Chapter Text
we ain't angry at you, love.
you're the greatest thing we've lost.
The rest falls into place quickly.
Ellie awakes to the sound of rustling around the room. She cracks one eye open, half- expecting to see Abby doing something ridiculously peacocked, like one-armed pushups, but instead sees Hanna sweeping around the room, folding up clothes into her pack.
“What time is it?” is Ellie’s default response, voice groggy and strained.
She is brought back to the night before quickly, back to last night and Abby’s shaking hands in her own.
I’m going with you.
But, of course, “I’m going with you,” really means “We’re going with you,” and that much is evident from the look in Hanna’s eyes as she meets Ellie’s from across the room.
“Early,” she chirps, plucking a sweatshirt from where it’s hanging off the doorknob and tucking it into her bag. “I already grabbed your things. Abby got us up early this morning and told us the plan.”
Ellie flops backwards, head landing on the pillow. “How considerate of her.”
“I don’t think she’s even slept,” Hanna continues. “She’s, like, a woman on a mission right now. She’s got Lev and Pete already getting the Bronco packed up. I think Ish is making breakfast before we go.”
“When you say ‘we’—”
“—you, me, Abby, Lev,” Hanna cuts her off. “Zoe wants to go, but we all know that’s a terrible idea. So Pete and Dean are staying back with her and everyone else.” She grabs a few more things before zipping up her pack. She nods over to where Ellie’s pack was discarded last night by the door when she came back up to bed, Abby at her heels. “It looks like you’re already set.” There isn’t any malice or blame in her voice, and Ellie briefly wonders if Abby told Hanna and Lev the whole story, the story that involves a crumpled-up piece of paper and a lot of regret.
Ellie pushes herself up out of the bed, stretching from one side to the other. She’s acutely aware of the fact that she doesn’t know the next time she’ll sleep in a bed, but feels at home when adapting to new situations. Or at least pretending that she’s actually very great at adapting to new situations. It’s one or the other. “Wanted to get a head-start,” she explains with a shrug, which is a half-truth at best. She is heading for the bathroom when she stops, looking over her shoulder back at Hanna. “You know, you and Lev don’t have to…” The words die on her tongue, knowing it’s a fruitless argument. The knowing look that Hanna is sending her without saying a word confirms just as much. Seceding, Ellie changes course and gives her a tight, small smile. “Thank you.”
“You’re my family,” Hanna explains. “I go where you go.”
Ellie carries that with her for the rest of the morning, a star forming between her ribs.
The first thing she sees when she reaches the doorframe into the kitchen is Abby sitting with a map flattened out on the kitchen table and a marker between her teeth. Ish is sitting next to her, tracing red lines on the map with his index finger. He says something that Ellie can’t quite make out, and Abby nods, marking it on the map.
Her eyes fix on the worried spot between Abby’s brows, the way her mouth is set into the familiar firm line she always gets when she’s concentrating on something. One thing that Ellie has learned since traveling with Abby Anderson all this time is that if Abby decides that something is possible, she’s not going to rest until she proves that she’s right.
Abby, as it turns out, loves being right.
Ellie, as it turns out, doesn’t seem to mind.
“She took my job,” Lev’s voice pulls Ellie from her stupor. She straightens up, looking to her left and seeing the teenager that has appeared beside her. He only peers at her for a moment from the corner of his twinkly eye before he’s looking back at Abby. “Ish said he wanted to help us get to Galveston faster. Apparently, I made us go through a couple states we didn’t need to be in.”
Ellie’s smile is lopsided and easy, impossible to withhold. “I think you navigated us perfectly,” she says, ruffling a hand through his hair. There’s a flicker of guilt under her skin over the fact that she nearly said goodbye to him with nothing more than a sorry excuse for a note and knows that she couldn’t have ever truly forgiven herself for it. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“This will be faster,” Abby’s voice trickles through the barrier, looking back up at her and giving her a pointed look. “We’re gonna have it another way.” She gives Lev a sheepish smile. “Sorry, kid.”
Lev cracks a grin back at her. “I’ll get over it.”
Ish stands from the table at the site of the two new visitors to the kitchen, moving back over to the kitchen counter and returning with two sandwiches wrapped in paper. “For the road,” he tells them gently. He glances back at Abby before returning his gaze to Ellie. “Are you sure you don’t want me to tag along?” he clarifies. “I don’t mind.” Ellie’s learned in the brief time of knowing Ish that the man is, above all else, a people pleaser. At the same time, she knows that this is very likely the closest thing that Ish and Molly have had to a home, a family, a good thing in a very long time, and she could never be the one to rip that away from him – especially when he really doesn’t want to do it at all.
“I think we’ll be okay,” Ellie tells him. “But we’ll make sure to get some samples back here.”
Ish’s smile is wistful, not quite reaching his eyes. “Don’t be strangers, hmm?” His arm reaches out, hand squeezing Ellie’s shoulder.
The sounds of shuffling feet fill the room, and Ellie turns to see Zoe and Pete and Dean heading down the stairs and into the living room, one behind the other.
Zoe’s hands are folded over her belly, and Dean’s arm is around her shoulder. It’s Pete who steps forward, puffy eyes and a half-assed smile. “So, this is it?” he asks.
“For now,” Ellie says with a shrug. “Gotta go save the world and all.”
“Oh, right,” Pete says, cracking a quiet laugh that’s all Sam. “That ol’ thing.”
“We helped Lev take your things out to the Bronco,” Dean chimes in, and behind her, Ellie hears the crinkling of paper as Abby folds her map back into place. “How long do you think it’ll be before your back?”
There’s a slow drag in the air between them as Ellie realizes she doesn’t have an answer to that question. She has caught herself viewing this as just another chapter closing in what is turning out to be a painfully long book. Walking away has always been the easy part, in the end. It’s the choosing to return that always gives her the moment of pause.
Lucky for her, a gruff voice interrupts the elongated hesitation.
“Longer if you keep talkin’,” Bill harrumphs, holding the front screen door open like an invitation, like a call to move on.
It’s a long process of making sure they have all that they need and have plenty of supplies. Lev decides it is a better, safer idea to let Harry stay behind in Bill’s Town, slinging his arms tightly around the ever-growing dog and whispering a promise into floppy ears that he’ll be back “so soon.”
Hanna and Lev climb into the backseat, Abby snagging the keys from Ellie’s back pocket with the type of familiarity that makes the tips of Ellie’s ears hot and climbing into the driver’s seat before Ellie can make a move for the steering wheel.
There’s a series of tight hugs and whispered hopes of returning soon that send treacherous twists straight to Ellie’s gut.
Bill is the last to make a move forward, clearing his throat and rubbing the back of his neck. “Joel was a real pain in the ass,” he finally says, and Ellie has a moment where she wonders if she’ll ever be able to hear that name without feeling like a trapdoor is being opened from under her feet. “A real asshole.”
Despite the hollow feeling in her throat, Ellie can’t help but snort. “Should we go spit on his gravestone or…?”
The apples of Bill’s cheeks flush red. “If you’d let me finish,” he grunts. “I know you meant a lot to him. And… well.” He gestures back to the house that Ellie had almost allowed to let herself call home for the past few months. “If you find yourself back over here. Don’t make a special trip or nothin’, but…”
“…if I’m in the area.”
“Yeah.” He sniffs, not meeting her gaze. “If you’re in the area.”
A burning sensation hits her eyes, and she quickly blinks to shove it back. “Thanks, Bill.” If this was one of those corny movies that Joel used to always watch, this would probably be the part in the film where the two characters who always struggled to put their differences aside would finally hug. Thank fuck this wasn’t one of those movies.
She takes a step back toward the passenger door, pulling it open and pausing one last time to look back at Bill. “He’s too good for you, by the way.”
Bill glowers back at her, and she doesn’t expect a response. But his eyes volley between the woman in the driver’s seat and Ellie before he retorts, “So is she.”
The drive back to Pittsburgh is quiet. Abby has one elbow edged out the driver’s window, fingers curled around the steering wheel. Ellie’s eyes track the veins in her hand, unconsciously seeing what constellations she can map out with the freckles that she finds. Every time she catches herself staring for what feels like a beat too long, she looks away.
In the back, there is a quietly intense conversation happening between Lev and Hanna. Ellie can’t pick up on much more than the words “dad” and “home” and finds herself tuning it back out, looking back at the road ahead.
They pass green signs telling them how many miles there are left to go, the number growing smaller and smaller the more that they pass. The knot in the pit of Ellie’s stomach seems to tighten once more, and again, and again.
When she’d woken up in the backseat of Joel’s truck, anesthesia leaving her brain foggy and her eyes heavy, she’d still felt his lie. She’d lied to herself for the years that followed, tried to gaslight herself into believing that Joel wouldn’t lie to her. He wouldn’t take something so deeply important to her away from her like that. He wouldn’t do something that drastic without telling her. Without giving her the freedom, the agency, of choice.
And she knows. That’s the thing.
She knows why he did it. She feels his reasons for taking her away from the drills and the wires every time Hanna is gone scavenging for longer than she normally is. She feels it when Lev gets hurt. She finds herself disconnecting figurative wires every time Abby retreats into herself. Anything to make the people you care about still be around, still be the people you care about.
She was selfish with Dina and JJ, and she knows that, too. Time away tends to give you nothing more than time to think, time to beat yourself up and question your decisions. But if the question was ever to be, “Do you regret it?” she doesn’t know if the answer would ever be a definitive, “Yes.”
Yes, she regrets bailing on Dina and their little makeshift family the way that she did, for walking away when she always feared others walking away from her.
She doesn’t regret what it brought her.
She doesn’t know if she ever will. She doubts she ever could.
Out of the corner of her eye, she can feel Abby’s gaze shifting in her direction. Then, softly, she speaks. “You good?”
“Yeah,” Ellie says, voice weaker than she would have liked it to be. Another green sign tells them that they need to get off at the next exit. “I’m good.”
Siddiq looks exhausted, but his the crinkles in the corners of his eyes get a little tighter with every smile he gives them, and it’s evident that the lack of sleep has been well worth it. He places two final white cases of samples into the stack in Lev’s arms. Each case has a different letter on it – two with an A, one with a B, one with a C.
“Looks like you wound up with a little more than you thought,” Ellie points out.
Enid appears from beside Siddiq, gesturing to the cases. “We wanted to make sure that we had some for the different strains. From our research and our samples, A seems to be the most common — the baseline, really. But, like in most diseases, there are mutations and variants. There could be more than this, and there probably are, but the subjects that have been exposed to these have had really amazing results… and that’s only within a few months. The possibilities from here? They’re endless.” She smiles between Ellie and Hanna, who has taken the top two cases from Lev’s arms to share the load.
“And without you? None of this would be possible.” Her eyes travel along the group of four, and sincerity drips through her words like honey on warm bread. “Without any of you. Thank you.”
Ellie feels her cheeks warm, scuffing the toe of her sneaker against the tiled floor and clearing her throat. Compliments have never been an easy pill to swallow, always leaving her feeling like she’s being shoved in front of a group of people and told to perform, but not given any clothes to wear.
Abby swoops in, nudging Ellie’s elbow with her own and shifting the focus. “So, what happens after we get these to Galveston?”
“We’re going to keep working on more vials here,” Siddiq explains, “but we’ve spoken to Graham and the other teams and we’re hopeful that the base in Galveston will be able to replicate them enough that they’ll be able to eventually get spread out to more Firefly bases across the country and to more populations from there.” He looks back at Enid, dropping an arm around her shoulder before looking back at the travelers in front of them. “Like she said, we really can’t thank you enough.”
You’re welcome doesn’t seem like the right response. It doesn’t seem big enough.
Instead, Ellie gives him a tight smile and a nod. “Let’s go save the world or some shit.”
The road to Pittsburgh had felt like it stretched out for eons. The road back to Galveston, however, feels like Ellie had pressed the “fast-forward” button on the ancient VCR that Eugene used to keep in his basement back in Jackson, watching everything speed past with ripples and static.
Ish’s route got them across the state lines faster, and they had enough gas canisters that Bill had filled up for them before leaving that they didn’t even have to stop for a siphon. Abby insists on driving, but barely utters out a word on the long stretches of highway in front of them. From the passenger seat, Ellie focuses on the worried wrinkle that forms between her eyebrows and the way her jaw never seems to stop clenching.
In the backseat, Hanna is quietly reading aloud the sixth Harry Potter book, and Lev’s head rests on her shoulder.
They pass rusted signs for Ohio and Kentucky, Tennessee and Arkansas, until they’re approaching a sign that reads TEXARKANA and crossing into the final stretch of a journey that, in reality, has been years in the making.
“This felt fast,” Abby murmurs, more to herself than to anyone else in the car.
A hollow spot forms in the pit of Ellie’s throat, her chest tightening with the reality of the unknown staring her down. Where are they supposed to go from here? What are they supposed to do from here? In the back of her mind, she can still see Jackson disappearing behind her as she left the town for the final time. She sees the decaying metropolis of Las Vegas, the long expanses of hills and valleys and plains that brought them from Nevada all the way to Texas for the first time. The teenagers in the backseat, the woman in the driver’s seat, the strangers who became something else entirely. Someone else entirely.
Calling them friends feels small. Calling them family feels wrong. She is riding in a car with her heart, her arms, and her legs, and it doesn’t feel like enough. When did everything stop feeling like enough?
“Yeah,” Ellie says through a swallow, as TEXARKANA makes way for Texas, and the drive stretches on for its final miles.
Graham greets them each with a tight hug, tears prickling in his eyes. He places his hands on either of Abby’s shoulders, giving her a small shake and a knowing smile. “This is all for Jerry,” he tells her softly, solemnly, proudly.
Abby can see the years of hard work and tireless efforts in his eyes. She can picture her father in this space, she can see him working in this lab. This was what it was all for. Everything he’d worked for, everything Marlene had worked for, everything every Firefly had worked for was all culminating in the two cases balanced in Lev’s arms. A member of Graham’s team takes the boxes from Lev, placing them on the lab table in front of them. He combs through the samples and Siddiq’s handwritten logs and instructions. Graham looks through the materials before reaching for one of the vials. He says something to one of his crewmates, who steps away for a moment only to return with a bottle of isopropyl, a rag, and a syringe.
“Your bites give you God-given immunity,” Graham explains, popping the top off of one of the vials and glancing between Ellie and Hanna. “But it seems only right that you two,” he gestures to Lev and Abby, “get the first doses.”
“Is it safe?” Hanna asks, voice laced with panic. She looks between Abby and Lev before settling back on Graham.
“We won’t know yet,” Ellie explains to her. “This is really, really early stages. But Siddiq and Enid said—”
“—I know,” Hanna cuts her off, placing a hand on Lev’s shoulder. “But, are you sure?”
“I don’t think we really can be sure,” Lev says softly. His eyes meet hers, leaning in until their foreheads are pressed together. “But we have to try, right?”
This is what he died for, Abby had told Ellie that night in the living room, and she knows that she owes it to her dad, to Owen and Manny and Nora and Mel, to everyone in between who they lost, to make it all worth something. She can feel Ellie’s green eyes focused on each movement Abby makes. She follows the path of her hand as it moves to her shirt sleeve and rolls it up with her own eyes set onto Graham’s.
“I’m ready.”
“Do you feel okay?”
Hanna has asked the question seven times since they sat down for dinner less than ten minutes ago. She volleys the question back and forth between Lev and Abby, leaning around them so that she can look into their eyes and inspect where the needles had been injected into their upper arms.
“There’s no change,” Abby assures her, looking back at her with raised eyebrows. “If that changes, you’ll be the first one I’ll groan at.”
“Unfair,” Ellie counters, pretending to pout before taking a bite out of her sandwich.
Abby sends a flare straight to the center of Ellie’s chest when she has the audacity to wink back at her. “You’ll be my first bite.”
“Catch me, I’m swooning.”
“You guys are very strange,” Lev observes, stretching his arms behind his head for a moment before turning back to look at Hanna, who is staring back at him. “I’m still okay.”
Hanna nods but doesn’t give her shoulders the opportunity to relax. Her smile doesn’t make it to her eyes, but she nods as if she’s trying to assure herself just the same as she’s trying to assure him. “Okay,” she says quietly. “Okay.” Her knee bounces from underneath the table top as she peers around the cafeteria.
The room has been alive with hope and electricity since the four of them arrived this morning. They have dispersed samples to all of the major researchers, already making game plans on how to duplicate and replicate the formula to make it a mass production.
Ellie catches Hanna’s uneasy glance, reaching out to put on her own. “You okay?”
“Just thinking,” Hanna hums, sitting back and glancing down at her lap. Her free hand fidgets, fingers playing invisible piano keys back and forth. She finally raises her gaze to look back at Ellie, smiling sheepishly. “I was kind of hoping that I could get a sample to my dad,” she says, her voice weak.
“Your dad,” Ellie nods. She can still hear Hank’s voice tearing through the living room, spying his daughter and the bite on her ankle that had already been well into the process of healing. The woman with him. “And Lydia.”
“Yeah,” Hanna says softly. “I know there are so many people who need this, and who probably need it more than he does, but I just feel—”
“—like you owe it to him.”
“He looked at me like I was a monster when I left,” she says quietly, fidgeting with one of her braids between her fingers. “But he’s my dad. If all that has happened to me, to us, can help him? Can help others?”
It was nearly a year ago that they hit the road and left Lago Vista. Nearly a year ago they first made it to Galveston and met Graham. Nearly a year since that night on the beach with Abby. Nearly a year since they’d made the very long journey up north and all the derailments that had happened in the process. Months since Pete and Dean and Zoe, since they’d first met Ish, Siddiq, and Enid. Months since…
Everything.
“We’ll talk to Graham,” Ellie assures her. “We’ll help your dad.”
“Your dad?” Lev chimes in, catching the end of the conversation.
Hanna nods, blinking tears away from her eyes. “I want to go back to Lago Vista. I want to help.”
Graham sends them off with a fresh tank of gas, a promise to keep in touch, and a small case of vials that they’re able to part with. As they pile into the car, the case being carefully placed into the trunk, Ellie swipes four tubes and tucks them into her jacket pocket for safe-keeping. It is a thought that kept her up the night before, too buzzed from the possibilities of what was coming next to really be able to sleep. Abby had stayed up late, having run into one of the older captains from the base in Salt Lake City and sitting up speaking to him about her dad and her old team. Hanna and Lev had stayed up reading until evening became morning, and it left Ellie with nothing more than her journal and her incessant thoughts.
I don’t know where we go from here, Ellie had scrawled, and in the corner of the page, she’d started a sketch. The shape of a woman with long dark hair, a silhouette of a toddler in her arms with hills and pine trees and sheep in the background. A version of home that no longer felt like home but remained painfully intact as an unfinished chapter.
She knows what she needs to do and she knows where she needs to be. One way or another.
She yanks the door to the trunk closed, turning to see Graham and a few members of his team standing on the curb to send them off. “I don’t know if we can ever repay you, Ellie,” he tells her softly. “All of you. I don’t think we’ve felt hope like this since…well. Since we first heard about this fourteen-year-old girl from Boston all these years ago now. Nearly ten years ago, if you can believe it.”
It stops her in her tracks. Nearly ten years.
Christ. Is she twenty-two? Twenty-three? She used to keep track, she used to mark off days on a calendar, as if she was ultimately counting down to something great, something big.
“That’s a long time,” she says quietly, stomach churning.
“Yes,” Graham tells her with a somber smile. “It’s a very long time.”
This is for you, old man.
Abby approaches the large fence outside of Lago Vista, looking up at the watchtowers that surround the walls. At the sight of the Bronco approaching, a few of the guards stand at attention, guns pointed.
“Love a good warm welcome,” Ellie mutters, hopping out of the passenger seat and holding up her hands in surrender. Abby and Lev and Hanna follow suit.
“What’s your business here?” one of the guards asks, but before Ellie can answer, his eyes move to the girl standing at the back, and his face softens, eyes widening. “Hanna?”
A wide smile breaks across Hanna’s face, dimples popping, tears rushing to the surface. “Joey?”
“Holy shit,” the guard, Joey, utters, grabbing the other guy on the post and jumping up. “Holy shit!” He grabs his walkie, saying something into it, and the gates rumble open a few moments later.
Joey, who looks to be a few years older than Ellie and Abby, makes a beeline through the crowd of them, arms locking around Hanna and spinning her in a circle. “Everyone’s gonna freak out,” he breathes out, hands on either side of her face to inspect her. His gaze shifts, landing on Lev. “Lev, right?”
“Yeah,” Lev nods, and his hand instinctively reaches to twine his fingers around Hanna’s.
Joey nods, looking between him and Hanna before turning to face Abby and Ellie. “Hi,” he greets them. “I’m Joey. I used to work with Hank, and… holy shit.” He grins wide, nodding them through the gates and into town.
It looks the same as it did last year, which is strangely comforting. It’s the littlest things that seem to make the biggest impact, and things staying the same when everything around you feels like it’s constantly changing can feel like a warm cup of tea in the bitter cold.
He leads them to the bar where they’d first met Lydia. There is music coming out of the jukebox in the corner, and the building is alive with clinking glasses and loud voices. “If I could have everyone’s attention for a moment!” Joey calls out, and it’s loud enough that it draws people’s attention straight to the door, sending an embarrassed smile spreading across Hanna’s cheeks. “We have ourselves a guest of honor! Miss Hanna Bradley!”
A chorus of voices ring out on top of one another, but it’s the familiar head of blonde hair from behind the bar popping up that knocks the wind out of Ellie. She and Lydia knew too very different versions of Joel Miller, but to be face to face with someone who once loved him, who once loved their daughter, is enough to make her want to crumble.
A broken smile crawls across Lydia’s face, and she pushes from behind the counter with tears in her eyes, diving for Hanna and pulling her into her chest. “Oh, sweet girl,” she cries, hugging her tightly in a way that is deeply maternal. Her hands cup Hanna’s cheeks in her hands and she presses a kiss to her forehead. “Oh, you’re okay. You’re more than okay. Look at you! You’re… you’re all grown up, Hanna Banana.”
A grin splits across Hanna’s face and she hugs her back, tightly holding onto her. “I missed you,” she speaks into the soft fabric on Lydia’s shoulder. “How are you? How is my dad? Where is he?”
Lydia doesn’t speak right away, pulling away from her just enough to look her over once more. There is something unsaid behind her eyes, something that Ellie knows far too well. From the way Abby tenses up beside her, it’s just as familiar to her. “Do you want something to eat?” Lydia asks quietly. “Let’s get you something to eat. You must be starved.”
Time stills around the room, Hanna taking a step forward. “Lydia, where is my dad?”
Lydia’s eyes move from Hanna’s to Abby and Ellie’s, something helpless flickering between them before she settles back onto Hanna. She places a hand on her shoulder, leaning in and speaking softly. Soft enough that Ellie and Abby can’t make out what she’s saying beyond reading the words “didn’t make it” from her lips.
The music dies off from the jukebox in time with the sight of Hanna wilting in front of them. Her body racked with sobs. She doesn’t reach for Lydia, doesn’t reach for anyone, but Lev grabs her around her middle and holds her up against his chest. He turns her to face him, and she can do nothing more than crumple into him, into a fit of sobs.
Hanna hasn’t moved from Lydia’s couch since they got there earlier that evening, and Lev hasn’t left her side. This is the same couch where Hanna had spent the night terrified of turning, the same couch where Lev had watched her like a hawk and monitored her bite like a doctor on call. Now, it’s the couch where Hanna lays, staring blankly at the wall in front of her with a blanket that Lev had draped over her.
Hank Bradley had gotten sick over Christmas and had stubbornly insisted on working through his illness. It had backfired to the point of his heart giving out on him. It wasn’t a bite. It wasn’t a battle injury. It was just life and death. He had died in his sleep, Lydia had told them. He had died peacefully.
Abby meets Lev’s gaze from across the living room before standing, stepping out the front door to where Ellie is sitting on the front porch steps. Her head is in her hands, fingers shaking.
Wordlessly, Abby takes a seat beside her.
“She’s going to blame herself,” Ellie says quietly, worrying her thumbnail between her teeth before Abby pulls her hand away and grasps it in her own.
“It’s impossible not to blame yourself,” Abby agrees. “Like… no matter what. No matter the circumstances. You’re always going to think that there’s something that you could have done to prevent it from happening.” She stares off at the quiet street in front of them. “I did it for years.”
Ellie stares a hole into her beat up Converse. “Me too.”
It sends an ache rippling through Abby’s gut, but she tries her hardest to push it away and swallow it down. They’ve come too far to continually let their own guilt rip them wide open. “All we can do is be there for her.”
“Yeah,” Ellie agrees after a beat. “She… she won’t go through this alone. Not for a second.”
“She fell asleep,” Lev’s voice speaks up, quiet and tired from behind them. It’s pitch black in the early hours of the morning, crickets and cicadas fighting for who can sing louder. He bites his bottom lip between his teeth. “I wish there was something I could do.”
“It’s loss, kid,” Abby tells him soberly. “There’s nothing you can do besides making sure she knows you’re here. And… she might not want anyone for a while, and that’s okay. But you’ll be here when she’s ready. We’ll be here when she’s ready.”
Lev nods, but his brave face only holds out for a moment or two before his face is crumbling, eyes screwing shut with tears. Abby stands quickly, wrapping her arms around him as he cries. As he cries for Hanna and for Yara and his mother and the lives that far too many have lost.
The following days are quiet. Uneventful in the way that only bereavement ever can be. Lev finally gets Hanna to eat something after a day on Lydia’s couch, and she rests with her head in his lap as he picks up where they left off in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
The world of Lago Vista quietly spins on without them.
“What brought you back?” Lydia asks a few nights later over dinner. Hanna showered and put on a fresh pair of clothes, sitting at the kitchen table and picking at a bread roll in front of her. “After all this time?”
Oddly, it took Ellie a moment herself to recall why they had come here at all. She pushes up from the table, moving back to her rucksack and pulling out the case of samples that Graham had sent with them. She brings it back to the kitchen table, sitting it in front of Lydia. “It’s a vaccine,” she states. “Well, the first trial of a vaccine. Abby and Lev both had it before we left Galveston and… so far, so good. Not going to get them bit to find out for sure, but nothing crazy has happened to them, so I think that must be a good sign.”
Lydia trails her fingers over the tiny test vials in the case, looking back at Ellie in bewilderment. “A vaccine,” she says softly. Her eyes look across the table, landing on Hanna. “This is all thanks to you, Banana,” she whispers.
Hanna’s eyes lift heavily, and Lydia stands up from the table to wrap her arms around her from the side, pulling her in close and kissing the top of her head. “Oh, honey. He would be so proud of you. He is so proud of you. We all are.”
“She’s incredible,” Lev says quietly, looking at her with so much love in his eyes that it makes Ellie look away as if she’s interrupting a private moment.
After a moment, Hanna speaks. Hanna speaks for the first time in days, speaks the first words that aren’t soft, single syllables to signify agreement or disagreement. “We have enough for you and for… we had one for my dad, but. I wanted to make sure there was enough to keep you safe.” Her eyes burn with tears, and her voice cracks as she speaks. “I just wanted you to be okay.”
“Thank you,” Lydia murmurs, holding her tightly, and suddenly, she’s crying, too. “Thank you so much, Hanna.”
A few days becomes a week, Hanna finally stepping outside for a walk with Lev on one side and Ellie and Abby on the other.
A group of men are out hunting and Lydia told them that if they stopped by the bar in the early afternoon, she would have lunch ready for them. There has been no talk about next steps and future plans, and while staying in one place ordinarily feels like the comforting weight of a heavy blanket, right now, it just feels like a ticking time bomb prolonging the inevitable. The next steps.
Up ahead, the stables stand, and Lev straightens his stance, looking between Abby and Hanna and Ellie with wide eyes. “Do you…” he swallows hard. “Do you think they’re still there?” he asks quietly.
Hanna smiles, one of her few rare smiles from the past few days. She squeezes Lev’s hand in her own. “There’s only one way to find out, right?”
As they step through the wide double doors to the barn, it’s Artemis that they see first. Her sleek speckled gray coat and long black mane, a braid woven through it. “She’s been taken care of,” Lev cries, running for her and roping his arms around her neck. Artemis makes a muffled, comforted sound and leans into the touch.
Kodak is a few horses down, drinking from the same trough as Abby’s nameless horse from a year back.
“Safe and sound,” Abby breathes out, releasing a breath she hadn’t even realized was being held.
“Safe and sound,” Ellie echoes.
“Where are you off to next?” Lydia asks over lunch. It takes a minute for anyone to muster a response, eyes raising to glance at one another from over the table. “You’re more than welcome to stay here as long as you need. As long as you want.”
“I don’t know if I can,” Hanna is the first to speak, softly admitting something that has clearly been plaguing her over the last few days. Her eyes lift to meet Lydia’s from across the booth, worry flickering in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Lydia.”
Lydia’s eyes are misty, but her response is to reach across the table and hold her hand tightly in her own. “You have nothing to be sorry for,” she whispers softly. She glances around the table to the group of people surrounding Hanna. Ellie remembers speaking with Lydia shortly before they’d left Lago Vista the previous fall. Lydia had told her that since losing Sarah, Hanna had been the closest thing she’d had to a daughter. She’d been fiercely protective over her, especially after she’d lost her mother at such a young age. The way that she’s looking at Hanna right now is soft, gentle – it’s without malice and full of empathy, of understanding. To be loved is to be known. “I’m so grateful that you all have each other.” Her eyes meet Ellie’s, and she softly mouths a thank you to her.
“The place we were staying before this,” Abby speaks up with a clearing of her throat. “It… it felt good. I think heading back that way might be a good move.”
“It’s where Harry is,” Lev chimes in, speaking more to Abby than to anyone else. “And Zoe’s going to be having the baby soon. I think I’d like to go back there.” He leans in, pressing his shoulder to Hanna’s. “What do you think?”
“I agree,” she says softly. Her eyes meet Lydia’s. “But I don’t want this to be a goodbye. I… I don’t know if I could handle it being a goodbye.”
Lydia’s smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes, but she nods back at Hanna ever the same. “It will never be a goodbye, sweet girl. Not ever.”
From her spot in the booth, Ellie fidgets. She thinks of the vials that she’s never taken out of her pocket, of the drawings in her journal. She doesn’t say a word.
Ellie hasn’t spoken since they’d left the bar to get their things packed up from Lydia’s place. They have taken refuge in her guest rooms, Lydia having spent the last few days with her partner on the other end of the street. Lev and Hanna had hung back, Hanna having run into a few of her old friends and agreeing to spend some time with them with the encouragement of Ellie and Abby who were, frankly, desperate for Hanna to just be seventeen for a minute.
Abby watches her as she moves through the house. She hasn’t said a word, hasn’t breathed a sound of agreement toward the plan to head back to Bill’s Town. Something twists in Abby’s gut, a voice telling her to look closer. To think about it. To pay attention to what isn’t being said.
She knows. That’s the thing. Even if she doesn’t want to say it out loud, even if Ellie doesn’t want to say it out loud. She knows. There’s no way that Ellie is going to let vials of a vaccine be out in the world without making sure that Dina gets one, without making sure her kid gets one, or Joel’s fucking asshole brother gets one.
Ellie shoves a few things back into her bag, moving through the room that she has been sharing with Hanna for the last week. With everything that happened with Hanna and her father, none of them have spent much time away from her, which definitely meant that they hadn’t been spending very much time alone together.
“You’re not going back to Bill’s Town, are you?” Abby finally forces the words out of her throat, and Ellie stills with her hand hovering, shaking, over one of her flannel shirts.
She presses her lips together, not meeting Abby’s gaze. And, honestly, it’s probably better that way. It’s better that the bandage is ripped off and over and done with. If she’s going to leave, she’s going to leave one way or another. She was going to leave without nothing more than a letter back in Pennsylvania, so how much different is this?
“You know I can’t,” she admits quietly. “I need to go back to Jackson. I need… there are so many loose ends, Abby, and I can’t just leave them hanging like that. If there’s a chance that this shit can help them, I have to try.”
“Right,” Abby’s word comes out in the manner of a shaky exhale. “And I’m guessing that all of us rolling into Jackson together wouldn’t really go over well.”
“Abby—”
She holds her hands up, shaking her head and sniffing. “No, I get it,” she tells her. “I get it. You’re gonna do what you’re gonna do.” She’s going to go back home. She’s going to have had enough time away from Dina that Dina will just be relieved to see her. She’ll go back to where she belongs, and Abby will move on with her life because it’s really all she knows how to do at this point. She’s an expert in the field.
“I figure I’ll take the Bronco,” Ellie continues. “I know that Lev’s not going to want to leave Artemis, and it would probably be easier to get the horses back up north.” She looks down at her feet for one, two, three beats before looking back up at Abby. “That cool?”
“Yeah,” Abby agrees, quick enough to hopefully end this conversation as fast as possible. “Yeah, that’s fine. Whatever. Sure.”
She hates the way her eyes are starting to burn. She hates the way her chest is tightening. She tries to think of things she can smell, things she can see, things she can touch. Every sense, however, is encompassed by the auburn-haired girl in front of her.
Cautiously, Ellie takes a few steps closer to her. “I don’t want this to be me bailing without saying goodbye.” Her words come out hesitantly, and the movement of her hands, fingers winding around Abby’s, even more so.
Abby’s words betray her. “I don’t want this to be the end.” Her voice breaks, and Ellie’s catching her mouth in a kiss before she can say anything.
She melts into her, knees buckling and hands reaching to grasp onto Ellie’s hips. She pulls her in like a vice, like if she pulls her in tight enough she won’t be able to leave. She’ll stay. They’ll stay. Just like this. The world will stretch on around them, spanning decades and centuries, and they’ll be here in this room until it burns to ashes around them.
Ellie’s hand comes up, sliding past her neck and gripping onto the ends of her hair. She’s pushing up on her toes, pushing up against her until Abby’s pressed against the door. It clicks shut behind them, and Ellie pulls, pulls, and pulls. They stumble over their own feet, legs tangled, the partially packed bag being shoved off the bed and forgotten to make room for shedding clothes and parted knees.
I don’t want this to be the end, Abby’s voice had spoken softly, pleaded softly, and Ellie felt it all the way down to her toes. She hasn’t let herself think about this being the end. Because it being the end of something would mean acknowledging that it was something… and she wasn’t sure if that was ever going to be something that she was able to do.
If anything, Ellie had always tried to chalk it up to being a means to an end. Itching a scratch. Taking care of a basic human need. Survival. If she lets herself think about it for any longer, which she often tries not to do, she has to tell herself that maybe. Maybe. It’s something else.
She tries to let herself let go, tries to let herself be present. Abby’s fingers are curled inside of her, and it’s such a familiar push and pull that it drops an anchor in her chest. “I got you,” Abby’s murmuring, pushing in a little deeper, crooking her middle finger in that way that always makes her stutter. Her lips find home in the crevice of Ellie’s neck, and she repeats her words as she pushes faster. “Baby, I got you.”
Baby.
There is a pricking behind her eyelids and she screws them shut before something incredibly stupid happens. Abby’s lips moving from her neck to her cheeks, catching them on her tongue, shows her just how unsuccessful her endeavor is.
She hates this. She hates the weight of this. She hates the reality of this.
This feels so real it makes her knees ache. It makes her wonder about everything that had happened before this. It makes her think about that first kiss with Riley, that first fight with Cat, the feeling of Dina coming undone under her touch. And it manages to swallow each and every one of those memories whole.
No. No. That’s the thing. This isn’t a means to an end.
This is love.
This is love.
Fuck.
Fuck, she loves her.
Fuck, she loves her. She loves her to the point that she doesn’t know if she can breathe. She loves her to the point that she wants to burn this room down with them inside of it, just so they don’t let go. Abby pushes her fingers faster, straddling Ellie’s thigh just for the friction. The rock of her body into hers is enough to send Ellie over the edge, send an embarrassing fucking whimper flying out of her mouth and leave her with exploding stars behind her eyelids.
“Fuck,” she whines, and Abby nips at her jaw. The vulnerability crushes her like a lead balloon. She expects the claustrophobia to sink in, the fear of waiting for the other shoe to drop. It doesn’t come. Nothing does.
“What are you thinking about?” Abby asks softly, out of breath, as if Ellie can string together two words with her fingers still inside of her.
“I…” Ellie’s words trip over themselves, get lost on their way out, and she screws her eyes shut to keep them from coming out at all. She shakes her head. She swallows them down before they slip out and fuck everything else up and make leaving a feat that’s even more impossible than it already seems.
But the thing is, Abby knows. And she knows Abby knows from the way her hands find their way to either side of her face, mapping her out, memorizing the lines and ridges. Planting a flag in her name. “Me too.”
She says it quietly, like a prayer, like something that Ellie wasn’t supposed to hear at all.
It’s the only thing she hears for hours.
“Did you mean what you said earlier?” Ellie asks quietly. The sun is setting, casting the room in a haze of golds and pinks and lilacs. Lev and Hanna still haven’t returned, and Ellie had flipped them over earlier, desperate for a distraction and to get her head between Abby’s legs. Now, Abby’s hair was laying wild against the pillow, and Ellie’s body was sunk into hers, head pressed against her bare chest. Her heartbeat a lullaby pulsing in Ellie’s ears. “About going back to Bill’s Town?”
“I mean, he did say that if we were ever back in the area…” Abby says, voice tired and teasing. She presses a kiss to the crown of Ellie’s head. “I think so.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Abby doubles down. She twines her fingers through Ellie's, pulling them to her lips and pressing kisses to her knuckles. It's intimate, and mindless. Familiar. Like it's something that she chooses to do just because she can. "I don’t think I want to just keep fighting. I’m tired of fighting. I’m tired of chasing ghosts and Lev having to follow me as I swing from lead to lead. I think… I think I’m done with it. I think it’s time to let it go. And Bill’s Town… it kind of felt more like home than anything has in a really long fucking time.”
“Yeah,” Ellie echoes. “Yeah, it did.”
“This is it?” Hanna’s voice is meek, fragile. She’s been in tears for the better half of the morning, ever since she and Lev had learned what Ellie’s plan was following Lago Vista. Ever since she’d learned that Ellie wasn’t making the trip back with them. They’re standing at the gates, the horses on one side, and the Bronco on the other. Two different paths, two separate directions. If Ellie lets herself think about it for more than a second, it makes her want to throw up.
“Don’t have to make it sound so final,” Ellie tells her with a small smile, because… because it’s not final, is it?
She doesn’t know, is the thing. She doesn’t know what’s going to happen when she gets back to Jackson. She doesn’t know what’s going to happen when she sees Dina again, when she finds herself face to face with JJ, with Tommy and Maria. With the life she left behind.
Hanna folds her arms tightly around her, swaying the two of them back and forth. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without you,” she sniffles. “Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?”
“I want you to be with your people,” Ellie tells her, nodding back toward Abby and Lev.
“But you’re my people.”
“So are they.” She nods back to Lev. “And look at that kid. He wouldn’t know his right foot from his left without you.”
Lev smiles weakly, eyes red-rimmed. “She’s right.”
Hanna laughs despite herself, wiping at her eyes with the heels of her hands. “God. I’m really going to miss you.”
“It’s not forever,” Ellie repeats herself, because it can’t be. One way or another, it can’t be the end. It can’t be forever. “Besides,” she says shakily, gesturing to where Kodak is standing. “You’ve got Kodak. You have to keep him safe for me.”
“I will,” Hanna says through a sob, and Ellie pulls her in tightly one last time.
“And you have to make sure Abby names that fucking horse. Okay?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Abby’s voice is an arrow piercing straight through her skin.
She releases Hanna, hiking her bag up her shoulder and taking a few teetering steps back toward the Bronco. She has to get in the truck, or she won’t get in at all. And she has to get in, because she has to finish this.
After everything, she has to finish this.
“It’s not forever,” Ellie repeats, stepping up onto the bar in front of the driver’s door, leaning up so that she can throw her bag up and over into the backseat.
Abby’s eyes never leave her side, unconvinced.
She hops off one last time, pulling Lev into a tight hug and pressing a kiss to the side of his head. “Take care of them, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Lev sniffs, hugging her tight enough that she knows she’ll still feel it long after she’s hit the road. “I will.”
Her eyes meet Abby’s from over Lev’s shoulder. Lev pulls away, and she doesn’t step toward her. She’s holding onto this morning, to Abby pressing kisses down her shoulder, down her sides. She traced her fingers over Ellie’s tattoo and whispered, “Me too,” over and over again. She never said the actual words. She never had to.
That was their goodbye. That had to be.
She gives a small nod in Abby’s direction, and Abby returns the gesture. They take a few steps back toward the horses, and Ellie pulls open the driver’s door and climbs in. She turns the ignition, feeling the truck rumble to life underneath her.
Fuck.
Lev and Hanna move toward Artemis and Kodak, and Abby moves to step up into her horse’s saddle. This is it. This is it.
It might not be forever, but it sure fucking feels like it might be.
Ellie’s feet are back on the ground before she can register what she’s doing, moving back toward them. “This always seemed a lot cooler in the movies,” Ellie stupidly admits, and Hanna and Lev are racing back for her and pulling her in for another tight hug.
Her arms lock tightly around them, but her eyes follow the path of Abby’s body as she hops back down from her horse and moves back toward her. She hangs back, letting Lev and Hanna have their moment. But, the second they pull away, she’s stepping through the threshold and pulling her in. Her arms open, and Ellie falls right into them. She can feel the tears threatening to spill over, and it’s pointless to try and stop them.
“Thank you,” Ellie whispers into the crook of Abby’s shoulder, hugging her to the point that they’re rocking back and forth. Hugging her tight enough that her ribs could crack, and she would thank her.
She can feel the warm salt of Abby’s tears pressing into her hair, and she doesn’t pull away. Doesn’t allow herself the chance to look. Doesn’t know if she could handle it if she did.
It’s unclear who pulls away first. All she knows is that it’s Abby who speaks last.
“Go home, Ellie.”