#imafirefly

@imafirefly

     HE HAD HOPED THAT THEY might have found shelter before the winter storm hit. Obviously, they weren’t that lucky. As they carefully picked their way across the snow-covered rooftops - it was better to be up high where you had less chance of running into Infected - the cold blanket had already reached his knee, and they could barely see their hands in front of their faces.

     If only they had stopped. If only they had been more careful. If only… if only… There was no use thinking about the possibilities now.

     The thick layer of snow beneath their boots had covered up the sound of glass breaking and shattering, though the piercing scream coming from Abby as she suddenly disappeared from view was clearly audible.

She tuned out the voices behind her—most were travellers looking to trade then be on their way, others wanted to join the Jackson community. It wasn’t often she’d see the same face more than once during these exchanges but then again, Ellie mostly kept to herself. She only killed if she absolutely had to and most people were smart enough to back off after a warning. Loaded guns spoke a universal language.

A tall, bearded man around her age ambled over to relieve her of guard duty a few minutes later. “So the cigarettes sold really quickly but I traded in those nice tools that I found yesterday to nab us the last pack,” he announced, flashing her a grin. She smiled a little in return. “Splits...?” she suggested to which he nodded and proceeded to divide the goods between them. “Thanks, man. Seriously. I already owe you for a bunch of shit.” Rudy just shrugged and stuck a cigarette behind his ear before giving her a friendly shove. “No, El, you don’t.” She just sighed, opting not to argue with him and shoving back before letting him take over watch in her stead. Shoving and fist bumps were how they showed affection and Ellie was fine with that.

It was while walking back toward the trading post that she noticed newcomers approach but she gave them no more than a glance, keeping her rifle at her side and seeking a secluded spot to sit and smoke. It was a habit she’d picked up a couple of months after going back to Jackson. Rudy was partly to blame, of course.

  Jo   He   Joel had obviously believed in life. That living, despite everything - despite the consequences Joel had believed in HER life. That the cure hadn’t been wort- Joel... had been selfish.

Despite knowing that he was condemning hundreds of thousands - maybe even millions or billions - of people, and despite knowing Ellie’s wishes... he had still made the wrong choice. Ellie had never really come to terms with it; she had resented him for so long. His... death had entirely effected that. In those final moments, she wondered, did he know that she forgave him?

...And had it been real forgiveness, if there had been no time left? 

Abby had been searching for the Fireflies, in Santa Barbara. Ellie had never given much thought as to why; too caught up in what she had to do at the time. It was only after spending a few nights at Tommy’s, that she had truly thought it over. The Fireflies had always been about restoring government control; opposing militia - basically, all about happiness and freedom, right? Reverting this shitty world to the world it had been before. The cure was quite the side project, one that clearly failed. But, if the Fireflies had been regrouping, did that mean there were people who believed in the cure again?

That question seemed silly; the only person left to produce any sort of vaccine was dead. But regardless, Ellie had been turning it over in her mind. What if they found someone else? What if the possibility of a cure wasn’t completely lost? There might be someone - maybe in a different country, who was still alive, who had the same talents. Anything was possible. Hell, even a self-educated person could have a fighting chance at saving the world.

Ellie didn’t have Dina. Or JJ. Tommy... was still pushing for an eventual revenge plan. Ellie couldn’t stay. There was nothing for her there, anymore. The Fireflies, if ... if it was even a little bit possible...

And, she needed to find Abby again. This time, she didn’t know why. It wasn’t to kill her. This was more... Ellie following her gut. She was Joel’s killer, and Ellie would never forgive her for that, no matter the reasons - no matter the future. But Abby was also... the one person left, who maybe understood. Maybe. She didn’t know. All she was sure on, was that if they were searching for a cure - Abby should be the first person to talk to about it. 

After all they had been through; after all they had done... yeah. Yeah, she needed to be the one.

@imafirefly​ inquired:  “I don’t recognize the person in the mirror anymore.” @ Owen

     He wrapped his arms around her from behind, his hands coming to rest on her stomach, his chin on her shoulder. “I understand,” he said in a low voice, squeezing her a little tighter.

     They stood on an elevated spot looking out over the city below, the leftovers of their picnic behind them. There were so many things they had gone through, both together and apart, that it wasn’t strange that both of them had changed. That they didn’t recognize the person in the mirror anymore.

     “There’s nothing wrong with that though. It doesn’t mean that the person you are today, is a bad person. I think it’s actually quite the opposite.” He let go of her and turned her around, so he could look her in the eyes. “Listen, Abby,” he reached out to brush a lock of hair behind her ear. “You are a good person. If a mistake turned you into a bad person, we’d all be bad people. You, me, Lev, everyone down there,” he motioned towards the city below them. “Do you think all these people are bad? Because I’m pretty sure you don’t.”

Owen would often give pause in whatever it was he was doing—whether it was teaching Lev something, eating or doing maintenance on the boat—and just admire at Abby. It was cute how a little crease would sometimes form between her brows as blue-gray hues drifted back and forth across a page of whatever book she happened to be reading. She’d been an avid reader for as long as he had known her. He recalled the days in Salt Lake City when all they had for reading material at the hospital were medical textbooks and her father’s collection of journals; she would curl up on a vacant bed to read while he sketched. Sometimes he would become the big spoon and read along over her shoulder with his face partially buried against her neck.

Those had been simpler times. Memories he would not soon forget.

His grin only widened, undaunted by the sarcasm as he stood there looking like the stereotypical ‘cool guy’ you would see in teen movies that rode a motorcycle and wore too much body spray. “I was thinking Top Gun. You know, minus the aircraft. I’m more of a Jeep kinda guy.” At her suggestion to clean the lenses, he blinked then removed the aviators to shine them with the hem of his t-shirt. Once he was pleased with how his glasses shone, the man tried to mirror her and wipe his face but gave up fairly quickly to join Abby on the old sofa she was sitting on. He brought his bag along with him and set it down at his feet. “Dirt, blood or maybe just stray beard hair,” he enumerated with a chuckle, facing her so she could get the spot for him.

Nora’s first glance at Abby when she walked into the med bay was cursory. It didn’t linger as it usually did because she was preoccupied with stitching up the face of a fellow Wolf. They had a deep laceration on their cheek that hadn’t stopped bleeding since they came in. The damn thing wouldn’t fucking clot at all and the guy had just been sitting there, clearly in shock, holding a towel to his face when she found him. Mel wasn’t at the FOB today (probably at the aquarium with Owen) so she had her hands full that evening with two other docs hauling overtime. She noticed that Abby was concealing an injury with how she carried herself. Oh, and those blood stains were pretty telltale. With the practiced hand of a medic, Nora finished the stitch work and instructed her patient on the aftercare before she finally turned to Abby.

     EXACTLY HOW LONG IT HAD been since she had seen an actual human being that wasn’t trying to put a bullet between her eyes, she couldn’t say. Shorter than she had been separated from her group. Longer than since she had encountered an Infected. Even longer than when she had last encountered an unfriendly. It was quite hard to keep track of time when you didn’t have a calendar or working watch.

     What she did know was that she was TIRED. TIRED of running. TIRED of hiding. TIRED of being on her own. So when she heard footsteps - footsteps that were definitely not of an Infected, but maybe of an unfriendly - she sighed, checked the number of bullets in her gun, though sliding it back into her thigh-holster, and stepped out in the open, hands in the air. “Please don’t shoot,” she said. “I’m sure we’d all like to survive this with the same amount of holes we arrived with.”