Naná Miller

You woke to gray morning light, rain pouring outside, and the rarest sight in your whole memory: Tommy Miller, deeply asleep. Not that broken man waking up every other minute from a nightmare, not the soldier's half-sleep you'd observed for a month. He was in real heavy sleep, boneless and gone.

He was right beside you, one arm still curved around you. The furrow between his brows had packed up and left. You lay there, both your bodies naked against each other, and you watched him breathe, greedy about it, memorizing him this handsome and rested the way you'd memorized him wrecked.

Now, in the daylight, you could see the wounds clearly. His forehead had a deep cut on it, but under control. What truly concerned you was the shoulder. The gunshot wound the Gilead crew had given him weeks back was worse in every way. A wound that had been stitched, ripped, restitched, and then dragged through a war. You wondered, honestly, how he'd even kept going. Tearing men apart, fighting for hours, climbing walls. As soon as he wakes up that will be the priority, you think.

Somewhere outside, the horse shifted in the tall grass, and the rain kept coming down, and it hit you: the poor thing was standing out in it.

You untangled yourself from Tommy as smoothly as you could. His arm tightened around you on its own, more asleep than awake, holding on.

"Be right back," you whispered against his temple, kissing it softly, and he released you without a word, dead to the world again in a breath.

You went out for the horse just using a towel to cover yourself. The bay gave you a look of profound suffering, mane dripping, and let you lead him into the closed garage. You patted his wet neck once. "I know, I’m sorry, I’m sorry," you told him. "Don’t be mad at me, big guy. You’ll be dry soon."

You ran back to the house, dripping faintly.

As neither of you had paid the house any real attention yesterday, you went through it properly, into cabinets, closets, drawers, the whole scavenger protocol. You found spare clothes, for both of you, thank God. Tommy's were stiff with dried blood, and yours, to be fair, were not much better.

There was no food. No ammunition, no weapons. But you found a first aid kit under the bathroom sink, and that alone made the house worth it. And then you looked for the thing you always looked for: Books.

Nothing. Not one. You stood there in the empty living room feeling small and stupid because it felt it was just as sad as not finding food.

You went back to Tommy, tucked yourself carefully against his side, and his good arm tightened around you and pulled you in unconsciously. Even gone from the world, the man kept watch over what was his.

And you let yourself acknowledge all of it: for the first time in maybe years, a real night of sleep, no rush, no watch shifts. Cozy and warm and protected and loved. Not the way you were loved by your family and friends. Loved like a woman. It was all real, and it all felt so right and so perfect. Waking up at his side felt so much like a dream that you actually double checked the light, the weight of his arm, the small details a dream always gets wrong.

But no. It had all worked. And the best thing about it: you'd been right all along.

It was harder than you thought, God, so much harder. But here you were, against every odd the world had stacked: in the arms of your captor and your savior. Your tormentor and your lover.

You used to think you were too rational, too smart for the stupid fantasies of love at first sight, the I felt your soul the moment I saw you, all those things people wrote and were cute in the books, but impossible in real life.

Until you felt it. Until you planted your feet on that street and refused to move, and looked up into the eyes of a man who was more of a prisoner than you were. The sweet eyes buried under trauma and guilt, screaming for you to fix him. And then he said his name, and you knew for sure. You knew that you were in the hands of that man for a reason. That was the twisted way fate would bring you the message.

Now he’s exactly where you dreamed he was, holding you, as a lover and as a Firefly, escorting you to a Baltimore and every decision that comes with it, closer than ever.

You'd been right about Tommy Miller since day one.

And you ought to know it by now: you were right most of the time, about most of the things. No modesty about it, because it was simply the truth. Whether by reason or by faith, your instincts had a perfect record. One hundred percent.

And you needed that to be true. Because with everything else finally over past you, the last fear had space to surface again: What would come after Baltimore.

Because now the road was clear. No risk of ending in Columbus, Tommy safe and by your side, not trapped in a basement waiting to be assaulted. All the other fears had gone away, and what remained was the one at the center. It was time to finally face it.

I'll be fine in Baltimore. Everything will work out. It will all be fine.

You repeated it like a mantra, matching it to the rain, until it carried you back under.

I’ll be fine.

---

When you woke again, the light had changed but the rain was still coming down, steady and generous against the roof.

And it was, you decided, the most delicious thing that has ever happened in the ruined world: tucked into Tommy Miller in perfect peace, his warmth all over you, the rain doing all the rest.

He shifted behind you. A long breath, a low sound in his chest, and then his lips found your shoulder.

"Mornin'," he rumbled, voice full of gravel and sleep.

"It was morning a long time ago, sleeping beauty."

"Mm." He didn't even sound embarrassed. "Man's entitled. Ain't slept like that in… hell." He thought about it. "Years. This bed's a miracle. The rain's a miracle." His arm pulled you over, turning you to face him, and his eyes were soft and heavy-lidded and warm. "You're the miracle."

He kissed you, slow and deep and completely unhurried, with nowhere to be for the first time in his life. "I love you," he murmured against your mouth, and kissed you again. "Love you so much." Another kiss, longer. "So goddamn much."

You laughed softly into his lips. "Who are you? You barely look like the Tommy who wouldn't say one vulnerable word and avoided kissing me as he was avoiding the plague."

"That Tommy's dead." He said it easily, no weight in it at all, brushing your hair back from your face. "Guess.. This one was always the real one anyway.” He says it a bit more shy than he intended. “…Just took him a while to get out."

"…I know, I always knew." you whispered against his lips.

"Yeah." He smiled into the kiss. "You sure knew."

He kissed you again, deeper, and shifted to gather you fully against him and stopped, mid-motion, with a sharp hiss through his teeth.

You pulled back. His face had gone carefully still, he rolled slowly onto his back, breathing through it, and looked down at his own shoulder. "Okay, it’s way worse today," he said, calm, cold-blooded, assessing. He flexed the fingers of that hand, watched them respond too slow. "It's been screaming for days."

"God." You were already swinging out of bed. "It's bad, Tommy. It's angry and hot. But good news is I found a first aid kit downstairs."

"Soon." His arm hooked around you and pulled you straight back into him. "You can do that later. Let's stay like this a bit more."

"Tommy, we need—"

"Shhh." He laughed into your hair and locked you there, not letting you move an inch.

Because he wasn't ready. Not for the wound, not for the day, not for any of it. There were things waiting outside this bed. Questions he had to ask you, answers he wasn't sure he wanted,  and every one of them was still going to be there in an hour or two. This, though. This warm, rain-loud, borrowed time with you tucked under his chin. He'd earned this one, and he wasn't handing it back a minute early.

"Okay. Fine." You gave in and burrowed deeper into him, because honestly, it was too good to fight. "Just a bit."

So you stayed like that. Eyes closed, his heartbeat under your ear, the rain going on and on.

Then your eyes opened. There was something you hadn't asked yet.

"Tommy… did you find Joel? Any trace of him?"

His eyes snapped open above you. And there it was: the old reflex, coming up his chest like water: the guilt, the pull, that his place was at his brother's back. He waited for it to grab him the way it always had. It didn't. He turned it over quickly, to find out that somewhere on that road he'd stopped feeling like he owed a debt to Joel. He'd been carrying that weight so long that setting it down still felt like forgetting something.

"No," he said. "Didn't find him. Didn't find one thing that could lead me to him, either."

You went quiet for a moment, choosing your words with care.

"And how do you feel about that?"

"Honest?" He let out a slow breath. "I made my peace with it. Been comin' apart for a long time, me and him." His hand moved slow up and down your back. "He knew I didn't want the life he wanted. I knew it too, and I kept on pretendin'. Was always gonna happen one day. Just happened to be this way."

The air got heavy fast, so Tommy continued, in a lighter tone now. "Besides. That man's too stubborn to die." He shifted, warming up. "He’s alright. And I'll tell you what, I'd give a year off my life to see his face when he got to Boston and found Tess sittin' there, free and not a scratch on her." He dropped his voice into the gravel register, chin tucked, eyebrows down, the full Joel. "Huh. Well. That son of a bitch.” He chuckles. “this will be his whole speech about it, he will never admit he was made fool of.”

You laughed at the precision of the impersonation, and the sound of it made his whole chest warm. He squeezed your side. "You did my brother dirty, spitfire. He is gonna be so mad at you." He shook his head. "Hell of a trick, though."

"It wasn't a good trick." You waved a hand, dismissive. "It was cheap. Amateur… honestly."

"Didn't feel amateur."

"It never does, that's the point." You propped your chin on his chest to look at him, warming to it. "You don't need an elaborate lie, Tommy. You just need to find the one thing a person can't stand to face or lose. Once you hit it, they stop checking, they don't ask for proof, they don't look for gaps… they can't, they're too busy confirming their bias. That's all a good scam is. Find the soft spot and let their own fear do the rest."

"Smart," he said.

"Mm-hmm."

He huffed and kissed the top of your head.

"I hope he's okay," you said, quieter now. "I mean it. When we get to Baltimore we can radio Boston. Check with people who move through the QZ. It wouldn't be hard to ask around and find out whether he made it back. I'll make sure it gets done."

Tommy pinched your cheek gently between two fingers. "Thank you. For still caring about him."

You smiled up at him.

You felt him hesitating a bit, a breath taken and held a second too long. "What about yours?" he asked. "Your brother." He kept his voice easy. "You ever think about makin' things right with him? You never talk about him."

The smile went off your face. "No." You said it lightly, which fooled neither of you. "I'm fine for now. You know how it is. Older brother stuff. They want to force their own ideas into you." A shrug that came out stiff. "Maybe one day I'll talk to him. But I'm good now."

And you shifted an inch, enough to put a small piece of air between you. Tommy noticed it. So he let it be closed. For now.

"Y'know," he said instead, changing the subject. "You. In that garden."

"Hm?"

"You walked into a doorway full of infected, and you stood there and held 'em, held a whole damn pack of 'em." His hand tightened around your waist. "That was the bravest thing I ever saw. You were the hero that day."

You lit up. Instantly. You turned all the way around to face him, and your hand started climbing, your fingers walking slow up his stomach, over his ribs, spreading flat against his chest.

"I don't know about that." Your voice had changed. "I wasn't the one who ran into a burning building to save two puppies." You bit your lip, eyes on his mouth. "That's the bravest and most noble thing a person can do." You purr. "…It's also the sexiest."

The grin that broke across his face was pure boy: cheeky and absolutely insufferable. He settled back into the pillow with the smug look of someone being handed something he fully intended to enjoy.

"Well," he drawled. "If the lady's lookin' to say thank you, I'll have you know my whole schedule's wide open today."

You grinned against his chest, matching his smugness with your own.

“Then I guess I better make this thank-you proper,” you murmured, already sliding down his body.

You kissed a slow path over his stomach. Your lips brushed the warm skin just above v-line, soft and deliberate, while your eyes stayed locked on his, bright and full of heat. “I’ll remember forever,” you said between kisses, “you walking out of that burning building covered in soot, looking like the most perfect hero in the world.”

Tommy’s chest rose with a proud little huff. His fingers found your hair, resting there.

“Nah, you’re pushin’ it now,” he drawled, voice already thicker.

“Oh yeah?” You smiled against his skin and kept going lower, kissing the line of soft hair trailing down, still watching him the whole time. The space between each kiss was just long enough to make him shift, to make his cock thicken and flush against his thigh. When you finally wrapped your hand around him, he was already hard and heavy in your palm. You stroked him once, slow, from base to tip, and watched his eyes flutter.

“Hand feelin’ better?” he asked, a little breathless already.

You gave him a deeper stroke, thumb brushing the sensitive underside. “Let’s check,” you said, playful.

He let out a low, rough laugh that turned into a groan. “Yeah… yeah, I’m real happy that hand’s better.”

You leaned in and took just the tip into your mouth, swirling your tongue once before pulling off to press a few open mouthed kisses along the head. Then you took him deeper, slow, letting him feel every inch of the wet heat. Tommy’s fingers tightened gently in your hair, steady but careful, guiding you.

“Fuck… that’s so good,” he breathed. “Missed your mouth. Missed this so damn much.”

He tried to lift his hips, chasing more of you, but you pulled back just enough to keep him on the edge, still stroking him with your hand while your lips hovered close.

“So…” you said, voice husky, lips brushing the tip again. “What do you wanna do after Baltimore?”

Tommy’s eyes were half-lidded, floating somewhere between pleasure and the soft haze of being thoroughly teased. He smiled down at you, dazed and delighted.

“Wherever you want,” he said easily. “You point, I’ll open the way.”

You took him into your mouth again, deeper this time, then pulled off with a soft pop.

“Boston?” you asked, kissing the side of his cock. “Or somewhere completely new?”

He groaned when you swallowed him down once more, slow and thorough, then let him go again.

“I would like somewhere between countryside and… not as far as Texas,” you continued, voice rough from taking him. “Somewhere we can have horses. Somewhere you can still be a cowboy.” Another long, wet stroke of your tongue. “Maybe a calm life. Or a whole new team of rebels. I haven’t decided yet.”

You looked up at him through your lashes, still holding him in your hand, still not giving him the full thing.

“Can you suggest a nice place?” you said, teasing, wicked.

Tommy’s laugh came out broken and breathless. His thumb stroked your cheek.

“Kentucky,” he said immediately, no hesitation. “Kentucky. We can go there. Land’s good. We can have horses. Quiet if we want it, or close enough to people if we don’t. Kentucky, baby.”

You smiled around him, eyes soft.

“That’s an excellent idea.”

And then you finally took him fully into your mouth deeply, steady, and gave him everything. Tommy’s head dropped back against the pillow with a rough, broken groan.

“Fuck—”

You pulled off him again, lips shiny, hand still stroking him slow and firm. “What about dogs?” you asked, voice soft and wicked. “Can we have two?”

His laugh came out half-strangled. He looked down at you like you were the best and worst thing that had ever happened to him.

“How many you want, darlin’?” he managed. “Ten? Twenty? I’ll find ‘em all.”

You smiled, flattening your tongue against the underside and dragging it slow from base to tip, long strokes that make him twitch in your hand. You trace every vein, every ridge, savoring him, and took him fully again, and he swore under his breath, fingers tightening in your hair.

You kept working him for a few long, perfect moments, then stopped once more. Tommy made a low, frustrated sound in his throat, hips twitching up toward your mouth.

“Jesus, baby—”

You looked up at him with wide, soft eyes, still holding him in your hand.

“What if I want to go back home?” you asked. “Vancouver?”

Tommy blinked down at you, surprised, then a slow, almost mocking grin spread across his face. “Vancouver? In Canada?” He huffed a breathless laugh, eyes warm and fond. “That’s a bit too far, ain’t it? Ain’t that close to Seattle? Whole other side of the damn country?”

You gave him the softest, most devastating puppy eyes.

“Please?” And then you took him all the way down, no mercy this time, throat relaxing, tongue working, hand pumping the base in perfect rhythm. You sucked him deep and wet and relentless, the perfect, filthy blowjob that made his thighs tense and his breath shatter. Tommy’s grip on your hair tightened, his other hand fisting the sheets, every muscle in his body locked as he fought not to come.

“Fuck— fuck, okay—” His voice cracked, desperate and wrecked. “Of course. Vancouver. Wherever you want, baby. Everything you want.”

He pushes into your mouth harder now, guiding your head down until your nose presses against his stomach, cock buried deep in your throat. “You stop teasing now, ok?” You gag instantly, and he holds you there for a few seconds, groaning low and rough.

“Look at you, takin’ every inch. You’re such a good girl for me.”

He pulls you back carefully, checking your face, thumb brushing the tears at the corner of your eye.

You gasp for air, tears still falling, but you lean right back in, tongue flicking out to taste him again, completely gone for it.

“Again,” you whisper, voice wrecked and hoarse.

He guides you down once more, slower this time, letting you take him deep until your throat flutters around him. He hold you there, deep, again. Soft, broken little cries of pure pleasure spill around his cock, just as more tears spills from your eyes, and the sound of them almost undoes him completely. He can feel how close he is already, and he carefully pulls you off with a wet sound, breathing hard.

“Ok, we need to stop this or I won’t last too long,”

He draws you up beside him and kisses you deep. His hand moves over your body, brushing your nipples, tracing the curve of your ribs, sliding down to your hip bones. Then his fingers find your clit, never stopping the kiss. You moan into his mouth as he finally slides two fingers lower, kneading slowly through your wetness.

You break the kiss, breathless, cheeks flushed, looking into his eyes.

“Can we… try something different?” you ask, whispering shyly.

Tommy’s expression softens instantly. “Tell me what you need. I’ll give it to you.”

You bite your lip, a soft blush spreading across your face. “I’m… God, I’m embarrassed to say out loud. I’ve never done it before.”

“You can tell me,” he murmurs, still stroking you gently between your legs, clearly proud of how wet and needy he’s made you. “Don’t need to be embarrassed with me, little rabbit. You can ask for anything you want.”

You keep grinning, shyly and in silence.

The contrast of it, you usually so bold and sharp-tongued, suddenly this shy, makes something warm and protective bloom in his chest. Tommy pumps one finger slowly inside you, watching your face respond to it the whole time.

“Want me to guess it?” he asks, voice low and fond.

You grip his curls softly and give a small, embarrassed nod. “Yes,”

Tommy shifted lower on the bed, mouth finding your breast. He kissed and sucked softly at your nipple while his finger kept pumping slowly inside you, collecting your wetness. His eyes stayed on your face the whole time.

“God, look at you,” he murmured against your skin. “So damn pretty like this… all shy and flushed and wet for me. So fuckin’ hot.”

He kept kissing down your body: over your ribs, your stomach, the soft skin just above your hip, while his finger worked you open. Then he slowly pulled it free, slick and shiny, and let it drift lower. He circled the tight entrance of your ass carefully, just the pad of his finger, testing.

“That what you want?” he asked.

He hauls himself up to stay face to face with you again. You immediately hid against the crook of his neck, embarrassed and turned on in equal measure.

“…Yes,” you whispered.

Tommy’s breath hitched. He was clearly turned on as hell by the request, but the way he looked at you was soft, focused, ready to take care of you properly.

“Do I need to turn around?”

“If it’s your first time… better you stay like this. Easier for you to stay relaxed.”

You nodded against his neck. “I’m a bit scared,” you admitted.

“I got you. Don’t worry. We go real slow. You change your mind at any point, I stop. Okay?”

His voice was calm, confident. He knew exactly what he was doing and had no interest in rushing you. And that made it deeply sexy.

“You just need to stay relaxed for me,” he continued, still circling that tight ring with careful fingers, distributing kisses over the side of your face. You whimpered as he pressed the tip of his middle finger against you and pushed just the tiniest bit in, then held still, letting you adjust. He kissed you soft and deep in your lips now, praising you between kisses.

“That’s it...You’re doing good. Just let it adapt a little.”

You made a small, tight sound of discomfort.

“I know,” he murmured against your mouth. “Feels a bit strange at first. That’s normal. Just so your body can get used to it, okay?”

“Okay,” you breathed.

“Can I keep goin’?”

“Yes.”

Tommy pushed in a little more, while his thumb found your clit and started brushing soft, steady circles. The dual sensation made your hips twitch.

“Does that feel good?” he asked, watching your face carefully.

“Fuck… yes,” you whispered against his mouth, voice shaky with pleasure.

He stayed right there, his lips placing soft kisses you yours, moving his finger only the smallest amounts, thumb never leaving your clit, working you open with endless patience until the tension in your body started to melt and you were breathing easier against him.

“How you feelin’?”

You opened your eyes, dreamy and heavy-lidded, and looked at him with pure, hazy pleasure.

“It feels so good,” you whispered. “I’m ready for more.”

A low, proud sound left his chest. “Attagirl,”

He shifted carefully, guiding you onto your side so that your back was mostly against his chest, but he kept you angled toward him, with your upper leg draped over his thigh. You looked back over your shoulder and found his eyes right there, soft and dark and completely focused on you.

Tommy’s hand slid gently under your upper thigh, holding you open. He lined himself up with your pussy first and pushed in with one slow, deep thrust. You moaned against his mouth as he filled you completely.

“Need to soak it first,” he murmured, eyes dropping to your lips. He fucked you in long, wet strokes, getting himself slick and coated, and you were already floating, every drag of his cock making your breath stutter.

Then he pulled out and you made a soft, protesting sound.

“I know,” he soothed, kissing the corner of your mouth. “It’s for a good cause, though, right?”

You felt the blunt head of him press against your tighter entrance. Tommy kept his eyes locked on yours the entire time as he began to push in carefully and slow.

“So pretty like this… how does it feel?”

“Good. God— Good, Tommy.”

The stretch was intense, burning at first, but his hand stayed firm on your thigh and his other arm wrapped around your waist, holding you close.

“Breathe for me,” he whispered. “That’s it… just like that.”

Inch by inch he sank deeper, always reading your expressions. Soft moans spilled between both of you, yours shaky and overwhelmed, his low and full of restraint. Every time he gained a little more, he paused and checked.

“You okay?”

“Yes… yes—”

Your cheeks burned, but the heat wasn’t embarrassment anymore. It was pure, flooding pleasure. Your eyes stayed locked on his as he kept going, slow and relentless, until he finally bottomed out completely.

He stayed still once he was fully inside you, breathing hard against your cheek, giving your body time to adjust.

The fullness was overwhelming, deep and intense in a way nothing else had ever been. You trembled around him, caught between the sharp new stretch and the flood of warmth that came with realizing how gently he was. It was too much and perfect at the same time. The sensation made your head spin; every tiny shift of his body sent sparks through you, and the fact that he was being so patient, so sweet, only made the pleasure climb higher, slow and dizzying.

“Fuck, baby…” His voice was rough with awe. “Look at you. You took every inch, you’re doing so good. So fuckin’ perfect for me.”

You were trembling, overwhelmed, caught between the deep stretch and the flood of pleasure.

“It’s… too much, Tommy,” you whispered, voice small and shaky, half insecure, half lost in it.

He held completely still, one hand stroking your hip, the other around you waist.

“I know, baby. I know. But it’s gonna get better. I’m just gonna stay still right here and let the discomfort ease up, okay? Is that alright?”

You nodded, breathing hard. “Yes.”

He leaned in and kissed you deep. Tongues sliding together, soft sucks on each other’s lips, gentle bites, then tongues again. The kiss was messy and intimate, both of you pouring everything into it. Little by little you relaxed around him, the tight resistance melting into something softer and hungrier.

When he felt you give, Tommy started to move with tiny, careful thrusts at first, still kissing you so deeply that every muffled moan you made was swallowed straight into his mouth. He refused to let you pull away. His hand slipped between your legs again, finding your clit, and he began stroking it in the exact same slow, deep rhythm as his hips moved.

The dual sensation wrecked you. You finally broke the kiss with a gasp, and the sight of your face nearly undid him. You looked completely gone with your eyes glassy, lips swollen, cheeks flushed, expression pure stunned pleasure, like you couldn’t believe anything could feel this good.

Tommy stared back at you like he was drowning on you, in the best way. Seeing you like this, so open and given over to him, made something twist harder in his chest.

You were lost in his face too, in the way his eyes stayed locked on yours, dark and drunk on the sight of you, on the feeling of being inside you like this.

Tommy kept the rhythm slow and deep, every thrust deliberate. The tight heat of your body gripped him perfectly. He could feel every small shift around his cock as he pushed in and pulled back, the stretch of you accepting him again and again. It felt filthy and sacred at the same time.

It was crushing, in the right ways. The deep, full pressure of him moving inside you mixed with the steady circles of his fingers on your clit until pleasure radiated through your whole body. Every thrust sent sparks up your spine.

He kept the same slow, deep rhythm, never looking away from your face. “I love you,” he whispered, voice rough and strained with the effort of going slow and at same time holding it all together.

“I love you,” you breathed back. You were already so close. Your fingers slipped into the soft curls falling across his forehead, brushing them back so you could see him better. Your eyes moved over his face with open, dazed wonder: the tired beauty of him, the fine lines at the corners of his eyes, the way his mustache and goatee framed the soft shape of his mouth. Your fingertips traced it all before your gaze finally settled on the freckles scattered across the bridge of his nose. You were completely lost in his face, in every small, perfect detail.

“I… I love you so much, Tommy—” The orgasm hit you fully in a long, intense wave. Your whole body clenched hard on him and you cried out, gripping his arm, his hip, the back of his neck, everywhere you could reach. The tight, pulsing squeeze of you coming pulled him under immediately. Tommy buried himself deep with a broken groan and followed you, spilling inside you in heavy pulses while both of you locked together in one long, shaking wave of shared pleasure, holding onto each other until there was nothing else left, not even the world outside the bed, just the both of you.

---

You stayed in that bed for a long time afterward. There was no reason not to. The rain kept going, steady and gray against the window, and the world outside had temporarily run out of things to do to you. So you did nothing, magnificently.

His hand found yours on top of the blanket and just stayed there, fingers laced, thumb moving slow across your knuckles for the whole time. You talked about stupid things, laughed at each other. It occurred to you that you had never once been happy like this: easily, plainly, simply, in a bed, in the rain, with someone. All the problems, the pain, the traumas, had given a pause so you both could just exist in this ordinary moment.

"Can I ask you somethin'?" Tommy said eventually, into the quiet.

"Sure."

His thumb stopped moving on your knuckles.

"Your heart. I saw it happen twice now," he said. "At the auto shop... and again in the theater when I got to you." His voice stayed level, careful and concerned. "Is that the battery? You told me it runs out eventually. Is it… is it goin'…?" There was real fear under it, packed down tight. You heard it.

"No." You shifted onto your elbow to face him. "No, Tommy. It's not that."

"Then what?"

"… It's how the device is built. It's the smart function. It's supposed to be the good part. It doesn't waste charge, it watches, and it only spends what it absolutely has to. So when my heart rate spikes way up, it doesn't smooth it out. It just… makes sure I don't fail. It lets me run right up to the edge, keeps me from going over, and it doesn't give me one bit of comfort along the way." You made a face. "Which is very efficient of it. And absolutely horrible."

"So it hurts like hell and you're still fine," he said slowly.

"Mostly fine. It's frightening, and it feels like dying, but it isn't dying. Which is why the battery lasts so long.” You said it lightly, a little wicked, and let your hand slide up his chest. "It’s not common to happen, but as I told you weeks ago, my heart and that device have both been behaving very strangely since I met you. I did warn you."

His eyebrows went up. "…That's my fault?" Tommy huffed a laugh, but you could see it working through him, the shoulders coming down, the tension in his jaw letting go. Relief, plain on his face. He'd been carrying that one a while.

"So it ain't the battery," he said, mostly to himself. "It ain't runnin' out."

"It isn't running out. It’s made to last until I get old."

"Okay." He breathed out. "But you told me it was gonna run out. You said it, it could have a life span of fifteen years and seven were gone… Why'd you tell it to me that way?"

“Well, I… I lied. This is one of the reasons we wanted this specific experimental device.”

“Why? Why’d lie about that as if you’d die soon from it?”

"Well… Because…” You shift awkwardly “Because I was your prisoner? And I needed to convince you to let me to go?” You said it, fast.

“Anyway, I’m telling the truth now.”

The rain filled the pause.

“Okay, enough of postponing it. Let’s look at that shoulder," you said, sitting up and swinging your legs out of bed, occupying the silence to change subjects.

"Darlin', wait,"

"No, it's practically glowing at me from here, Tommy, I can see the heat coming off it. If we don't clean it today you'll be missing an arm by thursday.

You crossed the room quickly and gathered the first aid kit and water, and felt his eyes the whole way. You glanced back. Tommy was propped on his good arm, unashamedly watching you move around the room, naked and lit by the low light, with a delighted expression.

You grabbed a big shirt from the pile you'd found and pulled it on over your head. "There. Let me hide, so you don’t get distracted."

Tommy watched the shirt come down over you and let out a long grieving sigh, head dropping back to the pillow. "Cruel," he said looking at the ceiling.

You sat on the edge of the bed with the kit open beside you and got to work. You cleaned the wound slowly, careful around the swollen edges, and Tommy took it with jaw tight, breathing steady, letting you.

"The bad news is we can't stitch this anymore," you said, dabbing. "The edges are too torn, too many times. It has to close on its own now, which means it has to rest. Which means you have to rest. We should stay here a few days."

You reached for the antiseptic. "This might sting."

"Might," He hissed. "yeah."

"Sorry. Breathe." You kept working. "There's no food in the house, but I saw your pack. If we're smart about it should hold us a few days. Enough for this to calm down." You laid the clean dressing over it, pressing gently. "But not too long. We can't lose too many days, because we need to get to Baltimore and ask them to help us find Frank. He's out there somewhere, Tommy, and he's… I know him. He's out of his mind by now. He'll be tearing the state apart looking for me. Baltimore have people, radios... They can find him faster than we ever could."

While you talked about food, days, Frank, Baltimore, the future, Tommy lay still under your hands and said nothing. He was somewhere else.

He was thinking about the lie. And all the other things that would still not make sense and the questions he had to make now, not able to postpone anymore.

Baltimore was burned, Sarah had told him so, to ash and hunters. And you spoke about it like a working city with radios and rescue teams. And then the doctor mention and the words you'd almost said by a fire once and swallowed. There was a whole conversation waiting between here and Baltimore, and he could feel their weight. He admitted to himself he was a little afraid of that talk. Not of what he'd say. Of what he'd hear.

"Tommy?"

He blinked back to the room.

You held his eyes for a second, and then you finished taping the dressing flat, smoothing it down with your palm.

"How… how did you find me?" you asked. "How did you even know?" Your hand stayed resting over the bandage. "And on the way… did you find any trace of them? Frank and Marcus." You hesitated, and the word came out smaller than the rest. "Alive, or…" You couldn't finish it.

"I haven't seen them," Tommy interrupted. "Not dead. Not alive either.”

You breathed out. It wasn't much, but it was something.

"That ginger fella, the one that got away on the road. And the boss. They came to me." He said it plainly. “They'd been huntin' the man who shot Patricia, and they figured it was Joel, and they figured I'd know where to find him." His thumb moved over your knuckles once. "So they sat me down and asked their questions. Then they tried to threaten me saying they got you.” He shrugged with the good shoulder. "That was their mistake, at that moment the conversation stopped being lead by them." A pause.

"And they told me the address."

You looked at his face for a moment. "You say that like it was a nice conversation," you said quietly.

"You don't need all the details." He brought your hand up and kissed the back of it. "But they paid. For what they did to you, and for those girls." His mouth twitched, humorless. "That's all you need from me on that."

You caress his jaw and kiss the tip of his nose. “Ok.” Your fingers brush down his neck and chest and you keep him there, mapping him again, unhurried and delighted with the sight of him.

“Hey,” he says finally, taking your hand of his chest and holding it. “We need to talk about something.”

He adjusted himself on the bed to sit properly, and pulls you to sit cross legged in his front, holding both of your hands. He was quiet for a moment, choosing where to start.

"If I'm gonna join you," he said finally, "if I'm gonna be the one bringin' you there… I need the truth. And I got this feelin'." He looked at you, steady, no anger in it. "There are things you ain't tellin' me. Things that don't add up."

You nodded slowly and brushed the back of his hand. "Hm. What exactly doesn't add up?"

And there it was. You’d circle to understand what parts he had doubt instead of taking initiative to talk yourself, and he hated that feeling.

He wanted to walk through it with everything at once: You said you were meeting Marlene to plan taking Boston back from Lincoln, but why would that need you in person in Baltimore? Then that night with the whiskey, you talked about a doctor, the one from your last surgery, and we were both too drunk to remember about it. Then by the fire you said there was somethin' in Baltimore about your condition. Which condition? The heart? The thing with the infected?

And… how does any of it happen in a city I was told is ash?

But he knew better. A small part of him was ashamed of knowing better, ashamed that even now, even after everything, he didn't fully trust you. But he knew how that beautiful head of yours worked. He hands you all his cards at once, and he was afraid you'd take each piece and turn it, fit it, sand the edges until every answer sounded good and reasonable. He'd never be able to tell where the honesty ended and the arrangement began. That was just what you were. He'd chosen you knowing it.

So he didn't spill the cards. He laid down just one.

"Baltimore." He kept his voice even. "What exactly is waitin' for you there?"

He finished the question with his heart pounding. Because this was the test, and you didn't know you were taking it. Baltimore had fallen. And there was no world where the leader of a rebellion didn't know a QZ she ran operations in had fallen. So whatever came out of your mouth next would tell him one of two things.

He waited. It took seconds and felt like hours, only the rain filling the silence.

You didn't answer right away. He watched you do the thing you did, eyes dropping to the middle distance, thumb rubbing slow circles at his hands, the machinery behind your face working. Sorting.

"I was… mostly… honest with you." Your voice came out soft, each word placed like a foot on thin ice. You made yourself meet his eyes. "But yes. There are parts missing."

Something in his chest unclenched half an inch. Mostly honest. It wasn't everything. But at least it was an admission offered before it was forced.

"Okay." He shifted up against the headboard, careful with the shoulder, giving you his full face. "Then, be fully honest now." Please. Whatever it is. Just let me trust you, he thought.

You breathed in deep, all the way down, and let it out slow.

"My condition is not a secret among the Fireflies. They all know. And it's… it's what drives most of them. It's why a crew crossed the country after me. It's a big part of our hope." A pause, and then, the corner of your mouth twitched. "Not that I'm not an excellent leader."

He huffed. "Never doubted it."

"But… yeah. Being a good leader wasn't the main reason they were all protecting me." The small smile faded, and your hands settled in your lap. "When we left Denver, years back, it wasn't because we wanted to expand Firefly operations. Well. That too. But the real trigger was something else. We needed answers. About me, about what's in me. And the only person alive who could give them was my doctor, the one my parents bring me all the way from Canada to US to have surgery with. We found out he survived and had left Denver in a convoy heading east, right after outbreak started. It was Boston or Baltimore QZ. Nobody knew which."

Tommy's hand found your knee while you talked and just rested there.

"So we split. I went to Boston, with my uncle and a few of our people. Marlene took the rest to Baltimore. We searched, we built and we grew, and the ops went better than anyone dreamed. In Boston, at least." Your jaw shifted.

"Baltimore was different. That QZ was crumbling from the start. Even those fuckers from FEDRA were failing. After a while, we saw there was no hope for Baltimore we planned to pull all the Fireflies out, consolidate in Boston." You looked down at his hand on your knee. "And then… Marlene found him. My doctor. In Baltimore."

You stopped. Breathed again, deeper this time. Tommy's thumb moved once across your knee, slow. Take your time.

"He might know, Tommy." Your voice dropped. "What I have. How to replicate it to other people, how to make it definitive and not for some seconds. Well, he might not have the full answer but at least he knows how to start to find out. We spoke over radio, couple of times. He walked me through the possibilities, how he'd check, how he'd test for each one. But the equipment for any of it only exists in Baltimore. There's nothing like it in Boston that we could reach or take. They are holding back in Baltimore, just waiting for me. So the whole plan was always: go to Baltimore. Find answers. Once its done, all crew abandon Baltimore and head to Boston QZ.”

"Right. Find answers…" Tommy repeated, flat. “What do you mean by that?”

"Yes. Because it depends." You tucked one leg under you. "He has two theories. One: it's the radiation. All the imaging and treatments I've had, my whole life. Radiation changing how fungus behaves is real, it's documented, it's the likely one. He said no one ever studied it in cordyceps, but if other fungi react, this one could too." You paused. "Or two: it's the device itself. Some frequency it puts out. And if it's that…" Your hands stilled. "Then it's a lot more complicated."

"How so." It wasn't a question. It came out low, and his eyes had gone very still.

"I'd probably need a surgery. He'd have to open it, see how it works, check whether there's a particular frequency or—"

"Wait." His hand left your knee and hovered, like he didn't know where to put it anymore. "Open it? open you? That means—"

You caught his hand out of the air and brought it to your chest, pressing his fingers over the hard little shape sleeping under your skin. "It's superficial. Right here, just under the surface. Reaching it doesn't mean an open chest surgery again. They'd only need to go that deep if they had to check the connectors, the wires, I don't know the technical names. But the device itself," You pressed his hand gently. "Mostly superficial."

His hand stayed where you'd put it. He was watching your face, processing it all.

"That ain't the part you're scared of," he said quietly. "Say the rest."

You held his eyes.

"Everything about it is risky, hell, you know any simple surgery would be risky nowadays. But the big risk isn't the surgery, Tommy. They have to open the device itself and study it, while it works, disassemble it piece by piece. And then put it back together, working exactly right, with apocalypse tools, in an apocalypse room. My heart can fail in mid-process. Or maybe he can't assemble it back perfectly…" You made yourself say it plainly, because he'd asked for fully honest, and this was what fully honest cost. "Then I have no device anymore. No assistance. Just my heart, alone, the way it was born. And…" You gave a small shrug that fooled neither of you. "It could fail. Five minutes later. Five months later. There's no way to know."

He was silent for a long while. His eyes stayed on your chest, on his own hand, and then they came up to your face, and he reached with his other hand and cupped your cheek, thumb moving slow along your bruised cheekbone. And happened in real time: all the relief that should have come with finally hearing the truth being replaced, piece by piece, with something heavier.

He stood up, pacing the room once, twice. He went to the pile of clothes you'd found and started dressing in complete silence, back half-turned, jaw working.

"Tommy?" you asked, just watching him.

He pulled the underwear and jeans on. Buttoned them. Then he turned to you, and his voice came out low and rough.

"So. The whole plan was always this, from the beginning. Not savin' the Fireflies. Not savin’ Boston or Baltimore." He shook his head slowly, like he was trying to make it fall out of his ears. "You're goin' there… fuck, you're goin' there to try to save the goddamn world?"

You shifted on the bed, pulling your knees up, suddenly needing to be smaller.

"I would never be that pretentious." You tried a breath of a smile. It didn't land, so you dropped it. "But if there's something in me that can help… right? That's what the Fireflies are, Tommy. That's our purpose."

He grabbed the flannel shirt and tried to put it on, and the shoulder pain wouldn't let him. His arm wouldn't lift past a certain point, and he tried to force it, and his breath hissed, and he tried the other way, fabric tangling, silent through all of it, refusing to make a sound, refusing to ask, distress leaking out of him.

"Tommy. Talk to me. Please."

Nothing.

You got up off the bed and crossed to him. You just took the shirt gently, held it open, and guided his bad arm through the sleeve first, then the good one, easing the fabric up over the bandage. He let you. His eyes came down and found yours and stayed there while you worked, and you started on the buttons, bottom to top, slowly, and it turned into something else entirely, the two of you standing chest to chest in the gray light, buttoning some dead man's shirt, staring at each other like the conversation was continuing somewhere silent where it could be easier.

You reached the last button. Your hands flattened against his chest and he broke.

"You…" His voice cracked and he pushed through it. "You got into my skin. You made me believe in you and love you. You convinced me to take you there myself… to what?" His hands came up and held your face, and he searched it, left eye, right eye, back, like the answer had to be hiding in one of them. "To die? That was the plan all along? Me deliverin' you to… I, I can't." His forehead creased, everything in him refusing at once. "I can't do that. I can't. You can’t."

"No! No, Tommy, hey. Look at me. I won't die." You wrapped your hands around his wrists, holding his hold on your face. "Okay? Listen. I have a good feeling about this. And I am always right about my intuitions, you know I am, you've watched me be. Here's what happens: we go, we do the exams, they'll show it's the radiation. That's the likely one, remember, the documented one. And then we leave. Boston. Kentucky. Anywhere we want. We keep fighting for people who need it. Your strength, my brain, we could build the Fireflies anywhere on earth, Tommy, anywhere." You were talking fast now. "And worst case. Worst case. If it points to the device, we sit with the doctor. We ask him exactly how confident he is. We discuss it. Together. You and me in the room, every step. And if the answer is that the chances are low…" You pressed his wrists. "I'm stepping away from it. I promise you. Do you hear me? We listen to the doctor together, and we decide together. That's the deal."

He looked at you for a long moment. Then he pulled you in. Not a crushing hug. Something quieter. His arms came around you and yours around him, and your foreheads found each other.

"You sure about that?" His voice had gone very quiet. His thumbs moved on your jaw. "You sure about all of it? You really wanna try? And you're willin' to walk away if it ain't safe? You ain't just tellin' me what I need to hear, you're not sayin' it just—"

"I didn't care before."

The words stopped him.

You held his eyes and made yourself keep going.

"Before all this I thought it would be an easy decision, if it ever came to it. My life on one side, a chance to everyone else on the other." Your voice thinned. "I'd made my peace with that equation years ago, Tommy."

His breath had gone still against your face.

"But then, I met you… And now I don't feel like risking anymore."

You closed your eyes. His hands tightened.

He breathed, long and heavy. "I can't lose you. I want you to hear me say it plain, just once, so it's said." His thumbs kept moving on your jaw. "I have lost too much already. I ain't gonna live through you. So don't ask me to."

He pulled back just enough to look at you properly. "You're the bravest person I ever met, and I've known some brave ones."

"Tommy,"

"I ain't done." His thumb brushed under your eye. "You are not required to do that. Not for me, not for the world, not for anyone. But I admire you being willing to. This world… it doesn't deserve you, sweetheart."

He kissed your forehead, and left his mouth there, and said the last of it into your skin.

"So yeah. We go. We see what there is to see." He said it steady. "And if it ain't safe, we walk. And I don't want you carryin' one ounce of guilt over it.”

Cause I'll carry it. I'm real good at carryin' things, he said silently just to himself.

---

You stayed in that house three days.

Three days of pause, canned food and beef jerks. Three days of cleaning that shoulder twice a day and watching the red go down, the heat come out of it, the ugly line at the border stop creeping. Three days of him healing at least a bit, and sleeping whole nights of it, waking up in the same position he'd fallen asleep in.

And they were good days. Absurdly good. You played a card game with a deck missing four cards and invented rules to cover the gaps, and he cheated his own rules badly and denied it. He talked about Texas. You talked about Vancouver. You both talked about Kentucky. You talked about nothing important and all the important things too. And you learned each other properly, the way you'd never once been allowed to. Because every time before had been stolen. Now there was nothing to interrupt. There was a whole gray afternoon with rain on the windows and no one coming.

He touched you like he finally had permission to take his time, and he was slow and warm and endlessly curious in finding all the ways to make your body feel good. And you let him, over and over. You slept tangled together and woke up the same way. You reached for each other in the middle of the night without either of you being fully awake for it. There were long, lazy stretches of skin against skin, soft laughter against collarbones, the simple luxury of staying close afterward without having to listen for danger or anything else that would keep you both apart.

The world, for three whole days, left you alone. Looking back later, you’d think about that. How generous it had been.

You left on the fourth morning, and the road was kind to you too. Four days south with the bay carrying you both, and it was almost easy, clear weather, empty stretches except for a few infected encounters. Looked like a little mercy before all chaos fell under you both again.

Baltimore announced itself with smoke, from not one fire, but a dozen. Then the smell.

"Well," Tommy said quietly. "Guess we're in the right place."

You stopped a few blocks out and got down. Neither of you said much about it. A horse inside a QZ was a walking announcement, food to some people, a target to everyone.

Tommy stood with the head of the horse in both hands, thumbs working behind the ears the way the animal liked. "Alright, buddy." His voice had gone rough. "That's it. You're done. You go find yourself some good grass. Somebody nice. You've earned every damn bit of it."

You pressed your palm flat to the warm neck of the bay. "Thank you, take care of yourself big guy.”

The bay stood there for a moment, ears flicking. Then Tommy slapped his flank twice and the horse walked off into the tall grass along the road, unhurried, stopping to eat almost immediately.

Then you turned and walked into the QZ through one of its broken walls.

Baltimore was worse than Boston. You'd expected ruin, but Boston, for all its cruelty, still worked. Baltimore had stopped long ago. Whole blocks stood burned out and open to the sky. The QZ wall had breaches nobody had bothered to seal. And the silence was strange, luring, watching.

You moved through it like mice through a kitchen. Tommy first, rifle low, reading every window; you behind his shoulder.

Hunters were everywhere. You could see the signs before you actually see them in the stripped bodies at intersections arranged as warnings. And FEDRA was still here too, technically. More like a group that was left at their own luck than actual law enforcement. The patrols moved fast and scared, holding streets they clearly didn't own anymore, an army losing to its own city.

Everytime you’d see FEDRA, Tommy felt you change under his hand. Every muscle in you spiked. Your chin came up, your eyes went flat and hateful, and you leaned forward like a compass finding north.

Tommy's hand closed around your shoulder. "Easy," he breathed, fighting a grin at the worst possible moment. "Easy, killer."

"I'm calm."

"Really?"

"I, I just… I hate them. I hate FEDRA so much."

"I know, baby. But it ain’t worth the risk. Let’s move, ok?" He steered you gently down a side street, and thought, not for the first time, that walking you past FEDRA was like holding a chihuahua that had absolute, sincere confidence it could take a rottweiler down.

You both kept walking away from noise and the patrol. Then, on a brick wall at the mouth of an alley, you stopped breathing for a second. "Tommy."

The Fireflies symbol, spray-painted in yellow.

"I see it." He crouched, checked the map against the wall, thumb tracing. He looked up the street, where a shape of a building rose above the row houses, far off. "St. Agnes. That’s the hospital you mentioned?”

“Yes.”

“Ok. We're close. Twenty minutes, maybe less."

Twenty minutes. After all of it, Boston, the road, the cage, the fire… twenty minutes.

Neither of you said anything after that. Part of it was sense, you had to move quiet. But the silence had something else in it too, and you both knew it. Your hands had gone cold. You kept your eyes on the street and your face on straight, and underneath it your mind was running ahead of your feet. Every step forward was a step you'd been walking toward since Denver. You wanted to run. You wanted to sit down on the curb and not move. And Tommy walked half a pace ahead of you with his rifle low, jaw set.

You cut through an alley to shave the distance.

And walked into a man.

He was FEDRA, the uniform said so. He was sitting on a milk crate behind a dumpster, sleeve rolled up, rubber tube in his teeth, a needle in one shaking hand, in the middle of the only peace the apocalypse still sold for people like him. His eyes were half-gone already. For half second, all three of you just stared at each other, you, Tommy, and the man caught mid-escape from his own war. Then his gone eyes turned to terror, and he grabbed for his rifle, and he screamed, no words, just alarm, raw and enormous.

Tommy shot him once. Center mass. The scream cut off.

But it had already done its work.

The alley held the echo for a heartbeat. And then, from the streets around you, one block, two blocks, three… came the answering shouts. Contact. Shots fired. Grid four. Whistles. Boots. A radio squawking somewhere close, and then somewhere closer.

"Go." Tommy grabbed your hand. "Go."

You ran with him.

Out of the alley, hard left, down a street of dead row houses, and behind you the city woke up like a kicked hive, with voices spreading the word block to block. Tommy ran with his rifle in one hand and you in the other, choosing turns at full speed, right, left, through a fence gap, across a lot of burned cars, and you kept up as much as you could. And then you didn't. It hit the way it always hit. Your heart went from working to warning, one beat to the next. Your legs filled with sand. The air stopped being enough, no matter how much of it you took.

"Tommy," You gasped it. Your hand went to your chest.

"I know." He didn't slow, dragging you through a doorway, across a gutted living room, out the back. "I know, baby, I know, you can do it. Little more. I just need a little more from you,"

"I can't, my heart—" Black spots opened at the edges of the street. "Tommy, I can't run anymore—"

"You can. You can. Look at me. With me, in for four," He was checking corners while he coached your breathing, splitting himself in half. "One more street. One more street and I'll find us a hole, I swear it,"

The whistles were on both sides now. Ahead too.

Your legs stopped. You folded against a wall, hand pressed to your sternum, heart hammering itself toward the ceiling, and you looked up at him and you couldn't even say the words. You just shook your head.

Tommy didn't hesitate for even a second. He slung the rifle, bent, and scooped you up, one arm under your knees, the ruined shoulder taking your weight with a sound he swallowed whole, and ran. Ten steps. Twenty.

Around the corner ahead: lights. Voices. A line of them.

He spun. Back the way you'd come. More shapes, spreading wide, cutting the street.

Cornered.

He set you down slow, put his body in front of yours, and you felt him make his hands loose. Felt him calculate. Six FEDRA ahead. Five behind. One rifle, one bad arm, one woman to protect behind him. He draw the rifle.

"Hands!" A voice tore down the street, amplified, echoing off the dead houses. "Hands up! Do it now! On your knees!"

"Tommy." Your voice was almost nothing. Your vision was closing. "Don't. There are too many."

His jaw worked once. The rifle's muzzle dropped an inch. Another.

“I said hands up, now!”

Then Tommy Miller, slowly, hatefully, keeping himself squarely between you and every gun on that street, raised his hands. Reading everyone, processing every alternative, every GAP he could take advantage of.

You raised yours. It took everything you had left.

The line of them advanced, shouting things your fading hearing had stopped assembling into words. Boots. Lights.

And then, arcing over the cars, small dark shapes that hit the asphalt with a metal clatter and rolled.

Smoke erupted around you. Thick, white, everywhere at once, stinging like hornets. Tommy shouted your name and lunged for you through it. His hand found your arm.

It was the last thing you felt. His hand, gripping, refusing.

The white took all over the street, and then the black took you.

And somewhere very far away, a woman’s voice. Not FEDRA's anymore, almost familiar, said something that you could swear it was your name.

Then nothing.

---

The world came back in glimpses, then all at once for Tommy. He registered the room as he came back: white light, too strong, electricity humming somewhere. An old doctor's office. File cabinets. An eye chart still on the wall. He was slumped in a cracked leather armchair, and his head weighed twice what it should.

Then the alley came back. The smoke, your arm in his hand, and he straightened fast.

"Welcome to the Fireflies."

A woman leaned against the desk, arms crossed. He twisted toward his hip for a gun that wasn't there, and the room tilted.

"Easy. The gas effects take a while to leave your body." She said.

He shook his head clear and looked at her properly. Tall, dark-skinned, tired. Worn tank, pistol on her thigh, and eyes that had already finished measuring him before he'd even woken up.

"You must be Tommy Miller."

"Who are you?"

"Marlene."

Marlene.

He swept the room: no you. Just a man behind him, rifle held casual, and Tommy knew that face.

"What the fuck?" He stared at Marcus. "What are you doin' here? Where is she?"

"She's fine."

"Take me to her. Now."

The door opened, and Tommy got his second surprise in seconds. Frank came in, and Frank was wrecked. Eyes red, face carved out by something, still wiping tears off his cheek with the heel of one hand as he shut the door behind him.

"What're you doin' here? What are both of you doin' here?"

"Guess we all need to thank you, Miller." Frank crossed the room and put his hand out. "She was right about you. She knew you'd bring her here. Knew you'd join us."

Tommy looked at the hand and didn't take it. Something was wrong in this room. It was in Frank's face, in Marcus's rifle, in the air. Frank let the hand hang a second, then took it back.

Marlene raised an eyebrow. "So you're really joining us?"

"Yes. I am." Tommy's eyes moved between the three of them. Marlene at the desk, Frank by the wall, Marcus at his back. "Why are you two in Baltimore?"

"We got here two hours before you," Frank said. "We searched every mile until we had nothing left. Came here for reinforcements. We were loading up to go back out when our people brought you in.."

Tommy looked at him a long moment. "You searched," he said, flat. "You were her guns. Two of you. And she got taken by rapists anyway."

Neither man argued, because there was no argument. The two men looked at the floor, carrying it.

"We know," Frank said quietly. "It's ours to live with. And you're the one who got her out. So… thank you. However you want it said."

"I don't want it said. I want to see her. Bring me to her."

"There's no point," Marlene started.

"We let him, Marlene." Frank's voice came out rough, and he didn't look at Tommy when he said the rest, which was worse. "They cared for each other. The least we owe the man is to let him say goodbye too."

Tommy was out of the chair before the sentence finished.

"What!?"

Marcus's hand landed on his bad shoulder and drove him back down. Pain whited out his vision for a second, and when it cleared, the rifle was leveled at his chest.

"Let's stay calm, Romeo," Marcus said.

Tommy's voice had dropped somewhere low and dangerous. "What the fuck are you talkin' about?"

Marlene ignored him. "How is it back there?" she asked Frank.

" They began the sedation, but it will take some time. Has to be gradual. The device can't just stop, they need it running while they map it.” Frank's voice caught. He pushed through it. “So they take her down slow.”

Tommy froze in the chair. The words assembled themselves in front of him one at a time and the room got smaller and colder.

"No. No. Somebody better start explainin'," he said. "Right now."

Marlene shifted her weight off the desk and studied him, deciding something, he could see it. "I suppose we owe you that." A beat. "I assume she mentioned something—"

"About her bein' a walkin' infected repellent? About her heart? Her doctor?" He leaned forward, forearms on his knees, holding Marlene's eyes and refusing the rifle at his back the dignity of a glance. "Yeah. I know all of it. She trusts me." He paused, swallowed. "She trusts me. So cut the bullshit and tell me what's happenin' behind that door."

“We are confident that we can replicate it in large scale and maybe help—"

"I know all of it, goddammit. What I don't understand is why you're all talkin' about it like she's about to sacrifice herself for it."

Frank looked at Marlene. Marlene looked at Frank. Marcus, behind him, shifted his weight.

"Well," Frank tried, gentle, "maybe you think you know it all, and you—"

"I know it all. I heard it from her own mouth." He said it slow, like laying evidence on a table. "Do exams. Check the radiation levels first. If that's inconclusive, then sit down with the doctor, talk about a surgery, weigh the risks. Before anything moves forward." He looked from face to face, checking, and found nothing coming back. "So somebody explain to me why we're skippin' straight to… to whatever the hell is happenin'."

Frank looked at Marlene again. Marlene's mouth twisted. Her arms, already crossed, crossed harder.

Tommy’s voice rose, sharper now, the control starting to crack. “Hey. I’m talkin’ to you. Somebody open their fucking mouth!”

He started up out of the chair. The rifle barrel pressed harder into his back, firm, and he lowered himself down, jaw grinding so tight a muscle jumped in his cheek. His hands were already curling into fists on his knees.

"There are no exams, Tommy." Marlene’s voice was direct and flat. "There were never going to be exams and conversations. To learn what's in her, they need tissue. Samples from every organ. Muscle. From the brain. Besides, there's no way of studying fully the device while it's inside a living body." She let that sit for exactly one second. "The plan was always this. She knew what she was coming here for. Even her uncle knew, and he was willing, they both were. That man was tortured by FEDRA and died without giving her up, so she could be sitting in that room today. "

"Bullshit!" Tommy spat it. "She had no idea you were all gonna kill her. That's not what the doctor told her!"

"Tommy." Frank stepped closer, and his voice was the terribly kind with the voice of a man who'd loved her longer. "You know her. You know she bends the truth until it points where she wants to go. And you know she's… optimistic. Past reason, sometimes. Past evidence." He rubbed his red eyes. "The doctor softened it on the radio, of course he did. They were all terrified she'd get scared and vanish. Her parents were already out there looking for her. After they were expelled from fireflies, we didn't know what they'd—"

"Her parents?" Tommy's hands went to his head. He was breathing hard now, the room refusing to hold still. "Lookin' for her? Expelled from the Fireflies? What? how does— none of this makes any sense." He surged forward. "I can guarantee you, I can guarantee, that woman did not know she was walkin' to her own funeral. Did you even ask her? Before you put her under, did one single one of you look her in the eye and ask?"

Silence. Complete.

Tommy's finger came up, leveled at Marlene like a weapon of its own.

"I thought you were her best friend. You didn't ask her. You didn't ask because you're afraid of the answer. Because you know, fuck, you know, there's a version of her that says no—"

"Enough." Marlene came off the desk. "There is a great deal you don't know about her, Tommy. About what this cost everyone standing in this room. And I don't expect you to understand it in the next minutes, because it took us years." She breathed once, put the command voice back on. "So here's what happens now. You leave. If you meant it about joining us, the door's open. Go to Boston, find them, tell them Marlene sent you. We're all consolidating there soon. I'll explain everything then. Every piece. You have my word."

She looked past him. "Marcus. Walk him out. Give him his pack."

"I'm not lettin' this happen, Marlene." Tommy said, certain.

"I'm sorry, Tommy. We are all sorry. Nobody in this building wanted this." Something flickered through her face, the first human thing she'd shown, and was gone. "But it's the right thing. And it's what she would want."

"BULLSHIT!" It tore out of him. "You're betrayin' her! Your own leader! You said it yourself, her parents, the founders, didn't want this, for fuck's sake—"

"Exactly, Tommy!" Marlene's patience went all at once, and for one second the commander cracked and something rawer came through. "Exactly. Believe me! Believe me! nobody on this earth feels worse than me and Frank. We know her parents. We owe them. And we love her.  And we are doing it anyway." Her voice dropped, and the last of it came out like something she'd had to swallow every day for years. "Because it's bigger than them. It's bigger than her. It's bigger than all of us."

Something in Tommy snapped. He came up out of the chair like the rifle at his back didn't exist.

Marcus caught one arm and Frank threw himself on the other, and Tommy dragged both grown men half a step toward Marlene anyway, shoulder wound tearing, voice tearing worse. "Wake her up and ask her! Put the choice in her hands where it belongs, if she's everything you say she is, if she really came here to die, then she says it to our face! But you don't get to decide it for her while she's passed out!"

"Tommy," Frank had both arms around him now, not fighting him, holding him, carefully and understanding. "Tommy. Stop. Stop." Frank's tears had started again, running freely, and he didn't wipe them. "I know how it feels. I just said my goodbye to her, and I swear to God it took everything I have left." His grip gentled. "We can bring you to say goodbye too, Tommy. But you have to calm down. Be calm, and you get to hold her hand."

The words did what force couldn't. Tommy stopped pulling.

Marcus and Frank let go, careful, and Marcus guided him back down into the chair with a hand that was almost gentle now.

The thrashing stopped all at once. His breathing slowed and evened and dropped low into his belly, and he looked at Marlene for a long moment. And something behind his eyes finished a calculation, and filed the answer.

"Okay," he said quietly.

"…Okay," Marlene said. "Marcus and Frank will take you to her."

"I— I can't." Frank shook his head, backing toward the door. "I said my goodbye already. I can't walk through it twice. I'm going to leave the hospital, Marlene. Walk a while. I can't be in this building while it happens."

Marlene looked at him, and swallowed, and nodded. "Okay, Frank. Okay." Because she understood. Because it was exactly as hard for her.

Frank moved to go. Stopped. Thought. Then he turned back to Tommy, and his hand went into his pocket.

"We’d give you her pendant," he said, "but if there's ever a cure, a remediation, anything… We must keep it. To honor her. It stays with the Fireflies." His hand came out closed around something, and his fist stayed shut a moment longer, like his fingers were fighting back with him. "But this one. I've carried this one a long time, and I think… I think I need to move on."

Frank extended his closed hand. "She'd want you to have it. She'd want you to wear it."

Tommy opened his palm, and cold metal was pressed into it.

A firefly pendant. The same etched firefly, wings open.

He turned it over.

TOMMY 00005

"What?" His voice came out wrong. "What the fuck is this? How could she know—"

"It was her uncle's," Frank cut in softly. "From all the names in the world, hm?" A tiny smile escaped him, wrecked at the edges. "When she told me about liking you, I was worried. Thought she'd gone soft in the head over a coincidence." He looked at Tommy's face. "But she was right. You're a good man, Tommy Miller. So… keep it. Joining us or not. But she'd like knowing you’re carrying it now."

"Tommy?" Tommy's voice had dropped to almost nothing. "Her uncle name… was Tommy?"

"His name was Thomas." Frank's throat worked. "But he'd never answer to it. Not once, all the years I loved him. He'd joke that Thomas sounded like a name for bad guys, for villains in movies." He shook his head, and the tears came again, quiet. "That was him. My Tommy. He took care of all of us. He was supposed to be the one to bring her here, and he died so she could be here." Frank looked at the man in the chair, at the pendant in his shaking hand. "And somehow she managed to find herself another Tommy to take care of her and bring her."

He reached out and tapped Tommy's good shoulder, twice. "Funny way life has of working. Hm?" Nothing about it was funny, and every person in the room knew it.

And Tommy sat there with a dead man's name in his hand. Frank gave a small nod to everyone in the room and left. The door clicked shut behind him.

You’d spit Thomas at him like a knife. A name for a bad guy. And somewhere along that road, you’d decided he wasn’t Thomas anymore, just Tommy and the name of the one she loved the most.

Marlene was watching him. And when he finally looked up, something in her face had changed, the commander gone for a moment, just a tired woman watching a man find out how deep the thing he's lost actually goes. She looked, briefly, heartbroken for him.

"Look, Tommy." Her voice was gentler now. "She has this way of growing on people. It's what she does, it's what she is. I know the road did something to you both, and I'm sorry. Truly. Nobody would choose this if—"

"Her parents." He wasn't done. He couldn't be done. "What'd you mean, they're lookin' for her? They got banished from their own movement? They founded it."

Marlene breathed in, long and slow. "What version of her parents did she give you, Tommy? CEOs in Canada? Came down on a job transfer, something like that?"

"…Yeah."

Marlene shook her head at the floor, and her mouth tugged, but it was not a smile. It was the memory, on how you’d love to redecorate reality.

"Hear me out. I owe her parents everything, but here’s the truth of them." She settled back against the desk. "My family died on outbreak day. Hers took me in. Her mom, her dad, her, her brother, her uncle, Frank. They made me family. And when the world ended, they gave people hope by building the Fireflies. That much is true, and they've earned it." She sighed. "But here's the rest. The Fireflies weren't founded on a political idea, Tommy. They were founded on her. On the miracle we'd just discovered walking around in a sick girl's body. And when it came time to decide what that miracle was worth, her parents refused to spend it. They chose their daughter over their beliefs." A pause. "For the second time."

Tommy stared at her, waiting.

"They were preachers. Back in Canada. Not executives. Preachers, a congregation, a church, the whole life. And a daughter born with a heart that ate money. Surgeries, specialists, exams, year after year after year. When they heard about the experimental device of one doctor, one trial in Denver, United States… they didn't have anything close to what it cost." Marlene held his eyes. "So they took it. From the collection plate. They stole it, from their own congregation, for years. And when it was finally enough, they ran. Crossed the border with a warrant chasing them and got that device into her chest before any law could take the money back." She let it land. "They broke their faith, their vows, and the law. Everything they'd built their whole lives on, and they chose her."

The lights hummed. "And when we found the doctor again, when we understood what she could mean hope for the whole world, they were asked to choose a second time. Their beliefs, the movement they'd founded, the hope of everyone alive… or their daughter." Marlene's voice didn't waver, which was somehow worse than if it had. "They chose her. Again. They forbade it. Fought her, fought me, fought everyone. Her uncle stood against her parents, Tommy. He believed she had the right to give what she was offering. It split the family down the middle, and it split the Fireflies with it. Her parents and her brother were cast out of the movement they built. They've been out there since. Trying to reach her before we did."

She straightened, and the commander came back into her spine, and the last sentence came out of her like something pulled through a wound. "I am doing the thing her own mother and father couldn't do. One life pays for many. That's how much it costs me."

Tommy sat there. His mouth opened. Closed.

"Her brother," he said finally, and something was moving behind his eyes, pieces sliding toward each other. "You said her brother. Where's her—"

"Tommy." Marlene cut it clean. And maybe it was mercy, or maybe it was the clock, or maybe it was both. "If you want your goodbye, it's now. They're taking her down slow, but down is where it's going. You might have minutes." She looked past him. "Marcus. The surgical wing, second floor. Walk him through the east stairs.”

He was already standing. “And Tommy," She waited until he looked at her. "Calm. Whatever you're carrying, it stays outside that room. She goes gentle. That's the one thing left that any of us can give her."

He closed his fist around the pendant, put the chain over his head with hands that barely worked, and followed Marcus into the hallway, toward the last room in the world he wanted to enter, and the only one left he'd ever ask for.

Marcus walked him through the hospital, rifle low pointing at Tommy’s back, and Tommy was calm. He didn’t have to force or pretend he was calm. He was real calm, that old him back, the one the army had trained and installed in him. He let it come back up through him like water patiently filling a well. His breathing settled. His steps found a steady floor. While he walked, his eyes moved through doors, corners, sight lines, the guard by the stairwell, the one at the junction, the radio room with its door propped open. If there was one person in this building who knew how to take an operation apart and leave no evidence behind, it was the man being marched through it at gunpoint right now.

And while he walked, he did the math. Slowly. Carefully.

If anyone lives, they know my face. If they know my face, I can never wear the pendant. If I can never wear the pendant, the vow at the river dies. And everything I do after tonight is just murder, with no ledger to pay into.

So nobody lives. And they go silently.

And I spend the rest of my life paying these people back. One saved life at a time. Every single one of them gets paid for.

He turned it over, looking for the crack in it, the place where it was just rage with an excuse, and didn't find one.

One life pays for many, Marlene said it to his face, called it bigger than all of them. Fine. He'd count the same way she counted. Same arithmetic, one change: Marlene put you on the wrong side of the equals sign. You do more for this world alive than opened up on a table.

You taught me to count like this, Marlene.

And this, this walk, this math, this calm… this was Tommy Miller.

Not the brutal thing four years beside Joel had made of him. Not the saint you'd painted either, the good man screaming to get out. What he was, was simpler and older than either: a soldier fighting for the ones he loved.

The surgical wing sign appeared ahead. Marcus shifted behind him to take the turn.

And Tommy moved. He stepped inside the rifle's line, trapped the barrel under his arm, and drove his elbow back into Marcus's throat, all in the same half-second. The shot never came. They went into the wall together, and Tommy's forearm was already across the man's windpipe, his weight already set. Marcus fought, he was strong, he was trained, he fought hard, and Tommy held him like you hold a door against a flood, steady and patient until the fighting turned to shaking and the shaking stopped.

He lowered the body to the floor without a sound.

For one second he crouched there with his hand still on Marcus's chest.

"You should've asked her," he said quietly. "That's all any of you had to do."

One. The first debt. He took the rifle, the sidearm, the knife, the spare magazines, and moved forward.

The hospital was theirs, and that was their mistake. They guarded it like owners, not like soldiers. Tommy moved through it and all its flaws.

The stairwell guard was leaning on the rail. Tommy came out of the dark, he clamped a hand over the man’s mouth, yanked the head back, and drove the knife in under the jaw. The blade punched through soft tissue and muscle until it hit bone. Hot blood poured over Tommy’s fist in a thick, immediate flood. The man jerked once, hard, then went slack. Two.

He moved on and stood hidden just enough to see the junction man had a routine: twelve steps, turn, twelve steps back. Tommy timed the turn and was on him at step eleven. The knife went in under the ribs this time, angled up, and Tommy twisted it hard. The man made a wet, choked sound as blood filled his mouth and spilled down his chin. Three.

The radio room. One woman, headset half on, writing in a log. This one he hated. He crossed the room fast, grabbed her by the hair, and cut her throat in one long, deliberate pull. The spray hit the wall and the open logbook in a wide arc. Two were by the supply cage, talking low about rations. He took the nearer one with the knife in a hard, upward stab under the sternum that made the man fold with a wet gasp, and the farther one before the first hit the floor. Bare hands this time: he slammed the second man’s head into the metal cage once, twice, three times until the skull gave and blood and hair stuck to the wire mesh. His shoulder tore somewhere inside doing it. He filed the pain with everything else.

Four.

Five.

Six.

A man came out of a bathroom still buckling his belt and saw him, saw all of it, the blood, the knife, the stranger, and got half a breath into his lungs. Tommy closed the distance before the breath came back out as sound. He drove the knife into the side of the neck and held it there while the man clawed at him. Seven.

The last one stood post outside the double doors at the end of the corridor. Young. Rifle slung wrong. Under the wing sign, under the arrow, guarding the room where the lights were brightest. A kid given the quietest job in the building because nobody thought the quiet job was real. Tommy watched him for ten full seconds from the dark of the corridor.

“I’m sorry, kid,” he breathed, to no one, to God if he was still witnessing it. “I truly am.”

He crossed the corridor and reached him. The kid’s eyes went wide; a soft, surprised sound left him as blood poured down and soaked the collar of his shirt. The knife broke into the young boy’s neck. Tommy caught him before he fell and lowered him carefully against the wall. Eight.

Then Tommy Miller draw his rifle and stood alone in front of the double doors of the surgical wing, blood on his hands to the wrist, soaking his sleeves, streaked across his face where he’d wiped sweat without thinking. Through the small round windows he could see the glow of electric light, and shapes moving in it, unhurried, unaware, arranging instruments around the only heartbeat he had left in the world.

He pushed the door open quietly.

And there you were.

Laid out on the table under the brightest light, deeper than asleep. An IV line ran into each arm, one dripping slow and steady, taking you down degree by degree. A monitor beeped beside you. Your face was slack and peaceful. They’d brushed your hair back. Somehow that was the worst part of the sight, the tenderness of it, the care they were taking with something they were about to destroy.

A doctor stood at your left with an instrument tray. A nurse adjusted the drip. Neither had heard the door.

“Unhook her.”

They spun. The tray clattered. Both sets of hands went up fast.

“Whoa, easy,” The doctor’s eyes went from the rifle to Tommy’s bloody hands and back. “Listen to me. Listen. You don’t understand what she is. She’s hope, for everyone, for all of it—”

“She could save the world,” the nurse said, voice shaking.

“I don’t care.” The rifle didn’t move. “Unhook her. Now.”

“I won’t do that.” The nurse straightened, and something brave and terrible came into her face, and she stepped ahead, between him and you. “This is what she came here for. I won’t let you take her from all of—”

He shot her. The bullet took her in the upper chest. She stumbled back against the wall, blood already spreading dark across her scrub top, then slid down to the floor, leaving a long red smear.

The doctor made a sound and stumbled back against the wall, hands still up, shaking now. “Okay. Okay, okay.” He moved to the table with his hands trembling and did it: stopped the drip, slid the lines out of your arms one at a time, taped the beads of blood, unclipped the leads from your chest. The monitor lost you and began to whine. He stepped away and put his hands back up, all the way up, pressing himself into the wall.

“There. She’s free.”

Tommy shot him anyway. The doctor dropped hard, blood pooling under his head almost immediately.

Nine. Ten.

Then the rifle went over his shoulder and his arms went under you, your head rolling against his chest, warm, breathing, alive.

Somewhere in the building, tripped by sound or by a body found or by God finally taking a side, the alarms went off. Red light started flashing down every corridor. A siren wound itself up and screamed.

"I got you," he murmured into your hair, already moving. "I got you, little rabbit."

He carried you fast and low through a service corridor, away from the shouting that was starting somewhere behind, and found a records room, windowless, one door, shelves of rotting paper. He laid you down gently in the corner, folded his jacket under your head, and crouched over you a moment with his hand on your face.

"I'll be right back. I just gotta…" He stopped. Chose the soft words. "I gotta make sure you're safe." His thumb moved once along your cheekbone, under the fading bruise. "And then I'm comin' back for you, and we're leavin' this place, and we go anywhere you want. You hear me? Boston. Kentucky. Hell, Vancouver, if you want it." He pressed his lips to your forehead, one second, two. "Just hang in there for me. Keep that heart of yours workin'. I'll be right back."

He pulled the door shut on the dark and went to work.

The shooting started at the second junction. They were hunting him now, red light and sirens and boots, and the quiet part of the night was over. It didn't matter. He was still calm. He fought the way he'd been built to fight: cover to cover, corners taken low, short bursts, counting his rounds and theirs. Two came down the stairwell fast and careless. Eleven. Twelve. One tried to flank through the ward and gave himself away on the broken glass. Thirteen. A shotgun blew plaster over his head from a doorway and he waited, patient, for the reload. Fourteen. The last one on that floor was smart, and made him work for it, and it took four minutes and the rest of a magazine. Fifteen.

Then the building went quiet under the siren.

He swept it anyway, floor by floor, room by room, methodical, the alarm howling over everything. Storage. Kitchens. No one. Whoever was left had run, or there was no one left, except the one name still unaccounted for.

Marlene.

He stood in the stairwell a moment, torn. Hunting Marlene meant leaving you alone longer in a dark room in a screaming building. And something under his ribs he had a feeling saying go back, and tonight of all nights, he wasn't ignoring anything that spoke that quietly.

He went back for you. You hadn't moved. Still under, still breathing, your chest rising slow. He crouched, gathered you up again. One arm under your knees with the rifle propped beneath them, barrel forward, his other arm around your back, and turned for the door. It swung open before he reached it.

Marlene. Gun up, level with his head, red alarm light sweeping across her face in waves. She'd found the trail and she'd come alone, because there was no one left to bring.

"You son of a bitch." Her voice was shaking and her hands weren't. "I trusted you. I let you walk to her, because I thought you were a decent man saying goodbye." Her eyes went over him. "Fifteen people, Tommy. People who survived everything for this. For her." The barrel didn't waver. "Put her down. It's not too late to do the right thing. Put her down, walk out that door. I will carry that lie for you. Just put her down."

He didn't move. You slept between their two guns, your head against his chest, your breath slow and even against everything.

"She's more valuable alive, Marlene—"

"You don't know that." The words came through her teeth. "Nobody knows that. That's the whole point. If we never try, we never know. And she understood that better than anyone alive." Her voice cracked, one seam, and she sealed it back up. "It's what she would want, Tommy."

"She wouldn't." His own voice came out low and certain. "She didn't come here to die. She came here to fight, to try, to talk, to look for a way. She trusted you. All of you. She put her body in your hands believing you'd do whatever was needed to keep her safe, and you put her under and started cuttin' before she could ask a single question!"

"Hah." The laugh came out of Marlene dry and awful, and it stopped him cold.

"Oh, Tommy." She shook her head slowly, and something shifted in her face, the anger draining out and something worse flooding in behind it: Pity.

"You're standing there lecturing me about her trust. While you trusted her. She convinced you, didn't she? Of course she did… She's the best there's ever been."

And then, this was the part his brain would replay for the rest of his life. Marlene lowered her gun. Let it hang at her side, done with it, because what she had left to say was a weapon itself. "Tell me something. In all these weeks. She talked you out of taking her to Columbus. But… did you ever once wonder who exactly wanted her there, and why? Did you ever asked her who Kevin is, Tommy? And— "

The shot went through. Marlene went down, and with her, the truth he didn’t want to know. That sentence would take something from him he couldn't afford to lose. So he shot before he heard it.

Sixteen.

The alarm red light swept the room, and swept it again.

He stepped over Marlene, and spotted car keys hooked at her belt, catching the red light with every sweep. He crouched with you still in his arms and worked them free one-handed.

And he carried you out of the room, down the screaming corridor, over the shells and past the dead, and one painful suspicion ringing in his skull louder than any siren.

---

Hours of road. The medicine kept you under through most of it, and Tommy drove with one eye on the mirror, checking you in the back seat every few minutes more than he was checking the fuel.

Then, somewhere past midnight into gray dawn, you moved. A small sound. Your hand shifted on the seat.

"Hey, there she is,” He pulled over, a rise where the road ran along a ridge and the country opened up below, all mist and dead farmland and a sky starting turning pink. He killed the engine. The silence came down over everything.

Then he got out, opened the back door, and climbed in with you.

He gathered you against him, your head onto his chest, his arm around your back. "Easy. Take it slow."

"…Tommy." Your voice came out slurred and small.

"Hey, little rabbit. I'm here."

"Everything's… the car's moving." You frowned with your eyes shut. "Is the car moving?"

"Not anymore. We're parked." He brushed hair off your damp forehead. "How you feelin'?"

"Like jell-o." You swallowed thickly. "So sleepy. My mouth is…" You gave up on the sentence. Then, slowly, something surfaced behind your face, the shape of a missing thing. "Tommy. What happened?"

And there it was.

He had eight hours of driving to prepare for this question. Because there were only three doors out of this room and he'd walked to the end of all of them.

The truth. Sixteen of your people. Including the doctor who could have answered every question you'd carried. Including Marlene, who'd folded in a doorway with his bullet in her. He could say it all, right now. And he knew exactly what it would do. If he told you now, in this back seat, he wouldn't be confessing. He'd be hurting you worse than anything in your life had ever hurt you.

Or the lie? Clean, simple, invented whole. And you'd have it apart in ten minutes. You'd been reading him since the day you met, you knew his tells better than he did, you'd catalogued him like a specimen. He couldn't lie to your face and survive it.

Which left the third door.

He'd watched you do it for weeks and never had a name for it until today: Laundering. Say true things, mix them with lies, until you can’t tell where one ends and another begins.

Forgive me, he thought. You taught me this.

"They took you back for the surgery," he said. His voice came out steady. "They said it was a simple thing. Small cut, wouldn't take long. I was waitin' outside the surgery room. And then FEDRA came in on us."

You have taught him perfectly in the past. You don't need an elaborate lie, Tommy. You just need to find the one thing a person can't stand to face or lose. Once you hit it, they stop checking, they don't ask for proof, they don't look for gaps… they can't, they're too busy confirming their bias.

"FEDRA came in fast." He watched the horizon instead of your face. "I saw the doctor go one way, the nurse go the other, they hid, they scattered." He shook his head slowly. "And you were in that room alone, out cold, and I… I couldn't leave you there. So I went in and got you. I got you out."

You were quiet in his arms. Then your brow creased. "You didn't fight back?" Even sedated, half-gone, your mind kept working, and it came at him from the exact angle he'd expected, because there was no version of Tommy Miller that walked away from a fight. "You didn't help them? To hold off FEDRA?"

"No." He said it plainly. That one was easy, because it was the most honest sentence he'd say all morning. "You were unconscious and alone in a room with no lock. I wasn't leavin' you vulnerable for anythin' in this world. Gettin' you out of that buildin' was the only thing I had in my head."

You made a small noise. Accepting.

"…Who—" Your voice caught. "Are they okay? Did anyone…?"

"Sweetheart."

"Marlene." You'd already heard it in his voice. "Marlene, is Marlene—"

"None of 'em made it." He tightened his arms around you. "I'm sorry, darlin'. I'm so damn sorry."

And you broke against his chest. “No. No! Those fuckers… Fuck FEDRA, no… it can’t. It can’t be,”

You cried uncontrolled and unguarded in the messy way people cry with drugs still in them. There was no strategy left in you anywhere, the sound of somebody who has just been told the whole plan they had left is gone. The hope you’d hold tight so far gone.

He held you through it. He kissed the top of your head, over and over, and said the useless things: I got you. I'm here. I'm sorry. And he meant every one of them.

"We'll find another doctor," he murmured into your hair. "Somewhere. Somebody else who can look at all this. I swear it to you."

You cried a while longer. Then, slowly, you pushed yourself up, pale and wrecked and blinking hard, but thinking, that damned beautiful machine of yours grinding back into gear looking deep into his soul.

"I don't get it." Your eyes searched his. "Tommy, I don't… why didn't you stay and help them? You were right there. How could you watch people getting slaughtered and just—"

And Tommy did the thing he'd been dreading since the second he thought of it. He reached for the one card he had that you'd never let him play, because you couldn't afford to let him play it.

"Because I was still standin' there tryin' to understand what was happenin' to you." He let it come out ragged; he didn't have to fake that part. "I fought 'em on it. Before FEDRA came. I told 'em they couldn't cut into you while you were sleepin', that you had to know, that you had to agree to it." His hand moved on your back. "And they said somethin' I couldn't make sense of. Somethin' about how you already knew, deep down, otherwise you’d agree to go to Columbus." He looked at you then, plain and open, and asked it. "Is… there family of yours in Columbus? 'Cause Marlene talked like that Kevin—"

"No,” You said it too fast. “My family is in Denver. I don’t know what they meant. I don’t know Kevin. Guess everybody was stressed." And you looked away, too dizzy to say anything else, fixing out the window at the gray fields. Your throat worked. "This is so fucked up, Tommy. Fuck… All of it. It's just so fucked up."

He let it go. He let it go so smoothly that neither of you had to notice him doing it. You sank back against him and cried again, quieter this time, and he rocked you tenderly.

Then, after a long while, you lifted your head. You put your hand on his jaw and turned his face to yours and looked at him. "Tommy." Your voice was steady now. "Was it really FEDRA? They had uniforms? Are you sure it was FEDRA?"

The whole world came down to about eight inches of space between two faces.

"I'm sure," he said. “And I swear, I would’ve helped them if I could.”

You held his eyes for one second. Two. Three.

"…Okay." You lay back down against his chest. " I trust you did all you could do, Tommy."

He put his chin on the top of your head so you couldn't see his face, and closed his eyes, kissing your hair again

You stayed like that a long time, watching the sun come up over the dead fields.

"Where are we going now?" you asked eventually.

"Anywhere you want."

"Vancouver," you said.

He huffed a soft laugh into your hair. "Vancouver, huh."

"You said anywhere."

"I did say that."

You laughed too, wet and cracked and small, and tilted your face up, and he kissed you, gentle and careful. When you pulled back your eyes were sliding shut again, the medicine still dragging at you.

"Come here." He guided your head down onto his shoulder. "Rest. We got nowhere to be right now."

Your hand slid up his chest to settle over his heart, the way it always went. Your fingers found metal. Two chains: his tags, and something else. You lifted it, brought it into the light, and your breath changed.

"Wait…" You sat up an inch. "Is this—"

"Frank gave it to me." His hand came up and covered yours around it. "Said he'd carried it long enough." He looked down at you, and something exhausted and tender moved across his face. "You never did tell me your uncle's name was Tommy too."

Your eyes filled. You laughed, one small broken sound, and pressed the pendant flat against his chest, under your palm.

"From all the cursed luck," you whispered. "Right?"

"Right."

You smiled at each other in the dawn, both of you ruined, and for a moment it was almost bearable.

Then your smile faded.

"So Frank was there." You said it slowly. "In the hospital. He was—" You swallowed. "FEDRA got him too?"

Fuck.

Fuck.

Frank. He'd forgotten Frank. Frank who walked out that door to grieve in the street. Frank who might be standing in the wreckage of that hospital right now with his hands over his mouth.

It took Tommy less than a second, one heartbeat, forced level by pure will, his face doing absolutely nothing.

"Yes, sweetheart." He pressed his lips to your hair. "I'm sorry."

You made a small sound, and folded back down into him, and grieved a man who was not dead.

And Tommy Miller looked out at the sunrise over the fields with his throat closed and his arms full of you, holding the one true thing he had left, and understood, very clearly, very calmly, that this lie was the shape of the rest of his life.

---

Boston QZ

Lincoln's face was flat against the floorboards with Joel Miller's boot on the side of his head.

Tess had his arms wrenched up behind his back, one knee planted between his shoulder blades.

"Fuck, I can't contact Baltimore, Miller!" Lincoln's voice came out squashed and furious. "I'm not a Firefly anymore! The second I handed that girl to you two I became an enemy of the movement. They'd shoot me on sight if they found out where I am, they don't—"

Joel leaned, all his weight settling down through that boot, and Lincoln's words went into a sound instead. Then Joel drew the pistol, thumbed the hammer back, and let Lincoln hear the click an inch from his ear.

"Try harder."

"Christ— Why the hell would your brother take her to Baltimore? She was supposed to be in Columbus. That's the job. That's what you were paid for." His jaw flexed. "You told me you two were the best in this QZ. You've ruined it all, you two idiots, you two complete idiots!"

Joel's patience went.

He hauled Lincoln over onto his back by the collar and hit him once, hard. Lincoln's head rocked. Blood came out of his nose immediately.

"I don't care who you contact," Joel said. "I don't care what they do to you when you do it. I need to find my brother. You're gonna help me find my brother."

"Joel." Tess's voice, even. She hadn't let go of Lincoln's arms. "He's no good to us with his jaw broken. Let him talk."

Joel breathed out through his nose. Stood. And the two of them dragged Lincoln up off the floor and threw him into the chair in front of the radio set.

Lincoln spat blood on the floorboards and stared at the dials for a long moment.

"…There's one thing," he said. He wiped his mouth on his shoulder. "I can raise Columbus. What if I radio Kevin? Maybe they made it there after all. Maybe your brother came to his senses halfway and finished the job. It's a possibility, isn't it?"

Joel looked at Tess. Tess looked back at Joel, and something small and skeptical moved behind her eyes, and she shrugged one shoulder.

"Do it," Joel said.

Lincoln turned the dial and keyed the mic.

"Columbus, Columbus, this Boston; Come back."

Static. A long, hissing nothing. Then:

"…Columbus. Go ahead."

"I need Kevin. Now, it's urgent, tell him it's Lincoln."

More static. Thirty seconds of it. Joel stood over the desk with his arms crossed and didn't move a muscle.

Then the speaker crackled and a new voice came through, breathless, like a man who had run to reach it.

"Lincoln? Lincoln, is that you?"

"It's me." Lincoln's eyes flicked up to Joel's face, then back down. "I need to ask you something, and I need a straight answer. Was she delivered? Did she arrive?"

There was a beat of dead air. Then the voice came back, and it was cracking apart.

"No. No, she isn't here. She never got here, Lincoln, it's been almost two months. Where is she?" A rush of breath. "Do you have anything? Anything at all? You said the smugglers were good, you said they were the best you had, you swore to me… Lincoln, please. Just tell me my sister is alive."

Joel's arms came uncrossed.

Tess reached past Lincoln and snapped the radio off.

"Sister," she said.

Nobody moved for a beat. Joel was looking at the dead speaker, processing.

"What the hell does that mean." His voice had gone very quiet. "That girl told us the whole way, every damn day, that the man in Columbus wanted what was in her head. That he'd wring her out and put her in a hole when he was done."

"And I told you." Lincoln laughed through the blood, ugly and triumphant and desperate. "I told you both on day one, don't listen to a word she says, and you sat there nodding at me like professionals and then—"

Joel hit him again.

"Explain."

"… I thought you fellas were the kind that don't ask questions." Lincoln grinned red at him. "That's what I hired. Two men who don't—"

Tess grabbed the back of his head and slammed his face into the desk. She held him there, bent over, one hand fisted in his hair, and put her mouth down by his ear.

"He said explain it, goddammit."

Lincoln stayed bent over the desk, breathing hard. "She's got something in her." He said it to the desktop. "Something that matters to the Fireflies more than any of us are ever gonna matter to anybody, and it's the kind of thing they'd take her apart to get." His shoulders moved. "Her family knew. So they gathered everything they had and they hired the supposedly two best smugglers in this QZ to take their daughter across the country and put her back in her brother's hands, safe, before the movement got her." He turned his head far enough to get one eye on Joel. "That was the job. A rescue."

Neither Joel nor Tess said anything.

"So." Lincoln coughed, and something in him found one last piece of cruelty to spend. "If your brother took her to Baltimore, if he handed that girl to Marlene, of all the people on God's earth…" He started to laugh, and it turned into a wheeze. "She's already dead. She's been dead for days. You didn't just fail a delivery, Miller, you two killed—"

Joel's knife came up under his ribs.

It was fast and it was quiet, and Joel held him there against the desk with one hand on his shoulder until it was done. Then he let go, and Lincoln slid off the chair, and the room was quiet again.

Tess wiped her palms slowly on her thighs, staring at the body.

"Now what?"

Joel cleaned the blade on Lincoln's jacket. He looked at the radio, at the window, at nothing.

"Now we find a Firefly who can raise Baltimore." He straightened, and the knife went back in his belt. "We find Tommy."

Comission by @kenobiwanx 🖤

Thank you so much for being with me this long, and for all the love and support you've poured into this story. It has meant more than I can put into words here.

I'd love to read your thoughts on this one. I spent many, many hours working out how this would unfold specifically from Tommy's perspective, because he isn't Joel, and the difference mattered to me. He's dealing with an adult woman capable of making her own choices. He's more emotionally open, kinder, more willing to talk his way through a thing first. And he is every bit as deadly, and every bit as protective. Canon Tommy said he'd have done the same in his brother's place. I just wanted to show you what it would look like when he did it.

Thank you for reading. 🖤

Tag list:

You woke to gray morning light, rain pouring outside, and the rarest sight in your whole memory: Tommy Miller, deeply asleep. Not that broken man waking up every other minute from a nightmare, not the soldier's half-sleep you'd observed for a month. He was in real heavy sleep, boneless and gone.

He was right beside you, one arm still curved around you. The furrow between his brows had packed up and left. You lay there, both your bodies naked against each other, and you watched him breathe, greedy about it, memorizing him this handsome and rested the way you'd memorized him wrecked.

Now, in the daylight, you could see the wounds clearly. His forehead had a deep cut on it, but under control. What truly concerned you was the shoulder. The gunshot wound the Gilead crew had given him weeks back was worse in every way. A wound that had been stitched, ripped, restitched, and then dragged through a war. You wondered, honestly, how he'd even kept going. Tearing men apart, fighting for hours, climbing walls. As soon as he wakes up that will be the priority, you think.

Somewhere outside, the horse shifted in the tall grass, and the rain kept coming down, and it hit you: the poor thing was standing out in it.

You untangled yourself from Tommy as smoothly as you could. His arm tightened around you on its own, more asleep than awake, holding on.

"Be right back," you whispered against his temple, kissing it softly, and he released you without a word, dead to the world again in a breath.

You went out for the horse just using a towel to cover yourself. The bay gave you a look of profound suffering, mane dripping, and let you lead him into the closed garage. You patted his wet neck once. "I know, I’m sorry, I’m sorry," you told him. "Don’t be mad at me, big guy. You’ll be dry soon."

You ran back to the house, dripping faintly.

As neither of you had paid the house any real attention yesterday, you went through it properly, into cabinets, closets, drawers, the whole scavenger protocol. You found spare clothes, for both of you, thank God. Tommy's were stiff with dried blood, and yours, to be fair, were not much better.

There was no food. No ammunition, no weapons. But you found a first aid kit under the bathroom sink, and that alone made the house worth it. And then you looked for the thing you always looked for: Books.

Nothing. Not one. You stood there in the empty living room feeling small and stupid because it felt it was just as sad as not finding food.

You went back to Tommy, tucked yourself carefully against his side, and his good arm tightened around you and pulled you in unconsciously. Even gone from the world, the man kept watch over what was his.

And you let yourself acknowledge all of it: for the first time in maybe years, a real night of sleep, no rush, no watch shifts. Cozy and warm and protected and loved. Not the way you were loved by your family and friends. Loved like a woman. It was all real, and it all felt so right and so perfect. Waking up at his side felt so much like a dream that you actually double checked the light, the weight of his arm, the small details a dream always gets wrong.

But no. It had all worked. And the best thing about it: you'd been right all along.

It was harder than you thought, God, so much harder. But here you were, against every odd the world had stacked: in the arms of your captor and your savior. Your tormentor and your lover.

You used to think you were too rational, too smart for the stupid fantasies of love at first sight, the I felt your soul the moment I saw you, all those things people wrote and were cute in the books, but impossible in real life.

Until you felt it. Until you planted your feet on that street and refused to move, and looked up into the eyes of a man who was more of a prisoner than you were. The sweet eyes buried under trauma and guilt, screaming for you to fix him. And then he said his name, and you knew for sure. You knew that you were in the hands of that man for a reason. That was the twisted way fate would bring you the message.

Now he’s exactly where you dreamed he was, holding you, as a lover and as a Firefly, escorting you to a Baltimore and every decision that comes with it, closer than ever.

You'd been right about Tommy Miller since day one.

And you ought to know it by now: you were right most of the time, about most of the things. No modesty about it, because it was simply the truth. Whether by reason or by faith, your instincts had a perfect record. One hundred percent.

And you needed that to be true. Because with everything else finally over past you, the last fear had space to surface again: What would come after Baltimore.

Because now the road was clear. No risk of ending in Columbus, Tommy safe and by your side, not trapped in a basement waiting to be assaulted. All the other fears had gone away, and what remained was the one at the center. It was time to finally face it.

I'll be fine in Baltimore. Everything will work out. It will all be fine.

You repeated it like a mantra, matching it to the rain, until it carried you back under.

I’ll be fine.

---

When you woke again, the light had changed but the rain was still coming down, steady and generous against the roof.

And it was, you decided, the most delicious thing that has ever happened in the ruined world: tucked into Tommy Miller in perfect peace, his warmth all over you, the rain doing all the rest.

He shifted behind you. A long breath, a low sound in his chest, and then his lips found your shoulder.

"Mornin'," he rumbled, voice full of gravel and sleep.

"It was morning a long time ago, sleeping beauty."

"Mm." He didn't even sound embarrassed. "Man's entitled. Ain't slept like that in… hell." He thought about it. "Years. This bed's a miracle. The rain's a miracle." His arm pulled you over, turning you to face him, and his eyes were soft and heavy-lidded and warm. "You're the miracle."

He kissed you, slow and deep and completely unhurried, with nowhere to be for the first time in his life. "I love you," he murmured against your mouth, and kissed you again. "Love you so much." Another kiss, longer. "So goddamn much."

You laughed softly into his lips. "Who are you? You barely look like the Tommy who wouldn't say one vulnerable word and avoided kissing me as he was avoiding the plague."

"That Tommy's dead." He said it easily, no weight in it at all, brushing your hair back from your face. "Guess.. This one was always the real one anyway.” He says it a bit more shy than he intended. “…Just took him a while to get out."

"…I know, I always knew." you whispered against his lips.

"Yeah." He smiled into the kiss. "You sure knew."

He kissed you again, deeper, and shifted to gather you fully against him and stopped, mid-motion, with a sharp hiss through his teeth.

You pulled back. His face had gone carefully still, he rolled slowly onto his back, breathing through it, and looked down at his own shoulder. "Okay, it’s way worse today," he said, calm, cold-blooded, assessing. He flexed the fingers of that hand, watched them respond too slow. "It's been screaming for days."

"God." You were already swinging out of bed. "It's bad, Tommy. It's angry and hot. But good news is I found a first aid kit downstairs."

"Soon." His arm hooked around you and pulled you straight back into him. "You can do that later. Let's stay like this a bit more."

"Tommy, we need—"

"Shhh." He laughed into your hair and locked you there, not letting you move an inch.

Because he wasn't ready. Not for the wound, not for the day, not for any of it. There were things waiting outside this bed. Questions he had to ask you, answers he wasn't sure he wanted,  and every one of them was still going to be there in an hour or two. This, though. This warm, rain-loud, borrowed time with you tucked under his chin. He'd earned this one, and he wasn't handing it back a minute early.

"Okay. Fine." You gave in and burrowed deeper into him, because honestly, it was too good to fight. "Just a bit."

So you stayed like that. Eyes closed, his heartbeat under your ear, the rain going on and on.

Then your eyes opened. There was something you hadn't asked yet.

"Tommy… did you find Joel? Any trace of him?"

His eyes snapped open above you. And there it was: the old reflex, coming up his chest like water: the guilt, the pull, that his place was at his brother's back. He waited for it to grab him the way it always had. It didn't. He turned it over quickly, to find out that somewhere on that road he'd stopped feeling like he owed a debt to Joel. He'd been carrying that weight so long that setting it down still felt like forgetting something.

"No," he said. "Didn't find him. Didn't find one thing that could lead me to him, either."

You went quiet for a moment, choosing your words with care.

"And how do you feel about that?"

"Honest?" He let out a slow breath. "I made my peace with it. Been comin' apart for a long time, me and him." His hand moved slow up and down your back. "He knew I didn't want the life he wanted. I knew it too, and I kept on pretendin'. Was always gonna happen one day. Just happened to be this way."

The air got heavy fast, so Tommy continued, in a lighter tone now. "Besides. That man's too stubborn to die." He shifted, warming up. "He’s alright. And I'll tell you what, I'd give a year off my life to see his face when he got to Boston and found Tess sittin' there, free and not a scratch on her." He dropped his voice into the gravel register, chin tucked, eyebrows down, the full Joel. "Huh. Well. That son of a bitch.” He chuckles. “this will be his whole speech about it, he will never admit he was made fool of.”

You laughed at the precision of the impersonation, and the sound of it made his whole chest warm. He squeezed your side. "You did my brother dirty, spitfire. He is gonna be so mad at you." He shook his head. "Hell of a trick, though."

"It wasn't a good trick." You waved a hand, dismissive. "It was cheap. Amateur… honestly."

"Didn't feel amateur."

"It never does, that's the point." You propped your chin on his chest to look at him, warming to it. "You don't need an elaborate lie, Tommy. You just need to find the one thing a person can't stand to face or lose. Once you hit it, they stop checking, they don't ask for proof, they don't look for gaps… they can't, they're too busy confirming their bias. That's all a good scam is. Find the soft spot and let their own fear do the rest."

"Smart," he said.

"Mm-hmm."

He huffed and kissed the top of your head.

"I hope he's okay," you said, quieter now. "I mean it. When we get to Baltimore we can radio Boston. Check with people who move through the QZ. It wouldn't be hard to ask around and find out whether he made it back. I'll make sure it gets done."

Tommy pinched your cheek gently between two fingers. "Thank you. For still caring about him."

You smiled up at him.

You felt him hesitating a bit, a breath taken and held a second too long. "What about yours?" he asked. "Your brother." He kept his voice easy. "You ever think about makin' things right with him? You never talk about him."

The smile went off your face. "No." You said it lightly, which fooled neither of you. "I'm fine for now. You know how it is. Older brother stuff. They want to force their own ideas into you." A shrug that came out stiff. "Maybe one day I'll talk to him. But I'm good now."

And you shifted an inch, enough to put a small piece of air between you. Tommy noticed it. So he let it be closed. For now.

"Y'know," he said instead, changing the subject. "You. In that garden."

"Hm?"

"You walked into a doorway full of infected, and you stood there and held 'em, held a whole damn pack of 'em." His hand tightened around your waist. "That was the bravest thing I ever saw. You were the hero that day."

You lit up. Instantly. You turned all the way around to face him, and your hand started climbing, your fingers walking slow up his stomach, over his ribs, spreading flat against his chest.

"I don't know about that." Your voice had changed. "I wasn't the one who ran into a burning building to save two puppies." You bit your lip, eyes on his mouth. "That's the bravest and most noble thing a person can do." You purr. "…It's also the sexiest."

The grin that broke across his face was pure boy: cheeky and absolutely insufferable. He settled back into the pillow with the smug look of someone being handed something he fully intended to enjoy.

"Well," he drawled. "If the lady's lookin' to say thank you, I'll have you know my whole schedule's wide open today."

You grinned against his chest, matching his smugness with your own.

“Then I guess I better make this thank-you proper,” you murmured, already sliding down his body.

You kissed a slow path over his stomach. Your lips brushed the warm skin just above v-line, soft and deliberate, while your eyes stayed locked on his, bright and full of heat. “I’ll remember forever,” you said between kisses, “you walking out of that burning building covered in soot, looking like the most perfect hero in the world.”

Tommy’s chest rose with a proud little huff. His fingers found your hair, resting there.

“Nah, you’re pushin’ it now,” he drawled, voice already thicker.

“Oh yeah?” You smiled against his skin and kept going lower, kissing the line of soft hair trailing down, still watching him the whole time. The space between each kiss was just long enough to make him shift, to make his cock thicken and flush against his thigh. When you finally wrapped your hand around him, he was already hard and heavy in your palm. You stroked him once, slow, from base to tip, and watched his eyes flutter.

“Hand feelin’ better?” he asked, a little breathless already.

You gave him a deeper stroke, thumb brushing the sensitive underside. “Let’s check,” you said, playful.

He let out a low, rough laugh that turned into a groan. “Yeah… yeah, I’m real happy that hand’s better.”

You leaned in and took just the tip into your mouth, swirling your tongue once before pulling off to press a few open mouthed kisses along the head. Then you took him deeper, slow, letting him feel every inch of the wet heat. Tommy’s fingers tightened gently in your hair, steady but careful, guiding you.

“Fuck… that’s so good,” he breathed. “Missed your mouth. Missed this so damn much.”

He tried to lift his hips, chasing more of you, but you pulled back just enough to keep him on the edge, still stroking him with your hand while your lips hovered close.

“So…” you said, voice husky, lips brushing the tip again. “What do you wanna do after Baltimore?”

Tommy’s eyes were half-lidded, floating somewhere between pleasure and the soft haze of being thoroughly teased. He smiled down at you, dazed and delighted.

“Wherever you want,” he said easily. “You point, I’ll open the way.”

You took him into your mouth again, deeper this time, then pulled off with a soft pop.

“Boston?” you asked, kissing the side of his cock. “Or somewhere completely new?”

He groaned when you swallowed him down once more, slow and thorough, then let him go again.

“I would like somewhere between countryside and… not as far as Texas,” you continued, voice rough from taking him. “Somewhere we can have horses. Somewhere you can still be a cowboy.” Another long, wet stroke of your tongue. “Maybe a calm life. Or a whole new team of rebels. I haven’t decided yet.”

You looked up at him through your lashes, still holding him in your hand, still not giving him the full thing.

“Can you suggest a nice place?” you said, teasing, wicked.

Tommy’s laugh came out broken and breathless. His thumb stroked your cheek.

“Kentucky,” he said immediately, no hesitation. “Kentucky. We can go there. Land’s good. We can have horses. Quiet if we want it, or close enough to people if we don’t. Kentucky, baby.”

You smiled around him, eyes soft.

“That’s an excellent idea.”

And then you finally took him fully into your mouth deeply, steady, and gave him everything. Tommy’s head dropped back against the pillow with a rough, broken groan.

“Fuck—”

You pulled off him again, lips shiny, hand still stroking him slow and firm. “What about dogs?” you asked, voice soft and wicked. “Can we have two?”

His laugh came out half-strangled. He looked down at you like you were the best and worst thing that had ever happened to him.

“How many you want, darlin’?” he managed. “Ten? Twenty? I’ll find ‘em all.”

You smiled, flattening your tongue against the underside and dragging it slow from base to tip, long strokes that make him twitch in your hand. You trace every vein, every ridge, savoring him, and took him fully again, and he swore under his breath, fingers tightening in your hair.

You kept working him for a few long, perfect moments, then stopped once more. Tommy made a low, frustrated sound in his throat, hips twitching up toward your mouth.

“Jesus, baby—”

You looked up at him with wide, soft eyes, still holding him in your hand.

“What if I want to go back home?” you asked. “Vancouver?”

Tommy blinked down at you, surprised, then a slow, almost mocking grin spread across his face. “Vancouver? In Canada?” He huffed a breathless laugh, eyes warm and fond. “That’s a bit too far, ain’t it? Ain’t that close to Seattle? Whole other side of the damn country?”

You gave him the softest, most devastating puppy eyes.

“Please?” And then you took him all the way down, no mercy this time, throat relaxing, tongue working, hand pumping the base in perfect rhythm. You sucked him deep and wet and relentless, the perfect, filthy blowjob that made his thighs tense and his breath shatter. Tommy’s grip on your hair tightened, his other hand fisting the sheets, every muscle in his body locked as he fought not to come.

“Fuck— fuck, okay—” His voice cracked, desperate and wrecked. “Of course. Vancouver. Wherever you want, baby. Everything you want.”

He pushes into your mouth harder now, guiding your head down until your nose presses against his stomach, cock buried deep in your throat. “You stop teasing now, ok?” You gag instantly, and he holds you there for a few seconds, groaning low and rough.

“Look at you, takin’ every inch. You’re such a good girl for me.”

He pulls you back carefully, checking your face, thumb brushing the tears at the corner of your eye.

You gasp for air, tears still falling, but you lean right back in, tongue flicking out to taste him again, completely gone for it.

“Again,” you whisper, voice wrecked and hoarse.

He guides you down once more, slower this time, letting you take him deep until your throat flutters around him. He hold you there, deep, again. Soft, broken little cries of pure pleasure spill around his cock, just as more tears spills from your eyes, and the sound of them almost undoes him completely. He can feel how close he is already, and he carefully pulls you off with a wet sound, breathing hard.

“Ok, we need to stop this or I won’t last too long,”

He draws you up beside him and kisses you deep. His hand moves over your body, brushing your nipples, tracing the curve of your ribs, sliding down to your hip bones. Then his fingers find your clit, never stopping the kiss. You moan into his mouth as he finally slides two fingers lower, kneading slowly through your wetness.

You break the kiss, breathless, cheeks flushed, looking into his eyes.

“Can we… try something different?” you ask, whispering shyly.

Tommy’s expression softens instantly. “Tell me what you need. I’ll give it to you.”

You bite your lip, a soft blush spreading across your face. “I’m… God, I’m embarrassed to say out loud. I’ve never done it before.”

“You can tell me,” he murmurs, still stroking you gently between your legs, clearly proud of how wet and needy he’s made you. “Don’t need to be embarrassed with me, little rabbit. You can ask for anything you want.”

You keep grinning, shyly and in silence.

The contrast of it, you usually so bold and sharp-tongued, suddenly this shy, makes something warm and protective bloom in his chest. Tommy pumps one finger slowly inside you, watching your face respond to it the whole time.

“Want me to guess it?” he asks, voice low and fond.

You grip his curls softly and give a small, embarrassed nod. “Yes,”

Tommy shifted lower on the bed, mouth finding your breast. He kissed and sucked softly at your nipple while his finger kept pumping slowly inside you, collecting your wetness. His eyes stayed on your face the whole time.

“God, look at you,” he murmured against your skin. “So damn pretty like this… all shy and flushed and wet for me. So fuckin’ hot.”

He kept kissing down your body: over your ribs, your stomach, the soft skin just above your hip, while his finger worked you open. Then he slowly pulled it free, slick and shiny, and let it drift lower. He circled the tight entrance of your ass carefully, just the pad of his finger, testing.

“That what you want?” he asked.

He hauls himself up to stay face to face with you again. You immediately hid against the crook of his neck, embarrassed and turned on in equal measure.

“…Yes,” you whispered.

Tommy’s breath hitched. He was clearly turned on as hell by the request, but the way he looked at you was soft, focused, ready to take care of you properly.

“Do I need to turn around?”

“If it’s your first time… better you stay like this. Easier for you to stay relaxed.”

You nodded against his neck. “I’m a bit scared,” you admitted.

“I got you. Don’t worry. We go real slow. You change your mind at any point, I stop. Okay?”

His voice was calm, confident. He knew exactly what he was doing and had no interest in rushing you. And that made it deeply sexy.

“You just need to stay relaxed for me,” he continued, still circling that tight ring with careful fingers, distributing kisses over the side of your face. You whimpered as he pressed the tip of his middle finger against you and pushed just the tiniest bit in, then held still, letting you adjust. He kissed you soft and deep in your lips now, praising you between kisses.

“That’s it...You’re doing good. Just let it adapt a little.”

You made a small, tight sound of discomfort.

“I know,” he murmured against your mouth. “Feels a bit strange at first. That’s normal. Just so your body can get used to it, okay?”

“Okay,” you breathed.

“Can I keep goin’?”

“Yes.”

Tommy pushed in a little more, while his thumb found your clit and started brushing soft, steady circles. The dual sensation made your hips twitch.

“Does that feel good?” he asked, watching your face carefully.

“Fuck… yes,” you whispered against his mouth, voice shaky with pleasure.

He stayed right there, his lips placing soft kisses you yours, moving his finger only the smallest amounts, thumb never leaving your clit, working you open with endless patience until the tension in your body started to melt and you were breathing easier against him.

“How you feelin’?”

You opened your eyes, dreamy and heavy-lidded, and looked at him with pure, hazy pleasure.

“It feels so good,” you whispered. “I’m ready for more.”

A low, proud sound left his chest. “Attagirl,”

He shifted carefully, guiding you onto your side so that your back was mostly against his chest, but he kept you angled toward him, with your upper leg draped over his thigh. You looked back over your shoulder and found his eyes right there, soft and dark and completely focused on you.

Tommy’s hand slid gently under your upper thigh, holding you open. He lined himself up with your pussy first and pushed in with one slow, deep thrust. You moaned against his mouth as he filled you completely.

“Need to soak it first,” he murmured, eyes dropping to your lips. He fucked you in long, wet strokes, getting himself slick and coated, and you were already floating, every drag of his cock making your breath stutter.

Then he pulled out and you made a soft, protesting sound.

“I know,” he soothed, kissing the corner of your mouth. “It’s for a good cause, though, right?”

You felt the blunt head of him press against your tighter entrance. Tommy kept his eyes locked on yours the entire time as he began to push in carefully and slow.

“So pretty like this… how does it feel?”

“Good. God— Good, Tommy.”

The stretch was intense, burning at first, but his hand stayed firm on your thigh and his other arm wrapped around your waist, holding you close.

“Breathe for me,” he whispered. “That’s it… just like that.”

Inch by inch he sank deeper, always reading your expressions. Soft moans spilled between both of you, yours shaky and overwhelmed, his low and full of restraint. Every time he gained a little more, he paused and checked.

“You okay?”

“Yes… yes—”

Your cheeks burned, but the heat wasn’t embarrassment anymore. It was pure, flooding pleasure. Your eyes stayed locked on his as he kept going, slow and relentless, until he finally bottomed out completely.

He stayed still once he was fully inside you, breathing hard against your cheek, giving your body time to adjust.

The fullness was overwhelming, deep and intense in a way nothing else had ever been. You trembled around him, caught between the sharp new stretch and the flood of warmth that came with realizing how gently he was. It was too much and perfect at the same time. The sensation made your head spin; every tiny shift of his body sent sparks through you, and the fact that he was being so patient, so sweet, only made the pleasure climb higher, slow and dizzying.

“Fuck, baby…” His voice was rough with awe. “Look at you. You took every inch, you’re doing so good. So fuckin’ perfect for me.”

You were trembling, overwhelmed, caught between the deep stretch and the flood of pleasure.

“It’s… too much, Tommy,” you whispered, voice small and shaky, half insecure, half lost in it.

He held completely still, one hand stroking your hip, the other around you waist.

“I know, baby. I know. But it’s gonna get better. I’m just gonna stay still right here and let the discomfort ease up, okay? Is that alright?”

You nodded, breathing hard. “Yes.”

He leaned in and kissed you deep. Tongues sliding together, soft sucks on each other’s lips, gentle bites, then tongues again. The kiss was messy and intimate, both of you pouring everything into it. Little by little you relaxed around him, the tight resistance melting into something softer and hungrier.

When he felt you give, Tommy started to move with tiny, careful thrusts at first, still kissing you so deeply that every muffled moan you made was swallowed straight into his mouth. He refused to let you pull away. His hand slipped between your legs again, finding your clit, and he began stroking it in the exact same slow, deep rhythm as his hips moved.

The dual sensation wrecked you. You finally broke the kiss with a gasp, and the sight of your face nearly undid him. You looked completely gone with your eyes glassy, lips swollen, cheeks flushed, expression pure stunned pleasure, like you couldn’t believe anything could feel this good.

Tommy stared back at you like he was drowning on you, in the best way. Seeing you like this, so open and given over to him, made something twist harder in his chest.

You were lost in his face too, in the way his eyes stayed locked on yours, dark and drunk on the sight of you, on the feeling of being inside you like this.

Tommy kept the rhythm slow and deep, every thrust deliberate. The tight heat of your body gripped him perfectly. He could feel every small shift around his cock as he pushed in and pulled back, the stretch of you accepting him again and again. It felt filthy and sacred at the same time.

It was crushing, in the right ways. The deep, full pressure of him moving inside you mixed with the steady circles of his fingers on your clit until pleasure radiated through your whole body. Every thrust sent sparks up your spine.

He kept the same slow, deep rhythm, never looking away from your face. “I love you,” he whispered, voice rough and strained with the effort of going slow and at same time holding it all together.

“I love you,” you breathed back. You were already so close. Your fingers slipped into the soft curls falling across his forehead, brushing them back so you could see him better. Your eyes moved over his face with open, dazed wonder: the tired beauty of him, the fine lines at the corners of his eyes, the way his mustache and goatee framed the soft shape of his mouth. Your fingertips traced it all before your gaze finally settled on the freckles scattered across the bridge of his nose. You were completely lost in his face, in every small, perfect detail.

“I… I love you so much, Tommy—” The orgasm hit you fully in a long, intense wave. Your whole body clenched hard on him and you cried out, gripping his arm, his hip, the back of his neck, everywhere you could reach. The tight, pulsing squeeze of you coming pulled him under immediately. Tommy buried himself deep with a broken groan and followed you, spilling inside you in heavy pulses while both of you locked together in one long, shaking wave of shared pleasure, holding onto each other until there was nothing else left, not even the world outside the bed, just the both of you.

---

You stayed in that bed for a long time afterward. There was no reason not to. The rain kept going, steady and gray against the window, and the world outside had temporarily run out of things to do to you. So you did nothing, magnificently.

His hand found yours on top of the blanket and just stayed there, fingers laced, thumb moving slow across your knuckles for the whole time. You talked about stupid things, laughed at each other. It occurred to you that you had never once been happy like this: easily, plainly, simply, in a bed, in the rain, with someone. All the problems, the pain, the traumas, had given a pause so you both could just exist in this ordinary moment.

"Can I ask you somethin'?" Tommy said eventually, into the quiet.

"Sure."

His thumb stopped moving on your knuckles.

"Your heart. I saw it happen twice now," he said. "At the auto shop... and again in the theater when I got to you." His voice stayed level, careful and concerned. "Is that the battery? You told me it runs out eventually. Is it… is it goin'…?" There was real fear under it, packed down tight. You heard it.

"No." You shifted onto your elbow to face him. "No, Tommy. It's not that."

"Then what?"

"… It's how the device is built. It's the smart function. It's supposed to be the good part. It doesn't waste charge, it watches, and it only spends what it absolutely has to. So when my heart rate spikes way up, it doesn't smooth it out. It just… makes sure I don't fail. It lets me run right up to the edge, keeps me from going over, and it doesn't give me one bit of comfort along the way." You made a face. "Which is very efficient of it. And absolutely horrible."

"So it hurts like hell and you're still fine," he said slowly.

"Mostly fine. It's frightening, and it feels like dying, but it isn't dying. Which is why the battery lasts so long.” You said it lightly, a little wicked, and let your hand slide up his chest. "It’s not common to happen, but as I told you weeks ago, my heart and that device have both been behaving very strangely since I met you. I did warn you."

His eyebrows went up. "…That's my fault?" Tommy huffed a laugh, but you could see it working through him, the shoulders coming down, the tension in his jaw letting go. Relief, plain on his face. He'd been carrying that one a while.

"So it ain't the battery," he said, mostly to himself. "It ain't runnin' out."

"It isn't running out. It’s made to last until I get old."

"Okay." He breathed out. "But you told me it was gonna run out. You said it, it could have a life span of fifteen years and seven were gone… Why'd you tell it to me that way?"

“Well, I… I lied. This is one of the reasons we wanted this specific experimental device.”

“Why? Why’d lie about that as if you’d die soon from it?”

"Well… Because…” You shift awkwardly “Because I was your prisoner? And I needed to convince you to let me to go?” You said it, fast.

“Anyway, I’m telling the truth now.”

The rain filled the pause.

“Okay, enough of postponing it. Let’s look at that shoulder," you said, sitting up and swinging your legs out of bed, occupying the silence to change subjects.

"Darlin', wait,"

"No, it's practically glowing at me from here, Tommy, I can see the heat coming off it. If we don't clean it today you'll be missing an arm by thursday.

You crossed the room quickly and gathered the first aid kit and water, and felt his eyes the whole way. You glanced back. Tommy was propped on his good arm, unashamedly watching you move around the room, naked and lit by the low light, with a delighted expression.

You grabbed a big shirt from the pile you'd found and pulled it on over your head. "There. Let me hide, so you don’t get distracted."

Tommy watched the shirt come down over you and let out a long grieving sigh, head dropping back to the pillow. "Cruel," he said looking at the ceiling.

You sat on the edge of the bed with the kit open beside you and got to work. You cleaned the wound slowly, careful around the swollen edges, and Tommy took it with jaw tight, breathing steady, letting you.

"The bad news is we can't stitch this anymore," you said, dabbing. "The edges are too torn, too many times. It has to close on its own now, which means it has to rest. Which means you have to rest. We should stay here a few days."

You reached for the antiseptic. "This might sting."

"Might," He hissed. "yeah."

"Sorry. Breathe." You kept working. "There's no food in the house, but I saw your pack. If we're smart about it should hold us a few days. Enough for this to calm down." You laid the clean dressing over it, pressing gently. "But not too long. We can't lose too many days, because we need to get to Baltimore and ask them to help us find Frank. He's out there somewhere, Tommy, and he's… I know him. He's out of his mind by now. He'll be tearing the state apart looking for me. Baltimore have people, radios... They can find him faster than we ever could."

While you talked about food, days, Frank, Baltimore, the future, Tommy lay still under your hands and said nothing. He was somewhere else.

He was thinking about the lie. And all the other things that would still not make sense and the questions he had to make now, not able to postpone anymore.

Baltimore was burned, Sarah had told him so, to ash and hunters. And you spoke about it like a working city with radios and rescue teams. And then the doctor mention and the words you'd almost said by a fire once and swallowed. There was a whole conversation waiting between here and Baltimore, and he could feel their weight. He admitted to himself he was a little afraid of that talk. Not of what he'd say. Of what he'd hear.

"Tommy?"

He blinked back to the room.

You held his eyes for a second, and then you finished taping the dressing flat, smoothing it down with your palm.

"How… how did you find me?" you asked. "How did you even know?" Your hand stayed resting over the bandage. "And on the way… did you find any trace of them? Frank and Marcus." You hesitated, and the word came out smaller than the rest. "Alive, or…" You couldn't finish it.

"I haven't seen them," Tommy interrupted. "Not dead. Not alive either.”

You breathed out. It wasn't much, but it was something.

"That ginger fella, the one that got away on the road. And the boss. They came to me." He said it plainly. “They'd been huntin' the man who shot Patricia, and they figured it was Joel, and they figured I'd know where to find him." His thumb moved over your knuckles once. "So they sat me down and asked their questions. Then they tried to threaten me saying they got you.” He shrugged with the good shoulder. "That was their mistake, at that moment the conversation stopped being lead by them." A pause.

"And they told me the address."

You looked at his face for a moment. "You say that like it was a nice conversation," you said quietly.

"You don't need all the details." He brought your hand up and kissed the back of it. "But they paid. For what they did to you, and for those girls." His mouth twitched, humorless. "That's all you need from me on that."

You caress his jaw and kiss the tip of his nose. “Ok.” Your fingers brush down his neck and chest and you keep him there, mapping him again, unhurried and delighted with the sight of him.

“Hey,” he says finally, taking your hand of his chest and holding it. “We need to talk about something.”

He adjusted himself on the bed to sit properly, and pulls you to sit cross legged in his front, holding both of your hands. He was quiet for a moment, choosing where to start.

"If I'm gonna join you," he said finally, "if I'm gonna be the one bringin' you there… I need the truth. And I got this feelin'." He looked at you, steady, no anger in it. "There are things you ain't tellin' me. Things that don't add up."

You nodded slowly and brushed the back of his hand. "Hm. What exactly doesn't add up?"

And there it was. You’d circle to understand what parts he had doubt instead of taking initiative to talk yourself, and he hated that feeling.

He wanted to walk through it with everything at once: You said you were meeting Marlene to plan taking Boston back from Lincoln, but why would that need you in person in Baltimore? Then that night with the whiskey, you talked about a doctor, the one from your last surgery, and we were both too drunk to remember about it. Then by the fire you said there was somethin' in Baltimore about your condition. Which condition? The heart? The thing with the infected?

And… how does any of it happen in a city I was told is ash?

But he knew better. A small part of him was ashamed of knowing better, ashamed that even now, even after everything, he didn't fully trust you. But he knew how that beautiful head of yours worked. He hands you all his cards at once, and he was afraid you'd take each piece and turn it, fit it, sand the edges until every answer sounded good and reasonable. He'd never be able to tell where the honesty ended and the arrangement began. That was just what you were. He'd chosen you knowing it.

So he didn't spill the cards. He laid down just one.

"Baltimore." He kept his voice even. "What exactly is waitin' for you there?"

He finished the question with his heart pounding. Because this was the test, and you didn't know you were taking it. Baltimore had fallen. And there was no world where the leader of a rebellion didn't know a QZ she ran operations in had fallen. So whatever came out of your mouth next would tell him one of two things.

He waited. It took seconds and felt like hours, only the rain filling the silence.

You didn't answer right away. He watched you do the thing you did, eyes dropping to the middle distance, thumb rubbing slow circles at his hands, the machinery behind your face working. Sorting.

"I was… mostly… honest with you." Your voice came out soft, each word placed like a foot on thin ice. You made yourself meet his eyes. "But yes. There are parts missing."

Something in his chest unclenched half an inch. Mostly honest. It wasn't everything. But at least it was an admission offered before it was forced.

"Okay." He shifted up against the headboard, careful with the shoulder, giving you his full face. "Then, be fully honest now." Please. Whatever it is. Just let me trust you, he thought.

You breathed in deep, all the way down, and let it out slow.

"My condition is not a secret among the Fireflies. They all know. And it's… it's what drives most of them. It's why a crew crossed the country after me. It's a big part of our hope." A pause, and then, the corner of your mouth twitched. "Not that I'm not an excellent leader."

He huffed. "Never doubted it."

"But… yeah. Being a good leader wasn't the main reason they were all protecting me." The small smile faded, and your hands settled in your lap. "When we left Denver, years back, it wasn't because we wanted to expand Firefly operations. Well. That too. But the real trigger was something else. We needed answers. About me, about what's in me. And the only person alive who could give them was my doctor, the one my parents bring me all the way from Canada to US to have surgery with. We found out he survived and had left Denver in a convoy heading east, right after outbreak started. It was Boston or Baltimore QZ. Nobody knew which."

Tommy's hand found your knee while you talked and just rested there.

"So we split. I went to Boston, with my uncle and a few of our people. Marlene took the rest to Baltimore. We searched, we built and we grew, and the ops went better than anyone dreamed. In Boston, at least." Your jaw shifted.

"Baltimore was different. That QZ was crumbling from the start. Even those fuckers from FEDRA were failing. After a while, we saw there was no hope for Baltimore we planned to pull all the Fireflies out, consolidate in Boston." You looked down at his hand on your knee. "And then… Marlene found him. My doctor. In Baltimore."

You stopped. Breathed again, deeper this time. Tommy's thumb moved once across your knee, slow. Take your time.

"He might know, Tommy." Your voice dropped. "What I have. How to replicate it to other people, how to make it definitive and not for some seconds. Well, he might not have the full answer but at least he knows how to start to find out. We spoke over radio, couple of times. He walked me through the possibilities, how he'd check, how he'd test for each one. But the equipment for any of it only exists in Baltimore. There's nothing like it in Boston that we could reach or take. They are holding back in Baltimore, just waiting for me. So the whole plan was always: go to Baltimore. Find answers. Once its done, all crew abandon Baltimore and head to Boston QZ.”

"Right. Find answers…" Tommy repeated, flat. “What do you mean by that?”

"Yes. Because it depends." You tucked one leg under you. "He has two theories. One: it's the radiation. All the imaging and treatments I've had, my whole life. Radiation changing how fungus behaves is real, it's documented, it's the likely one. He said no one ever studied it in cordyceps, but if other fungi react, this one could too." You paused. "Or two: it's the device itself. Some frequency it puts out. And if it's that…" Your hands stilled. "Then it's a lot more complicated."

"How so." It wasn't a question. It came out low, and his eyes had gone very still.

"I'd probably need a surgery. He'd have to open it, see how it works, check whether there's a particular frequency or—"

"Wait." His hand left your knee and hovered, like he didn't know where to put it anymore. "Open it? open you? That means—"

You caught his hand out of the air and brought it to your chest, pressing his fingers over the hard little shape sleeping under your skin. "It's superficial. Right here, just under the surface. Reaching it doesn't mean an open chest surgery again. They'd only need to go that deep if they had to check the connectors, the wires, I don't know the technical names. But the device itself," You pressed his hand gently. "Mostly superficial."

His hand stayed where you'd put it. He was watching your face, processing it all.

"That ain't the part you're scared of," he said quietly. "Say the rest."

You held his eyes.

"Everything about it is risky, hell, you know any simple surgery would be risky nowadays. But the big risk isn't the surgery, Tommy. They have to open the device itself and study it, while it works, disassemble it piece by piece. And then put it back together, working exactly right, with apocalypse tools, in an apocalypse room. My heart can fail in mid-process. Or maybe he can't assemble it back perfectly…" You made yourself say it plainly, because he'd asked for fully honest, and this was what fully honest cost. "Then I have no device anymore. No assistance. Just my heart, alone, the way it was born. And…" You gave a small shrug that fooled neither of you. "It could fail. Five minutes later. Five months later. There's no way to know."

He was silent for a long while. His eyes stayed on your chest, on his own hand, and then they came up to your face, and he reached with his other hand and cupped your cheek, thumb moving slow along your bruised cheekbone. And happened in real time: all the relief that should have come with finally hearing the truth being replaced, piece by piece, with something heavier.

He stood up, pacing the room once, twice. He went to the pile of clothes you'd found and started dressing in complete silence, back half-turned, jaw working.

"Tommy?" you asked, just watching him.

He pulled the underwear and jeans on. Buttoned them. Then he turned to you, and his voice came out low and rough.

"So. The whole plan was always this, from the beginning. Not savin' the Fireflies. Not savin’ Boston or Baltimore." He shook his head slowly, like he was trying to make it fall out of his ears. "You're goin' there… fuck, you're goin' there to try to save the goddamn world?"

You shifted on the bed, pulling your knees up, suddenly needing to be smaller.

"I would never be that pretentious." You tried a breath of a smile. It didn't land, so you dropped it. "But if there's something in me that can help… right? That's what the Fireflies are, Tommy. That's our purpose."

He grabbed the flannel shirt and tried to put it on, and the shoulder pain wouldn't let him. His arm wouldn't lift past a certain point, and he tried to force it, and his breath hissed, and he tried the other way, fabric tangling, silent through all of it, refusing to make a sound, refusing to ask, distress leaking out of him.

"Tommy. Talk to me. Please."

Nothing.

You got up off the bed and crossed to him. You just took the shirt gently, held it open, and guided his bad arm through the sleeve first, then the good one, easing the fabric up over the bandage. He let you. His eyes came down and found yours and stayed there while you worked, and you started on the buttons, bottom to top, slowly, and it turned into something else entirely, the two of you standing chest to chest in the gray light, buttoning some dead man's shirt, staring at each other like the conversation was continuing somewhere silent where it could be easier.

You reached the last button. Your hands flattened against his chest and he broke.

"You…" His voice cracked and he pushed through it. "You got into my skin. You made me believe in you and love you. You convinced me to take you there myself… to what?" His hands came up and held your face, and he searched it, left eye, right eye, back, like the answer had to be hiding in one of them. "To die? That was the plan all along? Me deliverin' you to… I, I can't." His forehead creased, everything in him refusing at once. "I can't do that. I can't. You can’t."

"No! No, Tommy, hey. Look at me. I won't die." You wrapped your hands around his wrists, holding his hold on your face. "Okay? Listen. I have a good feeling about this. And I am always right about my intuitions, you know I am, you've watched me be. Here's what happens: we go, we do the exams, they'll show it's the radiation. That's the likely one, remember, the documented one. And then we leave. Boston. Kentucky. Anywhere we want. We keep fighting for people who need it. Your strength, my brain, we could build the Fireflies anywhere on earth, Tommy, anywhere." You were talking fast now. "And worst case. Worst case. If it points to the device, we sit with the doctor. We ask him exactly how confident he is. We discuss it. Together. You and me in the room, every step. And if the answer is that the chances are low…" You pressed his wrists. "I'm stepping away from it. I promise you. Do you hear me? We listen to the doctor together, and we decide together. That's the deal."

He looked at you for a long moment. Then he pulled you in. Not a crushing hug. Something quieter. His arms came around you and yours around him, and your foreheads found each other.

"You sure about that?" His voice had gone very quiet. His thumbs moved on your jaw. "You sure about all of it? You really wanna try? And you're willin' to walk away if it ain't safe? You ain't just tellin' me what I need to hear, you're not sayin' it just—"

"I didn't care before."

The words stopped him.

You held his eyes and made yourself keep going.

"Before all this I thought it would be an easy decision, if it ever came to it. My life on one side, a chance to everyone else on the other." Your voice thinned. "I'd made my peace with that equation years ago, Tommy."

His breath had gone still against your face.

"But then, I met you… And now I don't feel like risking anymore."

You closed your eyes. His hands tightened.

He breathed, long and heavy. "I can't lose you. I want you to hear me say it plain, just once, so it's said." His thumbs kept moving on your jaw. "I have lost too much already. I ain't gonna live through you. So don't ask me to."

He pulled back just enough to look at you properly. "You're the bravest person I ever met, and I've known some brave ones."

"Tommy,"

"I ain't done." His thumb brushed under your eye. "You are not required to do that. Not for me, not for the world, not for anyone. But I admire you being willing to. This world… it doesn't deserve you, sweetheart."

He kissed your forehead, and left his mouth there, and said the last of it into your skin.

"So yeah. We go. We see what there is to see." He said it steady. "And if it ain't safe, we walk. And I don't want you carryin' one ounce of guilt over it.”

Cause I'll carry it. I'm real good at carryin' things, he said silently just to himself.

---

You stayed in that house three days.

Three days of pause, canned food and beef jerks. Three days of cleaning that shoulder twice a day and watching the red go down, the heat come out of it, the ugly line at the border stop creeping. Three days of him healing at least a bit, and sleeping whole nights of it, waking up in the same position he'd fallen asleep in.

And they were good days. Absurdly good. You played a card game with a deck missing four cards and invented rules to cover the gaps, and he cheated his own rules badly and denied it. He talked about Texas. You talked about Vancouver. You both talked about Kentucky. You talked about nothing important and all the important things too. And you learned each other properly, the way you'd never once been allowed to. Because every time before had been stolen. Now there was nothing to interrupt. There was a whole gray afternoon with rain on the windows and no one coming.

He touched you like he finally had permission to take his time, and he was slow and warm and endlessly curious in finding all the ways to make your body feel good. And you let him, over and over. You slept tangled together and woke up the same way. You reached for each other in the middle of the night without either of you being fully awake for it. There were long, lazy stretches of skin against skin, soft laughter against collarbones, the simple luxury of staying close afterward without having to listen for danger or anything else that would keep you both apart.

The world, for three whole days, left you alone. Looking back later, you’d think about that. How generous it had been.

You left on the fourth morning, and the road was kind to you too. Four days south with the bay carrying you both, and it was almost easy, clear weather, empty stretches except for a few infected encounters. Looked like a little mercy before all chaos fell under you both again.

Baltimore announced itself with smoke, from not one fire, but a dozen. Then the smell.

"Well," Tommy said quietly. "Guess we're in the right place."

You stopped a few blocks out and got down. Neither of you said much about it. A horse inside a QZ was a walking announcement, food to some people, a target to everyone.

Tommy stood with the head of the horse in both hands, thumbs working behind the ears the way the animal liked. "Alright, buddy." His voice had gone rough. "That's it. You're done. You go find yourself some good grass. Somebody nice. You've earned every damn bit of it."

You pressed your palm flat to the warm neck of the bay. "Thank you, take care of yourself big guy.”

The bay stood there for a moment, ears flicking. Then Tommy slapped his flank twice and the horse walked off into the tall grass along the road, unhurried, stopping to eat almost immediately.

Then you turned and walked into the QZ through one of its broken walls.

Baltimore was worse than Boston. You'd expected ruin, but Boston, for all its cruelty, still worked. Baltimore had stopped long ago. Whole blocks stood burned out and open to the sky. The QZ wall had breaches nobody had bothered to seal. And the silence was strange, luring, watching.

You moved through it like mice through a kitchen. Tommy first, rifle low, reading every window; you behind his shoulder.

Hunters were everywhere. You could see the signs before you actually see them in the stripped bodies at intersections arranged as warnings. And FEDRA was still here too, technically. More like a group that was left at their own luck than actual law enforcement. The patrols moved fast and scared, holding streets they clearly didn't own anymore, an army losing to its own city.

Everytime you’d see FEDRA, Tommy felt you change under his hand. Every muscle in you spiked. Your chin came up, your eyes went flat and hateful, and you leaned forward like a compass finding north.

Tommy's hand closed around your shoulder. "Easy," he breathed, fighting a grin at the worst possible moment. "Easy, killer."

"I'm calm."

"Really?"

"I, I just… I hate them. I hate FEDRA so much."

"I know, baby. But it ain’t worth the risk. Let’s move, ok?" He steered you gently down a side street, and thought, not for the first time, that walking you past FEDRA was like holding a chihuahua that had absolute, sincere confidence it could take a rottweiler down.

You both kept walking away from noise and the patrol. Then, on a brick wall at the mouth of an alley, you stopped breathing for a second. "Tommy."

The Fireflies symbol, spray-painted in yellow.

"I see it." He crouched, checked the map against the wall, thumb tracing. He looked up the street, where a shape of a building rose above the row houses, far off. "St. Agnes. That’s the hospital you mentioned?”

“Yes.”

“Ok. We're close. Twenty minutes, maybe less."

Twenty minutes. After all of it, Boston, the road, the cage, the fire… twenty minutes.

Neither of you said anything after that. Part of it was sense, you had to move quiet. But the silence had something else in it too, and you both knew it. Your hands had gone cold. You kept your eyes on the street and your face on straight, and underneath it your mind was running ahead of your feet. Every step forward was a step you'd been walking toward since Denver. You wanted to run. You wanted to sit down on the curb and not move. And Tommy walked half a pace ahead of you with his rifle low, jaw set.

You cut through an alley to shave the distance.

And walked into a man.

He was FEDRA, the uniform said so. He was sitting on a milk crate behind a dumpster, sleeve rolled up, rubber tube in his teeth, a needle in one shaking hand, in the middle of the only peace the apocalypse still sold for people like him. His eyes were half-gone already. For half second, all three of you just stared at each other, you, Tommy, and the man caught mid-escape from his own war. Then his gone eyes turned to terror, and he grabbed for his rifle, and he screamed, no words, just alarm, raw and enormous.

Tommy shot him once. Center mass. The scream cut off.

But it had already done its work.

The alley held the echo for a heartbeat. And then, from the streets around you, one block, two blocks, three… came the answering shouts. Contact. Shots fired. Grid four. Whistles. Boots. A radio squawking somewhere close, and then somewhere closer.

"Go." Tommy grabbed your hand. "Go."

You ran with him.

Out of the alley, hard left, down a street of dead row houses, and behind you the city woke up like a kicked hive, with voices spreading the word block to block. Tommy ran with his rifle in one hand and you in the other, choosing turns at full speed, right, left, through a fence gap, across a lot of burned cars, and you kept up as much as you could. And then you didn't. It hit the way it always hit. Your heart went from working to warning, one beat to the next. Your legs filled with sand. The air stopped being enough, no matter how much of it you took.

"Tommy," You gasped it. Your hand went to your chest.

"I know." He didn't slow, dragging you through a doorway, across a gutted living room, out the back. "I know, baby, I know, you can do it. Little more. I just need a little more from you,"

"I can't, my heart—" Black spots opened at the edges of the street. "Tommy, I can't run anymore—"

"You can. You can. Look at me. With me, in for four," He was checking corners while he coached your breathing, splitting himself in half. "One more street. One more street and I'll find us a hole, I swear it,"

The whistles were on both sides now. Ahead too.

Your legs stopped. You folded against a wall, hand pressed to your sternum, heart hammering itself toward the ceiling, and you looked up at him and you couldn't even say the words. You just shook your head.

Tommy didn't hesitate for even a second. He slung the rifle, bent, and scooped you up, one arm under your knees, the ruined shoulder taking your weight with a sound he swallowed whole, and ran. Ten steps. Twenty.

Around the corner ahead: lights. Voices. A line of them.

He spun. Back the way you'd come. More shapes, spreading wide, cutting the street.

Cornered.

He set you down slow, put his body in front of yours, and you felt him make his hands loose. Felt him calculate. Six FEDRA ahead. Five behind. One rifle, one bad arm, one woman to protect behind him. He draw the rifle.

"Hands!" A voice tore down the street, amplified, echoing off the dead houses. "Hands up! Do it now! On your knees!"

"Tommy." Your voice was almost nothing. Your vision was closing. "Don't. There are too many."

His jaw worked once. The rifle's muzzle dropped an inch. Another.

“I said hands up, now!”

Then Tommy Miller, slowly, hatefully, keeping himself squarely between you and every gun on that street, raised his hands. Reading everyone, processing every alternative, every GAP he could take advantage of.

You raised yours. It took everything you had left.

The line of them advanced, shouting things your fading hearing had stopped assembling into words. Boots. Lights.

And then, arcing over the cars, small dark shapes that hit the asphalt with a metal clatter and rolled.

Smoke erupted around you. Thick, white, everywhere at once, stinging like hornets. Tommy shouted your name and lunged for you through it. His hand found your arm.

It was the last thing you felt. His hand, gripping, refusing.

The white took all over the street, and then the black took you.

And somewhere very far away, a woman’s voice. Not FEDRA's anymore, almost familiar, said something that you could swear it was your name.

Then nothing.

---

The world came back in glimpses, then all at once for Tommy. He registered the room as he came back: white light, too strong, electricity humming somewhere. An old doctor's office. File cabinets. An eye chart still on the wall. He was slumped in a cracked leather armchair, and his head weighed twice what it should.

Then the alley came back. The smoke, your arm in his hand, and he straightened fast.

"Welcome to the Fireflies."

A woman leaned against the desk, arms crossed. He twisted toward his hip for a gun that wasn't there, and the room tilted.

"Easy. The gas effects take a while to leave your body." She said.

He shook his head clear and looked at her properly. Tall, dark-skinned, tired. Worn tank, pistol on her thigh, and eyes that had already finished measuring him before he'd even woken up.

"You must be Tommy Miller."

"Who are you?"

"Marlene."

Marlene.

He swept the room: no you. Just a man behind him, rifle held casual, and Tommy knew that face.

"What the fuck?" He stared at Marcus. "What are you doin' here? Where is she?"

"She's fine."

"Take me to her. Now."

The door opened, and Tommy got his second surprise in seconds. Frank came in, and Frank was wrecked. Eyes red, face carved out by something, still wiping tears off his cheek with the heel of one hand as he shut the door behind him.

"What're you doin' here? What are both of you doin' here?"

"Guess we all need to thank you, Miller." Frank crossed the room and put his hand out. "She was right about you. She knew you'd bring her here. Knew you'd join us."

Tommy looked at the hand and didn't take it. Something was wrong in this room. It was in Frank's face, in Marcus's rifle, in the air. Frank let the hand hang a second, then took it back.

Marlene raised an eyebrow. "So you're really joining us?"

"Yes. I am." Tommy's eyes moved between the three of them. Marlene at the desk, Frank by the wall, Marcus at his back. "Why are you two in Baltimore?"

"We got here two hours before you," Frank said. "We searched every mile until we had nothing left. Came here for reinforcements. We were loading up to go back out when our people brought you in.."

Tommy looked at him a long moment. "You searched," he said, flat. "You were her guns. Two of you. And she got taken by rapists anyway."

Neither man argued, because there was no argument. The two men looked at the floor, carrying it.

"We know," Frank said quietly. "It's ours to live with. And you're the one who got her out. So… thank you. However you want it said."

"I don't want it said. I want to see her. Bring me to her."

"There's no point," Marlene started.

"We let him, Marlene." Frank's voice came out rough, and he didn't look at Tommy when he said the rest, which was worse. "They cared for each other. The least we owe the man is to let him say goodbye too."

Tommy was out of the chair before the sentence finished.

"What!?"

Marcus's hand landed on his bad shoulder and drove him back down. Pain whited out his vision for a second, and when it cleared, the rifle was leveled at his chest.

"Let's stay calm, Romeo," Marcus said.

Tommy's voice had dropped somewhere low and dangerous. "What the fuck are you talkin' about?"

Marlene ignored him. "How is it back there?" she asked Frank.

" They began the sedation, but it will take some time. Has to be gradual. The device can't just stop, they need it running while they map it.” Frank's voice caught. He pushed through it. “So they take her down slow.”

Tommy froze in the chair. The words assembled themselves in front of him one at a time and the room got smaller and colder.

"No. No. Somebody better start explainin'," he said. "Right now."

Marlene shifted her weight off the desk and studied him, deciding something, he could see it. "I suppose we owe you that." A beat. "I assume she mentioned something—"

"About her bein' a walkin' infected repellent? About her heart? Her doctor?" He leaned forward, forearms on his knees, holding Marlene's eyes and refusing the rifle at his back the dignity of a glance. "Yeah. I know all of it. She trusts me." He paused, swallowed. "She trusts me. So cut the bullshit and tell me what's happenin' behind that door."

“We are confident that we can replicate it in large scale and maybe help—"

"I know all of it, goddammit. What I don't understand is why you're all talkin' about it like she's about to sacrifice herself for it."

Frank looked at Marlene. Marlene looked at Frank. Marcus, behind him, shifted his weight.

"Well," Frank tried, gentle, "maybe you think you know it all, and you—"

"I know it all. I heard it from her own mouth." He said it slow, like laying evidence on a table. "Do exams. Check the radiation levels first. If that's inconclusive, then sit down with the doctor, talk about a surgery, weigh the risks. Before anything moves forward." He looked from face to face, checking, and found nothing coming back. "So somebody explain to me why we're skippin' straight to… to whatever the hell is happenin'."

Frank looked at Marlene again. Marlene's mouth twisted. Her arms, already crossed, crossed harder.

Tommy’s voice rose, sharper now, the control starting to crack. “Hey. I’m talkin’ to you. Somebody open their fucking mouth!”

He started up out of the chair. The rifle barrel pressed harder into his back, firm, and he lowered himself down, jaw grinding so tight a muscle jumped in his cheek. His hands were already curling into fists on his knees.

"There are no exams, Tommy." Marlene’s voice was direct and flat. "There were never going to be exams and conversations. To learn what's in her, they need tissue. Samples from every organ. Muscle. From the brain. Besides, there's no way of studying fully the device while it's inside a living body." She let that sit for exactly one second. "The plan was always this. She knew what she was coming here for. Even her uncle knew, and he was willing, they both were. That man was tortured by FEDRA and died without giving her up, so she could be sitting in that room today. "

"Bullshit!" Tommy spat it. "She had no idea you were all gonna kill her. That's not what the doctor told her!"

"Tommy." Frank stepped closer, and his voice was the terribly kind with the voice of a man who'd loved her longer. "You know her. You know she bends the truth until it points where she wants to go. And you know she's… optimistic. Past reason, sometimes. Past evidence." He rubbed his red eyes. "The doctor softened it on the radio, of course he did. They were all terrified she'd get scared and vanish. Her parents were already out there looking for her. After they were expelled from fireflies, we didn't know what they'd—"

"Her parents?" Tommy's hands went to his head. He was breathing hard now, the room refusing to hold still. "Lookin' for her? Expelled from the Fireflies? What? how does— none of this makes any sense." He surged forward. "I can guarantee you, I can guarantee, that woman did not know she was walkin' to her own funeral. Did you even ask her? Before you put her under, did one single one of you look her in the eye and ask?"

Silence. Complete.

Tommy's finger came up, leveled at Marlene like a weapon of its own.

"I thought you were her best friend. You didn't ask her. You didn't ask because you're afraid of the answer. Because you know, fuck, you know, there's a version of her that says no—"

"Enough." Marlene came off the desk. "There is a great deal you don't know about her, Tommy. About what this cost everyone standing in this room. And I don't expect you to understand it in the next minutes, because it took us years." She breathed once, put the command voice back on. "So here's what happens now. You leave. If you meant it about joining us, the door's open. Go to Boston, find them, tell them Marlene sent you. We're all consolidating there soon. I'll explain everything then. Every piece. You have my word."

She looked past him. "Marcus. Walk him out. Give him his pack."

"I'm not lettin' this happen, Marlene." Tommy said, certain.

"I'm sorry, Tommy. We are all sorry. Nobody in this building wanted this." Something flickered through her face, the first human thing she'd shown, and was gone. "But it's the right thing. And it's what she would want."

"BULLSHIT!" It tore out of him. "You're betrayin' her! Your own leader! You said it yourself, her parents, the founders, didn't want this, for fuck's sake—"

"Exactly, Tommy!" Marlene's patience went all at once, and for one second the commander cracked and something rawer came through. "Exactly. Believe me! Believe me! nobody on this earth feels worse than me and Frank. We know her parents. We owe them. And we love her.  And we are doing it anyway." Her voice dropped, and the last of it came out like something she'd had to swallow every day for years. "Because it's bigger than them. It's bigger than her. It's bigger than all of us."

Something in Tommy snapped. He came up out of the chair like the rifle at his back didn't exist.

Marcus caught one arm and Frank threw himself on the other, and Tommy dragged both grown men half a step toward Marlene anyway, shoulder wound tearing, voice tearing worse. "Wake her up and ask her! Put the choice in her hands where it belongs, if she's everything you say she is, if she really came here to die, then she says it to our face! But you don't get to decide it for her while she's passed out!"

"Tommy," Frank had both arms around him now, not fighting him, holding him, carefully and understanding. "Tommy. Stop. Stop." Frank's tears had started again, running freely, and he didn't wipe them. "I know how it feels. I just said my goodbye to her, and I swear to God it took everything I have left." His grip gentled. "We can bring you to say goodbye too, Tommy. But you have to calm down. Be calm, and you get to hold her hand."

The words did what force couldn't. Tommy stopped pulling.

Marcus and Frank let go, careful, and Marcus guided him back down into the chair with a hand that was almost gentle now.

The thrashing stopped all at once. His breathing slowed and evened and dropped low into his belly, and he looked at Marlene for a long moment. And something behind his eyes finished a calculation, and filed the answer.

"Okay," he said quietly.

"…Okay," Marlene said. "Marcus and Frank will take you to her."

"I— I can't." Frank shook his head, backing toward the door. "I said my goodbye already. I can't walk through it twice. I'm going to leave the hospital, Marlene. Walk a while. I can't be in this building while it happens."

Marlene looked at him, and swallowed, and nodded. "Okay, Frank. Okay." Because she understood. Because it was exactly as hard for her.

Frank moved to go. Stopped. Thought. Then he turned back to Tommy, and his hand went into his pocket.

"We’d give you her pendant," he said, "but if there's ever a cure, a remediation, anything… We must keep it. To honor her. It stays with the Fireflies." His hand came out closed around something, and his fist stayed shut a moment longer, like his fingers were fighting back with him. "But this one. I've carried this one a long time, and I think… I think I need to move on."

Frank extended his closed hand. "She'd want you to have it. She'd want you to wear it."

Tommy opened his palm, and cold metal was pressed into it.

A firefly pendant. The same etched firefly, wings open.

He turned it over.

TOMMY 00005

"What?" His voice came out wrong. "What the fuck is this? How could she know—"

"It was her uncle's," Frank cut in softly. "From all the names in the world, hm?" A tiny smile escaped him, wrecked at the edges. "When she told me about liking you, I was worried. Thought she'd gone soft in the head over a coincidence." He looked at Tommy's face. "But she was right. You're a good man, Tommy Miller. So… keep it. Joining us or not. But she'd like knowing you’re carrying it now."

"Tommy?" Tommy's voice had dropped to almost nothing. "Her uncle name… was Tommy?"

"His name was Thomas." Frank's throat worked. "But he'd never answer to it. Not once, all the years I loved him. He'd joke that Thomas sounded like a name for bad guys, for villains in movies." He shook his head, and the tears came again, quiet. "That was him. My Tommy. He took care of all of us. He was supposed to be the one to bring her here, and he died so she could be here." Frank looked at the man in the chair, at the pendant in his shaking hand. "And somehow she managed to find herself another Tommy to take care of her and bring her."

He reached out and tapped Tommy's good shoulder, twice. "Funny way life has of working. Hm?" Nothing about it was funny, and every person in the room knew it.

And Tommy sat there with a dead man's name in his hand. Frank gave a small nod to everyone in the room and left. The door clicked shut behind him.

You’d spit Thomas at him like a knife. A name for a bad guy. And somewhere along that road, you’d decided he wasn’t Thomas anymore, just Tommy and the name of the one she loved the most.

Marlene was watching him. And when he finally looked up, something in her face had changed, the commander gone for a moment, just a tired woman watching a man find out how deep the thing he's lost actually goes. She looked, briefly, heartbroken for him.

"Look, Tommy." Her voice was gentler now. "She has this way of growing on people. It's what she does, it's what she is. I know the road did something to you both, and I'm sorry. Truly. Nobody would choose this if—"

"Her parents." He wasn't done. He couldn't be done. "What'd you mean, they're lookin' for her? They got banished from their own movement? They founded it."

Marlene breathed in, long and slow. "What version of her parents did she give you, Tommy? CEOs in Canada? Came down on a job transfer, something like that?"

"…Yeah."

Marlene shook her head at the floor, and her mouth tugged, but it was not a smile. It was the memory, on how you’d love to redecorate reality.

"Hear me out. I owe her parents everything, but here’s the truth of them." She settled back against the desk. "My family died on outbreak day. Hers took me in. Her mom, her dad, her, her brother, her uncle, Frank. They made me family. And when the world ended, they gave people hope by building the Fireflies. That much is true, and they've earned it." She sighed. "But here's the rest. The Fireflies weren't founded on a political idea, Tommy. They were founded on her. On the miracle we'd just discovered walking around in a sick girl's body. And when it came time to decide what that miracle was worth, her parents refused to spend it. They chose their daughter over their beliefs." A pause. "For the second time."

Tommy stared at her, waiting.

"They were preachers. Back in Canada. Not executives. Preachers, a congregation, a church, the whole life. And a daughter born with a heart that ate money. Surgeries, specialists, exams, year after year after year. When they heard about the experimental device of one doctor, one trial in Denver, United States… they didn't have anything close to what it cost." Marlene held his eyes. "So they took it. From the collection plate. They stole it, from their own congregation, for years. And when it was finally enough, they ran. Crossed the border with a warrant chasing them and got that device into her chest before any law could take the money back." She let it land. "They broke their faith, their vows, and the law. Everything they'd built their whole lives on, and they chose her."

The lights hummed. "And when we found the doctor again, when we understood what she could mean hope for the whole world, they were asked to choose a second time. Their beliefs, the movement they'd founded, the hope of everyone alive… or their daughter." Marlene's voice didn't waver, which was somehow worse than if it had. "They chose her. Again. They forbade it. Fought her, fought me, fought everyone. Her uncle stood against her parents, Tommy. He believed she had the right to give what she was offering. It split the family down the middle, and it split the Fireflies with it. Her parents and her brother were cast out of the movement they built. They've been out there since. Trying to reach her before we did."

She straightened, and the commander came back into her spine, and the last sentence came out of her like something pulled through a wound. "I am doing the thing her own mother and father couldn't do. One life pays for many. That's how much it costs me."

Tommy sat there. His mouth opened. Closed.

"Her brother," he said finally, and something was moving behind his eyes, pieces sliding toward each other. "You said her brother. Where's her—"

"Tommy." Marlene cut it clean. And maybe it was mercy, or maybe it was the clock, or maybe it was both. "If you want your goodbye, it's now. They're taking her down slow, but down is where it's going. You might have minutes." She looked past him. "Marcus. The surgical wing, second floor. Walk him through the east stairs.”

He was already standing. “And Tommy," She waited until he looked at her. "Calm. Whatever you're carrying, it stays outside that room. She goes gentle. That's the one thing left that any of us can give her."

He closed his fist around the pendant, put the chain over his head with hands that barely worked, and followed Marcus into the hallway, toward the last room in the world he wanted to enter, and the only one left he'd ever ask for.

Marcus walked him through the hospital, rifle low pointing at Tommy’s back, and Tommy was calm. He didn’t have to force or pretend he was calm. He was real calm, that old him back, the one the army had trained and installed in him. He let it come back up through him like water patiently filling a well. His breathing settled. His steps found a steady floor. While he walked, his eyes moved through doors, corners, sight lines, the guard by the stairwell, the one at the junction, the radio room with its door propped open. If there was one person in this building who knew how to take an operation apart and leave no evidence behind, it was the man being marched through it at gunpoint right now.

And while he walked, he did the math. Slowly. Carefully.

If anyone lives, they know my face. If they know my face, I can never wear the pendant. If I can never wear the pendant, the vow at the river dies. And everything I do after tonight is just murder, with no ledger to pay into.

So nobody lives. And they go silently.

And I spend the rest of my life paying these people back. One saved life at a time. Every single one of them gets paid for.

He turned it over, looking for the crack in it, the place where it was just rage with an excuse, and didn't find one.

One life pays for many, Marlene said it to his face, called it bigger than all of them. Fine. He'd count the same way she counted. Same arithmetic, one change: Marlene put you on the wrong side of the equals sign. You do more for this world alive than opened up on a table.

You taught me to count like this, Marlene.

And this, this walk, this math, this calm… this was Tommy Miller.

Not the brutal thing four years beside Joel had made of him. Not the saint you'd painted either, the good man screaming to get out. What he was, was simpler and older than either: a soldier fighting for the ones he loved.

The surgical wing sign appeared ahead. Marcus shifted behind him to take the turn.

And Tommy moved. He stepped inside the rifle's line, trapped the barrel under his arm, and drove his elbow back into Marcus's throat, all in the same half-second. The shot never came. They went into the wall together, and Tommy's forearm was already across the man's windpipe, his weight already set. Marcus fought, he was strong, he was trained, he fought hard, and Tommy held him like you hold a door against a flood, steady and patient until the fighting turned to shaking and the shaking stopped.

He lowered the body to the floor without a sound.

For one second he crouched there with his hand still on Marcus's chest.

"You should've asked her," he said quietly. "That's all any of you had to do."

One. The first debt. He took the rifle, the sidearm, the knife, the spare magazines, and moved forward.

The hospital was theirs, and that was their mistake. They guarded it like owners, not like soldiers. Tommy moved through it and all its flaws.

The stairwell guard was leaning on the rail. Tommy came out of the dark, he clamped a hand over the man’s mouth, yanked the head back, and drove the knife in under the jaw. The blade punched through soft tissue and muscle until it hit bone. Hot blood poured over Tommy’s fist in a thick, immediate flood. The man jerked once, hard, then went slack. Two.

He moved on and stood hidden just enough to see the junction man had a routine: twelve steps, turn, twelve steps back. Tommy timed the turn and was on him at step eleven. The knife went in under the ribs this time, angled up, and Tommy twisted it hard. The man made a wet, choked sound as blood filled his mouth and spilled down his chin. Three.

The radio room. One woman, headset half on, writing in a log. This one he hated. He crossed the room fast, grabbed her by the hair, and cut her throat in one long, deliberate pull. The spray hit the wall and the open logbook in a wide arc. Two were by the supply cage, talking low about rations. He took the nearer one with the knife in a hard, upward stab under the sternum that made the man fold with a wet gasp, and the farther one before the first hit the floor. Bare hands this time: he slammed the second man’s head into the metal cage once, twice, three times until the skull gave and blood and hair stuck to the wire mesh. His shoulder tore somewhere inside doing it. He filed the pain with everything else.

Four.

Five.

Six.

A man came out of a bathroom still buckling his belt and saw him, saw all of it, the blood, the knife, the stranger, and got half a breath into his lungs. Tommy closed the distance before the breath came back out as sound. He drove the knife into the side of the neck and held it there while the man clawed at him. Seven.

The last one stood post outside the double doors at the end of the corridor. Young. Rifle slung wrong. Under the wing sign, under the arrow, guarding the room where the lights were brightest. A kid given the quietest job in the building because nobody thought the quiet job was real. Tommy watched him for ten full seconds from the dark of the corridor.

“I’m sorry, kid,” he breathed, to no one, to God if he was still witnessing it. “I truly am.”

He crossed the corridor and reached him. The kid’s eyes went wide; a soft, surprised sound left him as blood poured down and soaked the collar of his shirt. The knife broke into the young boy’s neck. Tommy caught him before he fell and lowered him carefully against the wall. Eight.

Then Tommy Miller draw his rifle and stood alone in front of the double doors of the surgical wing, blood on his hands to the wrist, soaking his sleeves, streaked across his face where he’d wiped sweat without thinking. Through the small round windows he could see the glow of electric light, and shapes moving in it, unhurried, unaware, arranging instruments around the only heartbeat he had left in the world.

He pushed the door open quietly.

And there you were.

Laid out on the table under the brightest light, deeper than asleep. An IV line ran into each arm, one dripping slow and steady, taking you down degree by degree. A monitor beeped beside you. Your face was slack and peaceful. They’d brushed your hair back. Somehow that was the worst part of the sight, the tenderness of it, the care they were taking with something they were about to destroy.

A doctor stood at your left with an instrument tray. A nurse adjusted the drip. Neither had heard the door.

“Unhook her.”

They spun. The tray clattered. Both sets of hands went up fast.

“Whoa, easy,” The doctor’s eyes went from the rifle to Tommy’s bloody hands and back. “Listen to me. Listen. You don’t understand what she is. She’s hope, for everyone, for all of it—”

“She could save the world,” the nurse said, voice shaking.

“I don’t care.” The rifle didn’t move. “Unhook her. Now.”

“I won’t do that.” The nurse straightened, and something brave and terrible came into her face, and she stepped ahead, between him and you. “This is what she came here for. I won’t let you take her from all of—”

He shot her. The bullet took her in the upper chest. She stumbled back against the wall, blood already spreading dark across her scrub top, then slid down to the floor, leaving a long red smear.

The doctor made a sound and stumbled back against the wall, hands still up, shaking now. “Okay. Okay, okay.” He moved to the table with his hands trembling and did it: stopped the drip, slid the lines out of your arms one at a time, taped the beads of blood, unclipped the leads from your chest. The monitor lost you and began to whine. He stepped away and put his hands back up, all the way up, pressing himself into the wall.

“There. She’s free.”

Tommy shot him anyway. The doctor dropped hard, blood pooling under his head almost immediately.

Nine. Ten.

Then the rifle went over his shoulder and his arms went under you, your head rolling against his chest, warm, breathing, alive.

Somewhere in the building, tripped by sound or by a body found or by God finally taking a side, the alarms went off. Red light started flashing down every corridor. A siren wound itself up and screamed.

"I got you," he murmured into your hair, already moving. "I got you, little rabbit."

He carried you fast and low through a service corridor, away from the shouting that was starting somewhere behind, and found a records room, windowless, one door, shelves of rotting paper. He laid you down gently in the corner, folded his jacket under your head, and crouched over you a moment with his hand on your face.

"I'll be right back. I just gotta…" He stopped. Chose the soft words. "I gotta make sure you're safe." His thumb moved once along your cheekbone, under the fading bruise. "And then I'm comin' back for you, and we're leavin' this place, and we go anywhere you want. You hear me? Boston. Kentucky. Hell, Vancouver, if you want it." He pressed his lips to your forehead, one second, two. "Just hang in there for me. Keep that heart of yours workin'. I'll be right back."

He pulled the door shut on the dark and went to work.

The shooting started at the second junction. They were hunting him now, red light and sirens and boots, and the quiet part of the night was over. It didn't matter. He was still calm. He fought the way he'd been built to fight: cover to cover, corners taken low, short bursts, counting his rounds and theirs. Two came down the stairwell fast and careless. Eleven. Twelve. One tried to flank through the ward and gave himself away on the broken glass. Thirteen. A shotgun blew plaster over his head from a doorway and he waited, patient, for the reload. Fourteen. The last one on that floor was smart, and made him work for it, and it took four minutes and the rest of a magazine. Fifteen.

Then the building went quiet under the siren.

He swept it anyway, floor by floor, room by room, methodical, the alarm howling over everything. Storage. Kitchens. No one. Whoever was left had run, or there was no one left, except the one name still unaccounted for.

Marlene.

He stood in the stairwell a moment, torn. Hunting Marlene meant leaving you alone longer in a dark room in a screaming building. And something under his ribs he had a feeling saying go back, and tonight of all nights, he wasn't ignoring anything that spoke that quietly.

He went back for you. You hadn't moved. Still under, still breathing, your chest rising slow. He crouched, gathered you up again. One arm under your knees with the rifle propped beneath them, barrel forward, his other arm around your back, and turned for the door. It swung open before he reached it.

Marlene. Gun up, level with his head, red alarm light sweeping across her face in waves. She'd found the trail and she'd come alone, because there was no one left to bring.

"You son of a bitch." Her voice was shaking and her hands weren't. "I trusted you. I let you walk to her, because I thought you were a decent man saying goodbye." Her eyes went over him. "Fifteen people, Tommy. People who survived everything for this. For her." The barrel didn't waver. "Put her down. It's not too late to do the right thing. Put her down, walk out that door. I will carry that lie for you. Just put her down."

He didn't move. You slept between their two guns, your head against his chest, your breath slow and even against everything.

"She's more valuable alive, Marlene—"

"You don't know that." The words came through her teeth. "Nobody knows that. That's the whole point. If we never try, we never know. And she understood that better than anyone alive." Her voice cracked, one seam, and she sealed it back up. "It's what she would want, Tommy."

"She wouldn't." His own voice came out low and certain. "She didn't come here to die. She came here to fight, to try, to talk, to look for a way. She trusted you. All of you. She put her body in your hands believing you'd do whatever was needed to keep her safe, and you put her under and started cuttin' before she could ask a single question!"

"Hah." The laugh came out of Marlene dry and awful, and it stopped him cold.

"Oh, Tommy." She shook her head slowly, and something shifted in her face, the anger draining out and something worse flooding in behind it: Pity.

"You're standing there lecturing me about her trust. While you trusted her. She convinced you, didn't she? Of course she did… She's the best there's ever been."

And then, this was the part his brain would replay for the rest of his life. Marlene lowered her gun. Let it hang at her side, done with it, because what she had left to say was a weapon itself. "Tell me something. In all these weeks. She talked you out of taking her to Columbus. But… did you ever once wonder who exactly wanted her there, and why? Did you ever asked her who Kevin is, Tommy? And— "

The shot went through. Marlene went down, and with her, the truth he didn’t want to know. That sentence would take something from him he couldn't afford to lose. So he shot before he heard it.

Sixteen.

The alarm red light swept the room, and swept it again.

He stepped over Marlene, and spotted car keys hooked at her belt, catching the red light with every sweep. He crouched with you still in his arms and worked them free one-handed.

And he carried you out of the room, down the screaming corridor, over the shells and past the dead, and one painful suspicion ringing in his skull louder than any siren.

---

Hours of road. The medicine kept you under through most of it, and Tommy drove with one eye on the mirror, checking you in the back seat every few minutes more than he was checking the fuel.

Then, somewhere past midnight into gray dawn, you moved. A small sound. Your hand shifted on the seat.

"Hey, there she is,” He pulled over, a rise where the road ran along a ridge and the country opened up below, all mist and dead farmland and a sky starting turning pink. He killed the engine. The silence came down over everything.

Then he got out, opened the back door, and climbed in with you.

He gathered you against him, your head onto his chest, his arm around your back. "Easy. Take it slow."

"…Tommy." Your voice came out slurred and small.

"Hey, little rabbit. I'm here."

"Everything's… the car's moving." You frowned with your eyes shut. "Is the car moving?"

"Not anymore. We're parked." He brushed hair off your damp forehead. "How you feelin'?"

"Like jell-o." You swallowed thickly. "So sleepy. My mouth is…" You gave up on the sentence. Then, slowly, something surfaced behind your face, the shape of a missing thing. "Tommy. What happened?"

And there it was.

He had eight hours of driving to prepare for this question. Because there were only three doors out of this room and he'd walked to the end of all of them.

The truth. Sixteen of your people. Including the doctor who could have answered every question you'd carried. Including Marlene, who'd folded in a doorway with his bullet in her. He could say it all, right now. And he knew exactly what it would do. If he told you now, in this back seat, he wouldn't be confessing. He'd be hurting you worse than anything in your life had ever hurt you.

Or the lie? Clean, simple, invented whole. And you'd have it apart in ten minutes. You'd been reading him since the day you met, you knew his tells better than he did, you'd catalogued him like a specimen. He couldn't lie to your face and survive it.

Which left the third door.

He'd watched you do it for weeks and never had a name for it until today: Laundering. Say true things, mix them with lies, until you can’t tell where one ends and another begins.

Forgive me, he thought. You taught me this.

"They took you back for the surgery," he said. His voice came out steady. "They said it was a simple thing. Small cut, wouldn't take long. I was waitin' outside the surgery room. And then FEDRA came in on us."

You have taught him perfectly in the past. You don't need an elaborate lie, Tommy. You just need to find the one thing a person can't stand to face or lose. Once you hit it, they stop checking, they don't ask for proof, they don't look for gaps… they can't, they're too busy confirming their bias.

"FEDRA came in fast." He watched the horizon instead of your face. "I saw the doctor go one way, the nurse go the other, they hid, they scattered." He shook his head slowly. "And you were in that room alone, out cold, and I… I couldn't leave you there. So I went in and got you. I got you out."

You were quiet in his arms. Then your brow creased. "You didn't fight back?" Even sedated, half-gone, your mind kept working, and it came at him from the exact angle he'd expected, because there was no version of Tommy Miller that walked away from a fight. "You didn't help them? To hold off FEDRA?"

"No." He said it plainly. That one was easy, because it was the most honest sentence he'd say all morning. "You were unconscious and alone in a room with no lock. I wasn't leavin' you vulnerable for anythin' in this world. Gettin' you out of that buildin' was the only thing I had in my head."

You made a small noise. Accepting.

"…Who—" Your voice caught. "Are they okay? Did anyone…?"

"Sweetheart."

"Marlene." You'd already heard it in his voice. "Marlene, is Marlene—"

"None of 'em made it." He tightened his arms around you. "I'm sorry, darlin'. I'm so damn sorry."

And you broke against his chest. “No. No! Those fuckers… Fuck FEDRA, no… it can’t. It can’t be,”

You cried uncontrolled and unguarded in the messy way people cry with drugs still in them. There was no strategy left in you anywhere, the sound of somebody who has just been told the whole plan they had left is gone. The hope you’d hold tight so far gone.

He held you through it. He kissed the top of your head, over and over, and said the useless things: I got you. I'm here. I'm sorry. And he meant every one of them.

"We'll find another doctor," he murmured into your hair. "Somewhere. Somebody else who can look at all this. I swear it to you."

You cried a while longer. Then, slowly, you pushed yourself up, pale and wrecked and blinking hard, but thinking, that damned beautiful machine of yours grinding back into gear looking deep into his soul.

"I don't get it." Your eyes searched his. "Tommy, I don't… why didn't you stay and help them? You were right there. How could you watch people getting slaughtered and just—"

And Tommy did the thing he'd been dreading since the second he thought of it. He reached for the one card he had that you'd never let him play, because you couldn't afford to let him play it.

"Because I was still standin' there tryin' to understand what was happenin' to you." He let it come out ragged; he didn't have to fake that part. "I fought 'em on it. Before FEDRA came. I told 'em they couldn't cut into you while you were sleepin', that you had to know, that you had to agree to it." His hand moved on your back. "And they said somethin' I couldn't make sense of. Somethin' about how you already knew, deep down, otherwise you’d agree to go to Columbus." He looked at you then, plain and open, and asked it. "Is… there family of yours in Columbus? 'Cause Marlene talked like that Kevin—"

"No,” You said it too fast. “My family is in Denver. I don’t know what they meant. I don’t know Kevin. Guess everybody was stressed." And you looked away, too dizzy to say anything else, fixing out the window at the gray fields. Your throat worked. "This is so fucked up, Tommy. Fuck… All of it. It's just so fucked up."

He let it go. He let it go so smoothly that neither of you had to notice him doing it. You sank back against him and cried again, quieter this time, and he rocked you tenderly.

Then, after a long while, you lifted your head. You put your hand on his jaw and turned his face to yours and looked at him. "Tommy." Your voice was steady now. "Was it really FEDRA? They had uniforms? Are you sure it was FEDRA?"

The whole world came down to about eight inches of space between two faces.

"I'm sure," he said. “And I swear, I would’ve helped them if I could.”

You held his eyes for one second. Two. Three.

"…Okay." You lay back down against his chest. " I trust you did all you could do, Tommy."

He put his chin on the top of your head so you couldn't see his face, and closed his eyes, kissing your hair again

You stayed like that a long time, watching the sun come up over the dead fields.

"Where are we going now?" you asked eventually.

"Anywhere you want."

"Vancouver," you said.

He huffed a soft laugh into your hair. "Vancouver, huh."

"You said anywhere."

"I did say that."

You laughed too, wet and cracked and small, and tilted your face up, and he kissed you, gentle and careful. When you pulled back your eyes were sliding shut again, the medicine still dragging at you.

"Come here." He guided your head down onto his shoulder. "Rest. We got nowhere to be right now."

Your hand slid up his chest to settle over his heart, the way it always went. Your fingers found metal. Two chains: his tags, and something else. You lifted it, brought it into the light, and your breath changed.

"Wait…" You sat up an inch. "Is this—"

"Frank gave it to me." His hand came up and covered yours around it. "Said he'd carried it long enough." He looked down at you, and something exhausted and tender moved across his face. "You never did tell me your uncle's name was Tommy too."

Your eyes filled. You laughed, one small broken sound, and pressed the pendant flat against his chest, under your palm.

"From all the cursed luck," you whispered. "Right?"

"Right."

You smiled at each other in the dawn, both of you ruined, and for a moment it was almost bearable.

Then your smile faded.

"So Frank was there." You said it slowly. "In the hospital. He was—" You swallowed. "FEDRA got him too?"

Fuck.

Fuck.

Frank. He'd forgotten Frank. Frank who walked out that door to grieve in the street. Frank who might be standing in the wreckage of that hospital right now with his hands over his mouth.

It took Tommy less than a second, one heartbeat, forced level by pure will, his face doing absolutely nothing.

"Yes, sweetheart." He pressed his lips to your hair. "I'm sorry."

You made a small sound, and folded back down into him, and grieved a man who was not dead.

And Tommy Miller looked out at the sunrise over the fields with his throat closed and his arms full of you, holding the one true thing he had left, and understood, very clearly, very calmly, that this lie was the shape of the rest of his life.

---

Boston QZ

Lincoln's face was flat against the floorboards with Joel Miller's boot on the side of his head.

Tess had his arms wrenched up behind his back, one knee planted between his shoulder blades.

"Fuck, I can't contact Baltimore, Miller!" Lincoln's voice came out squashed and furious. "I'm not a Firefly anymore! The second I handed that girl to you two I became an enemy of the movement. They'd shoot me on sight if they found out where I am, they don't—"

Joel leaned, all his weight settling down through that boot, and Lincoln's words went into a sound instead. Then Joel drew the pistol, thumbed the hammer back, and let Lincoln hear the click an inch from his ear.

"Try harder."

"Christ— Why the hell would your brother take her to Baltimore? She was supposed to be in Columbus. That's the job. That's what you were paid for." His jaw flexed. "You told me you two were the best in this QZ. You've ruined it all, you two idiots, you two complete idiots!"

Joel's patience went.

He hauled Lincoln over onto his back by the collar and hit him once, hard. Lincoln's head rocked. Blood came out of his nose immediately.

"I don't care who you contact," Joel said. "I don't care what they do to you when you do it. I need to find my brother. You're gonna help me find my brother."

"Joel." Tess's voice, even. She hadn't let go of Lincoln's arms. "He's no good to us with his jaw broken. Let him talk."

Joel breathed out through his nose. Stood. And the two of them dragged Lincoln up off the floor and threw him into the chair in front of the radio set.

Lincoln spat blood on the floorboards and stared at the dials for a long moment.

"…There's one thing," he said. He wiped his mouth on his shoulder. "I can raise Columbus. What if I radio Kevin? Maybe they made it there after all. Maybe your brother came to his senses halfway and finished the job. It's a possibility, isn't it?"

Joel looked at Tess. Tess looked back at Joel, and something small and skeptical moved behind her eyes, and she shrugged one shoulder.

"Do it," Joel said.

Lincoln turned the dial and keyed the mic.

"Columbus, Columbus, this Boston; Come back."

Static. A long, hissing nothing. Then:

"…Columbus. Go ahead."

"I need Kevin. Now, it's urgent, tell him it's Lincoln."

More static. Thirty seconds of it. Joel stood over the desk with his arms crossed and didn't move a muscle.

Then the speaker crackled and a new voice came through, breathless, like a man who had run to reach it.

"Lincoln? Lincoln, is that you?"

"It's me." Lincoln's eyes flicked up to Joel's face, then back down. "I need to ask you something, and I need a straight answer. Was she delivered? Did she arrive?"

There was a beat of dead air. Then the voice came back, and it was cracking apart.

"No. No, she isn't here. She never got here, Lincoln, it's been almost two months. Where is she?" A rush of breath. "Do you have anything? Anything at all? You said the smugglers were good, you said they were the best you had, you swore to me… Lincoln, please. Just tell me my sister is alive."

Joel's arms came uncrossed.

Tess reached past Lincoln and snapped the radio off.

"Sister," she said.

Nobody moved for a beat. Joel was looking at the dead speaker, processing.

"What the hell does that mean." His voice had gone very quiet. "That girl told us the whole way, every damn day, that the man in Columbus wanted what was in her head. That he'd wring her out and put her in a hole when he was done."

"And I told you." Lincoln laughed through the blood, ugly and triumphant and desperate. "I told you both on day one, don't listen to a word she says, and you sat there nodding at me like professionals and then—"

Joel hit him again.

"Explain."

"… I thought you fellas were the kind that don't ask questions." Lincoln grinned red at him. "That's what I hired. Two men who don't—"

Tess grabbed the back of his head and slammed his face into the desk. She held him there, bent over, one hand fisted in his hair, and put her mouth down by his ear.

"He said explain it, goddammit."

Lincoln stayed bent over the desk, breathing hard. "She's got something in her." He said it to the desktop. "Something that matters to the Fireflies more than any of us are ever gonna matter to anybody, and it's the kind of thing they'd take her apart to get." His shoulders moved. "Her family knew. So they gathered everything they had and they hired the supposedly two best smugglers in this QZ to take their daughter across the country and put her back in her brother's hands, safe, before the movement got her." He turned his head far enough to get one eye on Joel. "That was the job. A rescue."

Neither Joel nor Tess said anything.

"So." Lincoln coughed, and something in him found one last piece of cruelty to spend. "If your brother took her to Baltimore, if he handed that girl to Marlene, of all the people on God's earth…" He started to laugh, and it turned into a wheeze. "She's already dead. She's been dead for days. You didn't just fail a delivery, Miller, you two killed—"

Joel's knife came up under his ribs.

It was fast and it was quiet, and Joel held him there against the desk with one hand on his shoulder until it was done. Then he let go, and Lincoln slid off the chair, and the room was quiet again.

Tess wiped her palms slowly on her thighs, staring at the body.

"Now what?"

Joel cleaned the blade on Lincoln's jacket. He looked at the radio, at the window, at nothing.

"Now we find a Firefly who can raise Baltimore." He straightened, and the knife went back in his belt. "We find Tommy."

Comission by @kenobiwanx 🖤

Thank you so much for being with me this long, and for all the love and support you've poured into this story. It has meant more than I can put into words here.

I'd love to read your thoughts on this one. I spent many, many hours working out how this would unfold specifically from Tommy's perspective, because he isn't Joel, and the difference mattered to me. He's dealing with an adult woman capable of making her own choices. He's more emotionally open, kinder, more willing to talk his way through a thing first. And he is every bit as deadly, and every bit as protective. Canon Tommy said he'd have done the same in his brother's place. I just wanted to show you what it would look like when he did it.

Thank you for reading. 🖤

Tag list:

Chapter 1 - Cargo

Chapter 2 - My empire of dirt

Chapter 3 - My boy only breaks his favorite toys

Chapter 4 - I bet on losing dogs

Chapter 5 - Heal these broken lips

Chapter 6 - Fire meets gasoline

Chapter 7 - Can you save me from this darkness?

Chapter 8 - So pretty when you love me

Chapter 9 - Dark but just a game

Chapter 10 - Fuck it I love you

Chapter 11 - When a good man cries

Chapter 12 - Redemption day

Chapter 13 - Blowin' in the wind

Chapter 14 - Man of constant sorrow

Chapter 15 - Can you find me?

Chapter 16 - The feral dog I worship

Chapter 17 - Nothing fucks with my baby

Chapter 18 - A fine line between God and animal (final chapter!)

~Moodboard~

Joel Miller and Tommy Miller

Nothing's gonna hurt you baby - Step uncle Joel Miller x fem!reader x step dad Tommy Miller by @aurorawritestoescape (Bad Blood extra)

Summary: feeling sad about leaving Austin and returning to college, you decide to take something with you — a hot sex tape, starring Tommy, you and Joel.

Guard Dogs - Joel Miller x f!reader x Tommy Miller by @sprigsofhazel (series - ongoing)

Summary: your mom falls in love, elopes and suddenly you're uprooted from your shitty apartment and moved into a house with her new husband and his two sons, joel & tommy. your mom thinks you're the brady bunch, but you wholeheartedly disagree, until things between you and your step-brothers slowly start to shift into forbidden territory.

Tommy Miller

Show me how bad you can hurt me - Raider!Tommy Miller x f!Reader by @mrsnanamiller (series - completed)

Summary: Four years after the outbreak, Joel and Tommy Miller are hardened smugglers in the Boston QZ: mean, violent, and willing to do whatever it takes to survive. When they’re paid an obscene amount to smuggle you across the ruined country to Columbus QZ, they didn't ask what secrets you carry to be worth that much. They just expect an easy job. You're supposed to be just cargo. They will soon discover this cargo has teeth… and the power to make even the worst men start to crack.

Joel Miller

Put me in a movie - dark!truckdriver!joel miller x f!reader by @cadavercarcass

Summary: you hitch hike to escape your small town, but the man that picks you up isn't the savior you initially see him as.

Guitar Gig - dbf!Joel Miller x f!reader by @baronessvonglitter

Summary:You show up for Joel's gig when your dad can't make it.

The Sleepover - best friend’s stepdad!Joel Miller x f!reader by @baronessvonglitter

Summary:Your plan to seduce your best friend's stepdad is coming along perfectly. But there's one small hitch..

Let me teach you - boyfriend’s dad Joel Miller x fem!reader by @aurorawritestoescape

Summary: your boyfriend begs you to have anal but knows jack shit about the act. Much to your surprise and pleasure, his dad steps up and teaches him. By example.

Unfaithful part 2 - Contractor!Joel Miller x Married!Reader by @peepawmiller

Summary: Joel takes you on a date. And then he takes you home.

You should feel lucky part XII - dark!Joel Miller x f!reader by @ess-evo (series - ongoing)

Summary: You reminisce about your times with Joel while he has something special in store for you.

Cain's Curse part 8 - Joel Miller x f!reader by @ishestillapunk

Summary: A close call makes Joel cut every distance that you try to put between you and him.

Happy Campers - camp counselor!Joel Miller x f!reader by @baronessvonglitter

Summary:Joel Miller, the new head counselor at Camp Happy Trail, makes sure this summer will be one you won't forget.

Ringlets - Joel Miller x curly hair!fem reader by @lvely-prose

Summary: you can’t stand your curly hair. joel loves it.

Season of the wolf - a Joel Miller x reader story by @mcthsman (series - completed)

Summary: The giant wolf that has been killing people around town shares a very striking feature with the quiet man that keeps breaking into your home— They both have the saddest, warmest brown eyes you've ever seen.

Joel - The summer fling - part of Guy-Crazy - Joel Miller x OFC by @baronessvonglitter

Summary: You head to the beach for some R&R, only to find what you really need is some Big D.

Sloth (Never enough part 2) - Joel Miller x fem!reader - part of Se7en collection by @milla-frenchy

Summary: after you promised Joel to try something new in bed and managed to make him skip patrol and stay home, he makes sure you mean it. So you enjoy a chill morning with him, and then you make good on your promise

Backyard Pool - dbf!Joel Miller x f!reader by @takochan-writes

Summary: You're alone at home while your parents are out celebrating their wedding anniversary. Feeling daring, you decide to masturbate in the backyard pool. Little do you know, your dad's best friend and neighbor, Joel Miller, can see you clearly from his bedroom window.

Messy Girl - Daddy!Joel x f!reader by @littledes1re

Warnings: 18+, smut, daddy!joel, slight ddlg undertones, unspecified age gap (only if y'all like), joel being physically aggressive, fingering, clit rubbing, overstimulation, squirting, crying, praise kink, unprotected sex

Harry Castillo

The Ex Education - Ex husband!Harry Castillo x Ex Wife!F!Reader by @missadangel

Summary: Born and raised on the Upper East Side — mother’s an actress, stepfather runs an empire that’s suddenly “under review,” and your brother’s the reason you have gray hair. You married perfection in your 20s Years after your picture-perfect marriage went up in smoke, you left New York to “heal.” Now you’re back, in your 30s — and saw your ex-husband on the cover of TIME. Wow. He got richer, your family’s going down, and somehow, you ended up working for him. Cried? Yes. Bad idea? Definitely. What could possibly go wrong?

Tim Rockford

The Detective and the agent (part3: Until next time) - Detective Tim Rockford x fem!reader x Agent Marcus Pike by @604to647 (series - ongoing)

Summary: You, Tim and Marcus make a souvenir of your time together.

Ted Garcia

Councli Meeting - Office Hours series part 5 - Ted Garcia x f!reader (series - ongoing) by @baronessvonglitter

Summary:Amid a busy day at City Hall, you and Ted can hardly keep away from each other.

Clint Flood

Clint - The Helping Hand (part of Guy-Crazy) - Clint x OFC (series - ongoing) by @/baronessvonglitter

Summary: In need of a helping hand, Daisy turns to a familiar place - and a familiar face.

Frankie Morales

Control - Frankie Morales x f!plus size reader - Wingman part 4 by @tateypots

Summary: Already feeling fragile about your reluctance to take things to the next level with Frankie, your mom pours gas on the flames. Frankie is there to put them out.

Dave York

The Blind Date (part of Guy-Crazy) - Dave York x OFC (series - ongoing) by @/baronessvonglitter

Summary: Daisy's sister sets her up on a blind date.

Couple Trouble - Dave York x f!reader by @petalsinblood

Summary: Your last and most important mission with Dave doesn't exactly go ad planned. But in the chaos he still shows his unwavering love for you.

Dieter Bravo

One Room Left - Dieter Bravo x f!reader by @ess-evo

Summary: A bad storm hits California, causing you to pull off into the nearest hotel. The cost of the room at the luxury resort is shocking, but what's even more shocking is who you end up sharing it with.

Alex Serian

Let me Play - Alex Serian x fem!reader Drabble by @604to647

Match my Rhythm - Alex Serian x f!reader by @petalsinblood

Summary: You help Alex practice a harder cello piece. But this practice is somehow entirely different from the previous ones.

Pope Cody

Pope Cody x f!reader blurb by @sugartalk-ing

My Work:

Taco Tuesday - Jackson!Joel x f!reader

Tags: Jackson!Joel, soft!Joel, friends to lovers, smut, dirty talking, dry humping, eating, mildly food play, nipple play, biting, pussy pronouns, Joel is such a tease.

Take my hand where you want it - Boss!Joel Miller x married!f!reader

Summary: After you discover that your husband is cheating on you with Joel's secretary, Joel becomes your confidant. One night, after your husband comes home late yet again, you rush to Joel for comfort. And Joel makes sure you get everything you deserve.

Fantasy made real - Tess Servopoulos x f!reader

Pope Cody x f!reader blurb

Lola - Javier Peña x f!reader Drabble requested for my Drabble for V's Birthday event

Thirsty - Jackson!Joel x f!reader requested for my Drabble for V's Birthday event

Summary: Getting a glimpse of one of your intimate, tender moments triggers something in Joel that he never would have expected…

Sober - Dieter Bravo x f!reader requested for my Drabble for V's Birthday event

Summary: After being sent to rehab and after reaching his newfound sobriety, Dieter is ready to work on a new project. When he meets you, he’s totally struck by your demeanor and your confidence. Little does he know, you’re going to make a sweet perfect sub out of him and you will give him a new and rediscovered joy of living.

You woke to gray morning light, rain pouring outside, and the rarest sight in your whole memory: Tommy Miller, deeply asleep. Not that broken man waking up every other minute from a nightmare, not the soldier's half-sleep you'd observed for a month. He was in real heavy sleep, boneless and gone.

He was right beside you, one arm still curved around you. The furrow between his brows had packed up and left. You lay there, both your bodies naked against each other, and you watched him breathe, greedy about it, memorizing him this handsome and rested the way you'd memorized him wrecked.

Now, in the daylight, you could see the wounds clearly. His forehead had a deep cut on it, but under control. What truly concerned you was the shoulder. The gunshot wound the Gilead crew had given him weeks back was worse in every way. A wound that had been stitched, ripped, restitched, and then dragged through a war. You wondered, honestly, how he'd even kept going. Tearing men apart, fighting for hours, climbing walls. As soon as he wakes up that will be the priority, you think.

Somewhere outside, the horse shifted in the tall grass, and the rain kept coming down, and it hit you: the poor thing was standing out in it.

You untangled yourself from Tommy as smoothly as you could. His arm tightened around you on its own, more asleep than awake, holding on.

"Be right back," you whispered against his temple, kissing it softly, and he released you without a word, dead to the world again in a breath.

You went out for the horse just using a towel to cover yourself. The bay gave you a look of profound suffering, mane dripping, and let you lead him into the closed garage. You patted his wet neck once. "I know, I’m sorry, I’m sorry," you told him. "Don’t be mad at me, big guy. You’ll be dry soon."

You ran back to the house, dripping faintly.

As neither of you had paid the house any real attention yesterday, you went through it properly, into cabinets, closets, drawers, the whole scavenger protocol. You found spare clothes, for both of you, thank God. Tommy's were stiff with dried blood, and yours, to be fair, were not much better.

There was no food. No ammunition, no weapons. But you found a first aid kit under the bathroom sink, and that alone made the house worth it. And then you looked for the thing you always looked for: Books.

Nothing. Not one. You stood there in the empty living room feeling small and stupid because it felt it was just as sad as not finding food.

You went back to Tommy, tucked yourself carefully against his side, and his good arm tightened around you and pulled you in unconsciously. Even gone from the world, the man kept watch over what was his.

And you let yourself acknowledge all of it: for the first time in maybe years, a real night of sleep, no rush, no watch shifts. Cozy and warm and protected and loved. Not the way you were loved by your family and friends. Loved like a woman. It was all real, and it all felt so right and so perfect. Waking up at his side felt so much like a dream that you actually double checked the light, the weight of his arm, the small details a dream always gets wrong.

But no. It had all worked. And the best thing about it: you'd been right all along.

It was harder than you thought, God, so much harder. But here you were, against every odd the world had stacked: in the arms of your captor and your savior. Your tormentor and your lover.

You used to think you were too rational, too smart for the stupid fantasies of love at first sight, the I felt your soul the moment I saw you, all those things people wrote and were cute in the books, but impossible in real life.

Until you felt it. Until you planted your feet on that street and refused to move, and looked up into the eyes of a man who was more of a prisoner than you were. The sweet eyes buried under trauma and guilt, screaming for you to fix him. And then he said his name, and you knew for sure. You knew that you were in the hands of that man for a reason. That was the twisted way fate would bring you the message.

Now he’s exactly where you dreamed he was, holding you, as a lover and as a Firefly, escorting you to a Baltimore and every decision that comes with it, closer than ever.

You'd been right about Tommy Miller since day one.

And you ought to know it by now: you were right most of the time, about most of the things. No modesty about it, because it was simply the truth. Whether by reason or by faith, your instincts had a perfect record. One hundred percent.

And you needed that to be true. Because with everything else finally over past you, the last fear had space to surface again: What would come after Baltimore.

Because now the road was clear. No risk of ending in Columbus, Tommy safe and by your side, not trapped in a basement waiting to be assaulted. All the other fears had gone away, and what remained was the one at the center. It was time to finally face it.

I'll be fine in Baltimore. Everything will work out. It will all be fine.

You repeated it like a mantra, matching it to the rain, until it carried you back under.

I’ll be fine.

---

When you woke again, the light had changed but the rain was still coming down, steady and generous against the roof.

And it was, you decided, the most delicious thing that has ever happened in the ruined world: tucked into Tommy Miller in perfect peace, his warmth all over you, the rain doing all the rest.

He shifted behind you. A long breath, a low sound in his chest, and then his lips found your shoulder.

"Mornin'," he rumbled, voice full of gravel and sleep.

"It was morning a long time ago, sleeping beauty."

"Mm." He didn't even sound embarrassed. "Man's entitled. Ain't slept like that in… hell." He thought about it. "Years. This bed's a miracle. The rain's a miracle." His arm pulled you over, turning you to face him, and his eyes were soft and heavy-lidded and warm. "You're the miracle."

He kissed you, slow and deep and completely unhurried, with nowhere to be for the first time in his life. "I love you," he murmured against your mouth, and kissed you again. "Love you so much." Another kiss, longer. "So goddamn much."

You laughed softly into his lips. "Who are you? You barely look like the Tommy who wouldn't say one vulnerable word and avoided kissing me as he was avoiding the plague."

"That Tommy's dead." He said it easily, no weight in it at all, brushing your hair back from your face. "Guess.. This one was always the real one anyway.” He says it a bit more shy than he intended. “…Just took him a while to get out."

"…I know, I always knew." you whispered against his lips.

"Yeah." He smiled into the kiss. "You sure knew."

He kissed you again, deeper, and shifted to gather you fully against him and stopped, mid-motion, with a sharp hiss through his teeth.

You pulled back. His face had gone carefully still, he rolled slowly onto his back, breathing through it, and looked down at his own shoulder. "Okay, it’s way worse today," he said, calm, cold-blooded, assessing. He flexed the fingers of that hand, watched them respond too slow. "It's been screaming for days."

"God." You were already swinging out of bed. "It's bad, Tommy. It's angry and hot. But good news is I found a first aid kit downstairs."

"Soon." His arm hooked around you and pulled you straight back into him. "You can do that later. Let's stay like this a bit more."

"Tommy, we need—"

"Shhh." He laughed into your hair and locked you there, not letting you move an inch.

Because he wasn't ready. Not for the wound, not for the day, not for any of it. There were things waiting outside this bed. Questions he had to ask you, answers he wasn't sure he wanted,  and every one of them was still going to be there in an hour or two. This, though. This warm, rain-loud, borrowed time with you tucked under his chin. He'd earned this one, and he wasn't handing it back a minute early.

"Okay. Fine." You gave in and burrowed deeper into him, because honestly, it was too good to fight. "Just a bit."

So you stayed like that. Eyes closed, his heartbeat under your ear, the rain going on and on.

Then your eyes opened. There was something you hadn't asked yet.

"Tommy… did you find Joel? Any trace of him?"

His eyes snapped open above you. And there it was: the old reflex, coming up his chest like water: the guilt, the pull, that his place was at his brother's back. He waited for it to grab him the way it always had. It didn't. He turned it over quickly, to find out that somewhere on that road he'd stopped feeling like he owed a debt to Joel. He'd been carrying that weight so long that setting it down still felt like forgetting something.

"No," he said. "Didn't find him. Didn't find one thing that could lead me to him, either."

You went quiet for a moment, choosing your words with care.

"And how do you feel about that?"

"Honest?" He let out a slow breath. "I made my peace with it. Been comin' apart for a long time, me and him." His hand moved slow up and down your back. "He knew I didn't want the life he wanted. I knew it too, and I kept on pretendin'. Was always gonna happen one day. Just happened to be this way."

The air got heavy fast, so Tommy continued, in a lighter tone now. "Besides. That man's too stubborn to die." He shifted, warming up. "He’s alright. And I'll tell you what, I'd give a year off my life to see his face when he got to Boston and found Tess sittin' there, free and not a scratch on her." He dropped his voice into the gravel register, chin tucked, eyebrows down, the full Joel. "Huh. Well. That son of a bitch.” He chuckles. “this will be his whole speech about it, he will never admit he was made fool of.”

You laughed at the precision of the impersonation, and the sound of it made his whole chest warm. He squeezed your side. "You did my brother dirty, spitfire. He is gonna be so mad at you." He shook his head. "Hell of a trick, though."

"It wasn't a good trick." You waved a hand, dismissive. "It was cheap. Amateur… honestly."

"Didn't feel amateur."

"It never does, that's the point." You propped your chin on his chest to look at him, warming to it. "You don't need an elaborate lie, Tommy. You just need to find the one thing a person can't stand to face or lose. Once you hit it, they stop checking, they don't ask for proof, they don't look for gaps… they can't, they're too busy confirming their bias. That's all a good scam is. Find the soft spot and let their own fear do the rest."

"Smart," he said.

"Mm-hmm."

He huffed and kissed the top of your head.

"I hope he's okay," you said, quieter now. "I mean it. When we get to Baltimore we can radio Boston. Check with people who move through the QZ. It wouldn't be hard to ask around and find out whether he made it back. I'll make sure it gets done."

Tommy pinched your cheek gently between two fingers. "Thank you. For still caring about him."

You smiled up at him.

You felt him hesitating a bit, a breath taken and held a second too long. "What about yours?" he asked. "Your brother." He kept his voice easy. "You ever think about makin' things right with him? You never talk about him."

The smile went off your face. "No." You said it lightly, which fooled neither of you. "I'm fine for now. You know how it is. Older brother stuff. They want to force their own ideas into you." A shrug that came out stiff. "Maybe one day I'll talk to him. But I'm good now."

And you shifted an inch, enough to put a small piece of air between you. Tommy noticed it. So he let it be closed. For now.

"Y'know," he said instead, changing the subject. "You. In that garden."

"Hm?"

"You walked into a doorway full of infected, and you stood there and held 'em, held a whole damn pack of 'em." His hand tightened around your waist. "That was the bravest thing I ever saw. You were the hero that day."

You lit up. Instantly. You turned all the way around to face him, and your hand started climbing, your fingers walking slow up his stomach, over his ribs, spreading flat against his chest.

"I don't know about that." Your voice had changed. "I wasn't the one who ran into a burning building to save two puppies." You bit your lip, eyes on his mouth. "That's the bravest and most noble thing a person can do." You purr. "…It's also the sexiest."

The grin that broke across his face was pure boy: cheeky and absolutely insufferable. He settled back into the pillow with the smug look of someone being handed something he fully intended to enjoy.

"Well," he drawled. "If the lady's lookin' to say thank you, I'll have you know my whole schedule's wide open today."

You grinned against his chest, matching his smugness with your own.

“Then I guess I better make this thank-you proper,” you murmured, already sliding down his body.

You kissed a slow path over his stomach. Your lips brushed the warm skin just above v-line, soft and deliberate, while your eyes stayed locked on his, bright and full of heat. “I’ll remember forever,” you said between kisses, “you walking out of that burning building covered in soot, looking like the most perfect hero in the world.”

Tommy’s chest rose with a proud little huff. His fingers found your hair, resting there.

“Nah, you’re pushin’ it now,” he drawled, voice already thicker.

“Oh yeah?” You smiled against his skin and kept going lower, kissing the line of soft hair trailing down, still watching him the whole time. The space between each kiss was just long enough to make him shift, to make his cock thicken and flush against his thigh. When you finally wrapped your hand around him, he was already hard and heavy in your palm. You stroked him once, slow, from base to tip, and watched his eyes flutter.

“Hand feelin’ better?” he asked, a little breathless already.

You gave him a deeper stroke, thumb brushing the sensitive underside. “Let’s check,” you said, playful.

He let out a low, rough laugh that turned into a groan. “Yeah… yeah, I’m real happy that hand’s better.”

You leaned in and took just the tip into your mouth, swirling your tongue once before pulling off to press a few open mouthed kisses along the head. Then you took him deeper, slow, letting him feel every inch of the wet heat. Tommy’s fingers tightened gently in your hair, steady but careful, guiding you.

“Fuck… that’s so good,” he breathed. “Missed your mouth. Missed this so damn much.”

He tried to lift his hips, chasing more of you, but you pulled back just enough to keep him on the edge, still stroking him with your hand while your lips hovered close.

“So…” you said, voice husky, lips brushing the tip again. “What do you wanna do after Baltimore?”

Tommy’s eyes were half-lidded, floating somewhere between pleasure and the soft haze of being thoroughly teased. He smiled down at you, dazed and delighted.

“Wherever you want,” he said easily. “You point, I’ll open the way.”

You took him into your mouth again, deeper this time, then pulled off with a soft pop.

“Boston?” you asked, kissing the side of his cock. “Or somewhere completely new?”

He groaned when you swallowed him down once more, slow and thorough, then let him go again.

“I would like somewhere between countryside and… not as far as Texas,” you continued, voice rough from taking him. “Somewhere we can have horses. Somewhere you can still be a cowboy.” Another long, wet stroke of your tongue. “Maybe a calm life. Or a whole new team of rebels. I haven’t decided yet.”

You looked up at him through your lashes, still holding him in your hand, still not giving him the full thing.

“Can you suggest a nice place?” you said, teasing, wicked.

Tommy’s laugh came out broken and breathless. His thumb stroked your cheek.

“Kentucky,” he said immediately, no hesitation. “Kentucky. We can go there. Land’s good. We can have horses. Quiet if we want it, or close enough to people if we don’t. Kentucky, baby.”

You smiled around him, eyes soft.

“That’s an excellent idea.”

And then you finally took him fully into your mouth deeply, steady, and gave him everything. Tommy’s head dropped back against the pillow with a rough, broken groan.

“Fuck—”

You pulled off him again, lips shiny, hand still stroking him slow and firm. “What about dogs?” you asked, voice soft and wicked. “Can we have two?”

His laugh came out half-strangled. He looked down at you like you were the best and worst thing that had ever happened to him.

“How many you want, darlin’?” he managed. “Ten? Twenty? I’ll find ‘em all.”

You smiled, flattening your tongue against the underside and dragging it slow from base to tip, long strokes that make him twitch in your hand. You trace every vein, every ridge, savoring him, and took him fully again, and he swore under his breath, fingers tightening in your hair.

You kept working him for a few long, perfect moments, then stopped once more. Tommy made a low, frustrated sound in his throat, hips twitching up toward your mouth.

“Jesus, baby—”

You looked up at him with wide, soft eyes, still holding him in your hand.

“What if I want to go back home?” you asked. “Vancouver?”

Tommy blinked down at you, surprised, then a slow, almost mocking grin spread across his face. “Vancouver? In Canada?” He huffed a breathless laugh, eyes warm and fond. “That’s a bit too far, ain’t it? Ain’t that close to Seattle? Whole other side of the damn country?”

You gave him the softest, most devastating puppy eyes.

“Please?” And then you took him all the way down, no mercy this time, throat relaxing, tongue working, hand pumping the base in perfect rhythm. You sucked him deep and wet and relentless, the perfect, filthy blowjob that made his thighs tense and his breath shatter. Tommy’s grip on your hair tightened, his other hand fisting the sheets, every muscle in his body locked as he fought not to come.

“Fuck— fuck, okay—” His voice cracked, desperate and wrecked. “Of course. Vancouver. Wherever you want, baby. Everything you want.”

He pushes into your mouth harder now, guiding your head down until your nose presses against his stomach, cock buried deep in your throat. “You stop teasing now, ok?” You gag instantly, and he holds you there for a few seconds, groaning low and rough.

“Look at you, takin’ every inch. You’re such a good girl for me.”

He pulls you back carefully, checking your face, thumb brushing the tears at the corner of your eye.

You gasp for air, tears still falling, but you lean right back in, tongue flicking out to taste him again, completely gone for it.

“Again,” you whisper, voice wrecked and hoarse.

He guides you down once more, slower this time, letting you take him deep until your throat flutters around him. He hold you there, deep, again. Soft, broken little cries of pure pleasure spill around his cock, just as more tears spills from your eyes, and the sound of them almost undoes him completely. He can feel how close he is already, and he carefully pulls you off with a wet sound, breathing hard.

“Ok, we need to stop this or I won’t last too long,”

He draws you up beside him and kisses you deep. His hand moves over your body, brushing your nipples, tracing the curve of your ribs, sliding down to your hip bones. Then his fingers find your clit, never stopping the kiss. You moan into his mouth as he finally slides two fingers lower, kneading slowly through your wetness.

You break the kiss, breathless, cheeks flushed, looking into his eyes.

“Can we… try something different?” you ask, whispering shyly.

Tommy’s expression softens instantly. “Tell me what you need. I’ll give it to you.”

You bite your lip, a soft blush spreading across your face. “I’m… God, I’m embarrassed to say out loud. I’ve never done it before.”

“You can tell me,” he murmurs, still stroking you gently between your legs, clearly proud of how wet and needy he’s made you. “Don’t need to be embarrassed with me, little rabbit. You can ask for anything you want.”

You keep grinning, shyly and in silence.

The contrast of it, you usually so bold and sharp-tongued, suddenly this shy, makes something warm and protective bloom in his chest. Tommy pumps one finger slowly inside you, watching your face respond to it the whole time.

“Want me to guess it?” he asks, voice low and fond.

You grip his curls softly and give a small, embarrassed nod. “Yes,”

Tommy shifted lower on the bed, mouth finding your breast. He kissed and sucked softly at your nipple while his finger kept pumping slowly inside you, collecting your wetness. His eyes stayed on your face the whole time.

“God, look at you,” he murmured against your skin. “So damn pretty like this… all shy and flushed and wet for me. So fuckin’ hot.”

He kept kissing down your body: over your ribs, your stomach, the soft skin just above your hip, while his finger worked you open. Then he slowly pulled it free, slick and shiny, and let it drift lower. He circled the tight entrance of your ass carefully, just the pad of his finger, testing.

“That what you want?” he asked.

He hauls himself up to stay face to face with you again. You immediately hid against the crook of his neck, embarrassed and turned on in equal measure.

“…Yes,” you whispered.

Tommy’s breath hitched. He was clearly turned on as hell by the request, but the way he looked at you was soft, focused, ready to take care of you properly.

“Do I need to turn around?”

“If it’s your first time… better you stay like this. Easier for you to stay relaxed.”

You nodded against his neck. “I’m a bit scared,” you admitted.

“I got you. Don’t worry. We go real slow. You change your mind at any point, I stop. Okay?”

His voice was calm, confident. He knew exactly what he was doing and had no interest in rushing you. And that made it deeply sexy.

“You just need to stay relaxed for me,” he continued, still circling that tight ring with careful fingers, distributing kisses over the side of your face. You whimpered as he pressed the tip of his middle finger against you and pushed just the tiniest bit in, then held still, letting you adjust. He kissed you soft and deep in your lips now, praising you between kisses.

“That’s it...You’re doing good. Just let it adapt a little.”

You made a small, tight sound of discomfort.

“I know,” he murmured against your mouth. “Feels a bit strange at first. That’s normal. Just so your body can get used to it, okay?”

“Okay,” you breathed.

“Can I keep goin’?”

“Yes.”

Tommy pushed in a little more, while his thumb found your clit and started brushing soft, steady circles. The dual sensation made your hips twitch.

“Does that feel good?” he asked, watching your face carefully.

“Fuck… yes,” you whispered against his mouth, voice shaky with pleasure.

He stayed right there, his lips placing soft kisses you yours, moving his finger only the smallest amounts, thumb never leaving your clit, working you open with endless patience until the tension in your body started to melt and you were breathing easier against him.

“How you feelin’?”

You opened your eyes, dreamy and heavy-lidded, and looked at him with pure, hazy pleasure.

“It feels so good,” you whispered. “I’m ready for more.”

A low, proud sound left his chest. “Attagirl,”

He shifted carefully, guiding you onto your side so that your back was mostly against his chest, but he kept you angled toward him, with your upper leg draped over his thigh. You looked back over your shoulder and found his eyes right there, soft and dark and completely focused on you.

Tommy’s hand slid gently under your upper thigh, holding you open. He lined himself up with your pussy first and pushed in with one slow, deep thrust. You moaned against his mouth as he filled you completely.

“Need to soak it first,” he murmured, eyes dropping to your lips. He fucked you in long, wet strokes, getting himself slick and coated, and you were already floating, every drag of his cock making your breath stutter.

Then he pulled out and you made a soft, protesting sound.

“I know,” he soothed, kissing the corner of your mouth. “It’s for a good cause, though, right?”

You felt the blunt head of him press against your tighter entrance. Tommy kept his eyes locked on yours the entire time as he began to push in carefully and slow.

“So pretty like this… how does it feel?”

“Good. God— Good, Tommy.”

The stretch was intense, burning at first, but his hand stayed firm on your thigh and his other arm wrapped around your waist, holding you close.

“Breathe for me,” he whispered. “That’s it… just like that.”

Inch by inch he sank deeper, always reading your expressions. Soft moans spilled between both of you, yours shaky and overwhelmed, his low and full of restraint. Every time he gained a little more, he paused and checked.

“You okay?”

“Yes… yes—”

Your cheeks burned, but the heat wasn’t embarrassment anymore. It was pure, flooding pleasure. Your eyes stayed locked on his as he kept going, slow and relentless, until he finally bottomed out completely.

He stayed still once he was fully inside you, breathing hard against your cheek, giving your body time to adjust.

The fullness was overwhelming, deep and intense in a way nothing else had ever been. You trembled around him, caught between the sharp new stretch and the flood of warmth that came with realizing how gently he was. It was too much and perfect at the same time. The sensation made your head spin; every tiny shift of his body sent sparks through you, and the fact that he was being so patient, so sweet, only made the pleasure climb higher, slow and dizzying.

“Fuck, baby…” His voice was rough with awe. “Look at you. You took every inch, you’re doing so good. So fuckin’ perfect for me.”

You were trembling, overwhelmed, caught between the deep stretch and the flood of pleasure.

“It’s… too much, Tommy,” you whispered, voice small and shaky, half insecure, half lost in it.

He held completely still, one hand stroking your hip, the other around you waist.

“I know, baby. I know. But it’s gonna get better. I’m just gonna stay still right here and let the discomfort ease up, okay? Is that alright?”

You nodded, breathing hard. “Yes.”

He leaned in and kissed you deep. Tongues sliding together, soft sucks on each other’s lips, gentle bites, then tongues again. The kiss was messy and intimate, both of you pouring everything into it. Little by little you relaxed around him, the tight resistance melting into something softer and hungrier.

When he felt you give, Tommy started to move with tiny, careful thrusts at first, still kissing you so deeply that every muffled moan you made was swallowed straight into his mouth. He refused to let you pull away. His hand slipped between your legs again, finding your clit, and he began stroking it in the exact same slow, deep rhythm as his hips moved.

The dual sensation wrecked you. You finally broke the kiss with a gasp, and the sight of your face nearly undid him. You looked completely gone with your eyes glassy, lips swollen, cheeks flushed, expression pure stunned pleasure, like you couldn’t believe anything could feel this good.

Tommy stared back at you like he was drowning on you, in the best way. Seeing you like this, so open and given over to him, made something twist harder in his chest.

You were lost in his face too, in the way his eyes stayed locked on yours, dark and drunk on the sight of you, on the feeling of being inside you like this.

Tommy kept the rhythm slow and deep, every thrust deliberate. The tight heat of your body gripped him perfectly. He could feel every small shift around his cock as he pushed in and pulled back, the stretch of you accepting him again and again. It felt filthy and sacred at the same time.

It was crushing, in the right ways. The deep, full pressure of him moving inside you mixed with the steady circles of his fingers on your clit until pleasure radiated through your whole body. Every thrust sent sparks up your spine.

He kept the same slow, deep rhythm, never looking away from your face. “I love you,” he whispered, voice rough and strained with the effort of going slow and at same time holding it all together.

“I love you,” you breathed back. You were already so close. Your fingers slipped into the soft curls falling across his forehead, brushing them back so you could see him better. Your eyes moved over his face with open, dazed wonder: the tired beauty of him, the fine lines at the corners of his eyes, the way his mustache and goatee framed the soft shape of his mouth. Your fingertips traced it all before your gaze finally settled on the freckles scattered across the bridge of his nose. You were completely lost in his face, in every small, perfect detail.

“I… I love you so much, Tommy—” The orgasm hit you fully in a long, intense wave. Your whole body clenched hard on him and you cried out, gripping his arm, his hip, the back of his neck, everywhere you could reach. The tight, pulsing squeeze of you coming pulled him under immediately. Tommy buried himself deep with a broken groan and followed you, spilling inside you in heavy pulses while both of you locked together in one long, shaking wave of shared pleasure, holding onto each other until there was nothing else left, not even the world outside the bed, just the both of you.

---

You stayed in that bed for a long time afterward. There was no reason not to. The rain kept going, steady and gray against the window, and the world outside had temporarily run out of things to do to you. So you did nothing, magnificently.

His hand found yours on top of the blanket and just stayed there, fingers laced, thumb moving slow across your knuckles for the whole time. You talked about stupid things, laughed at each other. It occurred to you that you had never once been happy like this: easily, plainly, simply, in a bed, in the rain, with someone. All the problems, the pain, the traumas, had given a pause so you both could just exist in this ordinary moment.

"Can I ask you somethin'?" Tommy said eventually, into the quiet.

"Sure."

His thumb stopped moving on your knuckles.

"Your heart. I saw it happen twice now," he said. "At the auto shop... and again in the theater when I got to you." His voice stayed level, careful and concerned. "Is that the battery? You told me it runs out eventually. Is it… is it goin'…?" There was real fear under it, packed down tight. You heard it.

"No." You shifted onto your elbow to face him. "No, Tommy. It's not that."

"Then what?"

"… It's how the device is built. It's the smart function. It's supposed to be the good part. It doesn't waste charge, it watches, and it only spends what it absolutely has to. So when my heart rate spikes way up, it doesn't smooth it out. It just… makes sure I don't fail. It lets me run right up to the edge, keeps me from going over, and it doesn't give me one bit of comfort along the way." You made a face. "Which is very efficient of it. And absolutely horrible."

"So it hurts like hell and you're still fine," he said slowly.

"Mostly fine. It's frightening, and it feels like dying, but it isn't dying. Which is why the battery lasts so long.” You said it lightly, a little wicked, and let your hand slide up his chest. "It’s not common to happen, but as I told you weeks ago, my heart and that device have both been behaving very strangely since I met you. I did warn you."

His eyebrows went up. "…That's my fault?" Tommy huffed a laugh, but you could see it working through him, the shoulders coming down, the tension in his jaw letting go. Relief, plain on his face. He'd been carrying that one a while.

"So it ain't the battery," he said, mostly to himself. "It ain't runnin' out."

"It isn't running out. It’s made to last until I get old."

"Okay." He breathed out. "But you told me it was gonna run out. You said it, it could have a life span of fifteen years and seven were gone… Why'd you tell it to me that way?"

“Well, I… I lied. This is one of the reasons we wanted this specific experimental device.”

“Why? Why’d lie about that as if you’d die soon from it?”

"Well… Because…” You shift awkwardly “Because I was your prisoner? And I needed to convince you to let me to go?” You said it, fast.

“Anyway, I’m telling the truth now.”

The rain filled the pause.

“Okay, enough of postponing it. Let’s look at that shoulder," you said, sitting up and swinging your legs out of bed, occupying the silence to change subjects.

"Darlin', wait,"

"No, it's practically glowing at me from here, Tommy, I can see the heat coming off it. If we don't clean it today you'll be missing an arm by thursday.

You crossed the room quickly and gathered the first aid kit and water, and felt his eyes the whole way. You glanced back. Tommy was propped on his good arm, unashamedly watching you move around the room, naked and lit by the low light, with a delighted expression.

You grabbed a big shirt from the pile you'd found and pulled it on over your head. "There. Let me hide, so you don’t get distracted."

Tommy watched the shirt come down over you and let out a long grieving sigh, head dropping back to the pillow. "Cruel," he said looking at the ceiling.

You sat on the edge of the bed with the kit open beside you and got to work. You cleaned the wound slowly, careful around the swollen edges, and Tommy took it with jaw tight, breathing steady, letting you.

"The bad news is we can't stitch this anymore," you said, dabbing. "The edges are too torn, too many times. It has to close on its own now, which means it has to rest. Which means you have to rest. We should stay here a few days."

You reached for the antiseptic. "This might sting."

"Might," He hissed. "yeah."

"Sorry. Breathe." You kept working. "There's no food in the house, but I saw your pack. If we're smart about it should hold us a few days. Enough for this to calm down." You laid the clean dressing over it, pressing gently. "But not too long. We can't lose too many days, because we need to get to Baltimore and ask them to help us find Frank. He's out there somewhere, Tommy, and he's… I know him. He's out of his mind by now. He'll be tearing the state apart looking for me. Baltimore have people, radios... They can find him faster than we ever could."

While you talked about food, days, Frank, Baltimore, the future, Tommy lay still under your hands and said nothing. He was somewhere else.

He was thinking about the lie. And all the other things that would still not make sense and the questions he had to make now, not able to postpone anymore.

Baltimore was burned, Sarah had told him so, to ash and hunters. And you spoke about it like a working city with radios and rescue teams. And then the doctor mention and the words you'd almost said by a fire once and swallowed. There was a whole conversation waiting between here and Baltimore, and he could feel their weight. He admitted to himself he was a little afraid of that talk. Not of what he'd say. Of what he'd hear.

"Tommy?"

He blinked back to the room.

You held his eyes for a second, and then you finished taping the dressing flat, smoothing it down with your palm.

"How… how did you find me?" you asked. "How did you even know?" Your hand stayed resting over the bandage. "And on the way… did you find any trace of them? Frank and Marcus." You hesitated, and the word came out smaller than the rest. "Alive, or…" You couldn't finish it.

"I haven't seen them," Tommy interrupted. "Not dead. Not alive either.”

You breathed out. It wasn't much, but it was something.

"That ginger fella, the one that got away on the road. And the boss. They came to me." He said it plainly. “They'd been huntin' the man who shot Patricia, and they figured it was Joel, and they figured I'd know where to find him." His thumb moved over your knuckles once. "So they sat me down and asked their questions. Then they tried to threaten me saying they got you.” He shrugged with the good shoulder. "That was their mistake, at that moment the conversation stopped being lead by them." A pause.

"And they told me the address."

You looked at his face for a moment. "You say that like it was a nice conversation," you said quietly.

"You don't need all the details." He brought your hand up and kissed the back of it. "But they paid. For what they did to you, and for those girls." His mouth twitched, humorless. "That's all you need from me on that."

You caress his jaw and kiss the tip of his nose. “Ok.” Your fingers brush down his neck and chest and you keep him there, mapping him again, unhurried and delighted with the sight of him.

“Hey,” he says finally, taking your hand of his chest and holding it. “We need to talk about something.”

He adjusted himself on the bed to sit properly, and pulls you to sit cross legged in his front, holding both of your hands. He was quiet for a moment, choosing where to start.

"If I'm gonna join you," he said finally, "if I'm gonna be the one bringin' you there… I need the truth. And I got this feelin'." He looked at you, steady, no anger in it. "There are things you ain't tellin' me. Things that don't add up."

You nodded slowly and brushed the back of his hand. "Hm. What exactly doesn't add up?"

And there it was. You’d circle to understand what parts he had doubt instead of taking initiative to talk yourself, and he hated that feeling.

He wanted to walk through it with everything at once: You said you were meeting Marlene to plan taking Boston back from Lincoln, but why would that need you in person in Baltimore? Then that night with the whiskey, you talked about a doctor, the one from your last surgery, and we were both too drunk to remember about it. Then by the fire you said there was somethin' in Baltimore about your condition. Which condition? The heart? The thing with the infected?

And… how does any of it happen in a city I was told is ash?

But he knew better. A small part of him was ashamed of knowing better, ashamed that even now, even after everything, he didn't fully trust you. But he knew how that beautiful head of yours worked. He hands you all his cards at once, and he was afraid you'd take each piece and turn it, fit it, sand the edges until every answer sounded good and reasonable. He'd never be able to tell where the honesty ended and the arrangement began. That was just what you were. He'd chosen you knowing it.

So he didn't spill the cards. He laid down just one.

"Baltimore." He kept his voice even. "What exactly is waitin' for you there?"

He finished the question with his heart pounding. Because this was the test, and you didn't know you were taking it. Baltimore had fallen. And there was no world where the leader of a rebellion didn't know a QZ she ran operations in had fallen. So whatever came out of your mouth next would tell him one of two things.

He waited. It took seconds and felt like hours, only the rain filling the silence.

You didn't answer right away. He watched you do the thing you did, eyes dropping to the middle distance, thumb rubbing slow circles at his hands, the machinery behind your face working. Sorting.

"I was… mostly… honest with you." Your voice came out soft, each word placed like a foot on thin ice. You made yourself meet his eyes. "But yes. There are parts missing."

Something in his chest unclenched half an inch. Mostly honest. It wasn't everything. But at least it was an admission offered before it was forced.

"Okay." He shifted up against the headboard, careful with the shoulder, giving you his full face. "Then, be fully honest now." Please. Whatever it is. Just let me trust you, he thought.

You breathed in deep, all the way down, and let it out slow.

"My condition is not a secret among the Fireflies. They all know. And it's… it's what drives most of them. It's why a crew crossed the country after me. It's a big part of our hope." A pause, and then, the corner of your mouth twitched. "Not that I'm not an excellent leader."

He huffed. "Never doubted it."

"But… yeah. Being a good leader wasn't the main reason they were all protecting me." The small smile faded, and your hands settled in your lap. "When we left Denver, years back, it wasn't because we wanted to expand Firefly operations. Well. That too. But the real trigger was something else. We needed answers. About me, about what's in me. And the only person alive who could give them was my doctor, the one my parents bring me all the way from Canada to US to have surgery with. We found out he survived and had left Denver in a convoy heading east, right after outbreak started. It was Boston or Baltimore QZ. Nobody knew which."

Tommy's hand found your knee while you talked and just rested there.

"So we split. I went to Boston, with my uncle and a few of our people. Marlene took the rest to Baltimore. We searched, we built and we grew, and the ops went better than anyone dreamed. In Boston, at least." Your jaw shifted.

"Baltimore was different. That QZ was crumbling from the start. Even those fuckers from FEDRA were failing. After a while, we saw there was no hope for Baltimore we planned to pull all the Fireflies out, consolidate in Boston." You looked down at his hand on your knee. "And then… Marlene found him. My doctor. In Baltimore."

You stopped. Breathed again, deeper this time. Tommy's thumb moved once across your knee, slow. Take your time.

"He might know, Tommy." Your voice dropped. "What I have. How to replicate it to other people, how to make it definitive and not for some seconds. Well, he might not have the full answer but at least he knows how to start to find out. We spoke over radio, couple of times. He walked me through the possibilities, how he'd check, how he'd test for each one. But the equipment for any of it only exists in Baltimore. There's nothing like it in Boston that we could reach or take. They are holding back in Baltimore, just waiting for me. So the whole plan was always: go to Baltimore. Find answers. Once its done, all crew abandon Baltimore and head to Boston QZ.”

"Right. Find answers…" Tommy repeated, flat. “What do you mean by that?”

"Yes. Because it depends." You tucked one leg under you. "He has two theories. One: it's the radiation. All the imaging and treatments I've had, my whole life. Radiation changing how fungus behaves is real, it's documented, it's the likely one. He said no one ever studied it in cordyceps, but if other fungi react, this one could too." You paused. "Or two: it's the device itself. Some frequency it puts out. And if it's that…" Your hands stilled. "Then it's a lot more complicated."

"How so." It wasn't a question. It came out low, and his eyes had gone very still.

"I'd probably need a surgery. He'd have to open it, see how it works, check whether there's a particular frequency or—"

"Wait." His hand left your knee and hovered, like he didn't know where to put it anymore. "Open it? open you? That means—"

You caught his hand out of the air and brought it to your chest, pressing his fingers over the hard little shape sleeping under your skin. "It's superficial. Right here, just under the surface. Reaching it doesn't mean an open chest surgery again. They'd only need to go that deep if they had to check the connectors, the wires, I don't know the technical names. But the device itself," You pressed his hand gently. "Mostly superficial."

His hand stayed where you'd put it. He was watching your face, processing it all.

"That ain't the part you're scared of," he said quietly. "Say the rest."

You held his eyes.

"Everything about it is risky, hell, you know any simple surgery would be risky nowadays. But the big risk isn't the surgery, Tommy. They have to open the device itself and study it, while it works, disassemble it piece by piece. And then put it back together, working exactly right, with apocalypse tools, in an apocalypse room. My heart can fail in mid-process. Or maybe he can't assemble it back perfectly…" You made yourself say it plainly, because he'd asked for fully honest, and this was what fully honest cost. "Then I have no device anymore. No assistance. Just my heart, alone, the way it was born. And…" You gave a small shrug that fooled neither of you. "It could fail. Five minutes later. Five months later. There's no way to know."

He was silent for a long while. His eyes stayed on your chest, on his own hand, and then they came up to your face, and he reached with his other hand and cupped your cheek, thumb moving slow along your bruised cheekbone. And happened in real time: all the relief that should have come with finally hearing the truth being replaced, piece by piece, with something heavier.

He stood up, pacing the room once, twice. He went to the pile of clothes you'd found and started dressing in complete silence, back half-turned, jaw working.

"Tommy?" you asked, just watching him.

He pulled the underwear and jeans on. Buttoned them. Then he turned to you, and his voice came out low and rough.

"So. The whole plan was always this, from the beginning. Not savin' the Fireflies. Not savin’ Boston or Baltimore." He shook his head slowly, like he was trying to make it fall out of his ears. "You're goin' there… fuck, you're goin' there to try to save the goddamn world?"

You shifted on the bed, pulling your knees up, suddenly needing to be smaller.

"I would never be that pretentious." You tried a breath of a smile. It didn't land, so you dropped it. "But if there's something in me that can help… right? That's what the Fireflies are, Tommy. That's our purpose."

He grabbed the flannel shirt and tried to put it on, and the shoulder pain wouldn't let him. His arm wouldn't lift past a certain point, and he tried to force it, and his breath hissed, and he tried the other way, fabric tangling, silent through all of it, refusing to make a sound, refusing to ask, distress leaking out of him.

"Tommy. Talk to me. Please."

Nothing.

You got up off the bed and crossed to him. You just took the shirt gently, held it open, and guided his bad arm through the sleeve first, then the good one, easing the fabric up over the bandage. He let you. His eyes came down and found yours and stayed there while you worked, and you started on the buttons, bottom to top, slowly, and it turned into something else entirely, the two of you standing chest to chest in the gray light, buttoning some dead man's shirt, staring at each other like the conversation was continuing somewhere silent where it could be easier.

You reached the last button. Your hands flattened against his chest and he broke.

"You…" His voice cracked and he pushed through it. "You got into my skin. You made me believe in you and love you. You convinced me to take you there myself… to what?" His hands came up and held your face, and he searched it, left eye, right eye, back, like the answer had to be hiding in one of them. "To die? That was the plan all along? Me deliverin' you to… I, I can't." His forehead creased, everything in him refusing at once. "I can't do that. I can't. You can’t."

"No! No, Tommy, hey. Look at me. I won't die." You wrapped your hands around his wrists, holding his hold on your face. "Okay? Listen. I have a good feeling about this. And I am always right about my intuitions, you know I am, you've watched me be. Here's what happens: we go, we do the exams, they'll show it's the radiation. That's the likely one, remember, the documented one. And then we leave. Boston. Kentucky. Anywhere we want. We keep fighting for people who need it. Your strength, my brain, we could build the Fireflies anywhere on earth, Tommy, anywhere." You were talking fast now. "And worst case. Worst case. If it points to the device, we sit with the doctor. We ask him exactly how confident he is. We discuss it. Together. You and me in the room, every step. And if the answer is that the chances are low…" You pressed his wrists. "I'm stepping away from it. I promise you. Do you hear me? We listen to the doctor together, and we decide together. That's the deal."

He looked at you for a long moment. Then he pulled you in. Not a crushing hug. Something quieter. His arms came around you and yours around him, and your foreheads found each other.

"You sure about that?" His voice had gone very quiet. His thumbs moved on your jaw. "You sure about all of it? You really wanna try? And you're willin' to walk away if it ain't safe? You ain't just tellin' me what I need to hear, you're not sayin' it just—"

"I didn't care before."

The words stopped him.

You held his eyes and made yourself keep going.

"Before all this I thought it would be an easy decision, if it ever came to it. My life on one side, a chance to everyone else on the other." Your voice thinned. "I'd made my peace with that equation years ago, Tommy."

His breath had gone still against your face.

"But then, I met you… And now I don't feel like risking anymore."

You closed your eyes. His hands tightened.

He breathed, long and heavy. "I can't lose you. I want you to hear me say it plain, just once, so it's said." His thumbs kept moving on your jaw. "I have lost too much already. I ain't gonna live through you. So don't ask me to."

He pulled back just enough to look at you properly. "You're the bravest person I ever met, and I've known some brave ones."

"Tommy,"

"I ain't done." His thumb brushed under your eye. "You are not required to do that. Not for me, not for the world, not for anyone. But I admire you being willing to. This world… it doesn't deserve you, sweetheart."

He kissed your forehead, and left his mouth there, and said the last of it into your skin.

"So yeah. We go. We see what there is to see." He said it steady. "And if it ain't safe, we walk. And I don't want you carryin' one ounce of guilt over it.”

Cause I'll carry it. I'm real good at carryin' things, he said silently just to himself.

---

You stayed in that house three days.

Three days of pause, canned food and beef jerks. Three days of cleaning that shoulder twice a day and watching the red go down, the heat come out of it, the ugly line at the border stop creeping. Three days of him healing at least a bit, and sleeping whole nights of it, waking up in the same position he'd fallen asleep in.

And they were good days. Absurdly good. You played a card game with a deck missing four cards and invented rules to cover the gaps, and he cheated his own rules badly and denied it. He talked about Texas. You talked about Vancouver. You both talked about Kentucky. You talked about nothing important and all the important things too. And you learned each other properly, the way you'd never once been allowed to. Because every time before had been stolen. Now there was nothing to interrupt. There was a whole gray afternoon with rain on the windows and no one coming.

He touched you like he finally had permission to take his time, and he was slow and warm and endlessly curious in finding all the ways to make your body feel good. And you let him, over and over. You slept tangled together and woke up the same way. You reached for each other in the middle of the night without either of you being fully awake for it. There were long, lazy stretches of skin against skin, soft laughter against collarbones, the simple luxury of staying close afterward without having to listen for danger or anything else that would keep you both apart.

The world, for three whole days, left you alone. Looking back later, you’d think about that. How generous it had been.

You left on the fourth morning, and the road was kind to you too. Four days south with the bay carrying you both, and it was almost easy, clear weather, empty stretches except for a few infected encounters. Looked like a little mercy before all chaos fell under you both again.

Baltimore announced itself with smoke, from not one fire, but a dozen. Then the smell.

"Well," Tommy said quietly. "Guess we're in the right place."

You stopped a few blocks out and got down. Neither of you said much about it. A horse inside a QZ was a walking announcement, food to some people, a target to everyone.

Tommy stood with the head of the horse in both hands, thumbs working behind the ears the way the animal liked. "Alright, buddy." His voice had gone rough. "That's it. You're done. You go find yourself some good grass. Somebody nice. You've earned every damn bit of it."

You pressed your palm flat to the warm neck of the bay. "Thank you, take care of yourself big guy.”

The bay stood there for a moment, ears flicking. Then Tommy slapped his flank twice and the horse walked off into the tall grass along the road, unhurried, stopping to eat almost immediately.

Then you turned and walked into the QZ through one of its broken walls.

Baltimore was worse than Boston. You'd expected ruin, but Boston, for all its cruelty, still worked. Baltimore had stopped long ago. Whole blocks stood burned out and open to the sky. The QZ wall had breaches nobody had bothered to seal. And the silence was strange, luring, watching.

You moved through it like mice through a kitchen. Tommy first, rifle low, reading every window; you behind his shoulder.

Hunters were everywhere. You could see the signs before you actually see them in the stripped bodies at intersections arranged as warnings. And FEDRA was still here too, technically. More like a group that was left at their own luck than actual law enforcement. The patrols moved fast and scared, holding streets they clearly didn't own anymore, an army losing to its own city.

Everytime you’d see FEDRA, Tommy felt you change under his hand. Every muscle in you spiked. Your chin came up, your eyes went flat and hateful, and you leaned forward like a compass finding north.

Tommy's hand closed around your shoulder. "Easy," he breathed, fighting a grin at the worst possible moment. "Easy, killer."

"I'm calm."

"Really?"

"I, I just… I hate them. I hate FEDRA so much."

"I know, baby. But it ain’t worth the risk. Let’s move, ok?" He steered you gently down a side street, and thought, not for the first time, that walking you past FEDRA was like holding a chihuahua that had absolute, sincere confidence it could take a rottweiler down.

You both kept walking away from noise and the patrol. Then, on a brick wall at the mouth of an alley, you stopped breathing for a second. "Tommy."

The Fireflies symbol, spray-painted in yellow.

"I see it." He crouched, checked the map against the wall, thumb tracing. He looked up the street, where a shape of a building rose above the row houses, far off. "St. Agnes. That’s the hospital you mentioned?”

“Yes.”

“Ok. We're close. Twenty minutes, maybe less."

Twenty minutes. After all of it, Boston, the road, the cage, the fire… twenty minutes.

Neither of you said anything after that. Part of it was sense, you had to move quiet. But the silence had something else in it too, and you both knew it. Your hands had gone cold. You kept your eyes on the street and your face on straight, and underneath it your mind was running ahead of your feet. Every step forward was a step you'd been walking toward since Denver. You wanted to run. You wanted to sit down on the curb and not move. And Tommy walked half a pace ahead of you with his rifle low, jaw set.

You cut through an alley to shave the distance.

And walked into a man.

He was FEDRA, the uniform said so. He was sitting on a milk crate behind a dumpster, sleeve rolled up, rubber tube in his teeth, a needle in one shaking hand, in the middle of the only peace the apocalypse still sold for people like him. His eyes were half-gone already. For half second, all three of you just stared at each other, you, Tommy, and the man caught mid-escape from his own war. Then his gone eyes turned to terror, and he grabbed for his rifle, and he screamed, no words, just alarm, raw and enormous.

Tommy shot him once. Center mass. The scream cut off.

But it had already done its work.

The alley held the echo for a heartbeat. And then, from the streets around you, one block, two blocks, three… came the answering shouts. Contact. Shots fired. Grid four. Whistles. Boots. A radio squawking somewhere close, and then somewhere closer.

"Go." Tommy grabbed your hand. "Go."

You ran with him.

Out of the alley, hard left, down a street of dead row houses, and behind you the city woke up like a kicked hive, with voices spreading the word block to block. Tommy ran with his rifle in one hand and you in the other, choosing turns at full speed, right, left, through a fence gap, across a lot of burned cars, and you kept up as much as you could. And then you didn't. It hit the way it always hit. Your heart went from working to warning, one beat to the next. Your legs filled with sand. The air stopped being enough, no matter how much of it you took.

"Tommy," You gasped it. Your hand went to your chest.

"I know." He didn't slow, dragging you through a doorway, across a gutted living room, out the back. "I know, baby, I know, you can do it. Little more. I just need a little more from you,"

"I can't, my heart—" Black spots opened at the edges of the street. "Tommy, I can't run anymore—"

"You can. You can. Look at me. With me, in for four," He was checking corners while he coached your breathing, splitting himself in half. "One more street. One more street and I'll find us a hole, I swear it,"

The whistles were on both sides now. Ahead too.

Your legs stopped. You folded against a wall, hand pressed to your sternum, heart hammering itself toward the ceiling, and you looked up at him and you couldn't even say the words. You just shook your head.

Tommy didn't hesitate for even a second. He slung the rifle, bent, and scooped you up, one arm under your knees, the ruined shoulder taking your weight with a sound he swallowed whole, and ran. Ten steps. Twenty.

Around the corner ahead: lights. Voices. A line of them.

He spun. Back the way you'd come. More shapes, spreading wide, cutting the street.

Cornered.

He set you down slow, put his body in front of yours, and you felt him make his hands loose. Felt him calculate. Six FEDRA ahead. Five behind. One rifle, one bad arm, one woman to protect behind him. He draw the rifle.

"Hands!" A voice tore down the street, amplified, echoing off the dead houses. "Hands up! Do it now! On your knees!"

"Tommy." Your voice was almost nothing. Your vision was closing. "Don't. There are too many."

His jaw worked once. The rifle's muzzle dropped an inch. Another.

“I said hands up, now!”

Then Tommy Miller, slowly, hatefully, keeping himself squarely between you and every gun on that street, raised his hands. Reading everyone, processing every alternative, every GAP he could take advantage of.

You raised yours. It took everything you had left.

The line of them advanced, shouting things your fading hearing had stopped assembling into words. Boots. Lights.

And then, arcing over the cars, small dark shapes that hit the asphalt with a metal clatter and rolled.

Smoke erupted around you. Thick, white, everywhere at once, stinging like hornets. Tommy shouted your name and lunged for you through it. His hand found your arm.

It was the last thing you felt. His hand, gripping, refusing.

The white took all over the street, and then the black took you.

And somewhere very far away, a woman’s voice. Not FEDRA's anymore, almost familiar, said something that you could swear it was your name.

Then nothing.

---

The world came back in glimpses, then all at once for Tommy. He registered the room as he came back: white light, too strong, electricity humming somewhere. An old doctor's office. File cabinets. An eye chart still on the wall. He was slumped in a cracked leather armchair, and his head weighed twice what it should.

Then the alley came back. The smoke, your arm in his hand, and he straightened fast.

"Welcome to the Fireflies."

A woman leaned against the desk, arms crossed. He twisted toward his hip for a gun that wasn't there, and the room tilted.

"Easy. The gas effects take a while to leave your body." She said.

He shook his head clear and looked at her properly. Tall, dark-skinned, tired. Worn tank, pistol on her thigh, and eyes that had already finished measuring him before he'd even woken up.

"You must be Tommy Miller."

"Who are you?"

"Marlene."

Marlene.

He swept the room: no you. Just a man behind him, rifle held casual, and Tommy knew that face.

"What the fuck?" He stared at Marcus. "What are you doin' here? Where is she?"

"She's fine."

"Take me to her. Now."

The door opened, and Tommy got his second surprise in seconds. Frank came in, and Frank was wrecked. Eyes red, face carved out by something, still wiping tears off his cheek with the heel of one hand as he shut the door behind him.

"What're you doin' here? What are both of you doin' here?"

"Guess we all need to thank you, Miller." Frank crossed the room and put his hand out. "She was right about you. She knew you'd bring her here. Knew you'd join us."

Tommy looked at the hand and didn't take it. Something was wrong in this room. It was in Frank's face, in Marcus's rifle, in the air. Frank let the hand hang a second, then took it back.

Marlene raised an eyebrow. "So you're really joining us?"

"Yes. I am." Tommy's eyes moved between the three of them. Marlene at the desk, Frank by the wall, Marcus at his back. "Why are you two in Baltimore?"

"We got here two hours before you," Frank said. "We searched every mile until we had nothing left. Came here for reinforcements. We were loading up to go back out when our people brought you in.."

Tommy looked at him a long moment. "You searched," he said, flat. "You were her guns. Two of you. And she got taken by rapists anyway."

Neither man argued, because there was no argument. The two men looked at the floor, carrying it.

"We know," Frank said quietly. "It's ours to live with. And you're the one who got her out. So… thank you. However you want it said."

"I don't want it said. I want to see her. Bring me to her."

"There's no point," Marlene started.

"We let him, Marlene." Frank's voice came out rough, and he didn't look at Tommy when he said the rest, which was worse. "They cared for each other. The least we owe the man is to let him say goodbye too."

Tommy was out of the chair before the sentence finished.

"What!?"

Marcus's hand landed on his bad shoulder and drove him back down. Pain whited out his vision for a second, and when it cleared, the rifle was leveled at his chest.

"Let's stay calm, Romeo," Marcus said.

Tommy's voice had dropped somewhere low and dangerous. "What the fuck are you talkin' about?"

Marlene ignored him. "How is it back there?" she asked Frank.

" They began the sedation, but it will take some time. Has to be gradual. The device can't just stop, they need it running while they map it.” Frank's voice caught. He pushed through it. “So they take her down slow.”

Tommy froze in the chair. The words assembled themselves in front of him one at a time and the room got smaller and colder.

"No. No. Somebody better start explainin'," he said. "Right now."

Marlene shifted her weight off the desk and studied him, deciding something, he could see it. "I suppose we owe you that." A beat. "I assume she mentioned something—"

"About her bein' a walkin' infected repellent? About her heart? Her doctor?" He leaned forward, forearms on his knees, holding Marlene's eyes and refusing the rifle at his back the dignity of a glance. "Yeah. I know all of it. She trusts me." He paused, swallowed. "She trusts me. So cut the bullshit and tell me what's happenin' behind that door."

“We are confident that we can replicate it in large scale and maybe help—"

"I know all of it, goddammit. What I don't understand is why you're all talkin' about it like she's about to sacrifice herself for it."

Frank looked at Marlene. Marlene looked at Frank. Marcus, behind him, shifted his weight.

"Well," Frank tried, gentle, "maybe you think you know it all, and you—"

"I know it all. I heard it from her own mouth." He said it slow, like laying evidence on a table. "Do exams. Check the radiation levels first. If that's inconclusive, then sit down with the doctor, talk about a surgery, weigh the risks. Before anything moves forward." He looked from face to face, checking, and found nothing coming back. "So somebody explain to me why we're skippin' straight to… to whatever the hell is happenin'."

Frank looked at Marlene again. Marlene's mouth twisted. Her arms, already crossed, crossed harder.

Tommy’s voice rose, sharper now, the control starting to crack. “Hey. I’m talkin’ to you. Somebody open their fucking mouth!”

He started up out of the chair. The rifle barrel pressed harder into his back, firm, and he lowered himself down, jaw grinding so tight a muscle jumped in his cheek. His hands were already curling into fists on his knees.

"There are no exams, Tommy." Marlene’s voice was direct and flat. "There were never going to be exams and conversations. To learn what's in her, they need tissue. Samples from every organ. Muscle. From the brain. Besides, there's no way of studying fully the device while it's inside a living body." She let that sit for exactly one second. "The plan was always this. She knew what she was coming here for. Even her uncle knew, and he was willing, they both were. That man was tortured by FEDRA and died without giving her up, so she could be sitting in that room today. "

"Bullshit!" Tommy spat it. "She had no idea you were all gonna kill her. That's not what the doctor told her!"

"Tommy." Frank stepped closer, and his voice was the terribly kind with the voice of a man who'd loved her longer. "You know her. You know she bends the truth until it points where she wants to go. And you know she's… optimistic. Past reason, sometimes. Past evidence." He rubbed his red eyes. "The doctor softened it on the radio, of course he did. They were all terrified she'd get scared and vanish. Her parents were already out there looking for her. After they were expelled from fireflies, we didn't know what they'd—"

"Her parents?" Tommy's hands went to his head. He was breathing hard now, the room refusing to hold still. "Lookin' for her? Expelled from the Fireflies? What? how does— none of this makes any sense." He surged forward. "I can guarantee you, I can guarantee, that woman did not know she was walkin' to her own funeral. Did you even ask her? Before you put her under, did one single one of you look her in the eye and ask?"

Silence. Complete.

Tommy's finger came up, leveled at Marlene like a weapon of its own.

"I thought you were her best friend. You didn't ask her. You didn't ask because you're afraid of the answer. Because you know, fuck, you know, there's a version of her that says no—"

"Enough." Marlene came off the desk. "There is a great deal you don't know about her, Tommy. About what this cost everyone standing in this room. And I don't expect you to understand it in the next minutes, because it took us years." She breathed once, put the command voice back on. "So here's what happens now. You leave. If you meant it about joining us, the door's open. Go to Boston, find them, tell them Marlene sent you. We're all consolidating there soon. I'll explain everything then. Every piece. You have my word."

She looked past him. "Marcus. Walk him out. Give him his pack."

"I'm not lettin' this happen, Marlene." Tommy said, certain.

"I'm sorry, Tommy. We are all sorry. Nobody in this building wanted this." Something flickered through her face, the first human thing she'd shown, and was gone. "But it's the right thing. And it's what she would want."

"BULLSHIT!" It tore out of him. "You're betrayin' her! Your own leader! You said it yourself, her parents, the founders, didn't want this, for fuck's sake—"

"Exactly, Tommy!" Marlene's patience went all at once, and for one second the commander cracked and something rawer came through. "Exactly. Believe me! Believe me! nobody on this earth feels worse than me and Frank. We know her parents. We owe them. And we love her.  And we are doing it anyway." Her voice dropped, and the last of it came out like something she'd had to swallow every day for years. "Because it's bigger than them. It's bigger than her. It's bigger than all of us."

Something in Tommy snapped. He came up out of the chair like the rifle at his back didn't exist.

Marcus caught one arm and Frank threw himself on the other, and Tommy dragged both grown men half a step toward Marlene anyway, shoulder wound tearing, voice tearing worse. "Wake her up and ask her! Put the choice in her hands where it belongs, if she's everything you say she is, if she really came here to die, then she says it to our face! But you don't get to decide it for her while she's passed out!"

"Tommy," Frank had both arms around him now, not fighting him, holding him, carefully and understanding. "Tommy. Stop. Stop." Frank's tears had started again, running freely, and he didn't wipe them. "I know how it feels. I just said my goodbye to her, and I swear to God it took everything I have left." His grip gentled. "We can bring you to say goodbye too, Tommy. But you have to calm down. Be calm, and you get to hold her hand."

The words did what force couldn't. Tommy stopped pulling.

Marcus and Frank let go, careful, and Marcus guided him back down into the chair with a hand that was almost gentle now.

The thrashing stopped all at once. His breathing slowed and evened and dropped low into his belly, and he looked at Marlene for a long moment. And something behind his eyes finished a calculation, and filed the answer.

"Okay," he said quietly.

"…Okay," Marlene said. "Marcus and Frank will take you to her."

"I— I can't." Frank shook his head, backing toward the door. "I said my goodbye already. I can't walk through it twice. I'm going to leave the hospital, Marlene. Walk a while. I can't be in this building while it happens."

Marlene looked at him, and swallowed, and nodded. "Okay, Frank. Okay." Because she understood. Because it was exactly as hard for her.

Frank moved to go. Stopped. Thought. Then he turned back to Tommy, and his hand went into his pocket.

"We’d give you her pendant," he said, "but if there's ever a cure, a remediation, anything… We must keep it. To honor her. It stays with the Fireflies." His hand came out closed around something, and his fist stayed shut a moment longer, like his fingers were fighting back with him. "But this one. I've carried this one a long time, and I think… I think I need to move on."

Frank extended his closed hand. "She'd want you to have it. She'd want you to wear it."

Tommy opened his palm, and cold metal was pressed into it.

A firefly pendant. The same etched firefly, wings open.

He turned it over.

TOMMY 00005

"What?" His voice came out wrong. "What the fuck is this? How could she know—"

"It was her uncle's," Frank cut in softly. "From all the names in the world, hm?" A tiny smile escaped him, wrecked at the edges. "When she told me about liking you, I was worried. Thought she'd gone soft in the head over a coincidence." He looked at Tommy's face. "But she was right. You're a good man, Tommy Miller. So… keep it. Joining us or not. But she'd like knowing you’re carrying it now."

"Tommy?" Tommy's voice had dropped to almost nothing. "Her uncle name… was Tommy?"

"His name was Thomas." Frank's throat worked. "But he'd never answer to it. Not once, all the years I loved him. He'd joke that Thomas sounded like a name for bad guys, for villains in movies." He shook his head, and the tears came again, quiet. "That was him. My Tommy. He took care of all of us. He was supposed to be the one to bring her here, and he died so she could be here." Frank looked at the man in the chair, at the pendant in his shaking hand. "And somehow she managed to find herself another Tommy to take care of her and bring her."

He reached out and tapped Tommy's good shoulder, twice. "Funny way life has of working. Hm?" Nothing about it was funny, and every person in the room knew it.

And Tommy sat there with a dead man's name in his hand. Frank gave a small nod to everyone in the room and left. The door clicked shut behind him.

You’d spit Thomas at him like a knife. A name for a bad guy. And somewhere along that road, you’d decided he wasn’t Thomas anymore, just Tommy and the name of the one she loved the most.

Marlene was watching him. And when he finally looked up, something in her face had changed, the commander gone for a moment, just a tired woman watching a man find out how deep the thing he's lost actually goes. She looked, briefly, heartbroken for him.

"Look, Tommy." Her voice was gentler now. "She has this way of growing on people. It's what she does, it's what she is. I know the road did something to you both, and I'm sorry. Truly. Nobody would choose this if—"

"Her parents." He wasn't done. He couldn't be done. "What'd you mean, they're lookin' for her? They got banished from their own movement? They founded it."

Marlene breathed in, long and slow. "What version of her parents did she give you, Tommy? CEOs in Canada? Came down on a job transfer, something like that?"

"…Yeah."

Marlene shook her head at the floor, and her mouth tugged, but it was not a smile. It was the memory, on how you’d love to redecorate reality.

"Hear me out. I owe her parents everything, but here’s the truth of them." She settled back against the desk. "My family died on outbreak day. Hers took me in. Her mom, her dad, her, her brother, her uncle, Frank. They made me family. And when the world ended, they gave people hope by building the Fireflies. That much is true, and they've earned it." She sighed. "But here's the rest. The Fireflies weren't founded on a political idea, Tommy. They were founded on her. On the miracle we'd just discovered walking around in a sick girl's body. And when it came time to decide what that miracle was worth, her parents refused to spend it. They chose their daughter over their beliefs." A pause. "For the second time."

Tommy stared at her, waiting.

"They were preachers. Back in Canada. Not executives. Preachers, a congregation, a church, the whole life. And a daughter born with a heart that ate money. Surgeries, specialists, exams, year after year after year. When they heard about the experimental device of one doctor, one trial in Denver, United States… they didn't have anything close to what it cost." Marlene held his eyes. "So they took it. From the collection plate. They stole it, from their own congregation, for years. And when it was finally enough, they ran. Crossed the border with a warrant chasing them and got that device into her chest before any law could take the money back." She let it land. "They broke their faith, their vows, and the law. Everything they'd built their whole lives on, and they chose her."

The lights hummed. "And when we found the doctor again, when we understood what she could mean hope for the whole world, they were asked to choose a second time. Their beliefs, the movement they'd founded, the hope of everyone alive… or their daughter." Marlene's voice didn't waver, which was somehow worse than if it had. "They chose her. Again. They forbade it. Fought her, fought me, fought everyone. Her uncle stood against her parents, Tommy. He believed she had the right to give what she was offering. It split the family down the middle, and it split the Fireflies with it. Her parents and her brother were cast out of the movement they built. They've been out there since. Trying to reach her before we did."

She straightened, and the commander came back into her spine, and the last sentence came out of her like something pulled through a wound. "I am doing the thing her own mother and father couldn't do. One life pays for many. That's how much it costs me."

Tommy sat there. His mouth opened. Closed.

"Her brother," he said finally, and something was moving behind his eyes, pieces sliding toward each other. "You said her brother. Where's her—"

"Tommy." Marlene cut it clean. And maybe it was mercy, or maybe it was the clock, or maybe it was both. "If you want your goodbye, it's now. They're taking her down slow, but down is where it's going. You might have minutes." She looked past him. "Marcus. The surgical wing, second floor. Walk him through the east stairs.”

He was already standing. “And Tommy," She waited until he looked at her. "Calm. Whatever you're carrying, it stays outside that room. She goes gentle. That's the one thing left that any of us can give her."

He closed his fist around the pendant, put the chain over his head with hands that barely worked, and followed Marcus into the hallway, toward the last room in the world he wanted to enter, and the only one left he'd ever ask for.

Marcus walked him through the hospital, rifle low pointing at Tommy’s back, and Tommy was calm. He didn’t have to force or pretend he was calm. He was real calm, that old him back, the one the army had trained and installed in him. He let it come back up through him like water patiently filling a well. His breathing settled. His steps found a steady floor. While he walked, his eyes moved through doors, corners, sight lines, the guard by the stairwell, the one at the junction, the radio room with its door propped open. If there was one person in this building who knew how to take an operation apart and leave no evidence behind, it was the man being marched through it at gunpoint right now.

And while he walked, he did the math. Slowly. Carefully.

If anyone lives, they know my face. If they know my face, I can never wear the pendant. If I can never wear the pendant, the vow at the river dies. And everything I do after tonight is just murder, with no ledger to pay into.

So nobody lives. And they go silently.

And I spend the rest of my life paying these people back. One saved life at a time. Every single one of them gets paid for.

He turned it over, looking for the crack in it, the place where it was just rage with an excuse, and didn't find one.

One life pays for many, Marlene said it to his face, called it bigger than all of them. Fine. He'd count the same way she counted. Same arithmetic, one change: Marlene put you on the wrong side of the equals sign. You do more for this world alive than opened up on a table.

You taught me to count like this, Marlene.

And this, this walk, this math, this calm… this was Tommy Miller.

Not the brutal thing four years beside Joel had made of him. Not the saint you'd painted either, the good man screaming to get out. What he was, was simpler and older than either: a soldier fighting for the ones he loved.

The surgical wing sign appeared ahead. Marcus shifted behind him to take the turn.

And Tommy moved. He stepped inside the rifle's line, trapped the barrel under his arm, and drove his elbow back into Marcus's throat, all in the same half-second. The shot never came. They went into the wall together, and Tommy's forearm was already across the man's windpipe, his weight already set. Marcus fought, he was strong, he was trained, he fought hard, and Tommy held him like you hold a door against a flood, steady and patient until the fighting turned to shaking and the shaking stopped.

He lowered the body to the floor without a sound.

For one second he crouched there with his hand still on Marcus's chest.

"You should've asked her," he said quietly. "That's all any of you had to do."

One. The first debt. He took the rifle, the sidearm, the knife, the spare magazines, and moved forward.

The hospital was theirs, and that was their mistake. They guarded it like owners, not like soldiers. Tommy moved through it and all its flaws.

The stairwell guard was leaning on the rail. Tommy came out of the dark, he clamped a hand over the man’s mouth, yanked the head back, and drove the knife in under the jaw. The blade punched through soft tissue and muscle until it hit bone. Hot blood poured over Tommy’s fist in a thick, immediate flood. The man jerked once, hard, then went slack. Two.

He moved on and stood hidden just enough to see the junction man had a routine: twelve steps, turn, twelve steps back. Tommy timed the turn and was on him at step eleven. The knife went in under the ribs this time, angled up, and Tommy twisted it hard. The man made a wet, choked sound as blood filled his mouth and spilled down his chin. Three.

The radio room. One woman, headset half on, writing in a log. This one he hated. He crossed the room fast, grabbed her by the hair, and cut her throat in one long, deliberate pull. The spray hit the wall and the open logbook in a wide arc. Two were by the supply cage, talking low about rations. He took the nearer one with the knife in a hard, upward stab under the sternum that made the man fold with a wet gasp, and the farther one before the first hit the floor. Bare hands this time: he slammed the second man’s head into the metal cage once, twice, three times until the skull gave and blood and hair stuck to the wire mesh. His shoulder tore somewhere inside doing it. He filed the pain with everything else.

Four.

Five.

Six.

A man came out of a bathroom still buckling his belt and saw him, saw all of it, the blood, the knife, the stranger, and got half a breath into his lungs. Tommy closed the distance before the breath came back out as sound. He drove the knife into the side of the neck and held it there while the man clawed at him. Seven.

The last one stood post outside the double doors at the end of the corridor. Young. Rifle slung wrong. Under the wing sign, under the arrow, guarding the room where the lights were brightest. A kid given the quietest job in the building because nobody thought the quiet job was real. Tommy watched him for ten full seconds from the dark of the corridor.

“I’m sorry, kid,” he breathed, to no one, to God if he was still witnessing it. “I truly am.”

He crossed the corridor and reached him. The kid’s eyes went wide; a soft, surprised sound left him as blood poured down and soaked the collar of his shirt. The knife broke into the young boy’s neck. Tommy caught him before he fell and lowered him carefully against the wall. Eight.

Then Tommy Miller draw his rifle and stood alone in front of the double doors of the surgical wing, blood on his hands to the wrist, soaking his sleeves, streaked across his face where he’d wiped sweat without thinking. Through the small round windows he could see the glow of electric light, and shapes moving in it, unhurried, unaware, arranging instruments around the only heartbeat he had left in the world.

He pushed the door open quietly.

And there you were.

Laid out on the table under the brightest light, deeper than asleep. An IV line ran into each arm, one dripping slow and steady, taking you down degree by degree. A monitor beeped beside you. Your face was slack and peaceful. They’d brushed your hair back. Somehow that was the worst part of the sight, the tenderness of it, the care they were taking with something they were about to destroy.

A doctor stood at your left with an instrument tray. A nurse adjusted the drip. Neither had heard the door.

“Unhook her.”

They spun. The tray clattered. Both sets of hands went up fast.

“Whoa, easy,” The doctor’s eyes went from the rifle to Tommy’s bloody hands and back. “Listen to me. Listen. You don’t understand what she is. She’s hope, for everyone, for all of it—”

“She could save the world,” the nurse said, voice shaking.

“I don’t care.” The rifle didn’t move. “Unhook her. Now.”

“I won’t do that.” The nurse straightened, and something brave and terrible came into her face, and she stepped ahead, between him and you. “This is what she came here for. I won’t let you take her from all of—”

He shot her. The bullet took her in the upper chest. She stumbled back against the wall, blood already spreading dark across her scrub top, then slid down to the floor, leaving a long red smear.

The doctor made a sound and stumbled back against the wall, hands still up, shaking now. “Okay. Okay, okay.” He moved to the table with his hands trembling and did it: stopped the drip, slid the lines out of your arms one at a time, taped the beads of blood, unclipped the leads from your chest. The monitor lost you and began to whine. He stepped away and put his hands back up, all the way up, pressing himself into the wall.

“There. She’s free.”

Tommy shot him anyway. The doctor dropped hard, blood pooling under his head almost immediately.

Nine. Ten.

Then the rifle went over his shoulder and his arms went under you, your head rolling against his chest, warm, breathing, alive.

Somewhere in the building, tripped by sound or by a body found or by God finally taking a side, the alarms went off. Red light started flashing down every corridor. A siren wound itself up and screamed.

"I got you," he murmured into your hair, already moving. "I got you, little rabbit."

He carried you fast and low through a service corridor, away from the shouting that was starting somewhere behind, and found a records room, windowless, one door, shelves of rotting paper. He laid you down gently in the corner, folded his jacket under your head, and crouched over you a moment with his hand on your face.

"I'll be right back. I just gotta…" He stopped. Chose the soft words. "I gotta make sure you're safe." His thumb moved once along your cheekbone, under the fading bruise. "And then I'm comin' back for you, and we're leavin' this place, and we go anywhere you want. You hear me? Boston. Kentucky. Hell, Vancouver, if you want it." He pressed his lips to your forehead, one second, two. "Just hang in there for me. Keep that heart of yours workin'. I'll be right back."

He pulled the door shut on the dark and went to work.

The shooting started at the second junction. They were hunting him now, red light and sirens and boots, and the quiet part of the night was over. It didn't matter. He was still calm. He fought the way he'd been built to fight: cover to cover, corners taken low, short bursts, counting his rounds and theirs. Two came down the stairwell fast and careless. Eleven. Twelve. One tried to flank through the ward and gave himself away on the broken glass. Thirteen. A shotgun blew plaster over his head from a doorway and he waited, patient, for the reload. Fourteen. The last one on that floor was smart, and made him work for it, and it took four minutes and the rest of a magazine. Fifteen.

Then the building went quiet under the siren.

He swept it anyway, floor by floor, room by room, methodical, the alarm howling over everything. Storage. Kitchens. No one. Whoever was left had run, or there was no one left, except the one name still unaccounted for.

Marlene.

He stood in the stairwell a moment, torn. Hunting Marlene meant leaving you alone longer in a dark room in a screaming building. And something under his ribs he had a feeling saying go back, and tonight of all nights, he wasn't ignoring anything that spoke that quietly.

He went back for you. You hadn't moved. Still under, still breathing, your chest rising slow. He crouched, gathered you up again. One arm under your knees with the rifle propped beneath them, barrel forward, his other arm around your back, and turned for the door. It swung open before he reached it.

Marlene. Gun up, level with his head, red alarm light sweeping across her face in waves. She'd found the trail and she'd come alone, because there was no one left to bring.

"You son of a bitch." Her voice was shaking and her hands weren't. "I trusted you. I let you walk to her, because I thought you were a decent man saying goodbye." Her eyes went over him. "Fifteen people, Tommy. People who survived everything for this. For her." The barrel didn't waver. "Put her down. It's not too late to do the right thing. Put her down, walk out that door. I will carry that lie for you. Just put her down."

He didn't move. You slept between their two guns, your head against his chest, your breath slow and even against everything.

"She's more valuable alive, Marlene—"

"You don't know that." The words came through her teeth. "Nobody knows that. That's the whole point. If we never try, we never know. And she understood that better than anyone alive." Her voice cracked, one seam, and she sealed it back up. "It's what she would want, Tommy."

"She wouldn't." His own voice came out low and certain. "She didn't come here to die. She came here to fight, to try, to talk, to look for a way. She trusted you. All of you. She put her body in your hands believing you'd do whatever was needed to keep her safe, and you put her under and started cuttin' before she could ask a single question!"

"Hah." The laugh came out of Marlene dry and awful, and it stopped him cold.

"Oh, Tommy." She shook her head slowly, and something shifted in her face, the anger draining out and something worse flooding in behind it: Pity.

"You're standing there lecturing me about her trust. While you trusted her. She convinced you, didn't she? Of course she did… She's the best there's ever been."

And then, this was the part his brain would replay for the rest of his life. Marlene lowered her gun. Let it hang at her side, done with it, because what she had left to say was a weapon itself. "Tell me something. In all these weeks. She talked you out of taking her to Columbus. But… did you ever once wonder who exactly wanted her there, and why? Did you ever asked her who Kevin is, Tommy? And— "

The shot went through. Marlene went down, and with her, the truth he didn’t want to know. That sentence would take something from him he couldn't afford to lose. So he shot before he heard it.

Sixteen.

The alarm red light swept the room, and swept it again.

He stepped over Marlene, and spotted car keys hooked at her belt, catching the red light with every sweep. He crouched with you still in his arms and worked them free one-handed.

And he carried you out of the room, down the screaming corridor, over the shells and past the dead, and one painful suspicion ringing in his skull louder than any siren.

---

Hours of road. The medicine kept you under through most of it, and Tommy drove with one eye on the mirror, checking you in the back seat every few minutes more than he was checking the fuel.

Then, somewhere past midnight into gray dawn, you moved. A small sound. Your hand shifted on the seat.

"Hey, there she is,” He pulled over, a rise where the road ran along a ridge and the country opened up below, all mist and dead farmland and a sky starting turning pink. He killed the engine. The silence came down over everything.

Then he got out, opened the back door, and climbed in with you.

He gathered you against him, your head onto his chest, his arm around your back. "Easy. Take it slow."

"…Tommy." Your voice came out slurred and small.

"Hey, little rabbit. I'm here."

"Everything's… the car's moving." You frowned with your eyes shut. "Is the car moving?"

"Not anymore. We're parked." He brushed hair off your damp forehead. "How you feelin'?"

"Like jell-o." You swallowed thickly. "So sleepy. My mouth is…" You gave up on the sentence. Then, slowly, something surfaced behind your face, the shape of a missing thing. "Tommy. What happened?"

And there it was.

He had eight hours of driving to prepare for this question. Because there were only three doors out of this room and he'd walked to the end of all of them.

The truth. Sixteen of your people. Including the doctor who could have answered every question you'd carried. Including Marlene, who'd folded in a doorway with his bullet in her. He could say it all, right now. And he knew exactly what it would do. If he told you now, in this back seat, he wouldn't be confessing. He'd be hurting you worse than anything in your life had ever hurt you.

Or the lie? Clean, simple, invented whole. And you'd have it apart in ten minutes. You'd been reading him since the day you met, you knew his tells better than he did, you'd catalogued him like a specimen. He couldn't lie to your face and survive it.

Which left the third door.

He'd watched you do it for weeks and never had a name for it until today: Laundering. Say true things, mix them with lies, until you can’t tell where one ends and another begins.

Forgive me, he thought. You taught me this.

"They took you back for the surgery," he said. His voice came out steady. "They said it was a simple thing. Small cut, wouldn't take long. I was waitin' outside the surgery room. And then FEDRA came in on us."

You have taught him perfectly in the past. You don't need an elaborate lie, Tommy. You just need to find the one thing a person can't stand to face or lose. Once you hit it, they stop checking, they don't ask for proof, they don't look for gaps… they can't, they're too busy confirming their bias.

"FEDRA came in fast." He watched the horizon instead of your face. "I saw the doctor go one way, the nurse go the other, they hid, they scattered." He shook his head slowly. "And you were in that room alone, out cold, and I… I couldn't leave you there. So I went in and got you. I got you out."

You were quiet in his arms. Then your brow creased. "You didn't fight back?" Even sedated, half-gone, your mind kept working, and it came at him from the exact angle he'd expected, because there was no version of Tommy Miller that walked away from a fight. "You didn't help them? To hold off FEDRA?"

"No." He said it plainly. That one was easy, because it was the most honest sentence he'd say all morning. "You were unconscious and alone in a room with no lock. I wasn't leavin' you vulnerable for anythin' in this world. Gettin' you out of that buildin' was the only thing I had in my head."

You made a small noise. Accepting.

"…Who—" Your voice caught. "Are they okay? Did anyone…?"

"Sweetheart."

"Marlene." You'd already heard it in his voice. "Marlene, is Marlene—"

"None of 'em made it." He tightened his arms around you. "I'm sorry, darlin'. I'm so damn sorry."

And you broke against his chest. “No. No! Those fuckers… Fuck FEDRA, no… it can’t. It can’t be,”

You cried uncontrolled and unguarded in the messy way people cry with drugs still in them. There was no strategy left in you anywhere, the sound of somebody who has just been told the whole plan they had left is gone. The hope you’d hold tight so far gone.

He held you through it. He kissed the top of your head, over and over, and said the useless things: I got you. I'm here. I'm sorry. And he meant every one of them.

"We'll find another doctor," he murmured into your hair. "Somewhere. Somebody else who can look at all this. I swear it to you."

You cried a while longer. Then, slowly, you pushed yourself up, pale and wrecked and blinking hard, but thinking, that damned beautiful machine of yours grinding back into gear looking deep into his soul.

"I don't get it." Your eyes searched his. "Tommy, I don't… why didn't you stay and help them? You were right there. How could you watch people getting slaughtered and just—"

And Tommy did the thing he'd been dreading since the second he thought of it. He reached for the one card he had that you'd never let him play, because you couldn't afford to let him play it.

"Because I was still standin' there tryin' to understand what was happenin' to you." He let it come out ragged; he didn't have to fake that part. "I fought 'em on it. Before FEDRA came. I told 'em they couldn't cut into you while you were sleepin', that you had to know, that you had to agree to it." His hand moved on your back. "And they said somethin' I couldn't make sense of. Somethin' about how you already knew, deep down, otherwise you’d agree to go to Columbus." He looked at you then, plain and open, and asked it. "Is… there family of yours in Columbus? 'Cause Marlene talked like that Kevin—"

"No,” You said it too fast. “My family is in Denver. I don’t know what they meant. I don’t know Kevin. Guess everybody was stressed." And you looked away, too dizzy to say anything else, fixing out the window at the gray fields. Your throat worked. "This is so fucked up, Tommy. Fuck… All of it. It's just so fucked up."

He let it go. He let it go so smoothly that neither of you had to notice him doing it. You sank back against him and cried again, quieter this time, and he rocked you tenderly.

Then, after a long while, you lifted your head. You put your hand on his jaw and turned his face to yours and looked at him. "Tommy." Your voice was steady now. "Was it really FEDRA? They had uniforms? Are you sure it was FEDRA?"

The whole world came down to about eight inches of space between two faces.

"I'm sure," he said. “And I swear, I would’ve helped them if I could.”

You held his eyes for one second. Two. Three.

"…Okay." You lay back down against his chest. " I trust you did all you could do, Tommy."

He put his chin on the top of your head so you couldn't see his face, and closed his eyes, kissing your hair again

You stayed like that a long time, watching the sun come up over the dead fields.

"Where are we going now?" you asked eventually.

"Anywhere you want."

"Vancouver," you said.

He huffed a soft laugh into your hair. "Vancouver, huh."

"You said anywhere."

"I did say that."

You laughed too, wet and cracked and small, and tilted your face up, and he kissed you, gentle and careful. When you pulled back your eyes were sliding shut again, the medicine still dragging at you.

"Come here." He guided your head down onto his shoulder. "Rest. We got nowhere to be right now."

Your hand slid up his chest to settle over his heart, the way it always went. Your fingers found metal. Two chains: his tags, and something else. You lifted it, brought it into the light, and your breath changed.

"Wait…" You sat up an inch. "Is this—"

"Frank gave it to me." His hand came up and covered yours around it. "Said he'd carried it long enough." He looked down at you, and something exhausted and tender moved across his face. "You never did tell me your uncle's name was Tommy too."

Your eyes filled. You laughed, one small broken sound, and pressed the pendant flat against his chest, under your palm.

"From all the cursed luck," you whispered. "Right?"

"Right."

You smiled at each other in the dawn, both of you ruined, and for a moment it was almost bearable.

Then your smile faded.

"So Frank was there." You said it slowly. "In the hospital. He was—" You swallowed. "FEDRA got him too?"

Fuck.

Fuck.

Frank. He'd forgotten Frank. Frank who walked out that door to grieve in the street. Frank who might be standing in the wreckage of that hospital right now with his hands over his mouth.

It took Tommy less than a second, one heartbeat, forced level by pure will, his face doing absolutely nothing.

"Yes, sweetheart." He pressed his lips to your hair. "I'm sorry."

You made a small sound, and folded back down into him, and grieved a man who was not dead.

And Tommy Miller looked out at the sunrise over the fields with his throat closed and his arms full of you, holding the one true thing he had left, and understood, very clearly, very calmly, that this lie was the shape of the rest of his life.

---

Boston QZ

Lincoln's face was flat against the floorboards with Joel Miller's boot on the side of his head.

Tess had his arms wrenched up behind his back, one knee planted between his shoulder blades.

"Fuck, I can't contact Baltimore, Miller!" Lincoln's voice came out squashed and furious. "I'm not a Firefly anymore! The second I handed that girl to you two I became an enemy of the movement. They'd shoot me on sight if they found out where I am, they don't—"

Joel leaned, all his weight settling down through that boot, and Lincoln's words went into a sound instead. Then Joel drew the pistol, thumbed the hammer back, and let Lincoln hear the click an inch from his ear.

"Try harder."

"Christ— Why the hell would your brother take her to Baltimore? She was supposed to be in Columbus. That's the job. That's what you were paid for." His jaw flexed. "You told me you two were the best in this QZ. You've ruined it all, you two idiots, you two complete idiots!"

Joel's patience went.

He hauled Lincoln over onto his back by the collar and hit him once, hard. Lincoln's head rocked. Blood came out of his nose immediately.

"I don't care who you contact," Joel said. "I don't care what they do to you when you do it. I need to find my brother. You're gonna help me find my brother."

"Joel." Tess's voice, even. She hadn't let go of Lincoln's arms. "He's no good to us with his jaw broken. Let him talk."

Joel breathed out through his nose. Stood. And the two of them dragged Lincoln up off the floor and threw him into the chair in front of the radio set.

Lincoln spat blood on the floorboards and stared at the dials for a long moment.

"…There's one thing," he said. He wiped his mouth on his shoulder. "I can raise Columbus. What if I radio Kevin? Maybe they made it there after all. Maybe your brother came to his senses halfway and finished the job. It's a possibility, isn't it?"

Joel looked at Tess. Tess looked back at Joel, and something small and skeptical moved behind her eyes, and she shrugged one shoulder.

"Do it," Joel said.

Lincoln turned the dial and keyed the mic.

"Columbus, Columbus, this Boston; Come back."

Static. A long, hissing nothing. Then:

"…Columbus. Go ahead."

"I need Kevin. Now, it's urgent, tell him it's Lincoln."

More static. Thirty seconds of it. Joel stood over the desk with his arms crossed and didn't move a muscle.

Then the speaker crackled and a new voice came through, breathless, like a man who had run to reach it.

"Lincoln? Lincoln, is that you?"

"It's me." Lincoln's eyes flicked up to Joel's face, then back down. "I need to ask you something, and I need a straight answer. Was she delivered? Did she arrive?"

There was a beat of dead air. Then the voice came back, and it was cracking apart.

"No. No, she isn't here. She never got here, Lincoln, it's been almost two months. Where is she?" A rush of breath. "Do you have anything? Anything at all? You said the smugglers were good, you said they were the best you had, you swore to me… Lincoln, please. Just tell me my sister is alive."

Joel's arms came uncrossed.

Tess reached past Lincoln and snapped the radio off.

"Sister," she said.

Nobody moved for a beat. Joel was looking at the dead speaker, processing.

"What the hell does that mean." His voice had gone very quiet. "That girl told us the whole way, every damn day, that the man in Columbus wanted what was in her head. That he'd wring her out and put her in a hole when he was done."

"And I told you." Lincoln laughed through the blood, ugly and triumphant and desperate. "I told you both on day one, don't listen to a word she says, and you sat there nodding at me like professionals and then—"

Joel hit him again.

"Explain."

"… I thought you fellas were the kind that don't ask questions." Lincoln grinned red at him. "That's what I hired. Two men who don't—"

Tess grabbed the back of his head and slammed his face into the desk. She held him there, bent over, one hand fisted in his hair, and put her mouth down by his ear.

"He said explain it, goddammit."

Lincoln stayed bent over the desk, breathing hard. "She's got something in her." He said it to the desktop. "Something that matters to the Fireflies more than any of us are ever gonna matter to anybody, and it's the kind of thing they'd take her apart to get." His shoulders moved. "Her family knew. So they gathered everything they had and they hired the supposedly two best smugglers in this QZ to take their daughter across the country and put her back in her brother's hands, safe, before the movement got her." He turned his head far enough to get one eye on Joel. "That was the job. A rescue."

Neither Joel nor Tess said anything.

"So." Lincoln coughed, and something in him found one last piece of cruelty to spend. "If your brother took her to Baltimore, if he handed that girl to Marlene, of all the people on God's earth…" He started to laugh, and it turned into a wheeze. "She's already dead. She's been dead for days. You didn't just fail a delivery, Miller, you two killed—"

Joel's knife came up under his ribs.

It was fast and it was quiet, and Joel held him there against the desk with one hand on his shoulder until it was done. Then he let go, and Lincoln slid off the chair, and the room was quiet again.

Tess wiped her palms slowly on her thighs, staring at the body.

"Now what?"

Joel cleaned the blade on Lincoln's jacket. He looked at the radio, at the window, at nothing.

"Now we find a Firefly who can raise Baltimore." He straightened, and the knife went back in his belt. "We find Tommy."

Comission by @kenobiwanx 🖤

Thank you so much for being with me this long, and for all the love and support you've poured into this story. It has meant more than I can put into words here.

I'd love to read your thoughts on this one. I spent many, many hours working out how this would unfold specifically from Tommy's perspective, because he isn't Joel, and the difference mattered to me. He's dealing with an adult woman capable of making her own choices. He's more emotionally open, kinder, more willing to talk his way through a thing first. And he is every bit as deadly, and every bit as protective. Canon Tommy said he'd have done the same in his brother's place. I just wanted to show you what it would look like when he did it.

Thank you for reading. 🖤

Tag list:

               It didn’t hurt as much as watching you dance with his brother earlier.

“ It was a nice speech,” is all he can mutter.

               He walks away and joins the safety of his porch, ignoring you, hoping you’d just give up and go away but he knows you.

               A fucking pitbull you were. Never letting go.

You rush behind him, cursing him in silence, cursing yourself for running out in the cold with a jacket too thin and shouts the moment he touches the door’s handle.

               “Two months! You left for two months, you come back for whatever reason and that’s all you have to say ?”

               There is a crack in your voice Joel doesn’t understand. You hate him. You chose Tommy. There was no reason to care about him anymore.

            “You told me to fuck off, I listened,”

           “Fuck you Joel!” your fist finds his chest and vibrates on his sternum, “ Since when do you listen to what I say ?” the air strains in your throat, “ I begged you to stay…and you…you abandoned me,”

               Your fist lingers on his chest as he stiffens but you fingers relax one by one until you meet his fast heartbeat under your palm.

He takes your hand and let it go gently at your side, “You know why I left, we talked ‘bout it,”

“We didn’t talk shit! You chose for the both of us, that’s what you said right ?…meanwhile I was…just dying to know if you were alive and you were talking with Tommy this whole time ?”

“He’s my brother,” his voice drops low and he the crease between his eyebrows deepen.

               You slap his chest again, this time with less conviction. His jaw clenches but he doesn’t react or pushes you away.

“And I’m your…I’m…I don’t even know what I am or what we are, were, but please… don’t go again…just stay Joel, stay we can figure everything later,”

               He swallows, undone by the tears pushing behind your eyes. He reflects upon what he saw and heard, the speech, the dance, your anger, not sure if he should have believed his first impression.  There is no hate on your face, just the lassitude of a dying hope forced to live.

               Out of habit or pushed by something deeper, he takes back your hand and opens it, gentle as he used to be, then brushes along your scar.

                “Look at you, Tommy said you were doing good lately, I can’t ruin this,”

“Ruin it ? There is nothing left to ruin and I’m not doing good,” your rub your arms together as the cold slowly gets under your skin, “ I tried to hate you…to move on…but I just can’t and—

“ Let's talk inside before you freeze to death,” he cuts.

“ I’m fine,”

               Joel tilts his head, looking you up and down as your whole body gets livid, every hair up on your arms, the pink in your lips turning to a pale purple.

“Stop being this stubborn, come in, I have some coffee left,”

               He doesn’t give you the time to protest, opens the door and walks in, leaving you to make your decision. You glance towards your home, then back to Joel and you surrender.

               You follow. Your heart is burdened with troubling memories and against all reasons, it beats louder. Blood rushes through your veins to your face as you watch that stupid old man takes off his jacket and walks to the kitchen.

               He’s lost some weight out there in the wild, wherever he went. Beneath his black shirt, there’s no trace of that old man belly you loved so. Survival forced him to be fit again.

Stop.

               You shouldn’t even care about this.

 “Help yourself, “he exhales, “you know the place,”

               You do and it hurts.

               The place you shared your love is dusty, his books still spread out, one mug shattered on the kitchen floor, forgotten.

               You get rid of your jacket and follow him in the kitchen, cautious and watches as he prepares the coffee.

  “I missed that,” he mumbles, and for the first time of the evening, a real smile tugs the corner of his mouth.

“I bet,”              

               The kitchen brings you back to those few summer nights, but you don’t allow the warmth of the memories to fool you. Joel hurt you. He left you.

               Yet, there in the dim light of the room, Joel prepares his favourite drink like the last two months never existed, like the summer you tried to kill each other never happened.

And for a moment you want to believe too.

               He dusts off two cups, fills them and gives you one before leaning forward on the kitchen island and inhaling the bitter smell of the dark liquid. You sip, silent, waiting for whoever will start talking again, both aware a heavy conversation is waiting at the corner.

               The liquid burns your throat, but you drink it anyway so you can spare some time. Joel does the same and you both look down, cautious about each other.

               You shouldn’t be here. Not like that.

   “Elena came last night,” he finally says after a few minutes of unbearable quiet.

“So I heard,” you drag down a thick swallow.

“She warned me…threatened me not to ruin the weddin’ but then…she said to do right by you,”

Your cup halts mid-air and your breath stutters.

Your teeth grind and you let the cup burns the palm of your hands until the words settle.

“Might be too late for that,” you put the cup down, your voice bitter.

He lifts his gaze and your eyes meet, “Maybe, maybe it's not…”

               There is a low rumble in your heart, behind the walls you erected to protect yourself. It grows stronger the more you drown into his dark brown eyes. Joel is miserable. You can’t quite figure why. Which of all the things you’ve done to each other makes him look this pitiful? And why do the bricks fall one by one ?

               You want to hold him, to feel him. but you don’t. Nothing change the fact that he abandoned you when you offered him a solution, when you were ready to forgive. You gave him a hand and he brushed it away.

               Your silence shatters his heart. His sorrow builds stronger and steals a tear from him. He doesn’t wipe it, he doesn’t hide. He faces you in all his sadness and drops his mug, his fingers tapping along the counter in an irregular rhythm.

               “I saw the Cordyceps plants everywhere, Runners and Clickers, some of them coughing spores,”

               Silence. Still. You don’t want to give in, not yet.

               Joel is tough. Joel is strong. Sometimes it makes him stubborn. Most of the time actually. Joel is also not good with words. Silence is an answer he likes to use. But for once, he wants to try.

               His eyebrows furrow and he looks down on the counter, his moustache quivering, his jaw unsure, mouth opening and closing every time he tries to find the right words.

               You watch him, a man who fought against the world for so long, a man whose answers and purpose lied in the blood of others, struggling to talk and open up until finally, he darts his eyes on you, fearful.

               “When Ellie died, I…blamed myself because I couldn’t save her, because…I already failed once.” His chest vibrates with every heavy beat, “ I was supposed to take her to the Fireflies and walk away, she was just cargo…but…you go halfway across the country with someone…” his breathing staggers, “she needed her immunity to mean somethin’ but I was too weak to see it…how could I just let her go ? But I saw…I saw outside and you might have been right…the Fireflies… they might have been right, maybe whatever you did worked…maybe…” he gasps, “… and it kills me…to know she was right and I was wrong,”

          The air thickens and you hang on his words. What seems like a disguised apology makes your heart stop and you resist your own tears. How lord how much have you cried for him and for this moment?

                 “Where does that leave us in all that?” you ask.

               You put down your cup and move closer where you can see Joel’s internal struggle. He is so close to face his truth, yet he doesn’t yield.

               He empties his cup and walks to the sink, away from you before whispering in a defeated tone.

“You should go back to the weddin’,”

               Your stomach twists.

“Don’t you dare push me away again Joel Miller…answer me!”

               You grab his forearm tight and dig your nails into his skin, forcing him to watch you with his mourning eyes but he shoves your arm away and pushes to the counter where he holds you by the shoulders strong enough to petrify you for a quick second.

“Answer you? Didn’t you guess it already? I left because of you! And I came back for my brother; here is your answer !”          

               He lies. 

               The weary lines on his face are tense and quivering. Your pulse hammers in your ears and you want to dig inside his ribcage to prove his beats for you. Trying to scare you won’t work. Not anymore.

               You know he’s close, that it's easier for him to threaten you rather than accepting his feelings.

               “Why do you keep lying to yourself ?  I’m here, I’m yours and I can see it...you…you want the same thing, so stop fighting Joel, I’m tired to fight you, I'm tired to hurt…I just want you to fight for yourself,”

               Joel ticks and his cheek is seized with tremors as he gazes into your teary eyes. Those eyes he never wants to hurt again, those eyes he thought would never look at him like this ever again. But there he was, drowning into you, seeing a glimpse of the redemption he doesn’t deserve.

“I don’t know how princess…I…I forgot how to live, I made my peace with my misery, I just…wanted you to be happy, even if it meant with my brother, because I—

“Hell with Tommy!” You shrug him off, “ I’ve had…every occasion to choose him only I didn’t…He was there, waiting, kind and patient, yes I Should have picked him of course I should have ! He’s the better brother, right ?” You pace the kitchen, gesturing, throwing your hands in the air then turn back and point your finger at him, “ Actually, we even kissed once and it felt good and I wanted to fuck him because I was so lonely and I wanted to be loved for one moment… but I couldn’t… because even in your absence I chose you Joel ! So you can blame yourself or blame me for what it’s worth or you can choose to move on and forgive because I’m ready too…it’s you…it's always been you,”

               You press your hand on your forehead, getting a sense that you’re losing yourself to say thing that you shouldn’t but Joel is silent, the corner of his outer eye twitching, his lips pursed.

               He approaches you, and the more you back up, the more he cages you in the corner of the kitchen as your tears flow.

“I’m yours Joel…From the mom…” you catch your breath, “ from the moment I fell through the ice I was yours and I’d fall again just to—

“I love you,” he takes your hand before you slap him again, “there are things I don’t know if I can forgive you for…”

               His calloused hands shatter your heart with a gentleness you’ve longed to remember and he wipes your cheek dry with his thumb as your chest jerks.

“But I’m willing to try,”

               The tension burdening your shoulders lift, and in the aching sound of silence, you gasp. Joel reaches for your hair then curls his hand in a fist instead.

               The tears cascade, uncontrollable, burning your cold skin until he tilts your chin up and faces the result of his own destruction.

               You.

The cause for his sorrow but also…his deliverance. Joel hangs on the cliff, ready yet terrified at the idea of letting go.

               The sorrow, the grief…the rage. It's all he had. When he looks at you, when he feels your skin under the palm of his hand, your cheeks, your salted tears, he understands there is another path, one he can reach and welcome into his heart.

               Life is like the foam; he just needs to give himself away to the sea.

     But Joel spent most of his life in agony. His heart is frayed, used, undone by the diamonds rolling down your face. He’s lost, ready to flee and hide again but when his chest tightens and blood thunders in his head, you kiss him.

               He resists you at first, the salt on your mouth burning all his wounds, but when he tries to push you away you press your body against his and run your hands through his hair, pulling him closer.

               You hold him tight yet gentle, showing him he could escape your embrace if he wanted to, proving him that he doesn’t want to, and when the sting from your lips fades, he melts on them. He nudges himself against you and answers your kiss, slow and reverend, his hand wrapping around your back then sliding up to the base of your neck.

               Love suffers long and is kind. Love hopes all things and endures all things.

               Love is humble.

               Love forgives.

               It will take time and it won’t be easy but in the kiss you share lies the promise that you will both try.

               The kiss grows hungrier, weeks of aching for him haven’t been easy on you and you want more than sleepless nights with a ghost.

More.

Always more.

               You part his mouth open and your tongues meet while you cup his face and let his beard scratches the palm of your hand. Joel grunts in your mouth and grips your hair without any strength, just to hold you, as gentle as he can, fighting against his own urge.

               You smell good and he can feel your body against his, your nipples erected beneath the thin fabric of your green dress, longing for him, trusting him. He’s hard already, his cock yearning to be freed from his jeans.

               You want to cry, you want to laugh, maybe all at once.

 “ I'm sorry Joel, for everything,” you whisper through the kiss, “ I’m so terribly sorry,”

               Joel’s tongue shut you up and his thumb brushes along your cheek, rubbing your skin like he can’t get enough of you, his head tilting to get the best angle, pushing your head backwards.

    “Not tonight,” he stops then stares at you, his lips coated wet, “tonight we…tonight we love, tomorrow we can apologize and forgive,”

               The pad of his finger presses your lower lip down and his breath stutters when it touches your wetness. He opens his mouth in awe. He had forgotten how beautiful you were when your eager heart thundered for him, when your breasts ached to be touched.

               He lingers there, lost in your eyes, seeing you for who you are for the first time, no lies, forgiving and forgiven, your soul exposed bare in front of him.

 “I will never hurt you ever again princess,” he murmurs, the gravel of his voice dragging along your ear like a melody.

               You steal his mouth and hang from his lips, your legs growing weaker by the second.

“You deserve to be loved Joel Miller,”

               A repressed chuckle slips from his mouth.

“What’s so funny?”

“Forgot how insufferable you could be,”

               He kisses you again before you protest and sticks his tongue deep in your mouth, choking you with love until you shove him away.

“You are…insufferable so maybe—

               He grabs your ass and lifts you on the counter before holding your face like it's the first time he sees you. He stays there, his greyish moustache shaking, his throat repressing emotions he can’t allow himself to feel yet.

               You’re so beautiful in your green dress he’d forgot everything you’ve done. He doesn’t want to remember, doesn’t want your past to define your future, may it be for the two of you.          

               For years the guilt had burdened him like ball and chain, making it impossible to move forward. He was an open wound for everyone to sniff out and grief was all he had.   Maybe it helped him cope with the atrocities he had committed. All those people he had murdered and for what? He had told himself and Tommy it was to keep them alive but the truth was, he’d rather hate himself for killing innocent than failing to save Sarah.

               Ellie closed the wound and it didn’t last. And then came you.

               And then the wound turned into a gaping hole.

               And he hurt you for it.

               And you were still there.

               And despite everything he loved you.

               It had to mean something.

               Leaving was a good idea at first, because how could he be happy with you ? How could you both go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? When he hated himself more than he loved you and God did Joel love you.

               He was addicted to it, the self loathing, the never-ending storm rumbling in his mourning head. He had forgotten the taste of joy and only knew the bitterness of tragedy, because God forbid him ever take a chance at life, a chance at happiness.

               He spent the last twenty years running away from himself and the few people who cared for him, wondering which version of himself will cross the finish line alive.

               But today he’s done running.

 “My love,” his lips brush against yours, “you’re as beautiful as the day I lost you,”

               Your pulse flutters like it's trying to escape and your mouth parts open to steal his air.

               In the dim light of the kitchen, you see him as he truly is, a simple man damaged by time who survived the only way the world showed him how: with violence.

               And right now, maybe for the first time since you’ve known him, it's all gone. The violence has faded, the sorrow, all replaced by something different.

               A second chance, hidden in the small crease between his eyebrows as they drop to the sides. Hope tugging the corner of his mouth in a timid smile.

               “Love me Joel, kiss me now because if you don’t we—

               His mouth collapses on yours once more and he spreads your legs before kissing every soft spot on your skin. He learns you again, every inch, every curve and line, mole and freckle he memorizes, the only constellation he desires to observe every night.

               His lips drag down your cleavage and the second you moan his name in his ear; he grunts and lifts you in his arms.

 “Let's do this right,”

“I don’t think it matters anymore,”

               You wrap your legs around his waist, and he stumbles to the couch, hiding the pain in his leg before pushing you down carefully.

               Your skin gets warmer, your breath is ragged but somehow all the hair of your body are up on your shivering skin, longing for his touch as he takes his brown shirt off.

               The air thickens when you see his chest, his hair you missed twisting between your fingers, his stomach rising below chiselled muscles. He’s handsome.

               He sees your heaving chest, your breasts pushing along the green fabric and his cock twitches harder below the fabric.

“ Take it off, I want to see you,” he exhales in one long breath.

“ Yes, yes”

               You swallow and don’t waste any second ; you lift it past your hips and Joel helps it out, freeing your breasts for him to admire.

 “Fuck, you're so georgous, let me take a look,”    

               He stops, straight on his knees, topless while you lie below him, naked and vulnerable. Your breasts fall slightly to the side, ready to welcome his hands, rising high like they’re inviting him.

               You're beautiful.

               How could he have hurt you ? How could he let anger drive him to hurt you ?

     “ Come here already I need to feel you,” you moan and touch your chest the moment you see the change in his eyes, snapping him out from his thoughts and he crawls over you, “Yeah just like that,”

               His beard is rough, more than you remember it to be, his skin hardened by the cold, but you don’t care, it's yours. He is yours. He will be. He caresses your breasts, fingers circling your nipples, then goes down your belly, his palm flat against your stomach rising in anticipation, just to make sure there isn’t any other scar he would have forgotten, and when he got you right where he wants to, panting and asking for more, trembling under his touch, he slides his hand down your underwear and pushes his fingers in you without hesitation like he knows there is not time to lose.

“ Fuck,” you gasp, “ Yeah, just…just like that, yes,”

               Joel grunts, his fingers slipping in your pussy, one, two, then three until your arch your body against his, your toes curled in agony from the pleasure he gives you.

               “Damn, you’re so wet,” he gasps, “ Yeah you're so good my love,”

               You manage to wrap one leg around his lower waist and he spreads your thighs only to reach your closer and kiss you all while fingering you.

               He pushes his arched nose against you, breathing you in and you grab his forearm as he thrusts you fast and hard, sending you to hell or heaven you can’t quite decide yet.

               “ Is this how you like it ?” he mumbles, his voice hoarse and husky.

“ Yes,” you moan in his mouth.

“ Fuck, I missed this, I missed you, being all wet for me, so good to me, you're…you're everythin’ I only dreamt of princess,”

               His body rolls on yours, his chest hair electrifying your nipples in the best way possible, making your body warm and protected, his beard rubbing your cheek with each kiss and grunt.

               And among all of this, vanilla and leather, wood and old book emanate from his pores and flood you in his sweat.

               He is so good, rolling over you, lost in your burning skin, plunging his fingers in and out in a cadence your heart can’t follow.

               More. You want more and you can’t wait.

               “Take off your pant,” you pant.

“Now ? I’m just getting’ started my love,”

               You caress his chest, crossing every scar, pulling on some of his hair, tightening your legs around him.

“We have all the time in the world for foreplay, right now I need to feel your cock inside me and your eyes on me,”

 “ Sure ma’am,” he pouts, “as you wish,”

               He straightens himself up, rubbing his hand along your leg then pulls out his fingers. He wipes them on his pants, slow, a smug smile on his face, leaving a white trail on the fabric before unbuckling his belt and loosing his pants.

               For a moment silence is back and laughter are gone.

                It's just two lovers or two strangers, discovering one another and for the first time in months, you contemplate the toll you’ve stole from one another.

               The scars on your right arm, some smaller ones on your face, the fingers you’ll never be able to use fully and that light in your eyes, wiser, wary, as if you’ve grown much more in the past year than the previous two decades facing the virus.

               He is the same, the two scars left from your bolts looking straight at you like the quintessence of your guilt.

“I deserved worse, don’t worry ‘bout that,”

“I’m so—

“shh-shh, tonight is just you and me, we’ll let the past in tomorrow,”

               You swallow then nod while Joel slides his underwear down. He never takes his eyes off you, soaking in your anticipating panting, covering you with admiration and love.

               His cock springs free against his stomach, hard, erected, making your pussy throb and leaks on the couch just from the sight of it.

 “Touch yourself,” you murmur, already lost in the minutes ahead.

               Joel is caught off guard, but he doesn’t flinch. It takes him a few second to register what you said but your stare doesn’t let him any chance.

“ So much for no foreplay,”

You wink, “ Well, I changed my mind,”

                You're determined and yearning, mouth almost foaming at the idea of watching him touch himself in front of you.

               He grins and takes his penis in his calloused hand then strokes it up and down, slow without ever breaking eye contact with you.

“Harder, and don’t you dare cum now,”

               His jaw flexes and he contains a comment, but he eventually complies and he squeezes himself harder.

“You're cruel,” he groans, air wheezing in his mouth as his hand goes faster, and his eyes flutter close.

“We’ll see about that tomorrow my love, now tell me, did you touch yourself thinking about me, about us when you were away? And don’t lie, we all have our own struggles,”

               He grunts but his chest rises higher, his muscles strained on his chest and arms, every vein pulsing hard in his body.

“ Y-yes, I did,” he confesses in one ashamed breath, “ more than I should have,”

               Water fills your mouth and you bite your lower lip hard enough, so you don’t start touching yourself immediately. Instead, you get on your knees and slides a finger from the V-shaped line near his hilt up to his abs and chest, all while he struggles to maintain a steady rhythm without exploding.

“ It's alright my love, go slower,”

               You are cruel indeed. Whispering in his ear, taunting him, pushing your body as close as possible without truly touching him except fort that insidious finger triggering his fighting instincts. He listens and he takes a small break, touching his cock with a lighter hand.

               His swollen and pink tip meet your stomach, and you moan when precum leaks and coats your bellybutton. His heart stalls in his chest for a moment but you crawl up to him and cradle his face, enjoying the power you have over him, although he's giving it to you willingly.

“ I touched myself too, one day hoping you'd come back to me, then hoping I’d never see you again the next and yet nothing make me more wet than watching you now,”

               Joel let out a guttural sound, undone, and hides his forehead in the depth of your neck in a delicious agony, relentless on his sex yet ready to break down at any time.

“Please baby, let me come inside you…I-I can’t… I won’t last long,”

               His quivering voice fills a hole in your chest. The vulnerability, the letting go. For you.

               Here masturbating against you, his massive frame shakes. Pearls of sweat roll down his forehead on your collarbone. His breathing hitches but he keeps going until your hand brushes between his ass up to his balls and kneads them gently.

“ Fuck !”

     He dares a glance in your direction, panting, his lungs begging for air, his aching cock twitching for more.

    “Don’t ever leave me again Joel Miller, you get it ? Whatever we go through we go through together,”

His eyes flick to the left as he tries to catch his breath then come back to you, his mouth open, longing to fill your mouth with his tongue the moment you’ll allow it.

               He takes a deep breath.

“I won’t,” he pushes his forehead on yours, “ I swear I won’t,”

               You're not quite sure if you trust him but in front of his shiny and desperate eyes, you chose to.

“fine, then now finish your job and—

“Stop talkin’ for fucks sake,”

               He frames your face and steals your mouth before pushing himself on you. Your heart drops below your legs as he pulls them on the couch and he adjusts himself between them before filling you up in one big thrust, fulfilling his desire in one pleasured exhale as you clench around him.

               He  crawls on you only to find your face with his mouth and covering it with gentle kisses.

        “ I like when you do that, keep goin’,”

You clench again around his pulsing cock and he groans in your mouth like a wounded animal.

    “ Like that ?”

“ Yeah, just like that baby, fuck, you're doin’ so good, I wont…you tortured me, I won’t last long,”

“I don’t care, I just want to feel you,”

               He pulls back but not quite full, leaving his tip taunt your entrance and your clit then dives right into you but not with all his strength, just slow and controlled, up to the hilt so you can feel every inch of him. He stays there long enough to see your face come undone, sucking in a sharp breath as he tortures you back, one inch at a time.

               You can’t recall if you have ever been this close, or even this intimate. It feels different and lighter because…

               It’s you. Not a false version doomed by guilt and lies.

                              With each thrust, his arms enveloping you and the praise of his lips, Joel makes peace with himself, with you. Each moan, each grunt, each kiss and wet slaps is a melody your bodies hum as one, two broken instruments finally harmonizing with one another in a symphony only made for you.

               Yes.

               You are allowed to be happy.

               But this melody is nothing like the song he sings to your ears.

“ You're doin’ so good my love,”

                                             His hips roll against your pelvic, lascivious.            

“ Yes Joel,” a tear rolls down your cheek, “I love you, I love you so much,”

               Joel pushes himself deeper and notices it.

“ You okay ?”

“ Yes…i'm…I think i'm just happy right now,”

               He kisses you and you can feel him smile through it, his hand cradling your head and caressing your hair as he makes love to you in the most intimate way, his whole frame rubbing against your squished breasts, his long legs stroking yours.

“ I think I’m happy too,”

               He adjusts himself and finds a new rhythm, faster, steadier, his mouth exhaling near yours as he grows heavy and tired, but he never stops, always caring and loving, praising your body, making sure you're okay and never stops talking to you.

               You melt into his touch. He is so warm and despite his body growing exhausted by the second he doesn’t give up.

               “I need you to come Joel,” you moan, “ I'm so close, I want you to come when I finish,”

“ Fuck, if you keep moaning like this, I will,”

“ Joel,”

You moan his name. Once, twice, until the song turns into an opera and every muscle sings its own part.

               Joel holds you dearly against him as he goes stiffer and hides again in your neck, huffing and puffing as pleasure builds in lower belly. He grunts, an octave higher, raw and reckless as he pounds in your pussy and it sparks your own climax.

               It comes without a warning and rushes between your legs, a tsunami against your shore. You grab his hair and scream his name, forcing him to the edge of his own pleasure.

“ Joel,”

“ Yes baby, I got you, keep goin’, keep goin’, you’re so wet my love, fuck,”

               He’s at loss for words, gasping for air, thrusting hard until your orgasm snaps low and you let out a low agonizing growl. He joins you a few seconds later after one final thrust and you come together as one, your moans and whimpers intertwined in the same air and when he’s empty and you're satisfied, you fall silent and happy.

               You lay there, undone in that sweaty haze, catching your breath. Your heart throws itself in your chest and you feel his on your breasts, pounding.

“Not sure if it was great but damn does it felt good,” he says after a while, breaking the silence of the room.

“ I think it was amazing,”

               He nudges himself in your curves and you wrap your legs around his as he gently caresses your nipple without thinking much of it.

               It's casual, romantic even, the way your bodies are entangled on that couch. No rush of going out or escaping, no pain, nothing of that sort.

               You play with his curls, twirling the grey streak between your fingers, brushing along his weary skin with the other. Then he takes your hand again and looks at your scar

“ Do you think you will ever shoot—

“Let's go to the Ocean,” you cut before he brings back the awful memory, “ You and I travelling the world together, away from here,”

               He sighs, giving up on any heavy subject and lifts his head so you can see his eyes.

“ Then Paris,”

               You grin and blush.

“ You remember that ?”

“ I paid attention in class,” he says with a cocky smile

“ I mean, an Eiffel Tower with a red cowboy hat on top must be one hell of a view,”

               Joel scoffs and rubs his face against you.

“ It is quite a view, not the most impressive but quite somethin’, we can also find your missin’ book on the way,”

               You smile. Of course he remembers.

“What ‘bout all the forgiving and apologising ?” You add, “ I'm not sure this is the best way to handle what comes next…after everything we’ve done and everything we’ve been through, the one thing we need is time and I don’t want to—

“ We can figure that out later, we will not leave tomorrow anyway,”

               His voice drops low. You don’t pay much attention but then you remember the main reason he came back. You remember witnessing his conversation with his brother, the way his face fell, how Tommy held him back.

               The grey area sends shivers down your spine. You don’t want to ruin the moment but you have to.

“ Joel...What did Tommy tell you earlier ?”

               He goes stiff, his thumb stills on your chest.

“Nothing that concerns you,”

You blow and purse your lips before sucking the air, “ I’ve heard that already,”

               He shrugs and rolls on you with a cocky smile on his face, your skin fusing together because of the sweat.

“Listen princess, Tommy is my brother and while we… you have to believe me, there’s so much that you don’t know ‘bout us and that’s one of them, I…”

               He pauses, his gaze lingering on your for too long before dropping low.

“ I came back because Tommy called and I didn’t plan to stay, didn’t even plan to come to that stupid ass weddin’ until Elena knocked, but here we are and now I have all the reasons to stay, but before we can think of us, I gotta think of…other things,”

               You roll your eyes, not much convinced.

“ So once you're done with Tommy, I can count on you to come back home…to us ?”

“ Maybe you’ll have to stay in your place a little while longer, let's not rush things, right ?”

“ Right,” you sigh, “ after all, we only met tonight ?”

               His eyes find yours, then follows his hand. He kisses your collarbone then trails small kisses up to your neck, where he presses his lips longer, feeling your pulse until it's calmed down.

               Then he stands up and helps you  before holding you in his arms.

“ Exactly, tonight is the first night of many, so let's do it the right way and now if you will, I’m…exhausted, would you care to join me on the second floor ?”

               He offers you his hand, and the rest of the evening is spent like you used to. You share a shower and few more kisses then head to bed, exhausted by this eventful day and those  months of fighting, relieved from the burden you both had to carry for too long.

The shower had been running long enough for you to read the same paragraph three times.

Joel had claimed the heat might help his hand, although the doctor had prescribed ice, elevation and several days without gripping anything. The X-ray had shown no fracture. Joel had treated that information like permission to ignore the rest, trying to open the truck door with his injured hand before you had even left urgent care. By dinner, the bruising had spread in deep violet shadows across his knuckles, and you had needed soap to ease his wedding band over the swelling.

That had bothered him more than the pain.

He had watched you work the ring slowly over his knuckle, his mouth set in a hard line, and when it finally slipped free into your palm, his thumb had rubbed once over the pale indentation it left behind.

“Only for a few days, honey,” you had told him.

“I know, I know.”

But he continued staring at his empty finger until you placed the band on the bedside table beside your own things, safely within view.

You opened his painkillers, replaced his bandage and left him to shower while you climbed into bed with your book. But the water continued to run and you had retained nothing from the page before you.

You closed the book.

“Joel?”

No answer.

You glanced at the clock, set the book aside and crossed the bedroom.

Steam rolled through the bathroom when you opened the door. His discarded bandage lay damp beside the sink, his clothes gathered in a careless heap near the hamper. The mirror had fogged completely, but through the glass of the shower you could make out the broad, blurred shape of him standing beneath the water.

“Joel?” you called again.

No answer came, though beneath the steady rush you heard the faint scrape of skin against tile, followed by a low curse that was unmistakably his.

You undressed and stepped inside quietly, drawing a breath when the hot water struck your shoulder.

Joel stood with his back to you.

He had his head bowed and his right arm braced against the wall from elbow to wrist, protecting the swollen hand from bearing his weight. Even in the softened light, you could see the mottled bruising across his knuckles, his fingers held stiff and slightly apart. His left palm rested lower on the tile. His broad shoulders were drawn tight, every muscle along his back rigid beneath the water as it streamed through the silver beginning to thread the dark curls at the nape of his neck. It followed the shallow groove of his spine, split around the soft fullness above his hips and disappeared between his legs.

For several seconds, you simply watched him.

His left arm moved, but the motion lacked the steady, practiced rhythm you knew, his fist travelling over his cock with an awkwardness that seemed to frustrate him more each time. He adjusted his grip, tried again and shifted his hips forward, chasing a sensation his other hand could not quite give him. His shoulders tightened. A harsher curse slipped from him when his injured fingers flexed instinctively against the tile.

The sight sent heat through you with such sudden force that your breath caught.

Joel touching himself would always affect you—the thick length of him flushed dark in his fist, water shining over the soft curve of his stomach and the wet hair beneath his navel—but it was the vulnerability of the moment that drew you closer. This was the man who noticed when your shoulders hurt before you complained, who left water on your bedside table every night because you always woke thirsty, who could read the smallest change in your breathing beneath his hands and know whether you needed more, less, faster, slower. He had spent years learning every language your body spoke.

Yet he stood alone beneath the water, unable to give himself what he needed, too proud to call for you and too stubborn to stop trying.

You stepped closer without speaking.

He was so absorbed in the effort that he did not hear the shower door close behind you. He did not notice the water shift when your body interrupted its path or the quiet whisper of your bare feet against the tile. It was only when you placed your mouth between his shoulder blades, lips pressing softly to the center of his wet back, that his entire body jolted.

“Jesus!”

His head turned sharply. Pain flashed across his face when his injured fingers contracted against the wall, and he forced them open again with a hiss.

“Didn’t hear you, darlin’.”

“I noticed, baby.”

Your lips moved over his back once more, slower this time. Water ran between your mouth and his skin, tasting faintly of soap. Up close, the heat of him felt different from the heat surrounding you, deeper and alive, held taut beneath skin that shivered when you kissed the raised ridge of an old scar near his shoulder.

“What’re you doin’ in here?” he asked.

“Checking on my handsome husband.”

You rested your chin against him and looked down the length of his body. His left hand had gone still, the grip around himself loosening now that he knew you were watching. Embarrassment was not something Joel wore easily; on him, it appeared as a stubborn tilt of his chin and a refusal to look directly at you.

“Looks like I was right to worry.”

“Ain’t anythin’ to worry about.”

“You’ve been in here twenty minutes.”

“Lost track.”

“That so?”

Your palms settled at his waist and moved around him, spreading over the curve of his belly. He had grown softer through the middle over the years, his body shaped by long workdays, evening beers and all the second helpings he accepted after insisting he was full. You loved the weight of him, the solid breadth of his chest, the coarse hair flattened beneath your fingers. You loved the familiar scars and the places age had begun touching him. You loved that you could stand behind him with your eyes closed and know precisely where your hands rested.

“Seems like you’re hurting yourself because you’d rather wrestle with the wrong hand than call your wife,” you murmured.

“Wasn’t hurtin’ myself, sweetheart.”

“No?”

Your nails travelled upward through the hair on his stomach before descending again, leaving pale trails across his flushed skin. Joel’s breath changed when your fingertips passed beneath his navel.

“That hand doesn’t seem to be accomplishing much either.”

His jaw tightened, but his hips shifted subtly into his fist.

You closed the remaining distance between you and pressed your naked body to his back. The instant your breasts touched him, his breath caught. Your mouth found the side of his neck while one hand remained spread over his stomach and the other followed the dark line beneath his navel.

“Couldn’t get it right?” you asked softly.

“Left hand don’t feel like mine.”

There was so much quiet frustration in the admission that your teasing softened.

“You could’ve called me.”

“Didn’t wanna bother you, baby.”

You lifted your head. “Joel Miller, I don’t care if I’m reading, sleeping or halfway through the best dream of my life. Asking me to touch you is never going to bother me.”

“Ain’t exactly somethin’ you should have to—”

“No.” You kissed the back of his shoulder as your hand slipped lower, fingertips barely grazing the coarse hair at the base of his cock. “You take care of me so often that half the time I don’t notice you’re doing it until it’s already done. So let me have my turn.”

The rigid set of his shoulders loosened by a fraction.

His left hand opened around himself, although surrendering even that unsatisfying contact made his hips follow your hovering fingers.

“Need a hand, don’t you, cowboy?” you teased, catching the edge of his ear gently between your teeth.

A strained breath left him, somewhere between a groan and a protest.

“You gonna help or keep makin’ fun of me?”

“I haven’t decided yet.” You clicked your tongue. “You do look awfully pretty struggling, baby.”

“Christ, woman.”

“Although…” Your hand settled over his left wrist and guided it away from his cock. He allowed you to place his palm on the tile, but his body remained tense, caught somewhere between wanting what you offered and resisting the act of receiving it. “I suppose I could lend my favorite cowboy a hand. If he asks nicely.”

Joel lowered his forehead to the wall.

Water slipped through the grey in his beard and fell from his jaw. Pride held him silent for another moment. You could almost feel the struggle taking place inside him—the same man who would carry too many grocery bags rather than make a second trip, who would work through a fever and insist he was only tired, who treated being needed as though it were the simplest form of love but had never learned how to need someone without apology.

You spread your palm over his bare ring finger.

The touch made him look down.

His gaze rested on your hand covering his, your wedding band shining through the water while his finger remained pale and empty beneath it. His thumb moved once against the tile, reaching for yours before remembering the awkward angle.

Then his weight shifted back into you.

“Need you,” he admitted quietly.

You waited with your lips resting against his shoulder, though the answer had already travelled through you. Joel asked for so little that sometimes you resented him for it. He would mention that his boots needed replacing only after the soles had begun admitting water, would say he was hungry once you had already placed a plate before him, would carry an ache for days until you noticed the careful way he avoided turning his neck. Even now, naked and hard between your arms, he had tried to make the request smaller than it was. Need you. Two words offered in place of everything his body had already confessed, as though wanting something from you was still harder than enduring without it.

His breath left him slowly. His empty ring finger shifted beneath your palm. When you still did not move, his hips pressed back against you before rolling forward, his cock brushing heavily against the hand you kept just beyond his reach.

“Please,” he said, whatever remained of his pride finally yielding to the need roughening his voice. “Put your hand on my cock. Stroke me. Been tryin’ to come for so goddamn long, and I can’t—I need you to do it for me.”

Joel had trusted you with his home, his daughter, the parts of his past he still struggled to name. He had stood before everyone you loved and placed a ring on your finger with hands that had trembled more than his voice. Yet this small surrender seemed to cost him something too.

You kissed the pale place where his wedding band belonged.

“Good boy.”

Joel went utterly still.

His breathing stopped for one suspended second, his stomach turning rigid beneath your forearm and his left palm pressing flat against the tile. His cock pulsed before you had even closed your fingers around him.

Slowly, he looked back at you.

Steam had gathered in his lashes. His dark eyes found yours over his shoulder, surprise exposed there before he could conceal it, followed by a heat so immediate that your thighs drew together behind him. A flush travelled higher along his throat. He appeared almost offended by the force of his own reaction, as though his body had answered you before his pride could intervene.

“What’d you call me?”

“You heard me, baby.”

His gaze dropped to your mouth. “Say it again.”

A smile touched your lips, but you did not laugh at him. There was something too open in his expression, too uncertain beneath the want.

“Later,” you promised. “Face the wall and lean back against me. Let your wife take care of you, big boy.”

Joel held your gaze for another moment before looking forward again. His forehead settled against the tile as his shoulders gradually loosened beneath your arms. He moved back until the curve of his ass pressed firmly against your lower stomach, giving you more of his weight than before.

You kissed the center of his back and slid your right hand down.

This time, you did not stop.

Your fingers curled around the base of his cock, and Joel’s entire body answered.

His abdomen contracted beneath your forearm. His left palm slipped before flattening against the wall again. A sound left him—low, involuntary, pulled from somewhere beneath the frustration he had carried into the shower—and the thick length of him hardened further in your grip.

You held him without moving at first, letting him feel the fit of your hand around him although your fingers could not quite meet. Heat pulsed beneath the slick skin, his heartbeat fast and heavy against your palm. You adjusted the showerhead until the strongest part of the spray struck his back rather than your joined hands, then tightened your grip. Another broken breath warmed your cheek.

“There,” you murmured. “Better?”

“Fuck, yes—”

“I thought so.” You stroked him slowly from base to tip, watching his stomach pull tight beneath your arm. “Next time you need my hand around your cock, come put it there.”

Joel’s hips followed your fist as it descended. “Knew you’d enjoy this.”

“You knew correctly.”

Your thumb swept over the broad head before your fist travelled down again. At the base, you loosened your grip and slipped your free hand beneath him. Joel groaned when your palm cupped his balls, the swollen, heavy weight of them filling your hand while the other continued moving slowly along his cock.

“Oh, baby...” You rolled them gently beneath your fingers, and his hips pressed forward as though even that small touch had reached somewhere deeper than he expected. “No wonder you were getting so frustrated. These are awfully full.”

“Don’t start.”

The words lacked any real warning. They came roughened by the careful twist of your wrist, Joel’s breath catching when you tightened your fist beneath the head. You smiled against his shoulder and gave him another long stroke, refusing the faster pace his body was beginning to seek.

“I’ve already started.” Your lips followed a rivulet of water toward the sensitive place behind his ear. “You should’ve seen yourself, hiding in here with all of this aching for relief.”

“Enjoyin’ yourself?”

“Very much.” You squeezed the weight in your palm once more, tender enough to make his thighs tense. “I’ve got my handsome husband naked in my arms, getting harder every time I tease him. I can feel how badly he needs to come, and he’s making the prettiest noises while I take my time giving him exactly what he asked for.” Your thumb gathered the slickness from the tip and spread it beneath the head. “What’s not to enjoy?”

“Mean woman.”

The complaint dissolved into a groan when your fingers tightened around him. His hips followed your hand instinctively, cock sliding through your wet fist while you maintained the slow rhythm already wearing away his restraint.

“Mm. And you love me.”

“Yeah.” His answer came without hesitation, broken slightly by the next stroke. “More than anythin’.”

The words entered you with the familiar weight of truth. Joel could spend ten uninterrupted minutes complaining about traffic, Tommy or the price of lumber, but anything that mattered was pared down until only its simplest form remained. More than anythin’ was extravagance from a man like him, offered with his forehead resting against the shower wall, his injured hand held carefully before him and his body surrounded by yours.

You kissed him behind the ear and released the heavy weight beneath his cock, bringing your free arm around his middle. Your palm spread over his stomach as you drew him more securely against you.

“Good,” you murmured. “Then be sweet and let me take my time with you.”

You kept the first strokes long and measured, your fist gliding over every thick inch before closing more firmly on the descent. Joel attempted to follow you, but impatience made his hips arrive too early. You adjusted without comment, refusing to hurry; the next time he thrust forward, you slowed near the head and held him snugly in your palm until a strained breath escaped through his teeth.

Water ran over his shoulders and divided around your arms, gathering briefly in the dark hair beneath his navel before disappearing between your joined bodies. The shower could not conceal the low sounds he made whenever your grip changed or the unconscious contraction of his stomach beneath your palm. You understood what he wanted—the shallow movement of his hips asking for more speed, his left hand spreading against the tile to brace for the pressure he preferred—but kept him at that patient rhythm a little longer. By the time you tightened your fist, frustration no longer held his shoulders rigid. He was waiting for you, and his cock pulsed heavily against your palm.

“That’s it,” you whispered, your mouth close to his ear. “You can move with me now.”

Joel released a deep, uneven breath and rolled his hips forward. You met him, your fist descending as he pushed into it and closing more firmly when he reached the base. On his retreat, you stroked upward, letting the swollen head drag through the circle of your fingers before guiding him into the next movement. He followed more carefully this time, the rhythm hesitant only for the first few strokes before pleasure taught him what you wanted.

“There you go, baby.”

“God—feels so damn good.”

You held him close and let the rhythm develop between you. Each thrust grew deeper, Joel’s ass pressing into your lower stomach when he drew back before he drove forward again. Your fist worked over him in time with the motion, no longer making him wait, though you retained enough control to keep his impatience from carrying him too quickly toward the edge.

The change reached his breathing first. Those deep, measured pulls of air began catching halfway into his lungs, his mouth opening against the tile to release the low sounds he had tried to suppress when you entered. Soon he no longer seemed aware of them. His attention had narrowed to your fingers around his cock, your palm against his stomach and the body supporting him from behind.

You kissed the wet slope of his shoulder.

Joel had touched you in darkness and sunlight, slowly and with desperate hunger, had learned your body so thoroughly that sometimes a single adjustment of his hand could make you fall apart. Yet this felt different from simply returning the pleasure he had given you over the years. Tonight, he could not reach back and distract you with your own need. He could not turn, gather you against him and assume the responsibility of taking care of both of you. All he could do was remain inside your embrace and trust that being wanted did not depend upon what he could offer in return.

Your grip tightened. Joel groaned and drove forward with enough force to push the air from your lungs. You widened your stance and continued meeting him as the movement grew rougher, each thrust dragging his cock rapidly through your closed fingers before your hand followed him back to the base. Wet skin moved against wet skin beneath the shower, punctuated by his heavier breathing and a broken curse whenever you changed the angle of your wrist.

You pressed your mouth beneath his ear.

“Take it, baby,” you murmured. “Use my hand exactly how you need.”

Joel stopped trying to follow each movement you gave him and began taking the friction for himself, thrusting through your fist with all the force he had been restraining. You let him, your hand closed and steady around him while your other arm held him against you—until his injured fingers curled instinctively against the tile. The hiss that left him cut through the pleasure. You caught his wrist at once and drew his arm away from the wall without slowing the motion between his legs.

“Give me this one.”

Joel allowed you to fold his arm across his chest. You tucked the bruised hand against his opposite shoulder and covered it with your own, your forearm securing it safely in place.

“Ain’t bad,” he managed.

“Shh.”

You kissed the uninjured edge of his wrist. Your fist continued working steadily over his cock as though caring for one hurting part of him required no sacrifice from the rest.

Joel’s chest rose beneath your arm. His bruised fingers gradually relaxed against his shoulder, and his left hand left the tile to cover yours where it held him. His thumb searched through the water until it found the smooth band around your finger and rested there.

You turned your face and kissed his cheek.

Joel leaned into it for a fleeting second before the next stroke pulled a groan from him. His thumb remained pressed over your wedding band as he settled farther back, giving you more of his weight without looking to see whether you could hold it. You planted your feet, tightened your arm around his chest and did.

He was letting you have all of his need now: his injured hand held safely beneath yours, his balance entrusted to your body, his pleasure naked in every sound he could no longer contain. When your fist moved faster, his hips answered immediately. The rhythm that had belonged to both of you began to unravel as he pushed forward too soon and retreated only far enough to thrust again, each movement shorter and rougher than the last.

You adapted without breaking pace, concentrating the friction where his body responded most strongly. A rough curse left him when you repeated it, his cock almost painfully rigid within your fist, the pulse against your palm heavier and more insistent. His thighs began to tremble as the measured roll of his hips disappeared altogether. He was no longer fucking your hand with any discernible rhythm; he was chasing it, moving on instinct whenever your grip reached the sensitive head.

Your own breathing quickened against his back. Heat gathered low in your stomach as you watched the man who could reduce you to pleading with the smallest movement lose himself in your arms. You pressed your thighs together, but every sound he made travelled directly through you, every desperate thrust sending another pulse of want between your legs. None of it made you want to turn his attention toward you. Tonight, his pleasure was enough.

Your mouth found the place beneath his ear that always made his shoulders rise.

“Look at you,” you whispered, affection wrapped around the teasing words. “You were so determined to handle this yourself, and now you can barely keep those legs steady.”

Joel tried to answer, but your fist tightened and the words collapsed into a hoarse moan. You smiled against his skin.

“No clever answer for me?”

“Hard to—” He broke off, thrusting roughly into your grip. “Hard to fuckin’ think.”

“That’s all right, baby. You don’t need to.”

You increased the pace until the movement became relentless, your slick fist closing around him as quickly as his hips could push forward. Joel’s forehead pressed against the tile, shoulders drawing tight as pleasure gathered beyond his control. His breathing fractured into rough, shallow pulls, each ending in a sound he no longer attempted to swallow.

His left hand abandoned yours and flattened against the wall, fingers splayed wide for purchase. Your wedding ring remained warm beneath the place his thumb had pressed it. He drove into your fist once, twice, then faltered, the next thrust arriving shorter as his cock throbbed heavily in your palm. You felt the approaching release before he spoke—in the sudden rigidity of his stomach, the way his thighs locked as if bracing might delay what your hand was already pulling from him, the helpless twitch that travelled through his cock whenever your grip reached the head.

“Baby—” His voice cracked around the word.

You kissed his jaw. “I know.”

“Close—”

The admission came through clenched teeth, barely louder than the water. You kept your fist moving at the same firm pace, refusing to startle his body with any sudden change.

“How close?”

“Real fuckin’—close.”

Joel attempted another thrust, but the rhythm had abandoned him entirely. His hips jerked into your hand and stopped, leaving you to carry the movement while he trembled within your arms. His weight tipped backward. You accepted all of it, your forearm held securely across his chest and his injured hand protected beneath yours.

“Please,” he rasped. “Don’t slow down—”

“I won’t, baby.”

Your fist travelled over him in fast, complete strokes, drawing the tension tighter with each pass. His cock pulsed violently against your palm, so close now that every movement seemed to pull a broken sound from the deepest part of his chest.

You caught his earlobe gently between your teeth.

“Every drop for me?”

“All yours.” The answer came instantly, stripped of breath and pride. His head dropped as his hips gave one final, desperate drive through your fist. “Every fuckin’ drop.”

A tender satisfaction spread beneath the heat in your chest. You tightened your embrace, lips brushing the shell of his ear while your hand gave him the exact rhythm his body had been seeking from the moment you entered the shower.

“That’s my good boy,” you whispered. “Give it to me.”

The praise undid him.

Joel came with a sound so raw it seemed torn from the center of him.

His entire body locked in your arms. His cock jerked hard in your fist, the first hot pulse spilling over your fingers before the shower could carry it away. His hips punched forward with the next one, wrenching a broken groan from his throat as another thick streak struck the tile beneath him.

You kept your hand moving, drawing every stroke from base to tip while release continued to pulse from him. Each one seized a different part of his body—his stomach clenching beneath your arm, his thighs jumping, his shoulders drawing taut beneath your mouth. You felt the force of it pass through him until there was nothing left with which he could hold himself upright.

His knees buckled.

You caught his full weight before either of you could fall.

Your chest pressed tightly to his back, your arm banded across his ribs and your palm protecting the swollen knuckles tucked against his shoulder. Joel trembled through every aftershock, forehead resting heavily against the wall. His cock gave one final, helpless pulse into your slowing hand.

“Fuck,” he choked. “Baby—”

“Easy. I’ve got you.”

You continued moving until the last throb softened beneath your palm. Only then did you loosen your fingers, careful of the sensitivity that made his hips flinch when your thumb grazed the head. The water washed your hand clean, carrying the evidence of his release toward the drain.

Joel remained folded against the wall, his breathing coming in ragged pulls. You kept him gathered within your arms, lips moving over his shoulder and along the nape of his neck while the final tremors passed through him.

“Take your time, baby,” you murmured. “I’m not going anywhere.”

His left hand covered your forearm where it crossed his chest. His thumb rubbed slowly over your skin, Joel still searching for some way to touch you even while you bore most of his weight.

Eventually, he lifted his head.

“Need to turn around.”

“You steady?”

“With you holdin’ me? Yeah.”

You helped him move carefully, keeping his injured hand against his chest until his back met the wall. The moment he faced you, his left arm came around your waist and pulled you against him.

Joel kissed you before you could speak.

The kiss held none of the frantic hunger that had taken him apart moments earlier. It was slow and open, his lips moving over yours with an exhausted tenderness that left you more exposed than anything he had said. His damp beard scraped gently across your chin as he kissed you again, lingering this time, breathing you in as though the release had stripped him down to the simplest things he knew.

Your hands settled against his chest.

He rested his forehead against yours.