Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Morning comes mean and bright over Austin, all heat even before the sun clears the oak trees. The Miller house creaks like an old ship — air vents rattling, water heater coughing, the kind of noise that says bills are paid but just barely.

Hadrian is up before the alarm. An old habit. He lays there a breath longer, steadying that no-weight feeling he wakes with now. The body he has in this life is stronger than it look. Lean, fast, coiled—and his magic runs through it like live wire. He can feel the high humidity, part of the charm of both Texas and the southern states. the dust motes in the air are from distant construction. Hadrian smells the sugar and  cinnamon from the cereal Sarah swears she doesn’t like, but keeps eating anyway. He smiles at that thought. His baby sister is one of a kind and can be sassy yet is still so innocent. And that innocence must be protected. 

Hadrian decides he has layed awake long enough and rolls out of bed, stretching until vertebrae pop, then drops for his daily knuckle pushups. First fifty then seventy-five. Then over a hundred with almost no burn. No shake in his limbs. He stops only because the ceiling fan is wobbling and he’s tired of counting.

There’s a picture on the dresser: Joel with a bad mustache, his mother Isabel laughing into his shoulder, sunlight beaming behind them. Hadrian touches the frame with two fingers. It’s not the old grief that feels like a stab anymore. It has changed to a hollowness in his heart that never fills. He says good morning like he always does. Quiet and private—and the glass warms under his hand.

By the time Hadrian comes down the stairs the kitchen is a battlefield of plates, mugs and mail. His father is already there half dressed for work, fighting the coffee machine like it owes him money. “Piece of shit,” Joel mutters, jabbing the button.

“You’re insulting it.” Hadrian says. “It only responds to sweet talk.”

“Yeah? You try.” Joel leans back, squinting one eye. “Tell it you’ll buy it dinner.”

“I’m not bribing your haunted Mr. Coffee machine dad.” Hadrian then flicks his wrist. The burner ticks and lights and heat rolls out. He never uses a wand. He hasn’t in… well not since his past life. No sparks, no show—just a clean ‘yes’ from the world whenever he asks.

“Morning,” Tommy calls from the front door, shouldering in like a storm and hooking his sunglasses on his collar. He smells like earth and bubblegum. “I brought your tools back, and your neighbor’s dog tried to make out with my boots.”

“Stop letting dogs flirt with you,” Hadrian says. “it sends the wrong message.” Tommy points at him. “Big talk from the one who’s too pretty for shop class.” He steps to the counter and steals a slice of bread. “Where’s the gremlin?”

“Still asleep,” Joel says, but he’s looking down the hallway like he expects Sarah to appear just for spite. “She’s not a gremlin,” Hadrian says, cracking eggs one-handed. “She’s a dragon, with sass.”

Tommy snorts. “So… a gremlin.” The coffee machine gurgles once, twice, then chooses life and spits out something dark and hot enough to melt steel. Joel slants Hadrian a look like he suspects witchcraft, which is fair—but takes the mug with a grunt of thanks.

“Don’t forget you got that early pour,” Tommy says to Joel, flipping through the stack of mail. “Boss wants us set up before the heat starts getting too bad. I don’t blame him. Next thing you know it starts melting the tires.”

“When is the heat not bad? It’s summertime in Texas.” Joel says, already moving to the door to get his boots, belt, and his phone. “It’s August,” Hadrian says. “I say the weather is hormonal.”

“Kid’s right,” Tommy tells Joel with a smile. “Heat’s got a mean streak.”
“Both of you hush,” Joel says, but there’s a smile on his face . “H, are you grabbing the bus or do you want me to drop off you and Sarah?”

“The bus is fine. Less babysitting me for you.” Hadrian shakes the pan, eggs sliding solidly onto a plate with some buttered toast. “I’ll walk her to the stop.”

Joel ties his laces, shoulders squaring. The lines at his eyes have gotten deeper in the last year. He carries everything like it’s only his job to keep it from falling —the mortgage payment, truck needing brakes, prom someday, college; all of it. Hadrian watches him like he always does, torn between wanting to help carry the weight with him and knowing he can’t show his hands. Not yet anayway

On the fridge, there’s a chore list in Sarah’s cursive writing. Beneath it is a post-it note with a long grocery scrawl: milk, tortillas, ibuprofen, dog food (which is for the neighbor’s dog, whom Tommy is apparently dating) and a heart around the words “Mom’s day” with the date circled from years ago. Hadrian had written that a long time back and never took it down. Sarah pretends not to notice, and Joel leaves it there like it’s old glue that won’t come off.

Isabel, Hadrian and Sarah’s mother, exists in Sarah’s memory like a silhouette behind gauze. Her voice; the smell of minty soap; a lullaby with the words missing. She doesn’t remember much. She was only three when it happened.

Yet Hadrian remembers so much more. The weight of her hand on his hair, callused from her work and gloves at the clinic. The way she looked at Joel like he’d pulled the sun closer just for her, love shining in her eyes. His father’s younger face; full of love and happiness when looking at her… then comes the hospital visits and chemo procedures that made her lose her hair. People were always bringing her little flowers she pretended not to hate. Hadrian remembers her smaller hand folded between both of his as she looks at him with a tear falling down her cheek. Telling him — “I will always love you.” He remembers being only seven years old and deciding that he’d never let the world take from his family like that again.

Soon after Sarah skids into the kitchen, a whirlwind of tan limbs and a messy ponytail, her T-shirt half-tucked. “Where are my shoes?” she seems to demand of the universe. “Probably near your feet by the wall.” Tommy says. As he is finishing his bacon and eggs and making a sad face. “There is no more butter? Y’all must live like savages.”

“Eat your eggs,” Hadrian says, sliding plates toward Sarah and Joel. “And stop talking in my kitchen.”

“It’s actually my kitchen,” Joel says on reflex, then spears a forkful and pauses. “This is really good son.”

“Your shocked tone is hurtful.” Hadrian says, but he’s pleased. He feels the room around him like a map—Sarah’s racing little heartbeat calming as she eats, Joel’s shoulders melting with coffee, Tommy’s attention pinballing behind his neverending jokes.

Outside: a siren cuts quick across the distance, then fades. A helicopter flies low somewhere over the south interstate loop. The air has a certain feel in it, like the moment before a thunderclap. Or an itch. Concerned, Hadrian pushes magic into a fine thread and draws a quick ward at the front threshold—nothing flashy, just a soft hum that will brush his thoughts if anything crosses the porch while they’re gone. It’s habit more than worry. Still, the strange feeling persists. 

“Hey,” Sarah says, mouth full. “Don’t forget the science project after school. And don’t be late. We’re building a tiny habitat for pill bugs, which are actually crustaceans, so Uncle Tommy can finally meet somebody at his intelligence level.”

Tommy looks heartbroken for a second puts a hand over his heart. “Wounded by my own blood.”

“She’s not your blood,” Joel says. “She’s mine. And your blood would be offended.” Sarah grins and kicks her father under the table. “You’re being cranky, old man.”

“Don’t start,” Joel says, but he’s softer now. “And you need to brush your hair right, princess.”

“I did!” Though she very clearly did not. Hadrian catches her eye. “Come here.” He picks up her hairbrush and, with two fingers, coaxes her hair apart softly. No magic, not really, just practiced patience. Then, just a whisper of it as he lets the brush slide home without catching once. Sarah doesn’t notice. Yet Joel does. He always does.

“You need to show me that trick.” Joel says.

“Just the magic of two hands and patience dad.” Hadrian kisses the top of Sarah’s head. “There, now you are battle-ready little dragon.”

Sarah leans into him for a second, blushing and smiling, and something inside him loosens. He’d thought, once, after the life he’d already lived — after a brutal war that came before too many graves and that long, deep ache for a family that wasn’t torn apart. He’d thought himself undeserving of having a proper family. That the universe wouldn’t risk giving him another chance. But, here they are, and here he is. An older brother, and a son to a good man. A seemingly good thing in a bad world.
Tommy checks his watch and claps Joel on the shoulder. “We gotta roll if we want the new contract before Mr. Brown takes it. You two—” he points at the kids “—no detours, no fights, no setting things on fire.”

Sarah looks at Hadrian. “I make no promises,” Hadrian says, deadpan. Sarah sighs good naturey and Tommy laughs. Joel stuffs his phone and wallet into his pockets, then hesitates. His gaze lands on the photo on the fridge again. That hollow expression moves across his face, there and then gone, a shadow passing between clouds.

“You good?” Hadrian asks. It’s a gentle question. It always is. Joel nods once. “Yeah, I’ll be okay son.” He finishes his coffee, sets the mug in the sink, and hugs Sarah with one arm, brief but firm. He grips Hadrian’s shoulder longer. Neither of them says anything about how Joel’s grip tightens when he thinks too long, or how Hadrian never pulls away first.

Out by the truck, the cicadas are already starting up their murder-choir. Tommy waves, pauses mid-wave, and squints down the street.

“You hear that?” he asks. “Yeah, a Helicopter.” Hadrian says. “It has been flying along the South interstate loop, too Low in my opinion.”

“That’s what I thought too.” Tommy shakes it off. “Must be a city thing.” “It definitely is a city thing,” Joel echoes, which is what he says when the world acts weird and there’s no point worrying yet. He throws the truck into reverse. “Lock up. I’ll text at lunch.”

“Don’t. I think your phone’s allergic to you,” Hadrian says. “Mind your business,” Joel says, but he’s smiling again, and then they’re gone in a rumble of engine and gravel.

The house settles in the quiet. Sarah shovels another bite of eggs, looks like she might say something about the photo on the fridge. She doesn’t. She taps her cereal spoon on the edge of her bowl three times—her good luck habit—and stands.

“You’re walking me, right?” Sarah asks. 

“Yeah.” He checks the time. The bus will hit the stop in eight minutes if the driver isn’t late, which she will be. Hadrian slings his bag over his shoulder. There’s an old, well-oiled weight inside, steel and rune-etched wood. It’s tucked in a way nobody will ever see unless he shows them. He doesn’t plan to. He hopes to never have to.

On the porch, Hadrian pauses. There’s a neighbor across the street arguing into a phone. A dog whines behind a fence. In the far distance, another siren climbs and cuts. He can hear the helicopters in the distance again. And the air feels wrong again—too sharp, whether that’s ozone or fear or the placebo of a quiet morning he doesn’t trust anymore.

Sarah locks the door and spins the deadbolt twice like Hadrian taught her. “We’re gonna ace the pill bug thing,” she says, chin up. “You’re gonna make a palace,” he says. “All hail the roly-polies.” She laughs, light and bright, and the itch recedes. He drapes an arm over her shoulders as they step into the heat. The ward hums hello as they cross it, then hushes. The sidewalk radiates through their sneakers. The oak leaves hiss in a breeze that never quite forms.

“Do you remember her?” Sarah asks. She doesn’t say ‘mother’. She doesn’t have to. “Yeah,” Hadrian says. The truth is easy and hard at once. “I remember all of it.”

“What was she like?” Hadrian watches their shadows stretch ahead of them, long and thin. “Mom was someone who had figured out how to make a day bigger than it really was. She’d come home dead tired and still make breakfast for dinner and dance with Dad in the kitchen. She laughed a lot and could act like she was meaner than she truly was, and she was never mean.”

Sarah nods. He can feel her taking that into herself, fitting the shape of it around the outline she keeps. “I wish—” she starts, then stops. “Never mind.”

“You don’t have to wish alone,” he says. “We can do it together.”

“Okay.” Sarah says. They reach the bus stop as it lights up with a roar of a big engine and bigger brakes, late after all. A couple of kids are already inside, faces flushed, backpacks sagging with summer’s last homework. The driver gives him the same suspicious side-eye she always does; he smiles anyway and gets a blink of surprise back. Hadrian steps in last, letting Sarah snag the seat she likes—second row, left side, window for drawing hearts when it fogs up in winter.

He takes the aisle, angles his body so nobody jostles her. As the bus pulls away, he looks back toward the house. It sits quiet under the trees, paint a little sun-bitten, roofline a little proud. His ward glows in his senses like a candle. It’s a small thing. Yet Hadrian feels like could be the end of everything.

The helicopter passes again, lower, dragging its shadow like a cut across the street. “Must be a city thing,” he says under his breath, and tries to make himself believe it for one more day.

Chapter Text

By dusk the sky is an ugly bruise. Heat lightning crawls along the horizon like a bad idea that won’t confess it is one. Hadrian can’t shake the same itch from this morning under his skin. All day and afternoon the city’s emergency services have been going haywire in many small ways—sirens stacking up in the distance, multiple reports of large scale violence and a helicopter dragging its shadow over the neighborhood again and again. The neighbors at times are standing in their yards too long, staring at their phones the entire time. Some people have already packed up and drove away from their homes already, leaving the city. There were even a few military jets flying low earlier which made no logical sense and yet it made him much more nervous.

Hadrian kept Sarah close. Homework done at the table, shoes by the door, his and her bag already packed. He draws another quiet ward on the doorframe—thin as silk, strong as rope. and makes himself remember to simply breathe.

Joel gets home quite late, around 10pm. Dust and concrete on his shirt, eyes already tired. Tommy peels off an hour after—drops a joke, then dodges a hug and leaves with a promise. The ordinary rituals seem to keep the roof up. At least for a while.

When the shouting starts three blocks over, it’s 3am. This is followed by gunshots going off all around the neighborhood. And it isn’t domestic violence. Hadrian has known his neighbors all of his life, and most are retired. Something is very wrong; Hadrian can feel his magic giving him constant warnings. Multiple screams happen somewhere nearby followed by strange guttural sounds and to top it all off; a few explosions go off in the outskirts of Austin.

“Dad?” Sarah asks, her voice sounding small in that way she hates. Yet even she can feel that something isn’t right. Joel is already at the window, having seen the explosions. Knowing one was a gas station based off the scattered news report on the TV. He is already weighing good and bad choices. Finally, after a few more heartbeats he comes to a decision. “Pack the truck up, now. We are leaving, something is wrong with our neighbors, I think some of them are sick.”

Hadrian moves fast. While Sarah asks their father what he means by ‘sick’. He goes through the house in just a couple of minutes gathering everything they will need: water, food, three med kits, the old WWII Pistol from his mother’s grandpa wrapped in its cloth, the knife with the etched spine, spare socks, jeans and shirts. Then he grabs a photo—his mother smiling, sunlight beaming behind her. Once everything is packed in the truck, the family of three get in after having locked the house down.

The first infected they see is a man they’ve waved to a hundred times. He staggers into the street like he has a broken leg, then he sprints at a brick mailbox and knocks himself cold against it. He stands again, awkwardly at first, his arms flailing yet without the part that seems to know pain, and he keeps running down the street.

The second one hits the passenger door as they’re backing out. Hadrian grabs Sarah’s head and pulls her against him so she doesn’t see the teeth. Or the growths popping out of their skull. Joel floors the gas pedal and the thing vanishes behind them.

Soon the phones die, and radio stutters out and collapses. Then the silence is only broken by a military officer named ‘Colonel Fords’ speaking over the radio and talking of a safe zone that citizens must get to. The road out of the neighborhood gridlocks on a dime and turns into a panicked river: full of horns going off, screams, and too many hands pounding the truck’s glass windows. Hadrian’s magic rides high and hot under his skin, ready to answer. He keeps it clamped down until unfortunately clamping down stops being an option.

They cut through a yard, bounce a curb, and tear through a wooden fence like paper. Joel drives like he’s arm-wrestling God. Hadrian watches the sights and angles, feeding his father street names seconds before the turns come up. He is steady, all the way up until the highway.

The wreck happens five cars ahead: a car jackknifes; the lane becomes teeth. Joel swears and jerks the wheel, and the truck fishtails into a wall of metal and glass. Pinned in by two SUV’s.

“Out.” He orders. “Now.” And so they start to run. The city of Austin howls its dying keening all around them. The air is bright with sirens and dust. A nearby grocery store sign and bakery is on fire. In the distance, parts of akyscrapers are covered in smoke and flame. A woman screams loudly for help near them and is suddenly silenced. A soldier yells at a line of people to back up or he will start shooting. And Hadrian feels the barrel of that gun like a pointer on his ribs. The soldier is panicked and his men start to realize they can’t control the crowd. Some are already infected and some are not. Yet it is too hard to tell which is which.

They make it to the river by the bridge out of the city trying to get away from the crowd. Somewhere behind them, a transformer explodes. And two passenger airplanes crash into the fields near the interstate. Blue-white light washes over everything for a bit as Joel yells in fear. Sarah’s hand is sweating profusely in her brother’s. He squeezes, and she squeezes back so hard it almost hurts, and that’s how he knows she’s still here, the first second, then the next one and so on.

Tommy finds them on a side street emptying out of an alleyway by the river, whether by some miracle or sheer dumb luck. He’s bleeding on one sleeve and scowling like Joel. “I knew you’d take this way out.” He says, and then looks at Hadrian and gives a small smile. “How bad is it?”

“It’s bad,” Hadrian says. “Sarah is shaken up; and we need to get out of the city fast. The whole world is falling apart!” They move fast together after that: Joel left, Hadrian right, Tommy rear. Sarah in the pocket as they push toward the riverbank by the bridge and find it blocked by crashed cars, blood and infected trapped in the vehicles. It was pure chaos and all around him, Hadrian felt like he had stepped into a war zone.

A soldier drops down from a nearby military truck on the opposite side of the river. “Stop!” he shouts, rifle leveled at the family of four. “Stop where you are!”

“We’re not sick,” Joel says, hands up. “It’s a my kid— my two kids and this is my brother—“

The soldier pointed at them again with his rifle. “Shut up! And stay where you are.”

“Orders, I have four civilians trying to cross the river.” the soldier asks into his radio comlink. He’s shaking slightly, perhaps from adrenaline. He’s a young man inside the helmet, voice scraped raw. He listens to the radio in his ear for a couple heartbeats too long. “I’m sorry, what?!” Whoever is on the other end of the radio repeats themselves and the soldier’s shoulders sag like a heavy weight has just settled there.

He turns to the Miller family and hesitates then simply says “I’m sorry” as he raises his M16 rifle and prepares to fire. Joel and Tommy are wide-eyed and horrified. Sarah gasps.

But Hadrian moves before the shots fire. A magical shield leaps into being at his call— clear and shimmering yet hard — it blocks the first several rounds. The impact detonating into his bones. The force shoves him back half a step; yet the shield holds.

Three more shots glance off into the nearby brush and trees. The fourth finds the edge of their peripheral vision. And the fifth and sixth seem to heave the world sideways. Hadrian desperately tries to manipulate his shield. He drags the shield wider, thicker, yet he is simply too slow… too slow—

Sarah gasps. The sound is tiny. Like a bubble popping.
Joel is there first, because of course he is. He’s always been there first for Sarah. He catches her before she falls like she’s the most breakable thing he’s ever touched. Blood pools from her stomach. Hadrian’s ears are full of thunder. The soldier is a blur of movement and then Tommy’s gun barks and the soldier is on the ground not moving. The radio keeps talking into a dead man’s ear.

Hadrian drops the shield and goes to his knees, cradling his baby sister as Joel tries to stem the bleeding.
Hadrian has done battlefield magic. He’s held off curses meant to rip a man apart. He’s pulled people back from the cold with his hands shaking and his lungs on fire. He can feel the bullet path like a bright wire. Yet… then, he was also was another man in a different life. Memories are one thing; teaching his new body the experience it needs is quite another. Hadrian glances down at Sarah as her blue eyes focus on Joel; He can fix this, he can…

Until it finally hits him, in his soul, that he can’t. And that cripples Hadrian. He was supposed to protect her, she’s his baby sister. She should be able to live and grow up. Not be struck down by an executioners stray bullet.

“Please,” Joel says, and it sounds like something breaking slow as his father falls apart at the seams. “Please, babygirl, I know it hurts— stay with us…”

Sarah’s eyes find Hadrian again. She’s trying to be brave for him, he knows it. It’s her last bad habit. And the tears fall down Hadrian’s face as his whole world shatters in that one agonizing moment.

His hands are steady when he presses them down. Hadrian calls everything he has in him, his magic, and the grounding energy of a ley line, then the very air answers… but her body simply won’t. She has lost too much blood. Her mind is already fading, and she’s so light in his arms. Too light. In a few more seconds, Sarah dies, trying to smile for her brother…

Hadrian makes no sound at first. The world goes silent around the slow rhythm of his own heartbeat. He holds her close and kisses her forehead while Joel begs Tommy for help. Hadrian feels the world tilt on its axis, and every part of him that learned to be gentle burns away at the edges. His answering wail of sorrow breaks the night open and it becomes a forceful howl of such profound grief that it slightly startles even his father and uncle, the grief of a brother who had failed. The agony of a little girl’s life cut short long before her time.

When he finally hands her body to Joel, Hadrian already thinks he should have taken the bullet. That he should have been faster. He wasn’t strong enough to save his mother and now he even failed to save his sister. He’ll never hear her laugh again. See her sweet smile or tease her and help her get into mischief, he will never see her marry... she is just gone. Ripped away to a place he cannot follow.

The last three members of the Miller family sit there on their knees for a long time, and then the world notices them again and tries to kill them for it. And so they run because there is nothing else to do. There is no fighting the horde of infected. There is no fixing a world that is burning and a society being torn apart in front of them. Hadrian carries his baby sister’s body as they flee into the dark and cruel night. He feels tears falling down his face, a face that hardens by the second.

By morning, the city has become a smoking husk of it’s former self… and they have all become different men.

Chapter Text

Hadrian found an abandoned four-door pick up truck in the early morning that was still running and was full of gas. They softly layed Sarah’s body down in the back seat and Hadrian rode sitting in the bed of the truck.

They drove until the tank hissed dry and the sun had come up wrong. Sirens quit, then came back, then died for good. The highway looked like a mouth full of broken teeth.

They found a pasture fence and a shovel in the bed of a dead man’s truck. No speeches were had. What could be said in the face of such tragedy and loss?
Joel picked the spot under a black oak. It was a beautiful area with a lot of shade and sunshine. Tommy dug until the handle raised blisters. Hadrian set stones around the edges so coyotes would have to work for cruelty, and he used his magic again to create a protection field around her grave. His last gift for the sister he had lost.

Sarah was light in Joel’s arms in a way that was disrespectful to the life she’d lived. He laid her down slowly and softly, while Tommy stood to the side. Hadrian knelt, pressed his fingers into the dirt, and whispered something that made the wind pause. It wasn’t a prayer. It was a promise to the ground to hold her like they couldn’t. To protect the last piece of Sarah that was left.

They made a marker out of pieces of a picket fence near the farmhouse on the pasture. Joel carved SARAH MILLER with his pocketknife that kept slipping from his hands. B. 2001 – D. 2013. Then, he stared at the dash while sitting in the truck until his eyes blurred and the numbers meant nothing. He wanted his babygirl back, but she was gone, gone forever beyond his reach just like her mother.

Hadrian filled the grave, then smoothed the mound over with both hands. When Tommy reached for him, he stepped away shaking his head. Hadrian had stayed on his knees a little too long, and when he stood, he looked older than he had any right to at sixteen.

They left the shovel leaning against the oak, softly said their goodbyes. And slowly walked away towards whatever future awaited them now.

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100 miles outside of Austin, Texas - late August 2013

In the first week they tried to survive in the hill country and the woods. They survived on instinct and the leftovers of civilized life, draining water from a windmill tank. Hoarding crackers that tasted like cardboard and salt. Raiding a pharmacy with the gate half-rolled and the alarm dead: gauze, ibuprofen, a bottle of antibiotics Joel didn’t need yet and took anyway.

The first infected they killed was alone. An old rancher in a torn feed-store shirt stumbled out of what remained of his barn with his jaw not working. Joel told him to stop. But he didn’t. So Joel put a framing hammer through its temple and didn’t look at Hadrian while he did it. Hadrian’s breath stayed even and Tommy simply said nothing to anyone.

At night Hadrian set small, quiet lines of magical wards around their makeshift camp. The air thickened a hand’s width above the ground and tripped anything that tried to crawl in. Joel didn’t ask, he had always known his boy had abilities they never spoke about. He saw the wire tighten and the way nothing crossed it unless Hadrian wanted it to.

They soon heard about San Antonio by the following Sunday. The QZ there claimed they could protect you with walls, food and rules. They heard about checkpoints that didn’t care who you were. As made sure to save only the healthy and simply shot the infected. Then they heard about the Army shooting into a crowd and calling it ‘containment’. They didn”t even think of going after that. After all, surviving was certainly better than dyin’.

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Northeast Texas — September 2nd, 2013

Though despite that way of thinking; they ran out of choices anyway. One day while riding in the bed of a truck heading northeast they came upon a giant roadblock on a farm-to-market road with three Humvees and a sergeant who looked about nineteen. “Turn around,” he said, voice going high when he tried to make it hard. “This town has been quarantined and is now restricted!”

“We got a kid.” Tommy tried, because that’s who he was, even now. A loving and supporting uncle.

“Turn. Around. I am not going to warn you again!” Said the young soldier. Joel glared at him; visible hatred in his eyes. He had already lost one child to a soldier, he’d be damned if he lost his only son. Tommy started to fear that Joel would do something rash or brutal. Or perhaps both.

An older man with a baby in his coat stepped forward at the far end of the crowd and begged for them to at least take his child to safety. The answer he got was a shot through the heart, it was quick and precise. And the civilians panicked as the line of soldiers fired with him, because good soldiers follow orders. People went down in halves and then pieces. Joel grabbed both his brother and his son and hurried them into a nearby deep ditch. The truck they’d had been riding in was now filled with bullet holes and useless. Hadrian slammed a wall of magic, a shield, between them and it ate seventy bullets like rain and then shattered. Joel never looked back. Tommy did once and wished he hadn’t for the rest of his life. As several army soldiers had just slaughtered over a hundred people.a

They slept in a culvert that night. Joel’s jaw worked so hard it squeaked. Hadrian bled from the his ear where a bullet grazed him and on his left side and waved Tommy off when he noticed. In the morning they didn’t talk about rules again. There weren’t any that mattered anymore, what truly mattered now was surviving.

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Northeast Texas - November, 2013

Around three months after the outbreak and the night that shattered their lives, word starting arriving that ran on radios, batteries and boots: a protected and settled place in Wyoming where a dam had been rebuilt and those who lived there might have a chance. People weren’t stupid, but even some had a hard time believing it was true. Skepticism at it’s finest. The town was called; Jackson, Wyoming. Tommy had heard of it from an old trucker with a torn jacket and eyes that still knew which way pointed North.

“We should go west, there is less of a population and perhaps we can see if this town of Jackson is worth it.” Tommy said.

“East has more QZs,” Joel said. “Philadelphia, New York and Boston’s still standing.”

“Standing is not the same as living, it’s not our country anymore Joel. The military rules everything, including those who live there. You have no freedoms and are subject to live only by their whims. That is no way to live brother.”

“You think that a town in the mountains is going to be kinder than a city with high concrete walls?” Joel was visibly frustrated and clearly favored safety over freedom.

“I think getting shot by uniforms until you learn their mood isn’t a plan. And you know it. Regardless if you may admit it.” Tommy had grown heated; trying to convince his brother to join him.

They argued until Hadrian said, “You’re both acting ridiculous, arguing will get us nowhere.” Which didn’t help at all. Two days later they came to a fork in the road and found a map with a bullet hole through Kansas. Tommy shouldered his pack higher. He hugged Joel like he was leaving for a long shift. He touched Hadrian’s shoulder.

“Come with me?,” he asked, because he had to. “I can’t,” Hadrian said, because he had to. He couldn’t abandon his father. “Then find me if this goes rotten for you both.” Tommy said, which is how brothers and uncles say I love you when it’s too late for anything else. Then he walked north and west with three other souls who didn’t trust each other and wouldn’t for a while. Joel watched him vanish into dust and decided not to feel anything about it. That only held for an hour, as his son stayed close and Joel thanked god for small mercies.

After that day, Joel and Hadrian angled northeast on back roads that still had unbroken asphalt. They bartered a shotgun for five gallons of gas. They later stole the five gallons when the man they bartered with tried to take the shotgun at night without paying them.

Hadrian hid what his abilities unless it was needed to keep them breathing. He made locked doors unlock themselves. He pulled a spark across a coil with two fingers when a generator choked. He thickened the air under a bridge long enough to make a pack of runners pile under it and then forget how their legs worked before setting them on fire.

The cost showed up under his eyes. Joel pretended not to notice. “Save it,” he said. “We’re not saints.”

They found a church that had made soup and a preacher who liked guns too much. They moved on. They found a car lot with three men who thought they were wolves and took their lives while the men slept. They found a farmhouse with a family who opened the door because they wanted to be kind and only stayed one night because you honor that when you can.

In Tennessee, a kid tried to take Hadrian’s pack with a knife. Joel broke the kid’s knife hand and kicked the blade into a drain. Hadrian’s voice went flat. “He’s twelve.” Joel said, “He’s a threat,” and that was the first time they didn’t talk for two full days.

In Virginia, a woman traded them rabbit for salt and told them Boston’s wall threw people back with dogs and rifles, but inside there were rations and doctors and rules. Joel nodded like he didn’t already know which way his boots were pointing.

——————————————————————————————
Border of Massachusetts - March, 2014

They hit the outskirts of a big town near Massachusetts where the signs were all wrong and the mood much worse. Bandits pulled a burned police cruiser across an underpass and waited out of sight, sloppy and mean. Joel saw it a second too late. The first man came at him with a pipe. Joel shot him under the chin and kept the muzzle moving killing the next two who charged at him. The fourth tried to hit Hadrian and his punch bounced off the kind of body you have that can bend iron for fun. Hadrian kicked him hard which drove him into a pillar and he heard the man’s ribcage crack and break.

The fifth man dropped his weapon and cried for mercy. Joel raised his pistol and held the barrel to the man’s throat. Hadrian said, “Don’t!” And the word was not a suggestion. Slowly, Joel let the barrel come down. He hated himself immediately for doing it and hated Hadrian more for making him want to be better. Yet he was still grateful his boy was by his side.

That night they sat on opposite sides of a dead campfire and chewed rabbit in silences. “You’re turning cold, and becoming desensitized to violence and murder. We shouldn’t stoop to the levels of bandits or raiders.” Hadrian said.

“I’m keeping us both alive,” Joel said. “It’s not the same.”
“You can stay alive without making yourself a monster dad.”
Joel stood up after that and walked into the dark for awhile so he didn’t have to respond to that honestly.

——————————————————————————————

Boston QZ - August to late September, 2014

The city stank like rotten fish and the wall was ugly yet efficient. Though the line to get in moved with the rhythm of fear and uncertainty. They hid the wrong things and showed the right ones. A man in a vest glanced at Hadrian’s shoulders and stamped their papers anyway because certain shapes of grief make some some people want to say yes.

Inside the QZ, they had rations and a work line, a black market if you wanted to be stupid and brave. Joel was good at both. He started with hauling, moved to fixing, drifted to a corner where a woman named Tess ran trades with an iron mouth and a ledger brain. She liked Joel’s efficiency and intelligence. He liked her certainty and pride.

Hadrian lasted only six weeks inside the QZ. He watched a guard beat a man for stepping over a painted line and a food vendor water down the soup until it was barely edible. Then charged extra rations. He slept one night in a barracks with thirty men and dreamed of Sarah asking why the room smelled so horrible, this left Hadrian shaken a bit emotionally but he was glad to see his sister again. In the sixth week Hadrian went outside of the wall with a supply crew to a suburb looking for anything from medicine to food. He didn’t come back. Joel convinced Tess to look into why.

“Where is my son?” Joel asked Tess after she came back from speaking to her contacts. It was the first time she saw that he cared if another person breathed or not.

“He was originally out with the last supply group, they went out past even the old high school. The other night he just packed up and left. But I managed to track him to a small town west of here, called Lincoln.” Tess said, double-checking a list. “There’s a guy there, Bill. He is a bit Trap-happy and can be quite mean, but he’s absolutely useful.”

“Is there anyone else living in the town?” Joel asked softly.

“Frank.” she said. “And Frank is who makes Bill more human.” Joel’s mouth did something like a smile yet it died trying. It was obvious his son was now choosing to live in that town away from the QZ. He felt guilty that he’d pushed him far too hard and now he’d left.
——————————————————————————————
Lincoln, Massachusetts - September 20th - 23rd, 2014

Hadrian walked and walked west until the fences and road changed both their tone and appearance. The weather was calm which was good. The signs he noticed said ‘DON’T’ or ‘STAY AWAY’ in about thirty creative ways. The first wire that Hadrian came across would have taken his legs if he had continued walked and been stupid. So he didn’t. It was then that he met Frank first as he appeared out of some nearby shrubs — he was tall, only four inches shorter than Hadrian himself. His light brown eyes exuded both strength and kindness, and Hadrian could see his hands obviously knew a lot about tools. Frank saw the tell of Hadrian’s grief in his green eyes and noted his apparent youth and strong stature. So he said, “You look like somebody who likes to get things done, or find a way to make it work.”

Hadrian nodded. “I do what I can where I can.”
“Bill!” Frank called. “Got a stray, perhaps with skills!” Bill came out with his shotgun holstered which spoke of his manners and yet he scowled on principle. “I don’t like strays.” Hadrian nodded twice then said. “I understand. But If I prove I can maintain and fix your generators and traps, let me stay.”

The following day he didn’t just impress them; he taught them new ways to use traps and fixed all of the town’s defenses and generator’s. By nightfall, he’d tuned the traps so they sang instead of snarled, coaxed the generator to drink without sputtering, and re-wired three window units to blow cold for the first time in over a year. Frank fed him like he was his cousin and therefore family. Bill didn’t invite him to stay and also didn’t tell him to go. Hadrian took the empty room upstairs with the view of the street and slept without a boot on for the first time since before Sarah’s death.

He sent a message for his father into the city with a man who owed Frank a favor. It simply said: I’m safe. Don’t come find me, not yet. He didn’t have to sign it, Joel knew anyway.

——————————————————————————————
Lincoln, Massachusetts - December 10th, 2014

The upcoming winter came with bitter claws. The QZ tried it’s best to ration heat like it was scripture. Joel learned the routes, the faces, the lies of the smuggling business and became Tess’s right hand man. She taught him how to say no and make it sound like a favor. He stopped waking up with his hands closed. Yet he never stopped missing his son or brother.

He stood at the top of the wall once a day and looked toward the direction of the town, Lincoln, that liked to make its own rules. He thought about his boy who’d been forced to kill men and then walked away from the place Joel now lived in because it wasn’t a place he could stay in. He thought about Sarah’s name on a piece of fence back in northeastern Texas and Hadrian’s promise to her spirit. He didn’t feel he could go just yet, so he went to work.

Out on border of Lincoln, Hadrian strung a thin and strong line of magic along the fence posts until the wind started to sound different. He learned all about Bill’s traps like a second language. He fixed a radio nobody believed in until he heard a man named Henry’s voice, who hailed from a town in Wyoming called Jackson. He asked him if his Uncle Tommy was there and safe. The response was surprising in a good way, as he heard Tommy’s voice for the first time in over a year: “I am safe and I’m here. Let me know if y’all ever choose to head this way.” Which was all the confirmation Hadrian needed. His uncle still lived and had made it.

Later that night Hadrian stood in the doorway of the house he now had, watching the street and told himself he’d done the right thing. He believed it enough to head to sleep.

Tommy made Jackson into more than rumor. He sent nothing back. He didn’t have to. The fact that someone could say the name of a place and mean hope was enough.

At the end of the first year, the three Millers weren’t under the same roof. One held a wall and learned to barter and smuggle. One held down a town with fence lines and learned to make it his home. And one held a dam and growing town with strangers and slowly learned to call them family. They were a line drawn across a map by grief and stubbornness. And they were still moving toward each other, they just didn’t know it yet.

Chapter Text

U.S. Northeast coast — January 18th, 2015 to November 26th, 2019

After leaving Boston and staying with Bill and Frank for about a year, Hadrian headed south, north and then west. Constantly moving and never staying in one place at first. And then he headed back again before going south once more. All the while he was circling and listening. Never straying too far from Massachusetts. He ran with smugglers for a year by fixing things, and running jobs for weapons caches, food stores and clothes.

Even a few pharmacy raids. Then he would disappear before anyone could lock onto him for too long. Later on Hadrian joined a huge raider clan in Queenscrown, Virginia. Yet, he slaughtered them only a few months afterwards because they had forced themselves on the women of a nearby survivors settlement. He carried the guilt of killing innocent people as best he could. Hadrian soon after found that he aged different; at a rate much slower than the average person. His scars accumulated as he traveled, but his face hardened. He became hard and harsh at times. And became known as “The green-eyed Reaper, or just Reaper.” People started asking questions with their eyes once they saw him. So he learns to keep his hood up and his sentences short.

One day, years later, He finds a friend in an ex-marine Jonathan by accident and then he stays by choice.

— Graystone, Pennsylvania —

A large town full of mortar shell holes, dried blood, barbed tripwire and several army tanks. And a single ill-tempered ex-military genius who decided the world’s end was a personal challenge. Jonathan declared Hadrian a liability in the first five minutes and a problem in the first ten. Once Hadrian disabled three large traps and rebuilt an army tank with quick proficiency and then hauled a half-ton generator into place one-handed, suddenly Jon was suspicious in a much friendlier way. They made a good, yet rude team for many months… At least until Jonathan nearly succeeded in knocking Hadrian unconscious and selling him to a large band of slavers. Once Hadrian had freed himself, not much of the town was left standing after that. And Jonathan died personally by Hadrian’s hand. He was cold, merciless, and ruthless but only because he had to for survival.

Joel had heard stories pouring out of many places on the east coast; of a cold and ruthless green eyed man who could do impossible things performing good acts while simultaneously wiping out whole groups of survivors, raiders, slavers, and anyone else who tried to take advantage of the remnants of humanity. They spoke of his burning people alive, or impaling others with handmade spears.

Tess warned Joel that his son was becoming known for being a remorseless monster, a man who would as soon as befriend you as he would fill you with bullets or burn you alive. But Joel didn’t believe that his boy would be capable of going down such a dark road. He was a protector, not a murderer. Tess had doubts but she hoped he was right.

And so it was that after four years of traveling and knowing he needed to lay low for awhile, Hadrian returned to Bill and Frank for the final time.

——————————————————————————————-
Outskirts of Lincoln - November 28th, 2019

Bill was laying wire and steel down when he noticed Hadrian approaching the town proper. Hadrian had started layering dozens of wards and quieting charms to keep the town hidden better. He then went on and built an engraved runic lattice-weave across the main street that blurs the town if you’re not invited in or are considered an ally by those who live inside.

It would keep out all but the most determined of raiders. Clickers wander to the fence line and forget why. Becoming a defensive measure instead of a threat. Runners would barrel into a stretch of asphalt near the town hall that folds under their feet and dumps them into a deep pit. Raiders who try to hit the perimeter will quickly rethink their choices.

Once he understood what his friend had done, Bill thanked Hadrian and saw how he has grown into a man now, he used to be 5’11 and lean but thin. Yet now he stands at six foot six inches of coiled, lean and hard muscle. Broad shouldered like his father and possessing the body of a warrior built for war.

Bill knew he was even stronger than he looked, as scary as that was. He just didn’t know by how much. So, Bill invited Hadrian back to have dinner with him and Frank. There, he told them everything he had been through the past four years.

The scars he had gained, people he saved and the ones he put down with zero remorse. And he told them of a former friend who committed the ultimate betrayal of trust; he thought he was a good man but he was so very wrong. And he told them of how he left that town a smoking ruin in his wake as recompense.

Frank invited him to stay permanently; to make a home here like they have. And sometimes help out his father and Tess with their smuggling business which doesn’t deal in kids or slaves. But any commodity is fair game. Hadrian, despite having grown distant and with his father still trusted him. And so he accepted.

——————————————————————————————-
Lincoln, Massachusetts — June 18th, 2020

One night, which had become like a ritual and habit for Hadrian. The wind combs through the dead houses and Hadrian walks the rooftops. Surveying his surroundings. He looks like he is eighteen and is not. He can run all night and fight all day and his hands don’t shake. The strength in him is like hot coal, burning to be used but never runnng out. He doesn’t show off; he doesn’t need to. When a garage door is stuck with two cars inside and a dozen infected nearby are getting curious, he forcibly lifts the door and holds it one-armed while Bill starts the engine and the vehicle remembers how to breathe. All while using his magic to burn the nearby clickers to ash. And when a large raider ambush collapses a porch onto him, he stands up from one knee on the ground with the load on his back, shoulders it, and throws it aside on the ground.

“Jesus…” Bill says afterward, lighting a cigarette with fingers that aren’t quite steady. “What are you? The strength you have isn’t normal. Not that I’m not thankful.” Bill says with a slight smile.

“I have always been this way, my mother taught me to hide it. But we all lived in a different world then. And in this fucked up world we now live in, I won’t be holding back when necessary.” Hadrian says solemnly.

“I get that. It’s good to have a code; a line you won’t cross. But remember kid, this broken world owes you nothing. Do not let anyone make you their weapon.” Bill mutters something unintelligible after that as the cigarette light hits the Hadrian’s face. “I will keep your secret as will Frank. I know you’ve been through more pain and tragedy than most your age. So I trust you will be responsible.”

“Thank you Bill. Y’know if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you liked me.” Hadrian says with a smile. Bill scoffs. “Now don’t be gettin’ any strange ideas or notions of sentiment in your head kid. This is my town after all.” Hadrian nodded yet he knew Bill cared in his own way.

They don’t talk about family much. And when they do, Bill listens without looking at him. While Frank always gives him a kind, measured look. Hadrian talks without saying it’s his fault. Sometimes Joel’s name comes up like a splinter they both pretend not to feel.

As for Hadrian and his father; they stay in touch the way stubborn men do. Through favors, supplies, the arguments they save like money for when they’re needed. Twice a year a smuggler passes between Boston and Lincoln with a small bundle of things Joel won’t admit he sends — tools, coffee grounds, a replacement part, a book Joel says he ‘found’ and definitely stole because Hadrian mentioned he missed it. Twice a year Hadrian sends back repairs and ammo he doesn’t explain and notes that say almost nothing and exactly what they both can stand.

It’s not enough, not yet. But it’s what they can do for now.

Chapter Text

Boston, Massachusetts — April 7th, 2033 3:30pm

Ellie is only sixteen when Marlene decides she’s tired of holding back on all her secrets. In one evening Ellie is told she knew her mother; was her best friend even. But never would speak of her father. And then she was told how her blood, her body was unique in that she had become infected but yet never turned. It was as if the ‘Ophiocordyceps unilateralis fungus’ as it is called — or just ‘cordyceps’ for short, wasn’t even in her body. But Ellie knew it was; her best friend had been infected at the same time as Ellie had through a bite.

It wasn’t helping that being born after the outbreak had forced her to age mentally beyond her years.
And as such she has gained a lot of wisdom. Or rather, the ability to see through other people’s bullshit. Which to her was kind of the same thing. She’s built lean and can be loud, fast on the mouth and faster with a shiv. She’s seen enough dead bodies to know how to sort a room by exits and bad ideas. And, she’s not scared just the right amount. Which is to say: she’s brave in ways that may hurt her later.

Marlene’s held her like a secret she can’t let anyone claim to have known otherwise. It was killing them both, keeping Ellie locked in a room for two days. Yet for Marlene, when her lungs start burning from running too long. And the Fireflies’ circles get steadily smaller, she plays the only card she has left…

Which is how they came to be in this hallway, surrounded by exactly six dead fireflies and three FEDRA soldiers. And Marlene thought it best she give Ellie to two strangers because they’re “good at what they do.” Which is to say, they are good at smuggling. Or commodity trafficking, depending on whose side you were on. In which case, right now, Ellie was only on her side. Because trust is definitely that hard to come by. Really, she should be crowned the queen of sass. But Ellie firmly believes she has earned the right to be skeptical.

“Take her, please.” Marlene tells Tess. “You and your gruff partner, get her out of Boston. There’s a handoff down the line. Over at the capitol building. Your weapons, I can show you where they are here and will ensure FEDRA does not find them. In return just smuggle her out of the city to our people at the capitol building and then our business will be concluded.

Tess stares at the kid and at Marlene. Then Joel, and then at the state of her own soul. “Why us? You have never bothered to include us in anything before. You came here with thousands of your people. And in two years you only have, what, about five hundred left? It doesn’t look good for your word on keeping your promises.”

“Look, I know you’ll get it done, I know yours amd Joel’s reputation and it precedes you. And because I will show you where the weapons are at.” Marlene says. “And because he—” a flick of her chin toward where Joel is pretending not to listen “—doesn’t quit.”

Joel doesn’t like it yet he doesn’t like most things. And He likes this least. But Tess nudges him with the truth: a job is a job and this one pays, and maybe this is the kind of bad thing that keeps worse things from showing up.

4:30-9:30pm — Boston safe house near the wall

Once the hand off is made; Ellie goes with Joel to a safe house to wait for Tess to return. Ellie tests him immediately, almost like a dog checking the fence. She pokes at Joel’s edges and asks about Tess’s strategy and finds both are wired hot, and that they know what they’re doing. And she respects that. She starts to call Joel “Texas” like both an insult and a nickname. And she counts his scars when he isn’t looking.

He doesn’t know what she is yet. Though annoying would be a good term for now. He only knows she looks the age his daughter never got to be, and that hurts him in a way he isn’t built to say. Tess returns several hours later after Joel has had a nap. And so they move, going under the city using the tunnels and coming to the surface in the alleyways.

Boston peels back like a scab. FEDRA is all power and pressure, with some backdoor deals. And tunnels filled with teeth. It seems like things go right until they are spotted just outside the wall. And at the worst time possible. When the plan burns down around them, they run with wild abandon after killed two patrols and head for the ruined parts of Boston where more than trouble awaits.

——————————————————————————————

10:30pm to 9am the next morning

The infected usually swarm and loiter in the abandoned cities of humanity. And as if they are giant kill-zones, they almost always kill or infect anyone that comes in. Somehow their luck holds until they get to the goldstone building, which is the ruined remains of the tallest skyscraper left in Boston. It goes bad fast; and once they escape they have to go through an old dilapidated museum and that is where Joel is almost bit while saving Ellie from having her throat ripped out. Once they escape Joel notices something off about Tess, she is irritable and has become hyper focused on getting to the Capitol building.

Once they get there however, they discover that Marlene’s entire crew died fighting the few of them that got infected. And Joel is left feeling beyond frustrated. Though once Tess explodes about how they must have a map saying where they are going, and Joel says they tried and need to go back.

Ellie works it out and claims Tess is infected. Joel is grief stricken and demands to see it, so Tess shows him the bite on her shoulder from the runner that got her in the museum. She then compares it to Ellie’s three week old bite and says that’s all the proof he needs. And that he needs to get Ellie to his brother Tommy because he is the only one left she knows with firefly contacts. Joel tries to protest but Tess gets close to him; almost intimate in her tone and says “If you ever felt anything for me, for us, you will get her to Tommy. If not for her, do it for me, make it my dying last wish.”

And Joel knows he can’t argue or refute that. And so he resigns himself to losing another person he cares for and he can do nothing to stop it. Without hesitation he grabs Ellie and drags her away. And because a swarm of hundreds of infected are closing in on the capitol building, Tess buys them time the only way she can. By sacrificing herself and setting fire to all the gasoline, grenades, and ammo surrounding them. It is enough of an explosion to level the Capitol building.

After saying their brief goodbyes, Joel and Ellie then run because now they must make it to Lincoln as fast as they can and Joel is beyond nervous. It has been about thirteen years since he last saw his son. They have become somewhat estranged and he doesn’t know what welcome he and Ellie will receive from him or Bill and Frank.

“Where are we going now?” Ellie pants but doe her best to keep up with Joel’s long jogging strides.

“Out of the city and then due west for about fifty miles or so. I have a couple friends and.. others, at this town named Lincoln. They are partners of mine and Tess. Well, just mine now I suppose.” His time growing very somber. Joel hates himself for how it sounds almost like a prayer.

He then explains further that there is a man living there who owes him a lot of favors and that it is a town that can be a death trap. Joel then says that Bill’s place is the most fortified and so they’ll make their way there. Having said that, Joel aims the compass of his grief due west.

And somewhere in the broken streets, rotting buildings and hedges of the town of Lincoln, a man steadily walks the roofs of certain buildings and listens for any tripwires going off and then he feels the wards he set up thrum with the weight of a name he hasn’t heard out loud in years…

Chapter Text

Frank fixes breakfast at the window where the morning sun beams through. Eggs, bacon, with some peppers and seasonings are made on three plates and he has baked some fresh rye bread as it was the only bread that can’t carry the cordecyps fungal infection.

Bill scowls at the rye bread like it personally offended him and Hadrian manages not to smile at the other man’s ire towards bread. He had just come in from patrol with damp shoulders and a new report.

“The northern fence is good, I installed some new steel spiky cable on top and reinforced the bottom of the fence further. The last thing we want is a disgusting bloater getting inside the grounds. I also noticed that the west facing camera had become blind so I climbed the nearby maple tree and cleaned the lens as best as I could. Then, on the way back I killed three clickers that were by the creek, I did not want to chance that they wouldn’t infect our only source of fresh water besides rain.”

“You handled all that well. Not bad for a rough morning of work. And all in under four hours, you’re getting better every day kid.” Bill says fondly. “Yes, I agree but I protest you calling me a kid. As I just turned 36.” Hadrian says with exasperation.

Frank watches them with the patience of a saint and the amusement of a man who sees two bears pretending to be hedgehogs. “By the way, we are running low on sugar. And Hadrian, your age wouldn’t be in question if you simply looked a day over 23 years old.” He says with mirth in his eyes. As if their jokes are the worst of their problems. “Also, I think it’s going to rain. So make sure to put out the runed containers so we can have plenty of water for the next few weeks.”

“It always rains when Joel shows up. I had a feeling he’d be coming by soon.” Bill says solemnly.

“You don’t know he’s coming, and besides if he does he likely comes with some interesting stuff.” Frank says softly. Bill and Hadrian both go very still, listening to the wards only they can hear. As Hadrian had attuned Bill’s ears to be able to hear and detect his wards when they go off about an intruder.

“Yeah. Except he will soon be here.” Hadrian says. “And I am not sure how I feel about that — or if I want him here.”

He doesn’t tell Frank that his ward on the main road just hummed a note shaped like a memory. And he doesn’t say that every ward and rune stone that is tied to him has twitched awake like a dog at the door. So Hadrian goes to check his gear anyway. He feels the old crack in him where Sarah’s laugh used to live, knowing it is a hurt that will never go away.

Yet he can’t help but also remember his mother and his father when he had a younger face filled with love. Before the world went to hell, and Hadrian’s family broke and scattered to the winds.

He can sense through his magic that his father is bringing with him a younger girl. Who carries a weapon where her kindness should be and has a wound she won’t show. And Hadrian knows he’ll have a job to do, which is to say he will ask to cash in his favor, on such bad timing.

He will bring a thousand miles of unsaid words and a simple chance to be less wrong than he has been in the past. As far as his choices have been concerned anyways.

Hadrian looks only slightly older than the age he was when his world ended. He may be, chronologically, in his thirties and yet he can run nearly forever, break steel or tear it apart with his bare hands. And he can also raise a wall of flame and hold it there until the ground turns to glass. Yet none of that will make this meeting be any easier.

Hadrian picks up the photo from the shelf by another window… and sets it back down. His mother’s face and smile, her emerald green eyes bright, as her arms are wrapped around his father. His younger self peeks from beside her, and his father is holding a month old Sarah in his arms.

The feeling of loss, so profound and deep, is the same every time he sees this precious photo of far better times. He touches the frame with his thumb as if to caress his mom’s cheek and says nothing at all. Bill and Frank notice and can feel his grief from here. They both know all too well how much Hadrian has been through; and that pain such as his will never fade away.

Later on outside, thunder cracks in the sky as lighting strikes, low and promising. And somewhere to the east a pair of silhouettes cross into a town that doesn’t want them there. And a man whose loss and grief has shaped him into who he is now, starts walking toward them anyway. His gut instinct telling him that he will be needed.

Chapter Text

The road into Lincoln is a veritable graveyard of skeletons and decomposing bodies of human and animal alike. Tires baked to the pavement from vehicles that have sat in one place far too long. Old newspapers and scattered possessions have grown soft, and wet with rain. Somewhere in the distance a chime spins in the wind and it grinds Joel’s teeth.

“Stay behind me,” Joel says, and Ellie rolls her eyes but does it. Even she is unnerved by all the dead bodies and clear memories of a past she wasn’t old enough to remember.

Bill’s warning signs started a block before the real line: “NO ENTRY,” “TURN BACK,” “BOOBY TRAPS,” “I WILL SHOOT.” Someone’s added “PLEASE” in smaller blue paint and then it was roughly scratched out. Joel reads the ground the way he used to read blueprints—grain of dirt, drag marks, the way one hedge stands just a little too straight. The multiple traps laid in strategic locations.

Ellie steps around a tripwire she almost doesn’t see. Trying her best to be careful. “This all looks cheery; more like a graveyard of souls.”

“Believe me, it is cheerier than the alternative.” Joel says softly. They clear another yard and suddenly the air around them seems to tighten. It is the kind of quiet that means something is waiting to happen. And happen it does just as they all into an empty, small warehouse.

“Stop!” Joel snaps at her suddenly.

Ellie freezes with her boot dangling over a patch of dead crabgrass and mulch. The wire is piano-string thin. And she hadn’t seen it. Ellie suddenly feels very stupid. Joel follows it and it leads to a paint-can-sized charge tucked under another mulch pile. She goes still as glass, breath hard and small. She almost died. “Back up on your heel, slowly. No sudden movements.” Joel says. “Be very slow and careful.”

Ellie obeys, as Joel gets his pocketknife into the knots mechanism and works it with hands that don’t shake. She watches him work, he is made of harsh lines on his face and carries many ghosts. It puts a crack in her chest she doesn’t want. She sees him as, deep down, a good person.

Something sings behind them—metal through air—too late for warning. Joel shoves her down as a counterweight snaps a rope out of the leaves and a loop bites his ankle. He’s jerked off his feet, hauled upside down like meat in a smokehouse. The world flips and his knife skitters away.

“Seriously?” Ellie blurts out, suprised again. “That’s— that’s some Wile E. Coyote shit.” Joel swings, tries to reach and comes up a hand short of the knife. “Gun, get my gun.” He suddenly grunts. But as Ellie goes to yank at her pack. A runner stumbles into the outside yard, and it looks like it’s been dragged by its face. It then cocks its head and starts to scream. Many more infected answer that call. The sound crawls along Ellie’s spine.

“Gun! Get my gun!” Joel barks again, this time sharper. She finds it and then tosses it. He misses catching it and the pistol thumps onto concrete and spins away. “Fuck!”

Two more runners start shouldering through the gap. Ellie snatches up Joel’s dropped knife and goes for the rope with teeth on top of the fridge counterweight. It’s barbed but she tries anyway. The blade skates, as her hands are already slick with rainwater and she notices a bit of oil too.

The first runner hits the fence beyond the warehouse and bounces off. The second finds the gap and it charges with that awful, loose-limbed speed, mouth wet with somebody else’s blood or its own. Ellie steps up without thinking with her knife out, though her stance is wrong, and her heart is beating faster than ever. She slashes out at the infected, it seems to laugh, or maybe that’s just breath, and she falls back on instinct—

Yet all of a sudden, the small group of runners hit an invisible wall a foot from her face. And they hit this barrier so hard that their facial bones crack and break like knuckles on pavement. The infected all peel away confused, then try again. And again. As their faces smash against this shimmering barrier. Congealed blood and pieces of fungal sprouts fall onto the concrete. On the third impact something in the world shivers—then holds fast. And the infected burst into flame suddenly and die one by one.

Ellie is breathing hard like she ran five flights. “Joel,” she whispers. “What…?”

From the hedgerow by the warehouse wall, a voice speaks clearly in a deep baritone: “If I had taken them out with gunshots, the noise would have brought their friends. And we’d have had a little over twenty seconds before they swarmed us.”

A large shape steps out of the green hedge. He is very tall with broad shoulders and is broad through the chest. He has a hood up to guard against some of the rain. His hands are scarred yet bare and his arms are very muscular with some scars of their own. The man looks to be anywhere from twenty-two to twenty-four on first glance. He has a trimmed black beard. Yet he is much older in the eyes if you know what to look for. And Ellie does. She notices his eyes are a bright emerald green. And he doesn’t look at Joel right away. He only looks at her as though he is taking in the measure of her, though not unkindly.

“The Knife.” he says suddenly. “Let me see it.”
She gives it over without thinking about it. She feels in her heart that she can trust this man. Yet doesn’t have a clue as to why. He pinches the rope just above the knot, cuts twice, then twists it like he’s turning a jar lid, and the fibers go soft. One more turn and they part—clean and quiet. Joel drops unceremoniously and the man catches him in his arms; Joel’s back hits his chest instead of the concrete ground.

Joel then quickly twists free on instinct, his gun up. The man doesn’t flinch. Joel eases Ellie a step behind him with a hand she barely feels. The runners are nothing but burnt corpses behind this man who saved them.

“Bill.” the man calls toward the houses. “They’re our allies. Come on through.”

A heartbeat later and then the air seems to shift. A low hum behind the fence goes from alert to idle. And somewhere a relay clicks off.

“Bill.” Joel says, voice as flat as a sheet of steel. Already having lowered his gun by this point.

The man then shoves his hood back. Ellie notices that his hair is too long, going down to his shoulders and his face is wrong for this place—clear-skinned, too young even with a beard— though he has a few scars on his face as well. One that splits his left eyebrow and another deep on his cheek. Joel’s throat wants to close around his next breath. The kid he remembered that left Boston east of here is standing in this warehouse, looking like time forgot to make its mark on him. He introduces himself to Ellie and then stares at his father who can’t help but stare back, so many things passing between both men that even Ellie starts to feel the tension.

“Hi, Dad.” Hadrian says softly. No irony, but no real smile either. His voiced greeting just lands between them and stays there.

“Uh…” Ellie says quietly, behind Joel’s shoulder. “That’s a plot twist.”

The front door opens like a threat. Bill fills the frame with a shotgun and a scowl. “You tripped my snare, Joel. You owe me a new counterweight.” He says instead of just hello. “And you brought company, now you owe me a beer too. I don’t like surprises.”

“Me neither.” Joel says, wary. “Please put the gun down.”

“I’ll pass.” Bill says. “Who’s the kid?”

“I’m right here. If you wanna know just ask. And my name is Ellie, not kid.” Ellie says indignantly. Unbidden, Hadrian’s mouth quirks into a small smile.

“Bill, honey, don’t make it weird.” Frank says, stepping in behind Bill, a towel over his shoulder. “You always make it weird. Hi, I’m Frank, Ellie. Are you both hungry?”

“I mean…” Ellie says. “Yeah… Kinda always am.”

Frank’s answering smile is kind and like the sun cutting through a cloud. “Come on then. We can be civilized for five minutes. Or at least pretend to be.” Bill lowers the shotgun two inches. But that’s as good as it gets.

Hadrian looks Joel over like he used to when he’d check him for a fever—quick, thorough, and pretending he isn’t worried. Joel does the same to him and is glad to feel relieved.

His boy is now built for war and easily fills in a doorframe and he stands like nothing can knock him down. Hadrian’s eyes cut once to Joel’s hands. Seeing that they’re steady. The things they don’t say wrap into the overall tension.

“Come with us and come on inside.” Hadrian says while giving Ellie a small smile that makes her heart stutter a bit. “There is more rain is still coming.”