table, but miles apart.

“Maybe, but you were right about one thing. I don’t know what happened, so if you ever want to talk about it, I’ll listen.” You told her, instead of acknowledging her words about Joel. You didn’t want to think about him. You didn’t want to think about any of it.

It would be painful, you were sure, to hear about everything they had experienced. You could guess that a lot of it wouldn’t be pleasant, and it would likely hurt to hear about all the things you had missed out on, all the things that maybe you could’ve protected them from. But you were willing. It wasn’t forgiveness, it wasn’t a ticket back to being in each other’s lives, but it was progress.

And progress was all that you could offer, so it would have to do.

“I’ll, uh, keep that in mind.” Ellie said, a tight smile on her face as she looked at you, her eyebrows slightly raised in surprise at your words.

You nodded, and the two of you ate in silence.

∘₊✧───── ───── ───── ─────✧₊∘

After stocking up on some more long-lasting cans of food, you were prepared to hunker down in the shop for a while longer. You hadn’t been able to trade for another blanket like you had hoped, but you weren’t all too surprised. With the stormy weather, everybody wanted more warming supplies.

You had survived worse conditions, though, in worse places. One harsh winter in Jackson wouldn’t kill you, even if your heater was broken, and you still hadn’t found your gloves.

The shop door was locked once again, and you had taped the bottom of it to try and stop the cold draft from seeping into the room. You considered bunkering down in the back room, taping the door shut and staying in there with all the blankets and layers you had, but you thought better of it. You wanted to be able to hear the front door with ease, still on edge after the ambush with Jesse, especially considering the raiding attacks that had slowly begun to ease off.

Despite whatever had gone wrong, however angry Tommy may be, you knew he’d rely on you if the time came. You were sure of it. Everything the two of you had built couldn’t have been toppled by this one event, right?

Your gun was still laid by the shop door, and your ammo never left the jacket you always wore. Just in case. If anything were to go wrong, you wanted to be ready.

The call of your name shook you from your racing thoughts, the contemplation of everything that could happen pausing as your head snapped up. Maria’s voice was loud, and she hadn’t knocked. You didn’t have a surname — didn’t know whoever came before you long enough for them to tell you, didn’t know everyone who came after long enough for them to share their own. So she settled on your first name, yelling it loudly.

“Open the door!” Maria demanded once again, kicking the bottom of it with her foot. “Come on, open it. You’re not fooling anybody, and it’s freezing out here, little Troy can’t stay out here too long.”

With a sigh, you stood. She knew how to get to you — bringing baby Miller was a harsh plan, especially because it gave you no choice but to let her in. Not that it was much warmer in the shop than it was outside, but she didn’t know that.

You unlocked the door, pulling it open just to fit yourself into the crack of it. Facing Maria was terrifying, because you didn’t know what to expect. Even as she held on to baby Troy Miller, who was bundled up in more layers than you could count, she was totally unpredictable. She could be in a motherly mood, or that merciless Jackson council member.

“Hi,” You said, nervously. “What’re you doing here?”

She raised her eyebrows, stepping forward until you’d opened the door for her to step inside of the shop. Maria’s stern expression immediately fell, and you could feel nerves building in your stomach.

“Is your heating out?” She asked, turning on you suddenly, harshly. When you nodded meekly, she handed Troy over to you, not faltering even when you opened your mouth to voice your confusion.

He babbled at you, a toothy grin on his face, and you held on to him tighter. It hit you then, how much you actually cared about these people. Your brain short-circuited when you thought about something bad happening to this family, and it made you feel sick. Suddenly, you were regretting the meal you had eaten with Ellie.

“Well, I think Jeremy should be able to fix it up.” Maria sighed, standing from where she had crouched down to inspect your broken heater. “But he’s way busy with other heater issues. Come on, you’ll stay with us.”

“Maria.” You urged, repeating her name another time when she didn’t answer you, too busy thinking about options and solutions, as always. “I’m fine. Go home.”

She sighed heavily, turning to you with that stern look she’d been wearing since the moment you were left behind in Jackson. “I know you and Tommy are going through a rough time, but he loves you, and if he knew you’d been living here with no heat?” Maria shook her head with scoffed laughter, not reaching for Troy even as you offered to hand him back, instead moving to pack some of your clothes into a bag. “Come on, let’s go home.”

“It’s not my home, Maria,” You said softly, perhaps the softest she had ever heard you.

It was disquieting, at the least, for you to behave in such a way. Throughout the whole time Maria had known you, you had been sharp edges and bitten words, even when you had grown to care for them, that hadn’t changed all that much. It was a constant, your stubborn attitude and harsh nature, always slamming doors shut too hard, always charring food when you were unsupervised, because you’d turn the heat up too high. You were impatient, practical, realistic. You weren’t soft.

Maria’s face curved into a frown, and she stopped her presumptive actions in packing up some of your things. She looked at you, looked at the lines that were beginning to dig into your expression, looked at the way your shoulders slumped as you held on to her son.

“Maybe not,” Maria offered, and looked around at the shop that was not as pristine as the last time she had seen it, before looking back to you. “It could be, though.”

You shook your head, sighing but not finding any relief from the action, only feeling the same tightness to your chest. “I’m not a Miller.” You said, and it was true, because the space behind your name remained as empty as ever, that absence something you had felt your whole life.

“You’re as much a Miller as I am, as he is.” Maria reasoned, gesturing towards her son in your arms as she looked at you. She didn’t want to say too much, didn’t want to overwhelm you, but you had practically been adopted by the two Miller brothers. Two men who were so far from perfect, who made so many mistakes that they almost lost you, who cared too much. Hell, even if you weren’t consciously aware of it, you had adopted their mannerisms and tendencies.

It showed in the way you held Troy, the same stance that Tommy used. It showed in the frown on your lips, that looked far too much like Joel’s to be a coincidence. The furrow between your brows reflected Joel and Tommy’s own, a crevice built from worrying and frustration and anger. You reminded Maria too much of how Tommy had been when they first found him — eyes glassy, lost, and without purpose.

She had seen the change in you since you had been left in Jackson, so many ups and downs, but you had been doing better. And now, here you were, looking more lost than you ever had.

“That’s not true, Maria.” You replied, tense. It wasn’t true — Troy was a Miller by blood, and Maria was a Miller by marriage. Both choices that Tommy had made. It wasn’t the same for you, it couldn’t be. Tommy had never chosen you — Joel had dropped you in his lap before running away, and didn’t that make you the furthest thing from a Miller?

“It is true.” Maria refuted, stepping forward to hold a hand firmly against your face. “You’re a Miller, no doubt about it. Now come on, we’d better get going. Got a lot to talk about.”

She was finishing shoving your things inside of the backpack at her feet in a few moments, and was swinging it over her shoulder before you could protest, making her way out of the door. Holding her son, what choice did you have but to follow?

The two of you were silent on your journey to Rancher Street, and you felt the nerves bubbling up from your stomach, leaving an unpleasant tingling in the back of your throat. It was tense, though that could have been all from you. You were still holding Troy, having him half buried in your jacket to make sure he wouldn’t be cold, despite the fact your jacket wasn’t the warmest.

When you arrived to her house, Tommy wasn’t there. She didn’t say anything, so you didn’t mention it, much preferring to ignore the issues that would likely arrive whenever he returned. Instead, you settled Troy down, removing some of his layers at the rush of warm air that came the moment you stepped through the door.

Your hands were tingling, in a strange state between feeling and numb after the sudden temperature change. You settled them under your legs when you sat down on the couch, Troy at your side as Maria clambered about the kitchen, having already dropped your bag down beside the sofa.

When she came back, it was with a steaming mug that you recognised — one of your very own design. It was a dark green, close to black, and had your poor recreation of a bear on it. You remembered thinking it was going to come out brown, remembered the shock when it was green.

She handed it over, and you used the hand with slightly more feeling to take it from her, holding it close to your chin to allow the steam to flow over your features, warming your nose. “So,” Maria said, drawing your attention from where you’d been keeping an eye on Troy, keeping the hot mug away from him. “First, you and Tommy fight, and then you ignore your best friend?”

You stared at her, teeth clenched in shock, and recalled the way Ellie had mentioned the boy. Clearly, he was pestering everybody who knew you. Maria’s eyebrows raised, looking expectantly at you.

“‘M not ignoring anybody.” You murmured, voice catching in your throat as you spoke, and you took a sip of boiling hot tea to get rid of the lump that had formed. The burn soothed you, in a strange way, warming your insides the slightest bit as you breathed steam.

“Mhm, is that why he’s been ‘round here, bugging us ever since he got out of the damn infirmary?” Maria asked, expression tightening slightly as you winced, and knew she had got you.

You shook your head, moving your other hand from underneath your leg to cradle the mug in both palms, breathing a relieved breath at the warmth finally reaching your fingers. “Doesn’t know how to stop, does he?” You said, moving your eyes to the swirling drink in the mug, not looking up even as Maria hummed. “I’ll tell him to leave you be.”

“Ah, but that would require talking to him, which you clearly haven’t been doing.” She told you, a slight teasing lilt to her voice, to make it seem less serious than it truly was.

Maria remembered the night you and Tommy had arrived home, with you shoving at his shoulder whilst he laughed loudly, a bright teasing smile on his expression. It was probably the lightest she had ever seen the two of you, with Tommy not feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders for just a moment, and you smiling like you hadn’t faced unspeakable things. She remembered the way you had scrambled to correct Tommy’s statements, whacking a hand against his forearm when he interrupted you.

She remembered Troy waking up from where she hadn’t long settled him down, and remembered the way you had immediately gone to calm him down after hissing a “Look what you’ve done now!” at Tommy, who had only laughed.

Maria remembered the way her head had settled against her husband’s shoulder, exhausted to her very bones, motherhood feeling much harder than she remembered. Especially with her aged bones, keeping up with a baby was more difficult than she remembered. She didn’t want to think about what it would be like when he could actually run around. Maria had just been grateful to have you there, to be able to rest with Tommy, trusting you to look after her son.

You challenged her motherly instincts, sure, but Troy was on another level — it was a lot more to deal with when your child wasn’t basically self-sufficient.

“I’m going to,” You said, though there was doubt in your voice. “I am.” You repeated, as if that would solidify your statement, as if it would make it any more truthful.

“Listen,” Maria sighed, saying your name, and waiting for you to look up from your mug before she continued. “I know what happened on that patrol. I know. And it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anybody’s fault, so why are you ignoring Jesse?”

You swallowed, scratching a fingernail over a small crumb of clay that hadn’t gotten smoothed down before being fired. “I just… I care about him, and he could’ve died, Maria. Tommy was right, I—I was irresponsible, and I could’ve gotten us both killed.”

Maria shook her head immediately, picking Troy up when he began to fuss, and she stopped you. “No, Tommy was speaking from a place of anger. Of fear. You did everything right.” She affirmed, staring intensely at you, as if daring you to argue against her. “Except, maybe, going after Joel, but I know why you did that. I get it. If I had been in your position, if it were my…— I would’ve done the same thing.”

“I just didn’t want him to die, because of me.” You said, voice quiet again, and Maria’s heart ached for you, something squeezing so tightly in her chest that it physically hurt. “I don’t want Tommy to hate me forever, either.” You added after a few quiet moments, eyes following a bubble around the edge of the mug.

“He doesn’t hate you, kid, not at all. He was scared, he didn’t want to lose you.” Maria reasoned, but you still didn’t feel better, not after just how angry he had gotten. Not after he had practically shoved you out of his sight, the moment he was done yelling, unable to even look at you. Not after he had sent Joel as a messenger, refusing to speak to you himself.

“Maybe,” You offered, because it was the best you could do. You couldn’t agree with her, couldn’t disagree, either. The only person who would actually be able to decide those things was Tommy — and he was nowhere to be found. “I’ll talk to Jesse.” You decided to say, in the end, hands gripping tighter on the mug. Just saying it aloud made it seem all the more real, and you regretted it a moment afterwards, thoughts stuck on what Jesse would say, what his family would say.

“Good.” Maria said, nodding at you, “He’s a good kid, he deserves to know his friend is still here.” She stood to her feet, heading to the kitchen with Troy in her arms, waiting for her to feed him.

Twenty minutes later, when Maria had gone upstairs to put Troy down for a nap, the front door banged open, a rush of cold air being let in.

“Maria!” Tommy yelled out, his voice panicked, and you could hear him shuffling through his bag in the still-open doorway. With furrowed brows, you placed the cold mug down on the floor beside the sofa, standing up and making your way to peek into the hallway. “Maria, you here?” He shouted again, more desperate this time, and when you finally saw him, you saw that he had snow still clinging to him, and he had brought clumps of it in on his boots, slowly melting puddles on their floor.

“Tommy?” You questioned quietly, both not wanting to speak to him, but also getting increasingly concerned by his behaviour. His head snapped up to you, and he blinked in surprise, his shoulders slumping and hands pausing in their rummaging.

“Oh, thank god.” Tommy said, approaching you quickly and wrapping his arms around you tightly before you could get a word in. You blinked, shocked, and slowly wrapped your own arms around the man, who just held your head closer to him in return. “You scared the shit outta me.” He admitted, a slight tremor to his voice. He breathed out a heavy sigh, arms squeezing, and you wanted to look at him to express your confusion.

“Is everything okay?” Maria asked, a slight panic to her own voice, but she relaxed at the image before her. Tommy’s eyes opened as he rested his head on your own, and he looked to his wife as he nodded gently.

He moved away from you slightly, hands moving to hold your shoulders tightly, finally able to see your confused face. He sighed, his shoulders dropping like they had been holding the weight of the world. “I went to the shop, wanted to apologise. Couldn’t find you or your things, and it was freezing.” Tommy told you, his head dropping until his chin rested against his chest for a moment. “Thought you left.”

His arms pulled you back to his chest, and you didn’t resist him, though your heart was racing in your chest, blood rushing in your ears.

Maria frowned, “I didn’t know you were going. The heater’s broken, so I told her to stay with us.”

Tommy nodded again, his breath held in his chest as he let his heart rate calm down. You let him hold on to you until he was ready to let go, just keeping your face hidden in his shoulder as your arms wrapped loosely around him, fingers numb from the cold once again.

When he finally released you, you took a small step back, cheeks warm with remaining shame from your last conversation with the man. The rest of you, however, was freezing, especially since you had removed your multitude of layers in the warm house. Tommy frowned as you shivered, cursing under his breath as he turned to shut his front door, his frown deepening when he saw the water covering the hallway in front of the door.

He waved Maria away when she gave him a stern look, and she nodded once she saw his expression, smiling tightly at you before heading back upstairs to settle Troy back down, after he had been fussing from his father’s shouting.

Tommy turned to where you stood, hands wrung together to try and generate some more warmth between your digits. He sighed again, a seemingly very common thing for him at the moment, and he stood up straighter to talk to you.

“I’m sorry,” He told you, his voice reflecting his words in its apologetic tone. “I should never have spoken to you the way I did. Wasn’t fair of me to blame you for things that weren’t your fault. Or for me to judge you for doin’ exactly what I would’ve. What I should’ve.”

You stared at him, at the way his hands clenched and unclenched into fists at his sides, a slightly nervous habit, you had noticed.

“Tommy, you were right,” You responded, continuing on even as he shook his head, “I messed up, and I could’ve gotten Jesse, or Joel, or even myself killed.”

“No.” He said firmly, reaching out and holding onto your shoulders once again, his grip tight as if you might slip away. “I was wrong. You hear me? I should have been proud, proud that you were so brave, that you saved your friend and your— and Joel. I should have been proud that you made your way back, that you did it without some old shithead tellin’ you what to do.” He rambled on, shutting his eyes and looking almost regretful.

You ducked your head, feeling far too emotional, a lump formed in your throat at his words. Just somebody who you looked up to, who you trusted, telling you that you hadn’t done anything wrong… it was almost too much.

As many mixed feelings as you may have had over the whole situation, the most prevalent one was guilt. It had been surrounding you, weighing so heavily on you, hell, you didn’t even realise how much it had been pulling you down until Tommy came in, lifting it all off of your shoulders.

“You did good, kid.” He told you, squeezing your shoulders, and you hated the way your lip started trembling.

“Stop, you’re gonna make me cry.”

Tommy laughed, the sound watery and almost broken off, “You can cry as much as you want.” He pulled you in, feeling your arms squeeze around his middle as he held on to you so tightly, he was almost sure he’d never let go again.

∘₊✧───── ───── ───── ─────✧₊∘

Your closed fist was raised up to the door, a hair’s width away from making contact with it, but you had frozen. And it wasn’t because of the cold.

There was something that had settled heavily in your stomach, making your whole body feel heavy and slow. You felt, distantly, like you might throw up with the way it was sitting, but tried not to think on it too much. You were aware of the way your chest was rising and falling, almost too aware, and you tried to put it out of your mind as you attempted to steel yourself.

“You gonna knock, or are you just gonna keep standing there, looking stupid?” A voice asked from behind you, making you spin on your heels, fist pulled away from the door. You held a hand against your chest, breathing a heavy sigh as you saw the culprit of the scare.

“You’re an asshole.” You murmured, eyes studying your beaten up boots that were covered in melting snow. You looked up to him, and felt some relief when you saw Jesse crack a slight smile at your reaction. It faded far too quickly for your liking.

“So?” He prompted, eyebrows raising at you.

You frowned, repressing the urge to grumble at him, but you knew that he should’ve been the one angry at you. Hell, he probably was. “I just came to say… I’m sorry.”

“For…?”

“Are you kidding?” You asked, annoyed. But when his expression didn’t budge, you sighed through your nose. “Okay. I’m sorry for ignoring you after the infirmary, and I’m sorry you got put into the infirmary at all.” You said, looking back down the where the melting snow was seeping into the hole at the side of your boots. You should probably get new ones.

Jesse didn’t say anything for a moment, and you picked at your fingernails while you stared at the ground, your nerves sending your pulse into a fluttery mess.

Finally, you heard him snickering, and your head snapped up. “Well, I just can’t believe this. You, apologising?” You glared as his smile slowly grew, though you knew that the whole thing wasn’t quite solved, at least it was good to know that Jesse was still acting his usual asshole self with you. “Come on, you little asshole.” He said, gesturing for you to follow him. You did.

He glanced at you every so often, shaking his head at your stoic expression.

The two of you arrived at the dining hall soon enough, standing in the queues silently whilst waiting to collect food, until Jesse nudged you and led you over to the table you so often shared.

“You do realise I would never blame you for something that happened on patrol, right?” He asked, eyebrow raised as he awaited your response, shovelling food into his mouth as if he was starving. He reminded you an awful lot of Ellie, in that way. You wondered if they had met.

With a roll of your eyes, “Well, now, yeah. Do we have to talk about this? I said sorry, didn’t I?” You murmured the last part, shovelling your own food into your mouth, refraining from rolling your eyes again when Jesse snickered at you.

“How could I forget? You prefer to brood rather than talk about your feelings.” He responded.

“Okay, I don’t brood—”

“Yes, you do—”

“And do you enjoy talking about… feelings?” You said, ignoring his interruption. He stared at your raised eyebrows, the expectant look on your face.

“Sometimes, I do.”

“Maybe when it comes to—”

“Dina!” Jesse said in a high pitched tone, cutting you off and looking at you with widened eyes. You looked behind you, seeing the girl of the hour approaching your table, an amused look in her eye. She nudged you with a grin as she walked past, sitting on your left and smiling widely at Jesse’s surprised expression.

After settling down, she looked back up to meet Jesse’s eyes. “What? Cat got your tongue?”

You snorted out a laugh, not expecting to hear such an old expression coming from her — it sounded like something Joel might say. Jesse glared at you, unamused by the grin you and Dina shared.

“Yeah, Jesse.” You goaded, smiling at his indignant huff. “Not want to talk about feelings, anymore?” You asked. You leaned backwards as he swiped his arm out, trying to knock the cutlery from your hand as it was heading towards your mouth. Dina laughed at his failed attempt.

“So you two are talking again, then?” Dina said when her laughing faded, and you glared at the way Jesse grinned, unhappy with the fact he was telling her such things. You supposed that you couldn’t blame him — after all, you had spoken to Maria about it. It just so happened that Jesse was your only friend your actual age.

“Unfortunately.” You grumbled, eyes narrowed at the man.

“Unfortunately,” Jesse mocked, making a face at you. “Somebody finally came to their senses!” He said, after he was done poking at his food as he frowned at you.

“Somebody is having regrets about it.” You responded in turn, smiling sarcastically at him.

“Back to normal, then.” Dina concluded, smiling when the two of you nodded. She didn’t know you all too well, but from the time she had spent with you in Jesse’s infirmary room, she was a fan. You clearly cared about Jesse, way more than you would admit, and she could admire that.

You looked at Jesse, “Back to normal.” He echoed, smiling at you.

You pretended that the sigh you let out wasn’t one of relief.

∘₊✧───── ───── ───── ─────✧₊∘

“You should really clean this place up, you know.” Jesse commented as you unlocked the door to the pottery shop, his eyes scanning around the room, the chill to the air making him shove his hands in his pockets. He looked at the dust covering the surfaces you usually cut clay on and raised his eyebrows.

“Well, I’ve been a bit busy.” You replied, moving to the newly fixed heater that Tommy had brought over when he walked you back to the shop that very morning.

“Oh, yeah, avoiding me.” Jesse said, grinning mischievously when you shot him an annoyed look over your shoulder, focusing on turning the heater on, placing your freezing hands in front of it when it finally started shooting out some warmth. You sighed at the sting, just glad to feel your hands once again.

You sat down on a dusty stool, turning to Jesse when he sat down beside you, relishing in the heater that was finally working. “Okay, so maybe I’m not the best with… feelings.”

“No kidding,” Jesse snorted, his smile fading when you stared at him, deadpan. “Sorry, go on.”

“But I can say that I do care about you. Sometimes. When you don’t piss me off.” You told him, drawing in a shaky breath that filled your lungs with cold air. “I just… relationships are complicated, you know? And painful, a lot of the time. I didn’t wanna go through that again, I guess, but you’re persistent.”

Jesse smiled as you spoke, somewhat amused by your words, but even you could see the softness to it. The absence of that teasing edge his grin usually held. It was reassuring.

“If this is about Joel—” Jesse attempted, shutting his mouth when you cut him off.

“—It’s not about him.” You interrupted, quickly, the back of your neck feeling hot despite the heater being quite far from you. “Or maybe it is, I don’t know.” You added on, after thinking about it for a second. You generally tried not to think of Joel, or the whole situation with him and Ellie, but could it really have effected you that much? It’s not like Joel was the first person you had lost.

He was the first to walk away without a fight, though.

A small part of you fought that fact, because he came back. Did that not mean anything?

“Can I speak yet?” Jesse asked, a slight teasing lilt to his voice. It brought you out of your thoughts, and you smiled despite the topic at hand. With a nod from you, Jesse went on, “Thanks. I’m just saying, maybe Joel isn’t all that bad. I’m not defending what he did, but the guy clearly cares about you.”

“So I should just— just forgive him? For leaving me?” You asked, looking at Jesse as if he had all the answers.

“I don’t know, that’s up to you,” He said. “Maybe you don’t need to forgive him. Maybe it’s time to just… move on with your life. Forget about what he did, and focus on what he can do. You miss him, don’t you?”

You frowned, looking away from the intensity of Jesse’s gaze. The two of you were friends, yes, and he was the closest friend you’d ever had, maybe besides Ellie. But being so open, it was strange. Likely the effect of the apocalyptic world you lived in, and perhaps it was another difference between that world and the little safe haven of Jackson, Wyoming.

“‘Course I do. He and Tess… they were everything I had.” You replied, your eyebrows creasing at the thought of the woman, at the memory of your life in Boston QZ. It made you realise that it had been a while since Maria had cut your hair, and Tess would’ve chastised you for not reminding her to cut it if you had let it gotten this long in Boston.

It all felt so far away.

When you thought of Tess, your heart ached. Though, it wasn’t quite the same as it had been on your journey with Joel and Ellie. You felt her absence, maybe more than ever, but it wasn’t all bitter. You felt… appreciative of her. She may be gone, but at least you got to have her for a time.

You really wished that she could’ve seen this place, though. You often wondered if she would’ve liked pottery.

Joel would probably know.

“Tess may be gone, but Joel isn’t. Not anymore.” Jesse reminded you, hesitant in his words. You realised that you had never really told him, or anyone, about Tess.

“Y’know, if Tess were here, she’d probably tell me to get over myself,” You laughed at the thought, a sad, watery laugh, but Jesse smiled with you despite not knowing the woman. “She’d kick Joel’s ass, though.”

“Is that even possible? Joel’s like… badass, man.”

“Nobody was more badass than Tess. She was awesome. Used to boss Joel around, all the time, she ran half of the smuggling underground at Boston.” You smiled when Jesse raised his eyebrows, surprised. “And she used to cut my hair. Always told me it was better to keep my hair short, even though she had long hair.”

“Bit hypocritical, isn’t it?” Jesse asked, humour in his words.

You shrugged, “Think she was just trying to keep me safe, in her own way. Tess didn’t want to keep me, to start with. Joel convinced her.”

The more you thought about it, the more you realised that it really was because of Joel that you were allowed to stay with the two of them. You remember hearing them argue on a few occasions, something about a great family that Tess knew nearby. But Joel had never let you go too far.

He’d told you about Tess’s family, though it wasn’t really his place to do so. He had done it in an attempt to comfort you one night when you were young, after you had gotten upset at Tess disregarding you yet again. Joel had explained that she didn’t like getting attached to anybody, especially kids, after she lost her own child. He had told you that it was what they had bonded over, at the start.

“Sounds like this Joel guy really wanted you around, huh?” Jesse said teasingly, only grinning when you narrowed your eyes at him.

“Shut up, you asshole, when the hell did you get all wise?” You asked, glaring at him as he feigned an innocent look. You cracked first, smiling at his expression, feeling a softness to the grin as he matched it with one of his own.

“Distance makes the heart grow wiser, I guess.”

“It’s fonder, Jesse. It makes the heart grow fonder.”

“Shut up, I’m the wise one here.”

You looked at Jesse then, as the two of you shared a laugh, and you wondered if this is how friendship felt before the apocalypse, or if that warm feeling in your chest was exclusive to post-apocalyptic relationships.

∘₊✧───── ───── ───── ─────✧₊∘

“Didn’t think you’d be coming back here.” Joel commented gruffly as he made his way to the kitchen with a nervous energy about him.

“Me neither,” You said idly, watching him fumble around the kitchen. You wondered if it was just a Miller thing, being terrible in the kitchen. It certainly seemed like something Joel and Tommy had in common, but you hadn’t really thought about it when Joel had asked if you wanted some tea, in a bit of a panic at your presence.

He didn’t say anything in response to that, seemingly mulling your words over. Joel didn’t really know what to make of your presence, certainly not expecting to see you at his front door when he opened it.

“Oh, wait,” You said suddenly, causing him to look over to you in the doorway from where he had been about to put tea in the two mugs in front of him. You pulled your backpack around on your shoulder, digging through it for a moment before pulling out a bag. Joel’s eyebrows furrowed as he looked between you and the bag, waiting for an explanation. “Look.” You said, handing it over to him.

He took the bag, opening it up and unable to help the grin that broke onto his face at the sight of coffee beans, the scent of them immediately soothing some of the man’s tension.

“Where’d you get these?” Joel asked you, his voice lighter than you had heard it since Boston. The sound of it made you grin, despite everything.

“Found ‘em on a patrol, a while ago. Been hiding them from Tommy, so don’t tell him.” You responded, realising that this was probably the lightest conversation you and Joel had held for a very long time. How long had it been?

“Wouldn’t dream of it. He’s a thief, always has been.” Joel said, smiling. “Right, the tea.” He said after a moment, placing the bag of coffee beans beside the mugs he’d set out.

You snickered as you noticed the mugs, grinning as Joel turned to you in question. “Seems like Tommy’s not the only thief in the family.” You said, gesturing toward the white and orange mug he’d placed down, recognising it from the batch you’d given Tommy and Maria.

Joel, at least, had the decency to look slightly embarrassed about stealing the orange coloured owl mug you had made and gifted to his brother. Either that, or embarrassed about getting caught. It had slipped his mind, really, more of a habit to grab it out of the cupboard, considering it was the one he used all the time.

He opened his mouth to try and craft some sort of defence, but felt any words he might’ve had die on his tongue as he turned to you. Seeing you smiling, well, it wasn’t exactly an unfamiliar sight. You often smiled at Tommy and Maria when he caught sight of you with the two of them, hell, you smiled a lot around that friend of yours, Jesse. Joel even remembers the times you would smile back in Boston, even though life in the QZ was much harder than life in Jackson.

But it had been a long time since Joel had seen you smile in his presence.

Each time you and Joel interacted after he had left you behind, your face had a way of falling, of crumpling in on itself before it hardened, staring at him with an expression of stone.

It had his heart aching in his chest, finally seeing you smile around him. He hadn’t realised quite how much he had missed it.

“What’s wrong?” You asked, after he stayed silent for a moment too long, the smile on your face fading into something of confusion. Joel shook himself out of his melancholy thoughts, clearing his throat and offering up his best smile in return.

“Nothin’,” Joel answered. “Nothin’ at all.”

You let his response linger in the air between the two of you for a few moments, and it seemed that the both of you were thinking of how life used to be. You were a long way from Boston.

“I could’ve made you your own, y’know.” You said, after a the silence stretched on, reaching out and picking up the mug he had stolen, looking at all the imperfections that had seemed invisible, all that time ago when you had made it. You’d like to believe you were much better in your craft, now.

“I like this one, just fine.” Joel responded, plucking it from your hands with a raised eyebrow. You snickered at his actions, moving to look around the kitchen, missing the soft grin stretched over the man’s face.

“God, you fixed that?” You asked suddenly, taking a wide step to look at the slight imperfection on the countertop, where you remember carving a deep gash in the material one night by shattering a particularly heavy plate upon the counter. You were almost sure it wasn’t fixable, that perhaps it could look better, but would always be extremely noticeable.

Joel nodded, back to his task of sorting out tea, but spoke when realising you were faced away from him. “Oh, yeah. Took me a couple tries, though.”

You hummed in response, going back to looking around the kitchen that you remembered so well. Most of the damage you had caused on the room had been fixed, which created a strange feeling in your chest, though you couldn’t tell quite what it was. Relief? Disappointment?

It wasn’t as hard to be in this house as you had expected it to be. You were awaiting that crushing feeling in your chest, that emptiness that left your ribs aching. Surprisingly, you felt… light, almost.

Joel didn’t know exactly what to expect.

On one hand, he wanted to feel hopeful, to belief that this would be the beginning of your relationship with him healing. But then on the other hand, he was reminded of just how much he had hurt you, of the tears that had spilled from your eyes when he had left you behind, the grit of your teeth when he had returned. He tried his best not to expect anything at all, to just remain… happy that you were here, in this moment.

Even if there were no other moments like this one.

He tried not to focus on how much that thought hurt.

“You and Ellie settled in, then?” You asked, trying to fill the silence in the room. There was also that part of you that wanted to know, that wanted to know everything.

Joel repressed the sigh that built in his chest. “Gettin’ there. She, uh, she’s had a tough time, but you know Ellie. She loves to be gettin’ into everybody’s business.” He refrained from looking in your direction when he asked you the same question. “You settled in alright here?” He wanted to add more on, but thought it best not to try his luck.

“I guess so.” You responded, thinking of how different your life was now, to how it was back in Boston, or even to how it was when you were on the road with Joel and Ellie. “It was… tough at first, but Tommy and Maria were good to me. And I got the shop, so.”

“And that boy?” Joel asked, trying to remain casual, though you heard the suspicion.

You smiled at his question, at the way he avoided looking at you. Back in Boston, when you had been much, much younger, Joel had tried to get the thought into your brain that boys were bad. He was protective of you, and distrustful towards the world. You couldn’t blame him.

“Jesse? He’s, uh, he’s my best friend.” You told the man, shaking your head at the way his shoulders relaxed the smallest bit. “He’s a good guy, you know. I care about him.”

As protective as Joel was, though he knew that he didnt really have any right to be, he couldn’t deny that it was nice that you had a friend your age. That you could count on someone, could trust someone, out of your immediate circle. He remembers that you had been lonely in the QZ, with only him and Tess for company, nobody your age that you could speak to or trust.

It had been a relief, almost, when you and Ellie had developed a friendship on the journey. Joel only hoped that the two of you could have that again.

“I’m happy for you, kiddo.” Joel responded, the nickname coming out almost like a reflex, like it was involuntary. It was what he had always called you, though, so you weren’t surprised.

“Jesse, uh— it was actually Jesse’s idea for me to come here.” You said, and Joel couldn’t deny the relief that spread through him when you didn’t immediately reject the nickname, or pull away at the sound of it.

Joel floundered for a moment, looking for something to say, eventually settling on uttering a quiet, “Sounds like a smart kid.”

You smiled, taking the mug off of Joel as he finally finished making the tea, avoiding your eyes. “I guess.” You replied, cradling the warm ceramic mug tightly in your hands. “Somehow, he seems to know what I need to hear, before even I know.” You said, humour coating your fond tone.

Joel smiled. “Sounds familiar. Tess was always like that, with me.”

It was one of the first times Joel had openly mentioned her name since she died. For some reason, it made your shoulders feel much lighter, like the burden of not being able to talk about her had been weighing you down.

“I miss her.” You confessed, looking for his reaction.

“I do, too, kiddo.” Joel admitted, his words softer than you had ever heard them. You thought about what it must’ve been like for him, to lose the companion he had held as close as he dared for close to two decades. You couldn’t imagine.

You hesitated, opening your mouth, before closing it again, only going ahead when Joel gave you a reassuring nod. “You knew her much better than I ever did.”

“I suppose.”

“Do you think you could… I don’t know, just— just tell me about her, one day?” You asked, the hope in your words making Joel’s heart ache.

“‘Course. I’ll tell you whatever you’d like to know.” Joel said, smiling gently at you, nodding his head towards the living room, a soft look on his face as he sat down beside you on the couch. “Ask away, kiddo.”

You were quiet for a moment, feeling lighter than you had possibly your whole life. “Do you think she’d like pottery?” You asked, sharing a knowing smile with Joel. He laughed at the concept, something so amusing about the idea of Tess Servopoulos, the renowned smuggling boss, sitting in your shop and making dinnerware.

“If it was with you, I reckon she’d have liked anything.” Joel responded, something truthful to his words.

You smiled, and asked more about her.

∘₊✧───── ───── ───── ─────✧₊∘

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rrickgrrimes8 · 1 year

Text

you are not safe (tlou)

𝘱𝘢𝘪𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴: 𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘢𝘮𝘴 𝘹 𝘧𝘦𝘮!𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳

(𝘩𝘣𝘰 𝘵𝘭𝘰𝘶)

𝘴𝘶𝘮𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘺: 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘦𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘱𝘦 𝘍𝘌𝘋𝘙𝘈 𝘲𝘶𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘴𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘰𝘭 𝘪𝘯 𝘩𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘪𝘥𝘯’𝘵 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘴𝘰 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘢𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘺. 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘤𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘬𝘦𝘳𝘴, 𝘵𝘰 𝘬𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘴, 𝘵𝘰 𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘮𝘪𝘥𝘥𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘥 𝘮𝘦𝘯, 𝘪𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳; 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥’𝘷𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘭𝘦𝘧𝘵.

𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴: 𝘴𝘸𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘱𝘩𝘪𝘤 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘱𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘧𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨/𝘨𝘶𝘯𝘴/𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘴, 𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘩𝘰𝘣𝘪𝘢, 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩, 𝘢𝘯𝘹𝘪𝘦𝘵𝘺

𝘢/𝘯: 𝘵𝘭𝘰𝘶!! 𝘮𝘺 𝘧𝘢𝘷𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘰𝘮𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪’𝘷𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘯 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘣𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦. 𝘪 𝘩𝘰𝘱𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘺𝘢𝘭𝘴 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴 𝘶𝘱 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴, 𝘢𝘴 𝘪’𝘷𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘺𝘦𝘥. 𝘭𝘦𝘵 𝘮𝘦 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘪𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶’𝘥 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘪’𝘭𝘭 𝘴𝘦𝘦 𝘪𝘧 𝘪 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘥𝘰 𝘪𝘵! 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘸𝘢𝘺, 𝘢𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴, 𝘶𝘳 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘴 𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥, 𝘪𝘭𝘺<3

𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺, 𝘺𝘯 𝘪𝘴: 𝘮𝘪𝘢

Your breath heavies as you carefully pick up your boots, trying your hardest not to crunch the broken glass on the floor of the abandoned building. The clicker behind you attentively tilts its head up, waiting for any sound that signals you’re still nearby. You made the difficult choice between an expired pack of crackers and your life when you ran out of the room empty handed…there’s always next time.

You crouch, almost around the corner and safely away from the infected when you hear a loud clatter on the floor. Your knife lays spinning on the ground after falling from your waist band. The empty and vast building amplifies the sound and you’re sure the entire city has heard your knife fall. You shut your eyes tight, contemplating if you should just curl up into a ball and let this be the end.

Who are you kidding.

In the span of two seconds you swiftly take your knife off of the floor and begin running. The half empty bag on your back jingles with what’s left of your canned food as you turn the corner. The clicker lets out a retched screech before running full force behind you, it’s footsteps sounding like death itself chasing you.

You’re less that six feet from the stairwell when the most horror movie shit occurs at the worst possible time.

You feel yourself step on your own shoe lace and come crashing down. You attempt to stay down and quiet as the clicker stops at the end of the hall. You pull your empty gun from your book bag pocket and point it, more from instinct than protection. Your hands shake along with your breath as you hyper fixate on every twitch and flinch of the clicker.

It turns its fungus consumed head side to side, waiting. You let out a quivering breath, not having a single thing to save you from this.

But even that was a mistake. The dead silence was interrupted with your exhale. That one minuscule sound was enough to make the monster turn to you. Your heart freezes as it lets out a piercing cry. When you close your eyes this time, you’re sure it’s for good. There’s no more running.

You prepare for impact, holding your gun close and pulling your knees closer as you begin to regret every decision you’ve made up until this point.

You wait for the bite. Will it get your legs? Your arms? Your neck?

You hope it gets your neck. Quick and painless.

The terrible sound of the creature nearing you grows and just as it fills every one of your senses…it stops.

You hear a shot ring out. You don’t know if this is the after life or God himself pulled the trigger. Either way, thank God.

You look up to see the clicker retract, a hole in its chest. You snap your head around to see a man towering behind you, a shotgun pointed at the clicker. He wears a thick leather jacket, a coordinating book bag. He can’t be less than 50, no older than 60. He has the signature salt and pepper hair, the grays outweighing the browns.

“You bit?” He looks down to you, gun still pointed.

“No, I-“ You have no time to decide whether to thank him or run away before the clicker lets out an angry shriek.

“Come on.”

He grabs your book bag and pulls you up. All you know is to run. You don’t know where you’re going, you don’t know who you’re with, you only know to run.

The man behind you continues to fire at the infected as he follows you down the spiraling stair way. You can hear it thrashing itself down the steps and almost cry from the adrenaline and fear. Finally, you recognize the doors that you entered through coming up ahead. The unlit ‘EXIT’ sign now seeming like a shining cross. You put the last of your energy, hope, and throttle into making it do the double doors.

You shove one side and it swings open. Against your instinct of slamming it closed behind you, you decide to wait the three extra seconds for your new found partner. He throws himself through the barrier just before you push it closed behind him, the thuds of a pissed off clicker fighting against you.

The man quickly picks up the wooden plank that you removed when you walked in, placing it back - effectively saving the both of you from what lies behind.

You escaped death again, barely. You can’t help but feel like she’s going to keep coming for you, and she won’t let you off this easily next time.

Both of you hunch over as you struggle to catch your breath. Blood splatters both of your clothes, but you can only be grateful that it isn’t yours. The only noise in the room is your panting and the occasional angry boom from behind the doors.

Every rule you’ve ever lived by is telling you to either run from, fight, or kill the person beside you. In todays world, saving a life doesn’t come free - and you have no intention of paying any price. The niceties you learned in the FEDRA camp don’t apply to the real world, it’s dog-eat-dog. Always.

“You here alone?” He finally speaks up, his voice rugged and low.

You know much better than to answer that question truthfully. And any sane person knows better than to ask it.

You stay silent, still softly panting as you avoid eye contact.

"If I was going to hurt you, I would've done it by now." He towers over you.

They all say that. You’d say that, knowing full well that isn’t the truth.

He frustratingly huffs, peering away from you for a moment before looking back.

“You got a name?”

This one you can answer. If it was someway somehow a question made to trick you, shame on you.

“Mia.” You say shortly, finally looking at him.

“Where you headed?”

This guy really doesn’t know how fucking suspicious these questions are.

“Alright,” He steps closer to you, “It’s either you answer me or I leave you right here.”

“I’m fine on my own, thanks.” You spit, offended that he thinks you need a man you don’t know.

“Didn’t look like it.”

Touché.

You contemplate lying, telling him you’re on your way right back to FEDRA and they’ll be waiting for you. But you know better than to use that name, one that everyone isn’t very fond of. Hell, if you heard it you’d be more wary of the person than scared of the organization.

“I’m going to Kansas. Searching for my brother.” You say truthfully.

When you escaped the FEDRA school, there was no way in hell you were leaving your brother, Luca, there. You knew it’d be risky, taking an 8 year old into the free world, but what they’d do to him at a corrupt facility with a runaway sister would be much worse.

You weren’t going to be on your own for long, though. You had a plan.

You only left in the first place to find your missing friend. There were many nights when she’d come home late from sneaking out, especially after a mutual of yours got infected. She was in the worst state you’d ever seen her. Both of you were friends with Riley, her more so than you, so when she was bitten, it was your responsibility to protect your remaining friend. She’d be gone until the guards would come for morning call just…out. Either at the mall or on the roofs doing god knows what. But she made it abundantly clear that she wanted to be alone.

But when she simply didn’t come back one day, you knew you had to find her. She wouldn’t leave you, she wouldn’t leave FEDRA. Where would she go?

So you did the only thing you could and broke yourself and Luca out of that shit hole, leaving a small trail of unconscious men behind.

For the first two weeks you felt like you were invincible. Not running into any clickers, finding buildings full of what you needed, keeping water high. You thought you’d find her in no time, how far could she have gotten?

But that all changed. One thing you hadn’t prepared for was knowing the difference between abandoned safe havens and FEDRA military zones. When the two of you unknowingly walked right into one and were ambushed, no amount of gun power could’ve saved you.

They separated you, soldiers ripping little Luca away as he shouted your name. You saw red, this fucking organization has taken enough from you. You’d be a fool not to fight, and like hell you did.

But not enough. Not enough to get the both of you out. The decision you made to keep running and not go back for him was only justified by one thing.

Every radio you heard go off, every conversation you overheard in the short time you were there. They all mentioned the same thing.

Kansas.

It’s all you had to hold on to.

You abandoned your initial search mission and put all of your focus and energy into making it to Kansas and retrieving your brother from the shits that took him. And if this guy thinks that he can render that plan, he’ll die trying.

“Kansas?” He cocks his head at you.

“Yea, you going too?”

He stares at you, his brows furrowed.

“Kansas is dead.”

Your heart skips a beat. In a perfect world, he’ll mean that all of the infected in Kansas have been cleared out and it’s a FEDRA zone. That’d be better than what you’re thinking of.

“Dead?” You ask, all of your attention now on him.

“Overrun. It’s crawling with clickers, I saw it myself.” He tells you, strait faced. He slightly shakes his head. “If your brother was there…”

You stare at him, waiting for it to be a twisted joke and for him to burst into laughter at your reaction. For him to mock the way your face drained of color and eyes went wide.

But it never comes. You just stare at each other. It’s only now that you realize he isn’t lying, he’s being 100% serious. You scramble for a reason that he’d make this up but you come up empty, there is no reason to lie about this.

Your mouth stays agape as you feel like all of the air has been sucked out of the room. You blink back tears and attempt to speak when you’re interrupted.

"You alright, Joel?” You hear a voice coming from the open exit across the room. “That banging must've alerted at least-"

You turn your head to see someone you gave up all hope of ever seeing again. She stops in her tracks and you feel the air sucked out of you for the second time.

It’s…Ellie.

The Ellie that disappeared after Riley got bit. The Ellie that you escaped FEDRA to come find. The Ellie that was your closest friend since you were kids. She’s standing in front of you…a ghost. She has to be.

Nothing makes sense as you both look at each other in silence.

“…Mia?” She speaks up, her eyes just as wide as yours.

You finally breathe. She’s real. That voice is real and it’s the only thing you’ve wanted to hear for a month now. Against all odds, this fucker lived. Of course she did, you were stupid to think anything or anyone could kill Ellie Williams.

“Ellie.” You sigh, relieved as you begin walking toward her.

You crash into a hug, her arms instinctively wrapping around you. Tears prickle your eyes but you know better than to cry in front of your hardened friend and this stranger of a man.

“I thought you were dead.” You squeeze her.

“How are you-“ She stutters, pulling away to get a better look at you. “How’d you escape?”

You smile for the first time in a long time.

“I’m a good liar and a better fighter.” You shrug cockily, “Learned that from you.”

“I-“ She laughs in disbelief. “You just left? I can’t even- I can’t believe you’re fuckin’ here right now. How is-”

“Fuck that Ellie, where have you been? And who’s he?” You point behind you.

Ellie looks over your shoulder then back to you, obvious on her face that the guy didn’t approve of your question.

“It’s-“

She’s cut off by another loud bang from behind the doors, causing the the wooden plank to rattle.

“We need to go.” You hear the man grunt before walking past the two of you.

…

You’ve never been in a real moving car. You’ve heard stories and seen abandoned ones, but never been inside of one that’s up and running. You can only imagine that this is what it feels like to be in an airplane. The world going by so fast as everyone inside seems to live in a separate reality.

Ellie and her friend sit in the front seats while your eyes stayed glued out of the window in the back of the craggy truck.

You didn’t even mind that the stranger in the drivers seat heard the stories that you and Ellie exchange on the way. You explain the entire last month of your life, skimming through the hellish few weeks without Luca. You try your hardest not to completely shut down as his calls for you ring through your head once again.

But the thoughts are quickly moved to the side as Ellie explains her own stories. How a woman, Marlene, took her from the school and to a Fireflies camp.

If FEDRA taught you one thing, it was to never trust that militia group. Terrorist, is what they called them.

Marlene was the third person to ever know that Ellie was immune, and like you feared, she planned to take advantage of it. She sent Ellie with an outsider to get her to a hospital in Utah in order to find a ‘cure.’ Anyone who’s been alive this long knows there’s no cure.

This is how things are, you know that. If this Marlene was half as smart as Ellie says she is, then she knows that. You just wish Ellie knew it too. The day everyone stops acting like there’s going to be some saving grace that stops this world from being a shit hole is the day that society will finally move forward.

We just need to adjust. When people try to find solutions to reality, things don’t end well. You thought that what happened to Riley would’ve made that clear. But knowing Ellie, she’ll do everything in her power to stop the world from becoming worse than it already is.

You’ve stopped looking out of the window and now sit in the center of the seat, looking at both the driver and your friend as you try to decipher everything that Ellie’s telling you.

“Right. And this man-“

“Joel.” Ellie reminds you.

“Joel.” You nod. “He’s your…dad?”

Ellie damn near chokes on air as she stifles a laugh.

“No, no.” She shakes her head, holding back her giggle.

“Absolutely not.” Joel huffs.

“Marlene just sent me with him. We’re…” She looks over to him, seeming not to know the answer herself. “Partners.”

“Partners?” You tilt your head, not understanding why she wouldn’t kick him where it hurts and run like hell from him when she had the chance if they were just partners.

She nods.

You turn to lay in your seat, putting your legs in the chair and head on the window sill.

“Tell me what adventures you and your partner have been on since you became cargo.” You say, looking at the world go by above your head.

“It’s a long story-“

“It’s not like we’re gonna be late, Ellie.” You shrug,

She sighs, pausing for a moment before speaking up.

“Well, the last place was…” She trails off.

You wait for her to finish, but she never does. You look down from the window to see Ellie’s face drained of color. She looks like she’s seen a ghost as Joel looks over to her, both of them sharing something nonverbal. You feel like you’ve overstepped somehow, which you’ve never felt with your best friend before. The tension grows thick in the air and it’s only now that you’d want nothing more than to get out of this car.

Ellie clears her throat, looking away from Joel and seemingly detouring from what she was going to talk about.

“We went to Wyoming.” She says, the mood slowly reverting back to normal. “They had an entire community. Walls, real meals, movies- I mean, I saw a fuckin’ movie.”

You scoff, not believing it. “Bullshit.”

“I swear.” She says in between laughs. “And we met Joel’s brother, Tommy. He had a-“

“Ellie.” Joel stops her. He flashes a look that you can only imagine a father giving his kid when she slips up.

Ellie puts her hands up in surrender. “Excuse the fuck out of me.”

The three of you come to a quiet as you see a tunnel filled to the top with rubble. You can assume that it’s a blockage from when the world first fell. Joel shuts the car off before opening his door.

“We gotta walk.”

…

All of you roam through an old demolished building covered up with red tarp. Packages and wooden boxes lay around the tinted room as Joel looks for a way to get around the road block. You and Ellie are effectively zero help as you continue to catch up while he does all of the searching.

“Real snow?”

She nods. “It looks cool, but it’s so cold that you can’t enjoy it. More than 10 seconds out there and I was fuckin’ shaking.”

You laugh, astonished at all that she’s experienced in the short time that you’ve been apart. Ellie continues.

“It’s nothing like the snow cookies from school.”

You perk up, excitedly jumping up and down as you reminisce. “Oh my god, I totally forgot about the fucking snow cookies!”

“Every goddamn winter.” Ellie smiles. “Gathering in the kitchen and cutting snowflakes in our cookie dough to make up for the fact that we’d never seen snow a day in our lives.”

“God, it was so sad.” You sigh, coming down from your laughter. “And when we’d cut them into tiny little pieces to make it seem like more. Jesus, we were starving kids. Good times, man.” You giggle.

There’s a pause. You look up to see Ellie staring at your hands, seeming to zone out. Her smile has faded and her face goes slightly red as she peers.

“Ellie?” You call. “You okay?”

No answer. She stands frozen in her fazed state. Joel seems to notice as you look to him. He walks closer to Ellie, coming up on the other side of her. She doesn’t seem to notice at all.

“Hey.” He calls. When she doesn’t answer he steps closer, head tilted at her. “Ellie.” He raises his voice.

She finally snaps out of it, slightly shaking it off before looking at both of you like a deer in headlights.

“You okay?” Joel asks, brows furrowed.

“Yea, yea.” She says as if it’s obvious, trying her hardest to hide her disheveled state.

“‘Cause you been acting sort of funny…”

She shakes her head, “Sorry.”

“No, no need to apologize.”

You both just look at her. Anyone with a grasp of social cues can tell that somethings wrong. But it doesn’t stop you from feeling a little sad that she doesn’t feel safe enough to tell you about it.

Joel clears his throat, changing topics. “I found the way out. We’ll have to ditch the car but it was on its last leg anyway.”

Ellie nods before Joel walks away, leaving you and her. You can’t help but linger for a minute, praying that she’ll tell you what’s wrong even if it’s stupid. It’s clearly bothering her.

“Seriously, I’m fine.” She shrugs, forcing a small smile before following Joel out.

You watch her go before letting out a huff and trudging behind her.

Outside, you see what looks like a destroyed junk yard. Old cars and dirt covered tarps lay on the ground, you assume it’s a bombed area.

“This a FEDRA thing?” Ellie asks as the two of you catch up with Joel.

“No, Army.” He quickly responds, looking around. “Emergency medical camps from when everything fell, obviously didn’t last. They had me in one just like this.”

“With Sarah?”

“No, she was already gone.”

You look over to Ellie, clearly confused. She discreetly shakes her head, signaling that now isn’t the time to explain. You get the message, nodding before looking to Joel.

“So what was wrong with you?” You ask, genuinely curious. If anything, you would’ve thought he was army.

He looks overtop Ellie’s head, his gaze landing on you. He gestures to the side of his face where a healed scar lays on his temple.

“For this.”

“Oh,” Ellie speaks up, knowing the story. “For the guy that shot and missed. I assumed that would’ve happened later.”

Ellie doesn’t notice Joel’s halt as she walks ahead of him. She keeps talking while he just stands there, causing you to stop with him.

“The army was way better at stitching you up than I was-“

“Ellie…” You softly call her, seeing the slight change in Joel’s face as he stands there.

She turns around, staring at the two of you just as lost at you are. Joel only stares at the ground, as if he’s conjuring up the courage to say something.

“Joel?”

“…It was me.” He looks at her. “I’m the guy who shot and missed.”

Your gaze instantly shifts from Ellie to Joel, viewing his scar in a very different light now. Ellie’s face has dropped as both of you watch him remove his gun from around his torso and take a seat on a cement wall. Ellie follows suit, sitting beside him. You stay standing, not feeling like this a moment for you to intrude on.

“There’s no story.” He shrugs, avoiding eye contact as if he’s telling the story to himself for the first time. “Sarah died and I couldn’t see the point anymore, simple as that.”

Ellie examines his face. You know her well enough to realize that this isn’t just her partner. She’s never been worried about someone else’s feelings or stories the way she is about Joel’s. It’s like she’s teetering the edge between engulfing him in a hug and putting her hardened wall back up, but by the way she’s looking at him, you know what side she’s leaning on.

“I was so ready.” He continues. “I couldn’t have been more ready…But for some reason, when I pulled the trigger…”

He goes quiet, shaking his head like it’s something he still doesn’t understand himself.

“I flinched.” He says airily, almost scoffing. “Still don’t know why.”

Ellie looks back at you before returning to Joel, who’s now looking out into the rubble, deep in thought. She clears her throat, catching his attention.

“Well I’m glad that…” She gestures to his scar, “that didn’t work out.”

He nods, clearing his own throat as they almost instantaneously put their guards back up.

“Yea, me too.” He says, the two of them rising to their feet. Joel sighs, looking around the junkyard as you and Ellie share a look.

“We better find somewhere to hole up.”

You furrow brows, “What about the hospital?”

“We’ll make it tomorrow, it’s getting dark.”

“Where will we go? We can’t stay…” Ellie examines the dump, “here.”

Joell holds his arms out to the side, gesturing at all of the abandoned apartments surrounding you.

“Which one do you want?”

She looks at you, “What do you think?”

You laugh at their request, seeing as they’re all beaten down and deteriorating. The only one that stands out is the tallest building in the area. Off-white paint with the words ‘NEW RENTALS’ fading off of the front sign. You point to it. Ellie shrugs, nodding her head in approval.

“I call the-“

“Don’t even fuckin’ think about it.” Ellie stops you. You smile as she already knows what you’re going to say. “That master bedroom is mine.”

“Only if you can get there first.” You grin, darting away from them in pursuit of the apartment.

Ellie follows quickly behind you, hot on your trail as you both race to get the bedroom first.

“Hey, slow down!” You hear Joel’s distant calls.

“You know what’s not right?” Ellie reads her book, a huge smile on both of your faces as you pant.

“It better not be left.” You remark as the two of you enter the atrium of the complex.

“Damn it!” She scolds. You burst into laughter, your stomach hurting from how painfully lame her jokes are.

“I told you, I’ve gotten good since you last saw me.” You shrug.

“Okay, okay. Listen to this one.” She begins, paying no mind to the dark and molded interior of the building. “People are making apocalypse jokes like there’s no tomorrow.”

You look to her, deadpanning. She smiles knowingly.

“Too soon?”

“Way too fuckin’ soon.” You laugh. “I bet you I know half of the jokes in that-“

You suddenly come to a screeching halt. Ellie, a few feet ahead of you, is whisked away in the span of a second, her joke book now on the ground where she once stood. You barely have time to think as you look over to your left and see her on the ground, a thin and mutilated clicker atop of her. It sprints at what seems like the speed of light, violently throwing itself on Ellie.

Her screams pull you out of your trance. You shout her name before swiftly retrieving your newly loaded gun, curtesy of Joel’s backseat ammunition. Holding it up, you fire 4 shots.

You’re wildly off target, too afraid to hit Ellie in the close contact. You abandon the gun, taking the knife out of your waist band and hurdling toward the clicker. It must be newly infected, as you would’ve thought it was a human had it not been for the patch of fungus replacing the left side of its head.

You jump on its back, stabbing the monster’s ribs over and over as it stumbles off of Ellie. You scramble to your feet just as the clicker lets out a furious cry, blood leaking from its torso. You can’t back away quick enough before it jumps on you the same way it did Ellie.

It roars and bites toward your face as you pierce its stomach over and over, not able to pull your arm up high enough to slash its skull. You’ve made the mistake of looking into its eyes, horrifying you to another level. They’re green and bloodshot, the eyes of a crazed person. The image sends chills through your body.

“Ellie!” You yell, tears threatening to fall from your eyes.

You’re seconds away from giving up, the clicker not letting up in the slightest. But you know better. You have people depending on you, people to protect. You can’t leave Luca and Ellie, not now.

Your fight is giving out just as the weight suddenly lifts off of you. A gunshot rings out and the clicker goes limp, prompting you to shove it off of your body. You pull yourself off of the ground, your shirt now soaked in more clicker guts. To your right, in front of Ellie, is a sight you’ve seen before. Joel lowers his shot gun and rushes toward you, catching you off guard as he grabs your shoulders and spins you around.

“Are you bit?” He asks, frantically checking you.

He roughly rotates your body, patting you down and turning your head as he closely looks at every inch of you.

“Dude, get off of-“

He tilts your head to the right, examining your neck. He raises both of your arms and scans over both legs.

“Hey, hey…” Ellie speaks up, noticing how aggressive he’s being.

Joel doesn’t listen, continuing, to barbarically twist and turn you without saying a word.

“I’m fine! Get the fuck off of me!” You yell, finally pushing him away.

He stumbles back, just staring at you as he catches his breath. Ellie looks between the two of you, clearly not familiar with this behavior coming from him.

He doesn’t say anything, only walks past you and the dead clicker before entering the stairwell. You watch him go, looking back to give Ellie an unapproving look as you follow behind him.

…

The tension in the small apartment is thick as you unpack your things in silence. Ellie allowed you the master, not feeling right taking it from you anymore. Joel takes the couch, setting his bag down and walking into the smaller room’s bathroom, leaving you and Ellie alone.

Ellie sets her book bag on the kitchen counter and begins unpacking what food she has. You lean on the breakfast bar, watching her.

“Sarah was Joel’s daughter.” She breaks the quiet, continuing to unload her bag.

“I figured.” You nod.

“I think you remind him of her, somehow. He’s…protective, but doesn’t know why. I don’t think he knows how to react to shit like that; to how he feels about other people.”

“Sounds familiar.”

She stops, not being able to hide her smile as she looks at you.

“Shut the fuck up.” She giggles, beginning to sort her cans.

You laugh, the mood finally beginning to lighten in Joel’s absence.

“I can tolerate it, Joel. He’s protecting you. He cares for you, I can tell. As long as that’s true we’re on the same side.” You shrug, knowing that she’s your only priority right now.

Ellie eyes you, holding back a grin as she zips her bag up. You peek over the counter to see a few cans separated into 2 groups.

“Holy shit, no way.” You eyes go wide as you pick up one of the small red containers. “You have ravioli?”

“Oh yea, we found it on the road.” She says, “It’s not as good cold, plus we have to split one can so you can’t really savor the taste.”

“You have like two weeks of food and you have to split one can?” You ask, realizing how much weight she’s lost since she left.

“Joel says we need to ration. Hopefully he’ll let us have two now that you’re here.”

“No.” Joel exits the bathroom with perfect timing. “We’ll just have smaller rations.”

Ellie spins around, “Oh, come on. It’s not like we don’t have enough.”

He tosses his rifle on the couch before crashing down on it. “One can. That’s it.” Joel lays back, closing his eyes.

Ellie rolls her eyes, turning to you.

“One can, that’s it.” She quietly mocks him, causing both of you to laugh.

You see something whiz past your head and hit Ellie straight in the face.

“Ow!” She pulls the leather jacket off of her. “Watch it, mother fucker!”

“I heard that.” He grunts, making himself more comfortable.

You chuckle, setting Ellie’s Chef Boyardee back down before heading into the master bedroom.

…

March 12th, 2024

“Texas QZ to Boston,” The soldier says into his walkie as he paces the room. “We’ve got two runaways from quarantine boarding. No younger than 5, no older than 16.”

The radio crackles before a voice comes through, “You’re positive they’re from the school?” They ask.

The guard looks over before walking toward you, causing you to back up until you can’t anymore. He gives you a look like you’re the stupidest person alive as he yanks your arm to him, observing the BQZ tattooed just under your left wrist.

“Yea, I’m sure.” He smiles as you snatch your hand away.

You hated nothing more than waking up everyday with that tattoo on you. That branding. Since you were little, even when you thought FEDRA wasn’t the corrupt infantry that it is, you used to scrub it in the shower until your skin turned red. The thought of having something permanently put on you like that caused your brain unrest for years. Only now do you realize that it can put you in more danger than you ever would’ve thought.

“Take ‘em to Kansas with you.” The person on the other side responds.

“Yes, sir.” He nods, his southern accent thick as he latches his radio back to his waist.

The officer stares down at you like a predator to prey, raising a hand to smooth hair. “You’re coming with me, darlin’.” He wickedly grins, displaying his wildly unkept teeth.

“Don’t touch me.” You slap his hand away from you, pushing him back. He catches himself, his smile not faltering as you sneer. “I want to see my brother.”

“You’re a feisty one.” He raises a brow.

You ignore him, not new to the perverted nature of every asshole in this stupid department.

“Now.” You insist.

“I’ll let you see your brother…” His boots beat on the floor as he stalks toward you, causing a twisting pit in your stomach. “If you work for it.”

His sinister smirk is all you need to see to know what he wants, and you’d be damned if he thought he’d ever get it. But your eyes were on the prize; the glistening rifle around his chest.

“What do I have to do?” You ask, batting your eyelashes as best you can.

He nears you. You can’t help but laugh at the stupid mistake he’s made, your hand tightly gripping the knife in your own waistband as he strokes your cheek.

“Not much, sweetheart.”

The soldier reaches for his belt buckle and you seize the opportunity, releasing your blade and slashing his stomach in one swift motion. He buckles almost immediately, wailing and falling onto his knees as he holds his gut. You pay no mind, pulling his gun off of his torso and pointing the butt at him.

“Son of a-“ He struggles to catch his breath. “What the hell are you doing!?”

You deadpan at him, expecting more of a fight than this. You ram the back of the gun straight into his nose, him falling unconscious with ease. You wedge your knife back into your pants before exiting the room.

…

You’ve shot the assault weapon so many times that you’ve lost track. Blacking out during gunfights like this isn’t uncommon for you, but there was one thing you’re sure of. No matter how many rooms you checked, how many guards you demanded answers from, you haven’t found Luca.

You stand outside of the building, knowing that this is your one and only chance of escape. A thousand thoughts cross your mind. They could’ve taken him miles away by now, he could be hiding…he could be dead. Never in your life have you thought about leaving your brother behind, but as the sound of military tanks grow louder, you know it’s your only option. Either you and him die here, or you leave now and come back for him later.

There’s only one right choice. You spin around and book it into the wooded area behind the beaten down Texan warehouse. You squat in the trees as 4 tanks full of FEDRA officers arrive in less than 3 minutes. They hop out with guns bigger than Luca before shutting the gate and securing a perimeter.

There’s nothing left to see, you’re seconds away from fleeing the scene when you hear something that will haunt you for weeks to come.

“Mia!” Luca’s delicate voice screams.

You rise to your feet, looking past the tanks to see tiny Luca being dragged outside by two of the living soldiers from the building. His throat strains as he shouts your name, the FEDRA officers ignoring him. Your heart has never ached more, you want nothing more than to take your brother and run like hell.

But there’s no way. FEDRA officers have surrounded the warehouse. It’s swarming with them. All your presence would do is give them all the more reason to torture and kill the both of you. But as long as they were looking for you, the longer Luca has to live.

You’ll be the distraction. You’ll be whatever Luca needs to stay alive…

April 26th, 2024

Three knocks at the bedroom door pull you out of deep thought. You’ve worked up a sweat remembering what happened to your baby brother. It’s like each time you close your eyes it happens all over again.

You sit up on the bed, the most comfortable spot you’ve ever slept in. You don’t call out, knowing better. FEDRA taught you to never assume what’s going on behind a door, you have no idea what’s happened out there. You don��t make yourself known as you quietly reach for the knife under your pillow.

“It’s me.” You hear Ellie’s voice, just above a whisper.

You put the knife down and slip from under the covers, squinting in the moon lit room to unlock the door and swing it open. She stands with her hair down, how you thought it was prettiest.

“You scared me.” You scoff.

“Sorry.” She rocks back on her heels, whispering low enough to not wake Joel. “I haven’t really been able to sleep alone very well since I left school.”

You mindlessly nod, enamored by how lovely she looks. She looks past you into the room.

“I was wondering if I could…”

“Oh, yea!” You snap out of it, stepping aside for her to walk in. “Of course.”

“I won’t stay long, I swear.” She says as you close the door behind her. “Just for a little bit.”

“Stay as long as you want, really. Honestly, I’d rather you be here with me.” You walk in front of her and climb into your bed, sitting criss cross. “Come.” You pat the space in front of you.

“Oh,” Ellie raises her brows, not expecting to be so close. “Okay.”

She walks around to the other side of the bed before pulling her own knife from her pocket and sitting it on the wooden nightstand. You can’t help but smile at how much like you she is. She lifts herself onto the comforter and copies your position.

You stare at each other. You’d have no issue doing this all night, but you know Ellie is beginning to feel uncomfortable by now.

“D’you wanna okay a game?” You ask.

She exhales, relieved that the silence didn’t last long. “Sure, like what?”

“True or false? Like old times?”

“I totally forgot about true or false.” She airily laughs, “Riley was a fuckin’ master at that game.”

“Right? I still don’t know how she lied that well.” You giggle, straightening your posture. “Okay, you first.”

“Alright, um…” She thinks, looking around the room. A few seconds pass before she looks back to you, an idea finally hitting her. “True or false, I’ve seen a giraffe before.”

You scoff, not remembering her making the game so simple.

“Easy, false. C’mon, give me a hard one.”

She doesn’t respond, only giving you a look.

“No fucking way…” Your smile drops. Hers only grows. “No fucking way!”

She bursts into laughter.

“Ellie! You saw a real giraffe?”

She nods, a grin wide on her face. “We were on top of a building, me and Joel. I fed it and all, it was fuckin’ amazing.”

You chuckle, astonished by how much she’s lived since she left.

“I can’t believe that, honestly.”

“It was crazy.” She aggress. “Your turn.”

“Okay. True or false, I own a taxidermied clicker head.”

“Yea fucking right. You don’t have the balls.”

You linger, considering lying just to seem cooler. But she’d never believe it.

“Fine. You’re right, I don’t.” You admit.

“I knew it.”

“I just want something as cool as seeing a giraffe, man! This is so unfair!”

“One to zero, baby.” She taunts. “Now, true or false…I’m immune.” She says as if she’s revealed the biggest secret ever.

You blankly stare, almost spitting out your answer. But you pause, squinting at her.

“You seriously have to think about this?”

“I don’t know…” You examine, “This might be a trick question.”

“Nope.” She shakes her head. “Nothing tricky about it.”

You think hard, trying to imagine any way she could twist this.

“Come on, say your answer!” She urges you, placing her hands on your knees and shaking.

“I’m scared!” You laugh.

“It’s so freaking easy!”

“Okay, okay!” You brush her off. “I’ve come to a conclusion.”

She waits eagerly, a wide smile on her face.

“My answer is…False.”

“What!?” She whisper yells. “Why?”

“Because you never said what you’re immune to, right? Could be venom, fevers, anything.”

Ellie removes her hands from your knees and covers her face.

“Dammit.” She sighs, defeated.

“Yes!” You throw your arms in the air. “I knew it!”

“How did you know?” She looks at you.

“I just know you too well, you’re getting predictable Williams.” You shrug.

“Whatever.” She rolls her eyes, “Go.”

“Okay…” You mischievously rub your hands together, thinking of something outlandish but also believable. “Alright, true of false, I broke my finger after escaping and it healed all gross and crooked and shit."

You await her reaction, knowing that this is a hard one to be able to spot. So as not to give her any hints, you hide your hands in your lap.

But Ellie isn’t smiling anymore. Her face has dropped and she’s now staring at her lap, zoning out like the did in the demolished building.

“Ellie?” You look closer.

She doesn’t answer, that look on her face again, as if she’s recalling a memory. Her breathing begins to heavy.

“Ellie, I was kidding. I totally made that shit up.”

Her eyes search before finding yours. She still doesn’t seem all the way there as she barely acknowledges you.

“Oh.” She dully laughs. “Actually, I am getting a little tired now. I’m just gonna…”

She scoots off of the bed and heads toward the door, making you jump up behind her. She’s just reached the doorknob as you catch up.

“Wait, wait, wait. Ellie.” You spin her around. Your heart sinks when you see tears swelling in her eyes. You shake your head in confusion. “What is it? What’d I say?”

“Nothing, I-“ She quickly wipes her tears away. “Jesus, I don’t know why I’m crying.”

“Ellie.” You deadpan, knowing something’s wrong. You decide to let it all out. Tell her what you’ve noticed seen and pray she gives you some explanation.

“I’ve noticed you…close up, when I say certain things. Worse than normal.” You whisper, tip toeing around it like you’re walking on eggshells. She looks at her feet, the pain in her face only measurable to when she lost Riley. It’s rips you up inside to see her struggling in silence like this.

“I don’t wanna pry, Ellie.” You continue. “And if you don’t want to, you don’t have to; But if something happened after you left…you know you can tell me, right?”

Her gaze stays on the floor and you fear that you went too far. Your hands stay on her shoulders and you feel them begin to quiver.

What the hell has her so scared?

“During winter in Colorado…” She begins, her voice shaking. “There was a man, we had killed one of his men. Joel was too sick to fight, he had an infection. He took me back to his camp and put me in a cage - like a jail. He told me that they…” She trails off, her face contorting in pain as she reminisces. “That they eat people.”

You listen in horror as she describes the story, tears continuously hitting the floor as her shoulders come to a full on tremble.

“He said he admired my violence, thought I’d work with him. I broke his finger. He didn’t see me as a partner after that, he saw me as meat. As food for his people.”

You close your eyes, seeing how bad you fucked up by bringing up the topic. Your hands slide from her shoulders to her fidgeting hands, holding them as they shake uncontrollably.

“I fought them so hard. I killed his butcher, set his cabin on fire. And when I tried to get away he…” Her tears flow harder. She shakes her head like she’s trying her best to get it out. “He got on top of me. He said fighting was his favorite part, and ‘there’s no fear in love.’ He- He tried to-“

“Shh, Ellie.” You pull her into a hug, her arms wrapped around your torso. Her entire body convulses as she sobs into your shoulder, squeezing you tight. You stroke her hair, attempting to hide how murderous the story made you feel. If you ever ran into the mother fucker who touched her…

“Every time I close my eyes I feel like he’s- Like something coming to get me.” She cries, barely audible through her weeps.

You pull away from the hug and press your forehead to hers, looking her in the eye as you cradle her face.

“He’s gone now, right?” You confirm.

She nods, sniffling.

“He’ll never hurt you again. No one will.” You assure her. “You’re safe here.”

She quickly shakes her head, disagreeing with you as her once graceful face is now stained red.

“I’m never fucking safe.” She says so quietly that you almost miss it. But you don’t.

You pull back, your faces still intensely close to each other as your hands stay cupping her cheeks.

“I’m right here. And he’s out there.” You point to the door. “I don’t know much, but when I see the way Joel looks at you, I have no doubt in my mind that he’d give his life for yours. We both would, Ellie. You are safe with me. Always.” You urge, tears now falling from your eyes also.

She searches your face for any signs of doubt or hesitation, but finds none. Every word you’re saying, you mean with everything you have. If you were given a gun and had to choose between you and her right here, right now, you wouldn’t think twice.

Ellie just hardly nods, having no choice but to believe you.

“Tell me.” You say.

“Wh-“

“That you’re safe. Say it and believe it.”

“I-“ She stammers.

You worry that she doesn’t take your word for the truth, but you’re quickly cut off. Ellie brings her hands to your face and pulls you closer, your lips meeting in a soft kiss. You don’t reject it, at all. You’d stay like this for the rest of your life if she allowed it. You were Ellie Williams’ for as long as she’d have you.

She pulls back, her eyes wide and surprised at what she just did.

She removes her hands from your cheeks and you follow suit.

“Shit.” She exhales, wiping her tears. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I did that. I just-“

“Don’t ever apologize to me, Ellie.” You insist. You don’t give her a chance to respond before pulling her in for another kiss, quicker this time. You love the feel of her on your lips, you love the feel of her being close to you. Being safe with you.

You pull away this time, admiring how beautiful she is, even with her tear ridden cheeks.

“I promise you, no matter what it takes, I will keep you safe.”

She doesn’t search for hesitance this time. All doubts have been wiped from her mind as she smiles. A real, genuine smile.

——

The sun comes through the windows and heats up your skin, forcing you awake. You look to your right to see Ellie still fast asleep beside you, a sight that you pray you get to see for the rest of your life. You roll out of bed, your arm sore from the clicker from yesterday.

You swing open the bedroom door to see Joel standing in front of the couch, packing his stuff. He turns, noticing you in the doorway.

“Hey.” He nods, rotating so that he’s facing you.

“Hey.” You reply, noticing all of the food cans now packed in his bag. “We hitting the road?”

“Yea, we need to get to the hospital as soon as possible. We’ve taken enough detours.”

“Oh. Well, Ellie’s still asleep. I’ll wake her and then we can go.” You tell him, turning to walk back into the bedroom.

“Wait.” He stops you, you spin back around.

“Hm?”

He stops loading his pack and turns his full attention to you, making you feel a bit nervous after your last encounter with him.

“You know- uh, the walls are thin. And sleep is hard to come by.” He begins.

Oh god.

“I heard what was said in there last night.”

You don’t know if you feel creeped on or embarrassed that he knows you kissed his daughter.

“Oh…um-“

“I just wanted to say thanks, you know? For being a good friend.” He nods as if he’s sticking to a script he’s made in his head for this. “I didn’t exactly know how to approach her about…all of it.”

You shake your head, hoping he missed the kiss part.

“Nothing to thank me for.” You shrug, “She means just as much to me as she does to you.”

“Right.”

You exhale, the awkwardness in the room building.

“That all?” You raise your brows.

“Yep.” He clears his throat, just as uncomfortable as you.

“Cool.” You give him one last nod before closing the door.

…

The three of you have packed all of your stuff and are almost out of the building when you hear a sound that never fails to send chills through your body.

Soft clicks echo through the empty hallway leading to outside. A clicker with a fungus erupted head wanders in the sun, dormant as it waits for a sound to set it off. Ellie slaps a hand over her mouth, presumably not trusting herself to stay quiet.

Joel, in front of both of you, looks back with a finger over his lips. You don’t have the ammo or desire to fight it right now, so the two of you silently agree.

You stay close to the wall and low to the ground, watching your every step so as not to step on anything that’ll alert it to your existence. You’re right behind it as Joel steps out of the concrete building and onto the grass. He stays there, a gun pointed to the clicker’s head as he signals for you two to pass him. You do as you’re told, scurrying behind him as Joel backs away slowly.

Once you’ve made it out of ear shot of the monster, Joel finally turns around.

“That was the scariest shit of my life.” Ellie pants, the noon sun beaming extra hot today.

“I’ve never been that close to one before.”

Both Ellie and Joel turn to ogle you.

“Without it attacking me, guys.” You roll your eyes.

Joel picks a paper map from Ellie’s book bag pocket. He opens and turns it a little before finding where you are.

“We should only be a few hours out.” He walks with his head down as you re-enter the scrapyard from yesterday. “With luck, we’ll be there while the sun is still high.”

“Don’t wish that,” Ellie groans, “This sun is hell.”

You’re walking on Joel’s right side, Ellie on the left, when you hear something roll to your feet. All three of you look back to see a small metal shell on the ground. You don’t have time to do anything before Joel grabs the both of you and pulls you down.

You don’t feel the grenade detonate, only the instantaneous ringing in your ears as your vision blurs. Behind that, you hear Joel’s faint calls for Ellie, but your sight is overtaken with black dots before you can act.

——

Your head aches as you come to. Your eyes reluctantly open to see a dimly lit room with all types of medical supplies on the wall. Two guards and a woman stand at the doorway, looking down at something. You shift your gaze to see Joel on the floor.

“Joel?” You ask, barely able to hear yourself.

“Marlene…” He murmurs to the woman standing over him. “You don’t understand”

“I do.” She says. “I was there when she was born, Joel.”

You can’t comprehend anything that’s going on. You don’t know where you are or who these people are, but that doesn’t change the one question that you have.

“Joel, where’s Ellie?” You speak, louder this time.

They all turn to look at you, Joel standing to his feet but not turning around.

“Mia, stay there.” He demands. The hostility in the room tells you to do exactly what he says.

The woman, Marlene, stares at you, looking you up and down before stepping forward, seemingly enamored by your existence. But Joel stands in front of her, blocking her from you.

“Move out of my way.” She orders.

“She’s got nothing to do with this.”

“You’re in no position to fight me right now. If I was going to hurt her, I wouldn’t have brought her all the way here to do it.” She explains. “Move.”

She attempts to get around him again but for the second time, he gets in her way. The two men with guns raise them at Joel’s head, making you tense. Marlene tries to get to you for third time, and this time, Joel stays put; but not without eyeing her down.

You sit up, your legs hanging off the side of the platform as she towers over you. You unconsciously cower under her gaze as Joel watches. She roughly grabs your left arm and pulls it out toward her.

“Hey!” You pull back, but she holds it firm in place.

There’s no reason for her to be looking at that arm, as the tattoo is on your right. Marlene kneels to be level with you, looking closely at the star shaped birthmark on your forearm. You look from your arm to her, confused as to what she’s meaning to do.

She lets go and rolls up the sleeve on her left arm, placing it beside yours. You do a double take, initially not noticing the almost identical mark on her. You blink in puzzlement. Either this is one hell of a coincidence, or this woman is related to you in someway. She looks away from your arms and up at you, meeting your gaze.

Marlene brings a hand to your cheek, her eyes glossing over as she strokes it with her thumb.

“I thought I’d never meet you again…” She shakes her head in astonishment.

Your breathing heavies as the room’s attention is on you. You have no idea what the hell to make of this and the question of where your friend is slowly slips from your mind, as it’s replaced with another.

Who is Marlene?

She removes her hand from your cheek and stands, pulling you out of the trance. Marlene clears her throat as she looks back at Joel, who’s staring down at you, just as amazed and confused as you are.

“Walk him out to the highway, leave him there with his pack.” She commands the guards. They both grab one of his arms, but his stare is fixated on you. “And give him this.” She pulls out a pocketknife that’s all too familiar.

They begin walking him out of the room as you slowly stand up.

“Wait. No, Joel-“

“And if he tries anything…” She adds as they walk him out of the room, “Shoot him.”

They nod, taking him out into the hallway as Marlene turns back to you.

“Wait!” You lunge for the door. But she’s grabbed hold of you before you could protest. “Please, don’t take him! Joel!” You shout.

A strange building, a missing Ellie, and a shunned Joel. The odds are far from in your favor. You’d rather look weak and beg for Joel now, than keep your pride and be in this lions den alone.

The men walk Joel out of your sight and your screams come to a quiet. You look at the woman in front of you, shoving her hands off of your shoulders.

“I want to see Ellie.”You pant, hands balled into fists by your sides.

“We’re not seeing Ellie right now.” She says calmly, pissing you off even more. You’re about to make a smart remark when she grabs your hand and pulls you toward the door, heading the opposite way of where they took Joel.

“What the f- Let go of me you bitch! Where is Ellie?!” You claw to get her hand off as she drags you across the hall. “Let go!”

“We need to talk.” She keeps walking through the officer lined halls as you pull away.

“I don’t wanna fucking talk to you! Let go of me!”

Marlene ignores you as the two of you enter an empty hospital room. She throws you toward the bed, shutting and locking the door behind her.

“What the f-“

“Sit.” She points to the hospice bed.

You look past her and out of the small door widow. No signs of Joel, no signs of Ellie, only cowards with rifles.

You huff, having no choice but to do what she says. You lift yourself onto the flimsy cot, sitting criss cross with a less than elated look on your face. Marlene nears you, pulling up a rolling stool to sit right in front of you, far too close for comfort.

She sighs, looking up to you.

“Do you know who I am?”

You stay silent, sending her straight fuck you eyes. She slightly nods, expecting nothing less of you.

“I had this friend, Anna.” She continues. “Knew her since we were kids, she went through the fall of the world with me. She was the first person to believe in the Fireflies, the only one who really thought we stood a chance against FEDRA.”

So these are Fireflies. Awesome, now you’re more fucked than you were with Luca.

“We were pregnant together. Stayed at the Boston safe house until she had Ellie…She was bit just before.”

She looks into space like she’s recalling the story to herself rather than you. The mention of Ellie’s name has caught your attention as you’re now looking at her with much more interest.

“You were born shortly after that. I tried raising you with the Fireflies, seeing if sending you away was really the best option. And it worked, the two of you were as happy as I could’ve asked for…” She shrugs. “But when I had a little boy, I knew it was time to let go. I had to send the three of you away, I had to. Two kids and a newborn had no place in a life like that…”

You stare at her, so many thoughts going through your head that you couldn’t pick an emotion to feel. If she’s saying what you think she is, you’re…sad. Angry, maybe. The tears threatening to fall from your eyes doesn’t help decipher what you’re feeling.

You stop your lip from quivering and blink back the tears, not planning on showing this woman how much she just affected you.

“…I want to see Ellie.” You look to your lap, that being the one and only thing that you were certain of right now.

“I’m your mother, Mia.”

You shake your head, looking to the side as you scoff.

“What?” Marlene asks, following your eyes.

“You’re not my mother.” You say, your words moving faster than your brain can. “You birthed me, maybe. But that’s all you did.”

“What are you talking about?”

You finally look her in the eyes, regretting it immediately after as you see the genuine concern she has for you.

“You gave up on me. On all of us. And when you had to step up and be a fucking mother, you gave us to FEDRA, of all people.”

She shakes her head, grabbing your hands.

“I did what I did to keep you safe.”

“Yea, well look how fuckin’ well that turned out.” A tear unconsciously falls down your cheek, your voice shaking.

She swallows hard, clearly offended by what you said.

“Look, I know you don’t think I deserve it, but I expect some sort of respect from you. The same way I do everyone else.”

You let out a laugh louder than intended at the bizarrity of her request.

“If that’s what you’re waiting on then we’ll be here for a while.” You coldly sneer. “I told you what I want.”

Marlene’s gaze lingers, your hands still in hers as you’re now certain that you’re angry. Angry that she sent you away, angry that she thinks she can start back where she left off, and angry that she won’t let you fucking see Ellie.

“God, I see myself in you.”

You cringe, feeling disgusted in hopes that her words won’t break down the barrier that you’ve built against her.

“Listen, I know you’re confused and scared-“

“I’m not scared of you.” You assure her.

“Not of me.” She agrees. “For your friends.”

You look away. She doesn’t know anything, certainly not about you or your friends. You’d appreciate it if she’d stop talking about them.

“I want to help you, Mia. You don’t have to like me, you don’t have to accept me. But I’m going to love you, regardless of what you want. I’ve always loved you, even when I thought I’d never see you or your brother again. All I’d ever think about was you, Ellie, and Luca. Always.”

The tears make a comeback. Your breath trembles as you reluctantly listen to every word she says. The pathetic longing for someone to love you the way she claims she does overrides the anger that you have for her absence. It’s out of your character, it goes against anything you’ve ever said…but you believe her. And you want her to be telling the truth. God forgive you for wanting a real family.

And that’s the reason you have to tell her about her son.

“Luca’s gone…” You softly tell her. “They took him.”

She lowers her head, “I know.”

You shoot up, your sadness now replaced with eager curiosity.

“What?”

“I keep tabs on FEDRA. I’ve listened to their death and runaway reports on the radio every day since I sent the three of you. If they had said your names when they first found you, I would’ve-“

“Where is Luca?” You cut her off, not having the time nor patience for an explanation. “Is he alive?”

“It’s-“

Her sentence is knocked short by the sound of bullets flying in the halls. Soldiers immediately begin yelling to each other as they raise their weapons.

Marlene wastes no time as she grabs your arm and unlocks the door. She shoves through the line of men, arriving at a broom closet midway through the hall.

“What are you-“

“You’ll be safe in here.” She pulls it open, locking it from the outside before pushing you in.

“What? No! Don’t leave me here-“

“You stay here, you stay quiet, and you wait for me to come back.”

The door is shut in your face before you can respond. The dim and flickering overhead light mixed with the molding cleaning supplies makes for a less than ideal hiding spot. You immediately go to leave, already feeling too claustrophobic. But the knob doesn’t move.

The door has no interior lock to let you out. Your heart starts racing as you quickly go into panic mode, shaking the handle and banging on the wood as hard as you can.

“Let me out! Please, I can’t stay in here!” You yell for anyone to hear.

All you get in response is yelled orders and heavy boots passing by.

The constant noise hasn’t let up. You feel like it’s been years, when in reality, it couldn’t have been more than 5 minutes.

You’ve resorted to breaking the door down, as no one is coming to get you. The sound of bodies thudding and rounds firing only spikes your anxiety.

You break the glass case with a broomstick before pulling the heavy fire extinguisher out of its cage. You let out a loud grunt before slamming it down on the doorknob over and over. You feel it getting looser with every blow.

The bashing only comes to a halt when you realize that the only sound you hear is your heavy breathing. The chaos outside of the door has gone quiet, eerily quiet. You can’t tell if the sound of stepped on glass is coming from inside or outside of the closet.

Just in case, you raise the extinguisher in defense as the sound nears you. Your heart skips a beat when you hear the door lock unlatching. In the span of a few seconds you prepare yourself to fight whatever shooting bastard is coming for you.

The light of the hallway beams in and you’re moments away from bashing the gunman’s head in…but you don’t. In fact, you’ve never been more relieved to see a man holding a gun in your life.

“Joel?” You drop the weapon, observing his bloodstained frame. “What the-“

He puts a finger over his lips, shushing you before signaling to follow him. You do as you’re told, shutting the closet door, never to be locked in again.

Down the hall, you see a soldier pointing his weapon in front of him. It’s clear that he thinks Joel is coming from that way, and you can’t help but feel a little bad at how oblivious he is.

Joel silently lets his rifle rest around his torso, holding his knife in its place. You stay put as he continues to stealthily creep up on the man.

When he finally gets close enough, he hooks an arm around the guard’s throat, slitting it in one swift motion. You stand astounded, never having seen Joel act like that as the soldier falls to the ground. He silently grasps at his throat, his blood making a gargling sound as he tries to breathe. Your jaw is dropped, frozen in place as Joel waves you to continue following him. You do, carefully stepping over the twitching body of the man.

You follow him into a stairwell as you try to man up, having trouble comprehending what’s happened in the last hour. Your interrogations are at the tip of your tongue just when you see a gun pointed at the two of you.

The soldier fires. Joel pushes you behind him as the bullet whizzes past you, inches away from grazing your ear. He cocks his gun back before squeezing the trigger, the target buckling over immediately. Joel keeps it pointed as you slip behind him, stepping over yet another dead body.

The two of you begin down a dimly lit hallway, your shoes now leaving bloody footprints as you walk.

“Joel, what the hell are we doing? Have you found Ellie?” You whisper.

He doesn’t answer. He’s fixated on a bright room at the back of the hospital. He drops his assault rifle once again, this time replacing it with a handgun. He holds it low as you finally can see what’s in the room.

Inside, you see a team of two woman and a man operating. Upon closer inspection, your heart sinks. Ellie lays on the bed unconscious, the cleanest you’ve ever seen her.

“Wh- What are they doing?” You frantically ask, looking to Joel for any type of help.

He doesn’t look back at you, staring at Ellie. The words he speaks next are said so coldly and blankly that it scares you more than any clicker ever could.

“Killing her.” He states.

Joel leaves you colorless in the face, stumbling for something to say as he opens the door. You stay outside, watching and listening.

“Unhook her.”

The three medics jump as they turn to face an expressionless Joel. The surgeon slowly steps forward, looking between Joel and Ellie.

“How did you get in here?”

“I said unhook her.” Joel repeats, now pointing the gun at him.

He looks conflicted. The murderous motherfucker who’s killing Ellie looks confused with a gun in his face. Like he doesn’t understand why anyone would try to save her.

He picks up a scalpel, looking pathetic as he holds it up to Joel’s gun.

“I won’t let you take her.”

And he’s on the floor. Not a second after he spoke, Joel’s bullet was lodged into his face like it was nothing. And now that you know what his plan was, you can’t say you would’ve done it any differently.

The nurses scream, their hands in the air.

“Unhook her.” He demands once again over the women’s panicked breathing. “Move!”

“Oh my god.” They mumble as they pull all of the wires out of Ellie. You cringe as her arm bleeds when the IV is taken out, wanting nothing more than to wake her up and tell her she’s safe.

All you ever wanted for her was to be safe. You promised her.

“Turn around.” He tells them. They do without hesitation. Joel nears Ellie, slipping a hand under her knees and head before lifting her up.

You sigh a breath of relief, knowing that she’s in the safest hands that she can be in.

Still shaken up, you finally enter the room. Joel carries Ellie toward the door as you retrieve her pack from the ground.

“What were they doing to her?” You ask quietly, standing on your tip toes to examine Ellie closer.

“They were using her brain.” He explains as the elevator door slides open. “Wanted her because she’s immune. She wouldn’t have survived it.”

That doesn’t make any sense. Marlene was just telling you how much she loved Ellie, how she was there when Ellie was born. No way in hell she’d allow her to die.

After a few moments the elevator door opens to a parking garage, a special guest waiting for you there. Marlene’s gun is pointed straight at the three of you.

“You can’t keep her safe forever.” She blurts out.

The hell you can’t.

“No matter how hard you try, no matter how many people you kill, she’s going to grow up, Joel.” She says as Joel and you walk forward. “You’ll die, Mia will leave…then what? How long until the elements of this fucked up world kill her? A fucked up world that you could’ve saved.”

‘Mia will leave.’

She’s learned less about you than you’d hoped. The simple fact that your own mother points a gun in your face goes against every word she said in the hospital room. Now you can only hope that she doesn’t do some shit that she’ll regret.

“Maybe.” Joel nods, “But it’s not for you to decide.”

“Or you.” She snaps back.

She looks to Ellie, her gaze not softening in the slightest. She doesn’t love her. She doesn’t love you. And you were a fool to think she could.

“What would she decide, Joel? ‘Cause I think she’d wanna do what’s right. And you know it.”

You look over to Ellie in Joel’s arms. Looking at her, you know Marlene’s right. Ellie wouldn’t choose this, any of this. She’d give her life for the lives of thousands in a heartbeat, you know that.

But Ellie isn’t here to make a choice. And you’ll be dammed if you allow anyone to make it for her.

“It’s not too late. Even now. Even after what you’ve done, after what you’ve let her see.” She gestures to you, lowering her gun. “We can still find a way.”

She’s right. You can’t deny the fact that a world without compromise is a world that won’t get better. Joel won’t like it, of course. But there’s no other way to end this for everyone. Your ‘we have to adjust,’ mentality has faded. It faded the moment you realized that everything and everyone is a threat to the people you love at all times. You can’t adjust to that.

“Joel…” You whisper. He looks at you, realizing that you’re taking Marlene’s side.

He returns his gaze to Ellie, seemingly weighing his options, looking just as confused at the surgeon did minutes ago.

Marlene holds her hands in the air, “We can forgive-“

You jump as the shot echoes through the garage. Marlene goes down, clutching her abdomen.

“No!” You scream before you can stop yourself. You rush over to her, laying her on her back and pressing on her wound. “No, no, no.”

You hear Joel walk away, the car door opening behind you.

He doesn’t care. Not in the slightest. You see that now.

You don’t have the time to be angry with him yet as you try to save your mother from dying. Tears fall freely from the both of you.

“I-“ You scramble for something to say. What can you say? What are the right words to say to your dying mother?

She doesn’t say anything, only uses what’s left of her strength to unlatch the walkie from her jeans. You recognize it from earlier, the radio the Fireflies use to infiltrate on FEDRA traffic. She pulls your bloody hand from her stomach and wraps it around the walkie.

“What- What are you…”

“Luca. He’s…” She trails off, almost inaudibly.

Your vision is blurry from the tears blocking it as you cradle her head with your free hand, bringing your ear closer to her.

“What’d you say?”

“…Boston.” She finally gets out.

Luca’s supposed to be in Kansas. Why would he be in Boston, where the two of you ran from. One thing about FEDRA is that they don’t take runaways lightly. You’d assumed he was being held far away and pressed for information on you. “Integration preparation,” they called it. Torture.

Marlene goes quiet and you see her looking over your shoulder.

“Wait, wait, wait.” She cries.

You turn and face Joel, attempting to shield as much of Marlene’s body from him as you can. Her breaths get shallower and shallower and the ability to beg for her own life ceases. So you do it for her.

“Joel, please.” You sob, looking back at him. “Just let her go.”

He wears the same blank face, horrifying now that you question if he’s on your side or not. He pauses, his eyes shifting between you and a dying Marlene.

“She’ll just come after her.” He states, raising his gun.

“No.” You beg. “Joel, no! Don’t-“

He shoots.

All of your breath escapes your body at that very moment. Time seems to move in slow motion as you look down at the lifeless body in your arms. You shake her, pleading for her to wake up. Her body is limp, her chest no longer rising and falling.

It’s over.

You feel two hands grab your arms and pull you to your feet. All of the fury you feel clusters into a ball to be let out at one target. The man who saved your life, the man who Ellie trusts most…the man who’s dragging you away from your mothers dead body.

“Get the fuck off of me!” You scream louder than you ever have before. “Let go of me, Joel!”

A mixture of shouts and sobs don’t detour him in the slightest as he opens the car door. You let out wail after wail, your fight for him not dying down as the weight of today hits you…

——

Your throat burns from screaming. The sun has now risen and you watch the once colorful world pass by. Ellie is laying her head in your lap, barely conscious as she asks Joel questions about the events of last night.

You stay silent as he feeds her lies. He tells her how there were more immunes like her and that the doctors have stopped looking for a cure.

Your hands have squeezed into balls as the sound of him shooting Marlene replays over and over in your head. You stroke Ellie’s hair with your free hand as she believes the words coming out of this liar.

And finally, she asks the burning question.

“…Is Marlene okay?”

You stop stroking her hair, peering into the rear view mirror to see Joel already looking back at you. You quickly look away, not trusting yourself not to stab him the moment he stops the car. Ellie looks up at you as she waits for Joel’s response. You try to hide the murderous thoughts on your face, but you don’t know how well that works.

“You’re safe.” He tells her. “I’m taking us home.”

Ellie accepts it as the truth, closing her eyes and adjusting her position as she falls back asleep.

But you can’t. You know that as long as you’re with him, you’re far from home. And the dried blood covering your hand proves that you are not safe.

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rrickgrrimes8 · 1 year

Text

Thank you @bymoonlightfics and everyone who got me to 500 reblogs!

THIS IS INSANE!!!!!! THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH XXXXXXXXXX

You Bear Part II

summary: you are found (part I)

Joel Miller x daughter!reader, Tommy Miller x niece!reader

warnings: angst, reunion, violence, infected, happy ending :))

not sure if i like this as much as the first part but i hope yall do. i just want to thank you all for the response to my past few fics (especially your bear). its been unreal. i stopped writing for a while and these were my first ones back so this was an insane response to it! thank you so much for your love and appreciation it really does mean a lot!

also! i tagged basically everybody who left a comment asking for part 2 - sorry if thats annoying idk ive never done a taglist before. thanks for the comments tho :)

masterlist

request guidelines (new)

requests are open

word count: 2.3k

22 Years Ago…

The world around you screamed for help. People ran around, skin on fire, missing massive chunks.

You wailed as they passed, hands tightened around your ears. You just wanted to find help. You wanted to save Sarah. This wasn’t what you expected.

Keep reading

#500 reblogs #thank you #tumblr milestone

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rrickgrrimes8 · 1 year

Note

I was very confused as to why i was tagged before i remembered "wait that was the author of that really great oneshot about being Joel's kid!"

So thank you for Tagging me in this!

your so sweet! x

and no problem about the tag! thank you for your comment :))

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rrickgrrimes8 · 1 year

Note

YOU ATE BEAR || IT WAS SO GOOD.

thank you!!!! i’m glad you liked it :)))

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rrickgrrimes8 · 1 year

Text

Your Bear Part II

summary: you are found (part I)

Joel Miller x daughter!reader, Tommy Miller x niece!reader

warnings: angst, reunion, violence, infected, happy ending :))

also! i tagged basically everybody who left a comment asking for part 2 - sorry if thats annoying idk ive never done a taglist before. thanks for the comments tho :)

masterlist

request guidelines (new)

requests are open

word count: 2.3k

22 Years Ago...

The world around you screamed for help. People ran around, skin on fire, missing massive chunks.

You wailed as they passed, hands tightened around your ears. You just wanted to find help. You wanted to save Sarah. This wasn’t what you expected.

“D-ad,” You cried, hiccupping, “D-addy!” You missed his touch. You missed his voice and his face. His laugh. You just wanted your daddy.

But which way had you come from?

You stood, idle, in an alley way you didn’t recognize, a man lay a few feet beside you. Blood seeped from his neck, running to kiss the tips of your shoes.

He twitched.

Your breath caught in your throat, the hair on your neck stood high. “D-daddy,” You whimpered, quieter than before, “Please.”

He looked at you now. His face grotesque, the shape of jagged teeth marked his greyish skin. White, stringy tendrils extended out of his mouth as he crawled to you – his legs being left behind as he did.

You screamed when his nails scratched against your shoe. In the panic, your bear fell from your grasp, landing in the bloodbath.

You tried backing up from the monster, but his hand stopped you. His claws captured your ankle.

You didn’t realise you were falling until your back hit the wet ground. You let out a shriek as he trailed up your body. “P-please,” You sobbed, “D-ad! D-addy!”

The creature didn’t even flinch. He opened his jaws further, searching for your small neck, ready to mark you just as he had been.

But a shot sounded off and his weight settled on your petite body.

A strong force tugged him off you, the same force pulling you into their arms. You wailed, fighting against the stranger’s grip.

“It’s okay, sweetgirl, you’re okay,” She told you, rushing you away from the scene, “You’re going to be okay; I promise.”

You didn’t know what to make of Jackson. It was nice, you supposed. Weird though. It felt like what you imagined before felt like. Not that you remembered much. You remembered how loud cars were, how the TV remote worked, how to strum a guitar.

You remembered your sisters voice, her hair, how smart she sounded even if you didn’t understand a word.

You wished you remembered your dad. He was a blur to you. Like you had missed a chapter of a book and now a new character had no face. You remembered his laugh though. It was sweet, slow. Like a lullaby. You recalled being held to his chest and feeling the vibrations.

You wished you remembered your dad.

Sarah had settled in quickly, at least that’s what you thought. She was happy to be around people other than her mom (you tried not to internalise it all that much).

In the week since you arrived Sarah had grown attached to the strangers that took you under their wing. You still weren’t so sure. But when Sarah made grabby hands to the older man and all she got was a dejected smile in response a part of you hurt. You didn’t understand why.

They’d kept their distance or rather he had. Ellie came round every day. She loved Sarah. She loved you, even if, like Joel, you were a little rough around the edges.

But for a reason unbeknownst to you Joel couldn’t be in a room with you for longer than five minutes. You didn’t let it bother you too much. You couldn’t. You didn’t want to make trouble and get the pair of you kicked out or worse separated.

Ellie had come to you earlier that day, smile wide, cheeks rosy. She had a glint in her eyes, a plan. One you really didn’t want to know about nor be a part of.

Excitedly, she told you about the couple who lived across from her and Joel - his brother. Tommy and Maria and the somewhat new addition of Lily, their little girl. Ellie had told them about you - although missing out some of the major minor details. They agreed to have you over she had said. And despite the age difference between Lily and Sarah the older girl was excited to meet her.

So, there you stood, Sarah shielded from the cold into your chest. You raised your hand awkwardly, knocking a little harder than you expected.

A woman opened the door. She was beautiful, smiley, friendly. You couldn’t tell if that was a façade or not. That made the nerves in your stomach stiffen. “C’mon in, sweetheart,” Maria ushered you inside after she confirmed it was you.

You forced a smile for her, “Nice place.”

Maria nodded, looking around the room proudly, “Thank you.” She urged you to take a seat, letting you know her husband, Tommy, was just dressing Lily.

“So, you’re younger than I thought you would be,” She confessed, “Not to be rude or anything.”

“No, it’s okay,” You cleared your throat, sitting opposite her, Sarah making a home on your lap, “I’m 27.”

“Wow,” She smiled, “And what about her?”

You stroked the top of Sarah’s head, where her hair had slightly begun to grow, “Couple weeks now.”

Maria shifted ever so slightly in her seat, unspoken sympathy in her eyes, “And the father?” You stilled, escaping her gaze you looked towards the coffee table, taking inventory of the odd books they had. “I’m sorry,” She spoke quietly, “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“N-no,” You cleared your throat sheepishly, “There isn’t... her dad did what he had to.” You still remembered his screams.

“I’m sorry,” Maria frowned, hands soothing over her jeans, wishing Tommy would appear to aid the situation.

“Don’t be,” You said earnestly, “He got us here, right? One way or another...” Maria wasn’t sure you really meant that. The lost look in your eyes told her what she needed to know. As did your shaking knee. You’d give anything to have him back. She bit her lip, somewhat guessing the rest.

“Sorry ‘bout that,” A males voice cut through the tension, “Wouldn’t stop squirming for the life of me.”

Maria chuckled opening her arms to grab Lily, introducing you as she did. He blanched hearing that name. He near screamed seeing that face - your face but so much different, so much more mature.

Tommy blinked a few times, wondering if his eyes were deceiving him. He whispered your name carefully, as if you were a wild animal, prone for violence.

Maria gave him an odd look, moving Lily over to you and Sarah. “And this is our sweetheart, Lily,” She told you as Lily began fussing relentlessly in her arms, desperate to touch the baby.

“Baby,” She cooed.

“Yeah, that’s right,” You mused, croakily, inching closer to the pair, “This is Sarah, Lily.”

Tommy wanted to throw up. He felt it dancing up his throat, teasing his uncertainty. He felt stuck. He truthfully didn’t know what to do or what to say. Should he straight out ask you? You didn’t seem to recognise him though. Maybe it was a clone? A doppelgänger? Should he run over to Joel’s for safety away from this confusion?

Joel.

Did Joel know? He had to know. He needed to know.

“Tommy what’s wrong?” Maria called to him. He choked a little, eyes trailing over to the plaque that watched over their new life. The plaque he knew had no place for your name. He knew it. You were here.

Maria followed his gaze, a weird feeling in her chest as she saw her husband so unlike himself. She read Joel’s daughter’s name. Sarah. Was he freaked out because they shared the same name?

She gulped - it wasn’t just the baby whose name was shared but yours too it seemed. You couldn’t be, right? No- You died. Joel was so sure you died and despite all Tommy had told her, all the hope he had for you, she always found herself on Joel’s side. Funny that. Any other situation she would’ve made a point to oppose the eldest Miller.

But now... You were just five. You couldn’t have survived on your own. You wouldn’t have had a life in this world.

But again, hadn’t you said you were 27?

“Go,” She told him, firmly, “Make sure.” Tommy nodded, failing to hide his tears as you watched in confusion and darted out of the room with a sense of urgency that unsettled your stomach.

“Is everything okay?”

Maria’s attention snapped back to you, “Fine... everything’s fine.”

A disconcerting feeling swam under your skin and a sudden resolve to flee hit you. “I- We should probably go,” You mumbled, bringing Sarah to your chest once more.

“Wait, please,” She attempted, “Just wait.”

You shook your head, apologising softly before rushing out of the house. You caught eyes with two men across the road - Joel and Tommy. They stood on his porch, seemingly arguing with each other.

You spotted Ellie watching through the window, a guilty look on her face - what had she done?

The brothers stared at you as you left the home. Their eyes didn’t leave you for a second. Tommy called your name, desperately but when he moved to catch up with you, Joel pulled him back.

He clenched his jaw as you rushed back to your home, out of sight. “She was my niece, Joel,” He scowled, “My fuckin’ family too.”

Joel shook his head, shaking off the shame Tommy was trying to force on him.

“You don’t get to keep this kind of thing from me,” He yelled, “You- You are unbelievable, Joel.”

“Unbelievable?” He mocked, “Is it so unbelievable that I didn’t want to advertise to the whole goddamn town that she was my daughter when, hell, I don’t even know if she really is!”

“Bullshit,” Tommy spat, “You’re not stupid. You knew. Of course, you fucking knew. You knew like how I knew. One look. That’s all it woulda took you. No… you knew. You were just too scared - like always. And that, your selfishness, takes us all down with you.”

“Fuck you,” He grunted, storming back inside.

“Christ,” Tommy mumbled, turning back to his own home.

You had a baby.

You were here, alive.

You steered clear from the group for a little while afterwards. The whole situation made you heart clench. It felt like a game that you didn’t know the rules of, but they did. All of them did and they were careful not to reveal anything. But you wanted to know - you needed to.

You knew it involved Joel or at least you felt like it had to. The way he looked at you when you first met. The way he spoke. The way he shook. It had to be him. He had to be the answer.

You gave up on your attempts to avoid them when you came to that realisation.

The same realisation that brought you here, at his front door in the middle of the night. You shyly knocked a few times - no response. You repeated the action with a little more force, a little too much. The door creaked open on the contact, but no one came to greet you.

You sucked in a harsh breath as you debated entering. The door was open right? Fair game? Silently you forced yourself to step inside.

Their home was dark - one lamp lighting a whole room. You frowned looking over to it. Someone had to be here, right? Where else would they be so late?

And then you saw him. Joel. The contradictory man. He was asleep. His body was sprawled all over the couch, an empty bottle of God knows what lay beside him as did what looked like... a bear?

Shakily, you took a step forward, his name dying in your throat as you saw the bear in a better light.

It was... yours.

Why would Joel have your bear? The bear that when you were a child was essentially an extension of you. The bear that chased away all the bad dreams. The bear that your dad had gotten you - your dad.

You gulped - the bear you hadn’t seen since the night you lost everything. Since the night you almost lost your life.

Joel shifted in his sleep, pulling the bear close to his chest, careful of its head as if it was a baby. Your eyes burned. A gasp escaped your lips. You could read the chapter now. You can see that character’s face - your fathers face.

Different but the same.

“D-dad,” You whispered before you could stop yourself and backed away.

Your back met the door, slamming it shut. The man jolted awake, alarmed eyes frantically searching the room before landing on you. They grew small, weaker, like he wasn’t all the way there.

Joel watched you closely, taking note of your falling tears, he spoke your name. You choked on a sob, hand clasping over your mouth. “Baby,” He shot up before he had a moment to think and approached you.

You didn’t flinch away, like he expected. You didn’t stop crying either. You studied him now. The wrinkles. The scars. The grey hairs. The same look in his eyes.

“How long have you known?”

He flinched at that. Your voice so familiar, so broken. “Since we met,” He didn’t have to try too hard to understand what you were getting at. He felt shameful, though. This shouldn’t have been the way, right? This felt too casual, too unknown.

You wanted to ask more, yell at him. Beg him to tell you why it wasn’t the first thing that he told you. But you didn’t. Instead you put one foot in front of the other, until you were mere inches from him. “Dad,” You shuddered.

He hadn’t realised how much he missed being called that, how much he missed being your dad.

“Babygirl,” He took your face in his hands, “My baby grown up.” He watched you closely, tears welling up, “I’m so sorry, babygirl. I’m sorry.”

You shook your head, slamming yourself into his chest, “It’s okay. I’m okay.”

“Oh, baby,” Joel wrapped his arms around you, hand cradling the back of your head.

“With me, babygirl,” He smiled for moment before letting it fall, “Don’t go away again, babygirl, never go away again.”

You smiled into his chest, whimpering softly, “I won’t, dad, I promise.”

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#joel miller imagine #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller angst #joel miller x daughter!reader #tommy miller x platonic!reader #tommy miller x niece!reader #ellie williams x platonic!reader #the last of us imagine #joel miller x platonic!reader

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