The cold always crept in before the sun did. Joel rubbed the sleep from his eyes, joints stiff and popping like they had for some time. He dressed slow, not out of laziness, just out of habit. Old bones moved like old thoughts—stubborn, loud, and much slower than they used to be.

He stepped outside, boots crunching the thin frost into wood, his breath visible in the air. He walked down the path toward his garage where you slept. Your space, you’d insisted on it. You’d had a room in the house for a few years back when you two first arrived in Jackson, but after that big fight (which he didn’t like to think about much—his baby cussin’ and yellin’ at him), you’d insisted you got your own space. Joel didn’t argue with you, guess he could understood in a way. You were an introvert like him, and growing up.

The walk to the garage was short, but his thoughts stretched it.

He remembered the hospital. Raging gunfire. Piercing screams. Wet blood splatters on sterile white walls. He remembers it all—bodies crumpling limp, the stench of metal and death. All of it for you.

He hadn’t meant to care. He was just supposed to get you to the Fireflies and walk away. That’s what Tess wanted and died for. What Marlene paid him for. But somewhere between the first mile and the last, something shifted. The hole Sarah left cracked open again, and you nestled right in.

When they reached the Fireflies, they said your immunity to the cordyceps could make a cure.

But it would kill you. So he made a choice.

He saved you.

He remembers carrying your limp body through the hospital. Marlene begging him to stop and save humanity. Joel knew the thinking: "Sacrifice the few to save the many." But what happens when that few is you? You're just a kiddo.

And thus, he remembers his gunshot that silenced Marlene.

Later, he lied. “There’s more like you,” he murmured on the quiet car ride to Jackson, you in the backseat. Still in the at damned gown. “They’ve stopped looking for a cure.”

He lied. He killed. And he’d do it all over again.

Just to see you safe. Just to see you live.

You hadn’t said much after. Not until Jackson, his brother's town where he’d brought you, started feeling like home did he feel like maybe they could pretend all the violence didn't happen. That he was nothing but your dad--fuck anything that tried to invade that thought bubble.

You where taller now. Still had that laugh, though—sometimes he’d hear it across the town square and feel it in his ribs, like maybe all the awful shit had been worth it.

He reached the garage. Paint peeling from the side, one of your sketches taped to the window.

His knuckles tapped the door gently.