#{{ all he sees is the aftermath of it all - her sobbing - all bloody and he just assumed that she lost the fight

[lokiswifeduh]

Don't leave me

Pairings- Mob!Bucky x Fem!Reader

Summary- The aftermath of the shootout was here. And Bucky has to come to terms with the results of the life he introduced you to, and what revenge he would ensue.

notes- this is a part two to Doll, please. I hope you guys enjoy the ending!! Please let me know your thoughts!! Thank you for reading loves!!

Warnings- angst, talk of guns, drugs, kidnapping, abuse, torture. major gore. sad Bucky, hurt reader, hurt/comfort, gunshot wounds, medical talk, revenge.

WC- 3k

catch up here (part one)

masterlist

"Doll, please."

I saw her look up at me with those doe eyes. Those big beautiful eyes painfully gazing into mine. I wanted to touch her. I wanted to turn her away from the bullets that were sure to fly our way, but I couldn't move my hands. In this moment I couldn't protect her.

I felt the sob rip from her throat. There were only ten seconds left.

"I vowed to stand by your side, Buck." She looked back to the ten guns pointed in mine and her direction. I could see a stray tear slip down her cheek as her hands shook, her nails digging into her palm as she tried her hardest to release my wrists from the painful wire digging into them.

Suddenly she dropped the knife, jumping into my lap. Her hands wrapped around my neck as her legs surrounded the back of the chair, encasing my upper body. "NO! Doll, please!!" I felt her hit the knife in my thigh with hers, but I ignored the pain focusing on what in the world she thought she was doing.

The men cocked their guns. But in that moment all I could think about was how to get her off of me. I needed her to run, to fight back to do something. Not to protect my body with hers. I couldn't let her.

"Doll!! Stop!! Get up!!" But my protests fell on deaf ears as she tucked my head into her chest, wrapping her arms tighter around my neck, not letting me move a muscle below her. She shook her head, my tears soaking her shirt, mixing with mine and her blood. "I won't let you die." She attempted to shout but at that moment her voice was the quietest I'd ever heard it.

I tried to whisper back when suddenly shots rang out through the warehouse. My head popped up, prepared to die with the love of my life. I wouldn't let her do it herself. I would not live without her. Not if I had a choice.

But in that split second, I realized the first bullets that went flying weren't from Rumlow's men, it was from Steve, Sam, and my men, shooting at the ones who threatened us.

"Doll, we're gonna be oka-" But my words were cut short as two bullets flew into her. She screamed. Her vocal cords grinding together in the most painful way I'd ever heard. I felt my heart rip in two as her body shook against mine, arching her back as if that would stop the pain.

But she kept her head down, arms shaking yet still holding onto me. I would have cut my hands off if I had the strength to rip through the restraints. A sob tore from my throat, "Don't do this to me."

She finally lifted her head, my beautiful wife looking at me with such care and tenderness. As if she hadn't just been shot twice, and wasn't using all of her strength to hold onto me for dear life.

A small drop of blood trickled down the side of her mouth as her teeth were painted red. "I love you, James Barnes." She cupped my face in her hands, tucking me back into her chest as her grip seemed to loosen, "Till forever and always."

The words we both said to each other on our wedding day. "Doll, please." Her hold on me finally failed as she fell, but thankfully into the arms of Steve, before her head would've slammed into the concrete.

My second in command looked at both of us. Tortured and bloody. I held in my tears as I looked at Sam, leading a pair of medics through the door.

"Rumlow will pay." The wire from my wrists was snapped in half thanks to Peter, a new, very terrified recruit. I shot down immediately onto my knees, holding her head in my hands as the paramedics loaded my wife onto the stretcher. "Don't leave me."

I made eye contact with Steve, "I will have him and that traitor's head."

_________________

You lay in the hospital bed, your whole body practically wrapped in soft white bandages.

You could feel the pressure of something on your thigh as you tried to open your eyes. It wasn't working. Why couldn't you just open them?!

Try something else, you thought.

You moved your hands, the feeling of someone else's palm in yours made your heart start to race. You could remember little parts over the last three days.

Bucky was kidnapped.

Steve was put in charge.

You were kidnapped.

Natasha was working with Rumlow.

The torture.

The pain.

Your husband's face as you used yourself as a human shield.

Being shot.

Suddenly you heard screaming and saw bright lights. A heart monitor was beeping louder and faster at each passing second.

Realizing the screaming was in fact your own, you started to breathe harder. You finally could open your eyes!

Your surroundings were blurry at first. There was a familiar figure in front of you. Sounds were muffled but began to come back into focus.

"Doll?! Sweetheart, you're okay."

You shook your head, looking around in panic before realizing you were in fact back at home, in your bed. Bucky beside you. Your husband, holding your face in his hands.

"B-Bucky?" Your voice was raspy and your throat felt like sandpaper, rubbing together from underuse.

Involuntarily you started to cough, holding a hand up to your throat which only caused more pain in your back to bloom. "Ah," You groaned, swallowing before resting your head back on the pillow.

You felt Bucky's hands leave your body, but only for a second as he held a straw to your lips. "It's just water doll. I need you to drink this for me." You nodded, feeling a pounding in your head as you sucked down the refreshing liquid. The coolness soothing your throat like rain in the desert.

"Good girl." Bucky gave you a soft smile, taking the straw away from your mouth as you finished the water.

Closing your eyes for a moment, you regained your vision, looking around.

Monitors, medical equipment, and an abundance of flowers and cards filled your and Bucky's bedroom. Light shone through the window as you squinted, shooting over to look at Bucky who just gazed down at you worryingly.

You looked him over, seeing the cuts and bruises that adorned his face. His lip was split in multiple places. His thigh was wrapped in gauze and his wrists were bandaged. Looking down, so were yours. Actually, it seemed your entire body was.

"Are yo-," You swallowed, "Are you okay?"

Bucky took a moment before letting out a laugh. "You're asking me if I'm okay, doll?" You nodded, confused.

"Sweetheart you're the one who's been unconscious for three weeks and has two bullet wounds."

You twisted your hips a little, feeling the agonizing, shooting pain of the very real bullet wounds. Groaning, you whispered, "So that definitely happened, good to know."

Bucky ran his hand down the side of your face, sitting in the chair that was placed beside your shared bed. "I'm the one who's supposed to protect you, doll." You gulped, "I- I couldn't let you die, James."

Bucky closed his eyes, laying his head down on your thigh as he gripped your hand in his. "I would've rather die than see you in this state, sweetheart."

You lifted your other hand, running it through his untamed hair. "Don't say that, Buck." But his head lifted, making you notice his bloodshot eyes and the way tears streamed down his face in harsh lines. "I won't live without you, doll." He shook his head, a tear dripping onto the hospital blanket "I would rather die a thousand times over and over in the same painful way than see you in such agony, my love."

You held back tears, closing your eyes as you tried to steady your breath. "I couldn't- no. I wouldn't let you die like that, Buck." You looked at him once again, "Not at the hands of Rumlow. Not because of me." "This wasn't because of you, doll-" "But it was!" You shouted, making you cough slightly, not used to using your voice for this long yet. "Rumlow took you because he wanted to hurt us- because he wanted me." You cupped Bucky's jaw in your hand, "Because I chose you." Bucky gulped, "I've never been so scared." You softly laughed, thinking of all the shootouts, drug deals, and interrogations Bucky went through on a day-to-day basis.

But he shook his head, hearing your chuckle. "Seeing him hurt you and torture you the way he did." Bucky's eyes went dark, "I've never wanted to hurt someone so bad just to ensure you made it out of there safely." You tried to speak up but Bucky kept going. "And look at you now. You're laying here, with two gunshot wounds, fingernails ripped apart, and a busted-up face."

Tilting your head, you looked at the mirror that stood in front of your and Bucky's bed; genuinely taking in your appearance. You in fact did have a busted-in face. Your lip was split. Your eyebrow was stitched as well as your nose. You had bruises covering every inch of your skin and your hair was in the worst shape you had ever seen.

Gulping, you looked away from the mirror, making Bucky take your chin in his hands, guiding you to look him in the eyes. "But you're still the prettiest doll I've ever seen." He moved, bringing his lips to yours in a soft yet long-awaited kiss. "My best girl."

It hurt to smile but you did, bringing your hand to his face, gently rubbing over the matching bruises that mirrored yours. "I love you, James."

"I love you, doll."

________________________

The next few days were agonizing.

You could finally stand up on the third day. But not without terrible pain shooting in every nerve ending of your body.

Bucky helped you with everything. From showering to cleaning your wounds. He was quite the nurse when it came to you.

But unfortunately about a week after you woke up, the violence hadn't ended. There were still some loose ends to tie up.

Slowly walking down the stairs and into one of the main rooms, everyone's attention went to your hobbling frame. "Doll?" Bucky sped over, Steve immediately pulling up a chair so you could take a seat.

As you sat down you noticed a large bruise on Steve's jaw. You knew Bucky would eventually be mad at him for not properly making sure you stayed out of the mess and violence of it all. But you were hoping it would've been a stern lecture, not a punch.

"What are you doing out of bed?" Bucky whispered. The room stayed completely silent as Steve, Sam, and the rest of Bucky's men kept their backs turned, giving you two some privacy.

"I know you're planning to retaliate against, Rumlow."

Bucky nodded, taking your face in his hands as you fidgeted with the string of your sweatpants. Well, Bucky's sweatpants.

"I don't want you involved again, doll." He glanced back at Steve for a moment, "Not after what happened."

You shook your head, "I need him to pay for this, Buck." Your body shook with anger, "I want his fucking blood." Bucky was slightly startled, never seeing this much hatred in your eyes. You were always his sweet wife. You made the men cookies, and you organized charity events for the homeless shelter down the street.

Sure, you knew how to use a gun and fight if you had to. But seeing this much agonizing resentment on your face, scared him. But he knew you wouldn't let it go. He sure as hell wasn't.

So he let you know the plan, and what was going down.

______________

"Steve? We good?" Bucky touched the earpiece, hearing an affirmative. The mob had infiltrated Rumlow's mansion only one week later, killing every single man who stood in their way. Shoot on site. Was your husband's order as you and he waited to enter the mansion, making sure only Rumlow and Natasha were left.

Two of Bucky's men opened the doors to the mansion. The sight of the place made you cringe slightly. Soldiers were dead on the ground everywhere. Blood painted the floors and staircases like a stain.

"Top floor, back left bedroom."

You heard Steve's voice echo through the earpiece as you and Bucky made your way up.

His hand never left the small of your back, making sure you were covered at all angles with men following behind and in front of you, rifles pinned for every aspect of an attack.

"You alright, doll?" Bucky whispered, his hand on the door that would lead you to Rumlow. You nodded, ignoring the dull pain in your back. "I need this to be over with." Your husband kissed the crown of your head, nodding to his men as they busted down the door, guns held high.

But the sight in front of you made you smile.

Rumlow was beaten down, cowering in the corner of the room as Natasha stood in the corner, you could see the fear in her eyes. The same fear she caused you as she ripped your fingernails to pieces.

"Brock Rumlow," Bucky spoke in a deep voice, pulling on a pair of black gloves, before handing you a matching pair.

You slipped them on, hand placed on the knife that was strapped onto your thigh, just above the black jeans you had on.

Steve and Sam patted Bucky on the back, looking toward you with respect. "Have fun, you two." The blonde spoke, before exiting and closing the doors behind them.

"P-please, Barnes." Rumlow pleaded, "Have mercy."

Bucky was about to laugh before Natasha beat him to it. "Oh, please. You two really think he was the mastermind behind all this?" You looked over at the redhead in the corner, your former friend.

"If he's not, does that mean you are?" Your voice carried through the room, a newfound confidence making you raise your head high.

Natasha grinned, "And here I thought you never would've survived." You tilted your head, "Two bullet shots and I'm walking four weeks later." You pulled the gun from your other holster, "I can't say the same for you after this." You pointed it right at her forehead.

"Come here," Bucky moved forward, knowing you had Natasha pinned with the intent to shoot; dragging Rumlow up as two of his men held him on his knees.

"Nat, please. Do something." Rumlow begged, making you let out a laugh under your breath. "Do you think she's really in the position to?" You saw her move forward slightly, making you cock your gun, "One more step and I blow your fucking brains all over these white sheets."

Bucky grinned, loving this color on you.

"You really thought you could take my girl from me?" Your husband kneels in front of Brock, pulling out a knife from his belt. "What did you call her after breaking her nose? Oh, that's right, a 'lovely specimen."

Bucky's smirk dropped, nodding at the two men holding Brock down as they forced his mouth open. Brock shouted and yelled as Bucky gripped the end of his tongue, pulling it from his mouth and slicing it clean off from the base with his knife.

Brock wailed and cried as another soldier brought over a jar filled with a yellow liquid, opening the top so Bucky could drop the tongue in. He closed the lid, holding it up high as he watched Brock's mouth fill with blood. "What a lovely specimen."

"You two are fucking sick." Natasha, sneered, making you grip the knife from your own holster, throwing it and landing it right in her hand that was held in the air. She screamed, falling to the ground and back up until her back hit the wall.

You kneeled down, gun still pointed in her face, "Talk again and next time your tongue will join his in the jar." Your former friend gulped, nodding as you smirked.

Bucky gripped the front of Brock's shirt, making his back touch Bucky's chest as he held a knife to his throat. "Anything you wanna say before I kill you in front of your girlfriend, Rumlow?"

You laughed, slightly, making Bucky huff in humor. "Oh, that's right. You can't" He whispered the last part before slicing a clean and deep cut across his neck, blood pouring out as he collapsed to the ground, whimpering and sputtering in pain as he bled out, his eyes on you in fear as he eventually stopped moving.

Natasha looked back at you, still clutching her bleeding hand into her chest. You kneeled down, "Why, Natasha?" She shook with terror, hardly being able to force the words out. "Why did he have to pick you?!"

Your brows furrowed in confusion, "What?" Natasha scoffed, looking over at your husband, then back to you.

"Before you came along I thought he could love me. But then you showed up, taking all Bucky's attention. I never stood a fucking chance." You laughed, sighing before standing and walking over to Bucky, placing a hand on the back of his head before smashing your lips against his in a heated kiss. He groaned, biting your lip and making you moan into his mouth.

You chuckled, still holding the back of his head in your hand. You lifted your arm, perfect aim.

"No, Natasha. You never stood a fucking chance." One, two, then three shots rang out through the room as you planted two bullets in Natasha's head, and one in the chest.

Dropping the gun, you saw her body slump to the ground. Dead.

Bucky turned you away from the scene, bringing your face into his hands as both of you had unshed tears in your eyes. "It's over, doll."

You nodded, holding onto his hands as they held your face. "Can we go home, Buck?" He nodded, bringing your face into his chest as he walked you back through the house and into the car. "We're going home, doll. I'm never leaving you."

End

__________________

part one (read first)

masterlist

Taglist:

@yeahyeahyeah23-blog @rinniereads123 @shortnloud @julvrs @unaxv @sapphirebarnes

[hidtired]

A Single Punch [Part 2]

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

Description: The aftermaths to the line up leaves you with serious injury. With most of the group to believe you dead. How will your recovery go at Hilltop? How will people react to seeing you?

2.6k words

Warnings (much angst, injury, near death, depression, recovery, typical walking dead shenanigans) [happy ending… eventually]

(Daryl Dixon x Reader) Masterlist

Your POV

The steady hum and rocking of the truck bed is what woke you from unconsciousness. The wind ripping around you. It was hard to breathe. Even more so when you realized that you were next to two bodies, presuming that they used to be your friends. What had happened again? A bat? Line of your family being chosen for death. You were one of those chosen. The thought of "I'm alive." While not necessarily feeling like it. You were alive. Your body moving on it own slapping the back of the truck with your bloody hand. Bloody and very broken if the sharp pain sent threw you didn't tell you anything.

The sharp pain making you groan and rolling into yourself. A wheeze still in your lungs. You felt like you were spinning. The loud bang of the tail gate making you jump. Everything felt wrong something is wrong.

"I can't, please it hurts."

Sasha flinched when you spoke. Believing for a second she dreamt it. But your small whimpering and sobs made her drop closer to you. "Y-your still alive- I don't-" Your face and hair were covered in your own blood. Not knowing the location its coming from. Sasha pulling herself together after the initial shock. She turned to Maggie who stood wobbly and in shock seeing you trying to move and talk. Your speech was becoming incomprehensible now. Sasha slipped off a layer of clothing to hold to your head. She turned back to Maggie again, ''Go get back into the car!" Sasha felt you go still again. She had to move fast. Jumping over the side of the truck closing the tailgate. She was not letting Negan have you to.

Days later...

You opened your eyes groggy and confused. Looking over to see Maggie in a bed herself. You try and move your hand up to remove something blocking your right side of your head. Expect your hand stopped bounded to the bed. Maggie heard you move and slowly approached you, "Shh, your safe." This wasn't your first time awake but it was the first that you were more aware.

"W-wha?" Your speech was slurred. But Maggie saw it in your eyes. For the first time she saw you in them. She sniffled, "Y/n thank goodness. I thought you were..." She shook her head and put a hand to your shoulder. "I'll be right back ok? I need to get the doctor?" You simply tried to look at her face trying to gauge what was wrong. She sped out the room leaving you to stare out after her.

She came rushing back into the room with a man. He was speaking to fast at you but they were questions asking your name and if you knew where you were. The man shined a light in your face. You tried to look away from the light because it hurt. You looked at the man with squinted eyes, "H-errrs-sel?" You looked back to Maggie with a questioning look. Only to get a sad look back. Sasha then came through the door in a haste hearing you were awake again.

"Is she doing any better?" She huffed out of breath. The man you had zero clue about simply looked back to you and sighed. "It looks like the swelling in her brain is reducing. I don't know the extent of the brain damage she will have, but her chances of survival just increased." Maggie sighed with the first bit of good news about you. Tucking a strand of your hair behind your ear. She smiled at you. You with having no clue what's going on simply mirrored her back with your own smile. You try and raise your other hand but not feeling it at all you look down to see your arm in a cast and bound close to your chest.

The man who you couldn't place, doctor man, started talking again. "Its only been 2 days, for that much time she is doing better then I could have ever imagined. I think she may have taken most of the blow to her hand. However, head trauma is always unpredictable." They jumped at the sound of your gasp looking at you to see what was wrong. You were just looking at Maggie looking her up and down.

"Ba-baby?!" Maggie moved closer to you and started to try and sooth your worry. "Is fine, the baby and me are ok." You relax back into your sheets. Dr. Carson simply studied you. "I would like someone to be with her at all times now. She could have a stroke or start seizing. She still needs to be bound to the bed for all are safety. If she is still awake in a hour try having her eat or drink." Maggie and Sasha both nodded and looked at each other giving a determined look.

Few hours later you were still awake having to be reminded to 'keep your eyes open' and 'need to stay awake.' You would ask things, try to at least. Most of what you said didn't make sense to anyone but you. The worst was the look on your face remembering about something or someone that was lost along the way. When you were asking about a baby you were meaning Lori and Judith. You knew something with a baby was wrong and that was the only one you could think of until Maggie said that her and her baby was ok that you remembered.

The longer you were awake you would get better minimal but still better. But you began asking for something they couldn't give you.

"Dar-ryl?" They always try to come up with something. 'he is on a run' or 'he is out hunting.' But that didn't stop the want for him. You were frustrated at the broken bits of your brain. You knew Daryl always put those pieces together.

Daryl POV

His cell was cold, dark, and always seemed to have one song playing on loop. It was torture. Not however as much torture then the loss of you was. He never knew the kind of love she gave him. She was a first, and now last. The pain in his shoulder and face from the beating he has gotten were nothing like the one in his heart, his soul. That night replayed over in his head. He thought about how he deserved to have gotten killed not Glenn. He cause Maggie to be a single mother now. He deserved this. Being here.

He thought back to when Rick lost Lori. He didn't understand then. But sure as hell did now.

The door handle started to move, the music cutting off, assuming he was getting the normal moldy bread and dog food. Dwight walked in throwing the food down to the floor. "The sooner you join the sooner this will stop." Daryl all but chuckled, "and what become like you?" Now that pissed Dwight off, striking a nerve. But Daryl lead on more, "I get it. Your doing it for someone else. But I don't have that anymore." Daryl sent a look that could kill. Dwight only studied him and shook his head at him. Throwing two polaroid to the floor, "Someone else doesn't have that anymore either." Before slamming the door shut. The music came on but then changed to a more somber tune.

Daryl hesitated to pick up the pictures before doing so and seeing the images with the smallest light coming from under the door. Yours and Glenn's bodies. His breath hitched looking at it. You the women he loved and a friend who would still be alive with his wife and child if he never existed. He lost it. Sobbing. Broken.

He made a promise to not just you but himself that he was going to do right by you. He still had a mission. By the end of it this place will be burning to ground. Even if he had to go with it.

Maggie POV

After having to deal with a man like Gregory she needed to clear her head before it was her turn to sit with you. Making her way over to were Glenn and Abraham were buried. She was met by Enid staring down to the graves.

''Enid?" She walked over to the young teen and hugged her. Enid sniffled before explaining why she was there, wanted to see if she and the baby were ok. Enid gestured to the two graves. "I didn't know which one was his." Enid the paused, "Why is there only two, where is the third?"

With that Maggie smiled and waved her hands to come follow her. Enid was confused at the action. They stepped into Jesus trailer were they all have taken over at this point. There Enid saw you, she gasped in surprise and disbelief at the sight of you. You jumping at the noise. Breaking your focus from a card game that was to help your memory. Also keeping you distracted. Sasha sitting next you surprised to see Enid, "Are you with the others?" Enid shook her head while approaching your table. "How is this possible..." She sat down across from you. You simply stared back but continued with your cards pointing to one for Sasha to flip. You were struggling with mobility.

Sasha sighed catching the hint and continued flipping cards for you to match. Enid looked at you more closely. Your face was still swollen and was a mix of purples, blues, and yellows. The top to the right of your head had a part of your hair shaved with stitching. You looked pale. Your speech has gotten better but you were just to tired to speak much. It showed in your eyes. You still had your arm in a cast brought close to your chest by a sling. Watching Enid study you Maggie decided to add some insight. "We didn't know she was alive until half way to Hilltop. Didn't know if she would make it even a few days after."

Enid look to you with pity. She saw how sick you were even before leaving Alexandria. At least that seemed to be better. Maggie cleared her throat, "How is everything back at Alexandria."

Enid explained about how they took and trashed everything back home. Maggie could only scowl at the thought of them. At the mention of how they brought Daryl with them and he looked to not be doing to well but still alive. You had looked up and just stared intently, "He ok?" With you gaining some abilities back it was harder to lie about what happened. You had yet to know of his capture and Glenn's death. It was only a matter of time before you found out.

Your mind seemed to be other wise fine. Most of the trouble was how it was trying to move your body. Walking was going to need to be learned again. When you got your right hand back writing and holding things as well. Nothing time couldn't fix. Maggie was the person to mostly look after you. You were a welcome distraction from her mind.

Later that day was when you said something that shook her. To see your mind healing and remember. You were just staring out the window while the sun started to set.

"I was a mercy kill."

You went to sleep shortly after. It was probably time to tell you the truth. Before you could think of all the worsts before hand.

Your POV

Being woken up by Jesus pulling you out of bed with haste and to carry you and hide you under the trailer was not what you were expecting. He was saying 'their here' and 'need to stay here and be silent.' You were laying under the trailer in dirt. It was finally catching up to what had happen just then. You didn't know all the things you probably should but you knew it would come naturally. While you lay there waiting for Jesus to tell you it was safe you remember that a few days ago you thought he was the literally Jesus for a second longer then you would like to admit.

You saw men taking things all around you. These were the asshole who did this to you. You remember when you woke up in the back of the truck. Two bodies beside you. You knew one was Abraham but didn't have the guts to ask who the other was. You just couldn't handle it at the moment. Others thought that to if they didn't say anything about it.

You were starting to get cold. But you saw that the men were leaving now. When the men were gone you don't think you could get out of there by yourself if you tried. When a group of people were quickly making your way over to you, you sighed ready to get up out the dirt. It was Maggie's voice you first heard. She sounded like she was panicking, "Did you hide her? Where is she?" She sounded to be directing this to Jesus. Then you heard a voice that surprised you, "What? Hide who?" It was Rosita. They got closer to you before Jesus spoke and lent down to were he put you. "She's ok, I put her here."

Jesus start to pull you out revealing who you were to Rosita. You just popped out being dragged by under your arms. "Hi" She gasped and lent down to help pick you up off the floor. "Your still alive..." she looked about ready to cry. You smiled, "Damn r-right I am." You would have had more trouble standing if Jesus wasn't helping but also leaning into Rosita while hugging you helped. It was Sasha who came to help you back to your bed while the others talked some more.

It was later that evening eating dinner when everybody was in Jesus's trailer. Everyone was talking while you stared at your left hand trying to move it to the best of your ability. Your body felt like it had latency that's why is was so hard to do anything. You and Maggie were now on your own with them taken Dr. Carson. You sighed and looked around you decided it was time. You needed to know.

"What happened that day..."

It went quiet before all eyes went to you. It was Maggie who first tried to start but Rosita cut in. "What do you remember." You bit your lip and look off into the distance. "Seeing what happened to Abraham, I was struggling to breath... I remember the feeling of the bat. I didn't pass out as soon as it hit me. I froze. Played dead even." You paused before sucking in a breath, your voice was still slow and looked to take a lot of focus to do, because it did.

"I woke up next to two bodies..."

Now is when Maggie spoke, "Daryl had punched Negan after he hit you." You sucked in a breath and held it. "He tried to kill you unprovoked, I don't blame Daryl." She looked into your eyes. "Negan killed Glenn." The air in your lungs released and a shaky hand came to cover your mouth, tears filling your eyes. The room was silent for a moment before she spoke again. "Daryl punched him and distracted him from you. Negan would have kept swinging at you." You closed your eyes to soak in the information. You were alive at Glenn's expense. "There's more." You opened your eyes to look at her.

"They took Daryl as there prisoner."

Part 3

Feedback welcomed and requests open!

Reunions coming next part :)

Also little disclaimer I’m really dyslexic so sorry with grammar or spelling that is messed up!

[chronicowboy]

The ambulance carrying Chimney trundles away, and Hen retreats to where Buck and Eddie are huddled for a breather. She gives Eddie a light tap on the back as she joins them, and he wraps an arm around her shoulders in what she assumes is half reassurance and half leverage to keep himself upright.

Honestly, Hen is just impressed he's still standing. Its been one hell of a day.

"How'd he look?" Buck asks, face locked tight into careful neutrality.

"Well, he was cracking jokes with Julie." Hen smiles shakily, the feel of her best friend's blood on her hands making her skin itch.

"He'll be okay," Eddie tells them both, quiet conviction in his voice. "He's got too much to live for."

Hen watches the look Buck and Eddie share with curiousity. Its a loaded look full of unspoken words Hen could never hope to understand. But then Buck nods, his shoulders lose just the slightest bit of tension, and he turns back to the rubble.

"We've got more work to do," he says gravely. His eyes flicker to Eddie's hand where its pressed against his ribs. "You can sit this one out, Eds. I really think you should."

"We need all the help we can get, Buck." Eddie shakes his head and pushes off Hen to steady himself. "I'll take frequent breaks, but I'm not stopping until I have to."

Buck clenches his jaw, but before he can protest their radios crackle to life.

"Firefighter Diaz, do you copy?"

"Linda?" Eddie frowns, and Hen feels a sickening stone of dread drop right through her stomach.

"Eddie." Linda's voice wobbles, and Hen's chest tightens. "Eddie, I'm so sorry. I just got a call from Christopher."

For a moment, the scene goes deathly silent. Hen can only hold her breath and remember the way the world had dropped out from under her when she'd got the call about Karen's lab.

"W-what?" Eddie croaks, eyes wide and unfocused.

Hen reaches out to grab Eddie's hand, glances to see where Buck's comfort is, always the first one to be at Eddie's side. She knows its a mistake the moment she looks at him. Captain Buck has vanished, replaced instead by the sodden, dirty, bloodied Buck they'd found in the aftermath of a tsunami. Tiny, shaking, frozen with fear.

"Christopher was under the bridge when it collapsed," Linda carries on, words trembling. "He's stuck in there."

"Is he-" Eddie chokes back a sob, chest heaving with his breaths, and rolls his eyes up skywards. "Is he still on the line?"

"Yeah, do you want to talk to him?"

"Please," Eddie rasps.

But before Linda can patch him through, there's an almighty grumble like the earth itself is growling and another section of the bridge collapses in on itself.

Hen throws her arms out on instinct, unwilling to lose anymore of her team to this goddamned bridge, but its useless. Eddie's too weak with pain and shock to do much more than nudge her, and Buck's still frozen in place. But Eddie's scream. Well, that's not something Hen will ever be able to forget.

She'd thought the way he screamed Buck's name on the ladder had been bad. But now Eddie's half hunched over as he screams his lungs out, a thing so primal that Christopher's name is almost unrecognisable where it falls from his lips. Hen feels his grief all the way down to her bones as she catches Eddie before his buckling knees can hit the floor.

He's heavy, too heavy for her aching arms, and she looks to Buck for help only to find an empty spot.

"Please," Eddie whispers over and over, voice wet and raw.

Hen follows his gaze and finds Buck at the fresh wall of rubble, tearing chunks of debris away with nothing more than his bear hands. She blinks, expecting to find herself in darkness and soaked to the bone by rain, but Buck is screaming Christopher's name not Eddie's.

Hen lowers Eddie to the floor, propping him up against the car and making sure he has a clear view of Buck's frantic work. She turns just in time to watch Buck bark orders at a group of gathered firefighters, but then he's right back to scrabbling through the rubble and screaming his lungs out.

"Linda," Hen murmurs into her radio, "is Chris still with you?"

There's a pause. Too long. Hen squeezes her eyes shut tight.

"T-the call hasn't ended, but..." A deep breath. "He's not answering me."

Hen curses quietly to herself, sends a prayer up to a god she doesn't believe in, then turns back to Eddie, his eyes still fixed on Buck with something desperate and pleading. Her eyes drop, unable to stomach the expression of pure anguish on his face, and she finds Eddie's gloved hand wrapped around his St Christopher medallion.

She wants to promise him that Christopher will be okay, wants to promise him that he'll make it out the other side, wants to make a hundred promises that she absolutely shouldn't. But Hen loses her own voice when she thinks about how she'd react if it was Denny under tonnes and tonnes of bridge.

The next thing she knows, Buck is calling out for a gurney with a hoarse voice and diving into a hole in the wall of rubble. Hen wonders if he realises he doesn't have a helmet on or if he just doesn't care. She watches the small opening with baited breath, gripping Eddie's hand as tight as she can possibly manage.

Its a long five minutes before Buck emerges from the hole with a dust-covered body in his arms. The sob that bubbles out of Eddie is almost as haunting as his scream. Buck cradles Christopher against his chest like he's the most precious thing in the world as he picks his way through the chaos towards them. Sooner than Hen can comprehend, Buck is falling to his knees by Eddie's side, his own eyes glassy with tears.

"Hey, buddy," Buck chokes out, "told you I'd get you to dad."

"Chris," Eddie sobs, reaching out for him. Buck doesn't miss a beat, manoeuvring himself and Chris closer so that Eddie can hold his son without aggravating his injuries. "Hey, Chris. Hey, I'm here."

"Dad?" Chris mumbles weakly, but for the smile that breaks across Eddie's face you'd think it was the most beautiful sound in the world.

"Yeah, mijo, I'm here." Eddie shakes a glove off to brush the curls off of Christopher's forehead, and Hen waves the paramedics with the gurney over. "I've got you. You're gonna be okay."

Hen makes the mistake of looking at Buck again, and her eyes fill with sharp tears at what she finds. Buck, the gentle giant, cradling Christopher with the most care in the world, and looking down at father and son like they're the reason he's still breathing, his heart is still beating. Buck watching Eddie murmur reassurances to Christopher like he's just found faith for the first time in his life, like a resurrection, like this is why he came back from the dead.

The gurney breaks them from the moment, and Hen helps Eddie to his feet as Buck lays Christopher down. Eddie takes his hand the moment he's upright and he's staggering along with them to the ambulance before he's even steady on his feet.

Hen watches them roll Christopher into the rig, watches Eddie climb in after him, watches as Eddie turns to catch Buck's eyes just before the doors close between them. Hen doesn't have to know Buck and Eddie's secret language to know that that look meant thank you. She turns to Buck, a few steps in front of her, suddenly looking lost in all the debris. When she lays a hand on his shoulder, he clears his throat and sniffles before composing himself.

"Back to work," he mutters and then he's off again.

Hen hears her own voice echoed in her head: are you capable of being a father and walking away?

[sixhours]

Walls of Glass

Joel and Ellie struggle to deal with the aftermath of Silver Lake.

Rating: Teen Tags: The Last of Us, The Last of Us (HBO), Joel and Ellie, Joel Miller, Ellie Williams, post-episode for episode 8, canon-compliant, angst, hurt/comfort, PTSD, trauma, canon-typical violence, implied references to canon sexual assault of a minor, Joel and Ellie need hugs, Christmas in January, cuddling, Joel is a good dad who tries really hard, Ellie is angry, probably unrealistic expectations of a small-town library in the apocalypse Word count: 17k

Notes: Everyone has their post-episode 8 headcanon, right? This is mine. <3

Read Walls of Glass on AO3

The wind howls and the snow swirls around them, two figures moving slowly, stark shadows against a landscape of churning water and barren forest.

All Joel can think about is putting more miles between them and Silver Lake, but right now they’re lucky to measure that distance in steps, and the fucking weather is only making that more difficult.

He’d tried to take Ellie’s hand when it became obvious that staying attached at the hip would not allow them to move fast enough. She’d pulled away and stared at his palm like it was a scorpion, something with claws and poison and the ability to hurt, so he’d bit his tongue hard and kept pushing them forward. She held fast to the back of his shirt as they stumbled through the snowdrifts, letting him take the brunt of the wind, her smaller footprints landing squarely within his larger ones.

When he can’t feel his face or his fingers or his toes, when she inevitably stumbles and pitches into the snow on hands and knees, he decides they’ll have to risk staying put no matter how little progress they’ve made.

He hauls Ellie up and shepherds her to the nearest house. The door hangs open on rusty hinges and he tells her to stay put at the entrance so he can clear the place, but she makes a sound–a frightened, whimpering plea without words that twists in his gut and brooks no argument.

She stays with him.

The basement is cold but dry and relatively well hidden. If the snow keeps up long enough to hide their tracks, that might buy them some time, but they shouldn’t stay more than a day.

He hopes like hell he can get them into traveling shape before then.

He kneels with some difficulty, feels the pull of the crude stitches in his stomach as he does, can’t hold back a grunt. Out of the cold, pain floods in to replace the numbness. He takes Ellie’s face in his hands, peering at her through bloodshot eyes.

“You hurt?”

He winces at the raw edge of his voice, too loud now that they’re out of the wind, and the stupidity of the question. Her nose is swollen and bloody and there’s a nasty bruise forming on her forehead and those are only the wounds he can see. Her eyes tell a much darker story.

She doesn’t answer, doesn’t even appear to have heard him, just grabs at his shirt and holds on with a whimper and a white-knuckled grip. Her silence grows more terrifying by the minute. He’d give anything to hear her voice, suddenly missing that bright spark of mischief when she knew she’d needled him to the point of exasperation.

He fumbles in his bag for a clean rag but there’s no water, and she’s not going to let him fetch some, so instead he clears a space for them on the floor, swiping at detritus with his free hand while the other keeps a grip on her trembling shoulder. He eases himself into the corner, letting the cool concrete take the stress off his aching stomach and back, then pulls her down against him on his good side, tucking his jacket around her as best he can for warmth. His hand barely grazes her side in the process and she lets out a sharp yelp of pain.

“Shit! M’sorry, sorry–”

He shifts her weight into him without touching that side but the shock breaks her silence and now she’s sobbing–harsh, frantic, wracking sounds that send him back twenty years, when he’d held a different battered and bloodied child in his arms.

“Baby girl,” he whispers, biting back the fury of his helplessness, choking down his rage against whoever did this to her, swallowing his fear because he can’t drift away like that, she needs him here .

It’s okay, shhhhh, it’s okay, s’okay , he lies, lies, lies.

Then she’s pulled into his lap, stitches be damned, and he’s rocking her like a small child, hushing and shushing as her tears puddle under the collar of his shirt.

“S’alright, I got you, I got you,” he murmurs.

It feels like hours of this, the repetitive motion and deep, aching fatigue dulling his sense of time, but eventually, her cries wane to hiccups and sniffles, until it’s just the ragged rhythm of her breathing against his chest.

“Ellie?” he whispers, ducking his chin to try to see her face, but it’s pressed into the side of his neck.

He doesn’t need her answer to know she’s fallen asleep. He should try to rouse her, or at least put her down so he can secure the house, but exhaustion sinks in, and soon he’s drifting, too. He’s weak from fever, from his wounds, from dragging them through the snow, from the constant fear that’s driven him since he woke up alone on a bloody mattress with heavy boots thudding above his head. The last of the adrenaline seeps from his body as sleep pulls him under.

~*~

He wakes to a scream, something pulling his hair, pounding his chest. He takes a knee to the stomach and the world goes white with pain, leaving him gasping for breath.

Ellie shrieks, still pummelling him with all her might. He recovers enough to grab her by the wrists and shift her off him, hunching over to try to protect his core.

Ellie-ellie-ellie-ellie-el–

His voice is barely recognizable to his ears as he chants her name like a mantra, unable to form a coherent sentence.

She thrashes and kicks and wails as he tries and fails to pin her arms and takes a swift kick to the side of his knee for the trouble. Then she scrambles away from him, pressing herself to the opposite wall, eyes rolling in her head, unseeing.

“Ellie,” he wheezes. “Ellie…wake up. Just a…dream.”

He sees the nightmare pass over her face like a shadow, and then the light comes back as she wakes and realizes what she’s done.

“J-Joel?”

His name is a raw whisper from her lips. It’s the first word she’s spoken since he found the house, and though he suspects he’s ripped his stitches, he’d take a million more punches if it meant hearing her voice.

“M’right here,” he says, reaching out a hand. She eyes it and shudders, shakes her head in a violent rejection. He wonders if she was struck, or god forbid, touched–

He grinds his teeth. Can’t think about that now.

He slowly leans forward and gets to his knees, biting back a grunt of pain, and crosses the distance to ease down next to her. She leans into him and he can feel her trembling.

“Just a bad dream,” he rasps. “Bad dream, kid. I gotcha, you’re safe.”

It’s a half-truth–they’ve probably never been safe, not since Jackson at least–but damned if he’s not fucking trying.

She’s squinting at the light, trying to bury her face in his shoulder again.

“Hey–hey, need you to stay awake for me,” he says. “Your head hurtin’?”

He feels her nod into his shoulder, and he gently extracts her, tipping her chin up to check her pupils.

“Fell off the horse,” she whispers, blinking slowly. Then her eyes widen. “Y–you’re bleeding.”

He frowns, passing a hand over his cheek, feels the sting of a scratch. His fingers come back tacky and red. He traces the three angry lines where her fingernails found purchase in her panic.

“Got me good,” he winces. “S’alright.”

“I did that?”

Her voice is so heartbreakingly small.

“Just glad you didn’t have your knife,” he tries a careful smirk, then immediately regrets it when her face crumples.

“Hey, it’s…it’s okay, Ellie. I didn’t mean–you didn’t know what you were doin’. I’m not hurt.”

She draws in a shaky breath but his words seem to have reminded her of something. Suddenly she’s grabbing at the hem of his soiled flannel and undershirt, pulling up, almost frantic, desperate to get underneath.

“Kid, what–”

She ignores him, her trembling hands finally revealing the stab wound on his stomach, the arc of crude stitches still holding him together. He lets her trace the outline of what will someday be a scar, letting her see for herself that he’s alive.

“I thought–I thought you–”

She breaks off, unable to finish, still staring at his stomach, tears leaking from her eyes.

“You did good, kid,” he says softly. “I’m gonna live, thanks to you.”

“But y-you were so s-s-sick–”

He gently takes her wrist and presses her fingers to his forehead, holding her gaze.

“No fever,” he says. “See?”

She sags against him and pushes her face into his shoulder; in distress or relief, he can’t tell. Hell, it all feels the same to him, too.

“S’okay, kid. You’re okay,” he murmurs into her hair, pressing an errant kiss to her temple before he even realizes he’s done it. His throat tightens, suddenly thinking of Sarah.

“Need to get you cleaned up,” he says roughly. “Can you wait here while I–”

Her response is instantaneous, her whole body going rigid. “No!” 

“Alright. Alright, we’ll go together,” he breathes. “Can you get up?”

The better question is, can he?

Ellie sniffles and nods, then gets to her feet. She moves slowly, tenderly, favoring her left side. It’s clear she’s sore and a little dizzy, but she has the advantage of youth.

Meanwhile, he feels like a newborn foal, except a newborn foal can walk and he isn’t sure he’ll be able to get off the goddamn floor. Ellie watches him, all anxious, twisting hands and burning eyes. He grits his teeth against the awful tearing sensation in his core as he grabs a shelf for leverage, trying desperately to keep a neutral face for her sake.

They make a slow and painful journey up the cellar stairs together.

The first thing he notices when he catches his breath is the daylight, sun filtering through the dirty, cracked windows. The storm has passed, and the sight stirs an unwelcome anxiety within him; they don’t have much time.

The second thing he notices is the cold; the house is draftier up here but the temperature outside has also dropped. He glances back, glad to see Ellie has put on his jacket and is zipping it up. He needs to find something for her to wear if they’re going to get out of here without freezing to death.

He finds a plastic bin in the kitchen and gathers fresh snow from just outside the door to use for water. Then they wander through the house looking for blankets, clothes, and anything else that might be useful. Food would be ideal, but he’s not hopeful. The kitchen is ransacked, cupboards emptied of all but the dishes.

Ellie stays at his side the whole time, never wandering, eyes on him at every turn. She’s quiet–no, she’s silent –and he can’t reconcile the talkative, foul-mouthed girl with the one who clings to his shirt with shaking hands.

By the time they get back to the basement with a pile of dusty blankets and the bin of snow, Joel can feel the cold settling into his limbs. He puts a layer down to guard against the chill of the concrete floor, then bundles Ellie in one of the blankets and lowers himself to the floor in front of her.

Using the snow to wet the rag, he dabs gently at the dried blood on her face, slowly revealing the damage. Her nose is swollen and crusted and she winces when he touches it. The bruise on her forehead is a sickly purple. He finds blood splattered in the whorls of her ears, down her neck, sticky in her hair.

“Did they–” he tries, but he can’t make himself say the words. “Are you hurtin’ anywhere else?”

She ducks her head. “My side…he…kicked me.”

Joel’s hands clench involuntarily, knuckles going white. He suspected as much when he’d grazed the area earlier but her confirmation only serves to stoke a simmering anger within him.

“Can I see?” he grits out.

She looks miserable but she nods, pulling up her sweatshirt just enough to reveal an angry purple-red stain at the base of her ribcage. He leans forward to get a closer look and she immediately jerks back.

“Don’t touch!” she whimpers, and his rage blossoms into heartache, striking fast and clogging his throat with tears.

“I won’t, promise,” he murmurs thickly. “M’sorry. I–I won’t touch.”

He can’t wrench his gaze from her small, hunched frame, battered and bruised as it is, and something deep and primal and almost forgotten churns in his gut.

No one will ever touch you like that again.

“Not much we can do ‘bout a bruised rib,” he says, clearing his throat. “Know they hurt somethin’ awful, though.”

She sniffs and nods and pulls her shirt down, wincing with the motion.

He starts to set the rag aside, but she grabs it before he can. Frowning, he watches as she shakes it out, finds an unstained corner, and starts dabbing at his cheek where she’d scratched him. He holds still as she examines the wounds with sorrowful eyes.

“M’good,” he whispers, gently pushing her away. Their fingers touch and she yanks her hand back as if she’s been burned. Her face scrunches up and he reaches out to cup her cheek. The gesture doesn’t seem to bother her, so he keeps it there for a few seconds, the cold line of her jaw in his palm.

“S’okay, kid. Look, if you need to–”

“Don’t wanna talk about it,” she says, biting out the words like she’s chewing glass. Her eyes are still squeezed shut against the light.

“Okay. I get that. But…but at some point–”

“No.”

He swallows hard and ducks his head in a nod, swallowing platitudes. Not now. He shifts back and lets out a tired sigh.

“We need to get outta here. I don’t know how close we are to that place, and I don’t know if they’ll follow us. Think you can walk for a bit?”

She nods, visibly relieved to move on.

“Alright. Let’s pack up.”

~*~

Their progress is painfully slow despite the clear weather. Ellie stumbles against his side, dizzy and blinded by the cold white light, and Joel can’t seem to catch his breath. He must have lost more blood than he thought because he’s barely staying upright through the snowdrifts and the air burns his lungs something fierce. They haven’t eaten in god knows how many days, running on water and nothing else.

They’ve barely made it out of the suburb when they have to stop to rest, ducking into a house to scavenge for supplies. They manage to find a jacket and gloves for Ellie, one less thing to worry about. He’s torn between moving on or camping for the night, and the decision is made when they find a single un-labeled tin can tucked in the back of a cupboard.

“Beans,” he says when he manages to get it open, breathing a silent sigh of relief. He’s not sure he could have stomached anything with meat, not after seeing the corpses–

He shudders and pushes the thought aside.

They eat the food cold. Joel considers building a fire but nixes the idea for fear of attracting unwanted attention. Ellie shakes her head when he urges her to finish her half, looking a little green. They bed down in the basement, Ellie dropping into a fitful sleep, curled up in a ball at Joel’s side while he keeps watch.

The next two days pass in much the same way. They walk until they can barely stand, they forage, camp, and try to stay warm. Their progress is a pitiful trudge across an unforgiving winter backdrop.

By the third day, Joel knows they’re being followed. Whoever it is keeps their distance, but he can feel them, a presence growing braver as they narrow the gap.

Ellie stays close, practically on his heels, although he’s unsure if that’s because of their unwanted company or just part of her sudden need to keep him within arm’s reach. She’s barely talked since that first day, only offering faint grunts of acknowledgment and one-word answers, leaving Joel to ramble. He’s awkward and fumbling at it, but he tries, keeping up a stream of idle conversation about anything and everything–things from the past, mostly. Baseball games, construction projects, the stupid shit he and Tommy got up to when they were kids–it’s all fair game in the interests of filling the silence and pretending they don’t know they’re being stalked.

On the third night, they find a crumbling farmhouse in the middle of a snowy field. It’s as good a place as any to make a stand, with no woods or buildings around it for cover. If they want to attack, they’ll have to do it in the open.

“They’ll come tonight,” he says as they prepare to bed down in the farmhouse's kitchen. He doesn’t tell Ellie how he knows this but she can guess. The vestiges of his past aren’t easily forgotten.

The windows of the house are already boarded up, so Joel blocks off the front door with a pile of furniture, leaving the rear entry by the kitchen accessible. When they come, they’ll have to get through him.

It’s barely dark when he hears the first hint of shuffling footsteps at the back of the house. Ellie hears it, too, her body going rigid.

“Got your gun?” he whispers.

She nods.

“Basement,” he huffs. “Hide. Don’t come out until I say.”

“Joel–”

“Go,” he bites out through gritted teeth, checking his rifle and moving toward the door.

When she doesn’t move, he jerks his head toward the basement door, glaring. She rolls her eyes but she does as she’s told, and part of him is heartened by this show of defiance.

That’s my girl , he thinks, tightening his grip on the rifle and waiting for movement outside.

When the kitchen door creaks open, he’s waiting behind it.

The man is dirty and ragged, all skin and bones, not unlike the other cultists he’d taken out. Joel is on him before the man can make a sound, wrapping his forearm around his neck, bearing down hard and jerking him to the side until he feels the telltale crack of bone. There’s barely a struggle. It’s an almost perfect kill except that Joel’s stitches pull and twist with the movement, rending further as he drags the body in front of the partially opened door to block it, buying him time.

Readying his rifle, he waits, straining to hear over the rush of white noise in his bad ear. Soon there are more shuffling footsteps outside, a murmur of voices.

The next contenders shove at the door with their friend lodged behind it, and Joel is ready with the rifle the second a burly man’s shoulders come into view. A clean shot to the head and the man drops like a stone, his buddy behind him cowering when Joel swings around and loads another round into the chamber.

“Shit, man, don’t–”

“Drop it,” Joel barks, gesturing to the rifle in his hands. “How many?”

“I don’t–”

“How many?” he roars, advancing until the muzzle of the rifle is centered squarely on the man’s chest.

“Just m-me. No one else,” the man says.

“You’re lyin’,” Joel says flatly.

“M’not, I swea–”

The second gunshot rings out and a ragged hole opens in the man’s sternum, splattering the back stoop with his blood.

Joel sags against the wall. Before he can catch his breath, a distant shot from outside sends him to the floor.

“Shit,” he hisses as his body protests the sudden movement.

How many of these fuckers are there?

Silence. He backs up against the wall, panting, willing his body to cooperate, to hang on for just a little longer.

The next one comes in shooting, but Joel is low to the ground, almost crawling on his aching belly. His knife slices through the back of the man’s ankle easily, severing the tendon there in one practiced motion. He drops with a cry as Joel hauls himself up and grabs for the gun, but he’s too slow. A deafening boom rings in Joel’s ears, but the shot goes wide.

“Fuck!”

Before the thug can cock the trigger and aim, Joel is on him with his fists. He feels a familiar, brutal thrill as the man’s nose gives under his broken knuckles, another sickening crunch as he makes contact with a cheekbone, the punch hard enough to send a shock wave up the length of his arm. Dazed, the man’s grip on the gun weakens and Joel grabs it, sending it skittering across the floor.

“Don’t fuckin’ move,” he growls, hauling himself to his feet and steadying his rifle at the man’s chest.

The man spits blood and coughs, a trail of red-tinged drool oozing down his scruffy, bony chin.

“Fuck you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Joel rasps, striking him with the barrel of the gun as he tries to get control of his breath. “Get it outta your system.”

“That little whore killed Dav–“

Joel advances with a speed that surprises even himself, levering the barrel of the rifle into the man’s open mouth, shoving it in until the man gags and chokes and sputters on gunmetal. He places one heavy boot on the man’s chest, pressing down to drive the point home.

“You’re gonna listen to me,” he growls, energized by a wave of savage anger. “You're gonna listen because it’s your lucky fuckin’ day. I’m gonna let you go. You’re gonna drag your ass back there and you’re gonna tell your psycho cannibal fuckbuddies that if they so much as spit in this direction again, I’ll make sure the rest of your sorry asses never see another spring.”

He pulls the rifle out and taps the man’s cheek with it roughly. “Y’hear?”

The man coughs and coughs again, then brays a harsh laugh, grinning with blood in his teeth, eyes rolling in his head.

“Oh yeah…old man?” he heaves. “You…an’ who? Your little…bitch puppy?”

Joel sneers, jaw locked tight as he spits through gritted teeth. “Shut your fuckin’ mouth.”

“Bet you…wanna keep her all…to yourself. Bet she’s got a soft…pretty, little cunt…keep you warm…you sick…fuck–”

He’s not even thinking when he aims for the man’s head, finger tightening on the trigger. Fuck sending a warning; he’s ready to paint the kitchen floor with this man’s brains.

But a vicious cry from behind stops him at the last second, the basement door is thrown open with a bang, a blur of movement grazes his elbow. Then Ellie is on top of the man and she’s screaming and there’s blood spouting from his jugular and he’s being carved to pieces by a familiar switchblade.

Joel is frozen in place, realizes with a sickening horror that she’s in the way and he’s got the gun leveled at her and he’s a hair’s breadth from firing the damn thing. He flexes his hand and drops the rifle, then he can only watch helplessly as this girl– his girl , he thinks, because that’s what she is now, there’s no doubt about it–stabs wildly at the corpse underneath her.

The strength that came so suddenly and fiercely leaves his body in a rush and he crumples to the floor, unable to take his eyes off the bloody spectacle before him.

At that moment, brought to his knees by the force of this realization, Joel knows how this will end, the inevitable violence that’s been woven into their lives since Sarah’s ended and Ellie’s began.

“Ellie!”

His voice sounds far away to his ears, her name ripped from his throat like a foreign object. She wheels on him, face twisted with rage, and he wonders dully if that’s what he looked like a few minutes ago, snarled and heaving and full of fire.

What has he taught her? What has he done?

“Ellie…he’s dead,” he croaks when he can finally speak. “He’s…he’s dead.”

She blinks at him, then back at the mutilated face of their attacker, then back at him. He can’t read her expression when she stands on shaky legs and wipes the switchblade on her jeans. 

There are no tears, no wretched sobs, just their mingled heavy breathing and the cloying smell of blood.

~*~

The bodies left behind serve as a warning, and no one follows after that. Now Joel can focus on the grueling task of not freezing to death and figuring out where the hell they go from here.

Seven days after Silver Lake, they’re holed up in a small town, hunched over a roaring fire and sharing their meager spoils–a can of green beans and a scrawny rabbit. It’s a veritable feast after the last few days, and it’s gone too soon. Joel can hear Ellie’s stomach growling, but she picks at the meat and the vegetables without appetite.

“Head givin’ you trouble?” he asks when she pushes the food away.

She shrugs, still reticent. She’s warming up to him as she heals, and they’ve even managed a conversation here or there, if only about small things–the weather, mostly, and once about a pair of squirrels she spied frolicking in the bare trees.

“We could go home,” Joel says quietly. “Wait out the winter with family. Head to Utah in the spring.”

Her expression grows dark, withdrawn. She scoffs, pokes at the fire with a charred stick, sending a cloud of sparks into the air.

“Jackson isn’t home,” she says flatly. “And they’re your family. Not mine.”

You’re not my daughter. And I sure as hell ain’t your dad.

His words come back to him, cruel and taunting, and he wishes like anything he could take them back. Coward that he is, he ducks his head.

“So we keep goin’. That what you want?”

She looks at him with a world-weary sadness too old for her few years and offers another half-hearted shrug. He thinks about how hopeful she’d been not two weeks ago on their ride through the university.

I’m gonna save the world , she’d said. And damned if he hadn’t believed her.

They’d had five days, five good days where he thought maybe…maybe…

Now they’re not even back to square one, they’re somewhere else entirely. Ellie won’t leave his side and she’s docile as a tamed kitten, but she’s so damned quiet and distant, it’s like he’s walking with a ghost.

“Alright,” he sighs, staring into the fire. “We keep goin’.”

~*~

It’s five more days before they find the library. Five days of brutal cold, near-starvation, relentless wind that’s raged itself into a full-on blizzard by the time they cross the town line. The battered boundary sign, barely legible in the driving snow, reads Sinner’s Peaks, Population: 1,351. Later, Joel won’t be able to find it on the map.

The sturdy stone structure dominates the main street, looking like it was carved out of the surrounding mountains. Even with the snow blowing around their faces and visibility down to mere feet, Ellie’s delight is a balm.

“It’s a fuckin’ castle!” she yells.

A thick overgrowth of dead vines and untrimmed hedges obscure the entrance, and Joel is about to give up and look for something else when Ellie’s cry filters victorious through the wind. She disappears into the wall to his left, Joel’s heart catching in his throat. The place could be crawling with infected, she fucking knows better–

“Joel!”

He frantically pushes aside the overgrowth to follow her, shouldering his way through a massive wooden door and into a musty gray tomb of silence.

“Ellie, dammit–”

“Joel, look!” she breathes, doing a slow turn in the middle of the room. The place seems to glow with muted light. The roof is intact as far as he can see, thick wooden beams crossing high above, dotted with rotting birds’ nests and cobwebs larger than him.

But Ellie isn’t looking up. She’s captivated by the shelves that line the walls and spill into the center of the room, all filled with books.

A library , he thinks. It’s a goddamned library.

Before he can answer, Ellie ducks between a row of shelves, another disappearing act. Every second she’s out of his line of sight makes his heart beat a little faster.

Maybe she’s not the only one with attachment issues, old man.

“Kid, you need to wait–”

But she’s already on her knees, examining the shelves, dragging a finger along dusty, damp paperbacks.

“Hey, we need to clear. Can’t just go runnin’ off. You know this.”

She groans. “Dude, c’mon, it’s dead in here.”

He scowls, but he can count on one hand the number of times she’s said as many words at once in the last few days. And she’s sassing him. And she’s lengthening the invisible tether that’s kept her at his side like a kicked puppy.

“Stay put,” he relents. “Keep an ear out and don’t go wanderin’.”

She brushes him off with an annoyed, “Yeah, I know, I know.”

He does a fast sweep of the building, finding no sign of infected. There’s a small, windowless office with a closet, but the rest of the library is one big, open space divided loosely by shelves. If he had to guess, he’d say it used to be a church; the tall ceilings and arched windows, the dais at the front where the circulation desk is centered, the woodwork too elaborate for a small-town library.

At the back of the building he finds the source of the glow, what looks like a sunroom off to the side, made of tall windows and a curved skylight above. Miraculously the glass is still intact, only cracked here and there. The openness makes him nervous, but the bottom half of each window is obscured by overgrowth, and vines weave and crawl up the rest.

Satisfied that the place is empty, he returns to find Ellie with a book open in her lap. She looks up at him, wide-eyed and sharp.

“Can we stay?”

“Seems safe enough for now. At least wait out the storm.”

“Awesome,” she says, re-shelving the book and hopping up with more energy and vigor than he’s seen in days. “I’m gonna go find the science stuff.”

They settle down to sleep on the floor in the least drafty part of the building, blocked on three sides by shelves, Ellie wrapped in both blankets and Joel with just his coat. He wakes in the middle of the night, convinced that something is…off.

Blinking into the dim light, he realizes can’t hear the wind. The storm must have passed.

His shoulder and neck throb, protesting the hard floor, so he moves to turn over but meets resistance at his back. Frowning, he sits up on one elbow and finds Ellie curled up behind him. At some point in the night, she’d crossed the few feet between them and wedged herself against his back, face pressed between his shoulder blades, reminiscent of the way she’d clung to him as they rode through the Wyoming wilderness.

Except now there’s a book about space travel tucked loosely under her arm, one sharp corner digging into his spine.

This is what woke him, he thinks groggily. She’s warm, radiating like a small heater through the thick weight of his jacket, and he fumbles around to check her forehead with one wrist; no fever. So he gently extracts the book from her grip and sets it aside, then eases himself back down, still on his side, careful not to disturb her.

The next morning dawns clear. Joel is up first, neck and shoulders stiff and aching as he scopes out their surroundings in the daylight. The library borders on a small park, and beyond that, forest. Forest means food; venison and rabbit if they’re lucky. And they could sure as hell use some luck right now.

When Ellie stirs, he kneels beside her spot on the floor.

“You up for a little huntin’?”

Ellie rubs her eyes, shrugs.

“I guess.”

Before Jackson, she’d practically begged him to teach her how to shoot; now she drags her feet and wrinkles her nose. But they need to eat, so he tamps down his disappointment and shoulders the rifle and they traipse outside into the snow.

The world is blinding white, everything covered in a fresh layer of powder that shimmers and sparkles in the sun. They head for the woods, keeping an eye out for tracks, Ellie mutely following in his footsteps. He tells himself it’s better this way so they don’t scare off the animals with her chatter, but the quiet gives him too much space to think.

Maybe she could save the world, but after everything–Tess, Kansas City, Henry and Sam–he’s starting to wonder what happens when it’s all said and done. What else will she be expected to sacrifice?

Save who you can save.

He sighs, missing and cursing Tess in the same breath. What would she think? 

You’re going soft, Texas.

Yeah, and whose damned fault is that? he wants to retort. Stuck me with the job and the kid. S’why we don’t do people, Tess. Too fuckin’ messy.

Oh, poor baby. I can barely hear you under all this rubble.

She’s stubborn, he continues in his head. Hard-headed pain in my ass. She’s gonna get herself killed and I can’t fuckin’ do that again.

Careful, Tex. Someone might think you have a heart under all that bullshit.

You know I do, he thinks. An’ if it weren’t for you an’ your goddamned promises–

Don’t put this on me. You’re a big boy, Joel. You could’ve dropped her anytime, but you didn’t. You know very well I’m not the reason you’re still out here.

He swallows hard, glancing over his shoulder to where Ellie is following, head tipped down, expression flat. ‘Cause she’s tryin’ to save a world that ain’t worth savin’.

I didn’t tell you to save the damn world, Joel.

Might as well have, he thinks sullenly.

Save who you can save.

He’s supposed to be watching for game, but he’s so lost in his thoughts, he almost misses the deer. Then he feels a tap on his back and Ellie points to something off to the left. It’s a small one, a yearling, but it’s something .

He puts a finger to his lips, an unnecessary directive because Ellie is frozen in place. He gives her a nod in silent praise, but she doesn’t see it, doesn’t see him. She’s watching the animal like she’s the prey rather than the predator.

Joel reaches back and touches her shoulder to get her attention and her startled cry alerts the deer to their presence. It bounds off into the trees, safe for the time being.

“Shit,” she moans. “Shit shit, Joel, I’m so sorry, I–”

He frowns. “S’alright–”

“Shit shit shit ,” she hisses, sounding on the verge of tears. 

“It’s not a big deal,” he says, but now he can see that she’s shaking, breathing erratically, chest heaving rapidly under her coat.

“Hey,” he says, turning her to face him, calloused palms gripping her trembling face. “Breathe, kid.”

“I can’t! I can’t I can’t I–”

“Breathe,” he repeats, grasping her by the shoulders, taking a big breath in and out to demonstrate. “See? Like me. C’mon, breathe.”

She takes one shuddery breath, then another, and he nods encouragingly. “Just like that. In and out.”

“I’m sorry, Joel, I’m sorry, shit. We needed that–”

“S’okay, it happens, we’ll find somethin’ else. But you gotta tell me what’s goin’ on.”

She’s silent for a long, faltering moment, shoulders heaving before rolling her eyes and spilling her words in a single, rushed breath.

“ Ishotadeer .”

He blinks. “You…what?”

“I shot a deer. When you were sick, I took the rifle out and I–I shot one–but it ran and then they–they found it and tried to take it and–“

Her voice climbs higher with every word, her breath coming in short, wispy gasps.

“Okay,” he says keeping his voice low, trying to follow her train of thought. “Deep breaths, ‘member? That’s it, nice an’ slow. So…you shot a deer, and then what?”

“I–they found it. The ones who took me. They said they had medicine to trade and you were so sick and I didn’t want to trust him but I had to, they didn’t believe me, then he fucking tricked me, he–“

The tears arrive like a hurricane, pouring out of her alongside broken sobs. He doesn’t think, just pulls her to his chest.

“Shh, s’alright, I know. I know. You did good–“

“But I didn’t,” she wails against him. “I l-led them back to you. I was s-so s-s-stupid and he was–he almost–“

Another sob and he’s turning them, gently guiding her back the way they came, tucked against his side. There’s no chance of finding game now, not like this, and he can’t hear his stomach growling over her fretful cries anyway. They needle at him like a newborn’s, like he’s twenty-two all over again and trying to soothe a colicky baby to sleep.

“S’alright, you’re okay,” he whispers, the words automatic, a parental reflex. “You’re alright.”

“And now I scared the stupid deer away and I can’t s-stop fucking c-crying and I can’t stop f-f-fucking up–“

“S’not true,” he says fiercely, shaking his head. “C’mon, just a little further. You’re okay.”

They’re back at the library before long, pushing open the big wooden door and securing it behind them. Joel drops the rifle and his pack and pulls her into a hug.

“You’re okay,” he murmurs into her hair. “You did everythin’ right.”

“But I lost the s-stupid deer,” she whimpers.

“Doesn’t matter. There’ll be more.”

He holds her as her cries dwindle to hiccups, as her shoulders stop heaving and her breathing returns to something closer to normal.

“You really shot a deer, huh?” he says gently, teasing. “With your aim?”

She pulls away and wipes her face on her sleeve.

“Shuddup,” she sniffs, but the corner of her mouth turns up a little.

“That’s pretty fuckin’ great, kid. Guess you did learn from the best.”

She snorts. It’s not a laugh but it’s close enough. “Yeah, right.”

The ones who took me.

A cold shiver ripples down Joel’s spine as her words finally sink in. He opens his mouth to ask, to push her on it, but looking at her face, all blotchy and swollen and red from crying, he can’t bring himself to do it.

“C’mon,” he breathes instead. “Let’s see what we can find in town.”

~*~

Sinner’s Peaks is a no-stoplight village with a single main street; there’s a gas station, a general store, a town office, the library, and not much else.

The stores are picked clean, but most of the houses off the main road are in good shape, untouched except for the slow and steady encroachment of nature. They find a small stash of cans in a pantry, and Joel thinks it’s enough for a couple nights if they stretch it. Good enough until he can figure out how to hunt, at least.

Ellie seems to perk up once they’re back at the library, temporarily sated by a cold meal of canned fruit cocktail and watery tomato soup. Wandering through the stacks, she pulls out several books and examines them while Joel keeps an eye on her from the main desk, spreading out the map and frowning as he tries to figure out where the hell they are and how to get to Salt Lake City.

Eventually, he finds her curled up in the sunroom in a musty beanbag chair, reading by the dwindling daylight. She’s hunched over and squinting at the pages until he brings over a lantern and sets it at her feet.

“You’ll ruin your eyes readin’ like that.”

“That’s bullshit,” she says, blinking at him owlishly. “My vision’s perfect.”

“Not for long if you keep that up,” he sighs, crouching beside her, hissing at the pull in his wound. She notices.

“Is it bad?”

“Hurts a bit,” he lies. It hurts like a sonofabitch, but he’s had worse. “How’re your, uh…ribs?”

She shrugs and pointedly goes back to her book, something in her expression shuttering, closing like a slammed door.

“You wanna talk about it?” he tries.

“My ribs?” she says flatly.

“You know what.”

Her shoulders round slightly, curling inward. “No.”

“Just sayin’...what happened back in, uh, Silver Lake…s’enough to give a grown man nightmares, let alone a kid. Speakin’ from experience,” he mutters, suppressing a shudder at the thought of the bodies strung up like slaughtered animals in a meat-packing plant. “An’ that’s without knowin’ what else you, uh…went through.”

Her face is stony. “I can handle it.”

“I know you can,” he murmurs. “But you shouldn’t have to.”

“Well, I did,” she shoots back. “So I don’t need to talk about it.”

“Look, even I had to…see someone. Before. It’s not–”

“What, so now you’re a fucking shrink?” she huffs, slapping the book down on the floor and crossing her arms.

“No,” he says, biting down hard on the inside of his cheek. “But I’m what you got. An’ when we’re out there, I need to know you’re gonna be able to hold up.”

This elicits an affronted glare, as if she hadn’t had a panic attack not six hours ago, as if she wasn’t crying in his fucking arms over a fucking deer.

“I’ll be fine.”

“Ellie–”

“I’m fine, Joel,” she snaps.

He takes a deep breath, grinding his teeth, stifling a groan as he stands. “Alright. Fine.”

Stubborn, hard-headed pain in my ass, Tess , he thinks. Then he stalks away, wondering how one sulky teenager can make a grown-ass man feel completely incompetent.

That night, he tosses and turns on the hard floor, Ellie’s panicked words careening through his mind. 

…he tricked me, he almost…

Almost what?

He forces his eyes closed and tries not to think about it, but all he can picture is her swollen, bloodied nose and that awful bruise on her ribs.

Then he hears her at his back, the soft scrape of her feet on the floor. He turns and looks up at her and she freezes, regarding him with wide, watery eyes.

“Sorry. I…I thought you were asleep,” she rasps, embarrassment clouding her features.

Any lingering frustration at her reticence dissolves; in the dim light, dragging a blanket behind her, she looks like a frightened child. He rolls onto his back and reaches out an arm.

“C’mere.”

She hesitates a moment before dropping down beside him and pillowing her head in the crook of his shoulder, the position strangely familiar. He thinks she stayed like this when he was sick, but he can’t remember much after being impaled, the world having gone gray around the edges by the time the poor old horse brought them a safe distance from the university. He woke up in a basement and told her to leave, remembers the horror and relief when she came back, the pull of the needle and thread through his mangled flesh.

Then things got feverish and gray again, and her voice grew more distant with every breath. But he knew she was there, could feel her presence like a beacon calling him home.

“Can’t sleep?”

She shakes her head against him.

“Yeah, me neither,” he sighs. “Sure you don’t wanna talk–”

“No.”

“M’kay.”

He takes a deep breath, focused on the sensation of her head on his shoulder, her hand curled into a loose fist on his chest.

“Your heart sounds better,” she says after a long pause.

He tips his head toward her and raises an eyebrow, questioning.

“It was so quiet….and fast…before. Sometimes it was so quiet I thought you were gone and–and I couldn’t–”

He imagines her pressing an ear to his chest and counting the beats of his thready pulse. Her fingers clutch at his shirt as she talks. He wonders if she even realizes she’s doing it.

“I was so scared,” she whispers, words muffled in his shoulder.

“I know. But m’not goin’ anywhere, kid.”

She turns her face up to his, brow furrowed. “You can’t know that.”

His grip tightens around her and he puts his nose to her forehead, whispering a promise against her temple.

“I do. M’not goin’ anywhere. Not this time.”

~*~

It’s snowing again when they wake up. They won’t get out today; probably not tomorrow, either. Normally that would have him pacing and frustrated, but under the circumstances, he can’t bring himself to care.

Ellie has taken to carrying around stacks of books, adding to a growing pile in the corner of the sunroom she’s claimed for a reading nook. She looks like Sarah when he took her to Disneyland that one time, zipping between rides and characters and sights with the wide-eyed elation only a magical mouse could bring.

For Ellie, Disneyland is a derelict library in the middle of West Bumfuck, Colorado, and he realizes with some trepidation that getting her out of this place will be just as much a bitch as it was getting Sarah out of California. And he’s going to have to convince Ellie not to try to haul every single book with her in her backpack when they do.

They’ll cross that bridge when they come to it. For now, it’s enough to watch her. She has never seemed more like a little kid to him than in this moment, upside down with her head dangling off the end of the beanbag, sneakers brushing the glass windows of the sunroom, nose buried in a copy of The Hobbit .

In the meantime, he looks at the map again. Sinner’s Peaks is nowhere to be found, but he has the bloody knife print of Silver Lake as a starting point, and he knows they followed the edge of the lake due west. They’ve come twenty or thirty miles, maybe less.

When the roads and routes start to blur, he puts the map away and walks the perimeter of the library, mostly out of boredom. The office turns up a couple of board games and a deck of cards, and he sets those aside. There’s a stack of legal pads that haven’t rotted and a pack of faded construction paper, and he makes a mental note to give them to Ellie in case she gets bored with her books.

Eventually, he finds himself in the children’s section, surrounded by tiny chairs and tables and moldy stuffed animals. Half the shelves in this area have been knocked over and there’s a smattering of books littering the floor, most of them rotted beyond recognition. He’s idly kicking them aside when a familiar cover appears in his peripheral vision. He hasn’t seen this book in ages, not since Sarah was a little girl and it was a nightly bedtime read.

Heart in his throat, he bends down and brushes a thick layer of dust off the cover of Corduroy , the story of a stuffed bear searching for his missing button. The memory is suddenly crystal clear–Sarah curled up next to him in her little bed, her teddy bear tucked under one arm, butterfly quilt pulled up to her chin. When asked why it had to be this book again, she’d looked at him with pity.

“Because it’s Corduroy , Daddy.”

He flips through the pages; they crinkle under his fingers as he turns them, the nostalgia sharp and bittersweet, stinging his eyes.

“So you do know how to read.”

He jumps when Ellie’s voice pipes up from behind him.

“Figured I’d start with somethin’ easy,” he mutters.

She peers around him. “What is it?”

“Uh…nothin’. Just a thing I used to read to, uh…to Sarah.”

“Oh.”

A flush of shame creeps up his neck as he remembers his dead daughter’s name in Ellie’s mouth, how he’d snapped and snarled like a wounded coyote and slammed the door behind him.

I’m not her, you know.

“She, uh…she loved this one,” he says, clearing his throat. “Think I read it a thousand times from the time she turned three. Could read it from memory, I guess.”

He turns the book over in his hands, examining it, unable to meet her eyes. Those years were so short he felt like he could measure them in seconds. Sarah could read the damn thing herself by the time she was four, and soon she moved on to other things– Babysitter’s Club and scary stories and that weird vampire romance shit.

He wonders if Ellie had someone to read to her as a little girl. Somehow he doubts it. The orphanages in the QZ were hardly bastions of early childhood development. The kids were lucky if they got enough food and a bed.

“You read it?” he asks, showing her the cover.

“Nah,” she shrugs. “I’m a little old for bedtime stories.”

“Never too old for a bedtime story,” Joel frowns.

“Well…maybe you can read it to me sometime,” she says, taking the book from his hands. The hopeful note in her voice pulls at something in his chest.

“Dunno…might be too advanced for me,” he sighs dramatically. “Can’t read, ‘member?”

“We can start with the basics. A is for apple, B is for bloater, C is for–”

“S’enough a’ that, you little shit.”

Her self-satisfied cackle echoes through the abandoned building.

Later, it’s her screams that reverberate through the rafters, pulling him out of a dead sleep and pumping adrenaline through his veins.

A nightmare. He deftly avoids her swings and kicks until she comes back to herself, rubbing her back in circles, humming under his breath until her breathing slows and she’s clinging to his side.

“What’s that song?” she murmurs.

“Uh…s’Fleetwood Mac,” he says. “ Landslide ?”

“Mmm. Does it have words?”

“Sure. Don’t know if I remember ‘em.”

“Try.”

It’s a demand, not a question. He huffs, barely masking his nervousness with annoyance. When was the last time he sang, let alone sang for someone? He wracks his brain, trying to remember the words, stumbling over the first verse until the chorus comes back to him like muscle memory.

I’ve been ‘fraid of changes ‘cause I built my life around you.

But time makes you bolder, children get older; I’m gettin’ older, too.

“Not bad,” she yawns when he’s done, voice thick and syrupy with sleep. “Should keep your day job, though.”

“You are my day job,” he mutters, still rubbing her back.

“Mhm,” she murmurs, burrowing deeper into his shoulder. “Cargo…”

She trails off, her words ending on a faint snore.

His heart hasn’t forgotten her screams. It throbs like an overtaxed engine in his chest, keeping him awake, but her head is a solid, warm weight on his shoulder, and he wonders who is comforting who. He doesn’t dare move for fear of disturbing her, so he stares into the gray light and counts his proverbial sheep and frets while the wind howls outside.

~*~

“What do you think about stayin’ here a while?”

She looks up from her latest read. They’re stranded, waiting out the third day of the same storm, and Joel is dreading heading out into the weather. The idea has been brewing ever since Silver Lake, that they might be better served overwintering rather than pushing through.

“How long?”

He shrugs. “Long as it takes for the weather to shape up. Might be three, four weeks. Maybe more.”

He doesn’t say that some color has come back into her cheeks, that she’s talking to him again, that he wants to shelter her from whatever is ahead of them for as long as possible. He doesn’t say that she needs time to heal, and maybe he does, too, but they’d both deny it vehemently to the other no matter how true.

“This place was pretty much untouched. There’s still game in the woods…food…can’t think of a better place to wait out the winter.”

She considers this, then shrugs. “Yeah. I mean…what’s a few more weeks, right?”

He nods, breathing a silent sigh of relief.

“Right.”

“But you’re still gonna bring me to the Fireflies?”

“If that’s what you–”

“I do,” she says.

“Okay,” he swallows, wondering when this mission became her job more than his, wondering when the kid became so invested in being the Fireflies’ lab rat. “Okay. Then that’s the plan.”

~*~

The first time Ellie withdraws, she’s lost to him for almost an hour. He wakes to find her curled on her side on the floor, eyes wide but unseeing and dull. The sight takes his breath; for one horrible moment, he’s certain she’s died in her sleep.

“Ellie?”

He snaps his fingers in front of her face, eliciting a slow blink. Not dead, just…not there.

“Ellie! Hey!”

His stomach churns and hardens around an icy pit of fear as he does everything short of slapping her to get her to wake up. Her forehead is cool and her pulse is steady and her chest rises and falls in a regular rhythm, but she’s otherwise absent. 

He hauls her into a sitting position and wraps her in a blanket, talking softly, trying to tempt her back with the sound of his voice, gravelly and uncertain to his own ears. He remembers Tommy after the war, how he’d seem to drift off at random, the therapists at the VA claiming it was PTSD.

The minutes tick by in a half-panicked drudge until she comes to, gasping for breath and clawing at Joel’s shoulder like a drowning child.

“Easy,” he breathes a sigh of relief. “Easy, kid.”

“What–how–“

“Shhh, you’re alright.”

“D-did I…did I h-have another nightmare?”

“Somethin’ like that,” he murmurs, trying not to let his voice shake. “I think you blacked out. Do you remember anythin’ from before…?”

“I don’t…I d-don’t–” she stammers, looking at him with wild eyes, shoulders trembling violently under his hands. “Is that bad?”

He waits a beat too long before replying.

“Shit,” she moans. “Shit shit shit–”

“Easy, now. No sense gettin’ worked up–”

“Let me go ,” she says, jerking away from him and scrabbling to get off the floor, movements stiff and jerky and laced with panic. “Why is this happening to me?”

“I think it’s your brain tryin’ to get better,” he tries. “It shuts off to…to protect you.”

“Protect me from what?” she wails. “We’re safe now! You said we were safe!”

“We are, we are, we just–you need time, it’s normal for–“

“This is not fucking normal! Only fucking crazy people black out for no fucking reason, Joel!”

“Hey, that ain’t–”

“I hate this,” she sobs. “I hate it, I hate it, I hate him, I hate–“

She stops, gasping, realizing what she’s said.

I hate him .

Joel gets to his feet and reaches for her, hand outstretched before he remembers she doesn’t like that. She recoils, still breathing hard.

“Ellie, hon–”

“Get away from me!” she screeches. “Don’t–don’t fucking touch me!”

Hands up, he takes a step back, stung. She’s making a wide arc around him, and the way she looks at him makes his stomach clench, like she’s seen something vile.

“Okay,” he rasps. “Okay, I’m…I’m not gonna touch you, kid. I’m not…”

She backs away, putting as much distance between them as possible until she’s standing in the light of the sunroom. She sinks into her beanbag like a lead weight, glaring at him like a cornered animal.

He feels it coming this time, his gorge rising, the tinny whir in his ears. He’s going to have a fucking breakdown and he can’t do it now, not now, not here, not when she’s already so fragile, not when she’s looking at him like that.

“I’m…gonna go,” he rasps.

Panic flashes across her face and he shakes his head. “Just…just goin’ outside. Not far. I’ll hear you…if you call.”

She looks away and doesn’t answer, just curls tighter into herself and wraps her arms around her knees. Shouldering the rifle with shaking hands, he unblocks the door and makes his way outside.

He’s not twenty steps away when his lungs seize and his chest tightens. He stumbles ten more steps before dropping to his knees.

He should have left her in Jackson, should have insisted she go with Tommy. None of this shit would have happened if he had just ignored his selfish desire to keep her close, she would be safe, no Silver Lake, hell they’d probably be in Salt Lake City by now if he had only–

There’s a faint keening sound bubbling up the back of his throat, and he bites down hard on his fist to stop it from turning into a sob. His stomach aches when he bends forward but he leans into the sensation, forehead pressed to the snow, letting the pain ground him and overtake his despair.

“Fuck,” he barks hoarsely. “Fuck!”

He rocks back on his knees and swipes at his face with calloused palms, hearing her voice in his head, sardonic and wry.

Get your shit together, old man.

She needs help. She needs help and he’s the last person to do it–Christ, it’s the blind leading the blind–but he’s all she has so it has to be enough.

His knees ache when he finally gets to his feet, jeans soaked through, face ruddy with the cold. He swipes at his lips and steels himself and tries to quell the frantic, frightened creature that’s clawing at his chest from the inside.

When he comes back, she’s still in the chair, still curled in on herself. He eyes her carefully and decides it’s safe enough to take a seat on the floor, back to the wall, well out of reach. She watches him with a tired, listless acceptance.

“M’sorry,” she whispers finally.

“Nothin’ to be sorry for, kid,” he sighs.

His hands itch to hold her, to stroke her hair and tell her they’ll make it out of this, that someday it won’t be this hard…but he can’t. He tips his head back against the wall and closes his eyes and waits for her to give him a sign.

~*~

It happens again, and again, and again. Ellie’s mind seems to give her a break of a few days, just enough to make them think perhaps the worst has passed, and then he’ll find her staring blank-eyed at the wall, or folded into her chair, seeing nothing.

Every time, he wonders if this will be the time she doesn’t come out of it.

Their tenuous peace unravels with each episode, leaving Ellie ferocious with misplaced rage and Joel an anxious wreck. He learns to keep his distance, talking to her softly, keeping up a steady stream of idle, one-sided conversation. When she wakes, she refuses to be touched or held, and he waits on tenterhooks for the light in her eyes to flicker back to life.

He cobbles together makeshift beds from wood palettes and mattresses from layered blankets to keep them off the floor. She goes to sleep on her own, but dawn finds her on his palette, pressed to his back or tucked into his side, her subconscious drawing her to him like a magnet even as her conscious mind pushes him away. More often than not, she’s woken by nightmares. Sleep is elusive and fragile for them both.

Days pass like this, long stretches of silence and fatigue and waking to screams that echo in the dark when they’re not foraging or trying to keep warm. Joel goes hunting–alone this time–and brings back a deer, stringing it up outside. He bites his tongue when Ellie adamantly refuses to eat the venison. They pick their way through the neighborhood, methodically combing through each dwelling and taking whatever can be used–toilet paper, clothes, sleeping bags, a camp stove.

Sometimes after a nightmare, Ellie talks about what happened while he was sick, or about FEDRA school, or Boston. They tread lightly around Jackson, Salt Lake City, or the future.  

But they don’t talk about Silver Lake.

~*~

He was gone for no more than twenty minutes, just long enough to check and re-set the snares at the edge of the forest. He’s returning with two snowy white rabbits slung over his shoulder, a good haul, and he’s hopeful Ellie might actually eat tonight. She used to inhale anything he put in front of her, now he’s lucky if she finishes a can of fruit cocktail for dinner.

The big wooden door is shut and secured behind him before he calls for her.

“Ellie? I’m back.”

An uncomfortable prickling sensation starts at the nape of his neck when she doesn’t respond.

“Ellie?”

The rabbits are dropped and forgotten; he shoulders his rifle and walks to the back. She’s not in her nook in the sunroom, or their sleeping area. He scans between the shelves as he goes, a cold shiver crawling down his spine as he finds each space empty.

“Ellie? Answer me, dammit.”

He checks the office next; it’s almost dark despite the daylight outside, no windows to offer light. 

“Ellie, this isn’t funny–”

There’s a small sound from the other side of the room and he walks around to the back. She’s tucked under one of the desks, knees tight to her chest, face pale and half hidden by her forearms.

“Jesus, kid,” he breathes, kneeling to peer in at her. “What’re you doin’?”

 She doesn’t answer.

“Was someone here?” he asks, looking around. He would have seen tracks in the snow if someone had come in.

Her eyes finally fix on him, lower lashes heavy with tears.

“Ellie? Talk to me,” he murmurs.

“It happened again,” she rasps. “And then you weren’t here…and I thought…I thought you…thought you were…”

Shit.

“I told you I was goin’ to check the traps,” he says carefully. “Do you remember that?”

Her lip quivers and her face crumples as she shakes her head.

“S’alright, I’m here now. Come outta there for me?”

She shakes her head again. “C-can’t.”

“Alright,” he says, thinking. “Stay here, okay? I’ll be right back.”

He goes to the main room and gathers blankets and a lantern before returning to the office, lowering himself to the floor next to her space underneath the desk.

“Not gonna touch you,” he says, keeping his voice soft as he puts the pile of blankets and the lit lantern in front of her. “But you’re shiverin’. Let’s try to get you warm, okay?”

She lets him tuck a blanket around her. Her trembling slows and eventually stops, and he takes a seat across from her, pressing his back to the wall to wait out the inevitable. The glow of the flickering lantern sends shadows around the darkened office.

Hours pass. He talks, low and slow. Sometimes he sings softly to himself, humming when he can’t remember the words. He thinks she falls asleep at some point, cheek pressed to the cold metal side of the desk. He watches her eyes slip shut. He dozes, too, shifting his weight from one leg to the other and rousing every few minutes to check on her.

It must be night by the time her voice drifts across the space between them, raw and small.

“He put me in a cage,” she whispers.

Joel blinks, raising his head. She’s barely audible in the tiny room and he’s slept so damn bad these last three weeks, he starts to wonder if he’d dreamed it. But then she continues, still at a whisper.

“It was…in the kitchen. Where they carved up the bodies. There were…parts…on the floor.”

He leans forward a little, slowly, carefully, like he’s out on a hunt and can’t make any sudden moves. Blood pounds in his ears and he strains to listen over the sound of his own desperate heart. He needs to know what happened to her…but he’s not sure he’ll ever be ready to hear it.

“He tried to…to hold my hand,” she says, flexing her fingers under the blanket.

She’s staring at a spot on the floor and he can almost see the memory reflected in her eyes, a reel playing itself out over and over, flames licking at the edges of her vision as she’s forced to relive the worst of it.

“He said he wanted me to be his…to be his . He wanted me to…to–”

Every muscle in Joel’s jaw locks up, hands balled into tight fists. He shoves them under his thighs so she won’t see them shaking.

“I broke his finger,” she says, lip curling in a snarl. “I…but then they came back and they grabbed me and held–held me down. On the table where they…where they….”

She shudders, shaking her head as if to clear away the thought.

“I got away…but the doors were all locked and he–he f-followed m-me…”

Joel feels his blood run cold.

“Then he pinned me down and…everything hurt, I couldn’t b-breathe, the smoke…and he said–he said–”

She’s trembling again. Suddenly she lurches out from under the desk, braced on her hands and knees, still tangled in her sleeping bag, gagging up a froth of bile. There’s nothing in her stomach, but the contractions seize her until tears stream from her eyes and threads of spit dangle from her lower lip.

He’s scrambling to his feet, cursing his slow, aching body, but she holds up a hand to ward him off. His fists clench and unclench at his sides. He hates every second of this, hates that he was too sick, too late to stop this awful, terrible thing from happening in the first place.

Eventually, she sits back on her heels, shaking and clutching her stomach. She folds in on herself again, pressed back against the desk drawers. It’s all Joel can do not to drop to his knees and take her in his arms.

“Before…when you were…when you did the bad things…did you ever…”

It takes a heavy moment for him to understand what she’s asking, and he hates that she needs to ask at all. He was a bad man by most accounts; he’d done things he might never be forgiven for, but always in the interests of survival… not control, not cruelty.

He swallows hard, levels his gaze, and answers honestly.

“No. Never.”

She fixes him with a stare that makes him ashamed to be a man.

Do you trust me?

“Would you tell me the truth if you had?”

He kneels, crouching so he can look her in the eye. 

“I won’t lie to you, Ellie,” he says. “Not now. Not ever. Y’hear me?” 

He’ll think about this often in the years to come. He’ll sit alone on his porch in Jackson, strumming his guitar by lamplight and wondering if this was the turning point, the first promise he couldn't keep.

But right now, in this moment, he means it with every fiber of his being.

She seems to believe it because she nods slightly before continuing.

“He didn’t…I…got the knife and I…I killed him before he could…could do it.”

“Good,” Joel growls. He hopes it was a brutal death, a violent death. He suspects it was, remembering the blood spatter he’d cleaned from her face and the way she’d brutalized their attacker at the farmhouse.

She accepts this listlessly, then averts her gaze, picking at the skin around her fingers. “But what if I liked it?”

His brow furrows.

“What if I liked it?” she repeats, her voice growing smaller and fainter. “What if…what if I liked the killing part?”

“Ellie–”

“He said I was like him.”

Joel grits his teeth, swallowing the bile that rises in his throat. “You’re nothin’ like him.”

Her eyes give it away; this, she doesn’t believe.

“Ellie.”

She swallows hard, sagging, sinking further into herself. He has the sudden irrational fear that she’s fading away, going transparent, that in a few seconds, she’ll blink out of existence without a tether to hold her. The thought is so powerful and awful that his hand cups her cheek before he can stop himself. She doesn’t flinch but she doesn’t lean into his touch.

“Ellie,” he whispers her name like an absolution.

Their eyes meet over the glow of the lantern and she looks lost, drained, like she’s let out the poison and all that’s left is a hollow shell.

“I…I’m…gonna sleep,” she whispers. “M’tired.”

“Yeah…yeah, okay.”

He helps her to her feet, gathering the blankets and the lantern, and she follows him back into the main room. When she’s curled on her makeshift mattress, he tucks the sleeping bag tightly around her shoulders.

“Stay?”

Her voice is so small, so fragile, he thinks it might break him. He brushes the hair from her eyes, from her forehead, stroking her temple with his thumb.

“Sure,” he says roughly, a single word that doesn’t convey a fraction of what he’s thinking.

Always, forever, as long as you’ll let me.

~*~

With the winter weather closed around them like a soft white blanket, the seed of an idea begins to take root. He’d found a little hatchet during one of their scavenging trips and tucked it into his pack as an afterthought, and he’s been thinking about Jackson, about Christmas trees and bacon.

And they desperately need a distraction.

He finds Ellie perched on a stool at the circulation desk, hunched over a legal pad, the dark circles under her eyes like deep plum bruises. She flips the pad shut as soon as he gets close, hiding whatever she’s working on.

“C’mon,” he says. “We’re goin’ out.”

“Why?”

“You’ll see,” he says.

She rolls her eyes but gets up to follow him. “Are we hunting again?”

“Nope.”

“Then why are we–”

“You ask a lotta goddamn questions.”

“We’ve established this,” she sighs, lacking her usual nerve.

“Uh-huh. Bring your gloves.”

She does, and they emerge into the daylight, trodding a well-worn path to the edge of the woods.

“What are you looking for?”

“A tree.”

She stops, turns in a half-circle to survey the forest, then looks pointedly at him. “Gee, think I found one.”

“Wiseass. Somethin’ small.”

She narrows her eyes. “What, like a Christmas tree?”

“Yep.”

“It’s January,” she says, but she seems to perk up as they continue, scanning their surroundings with fresh eyes.

He shrugs. “So?”

“So we missed Christmas.”

“Exactly.”

They walk in silence after that, the only sounds the rustling branches and the gentle crunch of snow underfoot. There isn’t much to choose from. After they’ve walked for a little while, Joel points to a small, scraggly tree.

“This one?” he asks.

Ellie shrugs, watching as he extracts the little axe from his belt and offers it. She stares at it, then at him, letting out a resigned sigh.

“I know what you’re trying to do,” she says.

“Good,” he grunts. “‘Cause that makes one of us.”

“What, you’ve never done this before?”

“Nope,” he says, still holding out the axe. “You gonna help or not?”

She rolls her eyes, but she takes the tool. Her first swing barely makes a dent in the wood. She glares at him.

“That was…good,” he says, pressing his lips together to hide a smile.

“Must have missed the lumberjack class in school,” she snaps. “This thing is fucking dull.”

“It’s fine. Hold the handle further back. Let momentum do most of the work.”

A couple more swings and there’s a small divot in the trunk. She hands the axe back to him in a huff and he gives it another couple good whacks to sever the trunk from its roots. It falls to the ground with a whoosh .

“Alright, gloves on. Gotta drag it back.”

“Weird fucking way to celebrate some old dude’s birthday,” she mutters. “Kill a tree and stick it in your house for a week.”

Joel snorts. “That’s one way to put it, I guess…but you’re not wrong.”

They drag the tree back to the library and haul it inside. It’s noon by the time Joel fashions a stand for it out of scrap wood. The tree is a tiny thing, barely coming up to Ellie’s shoulders, and it lists to the right in the dim glow of the sunroom, looking as if a slight breeze might topple it.

“That’s a Charlie Brown tree if I ever saw one,” Joel says, eyeing their work.

“A who?”

“Charlie Brown? Peanuts ? Y’know…Snoopy n’ Peppermint Patty n’ Pigpen…?”

“Are you having a stroke?” she says, raising an eyebrow in concern. “You’re just saying random words.”

“Jesus, no, I’m not…never mind,” he huffs, wondering if the library has a copy of the book. Or was it a movie? He can’t remember.

“Whatever, dude,” she says, folding her arms. “So…now what?”

“You’ve never done a Christmas tree before?”

She looks at him flatly. “What do you think?”

“Well…now we decorate it.”

She looks around skeptically. “I don’t see any decorations.”

“Not yet. Gotta get creative.”

He goes to the office and pulls out the sheaf of faded construction paper and a pair of scissors.

“Here,” he says, presenting them to her. “Should be able to make somethin’ outta these.”

Ellie cocks an eyebrow. “Okay, but like…what?”

He frowns. Sarah had always been the crafty one, roping him into her projects, bossing him around when his big, clumsy fingers couldn’t get the fine details right.

“Uh…we used to make paper chains. Here,” he says, taking a sheet of red paper and the scissors. “Make strips, then notch the ends. Make a bunch and you can chain ‘em together.”

They sit next to the wonky little tree, Ellie in charge of cutting strips and notches, Joel joining the links until the chain is long enough to wrap around the tree.

“Sarah used to cut snowflakes out of paper and put ‘em in the windows. Don’t remember how to do the folds, though…”

“Too bad we don’t have, I don’t know, a book or something,” Ellie snarks, waving her hands in the direction of the shelves.

“Alright, smartass,” he smirks. “Go on, find somethin’, then.”

She goes off into the rows of shelves and comes back with a copy of 101 Easy Crafts for Kids . The instructions for paper snowflakes are straightforward enough, and they spend the rest of the afternoon folding and cutting snowflakes in increasingly intricate patterns and piecing together more paper chains to drape around the tree.

“It’s missing something,” Ellie sighs.

“‘Bout half its branches,” Joel mutters.

She rolls her eyes and returns to the craft book, poring over its pages like a diligent student.

“It says we can use ‘stuff we find around the house’, like bottlecaps and feathers and sh–oh, wait! Pinecones! There’s a billion of those things out there.”

She convinces Joel to leave the sanctuary of the library to forage outside in the fading light, coming back with their pockets stuffed full of pinecones. Then she goes rummaging in the office cabinets for glue but comes up short; the bottles she finds are hard as rocks.

But there is a half-full jar of glitter.

Ellie presents this to Joel with a wicked grin. It brings him back to Sarah, to kindergarten, to cleaning metallic flecks from between chubby fingers. But Ellie is happier than she’s been in days, so he resigns himself to finding flecks of the stuff on everything they touch for weeks to come.

The pinecones are sticky with sap and the glitter clings to them easily. Ellie gets it in her head to use the sap like glue, and soon there are sparkling paper ornaments strung all over the tree’s scraggly branches, and she’s stuck colored bits of paper to the pinecones to look like eyes or animal parts or, in one case, a clicker.

When she finally stands back to survey their work, she seems satisfied that they’ve done the tree justice. There’s glitter in her hair, on her cheeks, in her eyelashes. It’s embedded in the moldy carpet and clinging to her jacket. Even Joel’s overgrown curls are dusted with little red and blue and green sparkles and he’d barely touched the stuff.

“You look like a fuckin’ disco ball,” he grumbles, but he can’t help but smile.

“So do you, dude,” she shoots back easily, picking a piece of glitter out of the scruff on his chin to prove her point.

At night, when they light the lanterns, the tree and its ornaments come to life, sparkly reflections dancing on the glass of the sunroom, and Ellie’s eyes light up like, well, a child’s on Christmas Day.

Joel decides he’ll take a mountain of glitter in his hair if it means he can see her smile like that again.

~*~

He wakes to the gray light of morning and the soft sound of fresh snow falling on glass. Ellie is tucked into her glitter-dappled sleeping bag, still snoring. No nightmares. A damned Christmas miracle, he thinks.

They’re eating a breakfast of canned peaches when he pulls out the small wrapped package and hands it to her.

“Wouldn’t be Christmas without presents.”

“Is that for me?” she says, her eyes shining.

“Nah, it’s for the other kid who’s been hangin’ off my ass for six months,” he says. “Yes, it’s for you.”

“Asshole,” she says, grinning. She wastes no time in ripping off the rough construction paper wrapping with childlike glee.

He’d picked up the little leather-clad journal during one of their scavenges and tucked it away, knowing how rare paper was, having watched her furtive sketching in the legal pad. He knows he’d made the right choice because her eyes go wide and round and wet.

“Whoa…”

“Figured you could, uh, use it for drawin’ or whatnot.”

She looks at him with an earnestness that threatens to cleave him in two.

“So cool,” she breathes. “But I didn’t get you anything–oh, wait!”

She goes to the main desk and rips a sheet of paper from her notepad, folding it in half before returning.

“I didn’t wrap it, but…”

She places the yellow-lined paper in his hands, and he thinks of the construction paper cards Sarah used to make for him at school, the ones with stick figures and “DAD” printed in crooked block letters.

But this is something else, something more sophisticated. A portrait, sketched in pencil, of him. It’s rough–he can see where she’s drawn and erased over and over, trying to get it just right–but it’s recognizable and holds the promise of something better.

“You did this?”

“No, the other kid who’s been hanging off your ass for–”

“Yeah, yeah, alright,” he chuckles. “Thanks, kid.”

“You really like it?”

“Are you kiddin’? I love it.”

Ellie’s face flushes and she grins, the expression making her look five years younger. “Cool.”

Joel blinks hard, realizes too late he’s fighting tears. He has to look away until he can speak. “How ‘bout a game?”

They spend most of the day sitting cross-legged on the floor with a board game or a deck of cards between them. Joel wins at Sorry three times in a row and Ellie laughs and accuses him of cheating in the same breath. They switch to rummy and blackjack, and they muddle through a variation of cribbage without the board.

If he could keep her in this place forever, with the snow falling quietly outside and the crooked little tree twinkling and the darkness banished behind the solid wood door of the library and its sturdy stone walls, that would be okay.

He almost opens his mouth to say as much, to tell her that they should turn around and go back to Jackson as soon as the weather allows. He wants to tell her they’ll have more Christmases together as a family–because she is family now, even if she doesn’t believe it.

He wants to tell her that nothing is worth sacrificing her childhood, her humanity, and that the world doesn’t deserve her mercy let alone her blood. Fuck Marlene, fuck the Fireflies, and fuck their little science project.

“Joel? Joel!”

He realizes he’s drifted away and she’s looking at him with concern.

“It’s your turn,” she prompts. “Count.”

“Right. Sorry,” he coughs, laying down his cards. “I got fifteen-two, fifteen-four, an’ a pair for six.”

“I’m gonna skunk ya,” she grins, writing his score down, adding the points to his meager total.

“Yeah, yeah,” he smiles. “Your turn to cut, my deal.”

Not today, he decides, shuffling and folding the deck. Not when she’s smiling, not when she’s belly-laughing until tears gather in her eyes, not when they’ve finally found some calm in the storm. He won’t cloud their first easy day in weeks.

That night, he pulls out the other thing he’d set aside for a special occasion and holds up two cans of Chef Boyardee.

“It’s no Christmas dinner, but we got cheese ravioli or Beefaroni.”

She looks like he’s just offered her a gourmet meal. “Fuckin’ awesome!”

He uses the camp stove to heat the pasta, hot food being a rare treat, and she inhales her portion in minutes. He has to remind her to slow down or she’ll choke, and when she’s finished, he pushes his half-empty can over to her, too grateful that she’s eating to care about his stomach.

When they’re full and sated and the lanterns are making the tree throw glittery reflections on the walls, he pulls out a copy of How the Grinch Stole Christmas and waves it in Ellie’s direction.

“Still too old for a bedtime story?”

She plops down next to him. “Nah. Read on, old man.”

So he does. It comes back to him with surprising ease, the performance of reading for an audience of one, and he finds himself doing the voices. Ellie giggles when he attempts a falsetto Cindy-Lou Who and has to interrupt the story to cough.

She leans her head on his shoulder and the tree sparkles in the glow of the moon and he knows how it feels when the Grinch’s heart grows three sizes.

~*~

Christmas in January buys them almost two weeks of peace. Ellie’s nightmares wane, although he still finds her curled into his side more often than not. She makes it six days without having an episode, and when she does, she only goes away for a few minutes. She journals in her new notebook and teases him about his shaggy hair and eats too damn fast.

Joel feels the tightness he’s been carrying in his chest for weeks loosen a fraction.

Later, he’ll blame the quiet for his complacency. He’d been stupid, lazy, convinced that weeks without incident meant they were safe. It was foolish thinking, hopeful thinking. It was the kind of thinking that would get them killed and he fucking knew better.

They’re scavenging, rummaging through a little house off the main street. The infected is ancient, barely recognizable as human, has probably been rotting away in this abandoned town since the start of the outbreak.

At least until Joel opens the bedroom door.

He doesn’t even have his rifle up when the creature lurches out of the darkened corner and sets upon him. He hadn’t swept the house, hadn’t insisted they keep quiet, hadn’t even required Ellie to stay close. They’d done this a dozen times since settling at the library and hadn’t encountered a soul, alive or infected. She’s downstairs rummaging through the kitchen; he can hear the cabinets being opened and shut as the monster bears down on him.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

It comes at him from the right, driving Joel against a dresser, knocking a slew of dusty, moldering objects to the floor. The smell of rancid perfume floods his nostrils as a bottle of something shatters, mingling with the smell of cordyceps. Joel stumbles backward, landing on his ass with the rifle pinned uselessly behind him.

The infected snaps and bites with half a jaw, Joel’s only saving grace as it struggles to get at him from the right angle. He’s desperately trying to reach for the knife strapped to his calf while holding the infected at bay when he hears Ellie’s footsteps thundering up the stairs.

“Joel!?”

He can’t respond, too focused on dodging the infected’s attacks, feeling its inhuman strength as his arms shake from holding it back.

“Joel!”

A gunshot rings out and the vile creature screams and hisses as its shoulder jerks violently back, bits of cordyceps flesh peeling away from its mangled body. It screams and hisses, but the shot gives Joel just enough time to unsheathe his knife. He plunges it into the infected’s bulbous head over and over, until it’s a putrid dead weight on top of him.

Ellie is still holding her gun trained on the infected, hands trembling, breathing hard. “I heard a crash–”

Joel shoves the corpse off and stands with a groan, leaning against the dresser, trying to catch his breath.

“Surprised me is all,” he pants. “Shoulda been more careful. Thanks, kid.”

“Joel?”

Ellie lets out a strangled little moan, staring at something below his eyeline.

He looks down, following her gaze to his right hand, covered with blood and dripping. There’s a rushing sound in his ears he faintly recognizes as his heart, and it’s almost like he’s watching someone else when he turns his palm face up and sees the blooming red wound.

Our luck had to run out sooner or later , he thinks dully. 

“No…”

The warbling start of Ellie’s wail lodges itself between his ribs, a high-pitched keening cry of terror, and all he can do is stand there and listen, dumb and useless and stupid. He’s failed again, the ultimate failure, and she’ll pay the price.

His palm seems to glitter with the slick of his blood. He blinks at it through eyes blurred with stunned tears, then peers more closely at his hand as the light from the window reflects oddly…

Then relief, sweet relief. 

“It’s…s’not a bite,” he croaks, numb lips barely able to form the words. “Ellie. Not a bite. Look. Look. ”

She recoils from his advance, but he persists, holding his palm out for her to inspect, where a shard of the glass bottle has lodged deep in the skin.

No teeth marks. No bite. No infection.

Ellie’s jaw clenches, closing around a muted gasp. Their eyes meet and he offers a tentative smile, unable to contain it as he pulls the glass from his hand. He’s dodged more bullets than any man has a right to in one lifetime, but this one…he wants to relish it, bask in it, savor it.

For the first time in years, he’s ready to fucking live .

Ellie doesn’t return his smile. Instead, she storms out of the room.

“Hey, what–”

She’s running by the time he makes it downstairs, and he struggles to keep up as she flies back to the library over the snowy, wind-blown streets.

“Ellie! Goddamnit,” he huffs, feeling the telltale pull in his abdomen as he slips over the icy road. The library’s wood door finally closes behind him and he’s left gasping for breath.

“Ellie, what the–”

“Go away!” Her voice carries from the back of the room.

“Jesus, kid, c’mon–”

“I said GO AWAY!”

He huffs, grinding his teeth until his jaw aches. His palm is starting to throb and he’s still dripping blood on the floor. Grimacing, he pulls his flask and a rag out of his backpack and pours a healthy dose of alcohol over the wound. The pain is blinding.

“Mother fucker ,” he growls, then shakily wraps the rag around his hand to staunch the flow of blood.

With his palm bandaged and breath no longer eluding him, he turns his attention back to her.

“Ellie?”

She doesn’t respond, but he knows where to find her. The back of the library is bright with the afternoon sun. The room is almost warm with it, a reminder that it will be spring soon.

Ellie glares up at him from the beanbag like a wary cat.

“The hell’s gotten into y–”

“Don’t fucking talk to me,” she hisses.

Hands on his hips, he bites the inside of his cheek hard, preventing a tumble of harsh words from escaping in the process.

“It don’t work like that, kid. We gotta talk.”

She shoots up from the chair and darts past him, but he’s faster, hooking his good hand around her upper arm and holding steady.

“Damnit, Ellie, stop runnin’ away from me.”

She wheels on him, eyes bright and shining with the truth of her anger, seething until her whole body seems to thrum with it.

“You don’t get to fucking talk about running away! You don’t get to–you don’t– you fucking left me !”

Her voice is a screech, lashing and cutting, a force pushing him back a step.

“I’m right here,” he tries, not understanding. “I’m not goin’ anywhere. Told you that before.”

“You left! You fucking left like a fucking asshole!”

And then it occurs to him–too fucking late–that she’s not talking about today, or the time with the rabbits.

He remembers that night with a heavy shame in his chest, how he’d turned off the light and stared into the dark for hours, cruelly ignoring the sound of her crying across the hall. He’d saddled the horse and had every intention of walking away–from her, from Tommy, from Jackson–alone.

And for what? It wasn’t like he had anyone to return to. He was a stubborn and broken old man on a stolen horse, walking away from the only person who had made him feel alive in years.

Everyone fucking except for you.

He couldn’t make himself do it. Had deliberated and delayed and brushed the horse until its coat was shining and pristine, until Tommy turned the corner with his young ward in tow. Hadn’t even known he was going to offer her a choice until the words were out of his mouth and her bag was shoved unceremoniously into his hands. Said, “Okay, then,” and rode out of Jackson like the last eight hours hadn’t happened. And everything he couldn’t say was still lodged between them like a splinter under the skin, left to fester and rot.

That he couldn’t leave because her pull was too strong.

That she may not have been his daughter but she wasn’t not his daughter.

That she was more than a potential cure, more than an orphan, more than a charge or a duty.

But for those few hours between dusk and dawn, he might as well have confirmed her greatest fears. That she could be left, abandoned, passed off to someone else. 

Cargo.

Which is why he doesn’t argue when she continues to scream her frustration into the space between them. He wilts under her power, ducks his head, folds into himself and takes it. 

“ You left me ! Just like everyone else! And then you almost fucking died and you weren’t there , you weren’t there when I needed you! He almost–he tried to–and you WEREN’T–THERE!”

She slaps her palms into his chest hard with each word, forcing him back a step. When that doesn’t help, doesn’t release enough of the pent-up anger she’s carried for so long, she does it again and again and again.

“You can’t just do that –you can’t be nice to me–and then fucking get yourself–fucking–killed, you can’t just–leave me–you can’t, you can’t leave me –”

“I–I know,” he chokes out, barely able to hear himself over the storm of her rage. “I know.”

Her fists pound at his chest, half-formed punches and blows that he’ll feel for days, strangled cries ripped raw from her throat. He doesn’t try to stop her, just lets her whale on him while he takes it, wincing not at the pain but at his cowardice.

A particularly forceful punch makes direct contact with the solid wall of his breastbone and she shrieks in pain, recoiling with a garbled “ FUCK !” that echoes through the rafters. She hunches over, clutching her fist.

“Ellie,” he whispers, trying to speak through the lump in his throat. When he tries to pull her close, she resists, but only for a moment. Then her face is pressed to his chest where she’d hit him and she’s sobbing, warm tears soaking the flannel over his heart.

“You can’t leave me, motherfucker,” she says brokenly, her good hand still halfheartedly drumming on his chest. “You can’t. You can’t leave, you can’t.”

“I know, baby girl,” he whispers, a mess of words falling from his lips as one hand cups the back of her head and the other wraps her shoulders. “Shh, I know. M’sorry. I’m so sorry.”

He rocks her in his arms and whispers gentle nonsense into her hair, and when she’s quiet, he cups her face in his hands and roughly wipes the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs.

“Thought I couldn’t keep you safe,” he says, trying and failing to explain, the words sounding hollow to his ears. “I couldn’t…if somethin’ happened…I couldn’t…forgive myself.”

“That’s bullshit,” she says, lower lip trembling. “How the fuck would I be safer without you?”

“I couldn’t protect Tess…or Henry and Sam,” he says as his vision swims and his throat locks up. “I couldn’t…I couldn’t protect…her.”

“An’ I didn’t mean it,” he rushes, trying desperately to hold himself together because she needs him whole and strong even though he’s anything but. “I didn’t mean it when I said you weren’t…when I…when I said…”

His voice finally fails, choking on the rest, and he shakes his head in frustration. He presses a kiss to her forehead, trying to convey everything he can’t manage with words. He’s weeping, leaking tears as Ellie’s small arms wrap around his waist and he rests his head on the top of hers.

“M’sorry,” he grits out when he can speak again, pulling away and leaning down so they’re eye to eye. “But I’m not leavin’ you. Not now. Not ever. Y’hear? You’re stuck with me.”

“Promise?” she says, so softly.

“Cross my heart.”

Her lower lip trembles. She ducks her head and mumbles something he can’t make out.

“What’s that?”

She sniffs, dragging a dirty sleeve across her nose. “My stupid hand hurts.”

“Can I see?”

He reaches out, palm up, and for the first time since Silver Lake, she puts her hand in his. Her knuckles are bruised, already swelling, and he’s as gentle as he can be–her pale, delicate fingers cupped in his calloused bear paw.

“Don’t think it’s broken,” he murmurs after careful examination. “C’mon. Let’s get some ice on it.”

She sniffs and lets him lead her outside, gathering a tightly packed wad of snow into a rag and pressing it carefully to her knuckles. Back inside, he leads her to the sunroom and sits, pulling her down next to him the way they had when he’d read the Grinch .

They don’t speak. The snow melts over her fingers, leaving a dripping mess on the glitter-flecked carpet. Between the attack and her rage and their combined injuries, neither has the energy to do more than sit and breathe.

Eventually, Ellie takes the sopping rag and tosses it aside, examining her injury with morbid interest; red from the cold, the swelling has gone down a little. Yellowish-purple bruises spill like stains across the ridges of her knuckles.

Joel frowns. “Anyone ever show you how to throw a punch?”

She sniffs and shakes her head.

“Thought so,” he says. “Here. Show me your fist.”

She does, holding out her undamaged hand.

“Alright, first things first, untuck that thumb,” he says, pulling her thumb out of her grip and aligning it over her lower knuckles. “Hit somethin’ too hard like that and you’ll break it. There, like that.”

“Keep your wrist straight,” he continues, molding his fist gently around the bones of her hand to straighten out her arm, wiggling it for emphasis until she giggles with the motion. “Loose wrist and you’re likely to sprain.”

“Now, you wanna imagine hitting through them, not at them. So if you’re goin’ for the nose, imagine you’re tryin’ to hit the back of their skull. Tricks your body into puttin’ more force behind it.”

“You wanna aim for the weak spots. A broken nose’ll slow someone down a lot faster than beatin’ on their chest will,” he says meaningfully. “Just don’t break my nose next time, ‘k?”

Ellie huffs softly. “Don’t get yourself killed and there won’t be a next time.”

It’s a dark thought, but he smirks. If anyone was going to punch him for dying, it would be her.

“Alright,” he says, offering his rag-wrapped hand. “Deal.”

She puts her bruised hand in his bloodied one so they can shake on it. Then he puts his arm around her shoulders and pulls her into a hug, and they stay that way for a long time.

~*~

She’s sitting in her favorite spot, head tipped up, gazing at something in the tangled vines covering the windows above. Sunlight pours over her, filling the little space with a green-tinted glow. She looks out of place here, the light carving her out of the dingy surroundings, settling around her like an aura.

Joel clears his throat. “Still with me, kid?”

Ellie blinks, turns her head to look at him, smiling faintly.

“Yeah. Still here.”

He offers a hand and she takes it without hesitation, pulling herself to her feet.

“You packed?”

“Yep. Well, almost,” she falters, glancing down at the stacks of books surrounding her beanbag. “I can’t decide which ones to bring.”

Outside, the ground is soft and slushy, warmed by the extra daylight. The mountain air carries the scent of thawing earth rather than a biting wind. Tomorrow, they’ll head out at first light.

She still goes away from herself, episodes where he has to ask twice or three times if she’s heard him, but she comes back to him readily, if a little quieter than before. He knows all about scars, the invisible ones that linger in the mind and the physical ones that map a body, but he thinks she’ll pull through.

They’ll go to Jackson when it’s done. They’ll go back to Tommy and Maria and a new niece or nephew, and they’ll be a family. He’s sure of it.

~*~

“C’mon,” she wheedles later, the stack of books in her arms enough to fill her pack and then some. “I can’t choose. They’re all good.”

“Pick three,” he sighs. “You’re not gonna carry forty books across state lines, you’ll end up with that twisted spine disease.”

“Dude, that’s not a thing,” she groans. “Just three is literally impossible. How about six?”

“Four,” he mutters, stuffing his spare flannel in his bag. “Final offer.”

“Asshole,” she shoots back, wrinkling her nose and laying the books out on the floor in front of her.

“Jackson has a library,” he reminds her more gently. “You can borrow whatever you want when we get back.”

“But what if they don’t have these ones?”

“They will.”

“Ugh, fine,” she says, frowning at the pile of books like she’s trying to choose between her favorite children. “But this is a crime against literature.”

“Uh-huh.”

She sighs, deliberating for a long while. He watches out of the corner of his eye as she eventually picks out her four.

One of them is Corduroy .

They see it at the same time. He cocks an eyebrow in a silent question and Ellie’s face flushes.

“I thought you might, y’know…want it,” she shrugs.

His throat constricts. This kid , he thinks, with a pride he hasn’t felt in twenty years. This kid, his kid, his Ellie .

“I’ll carry it, then,” he murmurs, plucking the book from her hands. “Pick somethin’ for yourself.”

Her eyes light up. “Really?”

“Yeah,” he mutters, trying to talk around the lump in his throat. “S’long as it’s not the goddamned  Encyclopedia Brittanica.”

“Score,” she whispers, going back to her selection spread out on the floor as he turns Corduroy over in his hands.

After a moment, he grabs Ellie’s drawing from his pocket and smoothes it out, tucking it between the pages like a bookmark so it stays flat, safe. He spares a glance at his watch before tucking the book carefully into his pack.

“Ready?” she asks. She’s shoved more than four books into her bag; he can tell by the way it hangs low on her back.

“Think so,” he says, resolving to fight that battle later as he shoulders his own pack.

She smiles, a grin that lights her face and sets something like love burning bright in his chest.

“Let’s go save the world, old man.”

[delumineight]

romione fic list

because it’s hard to find good ones

disclaimer, these are mostly all on ao3. this will be updated every now and then and open for suggestions !!! if you have any suggestions please reblog with them. this is an ongoing list that i will be adding to whenever i find something that i like enough to rec.

list below the cut, just so people who aren’t on my account or in the tags for this don’t have to see it.

rec list

the reasons by incalculablepower

— RATED T: background harry/ginny, past lavender/ron, a tad of inappropriate humor at the end, takes place at the end of sixth year or half-blood prince

SUMMARY: “As the school year comes to an end, it's time to reflect on the one that's passed and prepare for the next year. And with their two best friends otherwise occupied (that is, snogging all over the castle), that means a lot of quality time spent together...”

resistance of the mind by tuesday_piracy

— RATED G: background harry/ginny, current lavender/ron, pining hermione, black hermione, black lavender, takes place during christmastime sixth year or half-blood prince

SUMMARY: “Hogwarts is hosting a Winter Solstice Ball for their older students, and naturally, Ron and Lavender plan on attending together. However, as the night of the Ball arises, Ron is racked with familiar concerns over his attire, his looks, and his hair. So, naturally, he turns to Hermione, and she can't help but aid him. — Or: Hermione gives Ron a haircut. Absolutely nothing (something) happens.

anywhere with you by kieunlocked

— RATED G: takes place during deathly hallows during the horcrux hunt before ron leaves, discussing where they would rather be then in a damp tent in the middle of nowhere

“One-Shot of Ron and Hermione talking about places they’d rather be than the cold, miserable tent during the Horcrux Hunt. / “Though, to be honest I might rather be in the Potions dungeon right now than in this bloody cold tent any longer,” Hermione groaned, wrapping her arms around herself. / “Not the Potions dungeon, Hermione!” Ron said with mock disgust, slinging an arm around her easily, effortlessly. As if he’d done it a million times. And when Hermione thought about it, he really had been doing it quite a bit lately.”

don’t talk (put your head on my shoulder) by sarahxxxlovey

— RATED T: shell cottage, pre relationship, aftermath of torture, missing scene, takes place during deathly hallows

““I don’t know what I would’ve done if—” Ron said in an uncharacteristically tender voice, pulling away slightly to cover her cheeks with large hands, tears dripping down his nose. “I couldn’t— I thought I was going to lose my mind.” / “Me too,” she said, swallowing and nodding, looking up at him. “I didn’t think I could take it… I—” / Words failed her. She broke down into sobs again. / “Hermione,” he said, his voice cracking, kissing her wet cheek quickly before hugging her even tighter. “I’m just so glad you're okay.””

let the golden age begin by incalculablepower

— RATED T: missing scene, during lavender/ron, during apparation testing, maybe a tad and i mean tad bit of emotional cheating, as in people mistake them for boyfriend and girlfriend and neither of them make corrections, half-blood prince, sixth year

“A couple of awkward moments in a still-healing friendship. Half-Blood Prince missing moment.”

funny little frog in my throat by anonymous

RATED T — pining, specifically pining ron, fluff and humor, idiots in love, my personal all time favorite, they’re still magical but no war au

“Ron loves Hermione. It's an ugly business, he's very upset about it, but he loves her and that seems to be the axis on which his world turns.”

self recs

meet me in the woods

— RATED T: secret dating au, starts at the end of sixth year and runs until the shell cottage scene in deathly hallows, written for romione week 2023, oblivious harry, 9k words… oops

““We could just… not tell him.” / “Just keeping it a secret? Okay.” / Whatever Joanne wrote for Deathly Hallows was NOT real. This is (trust me).”

that damned cat

— RATED G: post-war, hermione’s eighth year, crookshanks fic, cuts to around 2009/2010 i think, cat dad ron, and just general dad ron, wine uncles drarry

“Ron hates that cat—but he loves Hermione more.”

[guqin-and-flute]

Holding Me Holding You–Ch. 7 [3zun Raise Jingyi Prequel]

[Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] [Chapter 4] [Chapter 5] [Chapter 6]

[Ao3 Link]

[Holy shit, how has it been 2 years since I last updated this fic?? ANYWAY HELLO HI I MISSED YOU. We're keeping the baby, guys. CW: Disjointed, slightly nonlinear narration; negative self talk; more talk of battle aftermath, bodies (gross but no more graphic than prev chapters), and death; focus on lots of trauma to do with death and grief; general Twin Jade parental trauma; vaguest mention of child death, in that he repeatedly tells himself there isn't one and remembers part of his nightmare about Wangji/A-Fu dying]

Who are you?

‘Wen Baiqi.’

What must be done for you to rest?

‘Say goodbye. Tell her goodbye.’

It’s raining in Qishan. It’s nothing like the rain in Gusu.

Who are you?

‘Hei Xuecen.’

What must be done for you to rest?

‘All my fault all my fault ALL MY FAULT--’

This rain isn’t crisp, but disconcertingly warm. It doesn't bring life. It soaks into the ground, milling the dirt back into the blood and gore bloated mud of that night, sucking at their feet. Reeking of putrefaction. It coats Xichen’s tongue and throat.

Who are you?

Each time, there is a chance he will receive a reply from the Yiling Patriarch himself. 

‘Ye Qian.’

He never does.

What must be done for you to rest?

‘Never apologized--’

What would he do if he did?

Who are you?

What would Zewu-jun do? Clan Leader Lan?

What must be done?

Would he soothe his spirit?

Who are you?

Ghostly fingers pluck at his sleeves constantly. 

Who are you?

‘Nie Zixing. Never knew him, tell them--’

When he had first arrived, the bodies of Wei Wuxian’s Wen contingent still hung from the gate to the battleground. Or what remained of them. After scavengers, time, and the elements had had their turn. Swaying in the warm, wet breeze along with carrion birds’ cries and the distant tunes of the guqin language. Grisly pendulums. Dripping.

There is no small boy among them. He had hoped against hope, but now he knew for sure. This secret is tucked deep, deep down beneath his heart.

Who are you?

The corpses on the ground are Wen. They are Lan. They are strangers. They are Da-ge, lying bloody on the floor of the Scorching Sun Palace. They are A-Zhan.

"We should burn them like they did to our people. Scatter their ashes, so they will never rest." A venomous whisper from his own disciples, a young man, face twisted in rage.

(“They’re killing everyone,” he had choked his sobs into A-Yao’s arms. “My people--my family are all dead and I did nothing.”)

A-Yuan had been so, so pale against the sheets. So tiny compared to the infirmary bed.

“These people?" Xichen’s voice is quiet. "These cultivators that studied healing? Miles and miles from Qishan?”

Silence.

“Did they destroy our home? Did we fight them in Sunshot?”

Too little, far too late.

There is no small boy among them. There isn’t.

A-Zhan, gray and slack, eyes glassy, head lolling--

He pushes the dream-memory away.

Who are you?

‘Jin Mingni. 

My father--’

"We will bury them and hold the proper rites, as we have the rest of the fallen. And I will ask you to swear yourselves to secrecy regarding their exact resting place. In case anyone later shares your thinking.”

‘Zhou Sanniang. Never wanted to come. Save me.’

“Help me bring them down.”

There may be no small boy among the Wen, but he sees corpses all day, every day. They're in his dreams. He cannot stop seeing them. And he cannot stop seeing a boy (Afuyuanzhan) among them, from the corner of his eye.

He can never quite catch the face before he realizes there is no one actually there.

A skeletal hand is unearthed when they lift a body--a remnant of the Sunshot Campaign, years before. There were plenty of partial skeletons from that time that the Yiling Patriarch had raised to fight them. It seems some didn't have the strength to fight their way out from the mud. The death here has layers. A slow growing mountain of violence and dead and blood instead of stone. The building of the Burial Mounds’ successor.

Do the Burial Mounds have as many crows? Is it a feasting ground, as this has become?

They carry the quiescent dead, cover them with cloth, lay them in rows. Those whose spirits have passed on easily. They lie with their Sect members--when they are able to discern who they are. Still, fields of undyed cloth mounds, waiting to be retrieved by their loved ones, if they still live. Somewhere out there, there must be people still alive, families whole and happy, living in the sunshine. Somewhere.

Who are you?

His fingertips bleed from days playing Linhai and Liebing.

What must be done for you to rest?

Even those here that are living shamble like the dead--the rogue cultivators, his Lan disciples, the handful cultivators from other Sects, all here for the same goal, all hollow eyed and pale. He is supposed to be here for morale. 

They work deep into the night, far from familiar, ingrained rules about schedule and tidiness, here. Adrift.

What must be done--?

The fierce corpse is not a powerful one, merely tenacious. Shuoyue snakes out. It crumples immediately with a muted splurch into the muck, halved.

‘Tell her I loved--’

The top half of the corpse writhes, still scrabbling for him. The sound it makes from its ruined face is horrid. It's a wonder it can sense his yang qi at all; no eyes, no nose. Its robes are a splotchy black and rusty brown-red, but the Lan ribbon around its forehead manages to show a ragged white through it, here and there.

The talisman sears, blinding. It is enough. The body slumps for the last time. He can settle into that mud, summon Linhai from his qiankun bag for the Songs of Rest.

Who are you?

‘Lan Ruicai.

Show them all--’

The blood of the walking dead is no longer life-hot, but the same, unnerving lukewarm as the rain. He cannot feel it. He can’t tell where it’s stained him until he reaches his tent each night. 

He is efficient. He is in control.

The rain here doesn't cleanse anything. It hasn’t stopped for days.

Everything is the same color; the sludge, the thick haze of lingering resentful energy, palms, boots, the hems and knees of robes. That old clotted wound color. Dirt repelling talismans can only do so much before they are overpowered by the sheer weight of yin energy permeating everything. Stained.

There's no use cleaning. He tries anyway.

‘I was so scared, so scared--’

Who are you?

Sometimes, the spirits do not answer. Sometimes, they speak first, before he can even start the questions, raking the strings repeatedly in their anguish. Sometimes, they try to tear the guqin from him, try to rend his clothes, squeeze his throat. Sometimes, banishment is the only way. 

The sudden shrieks and roars at night startle everyone from sleep. If Wangji was well, he would be here. He is known for going where the chaos is.

Is that what had led him to this? To Wei Wuxian? An affinity for soothing chaos? For chaos itself?

Who are you?

‘Don’t know. Want to go home--’

"I can't anymore, zongzhu, I-I--"

"It's alright. Return to the Cloud Recesses. You’ve done enough."

Sometimes, he wakes in the night to find that he is in the middle of dressing, having no memory of doing so, a clump of cleansing talismans clutched in his numb hands. He has cut down so many fierce corpses, he’s lost count.

Who are you?

Food is tasteless glue in his mouth.

Who are you?

Every night, he is sure to take the medicine that gives him no dreams.

‘Oh gods oh gods ohgodsohgods--’

Every night, he prays that he has not left Uncle overwhelmed, that his people are being cleansed and healed back home, that Wangji has stopped bleeding, that A-Yuan is healing, that A-Fu is….

Who are you?

(What right do you have?)

What must be done?

He has been here for days that run into one, long, dark, meaningless drain. 

‘Son. Baby. Where is he?'

Who are you?

‘Pan Liu.’

His raw fingers pause on Linhai’s strings, still humming. Rain patters quietly on the hat that shields his face from it.

He knows that name. How does he know that name.

There have been plenty of others he had recognized among the dead, from different Sects and his own, from childhood, from Cultivation Conferences, from class. But each time, he must pull himself back to that life to remember, away from the rain and the red and the dead.

He can’t place it.

What must be done for you to rest?

‘My baby. Safe.’

The spirit is a thin wisp of light, playing about the strings, shining on the dark wood. Focused. Waiting.  

Who is your son?

‘Lan Fu.’

His mouth is dry.

("A-niang?" A hopeful little voice. The memory of a crumpled form in the blood-churned muck, a shoe print between shoulder blades….) 

It is cruel, endlessly cruel that he is the one alive. That he is the one sitting in the mud across from this poor young mother’s spirit. That he is the one with blood enough in his hands to leave rain blotted stains on the strings as he tells A-Fu’s mother; He is safe.

(Shrieks of raw sound as they carry him away. Echoing off the trees. Reaching back for him.)

A hesitation. Then, ‘Who are you?’

Lan Xichen. Zewu-jun.

‘Zongzhu.’

He will be safe. I swear. 

‘...Safe.’

Rest, now.

‘...Rest….’ The notes are quiet, exhausted. Longing.

Then, silence. That pale light is gone. 

She is gone.

He sits, still and silent as the soft caverns in the clotted mud continue to patter around him. His face is wet--mist and rain and blood. He almost wishes it was tears. 

He aches in a new, terrible way, now.

Oh, little one. You were so loved.

He has been witness to both sides, now, of this small, destroyed family reaching for each other through the dark. And how useless he has been in the task of bringing either of them lasting peace. 

To bring anyone lasting peace. 

(Useless.)

And do you serve anything so fiercely that it would be your last thought, taken across into death? 

It is irrelevant. The soul quieting ceremony had been performed on them as children, with all the other inner disciples. He will not linger as a ghost, even if he were to be struck down by a fierce corpse this instant.

He finds himself trying to remember if his mother had ever mentioned having had such a ritual performed on her….

Selfish. You would have your own mother suffer and linger as an unquiet ghost for some sort of twisted confirmation that you were loved? 

Xichen remembers childhood before the death of his parents. The infinity of all of it. It probably never crossed A-Fu’s mind to beg her to stay with him. (“No, no go! P’ease!”) She had always returned before. 

The memory of A-Fu clinging to his hands so tightly he had drawn blood with his nails is inescapable. 

During that final farewell at the Jingshi, A-Huan too had had no idea it would be the last time he would ever see his mother’s face. He didn’t know what creeping death looked like, then. She was simply her, smiling, twinkling at them.  He had kissed her cheek and taken Wangji’s hand and waved to her through her ornately carved window screen as Uncle led them away. Wangji had always been the one to pull back, to fuss over leaving. Uncle had always made sure that Xichen set a good example for him.

The snowy day she had left this world, cold and dry, so far from the warm wet muck he was in now, something in him hadn’t believed it. Hadn’t believed that someone could just…no longer exist, just as suddenly as a storm might blow over the mountain summit with no warning. 

He saw her so sparingly, it seemed impossible that she wasn't just simply waiting in her front room for them to visit with a smile and open arms.

How? he had asked. When? Why?

Uncle had said that it was not for children to know. This pulled it even farther into the unreal, stretching his comprehension. It felt like a dream, a lie. A story. But if he could just see her…if he could just prove that this was some sort of…misunderstanding--

(Xichen had never asked again after that first refusal sat in his gut like a chilly stone. He suspected that Wangji had not either. Even now, decades later, he still did not know how his mother had actually died. 

He suspected enough, however. 

He knew it was sudden. He knew it was unexpected. He knew no one spoke of it. He knew it had broken his father beyond any hope of repair. Uncle had not volunteered the information, even now, when they were both grown. And Xichen will not allow useless rumination. Rule 60.)

 He remembered he hadn’t been able to stop crying. A-Huan had always hated crying--he always tried to hide away and not bother anyone with it, but this had been constant. 

Uncle had squeezed his shoulder and spoken softly, and reminded him after hours of stopping and starting that he must not grieve in excess, that he would make himself sick, that he was agitating Wangji, that he needed to calm himself, death was a natural passing, like the moon or a river, one must not let their emotions control them.

But still, that something in him that just knew it wasn't true waited until it was dark, until curfew set in and the snow lit the night full-moon-bright, reflecting the stars and lanterns. He had pulled on his boots and slipped from his window, cautiously darting across the paths of the Cloud Recesses in just his pajamas and his blanket wrapped tight around his shoulders, shivering from more than the cold. 

This had to be a trick that he didn’t understand; a joke or a punishment for something he had done wrong. When he figured out what to apologize for, he would be able to see her again. 

The fear of being caught breaking the rules was washed away when he crossed beneath the familiar bower wound with skeletal winter vines. His mother’s house stood dark. All around it, snow was churned and broken, as if many people had been there. In all his memory, no one else had ever visited the Jingshi. The door was unlocked. 

It opened onto emptiness and moonlight. 

Everything was gone.  Her plants. The blue cushioned couch. Her desk and papers. Her dragon incense burner. Her tall candlesticks. Her big, thick, round rug they laid on and played games. The pictures he had painted for her.

He had drifted, stunned, through the shell of his mother’s home. The only proof that she had ever even been there were the scratches on the floor from where furniture had been dragged. That, and the scent of her that still lingered underneath the smell of whatever they had scrubbed the floor and walls with. They had erased her completely. Like she was never there in the first place.

Then it had settled on him like a cloak of lead, dropping him to his knees; the understanding, the true deepness of what this meant.

She was really gone. Forever. 

The ‘always’ was gone. The ‘next time’ and promises. That warm, constant presence on the rim of the Cloud Recesses, the visit that marked his days as cyclically and surely as the sun had simply...vanished. In just one moment, the world was made completely lightless. Incomprehensible. It had a hole ripped in its center, cold and inescapable.

She would never brush back his hair and kiss his forehead. She would never pout when she lost a game. She would never squinch up her nose and do an accidental snort-laugh.

If he had only known that it could happen so fast…if he had only known that people could leave so quickly and completely, he would have taken something. A set of her dark, weighty chopsticks, one of her bracelets, a letter; anything. But there was nothing.

Somehow, he had found himself in front of the Hanshi, his feet numb, his face and hands frozen. Thinking back on it, he couldn’t remember what his 6 year old self had planned. He wasn’t sure that there had been a plan. Maybe he had just wanted a parent. Maybe he had been seeking out the one adult that might have cared as much as he did that his mother was gone. Uncle didn’t understand--A-Huan and A-Zhan had always known that he didn’t like her. He was always polite, because that was important, it was in the rules--but he was always stiff and short. He frowned the whole time--every time--picking them up. He hated talking about her.

But the father he had hardly met, that distant, hidden figure--he had married her. He had loved her.

He would care.

The Hanshi, too, had been dark--and he panicked. Had his father left--or died like his mother and no one had told him? He had yanked the door handle--and to his shock, it slid open. He had been expecting a lock like the one that he saw being done up behind them when he and A-Zhan left the Jingshi. (A choice, not a prison, he had realized as he got older. Not in the same way, at least. Other things kept Qingheng-jun bound.) 

It was dark inside, curtains drawn, vague shapes of things illuminated by the light creeping in behind him. He stood in that doorway, frozen in body and mind, unable to trespass that much farther. It smelled unfamiliar and sharp. He had never been in his father’s home before. 

It was so dark.

He had called into that darkness, choked and quiet; “Fuqin?“ 

Silence. 

“...Diedie?”

(“They made choices. These are consequences,” is all Uncle had told him when, younger, he had asked why both of his parents were locked away from him and refused to say more.

Afterward, A-Huan had always been afraid that he might accidentally make those same choices, that he would be kept from his brother and his Uncle and nannies for it. Because no one would tell him what those choices were, he studied the rules obsessively so he could be sure to follow every single one. So he would never be locked up.)

There was a rustle, a clink. A shape had formed in the shadows, someone sitting up from being slumped on a table. A pale hand swayed into the pool of silver moonlight, pointing. The voice that followed had been rough, slurred like a mouthful of rocks. “You are not supposed to be here. Go.”

A-Huan had fled as fast as his numbed legs could go. Stumbling, breaking through the crust of snow, falling and rising and falling, back up through his window to collapse on the floor. His breath had burned in his lungs as he coughed and sobbed as quietly as he could, hot tears stinging his frozen cheeks.

Not quietly enough, though. A-Zhan had eventually crept into his room and curled up next to him on the floor without a word, arm wrapped around his middle.  When A-Huan had rolled over and held him more tightly than he had ever held anything before, he realized that A-Zhan was the only part of his mother he had left in the entire world.

And now, what did A-Fu have left of his parents, of a life he knew? 

A story, at the very least. A reason. A goodbye. The truth. It was all he could offer. It was all he had left for the boy. These other spirits and their wishes can only be passed along to others, if they were attainable at all. But this, this he can do; this, he can set right. To make absolutely sure that her will is found and executed, that the family who cares for her son is told the story of her last farewell, so he will know, too, in time. 

So a son will never have to wonder.

This much peace, he can provide. With those who can bear this place no more and an endless caravan of cloth draped bodies, he returns to Gusu, leaving behind Qishan’s bleeding sky.

-

The quiet of home stuns him. There are no screams, no groans echoing down the mountain. The trees don’t muffle sounds of sword or talisman sizzle, merely birdsong and wind. There is beauty here, something he hadn't known his soul craved like water in a drought until he saw it in rich blues, blooming whites, lush greens. The coolness, the clarity of the water and the touch of leaves. Nothing here is red-brown. All that bleeds is hidden away behind pale bandages and pale walls.

It's almost too much. 

(His hands feel filthy, no matter how many times he scrubs them. Discontent among such blessings is an insult to those that can no longer come home to them. He will kowtow in the shrine for this disrespect later.)

Time has meaning once more. In theory. There are places to eat, to rest. 

(It hardly makes sense to him anymore, despite the schedule being as familiar as the stone beneath his feet.)

Home, in the Hanshi, surrounded by familiarity and comfort, sitting at his desk as the incense burner next to him delicately permeates the air with sandalwood and the trees outside rustle and no one screams at all, he holds Pan Liu’s will in his hands. It is a brief, frail little thing in the face of such sorrow. It must have been hastily written after her husband’s death, as she willed A-Fu and her remaining possessions to the care of her younger sister. Who upon brief investigation of his ever growing list of the dead was found to have been killed in the battle against Wei Wuxian as well. The sister, yet unmarried, had no will of her own--probably too young to have begun to even consider death as a real possibility before life and Wen and war swept their way in. Their house had been one destroyed in the Wen’s sacking of the Cloud Recesses, their personal possessions few. No one else remained of their immediate family.

Pan Liu clearly had not expected to die before she could update it.

In his heart, somewhere, he had known that something like this was the case; that A-Fu was truly alone. Xichen had carried him for days and no one had come looking? No one had wondered where he was, wanted him home safe, with them? 

He had not wanted to look directly at this, at the time, knowing he would have to give A-Fu back to that loneliness, that uncertainty. Even though A-Fu is not the only child in the Cultivation World or even the Cloud Recesses with the same fate, it had been…different. He couldn’t have said why--still can’t--but it had felt like a betrayal to the boy. A loss, savage and personal. Even when he knew any other choice came nowhere close to making sense.

Still. Even he and Wangji had had their uncle and the small, rotating cadre of minders that were familiar to them. He saw his mother once a month and knew his father was there, somewhere, out of sight. There had been a thread connecting them to their parents and the life they could have had with them. 

A-Fu has none of this. 

And yet he still cries, still calls out, because he trusts that someone he knows will come. Of everything in these last few days, this is what is almost too much to bear, a knife stuck in his ribs that gouges with every breath. He does not feel sadness or regret; only pain. Everything else has been out of reach for a while now.

The rattle of his door opening onto seeping sunshine and fresh, bloodless air has him looking up. His Uncle steps over the threshold. “You’re back,” he says warmly by way of greeting as Xichen rises.

“Shufu.” He bows, then offers him his customary seat, more out of habit than necessity; this teatime visit was a familiar ritual in a life not too long ago.

 They take their places at opposite ends of the low, square table at the center of his sitting room as Xichen opens his tea cupboard. “It’s been a while since we have been able to simply sit and have tea together,” Uncle observes, easily.

Yes; nothing has been right or normal for a long time. “Mn.”

When he continues to set out the cool porcelain cups and the dark pot with no further elaboration, Uncle watches him work, expression a thoughtful blur in his periphery.  “...The library is not where I expected your first stop to be.” 

He sounds only mildly curious, but Xichen knows that it is unspoken approval that he had not gone straight to Wangji.

He hesitates, then continues his methodical ritual of movement. “There was a time-sensitive matter that I wanted to attend to.”

In truth, after the bath he had taken upon his return--where he had had to call for 3 rounds of water (Do not be wasteful, Rule 23; broken) before it was no longer clouded dark with dried blood and mud and rot--Xichen had stood on the Hanshi’s front porch, staring down at the blindingly white path before him, forking off through the trees. 

His heart had tugged him one way and his cowardice in the face of pain another. The thought of seeing more bodies just lying there, of seeing those dear to him--Wangji, A-Yuan, those in the infirmary--suffering while he could do nothing to prevent it was….

It was not something he was capable of, at present. Just for now. Just for these first few hours. It was selfish, but true. And so, he had gone to their records room in the library to request Pan Liu’s will. Pain had won. His heart was weak, choosing the easier duty.

Unable to stop himself, though he knows it will cloud his uncle’s relaxed and pleasant demeanor, he asks; “Is Wangji…?” He trails off. 

Awake? Improving? Well? …Alive? A sharp internal rebuke at this last. Do not exaggerate. Rule 671. Uncle would not be so calm if things were dire. He is angry, not cruel. He would have been told.

(A heavy hand on his shoulder. An empty house. Churned snow.)

He would have been told.

Uncle’s face does, indeed, darken. “Hmph.” A mirthless, scornful snort. “He wakes on occasion. He refuses to speak, refuses to acknowledge anyone. He is simply lengthening his own punishment.” Uncle eyes him, adding, “You should be able to talk some sense into him. He always has listened to you best.” 

‘And so how could you have let this happen? How could you have let him do this?’ 

(When will you stop being angry and start being afraid for him?)

Xichen lowers his gaze to the dark wood of the table and scoops the tiny, furled up leaves of the tea into the pot, the smokey green scent tickling his nose

It’s true. Of everyone--their caregivers, teachers, and relatives, Wangji has always responded to him best. He would not always necessarily disobey outright, but he might frown or hesitate before complying or pretend not to hear--especially if he were called to come away from Xichen’s side. “Your class is this way, xiao-gongzi,” the minder would call and A-Zhan would continue his resolute little stride beside him, hand squeezing tighter around Xichen’s fingers the only indication he had heard anything at all. 

It was when Xichen squeezed back and knelt down to straighten his robes, smiling up into his serious face, saying, “It’s alright, ZhanZhan; I’ll ask if I can come out early to pick you up, mn? Go on, be good,” that he would allow himself to be led away with no further fuss.

 He had been the only one who could finally convince him that kneeling in the rocky ground every month when they should have been visiting their mother would not force anyone to bring her out to them. The first time, he had asked him to come in, come home. But knew his brother. He was not surprised when he silently refused to even show he had heard him. 

And so he hadn’t asked again, never having the stomach to fully destroy the hope that he would be let back into the Jingshi if he just waited long enough. 

But Uncle had become frustrated, their teachers and nannies muttering. They were impatient with his refusal, seeing it as disobedience. They didn’t see his mourning, only his stubbornness. So A-Huan had had to protect his brother's soft heart from those that didn’t understand. “We can kneel together, back at home,” he had whispered, his fingers screwed tight around A-Zhan’s cold hand. “I’ll wait with you as long as you want. But niang would--” his throat had caught and he had wrestled his tears from his voice. “Niang would hate if you got sick, sitting out here in the cold all day.”

A-Zhan’s dark eyes had bored into him, thinking. Reason and punishment and demands from adults had not moved his stubborn frame one inch, month after month after winter-to-spring month. 

Then, finally, this second and last time, A-Zhan had listened to him. Whatever it was about him was what finally got his little brother slowly, stiffly to his feet to hobble back home with him. Xichen remembered that he hadn’t felt relieved at all. He just felt like he had taken their mother from him all over again.

“I will speak with him, shufu.”

 Uncle nods, then heaves a sigh. “What news is there from Qishan?”

Mechanically, as if operating his own mouth from across the room, Xichen relays numbers, movements, and times. He almost reflexively scolds himself for lying; the mundane description of dry duty and the lived horror so far from one another that they were entirely irreconcilable. Just words passed across a shining table over fragrant tea, cool wind brushing the sun-pale windows serenely with tree shadows

When he reaches the final fate of Wei Wuxian’s executed Wen contingent, Uncle approves. “It was wise to swear the disciples to secrecy. This has all gotten so inhumane. Denying them burial was an unnecessary cruelty,” he says heavily as he shakes his head, eyes closed in weariness. “I pray that we are done with this madness at last, with that Wei Ying finally taken care of. What a mess.”

There is silence. Xichen cannot fathom what his response to that could possibly be. Should possibly be--as Wangji’s brother, as the Lan Clan Leader, as his uncle's nephew. As Wei Wuxian’s…what. Friend? 

…As one who cannot delight in his death, in any case. 

Despite the period of kneeling before the Jingshi, Wangji had never been a troublemaker growing up. He was always the Jade who grasped the Lan way of life more easily, molded himself to the rigidity of the rules with that same stubborn tenacity. 

It was Xichen who failed in that, who smudged the black and white lines to gray, bent them so they were slightly more comfortable around him; bearable--once he discovered that they could be. 

He was the one who accidentally got drunk trying to see if he could filter out alcohol with his core, he was the one to kiss Mingjue first in the Jin Gardens during a Cultivation Conference. The one to urge his brother to befriend a talented teenager who was gleefully and repeatedly stomping all over their Clan’s ancestral rules.

He was the one who had told Wangji to step outside his rigid view of the world, to see people for their hearts. And then Wangji's own heart had been torn out. As his uncle said; Wangji had always listened to him best. This much would never have happened without Xichen's deliberate meddling. 

All those years ago, when Wei Wuxian had first cannonballed into their lives, Xichen had just wanted Wangji to be happy. To have friends. Alone didn’t always mean lonely, but he knew he saw it in his brother. Saw Wangji with peers who were merely in awe of his talent, who respected but did not like him, love him, know him, want to spend time with him. He knew the difference, no matter what Wangji showed the rest of the world. The older he got, the less he smiled--the soft, secret ones that so many others failed to see. Xichen had missed them, dearly. And so he had pushed.

Everything that has happened sense feels as if it’s unshakably all his fault.

As the tea is poured, they speak; it passes over him like clouds. Which elder is still in which stage of recovery. The smith they called to repair swords and assess the spirits of those now without a handler. 

Something touches him.

 “Xichen!” 

His hand burns. He is on his feet. Shuoyue’s naked blade buzzes, ready in his hand. He does not remember moving. Every fiber of cloth on his skin feels alive and writhing. Blood courses. Scalding tea is cooling, dripping from his knuckles.

The touch had been spiritual, not physical. From the corner of his awareness and the Cloud Recesses boundary wards at once; a warning, tasting of wild metal (close to blood, so close). 

The Western Wards, crossed.

“Do not unsheathe your blade in a residence!” Uncle’s face crinkles from shock to a wince. “And contain yourself, this is not a battlefield.”

It takes a moment. His killing intent is up, streaming from his core like a river of blades, of blood. 

Sucking in a breath, he takes the torrent in internal hand and yanks it back, firmly, like the reins of a horse, winding the silk rope of it over again and again in the palm of his concentration, until the thrum of it eases. The pressure that had filled the room with the promise of death ebbs. Shuoyue hums warm, expectant. When he does finally sheathe her, the connection between them flickers, confused. 

Above his hammering heart, he hears Uncle continue, frowning, “I felt it, too. Was it someone passing outward or inward?”

His tongue, his mind is mud-stuck slow.

Focus. There is no battle here. You are home. Get a hold of yourself.

“...Outward. Less resistance. Nothing powerful.”

Oddly, at this Uncle’s frown deepens, shadows of concern replacing mere puzzlement. “Hmm. Those were in the West…far….” After a moment of thought, he rises.

As he steps out the door and calls for a servant from the Hanshi’s porch, Xichen continues to try to pull in slow, deep breaths.

Have you regressed to being such a novice that you cannot control your own qi? Your own battle intent? Are you a child? Though his uncle's voice is low and his attention is divided, the words ‘searchers’ makes it through the pounding blood in his ears. Strange.

When Uncle slides the door back open, Xichen asks, “Searchers?”

His silhouetted form hesitates, framed by the sunlight that pours in behind him and dazzles Xichen’s eyes, leaving his expression briefly in shadow. “...Yesterday evening, a child managed to wander into the woods alone.” A spike of cold worry threatens to heighten the wild surge of energy within him once more as his uncle continues, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. “We have had several teams scouring the backhill and the whole of our land since then. They are young enough that their spiritual signature isn’t strong enough to register on normal tracking talismans.”

“Why was I not told?!” 

It burst from him, harsher from shock than he had meant and Uncle blinks, pausing in settling himself back onto his seat, brow furrowed.

But he cannot bring himself to care about disrespect, just now. Any child alone and lost is terrifying, awful. There is something, though…something about his tone, his expression that has breath caught in Xichen’s throat as slow, glacial horror creeps up from the depth of his gut. He is avoiding specifics. 

Why.

 “It is being handled already; why would I distract you from your duties? You’ve only just returned and you must--”

“Who. Which child.”

He huffs in irritation, brow furrowing further. And he shuts his mouth, lips compressing.

Xichen no longer needs an answer.

Behind him, he can hear Uncle’s voice raised in startled alarm, but he is already out the door, already leaping from the porch onto Shuoyue. The wind howls in his ears as shoots upward, speeding west to where he had felt the wards ring within him. To where A-Fu has just crossed beyond their safety.

He knows. He doesn’t know how, but he knows.

Xichen can barely breathe around the air battering his face and his own terror. The shrieking sky threatens to rip him from Shuoyue’s blade. Everything at once feels heightened, his awareness expanding to notice how chilly it is despite the sun, how the damp of the wind tearing at his hair and clothes tells of rain in the past day, how dark the woods look beneath the thick canopy blurring by below his feet. He had been alone and cold and terrified, out all night. Had the boy been trying to find his mother? Xichen? The thought made his gut writhe within him.

(They peel his little fingers from Xichen’s sleeve as he clutches and screams…)

Please please please please please

How could this happen? How could he have ever allowed this to happen? There were rivers, cliffs, steep slopes of scree, ponds, caves, animals--gods, animals alone would--

He is well enough to move, to cross the wards.

If it was him. If it were not a strong enough spiritual animal to trigger the alarm. 

There is no boy hanging among them THERE IS NO--

The invisible boundary rears up in his senses, mere seconds full tilt sword ride from the Hanshi but so, so far for a tiny child, wandering in the night. Beneath the canopy, before Shuoyue even manages to drop to a reasonable height and speed, he has already leapt off, landing at a sprint. Internally, the memory of the disruption in the web of the spell warps around his spiritual awareness like a broken arch as he crosses in that exact place. The ground is not suddenly more treacherous, the trees no more menacing, but beyond the relative safety of the Cloud Recesses, his hammering heart sees the whole world is a death trap for this little child.

(He cannot bear to see a tiny body, he can’t, he can’t--)

Skidding to a stop, he wheels in place, eyes scouring everything at knee level and below. “A-Fu!” his throat is pinched, his mouth bone dry. “A-Fu?!”

The ground cover is thick with bushes, shrubs, trees both young and fallen. The sun shines spots into his eyes through the swaying leaf cover above, dappling the floor with shadow and light, dancing, blurring. Silence. Even the birdsong had stopped when this strange being had suddenly crashed into their peaceful little clearing. He sucks in a breath to call again--and then he hears it.

There is a small child crying somewhere nearby. 

Quiet and hoarse but unmistakable.

He isn't slow, gentle, or cautious or anything that a terrified child might need right now; something else has a hold of him, now. He blindly crashes through the brush towards the sound, half skidding down a slope until--until! There! 

A blur of white amongst tree roots halfway down, a curled shape and-- “A-Fu!”--a little face, smudged and red cheeked and tear stained raises and his little eyes light with recognition and he scrabbles, fumbling and crawling out as Xichen tears back up the slope--slips, rights himself--and reaches and the boy throws himself off the lip of the hollow and into his arms, colliding hard with his chest like his heart coming home. 

He staggers, momentum and sudden weakness buckling his knees. A gnarled tree catches his side and he slides them down into the huddle of its roots, curled around him. Against his chest, wrapped in his arms, A-Fu is damp and chilly. He is covered in muck and sticks and burrs but he’s alive--alive--safe and hiccuping and piteously hoarse, tangling his hands through Xichen’s hair as he clutches him back, gasping.

He can breathe. He can finally breathe again.

Some unnameable agony, like some wild beast, is thrashing, welling up, bursting from his chest. It shakes him, tearing at his throat, his heart, his lungs, burning. It’s not relief. It's not fear. It’s…

Heedless of stitches cracking and bursting, he yanks his thicker outer robes open and over the child, tucking him deep into the pocket of warmth. He can feel him shivering, his tiny heart speeding.

He had forgotten that his head is so warm, that his hands are so tiny, just how real his weight is in his arms. When he buries his nose in the baby fluff of his hair, under the dirt and musty forest chill is that wild-sweet child smell he remembers from carrying him for days beneath his chin--and long ago from when Wangji was young. 

He tries to pull back to check him for injuries, for bruising, but he latches onto his neck and sobs. Mere minutes before, Xichen had never wanted to hear another scream again--but now he wishes A-Fu’s cries were as loud as the first day he held him, deafening and demanding, sure and strong in their conviction. These sobs are private, weak, exhausted little things. Not calling for attention. No longer certain of a trusted adult’s return.

“P’ease,” he croaks and that pain, that pressure bears down on Xichen and it feels like drowning; it feels like dying.

“I know. I know. I’m sorry. I’m here,” he whispers back, thick and choked (that thing inside him that aches, that wails, that loves is strangling him), and he draws up his knees, he wraps his robes tighter and rocks and rocks them both as it breaks--all of it, calving and crashing and surging and molten and ugly and broken--and he wants to beg ‘scream, little love, scream your heart out; someone is coming, someone will always come,’ but he doesn't have enough breath as it tears from his locked throat in silent sobs, because with unworthy hands and heart, he holds this blameless little life that has wandered through the halls of his heart leaving muddy fingerprints, and does the cruelest, most selfish thing he can ever recall doing. 

He realizes that he cannot let him go again. 

[bloodstained-porcelain-doll]

The Kneeling Queen, ch 6 - Aemond Targaryen x OC

Read on AO3

Summary: Aemond Targaryen and Maelessa Velaryon were childhood lovers. They were each other’s only comfort in a world full of darkness. When they grew up, their love blossomed until they were the only thing the other cared about. Their lives get increasingly complicated due to the fact that they’re supposed to be on opposite sides of the war. Will their love survive or will it burn to ash as the war ensues?

Chapter warnings: Angsty angst, aftermath of Aemond killing Luke

Chapter 6 - Mishaps And Misplacements

A few days passed before Aemond returned to King's Landing. Maelessa had grown thoroughly bored of being locked up in her chamber, she had started trying to negotiate with the guards who brought her food, trying to convince them to bring her out for a walk at least. She had almost succeeded with one of them using her flirtatious ways, but when her robe slipped down and exposed the bloody name on her chest, he had remembered himself and turned her town. 

A terrible storm raged the night Aemond returned. Storms seldom reached the capital, but this one brought rain and thunder with it. Maelessa loved thunderstorms, her favourite thing was to sit and read a book while listening to the rain and thunder. This night she laid in her bed with a new book she had bribed a guard to bring her, almost dozing off as she flipped through the pages. Sometime in the night she fell asleep with the book still on her chest.

There was a loud bang on her door that woke her up with a gasp. She grabbed the dagger she kept on her nightstand and was ready to attack. But the sight that greeted her when the doors flew open was no stranger coming to harm her, but her own silver haired prince, standing soaking wet in her doorway, breathing heavily.

“Aemond!” she burst out, tossing the dagger aside to run and greet him. But as she rose, she saw his face. He was crying, his eye was red, and he looked devastated, completely and utterly torn up. “Aemond, what’s wrong?” she asked and when she ran to him, he fell to his knees, throwing his arms around her hips and hiding his face in her stomach.

“Forgive me, Maelessa, please forgive me,” he sobbed, clutching her robe and pulling her impossibly close to him, inhaling her scent.

“What happened, my love? Talk to me,” she urged, running her hands over his wet hair.

“I didn’t mean for it to happen, I’m so sorry, it was an accident,” he cried, holding onto her as if he feared it would be his last time. Grief overwhelmed her, seeing her prince like this, and all she wanted was to help him, to take him in her arms and comfort him.

“Mean for what to happen? Aemond, tell me!” She shook his shoulders, impatient to hear what had him so torn up.

“Luke was there, he was leaving a message from your mother. There was an altercation, I didn’t mean for it to escalate the way it did.” He sniffed and sobbed, running his hands down her silky robe and looking up at her for the first time. Anxiety ripped at her chest when she heard her brother’s name. “We both got on our dragons to leave… The storm raged. I chased him. I never intended for it to happen this way… his dragon tried to burn Vhagar, I tried to tell her no, I told her to stop… Maelessa, I lost control of Vhagar… She acted on her own accord… In one bite they were gone,” he cried, hiding his face in her robe again and sobbing loudly. 

Maelessa’s blood grew cold when she realised what he was saying. Her little brother was dead, and his dragon, too. By Aemond’s hands.

“You killed them,” she whispered with tears falling from her eyes. His sobs grew louder and she felt him nod. War would follow, there was no doubt. All that she had ever known was about to be torn to shreds. Lucerys. Her heart felt heavy, her head dizzy. Her little brother. At the hands of the love of her life. Luke. Little Luke. Dead. And Arrax, too. In her mind she saw them falling from the sky, torn to shreds by Vhagar’s massive jaws.

“Please forgive me,” Aemond sobbed. “It was an accident, I lost control,” he said again, clutching her desperately. Tears fell from her eyes and she wasn’t sure what to do with herself. Her hands still rested in his wet hair, and she dropped to her knees to look at him. A pang of rage washed over her before she looked into his eye. His face was pained, salty tears streaming down his cheeks as well as droplets of rain water from his hair. Regret was etched into his features, he looked mournful and ashamed. The rage turned to pain, the pain to grief, the grief to empathy. It hurt her to see him like this. In fact it hurt more than the realisation that her little brother was dead.

“I forgive you,” she sobbed and wrapped her arms around him, pulling him into her embrace. His robs wracked his body and his hands clawed at her back in relief as he whispered ‘thank you’, over and over again.

Part of her wanted to hate him for what he had done. He had destroyed her family in one impulsive fit of anger. But there wasn’t a cell in her body that could bring herself to hate him, so instead she pulled him up to stand and walked them back towards the bed. She peeled off all his soaked leathers and stripped him of all his clothes and his eyepatch as well. She dried him off with a rag and combed through his hair with her fingers. His tears didn’t stop falling even when she brought him into her bed and wrapped the warm furs around the two of them. She pulled him into her arms and kissed his forehead, singing him a Valyrian lullaby. Both of them fell asleep with salty tears stinging their cheeks, and Aemond’s hand resting on his carved artwork on her body.

On Dragonstone, Rhaenyra was driven mad with grief and rage. Daemon had brought the news of her son’s death. Aemond Targaryen had slain him in cold blood and now he kept her daughter as a hostage.

“Get her. Get Maelessa out of his claws,” she ordered through gritted teeth and tears.

“And what of Aemond?” Daemon asked. If the Rogue Prince grieved, he didn’t show it. All he showed was rage.

“I want him dead,” the black queen spoke. Daemon nodded.

“Your daughter will return home safely. Your son will be avenged.” Then he left, taking with him no one but Erryk Cargyll.

They rode Caraxes over the sea but left him outside the city in order not to be seen and thus attacked by Vhagar. Daemon laid out their plans and then they separated, splitting up in two different directions. Daemon went first to a few men of the city watch known to hate king Aegon. He entrusted them with the mission to seek revenge on Aemond, avenging prince Lucerys. A son for a son. Then he made his way towards the dragon pit.

Erryk managed to sneak all the way up to the royal chambers, locating the one he knew belonged to Maelessa Velaryon. He had the advantage of looking just like his brother, so no one was suspicious of him as he walked through the halls. He expected the princess’ chamber to be locked and barred, but the door was unlocked, even left ajar. Very strange. He entered quietly, and much to his surprise he found not only Maelessa asleep in her bed, but Aemond Targaryen curled up in her arms. His was the task to bring Maelessa home safely, not to seek revenge on the Targaryen boy, but now he had the opportunity to take out two birds with one stone. 

His armour rustled when he took a step forward, and at once Maelessa stirred, opening her eyes. They widened when she looked at him, and in a heartbeat her hand shot out to grab a dagger from her bedside table. Erryk lifted his finger, quietly shushing her. His own sword was pointed at the sleeping Targaryen prince.

“Which one are you?” Maelessa asked, disentangling herself from the prince and sitting up.

“Erryk. I’ve come to save you, princess, to bring you home safely to your mother.”

“I don’t need saving,” the girl snapped, pointing her dagger at him. She didn’t appear to be imprisoned at all, nor did it seem like Aemond was keeping her here against her will. But he was intent on keeping his word to his queen, bringing her daughter home.

“Your mother has ordered your return home to Dragonstone,” he said, inching closer to the pair on the bed.

“I already told her, my home is here.” She rose from the bed, her dagger still raised toward him. “I’m not leaving Aemond and I’m not leaving my dragon.”

“Your dragon is seen to, she will be coming home with you. Prince Aemond will not.” He took another step forward. The prince looked oddly harmless and peaceful where he lay sleeping in her bed. If not for the scar and the sapphire eye glaring open, he would look like any other boy.

“One more step and I’ll scream, waking him up. He’ll take your head for trespassing.”

“Not if I put my sword through his throat first,” Erryk threatened, growing sick of this impasse. Something in Maelessa’s eyes changed and she quickly moved the dagger to her own throat.

“If you harm him I’ll slit my own throat and my mother will have you executed, responsible for my death,” she threatened, her eyes gleaming madly at him. Daemon made this plan seem easier than it proved to be.

Erryk sighed. He racked his brain trying to come up with a new plan. The girl was insolent but clever, thwarting his plan. He couldn’t make her come willingly, so he had to act quickly. He put his sword back in its sheath and raised his hands, signalling a peaceful surrender. He glanced between Maelessa and Aemond, assuring himself that the boy was still sleeping. The second Maelessa began to lower her dagger, Erryk lunged, clapping his hand over her mouth to stifle her screams. He grabbed her around the waist and ran as fast as he could before the prince woke up. He knew the castle well and used it to his advantage as he ran, the girl desperately trying to scream and kick and hit him. Thankfully she had dropped her dagger when he grabbed her and could cause him no harm.

Aemond woke at the sound of metal clanking against the floor, and he quickly shot up in the bed, reaching his arm out to protect Maelessa. Only, she wasn’t there. He was all alone in her chamber, and the doors were wide open. He shot up from the bed, looking around in the large room. There were no signs of forced entry, the only hint that anyone had moved was the dagger he had left behind for Maelessa. The dagger was what had fallen on the floor, waking him.

Quickly he dressed and grabbed his sword, setting out to find his girl. He screamed her name until it echoed through the halls, but there was no response. At first he thought she might have gone on a walk, seeing as she had been cooped up in the room for a week, and he had forgotten to lock the door last night in his anguish. But she was nowhere to be found, and no matter how much he screamed there was no response. His heart rate quickened as the fears began to settle inside him. He hadn’t thought she resented him for locking her up, but perhaps he had been wrong. Perhaps she took the first opportunity to flee. No, she wouldn’t do that to him. She loved him. Right?

Just a few days ago she had allowed him to carve his name into her skin, and now she had abandoned him. She said she forgave him, last night. She wept for her brother, but she forgave him and took him into her bed, comforting him and caring for him. No, she couldn’t have left him willingly. His proof would be in the dragon pit, he reckoned.

Had she been taken, her dragon would still be there. Had she gone willingly, her dragon was the only escape she had. His footsteps echoed through the empty halls as he hurried down to the pit. He grabbed a torch and searched through the pit for the small dragon that was black as coal. This year was the first year Catlys was big enough to ride, but no one had made a saddle for her yet, so it would be an uncomfortable ride for Maelessa, had she taken the dragon and fled.

His biggest fear was confirmed when he didn’t find the bat anywhere in the pit. Tears of rage and betrayal burned his eye and fell down his cheek. He cried out her name one last time and then he let out a scream, as loud and as long as his lungs could take, and the dragons in the pit roared with him in his pain.

Maelessa was unceremoniously dumped onto cold wet ground, looking up to find her mother’s husband Daemon staring down at her.

“It was you! I wondered how Erryk managed to get here so quickly,” she muttered, getting up and glaring at him. He looked pleased with himself as usual.

“We’re going home. You can either get on Caraxes’ back yourself or I can bind and gag you. The choice is yours.” She scowled at him, and her own dragon came towards her to nudge her in the chest fondly. She gave Catlys a stroke on her cheek, then she shoved past Daemon angrily, resisting the urge to make a comment about how Aemond was the only one allowed to bind and gag her. When Erryk and Daemon were seated, Caraxes and Catlys took wing, beginning the flight back to Dragonstone. Angry tears pricked her eyes the entire flight, and in the moment she truly hated Daemon Targaryen.

In the far distance she heard the dragons in the pit roar and cry. An echo far more grim followed moments later. Vhagar. The gut wrenching screech of the ancient dragon could only mean one thing. Aemond knew she was gone, and it wrecked him.

Tag list: @magnificentsapphiresoul @ner-dee @sadgirlxangel

[grapejuicestyless]

Sick Of The Chase

Harry Styles x fem!reader

Summery: Y/n is what she considers a “killer.” Her relationships constantly falling apart in the same pattern, she can’t help but believe her failures are because of her. All she needed was one person to break that cycle. Based off Killer by Phoebe Bridgers.

Sometimes I think I’m a killer. I scared you in your house. I even scare myself sometimes when I’m talking, rambling on your couch. But there’s nothing I can do. This is who I am, this is who I’m destined to be. The woman with a twisted mind and an even darker dating history.

A bloody trail of broken hearts, inconsolable nights spent chasing after the next loved one who had enough and got the fuck out.

And there’s nothing I can do.

It all started the same. An innocent man and an overly believing woman crossing paths by some kind of fate. The gravity would pull us together and we’d spend the next few moments of our lives together.

We would vow to see each other again, and we would. And the next months would be spent between the sheets with lips pressing to our cheeks and lips sore from our sorry smiles.

And before the clock would strike midnight, around the year long mark achievement that marked our love, it would become too much every time. Our abilities to work things out not yet prepared for the intense fights we would have.

The drifting was irreparable as all that was left to do was sit there idly waiting for the final blow that would break the camels back.

I would watch them leave just as it began. Some fate pulling us apart as it was always meant to be. And the proclaimed love of my life would walk out just as quickly as he would enter.

How stupid I was to have fallen into the trap of my own feelings yet again. How cruel of a trick I had played on myself for believing this could be different. That he would stay.

Harry entered my life just past the new year, confetti stuck in his hair and the rose spread across my cheeks from the warmth the alcohol transferred into my blood. His curls were lively, even when matted in sweat from dancing all night.

He stayed to pick up the aftermath, as did I. The quiet enveloped us, soft breathing and footsteps uneven and heavy. How funny it was how quickly history is ready to repeat itself as soon as you forget why you were so sad.

Ever the beautiful fool, I became hooked. The sickness that came from the chase buried underneath the desperation for blood. The undying want for his arms to hold me in the coldest nights and for his laughter to ring in my ears in the most humid rain storms.

We just fit. We shared the same interests, but we’re different enough to be able to share the enjoyment of teaching each other new hobbies and skills. Everything in my life became Harry coded.

From the apron hung on the door just for him when we’d bake to the strawberry shaped bowl on my counter top that reminded me of his love for summer. I had truly drowned in my infatuation for him.

But my love and my effort was never enough, in the end. And right around that December mark, just before the year anniversary, I watched as the fights that ceased to exist became a frequent part of our routine. I watched as his happiness turned into anger and mine into a deep rooted depression I couldn’t run from.

I couldn’t sleep next to him, some nights. Even as harmless as he was. The feeling of his arms around me only reminded me of our bitter words and unresolved arguments. The couch became my sanctuary. A place where sobbing seemed easier to do, and breathing was slightly clearer.

We progressed, sick but too ashamed to admit it for weeks. Apologies lingering only to be shattered within the next few hours as the next storm rolled in.

Yet, the killer that I was, the sad, mellow woman I became in every relationship still wasn’t enough to tame the fire that was him.

I sat there, sick and tired. My mind was barely there. A machine might as well have been keeping me alive, the way I had been feeling.

The stress came through my fingers. Knuckles white from pulling out the ends in a desire to make it stop. The fragile ending of a beautiful romance too much to think about.

But Harry, even in our most difficult time, found a way to surprise me. He kissed my rotting head, watching as my feet curled under my bottom and I tried to sink into the cushions, he refused to pull the plug. He let the wire twist, watched the rope burn slowly until only a strand held it together.

He refused to walk out and leave what we had built behind. That harsh question of, what was left to do for us, became answered in that resilience he showed.

In our darkest hour, in the softest whisper he promised me, “I know there’s something waiting for us.”

The road seemed narrow, walls closing in around us but he would hold them apart with all his strength until we figured it out. The cycle breaking bit by bit. With his promise to not abandon what we had, I grew the strength to give the same back to him.

There is something waiting for us.

[maternity-morningstar]

*January 1st, 2025: In the Lust Ring, Lucifer is pacing around Ozzie's lavish living room, glancing at the 666 News broadcast with a deep sense of dread. His hands occasionally drift to his stomach.*

Lucifer: *muttering to himself, anxiety etched across his face* Come on, Charlie... please be safe...

Ozzie: *placing a gentle hand on Lucifer's shoulder* Lu-Lu, you need to calm down. Stress isn’t good for you or the babies.

Fizz: Yeah, big guy, your daughter’s tough. She’ll pull through.

Lucifer: *sighing heavily, eyes fixed on the screen* I know she’s strong, but seeing this... all this carnage... it’s hard not to worry.

*The 666 News shows images of the Pride Ring engulfed in chaos, with exterminators cutting down sinners left and right. The camera briefly pans to the Hotel, where a fierce battle is taking place. Charlie, Vaggie, Alastor, Husk, and Angel are seen fighting valiantly, but they’re clearly overwhelmed.*

Lucifer: *eyes widening in horror* That’s the Hotel! They’re in the middle of it!

Ozzie: *trying to reassure him* Look, they’re holding their own. They’ll make it.

*Hours pass, and the extermination finally comes to an end. The broadcast shows the aftermath—a decimated Pride Ring with bodies strewn everywhere. The camera cuts to an exhausted and bloodied Charlie and her crew, having barely survived the onslaught.*

Lucifer: *clutching his stomach, tears streaming down his face* Thank Hell they made it...

*Just as he’s about to collapse from relief, his phone buzzes. It’s a message from Charlie.*

Charlie: *on the phone screen, her voice shaky but determined* Dad, we made it. We’re alive. The Hotel took a beating, but we’re okay.

Lucifer: *sobbing quietly, overwhelmed by emotion* Thank you, my dear. Stay safe. I love you.

*Ozzie and Fizzarolli exchange worried glances, then Ozzie pulls Lucifer into a gentle hug.*

Ozzie: *softly* They’re okay, Lu. You’re okay. Just breathe.

Fizz: *patting Lucifer’s back* Yeah, you need to take it easy. Let’s get you lying down, alright?

*Lucifer, still shaking, allows himself to be led to a nearby couch. He lies down, his mind a whirlwind of emotions.*

Lucifer: *whispering to himself* They’re safe. They’re safe...

*Despite his exhaustion, sleep doesn’t come easy. The images of the massacre replay in his mind, and he can’t shake the feeling of dread.*

[shrubclan-lc]

4 kits under a shrub, protected from the horrors of the outside world...

A war between cats and badgers was never going to go well, Popfern knew that well, she tried to stop it, but it costed her life...

"Keep the kits safe... and the clan will live on..." She did not know what those words meant, but starclan told her them, and she told Heronstar, even if they were her last words, he needed to know.

When the war broke out, Heronstar now knew what they meant, he hid the 4 kits as best as he could, and told them to stay, and that they were loved... He knew they wouldn't see anyone after the battle.

Icemark, a cat from no clan, nor a kittypet, just a loner that wandered the forests, heard some mewing, they looked around, until they found the scent of blood, they found the aftermath, the clan once thriving now wiped out. Badgers and cats bloodied and battered, layed dead everywhere. The only signs of life was the kit that was mourning a loved one. "Hello? Are you okay?" She called to the kit, who looked up at her, The kit seemed scared for a moment, but than relief washed over their gray face. The ran up and pushed their face into their fur.

"You're here to help us right? There... There is no one left to care for us" Prancekit struggled to speak, their voice breaking in parts. Prancekit looked behind him, at his mom, then berried his face back into the strangers leg, "Please, please we need you." Prancekit sobbed into their leg.

Icemark couldn't say no, leaving a child alone after a tragedy would be a crime. But, who was 'we' is there more cats? 3 small little heads peaked out from a bush, no one would have noticed them at all, guess thats 'we'

The clan would now live through these kits, maybe not the same name or traditions, but with the same determination the other old clan did.

Also, feel free to ask the shrubclan cats about their lives :D

Starting allegiances

Moon 1

Shrubclan camp info, and Shrubclan’s territory

#shrubclan - anything shrubclan

#shrubclan art - shrubclan art that is not apart of a moon

#shrubclan moons - the moons in shrubclan

#shrubclan asks - pretty self explanatory, shrubclans asks

#shrubclan fanart - if you want to draw the cats, this is the tag for it!

[ronoken]

Dr. Technus

A cleaned up version of a writing prompt project!

Writing prompt: You're a villain, but you find yourself in a situation where you can help a child. What do you do?

***

Three hours after your fight with Superior Force, you see a news blurb about your battle. It’d been a tough one. The marvel of might™ had kicked the ever-loving crap out of your new, and now completely trashed, super suit. You’d held your own, but then he took a particularly hard swing at your dome-covered head and put you clean through a building. The outer wall had buckled, and the resulting partial collapse had given you just enough time to crash through the other side and get the hell out of there.

Fortunately, the building had been occupied, so Superior Force opted to stick around and help rescue civilians instead of finding you and ripping you apart like you were made of tinfoil. Again. This was your fifth attempt at a super suit that could withstand his blows, and he still beat you like you were an ant fighting God, which honestly wasn’t that far off when you considered how freakishly strong the hero in question was. You realize (as you’re wont to do at moments like these) that you’re lucky to be alive.

Now that you’re back in your hidden and extremely evil lair, you get a little curious about the aftermath of the fight. What building had he put you through? You were kind of seeing stars when you hit that wall. There was some screaming. That’s… about all you remember. It’s been a rough day.

Fucking heroes.

You see a newscaster interviewing Superior Force in front of a pile of rubble. Behind him, firefighters are spraying it down. You realize you must have hit a gas line. That would explain the explosion that rocked you, the building that fell on you, and so on.

“I’m just sorry I couldn’t stop her before she had a chance to hurt more innocent people,” Superior Force’s voice has a warble to it. It sounds like a mixture of sadness and rage. You have to admit, he’s extremely effective at making you feel like he’s sincere. “Picking a fight in the middle of the street is one thing, but Dr. Technus made a mistake when she decided to attack a children’s hospital.”

You freeze. You feel your blood pounding in your skull. Attacked? A children’s hospital?! You blew up a Dennys! It wasn’t even a particularly good Dennys! What is that idiot blathering about? You…

You went through a building. There was an explosion. There were screams.

Some of those screams were awfully childlike.

“We’ve been digging these children out, but there’s a lot of rubble. We’re trying to be careful, but this is…” Superior Force stops to collect himself. He looks off camera for a moment at what you assume is the remains of the hospital. “She’s a monster. For her victims, for Sunbeam, for all the children she’s killed, I promise you; we will take this murderer down.”

You scream. You throw your broken dome helmet at a monitor where Superior Force is fishing a bloody child out of the rubble. You listen to the newscaster call you a terrorist and a monster. You stare at the cracked screen, and the face of the man who put you through that building.

You remember. Your mind goes back to an image. A little girl with green eyes. Her still body in a hospital bed. Her mother sobbing beside her.

You’re a planner. A schemer. You always have been. You rarely go into a situation without having examined every potential outcome. It’s why you’re still alive. It’s why you’re one of the most dangerous villains in the world.

You almost never act without having a plan.

Almost.

You grab your portal gun.

***

Getting in was easy. You’ve had a portal gun for years. You don’t often use it because admittedly, it takes a lot of the fun out of breaking into places. When you just want to slip in and out, though? Portal gun. Most of your criminal empire was funded this way. You’d portal into a bank vault, clean it out, and portal home. No cops, no alarms, no interruptions.

But this isn’t a vault.

You adjust your lab coat around your waist and straighten your tie. Of course you have a tie. You may be a villain, but you’re not a bum. You’re a fucking doctor after all, and you can dress professionally when the mood suits you.

You step out of a storage closet and slip into the busy crowd of doctors and nurses weaving through the halls. The east wing took the blast, but the rest of the hospital was apparently unharmed. Superior Idiot managed to clear the rubble in the space of an hour, and most of the patients and staff that lived were now relocated to new rooms. Still, a lot of people were hurt. A lot of staff were taken out. They’re short-handed, and there’s a lot of wounded.

You pick a room. It doesn’t matter which one; they’re all full. You quietly open the door and step inside to see three curtains for three small beds. The staff had to pile the kids up to find a place for them. The beeping from the machines is annoyingly loud.

You slide the first curtain back. A little girl, no more than eight, is lying in a propped-up hospital bed. She’s wearing pajamas with a blue dog on them. Her skin, dark brown, is crisscrossed with bandages. Her eyes are closed.

You read her chart. She was here for Lymphoma, but now she’s… You glance at the bed sheets and notice they’re flat where her legs should be. You grip the chart in your hand so hard the clipboard cracks.

You read the other two children’s charts. A little boy with muscular dystrophy, now down an eye. A little girl with a heart murmur and a missing arm.

You take notes. You leave and go to the next room. You go to all the rooms.

When you portal back to your evil lair, you resist the urge to throw a tantrum. Tantrums are fun, but they’re not productive. You need to be productive right now.

First and foremost, you consider creating a gun to kill Superior Force. Not maim. Not torture. You want to blast a fucking hole through his head and call it a day. You’ve never… You’ve rarely gone that far.

You stop. You glance at the far wall of your lab, and at the transmogrifier ray you keep in a chrome display case. It’s easily one of your deadliest weapons, and one of the few you actively avoid using.

“She’s a monster. For her victims, for Sunbeam.”

You’ve rarely gone that far, but right now? It’s really tempting.

You shake your head. There’ll be time for killing later. Instead, you roll up your sleeves and get to work.

As you settle in to begin, you immediately recognize a problem. You’re evil. Ergo, you tend to design evil things. A little bio-plague work here, some exo suits there, a killer android or two, you know. The usual. It’s what you do. It’s what you’ve always done. It just comes easy to you. Other stuff? Not so much. You just don’t normally problem-solve for, well, situations like today. You’ve never needed to. You… You’re getting frustrated. You get yourself a coffee from your kitchenette and mix in extra cream and stevia. Deep breaths. This is a problem, and you’re a problem solver. You’re smart. You can do this.

You start with what you know. You pull up your schematics for your cyborg soldiers. God, that was a total bust of an evil scheme. The morons you hired worked just fine at first, but then they got too cocky and tried to go solo. They ended up getting flattened by the Collective Good. Still, you’d come up with some doozies while working with them. Carbon fiber bones. Nerve attachments for limbs. Cybernetics. The works.

Once you dive in, you realize it’s easy work. You’ve done this before. You’ve done all of this before, but never this small. You force yourself not to think about how tiny the fingers on the cybernetic hand are. How small the eye you’re crafting has to be. You look over your notes and pay careful attention to the feedback you received when installing these parts the first time. What hurt. What didn’t. You have to stop when you find your vision blurring as you design a skull plate for an infant.

Dammit. This isn’t what you do. You’re Dr. Technus. You’re a villain. You’re evil.

You think back to what you saw at the hospital.

You remember a little girl with green eyes lying motionless in her bed.

You’re evil. This is true. But you tell yourself that you’re not a fucking monster. You’re not… you’re not that…

You finish the plate. It’s the last piece you need.

You look at your notes and frown. This is already way out of your wheelhouse, but something still feels bad.

Then, it dawns on you.

You know how bad some of their conditions are. You scanned them as you read their charts. You bring up their medical records, one by one. You review how severe each one is. You review the causes.

This can’t be serious, you tell yourself. You’ve made diseases a hundred times worse than this on the regular in your lab. You’ve worked with these cancers and viruses and bacteria a dozen times over, at the very least! You once infected congress with six of these diseases on a whim! You…

You’ve worked with these diseases before.

The thought rolls through your mind like a freight train. You stare at the readouts. The charts. The names of the children. You remember their faces as they slept. You come to a decision.

Nanites are expensive to produce. They take time, they’re a bit finicky, and God do you hate programming them, but you’ve already got the data you need on file. You’ve got the nanite stock saved up for your attack on the financial district this Friday.

You fire up your laptop. The financial district can wait a week. You’ve got priorities.

***

You portal directly into the first room you visited the night before. The children are still there, but this time, they’re awake. You just popped into existence between them and the television on the wall behind you.

Two sets of eyes stare at you. The third child, the one missing an eye, is still asleep.

You stare back. You realize you have less than three seconds before someone screams.

“Well now!” You say in your best authority voice. Thank God you wore your medical coat. Thank God you dressed the part. “Uh, Yeah. Sorry if I surprised you. We’re, we, um, we’re trying some new technology here. At the hospital. I guess it works.”

You grin and wink. The little girl with no legs giggles. The girl with one arm smiles. That was stupidly easy.

You snap your fingers, and a blue portal opens behind you. Three medical drones float out, each carrying a small, metal suitcase. They set them down in a neat row as you click a button on your wrist. The cases let out a small hiss as they open. The medical drones float back a bit and patiently hover in place.

Okay, they’re not really medical drones. They’re part of your murder swarm, but they’re versatile, and their battery casings were large enough you could stencil a medical cross on their sides, so for today, they’re medical drones.

You realize you forgot to remove their machine guns, but then you push the thought to the side. It’s probably not important for this trip. Probably.

You lock eyes with the first girl. She’s nervous, but curious about what you’re up to. “I heard about your, um, your leg situation,” you say. Leg situation? You really are not good at this.

The little girl looks down at where her legs used to be. She rubs her thigh. “The doctors said they were crushed.” You notice the bandages need changing. God, this place must be short staffed, what with everyone dying the other day. Sue looks at you with tears on her cheeks. “Why’d they have to take my legs? Why couldn’t they fix them?”

You bite your lip before remembering that she’s a child and you’re here for a specific reason, and that reason isn’t to be an asshole. “Well,” you start, your mind racing. “So, um, yes. About that. Let’s say they were, um, getting you ready.”

She cocks her head at that. “For what?”

You pick up the new, silver legs you crafted and hold them up for her to see.

“For these.”

Her eyes grow as wide as dinner plates. She covers her mouth with her hands.

You glance at the other little girl and nod. “Give me five minutes. You’re next.”

***

The first little girl (Cassie. She excitedly introduced herself as you attached her right leg) is now walking in circles to get used to her new legs. The second is busy flexing her fingers as you finish installing a cybernetic eye into the still sleeping boy.

“My fingers feel weird,” the second little girl (Amy) says. “Are they supposed to tingle?

You shrug. You don’t look up from your work as you reply. “I just reconnected all five nerve branches in your arm to alien technology. It’s going to take a bit to calibrate your bio signature and recognize all your weird human bits. Just give it time.”

Amy’s eyes grow to the size of dinner plates. “This is an alien arm?”

Your attention doesn’t waver from the boy in front of you. Why are optic nerves so difficult to work with? “Well, only kind of. I stole the tech from an alien race, but I’ve modified it quite a bit. I’d say it’s about 30% alien? Give or take? Maybe 40%?”

Amy flexes her hand again and grins. “This is so awesome. I can feel things! It’s like a whole new arm!”

“That’s because it’s a whole new arm,” you mutter. You finish with a satisfying click as the eye powers up. It appears to be working, but the boy is still asleep, so asking him is out of the question. You nod. Of course, he’s out. He took a hit to the head. He’s in a coma with potential brain damage.

If only there was a way to fix that…

You smile to yourself.

Cassie jumps in place and laughs. “They feel just like my old legs, but stronger! I feel like I could jump to the moon!”

“I don’t know about the moon, but you’ll find those legs could outrun, um, you could do well in track.” You take out three syringes from the medical drone’s cases. “Now,” you say as you watch their smiles fade at the site of the giant needles in your hands. “Who feels like getting really better?”

You portal from room to room. You kind of have to. Distracted or not, the staff would notice your medical drones following you around. Most of the time, the kids are asleep. Sometimes, you find them awake. That’s not so bad, as the awake ones can verify your tech is working right. By the fifth room, you can hear commotion in the halls. The doctors know someone just performed a miracle. You work fast. You’d prefer not to be noticed.

You have an image to maintain.

It takes two hours, but you manage to treat every single child. Even the ones that weren’t caught in the explosion were paid a visit. You were only spotted once, and that was towards the end. You were in the NICU, installing the skull plate. You’d just finished when you glanced up to see a nurse standing in the doorway watching you. You thought she was going to scream, or run for help, or, well, something, but then you remembered you weren’t in costume. Well, you were, but not your normal one?

“What are you doing?” She asked. She took a hesitant step forward when she realized the baby’s head wasn’t bandaged anymore, but covered her mouth in shock when she heard the infant let out a cry. Per the chart, the child had been in critical condition. Now, the poor thing just wanted a bottle.

The nurse cautiously picked up the baby, her fingers dancing over where the metal plate has been inserted. Already, the nanites had rebuilt most of the skin on her head. In two more minutes, you wouldn’t even be able to see a scar.

The nurse looked up at you as you opened a portal to slip away. You expected her to say something, but she just stared at you, then at the baby, and to your amazement, she turned her back on you to find a bottle in the little table next to the child’s incubator.

You know a cue when you see one, so you stepped back into your portal and blipped out of there.

***

It’s been six weeks since your little crisis of faith. You shook off, labeling it as a momentary bout of insanity, and focused on getting right back to what you did best. You’ve knocked over three banks, two credit unions, and a diamond exchange for good measure. Your little stunt at the hospital had been thorough, and thoroughly expensive. You needed to replenish.

You also had to set the record straight. For example, Vulcan wouldn’t stop running his stupid mouth at the last Legion meeting when you all had more important things to deal with. Lately, meetings had become more focused on whether or not to officially join with the Purge (the premier supervillain organization on the planet) or to stay an independent organization.  There were benefits to both, but you personally weren’t interested in a merger. As it was, you were a senior member in the Legion of Evil. That meant you didn’t have to answer to anyone. Not that you had an issue with the heads of the Purge. Hell, you’d even had dinner with Dyspell last month. Nice gal. Very business focused. Still, you preferred being a big fish in a small pond.

And Vulcan was currently pissing in that pond.

You let his shit talk about you going soft slide the first few times, but the second he started loudly telling everyone about how you should have finished off those stupid brats when you had the chance, you decided enough was enough and put a phaser blast through the back of his skull. You had to admit, the most satisfying part of all of that was watching what amounted to a rock-covered pro wrestler collapse to the floor like, pardon the expression, a bag of bricks.

No one else gave you any crap that night. It was a most productive meeting. The vote to stay independent passed eight to three.

And now here you are, doing what you do best. That being blowing shit up and stealing some cash. Yes, it’s a little base, and armored cars are a little flashy, but you’re feeling the need to express yourself today, and you wanted to test out the latest version of your melting gun you’d been working on, so hey, why not?

With the truck on its side and the drivers knocked out, you help yourself to some cash. As you grab a sack of money, you suddenly notice that the sunlight coming through the hole in the side of the truck is now blocked.

You turn. Floating outside the car is Infinity Lass. Shit. She’s got her arms crossed, and the look on her face is, well, you’re not sure.

You force yourself not to ogle her. The white leotard doesn’t leave a whole lot to the imagination, and you dig the boots. You won’t ever outright admit she was the reason, but you bought some Jeffery Campbell knee-highs from Nordstrom out of sheer envy a while back. Still, fashion aside, you view her as a work problem. A hot work problem, but a work problem.

“Technus,” her voice is firm. How do heroes do that? The clear, projecting commands? Did they all do theater? In the back of your mind, you wonder if they have voice coaches.

“Dr. Technus, if you don’t mind?” You say with as much bravado as you can muster. This was stupid. You came here to test a melting gun, not deal with one of the strongest women on the planet. And no, you can’t melt Infinity Lass. One, it wouldn’t work. Two, it’d piss her off. Three… you wouldn’t get past two. You’d be a stain.

You ready your portal so you can try to slide the hell out of there when she clears her throat. “Dr. Technus,” she says. You pause. Since when do the heroes do manners with you? This is new. Kinda weird. “Would you mind putting down that sack of money and stepping outside?”

The absolute hell?! What is this? Why isn’t she using laser eyes or something? Why the manners? This is legitimately creeping you out. You’re so put off that you actually do as she says. It’s only 10% because she’s hot. That’s what you tell yourself.

You stare her down. This could go any number of ways. Some heroes are easy-peasy, some are a hard time, and some can absolutely wreck your shit. Infinity Lass is solidly in the third camp. Even with a full battle suit, you’d be hard pressed to hold your own. And you’re not in your battle suit; you’re in your stupid skintight heist suit. This is not hero-fighting attire. This is get in-and-out attire. You’re… Dammit. You are not dressed for today. You’ve only got a phase plaster, your cool-but-useless-against-this-problem melting gun, your portal trick, some sonic bees, a plasma grenade… Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. You can improvise, but this is already listing itself as a Bad Time in your head.

You tense. You should start with the melting gun. Yeah, it won’t hurt her, but it’ll piss her off. While she’s busy breaking it and yelling at you, you can use the bees. She hates the bees. That’ll buy you ten seconds. Then…

She reaches into her belt and slips out a small envelope. Stunned, you watch as she slowly floats down to your level to hand it to you.

“I was there,” she says in a strained voice as you stare at the envelope. There’s no name on the outside. “I saw what happened that night. The press was wrong. Tom shouldn’t have…” Her eyes go wide as she catches herself. You shrug her off. You know most of their identities, and the moron only covers his with glasses. Seriously, who does that?

Wait, she was there?

You remember the interview.

“We’ve been digging these children out, but there’s a lot of rubble. We’re trying to be careful.”

Superior Force wasn’t using a generic “we.” He was referring to her, but then where was she during the fight?

“You were there?” You ask.

She nods.

“What is this?” You ask. You open the envelope to find a folded crayon picture of a little girl with an oversized silver arm. Next to her is a doodle person in a lab coat. They’re both smiling. The text under it is a bit wobbly, but you can still read it.

“I was sitting with my daughter when you came crashing through the wall,” Infinity Lass keeps her eyes on yours, but you’re focused on the picture in your hand. “I tried to keep the ceiling from collapsing, but it all happened so fast I, I couldn’t...”

“Thank you for the arm?” You realize you just read it out loud. You look up at Infinity Lass, who looks like she’s holding back a lot of emotions.

“My daughter. Amy was, her heart, it…” She wipes her eyes and clears her throat. She’s doing her best not to lose her crap in front of you, and you honestly can’t blame her. You’d be about the same in her shoes. “She collapsed on the playground. The doctors said it was grade five, that she needed surgery, and then her, her arm was…”

And now she does lose it, and you try to be polite and look away. This is not what you came here for, but this is also kind of fascinating. You knew Infinity Lass had a daughter, but you never looked to much into it. Something about a messy divorce, a bad court case, the shitty usual. You knew the broad strokes.

Infinity Lass sniffed as she did her best to compose herself. “Amy says the arm stopped tingling, but it’s acting a little funny. Something about a twitch in her ring finger? Still, it’s, it’s a lot better than no arm. She, um, she asked if I ever saw you to, um, to give you that. And to thank you.”

You hold the paper like it’s made of porcelain. It’s… Oh God. It’s a thank you letter. It’s a thank you letter from a child you helped. This has never happened before. You’re genuinely not sure what you’re supposed to do, but a part of you is screaming that this little piece of paper is worth more than the money behind you.

“She wanted me to thank you,” Infinity Lass stresses. “A part of me realizes none of this would have happened if you hadn’t been there that night, but I, I recognize that this wasn’t… I saw the other children. The ones you helped. A nurse told me she saw you save a newborn.”

You stutter. “Look, I just, that wasn’t…”

You’re honestly grateful when she cuts you off. You weren’t sure where you were going.

Infinity Lass cuts you off. “That bought you a pass. For today. With me, at least.”

You both turn when you hear sirens approaching. She glances at the gun on your hip.

“Do me a favor?” She asks. She points at the gun. “Is that a melting gun?”

You nod dumbly. “Um, yes. Yes, it is. Works fine on metal, but I doubt it’d do more than piss you off, so, um, not to worry.”

“Would you shut up and shoot me with it already?” Infinity Lass is staring down the road at the cops that are quickly approaching.

“What?” You ask. Today is all sorts of messed up.

“Do you want to escape or not?” Infinity Lass snaps. “Just fucking shoot me and get out of here.” She bites her lip and glances back at the cops, who are only a block away. “Before I change my mind.”

You gently slide the note into your belt. You unhook your melting gun and take aim at her stomach. She flies back unusually far when you hit her, which is strange, since when you did this before, she barely flinched. She makes a point of collapsing on the pavement.

You take your cue. With a flash of blue light, you slip away as the cops pull up.

***

The next day, you’re taking some me-time. You’re sitting in a café that you go out of your way to preserve during your fights, as it serves the best pastries in town. The coffee is pretty decent, and the angry little barista is doing her best to get through her undergrad, and you sympathize with her. She wants to go into premed. You repeatedly warn her off it, but she’s stubborn. She’s feisty. She reminds you of you.

You’re halfway through your coffee and stuck on a sudoku as a blonde woman in a nice red sweater and gray dress pants slides into the booth across from you. She’s wearing glasses, but you know those eyes. That stare. Seriously. Glasses are the stupidest disguise ever.

You lower your own glasses and stare back. Yours aren’t… you’re near-sighted, okay? So, yes, you could fix it in a jiffy, but you’ve got a thing about eyes and, it’s not a costume. It’s not a costume.

“When I picked up Amy from school today,” the woman begins. “She told me the nice doctor lady came by during lunchtime and adjusted her arm. She says the twitch is gone, but when she threw a dodge ball, she broke a little boy’s nose.”

You snort. You can’t help it. It’s not a villainous snort, but your incognito right now, so it’s okay. “Tell her to be more careful,” you say through a smirk.

The woman stares at you for a moment before visibly relaxing. She sips her coffee, which is mostly cream and sugar. “Why did you save my daughter?”

You raise an eyebrow. “Beg pardon?”

“You heard me,” she bites back. “Why? It wasn’t for publicity. I’ve checked around. You’ve been quiet about everything that went down. Hell, word on the street is you even killed Vulcan for talking about what you did.”

“Kill is a strong word,” you point out. “He’s a sentient golem. I’m sure he’ll pop up again. Eventually.”

The woman continues. “And that armored car thing yesterday? No super suit, no real weapons… You weren’t expecting company, were you?”

You don’t acknowledge anything she says. You just sip your coffee and count the exits.

“So, why?” She asks again. “You’ve never done anything like that before. You don’t help people. You’ve never helped people. So why now? Why her?”

You hear the underlying question. “Why my daughter?”

You sip your coffee as slowly as you can. You weren’t ready for this. You take a moment to compose your thoughts. You think about the different ways you can answer her.

‘Fuck it,’ you think to yourself.

You take out your phone and scroll through your photos. You slide it across the table to show the woman a photo of a little green-eyed girl in pajamas playing with a toy castle.

“My niece, Olivea.” you say in what you hope is a casual tone. “That’s her at Christmas at my sister’s.”

The woman looks at the photo. “She’s cute.”

You nod and partially hide behind your cup of coffee as you sip it. You wonder if your trembling is noticeable. “She was six when, when her mother’s car was knocked off a bridge by Sunbeam.”

The woman tenses. You figured she would. Most folks on both sides of the line knew about Sunbeam.

“He managed to fish the car out, and my sis lived, but Olive… She’d been under too long. Died at the hospital right in front of her mama.”

The woman across from you sets the phone down on the table. She looks at you over the rim of her glasses. “You killed Sunbeam, didn’t you?”

You nod as you wipe at your eyes. Dammit. You hate talking about this. Hate it, hate it, hate it. “You’re goddamn right I killed him. Transmogrified the air in his lungs into water and watched him drown in the middle of the street.” You take another sip. “It was the most satisfying day of my life.”

“Is that why you do this?” She asks. “The crime? The killing? Is it for revenge?”

You shrug. “I do it because I’m good at it. I do it because it makes me rich.” You put your phone back in your pocket. “And because sometimes when I’m staring down a hero, I see my niece’s body laying on a gurney. I hear my sister sobbing. I remember how she drank herself to death, and how I had to bury her next to her kid. I remember the only two people I ever cared about and how they were taken from me, and then, yeah. Sometimes, it’s for revenge.”

The woman stares at her coffee for a solid thirty seconds. You feel your anxiety rising. Talking about dead loved ones and being cornered in your safe space was not how the afternoon was supposed to go.

“So, you didn’t help Amy because she was my daughter?”

You shake your head. “Carol, I didn’t even know she was in there. I just… I didn’t want… I didn’t want to be another Sunbeam. I didn’t want another…” You’re not sure how to finish that sentence. You’ve been trying hard to forget how you acted that night.

You swallow to fight back the lump in your throat. “I couldn’t take the thought of being responsible for that. I can live with a lot, but not that.”

Carol looks slightly alarmed that you used her name, but you shrug it off. Like you don’t know most of the Collective Good’s identities? Please. You’re a super genius and you got through medical school. You know what’s up.

Carol fidgets with her coffee for a few moments before clearing her throat. “So, um, I don’t, um, I don’t know if you’d… This is harder than I thought it would be. I…”

“Spit it out, Carol. Don’t make me get my melting gun.” You smile as you say it. You’re not serious. You don’t have your melting gun.

You have your phase disruptor, and the safety is off and ready to go, but you don’t think you’ll need it.

Carol finally relaxes and flashes you a smile. “Please. That thing couldn’t even give me a tan.”

“Could have fooled me,” you say as you consider taking a bite of your strawberry Danish. Should you eat in front of her? Would that be rude? You really want that Danish.

“No, I couldn’t. But I fooled those cops, didn’t I?”

You grin. You were right; she was totally faking. “Why are you really here?”

Carol slides a picture across the table. It’s of a young man with curly black hair. “There’s a kid in Amy’s class that was paralyzed last fall in a car crash. His name’s Dawson. Drunk driver broadsided him and his mom. She was fine, but he lost the use of his legs.”

You glance at Carol. “And?”

Carol frowns. “I just, I thought that, um…”

“I’m not a charity,” you say in a low voice. You stand. “Look, don’t get the wrong idea. What happened at the hospital was a one-time thing. Those kids shouldn’t suffer just because one of your people can’t control his temper.”

“What about all the kids you cured?” Carol asks. “The doctors said all the patients had a clean bill of health. No cancer, no tumors, nothing. Amy’s heart is completely fixed up. What did Superior Force have to do with that?”

You don’t answer. You hate it when people point things out to you that you have trouble arguing. Hell, why did you do that? What’s gotten into you?

You walk away from Carol, your coffee, and your Danish. This conversation is over. You’re pretty sure she’s not going to follow you, but you still keep an eye out. You’re right. You see her through the window as you power-walk away. She’s still at the booth.

You look down at your hands. You realize the picture is still in your hands.

“Goddammit,” you mutter.

***

Five days later, you’re scrolling through your newsfeed and see a feel-good story about a local boy named Dawson who miraculously regained the use of his legs after eating his school lunch. You scroll past. Taking the place of the cafeteria worker had been worse than your six-month stint in county when you were 19. You’d prefer not to think about it.

***

The next day, your favorite barista hands you back your cash and gives you a slightly larger than normal drink.

“Already covered,” she says. “A blonde lady with a kid came in and asked me to cover it. Also, can I ask you about my bio-chem midterm?”

“Thanks, and hell no. I blocked that course out of my mind. You’re on your own,” you say with a shudder.

The barista hands you an envelope.

“What this?” you ask.

“That blonde lady dropped it off this morning with the cash. Said if I saw you to give this to you. You sure I can’t ask? I really don’t wanna do a retake.”

Your mind races. You already know who she’s talking about, but the panic side of your mind is in overdrive. She knows this is your place. She can find you here. They can all find you here. It was stupid to come back. Fuck the Danishes. This was a Bad Idea.

Still…

You nod your thanks and go to your booth, ignoring the barista’s pleas for help. You open the envelope and take out a photo of Amy, her bionic arm loosely wrapped around the neck of a little boy you remember serving a special helping of spaghetti to a few days ago. They’re both standing in front of the school and grinning.

You smile. You don’t mean to, and you swear you’ll kill anyone who notices, but you smile.

You casually flip the photo over and freeze. On the back is a message.

Well, a number and a message.

Amy wants you to come to dinner. Call me.

You swallow your coffee in three gulps.

Fucking heroes.

[chidoroki]

Tokyo Revengers S3EP5

aka: EMMAAAAAAAA

As much as I move to see Emma, starting the episode with some more flashbacks of her isn’t a good sign..

Young Emma making fun of Shinichiro’s haircut right away.. I love her.

Aww young Baji! He’s adorable!

No wonder Mikey is so good with kicks, he learned at his grandpa’s dojo. I assume that’s how his friendship with Baji started too.

OH! The “Mikey” nickname came from him and Baji trying to come up with foreigner names like Emma’s! Granted they were lowkey making fun of her but it’s adorable how he still uses the name even today to make her feel better.

Emma needs several hugs.. and a saving grace if this is gonna be the episode where that happens.

She is so darn pretty oh my god.

Damn, not even getting the OP this time around huh?

Pfft, it’s so cute seeing Mikey get protective over Takemichi. Ain’t no way he’ll let that boy leave Toman.

Gotta admit, Inui looking good though in the Toman uniform though.

“I will never condone murder.” Okay, first off, glad Kakucho has some common sense. Secondly, oh god, oh fuck, it might be happening now and I’m not ready. Thirdly, it’s Izana who orders it? Oohhhh no no no!

Damn it! I questioned that quick shot of the ambulance driving past Chifuyu and Takemichi, but I didn’t even think it would be Mitsuya and Smiley in it! Angry has to be so pissed off right about now.

Shit, Hakkai’s got a point. Toman basically has no division captains around for this fight.

I love that it’s Peh who’s showing a real distaste for using weapons in the upcoming fight given how Pah was arrested for it.

I was gonna comment how slim the chances are that Takemichi and Inui would encounter Inaza at Shinichiro’s grave on the day of Black Dragon’s founding, but it makes perfect sense.

Ah fuck, is this the first time since years ago that Emma sees Izana too?

Seeing Kisaki with a bat riding on Hanma’s bike is sending me many red flags.. please don’t tell me that’s how this death will go..

“He’s a weak little boy. Just like you and me. So if he ever snaps under the strain.. when that happens, I swear I’ll be there to save him.” NO! BAD TRAGIC FORESHADOWING!

“I think the one who understands and supports Mikey the most might just be Emma. Mikey turns evil in the future. Even though he had Emma.” AAAAAHH.

“Did Emma.. exist in the future.” Fuck fuck FUCK.

I swear to fucking hell Kisaki, don’t you fucking dare harm this totally precious girl!

OH YOU ABSOLUTE SON OF A BITCH! HOLY SHIT! I don’t care if I knew the death was coming, I didn’t think it would happen LIKE THAT!!

I’m so goddamn speechless and five seconds away from tears.

Bro Mikey is right fucking there to see the aftermath of the attack too.. holy hell. This is like the true bloody Halloween for me man, fuck.

Mikey, I’m grateful you’re taking Emma to the hospital but fucking run dude! Don’t walk!

“Tell Draken this for me. ‘Ken, I love you.’” Ah yup, that’s a critical hit on my heart. I know her confession was teased during one of the trailers but damn, I'm so freakin' upset right now.

“Emma? Emma? I promised Draken I’d keep this a secret. But Draken loves you, you know. It’s mutual.” I’m gonna go cry now.

Bro, this future Mikey dreamed of all of them together.. I’m absolutely sobbing.

Oh yeah, sure, just cut right to the ending while I pick up the many pieces of my shattered heart.. not that it’ll do any good since the visuals have nothing but EMMA! AAHH! Sweetheart you deserved so much better!!!

Fucking hell man, we have to see Draken learn the news next episode.. I won’t emotionally recover from this in time just to cry my heart out again.

[little-peril-stories]

The Queen of Lies: The Constable and His Wife

Story Intro | Contents [Warnings] | Mood Board | Vibey Song Lyrics | Ao3

Contents: icky gender dynamics, blood, immediate aftermath of flogging, lady whump, guy whump, abusive relationship (implied)

Previous | Masterlist | Next

Word count: 3000 || Approx reading time: 12 mins

Chapter 2: The Constable and His Wife

Teaser: She made the mistake of looking up, peering out across the yard just in time to see Junior Constable Michaelson and one of the other officers untying the boy from the whipping post—just in time to see the thief fall to the ground in a boneless heap, his bleeding back on full display.  

“There you go. That’s it. You’re all right.” 

Breanna opened her eyes, dizzy and sick and unsure of where she was. Why was the autumn sky, such a fierce, bitter grey, looming overhead, and what in heaven’s name was she doing on the ground? 

“You’re all right,” the voice said again, and she realized it was Junior Constable Curtis Lenton speaking to her—his voice even but laced with an undercurrent of worry that wasn’t usually there. 

What is going on? 

“I…” With a gasp, she tried to sit up, and Breanna found that the world spun around her. Had she…fainted? Blood, hot with embarrassment, rushed into her cheeks; it was the only explanation. But what on earth could have made her drop to the ground in such a tizzy? “What—what happened?” 

Quick as a flash, barely perceptible, Curt brushed a wayward strand of hair out of her face. Dizzily, her thoughts disorganized and wild, Breanna wondered how positively frightful she looked. “I knew I should have brought you inside. I’m so sorry. This—this was my fault. I really didn’t want you to see that. Michaelson is such a pri—I mean, I shouldn’t have listened to him. I’m going to kill him when I get my hands on him.” 

See that? See what? And…kill Junior Constable Michaelson? What on earth was Curt talking… 

The thief. The whipping post. 

Breanna pressed a hand to her mouth, gasping, as the memory of the flogging returned: the crack of the whip against that man’s back, the way it painted bloody streaks across his skin as if he were a carcass under the carving knife of a butcher…and worse, and worse, the speckle of someone else’s blood over her husband’s features…and how unfazed he had seemed to have the gore of his own cruelly dealt punishment flecked across his face… 

She made the mistake of looking up, peering out across the yard just in time to see Junior Constable Michaelson and one of the other officers untying the boy from the whipping post—just in time to see the thief fall to the ground in a boneless heap, his bleeding back on full display. 

Breanna burst into tears. 

Seeming to forget himself again, Curt uttered a long string of mumbled curses, then raised his voice to offer gentle reassurance. “It’s all right, Mrs. Hatchett. I know. I’m sorry. That was a terrible thing for you to see. Here—quickly now—let’s go. Can you walk?” 

The moment she tried to lift herself from the ground, her legs gave way beneath her. Why was it so hard to breathe? And why should she care what had happened to a thief, some man she did not know? Yet the image of every stroke, laid there by her own husband, remained fixed in her mind, her thoughts painted red with blood. 

With a sigh and a few worried words Breanna did not understand, Curt swept her into his arms and lifted her off the ground. 

Still sobbing, Breanna vaguely considered what Baden would say if he saw Curt carrying her away. He’d be angry, of course…but what of everything that had happened today would make him the angriest? There were too many moments to choose from, too many people on whom to lay the blame. Michaelson, for stopping Curt from leading her away? Curtis, for just obeying and leaving her to watch the spectacle in frozen horror? Breanna, for not fleeing from the yard to avoid seeing the whipping? Breanna, for being at the prison without warning and with only what he’d certainly deem an inadequate reason? Breanna, for needing to be carried away in hysterics? Breanna, for being so desperate for a signature on that infernal piece of paper folded up in her pocket that she showed up at the prison and humiliated herself in front of everyone? 

The sight of the boy’s blood, how it ran in rivers down his skin, crashed back into her mind, and she closed her eyes, wishing to expunge the image from her thoughts entirely. 

She could not. 

“Gysborne!” Curtis shouted, his voice piercing against her ear. “A little help?” 

There was a distant reply from someone, but it was too far away for her to comprehend. 

When Breanna opened her eyes again, sniffling and trying to catch her breath, she was in a room she did not recognize, and she found she did not remember how she’d gotten there. Hiccupping, still weeping, she asked, “Where are we?” 

“The infirmary,” said Curt, his voice gentle. He stood, looking uncomfortable, next to the bed where he’d laid her down. “This is Mr. Gysborne. Have you met?” Peering up at the man who approached at the sound of his name, Breanna shook her head. “He’s our medic. I wanted him to look over you. You were very distraught.” 

Medic? Breanna frowned, shaking her head. “No, I—I’m…” 

“Lie down, Mrs. Hatchett, if you please.” 

Mr. Gysborne was stiff and businesslike, and he spoke little. He did not heed her faint insistence that she was fine, just shocked, so she clamped her mouth closed and did as she was told. He clicked his tongue and huffed as he worked, and Breanna found she did not wish to meet his gaze as he felt her forehead, mumbled a suggestion that she loosen her corset, and asked Curt if she had hit her head when she fell. 

“I don’t think so,” Curt said, and Breanna wondered why they didn’t just ask her. 

“You say she saw the flogging?” Gysborne asked, and Curt nodded. 

Away from the bracing autumn wind, that loathsome whipping post, and the gruesome sight of the thief’s back, Breanna’s breath slowly returned to normal. “I think I might be all right now, Mr. Gysborne.” 

“I’ll say when you’re all right.” With a firm hand, he stopped her from sitting up. “A brief bout of hysteria brought on by what you saw, I should think. Grisly stuff. Why didn’t you think to remove yourself from the yard? It was foolish to stand there and watch.” 

Swallowing, her face heating again, Breanna said, “I know.” As a new question came to mind, worry burned through her; perhaps it wasn’t wise to speak it aloud. She hesitated, watching the medic’s face for even more annoyance, then blurted out, “That—that man—he was bleeding—shouldn’t you be helping h—” 

“He can wait,” said Curt and Mr. Gysborne in unison. Breanna swallowed a gasp. 

It was Curt who continued, “Don’t worry about him. With any luck, the pain will have struck some sense into him.” 

But…his back…there had been so much blood… 

The door burst open, and a tall, imposing figure appeared in the entryway. “Breanna?” 

“Baden.” Breanna’s heart leapt into her throat. It had arrived—the moment she’d been both awaiting and dreading. 

“What in heaven’s name are you doing here?” His grey eyes narrowed as he studied her and drew close. He had, she noticed, wiped his face clean, but dark spots still marred the blue wool and brass buttons of his uniform. Her stomach turned at the sight, and she directed her gaze back upwards. A fading bruise remained around his nose and eyes, almost healed now, but it was still stark against his skin in the infirmary’s yellow light. When she’d asked days ago how he’d gotten hurt, he’d refused to say. 

Now Breanna wondered how often his days at the prison were rife with violence. 

Baden drew even closer, and Mr. Gysborne stepped out of the way, allowing Breanna’s husband to stand next to her and lay his hand on her cheek. His fingers were frigid, like ice upon her skin, and she remembered again that only a short while ago he had been—they both had been—standing outside in autumn’s chill. Yet the way he’d been raining blows down upon that thief’s back…shouldn’t he be warm, positively dripping from exertion? 

“Why aren’t you at home?” he asked, cutting into her thoughts. “You shouldn’t be here.” 

“I know.” Breanna blinked back tears. “I’m sorry.” 

He heaved a sigh and pulled his hand away, then glanced at Curt and put it back down again, this time resting it over hers. “Are you ill, then? What happened? Tell me.” 

You ripped that boy’s skin to shreds, Baden. That’s what happened. 

“I came to speak to you about something,” she said, and she was ashamed of how her voice wobbled so piteously. “I didn’t know there was—that I would see—” 

His jaw tightened, and she guessed from the slight widening of his eyes that he hadn’t realized until then that she’d been present for the thief’s flogging—that she’d witnessed everything. “Ah.” 

“She fainted at the sight, sir.” Curt stood at attention, looking pale. “I—I take responsibility for this incident. I knew it would be distressing, sir, and I was in the middle of bringing her inside to wait for you in a more appropriate place, but I was delayed and, well…” 

“Quiet.” Baden waved his hand, ever the commanding constable, and Curt fell silent. “My wife knows this is no place for her.” He turned his gaze to Breanna. “The conversation couldn’t wait until I returned home?” 

The burning paper in her pocket, the literary society, the deadline to join—none of them seemed quite so extraordinarily important, not anymore. “I needed your signature for something.” 

“I didn’t ask what you wanted. I asked you if it could wait.” Baden’s back had gone ramrod straight. 

“I suppose it can wait,” she whispered. She hadn’t intended for her voice to come out so quietly. The words fluttered, barely audible, like feathery, fragile wingbeats in the air. 

A vein pulsed in his forehead. “I thought you knew better than to disturb me at work about trivialities, Breanna.” 

“I know. I do.” She swallowed the lump in her throat. “I—I’m sorry. Truly.” 

He gestured around them to the infirmary, to its cots and instruments and pristine white walls. “I’m sure you are. Truly. And I’m sure you won’t make the same mistake again.” 

Breanna shook her head. No, of course not, she wanted to say, but she could not summon the words. 

Silence fell. Only Mr. Gysborne broke through the thick quiet that was neither comfortable nor tranquil: from him, there came the sound of clinking metal and swirling water as he tidied his implements, filled a bowl with hot water, and then heaved a long-suffering sigh. 

“Are they bringing that bastard thief here?” he asked, and Breanna was grateful to him for bringing an end to the agonizing quiet that screeched and sawed at her ears. 

“They are.” Baden fixed his eyes on Breanna; his fingers tightened over hers. “And I want you out of this place before he gets here. No one needs you falling into hysterics again. We have enough to deal with as it is.” 

“Of course. I’m sorry,” she said again, rising, and this time, no one stopped her. “I’ll go home straight away.” 

“Yes. You will.” 

Curt rubbed the back of his neck, still wan. “Will you be all right going back by yourself, Mrs. Hatchett?” 

With a glance at Baden’s face, Breanna knew there was only one correct answer, no matter how shaken she was. “Of course. Thank you, Officer Lenton. I’m right as rain now. I feel much better.” 

He nodded, and though his face said he did not believe her, he said nothing more except, “I’ll escort you outside.” 

“I’ll see you at home, Baden,” Breanna said quietly as she got to her feet. He nodded. 

In the doorway, she paused, and before she quite knew what she was saying, the words—foolish, senseless, silly words that were only asking for trouble—were spilling from her mouth. She addressed her question to the medic, afraid to see Baden’s face when she asked, “Will that boy be all right? After…after what happened?” 

Gysborne stared at her, looking astounded that she had dared to voice such a thought, then glanced at Baden. He did not answer. 

“Go home, Breanna,” Baden said. There was a sigh in his voice, the one that said he was done with her silliness and he wanted no more of it. “We will discuss this later.” 

Breanna knew it was not the thief’s fate he meant they would discuss. 

Curtis kept up his silence as they left the infirmary. He knew; he had to. How could he not? Anyone who had met Constable Baden Hatchett had to know. 

Breanna wondered if it ate away at him; if insidious twines of guilt ever bound him when she crossed his mind; if he ever, indeed, even thought of her when she wasn’t at the prison on her rare visits. When their paths weren’t crossing as she clung to Baden’s arm at dinner parties. Would he ask if he ever saw strange purple markings on her arm or cheek or throat? Would he say anything at all? Or would he… 

Foolish thoughts, from a foolish woman who’d foolishly missed her chance to grasp at something she foolishly thought she wanted. 

“Are you all right, Breanna?” He spoke once they were out of Baden’s earshot, asking his question in a hushed tone as they made their way down the corridor. “Really?” 

Breanna. Not Mrs. Hatchett. Such a rare moment of familiarity was this—and how it stung. So few people called her by her name anymore at all. That, too, belonged to Baden Hatchett. 

“I’m perfectly fine now,” she said. “Thank you. For asking.” Curt. “Officer Lenton.” 

It was the wrong time; perhaps it always was. But there was danger in familiarity, and in the minutes after Curtis had come to her rescue and scooped her into his arms and carried her to safety, when he’d been there for her while Baden had not only not been there but had arguably been the cause of her distress, now was not the time to be chasing such ease and friendliness. 

Wait—what in heaven’s name was she thinking? Baden wasn’t the cause of her distress. What a horrid, half-witted thought that was. Was it Baden’s fault that man had been stealing from honest folk for years? Baden’s fault the thief had turned his vicious, abominable tongue on her husband in front of everyone? Baden’s fault he’d tried to run from justice, and he’d received a flogging as a result? Of course not. 

“You didn’t get your signature,” said Curt. “Should we turn back?” 

“No!” The words tumbled out in a rush, and Breanna blushed as if he could possibly know what wicked things she’d just been thinking. “It’s fine. I was being silly. He’s right. I should have just waited.” 

Never mind that by the time Baden returned home—which would undoubtedly be late, after a day that had started with a flogging and a hysterical wife—the literary society meeting would be underway, perhaps even over. 

“I’m sorry…” Curtis began, before his voice died. “Shit.” 

“What—” she began, astonished that he’d cursed out loud in front of her, but it became quite clear within moments what had him so worried. Voices and footsteps were coming their way, and one of them was Junior Constable Michaelson’s. 

Oh, no. 

Michaelson, who had been with that Iustitia aecum thief when she last saw him. 

That thief with his torn-open back, probably unconscious and bleeding everywhere— 

“They’re going to pass this way,” Curt said, laying a hand on her arm. “I’m afraid—well, they’re already on their way—they’ll walk past. Close your eyes.” 

Breanna obeyed. 

Noise filled the air: voices, hisses, chuckles. It grew warmer, too, as more bodies pressed into the corridor, and she felt her skirts sway around her legs. 

A gasp and a cry made her jump. 

Don’t do it, she told herself, but her eyes were already opening. 

Michaelson, with his hideous muscles and sordid leer, had passed, but she had still opened her eyes too early. There he was—the thief, only half-aware, it seemed, of what was going on, held up by constables on either side, his feet dragging on the floor. 

As the constables passed, one of them greeted her and Curtis. “Officer Lenton. Mrs. Hatchett,” he said, his voice calm and perfectly composed, as if he weren’t dragging a shackled, half-conscious, half-naked man right past them. 

Curt muttered a reply, but Breanna could not answer, for at the sound of the constable’s voice, the boy looked up. 

The boy looked up and met her gaze. 

Hazel eyes, red-rimmed and heavy-lidded and watery and glazed, locked onto hers, and Breanna’s heart shuddered and stopped. What a peculiar colour were those eyes—a mix of green and gold, staring at her from a dirt-streaked face dusted with freckles. As his eyes closed again and his head fell forward, a shock of red-brown hair tumbled over his face, and she could see nothing but the sickening crimson canvas of his back. 

It looked even worse now—some parts raw and bleeding, others black and crusted with newly forming scabs. Breanna pressed a hand to her mouth, reminding herself to breathe. 

Then he was gone, he and the constables all. 

“There’s really no helping you,” Curt scolded, seeing that her eyes were open. “Are you feeling all right? Are you going to—” 

“No, I’m fine.” She gasped a little, the words breathy enough that Curt stood up straight and held out his arms as if he feared she would fall. Breanna clutched at the fabric of her dress, scrunching it in her hands, willing her heartbeat to steady and her breaths to even out. “I’m quite all right,” she said. “I’d like to go now.” 

“Of course,” said Curt hastily, and he led her by the arm out of Baden’s prison, into the fresh air and the welcome light of day. 

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[Image ID: A square image featuring a background of cream-coloured silk and some sprigs of small white flowers (baby's breath). The text, from Chapter 3 of The Queen of Lies, reads: "Oh, darling. I despise how frightened of him you are." End ID.]

[alj4890]

Just a Dream

(Tobias Carrick x F!MC) in a Choices Open Heart Drabble

Thirty Kisses in Thirty Days Challenge with the prompt: a kiss in the aftermath of a fight.

A/N Takes place a few years down the road for the two 😂 Honestly I couldn't think of a good enough fight for any of my pairs (I started a few but I ended up cringing so hard over them that they were immediately deleted), but this idea came about and I couldn't think of a smoother man than Tobias to deal with the situation 🤣

Rating PG for some language

@jerzwriter @hopelessromantic1352 @choicesficwriterscreations @trappedinfanfiction @twinkleallnight @tessa-liam @kyra75 @coffeeheartaddict2

Masterlist

A little after four in the morning...

Chris gasped as her eyes flew open. Tears slipped down the sides of her face as she stared up at the ceiling fan. Her heart felt like it was breaking in two. Her stomach roiled with the images still fresh in her mind causing her to dash to the bathroom.

After a brief episode knelt in front of the toilet that ended with her swearing to never eat tacos again, she brushed her teeth and then crawled back into bed with more tears than before.

How could he say that to me?!

She turned her head to the side, eyes narrowing upon her husband softly snoring.

"Tobias?" She nudged him.

He grumbled something and rolled onto his stomach.

"Oh!" She sat up, grabbed his shoulder, and violently shook him.

"WAKE UP!" She yelled at him.

Tobias scrambled to his knees in a tangle of blankets.

"What's wrong?"

He flipped on the bedside lamp, blinking against the brightness as he focused on his wife. Tears were falling unheeded down her cheeks, alarming him more so than the way she woke him up.

"Chris?" He reached for her. "What is it? Are you hurt?"

"No." She sniffed, beginning to cry harder.

"Did you throw up again?" He gently rubbed her back.

"No. I mean, yes. But that's not why I'm upset!"

"What's wrong?" He placed his hand on her very slight baby bump. "Is it the baby?"

"No. All's fine in there." She reached for some tissues.

"Babe." He rubbed a hand down his face. "You need to just tell me instead of making me guess at," he checked the time and groaned, "four in the morning."

She glared at him.

Tobias looked around himself. He wondered what had set her off in the middle of the night this time.

"It's you." She hissed. "How could you?!"

"How could I what?"

"How could you say that to me?!" Chris screeched.

"What?" He stressed. "What did I say? That I'm too sleepy to guess what's wrong?"

"No! You told me to take our marriage license and shove it up my arse!"

"I did what?" He blinked at her as if she had lost her mind.

"You said you didn't want me or this baby anymore!" She continued, blowing her nose. "You wanted your precious freedom and that I could go straight to hell for all you cared."

His brow was furrowed in thought before it hit him what happened.

"You were dreaming."

"That was no bloody dream!" She shouted. "That was a straight out nightmare."

Her face crumbled with more tears. A sob caught at the back of her throat.

"How could you do that to me?"

Tobias knew in that hormone infused mind of hers that any chance of reasoning with her would be met with more headaches than it was worth. He was beginning to notice a trend with her pregnancy. Anytime Chris ate spicy foods, some weird nightmare that seemed deep seeded in legitimate fears would come to life in her dreams.

He wrapped his arms around her and cuddled her stiff form as best as he could. Dropping a kiss to the top of her red head, he sighed.

There was only one thing he could do if he hoped to ever get a chance to sleep again.

"I'm an asshole."

Chris shook her head. "No, you're not."

"I am if I said something like that in your dreams." He brushed her hair out of her face.

He hated to see her cry. A part of him wished the old, pre-pregnant Chris was still here so she could laugh and playfully threaten him over his dream self remarks. The other part of him was touched she would be this hurt with him leaving her, even in a dream.

"You know," Tobias murmured kissing her forehead, "I would have to be a completely different, probably taken over by aliens, person to ever even have a thought of saying something like that to you, right?"

"Right." She blew her nose again.

"I don't want my freedom. If I really did, would I have married you?"

"No."

"And I sure as hell wouldn't have tried to knock you up so fast, would I?"

A tearful giggle slipped out over his choice of words.

"I mean, you might have." She teased. "I've never seen you turn down an offer to sleep with me."

He smiled when she wrapped her arms around him.

"See?" He prodded squeezing her close. "You're the only one I want."

"I know." She sighed against him.

Chris leaned back to look up at him.

He pressed a tender kiss to her lips.

"Think you can rest now?" He asked.

"I think so."

He turned the lamp off and cuddled her close once more. He silently said a prayer of thankfulness that this episode had ended quicker than previous ones. He also swore to deny her spicy foods at night.

"Tobias?" She whispered.

Oh god.

He braced himself.

"Yeah?"

"We kinda had a fight, didn't we?"

"In your dream, we did."

"And we basically made up, right?"

He softly cursed to himself. Where was she going with these questions?

"Yes."

She turned in his arms to face him.

"And what do we do after we fight?"

He studied her face, hoping to see the answer somewhere on it.

"We usually kiss and makeup." He mumbled.

Please let that be right, he silently pleaded, so I can go back to sleep.

"And?" Chris prodded.

He wanted to throw his hands up in surrender. Tobias closed his eyes and tried to remember the last real fight they'd had. There hadn't been too many over the years, but when they did argue they usually...

His eyes popped open as a slow smile formed.

Chris's cheeky grin responded to him finally catching on.

"Far be it from me not to make up for my nightmare version." He muttered against her lips.

His hands slipped under her nightgown and began to caress her body.

Chris moaned from the heat of his touch.

"I love you." She gasped, her back already arching from just the feel of his skin against hers.

"I love you too, Chris." He winked at her. "Now let me show you just how much."

[cartoonfangirl1218]

PTSD

Author’s Note: I know, I know, I’ve used this song before in a different fic, but it’s a good song. Anyway, this is a little angst/hurt/comfort touching on PTSD. I don’t go into it, I hint at it, but I imagine this after some sort of battle and Gabe had been captured in a prisoner of war camp. This is that aftermath. Hope you enjoy. 

The torches that had lit the dungeon went dark. The world tipped sideways and the Northerner. . that bastard that had been beating him for the past month. He looked at him as if he was a pathetic street beggar covered in his own filth. Which he sort of resembled at the moment after all these weeks without a shower. He didn’t want to see that face. . the face that was smirking turning to a blankness. . . that was almost worse. It amplified that he was in the dark. He tried. . . oh how he tried to move but his fingers would only twitch from pain,  allowing that unemotional no face man to kick him like a rag doll. His hands were rough and calloused and bloodied. . bloodied with his blood. 

He tried to breathe but it felt like his lungs had been paralyzed. It hurt so much. He couldn’t think. Couldn’t move. It was all happening again. 

Fighting to hold on

Clinging to just one more day

Gabe woke up sweating. His hands cramped into fists but he didn’t do anything to relieve the pain. Rather he punched the pillows, wishing they were made of something harder than thistledown and goosefeathers. He wanted to hit something and feel the crunch of his fists. Yet the tears fell faster and the wave of helplessness and weakness he had felt. They all come over him, bringing him to a fetal position. 

I'd die to be where you are

I tried to be where you are

Every night I dream you're still here

The ghost by my side, so perfectly clear

When I awake, you'll disappear

Back to the shadows

With all I hold dear

With all I hold, dear

I dream you're still here

It was the same damn dream. Not a dream. A nightmare. The way his good build and noble features shaded the sadism and cruelty in his edges. The cold eyes of the enemy general flashing with triumph, or wrath. Both made him sick to his stomach to see this role brought to its base and worst forms. He wished he never met him. Never allowed himself to get captured. . . but he had. 

Hidden companion

Phantom be still in my heart

Some days, Naomi’s heart ached for Gabe more than others. A feeling that she tried to dismiss. Gabe was a strong man, not allowing himself to give into self-pity. He didn’t like to show himself as anything less. But still, she wished she could do something more to take away his pain. More than mere platitudes. Her heart hurt more to see his eyes fill with tears, stiff as a board from temporary paralysis. The fear that he was back there. At most she could hold him and for now, that was enough. 

I dream you're still here 

I dream you're still here

Ever slightly out of reach

I dream you're still here

But it breaks so easily

I try to protect you

I feel you slipping

I feel you slipping away

Brilliant, smart, determined Gabe was gone for the moment. Just a moment but it was heartbreaking to see. A small glimpse of what he must have felt after he was released in the prisoner exchange. Such vulnerability after trauma was normal but from him. . . it should not have happened to him or anyone. But that was the price of war. The violations and torure he had borne. But all she could do was hug him. 

Gabe felt the weight of that helplessness, of that boot being pressed down on his sternum, He had managed to nod when Naomi asked if she could hug him. Managed to make a few sounds though they were barely words. Tears were coming too fast now. The weight was all he could feel, the cracking of bones was all he could hear. The heaviness and the lump in his throat constricting his oxygen before he broke. 

His lungs heaved with sobs and air that fought to win over his tired body. Hot tears streamed down his face and the overwhelming pain, sadness and hopelessness within that threatened to engulf him. The frustration that this was always going to be with him. It would never end. 

I feel you slipping away

Every night I dream you're still here

The ghost by my side, so perfectly clear

When I awake, you'll disappear

Back to the shadows

With all I hold dear

With all I hold, dear

Memories of when he had been in the heat of battle, everything so chaotic and fast. Blades gleaming, grunts and screams, and him trying to take everything in at once to juggle the troops movements when he was knocked from behind. 

I dream you're still here (I dream you're still here)

I dream you're still here (every night I dream you're still)

(Every night I dream you're still here)

I dream you're still here (every night I dream you're still)

(Every night I dream you're still here)

Ever slightly out of reach (I dream you're still here)

He was a weakling. What an amateur to be hit from behind. Screaming after his hand was broken already? Wait till he found out what they could do with kneecaps. He was a fool. Avalor was in dire straits with him as captain. The Northern Isles were going to invade anyday now. He thought he was strong when he hadn’t seen the most simple of tricks. He had been a fool. 

Ever slightly out of reach (I dream you're still here)

(Every night I dream you're still)

(Every night I dream you're still here)

But it breaks so easily

Flashbacks flew by in a jumbled rush, but one that kept returning was that last night. He tried to stand his ground, sure he was going to die from exhaustion, the lice, and starvation. But he was determined to die standing even as he thought of his loved ones back at home. He would die like a knight in his fairytale stories. This is where they had led him. 

It hadn’t happened obviously but his insides felt limp and knees went weak at the thought of how close he had been. He made it but he was still fearful. 

I dream you're still here

He was back, but it was still hard for him. 

Naomi released her arms from the hug, rubbing his shoulders gently, almost in time to his breathing. “Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. You’re safe. You’re alright. You can cry. It’s okay to cry. It’s all up to you if you want to talk or not. You’re safe, Gabe. Inhale, exhale.” 

I dream you're still here

Gabe closed his eyes again, the face shifting, changing to what it had been. The blackness was still there but it was most definitely the Northern Isle General, the Scourge of the North and Breaker of Souls. It was him.

Until the tears rose again.

[papermachedragons]

Okay hear me out, the song came out in 1992 so it doesn't fit perfectly with the aftermath of the events of s4 (although it is honestly more devastating for it) but imagine Steve listening Bon Jovi and then their fifth album comes out in 1992 with the song 'Bed of Roses' on it. At this point, Steves life is a mess. He only made it out of Hawkins on the back of Robin, when she came home from college for the summer the year the kids graduated high school and were all clamouring for Steve to help them pack, and begged him to come with her to the city and get an apartment with her, because the student dorm is really crammed and my roommate sucks and she wrinkles her nose whenever I ramble and I ramble all the time, Steve, and she's complained and asked for a different roommate at least five times, because I keep waking up in the middle of the night screaming or I stay up with the light on reading or studying because I can't fall asleep without you near and I'm too broke to stay on the line with you as long as I need to and just come with me and save us the phone bill, besides, Max is coming to the city too, we could find a place near her?? So Steve followed her. He always would. It was an inevitability, really. But he may have followed her to the city, but his life is still in shambles. He's barely able to keep any jobs. He goes to bars to drink far too often and ends up on the wrong side of a fist nearly as often, even though he knows it's wrong and stupid to poke at the simmering flames he can see in the other drunk patrons, but he still does it because at least it gets the constant screaming and echoing claps of thunder and crawling feeling all over his skin to shut up for once, even though he has to deal with Robin's disappointment and sad eyes, when he gets back home with bruised and bloody knuckles and another black eye and broken nose

Bon Jovi's new album comes out and he listens to it and then listens to it again, just to hear the song 'Bed of Roses' again, and it just connects with something deep inside of his soul he had no idea existed and he's bawling his eyes out and just breaks down crying and he sees Eddie in his minds eye and he doesn't know why this song means so much to him or why it makes him think of Eddie when it's been years, but it does and he can't stop listening to it or thinking about it and Eddie and if he listens to it on repeat while drunk out of his mind, well, then only Robin knows, because she's the one that finds him and the remains of the bottles he threw at their wall of their shared apartment, when she comes home from her girlfriend's late that night

I just. Steve listening to Bed of Roses while drunk and ending up sobbing his heart out and throwing empty bottles at the wall out of heartbreak and survivors guilt and a little something else he can't name