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yelena-bellova · 2 years ago

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Twenty Years Later: Joel Miller x F!Reader - Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven: Almost

Plot: Joel, Ellie and Y/n work their way across Wyoming in a desperate search for Tommy.

Word Count: 12.6k

Warnings: tlou ep.6 spoilers, language, death, loss of a child, angry outburst, trauma, anxiety attacks, 16+

A/N: SURPRISE! One day ahead of where I thought I’d be, swooping in for a dose of bedtime angst 🌙

As always, I have to put that this series is 16+ and I will not be adding anyone to the taglist if your age/range is not specified in your bio. Gotta look out for younger eyes 👀

This chapter and the one that will follow are the chapters. They’re the culmination of this whole frickin’ journey. It’s been so fun to eead your theories about Joel and Rosebud’s breakup, and now you’ll have (some of) your answers. I hope it lives up to what you imagined, or maybe even surprises you. Above all, I hope y’all enjoy 😘

—————

December 2023. Somewhere in Wyoming.

Fuck the philosophers of the pre-Cordyceps world.

Time healed nothing.

If anything, time made pain worse. Because, with enough time to study its victim, the pain could evolve. It could morph into anger, bitterness…much like Cordyceps, it could consume its host until they were shrouded in so many layers of hurt, they became unrecognizable.

Time healed absolutely nothing.

Marlon returned to his cabin, hanging the two rabbits he’d killed on the hook outside the door. The little warmth the home managed to retain welcomed him in, but the inside had changed since he’d been gone.

“Who the hell are you?”

Y/n sat adjacent to Florence, Marlon’s wife, blowing on a spoonful of soup. “A deep admirer of your wife’s cooking,” she answered.

Marlon stood confused at the door, slowly removing his jacket.

“And the gun.”

The old man turned to see another stranger, this one a man, emerging from the kitchen. He had a pistol drawn on Marlon.

“And you?”

Joel shook his head, carefully moving towards Marlon, “Just someone passin’ through. Take the gun out, two fingers only, put it outta reach.”

Marlon obeyed, dangling his pistol off his fingers and setting it on an end table. All the while, Y/n sipped her soup.

Marlon looked to Florence, “Why didn’t you shoot them?”

She nodded across the room, “The gun’s all the way over there. They didn’t hurt me by the way.”

“Yeah, I got eyes,” Marlon walked to his chair, he’d already deemed Joel as a very minor, if at all, threat.

“He won’t shoot you,” Y/n interjected, not once looking up from her bowl, “He threatens everyone he meets.”

Joel’s hardened stare landed on Y/n’s face, her casualty was greatly undermining him.

“You made ‘em soup?” Marlon gestured to Y/n’s meal, along with Joel’s untouched bowl that sat on the coffee table.

“Yeah, I did,” Florence answered, “It’s cold out.”

Y/n reached across and touched the woman’s arm, “And it’s lovely, Florence. Thank you.”

Joel sighed in exasperation, “We’re lookin’ for my brother.”

Marlon scoffed and removed his baseball cap, “Well, I ain’t seen him.”

“I haven’t told you what he looks like,” Joel replied.

“He look anything like you?” Marlon asked.

“A bit.”

Marlon shrugged, “Then I ain’t seen him.”

“They’ve got a girl with them,” Florence nodded up the stairs.

“Can I come down now?” Ellie called from above, overlooking the ground floor.

Joel and Y/n answered at the same time.

“No.”

“Yeah.”

Their eyes flicked to one another, Joel’s frustrated, Y/n’s calm. She was done playing the gunslinging traveler when unnecessary.

Ellie, always siding with whichever of them gave her what she wanted, bounded down the stairs.

“Ellie,” Joel reprimanded, as if it would do anything to stop her…

“Ooh-wa,” Marlon chuckled, looking to his wife and Y/n.

“What did I just say?” Joel said as Ellie joined him.

“Joel, come on,” she replied, aiming her handgun at the couple, “They’re like, a thousand.”

Marlon ran his eyes over Ellie, “Who’s this little psycho?”

“Never mind her,” Joel leaned forward, pushing his map across the table to Marlon, “I need you to tell us where we are.”

“If you got a map, why’re you lost?” Marlon asked.

“Must’ve missed all the street signs in the enormous fucking forest,” Ellie shot back.

“Ho-ly,” Marlon smiled to his wife, the two of them sharing a laugh.

Joel glanced over to Ellie, she was mirroring his posture, his tone…she was trying so damn hard to be like him. “We’re somewhere here,” he pointed to a spot on the map, “Exactly where? And your answer better be the same as your wife’s.”

Marlon’s eyes flicked to Florence, “You tell ‘em the truth?”

“Yeah,” she replied.

“Are you tellin’ me the truth?”

“Yeah.”

Marlon leaned forward and pressed a finger to a spot on the map. It wasn’t the answer Joel was looking for.

“Well,” he holstered his gun, “You found a great place to hide, I guess.”

“Hide?” Marlon chuckled deeply as Joel settled on his couch, “Came here before you and your wife were born, sonny. Get the hell away from everybody.”

“Not his wife,” Y/n was quick to reply before taking another spoonful. It had been three fucking months of assumptions and both Joel and her were exhausted by them.

Florence turned to Y/n, “I didn’t want to.”

“Eh,” Marlon waved his wife off and looked to Joel, “Listen, I didn’t mean to upset you about your brother but if you’ve come this far, then you know what’s out there. You seen Cody?”

“Yeah, got close enough,” Ellie answered from the arm of the couch, “It’s crawling with Infected.

“Yeah, Laramie,” Marlon listed off, “And Wind River Reservation. Anywhere people used to be. You can’t go there no more.”

Y/n set her soup aside and leaned forward on her elbows, deciding it was finally time to take the conversation seriously. “So you’ve never heard the name Tommy Miller?”

“Nope,” Marlon answered.

“What about the Fireflies?” Ellie asked.

Florence nodded, “We get those in the summer.”

“Not the bugs,” Ellie replied, thoroughly put out, “The people.”

“There are firefly people?”

Y/n joined the joke and gestured down the length of her body, “In the flesh.”

Marlon, Florence and Y/n shared a laugh, Joel couldn’t tell whether he was more annoyed or disappointed.

“You got any advice on the best way west?”

“Yeah,” Marlon leaned forward, “Go east,” he ran a finger along a stretch of water on the map, “But you never go past the river here. Ever.”

“What’s past the river?” Ellie asked.

“Death,” Florence answered, “We never seen who’s out there, but we see the bodies they leave behind. Some Infected, some not,” she turned to Joel, “If your brother’s west of the river, he’s gone.”

Joel and Y/n’s eyes met across the table, both trying to conceal their worry under Ellie’s ever-present gaze, but knowing they could share it with each other.

“You’re not gonna scare us,” Ellie said, confidently.

Florence nodded towards Joel and Y/n, “Scared them.”

They quickly buried their anxieties under blind determination. Whatever lay across the bank, it didn’t matter. They had to believe that Tommy was both alive and well on the other side.

Filing out of the cabin, Joel and Y/n marched ahead of Ellie.

“You don’t seriously believe them,” Ellie half-stated, half-asked.

“They’ve lived here a long time,” Joel replied, trudging through the snow. He could feel his heartbeat speeding up.

Y/n turned around to see why she couldn’t hear Ellie’s footsteps following theirs. The girl was unhooking one of Marlon’s rabbits, “El, come on, don’t steal their food.”

Ellie was undeterred as she swung the game over her shoulder, “They don’t know anything. Never heard of the Fireflies.”

“Yeah, they wouldn’t have out here,” Y/n stretched her arms out around her to the snowy expanse, “Doesn’t mean you have to steal t-“

Y/n’s words faded in Joel’s ear, a steady ring filling the space. It was happening again.

Joel stumbled forward, resting a weak hand on a piece of the cabin’s fence, his breathing became labored. His thoughts began to spin with worst case scenarios in all their various forms that could become reality, if what lay on the other side of the river was real. Every nightmare his mind drummed up ended with Y/n or Ellie d-

“Joel,” Y/n called, she was the first of them to notice. She walked to meet him, “Joel.”

“Joel?” Ellie echoed, she’d had yet to witness one of his episodes, “Joel, are you okay?”

“Shut up,” he said, verbally waving Ellie off.

“Holy shit, are you dying?” Ellie continued.

Joel shook his head and shut his eyes, trying to block them out, “I’m okay.”

Y/n wasn’t so convinced, she laid a firm grip onto Joel’s shoulder. “Joel, c’mon.”

“Okay, but are you okay?” Ellie asked again.

“I’m fine,” Joel insisted, wishing desperately that Y/n would remove her hand, but not possessing the strength to shove it off, “I’m fine.”

“No, no, but are you?” Ellie wouldn’t stop, why couldn’t she stop? “Because just a reminder, that if you’re dead, we’re fucked.”

Y/n’s gaze darted to the girl, “Ellie-“

That was enough to bring Joel back to Earth.

“I said I’m fine,” he pushed, contradicting his words with his palm pressed to his chest. “It’s just the…cold air all of a sudden.”

Y/n let her hand slide off his shoulder, wholly aware that he was lying. The episodes had been occurring more and more over the last few weeks, they seemed to be getting worse the closer they got to wherever Tommy was or wasn’t.

Joel refused to ever tell her what triggered them, hell, he had barely figured it out himself. What he did know was that he couldn’t deal with what lay at the core of them all. That would have required an honesty he hadn’t possessed in twenty years.

“All right, uh,” Ellie was the first of the three to bounce back, “So let’s go find Tommy and the Fireflies. It’s gonna be easy,” she slid between the fence and called back to them, “All we have to do is cross the river of death.”

Joel and Y/n were left on their own, the former waiting to catch his breath, the latter waiting on an explanation.

“Would it have killed you to back me up in there?” Joel asked, his usual sour mood replacing the small glimpse of vulnerability.

“Yeah,” Y/n’s watched him bury the lsat thirty seconds, denying her an answer once again, “‘Cause that’s our biggest problem.”

She slid through the fence after Ellie, leaving Joel to bring up the rear of their group.

The last three months had been trying, but not in the ways Joel and Y/n might have thought at the beginning of their quest. They could only stay silent with each other for so long before they had to talk, and they’d reached a place where they weren’t at each other’s throats any more. While the snow had frozen the earth, their anger had melted…

Leaving all the underlying emotions to fill the vacant space.

The physical distance they kept hadn’t changed, but the unspoken chasm between them was beginning to cave in on itself. With each passing day, it was growing harder and harder for Joel and Y/n to pretend like they didn’t need each other.

In every one of Joel’s attacks, his guilt slammed into him like a tidal wave, threatening to drown the life out of him. So many people he’d let down and when he opened his eyes, he was staring into the face of one of them. One look at Y/n caused everything he’d told himself about her over the years to follow the undertow out to sea.

Y/n, in all her righteous rage, was beginning to do the impossible…she was starting to understand why Joel had done what he’d done to her. She’d spent twenty years cursing his name, a constant boil in her stomach that bubbled whenever she thought of him, but there’d always been a voice in her head reminding her of the ‘why.’ All of Joel’s actions from Outbreak Day on had been driven by a deep pain inside him. That inkling was starting to spread through Y/n’s mind, the dye well on its way to consuming the whole brain.

In a perfect world, they’d have come to one another, humbly, and talked it through. Instead, they held their grudge, with its dying flame, as the barricade between them, hoping that it sparked once more.

—————————

In the fall, fires had been a luxury, but as winter rolled in, they became necessary to make it through the night.

Y/n and Joel sat on opposite sides of it, Joel adding another layer of duct tape to his boot and Y/n stitching up a busted seam in her leather gloves. It was the apocalypse’s version of domesticities.

Ellie was above them, having scaled a rock to get a good look at the stars. A green glimpse of the Aurora Borealis waved through the midnight blue sky.

Joel whistled for her eventually, “Come down from there. You’re gonna break your neck.”

Ellie reluctantly returned to the ground, choosing to sit close to Y/n and watch her mend her glove. The two of them had grown closer over the past three months. Joel would never let his guard down wholly for Ellie, but Y/n was more comfortable letting the girl see her as she was.

“Ahh,” Ellie said, spotting the flask Joel was taking a swig from, “Can I have some?”

“No,” Y/n and Joel said in perfect harmony.

“What? Just to warm up,” Ellie clarified, “C’mon.”

Joel’s eyes flicked to Y/n, who knew she couldn’t hold old world rules to their situation. Her gaze falling back to her handiwork served as Joel’s answer.

Ellie took the flask, made sure to give a little ‘cheers’ to Joel and took a drink. She grimaced as it ran down her throat, “Yep,” she strained, “Still gross.”

Ellie held out the flask to Y/n, who shook her head. The thought of being anywhere near where Joel’s lips had been unsettled her.

“So I’ve been thinking,” Ellie started after a short stretch of silence, “Let’s say we find the Fireflies, it all works, they draw my blood and put it through some of their fancy machines and make a cure.”

Joel’s brows furrowed in confusion, “Okay.”

“Then what?” Ellie asked, “Like, what do we do?”

“Oh, it’s ‘we?’” Joel replied.

“Yeah, the end of this partnership comes as soon as we get to the base,” Y/n pointed between herself and Joel.

Ellie nearly rolled her eyes, “Okay, fine. Whatever, you. Separately. You can do anything you want,” she looked to Joel first, “Where are you going? What are you doing?”

Joel glanced at the sky, to admit his true answer would kill another piece of the remnants of his heart. “It’s never been an option,” he cleared his throat, “Maybe…”

For a split second, he saw it all again. His old house. Tommy in the kitchen, raiding their fridge. Sarah at the table, doing homework.

And Y/n, somewhere in the middle of it all, laughing and looking to Joel with a softness that both uplifted and settled him.

“An old farmhouse,” he lied, “Some land…a ranch.”

Y/n stared down at her needlework, knowing that each word was a lie.

“Cool,” Ellie replied, oblivious to the history surrounding her, “What kind?”

“Sheep,” Joel answered, it was the first animal he could think of, “I would raise sheep.”

“Sheep,” Ellie repeated under her breath.

“They’re quiet,” Joel continued, his stare falling on Ellie, “Do what they’re told.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” Ellie got the hint, “So just you and a buncha sheep. Romantic. Is there…” her eyes swung between Joel and Y/n, “Room for anyone else in the pens with you?”

The assumptions made by strangers that Y/n and Joel were a couple were enjoyable compared to Ellie’s constant attempts to push them together. They were getting more frequent and less subtle.

“I go back to work after this, El,” Y/n said, finishing up her last loop, “Doubtful I’ll be getting back to Boston any time soon, so I’ll probably stay at the camp out here.”

“That’s not what I asked,” Ellie shook her head, “I asked what you wanted to do. Out of anything, anything in the world.”

Y/n stopped her stitching, staring down at the needle, wondering if she poked herself hard enough, if she’d be able to draw blood. Would she be able to feel the prick? Or was she just numb enough that physical pain couldn’t touch her?

Joel had noticed that Y/n was beginning to slow down more. On the move, she was as fast as ever, but in the quiet moments between, there’d be times where the world was in motion, and she was perfectly still. It was like she was somewhere deep, deep in her mind, waiting for whatever hold had come over her to break and allow her to return to reality.

Y/n swallowed thickly, her past life flickering before her eyes like a movie montage. Sharing a beer with Tommy while watching a Cowboys game. Painting Sarah’s nails for her with a color the girl had stolen from Y/n’s bathroom. Laying in bed with Joel, deep in the pillows and listening to him sing softly over his guitar…

Her dreams were dead.

“I want to work,” she answered, it wasn’t a total lie, “Help people. If I stop for too long…then what the hell am I doing?”

Joel wished he didn’t recognize the underlying sentiment, that if she stopped moving at an inhuman pace, the grief would consume her. But he did, because it was the same way he lived his life.

Y/n clipped the thread with her teeth, beginning to tie a knot, “And what about you? What are you gonna do after you save the world?”

Ellie gave a small smile as Y/n nudged her with her shoulder. She turned her gaze to the sky, specifically the very visible moon. “It’s probably because I grew up in the QZ. Behind you, there’s ocean and ahead of you there’s a wall,” her smile grew the longer she stared at the stars, “Nowhere else to look but up. I read everything I could in the school library. Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Jim Lovell…” Ellie sat forward with enthusiasm, “But you know who my favorite is?”

“Sally Ride,” Joel and Y/n both answered, it wasn’t hard to guess.

“Sally fuckin’ Ride,” Ellie slapped her knees, enunciating her point, “Best astronaut name ever!”

Whatever levity had come over their campsite faded quickly, Y/n watched as Ellie’s passion turned to sobering…grief? Guilt? She was hard to read sometimes, the innocence of youth and the scars of rushed adulthood creating something entirely new.

“It’ll work, right?” Ellie asked, “The vaccine?”

“It’s a little late to start wonderin’,” Joel responded, his hands folded over his stomach.

Ellie looked down at her lap, unable to look either Y/n or Joel in the eye. “I tried…with Sam.”

“Tried what?” Y/n asked.

“I knew he was infected,” Ellie confessed, “I rubbed some of my blood into his bite. I know,” she hurried, trying to stop Joel’s anxious admonishment before it came, “I know, it was stupid, but I…” she looked back down at her lap, “I wanted to save him.”

Y/n diverted her gaze to the fire, feeling the warmth of it deep in her belly. Not a day had gone by where she hadn’t thought about Henry or Sam. It had taken her a full day after their deaths to even be able to speak. The sorrow in Henry’s eyes before pulling the trigger on his own life haunted her. The pain of understanding still lingered in her chest, coming out to play every once in a while and remind her that no matter what she did, no matter how hard she worked to be a good person…she couldn’t erase what she had done.

“Well, I reckon it’s a lot more complicated than that,” Joel plainly answered, “Marlene, she’s a lotta things, but…she’s no fool. If she says they can do it, they can do it.”

Ellie absorbed his answer before turning to Y/n, waiting for her reassurance.

Y/n pulled herself out of her grief, barely quirking the corners of her lips up. “It’ll work,” she replied.

Ellie seemed to accept both their responses, letting silence fill the space again until she decided it was time to end her day. “How’re we splitting up the watches?”

Joel sighed, Y/n’s gaze already waiting for him when he looked up at her.

“We’ll do ‘em both,” he answered, “Get some sleep. Dream of…” he capped the flask and exchanged it for his rifle, “Sheep ranches on the moon.”

Ellie nodded, grabbing her sleeping bag and walking to the deeper part of their hideout, “I will.”

Y/n fitted her repaired glove back on her hand, tucking them under her armpits for extra warmth. This was the hardest part of each of the day/ When it was just Joel, her and the unmentionable divide between them.

Joel tried to distract himself, gazing up at the moon and focusing on tracing the constellations around it. But the self-discipline he tried so desperately to maintain concerning Y/n was slipping, his eyes using some uncontrollable part of his mind to drift over to her.

Y/n was struggling to keep up her stoic decorum, the urge to let her and Joel’s conversations warm growing stronger and stronger. It was natural in their mutual isolations to wish for someone to talk to. But with him in front of her, the figurehead of the past she wanted so desperately to go back to…she craved a piece of a memory, any memory, that only he could give her. A short hit of dopamine to get her through the next day.

“So, Tommy,” she began, it was the only part of their past she could safely return to.

“What about him?” Joel asked.

“Is he…” Y/n chewed on the inside of her cheek, trying to phrase the question right, “Is he still…Tommy?”

Joel sighed, the memories of two decades ago mixing with the last version of his brother he’d seen. “He’s still a pain in the ass, if that’s what you’re askin’.”

Y/n gave a very small smile, “But he’s still him?”

Whatever she was looking for, Joel couldn’t give her. None of them were like they’d been twenty years ago, except maybe her. She had managed to keep her humanity intact. He was darkness in both their eyes. As rough as he’d been on her at the beginning of their journey, now, he didn’t want to shatter her illusion about perhaps the one person left on the planet she loved.

“Yeah,” he replied, “He’s still him.”

Y/n nodded, deciding not to ask anything else and let the moment stay pleasant. “I can take first watch,” she volunteered.

“No, you go ahead,” Joel shook his head, “I’ll wake you up.”

“Okay,” Y/n replied, too tired to fight him. She grabbed her own rifle before unrolling her sleeping bag on her side of the fire, stretching out under it and using her arm as a pillow.

Joel kept his eyes off of her until the even rhythm of her breaths told him she was asleep. Then, and only then, did he let himself watch her, trying to combat the various fears that filled his head. She was there, in front of him, alive and well.

But how long could he keep her like that?

—————————

Even in his sleep, Joel couldn’t find rest.

A barrage of images, flashes of colors and echoes of screams, played through his mind. When he startled awake, like every morning past, all he could feel was an overwhelming sense of loss.

The gun was gone.

This was it. His grand failure.

He bolted upright only to find Ellie, a few feet away, standing guard with his rifle.

“Still mumbling in your sleep,” she stated, “I woke up early. You and Y/n,” she glanced over at her still-sleeping guardian, “Were passed out, so I took second watch.”

“You gotta wake one of us up if that happens,” Joel snapped, quickly getting to his feet and crossing the distance between him and Y/n, “You can’t do things like this.”

“But I can,” Ellie smiled, “‘Cause I just did.”

Joel crouched down, shaking Y/n’s arm lightly in an effort not to startle her, “Hey.”

All credit to him for trying, Y/n still woke with a gasp. It was her basic programming.

“We’re fine, we’re fine,” Joel was quick to reassure her as she rolled onto her back.

Y/n scrunched her eyes, blinking the sleep away from them, and sat up. It was daylight. Joel hadn’t woken her up for her watch, again.

“My fault,” he accepted the blame she was getting ready to place on him before continuing his conversation with Ellie, “We’re responsible for you, okay?”

“Then don’t fall asleep,” Ellie challanged, “I was quiet, I checked my six, I looked for tracks, I found the high ground and I kept watch,” she explained as Joel approached her, “Like you taught me to. What can I say, man? I’m a natural.”

Y/n scoffed as she unzipped her sleeping bag, “And you’re not cocky about it at all.”

Joel held out a demanding hand, taking the rifle from Ellie, but accepting that she’d done the job right. “You wake us up next time,” he ordered.

“Yes, sir,” Ellie replied, smugness evident in her tone and on her face.

Without another word, Y/n and Joel collected the few things they’d unpacked, smothered what remained of the fire, and the three of them resumed their hike to an unknown destination.

—————————

Even if they’d have been warned in graphic detail what lay over the River of Death, it wouldn’t have changed Joel and Y/n’s minds. The only way to Tommy was to risk their lives crossing, and they did so with very little hesitation.

Ellie, bless her soul, had found plenty of ways to keep herself entertained on the way, including trying to teach herself how to whistle and requesting hunting training. Joel still wouldn’t budge on the latter.

“So, I’ve been thinking,” Ellie started at some point in their hike, “And I think I figured out what happened between you two.”

Joel and Y/n tensed up as they walked alongside one another, Ellie’s cleverness worked against them most of the time.

“Obviously, you two were a thing way back when in Texas,” she explained, adding a twang to the state’s name, “And then at some point, you guys break up. The ‘why’ was what was tripping me up, until I realized, boom…there was somebody else.”

Y/n forcefully exhaled, wondering whether the theory was more preferable to the truth.

“Now, I can’t quite figure out which one of you would’ve slipped up,” Ellie continued, “But even if you didn’t cheat with them, there was someone who got in between you enough to equal a big fight, throwing things at one another, screaming how much you loved each other and eventually ending with you swearing never to speak again. Which is why you two were ready to kill each other when you met in the QZ.”

Joel was near reaching his boiling point, fighting the pull to spin around to Ellie, wave a finger in her face and explain exactly how the situation had gone down. But the reality of those words finally escaping his lips and taking up space in the world was an unbearable thought.

Y/n was near breaking too, feeling the cracks in her chest begin to spread. She needed off the topic if she was going to be able to take a breath. “What the hell kind of stories were you checking out in between astronaut books?”

“Whatever,” Ellie brushed it off, “I know I’m right.”

Thankfully, she let the subject go as soon as they closed in on an old, out-of-usage dam. The water still gushed through it and into the river.

“Dam,” Ellie punned.

“You’re no Will Livingston,” Joel remarked.

“Yeah, yeah, but who is?” Ellie smiled, “So that made electricity?”

“Yeah,” Joel answered, predicting Ellie’s next question, “Don’t ask me, I don’t have a clue.”

He resumed their walk, Y/n and Ellie trailing behind.

“You know, you could have just made something up,” Ellie said, “I would’ve believed you.”

The three of them hiked a half hour more before coming up on another side of the river, or perhaps, an entirely separate one.

“Look at that river,” Ellie remarked, “It’s crazy blue.”

Y/n and Joel were hardly paying attention, both in their own separate thought bubbles. Any time the subject of their past relationship was brought up, it reset the clock on their comfort with each other and took at least an hour to warm back up to one another.

“Hey,” Ellie spoke up, “What if this…is the River of Death?”

The adults stopped in their tracks, the thought hadn’t dawned on them after the victory of crossing the first body of water. Joel whipped out their map, Y/n came to join him and the two of them examined it carefully.

“Fuck,” Y/n mumbled under her breath, pressing a hand to her temple.

“We don’t know it yet,” Joel quickly said, walking ahead a few steps to get a better view of their surroundings. Y/n followed closely, with Ellie on their heels.

A noise on the hill above them caught Y/n’s ear, her eyes lifting from the map to see a group of riders coming straight for them.

“Joel,” she shook his arm forcefully, bringing his attention upwards.

At the first glimpse, Joel grabbed Ellie’s free hand, Y/n taking the other, and they bolted for the forest. There were enough riders to circle them in, aiming their rifles at them and cutting off any escape route they could have found. They were fucked.

“Get behind me,” Joel told Ellie and Y/n, only the youngest of the two listened to him. The three of them held their hands up, “We ain’t lookin’ for any trouble, we’re just passin’ through.”

“Drop the guns,” one of the riders ordered.

Slowly, Y/n and Joel slipped their rifles off of their shoulders and placed them on the ground.

“You,” the same guy nodded to Ellie, “Take five steps back.”

“We can talk through this,” Y/n said, her voice gained strength the moment Ellie was addressed.

“How about you shut the fuck up?”

“Okay,” Joel spoke quickly, his hand instinctively flinching towards Y/n’s as she was threatened, “Easy,” he looked behind to Ellie and said with a low voice, “You’ll be okay.”

Ellie backed up reluctantly, her eyes darting between the riders, Y/n and Joel.

“You been near any Infected?”

“There’s no Infected out here,” Joel answered the man.

“The hell there ain’t,” the rider replied, whistling immediately after. One of them walked a dog, a German Shepherd, forward. He was barking wildly. “Last chance for a bullet. If you’ve been infected, he will smell it, and he will rip you up.”

Y/n and Joel’s blood ran cold.

The dog came forward, sniffing from Joel’s boots up to his torso, and deeming him safe. He went through the same motions with Y/n before walking back to its keeper. Joel and Y/n felt the same hesitant relief, could they really make it out of this?

“Like I said,” Joel said, “We’ll just move on.”

But life wasn’t that merciful to them. “Now her,” the rider nodded back to Ellie.

Y/n turned to face the girl, Ellie’s eyes widened with childlike fear. There was nothing Y/n could do to help. The second she raised her pistol, she’d be dead. They’d know they were hiding something and they’d shoot Ellie too. But if she stayed perfectly still, resting all of her hope on a blind theory, maybe…just maybe…

Joel wasn’t thinking hardly as rationally as his ex. His ears began to ring, his heart began to race, all his senses blinding him with terror as the dog approached. He was helpless again, his hands tied behind his back as he watched someone he cared about die a slow, meaningless de-

Ellie giggled.

Y/n huffed a sigh of relief at the sound, her and Joel turning to see the dog licking Ellie’s face. She fell back onto the snow, laughing and scratching the animal’s neck. When she smiled up at them, Joel and Y/n felt the oxygen return to their lungs.

The rider whistled for the dog to return, “You just bought yourself ten more seconds. What are you doin’ out here?”

It took Joel a few of those seconds to come back to his surroundings, “We’re just lookin’ for my brother. That’s all, nothin’ more.”

“Ho!”

The rider to the left of the one threatening them nudged her horse forward, stopping a few feet closer to Joel and Y/n. “What’re your names?”

“Joel,” he answered.

“Y/n.”

The woman looked them over, her bandana covering all but her eyes. “I can take you to your brother,” she finally said.

Joel’s lips parted in shock, instantly tilting his head to gaze over at Y/n, who wore the same surprise. Tommy was alive.

The woman called back to one of the riders, ordering them to go retrieve the two extra horses they’d left to graze. They were brought back, saddled and all, and Joel, Y/n and Ellie were directed to get on them.

Y/n jumped on one first, her and Joel both helping Ellie onto the rear of the saddle.

“You hold on and you don’t let go, alright?” Y/n said, wrapping the reins of the bridle around her fist. It had been a long time since she’d ridden.

“Mm-hmm,” Ellie hummed, locking her arms around Y/n’s middle.

Joel promptly mounted his own horse, nudging his them closer to ride alongside Y/n and Ellie.

“Let’s move out,” the woman called to the group.

They rode about fifteen minutes, galloping further west. In the distance, a building could barely be made out. The closer they got, the more Y/n and Joel could tell it was a fort. The party slowed as they approached the gate, two riders getting off their horses to help open it up. Joel and Y/n followed without question, despite having a dozen.

Y/n’s breath caught at the sight inside the walls.

It was a town. A proper fucking town.

Unlike the QZ, the place they were looked whole, kept up. The buildings weren’t crumbling, they stood firmly planted in the ground. All around them, people were strolling, not running. Children were screaming in play, not in fear. There were even snowmen lining the outside of one of the storefronts.

Y/n wanted to look back at Joel, to make sure he was seeing it too. She instead kept her eyes forward, scanning over her surroundings in awe.

Joel was entirely confused, but otherwise occupied by checking each and every face they passed to see if it was Tommy. Eventually, the sounds of construction instinctively brought his attention to the side of a building where two men were hard at work. The second silhouette, a tall, thin, dark haired man, didn’t require an extra second of examination. Joel knew it was his brother.

“Tommy,” he shouted.

Y/n followed Joel’s line of vision and let out a hushed gasp.

Tommy looked up from his work, scanning the group for the familiar voice. His eyes fell on his brother, shock freezing him for a few seconds before he began to climb down the scaling.

Joel slid off his horse, his steps quickening as relief flooded his body. Tommy strode towards him, the two of them meeting in a solid, long overdue, embrace.

Tommy laughed into Joel��s shoulder before pulling back to get a good look at him, “What the fuck you doin’ here?”

Joel took a breath, taking in their surroundings, “I came here to save you.”

Tommy’s brows furrowed while Joel exploded into a fit of laughter, the two of them pulling each other back in.

Y/n wound her leg over her horse, dropping to the ground and handing Ellie the reins. She kept her distance as she watched the brothers reunite, a sharp pain running through her chest she hadn’t felt in two decades. But when Tommy opened his eyes, gazing over Joel’s shoulder, he straightened up.

Tommy looked between his brother and Y/n, dumbfounded by the sight of them in the same vicinity. He broke away from Joel, walking the distance before matching Y/n’s quickened jog, and lifted the woman into his arms.

As soon as Tommy embraced her, Y/n’s long-held tears began to fall.

“What the hell?” Tommy asked, his mouth muffled against Y/n’s coat.

Y/n was too overwhelmed to explain anything.

“I tried,” Tommy rushed out, having held onto those two words for twenty years, “I tried to find you, I couldn’t.”

“I know,” Y/n sniffled, “I know.”

Cleared of any wrongdoing in her eyes, Tommy held Y/n a little tighter and pulled her off her feet. She laughed as she cried, digging her face into the denim of Tommy’s jacket.

If Joel had thought he could handle the reunion, he’d been wrong. The sight of his brother and his ex, so thrilled to be in each other’s presence again, split him. It was the first time in three months he’d seen Y/n genuinely happy, so full of joy she was brought to tears.

Joel could feel his own eyes growing wet.

Tommy set Y/n back on the ground, keeping an arm around her shoulders and looking to Joel. When Y/n and Joel’s gazes met, there was no trying to hide any of what they were feeling. It was a heavy moment, but a joyous one, and they had to sit with it.

“Y’all must be starving,” Tommy said, “Let’s head to the mess hall, give us some time to talk.”

The rest of the riders trailed off, leaving Joel, Y/n, Ellie, Tommy and the dark skinned woman who had led brought them there. Y/n and Joel remained on foot with Tommy, though Y/n kept a hand on Ellie’s reins all the way to the mess hall.

Inside, the woman Tommy introduced as Maria, made special effort to get Joel, Ellie and Y/n hot plates of food. Weeks of mostly rabbit had them shoveling their meals into their mouths, none of them even asked what they’d been served.

“There’s more if you need it,” Maria offered, her and Tommy sitting across from the threesome.

Joel looked up from his plate, “Thank you, ma’am. It’s been a while since we’ve had a proper meal.”

“Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever had a proper meal,” Ellie interjected in between bites, “This is fuckin’ amazing.”

Y/n took her eyes off her plate to shoot Ellie a raised eyebrow.

Joel’s southern upbringing turned him white with shock, he quickly looked up to Maria. “Sorry. Ellie, let’s mind our manners.”

Tommy smiled at his brother, it all sounded very familiar…

Ellie looked across the room, spotting a girl watching her from behind a wooden beam. She glared back at her curious stare, “What?”

Y/n pressed a finger to her temple, “Ellie…”

“What’s wrong with you?” Joel asked.

“What about her manners?” Ellie replied.

“She was just curious,” Maria cut in, “Kids around here don’t usually look or talk like you.”

“Right…” Ellie was unimpressed, “Well…maybe I’ll teach them. And I want my gun back.”

“They also aren’t armed,” Marie replied, the group had been forced to check their guns at the front door.

“You know what?” Tommy jumped in, “Uh, I think maybe y’all got a little off on the wrong foot.”

Ellie gestured to the woman, “She was gonna have her guys kill us.”

“Well, we gotta be real careful about who we let into this place,” Tommy explained, “But it’s all bark. We’re just tryna scare off those who might wanna try us is all.”

“Well,” Ellie returned to her plate, “You’ve got a couple of 90-year olds shitting themselves out there.”

Joel and Y/n’s heads turned at the same time, “Ellie.”

“They say that you leave dead bodies laying around?” Ellie continued her tirade.

“Those are the people that tried us,” Maria said.

“A bad reputation doesn’t mean you’re bad,” Tommy stated.

“Not always at least,” Maria added, staring right at Joel.

The tension at the table was palpable, Joel, Y/n and Ellie all wating for Maria’s glare to soften. That wasn’t going to happen.

“Ma’am,” Joel’s voice firmed up, while still retaining its southern pleasantness, “We’re grateful for your hospitality and all,” he looked expectantly to Tommy, “But it’d be nice to have a moment here, maybe just for family.”

Family, and whatever Y/n and Ellie were.

Tommy was half holding his breath as he leaned forward, “Well, um,” he took his wife’s hand, “Maria is family, actually.”

Y/n nearly had the wind knocked out of her, thankful she didn’t have a piece of food in her mouth.

“Oh, shit!” Ellie put together the pieces, “Congrats.”

Joel couldn’t take his eyes off of their clasped palms, painfully transfixed by the bands around their fourth fingers.

“Yeah,” Y/n added, quickly trying to adjust to the idea of Tommy as a husband, “Congratulations.”

“Joel,” Ellie lowered her voice, “Say congrats.”

It was going to take a hell of a lot more time for Joel to absorb the news. “Congrats,” he attempted.

It wasn’t that it was awkward, it was that the ever present dagger in Joel’s heart suddenly twisted.

“Well, how ‘bout a tour?” Tommy suggested, eager to exchange the tension for some fresh air.

“Great idea,” Y/n replied, wiping her mouth off and rising before anyone else. There was a pit of anxiety slowly and steadily building in her stomach and she needed to walk it off.

They were quick to find out that the heart of the town looked even nicer than the edge.

“We settled here about seven years ago,” Maria told the group, “Just a handful of us back then,” she pointed down the middle of the town, “That section was already a gated community, so we built the rest of the wall out from there. Stopped most of the raiding parties, but we still find pockets of them.”

Joel, Y/n and Ellie stayed in a horizontal line behind Maria and Tommy, the foreign environment causing them to want to stick closer together. Unwittingly, Ellie was once again being made the barrier between Joel and Y/n.

“And you said Infected?” Joel asked.

“Yeah, but usually smaller colonies,” Tommy answered, “Wandered off from the cities. All this open country out here…” he looked back to his brother, “It’s a turkey shoot. I still got my 700, but I found a variable power scope. Sub-MOA. Can headshot those fuckers from a half-mile out.”

Ellie’s ears perked up, “Can you teach me how?”

“No, he can’t,” Joel was quick to shoot down the idea.

“How do you keep off the radar?” Y/n asked, “I mean, using all these resources, how has FEDRA not tracked you guys down?”

“Carefully,” Maria answered, “Being in the middle of nowhere helps. Not advertising what we have, staying off the radio.”

Tommy snuck a look to Joel, who had come up alongside him. There was the answer he’d been waiting three months for.

“House of worship,” Maria continued to talk through the buildings, “Multifaith. School. Laundry. Old bank works as the jail, not that we’ve needed it.”

Joel’s eyes drew upwards to the electrical lines, “And you draw power from the dam?”

“Got that workin’ a couple years ago,” Maria answered, “After that, sewage, plumbing, water heaters…lights.”

“This place actually fuckin’ works,” Ellie remarked as she walked, leaving Joel and Y/n behind.

If Y/n thought she’d gotten a taste of normality back at Bill and Frank’s house, this felt like some sort of starvation induced hallucination. Except there was food in her belly and ice cold air in her lungs, it was all real.

Tommy and Maria led them towards the agricultural section of town, rows of greenhouses and animal pens lining their way.

“Hey, Joel, look,” Ellie pointed to the heard of sheep ahead of them, “Baaah,” she laughed before turning to Maria, “So are you, like, in charge?”

“No one person’s in charge,” Maria responded, “I’m on the council, democratically elected, serving 300 people, including children. Everyone pitches in. We rotate patrols, food prep, repairs, hunting, harvesting.”

“Everything you see in our town,” Tommy gestured around them, “Greenhouses, livestock, all shared. Collective ownership.”

”So, uh,” Joel figured, “Communism.”

Tommy was quick to scoff, “Nah. Nah, it ain’t like that.”

“It is that, literally,” Maria turned to her husband, “This is a commune. We’re communists.”

Tommy stopped short as the realization hit him, Joel and Y/n trailing behind purely to watch his full reaction.

“Easy there, soldier,” Y/n smirked, patting him on the shoulder while Joel matched her expression.

Rejoining Maria and Ellie, where Ellie was petting one of the horses poking their heads out of the stables, Maria changed subjects.

“Well, I’m sure they’d like a shower, some new clothes,” she addressed Tommy, “We can put them in the empty house across the street from us.”

“Yeah,” Tommy nodded, looking to Joel and Y/n, “It’s a decent place. Pretty much untouched since ‘03, but it’s the heat goin’ in it. Could do worse.”

“Oh, trust me,” Ellie spoke up, “We have been.”

“We’ve been doin’ fine,” Joel defended them, nervously rubbing his hands together. He needed to talk to his brother, just them.

Y/n was absentmindedly tapping her foot, matching Joel’s energy. The town itself was lovely, and Joel was bearable, but there was something about the combination of the two that was making her feel uneasy.

“Well,” Maria picked up on the mood, “I’ll take Ellie over there if you three wanna catch up?”

“Uh,” Y/n raised her hand quickly, “I’d actually love to join you.”

Tommy started to speak up, he was more than curious as to how Y/n and Joel had reunited. One look at the readiness in Joel’s eyes to be without her ceased his tongue from moving.

Ellie, however, had started to require both Joel and Y/n’s presence with her. Without one, she was restless. “Joel…”

“You’ll be fine,” Joel reassured her as he and Tommy walked off. He managed not to seek out Y/n’s eyes, it felt like the first time in days he’d had any control.

Y/n expected that parting from Joel would give her instant relief, but even when Maria led her and Ellie to their lodging, it didn’t come. In fact, the more distance they put between each other, the deeper Y/n could feel the anxiety within her. She was miserable with him and unsettled without him.

The house Maria assigned them was lovely, modest yet welcoming. Y/n nearly felt her heart break walking in, feeling the warmth of the air flood her body. It was like stepping back in time, a piece of seemingly meaningless history preserved perfectly.

“I’ll leave some clothes on the bed for you,” Maria told Ellie, pointing up the stairs, “First door on the left. There should be a towel and soap already there.”

Ellie looked expectantly to Y/n.

“I’ve got a few things to grab over at my place,” Maria said, “Maybe Y/n could help me?”

“Go,” Y/n nodded to the girl, “I’ll be back.”

Ellie filed upstairs, leaving Y/n and Maria to themselves. Maria made sure to lock the door on her way out, handing Y/n the key after.

“There’s only one, so don’t lose it,” she noted, leading Y/n across the street to her and Tommy’s house. The house felt much the same as the other one did, a few differences in designs, but nothing spectacular.

Maria began to rifle through a closet near the downstairs bathroom while Y/n meandered through the living room.

“Y’know, Tommy told me about you,” Maria called from across the room, “I’ve only heard your name once or twice. Every other time, he just referred to you as Rosebud.”

The nickname sent a sickening pain through Y/n’s stomach. “Oh, yeah,” she tried to play it off nonchalantly, “He gave me that nickname the night I met him and…”

“Joel?” Maria finished, popping her head out to try and get a read on Y/n’s reaction. She had a lot of feelings regarding her husband’s brother.

All Y/n felt capable of doing was nodding, blindly feeling around for the chair closest to her. She wandered the room, her eyes drifting to the fireplace before scanning her way up and-

Her heart stopped.

Sat on the mantle was a chalkboard, two names and two dates written across it.

Kevin - 4/3/00 - 9/29/03

Sarah - 7/20/89 - 9/27/03

Negative emotions always tended to stay right below the surface, regardless of the cliches about burying them. They were easily accessible under the right conditions, and if the wound was deep enough, it didn’t take much to trigger them. Y/n was already on the edge, teetering between holding onto the last bit of anger that had fueled her the past twenty years and collapsing under the weight of her grief.

Sarah’s name decided her fate.

And she crumbled.

—————————

“Those things I did, Tommy, those things you judge me for…I did those things to keep us alive.”

“We did those things,” Tommy pushed back, “And they weren’t “things’,” we murdered people. And I don’t judge you for it, we survived the only way we knew how��but there were other ways. We just weren’t any good at ‘em,” he paused, preparing himself for Joel’s reaction, “But I do judge you for what you did to Y/n.”

Joel sighed, he couldn’t take it. He physically could not handle discussing that day with Tommy.

“Joel, you l-“

“I know what I did,” Joel’s voice rose, he held up a hand more to calm himself than anything else.

“And now, twenty years later, here she is,” Tommy gestured to the door as if Y/n was right outside, “Do you even know where she’s been? What she’s been through? ‘Cause I don’t! And I’d have liked to know.”

Joel’s anxiety was beginning to bubble in his stomach, the vines climbing up his throat, ready to choke the life out of him.

“Have the two of you even talked about it?” Tommy asked calmly, his own emotions on the verge of showing.

Joel gripped the bar counter so hard, he thought he might snap the wood. He rolled the cold glass in his palm, trying to hold onto anything he could, as if it could save him from being sucked back into the vortex that was the past…

—————————

September 28th, 2003. Austin, Texas.

Cordyceps.

It was the only word people were capable of saying.

Cordyceps.

One little strand of fungi had taken out the entire world.

Joel, Y/n and Tommy ended up quarantined at a triage clinic. It was deemed one of the only “safe zones” for non-infected citizens. Dozens and dozens of people, crammed into a tiny building, practically sleeping on one another.

Joel had yet to string more than two words together since Sarah’s death. He was nearly unreachable. It was tragic enough for a parent to lose a child, it was another thing to cradle your daughter as she bleeds out in your arms.

Y/n felt like she was moving through cement, unable to fully comprehend what was going on around them. Her grief was overwhelming her, leaving her no more than twenty minute interludes between fits of wailing. But with Joel completely decommissioned, she was forced to rise to the occasion and take charge of their situation.

She returned from another attempt to reach her parent’s house, her cell phone getting no reception. She’d also tried the pay phone and Joel and Tommy’s phones. Nothing.

Y/n settled beside Joel in their corner of their hallway, it was nearly empty on account of it being the middle of the day. Most people took their walks around then. Tommy had volunteered to go out on patrol with a couple other veterans that were there.

“I still can’t get through,” Y/n started, hugging her knees to her chest, “Tried my parents, Annie, Jason…” she thought of her siblings, “Nothing.”

Joel didn’t even acknowledge her presence, he just kept staring down the hall.

“I have to get up there, Joel,” Y/n finally said, the thought had been keeping her awake all night, “I have to find them, make sure they’re okay.”

Many people assume that grief is but one emotion; sorrow. A deep sea of pain that you are thrown into without a floatiation device. But those who have never experienced it know not of the vastness of grief. There is anger, there is frustration, there is betrayal, there is jealousy…all of which can change you into an entirely different person.

And Joel was slipping away by the second.

“Joel, I have to go,” Y/n spelled it out in simpler terms for him.

Nothing.

“And I can’t go alone…” Y/n continued, worried that he had completely shut down. She rolled onto her knees, taking one of Joel’s cheek into her palm, “Joel, I need you.”

Joel stared forward, motionless.

Y/n was flying blind, unsure of how much was too much talking or how little she was supposed to be acknowledging Sarah’s death. But the world was, quite literally, falling apart. She couldn’t navigate the wreckage on her own.

“Joel,” she whispered, “I know it hurts-“

“Don’t,” Joel turned to her, the speed of it causing Y/n to pull her hand back, “Don’t.”

Y/n’s eyebrows came down in confusion, “Don’t what?”

“Don’t you act like you know what I’m feelin’,” he snapped, tears filling his eyes.

Of all the reactions, Y/n couldn’t have ever predicted this one.

“Joel, I was there too,” she replied, keeping her tone gentle, “I was-“

Joel pointed his finger at Y/n, their faces inches apart. “I’m her father,” he gritted through his teeth, “You were a bystander. They are not the same.”

Y/n inched back, bracing her body with her hands. He’d never so much as raised his voice at her.

As much as she wanted to let him grieve, she couldn’t let him descend into hostility. She wasn’t sure if her tactic would hurt him further or allow him to see the truth, but she couldn’t hold it in any longer.

“Joel…” she began, he was back staring numbly at the wall again. Y/n drew a shaky breath, the memory was so fresh in her mind, she could still hear Sarah’s voice. “She called me mom.”

If there was one thing about Joel’s reaction to his daughter’s death, it was the sheer delirium it threw his brain into. Much like Cordyceps, it was ripping through every cell of his body, changing the fundamentals of every inch. Whatever reaction he may have had to the news of Sarah’s decision had been poisoned by what he was allowing her loss to do to him.

He locked his hands together, gripping them so hard his knuckles turned white. Shutting his eyes, he let his head drop between his arms and took a shallow breath. “No, she didn’t.”

Y/n was afraid his mind was slipping away from her. “Joel, she did,” she continued, trying to push past the lump in her throat, “I went upstairs to bed a-and she called out for me.”

“She didn’t,” Joel repeated, his hands practically shaking with rage.

“Joel,” Y/n began, reaching up to touch his arm.

“NO!”

Joel jumped to his feet, his shout echoing in the empty room. He’d scared Y/n enough for her to fall back against the wall.

“She didn’t fuckin’ say it,” Joel aimed his finger at his girlfriend again, “You weren’t her damn mother.”

Y/n stared up at him with tears in her eyes.

“Doesn’t matter if you wanted to be,” Joel kept going, “Doesn’t matter if you tried. You weren’t. You were some fuckin’ woman livin’ in her house.”

Y/n got to her feet, trying ever so hard to be patient with Joel’s grief. But she wasn’t going to allow him to take her last normal moment she’d had with Sarah away from her.

“You weren’t there,” she argued back, “It happened, whether or not you want to believe it,” Y/n pointed a finger at her own chest, “She chose me.”

“You’re fuckin’ lyin’,” Joel growled, spinning away from Y/n and putting his hands to his hips. He couldn’t look at her.

Y/n was entirely lost, praying that Tommy returned soon. She couldn’t manage Joel in this state on her own.

Joel couldn’t see straight, let alone think straight. Only one thing seemed to ring true in his mind; Y/n was lying. She was a liar. She was lying about his dead daughter. What kind of monster would lie about a dead child?

Like a snowball rolling down a mountain, Joel’s delirious realization began to make sense, leaving him with only one course of action.

“I’m done.”

Y/n could barely register the sudden shift, from anger to calm. “What?”

Joel turned back to her, sweeping his hand through the air, “I’m done. We’re done.”

The air thickened suddenly, the stakes of his statement as important as the next breath Y/n drew.

“Joel-“

“No,” he shook his head quickly, “This is over. I’m not gonna stay with you when you’re lyin’ about my child-“

Y/n took an urgent step forward, reaching out for his arm, “Joel-“

“You don’t get to try and make yourself feel better about her now that she’s g-“ Joel choked on the word, flipping back to grief for a mere second, “Oh, God…”

Y/n was on the verge of panic, he was completely out of his mind. “Joel,” she urged, “Don’t do this. Take a breath and-“

Just like that, he was engorged in rage again. “Don’t. Don’t fuckin’ touch me, don’t even fuckin’ look at me.”

“Joel,” Y/n cried, her tears streaming down her face, “I love you. I’m here and I love you.”

Through the haze of insanity, Joel could feel her words. They wrapped around him, cradling him close to the warmth of her chest. He could almost feel something again, something pure and safe…it nearly pulled him back to shore.

Nearly.

Joel crossed the space between them, lowering his voice to a growl, “Well, I don’t love you.”

If there was an exact moment to point to as to when Y/n’s heart shattered, it was then. The force of Sarah’s death weighed so heavily on her chest, she was convinced she was in the midst of a heart attack. But when two tragedies occurred, so close together, it was always the second one that broke a person beyond repair. The second is unexpected, pushing you into a new level of grief you didn’t think you could feel. That was the one that could drive you to madness.

Snot and tears mixing across her lips, Y/n shook her head. “You don’t mean that,” she mumbled.

“I do,” Joel replied, his voice so full of confidence, “You’re a fuckin’ liar.”

Y/n felt like she was drowning, kicking and flailing under the waters, trying to find some way to make Joel believe her. To pull him out of his delusions.

The two lovers stood in the hall of the clinic, squaring off in a battle neither one of them knew how to fight. Their heartbreak was manifesting in completely opposite ways.

Scanning her face once more, to remember in the years to come, Joel turned on his heel and walked away from Y/n.

“W-wait,” she trembled, quickly following after him, “Where are you going?”

“To find Tommy,” Joel said, his fists curled at his sides as he marched through the clinic.

“Joel, stop,” Y/n begged, trying to keep up with his pace, “Joel!”

Joel made his way outside, where the clinic was still accepting injured civilians. All around them was tragedy, while one was unfolding between them.

“Joel,” Y/n called again, six feet behind him, the grief in her bones slowing her down, “Joel, you can’t go out there. Tommy said-“

“Don’t tell me what my own brother said,” Joel practically shouted, refusing to look back at her. He needed a quick escape.

Scanning the makeshift parking lot around them, he spotted an F1-50. He stalked towards it as if it were prey.

“Joel,” Y/n called in between her sobs, she was more terrified for him than anything else.

Once he got to the truck’s door, Joel slammed his fist without hesitation through the glass window.

“Joel!” Y/n cried, watching the blood begin to trickle down his knuckles.

Joel reached through the shattered window, felt around for the lock/unlock button on the door and clicked it. He threw the door open and got inside, the glass on the seat cutting through his jeans and into his thighs.

Y/n surged forward, Joel’s absolute insanity was becoming real. He was actually leaving her. She took hold of the door handle, “Joel, don’t. Don’t,” she hyperventilated, “I can’t do this without you. I can’t. I can’t.”

Her pleas began to crack the ice around his heart, just enough for him to allow another gust of icy wind through his chest. He became indifferent to her cries.

Joel slammed the door shut, the force of it pulling Y/n forward.

“Joel, don’t do this,” she sobbed, clinging to the side of the truck, “I love you. I love you. We can get through this. We can get through this.”

Joel felt around for the keys, finding them conveniently left in the ignition. He switched the truck on.

Y/n’s chest heaved, her window for reasoning with him closing. “No, Joel. Don’t do this! I love you, please, don’t do this.”

Joel’s body trembled, some sane part of him knowing that was he was doing was inhumane. But grief’s noose tightened around his throat, reminding him that the sicker state of mind was where he belonged now. His heart was nothing more than a liability now.

He pressed down on the gas pedal.

“No,” Y/n yelled as the truck shifted, she was practically tripping in the dirt trying to move with it, “Joel, don’t! Don’t do this to me! Please! Don’t do this to me!”

Joel ignored her cries, turning the truck towards the open road.

“Don’t do this,” Y/n shouted, her voice straining and fluctuating with her tears. If he didn’t stop soon, she wouldn’t be able to keep up with the truck. “Joel!”

The final cry did it, Joel couldn’t handle any more. He pressed down further on the pedal, jolting the truck forward.

Y/n was able to catch one last look at him, a final glimpse at the man she loved with her whole heart, leaving her as if she was nothing more than a dead body already. When her hand slipped from the truck, Joel having sped up to escape her, she knew he was forever lost to her.

She stopped running, screaming into the cloud of dirt he’d left, “JOEL!”

Y/n watched him steer the truck out of the clinic’s lot, pulling onto the dirt alongside the road and driving off. Her wet eyes followed the blur until it was completley out of sight.

That was when she fell apart.

She dropped to the ground, screeching like a wounded animal, clutching the ground underneath her fingers. She screamed loud enough for a clinic staff member to rush out, reaching out to help her. Y/n wrenched out of their loving grip, shrieking for them not to touch her. She didn’t want their oxygen masks, their sedatives or their counseling.

Sarah was gone. Joel had abandoned her. If this was death coming to collect her, she would go willingly into its embrace.

—————————

December 2023. Jackson, Wyoming.

Y/n dropped to her knees in the middle of Maria and Tommy’s living room, clutching her stomach.

“I think I found everything,” Maria announced, walking out from the closet and spotting Y/n. She rushed across the room, kneeling down beside her.

Silent sobs turned to violent ones, shaking Y/n’s body with a force she hadn’t felt in twenty years. Unlike that fateful day, Y/n allowed Maria’s caring arms to wrap around her as she wept.

“I’m sorry,” the kind woman said, pressing close to Y/n’s ear.

There was nothing anyone could say to put any of the pieces back together. Every part of Y/n’s grief over Sarah’s death, Joel’s abandonment, the choices she’d had to make after she was left on her own…it was all coming to the surface after three months of repression. The physicality of her sobs exhausted her less than the act of holding herself together in front of Ellie and Joel.

Five minutes or a half hour, Y/n wasn’t sure how long she spent on the floor, Maria cradling her as if she were a child. At some point, the tears stopped and she was once again aware of her surroundings.

“Tommy told me all about you,” Maria said, still holding Y/n, “About your family. How good you were with Sarah.”

Y/n sniffled, fighting the urge to gaze back up at the girl’s chalk-written name. It would only send her back into tears.

“It doesn’t matter what happened between you and Joel,” Maria continued, clearly she knew a lot more than perhaps she should have, “You helped raise that girl. Far as I’m concerned, you should feel a mother’s grief.”

A mumbled cry bubbled from Y/n’s lips. Every day she felt the loss of Sarah like that of a lost limb, the phantom pain constantly pulling at her body.

—————————

“I’m gonna be a father.”

Tommy’s words paralyzed Joel, he physically lost the sensation of his heartbeat, his breath…it all stopped, allowing grief and bitterness to fill the hollowness within him.

“To be honest, I’m scared to death,” Tommy lifted his glass to his lips, “But I don’t know, uh…” he smiled, “I feel like I’d be a good dad.”

Joel wanted to scream, he wanted to punch a hole through the fucking wall to counter the pain of the universe’s cruel slap.

“Guess we’ll find out,” he replied, reaching for the bottle of whiskey and refilling his glass.

“‘I guess we’ll find out?’” Tommy repeated, practically indignant as he looked to his big brother, “That’s all you got?”

Joel settled against the bar, keeping a firm stare on Tommy, “What else am I supposed to say?”

Tommy got to his feet, exhausted by bearing the brunt of Joel’s grief. “Just because life stopped for you,” he said, “Doesn’t mean it has to stop for me.”

Much like after losing Sarah, Joel was acting purely on emotion. The world had ripped away everything from him, and here Tommy was, with everything he’d almost had.

“We’ll grab some supplies and be out of your hair in the mornin’,” Joel bit out, turning from his brother and grabbing his jacket. He burst outside into the cold air.

—————————

“I, uh,” Y/n sniffled, trying to collect herself, “I should get back to Ellie.”

“Don’t worry,” Maria said softly, “I’ll take care of her. You take a moment to yourself.”

Y/n practically scoffed at the idea, she hadn’t had a second to herself in three months. But the tension within her was so great, she didn’t have the will to fight Maria on the offer.

“Thank you,” she laid a hand on Maria’s arm, letting the woman help her to her feet.

Y/n stumbled out into the cold, trying to absorb the sound of the children’s playful screams, the crunch of the snow under her boots, the feel of her breath slamming back into her face each time she exhaled…she’d had anxiety attacks before. Taking stock of your surroundings was supposed to help.

Except she was too far gone for coping strategies, she needed alcohol and she needed someone to talk to. Someone who understood.

On their way in, Maria had led them past a bar, and Y/n felt like a bloodhound, tracing her way back through the crowds to find it. The world may have changed, but she knew she’d find exactly who she needed at the counter with a thing of whiskey in his hand…

—————————

Joel stumbled out into the snow, leaning up against a metal lightpost. His breath was catching, his heart pounding out of his chest, the tinnitus flooding his ears once again…

Once upon a time, Tommy’s life had been his. He’d had his daughter, so bright and beautiful. A home that they’d made their own, despite the wounds that had led them there. And Y/n, his Y/n, the missing piece of his and Sarah’s life, a ring nearly on her finger…

And as much as he wanted to blame Cordyceps for losing all of it, he was hardly faultless.

He’d had twenty years of guilt soaked isolation, trying to convince himself that what his grief riddled self had thought was truth. Y/n had to have lied for him to continue on with life, because he couldn’t face the alternate. He couldn’t believe that he had abandoned her for no good reason…

It was a conclusion he’d come to weeks ago, the more time he spent with her reminding her of who she really was.

Across the way, there were families gathered around the Christmas tree. Joel’s eyes mindlessly drifted over them, catching on one woman’s silhouette. Her head of curls, the weightlessness of her voice…in his panicked state, it was Sarah.

He took clunky steps forward, chasing the illusion that his daughter was standing in front of him. He wanted, needed to believe it to be true. There had been some terrible mistake, they’d abandoned her body too soon and by the grace of God, she was-

A small child ran up to the woman, revealing her true face.

Joel stopped, his heartbreak pulling him back to reality. This was how far his mind could take him under the worst circumstances. He was convincing himself that his daughter was still alive and twenty years prior, he’d convinced himself that the love of his life was a liar.

It was grief that stood every chance at breaking him.

—————————

Y/n crossed through the middle of town, spotting the Christmas tree and the surrounding crowd singing and chattering around it. She couldn’t handle the sight, ducking into the bar as quick as she could.

Tommy turned around, glaring at the door, ready to rip into Joel further. “Oh,” he muttered, putting away his anger at the sight of Y/n, “Thought you were Joel.”

“I’m thankful you’re not,” Y/n remarked, walking to the counter and spotting the open whiskey bottle. He was everywhere she looked.

She reached over the counter and grabbed a glass, filling it a little over halfway, “You two not getting along?”

Tommy sighed, rolling his glass in his palm. “Complicated,” he answered, “But I’m preachin’ to the choir, aren’t I?”

Y/n bristled, lifting the glass to her lips and letting the burn of her throat force her into feeling something.

“Maria’s pregnant,” Tommy blurted out.

Y/n’s arm fell to the bar, the glass hitting it hard. To say she was shocked would have been a gross understatement.

Tommy smiled up at her, “That so hard to believe?”

“Well, you gotta cut me a little slack here,” Y/n replied, dazed, “The last time I knew you, there was a new girl every week. I was kinda half-convinced you already had a kid.”

Tommy chuckled, he’d missed her so much. He considered Y/n another loss from Cordyceps, though it chose his brother’s grief as its medium.

“I…” Y/n pulled out the barstool next to him and sat down, her mouth still agape, “How do you feel about it?”

“Good,” he nodded, “I think. Maria’s already been a mom before, but…I really do think I could be a good dad.”

Y/n rested her hand on Tommy’s wrist, drawing his eyes to her. “You’ll make a great dad,” she said, proud and with a smile. It was the first good look at him she’d gotten. Though he sported a few more wrinkles and scars, a mustache now hanging over his upper lip, his eyes still held the same sparkle.

Tommy beamed back at her, laying his hand over hers. The warmth shared between siblings still flowed between them.

“So that’s why…” Y/n glanced at the door, absentmindedly pointing outside.

“Yep,” Tommy turned back to his whiskey.

“Oh,” Y/n murmured, so caught up in the beauty of the news that she hadn’t thought about how Joel might have reacted.

“Can I ask you somethin’?” Tommy asked.

Y/n shook her head with a small smirk, “C’mon, it’s been twenty years but you don’t have to be formal.”

It wasn’t formality, it was handling gasoline near a wildfire.

“How the hell are you two doin’ this?” Tommy asked, setting down his glass to give the topic his full attention.

In her anxious state, Y/n hadn’t stopped to think that Tommy would bring up the very thing she was running from.

“There were…” Y/n cleared her throat, “A lot of threats the first few days. Lots of hate. Mostly from me. But we had to…come to some sort of truce if we were going to get through this.”

“Joel told me you’re with the kid,” Tommy cut in, “She’s not yours?”

Y/n snorted, “No. But she’s…” she paused, unprepared to unpack what Ellie meant to her, “She wasn’t going with Joel unless I came with. So really, she’s to blame for all this.”

Tommy chuckled, taking a quick sip before repeating the same question he’d asked Joel, “You two talked about what happened yet?”

Y/n shrugged, feeling the weight of twenty years in her shoulders, “What’s there to talk about?”

“I think there’s everything to fuckin’ talk about,” Tommy replied.

The seat was suddenly digging into her thighs and there were electric currents in her legs. Y/n slid off the barstool, trying to take slow steps around the bar counter to deescalate her body’s nervous energy.

“How long did it take him to tell you what happened?” Y/n asked, her curiosity getting the better of her.

“Ah, the full story?” Tommy said, shaking his head slightly, “All I heard when I got back from patrol was you two had broken up. I finally got it all pieced together after about two years. Gave him hell for it too.”

Y/n’s smile was filled with frustration, she threw back the last of her whiskey.

“I looked for you,” Tommy said, reiterating what he’d said at the gate, “I mean, I combed every fuckin’ inch of that place tryin’ to find you. I wasn’t gonna leave you.”

“I know,” Y/n replied, slipping behind the counter to pour herself another glass, “I figured that out at some point. That you wouldn’t have gone along with that…”

Tommy watched Y/n’s face carefully, a new emotion covering the expanse every few seconds.

“You don’t actually believe what he said, do you?”

Y/n poured a shot of a random liquor, “Why shouldn’t I believe him?”

“C’mon,” Tommy turned to her, “He was out of his mind with grief, we all were. He wasn’t thinkin’ straight.”

“I’m sorry,” Y/n raised a hand to her head, “Are you defending him?”

“Hell no,” Tommy gave a firm shake of his head, “I’m tryin’ to make you understand that he lied. He was lying. He didn’t stop lovin’ you, he-“

“Stop,” Y/n forcefully set the bottle down on the counter, some of it spilling out the top, “Stop. I don’t want to hear it.”

Tommy settled down in his seat, unaware he’d lifted off it while talking.

“You have no idea what I went through after he left,” Y/n struggled, her voice threatening to cease up, “What I had to do…” she sniffled, unable to hide the tears, “And then he came back. He fucking came back, and I haven’t been able to escape him for three months.”

Staying silent and still, Tommy allowed her the space to purge everything out of her system.

“And now we’re here,” Y/n gestured around them, her voice growing watery, “And it’s so fucking beautiful, I could cry. Look at me, I am,” she paused, squirming under the pressure of the sob building within her, “And it’s killing me. It’s killing me. To be here, to see you, to see all that…”

Y/n ran a hand through her hair, leaning against the counter. All that they could have had.

“I can’t,” Y/n held up a shaking hand, “I can’t…be near him right now. Because all I see is her, is us…and it’s fucking breaking me.”

Tommy looked down at his glass, wondering whether or not he was about to push too far. “That doesn’t sound like hate to me.”

Y/n’s bottom lip trembled, she knew exactly what it was. And she’d have rather died than admit it.

“Well, it needs to be,” she whispered.

——————

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