#i bet ted would have brought him up when arguing that trying to rescue alice was pointless

[inamindfarfaraway]

TGWDLM AU where on the way to Professor Hidgens’s house, the group see Infected Pete and Ted has a complete breakdown. These monsters got his little brother and he wasn’t even there, he didn’t protect him, didn’t look for him, didn’t even think about him - he was too busy thinking of himself, like always. Now Pete’s gone forever, because clearly whatever happened to Sam isn’t something you can come back from. He swore, he swore after Jenny that he would never feel that bad again. But this is worse. At least she didn’t die! *Audience members cringe* His brother, though, is dead. At sixteen years old. It couldn’t be Ted, the useless bastard with nothing good ahead of him. No, Ted wanted to survive. And Pete - earnest, brilliant, loving Pete, perhaps the last person on the planet to give a damn about him - paid the price for it.

This forces Emma, who has been spending the whole last year dealing with the pain of losing her sibling and not getting to say goodbye because she was off being selfish and neglecting her relationships, to realize: ‘Oh. Fuck. The sleazy asshole has feelings… that I can empathize with. Ew.’ So she tells him about Jane. Although she still hates everything else about him, a) nobody deserves to suffer through that alone, which she knows from doing it alone, and b) maybe if he starts to see her as a person with feelings too, he’ll be slightly less insufferable. And it works. The solidarity lays the foundation for a slow-burn friendship. Will they always annoy each other? Oh yes. But it’s hard to understand someone on such a raw, fundamental level and not reach out to them when you yourself also need support.

Due to his external and internal walls being shattered, Ted has to become more comfortable with vulnerability; he has to be more appreciative of and sensitive to other people. He really, really values the few relationships he has left. He and Charlotte connect more deeply while she’s concurrently processing her complex feelings about Sam and his death, and he might not leave her alone with Sam, imagining how he’d feel to be alone with Pete’s body and the alien inside it. He grows to be an actual friend to Paul and… well, Bill might not have enough time for that, but nevertheless. Maybe in this timeline, a handful of Hatchetfielders get to the PEIP helicopter together. Maybe the Hive doesn’t escape the island. Maybe PEIP figures out how destroy it.

Pete was the good one. Pete was the one with hope. But if Ted’s the one who survives, then he’ll just have to live for both of them.

Or he could let the Infected get him right away and the brothers could sing an epic duet.

@dontsteponthatfish @awigglycultist @blueskiesandstarrynights