you shouldn't be here

A smile curled your lips as you shifted closer to Benedict who looked to be still in deep sleep, one arm thrown over his eyes while the other kept you close to his chest even in his sleep. You had found a couple of soil bags last night to use as pillows along with a very old blanket that you suspected they used to carry the said bags, and thrown it over you. You let your hungry gaze wander down from his handsome face to his perfect torso; he looked like a statue one of his idols would sculpt in Renaissance in such an effortless way that even looking at him made your heart skip a beat, your cheeks burning when you remembered last night.

Well, as it turned out Benedict was right.

It felt absolutely divine.

You nibbled on your lip, dragging your eyes away from him to your surroundings. In daylight, the greenhouse looked so beautiful that it felt as if you were in a dream, making you heave a sigh. You slowly pulled away from him, careful not to wake him up and reached for your shift to put it on. It was dry unlike the rest of your clothes but it was so see-through in the sunlight that if it were any other time you would have never thought of walking around just in that, except that—

Well.

Considering last night, it wouldn’t be a scandal.

You bit down a smile and got off the floor, approaching the Middlemist Red. You still couldn’t believe it was yours, after years and years of dreaming of seeing it at least once in some sort of exhibition, now you could see it anytime you wanted in your own greenhouse. You gently caressed the petals with your fingertip, then checked the soil in the pot to see whether it needed water but it was still damp so you figured it could wait until later in the day. You looked around, taking in the sight.

This was actually yours. All of it.

“I thought you left.”

You looked over your shoulder and turned around to look at Benedict better, your heart skipping a beat as you did. He had pulled himself up into a sitting position with the blanket pooled around his waist, his hair messy as he ran his hand through it, that lopsided grin you loved so much playing on his lips. You took a deep breath to snap yourself out of the haze, then leaned back to the shelf.

“Well this is my greenhouse,” you said airily, motioning between you before pointing at him. “So hypothetically, if anyone was to leave…”

He chuckled, his eyes gleaming. “Mm, should I leave then?”

“No,” you said with a grin. “In fact, I don’t think either of us should. Let’s just stay here for the rest of our lives.”

He stretched out his arm as if offering you his hand. “Will you come here please?”

You pretended to think about it, then approached him with a giggle that turned into a squeal when he grabbed you by the waist to pull you to his lap. You wrapped your arms around his neck, your heart slamming against your ribcage as he leaned in to kiss you, making you heave a happy sigh.

“Good morning my love,” he muttered to your lips, stroking your cheekbone and coaxing a smile from you.

“Good morning.”

“Remind me again, why are you wearing clothes?”

You let out a small laugh. “For decorum, obviously,” you teased him. “I mean surely you cannot disagree with propriety, can you?”

“I absolutely can,” he said, stealing a kiss from you as his hand trailed up your leg, pushing the skirt of your shift up, awakening fire on your skin. “To hell with decorum.”

You felt nearly intoxicated as a giggle climbed up your throat and he rolled you over to get on top of you, settling between your legs, holding himself up on one arm to look down at you with a soft smile.

“God, I’ll never be able to paint this…” he murmured and you tilted your head, stroking your fingertips over his chest, right over his heart.

“Well I suppose you’ll have to settle for the feeling rather than the depiction,” you tried to joke, stealing a look at him before the thought hit you, making you furrow your brows. He knew you too well not to notice it, so he pulled back just a little.

“What is it?”

“This doesn’t change things, does it?”

“What do you mean?”

You swallowed thickly, looking up at him.

“You won’t take it back now that I…” you trailed off. “You won’t stop loving me now that I said I love you?”

That fond look appeared in his blue eyes again and he smiled at you, then reached to your hand to rest your palm flat against his chest, letting you feel his strong heartbeat.

“This life and beyond, remember?” he murmured. “I couldn’t stop loving you if I tried.”

You pressed your lips together and he tilted his head.

“You don’t believe me?”

“I do, but I just don’t see how,” you muttered. “I mean I’ve— I’ve been terrible to you.”

“No you haven’t.”

You scoffed. “Ben.”

“What?” he said with a small laugh. “You haven’t.”

“Just yesterday I accused you of cheating on me.”

“I mean it brought us here to this so I’m not complaining,” he said, wiggling his brows and drawing a burst of laughter from your lips.

“No but ever since we met, I’ve been…” you mumbled. “Not nice to you.”

“You were.”

You shot him a look and the corners of his lips twitched upwards.

“It’s a subjective matter.”

You looked around the greenhouse before turning your glances to him. “Can I ask you something?”

“You can ask me anything.”

“Why did you do all this for me when you didn’t even know I was in love with you?”

He frowned slightly, thinking for a moment before shaking his head.

“I didn’t do this so that you would fall in love with me,” he said. “I did it because I want you to be happy. Simple as that.”

You felt as if your heart was melting and you leaned up to kiss him but the sound of a movement by the door reached you, making Benedict roll off you to shield you with his body as soon as the door opened and Mr. Binsted walked in.

“Oh—my apologies!” he exclaimed as soon as his eyes fell on you two, then he looked up, his whole face going red. “Sir. Ma’am.”

“Mr. Binsted,” Benedict said, trying to keep a straight face as if nothing was out of the ordinary while you stayed behind him, your cheeks burning. “Good morning.”

“Hello,” you murmured, still hiding behind Benedict and Mr. Binsted nodded, keeping his eyes on the ceiling.

“Good morning, I’ll just—come back later,” he stammered and left, almost stumbling over his own feet in his haste. You buried your face to Benedict’s shoulder, gripping his arm tightly and letting out a whine while he started laughing.

“Oh my God…” you said. “Oh my God, I can never look him in the eye again.”

Benedict tried to stop his laughter and shook his head, then turned to you.

“Could’ve been worse,” he commented and grabbed you by the waist to get you under him, making you let out a clear laugh despite yourself. “Besides, look on the bright side.”

You raised your brows, still smiling. “And what is that?”

“Well you see my love, now…” he dipped his head to brush his lips against yours, that familiar fire spreading through your veins as his hand pushed your skirt up. “Now we know no one will be disturbing us for a while.”

                                         *

If somebody told you that one day you would have the greenhouse of your dreams, including the rarest flower in the world and you would spend the whole day away from it, you would have laughed in their face.

Yet in your defense, Benedict had a way of convincing you.

It felt like you were put under some sort of spell, that fire only he managed to breathe into life taking over you until the only thing in your mind was him. After leaving the greenhouse, you had every intention of going back once you had some breakfast but before you knew it, you both found yourselves in his bed.

You could not believe you had denied yourself the bliss for so long when you could’ve been doing this for months and more importantly, you couldn’t believe you were still hungry for him even after spending hours in the bed with him, completely lost in the pleasure.

And the worst part? You actually had to step away from his room and from him so that your maid could do your hair for tonight, for Gordon’s gala.

For some reason, every single act except the marital act felt entirely unnecessary to you now that you had gotten a taste of it.

Paula retrieved her hands from your hair, letting you look in the mirror to check your bun and you turned your head, then smiled at her.

“Thank you.”

“Of course ma’am,” she said as you stood up, and put your corset over your shift. She went behind you to put the laces into the hoops but you turned your head when you heard the knock on the door.

“Y/N?”

A bright smile warmed your lips. “Come in Ben!”

The door opened and he stepped inside, and you turned to Paula.

“You may leave, thank you.”

Paula curtsied and left the room, and you grinned at Benedict, leaning back to the vanity.

“You look too handsome,” you said, your lips pulled into a small pout as your gaze wandered over him. Unlike you, he looked very much ready to go outside and attend this gala you two were expected in, yet the only thing you wanted to do was to drag him to bed, outside world be damned.

And judging by the mischievous look in his blue eyes, he shared the sentiment.

“Let’s just skip this one,” he said, approaching you and your jaw dropped, an exaggerated shock clear on your face.

“We made a promise,” you reminded him. “It’s Gordon’s gala.

He hummed, leaning down to kiss you and you giggled, turning around.

“Help me?” you asked airily, watching him on the mirror a playful smirk curled his lips, then his hands went to the laces of your corset. A giddy laugh climbed up your throat as you reached back to grab at his wrist when you realized the corset getting even looser.

“Lace up Ben, not unlace.”

“We can just tell them we had something to do.”

“Lace up,” you teased him with a small smile and he heaved a dramatic sigh, then tugged at the laces, the corset getting tighter around your body. The memory of earlier today flashed before your eyes, with his tight grip around your waist and you felt your cheeks burn, the familiar fire coming to life at your lower stomach.

“You’re killing me, you know that?” he murmured, dipping his head to press a kiss on the crook of your neck and your eyes fluttered close for a moment before you tried to see through the haze of desire, willing yourself to turn around to look up at him.

“I owe Gordon,” you said, playing with the lapels of his jacket. “For coming to my aunt’s ball. Besides, is he not your hero in art?”

“He is,” he said, one hand playing with the front ribbon of your corset absentmindedly and you entwined your fingers with his. He raised your hand to press a kiss on the back of it, making your stomach do a pleasant flip.

“What if his painting tonight is a masterpiece and you miss it?” you taunted him and he scoffed.

“I have the most beautiful masterpiece in front of me right now,” he said. “I’m not interested in anything else.”

A fire swept over your cheeks and stood on your tiptoes to brush your lips against his.

“You remember what you said about me being the death of you?” you asked. “Now to think of it, I think we might have gotten it backwards.”

                                              *

There was no wonder why everyone in the ton was competing rather ruthlessly for the invitations for Gordon’s gala, because as far as you could tell, the guests only consisted of his very close friends. When you and Benedict walked in, you couldn’t help but notice that you had seen most of these people at the parties Benedict had taken you to, which meant the majority of them were artists.

Not that you had any chance to talk to them. Ever since the beginning of the gala, while waiting for Gordon to unveil the painting in the middle of the room, you and Benedict had been inseparable. Perhaps it was good that only a handful of people who were more open about public displays of affection were here with you because if it were any other ball or social outing, you were certain you would have been criticized and made to Lady Whistledown’s newest edition about your lack of decorum, and yet you couldn’t find it in you to care.

This daze you found yourself in his presence didn’t seem to be going away, and thankfully he seemed to have the exact same issue.

“What happens though?” you asked, comfortable in Benedict’s arms while he nuzzled into your hair, his fingertips running up and down your spine while you looked at the paintings on the walls. “There’s the gala, and then they put the painting in a museum straightaway?”

“In Gordon’s case yes,” he said, “It’s already sold I’m guessing.”

“The painting tonight?”

“Mm hm.”

“But it’s the gala.”

“Buyers see it before the ton,” he said with a smile. “And considering how famous he is, I’m willing to bet multiple museums and collectors climbed all over each other to get it, it must’ve been sold within minutes.”  

You let out a breath and looked up at him.

“And are you excited to see it?” you asked. “The painting?”

“If you asked me before yesterday, I would have been,” he admitted. “Now, I don’t care much about it.”

“You’re an artist!”

“I’m a husband as well, and that side of me weighs much more at the moment,” he said and looked around. “You know, I’m quite certain Gordon has guest rooms.”

You tried to contain your laughter. “Shh!”

“No I’m serious, because there’s still time until—”

“Did you two not come here from the same house?” Henry’s voice cut him off, making you and Benedict turn your heads and then Benedict buried his nose to the top of your hair, his arms wrapped around your waist as if you two were alone. “Was there some sort of war and you just got back while I wasn’t looking?”

“Hello Henry.”

“Y/N,” he greeted you back with a teasing smile while Benedict rested his chin on top of your head. “I’m terribly sorry to interrupt this, but I need to borrow him for a moment. Ben, Mr. Allingham is here.”

“Hm?” Benedict asked after a moment as if he was having a hard time focusing just like you and Henry blinked a couple of times.

“Mr. Allingham?” he repeated. “One of the directors of the Academy? Are you—is he alright?”

You bit back a smile and shrugged your shoulders. “Oh I’d say he’s more than alright.”

“Come on, I’ll introduce you,” Henry said, grabbing him by the arm to pull him away from you gently and you covered your lips to hide your grin.

“Henry, I was—”

“With your wife yes, she’ll be there after you’re done talking to Allingham. Artists in love, honestly…” Henry said as they both walked to the other side of the gallery and you looked around, then caught the side of Margery and Lucy. You took a glass of champagne from the footman, then approached them.

“Oh hello Y/N!”

“Hello,” you smiled at them. “Um—terribly sorry to interrupt but I just wanted to thank you, Margery.”

She raised her brows and gave you a small smile. “The surprise?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t mention it,” she said with a wink while Lucy looked between you two.

“What surprise?”

“Benedict had a surprise for Y/N, I happened to know a person who could help,” she said airily. “I’m glad you liked it. Consider it my apology for all those stupid rumors about him and me.”

“It’s beyond me how anyone could ever believe those.” Lucy commented and you shifted your weight, nodding fervently.

“I know,” you said with a scoff, waving a hand in the air. “Complete nonsense, I doubt anyone actually believed it.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, if I could have your attention,” you heard Gordon’s voice and the chatter of the crowd ceased immediately. You saw him making his way to the covered painting in the middle of the gallery and everyone followed him.

“Let’s see the painting first and then I have so much to tell you,” Margery said, squeezing your hand before Lucy winked at you and pulled her towards the rest of the crowd. You felt someone touching the small of your back and Benedict pressed a kiss on your temple.

“Come on,” he said, gently leading you closer to the painting and you entwined your fingers with his, leaning your head to his arm when you came to a stop. Gordon smiled at you two, then cleared his throat and turned to the guests.

“I’ve always thought a painting should speak for itself rather than the artist speaking for it,” he said. “But I feel confident in saying that love continues to inspire each and every one of us, may it be our actions or art. Therefore, I’m glad to share The Artist and the Muse with you.”

With that, he pulled the cover off of the painting and the crowd gasped, a round of applause rising soon after. You tilted your head and stepped closer to the painting, a slight frown furrowing your brows.

There was no wonder Gordon was a living legend in the art world, it was such a beautiful painting that it almost took you by surprise. The two figures in the garden under the moonlight seemed to be in an embrace, their faces hidden but you didn’t even need to see their faces to know that they were in love. You had no idea how Gordon had managed to depict it, but anyone who so much as laid eyes on the painting would be able to tell this was some sort of an escapade from the crowd, as if those figures were the only lovers left in the world.

“How did he…?” Benedict breathed out and you looked up at him.

“He really is insanely talented,” you commented. “I mean I feel as if they’re familiar, I don’t get that feeling from many paintings.”

Benedict turned to look at you better as if trying to see whether you were jesting.

“I mean I’d assume so,” he said. “Considering we’re looking at ourselves.”

Your head shot up. “What?”

“Coleshill Ball,” Benedict said, motioning at the painting. “That’s the garden, that’s…that’s the gown you were wearing. We stepped outside for a moment, remember? Danced in the garden?”

Your jaw dropped as the memory flashed through your mind. Benedict was right, it was all familiar; the garden, the gown, the scenery itself. That was the night where you had apologized to Benedict and you two had danced in the garden, with him holding you close, away from the ton and their nonsense almost like a shelter.

Gordon had told you, way before tonight.

The storm and the shelter weren’t separate things as it turned out.

“Well you two look rather shocked,” Gordon’s voice snapped you out of it and Benedict let out a laugh.

“Gordon, is that…”

“You, yes,” he said. “Not to worry, I will never tell people it’s you. I just happened to be looking out of the window, desperate to get away from the ton and all that chatter and I saw you two dancing and…well, I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you how inspiration works Ben. Y/N, I hope you don’t mind?”

You shook your head fervently.

“No,” you said. “God no, not at all. I…I don’t know what to say, Gordon. It's an honor.”

Gordon bowed his head.

“It’s not the last painting that will have you as its subject I’m sure,” he smiled, nodding in Benedict’s direction. “I’d better go and say hello to Allingham, if you’ll excuse me. Enjoy the gala.”

With that, he walked away from you and Benedict exhaled, still in disbelief. You stepped into his embrace, keeping your eyes on the painting and he dipped his head to kiss the top of your hair.

“You know, Gordon is a legend,” he muttered. “Which means this painting will be gazed upon for centuries.”

Blinking until her vision was clear, Y/n looked across to room to see Marlene leant up against the wall.

“We gave you a shot for your ribs,” she continued, “But it’s not magic.”

“Yeah, well, maybe you should’ve put out a PSA,” Y/n replied groggily, the force of the flash bomb coming back to her.

Marlene smiled thinly, “Could’ve found a phone along the way.”

Y/n bristled at the joke, relieved to see her comrade alive.

“Gotta admit,” Marlene crossed her arms, “I didn’t expect to see you all in one piece. Figured you’d either run into raiders or you and Joel would go the double-homicide route.”

Y/n held her belly as she attempted to sit up. “Almost did,” she groaned, “A few times.”

“Well,” Marlene gestured to Y/n, watching her with honest eyes, “I underestimated you. You did good.”

Y/n wanted to accept the praise, having finally proven herself as a fighter, but was single-minded in her thoughts. “Where’s Joel?”

“Recovering in another room,” Marlene answered, “His vitals are good, just hasn’t woken up yet.”

Nodding, Y/n carefully swung her legs over the side of the bed, ”When he wakes up, tell him to come find me? Ellie’s probably worried sick…”

“Where are you going?” Marlene asked.

Y/n stopped to take a breath, whatever medicine they’d given her hadn’t kicked in yet. “To see Ellie,” she answered plainly, “She’s okay, right?”

Marlene sighed with dread, knowing whatever was about to happen wouldn’t be pleasant. But she also had a one-track mind, and it was humming a different tune than Y/n’s.

“She’s fine,” she replied, her tone having shifted to instill a false calm, “She’s being prepped for surgery.”

Y/n’s brow furrowed in confusion, “Surgery? I thought they were just taking her blood?”

“It’s…” Marlene said with a heaviness to her tone, “A little more complicated than that.”

Even though the ache in Y/n’s temples was dizzying, it didn’t take her long to connect the dots as to why it would require surgery to facilitate the vaccine.

And she felt the floor go out from under her when she did.

She looked up to Marlene, barely able to even shake her head, “No…”

Marlene bit her lip, turning her gaze from Y/n and to the floor.

“No…” Y/n repeated, her voice low, “N-no…you wouldn’t.”

Marlene’s painful silence sliced through her.

“Are you kidding me?” Y/n’s volume grew loud with anger, giving her the strength to stand, “You made me risk my life for that girl for three fucking months just so you can kill her?!”

“She wouldn’t have come here with anyone other than you,” Marlene replied calmly, “She trusts you.”

“So you used me,” Y/n’s eyes widened with rage, “You knew I cared about her, you knew I’d do it.”

“You’re not looking at the big picture,” Marlene interjected, taking a step forward but not moving any closer to Y/n, “We get the vaccince, we save millions. We save the millions to come. We can bring the world back to what-“

The rest of Marlene’s words died to the ringing in Y/n’s ears. She braced one of her hands against her bed, feeling as if her knees were going to buckle.

Throughout her time in the Fireflies, Marlene had never entrusted Y/n with as much information as other recruits. It wasn’t for doubt of Y/n’s interests, but rather Marlene thinking Y/n was incapable of handling it. She’d always been slow to pull the trigger, something that had in any other world would have made her merciful. Marlene had only ever seen it as weakness.

Marlene’s opinion of Y/n wasn’t lost on her, she felt it on a daily basis. But to make her travel from one side of the country to another, witholding the sickening truth of what she was doing from her, that was a new brand of cruel.

“She’s going to fix everything,” were the first words of Marlene’s that broke through Y/n’s spinning thoughts.

Her head shot up, staring daggers at Marlene, “You don’t get to make that decision for her.”

“And you do?” Marlene replied, “What gives you the right to choose her fate?”

“Did you ask her?” Y/n inquired, the building rage beginning to seep out of her, “No, y’know what? I can tell by your face that you didn’t.”

“She doesn’t know,” Marlene could feel control over the conversation slipping, she needed to deescalate it quickly, “She’s not going to feel anything.”

“YOU’RE KILLING,” Y/n yelled as loud as her lungs would let her, “A FUCKING CHILD!”

At the last word, two guards stationed outside Y/n’s door marched in, their rifles cocked downards, but ready to strike.

Y/n was quickly starting to understand the gravity of her situation.

Marlene held out a hand to Y/n, as if trying to ease a carnivorous animal. “Do you think I want to do this? Do you not think that I’ve looked for any other option-“

“No,” Y/n shook her head, “I don’t think you have.”

“I knew her mother, Y/n,” Marlene spoke a little louder, “I was there when she was born, and I had to put a bullet in my best friend’s head because she was infected. I promised to keep her child safe. I do not want to do this,” she paused, collecting herself, “But it’s my only choice.”

Three months prior, hearing such a personal story would have meant something to Y/n. Now, it only served to illuminate the true colors of her comrade. Marlene, so blinded by her determination to restore the earth, had allowed her drive to turn to ruthlessness and morph into heartlessness.

“No,” Y/n said, fighting back tears at the thought of Ellie lying unconscious somehwere in the hospital, “Look me in the eye and tell me her mother would want this,” she waited, until impatience won out, “LOOK AT ME!”

Marlene was a lot of things, blunt was one of them. She looked up to Y/n’s red face, unaware of the storm her words were about to trigger, “You’re not her mother.”

The waves in Y/n’s body both crashed and fell at the statement. It was twenty years all over again.

“Take me to Joel,” she swallowed her tears, “I want to see Joel.” When Marlene averted her gaze once again, Y/n could feel some other essential piece of truth shift into darkness. “Marlene,” she gritted out, “Where’s Joel?”

“He’s gone,” Marlene answered, “He left as soon as he knew that you and Ellie were okay.”

Y/n lip quivered with fury, the lies were so clear now. Joel and her hadn’t gone through all they had, made the promises they did only for him to abandon her and Ellie. “No. He wouldn’t do that.”

“I don’t know what you want to hear,” Marlene said, “But he’s gone.”

It was then that Y/n realized she was no longer a Firefly, but a prisoner.

With the last shred of her future slipping being ripped away from her, Y/n’s fury took over. She lunged towards Marlene, one of the soldiers surging forward and shoving her back onto the bed. Y/n cried out in pain, clutching her stomach as the barrel of the rifle was drawn on her.

“Don’t,” Marlene ordered the guard, “She’s already hurt.”

Y/n could no longer hold in her sobs. Ellie had been fooled into dying for a solution they didn’t even know was guaranteed, Joel was being forced to leave them behind, and she was essentially being held hostage by those she’d once trusted with her life.

“You keep her here,” Marlene continued speaking to the guards as if the pain was too incapacitating for Y/n to have any presence of mind, “Lock the doors. Don’t let her out until she calms down.”

Still weeping from both the ache in her ribs and the turn of events, Y/n nearly didn’t open her eyes when she heard Marlene’s boot steps come towards her.

“I know you care about her,” Marlene said softly, “She cares about you too. But there’s such a thing as caring too much…and I’m sorry.”

Through her tears, Y/n watched as her one-time friend walked out the door, washing her hands of the matter.

“You motherfucker,” Y/n growled, getting her feet as the guards exited the room, “You fucking murderer!”

As the door shut and locked on her, Y/n began to bang her fists against the 8x10 pane of glass, “YOU FUCKING MURDERER! YOU MOTHERFUCKING MURDERER!”

Y/n screamed at the top of her lungs, hot tears pouring down her face as three months of love and care wilted at her feet.

—————————

In reality, Joel was on the next floor down, fighting for his, Y/n and Ellie’s futures. He knew that the love of his life would never roll over and allow them to take Ellie’s life.

“Where’s Y/n?”

Marlene sighed at the question, contrary to what she was sure her reputation was, deception didn’t come easily to her. But she did what she had to for her cause.

There had always been a fire in Y/n, however tamed it was by her more virtuous qualities. Marlene had kept a careful eye on the blaze, never thinking it would spread too far. But there’d been a change in Y/n since they’d last seen each other in Boston, and she was certain her love for Ellie and time spent with Joel had brought it out in her. If they had survived three months in the ruins of civilization, they were dangerous. They needed to be kept apart if the surgery was to be a success.

“She’s decided to stay,” Marlene locked in her story, “She wants to see this through all the way.”

Joel didn’t believe for 1/8th of a second that Y/n would have lied to him. He’d looked in her eyes and watched twenty years of history dance across her irises. He could feel the weight of their future inside his chest, glowing gold with hope. There was no way after all they’d been through that she would walk away from him, just like that…

“No, you take me to ‘em,” he demanded, rising from the bed, “You take me to ‘em right now!”

One of Marlene’s guards came forward and used the butt of his rifle to knock him to the ground. Joel grunted and coughed on his hands and knees, his mind spinning with fear.

“Please,” he begged of Marlene, “You don’t understand.”

“I do,” Marlene said solemnly, reciting a less emotional variation of the story she’d told Y/n five minutes prior, “I was there when she was born, Joel. I promised her mom that I would save her child, I promised,” she paused to swallow back the lump rising in her throat, “So I do understand. I’m the only one who understands. I’m sorry,” she shook her head, “I have no other choice.”

Joel was a lot of things, but a coward wasn’t one of them. He glared up at Marlene, subtly threatening, “I do.”

Marlene looked exasperated, like his fight was some obstacle in her path to roll her eyes at. “Walk him out to the highway,” she ordered the soldiers, “Leave him there with his pack. Give him this,” she unclipped Ellie’s pocketknife from her belt, turning her stare to Joel, “He tries anything…shoot him.”

Joel, dazed from the knowledge that Ellie and Y/n were being held somewhere, was forced to his feet. The soldiers pushed him out of the room, picking his backpack up on the way out, and shoved him down the hall.

All the while, Joel was carefully constructing his plan.

—————————

Y/n sat with her back to the door, twisting her arm to hit the wood with what little energy she had left. She had sobbed and screamed to be let out until her voice was rendered raw.

She had failed. Failed Ellie. Failed Joel. Failed herself.

She wondered if this was her punishment for what she’d done to her family. If for each life she’d taken, she’d lose somebody in return.

She thought of Sarah, her death that seemed to be written in some fucked up universe’s stars, and how she ached for the future she’d never live. The proms, the graduations, coming home from college during holidays, getting engaged, getting married, having kids…all of it. Or none of it. Her choices would have determined her story and whichever path she’d have chosen, it would have been beautiful.

Ellie had been deprived of so many choices in life, and now she was being deprived of choosing whether she lived or died.

By deciding to let Ellie give her life for a cause that wasn’t even hers, the Fireflies were no better than FEDRA. Marlene was making the same calls that the government had made in the first few days of the outbreak. Who got to go to the QZs and who died in a ditch on the side of a road, whose life had lasting value and who was disposable. It sickened Y/n’s stomach and made her wish she had never joined at all.

Since meeting Ellie, Y/n had often contemplated the ghost of the girl’s mother. Having filled the role herself and feeling like Sarah had been carved from her own ribs, she couldn’t imagine what it was like to carry a child, birth her, and then lose her somewhere along the way…now, all she could think of was what Ellie’s mother would do if she were trapped as Y/n was. Would she fight? Would she break the glass with her fist and take on the guards? Or was she just cruel enough to sacrifice her daughter for the greater good? Could Y/n have left Sarah to die if, in some way, she’d held the key to the planet’s salvation?

Y/n took a deep breath, her mind the clearest it had been since waking up.

No parent would let their child die, no matter the circumstances.

And neither could she.

—————————

Joel paused in front of the hospital directory, eyes scanning over the levels and their corresponding departments. He was two floors away from pediatric surgery, and unknowingly, one floor away from where Y/n was being held.

“I didn’t hear anyone say ‘stop,’” one of the Fireflies behind him growled.

Joel glanced down the hall, “Which way?”

“Down the stairs,” the soldier answered, shoving Joel towards the stairwell.

With each flight Joel marched down, he was completing calculations in his mind. How quick did he have to move to take out both guardsmen? Which gun would be easier to reach? Did he rescue Ellie first or find Y/n and gain an extra pair of hands?

Once he decided, he let his steps slow until he came to a complete stop.

“The fuck are you doin’? Keep walking.”

Joel ignored the command.

“I said,” the Firefly grabbed Joel’s shoulder, “Keep walkin’-“

Lightning fast, Joel spun around, elbowing the man in the neck and knocking him to the floor. He nabbed his rifle as he fell, spinning around to shoot the second guard before he could even aim. Taking two steps back, he fired one shot into the first man’s leg.

“Fuck,” the soldier whimpered.

“Where are they?” Joel asked, his finger perfectly still against the trigger.

“Fuck you,” the Firefly growled.

Joel didn’t need his answer. Bill’s written words were etched in the caverns of his mind, about finding that one person to save. In Joel’s case, there were two people worth saving-

“I don’t have time for this,” he decided before planting a bullet in the man’s neck.

And he was doing it by any means necessary.

—————————

Y/n fiddled with her pocketknife in her hand, pacing the room as the pain in her ribs disappeared under the blanket of whatever medication Marlene had given her. She needed the guards outside her room to get pulled away so that she could pick the door’s lock. Once out, she had to steal a gun, find where Ellie was being held, figure out if Joel was still in the building and get them the hell out of dodge.

All she needed was a chance.

“Shots fired! Shots fired!”

The buzz of a radio caught Y/n’s ear, it pulled her to the door and she peered out the glass pane. The pencil stiff stance the soldiers had been maintaining was suddenly sharp with worry. One guard came running down the hall, shouting something Y/n couldn’t make out. Whatever it was caused her captors to charge down the hall as well. It was a threat that required every hand on deck.

Y/n nearly smiled, knowing exactly who could cause that kind of panic.

Slipping her blade into the lock, she fiddled with it until the door opened, freeing her. She threw her backpack over her shoulder, her eye catching on a tray balanced on the bedside table. It contained the used needle they’d already injected her with, plus one full syringe. Y/n picked up the two vials near the needles, one labeled ‘ibuprofen’ and one labeled ‘epinephrine.’

Y/n was weak, her body’s strength drained from trying to heal her ribs. There wasn’t any way she could fight her way out in her current state.

Without hesitation, she squeezed the flesh of her thigh and stabbed the needle through her jeans, discarding it on the floor after.

Drawing a deep breath, Y/n poked her head out the door, looking down each side of the hall before cutting across to the nurse’s station. She scanned the length of the counters for anything she could use as a weapon, finding only old papers and equipment. Distantly below her, she could hear gunfire.

“Hey,” a gruff voice shouted.

Y/n spun around, barely dropping to the floor before the Firefly soldier fired two shots at her. Crouched on the tile, she could feel the epinephrine beginning to kick in, bringing back the strength she’d lost in Silver Lake. She withdrew her knife once again, hiding behind the nurse’s station and listening to the footsteps of the Firefly come closer.

Y/n knew that to save what she loved, she would have to leave whatever was left of her humanity. The part of her that had hesitated to kill had to die by her own hands.

The soldier moved closer.

Closer…

The second his boot became visible, Y/n stabbed the knife through his foot, punching him in the chin when he bent down in pain. She got to her feet and ripped the rifle out of the Firefly’s hands, shooting him in the stomach after.

She stepped over his body, leaving him to bleed out.

—————————

Joel’s steps were inhumanly silent as he crept through the hospital. He fired each shot with machine-like precision, each Firefly falling to the floor, never to pick themselves back up.

Joel had killed countless times since the outbreak of Cordyceps and had felt a healthy dose of remorse. The innocent people he’d killed in his days as a Raider haunted him, much like they did Tommy, and he wasn’t sure he’d ever forget Y/n’s eyes as she’d watched him murder the FEDRA guard in Boston.

But as Joel stealthily made his way through the hospital, firing each bullet for the love of his life and the child they loved more than anything, he felt nothing.

—————————

Y/n had tried so hard to live as peacefully as the world would allow her. Despite joining the Fireflies, she never volunteered for first line of defense. If bombs were planted in the city, Y/n was the one counting them, not detonating them. As much as she’d hidden initially from Joel with bloody threats, she’d never committed any acts of violence unless they were absolutely necessary.

Marching down the hospital halls, tears pooled in her eyes with each kill she made until she was sobbing. Flashes of her parents, her siblings, her nephew, Sarah, played in her mind. Their innocence and their gruesome deaths she’d forever feel responsible for. Saving Ellie wouldn’t bring them back, but she couldn’t let another person she cared for die.

Red cheeked and puffy eyed, she murdered without hesitation, allowing love to turn her into a necessary monster.

—————————

Joel went from victim to victim, playing God and delivering their vicious, premature fates. Each time he ran out of ammo, he’d pick up the rifle of his last kill. It all flowed so sickeningly perfect.

He climbed the fourth floor stairwell, shooting the Fireflies attempting to sneak up on him before they knew what was going on. With his better ear, he could hear the gunfire on the floor he was approaching.

He wasn’t the only one putting up a fight.

As soon as Joel stepped onto the fifth floor, a barrage of bullets rained down around him. He ducked behind a wall, waiting for them to slow before running across to the other side of the hall. He let his ammo fly freely, taking down the Fireflies as sloppily as he needed to.

Just as he aimed at the final one, the soldier was kicked to the floor, Y/n stepping on his back and making a fatal shot.

Through his necessary numbness, Joel felt a rush of relief.

Y/n ignored every instinct she had to run into Joel’s arms and instead bent down, picking up the soldier’s rifle and the extra ammo off his belt. Joel did the same with a nearby body.

The two lovers met in the middle of the hall, their weapons resting against their chests, separating their bodies.

Twenty years ago, they were somewhere in a downtown bar, Joel trying to make her laugh and Y/n trying to pretend like she was perfectly capable of taking her eyes off of him. They were warm, they were happy, they were them.

Two decades later, they were stood in an abandoned hospital, rifles on their shoulders, blood on their clothes and vengeance in their eyes. They were bruised, they were broken, they were survivors.

They carried on the same way, shooting anyone who dared to get in their way as they climbed the building. Joel made the more gruesome kills, trying to spare Y/n what little pain he could, but Y/n was fearsome in her own right. The adrenaline from the epinephrine had heightened her senses, making her hyperaware of everything around her. If a Firefly so much as stepped an inch out from behind a wall, Y/n’s rifle was trained on him, not letting him live more than half a second.

Eventually, they made it.

The sixth floor.

With their sin all over them, Joel and Y/n walked down the hallway, passing the walls decorated with animal murals and creating a gruesome contrast. The glowing door at the end of the hall acted as their guiding light, the homing beacon they’d chased through the bloody battlefield they’d created.

Joel pushed the door open and they walked in, a window giving them a view into the operating room. Ellie was laid out on a table, a nurse was holding a gas mask to her face, drawing her into unconsciousness.

They were nearly too late.

Y/n, with adrenaline pumping through her veins, broke away from Joel and burst through the second set of doors. The doctor and nurses gasped in horror, jumping at the sudden sight.

“Unhook her,” Y/n growled, “Now.”

The doctor took a step towards Y/n, “How did you get in here?”

Joel was close behind her, Y/n’s speed drawing him out of his daze. “Unhook her,” he echoed.

The doctor nervously reached for a scalpel, holding it up to Joel and Y/n with shaking hands. “I won’t let you take her.”

He’d taken one step towards Y/n before Joel shot him, beating the epinephrine to protect her.

The nurses screamed and covered their ears, Y/n took it as her opportunity to move in on them.

“Un,” she enunciated, backing the women up towards Ellie’s bed, “Hook…her…now.”

“Move!” Joel shouted, keeping his gun drawn on them.

The nurses stepped to, unhooking Ellie’s various monitors and taking out her IV, a small stream of blood escaping the leftover hole. Joel couldn’t stand the sight of her bleeding.

“Cover her arm,” he ordered once again, “Fast.”

They obeyed and taped a piece of gauze to Ellie’s arm.

“Turn around,” Joel said as Y/n came back to stand beside him.

The nurses, shaking and whimpering in fear for their lives, did as they were told and turned their backs. Y/n kept her gun trained on them while Joel moved to Ellie, cupping the back of her neck and sitting her up. With the reassurance of her shallow breaths against his neck, his worst fear stayed buried twenty years in the past. He lifted Ellie into his arms delicately, his brutality melting to tenderness as soon as he’d touched her.

As Joel carried Ellie out of the room, Y/n stayed on his six and kept her gun aimed. She didn’t spare a glance at the doctor or the operating table as she left, unable to look at even one reminder of what could have been.

Joel and Y/n made it back down the hall, walking with the speed of criminals but the exhaustion of two people who had just laid waste to the world. Y/n tapped the elevator call button rapidly, the true effect of the epinephrine was starting to hit. She stumbled into the car behind Joel, smacking the button for the parking garage and leaned up against the wall. Her heart was slamming against her chest, sweat was pooling at her temples, her body was buzzing.

Joel peered over at her, concerned, and received a passive shake of the head.

“Is she okay?” Y/n whispered in between panting breaths.

“Yeah,” Joel mumbled, staring down at Ellie. The reality of the decision they’d made was beginning to hit them both.

They were dooming the world to save theirs.

The elevator gave them little time to think, dinging as it hit the bottom floor and opening its doors. Y/n stepped out ahead of Joel, her rifle pointed towards any threats lurking in the shadows. Joel spotted a parked and running car, the two of them made a beeline for the vehicle.

“You can’t keep her safe forever.”

Y/n spun around, Marlene stepped out from the darkness with her handgun drawn. Y/n didn’t hesitate to keep her rifle raised.

“No matter how hard you two try,” Marlene took slow, steady steps towards them, “No matter how many people you kill, she’s gonna grow up. And then you’ll die, she’ll leave. Then what? How long till she’s torn apart by Infected or murdered by raiders? Because she lives in a broken world that you could have saved.”

There was truth to what Marlene was saying, neither Joel nor Y/n could deny that.

“Maybe,” Joel answered, “But it isn’t for you to decide.”

“Or you two,” Marlene replied, her eyes flicking to Ellie, “So what would she decide, huh? ‘Cause I think she’d wanna do what’s right.”

Y/n nearly flinched, torn between Ellie’s fierce desire to protect and the plans she had for her future.

“And you know it,” Marlene’s gaze fell on Y/n, seeing the unsureness from her comrade. She slowly lowered her gun, “It’s not too late. Even now, even after what you two’ve done…we can still find a way.”

Y/n and Joel had lost everything to Cordyceps, one way or another. They’d lost their daughter, Y/n had lost her future with Joel and Tommy, her family, Joel had eventually lost Tommy, Tess, Bill and Frank…Cordyceps had taken anything and everything meaningful in their lives. They should have been first in line for advocating for a cure, and they would have been…

But nothing, not even the salvation of the world, was worth losing Ellie.

And that was what made it so easy for Y/n to shoot Marlene in the gut.

As soon as her former friend dropped to the floor, Y/n’s gun fell from her hands and her knees began to wobble. The room was spinning and her heartbeat was ramping up even further. The epinephrine was backfiring.

“No, no, no,” Joel mumbled, spinning around to put his back to Y/n as she fell forward, “Hold onto me.”

Y/n weakly reached around Joel’s neck and looped her arms around him.

Joel strained under the combination of Y/n and Ellie’s body weight, but his determination surpassed his body’s abilities. Carrying one and dragging the other, he fought his way to the truck. He shuffled Ellie in his arms to reach for the door, sliding her carefully into the backseat, before handling Y/n.

“What’s wrong?” Joel asked, twisting his body to take her into his arms, “What’s happening?”

Y/n, beginning to lose her grip on consciousness, shook her head once again and let her head loll against Joel’s shoulder.

“Hang on, hang on, honey,” Joel hurried, growing panicked that her injury had finally gotten to her and torn an organ, “Just hang on for me.”

Joel blindly reached for the passenger side door, he lifted Y/n with a grunt and placed her carefully in the seat. Brushing his hand against her cheek, he wiped the sweat off her skin.

“Rose,” Joel called in a rush as Y/n’s eyes began to flutter shut, slapping her face a few times, “Rose, honey, come on. Stay with me.”

A groan from behind them drew Joel’s attention and got Y/n to open her eyes. The two of them shared a knowing look, Joel swallowing harshly before dragging his fingers down Y/n’s perspiring cheek and unholstering his gun.

Y/n’s gaze followed him as he walked away from her, through the haze of the drugs, she felt some semblance of guilt. Not enough to make her call Joel’s name and ask he show mercy towards Marlene, but some little inkling of guilt that stood the chance at gnawing at her conscience if she ever came back to lucidity.

In the seconds before the bullet released from its chamber, Y/n memorialized her time with the Fireflies. She grieved their attempts to save Boston in the dark of night. The kids they’d lost in the fight, so eager to help, like Riley. All the battles that had seemed like part of something grander that now felt meaningless, now having seen the end goal. If death only bred death, and violence only bred violence, then perhaps there was truth to the old saying…the road to hell was paved with good intentions.

She tried, she thought, as a few tears escaped her eyes, she’d tried so hard to make a difference…

It had just been with the wrong people.

Joel fired one shot

Y/n was freed.

Joel hurried back to the truck and to Y/n’s side, her eyes were now shut and her pulse was slapping against her neck.

“Honey, come on,” Joel said softly, trying to calm both of them down, “I need you to take some deep breaths. Nice and slow.”

“Drive,” Y/n breathed, her heart practically beating out of her chest. Regardless of whether the epinephrine was going to kill her or not, they needed to escape.

Joel hesitated before pressing a kiss to Y/n’s forehead and shutting her door. He ran around the car, slamming its hood down and jumping in the driver’s seat. The keys were still in the ignition, there was nearly a full tank of gas. They were going to make it.

Joel looked over to Y/n, who had gone limp in her seat.

“Rose,” Joel practically shouted, reaching over to feel his love’s wrist, still feeling her pulse working overtime, “Honey, c’mon, wake up.”

“Drive, Joel,” Y/n slurred, her head slumped against her seat.

Joel did as requested and put the truck in drive, maneuvering them through the parking garage. All the while, he kept one trembling hand on Y/n’s knee, her rifle knocking against his knuckles each time they hit a speed bump. He didn’t know if by saving Ellie’s life, he was going to lose Y/n’s, and for once, Joel wanted a win. A full win. He didn’t want to sacrifice one more person.

The garage’s exit lay at the end of a long stretch of tunnel, the glow of daylight approaching faster and faster as Joel drove. Their three month journey would come to a close and his sins would see sunlight. And while anyone else would have said it had all been in vain, to risk one’s life to save humanity only to decide that humanity wasn’t worth the asking price, it wasn’t a waste. Not to Joel.

He glanced in the dashboard mirror, Ellie’s sleeping form in the backseat.

He looked over the glovebox, Y/n’s chest finally beginning to rise and fall at a steadier pace.

He would have done it all over again.

Every.

Single.

Part.

—————————

In a puddle of her own sweat, Y/n came to a few hours later, her head leaned up against the truck window. She blinked a few times, adjusting to the sunlight, and took stock of the rapidly moving landscape. There were forest trees and mountains in the distance.

“Hey,” Joel said, wrapping his hand around Y/n’s thigh.

“Hey,” she mumbled back, looking over to Joel, “Where are we?”

“Just outside of Wyoming,” he answered, rubbing his thumb across her jeans with a deep need to touch her, to assure himself she was okay. “Still a couple hours till we get to Tommy’s.”

Y/n hummed and nodded weakly, trying to look into the backseat at Ellie

“She’s been in and out,” Joel said, keeping his eyes focused on the road, “I told her about the raiders.”

Confusedly scrunching her brows, Y/n glanced back over at Joel.

“Attackin’ the hospital,” Joel continued, his pleading eyes drifting to his partner, “And about the tests they ran on her.”

“Yeah,” Y/n mumbled, reading Joel’s facial cues and coming to some understanding. She needed to be filled in on where she fit into the story.

Joel rubbed his hand over Y/n’s leg, “Get some sleep. I’ll wake ya when we’re close.”

There was so much she wanted to say, but her thoughts were too groggy to string more than two or three words together. With one scan of Joel’s clenched jaw and tired gaze, Y/n could tell he was feeling something similar. There’d be time for talking and setting their story straight, but for now, Y/n could close her eyes once more and settle into the knowledge that they were going home.

—————————

The next day, the car decided it had carried them far enough and the woods of Wyoming was where they’d part ways.

Joel examined the engine, a useless task considering they didn’t have the tools to repair anything, while Ellie and Y/n sat in the car.

“Well, she got us close enough,” Joel announced, coming around to the driver’s side, “We gotta walk the rest of the way. Probably about a five-hour hike,” he hung on the car door in front of Ellie, “But we can manage that. Remember?”

Ellie scanned her memories, bringing up their third day together, in the Massachusetts woods. She smiled, “Yeah.”

“Easy for you to say,” Y/n grunted as she used the backseat door to pull herself out of her seat, “You’re not walking around with two cracked fuckin’ ribs and a headache the size of Texas.”

“What happened to you back there anyway?” Ellie finally asked, Y/n had slept nearly the whole drive thus far. This was the longest she’d stayed awake.

“I did drugs,” Y/n replied honestly, having everything and nothing to hide.

“We’ll take it slow,” Joel promised, looping an arm around Y/n’s waist and kissing her forehead, “Take breaks.”

Y/n chuckled, “There’s a hot shower and a bed waiting on the other side of this fucking mountain,” she pointed up at the first hill they’d have to climb, “If anything, we’re shaving time off this thing.”

Joel smiled at the woman, who was already pulling Ellie to her feet and marching in the direction of their starting point.

As they hiked, Y/n’s energy started to go downhill again, and the painkillers she’d been given at the hospital had completely worn off. She leaned on Joel eventually, letting him brace some of her weight during the steeper portions.

Ellie, while concerned for Y/n’s wellbeing, was even more quiet than before they’d reached the hospital.

“Y’know, Sarah and I used to hike like this all the time,” Joel broke the silence and looked back to Ellie.

Y/n tilted her head towards Joel in surprise. It was the first time he’d brought up his daughter on his own accord…ever.

“I wouldn’t say it was her favorite thing. She wasn’t a fan of the mosquitos and such,” he continued, “But she was a big climber or…scampering. That’s probably the right word.”

“It is,” Y/n interjected, sharing a small smile with Joel.

“That girl…” Joel muttered, “She’d see a big rock and just…” he shot his free hand out, “Pew!”

Even at the mature age of thirteen, Y/n could remember Sarah and her running Texas’ nature trails and climbing the less dangerous rocks. Joel would follow behind, laughing and telling his girlfriend that if she broke his daughter, she was buying him a new one.

“She woulda liked you,” Joel told Ellie, it was one of the most honest things he’d ever said. “Not to say the two of you are the same. Definitely different kids.”

“How so?” Ellie softly asked from behind Joel and Y/n.

“Well, she was a lot more…” Joel trailed off, “I wanna say girly,” he quickly turned to Ellie, “And I’m not sayin’ that you’re not girly.”

“I’m not,” Ellie admitted, barely smiling up at Joel.

“Yeah, you’re not. So that,” Joel chuckled, tightening his hold on Y/n a little as he listed off Sarah’s attributes, “She was taller. She had a killer smile. Again, not sayin’ that you don’t.”

Y/n shook her head, withholding a laugh for the sake of her ribs. Three months prior, they’d all been threatening to kill each other. Now they were dancing around conversational landmines that weren’t even there, so afraid of hurting one another.

“But you know why I think she’d like you?” Joel addressed Ellie once more.

“Why?”

“‘Cause you’re funny,” Joel answered, “I think you would’ve made her laugh.”

Y/n nodded, “She also would have appreciated the well deserved crap you give her dad.”

Joel snorted at Y/n’s comment, knowing there was truth to it. Sarah had always enjoyed having someone to gang up on him with, but no fiercer duo had ever existed than the likes of his daughter and his girlfriend.

“Anyway,” Joel felt his emotions beginning to tighten around his throat, “I bet you would’ve liked her back.”

“Yeah,” Ellie said, still sounding distant, “Bet I would’ve.”

The weight of Sarah’s death had suffocated Joel and Y/n separately for two decades. It had been a blade, sticking out their chest, that they’d somehow learned to live with. But there was something, between their time with Ellie and their coming back together, that had caused the pain to…change. It would never hurt any less than it did now, but Sarah’s memory now seemed like one they could look back on with more than grief. There could be smiles and laughter as they thought back on their beautiful, brilliant girl.

Y/n rested her head on Joel’s shoulder as they walked, he pressed his cheek to her hair. They both felt it.

A little ways more and they’d reached the top of the hill. In the distance, the town of Jackson stretched within its walls. It was far bigger than any of them had realized.

“There ya go,” Joel said as they paused to take it in, “Not much further now.”

He helped Y/n on the decline with her keeping her weary eyes on what they’d now call home. She nearly cried when she realized that they’d never have to leave it again. The three of them could settle into life as close to what it should have been.

“Hey, wait,” Ellie called, bringing Joel and Y/n to a halt. She began to form words before abandoning them, “Fuck…”

Joel’s muscles tightened, worried that she’d taken the time to pick apart his lie.

“Back in Kansas City, you asked me about the first time I killed someone,” Ellie spoke to Joel.

He fidgeted a little as he held Y/n, relieved that it wasn’t about the hospital.

“When I got bit,” Ellie continued, “I-I wasn’t on my own. My best friend was there and she got bit too. We didn’t know what to do, and she says, ‘We can just wait it out…be all poetic and just lose our minds together.’”

Y/n bit her lip, her brief time of knowing Riley’s spirit flashed through her mind.

“And then she did,” Ellie went on with her story, “And I had to…her name was Riley, and she was the first to die. And then it was Tess. And then it was Sam-”

Joel shook his head, “That’s not on you.”

“No,” Y/n reenforced, “Not at all.”

“I know,” Ellie sighed, “But-“

“Look sometimes things don’t work out the way we hope,” Joel said, “You can feel like…like you’ve come to an end…and you don’t know what to do next,” he sighed, thinking back on all the choices in his life that had led him to this moment, “But if you just keep going…you find something new to fight for.”

Y/n looked downwards, feeling every one of Joel’s words ring true in her heart.

“And maybe that’s not what you want to hear-“ Joel tried to continue his speech.

“Swear to me,” Ellie interrupted.

Joel and Y/n paused, holding their breaths as their tale was challenged. Y/n’s exhaustion allowed her to lower her head as she fought to take a deeper breath.

“Swear to me that everything you said about the Fireflies is true,” Ellie continued, her eyes demanding yet still soft.

Lying was an essential part of survival. It was a skill to be honed and a craft that required complete dedication. Joel had lied his way through life, into black market deals and smuggling opportunities. Y/n had lied to aid the Fireflies and to save her own life. They’d been comfortable saying whatever they needed to to stay alive.

That feeling died on the Wyoming hilltop.

“I swear,” Joel replied.

Y/n inhaled as deep as she could, feeling the fullness of what she was about to say wash over her and possess her body.

“I swear.”

Ellie watched them, her mind working to process what they were saying, leaving her nearly unreadable. They waited with bated breath as she decided whether to accept their answers or not.

“Okay.”

Without another word, Ellie picked up her pace, moving past Joel and Y/n to head down the hill. Joel began their descend, but Y/n pulled her arm away from him and stayed frozen.

“Give me a minute,” she said, her eyes on the mountains.

Joel inhaled to argue the point that she couldn’t make it more than ten steps on her own, but the distance in her eyes advised him against it. He let her hand go and began to follow Ellie, turning back once to make sure she was okay.

Y/n let her eyes drift down to Jackson, tracing the outlines of the town and trying to find the house that would become theirs. The possibilities were overwhelming as to what they could do when they got there. If there was electricity, she could cook proper meals for Joel and Ellie. They could have game nights. Tommy could come over at random moments in the day. Ellie could attend a real school. Joel could get back to his roots and fix up the house. They could retire to their bedroom each night, calling out to Ellie to go to sleep before doing the same. It could be the domestic life she’d always wanted, simplistic in every sense.

Except it wouldn’t be real.

Y/n had seen the distrust in Ellie’s face, she knew that at some point, the girl would figure it out. And if she didn’t, she’d always be questioning if her and Joel were telling the God’s honest truth. What their relationship had been would never again be. By saving Ellie’s life, they had forever changed the dysfunctional little found family they’d created.

Y/n blinked once, took a deep breath, and headed down the hill, taking her first step into a life of lies.

——————

At some point during the film, Tommy reached over to tap Y/n on the shoulder and nodded towards the door. With him being the only person she fully trusted, she followed him out without question.

They walked through the light snowfall in silence, Y/n was under the impression he was trying to get her some fresh air. Even the snowflakes, in all their puritan beauty, couldn’t lift her mood. They just felt cold and annoying on her face.

Tommy guided them back to his and Maria’s house, unlocking the door. “WaIt here a minute.”

Y/n nodded, if it were possible, she never wanted to step foot in the house again.

Tommy disappeared for thirty seconds before emerging with a pair of winter boots in hand. Y/n was beginning to grow curious, but not enough to break her vow of silence.

They resumed their path down the middle of town, the lights strung from rooftop to rooftop combined with the decorated pine tree gave it a true Christmas feel. Tommy led them towards a building Y/n had yet to go into, a cobbler’s workshop.

“You pulled me out to help fix your boots?” Y/n asked as they climbed the steps.

Tommy didn’t answer, only opening the door and gesturing for her to enter. Y/n walked in, her eyes trailing the walls before they fell on the center of the room.

Where Joel was sat.

Joel had done a stellar job of not just avoiding Y/n, but his brother, Maria and Ellie. After his last episode, he hadn’t wanted to be around anyone. His busted boot had brought him to the workshop, he’d been pulling at the sole for nearly thirty minutes with no success. With each fruitless tug, his frustrations grew, and so did his tears. It was the meaningless failures in life that brought the deepest ones to the surface.

Y/n and Joel’s eyes met across the room, realization hitting Y/n as to why Tommy had brought her out. She turned to glare at him, seeing no remorse at all on his face.

“The guys said I might find you here,” Tommy said, brushing past Y/n to Joel and handing him the pair of boots, “Figured I’d save you the trouble.”

Y/n ran her palm across her forehead in both frustration and anxiety, turning on her heel and reaching for the doorknob.

“Hang on,” Tommy called, stopping her from moving any further, “Before you storm out of here…” he looked to Joel, “I shouldn’t have said what I said. I don’t even believe it…I know you’re happy for me, it’s just…complicated for you. And I’m sorry.”

Tommy turned his gaze to Y/n, “And you. I wasn’t tryin’ to hurt you, back at the bar, and bringin’ all that up wasn’t my best move.”

Y/n’s hand hovered over the knob, debating whether to run or stay. She didn’t have an explanation for the pull to remain, considering Joel was ten feet away from her, but she listened to it.

Joel didn’t have to question what ‘all that’ Tommy was referring to. If he’d brought it up to him him, he’d surely have brought it up with Y/n. Just knowing they’d talked about it hurt.

“So are you two gonna let me off the hook, or what?” Tommy asked, smiling the same way he had each time Y/n or Joel had bailed him out of jail.

Joel wished with everything in him that Y/n wasn’t in the room. Not with what he was about to say.

“This ride to the university…” he began, “Is it a suicide mission?”

Tommy’s brows lowered, “No. It’s dangerous, but it’s nothin’ you can’t handle. Just prepare and do what you do.”

“You’ve had people go that way and come back?” Joel continued.

“All of ‘em,” Tommy answered, “What is this?”

Joel couldn’t find it in himself to meet Y/n’s eyes. He felt the absence of her gaze, but his drifted in her direction, landing near her boots.

“She’s immune.”

Y/n instinctively tensed up, the two words they’d all swore not to speak suddenly hanging in the air.

“What?” Tommy said in shock.

“Ellie,” Joel replied, “She got infected but she didn’t get sick.”

Tommy flinched, naturally, making Y/n slide her body in front of the door.

“It’s true,” she said, “Fireflies found her up in Boston, she’d just been bit. We brought her in, quarantined her, tested her…” Y/n couldn’t bring herself to look at Joel, only at the floor under his feet, “Then it happened again. I saw it with my own two eyes…that was three months ago.”

A beat of silence added to the tension of the moment.

“She’s immune,” Joel pushed, his voice low and pleading.

Tommy looked between his brother and his almost-sister-in-law, thinking about the stark contrast between the last time it had been the three of them. He crossed the room, reluctantly coming to sit across from Joel.

Y/n, with her hands at her side and her eyes looking anywhere but at Joel, moved to where Tommy had been standing. It was too late to leave now…

“From the beginning,” Tommy requested of them both.

For reasons she couldn’t understand, Y/n’s eyes began to water before Joel even started to speak.

“It was Marlene,” he explained, “She hired us to smuggle her to some Fireflies. It went bad. Tess got bit. She made me swear to take the kid. It was her dyin’ wish,” Joel’s voice wavered slightly, “What the hell was I supposed to do?”

Y/n sunk her teeth down into her bottom lip, that hadn’t been Tess’ final request.

“We made it as far as K.C and then…”

Joel paused, the memories of Kansas City were ones he tried not to look back on, for so many reasons.

“You know, she saved my life there,” he continued, “From another kid.” He intentionally left Y/n out of the story, just addressing the memory of her almost dying overwhelmed him.

“Five years ago, I would have destroyed him,” Joel went on, “But she had to shoot him to save me. 14 years old. Because I was too slow and too fuckin’ deaf to hear him comin’.”

Y/n looked down at the worktable below her, her eyes misting over. It was so easy for Joel to pretend like she hadn’t been there, it almost hurt.

“And I saw…” Joel paused, Henry’s two fatal bullets ringing in his good ear, “I saw a man kill his own brother, to save her, while I just watched.”

Curling her fist against the table, Y/n bit down on her lip until she tasted blood.

“And today, I thought that dog was gonna tear her apart because it smelled somethin’ on her. And all I did was stand there,” Joel’s pace had quickened, “I couldn’t…move. I couldn’t think of anything to say. I just…”

Joel, in that moment, wished for a thousand miles of space between him and Y/n. He wished she remained in Jackson and he was back in Boston.

“I was so afraid,” his voice finally cracked.

Two silent tears danced down Y/n’s cheeks like a sprinkle of rain before a thunderstorm.

“You think I can still handle these things, but…” Joel’s voice regained its strength as he watched Tommy take in what he said, “I’m not who I was. I’m weak.”

With all the force inside her, Y/n still couldn’t bear to look at Joel. She couldn’t handle watching him fall apart.

“Lately, there are these moments where the fear comes up outta nowhere and…” Joel took a quivering breath, well aware he was addressing two people, “My heart…feels like it’s stopped.”

The long overdue explanation didn’t feel like a victory to Y/n, it felt hollow. It was coming at the expense of so much.

“And I have dreams,” Joel went on, “Every night.”

“What kinda dreams?” Tommy asked, it was the first time he’d dared to speak.

“I don’t know,” Joel’s tone became breathless with emotion, “I just know that when I wake up…”

Joel paused, trying to gather the strength he’d lacked twenty years ago.

“I’ve lost something.”

There was no longer any story to tell.

This was Joel’s admission of guilt.

“I’m failin’ in my sleep,” Joel cried, “That’s all I do.”

A river now streamed down Y/n’s face, they were addressing all that had happened between them without actually talking about it.

“It’s all I’ve ever done,” Joel whimpered, the faces of the three most important women in his life flashing through his mind, “Is fail her.”

Y/n’s cheeks were red from holding in her screaming sobs.

“Again and again…” Joel trailed off, feeling the weight of Y/n’s pain without seeing it.

“You want me to take her,” Tommy stated, he knew what was coming before they got there.

Y/n’s eyes finally found the courage to fly to Joel, her lips parting in shock.

“I’m just gonna get her killed,” Joel trembled, the fears he’d had to live with the last three months were beating him into cowering, “I know it. I know it.”

Of all the things he’d said concerning the piece of his heart standing across from him, none had hurt Joel as much as the one floating on his tongue, clutching to his throat…begging not to be released.

“I have to leave her.”

In that moment, Y/n was no longer in the shop. She wasn’t in Jackson. Her knees were sitting in dirt, wind whipping at her shirt, her screams echoing off the triage clinic walls…Joel was abandoning her all over again.

She must have gasped or sniffled, because Tommy turned around to look at her. Joel’s tearful gaze finally came up to meet hers, her heartbroken stare piercing his chest. He knew exactly what he was doing to her, the anger that had died out three months ago filling her eyes once again. Except this time, there was so much sadness behind it, Joel’s tears started up again.

Y/n couldn’t stand to hear another word, her own opinion not mattering in the already-made decision. Desperate for Joel not to witness another one of her tears, she went straight for the door, throwing it open and letting it swing shut behind her.

Her mouth hung open, trying to force the winter air in and out her lungs as her head spun. He was doing it, he was leaving her as if she hadn’t ever meant anything to him.

A crunch of snow under another pair of footprints drew her attention to her left. Ellie was moving so fast away from the door, Y/n barely recognized it as her.

“Ellie,” Y/n called, the girl was marching back through town, “Ellie!”

“So he’s just gonna leave us here?” Ellie asked, her voice raised to compensate for the distance between them.

Y/n couldn’t form an answer, she couldn’t defend Joel’s actions.

“You have to talk him out of it,” Ellie said, bitterness seeping into her tone.

“I can’t,” Y/n said, letting the cold freeze what was left of her tears.

“Yes, you can,” Ellie was sounding more and more like the child she should have been, on the verge of losing something important to her.

“Ellie, I can’t,” Y/n practically shouted, the girl was too fast for her, “I can’t make him do anything, you know that.”

Ellie spun around, her face red from the cold air and her anger. “You have to,” she yelled, “He can’t…” her voice nearly caught, “He can’t fucking do that to us.”

Y/n had concealed so much of her history from Ellie, it wasn’t anything she needed to know. The girl looked at Joel like he was everything, she couldn’t shatter the illusion.

With nothing but tears to give as a reply, Y/n watched Ellie storm back off through the snow. She waited, giving the girl a wide berth before heading in the same direction.

When they got inside, Ellie stomped up the stairs, leaving Y/n standing aimlessly in the middle of the living room. She felt so small, so fragile, it was a vulnerability she hadn’t felt in twenty years that only came with someone owning a part of your heart. It was permission she hadn’t realized she’d given to Joel to break her all over again.

Somehow, quite blearily, Y/n made it up the stairs. She stood in the hallway, her eyes drifting between doors. Two options lay in front of her. She could a) knock on Ellie’s door and try to console her or b) go into her room and sleep off the pain till morning.

Despite the twenty years of independence she’d had, Y/n had never felt like she had full autonomy. She was owned by her past, haunted by the choices that she’d been forced to make and the ones that had been made for her. There was a piece of her mind beating her into submission, counting on the trauma to make her cower from facing the truth.

There was a third option, and she strode towards it without hesitation.

—————————

“You’re right. You’re not my daughter, and I sure as hell ain’t your dad.”

The words struck Ellie like a blow to the chest.

“Now, come dawn,” Joel finished, “We’re goin’ our separate ways.”

He left her there, knowing there were tears pooling in her eyes, knowing she felt abandoned. He knew all of it, and he still slammed the door shut. He was the only one who could see that it truly was the only option where she kept her life.

Joel glanced down the hall, spotting the bathroom, a closet and a closed door, no doubt a bedroom. He didn’t dare go near it, he couldn’t face the demons that lay behind it. Instead, he made his way to the bedroom at the end of the hallway, nudging the door open…

Y/n was sitting on the bed.

Joel froze.

Her elbows rested on her knees, her hands were clasped together. She stared ahead at the carpet, her stare boring into the beige threads with a fire that was intended for the man standing across from her.

Joel had been running from her all day, it seemed like they both had. If Y/n had thought this was her room and had been caught off guard, she’d have jumped, rushing to leave or forcing Joel out. Her stillness told him that this was intentional.

“I want the truth,” Y/n was the first of them to speak, “About that day.”

Joel had made one of the biggest choices in her life for her and it had ruined the last twenty years. If this was the last time she would ever see him, she was taking what she wanted before leaving.

“I need to hear it,” she continued, her voice thick from crying. She finally dragged her gaze up to him, shooting daggers, “I need to hear you say it.”

Joel’s muscles had locked up, every inch of him suddenly running painfully cold. There was no escaping what she wanted to hear, nor did he have to strength to keep it buried any more. The words lay trapped in his chest, rotting between his lungs.

Joel reached behind him and shut the door, not wanting Ellie to hear what was surely to come. He walked towards the bed hesitantly, the first step sending Y/n across the room. Distance was necessary for such an intimate conversation.

Y/n watched him walk, his posture was more drooped than usual. She’d heard Ellie yelling through the walls, no doubt reading him the riot act for his plans. And whatever Joel had responded with was, undoubtably, worse.

Joel took Y/n’s spot on the edge of the bed, sighing to himself and trying gathering his mind. Were they really doing this?

He paused a good long while before beginning his confession.

“After it…” Joel paused, unable to call on the tragedy by name, “After it happened, I couldn’t…see. I-I couldn’t…breathe. Nothin’ made sense any more,” Joel’s eyes were brave enough to look up at Y/n, “Nothin’.”

Y/n kept her arms crossed over her chest, protecting herself the last way she knew how from the ghosts of the past.

Joel clasped his hands in his lap, as if to pray for forgiveness that wasn’t his to have. There was nothing that could soften the blow he was about to strike.

“Somehow, in my mind, when you told me…” Joel referred to another nameless point in time, “What you told me…I knew it was true.”

There it was.

“You’d never lied to me before,” Joel admitted, tears threatening to reveal all his cards, “You wouldn’t’ve chosen then to start.”

He’d known. He’d known the whole time. And he’d still tried to make her feel like a liar.

“I wasn’t thinkin’ straight,” Joel struggled, his chest trembling as he tried to hold himself still, “The pain was just…I couldn’t handle it.”

With Ellie in the room over, Y/n bit down on her lip to stop whatever violent reaction threatened to escape her mouth.

“So instead, you decided to blow up my life,” she said, nodding.

Joel felt breathless, staring into the same weeping eyes he had twenty years ago, watching her fall apart. Except this time, it was controlled. She wouldn’t let herself break until he broke first.

Y/n couldn’t hold back the river in her eyes any longer, the festering resentment building in her like a hurricane.

“Do you have any idea what I went through after you left?!”

The force of her voice startled Joel, but he didn’t flinch. He deserved every bit of her hate, and he would take it all.

Y/n took a rattling breath, the volume of her tone dropping to a hiss, “Do you have any idea what I had to do?”

—————————

October 1st, 2003. St. Louis, Missouri.

By some miracle, Y/n made it home.

After Joel had abandoned her and she’d cried herself nearly into dehydration, she stood up, brushed the dirt off her knees…and walked away. Her apartment complex was near the clinic and she’d snuck back without coming across any army or Infected.

She promptly packed up her backpack, shoving as many dry goods in as she could. She filled water bottles, rolled a change of clothes, a flashlight, a blanket, and a hammer. She didn’t have any intention of hurting anyone, but she was going to be prepared.

The problem was that her car was parked at Joel’s house.

Unhappily, Y/n had snuck into the neighborhood through the trees, the army was still stationed on the highway directly in front of the entrance. When she arrived, cutting through the shared lawn between the Millers and the Adlers, she kept her eyes down. She didn’t think she could handle the sight. She climbed into her car, which was blissfully still there, and started it up.

It took everything in her not to look up at the house, or go inside to say a goodbye.

To avoid the army, she drove her car through the space between the houses, cutting back through the forest and getting onto a side. She couldn’t save Sarah, Joel had left her for dead, but she was determined to find her family.

It had taken a full day of driving, carefully avoiding the army’s various stations, and when her car had run out of gas, two days on foot. But she’d made it, alive and as well as she could be.

Y/n’s parents owned a plot of land that they’d built her childhood home on. The nearest neighbor was a mile away, giving them a decent chance at survival by isolation. Her sister lived five miles away, her brother twenty minutes, but she knew they’d huddle together in such an emergency.

When her weak limbs and weary eyes reached the property, she huffed a tearful breath. The world may have been falling apart around her, but she was home. The sight gave her a new boost of energy and she quickened her steps across the grass.

“Mom,” she called the closer she got, “Dad!”

Y/n hurried up the front porch steps, finding the door slightly ajar. There had never been a moment in their house where the door hadn’t been locked. Her hand hesitated over the knob, afraid of what she might find.

She didn’t really have a choice.

Y/n cautiously stepped inside, “Mom! Dad!”

Her voice bounced off the hallway, echoing into the house. There was no answer.

“Annie,” she called for her sister, then her brother, “Jason!”

She walked down the hallway, finding the tables and knicknacks that decorated it to be as meticulously straightened as ever. It all looked normal.

“Guys,” Y/n shouted, growing more anxious, “It’s me!”

Through the hall was the kitchen, the counters were covered in dry good wrappers and bags. Clearly they were here, the power had been cut and that would have been their only option for food.

Y/n’s breaths grew quicker, “Guys!”

There was a clatter from upstairs, Y/n spun around to face the staircase. Her worst fear was that someone had broken in, killed her family and was stealing any valuables they could. It was a miracle her apartment had been intact.

Another large thud, followed by a low growl.

She wasn’t even thinking about the other possibility.

A humanistic screech sounded through the house before a blurry body threw itself down the stairs, launching itself towards Y/n.

It was her father.

“Dad!”

As her father’s hand swung at her, she swerved out of the way, the rush of air brushing her face. She stumbled backwards into the living room, blidnly reaching for the edges of furniture to topple in her dad’s path. Undeterred, growling and snarling at his own daughter, he climbed over them effortlessly.

“Dad,” Y/n yelled with tears in her eyes, “Daddy, stop! It’s me!

A snarl and another swipe was all she received.

Until the second growl came.

From the other side of the stairs, Y/n’s mother emerged with the same possessed look in her eye as her husband.

“Mama,” Y/n cried, “It’s me! Stop!”

Her mother ran down the hall, her steps wide and clunky. Y/n’s father was heading towards her too, his movements slower than his wife’s.

There was no time to think her decision over.

Y/n reached for her grandmother’s vase, sitting on the end table by the front door and swung it around, smashing it into her mother’s head.

Her mother let out a scream, one of anger rather than pain, and stumbled back a few steps. Y/n shoved the end table at her father, ramming it into his stomach and causing him to drop to the floor. It gave her time to cut across into the home office, sliding under her mother’s arm as it reached for her.

“Mama,” Y/n cried, her tears were long past restraint, “Mama, it’s me…please.”

Her mother stalked forward, too far gone to recognize her daughter.

“Mama,” Y/n pleaded, “Please don’t!”

Y/n was out of time and out of options.

It was either take action or become one of them.

Y/n yanked the hammer out of the open slit in her backpack and slammed it into the side of her mother’s head.

The woman dropped the floor.

Y/n could barely register what she’d done before her father’s growls neared. She looked up to see him, quickly encroaching on her. She waited until her was close enough before jumping to the side, letting him slam into his bookcase and bludgeoning him with the hammer.

Y/n bolted out the glass doors, sprinting towards the stairs and screaming for her siblings, “Jason! Annie!”

More growling came from one of their childhood bedrooms.

Acting purely on adrenaline, Y/n bolted in the opposite direction of the sound, heading for the master bedroom. She ran for the closet, clearing the top shelf of her father’s side to reach his fireproof safe. Her fingers trembled as she punched in the code, the growling getting closer to the room.

The safe door opened, offering her her father’s hand gun as a blood soaked salvation.

A sickeningly shriek filled the bedroom, the lean body of Jason entering and sniffing Y/n out like a hunter would its prey.

Y/n couldn’t afford to think, but she felt the full weight of her decision as she took off the safety and landed a bullet in her big brother’s head.

She stood over his lifeless body, her breath caught somewhere between her heart and her lungs. From behind her, there was more manic growling.

Y/n spun around to find not only her sister, racing towards her, but her parents dragging themselves up the last steps on the staircase.

“No,” she whispered, “No, Annie, stop. Please!”

Her sister screamed, her eyes completely blackened and her nostrils flared in blind rage.

Y/n fired a shot with a shaking hand, causing the the bullet to hit a decorative plate on the wall, ricocheting back across the room and hitting her in the shoulder.

She couldn’t feel the pain.

She couldn’t feel anything.

Because the next three shots she didn’t miss.

When it was over, Y/n couldn’t move. She couldn’t see. She couldn’t breathe. All she could do was stare at the destruction she’d caused. And in her numbness, she didn’t hear the small footsteps, the heaving breaths coming for her…

Her little nephew, Matty, let out a vicious cry as he lunged for his aunt.

“Matty!” Y/n cried, the boy clinging to her leg and unhinging his jaw, “No!”

Y/n reached down, prying him off her leg and holding him in the air, his little legs flailing and his hands clawing for Y/n’s throat.

“Matty, stop,” Y/n screamed through her tears, her pain rising to match the demonic one of her nephew.

She threw him down on the bed and bolted for the stairs, the gun still in her palm. She knew that the next thirty seconds would decide who she would be in this new world, and whether her soul would retire to heaven or hell.

Her nephew flew down the stairs after her.

Y/n stumbled on the last step, landing on her knees and sliding across the blood slicked hardwood.

Matty shrieked.

Y/n raised her gun.

—————————

December 2023. Jackson, Wyoming.

The soft glow of the lamplight couldn’t help the darkness that filled the bedroom.

Joel’s lips were parted, in horror and in sorrow.

The entire expanse of Y/n’s cheeks were painted with her tears. Not a day had gone by since her tragic homecoming where she wasn’t haunted by her decisions. But the last three months, particularly after Henry and Sam’s tragic endings, it lived at the forefront of her mind again.

“I needed you there,” Y/n whispered angrily, incapable of making any louder a sound, “I needed you there to…”

To save her? To commit the atrocious sin for her? To hold her afterwards and tell her she was still a good person?

“You left me there,” Y/n whimpered, “To die.”

Joel felt the weight of the words, each one slicing through his heart the way he deserved. He deserved so much more.

The worst part, was that in all of Y/n’s twenty years she’d spent wanting to hurt Joel, with the opportunity in front of her, she couldn’t…because she understood. She understood what grief that powerful could do to a person. When she had made the choice to end her family’s lives, she lost herself. She couldn’t make sense of a single part of her mind, her heart, what was left of her soul…and twenty years later, Joel’s delusions were perfectly clear to her.

Despite all her efforts, she couldn’t hate his decision. Only the ramifications.

Joel felt like his entire body was made of led, unable to move so much as a finger. Only his eyes seemed to work properly as they rolled tears down his cheeks.

He had abandoned her in a state of unawareness and had doomed her to a life as broken as his. He had condemned her soul the minute he’d walked away from her. The reason for all her pain was him.

The emotions balled inside Y/n, gathering more and more pressure until she couldn’t hold it in any longer. Screw understanding, she had to get it all out.

“She chose me, Joel,” Y/n cried, “She fucking chose me! And you fucking stole that from me,” she pointed at him, “You tried to take her memory away from me like it was nothing. Why the fuck did you do that?!”

“Because,” Joel’s body shot up off the bed, turning to face Y/n, his voice possessed a strength that only came in desparate sadness, “We were so close! We were so damn close,” he drew a shaking breath and ran his hand through his hair.

Y/n stood as still as she could, nearly relieved that Joel was finally being honest with her, but heartbroken all the same.

Joel had kept so many secrets over the years, from Tess, from Tommy…it was the nature of survival. Keeping your cards close to your chest. But he couldn’t take the physical pain, the sick feeling in his stomach, that came with hiding one in particular.

He lowered his voice, his own pain softening the edges of his tone. “Did you know I was gonna buy you a ring? That weekend?” Joel asked, feeling stupid for posing it as question, “‘Course you didn’t. That’s why I was workin’ all those extra shifts,” he pointed a finger in the distance between them, “I was goin’ to get it the next morning…”

That was it. There was no more pain for either of them to feel. This was the great, whopping, life-stealing heartbreak that would steal the last of them.

“We were so close,” Joel whispered, his lip quivering as he bit back his sobs, “And we lost it all. And I couldn’t handle it…” his voice cracked with his final admission, “And there hasn’t been a day on this godforsaken planet that I haven’t regretted it.”

There was ten feet and two decades of space between them, but their minds were back in Austin on that last night, before tragedy struck. The glow of the TV flickered across their eyes, the soft sounds of Sarah’s breaths against Joel’s legs filled their ears, the phantom weight of Y/n’s head on Joel’s shoulder nudged him. It was the start of the future they were never meant to have.

Y/n stopped any attempt to slow her tears, instead allowing soft sniffles to escape her. She pressed a hand to one side of her face, digging her palm into her cheek. Sarah had chosen her as her mother, Joel had chosen her as his wife. They had been on the verge of…everything she’d ever wanted for them.

Joel watched her process his confession, still tied to her soul enough to feel the pain wash over her as if it was his own, because it was. He had felt the gaping hole of her at his side for two decades, knowing he was the one who caused the vacancy. Regardless of whether he ever saw Y/n again, he would carry that scar for the rest of his miserable life…

Y/n fought to draw a breath deep enough to keep her from losing consciousness. She met Joel’s eyes, wet and bloodshot and with all the strength she could summon.

“We did lose everything,” she agreed, the pressure of the lump in her throat forcing the words out of her, “But we didn’t have to lose each other.”

In the three months they’d worked together, risking their lives for Ellie and each other, they’d fought any and all feelings towards one another that didn’t pair well with Joel’s dishonesty or Y/n’s fury. They’d raged just as hard against their past as they had the violence of those against them. And now, with the truth exposed and nowhere left to hide…they felt it all.

Three months spent carefully considering every move they made towards one another, every word thought over with such consideration…they’d been so committed to keeping up their great divide.

There was nothing left to fight.

Only to feel.

Beautifully in sync with one another, Joel and Y/n surged towards one another, colliding in a kiss that could have stretched twenty years and back.

Joel’s arms wrapped around Y/n’s body, one around her waist and one sliding around her back, anchoring her to him. There was a duality to the way he held her; unbridled passion pressing his fingers deep into her skin, his pained adoration reining in the intensity of the touch, as if he was holding fine china. He practically melted as his hands roamed her, letting the full force of his feelings overwhelm him.

Y/n’s body trembled against Joel, her hands holding his wet cheeks as their lips frantically moved together, clashing and submitting to one another so perfectly. When close became not close enough, she wrapped her arms around Joel’s neck, leaving no space between them. She wept into their kiss, euphoria putting every inch of her at ease. She could feel nothing but him and him alone.

As their touches intensified, their lips digging for more and more of each other, Joel maneuvered them backwards. He blindly guided them until Y/n’s knees hit the edge of the bed, the two of them falling back onto it, never breaking from one another.

They spent their night falling apart and putting each other back together. Twenty years and three months of yearning was spilled out into the darkness of the early morning hours, both Joel and Y/n pouring all the love they’d ever felt for one another into each kiss.

—————————

Y/n’s eyes fluttered open, the clouded sunlight waking her up before anyone could knock on her door.

She could feel the absence of Joel without reaching across the sheets.

Sinking her teeth into her kiss-swollen lip, she shut her eyes and drew a slow breath. The night was never going to change either of their plans, it had been a funeral for all they’d never mourned. Neither of them could have afforded for it to be anything else.

It was a comfortable numbness to settle back into, longing for Joel against the reality of their world.

Y/n dressed in the new clothes Maria had left for her in her room, returning to Joel’s bedroom only to make the bed. It was the least she could do.

While she was tucking the quilt in, a knock on the door drew her focus. It was Tommy. Despite the years of separation, they could still read each other like the siblings they’d almost been. Tommy’s sad eyes registered Y/n’s unusually quiet demeanor and he knew that she was feeling the loss of his brother timelessly, just as she would have in 2003.

“Ellie up?” Y/n asked, finishing up with the blanket.

“I think,” Tommy replied, “Haven’t checked on her yet.”

Y/n settled the pillows back under the headboard, smoothing down a crumbled edge of the quilt and stood up straight. She was making the rest of the journey without Joel, but she was still going to hold her head high.

“Gimme a minute with her,” Y/n said, squeezing past Tommy in the doorway, determined not to look back at the room. She crossed the hall to Ellie’s door, gently knocking.

“Come in.”

The second Y/n walked in the room, she knew that Ellie had been expecting Joel in a new state of mind. There was barely concealed disappointment in the young girl’s eyes. Y/n smoothed her hands over her jeans and came to sit next to her in the bay window. Before they took one more step in their journey together, Y/n needed to make something clear.

“I know you didn’t sign up for any of this,” she began, “I know it’s been hard. You’ve seen things that no one should ever see, let alone someone your age,” Y/n paused, this was as honest as she’d ever been with Ellie, “And I know you’ve lost…so much.”

Ellie’s eyes shifted in Y/n’s direction before darting back forward.

“And it’s okay, you don’t have to tell me any of it,” Y/n carefully reached out and placed her hand over Ellie’s, “But I’m not walking out on you.”

Ellie looked up finally, watching the words fall off of Y/n’s lips.

“I’m with you until you tell me to stop,” Y/n continued, giving a small smile, “Even then...”

The side of Ellie’s mouth barely quirked upwards, that was enough for Y/n to know she had taken the words to heart. Since the beginning of their journey, it had been her and Ellie above all else.

Tommy knocked on the door, poking his head in. “Ready?”

Y/n looked to Ellie to decide, waiting until the girl stood to rise with her. Tommy handed Y/n her backpack which she promptly slung over her shoulders. She was thankful, at least, that Tommy was finishing out the rest of the trip with them.

The three of them filed out of the house, it had snowed heavier at some point in the night, creating an even thicker blanket.

“Stables,” Tommy said, beginning to guide them in the direction.

“Hang on,” Y/n said, cutting across the street in a move that surprised herself, “I’ll be right back.”

She climbed the steps to Tommy’s house, opening the unlocked door and entering. She bypassed the living room entirely, making her way through until she found the kitchen, where Maria was seated with a cup of coffee.

Maria’s fingers traced the handle of the mug, staring down at the liquid, “Are you here to tell me my husband will be fine and I shouldn’t worry?”

“No,” Y/n shook her head, “I mean, he will be, but…no. I came to say thank you.”

Maria dragged her gaze up to Y/n, she’d given enough to warrant wondering what exactly she was being thanked for.

“For…” Y/n exhaled, dancing carefully around the memory of the woman holding her as she wept, “For-“

Maria held up a knowing hand, her voice gaining a softer edge, “You’re welcome.”

Y/n hesitantly smiled, the woman had allowed her to grieve in a way nobody else ever had. A simple thanks seemed too simple, but it was all she had to offer. She turned on her heel to leave and let her have her morning.

“Hang on,” Maria called her back, rising from the table and heading down the hall. She returned with Y/n’s rifle and handgun, extending them out to their rightful owner. As Y/n reached for them, she pulled them back.

“You make sure my baby has a father,” Maria demanded, her eyes pleading with Y/n.

“With my life,” Y/n promised, it was one of the truest things she’d ever said.

Maria handed her the weapons, watching Y/n sling the rifle over her back and holster the handgun. She would never trust her brother-in-law, but she wanted to trust the sister-in-law she could have had.

Y/n exited the house, making her way back to Tommy and Ellie as quick as she could without slipping. Upon seeing the returned firearms, Ellie held up her own pistol, somehow mysteriously returned to her. One look to Tommy’s averted gaze told Y/n all she needed to know.

The three of them strode past the animal pens and into the stables, the same melancholy cloud hanging over them. Y/n was ready to take her night spent with the man she loved and tuck it away in her mind as nothing more than a beautiful moment in time.

When she turned towards one of the stalls, she hadn’t expected to see him standing in front of her.

Joel had made a lot of mistakes in his life, a lot. Most of them spanning over the last two decades, but many had come before. The one that kept him up at night, the one he saw in his dreams, the one that would haunt him every hour of every day would forever be leaving Y/n. Not just because he’d lost the love of his life, but because he’d made the decision for her. He’d played with her life in a way that made her still standing and breathing a damn miracle. Somewhere between leaving the warmth of her body in bed and saddling his horse, he’d realized he couldn’t take that away from her or Ellie.

“You came here to say goodbye or something?” Ellie asked.

“No,” Joel replied, still fiddling with one of the saddle straps, “I came here to steal one of these horses and go.”

“I woulda gave you one,” Tommy said.

“I know,” Joel turned to them, addressing everyone but Y/n, “Anyway…that was thirty minutes ago and I guess…” he stepped forward, finally letting his eyes fall on the woman before Ellie, “You deserve a choice.”

Everything at war inside Y/n settled at Joel’s words.

“I still think you’d be better off with Tommy-“ Joel began.

Ellie had heard enough, shoving the bag of food Tommy had packed them into Joel’s chest, “Let’s go,” she looked back to Y/n as she moved towards the horse, “Say yes.”

Y/n nearly smiled at Ellie’s bossiness, her and Joel’s eyes meeting softly. She hadn’t expected him there, but the change in heart, in the way he was handling the situation was even more unexpected and more welcome. She gave a reserved nod, allowing her cheeks to tug her lips upwards.

Joel could never go make up for what he’d done to Y/n. But whatever time they had left together was going to be spent trying.

Y/n turned to Tommy, “We’re gonna need another horse.”

Tommy nodded, unlatching another stall’s lock, leading one of the horses out and handing the reins to Y/n. “Maybe don’t tell Maria about this…” he smirked.

Y/n nodded, “Gotcha.”

The four of them exited the stables and finished readying the horses. Joel and Y/n both helped Ellie onto the one Joel would ride.

“Hold onto both,” Joel instructed, handing Ellie the reins.

“Mm-hmm,” Ellie nodded, her mood had already perked up.

Y/n and Joel came to Tommy, the three of them standing in a triangle. It was the first moment the three of them had shared since the night before.

“General direction?” Joel asked.

“Head southeast till you hit I-25,” Tommy answered, “It’s right off the interstate, shouldn’t be hard to miss.”

There was a brief pause before Tommy spoke up again, “Promise me y’all are gonna stick together.”

Joel gazed over at Y/n, feeling the history between each of Tommy’s words. Under the cover of night, it would have cut right through him. Now, it was a guarantee he could give both of them.

“I promise,” Joel said, his eyes never leaving Y/n’s. It was the first time she’d smiled at him in a long time, and he felt a new surge of strength through him.

Tommy pulled Joel in first, embracing him with a prayer that this wouldn’t be the last time he laid eyes on his brother. He tugged Y/n into his chest after, wishing the same. He couldn’t regain them only to lose them.

Y/n relaxed in Tommy’s arms, wishing they could stay in the safety of Jackson just a little longer. Twenty years of struggle, a little relief, and then back out into the jaw of danger.

“There’s a place for you here,” Tommy said, keeping a hand on Y/n’s shoulder and looking to Joel, “All of you.”

“Countin’ on it,” Joel said, earning a l eyebrow raise from Y/n. He didn’t feel like explaining his answer any further.

Joel glanced at Tommy’s rifle hitched to his shoulder, “Could I borrow that?”

“Yeah,” Tommy reached for the gun.

“”Cause Maria took mine, you know?” Joel added.

Tommy smiled, “I already said yes, Joel.”

Y/n chuckled, she hadn’t missed Joel scanning the firearms on her person.

“Adios, big brother,” Tommy said, taking one last long look at Joel.

Reluctantly, Y/n and Joel rounded their horses. As Y/n slipped one foot into her stir-up and prepared to swing her leg over, two familiar hands fell on her hips, helping to lift her. When she looked down, Joel was standing below her, his eyes tracing the curve of her calf he was holding. Y/n’s skin tingled under his touch.

They weren’t going to analyze it to death, but things had changed.

Joel saddled his own horse, Ellie wrapping her arms around his body, and the three of them rode through town. Tommy followed them to the gate, a few of the residents opening it up for them. With a final shared look between the three of them, Joel and Y/n led their horses out of Jackson’s borders, parting with Tommy.

Y/n’s chest tightened as soon as the gates slammed shut, they’d had a few wonderful hours of sanctuary. Back in the throes of losing their lives, she wanted to run back.

Joel could sense her anxiety, it was so similar to how he was feeling. If the stakes weren’t so high, he would have never left. He took one foot out of his stirrups and nudged Y/n’s boot with his, dragging her eyes to him. He gave a small nod to let her know he was there, for the first time in twenty years, he was with her in any and all ways she needed him.

—————————

It took them a solid day of travel, with sneaky glances and reserved smiles, for Joel and Y/n to start talking.

Closer to sunset, Joel decided to cave and teach Ellie how to shoot with the rifle. She’d practically fallen off the horse in her rush to get on the ground.

“Wide right,” Joel instructed, after Ellie had missed her fourth shot, “You’re flinchin’.”

“The target’s too small,” she complained.

Y/n watched them from beside her horse, sneaking in a quick bite of food. Ellie and Joel were on their knees with the rifle resting on a log. Their closeness and the way Joel was guiding her through her shots wasn’t lost on Y/n and for the first time, she didn’t think it was lost on Joel either.

“I made it bigger than I should’ve,” he told Ellie, “Eject the cartridge.”

Ellie did as she was told, “And I am not flinching.”

“Mm-hmm,” Joel humored her.

“The rifle just sucks.”

“Okay, give it,” Joel said, reaching for the gun.

Ellie gladly handed it over and switched spots with him, “It doesn’t aim right.”

“Mm-hmm,” Joel adjusted his position.

“You’ll see,” Ellie insisted.

Y/n dusted the crumbs off her hands and came to watch, “How can you tell it’s busted if you’ve used it?”

Ellie gestured to the target Joel and Y/n had made her, “‘Cause I should’ve been able to fucking hit that!”

“Ah,” Y/n smiled, “So you’re just that good? Never touched a rifle in your life, but you’ve got the raw talent.”

Ellie flipped Y/n off, settling in beside Joel with a pair of binoculars to spot the target. Y/n moved to stand a few inches away from Joel.

“A deep breath in, slow breath out,” Joel recited, he was ultra aware of Y/n’s presence beside him, “You squeeze the trigger like you love it. Gentle…steady…” he purposefully paused, unable to help himself, “Nice and slow.”

An involuntary heat creeped up Y/n’s neck and landed in her cheeks.

“You gonna shoot or get this thing or get it pregnant?” Ellie smirked.

When Joel glared up at Ellie and stopped to see Y/n’s reaction after, she kept her eyes dead ahead on the target. The small smile gracing her lips told Joel enough.

“It isn’t gonna work,” Ellie insisted, looking through the lenses of the binoculars, “It doesn’t aim right.”

Joel took a flawless shot, the bullet cutting through the middle of their target.

Ellie’s jaw dropped, “You dick.”

Proud of himself, Joel casually shrugged it off.

“Okay, okay,” Y/n nudged Joel’s leg with her foot, “Now that the amateurs have had their turn…”

Joel let go of the gun and scooted to the side, allowing Y/n the space to kneel down against the log. Even under the circumstances, teaching a fourteen year old how to defend herself in the worst case scenario, with the wind brushing through her air and her brow knit in concentration, Joel couldn’t help but admire Y/n’s beauty.

They had yet to talk about what had happened between them on their last night in Jackson. He didn’t know where they stood, what she was feeling, or the smartest way to go about finding out. Coming back to her and Ellie had been pure emotion. It wasn’t just that he didn’t want to leave them, he couldn’t.

“Hang on,” Joel held up a hand before Y/n took a shot, moving in closer to her, “Posture’s wrong.”

“My posture’s fine,” Y/n said plainly.

Joel decided to test the waters, stretching an arm out around Y/n’s body and sliding his trigger finger over his. His other hand reached forward to envelop hers against the body of the rifle.

Y/n tried to conceal her smirk as Joel wrapped himself around her, her skin felt like it was buzzing and crackling under the pressure of his body.

“Eighth of an inch could be the difference between life and death,” Joel defended his actions, his lips nearly brushing Y/n’s ear.

“Mmm,” Y/n hummed, sucking on her bottom lip and trying to pull it straight.

Carefully, Joel rotated her body a barely imperceptible amount. Through his gloves, he could feel the way Y/n’s pulse sped up under his touch and decided he’d made the right call.

“You gotta think through every move,” Joel said, the depth of his voice rumbling against Y/n’s back, “Don’t rush through it.”

Y/n lined her eye up with the viewfinder, deciding to join in on Joel’s game. “There’s not always enough time. Sometimes you gotta be fast,” she paused, “And firm.”

Joel felt his own heart rate pick up, the adrenaline of their banter sending him back to the night before. But Y/n still hadn’t succeeded in catching him off guard.

“Nobody’s shootin’ back,” Joel said, readjusting his grip on her hands, “You can take your time.”

Attempting to take a steady breath, Y/n fired her shot, the bullet lodging itself a millimeter apart from Joel’s.

Y/n pulled away from the viewfinder, turning her head towards Joel only to find him waiting for her.

“I think I could’ve done that on my own,” she purred.

Joel’s eyes were locked on her lips, nearly admitting defeat and giving into the tension they’d created. “Guess we’ll never know,” he replied huskily.

“Nice and slow, huh?” Ellie interrupted the moment, smirking at them, “Fuckin’ disgusting.”

Y/n smiled as Joel’s head dropped a little, sliding the gun back into his hands and getting to her feet.

“Come on, Cowgirl Jane,” she pulled on Ellie’s shoulders, steering the girl back to the horses, “Saddle up.”

Joel watched the two of them walk back to the horses, his eyes focusing on Y/n’s silhouette as she tugged Ellie’s body into hers. For months, all he could think of was what could have been, what almost had been. He’d never stopped to think that he had something so similar to what he’d lost in front of him the whole time.

—————————

They camped for the night under a rock formation, similar to the one they’d slept at the night before making it to Jackson. Ellie was tired enough to call it a night earlier than usual, leaving Joel and Y/n to themselves…for the first time since their conversation.

They sat across the fire from one another, unable to tear their gazes away for more than maybe five seconds. It had been like that all day, they couldn’t keep their eyes off one another. If a stranger took one look at them, they would never guess they’d been running from each other just 24 hours prior.

“You warm enough?” Joel asked, scanning the layers she had on.

“Mm-hmm,” Y/n nodded, heating her hands by the fire.

Joel settled back against his rock, watching the light of the flames dance across her face. It was the same shade of orange as the bedroom lamp had been.

“It’s rude to stare, Miller,” Y/n remarked, feeling the heat of his deep brown eyes on her.

“‘M not starin’,” Joel replied, a lovestruck smile pulling at his mouth.

“Really?” Y/n chortled, finally meeting his gaze, “Then what’re you doin’?”

It had been three months of avoiding looking at her too long, Joel wanted to take his time and admire every inch of her face for as long as she deserved to be admired, “Somethin’ else.”

Y/n felt the blood rush to her cheeks again, Joel could wield sentiment just as expertly as a gun. It was so tempting to just watch him watch her all night.

But they had to face the music at some point.

“Listen,” Joel started, his gaze darting to his hands in his lap, “About last night…”

“Yeah…” Y/n nodded, hugging one of her knees to her chest.

“I, uh…” Joel looked earnestly back up at her, “I didn’t plan that or anything.”

Y/n nearly laughed, “I didn’t think you did. And for the record, that’s not why I was in your room.”

Joel nodded, never in a million years could either of them have guessed how the night would have ended.

“Do you…” he paused, fearing the answer he knew he might get, “Regret it?”

Y/n knew she was well within her rights to resent Joel, in one way or another. But the thing was, she was tired of holding a grudge against him, of pretending like he wasn’t still engrained in her soul. What happened between them had been unexpected, unplanned and…beautiful.

“Y’know,” Y/n began, “I really tried to hate you at the beginning of all this. I mean, there was a part of me that definitely did but…I never could’ve made good on any of those promises to kill you…” she inhaled, “I’ve spent twenty years just…wanting to scream every time I thought about you. And then at some point, one of the many times I ran that day back in my mind…I understood. Why you did it.”

Joel’s amusement was sucked right out of him, a somber expression capturing his face again.

“It made sense,” Y/n nodded, watching the fire instead of Joel, “‘Cause after I…” she stopped short of the horrific memory, “After I did what I did…I broke. I mean, I shattered on the floor and I never found all the pieces…

“You’re still you,” Joel interjected, unable to help himself.

“Joel…” Y/n smiled sadly at him, “I’m not the same. Neither are you. I don’t think you can go through something like what we went through and not come out different…,” Y/n sighed, “And it’s not fair of me to keep blaming you for what I did after you left.”

The last thing Joel was going to let her do was try and make him feel better about what he’d done to her, “Y/n, I-“

“No,” Y/n readjusted herself against the rock, “Stop. I can be upset you left me, I can be sad about it…but I can’t blame you for the choices I made. They were mine to make and…” she sniffled, “I have to live with them.”

“So, no…” Y/n sighed, “I don’t regret it. Any of it.”

Joel shifted, so unsettled by how the air was shifting. He couldn’t handle the way Y/n was treating him. It wasn’t what he deserved.

“Just…please hate me,” he asked of her, his throat forming a lump, “In some way, just…just a little.”

Y/n knew what self-loathing looked like, she practiced it every minute of every day. She’d never felt something stronger than the way she despised herself, and she didn’t want Joel to drown in the same whirlpool.

Picking herself off the ground, she walked around the fire, nudging Joel’s legs flat against the dirt. She lowered herself onto his lap, rendering him still and speechless.

Joel’s breath caught in his chest as Y/n sat atop him, her gaze travelling across his face and her hand coming up to cup his cheek. He nearly flinched at the softness of her touch, here he was begging for her vitriol, and she was bathing him in honey.

“We don’t always get what we want, Joel,” she whispered, her words crossing the small, small distance between them.

Joel could do nothing but tremble at the sentiment, underlying feelings rising to the sentence’s surface and embracing him. None of it was fair, what he’d put her through, what she’d gone through after, and what had put them there in the first place. He knew he didn’t deserve Y/n anymore, if he ever had, but…he wanted to be selfish. He wanted to love her again with the full force that came with twenty years of missing a person.

It all came down to whether or not he would let himself.

And the way her fingers grazed his cheek and her tender gaze flipped his stomach practically threw him into her arms.

Joel leaned forward, pressing his lips to Y/n’s in a passionate, yet slow kiss. She caught his face in her palms, allowing him to drag her closer till their chests were pressed together. It hadn’t taken long for their bodies to remember the feel of one another. Joel inhaled deeply, breathing Y/n in like she was his life support, and she was. He would forever live and die by her.

When they broke, muscle memory brought their foreheads together. The crackling of the fire and their quickened breaths were the soundtrack to their intimate moment. Y/n couldn’t help the tears welling in her eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Joel’s hands sliding up her back, one coming to cup the back of her neck.

Y/n shook her head, biting back a smile as her eyes travelled Joel’s face. “I just never thought I’d see you again…” she whispered, her thumb gliding over Joel’s beard.

Joel turned into her palm, pressing apologetic kisses to the skin. The same thought had echoed through his mind for two decades.

“You still gotta give me hell,” he said in between kisses, “Make me pay for what I put you through.”

Y/n smiled, her skin tingling at his touch, “Stop.”

Joel’s lips travelled to her wrist, “Fire a warnin’ shot every once in a while, just to keep me on my toes.”

“Shut up,” Y/n laughed softly, pulling his chin up to gain access to his lips.

Under the midnight Wyoming sky, they let themselves fall for each other all over again. It would never be exactly as it had been, they were different people, but the core flame remained the same. Joel and Y/n had travelled for twenty years only to find their way back to one another. In every kiss, every touch, there was forgiveness. There was redemption. Above all, there was love that nothing, not even Cordyceps could lay waste to.

When their kisses began to slow, exhaustion hitting them both, Joel pulled back. “Get some sleep,” he brushed a strand of hair from Y/n’s face, “I got first watch.”

“You don’t fucking wake me up,” Y/n smiled, “Ever.”

“No, I don’t,” Joel ran his hands slowly up and down her back. He had a hard time dragging her from peace to the cold reality they spent their waking hours in.

Y/n rolled her eyes and rolled off of Joel’s lap, crossing the fire to retrieve her sleeping bag. Joel watched her every move in daze, fully consumed by his love for her once again.

She dropped her bag at Joel’s side, pointing to him decisively before sliding in, “Wake me up.”

“Okay,” Joel smiled, humoring her. They both knew he wouldn’t.

Y/n settled in next to him, resting one hand on his thigh. She knew they were too vulnerable to ask him to lay next to her, but she needed some piece of him to fall asleep.

Joel sat there, holding his rifle for the first time with a smile on his face. He had ended up right where he’d tried so hard not to be, exposed by his instinctual need to love someone. He glanced down at Y/n and further away at Ellie. He couldn’t say that he regretted falling captive to either of them.

—————————

The next few days went by in a blur of snow-coated landscapes and trees that all looked identical.

Perhaps the most beautiful part of Joel and Y/n’s reunion was the freedom it allowed them. They didn’t have to hide any more behind their shields, they didn’t have to try and find fault in each other. They were unshackled from their grudge and it didn’t just serve them.

“So the way they ran stuff in Jackson,” Ellie asked on their second day of travel, “Was that how things used to be?”

“No,” Joel answered as he guided their horse, “The country was too big for that. Back then, there were basically two main ways of lookin’ at things. Some people wanted to own everything. And some people didn’t want anyone to own anything at all.”

“Most people didn’t even care about the actual issues,” Y/n added, remembering sitting through mind-numbing debates amongst friends at dinner parties or candidates on a tv screen, “They just wanted to argue.”

“So which one were you guys?” Ellie asked.

“Neither,” Joel answered for both him and Y/n, “We just did our jobs.”

“Which was…” Ellie tried to recall the details they’d told them earlier, “Building?”

“That’s right. Houses, stores, that kind of thing. We were called contractors,” Joel replied, nodding to Y/n, “She used to sell me all my supplies.”

“Oh,” Ellie smirked and pumped an eyebrow at Y/n, “That makes sense…you hooked him up.”

Y/n rolled her eyes, “You live in the fucking gutter, child.”

Ellie snickered, before lowering her voice, “‘The Contractor.’ That’s pretty cool.”

“Yeah, we were cool,” Joel breathed, deciding rewriting an insignificant piece of history wouldn’t stunt Ellie’s growth, “Everybody loved contractors.”

Y/n nearly snorted, turning her face so Joel could maintain his reputation in Ellie’s eyes but earned a light kick from him to the shin. When she looked back, Ellie was resting her face against Joel’s back and Joel was beaming. The lover’s eyes met, a silent understanding passing between them that this was the happiest either of them had been since…

Y/n thought to the plastic butterfly that had survived the last three months in her backpack. Joel still didn’t know it was there.

Each night that they camped, Y/n drifted a little closer to Joel until the second after they’d start their fire, she’d settle right into his arms. Ellie continually took the piss out of them, making a suggestive remark or serenading them with an off-key rendition of an old ballad. Y/n would laugh and throw something at her, Joel would watch them both and try to conceal just how much they were bringing him back to life.

When Joel would stand watch, Y/n would be right by his side, unable to be apart from him even in sleep. On the nights where he’d let her take the second shift, desperate for a moment’s rest, he’d lay his head on her leg. Twenty years of separation were driving them together with a force neither of them could fight.

Each day, Joel and Y/n explained a little more about their lives or how the world had worked to Ellie. She absorbed it all as best she could, but it was naturally difficult to imagine a world different than the only one she’d known.

“Okay, so if you mess up your fourth down,” Ellie recited what Joel had explained to her, “Then you give the ball to the other team?”

“Right,” Joel confirmed, “It’s called a turnover.”

“Turnover,” Ellie tested out the word, “But if you make it to ten yards, then you’re back to first down?”

“Yep,” Joel nodded.

“So, basically just moving in one direction.”

“Basically,” Joel replied, “But violent.”

“Oh, well,” Ellie nodded, “There’s that.”

Y/n guided her horse alongside them, “Do you remember that Cowboys game we went to?”

It was the first time either of them had brought up one of the lighter periods of their past. “Tommy’s birthday?” Joel recalled, “Yeah, they barely pulled through.”

“We made it up on the big screen,” Y/n remembered, a smile coming to her face.

“And Tommy was so fuckin’ wasted, he started dancin’,” Joel continued the memory.

Y/n grinned, “We had to pour him into the car, let him sleep it off on the couch.”

Joel chortled under his breath, for the first time feeling like he could look back on the happier parts of his life without feeling guilt. Y/n represented both the best and worst times he’d gone through, the hope and the fall of all his dreams. The light she was bringing back into his space was illuminating all their history, and they couldn’t sustain themselves anymore on grief.

He wrapped the reins around one fist and reached over to Y/n’s horse, pulling her hand into his. She looked across to him, smiling warmly and tightening her fingers around his.

Ellie groaned, making a convincing gag sound.

“Would you rather us try and kill each other all day?” Y/n asked as Joel scoffed.

“That was easier to stomach,” Ellie remarked, though it didn’t really bother her all that much. She liked Joel and Y/n getting along.

They came up on the I-25, just as Tommy had directed them. The city’s outline acted as a homing beacon.

“Well, how ‘bout that?” Joel said, “Made it in five days.”

“Easy days,” Ellie added, “I don’t know what Tommy was so afraid of.”

“Still time to find out,” Joel commented, he was happy, but he couldn’t be delusional.

Ellie lowered her voice and threw on a bad Southern drawl, “‘Still time to find out.’”

Joel glared back at her before she switched to a strained, creepy whisper, “‘The Contractorrrr.’”

Y/n and Ellie shared a laugh, Joel rolled his eyes and dropped Y/n’s hand, causing them to laugh harder. The sound warmed his chest.

They rode another hour before making it to the outskirts of the university.

“Wow,” Y/n muttered, taking in the corroded architecture.

“I know,” Joel agreed, having not stepped foot on a campus since tours in his junior year of high school, “Been a while.”

“‘Home of the Big Horns,’” Ellie read off the sign, “What does that mean?”

“Team mascot,” Joel explained, “It’s a kind of sheep.”

“Oh, see?” Ellie said, “One step closer to your dream. Don’t see any Fireflies though.”

“They’re gonna be further in,” Y/n said, nudging her horse forward to lead them. It had been three months since she’d actually thought of herself as a Firefly. Being with Joel, taking care of Ellie had made her feel like her old self. To put on her other identity felt…unnatural.

They rode through the dormitory section of campus, of all the abandoned buildings she’d seen over the years, Y/n was sure this was the strangest.

“So these places,” Ellie started, “People would live here and like, what? Go to classes and stuff?”

“Yup,” Joel answered,

“Even though they were adults,” Ellie struggled. FEDRA recruited straight out of high school. College was, truly, an alien concept to her.

“Sort of adults,” Joel clarified, “I think it was just as much about partyin’ and findin’ themselves as anythin’ else.”

“Hey, hey,” Y/n spoke up, “Some of us were studious.”

Joel smiled, “Alright. And figurin’ out what they wanted to do with their lives.”

“What they wanted to do with their lives,” Ellie repeated, chuckling to herself.

“It didn’t always go that way,” Y/n added, “I mean, I went for four years, got a degree and it stayed on a wall. I never used it. Ended up in a hardware store.”

“So why go?” Ellie asked.

Y/n shrugged, “Like he said, you try to find yourself at that age…” she hesitated to continue, “I didn’t find myself till much later in life.”

Joel knew exactly what she was referring to, transporting himself somewhere between their first date and their last kiss.

“So I’ve been thinkin’,” he spoke up.

“Mm-hmm?” Ellie hummed.

“I don’t want a sheep ranch, actually. I mean, if the deal is I can do anything?”

Ellie looked over his shoulder up at him, “That’s the deal.”

“Well…” Joel was about to reveal the very last secret he’d been keeping, “When I was a kid, I wanted to be a singer.”

“Shut up,” Ellie laughed.

Joel looked back at her, “Why is that funny?”

“You gotta sing something now,” Ellie said.

“No.”

“Oh, you can’t just drop that on her and run,” Y/n grinned, “C’mon, hit us with a little Patsy Cline.”

“Yeah, c’mon, man,” Ellie joined in, “I’m not gonna laugh.”

“You’re already laughin’,” Joel pointed out.

“Yeah, okay, true,” Ellie replied, it was just too funny to think about dark, brooding Joel belting out an 80’s pop song or a 90’s grunge anthem, “Well, you’re singin’ for us later. I’m gonna save the fuckin’ world, man. It’s the least you can do for me.”

“I can’t top that,” Y/n smiled, “But I’ll make your life a complete hell if I don’t get to hear that voice again.”

Joel smirked, looking between the two women who could make him do just about anything, “Fair enough.”

Y/n and Joel drove their horses deeper into campus, coming up on what would have once been considered the quad. Now, there were wild animals freely roaming the frozen grass.

“Are those monkeys?” Ellie excitedly asked.

“Must be from the old labs,” Joel considered.

Ellie laughed as they chased each other away, “Look at them go.”

“First time seein’ a monkey?” Joel asked.

“First time seein’ a monkey.”

Y/n was a few feet ahead of them, scanning for her west coast counterparts. Spray painted on some signage, she spotted the Firefly symbol.

“Hey,” she called back to Joel, who was already coming to her side, “Look.”

Ellie sighed, “Here we go…”

Joel and Y/n kept their rifles against their chests as they followed the path, Y/n continued to ride ahead of them to handle any of the talking.

“Guard stations,” Ellie observed.

“Empty,” Y/n added, a twinge of suspicion lacing through her stomach.

“Uh…” Ellie dragged out the non-verbal question.

“Yeah,” Joel confirmed.

“Gun?”

It was foolish to think that their happiness would last the whole way to the base without a hint of trouble. “Yeah,” Joel sighed.

Y/n slid off her horse first, tucking her reins with Joels between a tree and its branch. The two of them shared a look, tender yet hardened as they removed their gloves to handle their guns better.

“Stick behind us,” Y/n ordered Ellie, who already knew the drill.

Joel and Y/n walked side by side, their pistols unholstered, as they entered the main building. The inside was utter destruction, everything from medical equipment to vials and medication bottles strewn across the floor.

“There were definitely doctors here,” Ellie said, picking up a small box from one of the carts left standing.

Joel picked up a file, flipping the manilla folder open and finding a piece of yellow pad paper.

“This is a packing list,” he explained, “Somethin’ you make before moving.”

He turned it to Y/n, who examined the contents of the list. Marlene had moved the Firefly base in Boston a few times before they’d found their home, their lists were nearly identical to this one.

“They just left?” Ellie asked.

There was a metallic clang from somewhere on a floor above them, all of their muscles tensing at the sound.

“Maybe not all of ‘em,” Ellie looked to Joel and Y/n.

The three of them carefully climbed the stairs, following the noise to the third floor. Joel managed to get ahead of Y/n, making himself a human shield. The same mess that littered the ground floor was scattered down the hall. Something, or someone, had cause the Fireflies to leave in a hurry.

Pausing outside the room in which the sound was coming from, Joel held up a hand to Ellie. Y/n scrunched down, sneaking past the doors and coming to stand on the other side. She and Joel shared an affirmative nod, drawing their guns and slowly entering the room.

Where the monkeys revealed themselves as the noisy culprits.

“Jeez,” Y/n breathed.

“Well,” Joel sighed, “At least it ain’t Clickers.”

“Yeah, no Fireflies either,” Ellie began to roam the room, “Maybe in all that research, they turned into fuckin’ monkeys.”

Y/n put her hands to her hips, throwing her head back to stare at the ceiling. She wracked her brain for anything, any piece of information about the base out west. An emergency evacuation plan, a second meeting place…

“You got anything?” Joel asked, seemingly telepathic.

“Nothing,” Y/n replied, scrunching her eyes shut, “I’ve never been privy to all of Marlene’s secrets.”

The two of them began to examine the room, Y/n was drawn to a cork-board with papers pinned to it. There was a map of the country in the middle with thumbtacks leading a path all the way to Salt Lake City.

“Hey,” Y/n called for Joel and Ellie.

“That’s where they went?” Ellie pointed her gun towards Utah.

“All the pins lead there,” Joel observed, “Maybe gettin’ ahead of the weather…better facilities? I don’t know.”

Y/n shook her head, “I mean, I don’t remember there being a base out there but-“

A set of unfamiliar voices interrupted her thought.

Joel and Y/n hurried to the window, barely peeking out enough to spot a group of raiders outside.

“Out the back,” Joel ordered, the three of them quickly rushing out the room.

They filed down the stairs and out the back entrance of the lab, taking shelter behind old sandbags as they listened for the raiding party. When all they heard was silence, Joel led them to the next point of safety.

“Ready?”

Y/n and Ellie nodded, guns drawn and ready to make their grand escape.

The three of them ran across the distance to where they’d left their horses. Joel and Y/n quickly holstered their rifles while Ellie tried to keep their animals calm.

“Joel! Y/n!”

Ellie’s cry caused them to spin around, one of the raiders had snuck up on them. He swung a lead pipe around, Joel pulling Y/n out of the way just in time before it collided with her skull. Y/n reached for her rifle again, ramming it in their attacker’s stomach, causing him to stumble. Joel took the opportunity to lunge at him, slamming him up against the tree. He took a shiner to the chin before flipping the raider in his grip and cutting off his airways with a chokehold.

“Get her,” Joel grunted to Y/n as the man struggled against him.

Y/n ran to Ellie, who had her gun aimed with a shaking hand, and pulled her back from the danger.

Joel waited until the raider was too weak to fight back before snapping his neck with a sickening crack and dropping him to the ground. He turned around to Y/n and Ellie, his chest rising and falling in heaves.

They were both staring at his abdomen in horror.

He looked down in confusion, a knife sticking out of him.

The world seemed to stop, for all of them, as realization hit in different ways. Joel grabbed hold of the dagger’s handle, pulling it out of him with a grunt. His blood began to pour out of him.

Y/n’s slackened jaw trembled, watching it all unfold as Joel’s eyes flew up to hers.

“Joel,” Ellie cried, the only one of them still thinking clearly and spotting the other raiders coming up on them, “Get on the horse.”

Joel managed to take a few steps forward while Y/n rushed to her own horse. He mounted his horse, letting out a blood-curdling cry of pain that, despite all their instincts, neither of them could stop to care for.

“El,” Y/n called as she mounted her own animal, “Go!”

Joel and Ellie began to ride off with Y/n not far behind, she was trying to manage the horse and shoot. Most of her shots landed at the ground around the raider’s feet.

Ellie took a few shots as well, “Get back!”

One fatal bullet hit one of the men, a warning to the others that may try to follow them.

Looking back for a split second, Y/n made a shot that cut through one of the raider’s legs. She spun back around to urge her horse forward.

“Joel,” Y/n shouted, “Ride.”

Through the shock that was beginning to hit his system, Joel could still understand her. He nudged the horse forward, their speed picking up and creating a wider berth between them and the men chasing after them.

It took them twenty minutes of riding until they were sure they’d lost them.

“They’re not following us,” Ellie said, looking to their rear, “I think we’re safe.”

Y/n looked over at Joel, his eyes were glazed over as he hunched over the reins of the horse.

“Joel,” she called, as if she could warn him of what his body had already set in motion.

He slipped from his horse before Ellie or Y/n could do a thing.

“Joel,” the girl cried, “No, no, no, no, shit!”

He fell to the snow with a grunt, his vision going black, the last thing is ears registered being-

“Joel!”

Y/n rushed off her horse, beating Ellie to his body and kneeling over it. His skin had turned three shades paler than his usual glow, Y/n felt his deathly cold cheeks and began to cry.

“No, no, no,” she mumbled, tapping his face firmly, “Joel, wake up.”

“Joel?” Ellie called him, kneeling on his other side, “Joel?”

Y/n was sane enough to examine his wound, blood spilling out of it at an uncontrollable rate.

“Shit,” she whimpered, “Ellie, his hands.”

Ellie covered Joel’s hands and pressed down on the hole in an attempt to stop the flow.

“Joel, open your eyes,” Ellie ordered, leaning over his face, “Open your eyes. Joel, you gotta get up.”

Panic mounted in Y/n quicker than it ever had, her mind flashing back to Outbreak Day, the last time she’d felt the life slip from someone she loved.

“No,” she begged, her tears falling onto Joel’s cheeks and rolling down his own face, “Joel, come on. Please, wake up.”

“We can’t fuckin’ do this without you,” Ellie began to choke on her own cries, “We don’t know where the fuck we’re going, what the fuck we’re gonna do…”

They needed him.

Ellie let out one more heartbreaking croak of his name, “Joel.”

Y/n pressed her forehead to his as if she could will her life into him. She couldn’t go twenty years missing him, get him back only to have him ripped from her.

“Joel, please,” she whined, “Don’t do this to me. Don’t do this to me.”

They sat in the snow, begging him to do something he couldn’t.

Y/n fought against the fears bubbling in her throat, ready to swallow her. She had to think clearly and quickly if they had any chance of saving him.

She wrenched her backpack off her body, frantically pulling at her jacket until it was off her too. “Ellie,” she sniffled, “Lift his shoulders.”

Ellie crawled above Joel’s head and strained to lift him, Y/n forced and shimmied her coat underneath him, yanking it until it was around his lwoer back. She pulled the sleeves around to his front, lined them up with the wound and tied a tight knot. A makeshift tourniquet.

“We gotta get him on the horse,” Y/n thought out loud, trying to think of the best way to move him, “Bring one of ‘em down.”

Ellie ran to retrieve Y/n’s horse, leading it back to the dip in the land they were on. Y/n brushed a hand over Joel’s cheek again, praying he stayed unconscious for the next part.

“I’m gonna get him to his feet,” Y/n instructed through her tears, “You’re gonna keep the horse steady, then you’re gonna help me get him on, okay?”

“Mm-hmm,” Ellie nodded, just as emotional as Y/n.

“Okay,” Y/n wrapped one of Joel’s arms around her shoulders and hoisted him to a seated position, “C’mon, honey. Come on.”

Joel’s head lolled backwards, his lips were turning blue. It was better to try and keep him awake.

“Joel,” Y/n said into his ear, loudly, “Joel, c’mon, stay awake for me.”

She got to her feet, calling on a supernatural strength she didn’t know she possessed and getting Joel upright, only for his knees to go out. Ellie was quick to take hold of his other side, doing her best to keep him up. She and Y/n strained ahead to their horse, until it was time to lift him.

Y/n mounted the animal first, they’d gotten Joel leaned up against it and Ellie was keeping him steady. “I’m gonna pull, you’re gonna push, okay?”

Ellie nodded.

“Go,” Y/n ordered, pulling Joel by his armpits up onto the horse with her. He let out a muffled groan as they did, a sad, but good sign. Ellie strained as she helped to lift him the rest of the way.

“I got you,” Y/n lowered him onto her back, the full weight of him pressing into her, “I got you.”

Joel’s head fell forward against Y/n’s shoulder, knowing even through his haze that it was a safe place to be.

“Where do we go?” Ellie asked, having grabbed Y/n’s backpack and mounted her horse.

Y/n looked at the area around them, hopelessly clueless as to what their next move was. Joel wouldn’t make the five day ride back to Jackson, and they couldn’t go back to the university. It was uncharted waters, whichever way they went.

“We find somewhere we can hide,” Y/n decided, on the verge of hyperventilating, “Anywhere.”

“We passed that neighborhood on the way,” the girl recalled.

“Yeah,” Y/n tugged Joel’s arms around her waist, “Yeah, let’s try there.”

The two women urged their horses forward, somewhere between a sprint and a trot, cutting through the woods beside them to head back to their original route. Y/n clutched Joel’s hands, interlocking her fingers with his, determined not to let him die in her arms.

She wouldn’t.

She couldn’t.

—————————

“Joel,” she said softly.

“Yeah?” He was barely taking in her words, focused on how her lips were starting to swell from his attention.

“What’s burning?”

It didn’t register at first, then he remembered the food was still in the oven. “Shit,” he muttered, letting her go to run back to the kitchen and save their dinner.

Y/n chuckled, kicking off her shoes and heading in to help him.

Joel’s attempt at a simple roast chicken and potatoes turned out slightly crispy, but good, all in all. They’d eaten it at the table, Joel’s hands stretched across the surface to hold Y/n’s.

After their meal, they retired to the living room. Joel turned on the stereo and fell onto the couch, Y/n laying her legs across his lap.

“Well, day one’s almost over,” she said, “How’re you feeling?”

Joel sighed, “She called earlier when they got there. Sounded real excited.”

“And you could not sound happier about it,” Y/n chortled, “Joel, she’s going to be fine.”

“I know that, it’s just,” Joel strroked his hand over Y/n’s calf, “It’s been me and her for…ever. When she’s off it just…”

Y/n watched her boyfriend with soft eyes, waiting for him to say more.

“I know she’s growin’ up, she’s always been independent, but,” he paused staring down at his hands, “It gets easier and easier for her every year to get on that bus. Makes me think about the day she’ll leave for good.”

“You know that no matter where she goes,” Y/n offered, “She’s always coming back here. She loves you too much.”

Joel gently smiled, his fingers brushing against Y/n’s leg. She always knew the right thing to say.

“And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but she kinda loves me too,” Y/n smirked.

“Yeah, well, there’s a lot to work with there,” Joel winked.

Y/n giggled, her eyes drifting over Joel’s shoulder to the corner of the living room. An acoustic guitar sat propped up in a stand.

“Y’know, I still haven’t heard you play,” she said, nodding to the instrument.

For as much as he loved music, he still got a little bashful about his talent. “I sound like everyone else,” he replied.

“Yeah, nice try,” Y/n wasn’t so easily discouraged, “Play me something.”

Much like his daughter, there wasn’t a lot Joel could deny Y/n. If it was going to make her smile, he’d gladly do it. He lifted her legs off of him and went to retrieve the guitar.

“Does the audience have any requests?” Joel asked, settling back down beside her and fiddling with the tuning pegs.

Y/n tucked her legs into her chest, barely containing her grin, “Something sweet.”

Joel finished tuning the guitar and took his position. He hadn’t played for anyone other than Sarah in a very long time.

The first pluck of the strings relaxed them both, Joel settled into the piece quickly. Y/n watched his fingers dance up and down the string, a series of movements only he knew. It sounded like an old folk song, the kind that told the tale of doomed lovers torn apart by tragedy. She had enough musical knowledge to know it was in a minor key. Sweet, it was not, but it was brimming with passion, and the way Joel watched the strings so intensely only added to it. Y/n was taken aback by the simple beauty of him, pouring himself into the music.

When it was over, a few final notes slowing the tempo before stopping entirely, Joel looked over to Y/n, a whisper of a smile playing upon his lips. Their eyes connected, the ever present flame between them stretching the distance between their bodies. In that moment, Joel was thankful they were alone.

In the same set of seconds, Joel blindly set the guitar down to the side and Y/n surged forward, the two of them meeting in a heated kiss. Y/n held both of Joel’s cheeks in her hands while he maneuvered her on top of him, their lips never losing their connection. The sadness of the song had drawn them together, both needing to feel the fullness of each other’s devotion to counter the loss that the notes had grieved. That wasn’t them, they said with each touch, it could never be them.

—————————

September 28th, 2002. Austin, Texas.

Fall had hit Texas, as much as it could affect the south, anyway. Sarah and Y/n were in the backyard of the Milller home. Sarah had her first soccer game of the season that weekend and she wanted to get in some extra practice.

“Okay,” Y/n called from the goal, “Don’t go easy on me.”

“Yeah, right,” Sarah scoffed, she was never afraid to show the full force of her talent on the field. Faking Y/n out, she broke to the left before making a sudden right turn and shooting the ball through the goal.

“Yes,” she exclaimed, pulling her fists down in celebration.

“Alright, alright, alright,” Y/n smirked, coming up beside Sarah as she did a little victory dance, “Don’t get too cocky. Let’s work on your goalkeeping.”

Sarah grooved her way back to the goal, “Okay, but I’m kinda spectacular at that too.”

“Well, we certainly don’t need to work on your confidence,” Y/n remarked. Sarah had the same cockiness, reserved only for things she was truly great at, as her father.

Joel materialized then, coming through the back door and watching his girls from the deck. “How we lookin’?”

“Today, Taft Middle School,” Y/n replied, catching the ball with her heel as Sarah kicked it, “Tomorrow, FIFA.”

Joel smiled proudly, both at Sarah and Y/n. Most women would have kept distance between them and their partner’s child. Y/n had jumped in headfirst, determined to be there for Sarah as much as she wanted her. She was the feminine influence his daughter had been denied all her life.

“Alright,” Y/n announced, “Good?”

Sarah nodded, “Good.”

Joel saw an opportunity and couldn’t pass it up. He carefully made his way down the steps of the deck, sneaking through the grass and up behind Y/n just as she was about to make her shot. As she wound her leg back, Joel wrapped his arms around her middle and lifted her into the air.

Y/n shrieked as she was swung around, “Joel!”

“Sarah, steal it,” he yelled, smiling as Y/n wriggled in his embrace.

Sarah surged forward, avoiding Y/n’s flailing legs as she fought against Joel, and snatched the ball. She moved through the grass effortlessly and landed a perfect kick into the net.

Laughing heartily, Joel finally released Y/n back to the ground. He shared a high-five with his daughter as she bounded back to them.

“You two are awful,” Y/n gave Joel a shove to his chest, her wide grin contradicting her words.

Joel hung an arm around his girlfriend’s neck, pressing a kiss to her temple. “C’mon,” he separated from Y/n and clapped his hands, “Two-on-one, girls vs. boys.”

“We’re gonna destroy you,” Sarah teased, coming to stand beside Y/n.

“I wouldn’t expect anything else,” he quipped, standing in front of the goal.

The three of them stayed out until sunset, practicing plenty, but laughing more than anything.

—————————

December 25th, 2002. Austin, Texas.

The Millers didn’t do anything spectacular for Christmas. A church service on the 24th, a simple dinner on the 25th, and presents.

It had been decided that both Tommy and Y/n would spend the night, it would make waking up and opening gifts easier than waiting for them to drive over. Tommy had taken the collapsable cot, his body was still used to military accommodations, while Y/n had gone for the couch. Joel and her were still hesitant to spend nights together, sleeping over at the other’s only when Sarah was away at her own sleepovers. Christmas didn’t feel like the time to test any boundaries.

Just past midnight, Y/n was still wide awake, tossing and turning on the sofa. There was a light snowfall happening outside and she hoped if she watched the flakes flutter through the air long enough, she’d drift off to sleep. So far, she’d had no such luck.

She took stock of the living room in its entirety. A fresh pine tree sat in the corner, a modest stack of presents surrounding the trunk. Two stockings were hung on the walls, Sarah and Joel’s names stitched across each. The room still faintly smelled like the batch of cookies her and Sarah had baked earlier in the evening. Even in the dark and completely silent, the house felt warm.

Footsteps down the stairs drew Y/n’s attention away from the decorations. She expected to see Sarah tiptoeing in to sneak a peek at the presents. Instead, Joel’s broad shadow entered the room.

“Can’t sleep?” Y/n asked from the couch.

Joel shook his head, “Nope.”

Y/n gave a small nod, pretending like the silence wasn’t as full of asking as it was. Joel’s posture had purpose in it, he wasn’t leaving until he got what he came for.

He tipped his head back towards the stairs, his eyes never leaving Y/n’s. “C’mon,” he said, his voice raspy with near sleep.

Y/n smiled to herself, throwing off her blanket and crossing the room to take Joel’s hand. The two of them tiptoed back up the stairs, trying not to wake Sarah or Tommy. Y/n knew the walk to Joel’s bedroom like the back of her hand, navigating in the dark made no difference. She certainly didn’t need Joel’s hands on her hips to guide her, but she welcomed them anyway.

Once the door shut, their routine commenced. Joel went to his dresser, blindly reaching into one of his drawers and tossing Y/n one of his flannels. Y/n slipped it on over her t-shirt, the sleeves ending way past the tips of her fingers. They made their way to their dedicated sides of the bed, Joel closest to the door because he felt better being a wall of protection between Y/n and the world.

“We have to get up before Sarah,” Y/n reminded him.

“We’ve got a 50% chance of makin’ it down before her,” Joel said, his hands gliding around her body to pull her into him, “Christmas morning, she’s up at the crack of dawn.”

Y/n drew closer to Joel, resting one hand on his chest and the other gripping the back of his neck. Already, she could feel her body relaxing in a way the couch just couldn’t coax out of her.

All the tension Joel had been carrying in his spine went lax the moment Y/n’s fingers grazed his skin. He was finding it harder and harder to sleep without her.

“Thank you,” she said out of the blue.

“For what?” Joel asked.

Y/n’s fingers danced along the line between the ends of his hair and the base of his skull. “For letting me be a part of all this,” she answered, her voice barely above a whisper.

Joel’s heart swelled, he took one of her cheeks into his hand and let their lips drift towards one another. Six months in, and he wasn’t sure if he could fall any harder in love with Y/n. She wasn’t just his, she was theirs. She was a permanent fixture in their home, the house a little less bright when she was absent from it. She had become a confidante to Sarah, a best friend to Tommy and everything to Joel. How could he not want her in every part of their lives?

“‘M afraid you’re stuck with us, Rosebud,” Joel smiled after he pulled back, brushing his thumb across her cheekbone.

“No place I’d rather be,” Y/n returned his grin.

Pressing one final kiss to her forehead, Joel tucked Y/n against his chest, his chin resting atop her head. She let her hand drift around to his back, her fingers spreading across the expanse as she tried to hold as much of him as she could. They fell asleep within minutes, the gentle snowstorm outside creating beauty that would only enhance the magic of Christmas for the Miller family.

—————————

2023. Kansas City, Missouri.

“Eye on me! Eyes on me!”

Joel’s eyes slid to the other side of the room, to the man with the barrel of his gun pointed at Ellie. Her and Y/n both had their hands raised high.

“You don’t have to worry about what to say,” the young man said, “We don’t wanna hurt you. We wanna help you.”

Joel watched him, he was shifting his weight between both feet, no expert marksman was that nervous to threaten someone’s life. Joel felt significantly better about his chances.

“Okay.”

“Okay, um…” the young man paused, “I don’t know what the next step is with something like this, but if I lower my gun…we didn’t hurt you…so you don’t hurt us…right?”

Joel stared him down, “That’s right.”

“That’s a weird fuckin’ tone, man,” their enemy replied.

“That’s just the way he sounds,” Ellie interrupted, first looking to the stranger and then back to Joel, “He has an asshole voice. Joel, tell him he’s okay.”

Joel stared, nearly a hint of a smirk at his lips, “Everything is great.”

“Dude…” Ellie muttered.

“We’re not going to hurt you,” Y/n intervened, looking to the man, “Now drop the fucking guns before I second guess myself.”

“That wasn’t any better,” Ellie exclaimed.

“Fuck! Okay, listened,” the stranger started, his voice practically trembling, “I’m gonna trust you.”

He then stopped to signal something to the child, Y/n recognized it as ASL. They communicated something none of them could understand.

“But if any of you guys try anything,” the man kept his gun aimed at Ellie, nodding to Joel and Y/n, “Yeah? Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Ellie whispered, her heart was in her throat.

The child backed away from Joel and Y/n’s mattress, his aim still firmly locked onto them. Y/n was trying to get her heartbeat back down to a normal range.

“Can I sit up?” Joel asked, his voice was still on edge.

“Yeah,” the stranger conceded, “Slow. Get up slow.”

Joel obeyed, rising to a seated position without any rush. He raised his hands, the left one grazing Y/n’s injured right. Shockingly, the fleeting touch made her feel a little less nervous. If Joel was good for nothing else, at least he was a good fighter. They could get out of this easily, if necessary.

“Who are you?” Joel asked.

“My name’s Henry,” the now-named stranger answered, “That’s my brother, Sam. I’m the most wanted man in Kansas City. Although right now,” Henry finally lowered his gun, “My guess is you’re running a close second. Her too.”

Y/n and Joel looked to one another, that ambush was going to come back to bite them in the ass, one way or another.

“Henry,” Y/n spoke up, lowering her hands and laying them palm up in her lap, “We’re gonna need a lot more than that.”

The five of them ended up huddled around a lantern, snacking on their dwindling food supply and waiting for the rest of the story to unfold. Henry had made it clear that he had to get some food in his brother first. It had been Ellie’s idea to share what they had left.

“Where’d you get these?” Henry asked, chewing on a cracker.

“From Bill,” Ellie answered, “He’s dead.”

Y/n and Joel had been watching Sam, digging into what they’d shared with him as if he hadn’t eaten in days. There was a real possibility of it, or something along the lines. They both wordlessly handed what was left of their portions to the boy, who in return, signed something to his brother.

“He says ‘thank you,’” Henry relayed, “I’m guessing you don’t have much so, this means a lot.”

“How old is he?” Ellie asked.

The brothers talked amongst themselves, with Henry answering, “He’s eight.”

Ellie nodded, “Cool. I’m Ellie.”

“Y/n,” Y/n spoke up, wanting to try and make the child feel as comfortable as the circumstances would allow.

Henry spelled out the names for Sam, who responded with a sign that both Y/n and Ellie assumed meant ‘cool.’

Ellie smiled before smacking Joel on the knee and waiting for him to introduce himself.

“I’m Joel,” he swallowed his last bite, “Look, you ate, we didn’t kill each other, let’s call this a win-win and move on.”

Henry dusted off his hands, “Well, I’m betting that y’all came up here to get a view of the city and plan a way out. And when the sun’s up, I’ll show you one.”

Joel and Y/n thought it over separately before glancing over at one another. If Henry hadn’t killed them by now, he wouldn’t. He already knew their supply was low, the only reason he was sticking around was because he needed something from them.

“Okay,” Y/n answered for them, earning a quick turn and glare from Joel, “Sam can take our bed. As soon as morning hits, you show us the route.”

Henry scoffed, “Just like that you’re gonna trust us?”

“I know the eyes of a liar, Henry,” Y/n leaned forward, resting her elbow on her knee, “And you don’t have ‘em. You weren’t even going to kill us in the first place, and you certainly weren’t gonna make him do it.”

Joel was ready to jump in at any second, but Y/n spoke with such precision and intention, he couldn’t come up with any reason to stop her.

“So how about we get some sleep,” Y/n continued, “And tackle this tomorrow?”

Henry’s eyes focused in on Y/n, someone as calculated as she was was either the most honest person on the planet or so calcuating and conniving, they could deceive the worst of humanity.

“Okay,” he landed on trust, “First thing.”

Ellie and Sam settled onto their makeshift mattresses, while the adults sat against the walls of the apartment. Henry on one side, Joel and Y/n on the other.

“What happened to equals?” Joel asked, the edge to his words undercutting the softness of their volume.

“Would what you have said been any different?” Y/n countered, watching as Joel tried to come up with an answer that differed from hers, “Exactly.”

The two of them stayed close to one another, without actually touching. Y/n was still slightly rattled from waking up with Joel’s hand over hers.

“Although my fucking neck’s gonna be messed up all day,” Y/n mumbled, trying to find a comfortable position to rest her head against the wall.

While they trusted an already sleeping Henry enough not to kill them, instinct told both Y/n and Joel to not leave themselves in such a vulnerable positon again. Sleeping sitting up was the only option that would allow them a little bit of rest.

And Joel hated what he was about to offer.

“You can…” he pointed to his shoulder, “If you want.”

“I don’t want” Y/n quickly replied.

Joel sighed in exasperation, “Forget I offered.”

He crossed his arms and settled against the wall, shutting his eyes and shutting down his momentary lapse into generosity.

Y/n inhaled, trying to get over herself. She was getting way too much up close and personal time with Joel to feel comfortable. But it was either another dose or a hideous day of lingering discomfort without the blessing of Ibuprofen.

She awkwardly scooted closer to him until their thighs were touching, causing Joel to open one eye. He looked down at their parallel bodies and back to Y/n.

“Just don’t grab my hand,” she grumbled, laying her head down on his shoulder and praying that her stomach stayed unaffected.

Joel’s body stiffened as she rested on him, a quick shot of adrenaline running through his extremities. He wanted to pretend to be unmoved, unbothered by her touch, but it was impossible. He would never fully be without affection for the way she felt against him.

“Go ahead,” Y/n said, sensing his discomfort but mistaking it for simply physical.

Joel hesitated a few seconds before shaking himself out of his doubt and resting his head on top of Y/n’s.

When the weight of Joel’s skull fell on hers, Y/n’s natural instincts took over and she almost, almost, tucked into him more. It was by the grace of God that she caught herself before she did it. No matter how hard her mind loathed him, her body would have accepted him back in a heartbeat.

The two ex-lovers sat against the wall, still trying to convince themselves that they were miles apart.

—————————

Just as the night before, they woke up so much closer than intended.

Y/n had fully curled into Joel, snuggling into his chest at some point during their glorified nap. When she woke up to the rough scratch of his flannel agaisnt her cheek, drowsiness did not immediately remind her she was in the year 2023. In her sleep-adled state, it was winter of 2002.

When consciousness pulled her back to the land of the living, she lightly groaned. Why were their sleeping selves making everything so complicated?

Y/n rolled off of Joel, causing him to sharply inhale. He blinked a few times, rubbed a hand over his face and evaluated the room. Henry was still asleep, but Sam and Ellie were already awake and sitting on the edges of their beds.

Y/n was beside him, at least twelve inches of space between them.

“I do anything in my sleep?” Joel asked.

Y/n shook her head, sucking on her bottom lip, “Nope.”

Joel wasn’t buying it, “Then whydya got that look on your face?”

“I know why,” Ellie teased in a sing-song tone.

Y/n let out two loud claps, startling Henry awake, and got to her feet. “Rise and shine, time to work.”

Joel stayed on the ground, watching how fast she moved around the room. Something had happened and it had messed with her. He ran a hand over his right shoulder, noticing that it was warm when the rest of him felt cold. He peered back over at Y/n, rifling through her backpack to find Ellie and Sam breakfast. He watched how she crouched down and handed the kids what was assuredly the lion’s share of her rations. How she held up a questioning thumbs up to Sam, who in return, smiled and copied the gesture. How she cared. She still cared so much.

It was killing him.

But there were bigger things to worry about than the stirring in his heart for the woman who perhaps, hadn’t changed that much at all.

————————————

Once fed and watered, the group of five headed a few floors up to the apartment building’s conference room. Henry had promised it had the best view of the city.

“Welcome to Killa City,” he announced, showcasing the place in daylight through the massive windows.

“No FEDRA,” Joel observed.

“Not as of ten days ago, no,” Henry replied.

“We always heard KC FEDRA was-“

“Monsters? Savages?” Henry finished for Joel, “Yeah, you heard right. Raped and tortured and murdered people for twenty years.”

Y/n looked down at her shoes, “Fucking hell.” It was stories like Kansas City that were one of her reasons for joining the Fireflies.

“And you know what happens when you do that to people?” Henry continued, “The moment they get a chance, they do it right back to you.”

“But you’re not FEDRA,” Joel stated.

Henry paused before answering, “No…worse. I’m a collaborator.”

Joel shook his head, “I don’t work with rats.”

Y/n wasn’t so quick to walk away, Henry had too much of a heart it seemed to be a true collaborator. He had a story.

“Yeah, you fucking do,” Henry said, “Today you do, ‘cause I live here and you two don’t. That’s how I followed you here. I know this city and I’m gonna help you out.”

Joel watched Henry as he spoke, trying to see through him, “Why help us?”

“I saw what you two did,” Henry answered, “The way you killed those men. Now I know where to go, but I don’t know how to make it through alone, not if it’s just Sam and me.”

“You seem capable enough,” Joel replied, “You’re armed.”

“You’re wrong and wrong,” Henry said, “Never killed anyone. And pointing an unloaded gun at you was the closest I’ve ever come to being violent.”

Y/n nodded, no one let their hand shake that much when holding a loaded gun.

“So that’s the deal,” Henry stated, “I show you the way, you clear the way.”

Joel didn’t need anyone else slowing them down or making them more noticeable. And partnering with Henry would only make them bigger targets.

At the table behind them, Ellie and Sam were seated, reading from Ellie’s pun book. The energy was divided down the room; the grown-up side was deathy heavy while the kid’s side was warm and uplifting.

“Haven’t heard that in a long time,” Henry smiled, watching his little brother laugh.

Joel turned back to the window as he tried to put distance between him and the moment. Y/n glanced over at him, watching as the cogs in his mind turned. Her mind was already made up, it would have been wonderful if they could avoid an argument.

“So how’re we getting out?” Joel relented, turning to Henry.

Henry fetched a piece of paper from one of the drawers, office supplies had never been in high demand post-pandemic. He sketched out a square, writing down the names of the roads that cut through the city.

“Highways…” he pointed to one section, “Downtown,” then to the other, “Us. This whole area belongs to Kathleen.”

“And she is…?” Y/n asked, standing between Joel and Henry.

“Leader of the resistance,” Henry answered, “You can see the way we’re bounded by highways. They got people posted all around the inside perimeter. If we get close, we get caught. No question.”

“So how do we get across?” Ellie asked.

Henry banged a fist against the table to get Sam’s attention, signing something to him after. Sam went to drawing on his magnetic erase pad, Joel wasn’t made to feel any better about a kid being involved in the planning of their escape.

Sam held up his pad, having written the word ‘Tunnels’ on it.

Henry snapped his fingers, “Boom.”

“Kansas City has a subway?” Joel asked.

“No,” Henry answered, “But they do have maintenance tunnels. There’s a bunch of buildings all put up by the same developers. And they share these tunnels, including…” he pointed down to a specific section of his sketch, “A bank building here,” he began to draw their route, “So we enter the tunnels here, travel underground, and pop up here. Westside North. Residential. There’s an embankment on the other side of the houses. We head down, pedestrian bridge over the river,” Henry dropped his pencil, “Free as a bird.”

“You’re right,” Joel admitted, “It’s a great plan. So what do you need us for?”

Henry hesitated a moment, “You notice anything strange about this city? I mean, other than the strange shit you’ve already seen?”

“No Infected?” Ellie guessed before Y/n and Joel could.

“Oh, there’s Infected,” Henry replied, “Just not on the surface. FEDRA drove them underground fifteen years ago, and never let them come back up. It’s the only good thing those fascist motherfuckers ever did.’

Joel looked between Y/n and Ellie, “So you want us goin’ into a tunnel?”

“Everyone thinks that it’s full of Infected,” Henry quickly corrected, he sensed Joel’s doubt, “Including Kathleen, which means that we’re not gonna be running into any of her people. But you see, what I know is…it’s empty.”

“You know this?” Y/n questioned, “You’ve seen it? With your own eyes?”

“No,” Henry replied.

Joel took a deep breath, hands on his hips again. Y/n sighed and rested her elbows on the table. Henry was losing them both.

“But the FEDRA guy that I worked with told me that it’s clean,” the young man continued, “Completely clean. They cleared it out. All of it.”

“How long ago?” Y/n asked, shutting her eyes as if it could shut out their problems.

“Like,” Henry shrugged, “Three years ago.”

Joel scoffed, glancing to Ellie as if asking if she was believing this either.

“Okay, maybe there’s one or two,” Henry quickly said, “But you can handle it.”

“You’re making this sound a whole lot simpler than it is,” Y/n responded, looking to Joel, whose eyes were already expectantly waiting on her. “We need a minute.

Y/n pushed open the glass doors, bringing them outside the conference room and giving them a sliver of privacy.

Joel pointed a finger behind them, “You still feel good about this?”

“Not exceptionally, no,” she answered truthfully, “But we don’t exactly have a lot of other options, now do we?”

“If this guy’s gonna endanger our lives more than if we were on our own,” Joel argued, “Then we’re better off-“

“Fighting our way through a city we’ve never been in with targets the size of Texas on our backs?” Y/n finished for him, “Look, I don’t wanna go down there either. But we’re guaranteed a very slow, very painful death if we go it alone. I’d rather have allies and stand a chance, at least.”

Joel wanted to fight tooth and nail, but he knew she was right. She’d always had a talent for being right.

“Plus, it’ll give you plenty to lord over Tommy’s head when we get to Wyoming,” Y/n quipped, her mouth still frowned but her eyes were lit up with humor.

Joel huffed, he’d have laughed if the situation wasn’t so dire. The thought of seeing his brother and his ex together again was a sight he didn’t think he’d ever be ready to see.

Without another word, and a silent concession from Joel, the two of them marched back into the conference room where the debate was still being held.

Henry pointed to Ellie, “She says y’all fought off two Clickers. Is that true?”

Joel and Y/n uncomfortably shifted, the dread sweeping over them.

“And you’re still alive,” Henry stated, “You see? You’re the right people. If it gets bad down there, we turn around, and run right back out the same way we came.”

Joel was about one poorly constructed sentence away from giving the whole idea up, “Oh, that’s your great plan?”

“No, that’s my dicey-as-fuck plan,” Henry fired back, “But as far as I can tell, it’s our only shot.”

Sam signed something to Henry.

“They’re saying,” Henry narrated as he signed back, “They’re going to help us escape,” he turned back to the party, “Right?”

Y/n rolled her eyes, “That was a low fuckin’ blow, man.”

Henry didn’t seem bothered at all by the manipulation.

Joel’s jaw twitched as he thought it all over. Y/n could practically feel his unease. She craned her neck back, muttering more into his body than at him, “Lesser of two evils.”

With every fiber of his being, Joel wanted to fight. But instead, he let his hands fall against his legs, admitting defeat.

—————————

The team got across the city with minimal close calls, every once in a while there’d be a truck or patrol group to avoid. They got to the bank building intact and only slightly out of breath.

“We need to get outta sight,” Joel said, every entrance/exit of the place was structured in a glass wall.

“Uh, I-I-I think it’s this way,” Henry pointed towards one of the halls, the rest of them following.

They trailed through the building till they hit a back door, hopefully leading to the tunnel entrance. Joel and Y/n entered it cautiously with their guns drawn.

“This should be it,” Henry announced, “You ready?”

Joel looked to Ellie, “Get your gun out.”

Rebelling in her own small way, once again, Ellie pulled out the gun from her jacket pocket. At this point, Joel wasn’t surprised in the least that she wasn’t heeding his advice. Him and Y/n marched forward regardless and took the lead. They entered through another door, delivering them into the tunnel system.

“You see?” Henry proved, “It’s empty. The plan is good.”

Joel and Y/n quickly shushed him. “‘The plan is good?’” Joel repeated, “We’ve been down here two seconds. We don’t know anything.”

Henry looked to Ellie, “Your dad’s kind of a pessimist.”

“I’m not her dad.”

“He’s not my dad.”

“He’s not her dad.”

Joel, Y/n and Ellie’s protests overlapped.

“Just point your light forward,” Joel instructed, tightly gripping his own, “And be ready to run.”

Y/n steadied her breathing and began to move beside Joel down the underground maze.

They walked for around an hour, snaking down the sets of tunnels, holding their flashlights and handguns as if they were life itself. Eventually, they turned down a hall with child’s art painted all along it. The door was even painted as castle. All of them examined the walls in quiet confusion.

Sam bounded forward, wanting to go through and explore. Joel threw his hand out to stop him, “No.”

Y/n tucked her flashlight under her chin and gripped her pistol, sharing an affirmative nod with Joel that they were ready. He slowly turned the doorknob and it creaked open, revealing a room that looked…civilized.

The whole place looked like a daycare center. There were toys scattered throughout storage bins, art and books against the walls, small cups, and a faded soccer goal painted across one of the cinderblock walls.

“I heard about places this this,” Joel commented, taking stock of their surroundings, “People went underground after Outbreak Day. Built settlements.”

“What happened to them?” Ellie asked.

“Maybe they didn’t follow the rules and all got infected,” Joel replied.

While Ellie and Sam sat down, playing with a few of the toys, Y/n, Henry and Joel scanned the room. Whoever had been living there, they’d been gone long enough for a layer of dust to settle across everything.

“Hey,” Joel called to Ellie who was being a little too loud, “Keep it down. We’re not out yet.”

“Ah, c’mon,” Ellie groaned, “Can we just rest here for a while? There’s, like, actually shit to do here.”

“Wouldn’t be so bad to wait the light out a bit,” Henry agreed, “Safer in the shadows when we pop back out on the other side.”

Joining Ellie and Henry, Y/n tilted her head in a slight shrug to Joel. It was a smart decision and he was just going to have to get over himself.

Joel shrugged back to the group, raising an eyebrow and going back to checking out the room.

Ellie and Sam occupied themselves by reading comic books and messing around with some of the toys. Henry, Joel and Y/n rested at a table, putting their feet up without actually relaxing at all. At some point, Ellie and Sam switched to kicking a soccer ball around on the makeshift field. Y/n watched carefully as Ellie interacted with the boy, she was so caring and patient. She’d confided that she didn’t have any brothers or sisters, but the glow coming from her radiated big sister energy.

Y/n scooted her chair back and walked across the room. “Can I join?”

Ellie enthusiastically began to switch the ball between her feet, trying to fake Y/n out. Y/n rotated to stand alongside Sam at the goal.

“That’s not fair,” Ellie argued, “There’s two of you.”

“Oh, so you’re saying you can’t do it,” Y/n teased.

Ellie’s determination set in, jumping slightly in place before kicking the ball in between Sam and Y/n’s legs quicker than they could stop it.

“Oh, shit,” she exclaimed, shooting her hands into the air.

Sam and Y/n shared a laugh before Y/n got down on her knees, “Can you teach me something?”

Sam watched her lips and nodded, showing her a sign. To her, it looked like he was pulling something out of his mouth, before bringing his two thumbs up and splitting their directions at his chest.

Y/n mimicked it, “What does this mean?”

“Oh, that’s from Savage Starlight,” Ellie exclaimed, copying the gesture with them, “‘Endure and survive.’”

The three of them continued to sign it over and over. It seemed to make both Ellie and Sam extremely happy, which meant Y/n would do it as many times as they wanted.

Joel and Henry watched from their seats. To say Joel’s heart ached would have been an understatement. His soul was barely holding together, a new piece of it dying off every day. But Y/n and Ellie had somehow kept the last few from withering. It was so subtle, he hadn’t even figured the phenomenon out yet. He was barely self-aware. But seeing Y/n, crouched down on the floor with the kids, still with the innate need to make the world around her better, he came to fully realize his thought from earlier in the day.

She was still his Y/n.

Smiling, laughing, loving, caring, kinder than the world deserved. Underneath all the anger was the woman he had loved with all his heart.

And that fucking terrified him.

As Y/n made her way back to them, Joel pulled himself back to reality, switching gears and channeling his energy into focusing on the kids. Specifically Sam. He was eight years old and in survival mode. No child deserved that. It was making him rethink his stance on the things he’d said earlier.

“If you were collaboratin’ to take care of him,” he said to Henry, “I…I shouldn’t have save what I said. I don’t know your situation. And I’m not sayin’ they should let it go, but all things considered, seems kinda cruel—to send a whole army after you for that.”

Henry waited a few seconds, Ellie’s cheers filling the silence, before speaking. “You know, I wasn’t, uh…exactly telling you the truth before…about me not killing someone.”

Y/n and Joel’s attention turned to him exclusively.

“There was a man,” Henry began, “A great man. You know, he was never afraid…never selfish…and he was always forgiving. Have you ever met someone like that? Kinda man you’d follow anywhere.”

Y/n tensed up, forbidding her eyes from flicking to Joel.

“I mean, I wanted to. Well…I would’ve,” Henry gathered strength for the rest of his story, “Yeah, but, uh…Sam, he, uh, he got sick. Leukemia,” he scanned Joel and Y/n’s somber expressions, “Yeah, anyway, um…there was one drug that worked and, whoa, big shock…there wasn’t much left of it, and it belonged to FEDRA. And if I wanted some, it was gonna take something big. So I gave them something big. That one great man. The leader of the resistance movement in Kansas City. And Kathleen’s brother.”

Understanding washed over Joel and Y/n. All the firepower, the tanks, the trucks, it all made sense.

“Yeah, so, you still think they should take it easy on me?” Henry asked rhetorically, “Or am I the bad guy?”

Y/n stayed silent, weighing morals against necessity. Joel pulled his lips down, barely shaking his head before Henry cut off what he would have said, “I don’t know what you’re waitin’ on, man. The answer’s easy. I am the bad guy because I did a bad guy thing.”

“But you did it to keep him alive,” Y/n spoke up, “You’d go to the ends of the earth for him. That’s not evil, that’s family.”

Henry’s eyes cut through the space between Joel and Y/n, “You two get it,” he nodded toward Joel, ”You may not be her father, but you were someone’s. See, I could tell.”

There it was. The big, dreadful, terrible thing that Joel and Y/n had gotten this far without talking about. It was the unspoken wound, the one deep enough to kill yet shallow enough that it didn’t show. It was a constant phantom pain in both their chests and it broke them all over again to have it brought up.

“You too,” Henry smiled at Y/n, nodding to Ellie, “That is, if she’s not yours.”

Y/n didn’t think the blade could slide any deeper into her heart. She had been something to someone once, and it was as much a part of her still as the air she breathed.

“Uh,” Y/n tearily began, clearing her throat quickly, “No, she’s not mine.”

Joel had had more than he could handle just by Henry’s assumption about him. Referring to Y/n as the word he couldn’t bring himself to utter in that context had sent him over the edge. He picked up his gun from the table and practically jumped to his feet, “We’ve waited long enough.”

Y/n stayed still at the table, holding back her tears took so much strength, it was stealing her ability to move. If she allowed herself to cry in front of Joel, she didn’t think she’d ever recover.

Henry didn’t ask questions, he didn’t bring up the very visible sorrow etched across Y/n’s face. Some hurt was palpable without ever being touched on, and it was painfully clear that Joel hadn’t been the only one to lose a child…

————