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Chapter Text

Ellie had no expectations of what the prisoner—former prisoner—had meant when he had told her he could find Abby at the pillars on the beach, but she was not stupid enough to miss the way he had frowned, the sympathetic look in his eye as if he had told her something worse than death itself.

She had steeled herself, wary of the few as they left to take on what was left of the Rattlers’ resort.

Maybe she did expect more Rattlers, guards she would not hesitate to make her way through if she was this fucking close to Abby—

But there had been only silence. An eerie silence that made the hair on the back of her neck raise, and her heart thump in her throat.

She had smelled them before she had seen the first body, she had even thought the first person on the post had been a mind-trick.

But as she stepped through the trees she saw there were a lot and they all. . .they all looked the same.

Ellie’s eyes darted around, surveying the. . .the people—the corpses—attached to the wooden posts—posts that may as well act as nooses with how the people dangled from them, barely hanging on.

God, some even were tied up by their necks, their faces bloated and purple and picked apart by seagulls—

“Jesus.” She breathed.

Some were men, some women, though they were hard to discern from the identical shortly cropped haircuts that adorned their heads, the similarity of their shallow, hollowed out bodies that were barely discernible as having belonged to a once healthy person. She tried to ignore the smaller bodies, ones that were probably young teenagers: children.

It was a cruelty Ellie should have expected, given as much as she knew about the Rattlers, but her heart began to race in the shock of it all nonetheless. Abby. . .Abby should be one of them but Ellie couldn’t find her—and if she was dead, if Ellie does not find her, this all would have been for nothing—

Joel’s bloodied face flashed in her vision. She heard the thump of Jesse’s body hitting the floor, the grunt Tommy let out as he was shot in the head, Dina’s muffled sobs as her face was bashed into the ground—

Ellie flinched as one of the people coughed, leaving hot blood and mucus to spatter onto her cheek.

Her hand reflexively gripped her knife, but she could not help but deflate as all she saw was another—random—person on the brink of death. She didn’t even think to cut them down—not actually. Maybe it was because her current task was more important, or maybe she just didn’t give a fuck at this point. Abby better not be fucking dead. She let out a grunt as she spun herself around, her hand zipping to her side to keep pressure on her now bursted stitches.

“Where the fuck are you, Abby. . .” She muttered to herself.

She heard movement from the pole behind her.

“Abby.” A voice rasped.

It took Ellie a second to realize the voice was not her own. No, it was a soft, hoarse voice that had parroted her name—not with confusion either but. . .recognition.

Ellie spun back around in an instant, it was as if her side had healed, adrenaline spiking leaving a pressure in her chest, but again it was just a boy. . .

The boy opened his eyes, his facial scars crinkled with the movement. Facial scars.

“Help me. . .please.” He murmured and Ellie. . .Ellie paused. This was—This had to be the boy Abby had traveled with.

Ellie squinted and she became irrevocably sure that those were the markings of a Scar along his hollowed cheeks.

This was without a conceivable doubt in her mind the boy with the bow, the scar who had shot an arrow into Tommy’s leg— The same boy who had shot Dina through the shoulder allowing Abby to beat her face in until she was her nose was cracked and face was bloodied—

The boy who had stopped Abby from driving her knife into Dina’s neck.

‘Good.’

Ellie blinked as her arms moved unconsciously, her legs slowly moved her body to the back side of the pole, where the rope attached to the pillar that held him upright against the wood.

The rope was rough in her hands, frayed but strong. It had to cut into every single one of these prisoners’ wrists with the roughness. She doubted the Rattlers cared, wasn’t even sure if she really did. What did it matter after all?

She rotated her knife in her hand, switching it open with a practiced and familiar movement, listening to the boy’s ragged breaths. She half-waited for them to halt, to hear his breathing stutter and see his body go limp. But somewhere Ellie knew she didn’t want that. If anything. . .If anything he could find Abby quicker. That was why she was doing this. There was a purpose to it beyond apparent foolishness.

She knew the brutality of Scars. She was intimately familiar with their preferred method of stringing up prisoners and emptying their guts whilst still alive—

She felt a phantom ache in her shoulder, an echo of a sharp whistle in her ear. Her mind remained in the theater though, away from those wet, dark forests.

Her eyes moved to the back of this boy’s neck, the way his head hung down, barely strong enough to keep it up. Decisively, she cut drove her knife through the rope.

The boy hit the ground with a dull and almost silent thud.

He laid there so long Ellie thought his small body had given out, but eventually he lifted that head, and then held out his arms so that he could push himself up.

Ellie noted how skinny he was—how scrawny he really looked, even detached from his above-ground grave. She could probably wrap her hand around his bicep without much difficulty. Snap his neck with two of her fingers with just as much ease.

Not a threat, she noted.

For now, she added.

And then he met her gaze with those. . .those damn eyes—those pitiful, kind fucking eyes. And then he dashed to the pole a few yards down, faster than Ellie ever expected the kid to move in his dehydrated and surely malnourished condition.

Her hands found her pistol, but the kid did not as much give her a second glance as he worked on the ropes to another person’s pole. Ellie winced as she followed, hope bleeding itself into her heart and. . .and there she was. There she actually fucking was.

She was unconscious, cheeks sunken in as if she hadn’t eaten in months, dark-circles under her eyes, along with white and red flaking all over her face from sunburns.

How she was alive. . .Ellie had no fucking clue.

In fact, she would have not believed it at all were it not for her shallow movements in her chest signifying actual breaths. The boy was now muttering to himself, and Ellie made her way over to see him struggling with the knots, his hands shaking and his face severe.

“Here.” Ellie said bluntly, taking the rope from his hands and cutting her free with a single swift motion, not giving her mind much time to think about what exactly she was deciding to do.

Maybe it wasn’t that she didn’t care—She was just tired. So fucking tired that her bones ached and her skin burned—

Abby fell like a rag-doll into the ground. Didn’t even make a noise in pain as her body collided with the sand.

The boy ran to her side-immediately, and Ellie joined him, however she made sure to stand a good step back, her mind forever stuck in the damn theater—basement.

“Don’t be dead, please get up, Abby. Abby, please get up, please don’t do this.” The boy whispered, close to the ground so his face was near her’s—cheek pressed to the ground.

‘Joel fucking get up. Please stop. Please don’t do this.‘

Ellie blinked and exhaled sharply from her nose, looking over her shoulder, the memory already fizzling from her mind as quickly as it appeared. She needed to focus anyways. Gunshots could be heard in the distance and the Rattlers would only be distracted for so long. She saw the smoke had only increased over the resort, and she noted how the screams slowly began to quiet. She looked back to the boy who had two hands on Abby’s shoulders. Her face didn’t even twitch as he tried, pitifully, to lift her up by her arms. Ellie assessed her, almost unconsciously. She had lost a lot of muscle mass since the last time she had seen her.

‘Don’t let me ever see your face again.’ Ellie had only coughed blood in response.

It was as if she had withered away, a shell of anything she had once been.

“Can you. . .can you help carry her? The boats are just this way.” The boy then said, struggling to keep her arm over his shoulder. Despite her hallowed state, he still looked a moment from collapsing with her on top of him.

Ellie tilted her head.

“I don’t think you understand why I came here.” Ellie muttered, her voice a stern rasp.

The boy did not so much as flinch. Brave. He was brave, Ellie could give him that.

“I know.” He then said softly, “But. . .she isn’t—please. She spared your life and that woman’s.”

Ellie’s eyes shifted to Abby’s prone, unconscious form. She inclined her head.

“I suppose.” She admitted, not even sure if she meant it. After all what difference would it make so long as she died. She had. . .God she had fucking promised Tommy, she had left Dina and JJ for this. All she had to do was see to it Abby died.

But. . .fuck—despite that, she then moved to take Abby’s other arm, her mind dazed with thoughts of the farmhouse and the theater and how she had fucking let Dina live so that JJ can sleep in a warm bed despite the fact Ellie had murdered her pregnant friend—

Had Abby found her body laying there in the shallow water of the aquarium’s floor? That Owen guy’s too?

Hell, Ellie wasn’t sure if their places were reversed she would have spared them had Dina been killed like that—

She wasn’t gentle when she let Abby fall into the boat though. The boy immediately fled to her side, and it took everything inside of Ellie to just turn around for the other boat that was resting on the coast.

She didn’t look back. Couldn’t look back.

Ellie shifted her attention this other boat, putting her backpack inside of it so the weight was off her body and she could stand just a little straighter. Her side screamed as she turned back to Abby—back to her kid who was already looking to her.

“You’re hurt.” He then observed. Ellie grunted in agreement.

“You aren’t much better off.” She snipped, before looking to the rope still tied to the log, attaching her boat to shore. She heard a short whistle-like sound come from him. Ellie ignored him, just wanting them to. . .to go despite it all. Before she lost it.

It wasn’t supposed to have gone like this, she was—It wasn’t supposed to have. She still wanted, she so desperately wanted Abby to hurt. She wanted her to watch as Ellie. . .as Ellie drove her knife through her neck—as she beat her body with a fucking stick. She needed her to experience as much pain as she caused her. Her breathing hitched. The roped burned her hands as she pulled it from its knot.

“You’re hurt bad though,” The boy then spoke again, “And that boat has no motor.”

Ellie’s face hardened. Her hands felt numb. She turned so fast her side screamed, her hands quickly surveying the back of the boat—and then the inside for a fucking paddle because fuck it all. “No, no, no. . .” She murmured, closing her eyes wondering how she would even get far enough away with just her fucking hands for paddles—

“You. . .could come with us.” The boy then said.

Ellie must have heard that wrong.

“What?” She asked, croaked, but she knew it came out more of a hiss with how raw her throat was. Her mouth tasted thick with rusted-iron blood. Her body struggled not to heave, to curl inwards and leave her compromised as the wound in her side throbbed a violent ache.

She thought wildly of the WLF dogs, those damn dogs, and how they would curl up as they died, with their pitiful wines and gargled noises, jaws snapping as they fought to survive despite it all. Joel once mentioned something about how animals—people even—were their most viscous while vulnerable. That is was important to shoot a beast to put it down because if it lived—if it was injured—It can come at you, and it will fight-tooth-and-nail to survive because that is all it has left to do.

(‘Now pay attention, kiddo.’ He remarked as he pulled his knife out of the boar’s neck. ‘You have to watch your aim, be sharp. You can’t let it with just a wound that could heal like that or it’ll charge at you.’

‘Yeah,’ She had said, her voice airy and perpetually out of breath with boundless energy that plagued her younger bones, ‘Yeah I can fucking see that.’)

A smile had been on her face at the time, Ellie knew that. She knew she had smiled up at Joel because even if she had messed up he was still smiling down with something Ellie knew now was pride. And that was how she found herself, just like those pitiful, snarling, dogs—like that damn boar Joel had spoke of softly that stormed her, squealing and screaming—sounding just like he had—

“What?” She then asked again, her voice louder, but not less hoarse. Her heart pounded in her chest, all the way to her throat so violently she thought she may choke on it.

“Come with us. I. . .I know you won’t get far in that.” The boy repeated. His hand remained outstretched, and as Ellie stared at it she couldn’t help but note this boy must not have been warned of how dangerous a wounded dog, a beast, could be if not properly put down.

She looked to the boat, the boat that held Abby’s prone body, the body that looked akin to a rotted corpse. The body that held the only boat left—Ellie’s only chance at escape.

She looked back to the boy, the boy with too much kindness in his eyes, the scrawny boy that Ellie could not help but akin to a young, scrawny shrimp of a girl that loved comics and puns, and was once hopeful for a future for the world around her.

She could kill him. Kill him, stab him, shoot him, run him through with an arrow, litter him with bullets like she did the Rattlers, feeling his warm blood on her hands— then throw Abby to drown in the ocean, suffer the slow death of water filling her lungs and suffocating her, God she wanted it to be slow, slow like his was, and then she could take the boat for herself so she can tell Tommy, tell Joel, that she did it. That she finished it and maybe, just maybe she could sleep without seeing that damn golf-club, or hearing his cries and the thumps as he was beaten to death, maybe she wouldn’t even see the prone form of that pregnant woman and the way her blood mixed with the water, or the sound of Jesse falling ungraciously to the floor, JJ screaming in her ear as she sat on the floor of the barn unable to stifle her sobs—

She thought briefly about how it would feel to have her knife drive into this boy’s throat, how he would silently sputter (Just like that woman), and then she could kill Abby.

She may be wounded but adrenaline and an anger that burned in a hot blaze ran through her veins, heating her warm enough she wondered if she would catch on fire and burn up in that anger. Her knife was in her hand, her grip so tight her knuckles shone a stark white. She noted how his blood on her hands would be warm too. How it would run into the water that stood at their knees like a plume of vines, like strings of infection before his body would decay in the waves.

But he was not her fight, her deserved justice that she would get because she did not leave everything that had ever fucking mattered behind to leave, again, with nothing.

She refused. She felt incredulous, anxious, and ridiculous all at once.

He was just a scrawny little boy who had no idea what he was offering.

Her eyes narrowed, but the boy was. . .he looked indomitable.

She respected that, despite all the history between them, the blood, the death—everything. She inclined her head a moment, holding his sharp gaze as she nodded.

“Sure.” She told him, her eyes not darting away from his gaze, intimately aware that she wasn’t sure that if/when Abby woke up Ellie wouldn’t attack her with the ferocity of a dying dog. The boy returned the nod hesitantly, perhaps shocked she agreed or wary that she had.

Maybe both. Probably both.

He didn’t look stupid, not naïve to what he was offering after all. Without turning her back, Ellie reached behind her, one hand rested gingerly over her wound and the other grabbed her pack from the broken boat. The boy watched as she walked the entire way over, and he settled himself protectively over Abby’s form, her head in his lap, as Ellie took the spot on the other end of the boat by the motor. And then she felt hesitant—an actual sensation of pure hesitation, or rather realization that she had no fucking clue where to go. She couldn’t go home. She knew that.

Even if she left this kid and Abby off somewhere Dina. . .Dina told her she wouldn’t do this again and Ellie would be a fool to not believe her. To think she would be at their house waiting. Could she still be there? Did JJ even remember her? Did Dina find another person to love, be loved by? Did she think Ellie was dead off the side of a ditch somewhere? And she already ached at the idea of facing Tommy, telling him she didn’t do it. Couldn’t quite do it. Didn’t even try.

So no, going home, or whatever home even looked like for her anymore was not an option. Jackson was not an option, at least for a long while.

So what did that leave her with?

Even if she killed Abby later. . .God, it was all so insanely and absolutely fucked. She looked to the boy, this boy who was eyeing her and waiting for her to make a move. She inclined her head towards him before she grabbed the handle to the string of the motor. It took four hard tugs before it spun to life. Ellie wasn’t sure where she should head, she only knew she was getting the fuck away from the Rattler’s camp as possible. The boy didn’t make a sound to disagree with their direction.

And then he cleared his throat.

“South. . .south has Catalina Island. There is. . .there are Fireflies waiting for us there.” He said with more certainty in his voice than Ellie would have ever expected from a kid who she found tied to a fucking pillar. She almost directed them north out of spite. . .

Fucking Fireflies.

If there was a God, Ellie thought to herself, then he might just be actually sorta sadistic.

“Ok.” She told him, inclining her head. She didn’t look at Abby or back to the Rattler camp. Not even the fucking kid who only would glance at her periodically. She just focused on getting them out.

One step at a time.

Even if it was probably a stupid fucking clumsy one.

Chapter Text

Ellie’s skin flaked along her cheekbones and peeled off at the tip of her nose, the mist of the ocean only partially eased the incessant need to itch at her face until her fingers were bloody. Partially .

She flexed her fingers before wrapping them once again around her pencil, it was only about four-inches long at this point, but it could still be used to write and Ellie needed to do something with her hands before she found them wrapped around Abby’s neck until her face bloated, skin-discolored, and her lungs popped with the pressure that Ellie’s hands could/would have caused—

She let a sharp breath out through her nose.

Graphite pressed into paper soon after.

I think all the sunburn has finally seeped into my brain because I can’t really think of another reason for why I am doing this, why I am here and not on that other fucking boat, no motor be damned.

Lev’s fine though, which is the scar boy’s name. For now at least. We are on our way to go to Catalina Island to find fucking Fireflies, because of course it was Fireflies they had been searching for. Must be destined, that’s something Dina would probably say.

Or not. I don’t know.

Feels like a trap, but the kid doesn’t look like a liar. Or maybe he is—I don’t know him. I can’t trust him

The kid also doesn’t trust me either, but I again I don’t trust him so—again— It’s fine . Suppose it has to be. I think he’s the only reason I haven’t killed her yet, the thought of him watching makes me want to

He’s stuck at Abby’s side, he obviously cares about her or loves her or whatever.

Which is

It is.

______________________________
|What. The. Fuck. Am. I. Doing?!?!?!? |

Ellie’s hand stilled on the last question mark, the pencil so tight in her hand she might snap the pitiful thing, her mind still pondering her own silent question to which she could find no answers.

On paper, or rather the answer should be: finding Fireflies. That was the most obvious and literal answer—besides not dying. That was another thing she was trying not to do.

Both seemed unreal still.

But, after all, the universe seemed to think Ellie should always be stuck on this same damn path for the rest of her life.

It had a really fucking roundabout way of going about it though.

She returned to her journal, flipping a page, pencil almost slipping from her hand.

My mouth tastes of copper

Coins spill from my mouth

Weighing my bones

Metal sour thick on my tongue

Left to forever gag on the enmity

What am I going to do if when we even make it to this Island? What if they are all gone? What if Abby dies on the way or my body finally gives out and Lev’s stuck with two corpses

I told him I would get us there and then I’m gone. I don’t think I would be able to even stay knowing what Joel did and what I couldn’t do at St. Mary’s

He seemed satisfied with that, all the kid cares about is Abby which makes me feel like

She closed her eyes for a brief moment.

Fuck .

She almost broke the tip of her pencil with how hard she jabbed the word into the paper.

Her hand shook—she continued hesitantly.

Are there more doctors at this base? Could they make a cure? I can’t not find out more at this point. Even if it has to be by being confined to her.

Underneath Ellie had added a small sketch of the kid’s face, taking careful time as she drew the kid’s scars and the ferocity in his eyes that she tried to make show the importance he seemed to convey towards Abby—but she didn’t add Abby to it.

Eyes have always been tricky for Ellie, how do you accurately translate someone’s eyes onto paper? ‘Windows to the soul ’ is what Joel used to call them and Ellie had taken those words and imbedded them in her heart.

But, this fucking kid had been easy for her to draw. There had to be some greater meaning to that than Ellie had the energy to figure out.

Ellie took a breath and closed her journal. She glanced up.

Abby was sat on the floor of the boat, her eyes closed, back pressed against the seat, chin tilted towards the sky with one hand wrapped in Lev’s. Ellie didn’t know if it was her comforting him or vise versa.

Didn’t change the fact it conjured a sick feeling deep in her gut, another itch just beneath the derma of her skin. Her fingers picked absently at the dead-skin on her face. She wondered if she would peel it all off.

(Ellie reached into her backpack to account her meager rations—their meager rations, she corrected uselessly.

Because that’s what they were—meager, as in she has two fucking crackers and half a thing of water.

They would need to dock on land within the next few hours for more water, she had given a cracker and her bottle to Lev who instead broke the piece in half, downed one and pocketed the other in his chest-pocket, and then instead of drinking any of the water for himself he immediately began to try and coax Abby to drink which had made Ellie sit on the edge of her seat.

Her mind had been running wild since the moment she had found herself on this fucking boat, she had the ceaseless need to move her legs, to pace a hole into the floor of the boat like a dog, hopefully taking the two of them down with her so that she would not even have to worry about what the fuck she was supposed to do when Abby woke up.

She wondered if Abby would realize immediately it was her, if she would pounce on her despite having nothing to use except her own fists—much like she had in the theater. Ellie recalled more vividly than she would have liked the feeling of Abby’s knuckles breaking her nose, the sharp jolt it had sent down her spine.

Ellie wasn’t sure if she was more worried about Abby doing such a thing than she was yearning for it, yearning for an excuse.

The first twitch of Abby’s eyes had Ellie gripping her knife.

But—her gaze did not settle on Ellie as her eyes opened—no—they had landed on Lev.

The kid smiled so wide it sparked a dull ache in Ellie’s chest. She saw flashes of a smaller smile belonging to a much smaller person, her ears were filled with a quiet giggle. The rock in her gut became a fraction heavier, and the ache in her chest just a little tighter.

And then Lev was crying, and Abby had him in a lose hug—which Ellie somehow knew would be tighter if she was physically capable of it.

And then those eyes had met Ellie’s, and Ellie saw the tensing in her jaw, the steeling of her muscles.

Yeah, Ellie thought to herself, she fucking knew who she was.

“Don’t worry, kid. I’ll be fine, I promise.” Abby murmured to the kid anyways, a hand on Lev’s head with her fingers running through his hair but her eyes—her eyes were fucking focusing on Ellie like a dare. Like she was daring her to pull out her revolver, his revolver , and send a shot right through her fucking skull in some sick poetic justice. Daring her to take Abby’s promise to that kid and crumble it up into tiny little pieces.

What a joke.

What an actual joke. Ellie may have done some fucked shit, but she wasn’t. . .

Would she do it?

Ellie kept her lips shut tight, staring right back at Abby until she finally glanced away. Only then did Ellie let out a breath and allowed her shoulders to slump.

She suddenly found herself not wanting to know.)

They haven’t spoken a word to each other yet. Ellie hasn’t spoken at all since before she woke up, not even to just Lev, it was just. . .weird. So fucking weird.

Lev and Abby would talk in hushed tones, and though Ellie wanted to eavesdrop she really didn’t have the energy to try. It was probably about her. Plots to kill her, steal all her shit, or probably some other fucked shit like that.

Just because Abby hadn’t gone through with killing her in that theater doesn’t mean that her anger is gone—that her want to have her dead is gone. Ellie knew her’s wasn’t despite not killing her on that beach.

Or maybe Abby was the next fucking Jesus and she’s been washing feet since she walked out of there. Would that make Ellie satan? Ellie suddenly had the absurd mental picture of Abby with long hair and sandals adorning a thorn crown as Ellie laid crouched in the shadows with two red horns sticking out of her head.

The sunburn has definitely reached her brain. Ellie just kept picking.

None of that was important, at least not in the sense of being important for surviving the next few days. Reality would show that, as of the past thirty minutes at least , Abby was still in-and-out of consciousness. She hadn’t even talked to Lev for long anyways, but she obviously only tried to keep her eyes open as long as she had because Ellie was on the boat with them. Her stare was practically burned into her mind.

Maybe it did bother Ellie that Abby didn’t say anything to her, not one word—not even to question why Ellie was there. Ellie knew she would have. . .

What the fuck had the kid said to her?

Ellie tucked her journal inside of her backpack, keeping the two in at least her peripheral.

The intense foreboding in her bones has yet to dissipate.

Ellie swallowed a breath and glanced up at the now cloudy-sky, a sharp contrast from California’s burning sun.

Her entire body was filled to the brim with anticipation, anxiety, and probably a whole bunch of other words that can maybe come close to accurately describing just what she may be feeling at the current moment but were unbeknownst to her because her brain was deep-fried or maybe there just wasn’t a fucking word. Most seemed inept at doing so anyways.

Fuck.

The point was: it was as though she threw two shoes in the air by traversing to Santa Barbara, and one had fallen and sunk in the sand of that beach and the other shoe was going to drop—soon—very soon, and Ellie had a feeling, a really fucking strong feeling, that it was going to land right on her fucking head with the weight of a concrete block.

Seems fitting, at least. Just was a matter of when.

(‘Don’t be lettin’ your guard down if you ain’t sure about anything—It will always find a way to backfire on you if ya don’t.’ Joel muttered under his breath, shoving a metal rod into the handles of the double doors.

‘Anything?’ Ellie questioned, mirth boiling in her gut, ‘So like, just as an example, if there was this old-man, and I’m talkin like dinosaur-age old, who was taking me across the country, I should be allowed to not trust everything he says to me?’

Joel gave her a flat stare and she had to fight the grin from her face.

‘I’m serious, kiddo. One day you will appreciate my wisdom.’

‘Yeah, sure, whatever. What’s for dinner then, old-wise one? More basic-ass dinosaur lessons?’)

Ellie stared at the coast-line, lulled into a temporary state of numbness.

Maybe the other shoe had already dropped , she had the sudden thought , and there were just a thousand more about to follow.

Except they weren’t shoes—they are arrows that are on fire that explode on impact. 

Ellie huffed a sharp breath out of her nose, numbed amusement poking at her features. Lev found her eyes from where he sat from across from her.

”We should dock somewhere and set up a camp soon.” He pointed out, his voice a sharp murmur, and then he was looking right back at Abby, his hand still tightly woven in her own.

Ellie chewed on her tongue. She nodded her head.

Abby shuffled in front of her, though she did not rise from her state of unconsciousness.

Ellie thinks the arrow just nocked itself in its bow.

Chapter Text

They docked the boat in a shaded area yesterday, near a small, run-down shed that reeked of old wood and must.

Yesterday , Lev had watched the sun set, his wrists burned into an unfeeling numbness from the rope that held him to the pillar on that beach, watching as Abby slowly died in front of his eyes, and now—now this sunset his wrists still hurt but he could feel his hands, his throat no longer throbbed from being deprived of water, and Abby no longer looked as though she were about to stop breathing before his eyes as she sat in front of him—As they sat together, free from the Rattlers around a small fire, shaded by trees—his skin no longer burning.

Lev almost thought he had dreamed it, dreamed hearing Ellie on that beach—Lev had not even known it was her when he saw the figure walking around the pillars on the beach—

Had not known it was her even when he heard Abby’s name emit from her mouth—

He had just focused on the fact that this girl, this woman, this person had found their way onto the beach, the beach that was surrounded by the Rattler’s Resort, the beach surrounded by people more sickened than demons themselves, the beach that was infamous for a slow-death, infamous for being a home for suffering, home of putrid smell and screams—and this person, she had made it there , had purposefully stepped foot on the damned sand, and then had muttered his Abby’s name.

His Abby who he had watched the Rattler men beat before she had been strung up, his Abby who he hasn’t seen wake up in what felt like days—more than days.

Lev has always known loss, but he has also learned to enter-twine that with hope. Abby’s presence had helped teach him that.

However, since the day he and Abby had planned their escape from the Rattlers’ camp, only to be caught, any hope he had felt had been dampened, buried like wet leaves into soil after being walked on by a heavy boot—Until of course this figure appeared muttering Abby’s name like a vice incarnate. 

He had been so dazed he hadn’t realized he had opened his eyes past the grime and sweat, hadn’t registered his mouth moving for the first time in hours to mumble Abby’s name in return, or even asking for this person for help—He had only known he had to do it because he had promised Abby they wouldn’t die here, even if she hadn’t been awake to hear.

It was as if landing on the sand had injected the shot of adrenaline his body needed, as if just by hearing her name brought back hope that they could get out.

He had already asked for help carrying Abby’s body to the boats—offering this figure to come with them before he had seen the knife. Before he had seen her face .

So, Lev almost thought he had dreamed it, dreamed looking past the haze of fog, dreamed the way her eyes stared with that conviction, dreamed that she (over quite actually anyone else) had cut them down and then helped them escape— but there was no way he could mistake feeling this alive , more alive than he has felt in months .

Lev bit the inside of his cheek as he looked to Abby who was sat on a rock, head in her hands, and then he looked to Ellie—Ellie who had rescued them, even if that was not her true intention, who had sat opposite to Abby, eyes only to the ground and voice silent since the moment Abby had opened her eyes.

They had eaten actual food this morning—Ellie had caught them two squirrels in the early morning with her bow, a bow Lev itched to hold. She seemed oddly calm on the outside, other than her constant fidgeting, fidgeting that was either picking at her sunburn or twisting her knife around her fingers. Lev has not spoke to her much. She didn’t speak to him. It was as though she was fearless about it all—Not trusting, nor friendly, but just. . .just not scared.

Lev at least could not keep his fear at bay—fear for the possibility Abby may not make it anyways. That she would give in to dehydration, hunger, or infection—Be killed by something or someone Lev wouldn’t be strong enough or quick enough to stop just like everyone else in his life has.

So—he would keep his guard up. The sharp rock in his pocket almost burned a hole through his chest where it rested, but he would do what he needed to do to protect Abby, even if it was with his pitiful rock.

But, even if he could have, Lev had not let his guard drop yet—Not when Ellie had docked their boat to shore, not while she had been gone for thirty minutes and came back with fresh water to boil, and not even while she sat across the small fire cooking those squirrels for them all to eat, distant from he and Abby.

But, the air did calm. The tension had not found a release, but it had thinned to a point.

It gave Lev time to think. He never really liked having time to think—thinking usually led to him thinking about all the ways he and Abby could die in the next few hours, and thinking meant seeing Yara’s face in the corner of his vision, but never fully her face unless it was on the ground by those wet trees and the smell of gunpowder wafting through his nose.

He thought about her a lot in the past few days, the days where he thought he might be reuniting with her soon.

His chest tightened.

Lev’s mourning for his past family had manifested itself as a deep ache that was confined within the bones of his chest, unable to be released nor eased.

He remembered idly how his mother would sit with both he and Yara around the little fire in their home, how soft her voice was when she prayed for them all, and how kind she seemed, or was, when afterwards she would press a firm kiss on each of their foreheads, and then tell them:

‘ Goodnight, my daughters. May the Prophet bless our dreams.’

It had been ritual—one of Lev’s most concrete memories that burned hot and painful in his mind. The word ‘ Daughters’ seeped through his brain like poison.

His mother was a stern woman. Had been a stern woman. More devoted in the writings of the Prophet than anyone Lev has ever met—Never-minding where he may disagree with the interpretations. Her devotion that had only deepened when Lev himself had been a toddler after he and Yara’s father had passed. At least that was what Yara had told him—even if she had only been three years older than himself. Lev could not remember a time when their mother was not correcting he and Yara in their ways, reading scripture, attending prayer sessions, her hand gripping that stick she would use on the back of their knuckles, sounding into the air a quick ‘thwack’—

He rubbed his thumbs over the back of his hands, the ghostly sensation of how they burned lingered. He thinks if he squinted he could still see the redness, the faint marks of where they had turned bloody. He flipped them over to stare at his palms.

It had been natural for Lev to conform—to hide . It was how he was raised—It was what he was good at. ‘ Never a braid out of place or a step out of line .’

Yara—she had been a soldier to her core. A well-respected one by the community at that. Their mother’s true daughter. There was a point in his life he wanted to be just like her, to see their mother look at him with that same pride, to be looked at as a soldier, just like Yara.

He didn’t know what else he had been expecting when he told Yara what he wanted—what he needed to do when they laid cloaked in the night after bidding their mother goodnight, as he murmured to her how he felt, as he told her his name and asked her to help him tell their mother because maybe, just maybe Yara could get her to understand in a way Lev could never—

The slap had connected with his face before Lev had even seen her raise her hand.

Lev remembered that moment, it was ingrained in his mind—burned into his memories hotter than welding iron.

He remembered how his cheek had gone numb, how his skin went cold, but his face felt hot. He sometimes still felt it. He fought to not raise his hand to his cheek.

‘ Never say that again ,’ She had told him, her voice stern—ever the soldier, ‘I. . .L-Lily, I am more than serious. No one can hear you say that, even think that you may think like that. Okay? Just keep that—Keep it to yourself. Please?”

Lev knew he must have nodded, despite not necessarily recalling doing so. He remembered how her face blurred with his tears, how she had turned her back to him and pulled her blanket up over her cheek without another word, Lev following soon after because what else could he do?

They never spoke of it again. Not even after his mother had held onto his hand after their evening ritual, not after he had been told of his role , and then not after Lev had stolen a discarded blade and shaved his head with the ocean as his only mirror.

Lev had walked into their home after that, chin held high, the cuts on his scalp stinging in the air.

‘ I couldn’t live like that. I will not .’ He had said, his voice clear as Yara just stared at him—at his bald head that was shaved as men wore their hair, eyes blown wide and shoulders back.

‘ Oh, Lev, no. ’ She had murmured—and Lev had been too astonished that she had used his name—his name he had told her that he was so sure she had forgotten just like she had told him to, that he hadn’t seen Elder John pry open their door.

She had grabbed his hand without a second thought, dragging him out of the camp and off the island—whistles blowing in their ears with shouts of ‘ Get the apostates .’

Apostates—the word seemed too foreign to ever apply to Yara, but she killed for him. Killed their own. Risked her position and life because of the choice he made. Elder John had raised his pistol but Yara was a soldier—a fast one. Lev couldn’t erase the sound of her using his own gun and pointing at his face—his body hitting the floor with a loud smack. Head against wood.

He had never felt safer than he had in that moment—that moment where she hadn’t hesitated to kill an Elder for him.

She had never apologized for the slap. Never needed to after all she had done. Yara never did ‘words’ or apologies. She was adamant her actions showed who she was and how she felt. The guilt still ebbed at his mind.

He should have just ran away.

Ran away before her arm was crushed by a hammer.

(‘ Clip her wings. ’ Miss Emily’s voice commanded . Lev’s hand shook as he nocked the arrow and raised his bow , Yara’s screams stinging the air as a hammer cracked against her arm.)

Ran before their people could see he had shaved his head.

Ran and stayed gone—so his mother’s skull would not have cracked on that table by his own hand.

Before Yara was riddled with bullets after Lev helped her through the window first. The last of his family gone—Also inadvertently because of him. Yara had still hurt so much worse than his mother, even though it was hard putting his mother in the same lens as the woman who had beat him until he was bloody, who had held a knife at his throat, and who had laid there dead by that very same fire.

But, Lev has always been good at adapting fast. He stuffed memories of her and Yara deep in his chest and just kept moving. Abby told him it was what made him good at surviving—the adapting.

(‘Change. . .fucking sucks sometimes, kid. But this will be good for us. Keep us living. A good change, right? We can do change.’)

He had nodded at the time, even if his brain still felt stuck on that island, his hands soaked in his sisters blood with the sound of his mother’s head smacking on dense wood vibrating in his ears.

(‘I’m ready.’ Lev had told her, keeping his head high, his chin up and voice clear, despite the weight on his shoulders as Abby smiled—Not a big one, but one that was held just at the corner of her lips, the first one he had seen since the aquarium and the theater. The cut by her cheek glinted in the light. Lev stared at it a second longer than was necessary.

‘Good. . .that’s good.’ She told him, ‘Keep that attitude kid, boats are cramped and we won’t be stopping any time soon.’ But she did not say anything indicating she was ready to leave too.

Her hands had still been dirty from digging the graves of her friends. Lev had drawn a simple symbol of peace in the dirt for the people who had saved Yara’s life, the swirl resembled a heart. It seemed fitting. His finger had itched. He doesn’t think Yara will ever get to be buried.)

Lev threw another stick into the fire, it crackled sending the sound of a small snap into the air.

Lev exhaled sharply out of his nose. He looked to where Abby was wrapping her arm, a tired-scowl on her face.

She caught his eye, and that scowl fell.

She looked at him and then she rose her brow, her face soft.

Lev shook his head, a notion that was: ‘ Not fine, but can wait till later ’ that they seemed to adopt each other easily.

Abby reminded him so much of Yara it worsened that ache sometimes. Sometimes it eased it, but he couldn’t help the way that whenever Abby would pat his back or cut his hair he would see for a second his big sister in her place.

They were both soldiers. True and raised. Lev had once wanted to be one too, but seeing what happens to soldiers like them. . .he just wished there was no need for them.

Abby was not replacement for Yara, he noted in his mind. Despite their similarities, they both were settled in different places in his heart—a fine line divided them as past family and new family, but both his family.

Abby was a rock, a solid, unwavering rock to Lev. He knew he could rely on her to protect him with the same ferocity he would protect her with.

He didn’t remember the exact moment she changed from just Abby the wolf who’s maybe not so bad, to Abby— his family.

Lev didn’t think it mattered. Probably when he realized she had also came after him to the Island with Yara.

He watched as Abby tied off her bandage, and he grimaced for her. The few stitches they had were used on Ellie’s side—she had needed fresh seeing as they had been torn and dirty. Lev had watched her stitch herself up on the boat, Abby’s head in his lap, as he waited for her to pull out her pistol and shoot them both.

She never did. She just continued stitching quietly, not even wincing in pain as she did so, calmly threading the dingy needle through her skin, looking past the blood, and occasionally removing a splinter as she went.

When Lev had first seen her, all that time ago, she had been angry, scared, and indomitable.

(“I know why you killed Joel. He did what he did to save me. There is no cure because of me, I am the one that you want.”)

He worried his tongue between his teeth, his brows knitted on his face.

(“Who was Joel?” He finally asked, the question finally emerging from the depths of his mind.

He watched as Abby froze, her muscles tensed, the only sound for a long moment was the water of the ocean lapping against the man Owen’s boat.

Abby seemed to listen to them too, her eyes were closed, the cuts on her arms looked waxy.

“He was. . .a man who had hurt a lot of people—Killed a lot of people. He was no one important.” She finally murmured, breath just shaky enough that Lev noticed it was a topic she would not divulge him in any further. At least not for now.)

Months had gone by though, and she had never mentioned his name. Or the girl who was called Ellie. Or that pregnant woman. Or the theater, and not even the aquarium after she had buried that kind woman and her unborn baby along with her dog, and the man named Owen who had invited he and his sister into his home.

But, Lev did know that the man named Joel—he had been important. Really important to have been someone Abby had killed, and for Ellie to have tracked them down to avenge. Lev thinks that had been the first lie she had ever outright told him. Or maybe she had been just lying to herself.

He wondered if he asked again if her answer would change, seeing as she could just look up and see how Ellie was sat there, here for her.

Because Lev wasn’t a stupid kid. He knew full well she had came here to continue what they left in that theater—to kill Abby.

Lev had looked at her though and couldn’t see that girl in theater. That girl would not have done what she did. Would not have cut Lev down, and carry Abby to their boat.

But—Lev could be wrong. He didn’t know her. That was a fact. But it was also a fact that they were stuck together for the foreseeable future, and Lev did not want to be stuck with someone he could not trust not to kill Abby.

He just wasn’t sure how to go about fixing that. He didn’t want to accept he may not, but he was an adapter. He would adapt to this, even if it was like expecting to jump off a cliff and fly instead of drop.

Chapter Text

She was hyper aware of every blister, scratch, and cut that covered her feet as she walked. She barely blinked at the ignition of pain with her steps any longer, save for the slight squinting of her eyes or the lightly biting down on the inside of her cheek if a cut met a particularly sharp rock or agitating grain of sand. She noted she would have to pay some special attention in cleaning the wounds. Infected ones would be much harder to deal with later. Later. Because she would make it long enough to see a ‘later.’

She had made that promise to herself—to Lev—after they had arrived at the resort. When all she could smell was the pungent fumes of death and all she could taste was her own blood running down her throat, but she refused it. Death. And she continued to keep that promise tucked close to her heart.

She glanced to Lev who walked beside her—his steps were awkward as he kept his shoulders hunched a little further than what could be comfortable, and his gait was slow as if to stay just in line with her own even though he could go faster if he wanted. He had obtained a pair of shoes after they had found a tumbled over boat just a short walk down the coast—

Walk, she emphasized bitterly while her legs burned, since they had to ditch the boat for the fact the motor had gone up in a dark plume of smoke. Williams had worked on it for an hour before kicking it with a curse, and then searching to no avail for another one—or fuck, even a paddle. That combined with the fact they would likely have to travel inland anyways for supplies made it too much a hassle to mess with it further. However, Williams had pulled it ashore, with Lev’s assistance.

(Abby’s mind had twisted itself in an ugly way when she had to stop and step back because of her vision blacking out, her arms and legs shaking as she set herself to the ground, her own body failing her—again and again and again.)

They blanketed it with vegetation in an attempt to keep it secluded if they ever found themselves coming back for it. Which was unlikely.

Anyways, a box had been in the bottom of the tumbled over boat, it held an assortment of clothing, a pair of shoes that had gone to Lev, a new tank top that Ellie had fit over her body which allowed her to discard the cloth that had once been a shirt.

Williams—Williams, not Ellie. Lev calls her Ellie. But all she had been able to see as the name Ellie flashed past her mind was a theater that stunk of gunpowder and blood, the feeling of Tommy Miller collapsing to the ground under the crack of her pistol, the other one tumbling to the ground dead, all the while Miller had been calling out her name. Ellie.

She thought of that name and her hands became warm with blood. Her thoughts sick.

It was like she couldn’t touch it. Her. Like she was some hot metal pole that glowed of fire and heat—and just so much as looking at her made her eyes burn and her throat close up. Made it painfully hard for her lungs to breathe, for her heart to beat.

So, Williams is all she could connect her to. Would continue to connect her to. A woman who now walked in front of them calmly, her fingers snapping together every so often, and a faint whistling emitting slightly warped from between her lips and teeth, surely an accidental action. She was just as far off, just as untouchable, as the girl who’s medical scans her father had spent every hour that she had been there pouring over—seven, it had been seven hours—and then died over. Those documents that had a scribbled little E. Williams in the corner.

A sharp breath found its way out of her nose as she stepped on a small, yet sharp, stick.

And, as if it was not apparent, Abby was left to be still barefoot—but a short-sleeve shirt covered her now, instead of the tank top that she had adorned for what was probably the last month. Every time she moved her shoulders it felt as though her skin was peeling itself anew, sticking to the rough fabric only for that feeling to habituate and then the process would start anew as she inevitably moved her shoulders again. And then again, again, and again. It was comforting nonetheless. With the sleeves covering her shoulders, the sensation of the Rattler’s hands dissipated, if only for a moment. She had that to hold onto, even if it was not much.

Williams walked in front of both she and Lev, a pistol tightly wound in her hand—one that seemed to be glued to her fingers, fused to her with liquid metal. 

“Oxnard.” Williams said suddenly.

Abby glanced up, the sun forcing her to squint as she followed the direction Williams was looking to see the sign herself. She nudged Lev’s shoulder, jerking him out of a small stasis he had fallen under to follow her to where Williams was pulling out a map from her own pack and setting it on a rock, peering at it with a detestment.

“We should probably cut up through this way. . .” She murmured, her fingers tracing a path that seemed it would pop them out on the other side of the town— city? Probably was once a city — the quickest.

”Why not through here? That would get us there faster.” Lev mentioned, tracing an adjacent path that would lead them to the place instead.

Williams rose a brow.

“If we were going in, sure. We should stay on the outskirts though. Find a smaller place—there should be houses up ahead.” Williams said. Her voice startled Abby just slightly—her face much closer to her own as she peered at the map herself, scoff not hidden from her voice.

“Maybe . Or maybe more infected leaving us to camp on the beach again.” Lev corrected, voice tilted, “Abby needs shoes.” He then added.

Abby blinked, she looked down at him to see him staring at Williams with a little too much challenge than Abby felt comfortable with.

She placed a hand on his shoulder, forcing his eyes away from Williams to her.

“It’s fine, kid. She’s right. We can’t really afford to run into anyone right now.”

Saying ‘ she’s right’ felt like pulling her own teeth out with a pair of rusted pliers. But, she was. Abby was frankly not comfortable with any of this, least of all her. She had that moment when she had first woken up burned into her brain—

She had thought she had been dead. That had actually been her first conscious thought, but as she then focused her vision on Lev she refused the thought, stuffing it deep deep down because if she had seen Lev and she was dead then he would have had to be too and that was, and will always be, unacceptable. She was done losing people, the universe liked to just take and take and take—except it wasn’t a universe, or any other sort of fucking god, it was people, and Abby can deal with people. But then she was strung up, Lev alongside her—

And then she had seen her , while she held Lev in her arms, and her mouth had gone even drier because it was her —the woman complicit in Owen’s murder, in Mel’s, in probably every single other one of her friend’s; the image of their names on that map were permanently burned into the retina of her eyes with a scalding blade.

(Her mouth went dry every time Williams would pull her’s out. She would blink and instead of the black ink that she would use to mark it up, it was now red. She saw a ferris wheel and an aquarium circled in blood.)

She recalled briefly sitting on the floor of Owen’s sailboat after the theater, the feeling of the blood caked on the map flaking on her fingers as she traced over Leah and Nora’s names. . . She had wondered who’s it had been—Nora or Leah’s, now she would rather not. Not while she had to be confined to their very probable murderer.

She almost had expected her to pull out a gun and shoot her while she had stared. She remembered murmuring something to Lev, something she forced herself to believe, if so much as only for him—and then the gaze broke and they have yet to speak to each other further.

And yet she still doesn’t know why. Understand why. That word wanted to drive her to insanity, taunting and teasing her all the way there, she was sure of it.

Lev was looking at her with his face scrunched up in displeasure.

“It’s what I would have done. Even if she wasn’t here.” Abby furthered to assure.

“Are you—“ his eyes flickered to the direction of Williams, and his voice hitched just a little quieter, “Are you going to be ok with that though?”

She blinked. Lev has never been weak—his strength is not what shocked her. However, it was not supposed to be like this. He should never have to fret over her like this. She was fine. She would be fine.

“Just fine, bud.” She murmured, even though her bones felt like there were a moment from crumbling, her skin was on fire, and her head felt as though she were under water.

Lev nodded and turned to keep himself at her side.

Abby looked up to see Williams had been staring at her. Abby held her eyes until she glanced away with a short nod.

“Let’s try this way.”

The condo, or at least it was what Abby imagined a condo to be—she has seen several of the same type of house all over the coast as she and Lev have traveled along it, but never actually learned the distinction—rested outside the town. Far enough that Williams didn’t protest the thought of looting it, or it was possibly she too wanted to sleep with actual walls surrounding them, to which Abby very much could get behind herself—and better yet, no infected. Thank fuck.

“Here.” Williams said gruffly, kicking over a pair of boots that were discarded by the door.

Abby didn’t have time to mutter a short thanks— would she have even? Maybe if it had been anyone else —let alone blink before Williams had disappeared way back in the house, mumbling something about securing it.

And then she was out of sight and earshot. Not even her footsteps were audible. Her heart continued to twist in that ugly twisted way nonetheless.

Lev lingered by her side, shutting the door firmly behind them.

“Lock that.” Abby said, jutting her head to the chain on the door, as Lev nodded.

She sat down on a worn wooden chair, put on the boots grateful to have more clothing than anything—despite how she felt bare in spite of them. She fought against the shiver that ran down her spinal cord as she stood up briskly, her body protesting against the movement with enough vehemence she would not have been surprised to hear a creaking emit from her joints.

“Are you ok?” She heard Lev ask from beside her. His hand was reaching out as he stood idly—as if he was waiting for her to collapse.

She straightened her spine.

“You don’t have to keep asking that, kid.” She replied, lifting her hand—skin screaming and protesting the movement—and ruffled it through the thin strands of his hair.

He frowned at her, but didn’t protest the touch.

His brows remained worried, and the frown deepened a little further—looking like words wanted to vomit from his mouth.

“Lev?” She asked, furrowing her own to match his expression.

He shrugged his shoulders, glancing once again to where Williams had disappeared on off to, and then he murmured almost intelligibly:

“I thought you were going to die, I mean, it looked like you were going to die. We were going to die. You wouldn’t wake up for so long, I couldn’t get you to drink water—I was just—“ He cut himself off, his teeth clamping down on the inside of his lips, “I do have to ask that.”

And then his eyes widened and he muttered a short, “I’m sorry—“

“Don’t be.” Abby returned quickly, squeezing his shoulder and bringing  him just a little closer, knowing he was ready to slip a little further away, just like he always seemed to do as he opened up about anything—his mom, Yara. . .and now herself.

She felt just a little be sicker.

“You can ask, I’m sorry. Are you ok?” She continued softly, mind kicking itself, and she was exhausted and he was just staring at her, and staring and staring, now for much longer than an ignorable small moment—he then nodded shortly and then his arms were wrapping around her in a tight, but quick hug.

She had the short, startling realization that this was only the second time he has never hugged her before. The first being the moment on the boat just a day or so ago, but she had been so dazed at the time it hadn’t felt real, like her body had yet to be her own, and then before the closest being in the basement of the resort where closeness had helped contain warmth on the cool stone floors.

She cherished it. Him. This fucking kid, her person; probably her last person. Definitely her only one.

She squeezed his shoulder one last time, eyes burning, before gesturing to upstairs.

“Let’s look around, yeah? You go look upstairs, find some better clothes.”

He wiped his face quickly with the back of his hand, nodding with her.

“Ok.”

She found socks—mismatched—in a drawer that was falling out of a dresser in the bedroom that was downstairs. Along with a simple backpack, torn at the one strap but she could make it work.

She glanced around the room once more, her eyes fixing themselves at a small divot in the wooden floor—a plank fitting there just a little too out of place. She furrowed her brows, glancing to the door before she was bending down and peeling it back.

A small gray-safe sat there. She tried the handle, but the door didn’t budge.

“Of course.” She muttered, glancing around for any notes.

She searched and searched, until she noticed in the corner of the room behind the closet door was an upturned peice of paper that must have blown over in its years of solitude—like a true deus ex machina.

“Finally.” She muttered gingerly bending down for it. She turned it over to read the scraggly handwriting:

Susan—

I can’t find my fucking phone, the news is getting worse. The city’s a damn shithouse.I left the pistol in the safe for if when you get home. Dave’s taking me to get Sarah. I’ll be home around six hopefully

Love you—Jim

And then scribbled at the bottom was a short 06-12-67.

She sighed a short breath out through her nose, sitting back down next to the safe, folding the paper up and tucking it back in the drawer. She put in the short code, the buttons on the small safe only sticking slightly, before the little screen turned green and it popped right open.

Just as the note said a small pistol was tucked in there—a revolver. Similar to the one she had gotten used to using when she had been in Oregon all the way to Santa Barbara.

It was loaded, with six bullets in the cylinder, her movements to pop it out were practically muscle memory at this point. She flipped it back up, grabbed the box that held—seven bullets, leaving her thirteen total. 

She tucked it in the side of the backpack—secluded yet easily grabable.

She then stood up slowly, vertigo only hitting her for a moment, and then threw in the bag a large flannel for herself, despite the large hole in the back of it, before she started her way back into the main entrance.

“Here.” She said, tossing the pair of socks into Lev’s lap—he was in a new T-shirt—this one better fit on his body, his shoulders no longer hunching forwards, and was already sat on the couch. He furrowed his brows as he examined them for a moment before he looked to her in question.

“I have some already—you put those on.” She said before he could argue, her eyes glancing down to where she could see his bare feet through a hole in his shoe, couldn’t be at all comfortable. A smile formed on his lips as he nodded, shrugging of his shoes quickly to put them on.

Abby turned to see Williams looking at her from where she sat perched on a counter— where had she searched? When did she even come back to the room? —that book that Abby has seen her pull out a few times was settled in her lap, pencil frozen in her hand.

Williams deflected her eyes away as soon as she met her gaze. Abby fought the urge to roll her eyes, a feeling of her knowing she had a gun floated across her mind but Abby swatted it back. She didn’t care. Williams may have an edge, but she was not their escort commandeering the fucking trip.

“It’s almost dusk.” Williams then spoke without looking up, as if Abby wouldn’t know the time, “Back door is barricaded, and most of the windows are boarded the rest of downstairs so we should be good for the night. Found some barrels with fresh water in the closet. No dust over them, so someone might have squatted here recently. We probably shouldn’t stay here longer than that.”

Abby glanced to see a chair already tucked under the doorknob of the front door for a solid barrier if the lock failed.

She shrugged before nodding an affirmative, wasn’t like she couldn’t agree with that. She let herself sit down next to Lev.

She wasn’t awake much longer after that, her mind falling into a sleep now filled with a bloodied woman, a knife idle in her hand as she sat still, idle herself.

Chapter Text

“Is it supposed to hurt so fucking much?” Ellie asked, as she rubbed the pads of her pointer finger and thumb against one another, her other hand kept the guitar balanced on her lap. The pressure alleviated the burning sensation enough to stop her from picking at the now reddened skin.

Joel huffed a laugh from across from her.

“Told you. Callouses . You’ll build them eventually and that’ll take the pain of it away.” He informed her, as he held his own hand up into the air whilst his gaze remained fixated onto his rifle’s scope as he fiddled with it, “And don’t jab at the strings so hard.”

Ellie sighed, “Fucking stupid.”

“I’m thinking you’re bullshitting me.” She then mumbled, which earned herself a raised eyebrow from Joel, “The strings just keep digging into my fingers if I try and go any faster.”

“Now why would I lie?” He asked pointedly.

Ellie’s heart stuttered in her chest. For a moment she saw walls with black spray paint and horrid messages; the faint humming of a siren somewhere further back.

She shook her head and forced a smile, “Well—maybe this is your way of permanently baring me from ever going on patrols. My hands will be dust by the time I can play one whole fucking song.”

“Now that is an idea.” Joel murmured, a smile on his own face.

Ellie averted her eyes though, eyes fixing themselves on the strings.

Her heart felt just a little heavier.

Ellie swallowed her breath as she listened to the crickets and the occasional bird from outside. They were as annoying as they were comforting—Joel had told her once about how he had used to appreciate the loudness of ‘nature’s noises’ above it all before Outbreak day had happened. When they could have been easily shadowed out by honking cars and bustling people who were not solely focused on either killing or be killed.

Anyways—Ellie thinks the silence might have done her in for the count if not for the little noises surrounding her as she stared at the closed case of a guitar she had found.

Her hand continued to remain hovered over the guitar case, as if all she was able to do was hover. Like instead of a case it was a fire—hot and scalding, and her hand was nothing more than paper that was itching to be set alight.

She rubbed her fingers together.

“You’re so fucking stupid.” She muttered under her breath. She sat down on a step-stool that had been laying on the musty, ragged carpet—her movements however were slow.

She had had to force her eyes to cease their chronic flickering to where Abby and Lev were passed out in the living room. Like one wrong move and Abby would suddenly transform into that woman with the club, the woman from the theater and bash her skull in.

A shame, she noted bitterly. Fucking ridiculous.

She opened the guitar case, and she gently blew off some dust. The smell reminded her of Joel. Her stomach started to churn just a little faster.

Then the floor-board creaked, followed by a:

“Does that hurt?”

The kid’s voice caused her body to startle.

However, she kept her eyes fixed on the guitar, away from Abby’s kid who she knew Abby would probably not appreciate her speaking to without her supervision. Not that she cared. Obviously. She kept her fingers weaving around the strings as she slowly willed her shoulders to cease their tensing.

“It’ll heal,” She responded, only after regaining her composure. She raised her eyes to glance towards Abby’s form—still knocked out on the couch, “I’ve seen worse—It’s stitched. Clean. Not much else to do.”

The kid shuffled on his feet.

“I meant the bite.” Lev corrected.

Ellie’s eyes widened. Her left hand flipped outwards for her to examine the faded teeth marks. She had almost forgotten about it, which felt too fucking absurd. Much too much.

How dare you , her mind wanted to taunt. Did taunt. Any other person on this damn planet couldn’t fucking do that, and here she fucking was. Of all damn people. Forgetting. How fucking dare you.

“No.” She answered honestly, and then she furrowed her brows.

“You aren’t threatening to shoot me.” She observed cautiously.

“I don’t have a gun.” The kid returned simply.

Ellie didn’t know him well enough to be able to tell if he was kidding.

There was no smirk, yet his eyes were soft. She gathered he was not serious.

Because: right . Abby probably knew. More than likely knew. He probably knew. Ellie felt naked. Like all of her secrets were on display and she was locked in a room with no doors or windows far, far away unable to stop the spying.

“Still.” She muttered eventually, “She told you. . .” About how I am fucking immune? About how she tortured Joel over a cure? About—

“Yes. . .mostly.” Lev answered. He seemed hesitant with the answer. Like he was trying to do as much piecing together as she was. If anything she felt a little less exposed.

Not much. But less.

He then moved forward just slightly around the furniture, his gaze now fixed on the guitar.

“I had one once.” He then told her after a silent moment.

Ellie rose a brow, “Yeah?”

And then her eyes flickered to Abby and her face fell. What was she even doing?

“You should probably go back before she finds you alone with me. She might just try and kill me.” Ellie then said—seriously.

Lev did move his eyes to peer through the door and to Abby. He tended to do this thing where he pulled at the ends of his hair with his hand when in deep thought. Or looked stressed. She wasn’t sure what he was right now.

“She wouldn’t.” He told her, and there was a roll to his eyes.

He didn’t say it was because she couldn’t. Maybe it was his own slip of tongue, but she found herself not able to ignore the choice of words either way.

“Ok.” Ellie said anyways, and she pointed with her chin to a tossed stool for him to pick up and sit.

It seemed to take him a moment to understand the invitation, but as he did a small smile broke out on his face and he hurried to pick it up and set it down—he glanced periodically at Abby while he did so, as if the slightest wrong movement would wake her up. There was a careful tenderness to those glances that made Ellie want to avert her eyes. That made her feel like she should avert them, seeing as what she had came here to do. Maybe so she could try and ignore how Abby, of all fucking people, was loved. She wanted it to be easier, however childish that was. Why was it already not just fucking easier?

“My. . .mother could play.” Lev then spoke.

That was new. He seemed to fumble over the word ‘mother.’ Ellie didn’t really even want to ask—she was not estranged to a complicated relationship with one’s parent. Parent-figure, she felt the need to correct, even if it was her own damn thoughts.

“You know how?” Ellie asked instead.

“A little. . .this looks different than what they would use.” Lev murmured, his voice now held some cadence of sadness that Ellie was familiar with, yet his was completely foreign to her. He also said ‘they’ this time, she noted. Again, she didn’t ask.

Her hands finally reached down into the case to pull it up.

She brushed more of the dust off. The little particles collected smooth on her fingertips and her nose twitched as she fought not to sneeze.

And then she held it out to Lev.

He set it in his lap. He treated the instrument delicately, as if it was more fragile than glass.

“It’s more than likely out of tune.” Ellie then explained.

She pointed to the head of the guitar, “These are your tuning pegs.”

“I know that.” He said. Yet his hands didn’t move for them.

Instead he held that guitar like his piece of glass. He let his hands run along the body of it, and then after a moment of silent deliberating he held it back out to her.

“Here. . .I’m good.” He told her, and there was that sadness again.

Ellie rose her brows, but she took it anyways.

“Ok, kid. . .” She murmured. She too, ran a hand along it. She ached to play it, but that rock of dread remained stubbornly lodged in her gut.

And God was she tired of fighting to move it. 

She set it back in the case. She looked back up at Lev to see him staring off—his hands were rubbing the bruising around his wrists.

Ellie cleared her throat. His head swiveled around and she gestured with her head to them.

“You, um, are you. . .feeling better?” She asked, wanting to punch herself with how fucking weird and awkward that felt.

He only stared at her. He stopped any movement. She thought for a second he would just start fucking laughing and walk away.

And then he shrugged. A small smile appeared on the corner of his lips.

“Better than I was yesterday. . .I’m just worried about her.” He admitted.

The latter half of that statement was hushed, like his own small secret that really wasn’t at all a secret. She would have to be fucking blind—not even—Maybe just a monster, to not understand that. Wasn’t she already though?

How long have they been together even? Her mind wondered, and she bat the thought down with her rock. 

After all, she had only known Joel less than a year when he had slaughtered all those—

Ellie held her next breath in her chest. She felt that pressure and wondered if she would collapse.

She instead let it out and then nodded with him.

“She’ll be fine. I’ve seen a lot of injuries. . .her’s will be fine.” Ellie said. The words felt like barbs as her mind wandered back to a numbing cold, the feeling of her hands shaking as she threaded a needle through the puncture wound on Joel’s abdomen after he had been through off that balcony and was impaled.

They should probably find meds, she noted. She stuffed down thoughts of Colorado just a little further.

Lev had hummed along to her statement.

“Right. . .you can sleep, if you want. I can keep lookout.” He offered.

Ellie instinctively shook her head in refusal. But it felt like at even the fucking mention of sleep her body felt like it would crumble. Her side continued to throb in a dull ache. Her head pounded violently.

She took a breath, like her lungs were filled with gravel, she started to shake her head anyways, but the kid must have been watching her closely because he practically shouted out—

“I know how to shoot.” Lev spoke, his chin jutting to her pack. To her bow.

She inclined her head. She remembered.

And then she sighed.

“Wake me up in two hours.” She relented.

Lev rose a brow, “When was the last time you slept more than that?”

She couldn’t think of a better statement to contradict that, so she eventually just fucking nodded and floated her way over to an old and musty chair.

Unconscious came easier than she anticipated.

Chapter Text

(Ellie knew, from some point far back in her mind, fuzzy and blurred and certain, that it was starting as it always did.

Her throat was raw from all the shouting into the wind. Her toes were numb, pushing against the tips of her boots hard enough they bent down into the soles, not quite in the same way her converse did—these were smaller. Joel had gotten them for her two years ago— four years ago —so they fit uncomfortably—

But she didn’t care. She had to find him. Get to him before it was too late. It was always too late.

Her pistol was tight in her hands, she had one round in the chamber, how she knew she never focused on, she just knew that there was one and she knew—she fucking knew deep in her bones that it was for her—

Then she was on the staircase. Like always. And then she was running down it, like always, and just before her hands would try for the cold and wobbly door handle, just before it would jam and she would hear Joel’s choked cries as he screamed for her— he never had? Had he? —and her hands went to claw at the door, splinters finding their way underneath her nails like she was nothing but a fucking dog—

The door opened. She wasn’t breathing.

She heard no thumps of a club, no choked cry of ‘Ellie, help me’, because the door fucking opened, and there was no basement.

Joel was sitting there. His hair was long, and completely gray. His eyes were closed, but not because he didn’t have a choice, no, there was a warmness on his face. He had his guitar sat in his lap, just underneath his right leg that was thrown up over the other. He was tuning it and Ellie was breathless. She backed into the wall, but there was no door, and right—she was on a porch, his porch, her hands were empty and she didn’t have her backpack, her guns, and hell—her mind was spinning—

He didn’t look up at her. She couldn’t move. Didn’t want to move.

And he played. His fingers gently picked at the strings. He started humming while the notes turned into a song that was so familiar—

‘I don’t think I can ever forgive you for that. . .but I’d like to try.’

‘I’d like that.’

Ellie thinks she sat down crossed legged on the porch just adjacent to him.

He still didn’t look up.

He just kept playing.)

“Williams— wake the fuck up . We have company.”

Ellie jolted from her sleep, ungracefully yet quickly. Her heart managed to jam its way into her throat as Abby’s words scattered past her brain, her hand already fixed with her own knife only to accidentally brush against Abby’s shoulder. A chill ran down her spine and she moved back—

The woman had a finger to her lips, telling her to hush— as if she had even been loud —and she jutted her chin to the back door.

Ellie could hear the faint clambering of footsteps, a rustling of something— someones —on the porch. Two? Three?

“ Fuck .” She breathed almost silently, or maybe she just hissed a breath; her eyes flickered around, surveying the room.

Lev was pressed against the wall by the stairs, her bow in his hands. He had an arrow nocked and his eyes were glued to the door with a hardened focus.

(‘I know how to shoot’)

Ellie glanced for her pack, but it was adjacent to the door and too far out of reach for her to really think about scrambling towards it with them right by it. She grabbed for her pistol in the back of her jeans and held up opposite from Abby, who had a revolver in her hands.

A revolver.

Her heart jolted, she wondered when the fuck Abby had ruffled through her shit—When she had stolen his—

Her own was still strapped to her thigh though, her mind noted.

When the fuck did she even get a damn gun —

“—I need a fucking break.” A man’s voice finally filtered into the room from just outside, “We should just fucking go north. Or east. Anywhere is probably better than this damn wasteland.”

The door creaked as someone put their weight against it—the door knob continued to spin but the lock forced it to remain shut.

Thank fuck her delirious brain had remembered to do that.

“What the fuck?” Someone questioned—another man’s but it was different than the first’s.

The voices hushed soon after. She heard distantly footsteps move around the side.

Abby had her brows furrowed, she was still looking towards the back door.

Ellie took it upon her self to stand up with the intention of sitting up by the front door—presumably their next point of attempted entry—

But Abby had her hand wrapped around her forearm, halting her movements. Her grip was tight.

She jutted her head towards the back. Cue for them to leave.

“We can take them.” Ellie muttered almost silently.

“We don’t have to.” Abby responded, and without even listening to another word she could say, Abby waved a hand to Lev. He seemed to understand everything with just that little movement. He moved himself, bow now over his shoulder, grabbing their supplies swiftly and silently.

Abby had a pack over her shoulder already. Ellie glanced down to see her hand still placed on her arm. Abby met the glance and pulled it back, jutting her head for them to go. Ellie swallowed down her heart as she moved for her own—Abby was already up and unlocking the door—

And they slipped out.

They were past the backyard when they heard the sound of shattering glass and a loud thud.

The group was entering the house, Ellie presumed.

Her pistol was wounded tightly in her hand, knuckles almost white as they entered the secluded brush, watching and waiting—

But no gunshots sounded. No one bursted out of the door shouting for their blood. No gasps, no shouts. 

They were several blocks away by the time Ellie allowed her mind to wander.

Too easy, her mind taunted. Like everything had to be about murder—killing. That thought was held in her mind bitterly. She felt a wave of that familiar self-loathing. Maybe less because of the actual notion, but more so that it had been Abby—over anyone else—who had done that. She couldn’t help but pick at her fingers while her mind spun, pistol lose in her other hand. Her skin felt hot, like the blood was threatening to seep through her pores. 

Except now, since they fled, they were out in the barely-morning with no fucking shelter, or a chance to maybe bring with them more materials or food or water. Abby should fucking know that was a shit plan, she had Lev to think of—

She watched as Abby put a hand over Lev. She ran a hand through his hair. There was a soft smile on her face while she looked at him. 

The thoughts sputtered out. She cleared her throat and brushed past them, skin ever-burning, only glancing periodically backwards—still with no trace of being followed.

She set a different focus.

Abby had called her ‘Williams.’ The thought was belated, but she felt that spark in her spine nonetheless.

She bit down on her tongue. She had faint stars in her vision.

And she had a fucking gun, her mind brought back.

What the fuck was that?

She continued on. If she stared at Abby then she didn’t let her mind acknowledge it.

Abby could taste the blood at the back of her dry throat, feel every breath that burned through her trachea.

Williams was bitter. 

That was a fact the woman made no attempt to hide. She had barely said a word after leaving the condo, which Abby supposed was not abnormal for. . .whatever the hell it was their little group could be called.

“You think she’s okay?” Lev asked from beside her, as they sat on the hood of one of many run-down, regretfully unusable cars.

Abby moved her head to peer through one of the windows.

Williams had been the one to suggest the pitstop, the fucking genius idea that it was to meander into a pharmacy that looked as though the walls itself were seeping the spores. Abby wondered if she got close enough whether or not it would be enough to turn her. She wasn’t inclined to chance it.

She still couldn’t shake the vision of how Williams had calmly and slowly entered the shop. She had seen for herself the spores enter through her nose. . .yet no coughing, no sputtering, no panic—

Just that fucking calmness. Like breathing the particles was as easy as breathing the air they all breathed.

Sure, Abby knew she was immune, so she was not sure why it had left some mark—seeing her just do that. Abby still half-expected to see her come running out, black-veins spreading through her skin, the dead-yet crazed look in her eye. But nothing. Just quiet yet.

“She’ll be fine.” She responded to Lev.

“What if spores are different than a bite?” He asked. He was itching at his bruises again, Abby noticed.

She grimaced for him. She felt that guilt again slowly creep. At what?—she could barely keep track anymore.

Abby put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. The itching stopped almost immediately, his skin was left red and worn. He kept his hands cupped together. He readjusted Williams’s bow over his shoulder. His bow, she supposed. 

“They aren’t.” She told him even if she actually had no fucking clue. She was betting the woman wouldn’t exactly jump at the opportunity to kill herself via spore inhalation though. She seemed more practical than that anyways, as morbid as the thought sounded.

She knew basically as much as him in that regard.

(“My dad. . .he had been working on creating a vaccine. From becoming infected.” Abby had explained to Lev—one of the few times he had asked about her dad.

”To stop you from becoming a demon?” He asked, eyes wide. His hands stilled from where they had been fiddling with the string of his bow.

Abby smiled, “Yeah. In the Old World he was a surgeon.” Her smile waned. Thoughts settled on him. Mel. The hospital. She barely registered her own voice continuing, “He got close. There was someone. . .immune. A key. It didn’t end up happening.”

She didn’t mention Joel. She couldn’t mention Joel.

Lev had his brows furrowed in thought. She tilted her head, waiting, knowing he was going to ask something—

“Is that what that woman had meant by ‘cure?’” He asked.

Her smile faded completely. Her blood ran cold.

Maybe she nodded her head, maybe she didn’t. Her thoughts went murky, stomach sick.

Lev didn’t repeat himself. They lapsed into a silence.)

So she would be fine. It was fine. She was fucking immune.

Though there was a slow churning in her gut at the thought.

She was more concerned about what was currently producing the spores, than the particles themselves.

‘Concerned?’ No, that was a wrong choice of words. Apprehensive. She didn’t want whatever was in there breaking out and chasing after she and Lev.

And Williams could handle herself. Abby knew that for fucking sure. Besides, she hasn’t heard a gunshot yet so that seemed good enough a sign for her to stuff the unease down further into her chest.

“Maybe I should have given her the bow back.” Lev then murmured. He was thumbing at the string of it.

“She gave it to you, bud.” Abby said, And she has an entire fucking arsenal anyways. The latter sentence was left unspoken. She hated the way seeing that SMG made her freeze-up, like she was still in the resort with one of them clamped to the base of her neck as she was threatened with the pool—a pit of rotted infected and fungus and death. Her hand absentmindedly rubbed the spot.

Lev shrugged.

So long had then passed, Abby considered shouting into the store, but, sure enough, not much longer after, Williams came stumbling out, a faded plastic bag in her left hand and her bloodied knife in her other.

“Three clickers.” She explained without need for question, “Most cooked. Two couldn’t even walk.”

She then raised the bag.

“Found a first aid kit. No antibiotics, but some old Tylenol. I think. I’ll wash everything off though, it was thick in there.” She then slipped the bag briskly into her pack.

Abby thinks that was the most she has ever said to her.

Williams was already staring off, stuffing the shit into her pack—like she did with everything else

Abby bit down on her tongue. The annoyance left in a slow trickle.

“Let’s get somewhere to set up a fire. Been awhile since we ate.” Williams then said.

“Fine by me.” Abby agreed. If Williams could hear the bitterness she didn’t comment on it.

Lev had been the one to catch two rabbits this time. It brought a warmness to her with how his unsteadiness had quickly righted itself, how his confidence had seeped back into his body, at least a little if nothing else when he got to do something he knew—and Abby knew—he was good at and comfortable with. Like Lev could return just a little more light back into himself.

He was flipping through some magazine he had found now, his face a mix of emotions. Abby felt, not for the first time, the urge to just take him and put him someplace far off. Away from the bullshit they couldn’t escape. That Abby failed and failed to keep him away from.

But this was a new start, she reminded herself. How many times has she said that now though?

Abby’s eyes glanced away and found Williams’s form. She was sat with her journal in her lap, a resting position Abby soon realized was commonplace with the woman.

She had tried to keep up with one—back when she and Lev traveled from Seattle to Santa Barbara. More often than not the passages were just letters to everyone she had failed or killed. Usually Owen. Usually her dad.

Sometimes Mel. The guilt was like an acid that poured from a spout right into her stomach when her mind dwelled on Mel for more than a moment. Or maybe Manny or Nora, or Leah or Jordan and Nick—

Mostly with a focus on Lev. Recording for herself how he was doing, what he did. God her dad would have loved him—

But she never really managed much more than that. Her notes were probably back on Owen’s boat still. Left for some person to find, who was off scavenging for themself and surviving. Along with her jacket—and Lev’s shark.

She physically shook her head at an attempt to rid the thoughts. It felt like there was a shrapnel of metal in her chest.

Williams was not writing anything down right now though. Her hand was still. This was maybe the stillest Abby has ever seen her.

She had a look on her face that Abby interpreted to be lost in thought. She had a hard face to read. Abby could catch flickers of emotions, sure. She knows what that face looks like when startled, when enraged. Not right now though. Just nothing.

And then she spoke, as if she knew Abby had been staring.

“How did you know my name?” She asked, there was a low gravel to her voice. As if she had been holding the words in her chest and they spouted up accidentally.

Abby blinked. Her teeth clamped themselves over her tongue.

“Your name?” She asked. She figured it was obvious at this point—

“You know my last name.” Williams then clarified the question. Except now it wasn’t a question.

Abby rose her brows.

“Yeah.” She muttered shortly, “It was on some of your. . .documents? Scans actually, I suppose, at the hospital. Not your first name though—learned that later.”

Tommy Miller’s voice practically thundered against her ear drums, as if he was just underneath the barrel of her gun once again.

Williams was still staring at her.

“Salt Lake?” Abby then asked, taking that for ignorance of what she meant, wondering if she even knew— she had to of —

Williams let out a short scoff of her own.

“I know which one—I mean, I just. . .forgot you were. . .never-mind.”

She visibly swallowed—just a little bob of her throat. Abby couldn’t help but to just continue looking at her, like she could see every racing thought run through her mind. It felt like she could . Williams kept picking at her nails, eyes downward. She had a lip worried in her teeth.

Abby figured the conversation was over, she turned herself to the side, looking out at anything to feel just a little less awkward—

“You can just call me Ellie.” Williams then said, her voice uncharacteristically quiet to Abby. Or was it? She really couldn’t know.

Abby could not help how her first response was a long stare.

She was standing up now. Abby hadn’t even heard her get up.

Williams— Ellie —shuffled on her feet for just a pace. Her fingers were picking at her nail beds. She did that a lot, Abby noted. Just always picking.

“Just seems fair since I don’t even know your’s and shit.” She then continued, eyes still down and fingers still picking.

Abby’s jaw released her tongue. She tasted just a faint flicker of copper.

“It’s Anderson.” She offered, after clearing her throat, “but sure. Seems fair. Ellie .” She agreed.

Ellie nodded.

“Right.”

Ellie stared off for another moment, but seemed to quickly get her wits about her because she bent over much faster than a woman who has been impaled in the last week probably should have to grab her pack, then she waved in the direction of nothing.

“I’m going to go look around.”

For what ? Abby wanted to ask, but instead she just rose a brow. It was only midday. They should get going soon. They needed to get going soon.

She didn’t object though, just nodded, even though Ellie was already stalking off.

She had grabbed her bag, but in her odd haste that journal she kept at her side like glue had fallen out and laid there open. Abby stared for a moment, and despite wanting to keep this woman at as far of a length as possible, her body couldn’t let it just lay there like that. She bent over, intending to shut it—which she did.

But before she could have, inside Abby could see the faint sketching of an old man. There was a guitar settled on his lap. His eyes looking out towards the distance. The faint etching of a worn smile.

And then it hit her. Hard.

Her heart clenched and twisted over itself. Her stomach spun itself in a painful loop.

She clamped the book shut, tossing it further towards the log Ellie had sat on. Like she had never touched the thing.

She turned to see Lev kindling the fire, magazine abandoned, despite the fact there were only a few sparse coals and the heat of the sun could not make his placement better. He sent her a smile as he caught her eyes, and her heart released just a little bit of its ever-mounting pressure. 

She felt the ghost-like sensation of blood coating her hands. Maybe her thoughts dwelled themselves on Ellie too. ‘Ellie.’ She imagined how Ellie’s voice had said the name now. Not Miller’s screams in the theater.

Just keep going , she reminded herself. They would just keep fucking going.

Chapter Text

Lev first noticed the ringed teeth on Ellie’s left hand sometime on their walk—after the boat and before the condo.

He knew he had gone frozen. His mouth had gone dry as well. He recalled Abby’s words from a while back—about an immune person. She didn’t like to talk about any of it, anything he did know was disjumbled and disconnected. He remembered her silence though, and the barely-there bob of her head that more or less confirmed that woman was the same as the one in the theater. Ellie. So—he knew. He remembered staying up though, just watching her before finally asking her about it.

He felt guilty about that—looking back on it. He’s now seen her breathe spores—with his own eyes. Which was odd and. . .fucking cold. And he felt guilty about turning away the guitar. She seemed to have understood that too, though. She also gave him her own bow to use. It made him feel just a little less bare.

Ellie wasn’t. . .bad. Lev could not necessarily see her as someone safe—Not like he felt about Abby. But, no, she was not bad at all.

It’s been several days now. They’ve run into no one else since that incident with fleeing the condo and Ellie handling those few in that gas station. Lev’s seen her take a few of those pills.

Anyways, there were barely even infected, other than the extremely faint croaks that would emit from a house every so often. He felt like their travels never were this slow before. He and Abby moved from Seattle to Santa Barbara’s coast in probably only a few months. They moved quick. Abby moved quick.

But it made sense why they were not going as quick anymore. They could be dead. He still wonders how long it has been since they made contact with Fireflies. He missed his calendar. He missed the boat. He missed his shark.

He missed a lot.

Abby and Ellie were talking more it seemed. Not about anything of much substance from what he could tell. Not about what he felt they should talk about.

But he supposed he doesn’t really know the full story yet.

It was always just mildly uncomfortable remarks about what direction they should head. How much food they had. How much ammo they had left. How much water they needed to get.

And so on.

Abby never voiced when she would get tired. She looked better than she had at the beach. If only a little. The vision of her then would be forever burned in his mind so he knew she was better. Getting better. She was. She had to be.

Her and Ellie would pick at each other—with those comments. Ellie would say something bitingly about stopping again and again—like she was not always the one to suggest so. Lev agreed with her, but he could hear her bitterness. He wasn’t bitter. Abby could too—hear her tone. She usually argued to keep moving, even if it was clear she couldn’t. Shouldn’t. He wished he could wipe their minds clear. He wanted so desperately to know more. He felt a need to fix whatever it was, as impossible it may seem.

They have not been physically violent though. Yet. Hopefully never again. He doesn’t want to see Abby go through that again. And maybe Ellie too.

He knew there was more to her. Ellie. He wondered if she killed any of Abby’s friends. Abby thinks it was that man, at least with the help of Ellie. It was probably better if she doesn’t know. Maybe that he doesn’t know either. What he. . .saw with his own eyes was horrible. He knew Abby had more friends, besides Mel and Owen. And that they were also dead. Probably passed away just as horribly. Abby muttered something once, about how Nora was the only one who knew where she was going—about the aquarium. Lev wouldn’t kid himself to think knowing such a fact could be easily erased. Especially when, in the time he’s had to slowly piece it all together. . .it made sense for it to have been Ellie. Or that other man, especially considering Abby told him Yara stabbed the older one before such events could have occurred.

His brows furrowed further. He shook his head. Nothing was for certain—that was only a guess. He redirected his attention once more on gathering his understanding. All of it.

He knows Ellie is immune.

He knows Abby’s father tried to create a…cure. Vaccine—that was the word Abby used.

He knows her father died shortly after. Killed. And there was no vaccine.

But, then there was that name, that man—Joel. A man Abby killed, who before that killed many himself. A man that Ellie, that other man, and those others came after Abby to avenge.

He thinks he knows exactly what the truth was, maybe how it had played out too, even if he has yet to be explicitly told.

And now they were all looking for Fireflies. The group Abby was once apart of. That her father was too. The group that her father tried to make a vaccine with the help of. The group that seemed to have been nearly wiped out. 

Was that it? What Ellie had meant in the theater all that time ago with those words about the man Joel ‘doing what he did to save her’—It seemed likely, more than likely, but Abby has never even mentioned Joel since that one conversation, and that was about how he killed a lot of people—

Lev is not a person to jump to conclusions. He took what he had and used only that.

Lev hitched his bow back up further on his shoulder. He watched as Ellie kicked stones as she walked. It made her gait a little odd. Abby was behind him. He could feel her watching too.

He thinks he might just try and ask. 

“Here would be a good place to stop.”

Abby clenched her jaw tight. Ellie said it in that way again. The way that made her sound annoyed. The way that felt as though all she could see Abby as was something too weak. Too. . .

Whatever.

But, before she could protest that they should wait until closer to dark, that they were still miles away from Catalina and shouldn’t keep fucking stopping—

“I can get some good wood.” Lev offered. He set down his pack on a nearby rock; undid a few more of his things so that it was empty to fill with the wood.

Ellie was taking a seat. She was shuffling around in her own pack.

Abby bit down on her tongue. The air rattled around in her chest as she held down her sigh. She watched Lev walk away.

That didn’t stop bothering her, at least not as much as it should. It made sense, that he would help. He bounced back quick. He was a capable kid. He was armed. He could fight.

Abby eyes didn’t Lev his form once until he turned past a tree and she could physically not see him. At least not fully. He carried now a hatchet that Ellie found. It made his excursions quicker at least. She noted to herself to ask him how he was feeling. She hasn’t gotten over him admitting that fear. She hasn’t gotten over that guilt of it either.

“I’m going to find something real to eat. I’m sick of expired junk.” Ellie voiced.

Her voice was rough again. It sounded like the beginning of a cold. Abby’s eyes found themselves flickering to that wound on her side. Maybe it finally got infected.

She didn’t give a shit.

She nodded to Ellie, who didn’t look back as she up and left.

She didn’t really notice Lev return until she felt a hand on her shoulder.

“Where’d she go?” He asked. He moved to dump out his little collection. His hands worked quick to organize them—biggest to smallest. It’s what he would always do after they left Seattle, even if it had been Abby that gathered the wood usually.

He was such a goober. There was a soft smile on her face at the faint familiarity before she gestured in the vagueness of Ellie’s direction.

“Left for food.” She explained. She rested her chin on her hand as she watched him.

He scrunched his nose. His eyes were focused.

“I better get this started quick.”

Abby let out a short laugh through her nose.

“Yeah, you better.” She parroted. She didn’t really mean it. She doubted there should be any rush. Whenever the woman disappeared she was always gone for hours. Ellie. . .didn’t seem to stay in one place. Abby wondered briefly if that was just who she was or—

Who the fuck was she kidding, the woman hated her. Abby hated her back. She doesn’t care—She cares that maybe that’s why this damn journey is taking ages.

She tilted her head to the side.

“Need help?” She asked. He was busy grouping together the smallest twigs.

He shook his head.

“I got it.”

“You do.” Abby agreed, her words only a murmur to herself.

He had a steady flame going not a few minutes later. He was better than she was at it, even if she had been the one to teach him.

Her dad before her.

It felt. . .nice; to pass shit like that on. Like she was somehow keeping little bits of her father’s memory alive. Of herself even—through this. . .fucking kid. There were not many people who could say they knew her dad anymore. She wasn’t sure there were any besides herself. Maybe even not many who knew herself too.

But, now there is Lev.

“Hey, Abby?” He then asked. He was sitting beside her, some concerned look was on his face. Abby tried not to startle—the fire was going steady now. She hadn’t even noticed.

She blinked. She tried to not look as apprehensive as she felt.

“Yeah?” She asked.

He was playing with his fingers in his lap.

“What is it?” Abby tried again.

She watched him exhale deeply—his cheeks puffed out as he did so.

“What is the whole story?”

Abby blinked. Story. She watched his face—he was nervous. He meant that exactly as she thought he did, she was sure.

“What?” Abby asked, voice low. Her eyes searched Lev’s, but he didn’t reply. He merely scooted a little closer to her, a frown on his face. She had the instantaneous urge to take a rag and wipe it away—as if it could ever have been so simple.

And then he tilted his head in the direction Ellie had stalked off to. Her ribs squeezed around her heart just a little tighter.

“I know. . .I know it’s hard. To say. But, I also know I won’t judge you or anything. I would never do that, Abby. I just. . .I feel like I should know. That’s all.” He murmured earnestly.

Her blood was throbbing in her ears.

Abby felt a lump form in her throat—hard and jagged. She tried in vain to swallow it down.

“I never—” Never thought you would . But if she said that, then she would be lying. She wanted to do better than that, be better than that.

There was still that ugly thing in her chest that formed when she thought about. . .any of it. When she thought of his face as he stared at her with that knife against that pregnant woman’s throat. She didn’t want to see it as she told him about Joel—or fucking god any of the Seraphites.

“Lev—“ She started a dismissal, but then she was looking at his eyes and she was brought violently back to the last time he had asked where she had then dismissed him—but now he was involved more intimately than she ever wanted him to be, and he had never once pushed before—

Fuck. Just—fuck.

“What, um,” She cleared her throat. The lump stayed stuck. She continued on anyways.

“What did you want to know?”

Lev shrugged. He held his knees close to his chest, his gaze flipping from her, and then to where Ellie had gone.

“The man—Joel? What did he do. . .to you?” He asked.

She thought they’d talked about that before. The question momentarily took her off guard. But had she? Really?

She held her breath in her chest for a long moment. It grew hot and unfurled, as her thoughts slowly approached the little locked box in her mind that has contained Joel Miller since the moment she had walked through a screaming hospital, struggling to not stop at every body she found—bile on her tongue as she finally made it to the operating room to find her father in a bloody heap on the floor.

“He killed a lot of people.” Abby answered, her response similar, nearly identical she was sure, to the last time he asked—except now after her momentary pause she found her mouth opening as it all spilled out.

“Back at Salt Lake—I lived there with my dad. As Fireflies. Joel. . .killed them. By himself. Most of them. Enough of them.” She paused. She felt that stabbing in her chest.

“My dad was one of them.“

Lev nodded, a slight dawning was in his expression. Why has it taken her this long to just say that?

His eyes were fixed on her as he waited patiently.

“I killed him.” She then stated. Continued. It answered his question, even if he already knew that fact. But it didn’t really feel like it was the end of the story. She supposed he was there for how much of that continued though, “In a bad way.”

She could hear Lev saying ‘Any taking of life be force could be considered a bad way.’

But she thinks he knew what she meant by that.

(“Have you ever tortured people?” 

Abby’s throat felt constricted, all she could get out was a short, “Let’s focus on getting out of here.”)

There was a beat of quiet.

“Joel was important to her.” Lev stated after the beat; not accusatory. That was an important distinction. Just simply a fact that he observed since knowing Ellie, Abby was sure. It was the same fact that Abby has known and kept locked away since that day in basement. The sound of her pleas and cries echoed in her ears for a moment. She thought back to that sketch in the woman’s journal—the clear care in which she drew. . .him.

“Yeah.” She agreed. The word came out a clumsy mess.

She huffed—it was a deep breath from her chest that puffed out her cheeks. She almost opened her mouth to say. . .something. Something stupid.

Lev was quiet—they both went quiet really. She wasn’t sure if she was entirely still breathing. Abby could hear in the distance the chirping of birds. She could feel the warm sun on her skin. All deceptively calming.

“And?” Lev then asked softly, his brows upturned.

He must have noticed her abandoned words. Abby moved her head to look away from him and up towards the sky. It wasn’t dark yet. It was sunny, even. Maybe pre-Outbreak this place would have been crowded with people. Happy people. It reminded her of early in their journey. She tilted her head to the side, gently chewing on the inside of her lip.

“And I. . .” What? What did she think? She felt everything begin to bubble; unsettled after being so violently dug up by her mind.

Joel deserved it. She’s been repeating that to herself for years. She knew that he did. He had to of.

But, Mel didn’t. Owen didn’t. Manny didn’t Nora didn’t. Jordan, Leah, and Nick either. Their deaths may not have been by her hand—and she would not fucking blame herself for that, never-minding if she felt guilt so great she felt it in her damn bones.

But, even so—

“It wasn’t worth it.” Abby eventually admitted, the admittance of the thought sent a chill through her body in a warped sense of disbelief in herself for daring to say that.

Every single fear that kept it locked down emerged with a haunted vengeance, as if just saying that was the equivalence of spitting on her father’s corpse. She had done it for him. For him, and Marlene, and every other body Abby had made it a point to look at—some littered with bullets, some with nails, some charred to the point of being unrecognizable—and then she held that anger close to her heart and the vengeance at her fingertips.

And now she was saying that it was not even worth it to avenge them. What a fucking joke. She felt bile in her throat, piling in an acidic lump. Her stomach churned.

“Does. . .does she know that?” Lev then asked.

Abby closed her eyes. Her fingers picked delicately at the dirt underneath her fingernails for several moments before she opened her eyes again and she hummed in thought. She kept her gaze on upwards. She wished there were more clouds. Maybe she could hear the echo of her dad’s voice going ‘ Look, Abs. Just right there is a stratus, they are the ones that— ‘

Her chest felt as though it was seizing, as it always did went he found his way into her thoughts. She felt that all too familiar pang travel from her heart to her throat, like a dull throbbing that made her eyes burn. His voice was different, like he was continuously slipping further and further with the more time that passes. She cut off the memory. She bit down on the inside of her cheek that was already chewed to painful little bits.

And it wasn’t even worth it .

“No. That won’t change anything.” She finally answered.

“Why?” Lev asked, after not even a beat. The simpleness in which he spoke made her chest tighten further. What a simple question with an answer too. . .too not-simple it gave her a head ache trying to articulate it into words.

“It just. . .won’t, kid. Doesn’t change what she did. What I did.” The words settled thick on her tongue.

“No,” Lev hummed, voice light, “But the Prophet’s word states atonement is achievable. Forgiveness. You regret it.” He pointed out.

She clicked her tongue. She thought back to that night around the campfire in Santa Barbara. Probably their last happy one as she had told him Owen’s stupid joke about the skateboarding grandma, and how afterwards, as his laughter died he sprung at her—

(“Do you think they got out?”

Abby’s smile waned. She knitted her brows.

“Who?” She asked, her heart squirming.

He fixed her a look, and simply jutted his to the left as if the group were standing just by the ocean.

“Probably.” She answered eventually, “Not our problem.”

“Yeah. . .” Lev murmured, using a large stick he had found to poke at the fire, “Right.”)

I don’t know if she does. I don’t know if I really truly can. I don’t know how long I can pretend that I do. I do ?

Her hands felt the ghost of the cold metal of the club’s handle. Was she even allowed to regret it? She closed her eyes and saw her father, Owen, Mel, Manny—all of them laying limp in pools of their own blood.

“You are too smart for me, you know that right?” She murmured, her hand falling to his shoulder, her thumb picking at the little hole in the sleeve. She thought back to Owen’s boat that had been their home for a good few months. His boat she has long since accepted she would never see again. How her jacket was in it, alongside the shark that had been Yara’s last gift to Lev, Owen’s pendant—all abandoned to time, dust, and rot.

Lev hummed. There was the cheeky smile back on his face.

”I know.” He answered, and he shifted so that his legs were stretched out, “You should try to talk to her though. She’s not. . .bad.” 

Now was Abby’s turn to just hum. She wondered just how much he’s been talking to her.

“You go to sleep, I can watch the fire until she’s back.” Abby told him, without definitive answer.

“It’s not even night.” He argued, almost instantly.

“I know. But, I know you were up last night. Consider it. . .repayment for you watching over me, yeah? Gotta even us up somehow.” She said with a smile, shoving his shoulder.

She listened to the birds. Faintly she could hear the rustling of them in the branches.

Just when she felt the pressure in her chest dissipate, Lev cleared his throat before he moved.

“Abby—She regrets it too.” He said, “Just so you know.”

Her heart stopped for a moment.

She had nothing to respond with. She watched as Lev went to lay on the ground. He had his arms behind his head so his forehead was peaking out of the small area of shade. She’d tell him to move so he was not in the sun at all if he didn’t look as comfortable as he did.

Ellie returned when the sky truly started to turn to dusk, save for the slight peeking of the sun. It made her look eerie. There was a bird— seagull? Abby couldn’t really tell, it was already cleaned —held in her hand.

“He’s out?” She asked gruffly, her voice ever so worn and hoarse. Or maybe it wasn’t, and that was just what she usually sounded like. Abby had the stark realization that she had only heard her speak in borderline screams or threats before. . .whatever this trip has been.

She nodded. Ellie returned it—only for a second. Abby very well could have imagined it, before she was sitting on a rock opposite from her and across the fire, piecing the thing up.

“I can have first watch.” Abby spoke up.

Ellie stilled in her movements. It took her a moment to start moving again.

She merely hummed—but it was with that tone. She was setting everything on a stone to cook.

Did she ever fucking sleep anyways? It got to a point that this was purely ridiculous.

Abby gave Lev a quick glance. The flannel he was using as a blanket had fallen past his shoulders in his sleep. His hair was a mess. He would probably want it trimmed soon.

She felt the eyes burning into her before she had actually looked up to see Ellie staring.

“The kid is a Scar, isn’t he?” Ellie then spoke up, her voice rough.

Abby bristled.

“Seraphite.” She corrected absentmindedly, not for the fact she wasn’t thinking—but because all her brain was capable of focusing on was that she was speaking to her.

And not just questions or words of necessity, like they have been. It was eerily like small talk.

“Right, I thought so. . .” Ellie replied, her eyes darting back from him and then to Abby as if they were incapable of halting for even a moment, it drove Abby crazy, “I gathered you were like, at war or something is all.”

Abby nodded, pursing her lips lightly, “We. . .were.” She agreed—and then a silenced lapsed and Ellie had avoided her gaze for minutes, long enough she was sure she had dropped it, and they were done, that was that and all before—

“When did you meet him then?” She then asked.

Alright , Abby concluded to herself, she’ll bite.

“About two years ago.” Abby answered vaguely.

She watched Ellie’s face change for a moment, her brows narrowed downwards, her lips thinned.

“You didn’t bring him.” She spoke, a hand reaching up to pick at her face, eyes on the ground. Abby noted dully that she really couldn’t hold any sort of eye contact. The words were cut up and raw as they emitted from her mouth. Like her throat was full of blades.

And then she felt a rush of something hot and cold flood her chest as she absorbed what Ellie was alluding to.

Abby swallowed the lump in her throat, coughing into her fist first.

“We met after.” She explained simply, voice thick with what felt like blood. Like Ellie’s words truly were  razors and were the direct cause for the copper taste on her tongue.

Ellie nodded in understanding.

“When we. . .get there—I won’t be leaving.” She said, and her eyes finally found Abby’s again, as they only seemed to do when offering a challenge in her words. Like she wanted Abby to get angry, annoyed, or anything of the sort.

Abby nodded instead.

“Lev mentioned that.” And that was only partially a lie. He had mentioned that Ellie was fine with the idea of going to Catalina, one of their first shared words, he had said. Not necessarily that she wanted to stay. No, that was new information.

And then Abby furrowed her brows further, her lips became a little thinner.

“Why do you want to?” She asked bluntly—boldly, “Go, I mean. Stay with the Fireflies?”

Why go after everything he did? Why chase that? Why why why—

Ellie looked away from her journal, eyes fixating on Abby’s own—really fixated now. Finally making that eye-contact she always seemed to avoid. Her eyes were really green.

But the woman didn’t speak. Abby wondered if this would go unanswered. She didn’t mind the idea as much as it should bother her. Because—fuck her. Why did Abby want to know? Why should it matter—

“He. . .I never agreed with, with what he did. I wanted the surgery, I mean. I always did.”

Abby didn’t waste a beat. Her mind soured.

“Well—The man who could have done it is dead. You won’t find what you’re looking for.” Abby murmured, hand still tracing the cut on her hand, picking at the scab, her words picking at Ellie. She wondered how much it would take—if she just picked picked picked—before Ellie went through with it. 

Abby expected her to scoff, or maybe just straight walk away like she seemed always so ready to do.

Instead she just hummed.

“Yeah. Maybe.” She agreed, “But what else is there to do?”

What else?

Abby found her mind unable to reply—again. 

Ellie returned to cooking her bird, or whatever the hell it really was. She directed all of her focus onto the thing. Abby noticed how she divided the bits up—practically overcooking the wings of it, but Abby knew she was doing that for Lev. He had this paranoia about anything being raw or making him sick. Abby wondered when Ellie learned that.

Abby’s eyes couldn’t help but glance to the woman’s side. Despite herself she wondered how it was actually healing. She fought the urge to ask. She doubted the woman would let her look at it, especially when Abby wasn’t even all that sure why she wanted to. 

Maybe—just maybe she wasn’t all that bad.