Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There were too many ghosts in his shelter. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw them. Fragile, standing in the corner, like she was waiting for something. Deadman, oddly happy about having a Beach to haunt him from. And sometimes, their presence lingered on even after he left his bed and went out. A few months after leaving the DHV Magellan, Sam settled back into his old life, hoping it would be his well-deserved retirement. Of course, life had a way of messing with his plans, and it happened once again. Tomorrow had gone off to do her own thing which meant Sam had to find something to occupy himself with. He took up gardening, but timefall wasn’t exactly kind to plants either. Rainy tried to encourage him to keep on with it, and part of Sam wanted to… But a bigger part didn’t. He felt restless, like something terrible was about to happen. On sleepless nights, he watched the pictures on the fridge door. He remembered the good things, and it soothed his wanderlust. But when he did manage to sleep, he dreamed of nightmares about a man he wanted gone from his head. His taunting smirk under layers of makeup, pale white and chiralium gold. His laughter, full of sadistic glee and hollow like the mechanical husk he inhabited. Higgs was a persistent ghost. He already inflicted enormous pain on Sam and everyone close to him, but it seemed like nothing could stop him from continuing it - not even the destruction of his Ha. Sam woke up soaking in cold sweat every time he saw his old nemesis in his dreams. Despite that he saw Higgs’ fate with his own eyes, and knew in his rational mind that there is just no way of him surviving that, the man returned from death once. He might just do it again. 

Seven months of nightmares only interrupted by his ring terminal alerting him to messages from Tomorrow or Rainy, or occasionally some other friend or acquaintance of his, and Sam was ready to bolt out the shelter door and just not return. Ever. 

Drawbridge was more than happy to have him back, and porter work was always available for the ones willing to brave the elements and anomalies caused by the Death Stranding. 

He was asked to deliver a special order of chiralium-sensitive equipment to the Distro center North of Edge Knot City. Sam wasn’t happy about it. To reach his destination, he had to cross the ruined city and brave the BTs, and contend with ever-increasing chiralium levels. But there was a science team assigned there to monitor BT activity in Edge Knot City, and they needed their equipment. Sam received it in an oddly appropriate, coffin-shaped anti-gravity carrier, tethered to his belt and dragging behind him like a burden that refused to stay buried. Crossing Edge Knot City stirred a foreboding sense of déjà vu. Sam chose a different road, but he felt like he was walking into a trap. Lou no longer with him, he could only rely on his DOOMS to alert him to the presence of BTs. He passed an abandoned Homo Demens bunker, it still bore the stylized symbol based on an ancient Egyptian headdress, and the word “Voidout” was still readable on it. As he walked forward, Sam’s odradek caught on something. He scanned the area, but couldn’t see what the scanner picked up. Then he heard it—a noise unmistakably like someone screaming in the distance. It was far enough, and Sam didn’t want to risk alerting the BTs in the area, so he walked on. The air was thick with chiralium. He saw some particles of gold swirling in the wind.

Oblivion sure felt like being chewed up and spat out. One moment, it was nothing in the strongest sense of the word, then a harsh pull, and a flash of gold. And just like that, he opened his eyes, and fought himself to his feet. It was like being born again - the sudden rush of life itself made him scream at the top of his lungs. He coughed up black tar. As his vision cleared, he realized he was covered in it. Tar, bruises and large gashes - still bleeding. He looked around but did not recognize his surroundings. The pain of his wounds began to catch up with him, and he gritted his teeth and fought himself forward. One step. Two steps. A muttered expletive. He chuckled. It was absurd. He didn’t remember how he got where he was, but remembered to curse when things didn’t quite go his way. 

He saw a building not far from him that seemed in much better shape than the ruins he dragged himself through. He shivered, now realizing he lacked any covering on his upper-body, and folded in on himself. The movement caused his back wounds to stretch and bleed, and he let out a low sound of distress. After a moment, he moved on, his legs wobbling under his weight. He braced himself against the crumbling wall, trying to catch his breath—his damned back kept burning, like a fever that wouldn’t break. Then, out of nowhere, the hairs on his arms and neck stood upright. He swore he felt a hand—cold as the grave—pressing against the wound near his right shoulder blade. That was when he bolted. He had no clue where he was, or even who he was, but his instinct told him to run and he was way too feverish and way too scared to wonder why.

The building he’d seen earlier was only a short distance away, so he gritted his teeth and pushed himself to run faster. He reached a stretch of crumbling road and froze.

“You see, the truth is… I don’t much care for my face. That’s why I hide it.”

Something happened under a similar broken overpass. Maybe right under this one. A ghostly image of a woman staring up at him—defiant, unyielding—flashed through his mind. He clutched his head. When the headache was gone, he realized that someone was approaching him from the right. 

“They can slap a sticker on you but you'll still break in transit."

He had said those words. But who was the woman he was insulting? What did she do to deserve this?

He decided that now wasn’t the time to dwell on weird flashbacks. Something was after him, and he had to be quick to get away, to safety, where he could tend to his wounds. The apparition he saw through the chiralium fog came closer, and he was ready to pounce if needed.

Sam saw the wobbly figure of a man stopping under the overpass between what was left of Edge Knot City and the open road to the Distribution center. He was way too solid to be a ghost, yet Sam stared at him—Odradek blinking in place of his eyes—like he’d seen a ghost. He only had a shotgun with him filled with anti-BT rounds and Sam wondered if he should level it and shoot the wraith that managed to come back to haunt him yet again. But the moment fleeted when the ghost began to speak.

“Would you mind answering a question?”

Sam had no idea how to respond. 

“Where in the ever-loving hell am I?” Higgs gestured around him. Sam leveled the shotgun with his head. “Whoa, whoa, calm down man… I mean no harm.”

Sam lowered the gun—he couldn’t bear that kind of audacity without replying.

“That’s rich, coming from you.”

“Wait, do you know me? Do I know you? Because this whole situation’s getting weird.”

“Whatever game you’re playing this time Higgs, it won’t end well for you.”

“Nah, something tells me I’m not the “player” sort of guy in the game you’re referring to.” Higgs flashed his trademark crooked grin at Sam, who felt like he walked into a waking nightmare. 

“How?”

“How what?”

“How are you still alive? Is this another one of those ghost mechs you inhabited?”

Higgs blinked as if surprised to hear the things Sam said. 

“Brother, what kind of vice are you smoking, and where can I get some for little ‘ol me?”

“Just answer the question.”

“I would if I could. But alas, your guess is as good as mine.” Higgs shrugged then winced. “Now that we had this amusing little conversation, I think I better take my chances elsewhere.”

Letting him go meant another voidout. It meant yet another Last Stranding plan in motion. Sam stepped closer, ready to shoot Higgs and bury him in the nearest tar pit. He caught the intent and began to back away. Despite being a head taller, he was no match for Sam in hand-to-hand combat even when he was fit and unharmed, let alone in this wretched state.

“Can’t we just talk it out? No?”

He had the audacity to joke about a peaceful solution. Sam was absolutely seeing red. 

“Hey, I’m serious!”

This made Sam stop, but he was close enough to hit Higgs square in the jaw if he tries anything. 

“It seems like you have some kind of a problem with me.” He was obviously choosing his words carefully, in order to get Sam’s shotgun out of his guts. “But look at me, man. I’m unarmed, for fuck’s sake, and injured. I can’t fight back, even if I want to.”

“And since when did you care about stuff like that?”

“Since I have no idea who the fuck I am!” 

Sam backed off and took a good look at Higgs. He was shaking, still covered in wounds and bruises he sustained in their last fight…more than a year ago. His long hair got stuck together by the tar and blood, staining it black from brown. He was also shirtless in late autumn weather, which explained the shaking partially. He looked pathetic. And if - a big IF - what he said was true, he didn’t remember anything. 

“How do I know you’re not lying?”

“Well, that’s the fun part.” Higgs grinned but it faded quickly from his battered face. “You don’t. All you have is my word.”

Sam stared at him with thinly veiled hatred and distrust. 

“And what if I don’t take your word?”

“Well, I can always go left, and you can go fuck yourself.” Higgs shrugged again, this time careful not to tear open another gash on his back. “But sadly, I’m in dire need of supplies.”

He raised his hands as if surrendering, and sniffed.

“And a bath, apparently.”

Seeing that he failed to get a reaction out of Sam, he sighed.

“By the way I see it, this little absurd comedy sketch of ours can go two ways: either you bid me farewell and go on your way, or you can help me reach a safe point, where I’ll get my shit together, leave, and whatever beef you’ve got with me—we’ll settle it later.”

Sam didn’t want to believe it. 

“You really don’t remember? What you did? Amelie, the voidouts, Last Stranding?”

The name stirred a faint remnant of a memory, but Higgs’ face remained the same puzzled expression.

“None of that makes sense to me. Sorry if I stole yer girl though.”

His grin made it clear he was anything but.

Sam lowered the shotgun, and Higgs let out a relieved sigh. 

“There’s a Distro center nearby, and I’m heading towards it. You can tag along.”

“Much obliged.” Higgs mock-bowed. Sam decided keeping an eye on this madman was the best way to deal with this situation. Deep down he hoped he would wake up, soaked in cold sweat in his bed in a Distribution center’s private room, or on a hillside, or anywhere but in this wasteland of ruins, death and near Higgs. 

They walked - or in Higgs’ case, limped - towards the Distribution center in silence, Sam too upset to talk and Higgs too focused on his surroundings and suppressing the pain eating away at his willpower. He stopped a few times, but caught up with the porter quickly after.

“Hey, is there a point in you luggin’ that coffin… Sorry, container around?”

Sam stopped. They had this conversation before. 

“I’ll put you in it if you won’t shut up.”

Higgs chuckled like he was challenged to a duel of wits.

“Oh, sure you would.”

But the banter highlighted something important for Sam: if Higgs enters the Distro center, anyone can recognize him. He will be taken into custody, and who knows what horrors he might unleash if threatened? 

“No, wait… I’m serious. I’m gonna put you into the container, and carry you inside the Distro center as cargo.”

“Uh, excuse my French, but what the fuck?”

He seemed genuinely confused. Sam could at least empathize with that.

“All right. Let’s say I believe your bullshit about not remembering who you are.” He grated through layers of exhaustion and anger. “But you’re a wanted man, Higgs. You’re a terrorist.”

Higgs raised one of his chiral-adorned brow. 

“Pretty shitty terrorist I must be if I got my ass handed to me like this.” 

Sam once again let the bait fly over his head. Higgs licked the inside of his cheek and let out an exasperated sigh.

“I just hope the other guy had it worse. Okay, hide me inside that damned box.”

Sam opened the container and unloaded the equipment he needed to deliver to neatly stack inside another box intended for the same science team. Higgs struggled to climb into it, his injuries limiting his movement significantly. When he was inside, he flashed a sardonic grin at Sam, and crossed his hands in front of his chest like he would be posed before burial. Sam closed the lid of the container just enough to let Higgs breathe and continued towards the Distro center. When he arrived there, he listed  Higgs as 198.42 pounds of spoiled meat on its way to the recycle center further North.

The science team was relieved to see Sam and their equipment arriving safe and unharmed. No one batted an eyelid at the recyclable. In fact, Sam was offered to take care of it in the Distribution center’s waste incinerator. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t tempted, but he refused, reciting food safety laws and other regulations. After he was assigned a room to spend the night in, he pushed the coffin-shaped crate inside and locked the door, then knocked on the crate’s lid.

“All right, you can come out now.”

Higgs crawled out like he was indeed returning from the dead. Sam saw his back, and winced at the sight of the inflamed wounds. Some of them were his own handiwork. Most of them, if he was honest.

“Shower’s at the other end of the room.” He grunted then proceeded to unpack his gear. 

He heard Higgs dragging himself out of his close vicinity and then he heard the shower being turned on. Some barely audible sound of distress reached him - the side effect of hot water meeting inflamed, broken skin probably - then as he lowered himself down on the cot to maybe sleep while he can, Sam heard Higgs faintly singing.

"...I can tear down the walls, storm the barricades

Run to the place where the frightened crawl

Desire lurks beyond good and evil

So I dance on the graves where the hallowed fall…”

Hearing his voice brought back the horrible memory of being burned alive, over and over again. Sam sprang up and caught a glimpse of Higgs walking inside, with his clothes in a bundle, strategically placed in front of his private parts.

“Over this land

All over this wasteland...”

He kept on humming the tune and occasionally repeating some verse while he struggled his dirty cargo pants on. His boots, gloves and undergarment remained scattered on the floor. When he caught Sam’s gaze he once again flashed a cocky grin at him.

“Hey, no peeking!”

Sam stood up and went to take a shower as well. The last thing he wanted to see was Higgs in all his naked glory. His head hurt, and he just knew he won’t be sleeping well anytime soon. The dilemma of giving up Higgs or hide him and find out what to do with him weighed heavily on Sam’s conscience. When he was done with cleaning himself, he went back, still none the wiser about his supposed course of action regarding his old enemy. Higgs sat on the ground, leaning his side to the wall in order not to let his injured back touch anything. He stopped singing as soon as he put his pants on, and now he was just staring into the air. His hair covered half of his face, and with the tar being washed out of it, it looked more dirty blond than brown. Sam walked past him and took the first aid kit out of his gear.

“Let me see your back!” He instructed the younger man.

“How nice of you, good Samaritan.” Higgs riposted, but his voice was more tired than sarcastic. Sam judged his fever had likely spiked, given his flushed cheeks and labored breathing.

“Here, hold this!” Sam handed the first aid box to Higgs. “I’ll clean your wounds and put some bandages on you.”

Higgs didn’t say a word, only let out a yelp and a muttered curse when Sam began to spray his back with the disinfectant. It was known to sting, but had great anti-inflammatory properties. Sam tended to each bruise and gash, all the while remembering each blow he dealt that caused it.

“I figured I tell you I remember my name.” 

Sam lifted his head. He’d been calling Higgs by that name all along—it wasn’t much of a surprise, or much of a feat.

“Oh yeah?” He asked, just to keep the other man talking.

“Yeah, you keep calling me Hicks, or Higgs, or whatever… But that’s not what I’m called.”

Well that was new.

“What’s your name then?” Sam straightened and lowered his hand with the bandages.

“My name’s Peter Englert.” The injured man held out his hand. “And you got me all wrong. I’m not a terrorist. I’m a porter, like you.”

Sam knew the name. The alias Higgs went by for a while, ordering pizza for one nonexistent relative or another, all the while laughing at him. Could it be that this was his real name? Sam let out a tired sigh and didn’t shake Peter’s hand. This was enough bullshit for one lifetime, let alone a single day.

“Get some shuteye. We’ll leave tomorrow morning.”

“No need to tell me twice.” Those piercing blue eyes were already closed. Sam returned to the cot, but sleep wouldn’t come.

For hours, he was tossing and turning, his mind racing with possible worst-case scenarios. He still refused to believe that Higgs/Peter was telling the truth. 

“Do you remember that day on the Beach?”

Tar washed over his face once more, and he felt his wounded side burning. Higgs fought himself to his feet, and realized in horror where he ended up this time. Somehow, he managed to forget every little thing about himself, but the Beach - this fucking beach - just refused to be gone. Same as the feeling of being trapped on it for what felt like thousands of years in isolation. 

“Do you think I ever cared about you?”

He heard a woman’s voice. He didn’t recognize her, but he saw her. Tall, blonde, in a red dress so starkly in contrast with the grey and muted ochre of the Beach. She also wore a mask painted the same color of her clothing. She stood on the shore, her hand beckoned him to follow.

“Who are you?” He asked. Then he heard his own voice answering from her mask

“My guiding light betrayed me…”

She blinked out of existence, only to pop out of nowhere right next to him. She reached up and caressed his face, her mask’s expression a cruel grin.

“Oh, sweetheart…”

She slapped him hard enough to make him bite his lip, drawing blood.

“Joke’s on you, honey, I’m into that stuff.” He riposted. She disappeared again, now sitting with her long legs crossed atop a dead whale. Her mask in her hand, she looked down on him wih disgust.

“Spare me your theatrics.”

“Well, I’m not the one jumping from one place to the other, lady. Also, I assume we had something between us, judging by your…” he rubbed his aching cheek “Intense reaction to seeing my face.”

She flashed a smile at him, but it nearly split her face in half. Something just wasn’t right with that woman. Death’s head, dressed in red. 

He backed away from the shore. 

“I’m the particle of God that permeates all existence…Who are you?” 

He kept on hearing his own voice, like the woman in red was mocking him with things he didn’t remember saying.

“These wounds and bruises suit you well.” She emerged from the ground, once again getting close to him, throwing her arms around his shoulders. “Matches your wounded ego, and your bruised pride. Your well-deserved fate.”

Her neatly manicured red nails dug into a cut on his side, and he cried out in pain only to turn it into a cry of horror as he saw tar flowing out of his body instead of blood.

“Betrayed you?” She laughed, and smeared the tar from her hand on his lips.”You’re the one who failed me!”

His body didn’t feel right. Too stiff, too cold. Made of steel and rubber. Undead wiring squirmed inside him like his guts, his face an homage and a mockery of her. She towered over him, his whole body fitting into the palm of her hand.

“I’m too old to play with dolls.” She dangled him then folded her hand around the mech that became him, and squeezed. “I have no more need of you.”

Alloy buckled under her strength and armature folded in on itself, finishing his existence in a spray of tar and chiralium particles. 

He woke up feeling nauseous, under the spell of his nightmare -or was it real? It felt like it was real - and with the cold of the grave shaking him once again. His ears rang, and he felt tears streaming down his face. He scrambled to his feet, and shook his companion.

“Hey, we need to leave. Now.”

Sam was already awake when he heard Higgs coming to his senses with a gasp. He figured he had some kind of a nightmare or his wounds kept on bothering him. 

“Don’t you feel it?” He whispered, and Sam realized he feels something too. 

“Something’s coming.” he added, and Higgs nodded. 

Then the sirens blared, slicing through the silence like a warning from the dead. 

Sam ran towards the exit, and saw the science team rushing to evacuate. Outside, a shriek echoed and reverberated between the ruined walls of Edge Knot City. Sam mentally prepared for the battle with what sounded like a large BT, and headed towards the exit. He heard another set of footsteps, and felt a hand brushing his shoulder. Higgs passed him by, wearing nothing but his cargo pants and combat boots, his hair billowed behind him like a mane of rusted gold, catching the red light like embers in a storm.

“Where are you going?” Sam called after him, but the taller man seemed to be in a trance. He stopped in front of the Distribution center, and waited. Sam caught up with him, and saw the BT.

It was a kaiju-class entity, towering over the buildings. Its head was a gaping maw—no eyes, no face—just endless screaming, echoing like a thousand lost souls. The creature floated above the ground, oozing tar over everything. A red cloud seemed to follow it, covering it’s skeletal body like a dress. Sam took aim on the small BTs which came from the tar flowing down from the kaiju, and pumped them full of hematic rounds. He had no idea if he had enough of them to take on the big one though. 

For a long, terrible moment, nothing happened. Then the kaiju emitted a scream so loud it shook Higgs out of his trance and he ran towards the creature, shaking off the tar-black, skeletal hands and arms trying to grab his legs. The giant BT took interest in him, and soon he found himself being surrounded by all the BTs Sam couldn’t shoot. Higgs reached out his hand, and pushed. The giant BT wobbled backwards. He felt the ice cold embrace of the small creatures, but he dedicated his attention to their mother. His body rose, not by will but by something ancient and buried—like the Beach itself reclaiming him. His eyes burned with the tears flowing down, drawing a black trail of ruined ceremonial eyeliner on his face. He reached out with both hands, and the tar seemed to obey him…The giant BT slowly retreated and descended into the pit, along with its creations. Higgs collapsed to his knees, the tar receding around him like a tide obeying its master—yet he trembled, as if afraid of what he’d become.He came back to his senses to Sam grabbing his arm and running. They didn’t stop running for a long time.

Chapter Text

By the time they decided to stop and catch their breaths they left Edge Knot City far behind. The sun rose, painting long shadows behind the stones on the road. Sam reached a larger one and stopped next to it, waiting for his unwilling companion to catch up with him. Higgs crashed on the stone and exhaled, running one tar-soaked hand through his hair.

“What the hell happened back there?” 

Sam’s question drew Higgs’ gaze at him. 

“Well, I hoped you could tell me, because I have no idea.” His voice was shaking “What the fuck did I do, and most importantly, how the fuck did I do that?”

Sam raised his brow. Higgs looked at him, confusion and anger written on his face.

“You still don’t believe me, do you?”

“Can you blame me? Knowing who you are, knowing what you did, would you trust yourself?”

“Well at least one of us knows, who I am. Last thing I remember that I heard about one of my friends fucking dying in a voidout, then I woke up looking like shit and you tried to shoot me.” He exhaled again, trying to calm down and turned away from Sam. “From where I’m standing, I’m not the one causing problems.”

“Then what was that stunt with the BT? You controlled it.”

“Nice little trick, isn’t it?” Higgs grinned, but it didn’t reach his eyes “Would be real peachy if I actually knew how to do that.”

Sam took a step closer to him, but still kept his distance.

“What do you remember?”

Higgs looked up at the sky, admiring the golden shine over the dark clouds drawing closer. It will be a rainy day. 

“I don’t remember shit. Just scraps. Echoes. Like seeing glimpses of someone else's life.”

“You said your friend died in a voidout…Do you remember his name?”

Higgs let out a bitter chuckle.

“As I said, I don’t remember shit. Not his name, not even how he looked like. All I remember is the helpless rage I felt because I wasn’t with him, and couldn’t save him. My stupid ass figured I don’t have to babysit a grown man, and he knows what he’s doing. Stupid fuck ran right into BT country.”

Was it guilt, radiating from Higgs’ every word? Regret for not being there when a friend needed him? Sam couldn’t believe his ears.

“And you blame yourself for his death.” He said. Higgs looked back at him.

“Of course I blame myself. I know I can sense BTs, I should have been with him.” He shrugged. “But I was running another errand that day. He called me right before he popped.”

Sam wanted to say something. Console him maybe. But this was the same man who killed thousands of people by orchestrating voidouts, and the one who killed his friends. Compassion was the last thing Sam wanted to give him. 

“Funny how I failed keeping my friend safe because my powers were weakening, yet I managed to shoo a giant BT back to wherever it came from.” Higgs concluded. “And I still have no idea how I did it.”

“So that BT wasn’t your doing?”

Higgs burst out laughing at the absurdity of the notion.

“Unless I somehow did it while asleep, no. I didn’t summon it. And I’m really tired of trying to prove it to you.”

There was no way for Sam to determine if Higgs was lying about his amnesia and the loss of his powers. For now, it seemed like the former terrorist was speaking the truth, and his display of power over the kaiju-BT was subconscious and not intentional. Whatever happened back in Edge Knot City wasn’t planned by him. It was out of his control, and for what it’s worth, Sam saw that this terrified Higgs more than the BT itself.

“We need to get moving.” He spoke after a pause, and Higgs fought himself to his feet. His bandages got soaked with tar and he winced with every few movements he made. Sam sighed and rummaged through his gear, then shoved a jacket into Higgs’ hands. 

“Here. Put this on. We’ll get you some gear next time.”

Maybe Higgs was too tired to complain, or to throw a sarcastic one-liner in his way, Sam didn’t know. He just put the jacket and the hood on, and shoved his hands in his pockets. The garment was made for Sam, who was shorter but more muscular than Higgs, so it was too loose in places, and its sleeves stopped way before they reached Higgs’ wrists. Still, they provided warmth and cover from the timefall. 

“And what now?”

Sam was thinking for a moment, then drew the map of the area from his ring terminal. 

“Port Knot City is large enough.”

“You want me to go with you to Port Knot City?” Higgs raised a tattooed brow. 

“Rather you stay out here?”

Higgs didn’t answer just walked past Sam, who also put on his hood. The first raindrops began to fall. 

They reached the tar belt that divided Edge Knot City from the rest of the continent. Sam looked at his companion, waiting for him to say something - anything - but Higgs just stopped and stared at the black depths. 

“You made this.” Sam commented, not really looking for a reaction, just to let Higgs know. “You cut Edge Knot City off from the rest of the world, and trapped Amelie inside.”

The name switched on something in Higgs’ head. He felt a shiver run down his spine, and he saw something red deep in the tar. A mask, carved to resemble a woman’s face, with her lips curled into a sneer. Gold streaks ran down her face like running mascara. Higgs took a step closer to the edge and reached down to fish the mask out of the tar, but a similar red hand appeared and a delicate finger was raised in front of the mask, as if warning him to stay quiet. Then it was gone. Yet, Higgs felt a strange sensation. Like something calling out to him from the tar. Or not the tar itself, but the Beach. Her voice.

“Tell you what…” He turned to Sam. “If I made this, I can also unmake it.”

“How?”

“I don’t know, but I feel like the tar is reacting to my presence.”

He reached out and let the viscous liquid form upward strands that reached around his hand. He then took a step forward. Sam reached after him to stop him, but Higgs wasn’t submerged in the depths. He stood in it like the deep tar pit was no deeper than a mere puddle. The water level barely reached over the soles of his boots. He extended his hand towards Sam.

“I can be your Ferryman. If you trust me.”

Sam hesitated. In any other day, he would run in the opposite direction, and now was on the verge of doing just that. Trusting Higgs was too much to ask, even if he wasn’t really himself at the moment.

“Fine. Have it your way.” Higgs shrugged and lowered his hand.

“Wait!” Sam called after him. “I’ll go with you.”

Higgs flashed his trademark crooked grin at him. A flash of lightning made his blue eyes shine in an eerie way. 

“Hold my hand!”

Sam grabbed Higgs’ hand, wondering whether the black on his nails was paint or tar-stained regret. Their hands intertwined -Higgs’ right, Sam’s left - and the taller man began to walk, pulling him into the tar.

“I don’t know how long can I maintain the connection, so look alive, porter!”

They walked through the tar like they would a rain soaked street. Behind them, silhouettes of the lost began to rise - distorted, silent, reaching.

Walking behind Higgs as he forged ahead, Sam noticed the BTs emerging and closing in on them. It was only a matter of time before they’d have to fight them off if they don’t want to be dragged under the tar. 

“We got company.”

“Of course we do.” Higgs replied, voice laden with his usual sarcasm. “Can’t cross a tar pit without alerting the locals.”

“Can’t we go faster?”

“We certainly can run, straight into our long and labored deaths by drowning in the tar if the BTs don’t get to us first and turn this little pool of theirs into a crater.”

“So the answer is no?”

“The answer is fuck no.”

Sam still had his handgun and some hematic bullets left, so he was sure he could hold some BTs off if they got too close, but the two of them were still a long distance away from the other side and Port Knot City. He usually packed enough firepower if he knew he would cross BT territory, and Sam was prepared to get through the ruins of Edge Knot City, but this journey veered into unfamiliar places. They had to flee the distribution center North of Edge Knot City after the kaiju-class BT’s attack and Higgs’ identity being exposed to the science team, so they were running low on ammunition and other supplies. 

“How long, until we reach the shore?”

“A shorter time if you keep on walkin’ than if you keep on talkin’.”

He didn’t want to silence Sam to avoid being detected by the BTs, it was already done. Higgs wanted him to shut up so he could focus. He felt control once again slipping away from him, the red mask appeared in the tar, mocking him as he tried to quicken up his pace to reach it. His eyes itched and his tears ran down his cheeks, smearing what was left of his makeup. But the tar played a trick on him: the faster he tried to traverse through it, the deeper his feet sank. So Higgs tried to calm down and keep a steady walking speed. He felt sharp nails digging into his wound, drawing tar and fear— bittersweet, like memory turned poison - just like Amelie’s did in his nightmare. His legs almost faltered.

“Are you all right?”

He heard Sam like he was talking to him from underwater. Higgs’ breathing became labored and he felt like his will to live was flowing away from him through a hole in his side.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He lied. “Just give me a moment.”

Sam felt the tar growing and rising up to his knees. 

“Higgs, what’s wrong?”

“It’s okay, just hold on…” But his grip was already loosening—tar rising, breath fading—until his hand slipped from Sam’s and he collapsed.

“Oh, shit.”

Sam caught Higgs’ arm in time before he could fall over to be submerged in the tar pit. The ex-terrorist came to his senses quickly and straightened up, nodding to his companion.

“Okay, okay…I’m fine.”

“You don’t seem fine to me.”

“That was mean, Sam. I’m the finest bastard this side of the tar pit.”

“I guess you’re not that sick if you can still be an ass.”

Higgs laughed and began to walk again, holding Sam’s hand. Their journey got interrupted by a swarm of BTs, this time bold enough to breach the invisible line between threat and attack. Sam unholstered his handgun and shot the ones closest to them.

“I could use a little help!” He called out after the third BT.

“Well, I could flip them off, but I don’t think that would be much help to you.” Higgs replied, fighting what felt like the worst headache of all of his lifetimes combined. “In case you haven’t noticed my dear porter, the only weapon I have on me is my sharp wit.”

“Then we have to move faster.”

“I can’t.”

“You have to.”

Oddly, the words sounded like encouragement instead of an order or a plea. Higgs took a longer step, pulling Sam along. Headache and Amelie’s mask be damned. A larger BT emerged in front of him blocking the way, but he sent it reeling with a wave of his hand. Power always felt good and now he had Sam depending on him to get out of the tar pit alive, and it made him near euphoric.

“Move your feet, we’re almost there!”

Gunshot. A second one. BTs fell in front of them, and the shore with Port Knot City was no longer in the far distance. 

As they ran out to solid ground, Higgs stopped and coughed up tar. 

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Sam sounded like he was worried.

“I can’t deny I need a little time to catch my breath.” Higgs replied, already dragging himself further inland, and collapsing onto a rock.

“Back there, you seemed to remember my name.” 

Higgs looked up at Sam and raised his brow in confusion. 

“I did, because you told me.”

“Not since meeting you again.”

“Look, it’s one ‘o those rare times, when I’d rather come clean than fucking with ya. I had no idea who you were until we crossed the tar pit. I remember your name, and that we have some sort of beef, but that’s it.”

Was he lying? Sam got tired of guessing. Higgs dragged him through the tar to reach their destination, and it apparently drained him to the point of exhaustion. It had to mean something. Even if Sam still couldn’t decide what.

“That pain you nurse…will only get worse.”

There he was again. Under the steel sky. Inside the dark shelter that reeked of spilled blood and old death. If there was a place he wanted to visit even less than that never ending goddamned Beach was this. Daddy’s shelter. The world he knew before his first kill. Higgs stood up, looking around and trying to make sense of everything. Has he lost his memories again? He didn’t remember getting back home. He swallowed the knot forming inside of his throat. He heard a noise, small, like a mouse scurrying away and he jumped at it, following it to its source. A cabinet with a sliding door he knew too well. Higgs knelt down and gently slid the door open.

There he was again. Inside the only shelter he had from Daddy’s never ending supply of wrath. Curled up like a scared little animal, nursing bleeding lips and bruises, he waited for the storm to go. Sometimes it was not enough, and when he crawled out from his hidey-hole, thinking it was finally over, he got another beating waiting for him. A little extra for making Daddy worry. 

“Hey, kiddo.” He leaned down. “It’s okay, I won’t hurt you.”

His own sad, blue eyes darted up and stared behind him in horror.

“He will.”

Higgs cursed himself for letting his guard down. Someone - he knew who, he just refused to name him - grabbed his hair and dragged him out of the room.

“You ungrateful brat! All you had to do was stay inside!”

“Oh, hell no!” Higgs growled through gritted teeth and the apparition’s hands squeezing his throat. “Not again!”

His hand found the knife and he lodged it neatly into the jugular of his uncle’s ghost. Usually he woke up after this, every time he had a nightmare not about the future, inevitable extinction of Humanity, but the cold, hard, unchangeable past. He watched the body dissolve into tar, and felt cold. He ran back to the smaller room, to the cabinet. 

“You can come out now. He’s gone.”

He had no idea why he called out to himself. He knew how this story ended, Daddy going necro, Higgs getting his DOOMS, and all that jazz, all ancient history. Still, this time something was different. 

The child in the closet was dead. 

“Well, this is new.” 

The shelter’s walls peeled away like old, yellowed wallpaper, leaving him on - oh, he just knew it! - the same, dull fucking Beach with the same red-clad bitch.

“Nice twist on my personal level of hell, I give you that.” Higgs grinned at Amelie. She just stared at him, but soon he learned she wasn’t alone. There was a boy hiding behind her, clutching her skirt. Battered and scared. Looking at him with the same pair of sad blue eyes he always seen in the mirror. 

“Aw, come on, it’s a low blow.” 

“Do you really think you matter?” Amelie looked at him all pitifully. “Do you really think, I couldn’t choose someone else to do my will, but you?”

“Well honey, you dumped me halfway through, so I don’t even know why are you askin’.” Whatever nightmare this was, Higgs was determined not to let it get under his skin. “And I did my job goddamn well.”

“You lost your mask, her Quipu, the BB doll…Gone…”

“Yeah, yeah… Temporary setbacks.” He shrugged “Also, could you please stop using my own voice and my own words against me? I’m kind of a narcissist, true, but this is fuckin’ unnerving.”

“You failed in every possible way, Higgs.” Amelie came closer, though her feet never touched the ground. “Or should I call you Peter? Do you even remember which one is your real name?”

“Two words: Fuck. You.”

“You thought you had the power, that you were the one fated to lead them unto extinction... yet here you are, alone.” Amelie’s words once again weren’t really hers. Higgs recognized his own handwriting speaking through her. “You thought you were in control. That this was your role, your dream... The verge of victory, of oblivion for one and all... Herald, executor, pawn. God particle?” She sneered and laughed “A stupid name for a stupid goddamn fool.”

“Okay, I get it now.” Higgs sighed. “This is actually me bullying myself because whatever cranial trauma caused me to forget most of the shit I had done, also made me forget that I was out of fucks to give by the time I was ten.”

“How many times did you die?” Amelie’s hand ran up his chest. “Why do you crave Oblivion so much?”

“Well, maybe let’s ask your dear Sammy this question, hmm? I might’ve been less of an ass towards him and only kill him once if I knew rebirth’s a bitch, turns out.” Higgs grinned, but the tension in his muscles betrayed his anxiety. “Then again… I hate his guts, and it was fun to make him suffer.”

Amelie’s hands cupped his face, and she leaned closer, a sweet but threatening smile on her lips.

“And now you depend on him. The irony.”

She gently traced his cheekbones with her thumbs.

“Goodbye, Higgs.”

Before he could answer, she was gone. There was nothing, but the empty, godforsaken Beach and the stench of rotting fish, and stale seawater.

It was late afternoon when Sam returned, and the first thing he saw after he entered the Distro center was Higgs, chatting with a female porter. She was young, and seemed like she was hanging on his every word. It rubbed him the wrong way, maybe because the girl reminded him of Tomorrow. How old was Higgs anyway? Sam knew from finding his journals that Higgs was younger than him, so somewhere in his late forties? He really shouldn’t be hanging out with girls young enough to be his daughter.

“Safe room. Now.” He grumbled when he reached Higgs’ destination.

“What? Not even a “hello”?”

“Don’t make me drag you.”

Higgs laughed. 

“Sam, sweetheart you know I like it rough, but there are children here! Be patient!”

Sam glared daggers at him. The porter girl took her cargo from the conveyor belt and smiled at both men.

“I was about to go anyway. Thanks for the help, Peter!” She turned to Higgs and waved them goodbye. There was a short pause before Higgs let out an exasperated sigh and began to walk back towards the elevator, Sam in tow.

“Before you skewer me with that glare, I know I was naughty, I know I should have stayed in the safe room, but I just don’t give a damn.” He broke the tense silence between them. 

“What were you talking about with that girl?” Sam inquired.

“Well, I did the unspeakable horror of teaching her how to use a stabilizer on her skeleton.” Higgs turned to Sam. “I know. Diabolical.”

“She didn’t recognize you?”

“Not a single spark of recognition for my old, so-called terrorist self in her. Come to think about it, it’s almost insulting.”

They reached the floor with their safe room, and Sam ushered Higgs inside, then shoved a box in his hands.

“Those are yours.”

“Wow, thanks, Dad!” Higgs was having a great time mocking him like he always used to. Sam just wasn’t in the mood to let him anymore.

“Just what were you thinking? If someone recognizes you, what then?”

Higgs once again sighed and sat down on the edge of his cot.

“You know I never showed my face to no one, but you and Amelie? And Fragile, but she’s irrelevant.”

Sam sat in front of him on his own cot.

“No one, not a single soul knows how I look like besides you and yours,” Higgs continued “so how about you fuckin’ stop keeping me cooped up in this cage?”

His voice carried the venom Sam was familiar with. Yet, he couldn’t just let Higgs run around Port Knot City unsupervised. It was out of the question.

“You could come work with me next time.”

Higgs’ eyes went wide. This was unexpected. 

“Just like that?”

“Just like that. I know you used to be a porter. I could use an extra pair of hands.”

“Is that an olive branch I see in your hand?”

Sam leaned back, suddenly feeling the weight of the day.

“Take it, or leave it. This is your only chance.”

There was a long pause. Sam heard the rustling of clothes and a small sound of appreciation from Higgs, but nothing more. He was about to fall asleep when he felt the mattress buckle under the weight of another body.

“I’ve been thinkin’ ‘bout this olive branch of yours, Sam.”

“So?”

Higgs lied down next to Sam on the cot and stared up at the ceiling. 

“I’m going with you. Been a long time since I’ve been a delivery guy.”

Sam hummed in quiet agreement, then fell asleep.

Chapter Text

“This route is the safest.” Sam dug his heels in, trying - for the umpteenth time that day - to deter Higgs from taking a trail that would indeed shorten their trip significantly, yet was known for having multiple bandit camps and tar pits.

“I can control the tar and know the bandits. Next excuse?”

Sam rubbed his temple with one hand. This day already felt longer than it was possible.

“You can’t control the tar. At least not consciously.”

“But I still know the bandits.”

“Those Homo Demens buddies of yours are long gone.”

“Sam sweetheart, not every bandit is a terrorist. Some of them are just regular guys and gals who try to survive in this mess we call a world post-Stranding.”

“So what, you’ll try to deal with them?”

“Better me than you.” 

“No.”

Higgs rolled his eyes and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

“You still think I’d betray you.”

“Wouldn’t put it past you.”

Higgs shrugged.

“Fair enough.”

He also looked at his own ring terminal -  which he wore on his middle-finger instead of his thumb, like Sam did - and checked on the route once again.

“Your safe, boring and unnecessarily lengthy delivery route is ready, my liege.”

“Good.” Sam grumbled in response, and sat back into the truck’s driver seat. Higgs followed, taking the passenger seat, positioning his long legs in a way to keep them from going numb. 

For a while, they travelled in silence, then Higgs turned to Sam and said

“You know what, screw you. I’m here with you, risking my neck to deliver plush bunny ears to the Cosplayer and also medical supplies to a settlement so remote you couldn’t even connect it to the chiral network yet! And not once, - not once! - did I go against anything you told me to do. Yet here we are, dancing the same old dance of hero and villain.”

“If you start monologuing about extinction or the Beach again, I’ll tape your mouth shut.”

“Kinky.” Higgs grinned “But my point stands. Screw you, and I’m not talking to you again.”

“Finally.”

There was a longer pause with Sam focusing on the road, and Higgs humming a tune. Then he once again broke the tension.

“Tar pit.”

“What was it with you not talking to me?” Sam asked. “Keep at it.”

“Tar pit!” Higgs repeated, but Sam already saw it too. A large pit, with strands of viscous black liquid falling upwards, as if defying gravity. Sam hit the brakes, and turned the truck before they could fall into the pit, but its presence meant that they have to take another road.

“Can I interest you in a route much shorter?” Higgs drew up the map again, but Sam glared at him with an intensity that would make a BT call retreat. 

“What? I warned you about the tar pit.Twice! Never did this much public service for anyone in my life.”

“You knew that there’s a tar pit on the road!”

“Sure.” Higgs said sarcastically “Hell, I probably handcrafted it while you blinked.”

Sam seemed to calm down. 

“Right. Sorry.”

Higgs’ eyes grew wide and his lips turned to a little surprised smile. 

“Did my ears ring? Did you say “sorry”?”

“It wasn’t fair to blame the tar pit on you.”

“Oh, Sam stop it, I will blush!” Higgs’ usual dry humor came in a lighter shade this time. 

“We’ll take your route.” Sam decided. “But if we get shot at, I’m tossing you out with a shotgun to get us out of that shit.”

“Deal.” Higgs stretched, then began to rummage through the glove compartment.

“Looking for something?” Sam inquired while turning back and driving in the other direction.

“My will to live.”

“That’s not there.” Sam permitted himself a joke. “I saw it being packed with the pizza.”

Higgs laughed and let out an enthusiastic noise then emerged from his scavenging venture into the compartment with a protein bar in hand.

“Ha! I knew you still had one in there somewhere!”

He took a bite out of the bar and made an expression of mixed disgust and astonishment.

“Mmmm… Tastes like moldy cardboard you let soak in timefall.”

“Knock yourself out.” 

“Knock me out yourself, you coward!”

Sam chuckled. At Higgs’ comeback, and at the absurdity of it all. 

It took them half a day to reach the Cosplayer’s shelter, and by the time they got there, both of them were tired and hungry. Sam rang the terminal while Higgs loaded the cargo onto the shelf of the processing unit. 

“Oh, hello!” The Cosplayer was delighted to see her favorite delivery man, but her smile faded when she noticed Higgs’ form stepping away from the processing unit. 

“It’s true then? You no longer work alone?”

“Yeah.” Sam nodded.

“I wondered if it was just a rumor.” Her chiralgram glitched slightly before she turned to check the contents of the crate she got. “It seemed so out of place… Sam and some guy travelling all around.”

“The guy has a name, you know.” Higgs glared daggers at the chiralgram.

Before he could do something unwise out of pride, Sam decided to draw Higgs’ attention away from the Cosplayer’s chiralgram.

“Wait for me in the truck. I’ll handle this.”

Higgs still glared, but went out of the shelter. 

“I didn’t mean to hurt him.” The Cosplayer said “He seems like a nice guy.”

“Yeah.” Sam hoped he was convincing enough. “Bit of a drama queen though.”

“I heard that!” Higgs called out from outside.

“Then you’re still not at the truck.”

Higgs rolled his eyes - though Sam couldn’t see it - and walked back to the truck. He noticed something peeking out from Sam’s personal gear, and curiosity - mixed with just a little bit of vengefulness for embarrassing him - took over. Sam caught him elbow deep in the box.

“Hey, why are you going through my stuff?” 

“Because this here…” Higgs answered while he managed to pull out the battle-guitar from Sam’s belongings “...is actually my stuff.”

He plucked the string, letting a spark of electricity gather at the top of the instrument’s neck.

“Put that thing down.”

Sam’s voice was calm but serious. Higgs raised a mathematical-equation-adorned brow but didn’t comply.

“What are you afraid of? I serenade a BT into existence?”

The image of Higgs using that damned thing as a flamethrower and engulfing  him in chiralium-sensitive fire came to Sam’s mind vividly. His voice, singing that cursed lullaby haunted him in his nightmares like a siren song of agony.

“Just put it away.”

“Fine.” Higgs shrugged. “But I want it back.”

“So you remember it was yours?”

“I remember…somethin’.” 

Higgs’ fingers traced the blade attached to the guitar. It bore the ghost of a familiar pain, one rearing its head inside his scars. Sam on the other hand remembered everything, and knew letting Higgs keep the weaponized instrument posed a risk way too great for everyone.

“You can’t have it. I’m sorry, but you have to let it go.”

Higgs’ expression wasn’t angry or defiant, only curious.

“I did something with this, did I?” 

He looked back at the blade and tried to remember. But the only thing came to mind was a song. Sam looked at him with growing anxiety.

“Why do you keep looking at me like I murdered all of your friends?” Higgs asked while he put the battle-guitar back to where he found it.

“Because you murdered all of my friends.” Sam replied, tone dead serious.

“Oops… That explains the glare.”

Sam didn’t speak more, just sat back at the driver’s seat and started the truck. Higgs didn’t bother to talk either. Sam didn’t know which god to thank for the small mercy, but it was a welcome one.

The tense silence stretched on until they stopped for the night. Sam was too exhausted to drive, and he caught Higgs nodding off a few times as well. 

“All right. We’ll sleep now, and go on to deliver the medical supplies tomorrow.”

“One of us should stay up, to watch the truck.” Higgs suggested. “Since I feel generous, I’ll do first watch.”

“Are you sure?” Sam wasn’t sure about all that. Not at all. Not with Higgs acting strangely, and in close vicinity to that damned weaponized guitar of his. 

“Look, I don’t know what I did to you or yours that made you so suspicious of me.” The former herald of extinction said “But I sure as hell ain’t going to steal the truck and go off on my own, so you can relax.”

He ran his fingers through his hair - which he clipped a bit shorter, so it no longer resembled Amelie’s, but still reached down to his shoulders - and let out an exasperated sigh. Sam was too exhausted to argue, so he got out and stretched his legs while Higgs fished out rations for two from their personal gear. He threw one of the protein bars to Sam and sat down a little bit apart from him on the ground. 

Sam couldn’t help but marvel at how that beanpole of a man folded himself into something almost compact. Higgs munched on his ration in silence, not even a stray hum came from him and it spiked Sam’s anxiety levels. 

“So our “beef” is me actually killing people close to you. People, who were also close to me.”

Sam heard Higgs speak but didn’t know what to say.

“Yeah.” He replied curtly.

“Fuck.”

Higgs did not elaborate on that, and Sam was once again grateful. He fell to a fretful sleep, where he had one of his weirdest recurring nightmares. It involved tentacles and the man sitting by him. So when Higgs woke him up about four hours later, Sam felt like he just stepped from one nightmare to the other.

“Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey.”

Sam sprang up, waiting for some unspeakable horror to happen. But there was only a fire that faded to embers, the wind blowing through the arid landscape, and of course Higgs.

“Oh, good. You’re up. It’s my turn to sleep.”

He leaned against the truck and shut his eyes, stretching his legs out which reminded Sam of just how tall this guy was. 

“Don’t leave me here when the morning comes.” Higgs told Sam loud and clear enough to let him know he’s still awake. 

Sam wouldn’t do that anyway. Despite being out in the wilderness, people still lived around these parts, holed up in shelters. If Higgs got into one of those… 

Right now he looked peaceful. Almost harmless. Sam noticed he still meticulously applied his ceremonial make-up, so it was perfect. He wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it. For a man once bent on ending the world, he sure kept the eyeliner sharp and the rock ‘n’ roll spirit sharper.

“How long do you think you have before he finds out?”

The stink of dead fish and rotting seaweed assaulted his senses as he once again regained consciousness on the Beach. Amelie stood in front of him, wearing his mask. 

“Oh, shut up.” Higgs grumbled through the despair. He must be dreaming, or hallucinating. The other possibility scared him to death. 

“He will find out.” Amelie taunted him “And when he does, you know what he’ll do.”

“I’m sorry honey, but I’m still waiting for a fuck so I can give it to you. At the moment, you’re out of luck.”

It couldn’t be that he was still trapped on the damned Beach, and everything he did in the past weeks was only in his head. Amelie left him, panicking and alone. He wanted to escape so badly, he started searching for the gun he’d once used on himself. When the loneliness and stagnation became unbearable. Kneeling in the sand, he felt a small hand touching his shoulder. 

“Don’t.”

Higgs turned his head and was face to face with the scared, battered little boy he once was. 

“Don’t tell me what to do, Pipsqueak! Go back to your closet!”

He wasn’t proud of this one. How much of an asshole can he be to insult even himself like that? The boy stood and walked away, but Higgs called after him.

“Hey, kid! Sorry.”

The child stopped and folded his arms around himself. Higgs went after him.

“I didn’t mean that.” He said while he wrapped his child-self in his arms. “It’s okay, you’re safe now.”

The child didn’t answer, and Higgs started to feel like he was trying to hold liquid. Then his kid-self’s head turned, a tar-soaked mockery of a human face with rows of sharp teeth crossing it. 

“What the…?”

Before he could finish the sentence, the creature’s head snapped forward, biting into his neck.

Higgs jolted awake with such force he hit his head, startling Sam.

“Are you all right?” He asked.

“Eh…” Higgs frowned “I tried to get in touch with my inner child, but the little bastard bit me.”

Sam chuckled.

“Sounds like you, all right.”

“How long did I sleep?”

Sam looked at his ring terminal.

“Not entirely two hours.”

Higgs wanted to curse, but there was such a level of frustration where the usual expletives just didn’t have the appropriate impact.

“How long ‘til we reach the settlement?”

Sam looked at the map. 

“We’ll be there around 3 in the afternoon.”

That meant a lot of driving through rough terrain and around tar pits, which also meant BTs. No sleeping in the truck, that was obvious.

“Well, as much as I love our mutual little road trip, we really should take a few days off after this.” Higgs suggested.

Sam was thinking about it. He didn’t remember when was the last time he had a good night’s sleep. Not since Higgs showed up. 

“I might consider it.” He replied. This seemed to be enough for his companion. He started the truck’s engine and they went on their way. Too much delay meant a decrease in payment and Sam’s reputation, which he was proud of. He didn’t mind the silence either, but after a while he suspected that Higgs either dozed off or is plotting something. Neither were desirable options.

“Are you there?” 

“No, I’m at home. In my bed. Eating pizza.” Higgs wiggled his fingers “This here’s nothin’ but an illusion.”

“Can you be serious for five seconds?”

“You asked the most ridiculous question in history, and expect me to give you a serious answer?”

“I see you’re here physically, Higgs.” Sam let out an exasperated sigh. “But what about your head?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s on my neck.” Higgs deadpanned. “Some say it’s up my ass. Sadly, I’m not that flexible.”

Sam shook his head. Getting a straight answer from Higgs was like asking tar to behave like water. 

“You said you remember something.”

Higgs turned away from Sam as if watching the road for tar pits.

“I remembered a song.”

Sam shuddered at the memory of Higgs singing his lullaby. 

“Cities in Dust.”

“Huh?”

“That’s what it’s called. Cities in Dust.” His eyes caught a glimpse of a burned out husk that once was a building. “I’d say it kinda fits the mood.”

Sam didn’t know the song Higgs was talking about, but somehow he didn’t believe that the only thing he remembered by holding his battle-guitar was some obscure old world melody. There must be something more. 

“Anything else?”

Higgs shook his head. 

“Just some…fragments. Domestic nonsense I guess.”

Domestic nonsense were two words Sam would never associate with Higgs. Still, he could be remembering his life before the Homo Demens and Amelie. 

“That’s all?” He asked, just to keep Higgs talking. If he was lying, it was only a matter of time before he slips up and speaks about some of the atrocities he committed. Probably the same tone he’d use to discuss the weather.

“Well, I remember that I had a mother of sorts.” Higgs answered reluctantly. “Not my real mama, she died when I was born, no. An older woman. She called herself Coffin. She told me she loved me like I was her son. Kindest damn thing anyone ever said to me.”

Sam didn’t answer, didn’t even look at Higgs. But he listened. 

“I was just a stray kid, you know?” The other man continued. “Two arms, two legs, whole lotta grit—that’s all I had to offer. Coffin…she took me in and gave me a purpose. Made me feel like I mattered.”

He laughed mirthlessly at the memory. 

“Well, I guess she’d be pissed if she’d still be around.”

Sam hummed as if he were thinking about what Higgs said.

“She never laid a hand on me.” Higgs continued. It seemed like talking about Coffin brought back this part of his life into his memories. “Not even when I deserved it. And oh, boy did I deserve it!”

“I guess you didn’t change much with age then.” Sam added aridly.

“Maybe you’re right. I was a problem child. My Daddy tried to raise me to be strong. Had to knock some sense into me time and time again.”

“That’s… not how you raise a child.”

Higgs didn’t argue. He felt like he was that little boy, back in the shelter, under the unforgiving steel sky again.

“I used to hide in this cabinet with a sliding door. It was the only place that felt like mine. Like the world couldn’t reach me there. Not even him. But - me being me - it wasn’t enough. Try as he might, Daddy couldn’t beat the curiosity out of me.”

Sam felt some semblance of empathy bubbling up inside him. Higgs didn’t speak for a long while, and it gave Sam time to think about what he heard. He was never a big fan of oversimplifications and knew that whatever sob story Higgs concocted to tell him might be something that never happened. Still, he displayed a certain vulnerability for Sam more than once. Like when he told him about not being able to stand being trapped on the Beach, and ending it. He was broken. And maybe, just maybe, forgetting was his way of starting over. Now he was just Peter Englert. Sam’s navigator, and helping hand. A guy who started to grow on Sam, despite his dark humor and sarcasm. A far cry from the dangerous psychopath who wanted to end the world and make him suffer for eternity. 

But Sam was no fool. Peter Englert was just Higgs Monaghan with a quieter voice and cleaner hands.

Chapter Text

Arriving at the settlement made it pretty clear why it wasn’t connected to the chiral network yet. Most of it was above ground, and people showed up in person instead of via chiralgram. It had its dangers, but for the porter and the navigator, it was a welcome distraction from the tense silence that settled between them. Sam gave the medical supplies to the hospital’s staff, while Higgs took care of gathering supplies for themselves. The woman he bartered with had a strange look in her eyes. Higgs winked at her, hoping a little charisma will fix whatever troubling thoughts she might be brewing about him, but she averted her gaze from his form. 

“Well, we have everything we need.” He said and turned to leave. Sam was about to go back to the truck, but the local kids swarmed him. He didn’t seem to mind, in fact, this was the first time in a long while when a smile appeared on his face. 

“Hi Sam! Did you bring us jelly cryptobiotes?” One of the children inquired.

“I’m afraid I only have regular ones.” Sam answered and ruffled the little boy’s hair. 

“Who’s your friend?” Another kid poked him. “He’s tall.”

“He’s Peter. And yes, he’s quite tall.”

Higgs arrived next to Sam and looked at him questioningly. The other man didn’t notice, but one of the older kids did.

“I love your rock star style.” She told Higgs, who grinned at the kid. Sam turned to them, ready to intervene if anything happened. It was unlikely, but it was better to be safe than sorry. Higgs shot a child once, after all.

“Thank you, sweetheart.” He pulled something out from under his crossed arms. Time fractured. Sam saw the glint of metal, heard phantom screams, a baby crying—his body moved before his mind caught up. But Higgs only pulled out a keychain—chiralium-gold, shaped like a flame. A harmless trinket, yet Sam’s pulse didn’t slow immediately.

“On the house.” Higgs threw the keychain over to the girl, who caught it, and her grin almost split her face in two.

Her friends swarmed her and the children ran away to play somewhere else. Sam eyed Higgs with an intensity that could be felt on one’s skin.

“What?”

Sam didn’t answer, but his gaze didn’t lose its power.

“It was for promotional purposes anyway.” Higgs shrugged, misunderstanding Sam’s glaring to be about the keychain he gave away.

“It’s not about that.” Sam grumbled, but didn’t elaborate. He didn’t need to.

“Ah, here we fucking go again.” Higgs’ smile turned into a sneer “You still think I’m going to randomly murder someone in broad daylight.”

“It happened a few times already.”

“Maybe it did.” Higgs nodded “Maybe it didn’t. I wouldn’t know. And you really should stop acting like you see what’s going on inside my head at all times.”

“After all you’ve done…”

“Let’s not go there, Sam.” Higgs stopped his companion, noticing the stares they got from the locals. “Not here. You can chew me out to your heart’s content on the road.”

Sam wasn’t sure he’d do it. What difference would it make? Higgs never listened to him on the occasions Sam tried to talk some sense into him and stop him from bringing about the end of days, he certainly will not start listening now.

“Excuse me!” A voice broke the tension between them. The Barterer and the girl with the keychain stopped next to Sam and Higgs, looking up at the latter. “Peter, right? Sorry for intruding, but I noticed your coat was torn.”

Higgs raised a physical-equation that resided on his brow and looked down to check his coat. It was indeed torn on one side. It must got ripped open while he slept on the ground last night.

“Aw, damn.” He cringed. The Barterer extended her hand with a bundle of black cloth.

“I’d like you to have this.”

Higgs took the bundle and opened it. He held a long, hooded coat made to repel timefall in his hands. The black fabric reminded him of an old memory. He began to miss some stripes from the coat’s inner side.

“Thank you, it will come in handy.” He said after trying the coat on. It fit him perfectly.

“It belonged to my husband.” The Barterer explained on a somber tone. “He was about your height and build. I’m sorry about staring at you before, but you reminded me of him.”

So she was staring, and Higgs weren’t going crazier than he already was.

“What happened to your husband?” He inquired, out of curiosity.

The Barterer pulled her daughter closer while explaining.

“He disappeared a year ago when he was out hunting. Never found him or his remains. Figured he won’t miss this old coat.”

“Thank you ma’am.” Higgs turned to the little girl. “And you take care of your mama for me, all right?”

She nodded. Sam called after Higgs from the truck, so he waved the Barterer and her daughter goodbye. The woman and the little girl stood watch as the truck distanced from them, their forms ever shrinking in the rear-view mirror. Sam still glared daggers at Higgs, especially after noticing the wardrobe change.

“You like my new coat?” Higgs inquired to get Sam out of his hair.

“You look like a Grim Reaper Cosplay-accident.”

“I take it as a compliment, for your sake.”

He reminded Sam too much of his old self with that coat. But how was he supposed to tell Higgs that?

“They gave it to you for the keychain?” He inquired instead.

“See, the girl with the keychain, and her fine mama kept me in their crosshairs all day.” Higgs explained with a mischievous smile. “And turns out I reminded her of her late husband, the poor sod who probably wandered into BT-land while out hunting for squirrels.”

The nonchalant -bordering on snide- recollection of the family’s tragedy grated on Sam’s nerves, but if he was honest with himself, he would never expect anything more from Higgs. Still, the man surprised him as he added on a musing, gentle tone.

“That little girl approached me because I reminded her of her dad.”

“Yeah.” Sam exhaled, letting some of his frustration go. “What are you going to do with it?”

Higgs shrugged.

“Marveling at the absurdity for sure.”

Sam couldn’t help but think how the coat clung to Higgs like a shadow. A grim reminder of who he used to be.

“Keep lookin’ and I might do a trick.” Higgs grinned at Sam, but his voice betrayed an underlying tension. Sam turned back to the road, wondering how long before the catastrophe happens. Higgs was a force to be reckoned with, and he loved every minute of being the harbinger of the apocalypse. Peter on the other hand, seemed to not harbor such grand ideas. He was just fine lugging cargo around and looking at the map so Sam didn’t have to. It really was like he was a different person, who just happened to look and sound exactly like Higgs. And this duality confused Sam more than he would like to admit.

“Ya know, I think there’s a lot left unsaid between us that taints our budding bromance.” Higgs spoke again after a short pause. “I’m not a bad person, Sam. I was just…programmed that way.”

Before Sam could answer – and he had a lot to say about just what kind of a person Higgs was – he felt the tell-tale sign of chiralium density increasing in their close vicinity. Higgs’ eyes began to well up and his tears ran down his face – luckily he switched his eyeliner to a water-resistant one, so his make-up didn’t end up on his cheeks – at the same time they heard the blood-curdling shriek.

“The fuck?!” Higgs exclaimed. Sam stopped the truck.

A large tar pit emerged in front of them, spitting out a huge BT. Sam started the engine again, and turned the vehicle around, speeding away from the creature, which screamed at them once again.

“Hey, Higgs! Your girlfriend’s calling.”

“Why do you speak so ill of your mother, Sam?”

He leaned down and grabbed a rifle Sam kept under the seat, filled with hematic rounds, then opened the door next to the passenger seat.

“What are you doing?” Sam asked while slaloming around the smaller tar pits that emerged out of nowhere on the road.

“You keep on driving.” Higgs answered him while he tethered himself to the vehicle and took aim at the BT with the rifle. “I’ll deal some damage!”

It worked for both of them. Sam could focus on the road instead of the smaller BTs trying to swarm the truck – Higgs got rid of those too if they came too close. He pressed the pedal down as much as it was possible, but the dead kept on coming after them. The kaiju-class BT spawned them every once in a while.

“Keep it steady, for fuck’s sake!” Higgs complained when Sam ran over a smaller rock which threw the vehicle up for a few seconds.

“Wanna switch places?”

“You wish, Bridges. Step on it!”

There was a moment – a perfect shot. Higgs took it. The hematic bullets lodged into the kaiju’s skeletal frame, and it broke in a few places, bleeding chiralium. But then the gaping maw the creature had as a face snapped towards the speeding truck, and it emitted a wail so loud it shook the earth.

“I think I pissed her off.” Higgs commented.

“You have that effect on people. Looks like BTs aren’t exempt.”

Higgs shot a few more of the smaller BTs, then changed the rifle’s magazine.

“Well, she can bite me.”

“I think that is exactly what she wants.”

Another obstacle threw the vehicle off the road, this time hard enough for Sam to lose control of the steering wheel temporarily, and for Higgs to miss his shot and nearly fall out from the cabin.

“If you want to kill me, do me a favor and have some style.” Higgs yelled at Sam after he finally steadied the truck. “You might come back if we end up as a pair of stains on the road, but I’m not a repatriate!”

The kaiju in the meantime came closer. Higgs felt like someone stabbed a knife into his side. His tears were also running which made aiming and shooting a challenge.

“She’s coming for me.”

Sam only half-heard what his companion said because he saw the wall of tar bursting through the ground in front of them. He had to decide what to do: risk going through it and drown in it, or stop the truck and face the BT. He decided the latter was a more viable option.

He had hematic grenades and two more magazines for the rifle. Higgs untethered himself and ran to the back of the truck. By the time Sam geared up and left the vehicle, he saw his old nemesis strumming his weaponized instrument.

“Are you ready?” Sam asked. Higgs grinned darkly.

“It’s time to play some old hits.”

They didn’t really have time to strategize. Sam knew how to kill kaiju-class BTs, this wasn’t his first. He tried to stay out of the line of Higgs’ battle-guitar, which shot lightning bolts at the approaching giant monstrosity as he played it. Sam threw a hematic grenade at the BT, and heard Higgs taunt it then shoot it.

“Come on, sweetheart! Dance with me!”

The kaiju wailed and spawned a dozen smaller BTs. Sam switched to using the rifle and he tried to find a place where the dead wouldn’t reach him so easily. Higgs on the other hand, seemed to have regained his Beach-jump ability, for he kept on jumping from one place to the other, all the while laughing and mocking the BT. Just like he did with Sam the last time they fought. He barely got time to dodge from a way too familiar flame that set the three BTs that almost surrounded him on fire.

“Let’s turn up the heat!”

With the lesser threats gone, Sam could focus on the kaiju. It was indeed the one they encountered back in Edge Knot City, and seemed to be hell-bent on grabbing Higgs. He jumped less and less frequently, signaling either fatigue or the weakening of his power level.

“Sam, I could use a little help here!”

“What? Your sharp wit isn’t working?”

“Screw you, Sam!”

Higgs stopped and faced the hole the BT had instead of a face.

“All right… Time to face the music!”

Sam felt a vibration in the air as Higgs began to play a melody on his battle-guitar. It spiked the chiralium density, making his eyes itch and his tears fall. But the most unusual thing was hearing Higgs sing.

“All names and some cranks
He'd powdered all off
Their sycophantic gifts
Were never enough…”

The BT seemed to be weakened by his voice, and the smaller ones began to gravitate towards Higgs, as if he was beckoning them with his song. Sam took aim, and showered the kaiju-class BT with hematic rounds and grenades. He knew he has as long as Higgs can keep on singing.

“I am the Prince, and I am the Shade.”

And he kept on, all the while weakening the kaiju’s defenses. They launched an attack at the same time, Sam throwing his last cluster of hematic grenades he aimed to throw into the BT’s maw, and Higgs finishing his performance by setting the BT on chiralium-sensitive fire.

“Burn Baby, burn!”

The kaiju’s death wail sent both of them to their knees. The whole area was on fire, even after the kaiju turned to chiralium-gold and shattered, leaving only the tar pits behind.

“Nice teamwork, huh?” Higgs grinned at Sam, but it was obvious the unusual display of his powers drained him.

Sam sat down a few feet apart from Higgs. Now that the immediate danger was over, he had time to reflect on the events.

“You remembered I’m a repatriate.” He said after a short pause. Higgs laughed darkly and ran his fingers through his hair.

“Oh, shit. I slipped. Should’ve been more careful.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, Sammy boy…” He chuckled, his cold blue eyes reflected the light of the fires burning around them. “You don’t get it, do you?”

Sam had a hunch. He kept his handgun loaded and unused just in case. Higgs laughed and strummed a melody on his weapon.

“I never meant to break your heart

I only meant to speak the truth

Where do we go from here, my dear?

I’ll leave that up to you…”

Sam didn’t use the handgun in the end. Higgs didn’t attack him, which he found the most suspicious of all of the things he did lately. They travelled back towards the settlement, but Sam took a turn left. Higgs stayed silent, only stole a glance at Sam once or twice, but never uttered a word. He also kept his battle-guitar on his person, simply flipping Sam off when he wanted to get it back from him. They approached an abandoned relay station, where Sam stopped the truck.

“Kept you in the dark long enough, huh?” Higgs murmured gently, almost amicable.

“Since when?” Sam grumbled, face dead serious.

“Eh…” Higgs shrugged “Sometime after Edge Knot City. I called your name, and it all clicked into place.”

Sam shook his head.

“Get out!”

“My pleasure!” Higgs jumped out of the truck and stretched his legs. Sam followed from the other side of the driver’s cabin.

“And what now?” The ex-terrorist asked while he crossed his arms in front of his chest. He didn’t want to fight Sam, but if the opportunity rises…

Sam was tired to the bone. He was also ready to send a bullet through Higgs’ head if he tries anything.

“I can’t let you go on your way.” He admitted finally.

“So what, you’ll shoot me?” Higgs grinned, but it faded away.

“No.” Sam said “You’ll stay with me, so I can keep an eye on you.”

“And what if I refuse?”

“Then I’ll shoot you.”

Higgs laughed.

“If you do, make sure you actually finished the job this time.”

They settled for the night – Sam sleeping with one eye open, Higgs absent-mindedly strumming a melody on his instrument. His fingers were bleeding, but he didn’t care.

The morning came with sunlight and an unusually warm temperature. Sam woke up to find that he was alone. Part of his rations and a smaller backpack were gone, along with Higgs and his battle-guitar, a handgun and several rounds of bullets. Sam cursed. He tried to determine how much time had passed since Higgs left, but the Odradek came up with unusable data. Higgs’ ring terminal was thrown away several miles Westward from where he last camped with Sam. His last message was not sent, rather left for Sam to find. Another one of his damned songs.

“We part, to soon

But in our lies

there’s a truth to find

The end is new

A tomorrow we must reach for

to be heard…”

Chapter Text

“Tens of thousands of years of just…wandering.”

The road had left over patches of pavement under his feet. Timefall ate away at most of it, but the former settlement was still visible under the dirt. This was the third he stayed at since he left Sam at that damned relay station to rot. Higgs had time to think after he took his leave and he haven’t stopped thinking ever since. About his temporary amnesia, about his old life, and about making Sam believe he didn’t remember all the things he did to him and his friends. Only so he can stay and play pretend as a porter? How lame that was. Yet… he missed the banter, and the company even though he still hated Sam’s guts. Rejection hurt like hell, and he had been rejecting Higgs since day one. What else was left, than to be the nuisance that permeated his existence? The one permanent opposition he could count on? The line between love and hate was really thin. Higgs always thought he knew which side of the line he was standing on, but lately it got blurred too much. He knew he was also attracted to Sam on a physical and emotional level, but never really knew what to do with this realization. The more he thought about it, the more it pissed him off. So he tried to distract himself with putting on a new mask. The persona of the wandering musician, never staying in one shelter for too long. After their battle with the kaiju-class BT, Higgs realized he had some new powers that were associated with his love for music. His singing could summon or repel BTs, much like he did back then with his chiralium mask. If he stayed somewhere too long, the place risked attracting smaller BTs and causing a voidout. Same old song, with a new tune if anyone asked him. He could also sense if someone was close to dying. It happened in the last shelter he stayed at. An older man was suffering from some illness, and Higgs felt it. The pull of the Beach, accompanied by a threnody of lost souls. He put the poor old fella out of his misery and incinerated him. He had a weird nightmare not long after that. 

Amelie was kissing his neck and her neatly manicured red nails dug into his throat. 

“Sing them a song for me. You may not be my herald anymore, but you still can be my guide.”

“Is this an offer I can’t refuse?”

“You can.” Amelie smiled into Higgs’ neck. “But why would you?”

“I don’t know, because you fucked me over?”

“You failed your end of the bargain. I’m giving you another chance.”

“What about Sam?”

“You know what to do with him. Besides, this time you can be subtle. Maybe he won’t even notice what you’re doing.”

“And what if I tell you to go back to your little Beach, and make your own ass go extinct? It’s about time you stop fucking with people’s lives. Most importantly mine.”

Amelie chuckled and pushed Higgs away a little so she could look up into his eyes.

“Oh, you’re so cute when you’re acting tough. But I know you, Higgs. You want that kind of power. And I’m willing to give it to you.”

“Did I leave that much of an impression on you the last time?”

“I’m not going to lie, I like the way you sing.” Amelie pulled him down and kissed him. He returned it, though it felt wrong somehow. Then her tongue turned into something barbed and viscous, drilling its way down his throat while his arms and legs became restricted by tentacles made by tar. He heard Amelie’s laughter while coughing up blood.

He had a sore throat for three days after waking up.

So he wandered around shelter to shelter, playing his new role like he played the songs he sang for the dying. He found out soon that people flocked to him, and they welcomed him in their hiding places. His voice could not only call the dead, he could also calm the living. Maybe this was the reason for the woman in the third shelter – he learned her name was Claire from her neighbor - to fall in love with him.

Higgs didn’t love her but used her as a distraction. A way to pass the time until he eventually moved on. Claire was in her forties, a few years younger than Higgs himself, and had an abusive husband and a daughter named Lily. A tale as old as time. Shelters often hid dirty secrets, dysfunctional families and tragedies were more common than many people would like to admit. Higgs really wanted to rub this in Sam’s face, that the people he was so eager to connect were nothing but a bunch of bastards. Maybe one day.

That day he sat outside of the shelter, strumming some melody and enjoying the weather before it turned rainy. He heard the sound of the airlock opening, and the shuffle of someone’s shoes on the metal floor. Claire showed up in a yellow coat, her mousy, curly hair billowing in the wind. Higgs couldn’t help but think that she must have been a pretty woman before age and her questionable life choices screwed her up.

“Hello, beautiful.” He grinned at her and it lit her face like a ray of sunshine.

“Hello, handsome!” She sat beside him and he put his instrument out of the way and pulled her close with one arm.

“How did you find me?”

Claire laughed and leaned onto Higgs’ shoulder.

“You think, you’re hiding so well, but all I have to do is follow the music if I want to find you.”

Higgs laughed, but noted to himself to find better places to remain in if he wants to be alone. Luckily he seldom wanted to. Being with Claire, or anyone in the shelter was preferable to the loneliness and the pull of the Beach he couldn’t seem to shake off.

“And what are you planning to do now that you found me?” He nudged Claire gently.

“I don’t know.” She confessed. “Just wanted to be with you as long as I can.”

“Does your significant bother know?”

“No, he doesn’t.” Claire shook her head. “I told him I’m going out for supplies.”

“Good.”

He pulled her close and kissed her, only noticing the black eye she nursed and tried to conceal with makeup. A mark on someone’s territory he trespassed.

“Next time that asshole hits you, you come to me and I spill his guts.” He told her after they separated. “How that sounds?”

Claire didn’t know, but he was more than eager to keep his promise to her.

“I don’t want you to get hurt, Peter.” she caressed his face. “He’s dangerous.”

“Oh, don’t ya worry sweetheart, the only one getting hurt would be him.” Higgs grinned. Poor Claire. If she’d know that she was in the arms of the man who destroyed whole cities… But she didn’t, and Higgs wanted it to stay that way.

“He’ll be going away for a few weeks. Visiting family in another community.” Claire snuggled close to Higgs, playing with his long hair. “Could you…”

She trailed off, her hand wandering to his chest, feeling his heartbeat.

“Could I what exactly?”

Claire righted herself and took Higgs’ hand into hers.

“I want you to stay with me and Lily.”

This was unexpected. Also extremely unwise, knowing the tight-knit community of the large shelter. If they saw Higgs entering that habitation unit, people would talk. Claire would be in trouble anyway.

“I don’t know, sweetheart. I think it’s time for me to move on as well.”

His reply was met with a reaction that would entertain him to no end in any other circumstance. Now he just felt his heart sink. Claire kissed him again, this time intensely, biting his lip and she clung to him like her life depended on it. And who knows? Maybe it did.

“Just stay with me for a few days, or one night, and you can go on your merry way, Peter Monaghan.” She pleaded. “Just give me this, and you can forget me.”

Higgs smiled at her and caressed her face, wiping away the tears that came falling from her sad brown eyes.

“Well, how could I refuse if you ask so nicely.”

He kissed her again, calmly as if to soothe the storm they felt brewing along with the timefall on the horizon.

It was a distraction, nothing more. Fifteen minutes of pretending to be a better man. Making Claire laugh and making her scream his name in bliss while the storm raged outside. Stolen moments fractured in time as half-faded memories even before they ended. Higgs thought about Sam a lot during his stay at Claire’s suite. Was what he had with Fragile something similar? Fooling around in the kitchen while baby Lou played half a room away? Was this how love felt like? Alien but not at all unwelcome? Claire’s adoration supplemented with a mutual connection he felt towards her daughter, Lily.

She couldn’t have a more fitting name, that little girl. Frail and sickly pale, her hair and eyes dark brown like her mama’s, and she had the salty smell of the Beach faintly following her around as she played hide and seek with Higgs. Couldn’t be more than four years old.

Claire told Higgs that her husband had little patience for Lily and sometimes would beat her up too. If he needed any more reasons to want to kill that bastard. Lily was also forbidden to leave the living unit, which rubbed Higgs the wrong way. He brought her a little raincoat and took her out the next day he learned that. Ain’t no way this little creature should endure the same treatment Higgs had to when he was a boy. She danced in the rain, while he watched over her.

Lily also loved to listen to him sing or just play some melody or another. She was fond of “The Prince and Old Lady Shade”, and asked Higgs to play it many times. He found it annoying after a while and twisted the lyrics, but it only made Lily love it even more. As for Claire, she was the calmest and happiest she ever felt in her life, and she told it to Higgs one night, while they were lying next to each other and Lily peacefully slept in the next room.

“It’s like you’re a miracle, I have been too afraid to ask for.”

He caressed her face and swallowed the snide comment about miracles that was almost on the tip of his tongue.

“I’m no angel, honey. Just a drifter with DOOMS.”

Still, this drifter with DOOMS really started to feel like these people needed him. Claire hung onto him like a shipwrecked clung to a piece of debris to keep them afloat. Higgs loved the desperation, the way her pulse raced with his while she was so close she’d melt into him if it was possible. She would do anything he wanted. Shame or not, this was almost enough to turn him on.

But unlike he did in the past with others, he decided to exert a soft kind of control over the woman. Sweet-talked her, played house, acted like the man of her dreams, it was for these last days before he would inevitably discard her like an empty box of pizza after all. It’s not like he’d gone soft for real.  

Or was he? Lily was growing on him really fast, and Higgs couldn’t deny the feeling of wanting to see her grow up. To see what kind of a woman she will turn into. Sam’s stupid lullaby came to his mind – how was it? “I will hold you, and protect you”? – every time she fell asleep on the couch next to him while he was playing her song. That damn song about ambiguity she was way too young to understand, yet Higgs’ voice captivated her. So he sang to her. He played with her, like predators play with their young while they teach them how to hunt. He discovered that Lily had a violent streak in her. She sometimes tried to hit him – it was adorably ineffective, but the intent was there – while laughing. Claire scolded her, but Higgs saw yet another matching puzzle piece between this girl and himself.  

“Tell you what, you do a little growin’ and I’ll teach you a little fightin’.” He told Lily, much to her mother’s displeasure. “A girl has to protect herself after all. Too many nasty men out there.”

He shot a weighted look at Claire, but he didn’t really want to hurt her either. The jab came as a reflex. Lily was happy, and eager to learn any new thing she was presented with. Higgs taught her how to deliver a right hook, and she was so pleased she almost knocked Claire out. They laughed it off.

The days went by fast. One week turned to two, and Higgs felt the pull of the Beach growing stronger. He would have to leave soon, or the whole place could end up as a crater. He decided to do it at night, after one last tumble with Claire, to leave her with a nice memory of him. His heart ached for having to leave Lily though. Maybe he’ll come visit her a few years later from now? Claire caught on his mood change – she was a professional in managing the temper of dangerous men after all – and curled up next to him on the ground, where Higgs was sitting cross legged and brooding.

“Something’s bothering you.”

“You could say that.”

“Is it me?”

“Nah.”

Claire reached out and began to massage Higgs’ shoulders, which he acknowledged with an appreciative grunt.

“That’s nice.”

“You have so many scars.” Claire noticed her partner’s body was full of healed gunshot wounds and slashes. She traced them carefully like they were still raw and bleeding, not old reminders of past battles.

“Heh. You should see the other guy.” Higgs grinned and grabbed her, drawing her smaller form into his lap. Claire kissed him, wrapping herself around Higgs like the last vestiges of daylight’s warmth on a late autumn evening.

“Wanna get drunk and fool around?” She asked, shy smile between two kisses.

“Hell yeah.” Higgs’ wolf-grin was only half-threatening. It was nearly time to say goodbye.

Lily showed up, dragging her only toy – a worn-down ragdoll – behind her, snuggling up to her mother and Higgs, creating a gap between them, but making them laugh.

“Hey, look who’s here!”

“Can’t sleep.” Lily mumbled. Higgs looked at Claire.

“Well, we must do something about it then.”

“You could sing to her.” Claire smiled, warmth radiating off of her emerald gaze.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Higgs turned to Lily, who nodded excitedly. “Well, who am I to disappoint such a grateful audience.”

Lily snuggled into his lap, her little feet reaching out to her mother’s, while Claire propped her head on her elbow on the couch’s backrest. Higgs stroked Lily’s hair but his eyes were locked with Claire’s as he sang.

“Time has never been a friend, my love.

A lonely thief that robs our hopes and dreams

Side by side we linger pleading for another night

On a battlefield where the path to love is dark…”

The night passed. Higgs stayed. Just one more day in this fragile illusion of a home he never had.

It all came crashing down, like the other shoe he'd been waiting to drop. He was kissing Claire goodbye, when the door to the habitation unit opened, and Claire’s husband walked in on them.

Higgs couldn’t remember what was being said, nor he wanted to or cared to. The man shouted at him, called him names, called Claire names, but all he saw was a ghost. His uncle, yelling at him for sneaking out of the shelter. For not understanding his pain. The pull of the Beach was the strongest he felt then since he decided to stay with Claire and Lily. He could hear the waves and smell the stale air.

His hand darted forward like he wanted to grab the other man’s throat, but he pushed him to the wall, keeping him afloat in the air while tightening his grip. Claire screamed in terror.

“Let him go, you’ll kill him!” She tried to pull Higgs’ arm, maybe to tip him off balance. He reacted without thinking, shoving her away. There was a wet cracking sound as she hit the wall several feet behind her and slid down, leaving a thick trail of blood. Higgs closed his grip on his other hand, crushing the other man’s neck and twisting it to be sure he won’t get up after he let his corpse fall. For a moment, the only sound he heard was his own heartbeat, and labored breathing.

Then he came to his senses, cursing his impulses. He turned around and noticed Claire’s broken remains.

“Goddamnit.”

It would be too much to say he mourned Claire. But Higgs was mad at himself for being careless and killing her. Now he had to take care of two corpses before they went under necrosis and became BTs. Luckily he had a portable weapon with the capability to incinerate anything. He dragged the husband over to Claire, and plopped him down like he would a sack of potatoes. He then heard it. A small, scuttling sound and a sliding door.

“Fuck…”

He slowly went over to the back room. Lily was nowhere to be found, or at least she didn’t want to be found. Higgs however crouched in front of the cabinet – same damn design he used to hide in as a boy – and gently slid the door open.

“It’s okay, honey. You can come out.”

“Where’s mom?” She squeaked, voice cracking from some instinctual sense of what happened.

“You see, your mommy and daddy had a dispute.” Higgs explained, holding out his hand in anticipation of Lily taking it. “But now they are taking a nap of the permanent kind.”

Lily looked at Higgs hand. He nudged her encouragingly.

“Come on, sweetheart. Let’s go on an adventure. Just you and me.”

This seemed to calm her enough to take his hand and crawl out of the closet. She sniffled and flung herself into Higgs’ arms.

“That’s it.” He caressed her back while she wept. “We have to go, sweetie. Put on your coat and boots. I have to take care of something.”

He packed whatever supplies he could fit into his bag, and filled a smaller one for Lily as well. Then he opened the habitation unit’s door, shepherding Lily outside and putting the bag next to her.

“Wait here for a moment, okay?”

Lily nodded, and listened to Higgs playing a haunting melody while setting her whole world on fire. He then flung his battle-guitar to his back, grabbed the backpack and picked Lily up, running like mad out of the community shelter before the fire sirens began to blare.

He didn’t speak, and didn’t force Lily to distract herself from the weight of what just happened. Despite being young, she understood.

“Are you my new dad, Peter?” She asked when they finally stopped, miles away from the community shelter’s location.

“Looks like I am.”

Lily nodded as if agreeing with this new arrangement.

“Oh, good. I like you.”

Higgs chuckled. Lily leaned to him, eyelids heavy from crying and exhaustion.

“You made mommy laugh.”

“That I did.” He also made her head crack like an overripe melon because he was careless with his power, but Lily didn’t have to know.

“Is mommy an angel now?”

“Oh, sweetheart.” Higgs ruffled Lily’s curly locks. “Your mama was an angel already in life.”

“Do you believe in angels?”

He squeezed her a bit before letting her go.

“Let’s just say I believe in them. But angels no longer believe in me.”

They went forward. Shelter to shelter, one walled-off Knot-city to another, never staying for long, and always taking a soul whenever they left. Higgs knew his powers were linked to death and destruction, but he just learned Lily also has DOOMS after one night she woke him up and asked if the world is going to end. She could spot BTs pretty accurately, which meant she saw them, not just sensed them. Higgs pegged her power level as similar to his own, which was impressive, knowing how little she was. It seemed her powers were somehow linked to abandoned places. Ruins, dilapidated buildings, rusty husks of old public transport vehicles. Death and Decay hand in hand. Though not much of a singer, she had her own way of calling the dead and soothing the dying. She wasn’t afraid, and began to develop a dark fascination with death and the Beach. Higgs told her about Egyptian practices of preserving the dead, and that his make-up was supposed to resemble a priest’s. Lily learned eagerly, and tried to do her own eyeliner. Badly. Higgs had to correct it for her, but after that, she never let it wear off.

She began to mimic Higgs’ mannerisms, the way he walked, his posture, he even caught her replicating his gestures while he talked. He was a little bit annoyed but mostly entertained by this. He also adored his little mimic. He tried to throw her off by randomly making faces, but Lily just laughed at it and kept on learning how to move like her adoptive father.

The end of spring found them in a community shelter South of Mountain-Knot-City. They shared a tiny, one room habitation unit, and Lily pestered Higgs about books she could keep. He had no idea what would be appropriate for a girl Lily’s age, but knowing her interests, he got her a copy of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. He quickly realized his mistake when Lily wouldn’t stop asking him questions about the world, and very astutely pointed out that the monster wasn’t a monster at all – people were horrible towards him because they didn’t understand him.

“That’s humanity for ya.” Higgs told her after she finished her rudimentary analysis of the book. “This whole stinking world is ready for extinction.”

“Why do you say that?”

Higgs crouched to be on the same level as her.

“In case you haven’t noticed my dear, humans are full of shit.”

“Even the ones who help us?”

“Especially those.” He raised a brow. “Those people always have some ulterior motive.”

“But… Not everyone we met was horrible.”

Higgs reached out and wiped a tar-stained teardrop from her eye.

“Honey, the sooner you learn people wear masks even when their face looks bare, the better.”

“But… You’re not horrible.”

This made Higgs shut up and really think about what to say. He drew Lily into his embrace instead.

“There are a lot of things you don’t know about me, sweetheart.” He murmured into Lily’s hair, then kissed the top of her head. “But you’ll learn. And you’ll learn that the world is a dark and heartless place.”

She shuddered. Higgs felt her tears soaking through the fabric of his clothes.

“But I’ll be here with you. You’ll never face the darkness alone.”

That night he had a nightmare again. He was running through the same old Beach while a thunderstorm raged, whipping him with rain that got into his eyes and lightning bolts flashing in a blinding white light. He was looking for Lily, but all he found was a bunch of dead fish, rotting on the shore. He knew she must be close, so he kept on searching. Then he saw the little yellow raincoat from the corner of his eye, and turned to catch her, but the apparition was gone.

“If you want to play hide and seek, you really should choose a better location next time!” Higgs yelled into the wind. He heard Lily’s laughter and tried to pinpoint her location, but to no avail.

“If I get you, you’re grounded!”

The realization of talking like every parent ever caught him off-guard, but he permitted himself a chuckle at it.

“Oh, Lily!” He called out again on sing-song tone. “Got you a new bedtime-story! It’s about a girl who got left on a Beach ‘cause she pissed her old man off.”

Again, he heard her laughter. A little from the left. Higgs followed the sound until he reached a boulder.

“Hey, Lily! Laugh if you’re here!”

Someone laughed. But it wasn’t Lily. Amelie’s form appeared close to Higgs, her red dress still glaring in the muted environment.

“Well, look at you! Still playing house.”

“At least I’m still playing.” He flashed her a malicious grin. “What are you doing, sealed off on your Beach?”

He raised a brow then pretended to think before continuing

“Oh, wait. I know: harassing me.”

“I’m not harassing you, Higgs. That’s your own doing.” She looked at him with an almost apologetic expression. “You are the maker of your own misery.”

“Where’s Lily?”

Amelie looked down. A pair of small, grey hands clutched her skirt.

“She’s a nice girl.” She smiled at the child. “But your taint is already showing on her.”

“Let her go!” Higgs lunged forward, but Amelie jumped out of his way.

“I’m not keeping her here.” She replied. “But what will she say when she grows up and learns that the man she loved as a father was the one who made her an orphan?”

“She’ll never learn it, because I’ll never tell her!”

“She’ll know what kind of a man you are. Eventually, she’ll realize that you’re a mad dog, Higgs.”

“Let. Her. Go.”

Lily’s form solidified next to Amelie’s.

“She’s not safe with you.”

“Cut the bullshit and let my daughter go!”

“It is only just.” Amelie faced him while another ghost from his past walked out of the mist, and took Lily’s hand. Fragile.

“An eye for eye, even if the world goes blind, isn’t that right?” She said, glaring at him with one eye crying tar. The two apparitions began to vanish, and Lily with them.

“No! Give her back, you bitch, she did nothing to you!”

Neither Amelie nor Fragile answered his threats. Once again, he was alone, stranded on the Beach.

Lily had a fever that refused to break. Soon after they left the shelter near Mountain-Knot-City, she caught a cold and began to cough. Higgs had to carry her for half of the way to the next city. For a long while it seemed she won’t be making it. He tried everything, cryptobiotes, antibiotics, whatever he found in the first-aid kit. Nothing seemed to help. Lily asked him to sing multiple times, but Higgs refused to. Not with the stench of the Beach lingering on her, and knowing his song can draw the dying over to the other side. Not with his nightmare of losing her living so vividly in his memory. They just had to hang on until they reach the next community shelter.

It was a large one, almost large enough to count as a city, and it had a hospital. It was connected to the chiral-network, which posed a risk of being detected, but Higgs didn’t care. Soon after talking to the security staff’s chiralgrams, he – under his usual pseudonym of Peter Englert - and his daughter, Lily were admitted into the hospital. He almost knocked the nurse out when she wanted to take Lily away from him, but reminded himself of why he was here. To let her be examined.

“She’s in good hands.” An older lady wearing scrubs told Higgs. He sure hoped so, for the sake of the people handling his daughter. If Lily would come to harm, Higgs was sure he’d find a way to blow this place into the high heavens.

“You should sit down.” The nurse touched his arm, and grounded Higgs to the present. He brushed it off and went closer to the door. Lily was behind it, and he had no idea what was happening to her.

He must have fallen asleep outside. He saw Lily in his dream. Not as a little girl, but a young woman. Her dress tar-black, eyes painted like his own, and her very own chiralium quipu on her neck. She smiled at him, then disappeared in a blinding ray of light.

Higgs woke up with tears flowing down on his face. He wished it were from chiralium-sensitivity, but he knew very well it wasn’t. The doctor came over when she noticed he was awake.

“I need to talk to you.”

He followed her into her office space – barely more than a closet to conserve space for sickbeds – and leaned to the wall.

“You daughter is very ill.”

“No shit. I carried her here all the way from Mountain-Knot-City.”

“I don’t think you understand the weight of the situation.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

The doctor showed a chiralgram of Lily’s internals. Her tiny lung was full of foreign growth. It appeared to spread over to her other vital organs, and rapidly.

“She’s in the final stage of cancer caused by chiralium exposure.”

“Can you save her?”

The doctor shook her head.

“I’m sorry. She has a few days to live at maximum.”

Time wasn’t a friend of his. Higgs stayed by Lily’s bed, glaring daggers at anyone daring to come too close to them. Her tiny hand safely tucked in his, he listened to her ragged breathing. She coughed up blood every now and then, which he wiped off from her little face. It was obvious she was in pain, but she was a goner. No one came to her, and medicine was scarce enough to waste it on a dying kid. Higgs sat on the bed and propped Lily up against his torso, hoping she would breathe easier in this half-sitting position. She looked into his eyes, trying to speak, but she was unable to. Her hand reached up, and traced the teardrop on Higgs’ face, drawing black lines with his makeup. He let out a heavy sigh, held Lily close, and let the waves of the Beach echo for a while.

“Sing for me.”

Her voice already sounded like she was calling from the other side. Higgs caressed her face with his thumb, hoping he has enough resolve to grant his daughter’s final wish.

“Is a better home awaiting

In the sky, in the sky..”

His voice cracked, silenced, like something preventing him from uttering a word. After staying like this for three hours, Lily coughing up pieces of her lungs and Higgs cursing that his powers were meant to harm and not to heal, he came to a conclusion.

“I will always love you, Lily.” He said, holding her as close as possible, planting a kiss on her forehead. His other hand found the hilt of his combat knife.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. So sorry.”

Higgs was a professional murderer. He knew how to make someone suffer, but also how to make it as quick and painless as possible. The golden blade sank into Lily’s tiny heart in a flash, ending her suffering. He wept over her, silently shaking, without a sound.

He left her there, posed like she was waiting her burial, hands crossed in front of her chest. He closed her eyes, and smeared her eyeliner in the process, her face mirroring his in death.

She was already going through necrosis when Higgs left the hospital.

Lily was gone, and now nothing had meaning anymore. He jumped away from the shelter a moment before it was gone in the voidout caused by what lingered on after Lily’s death.

And just like that, the Last Stranding had been back on track.

Chapter Text

It’s been a year since Sam lost Higgs at a relay station. He wouldn’t say his life got worse, but his anxiety kept on bothering him. Nightmares still haunted him—Higgs’ siren song of death and chiralium-sensitive flames incinerating him, so sleep became something of a luxury. Of all the horrible things Higgs did to him, this was what shook Sam the most. Hearing Higgs sing, knowing he took that damned weaponized guitar with him, it was like handing a mass murderer a time bomb—and watching the clock tick. He still completed deliveries during that year. Kept moving. Kept breathing. But the thought lingered: Should he ask around? Should he turn up every stone, hoping to stir up Higgs’ form from the shadows?

“It’s been over a year, Sam.” Tomorrow tried to calm him via the ring terminal. “If Higgs were still around, or if he’d been planning something, wouldn’t you think he’d announce it with big fanfare by now?”

“Maybe.” Sam concurred. “But maybe he’s still waiting.”

“Well, he is anything if not patient, I give him that.”

“If he got into a shelter, or gathered allies…” Sam heaved a heavy sigh. “It’s going to be my fault.”

Tomorrow’s face saddened, and she made a gesture, as if trying to touch her father’s face through the chiralgram. 

“No.” She shook her head. “It will be his fault. His choice.”

She was right, and Sam’s rational mind knew it. Yet, he had this nagging voice inside that told him he needs to find out where Higgs went. 

“I can’t just sit around while he’s still out there.”

Tomorrow hummed in agreement.

“You know, there are not many community shelters around the UCA. And I doubt he’d hole up somewhere alone.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s possible he hid in one of those, planning to kill the residents or something.”

That possibility was the exact thing Sam wanted to prevent. He didn’t know how he would manage it yet, but he tried to come up with something. 

“I should check on Rainy.” Tomorrow waved goodbye. “She’s busy with the baby, but I guess she’d want to know you’re okay. She’s worried about you.”

“Tell her I said hi.” Sam managed a smile before hanging up. 

For a while, nothing turned up. Sam’s tentative inquiries brought him to other wanderers or porters sharing height, build, facial structure or the same not-blond-but-not-brown-either hair color with Higgs. But his quarry remained in the shadows. Sam remembered all the time he popped up out of nowhere when he did something to thwart his evil plans or something, even unwittingly. So he started to look around large factories, fabricators, even looked into some doomsday cults – he found concerning news in that regard, but again, no sign of Higgs, so he stacked that information for later – but he couldn’t find anything on his old nemesis. He had nightmares about him emerging from one of his coffin-shaped containers or randomly appearing out of fog or from tar pits dotting the landscape. All the time singing Lou’s lullaby. Sam hated that song. And he hated Higgs for making him hate it. 

“It is possible he simply disappeared. He might be laying low or started a new life.” Heartman speculated this time through Sam’s ring terminal. 

“I know him. He’s a real bastard.” Sam shook his head “Won’t stay put. He’s like a shark, always needs to swim and kill.”

“You tried looking for him in large shelters and Knot-Cities, but what if he’s trying to avoid being detected by you?” Heartman was trying to help, but Sam already deduced that. 

“It’s kinda obvious.”

“I mean, you could ask preppers and smaller community shelters. If Higgs became a drifter - which is likely, because moving around keeps him getting found by you or anyone else - those are the perfect spots for stopping for supplies and walking away. They’re like distribution centers, but with more rooms to spare.”

“Thanks, Heartman.”

Heartman smiled at Sam and gave him one of his usual thumbs up. 

“Good luck!”

Sam let out an exhausted sigh.

“If I find Higgs, it won’t be luck.”

After another month or so finding nothing of note, Sam finally had a breakthrough. A small community shelter occupied by a group of preppers gave him some information.

“Yeah, I remember a guy like the one you’re looking for.” A small woman with a scar on her face told Sam while he handed over some cargo to her partners. “Tall, dirty-blond, all dressed in black with eyes painted like a woman’s.”

Sam felt the knot in his throat tightening. 

“What did he do?” He managed to press out. The small lady shrugged.

“Not much. Kept us company. Played some songs and stayed for a few days.”

“That’s it?” Maybe he wasn’t Higgs after all. Just a man with similar appetite for dramatic flair. 

“Not really.” The woman stepped closer to Sam and lowered her voice. “You see, my fellows seemed to like him. Damn, my old and sick grandma was so in love it’d make grandpa jealous if he weren’t already dead. But… Something was off with him.”

Sam gently pulled her aside from her busy family members.

“Could you tell me more about this man?”

“Why are you looking for him?”

Sam wanted to lie. Wanted to tell the woman Higgs owes him or something. But he couldn’t bring himself to it, despite feeling like what was between him and his old enemy is no one else’s business.

“He’s dangerous.”

The small woman’s hazel eyes grew wide and she nodded.

“Thought so. Had that predatory air around him. Like his smile never reached his eyes, and you always anticipated him to pounce, like a mountain lion.”

“So he stayed, played some songs and wooed your grandma, then left?”

“He didn’t just play some songs, you see.” The woman told Sam in a hushed tone “My brother says I’m crazy, but I swear he conjured the spirits of the dead when he sang. Our grandma was so sick, and she died not long after your peculiar musician friend left. He took her Ka, like he was Death incarnate.”

Sam remembered calling Higgs a “Grim Reaper cosplay-accident” after he got that long, black, hooded jacket from the Barterer at the small hillside community. Looks like he tried to live up to the moniker.

“Do you know where he went after he left you?”

The small woman shook her head.

“Sorry, no. But I guess you could ask if he took someone else’s Ka as well.”

That was at least something Sam could use. He thanked the woman and left the preppers, on his way to the next small community shelter.

He found the same story waiting for him: an old man, dying from an illness took the wandering musician in - died not long after. His family members described the musician as this otherworldly entity. Half of the family found him terrifying, the other hauntingly beautiful. 

Sam couldn’t help but hope they didn’t tell Higgs that. The last thing the man needed was more strokes to his already enormous ego. And he loved to be perceived as terrifying, if not beautiful. The residents also pointed Sam in the direction of a community shelter a few days’ worth of travel South, where rumors circulated about a tragic event linked to the wandering musician’s appearance.

Sam travelled on, all the while nursing his anxiety and some kind of anticipation. He felt it before, going against Higgs. He also knew he defeated the man twice, and he would do it a third time as well. Yet, he was tired of it. All he wanted was to bury Higgs and his memory in the deepest tar pit, and be done with him once and for all.

Then he remembered the awfully short time he spent with not the psychopatic villain from his nightmares, but a fellow porter who acted as his navigator – his savior, even in a few occasions. Was he really the same person? Had he been acting the whole time? Sam didn’t think so. Maybe if he wanted to kill Higgs for good, the only thing he had to do was to reach Peter. It was a dangerous line of thought, and he didn’t entertain it for long. But it was worth a shot, if only to break the armor of arrogance and hate Higgs wore so proudly. 

The other shelter was quiet. 

There were people inside, living their everyday lives, but there was an apartment unit that seemed to be burned out and locked down. 

Sam carefully asked one of the neighbors about it. But even he was appalled at the story he was told.

“I found Higgs.” Sam told Die-Hardman over the ring terminal, while standing in the middle of the room with charred walls and broken furniture. “He… was here in this small community shelter a year ago.”

“Sam… You seem upset. What did he do?”

Sam took a deep breath and leaned to the wall. He left his faithful cargo containers outside, so nothing hindered his movement.

“Annihilated a family. Killed the parents, took their little girl.”

“Why?”

“Damn if I know.” Sam already felt the claws of guilt scratching at his conscience.

“We can’t let him run around killing people and kidnapping children. This is serious.” 

Sam nodded.

“I’ll find him.”

“No, Sam. You don’t have to.”

Higgs would kill anyone else without as much thought as swatting a fly. Sam knew it had to be him.

“He can’t kill me, and he knows it. I have to go.”

“Fine. But we’ll be following you and intervene if needed.”

“Thanks.”

After he hung up, he noticed the frail, older lady standing next to him in the doorway.

“Excuse me, I didn’t want to intrude.” She stammered. “But I saw someone entering Claire’s apartment, and I thought maybe…”

“Maybe what?” Sam inquired.

“You see, I shouldn’t be telling you this - let the dead rest as they say - but whoever that man was, he did poor Claire a favor.”

Sam was getting confused. But at least, he gained a little context of what really happened.

“What do you mean?”

The lady sighed and averted her gaze from the corner, where the silhouettes of two charred bodies were still visible on the floor.

“I knew Claire since she was a girl. She grew up here. Met a man who got her pregnant, and married him, trapping herself in a living nightmare.” She shook her head slowly, as if trying to shake the tears from her eyes. “Poor thing. For so long, the only good thing in her life was her daughter, Lily. Then Peter came…”

Sam raised a brow. 

“What happened then?”

“Claire fell in love - he was charming and handsome after all - and they started an affair.”

Sam frowned. The already lengthy list of Higgs’ crimes just got a new entry: homewrecker. Charming.

“Claire was happy with him.” The old lady continued. “And Lily too. Loved Peter more than her own father. Which isn’t much of a surprise, he was a violent bastard.”

Sam didn’t say a word. Knowing Higgs, the poor woman was out of the frying pan and fell straight into the fire. Their romance was doomed from the start, and Sam had a feeling it wouldn’t last anyway. But still, he wondered why Higgs killed them and took their daughter? Just what kind of twisted plan he was cooking?

“But how did Claire die? What happened to them?” He prodded the old lady.

“Claire’s useless trash of a husband came home early and caught his wife and another man in the act.” she shrugged. “A tale as old as time, son.”

Sam nodded to himself, but still didn’t believe it was self-defense on Higgs’ part. He probably provoked Claire’s husband, or just killed both of them in cold blood. Some lover.

“What about Lily?”

“We haven’t found her. Not in the debris, not outside, hiding somewhere. So it’s safe to assume, Peter took her with him when he left. He seemed to love that little girl, always played with her, and sang to her.”

This was an image Sam couldn’t imagine. Higgs being gentle with someone. Domineering, theatrical, outright psychotic – he’d seen it all, but gentle? Loving? Caring about a child instead of shooting her in the head? That didn’t sound like him at all.

“He has the girl as a hostage.” Sam told Die-Hardman after the old lady left. “I just know he took her to prevent me from going after him.”

Die-Hardman’s now unmasked face had a grim expression.

“Sam…There’s something you need to know.”

“What?”

The ring terminal brought up a footage of a voidout crater. The data showed it used to be a large community shelter, not too far from Mountain-Knot-City. 

“For what it’s worth, that little girl is no longer in danger.” Die-Hardman’s voice echoed over the looping video. “There are no survivors.”

Sam slid down to the ground, the silence pounding against his chest. He turned off the ring terminal. In the shadows, he swore he saw Claire’s ghost as she stared at him apologetically, already fading away.

Sam got a message not long after he left the community shelter and was heading for the voidout crater to investigate. It came from an unknown source, and only contained two words: “Stay away.”

Sam ignored it, and ended up at the voidout crater. BTs swarmed at the place and chiralium levels were high, but no kaiju to take care of. Timefall soaked the ground and forced Sam to find shelter, where he could plan where to go next. He found two more messages from the unknown sender.

“Fine. Follow my scent then, like the good little hound you are.”

“Did you find what you were looking for in the debris? Or just the ghost of a heartbreak?”

Sam left both messages on read. He knew they were sent by Higgs, so it was at least a sign of him being on the right track. After the timefall stopped, he moved on. His ring terminal pinged again, this time it was a call. Hearing Higgs talk again made Sam sick to his core but he wanted to know what this bastard had to say for himself.

“Aren’t you tired of the grind, Sam?”

“You asked me this already.”

“No matter, you still haven’t answered.”

“I’m tired.”

“Me too. Tired of you being in my ass wherever I go.”

“You just wish I was in your ass, Higgs.”

Was he laughing on the other end of the line? Sam didn’t find any humor in their banter this time. 

“Tell you what Sam: Fuck off. Then keep fucking off. Keep fucking off until you reach a sign that says “you can’t fuck off past here”, then be the legendary man you are, do the impossible and keep fucking off forever.”

“I will not let you cause another voidout.”

“Oh, honey… Not this again. You can’t stop me, why try?”

Sam felt anger rising inside him at the snide tone. 

“I stopped you twice. And I’ll stop you again.”

Sam could see Higgs’ grin —wide, smug, and etched into his memory—though he was miles away.

“Is that so? Want one more dance with yours truly?”

“It won’t be a dance. It’ll be your funeral.”

Higgs laughed like Sam just told him the best joke of the month.

“Then please come to my vigil. I’ll be waiting for you in Edge-Knot-City. Where it all began, one year ago.”

He hung up, and Sam just realized his hands were shaking.

He was standing under the same overpass Sam met him on that fateful day. He cursed himself for not pulling the trigger then and there, pumping Higgs’ tar-black heart full of hematic bullets. But Sam knew he couldn’t really live with himself after such an act. He wasn’t like the man he was about to battle for what felt like the thousandth time. 

“You look like you’re about to go alone against an army.” Higgs laughed when Sam got close enough. “I’m flattered.”

His voice sounded off. Sam couldn’t really put his finger on why. It was still Higgs in all his unhinged and sarcastic glory, yet his smug grin looked more like a mask than ever before. He started to slowly walk towards Sam and the two of them ended up circling each other like lions in a cage. 

“You’re one persistent motherfucker, I give you that.” Higgs said, eyes locked onto Sam’s like a sniper’s scope. 

“What is it this time, huh?” Sam ignored Higgs’ attempt at taunting him. “The Last Stranding? An empire of fear and violence?”

“All of that and nothing.”

“Cut the cryptic bullshit for once.”

Sam stopped, making Higgs freeze mid-step as well.

“You killed a family and took their kid. Just how low can you stoop?”

“Is that a challenge?”

“The fuck did you do to that kid?”

The smug, arrogant mask fell away so fast it was as if it had never been there—leaving something raw, exposed, and trembling beneath. Sam didn’t react in time. Higgs slammed into him, driving him against the wall. 

“You don’t know shit about Lily!” he roared, fists clenched, voice cracking. “So don’t you dare accuse me!” 

Sam gritted his teeth and drove his knee into Higgs’ ribs. With a snarl and a shimmer of golden light, Higgs Beach-jumped to safety.

Sam unholstered his handgun as Higgs aimed that thrice-damned weapon-instrument of his and began to play a melody. 

“I still know your favorite song.” He grinned, the usual mask now covering the vulnerability from before. Sam jumped out of the way of a flame he knew too well.

“Don’t you feel a bit cold, Sam?” Higgs taunted him while sending another flame his way. Sam shot at him, and saw the bullets draw sparks. The bastard had some armor under his reaper-coat. 

“Missed!”

Sam ran through under the overpass, trying to get behind Higgs who also changed location by Beach-jumping to the same overpass’s broken edge, sending lightning bolts down.

“I see you!” He called after Sam on a sing-song tone “Why don’t ya come here and fight like a man?”

Sam shot him again. He managed to hit the bulletproof vest again.

“I felt that!”

“Good!” Sam couldn’t stand it. The fate of the world depending on if he can defeat this monster once again. His peace of mind, the continued existence of his loved ones hanging on the line. He threw a grenade at Higgs’ general direction and he heard the other man curse faintly, followed by the explosion. For a moment, there was silence, then

“Howdy.”

Higgs appeared right next to him and swung his instrument-turned battle-axe at his head. Sam ducked and tried to get some distance between them, while shooting at Higgs.

“Aww, Sammy… You keep aiming at my heart like you forgot that I don’t have one!”

Sam knew better. He could aim for Higgs’ head. It had worked before. He grabbed one of the smaller cases he carried around and threw it at Higgs, finally hitting him successfully.

“Son of a…”

He collapsed to the ground, holding his bleeding head. Sam grabbed the battle-guitar and threw it far away. No more playing with fire.

Higgs kicked Sam’s shin, but he kept his balance, yanked Higgs up only to slam him back down with a right hook.

“Hand-to-hand it is then.” Higgs snarled and hit Sam in the jaw. “Come on, you’ve done this already!”

Sam’s hits were direct, calculated and Higgs barely defended himself. 

“Go to hell, Sam.”

“I’m in hell, ever since I met you!”

Sam managed to grapple Higgs and shoved him to the metal beam holding up the overpass’ remains.

“I know you’re a piece of work, but murdering a child…”

“You don’t know shit about Lily, like you didn’t know shit about Lou.” Higgs flashed a bloodied grin at Sam. “So stop guilt-tripping me and let’s end this!”

Sam hesitated. Higgs shrugged and headbutted him, freeing himself from Sam’s grasp.

They didn’t stop hitting each other for a long time, while Higgs didn’t even throw a one-liner—just growled like a wounded animal. Sam noticed something about him while he blocked wide, clumsy hits and pushed Higgs over one or two times when he tried to grapple him. For one, Higgs was exhausted. Two, if Sam kept his distance, he kept his as well. So Sam tried to stay as far as possible, only throwing a few grenades at his opponent, who always Beach-jumped out of harm’s way. 

Higgs got fed up with this quickly and Beach-jumped right on top of Sam, locking him in what could be best described as a “grapple-hug”.

Sam tried to shake him off - especially after Higgs bit him in the past once while locked in his arms like this - but he was unsuccessful.It took him a few moments to realize that Higgs wasn’t fighting anymore. His grip was firm, but not aggressive. No snarls. No sparks. Just silence. Sam stopped struggling. And for the first time, he felt Higgs tremble.

“I’m tired, Sam.” Higgs’ voice was low, barely more than a whisper “So fuckin’ tired.”

Sam felt tears on his face, but they weren’t his own. 

“Tell me about Lily.” He asked cautiously. Higgs’ body shook again under the emotional storm.

“Apple of my eye that little girl was.” Sam felt Higgs’ sad smile more than saw it. 

“Yet you killed her.” Sam tried his best not to sound judgmental.

Higgs took in a raspy, heavy breath and pushed Sam away just enough to be able to look him in the eye.

“For three hours, I watched her fight for her little life, while she held on to my hand.”

Sam didn’t say anything. His grip loosened on Higgs, but he still held on.

“I wanted her to go with what dignity she had left.”

He looked at Sam, tears still running down his bloodied face.

“Isn’t this what any father would do? End their child’s suffering, even if it kills him inside?”

The question stayed between them unanswered. Sam let go, and Higgs collapsed to the ground, silently letting out a few sobs before stopping himself. 

“You’re telling me, you raised a kid, and what caused that voidout was a mercy-kill?” It still sounded horrible. Yet if Sam understood anything, it was grief for losing a child. 

“What would you do if it were Lou? Or what’s the name she’s going by nowadays, Tomorrow?”

“There had to be another way.”

“Final stage lung cancer from chiralium exposure.” Higgs added “Ain’t no fucking way I could do anything else but ease her passing.”

For once, Sam found himself agreeing with Higgs. They sat in silence for a while before the taller man sighed.

“Go on. Leave me or shoot me.”

Now that they sat close, Sam noticed one more thing. Higgs’ hair was always dark brown, like Sam’s own. The reason for seeming like he had blond hair was because it turned grey. 

“I’m not leaving you here.” He asserted, drawing Higgs’ attention. “And I’m not going to shoot you either.”

“As one grieving father to the other, you’re about as sharp as a marble, Sam.”

Higgs’ comeback had no edge to it. He really seemed tired. 

“Come with me.”

“Again?”

“Yeah. We did make a good team when you decided not to be a mass-murdering ass.”

“What would your friends say?”

“That we’ll keep an eye on you.”

Higgs nodded and exhaled. 

“Well, looks like I’m stuck with y’all.” 

He waited until Sam stood and helped him up.

“And this how it ends? You and I ride away into the sunset?”

Sam hummed in contemplation.

“We’re going to a shelter in Mountain-Knot-City, and meet the others.”

“Oh, joy.” Higgs’ sarcasm was the first thing he recovered.

“Behave yourself!” Sam warned him, drawing the usual taunting smirk from him in return.

“I’m not going to hurt anyone.” He raised one of his hands while putting the other over his heart. “Promise.”

Sam didn’t answer. He just walked. Higgs followed. And somewhere between the ruins and the shelter, Sam wondered how the hell he’d explain this to Tomorrow.