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It had been exactly a year since the world had gone to shit, and while everything still sucked, Wilbur was grateful that his family was still together. Together they had survived a year of running and scavenging, and outliving most of the population. They had each other and Wilbur couldn’t ask for anything more (except maybe his guitar, he missed his guitar).
The family was gathered around a campfire, all 8 of them talking in hushed tones, but it was still loud enough for each other. They knew soon they would have to put out the fire in order to not draw zombies towards them during the night, but for now they wanted to enjoy their time together. It wasn’t a celebration, a celebration was almost like an invitation for good things to end, but it was a happy time, happier than they had all been since The Farm.
And even with his gratitude for his family, and happiness for the night, Wilbur couldn’t help but wonder when something was going to go wrong.
The next morning they had stumbled across another town. By the looks of it, this one was as deserted as all the other ones they had stumbled across, but that meant nothing when it came to supplies. This one at least looked for the most part untouched by people as there were no traps of any kind set up and there was minimal stuff thrown around the area. However, as they knew from the past, that didn’t mean anything, there was always a chance for people anywhere no matter how it looked.
With a silent nod of acknowledgement and agreement, they split into their groups, Wilbur, Tommy, Kristin, and Dream going off to the right, and Phil, George, Sapnap, and Techno going to the left. Tommy walked next to Kristin, his weapon at the ready incase of any sort of attack. Wilbur walked directly behind Tommy, with Dream beside him.
The smaller group made their way near the edge of the town to search the houses before working their way back to the middle of the town to meet up with the others later.
“Dream and I will clear out around the house before meeting you guys inside, I think I saw a few zombies walk behind.” Wilbur nodded towards the backyard of the house.
“Okay big man, we’ll meet you in there.” Tommy said, already making his way up the first step of the front porch, but stopped to wait for Kristin.
“You two hollar for anything we should be able to hear you.” Kristin said before following Tommy up the steps.
“You got it Mumza.” Dream and Wilbur said with a fake salute and Tommy smiled and giggled at the action.
Tommy made his way up the rest of the stairs with Kristin close behind him. He looked into the house through the windows on the porch.
“I don’t see any on this end.” Tommy said, walking over to the door and placing his hand on the handle. “We clear on that side?”
“Yeah.” Kristin said, coming up beside Tommy. “Go for it kid.”
Tommy nodded and opened the door quickly raising his dagger in front of him. He turned to his left quickly scanning the main room they were in along with the room he could see into.
“Clear over here.” Tommy said, walking further into the house.
“Same here.” Kristin responded, moving in sync with Tommy.
The two quickly made their way through the rest of the downstairs without any run-ins and filled their bags with supplies from the kitchen and bathroom before making their way upstairs. Upstairs was just as easy as the first floor with no zombies.
“Do we need any clothes?” Tommy asked, rummaging through the drawers in one of the bedrooms.
“Yeah.” Kristin responded from the connected bathroom. “Any heavier jackets make sure to take, we’re going to need them as it starts getting colder.”
“Okay.” Tommy said, pulling a jacket that looked about his size from the drawer and stuffing it into his bag along with a few other warmer clothing items.
Tommy was getting ready to go into the next room when he heard a yell from outside.
“Tommy, Kristin get out here now, we gotta go! There’s a herd coming.” Wilbur yelled, sounding muffled, from outside.
Tommy and Kristin quickly zipped their bags and ran downstairs running out the front door. When they made it outside Tommy scanned the area searching for Wilbur, and somewhere distantly, through the noise of zombies that was starting to fill his ears, and thoughts focused on finding Wilbur, he heard Kristin talking through the walkie. He turned in a circle with his dagger in hand ready to attack, but was still searching for Wilbur.
It was a moment of weakness or maybe a zombie had truly come out of nowhere from where Tommy wasn’t able to see, but he felt something grab his arm and let out a high pitched scream. He whirled around stabbing the zombie in the head letting out a panicked breath of relief. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Dream and Wilbur sprinting towards them, the herd of zombies following behind.
“We gotta run!” Wilbur said, grabbing Tommy’s arm pulling the boy into a run with him.
Next to him, Tommy could see Dream grab Kristin’s shoulder, surprising her, causing the walkie to fall out of her hand and clatter to the ground. As she went to turn around and retrieve it, Dream pulled her along.
“We don’t have time.” Dream rushed out, refusing to stop. “They’ll be over it in seconds.”
The group kept running west towards the treeline at the edge of town. As they ran by Tommy saw Wilbur pull his beanie off his head and throw it onto a branch behind them.
“What’d you do that for?” Tommy asked as they continued their sprint into the woods.
“So they can hopefully figure out what direction we went.” Wilbur answered.
Tommy only nodded in understanding and they kept running.
“I can’t believe out of all the beanies I could’ve thrown at the damn tree, it had to be my favorite one.” Wilbur groaned as he, Dream, Kristin, and Tommy continued their walk through the woods, his arm wrapped around Tommy’s shoulders.
“Well that’s your fault for wearing your favorite one.” Dream pointed out causing Wilbur to shoot the other man a glare.
“True, but in my defense, I also thought they would’ve found us by now.” Wilbur said.
It had been four days since they had been run out of the town by the herd. Their first night in the woods they had tried finding their way back to the town, but even from a distance they could see the woods flooded with zombies, so they continued walking west through the entire night. They were exhausted, but they needed to create distance between themselves and the herd, it was too risky to stop, especially in the middle of the woods at night. So they kept going and at some point the next day they found another small town and cleared out one of the houses on the outskirts before barricading the doors. They ate a little food, and took turns sleeping, Wilbur and Tommy sleeping first because everyone agreed that Tommy needed sleep the most and Tommy refused to sleep without Wilbur. Then when they woke up a number of hours later, Wilbur and Tommy stayed up keeping guard while Dream and Kristin slept.
They had decided to stay in the town for a few days to rest up and stock up on supplies, while also giving the others a chance to find them. But after a few days they knew they had to keep moving, they were seeing a rise in zombie numbers so they quickly packed up their now stocked bags and headed out continuing their journey west, going slightly north west to avoid some of the larger towns they had seen signs for at the town they had stopped in.
And now they were walking again, not moving at a slow pace, but not a fast one either. There was no need to overexert themselves, and they wanted to give the others the best chance of potentially catching up to them, even if they did have to continue moving.
“I just hope we find them soon.” Tommy spoke up, tucking himself a little closer to Wilbur.
“We will Tommy.” Kristin said, she was always the optimistic one of the group. “We’ll find them soon enough.”
“Yeah Sunshine, she’s right, we’ll find them.” Wilbur said, pressing a soft kiss to Tommy’s blond curls.
It's been two weeks since they decided to continue moving and they were all tired. Earlier today they had come across a small farmhouse that made them all smile and reminded them of before. Before, when they were all together. Before, when they were safe and it was almost like they were on holiday together for months instead of living during a zombie apocalypse.
They were sitting at the kitchen table with a map they had found in the house spread out in front of them when Wilbur had a realization.
“Mother fucker.” Wilbur muttered, dropping his head into his hands. “I’m a fucking idiot.”
“You’re not an idiot, but what?” Dream asked, raising an eyebrow in Wilbur's direction.
“We need to go to Nottingham.” Wilbur stated, a look of despair crossing his face as he turned to stare at the boy who was deep asleep in front of the warm fireplace. “And we needed to go there from the beginning. I can’t believe I didn’t realize sooner.”
“Realize what?” Kristin questioned.
“Phil and the others never caught up, which means they didn’t go west. But if we assume they found my beanie, where did they go? The only other option was North into the forest.”
“Why North?” Kristin asked. “Didn’t you throw it…”
“They could’ve assumed it got snagged on the tree.” Dream chimed in when Kristin trailed off.
“Exactly, and if they went North, that means they’re going towards Nottingham. It’s not an exact location, but we talked about it before, when we first left The Farm, but we decided against it because we didn’t want to upset Tommy.”
“Shit, that’s where he’s from, isn’t he.” Dream spoke with a sigh. “Which is why we said no and why Tommy was ticked at everyone.”
Wilbur nodded, he remembered that argument well, Tommy hadn’t spoken to him for days afterward, the only person he talked to was Sapnap and that was only because Sapnap wasn’t there when everything went down that day, he had been out patrolling the area.
“Then why Nottingham?” Dream asked. “Why would Phil and the others go to Nottingham when we said we wouldn’t go before?”
“Yeah.” Kristin agreed. “Once Phil has his mind set on something, he usually doesn't change it.”
“Because it’s different this time. This time, half his family is missing, and it’s the only set location we had ever talked about. So even if they aren’t in Nottingham, they’re probably somewhere in the surrounding area, because he knows that eventually, we’ll find our way up there.” Wilbur defended.
“What do we tell Tommy?” Kristin wondered aloud. “I don’t want to tell him we’re going there, then not actually go.”
“I think we just tell him the plan.” Wilbur said simply. “He’s not dumb, he’ll know if we’re hiding something from him, so we tell him we are heading towards Nottingham, but are not planning on going into the city, it’ll be too dangerous, and logically he knows that. We’re close to two months out, if we tell him now, yes it will still hurt when we tell him we can’t go into the city when we get there, but it also won’t be a surprise for him, it’ll be easier on all of us.”
“So we tell him the plan tomorrow, when do we want to head out?” Dream inquired.
“We’ll plan on being here another night, then head out at sunrise the day after tomorrow.” Wilbur announced, looking around the table for confirmation from the other two, when they nodded he continued. “How are we doing on supplies?”
“We’ve got a decent stock, but it may not be a bad idea to hit a town right off the bat because we know most potential stops from here until after we make it past Birmingham will be too populated.” Kristin suggested after looking at the list she had with their supply numbers.
“Okay.” Wilbur said with a nod. “Do we have a plan?”
The other’s nodded. “We’ve got a plan.”
Based on Wilbur’s calculations, they were about a week out from Nottingham, and had been traveling for about six weeks. They were moving at a faster pace than he originally anticipated, but if he had to guess it had to do with their eagerness to hopefully reach their family soon. Realistically, he knew there was a good chance their family wouldn’t be there, he knew that even if they were in the area, it would likely take weeks of searching to finally find them, and though he hated to think it there was always the possibility that they didn’t make it this far. However, that was a thought he kept to himself, knowing if he brought it up it would force everyone to have to face a possibility they were all choosing to ignore. And along with that, he knew as much as he hated to admit it, winter was coming fast, the days were getting shorter and the nights colder. They were going to have to settle sooner rather than later, but all of them were in agreement they had to reach Nottingham first before doing so.
Everyday they were up as soon as the sun broke the horizon, moving on from their area as fast as possible, especially the nights they ended up having to stay outside. It was too cold to stay put any longer than necessary, and they needed to utilize all the daylight as the sun was now setting much earlier. With all of that accounted for, it made sense that they were making decent time.
The conversation with Tommy about heading towards Nottingham went about as well as expected. Tommy was excited, but then most of that excitement quickly faded when Wilbur told him they couldn’t actually go into the city unless they found clear signs that the others were in there. And of course Tommy got upset, but he understood why they couldn’t go in. And Wilbur had made it very clear it was nothing personal, it was mostly for their safety, but also Tommy’s sanity.
“Tommy I know that you were close with your parents and that’s why we aren’t going to look.” Wilbur said. “And the chances we even find them there are slim to none, and if we don’t find them then you’re going to assume the worst. It’s not to keep you from them Sunshine, it’s so you don’t have to deal with what we could possibly find, trust me you’ll feel better not knowing.”
“You don’t understand Wilbur.” Tommy yelled. “You don’t- you weren’t close with your family. How could you possibly know what’s best for me?”
“Because I know you, Toms. You’re right, I wasn’t close with my family, but I know I’m better off not knowing what happened to them. And I know you, and I know how you get, it’s better this way. I promise.”
Tommy huffed and walked away, Wilbur didn’t bother going after him. He knew this was one of the few times that it would make things worse if he followed Tommy. There was a good chance he was going to find Dream or Kristin, which would probably be best.
And that was almost 6 weeks ago, Tommy got over it pretty fast, saying he understood why they couldn’t go in, and he was sorry for getting mad at Wilbur, and Wilbur forgave him even if Tommy had nothing to be sorry for, he knew Tommy wouldn’t take that as an answer. When they made it to the city in about a week or so, Wilbur knew the conversation would come back up and he would have to reason with Tommy once again, but he didn’t mind, he had to protect Tommy after all.
The group walked through a smaller neighborhood on the outskirts of Nottingham, just under a week later. It didn’t take long for them to find and clear a house to settle in for the night, knowing it was stupid to go further for the night as it was going to be getting dark soon.
Wilbur found Tommy sitting on the back porch of the house staring out towards the city. He made sure to make his presence known before sitting down next to the boy wrapping an arm around his shoulders pulling him close.
“I’m sorry Toms I really am.” Wilbur whispered, pressing a kiss to Tommy’s blond curls.
“It’s not your fault.” Tommy responded, tucking himself closer to Wilbur. “I know it’s stupid to go into the city, we can see how overrun it is from here.”
“Yeah, it’s not looking good, and I’m gonna be honest bud, we aren’t staying here longer than tonight aside from grabbing supplies from some other houses, it just isn’t safe.”
“I figured.” Tommy stated with a sigh. “I know why we can’t go in, I know why it’s stupid to go in, and even putting getting closure about my parents aside, part of me just wanted to get to my house, all of my stuff was there, pictures, everything from my childhood, my whole life. I know at this point it’s probably been ransacked and all the stuff is gone anyways, but it would’ve been nice to see again you know?”
“Yeah, I get that Toms. I know we were at my place when all this shit went down, but we left in such a rush, we only grabbed what was important and what we could carry. I wish we could go back sometimes just so I could see it one last time.”
Tommy only nodded and laid his head on Wilbur's shoulder. “I know it’s stupid to want to find my parents.” He admitted. “And I know if I saw the worst case scenario, it would be bad, but I just- I never got to say goodbye.”
“I know.” Wilbur said softly.
The two sat in silence for a little bit watching as the sun set over the city Tommy had once called home.
“Do you want something that might cheer you up a little?” Wilbur asked, finally breaking the silence between the two.
“What is it?” Tommy asked.
“There’s a place on Geoguesser not too far North of here, maybe a day's walk or so, I think you’ll love it, and if we’re lucky we may even be able to settle there, even if it’s only for a little bit.”
“Have you told the others yet?”
“No, you’re the first to know, but considering we’ve been talking about finding a place to settle for the winter, and it’s in the countryside, they won’t be opposed to it.” Wilbur assured. “Trust me Sunshine, you’ll love it.”
“Are you doing okay, Bug?” Dream asked, walking up next to Tommy later that night.
The two of them were on guard duty for the next few hours. Even though they had cleared the house and a decent amount of the neighborhood on the way in, they were still too close to highly populated areas for them to feel safe all going to sleep, so they were taking shifts being on guard. So while Wilbur and Kristin slept, Tommy and Dream were keeping guard.
“I guess.” Tommy admitted. “Just sad.”
“You wanna talk about it?” Dream offered, sitting on the floor next to the kid.
“I don’t know.” Tommy shrugged. “It’s hard I guess, cause it’s like I didn’t get to say goodbye to either of my families. First my parents, and then Phil, Techno, Sapnap, and George. And I know we have a much greater chance of finding Phil and them, but like what if…”
“I know.” Dream finished softly as Tommy trailed off. “Look, we know how they are, we know how they fight, they’re fine, I just- I have a feeling, and I typically trust my gut on this sort of thing. And for your parents… is it okay if I tell you something?”
“Yeah of course.”
“I get it Tommy, I know exactly what you’re going through right now.” Dream admitted. “I don’t get to know what happened to my family either, and when I say that I’m not trying to take that away from you or make you feel better or worse, but as someone who doesn’t even get the option to know, it’s better not to know what happened. I was close to my family too, hell I was only supposed to be here a month, but… anyway, my point is, it’s better to keep the happy memories than potentially get an image of them in your head that will haunt you forever or find nothing and still not get your closure. I know that in most circumstances closure is good, but this isn’t most circumstances, I truly think here that even though it hurts not knowing, I think it would hurt more to know. It’s better to let yourself believe what you want to have happened rather than find out the worst case scenario.”
Tommy leaned his head on Dream’s shoulder looking for comfort. He didn’t want to cry, not right now, he had cried a lot in the past few days. Dream wrapped an arm around Tommy’s shoulder pulling him closer.
“I got you Bug, it’ll be okay.”
The next morning, the small group was out of the neighborhood right after sunrise to get as far away from the city as quickly as possible. Luckily on the way out of the neighborhood they ran into minimal zombies before finally making it far enough from the city that the zombie population significantly decreased. By the time they made it far away from all the roads and into the plains and woods of the countryside a few hours later, they were back to almost no zombies aside from the occasional one that wandered alone.
Wilbur knew they were getting close to their destination and when they broke through the tree line he immediately shifted his gaze to Tommy in time to see the boy's face light up as he saw the building in front of them.
“You like it Toms?” Wilbur asked and Tommy only nodded in response.
“Do you think it’s empty?” Dream questioned with a raised eyebrow in Wilbur’s direction.
“It looks like it but we can’t be too sure.” Wilbur stated.
“I’ll stay here with Tommy.” Kristin offered. “You two can go check it out and make sure there’s no other people in there.”
“You good with that?” Dream asked, looking between Wilbur, Tommy, and Kristin.
“I’m good with it, Toms you okay with that?” Wilbur questioned.
“Yeah, go check it out Kristin and I will stay here.” Tommy agreed, already moving forward to hug Wilbur.
Wilbur let out a soft chuckle pulling Tommy into a tight hug and pressing a kiss to his forehead. When Wilbur finally let go, he saw Tommy immediately go to hug Dream as Wilbur pulled Kristin into a hug.
“Be safe.” Kristin said pulling Wilbur down to press a kiss to his forehead, and Wilbur ducked his head in embarrassment, but secretly he loved it and loved the soft comfort from Kristin. “And the same goes to you.” Kristin added, giving Dream a hug pulling him down to give him a forehead kiss as well.
“You got it Mumza.” Wilbur and Dream said simultaneously giving a fake salute.
Wilbur and Dream made their way closer to the building with weapons at the ready. From the looks of the surrounding area of the estate, there didn’t look to be many signs of people even as they got closer to the main building.
When they got to the building, the two hopped over the railing onto the back porch peering through the windows.
“Looks clear.” Wilbur said motioning for Dream to go ahead and pick the lock.
He made quick work of the lock and both of them cringed at how bad the door squeaked when they opened it. They walked inside, shutting the door as quietly as they could behind them (which wasn’t very quiet if Wilbur was being honest).
With that they began to walk down the hallway, weapons raised to start clearing the rooms as they went. As they began to approach a turn on their right, they paused hearing some small noise coming from the turn. With a quick nod to Dream, Wilbur raised his crossbow and inched closer only to freeze as two figures came out from around the corner.
With a second glance, both Wilbur and Dream lowered their weapons in shock as one of the people spoke.
“Son?”
“Do you think they’re doing okay?” Tommy asked, looking in the direction of the castle while digging a stick into the ground next to him.
“The place is huge Tommy, they’re fine.” Kristin reassured the boy, giving his hand a squeeze.
“What are you doing here?” A new voice asked, causing Tommy to snap his head back to where the new voice had come from behind him. “Holy shit. Holy shit! Sapnap! Sapnap get your ass over here, holy shit, oh my god, Tommy, Kristin, oh my god, Sapnap hurry your ass up you idiot.”
Tommy’s face broke out into a smile seeing Technoblade and was immediately pulled into a tight hug by the big man himself. Tommy had missed this, missed Techno, and he didn’t realize how much until he was crying into Techno’s shoulder, tears soaking into Techno’s shirt. Tommy pulled away and left Techno’s arms briefly to grab Kristin and pull her into the hug as well.
“Child I have so many gummy bears for you.” Techno breathed letting out a wet chuckle and Tommy only smiled and hugged Techno tighter.
As they all hugged and cried, Tommy heard a branch break and looked up and his eyes meeting Sapnap’s.
“Hey, why am I being left out?” Sapnap questioned as the man approached the group and joined their little reunion.
“Holy shit, you guys don’t even know how happy we are to see you.” Techno said, pressing a kiss to Tommy’s head. “Where’s Wilbur and Dream?”
“They went to check out the castle.” Tommy responded, melting further into Techno’s hold.
“It’s a Manor child.” Techno was quick to correct with a smile.
“Whatever.” Tommy said, rolling his eyes at the familiar banter that he’d missed so much. “Where’s Phil and George?”
“They’re in the Manor.” Techno responded.
“Oh shit, we gotta go.” Sapnap interrupted pulling away from hug, grabbing Tommy’s hand and quickly collecting all the bags before running off towards the Manor with Tommy’s hand still in Sapnap’s, with Techno and Kristin close behind.
“Dad!” Wilbur cried, dropping his crossbow to the floor as he fell into Phil’s arms.
Wilbur could hear two other weapons fall to the ground and he immediately knew it was Dream pulling George into a hug.
“Where’s Techno and Sapnap?” Wilbur questioned.
“Where’s Kristin and Tommy?” Phil asked at the same time.
They were both cut off from answering as they heard the front door slam open followed by a voice Wilbur hadn’t heard in months, shouting. “Phil, George! You’re never going to believe who we just found!”
“Techno…” Wilbur breathed letting go of Phil as Techno rounded the corner pulling him into a hug.
He could see Sapnap joining George and Dream, as well as Kristin and Tommy rushing over to Phil.
They were finally home, together with their family once again.
Techno and Tommy were working in Tehcno’s beginning attempts at a garden. It had been just under a month since Tommy, Wilbur, Kristin, and Dream had shown up at the Castle, and even though it was the middle of December, Techno had insisted on starting the garden now and that he would be able to grow something this time of year.
Everyone else was somewhere on the property or inside the Castle, doing whatever it was they did in their free time. Dream and Sapnap were likely walking the perimeter before dinner, while Wilbur had thrown Tommy to Techno for the day wanting to read in peace for a little bit. Phil and Kristin were working on dinner, and George was, well no one really ever knew what George was doing. Sometimes he was up in the attic reading, other times he was sewing, and sometimes he was staring off into space as Tommy and Techno worked in the garden.
Techno had put Tommy to work at breaking up the ground and suddenly he heard his name. With a confused look spreading across his face, Tommy glanced up only to see three figures walking towards him and Techno that he thought he would never see again.
“Tubbo?” Tommy questioned in shock standing up slowly from his spot on the ground.
“Yeah king, we made it!” Tubbo said, running up to Tommy giving him a hug.
“Wow, didn’t anybody miss me?” Ranboo asked only to be pulled into a hug by Techno.
“Of course we did, kid.” Techno said.
Tommy turned to the third figure when he heard a chuckle. “Captain?!”
“Of course it’s me, not even an apocalypse can kill me” Jordan said, letting out a slight “oof” as Tommy crashed into him.
“That’s my line.” Techno mumbled to Ranboo.
Anything else to be said was quickly stopped when Wilbur came rushing out of the house. “I heard Tommy scream.”
“I think this belongs to you.” Jordan interrupted, pulling the battered guitar case off of his back before gently handing it over to Wilbur.
“No.” Wilbur gasped in disbelief as he opened the case. “How did you get this? It got left at the farm.”
“We know, we got it all right here!” Tubbo exclaimed, patting the bag on his back. “You guys need to tell us the story of what happened, cause I honestly think we just missed you there.”
“How about we tell you guys over dinner.” Wilbur settled on and smiled as he turned back to see the rest of his family coming out of the house. “Plus I think we’ve all got a few stories to tell.”
It had been a month since their family had reunited, but now with the three new additions, it was as if their family was finally truly whole again. The part that had been missing since that dreadful August day had finally returned (even if it had taken almost a year and a half).