#ooooo im COOKING tn

[mariatesstruther]

man man man imagine like, still!outbreak AU tommy finds ellie outside jackson needing safety, his dad mode wakes 100% and he brings her inside jackson to live with him and maria cause he always imagined having a daughter with maria🥺

OKAY YES ANON YES YES. BUT ALSO YES AND

maybe an au where marlene KEPT ellie with her????? where she was raised among the fireflies???? maybe marlene told her she was the daughter of her best friend, a fellow rebel that got killed, but never that her mom was bit?????? so ellie doesn’t know she’s immune, and she’s sort of raised as marlene’s goddaughter with other children of firefly rebels

and maybe marlene tells herself that ellie’s immunity will eventually save them all, that she has to keep her safe, that she has to keep her alive and away from fucking everything long enough for them to figure out a cure. she doesn’t know or even suspect that it would take killing ellie to get their way—by the time they do figure it out, ellie’s like a daughter to her. she’s watched this kid grow up to hate tuna like anna and laugh like anna and love terrible puns, just like anna. before marlene’s eyes, ellie turns into anna’s mini-me without even knowing it; so what else is she to do but grow to love her too? that’s anna’s baby, anna and marlene’s baby. she loves her more than the world, more than the anything, more than the fireflies. more than a cure

so maybe when marlene finds out what abby’s dad has planned, she makes a different choice. she tells ellie the truth, that she’s sorry, and that she needs to go. ellie (who is blessedly not burdened by survivors guilt from riley and company) wants to live, of course she does. even if she hadn’t, marlene wouldn’t have let her die. she couldn’t

instead, she finds the most trustworthy yet capable and dangerous man she knows: tommy miller. what she hears of him is plenty, but what she knows for sure is this: he’s a great soldier, he’s a good man, and he used to have a neice named sarah. him and ellie already get along, luckily, because he teaches math to the firefly kids a few times a week. she tells him what is planned, and he’s horrified. she tells him how to stop it, so he does (kills a few people along the way, which she covers for. theyre good.)

then at this point, i actually think it’d be fun if joel and tess run into tommy and ellie somewhere random in the woods of wyoming 😭😭😭 maybe when joel and tess break into that old couple’s house from 1x06 and he asks if they’ve heard of a tommy, they actually go “you know what… some guy named tommy was here with a twelve year old not even two hours ago. little one cusses like a sailor. they went that way.”

im tagging in a-level marlene appreciator @clickergossip bc i want her to see this. anon thank u so much.