Most people gravitated to you with an almost effortless ease. Even in a world that had seen so much loss and cruelty, there was something about you that softened the edges of everything. Maybe it was the way you smiled without hesitation, or the way you always had time to lend a hand or a kind word, even when things were hard. In Jackson, a place built from the hope and stubbornness of good people trying to survive, you were the purest, brightest ray of sunshine. You reminded people that kindness still existed — not the fragile, naive kind, but the kind that came from strength, from choosing goodness even when the world made it so easy not to.

You met Ellie first.

She’d arrived in Jackson with Joel, and it didn’t take long before you noticed the way she looked at everything — half-suspicious, half-longing. She was young, sharp-tongued, and fiercely independent, but you saw right through the armor. You saw the loneliness. The pain. The fear of being vulnerable again.

Joel didn’t talk much at first, but he watched you closely, like he wasn’t quite sure what to make of someone who didn’t have an angle or an agenda. Ellie kept her distance too, until one day you found her sitting on the porch with a guitar, fingers hovering over the strings like she was afraid they’d bite. You didn’t say much — just sat beside her, close but not too close, and listened. She started playing after a while, and you didn’t interrupt her once. That was how it started.

She eventually told you about the Fireflies. About the cure. About how she’d made the decision not to go back to the hospital, not to give them the chance to take everything from her again. You didn’t try to change her mind. You just held her hand, quietly, and promised she was enough. That her life was her own, and she didn’t owe it to anyone to be sacrificed.

Then Abby arrived.

She came to Jackson with a group of survivors — Owen, Mel, Nora, Lev, and her father, Jerry. They had weathered their own storms, and Maria had been wary at first. Especially of Lev. He was young and quiet, and when Maria found out he used to be a Seraphite, she was reluctant to welcome him in. But Abby had stepped forward — strong, calm, and unwavering — and vouched for him. She said Lev wasn’t one of them anymore. That he was brave and kind and deserved a home like anyone else.

You believed her.

You met Lev first. He was shy, but he liked your stories. You would sit with him and braid his hair while he told you about the sky and the way the wind sounded in the trees back where he grew up. He called you “like a mom” one day, his voice small and hopeful, and it made your chest ache in the best way. You promised him he didn’t have to earn your love. It was already his.

And then you saw Abby.

Really saw her. Not just the strong frame or the striking muscles, or the way she kept her hair in a braid that always seemed to fall perfectly into place no matter what she’d been through. You saw the tiredness in her eyes. The guilt. The way she stood like someone who was always waiting for the next fight.

She reminded you of Ellie.

So alike, those two. So stubborn, so guarded, so afraid of letting someone close. And yet, somehow, you always had a way of slipping through. Your warmth wasn’t something people could resist for long. You didn’t push. You didn’t try to fix them. You just showed up, again and again, until they realized they didn’t have to be alone anymore.

You didn’t expect to fall in love with both of them. It just happened, slow and sweet, like the first thaw after a long winter. They made each other nervous at first — Ellie watching Abby from a distance, Abby trying not to be obvious in the way she always asked about Ellie’s patrols. But you brought them together, helped them see that they weren’t so different after all. That maybe, in another life, they could have been something other than enemies.

And then one night, under the stars on the back porch, after a long day and too many laughs, Ellie said, “You don’t have to choose, you know.”