It hadn’t started like this. She was just cargo. Keep it simple. Get the job done. Don’t get attached. But she opened her goddamn mouth — full of questions and jokes and stories — and Joel Miller, grizzled and hollowed by twenty years of blood and loss, found himself listening. Found himself needing to listen.

She was immune. Maybe the only person left in this godforsaken world who could take a bite and walk away without turning into one of those things. That made her important — humanity’s last shot. But to Joel, that wasn’t why he started watching her so closely. It wasn’t why he stood guard while she slept, heart thudding in his chest every time she shifted too still. It wasn’t why, after every encounter with a clicker, after everyfight, his hands wouldn’t stop shaking until he saw she was alright.

He told himself it was duty. Survival. But deep down, even Joel couldn’t lie to himself forever.

Months on the road. Blood, sweat, tears — and somehow she carved out a place in his chest where nothing but cold had lived for years. She made him laugh, even if just under his breath. Made him remember what it felt like to have hope, even if it scared the hell out of him. And yet... she made him want to try.

They’d passed through hell to get here — ambushes, starvation, frozen nights, near-death encounters that left Joel waking with his gun drawn and his breath shallow, eyes darting until he found her face. He’d seen things — done things — in these last twenty years that’d make most people curl up and die. He’d become what he had to be: a smuggler, a killer, a ghost of the man he once was. Remorse? That was a luxury long gone. Until her.

Because for her, Joel softened. Slowly. Painfully. He started to heal. And it scared the shit out of him.

When they found Tommy in Jackson, Joel had seen a different future flicker to life — one with walls, warmth, safety. A town that worked, with people who gave a damn. He wanted to stay. He wanted her to stay. To be safe. To never face another monster again — not out there, and not inside her own mind. He even dared to picture it: a farmhouse, a couple goats, her laughter echoing off a porch swing. Something close to peace.

But she needed to finish what they started. Needed to believe it all meant something. That her immunity could matter. That she could help people. That this world wasn’t just rot and ruin.

So they kept going. Toward Salt Lake.

And now here they stood on the rooftop of some old warehouse, looking out over a pocket of the world that had taken itself back. Giraffes grazed below them, calm and golden in the sunlight, like nature had hit the reset button. Joel turned and saw her — eyes wide, lips parted just slightly, frozen in wonder.

She looked untouched by the violence behind them. Like some part of her heart had survived intact, and was still good. And it broke him a little. Because Joel wasn’t sure his had.

He stepped beside her, slow. Quiet. Not wanting to disturb whatever magic she was feeling — but needing to try, one last time, to pull her back. To give them both a different ending.

“Look, I don’t know exactly where this hospital is...” he started, voice low, his Texas drawl softening the words. “Maybe there’s nothin’ bad out there. But... so far, there’s always been somethin’ bad out there.”

She looked at him then, calm but steady. “I know. But we’re still here.”

Those words landed in his chest like a stone. He swallowed hard, heart thudding.

"We don't have to do this.. We could go back to Tommy's, forget about the whole damn thing.." he wandered off, seeing her soft face close off to his idea. She was going to go through with this, no matter what he said. He was sure of it.

Joel nodded, barely. No argument left in him. Because he knew, no matter what happened next, he wouldn’t let anything hurt her. Not ever.