Chapter Text
The soft breeze flowed over you as you walked through Jackson. Firewood tucked in your arms as snow crunched below your boots.
I have to hurry. She's at home.
You walked fast along the streets. The fluorescent glow of fairy lights gleamed above as late afternoon set in.
Your home here was ever so calm and peaceful. You were important to the community as a trained field medic. When you finally got to Jackson all those months ago, dirty, in pain, baby bundled in your arms, you only ever asked for one thing, and it was quiet with your baby girl.
You had gotten exactly that, a house along the edge of town, far from the clinic you took shifts at or out gates you patrolled through.
You shuffled along the last half a mile of snow, jacket warm on your figure and nose brushing with a quiet redness as you drifted to your door. You had felt eyes on you, but that was typical when you were well known in the community and also lugging so much firewood so you wouldn't have to make two trips back home.
You stepped into the warm air of your home, fireplace off temporarily, but the warmer air still clinging on.
Less than ten minutes, my sweet girl.
You had promised her as she cooed and babbled a bit in the crib. Thumb in her mouth as she looked up at you with those wide, curious eyes. Shaped exactly like yours, but the color.. they were hazel. Just like his.
His. Him. Joel Miller.
Everywhere you went, you were reminded of the painful circumstances you were dealt with. Her father was a gruff, hardened smuggler you had known in the Boston QZ, as you worked with FEDRA.
You hadn't meant to fall for him, but it was impossible not to. He was a survivor. Quick, strong, handsome. Hardened by what the apocalypse and the years had done to him, taken from him. He was a force to be reckoned with, and no one could stand in his way, which is why when you both got a little tipsy, you hadn't expected his hands back on yours the moment you touched him closer, as more than just a friend.
You had helped smugglers like him for years. You hated FEDRA, every ounce of what that job made you do. Patch up shitty people and expected to watch civilians burn. You didn't do that, though, often extending your services to decent smugglers, till eventually you patched him up once. A laceration on his arm.
Sparks didn't fly immediately, but one thing led to the other, and you were often patching and fixing him up. He took dangerous supply jobs, ones of high risk and high reward. You asked him numerous times if he really didn't have anyone to live for, with the way he gambled his life away. He grunted after being asked again one day, saying his younger brother is a grown man and left the QZ already to chase some "shitty dream with the goddamn fireflies." That was enough said for you to know he had no one else to care for. At least, not anymore.
When you two started the whole friends with benefits situation, you had known that that would likely be all that it was. Friends. Benefits. It was all telegraphed. Till it wasn't.
You had spent a lot of time in his apartment, not wanting to stay in the claustrophobic FEDRA side you resided in. Joel would be normal. Waking in the morning, curt and business. Setting up deals and handling things. He never kissed you, not even during sex. Felt it was too intimate. You had thought the same, too, till you yearned for it.
By the time afternoons and nights came around, he was either out on a deal or at home fixing up more deals. He was a well-oiled machine, and didn't give you the time of day less you and he went to bed for an hour or so.
When you realized your feelings, you were already in too deep. Making him meals next to yours as you stayed in his apartment, wearing his shirt and nothing else after intimacy, helping him through FEDRA limited checkpoints with your ID so he could get better deals. It was honestly embarrassing, but you were so in love, it hadn't even mattered to you.
And then it did.
It was after one particular morning, you had dealt with some shit, patching people all day and afternoon and wanting to crash at Joel's. He was there, of course. Sitting at the table as he barely glanced at you and set up a deal over a smuggled radio. The granola you had left him this morning was barely touched, and as you walked to him, asking him to take care of himself, he gave you a look. Not a look of love. Not a look of friendship. Not a look you had ever expected him to give you, but it was cold. Distant. Far away. Not cruel, but just gone.
That's the moment when you knew this would've never gone somewhere.
That's the moment where you knew he'd never change, at least, not for you.
You sat down next to him, and instead of giving him the benefit of the doubt and coming back the next day, you were tired. Stressed. Everyone had things to deal with, and the only stress relief Joel provided you was now muddied with the painful ache he gave you every time he looked the other way when it came to you after.
"Why?" You had asked, voice starting to break, but not just yet.
He didn't answer, barely glancing at you. ".. I have a job to deal with."
You watched as he stood. Moving to grab his coat and put it on since it was colder out. The same very coat you had personally stitched when you saw a small tear just a week prior. His boots scuffed the worn-down panels of the apartment floor, walked to the door.
"... I love you. Joel."
He paused. Hand on the door knob. Standing there with his back turned. For a long moment, he didn't say anything. Both of you had your backs turned to each other, your heads down at the table as he stood there.
"... You shouldn't." Was all he said before opening the door and walking out.
As the door clicked behind him. There was a sense of finality within it. Something within you that knew there would never be more with the way he was currently. You had admitted your feelings. You had confessed. He did exactly what you expected him to, even though you still held onto the hope that maybe he wouldn't, but that was it.
You packed the few belongings you had at his place and shoved them into your bag with tears from an ache so deep you had wondered if grief from even death could feel just an ounce better. You sobbed a few cries before getting yourself up, unable to look at the inside of his apartment before stepping out. As you walked through the hall, you glanced behind you. Joel was there. He had stood by the door the whole time. He looked up at you, but his eyes were unreadable. arms crossed as he leaned against the wall.
"I can't give you what you want." Simply, almost cruel, but not. "Not after her. So, go."
You stood there for a few moments, looking back at him. It was like your heart had shattered into a million pieces right then and there, but you had to move on. You turned on your heels, walking forward. It was time to move on.
Weeks later, you shakily breathed as you huddled over the toilet in your apartment. You had assumed that with the extreme heartbreak, your body had just regressed into a state of not wanting nutrients anymore. Especially after you learned how he was now smuggling with another woman, Tess, right after you.
As you sat on the bathroom floor, hand trembling over your stomach, the truth settled like a stone in your gut: a baby. You knew.
The first thoughts were miserable. Everything in between, how could I let this happen? and what the fuck is wrong with me?
After hours of contemplation, you had packed your bag and set out to walk toward Joel's again. You had known your plan. FEDRA was oppressive, the government had always been. Raising a baby in the QZ might seem good in hindsight, but officers aren't opposed to killing whoever it is for any reason. You knew that as a soldier of some sort yourself. The baby would have no quality of life here, and two years ago Tommy left to go join the fireflies out west. He talked about a settlement, and even though you disliked the fireflies, you had to try. They were better than FEDRA, they were better than boarding schools, and forced to work the gutter if they didn't make the cut.
As you got closer, you saw him, he was in an alley with a woman standing there. Pretty, around his age. Tess, as you knew. You and her had barely grazed elbows since she was more careful rather than reckless enough to get patched very often.
They were standing close, Joel speaking to her low as she nodded and spoke low back herself. Eventually, her hand went up his bicep, and he didn't stop it. Just looked at her as she spoke calmly about something. He didn't lean into it, nor did she, but he allowed it. They were something more. You can tell by that look.
If your heart could be crushed more, it was. You turned fast and walked away before anything else could tear at you anymore. He didn't deserve to know about this baby, and even if he did, you doubt he'd follow you, or your plan to leave, just because of it.
You raced down to the FEDRA checkpoint and requested a meeting with the higher-ups. After days of papers and theatrics, you would be transferred to a QZ further west. Forging papers claiming they needed you and your medical expertise.
Four guards accompanied you as you traveled across the country. Them being transferred themselves. You weren't close to any, just soldiers you had worked with. Months passed as you were all in a FEDRA truck, looping around infected and raiders for a while. There came a night when you knew the next day, you'd be at the QZ, and would be trapped there too if you didn't move now.
So you did. Your bump, only barely not visible now under layers of clothing you thank that fall and winter excused you for, with you as you packed your small bag and left that night.
For months, you traveled on your own. You had even given birth a couple of miles from Jackson, Wyoming. Alone and afraid in a cabin, your screams and hers barely covered by the snowstorm occurring. You eventually got caught by people a bit away from Salt Lake. You were terrified of the people on the horses, but they never took away your baby. They never hurt you. They just took one look at the single mother, dirty, bloody, covered in exhaustion and grief, and radioed. In moments, you were at Jackson's gates. A town made in resistance to any other operating militia.
They had everything: food, water, and electricity. A place where kids could grow up properly, as you cradled your baby close.
You had stayed. Finding solace after years of heartbreak and anguish, traveling.
You were in a better place now, mentally and physically. The bruising and gashes you earned along the way now faded into scars. The ache, however, in your chest when you thought of Joel.. that didn’t go away.
In current time, you peek through the door to see your baby lying in the crib. Soundly asleep. She was adorable—sharp, smart, cute as a button. Every time you looked at her, you felt the small ache of him, because she had so many of his features, but her face framed just like yours.
You went back into the living room and started the fire with the firewood you lugged in, moving toward the kitchen to continue the chicken noodle soup you were making, when a sharp knock hit the door.
You pause, knife stilling, you hadn't been expecting visitors this late into the afternoon. You place the knife down and gently open the door, peeking out.
"Hello?"
"... Hey."
You freeze. That voice. That deep, familiar voice.
"... Joel?"