Chapter Text
“Your watch is broken.”
She points it out as if he hasn’t noticed.
He almost laughs. Snorts air out his nose, but doesn’t bother to reply. There’d be no way to explain it even if he did. The watch’s face is cracked and the battery died long ago, but it would be like losing a limb to take it off. Some days the weight of it is all that keeps him in the world.
He can hear the kid poking about the apartment, pacing the room in a slow circle, making a ticking noise behind her teeth as if she’s taken lessons in being annoying. He tries to find a comfortable position on the mouldy old couch but there’s no such thing and he grunts out a sigh. She pauses, briefly, before continuing in her snooping – more slowly this time, giving him a wide berth as she passes by.
Good. If the kid has any sense she ought to be scared to be alone in a room with a strange man. He doesn’t mean her any harm but he doesn’t want to talk, either, so he figures being unconscious will solve both problems. And if she shivs him in his sleep with that little pocket knife of hers, well, fair enough.
He’s a mass of aches and bruises after chasing down Robert. And although Tess likes to joke about it he really is starting to feel his age. In the knees. In his back. When it’s cold. A tiredness that just won’t quit. The prospect of crawling through the north tunnel with some whiny brat in tow makes his joints hurt just thinking about it.
He doesn’t mean to fall asleep. He just needs to rest his eyes a little. Wait for Tess. Get this whole mess over with. But the remnants of a nightmare hover at the edges of his eyelids, waiting in the dark for him to return, and he knows the moment he lets go it’ll pull him under again. A part of him welcomes it in – no matter how much it hurts, it’s the only way he gets to see her again. A million times over but the ending is always the same.
He jerks away from the gunfire, feels the bullets impact like a punch. The warmth of blood against his chest. But it’s not his. He reaches for her just as her eyes roll up into her head-
“You mumble in your sleep.”
He blinks. Jolts into cold consciousness at the unfamiliar voice. Tamps down a moment of panic as his brain processes where he is.
Outside, the sky outside is dark and splintered with rain. The kid’s sitting up at the window, looking out at the black void beyond the lights of the QZ.
“I hate bad dreams,” she says.
She doesn’t look at him, and he’s grateful for it. Doesn’t remember the nightmare but can guess well enough.
He sits up, pinching the bridge of his nose where a headache lurks.
“Yeah. Me too,” he says, though he’s never sure if being awake is any better.
Tess treats him like a trained bear – docile and obedient but fully capable of ripping a man’s head off when necessary. Dancing on command. He does what she says – fetch this, carry that, scout ahead, yes ma’am – and he’s content to be told what to do, so long as it means he doesn’t have to think. Maybe he ought to be on a leash.
He’s told her almost everything. The things he’s done to survive. All the worst parts, trying to scare her off. But she never seems to take the hint. She’s never looked at him like he’s a monster. She recognises his usefulness and that’s enough for her.
He’s told her about Sarah, too. The bare bones of it, at least. She existed. She died. What else is there to say? Everyone has a tragic backstory in the new world. He’s not special. Tess has her own version but she’s never let it break her. She’s stronger than he is – always has been. And she’s not looking to fix him. He appreciates that. It’s why he’s stayed so long.
Except, sometimes – like now – he can tell she wants more. She’s spent most of her life in the Zone, sneaking out into the outskirts on smuggling runs, all the way to Bill’s town, but she doesn’t know what it’s like to be out there for real. To have nowhere to run to if things go south. Nothing to stand between you and the horror, until you’re almost indistinguishable.
She’s suggested, more than once, that maybe they’d be better off on their own, on the road – no more grifting for ration cards, no more petty District politics – just the two of them. But he knows better. There ain’t no greener grass. Life in the Zone might be boring, but boring means surviving. And he’s got no desire to go back to how it was before; how he was before. Whatever she thinks she wants, she doesn’t need to see that.
But she’s been pushing it, lately. Taking risks. All this shit with Robert, then Marlene; this stupid babysitting job they should have just walked away from.
It’s just cargo, Joel.
Sure. When is it ever ‘just’ anything? But she’s trained him up good and he does what he’s told. He says, “Yes, ma’am,” and he follows where she goes, if only to make sure she doesn’t get herself into worse trouble.
Except that’s a damn lie.
Because it’s not really her he’s worried about. If there’s anyone who can take care of themselves it’s Tess. No. It’s the thought of being alone again that scares him most of all.
He’s face-down in the mud before his brain registers the blow. The barrel of a rifle jabs him between the shoulder blades and a barking voice tells him to stay down. He squints through the white noise of the rain, trying to force his wavering vision back to coherence. Tess and the kid join him on their knees and a throbbing ache starts up in his temple. He keeps his hands where they can see them. He knows how trigger-happy patrols can be at the best of times but here, on the outskirts, a couple of smugglers aren’t even worth the paperwork.
The soldiers call it in anyway and he feels the familiar cold press of a scanner at the back of his neck. That reassuring bleep that says: not today. He doesn’t risk looking sideways at Tess but he can feel the electricity running through her, like static on his skin. Waits for her signal. She’ll be scheming for an out, waiting for the right moment to–
Another bleep, and the kid reacts like she’s been burnt. She lets out a battle cry and buries her flick knife in the side of the soldier’s knee, lunging for the scanner of all things. The soldier backhands her with it, sends her sprawling with a yelp, and Joel’s moving before he has a chance to think. Knife or no knife, she’s just a damn kid. He tackles the guy round the middle. A bone-shaking thud as they hit the ground. A scramble in the mud. The rain is blinding but his hands know what to do. Rips the pistol from the soldier's hand. Two shots: one from him, one from Tess, and it’s done.
Except nothing’s that simple. No such thing as ‘just cargo’.
Tess tosses him the scanner and a coldness crawls through his guts as he registers the red flashing words on the screen. He stares at the kid. She doesn’t look infected. Just scared and cold and far too young to be out here. Still. Scanners don't lie. He tosses it at her feet.
“Explain this.”
She looks like she might throw up. Rolls up her sleeve. Starts spinning a story. The bite on her arm is a mess of angry, ugly, barely healed scars. He can’t even look at it. She has to be lying. Could just as easily have been a dog. Or some crazy uninfected human. Plenty enough of those around. There’s just no way…
No matter what, the girl’s a fucking time bomb. If they get caught with her, they’re all dead. If she turns, they’ll have to deal with it. And if she’s flat out lying, they’ve just killed two uniforms for nothing.
He shakes his head. Three weeks is bullshit. A cure is bullshit.
The girl stares up at him like she thinks he might shoot her right there and then, and he doesn’t even know who he’s supposed to be angry at.
But there’s no time for any of it because headlights are cutting through the rain and they’re running again, under the streets, into the drainage pipes, and deeper and deeper into shit.
It’s almost like Tess had been waiting for something like this – something more than pills and weapons and ration cards. Some kind of… mission. There’s something urgent in her eye. A flicker of life he hasn’t seen before.
“We’ve come this far, we might as well finish it,” she says. Shrugs. Like it’s nothing. Like they might not have just fucked themselves over in every conceivable sense.
He grabs her by the arm, forces the words out through clenched teeth. “Do I need to remind you what is out there?”
She pulls herself free. Gives him a look. “I get it,” she says, meaning the girl. Meaning whatever the fuck she thinks she means. But she doesn’t get it at all.
The kid keeps asking: “Are we safe?” and he wants to answer: “Never.”
They cut through a broken, half-collapsed office building. Follow a trail of dead soldiers who must’ve taken their last ever patrol not long ago. Stop every hundred paces to listen for the echoing screams of the infected. But at least it’s dry.
He hates places like this. The timeless reminders of the way things were, preserved in their decay. Photos on desks, crayon-scrawled pictures pinned up in cubicles, employee of the fucking week trophies side by side with blood smears and fungus.
He never worked in an office but he did work on a couple of construction crews building them, and he knows that most of the internal walls and ceilings are designed to be cost effective, not structurally durable. The whole tower block leans at a sickening angle, propped up by its neighbour, and the concrete shifts and groans on its steel fixings as if it’s in pain.
He’s thinking about all the pointless information he still has stored in his head – building codes, health and safety procedures, names of colleagues long since dead – when he shoves open a warped, rusted door and a clicker jumps him. The floor thuds into his back and mutated monstrosity claws at his throat, all snapping jaws and screeching terror. The rotting stench chokes him and all he can do is hold it at bay until Tess kicks it off him, puts two rounds in its fucked up face.
It’s been a while since that close a call and his heartbeat feels like it’s going to punch right through his chest.
The kid is staring at him again. She does that a lot. Every time he turns around she’s looking away. This time she doesn’t. “Are you all right?” she says.
This time it’s him that turns away, his voice a whisper of leaves as he catches his breath. “It’s nothin’.”
But it’s not nothing. He wasn’t paying attention. Had gotten distracted. Thinking about stupid nonsense from the past.
He sees the look Tess gives him. Sees how she takes the lead the next time they hear that old familiar echoing click. There are two more infected wandering around an open plan office and Tess treats it like a goddamn teaching moment, telling the girl about echolocation, showing her how to distract them. For once the kid is quiet. She listens. Follows like a shadow.
But there’s only so much sneaking around they can get away with. Down on the lower floors there’s a hive of ‘em. Runners, mostly. And it’s time to make up for his earlier mistake.
“Stay here with the girl,” he orders, and Tess knows when to let him.
By the time he’s done and the last body’s lying twitching on the concrete, his lungs are burning so hard it feels like there's a bruise on the inside of his ribcage. Tess lets out a whistle when she sees his handiwork and sometimes he wonders if she prefers him like this, all bloody and wild-eyed. Or maybe she’s just glad he’s still got it after all these years.
The girl trails after, picking her way around the corpses – most of them newly-turned soldiers, still in their flak jackets and helmets. He expects her to be more shocked – more afraid – but she has a quiet reserve about her that suggests she’s seen worse. Her eyes flick up to him briefly and he doesn’t know whether to feel proud of ashamed.
By the time they reach the subway it feels like his bloodstream has been replaced by adrenaline. There’s a whole pack of infected, wandering around. Any one of them a death sentence. Worse than a death sentence. He glances back at the kid. She’s got her sleeves pulled down, covering the scar, but there’s something in her eyes when she looks at the clickers. Something more than just plain fear. Three weeks…
He shakes it out of his head. No time for distractions.
He weaves a line through.
“Follow Joel, stay close,” Tess whispers, and he can hear the girl’s hitched breath behind him. Almost feel the vibration of Tess’s pulse in the air. Or maybe it’s his own. Sometimes the whole damn world feels like it’s hanging by a thread.
She never shuts up, this kid. All the way from Marlene’s hideout, question after question. He focuses on the path ahead, lets Tess deal with it. She’s more patient with the girl than he’d ever expect – a side of her he’s never seen before. She gives her answers. Asks her own questions back. Calls her by her name. He doesn’t want to think of her as anything other than ‘the kid’. A temporary presence. Soon forgotten, once they get this over with.
He doesn’t mean to eavesdrop but there’s no avoiding overhearing their talking when it’s quiet. It doesn’t make any difference. She’s got a story like everyone else and there ain’t enough sympathy to go around. There are plenty of orphans. Plenty of fodder for the military schools. If she’d stayed there, she’d have ended up just like the others. The soldiers who’d chased them through the sewer. Or the ones they’d found freshly turned in the office building, farmed out to clear the outskirts. Hunting smugglers and fireflies and infected alike. Collateral damage.
Except she already got bit, and somehow she’s still here. At least, that’s her story. He can’t figure out what Marlene’s plan is but it doesn’t really matter. He doesn’t need to know. All he has to do is get the kid to the Capitol building and it’ll be done. Back to whatever bullshit is waiting for them at the QZ after what they did to Robert. The next pain in the ass.
Tess must know she’s been pushing it because she makes some comment about taking it easy when they get back to Boston.
He makes a scathing noise in the back of his throat.
“You’re the one always going on about layin’ low,” she says.
“And you always brush me off.”
She offers him a half smile. The promise of something. “Well, I won’t this time.”
He’ll believe that when he sees it.
Kid’s never been outside. Stops to look at everything like it’s brand new – even when it’s hundreds of years old. Doesn’t even know what a damn museum is. He wonders what the hell they’re teaching them at that military school.
He doesn’t look too closely at the exhibits. Doesn’t risk his brain filling in what Sarah would have thought of them. She’d dragged him round every damn museum in Texas, felt like. He tries to shut the memory down. The Before. None of it matters any more. What ‘civilization’ used to be. So neat and tidy, taking tickets at the door, muted silence down carpeted hallways, looking respectfully at each little information card and making a donation in the gift shop. They’d go for milkshakes afterwards, like a kinda tradition, and…
“Joel.” Tess’s voice jars him out of it. He’s grateful. She’s been keeping an eye on him. Like she always has. Holding that leash tight.
They get separated. Half the damn wall comes down when they try to crawl through a pile of debris. There’s a click and a screech and the girls are running, leaving him choking on cement dust. He tries to find another way around. Tries not to panic.
Clickers wander through the halls like bored tourists and he skirts past them, barely breathing, scouring the carpet in front of him for anything that might make the tiniest noise if he steps on it. He doesn’t have enough bullets for all of ‘em. Knows it’s better not to fight if he can avoid it. Knows when the odds are against him. Hell, most of the time they’re against him.
He makes it to a stairwell, an almighty racket coming from above. There’s a runner, tearing at a closed door with bloody nails, like he thinks he can bite and scratch his way through. Maybe he could, eventually, but Joel’s prybar comes down hard and true on the back of the runner’s head and all is quiet for a moment.
Then Tess, yelling, “Ellie, get back!” A rabid grunt. The sound of a scuffle.
He shoulders the door open and the corridor suddenly feels a hundred feet long because at the end of it is Tess, pushed up against a cabinet, another runner mauling at her. But she doesn’t need his help. Never really has. Before he’s half way there she shoves the infected off and caves its head in with a two by four.
“I’m fine,” she breathes. Before he’s even asked.
No time to double check anyhow, because now the girl's yelling at them from the next room.
“Guys, get in here!”
More runners, crowding in like a tide of feral death. He pulls one off the kid, throws her behind him, slams his fist into the gnashing face of the infected and feels its cheekbone splinter under his knuckles. There’s barely enough room to shoot. Not enough time to blink before the next one’s on top of him. He keeps on swinging, tries to lure them away from the girl, but instead of cowering or running she’s standing her ground – throws a brick at one of ‘em, even – swearing like a sailor like she can frighten them away with words. It would be funny if it were anything other than terrifying.
He hears Tess smash something behind him. Hears the thud of a body hitting the floor. And then it’s over. Only the sound of their breathing and the taste of copper in the air.
“That was too damn close,” he says, not enough breath left to speak past a whisper, but Tess is already moving, looking for an exit, wiping blood spatter off her face with the back of her hand. She looks pissed, casting a glare back at the carnage as she shoves open a window.
He stops her with a hand on her arm. They can afford a moment after all that, surely?
“How’re you holdin’ up?” he says.
She sniffs, avoids his eye. “Just about.” And then she’s gone, climbing out the window onto a metal walkway. He lets her go. Figures maybe she’s reached the same point of ‘what the fuck are we doing out here’ that he’s been at for hours.
When he turns back, the girl is fidgeting with her sleeves, pulling them down over her hands as far as they’ll go, and he’s suddenly very aware of how small she is. Realises it’s the first time they’ve been alone, without Tess. He steps away from the window so he’s not blocking her way. Keeps his voice soft as he can.
“How ‘bout you kid? You okay?”
She looks up at him with a flat expression. “Define ‘okay’.”
He considers this. Reduces it down to its simplest form. “You still breathin’?”
“Do small panicked breaths count?”
He laughs out his nose. “Yeah, they count.”
“Right. Then… I’m okay.”
He nods. Reckons she’s more than just okay. She’s scared, sure, but that’s reasonable enough. She just made it out of a room full of runners. And she knows better than any of them what the worst case scenario is. She’s already been bitten by one of these things. Allegedly.
He doesn’t want to think about what that feels like. Can imagine far too well for comfort. He’s dreamt about it enough times. Felt the teeth closing around his arm, sinking down to the bone. The realisation hitting. The knowledge of what you’re about to become…
But she looks normal. A little skinny, a little pale, a little undernourished, but aren’t they all? Just a regular, awkward, snarky teenager. Off to find the Fireflies.
They can see the dome of the Capitol building from the rooftop. The sun’s coming up, like a smudge of paint on the horizon, and the world looks a whole lot less deadly in the light. Even if he knows otherwise.
He uses a plank to make a bridge across to the next building and gives it a little shove to make sure it’s secure. It’s a long way down. His stomach tightens just looking at the drop.
He gestures for the girl to go first. “Alright. Now, watch your step as you’re going up ‘cause it’s gonna be a little–”
She cuts him off with a scathing “pfft” and hops up onto the ledge. Crosses over without so much as a pause.
He exchanges a look with Tess and has to stifle a smirk. Little shit reminds him of her, in a way.
He goes next. Finds the kid on the other side staring out at the sunrise. He joins her. Tries to see through eyes that have never been outside the Zone. Never known anything but this new world.
“Well," he says. "Is that everything you hoped for?”
“Jury’s still out,” she sighs. Shrugs. “But man… You can’t deny that view.”
It hits him in a way he isn’t prepared for. The ability to appreciate a pink sky after the trail of death they’ve left behind them. The fact, now he thinks about it, that she hasn’t complained once, all this time. The idea that a person might still find a kind of beauty in all of this.
Tess passes them without a glance, heading for a ladder on the other side. “C’mon, this way.”
The girl follows after her but he finds himself staring down at the broken face of his watch.
“Hey, pick it up.” Tess’s voice is sharp this time, catching him off guard. She waits at the top of the ladder for him, looking irritated and sorry and worn out, all at once.
“Look, we’re almost done,” she says. “Stay focused,”
It’s an accusation of sorts. One he doesn’t want to delve into too deeply.
“Yes ma’am,” he snaps back, but he knows she’s right. The sooner all this is over the better.
They find a dead Firefly slumped in an alley, along with a note about keeping the girl safe. Great job you're doing there, buddy. This is the second they’ve found – there was another in the subway, and Marlene before that, half dead herself. It’s not a good sign.
Tess keeps saying it’ll be okay. “It has to be.” Like that will somehow make it true. He’s not used to her being an optimist. Or maybe it’s more like desperation.
The Capitol square is full of green floodwater. And of course the girl can’t fucking swim. But she’s thankful – she tells them so, as they wade through waist-high algae – grateful for their help, glad Marlene chose them. As though they’re doing this out of the goodness of their fucking hearts and weren’t blackmailed into it. As if they aren’t trading her life for a shipment of guns and pills.
He wonders who the hell they’re passing her on to. Talking a lot of shit about ‘freedom’ doesn’t automatically make the Fireflies good people. If there is such a thing any more.
But it’s too late now. Tess and the girl are already half way up the steps. And it should be a relief to have finally made it, but something’s chewing at his nerves.
When they open the door, he finds out what.
He should have noticed before. The panic, lying just beneath her skin. The way she pushed them on so hard. The way she looks at the girl. The way she won’t look at him.
The kid figures it out before he does and Tess doesn’t deny it, but his brain won't process the information. Refuses to. Can't let it be real.
They made a promise to one another, if either of them got bit. To end it before it was too late. His eyes search out hers. Begging for it to be a mistake. Don’t make me do this, Tess.
“Let me see it.”
She backs away, like she’s scared of him. “I didn’t mean for this–”
He shoves the words out. “Show it to me.”
She stops. Stares back at him for a moment – defiant, even with tears in her eyes – and jerks her collar aside.
"Oh, Christ..." He recoils like he’s been slugged in the guts and she laughs, but it's got a crack in it.
“Oops, right?"
He can’t look at her. Can’t fathom it. The thought of no more Tess in the world. He can’t–
Our luck had to run out sometime, she says. But there's nothing about any of this that ever felt lucky.
And still she’s giving him orders. Pushing him. All the way to the end. Stopping him from sinking into the mud. Talking about obligation. Sending him to Tommy’s of all places. And that’s a step too far – one place he can’t ever go back to – but she’s inside his space, now, close enough that he can feel her breath on his face and she’s saying things they’ve never quite said out loud. Now. When there’s nothing left to do about it.
The sound of motors outside snaps him back into the room but she’s already got that look on her face. The one he has to obey.
She tells them to run. Demands it. Stands tall and straight. “I will not turn into one of those things.”
All he can do is stare at her. At the blood on her collar.
She puts a hand to his chest and he can feel his own heartbeat against her palm.
“Come on,” she whispers, in that other voice that she knows will get him to do whatever she wants. “Make this easy for me.”
He can’t- It's not- This isn’t it. This isn’t how it happens. This isn’t where it ends. He looks past her to the door. Sees the shadows of figures approaching up the steps. Something tangible to rage against. Something he can hurt.
He starts forward. “I can fight–”
“Just go!”
She throws her whole weight against him. Shoves him back a step. It hurts. He can feel the bruise of her fist beneath his shirt. Will feel it long after it fades.
And then she says it. In little more than a whisper. Chasing him off like a stray dog who won’t leave her alone. One last order for the road.
“Just fucking go.”
Her last words settle between them like a fog he can never pass through.
He nods. Just once. Yes, ma'am.