'it certainly was not my intention to make you suffer, yet i have done so; obviously it never will be my intention to make you suffer, yet i shall always do so.' franz kafka.
season 1, episode 4
please hold to my hand
Kieran had wasted a page and a half on calculations. She could always make more but that's not what mattered. The hours spent on mathematics that made her brain ache; missing sleep and effortlessly calculating their gas and food as Joel pressed the gas onto the open road. With the gas reserve Bill had, they should have lasted at least two days if they had taken stops for rest. No need to implement a siphon schedule yet.
They were currently on their third stop of the day to siphon gas.
It would last them 72 miles at most, even then they needed to stop before if they could find a graveyard of cars. Deteriorating metal that served no purpose to them or the world. Except for the birds that made the remains into a home. Smart.
Birds are fascinating creatures of the day and night. They did not need to worry about the mind-controlled humans. They could never catch the birds; if they could, Kieran had never seen a mutated animal before, only ants. Only the predators that hunted them before fungi consumed everything were what they truly feared. They soared without fear, spending hours against the wind, in the sun and night, with no destination in mind. Their predators become prey to the infected. Some adapted and grew knowledgeable about the cordyceps connections. But none were as successful as the birds.
With her arms straight out, Kieran balanced on the curb, letting the breeze flow against her. To be a bird, untouched.
She didn't believe in any God but understood why others did to some extent. The books upon books on various religions made sense for their time. Now, she believed people were naive for falling for human-told tales with their new world—though, she had yet to meet anyone who still had faith. Praying every day to something, begging it to fix all that went wrong twenty years ago was an act to protect themselves. The Earth enacted its revenge on humans for all they had done; that was the plain truth. With their mission on its way, maybe those unknown voices behind the prayers would get what they wished for.
To feel the wind pass her, she couldn't help but linger on the force of energy causing it. How her hair would flow forward, backward, sideways, whipping her cheeks, getting into her mouth and eye. Despite the jacket and long-sleeve on, chills still ran down her spine. She knew the science of it all, but it was nice to imagine something else, something powerful guiding all things. How she envied that intangible, imaginary being. She, like any other, could believe in whatever she wanted to believe in to sleep easier. The ability to think and cultivate her own ideas was a blessing in her mind.
"What are–what are you doing?" Joel harshly spoke after removing his mouth off the grimy tube.
Dropping her arms, slapping her palms loudly against her jeans. "I'm bored."
"Why don't you go sit in the truck?"
"Don't wanna."
"Go find something to do—" Joel must have hated children, Kieran thought, or at least hated her. Probably for what she had that he no longer could have—" but no wanderin'."
That was fine in her eyes. She would never be fond of Joel for what he did or didn't do. He was only there to help them get to point B. Still, he could let loose more and allow Kieran to do what she wanted. He had a stick up his ass as Frank once told her. "Then there's nothing to do. Ellie's locked herself in the bathroom."
"Figure it out. Just stop making noise."
Kieran mocks him, glancing at Samara who's siphoning gas. An idea sparked in her brain full of lit candles. "Got any tape?"
"What?" Joel asked, shaking the hostage tube of any remaining gas. "Why would I have tape?"
"To tape things together?"
Joel huffed. "No. I do not have tape."
Kieran threw her head back. Bringing it back to its preferred angle, she kicked a rock, sending it a few feet away.
"Why do you need tape?" Samara inquired, nearing the girl and ignoring the man.
"I broke an arrow at the Capitol Building."
"You have others." Joel stated plainly.
"15! I hate odd numbers! It's so...ugh."
"You'll live."
"If we find some, we can fix it. Till then, you can use it like a knife." Samara instructed, wanting the silence to ensue. Her silence was deafening and heart aching. Her brown eyes would flicker to Joel any chance she got. Kieran was unsure if it was from their unresolved relations or the fact that she didn't trust the man. Samara's eyes would linger over Joel like pages in a book she had read long ago—she searched for something she had never sighted before, a hidden finding written in between the lines of a story she was once intertwined with.
Kieran wanted to know their story, all the grim and goodness. Everything that had molded them and broke them down like rust on metal. But it wasn't like either of them would tell her shit.
"I should have a gun," Kieran brought up, now that she had both adults near without Ellie. "We all know Ellie shouldn't, but Samara trained me!"
"And that's why you ain't getting one," Joel reminded, basically spitting on Samara with his harsh words. Kieran glared at him as he neared the last untouched car. "You got a bow and a knife; you'll live."
"Until I don't!"
Ellie resurfaces from the desolate gas station without noticing the tension that grew thick as smoke. When Kieran wasn't calculating, she observed the weird girl; noticing things about her that had history. Pieces of Ellie that Kieran could learn one day or would never get the chance to. Either was fine; Kieran could make up Ellie's story or know the truth of it.
The girl had few visible scars, including the bite marks coupled on her forearm surrounded by freckles. A scar sliced through her eyebrow like a river between land. Whatever had caused it destroyed the hair follicles, carving an uneven path inside an already thin eyebrow. There was more to her than she exposed. It made Kieran desire to dissect her until she knew every bit of Ellie's brain filled with memories and experiences and her soul filled with all that created the girl beside her.
"We have to do this every few hours?" the odd girl asked. She lacked knowledge; was that the case for all children born in a Quarantine Zone?
"Gas breaks down over time," Joel explained, annoyance still dancing around his words with diligence. He was nicer to Ellie than Kieran—something she ignored but noticed—most likely due to how useful she was for him. "Stuff's almost water. Back in the day, we'd drive 10, 12 hours on one tank. You could go anywhere."
Intrigued by the old world, Ellie asked, "So, where'd you go?"
"Pretty much nowhere." He began blowing into the shorter tube that barely reached the liquid, forcing the remaining liquid around the tight tank, searching for a way out. The only way was through the clear tube.
"Nice! How does that work?"
"It's a siphon." Ellie gave him a look to continue. "It's when liquid...travels against gravity..."
Staring at the grayed man, Kieran interjected, "The increased air pressure from the short tube forces the gas up that tube and once it gets to a certain point gravity takes over and it'll come out on its own." Joel stared dumbfounded at her while Ellie looked at her in awe. She didn't notice the uninformed girl's gaze.
"Y'know, science," Kieran said, doing jazz hands. Frank would do that often. Kieran never understood it until she tried—it was quite fun.
Joel returned to what he knew, continuing to ignore Kieran's presence.
Samara came around from the car, rewrapping her set of tubes around the gas canister. She gave Kieran a short smile, followed by signing, "Told you it was good to know." She fell back to the truck, filling it up. Kieran's sight of her faltered to the dry ground.
When they first arrived, Kieran woke up from an accidental eye-rest feeling something was wrong with Samara. The way she hadn't waited for the vehicle to fully stop before getting out and away from Joel. How she urged Kieran to look around but stay some ways away from her. She had that distant facade to use against Joel and Ellie–she just never let it fade when they weren't around. Prior to that day, Samara seemed to be stuck inside her head. She hadn't touched her notebooks; she didn't do much besides become a carcass.
Had Kieran done something wrong? She focused upon the gas and supplies instead of their journey. Maybe that was it. Samara wanted her to track their movement. Anything they came across, landmark and distinct features. Or maybe it wasn't that at all. Should Kieran have spent her time studying their new additions? Maybe Samara was just upset with her simply because she could be. She didn't want to communicate–only in sign–because Kieran had other people.
Only they weren't Samara. They were foreign creatures to Kieran's once small world. They were hard to comprehend as human; even harder to connect to as people.
"This is your fault then," Ellie proclaimed, reaching inside her bag...
Though, Joel was tougher to understand and interact with. Ellie...she was simple and weird.
She revealed a book in her hand, smirking at the two confused individuals. "It doesn't matter how much you push the envelope; it'll still be stationery."
Ellie giggled to herself as Joel stared at her perplexed. His stupid face made Kieran laugh, to which she quickly stifled. "" No Pun Intended Volume Too" by Will Livingston. Volume "Too"? Like, T-o-o. Get it?"
Her aggressiveness to get Joel to acknowledge her more than necessary fueled Kieran's laughter. It bellied up and out of her like a volcano, tears pricking at her eyes. Ellie was an intriguing person; something Kieran had never experienced until it was a person only understood in words and hundreds of pages.
"See! Someone finds me funny."
"She's never been around someone longer than a minute; it's called being socially deprived," Joel rebutted, standing up. He couldn't go anywhere, nor would he have dared to call to Samara for backup.
"Hey!"
Ellie swiped her hand at Joel, pulling Kieran's focus on to another pun about mermaids. Kieran had to ask the girl what a mermaid was. Ellie explained that it was fictional, something simple for children that somehow had a complex history within mythology. Thus, a tangent of fictional creatures erupted from Ellie.
"We need to find you a good book with fairies–but like the evil ones 'cause the good ones are weird and never cool."
"There's good books that don't have all this fake stuff."
"But it's entertaining! Like dinosaurs—you do know about dinosaurs, right?"
"Yes, Dinosaurs were real, so yes."
"When this is over, I'm gonna show you my favorite books."
"Then... I'll show you mine."
"Deal."
Samara observed from a distance. Never once did she believe Kieran needed a companion her age; she was smarter than most kids, interested in factual rather than fictional, and had a tendency to harm first and love after. Maybe it was the fact that Samara never believed she needed to be with someone her age, but that it was never safe for her to be. Kieran believed she would only hurt the other child.
Once in the truck and on the road, Kieran and Ellie peered out the foggy rear-view window upon the parted sea of vehicles.
"Must've been one big truck," Ellie assumed.
Joel flickered to them through the rearview mirror as Samara drove—after much force. "Yeah, they used to stick big-ass plows on them and clear the roads for their tanks and such."
"I wanna see a tank!" Ellie gushed, smiling wider than an 18-wheeler.
"You're bound to. At least what remains," Samara stated, gazing upon the map to ensure Joel told her the right way for the hundredth time.
"Tanks, choppers, all that stuff. But they'll fight the wrong enemy. Just scattered around now," Joel explained, folding up the map and putting it onto his lap, "Pay attention to the road."
Ellie dug around the pouches of the front seats, no longer interested in what Joel was mumbling about. She pulled out a Hank Williams cassette tape. "I got something." She forced herself in between Samara and Joel and their tension, tapping their shoulders for attention. "Here. This make you all nostalgic?"
"This is actually before our time."
"Right."
"It's a winner, though." Joel stated as he put it into the radio, filling the empty silence.
Ellie continued to dig around. She made a face at Kieran when she saw something by her feet. She smacked her knee, forcing Kieran to lift both legs onto the seat. It didn't hurt but Kieran let out an "ow." Ellie reappeared with a magazine.
"Got somethin' else."
It had a cover of a muscular man, all covered in oil. His muscles were quite impressive since he had nothing to fight against besides a bad angle, but nothing about it appealed to the girl. Ellie opened the pages, ensuring Kieran could see. Every page contained half-naked men in abnormal poses.
"It's, uh, light on the reading, but it has some interesting pictures."
Samara and Joel gazed through the rear-view mirror to get a good look at what the girls had.
"Oh. No, no, no. Put that back," Joel began as he turned around, ready to snatch it.
Ellie opened to a page that unfolded. As it fell open, Kieran gagged at the sight. She had seen medical anatomy before and that she wasn't disturbed by. It was the realization that Bill used these photos for his own pleasure.
"That's not for kids," Samara sternly said.
"Oh, calm down! How would he even walk around with that thing?"
"Ellie," Samara said as a warning, but they all knew that there wasn't much she could do behind the wheel.
"Hold your horses. I wanna see what all the fuss is about."
"I don't," Kieran let out, covering her eyes.
The older woman let out a sigh, pinching the bridge of her nose as she returned to face the road.
"Why are all these pages stuck together?" Ellie questioned with a mischievous look in her eyes.
Joel began to stutter, and Samara shook her head. Kieran grimaced, regretfully looking at Ellie, only to learn she was lying. She thanked a god she didn't believe in.
"I'm just fuckin' with ya!" Ellie slapped the folded magazine against Joel's shoulders. She reached over Kieran, opening the window before releasing the last thing Bill ever liked. Good thing he was dead.
They passed a herd of ox and what remained of an amusement park; both piqued the interests of Ellie. Animals were sacred in the QZ; they had chickens and pigs according to the three who resided there once before, but they weren't exposed to people in fear of them stealing resources. They crossed places that looked the same, destroyed and abandoned. They came across the tanks, choppers, and stuff Joel mentioned. All lost against the men or monsters they stumbled upon. It wasn't as exciting as Ellie believed it would be, more depressing than anything. At one point, Samara and Ellie switched spots due to the girls becoming too loud for both adults—mostly Joel. Kieran pulled out a folder with ripped out pages from various books. She admired her annotations all over them and there are some pages written with Samara and Kieran's handwriting. Ellie glanced over and asked to see. She had said she would show her favorites.
Kieran showed her some. They all had a similar theme of love or devotion—Kieran was still learning what differed between the two.
"Do you write?"
"Sometimes."
"Can I see?" Ellie appeared genuinely intrigued by Kieran's interests. She wasn't embarrassed of her writing; she had no reason to care what Ellie thought of her. After inspecting the papers, she handed Ellie one. It was a poem of a bird preferring the cage over the world.
"This is good. Maybe when everything's back to normal, you can make this into a poetry book."
Kieran shrugged, eyeing Samara. "Maybe."
Kieran allowed Ellie to read more to occupy her time even after she went beside Joel, it allowed Kieran to observe him. She noticed Joel's long stares at Samara. Kieran couldn't help but hate it. It is a look of love, a lost love that is still inside them both; maybe it was still there, a lingering feeling that connected them until their untimely demise. Kieran knew how much they hurt each other after Samara took her in. She knows how badly Samara hurt. Kieran blamed it all on Joel. She is fine with him, but if he hurt Samara again, she wasn't opposed to hurting him the same.
Joel veered off the road, driving into an open area in the woods. Sun had yet to set, but it was best to stop now and get a lay of the lands before night fell. Samara stayed in the truck for a moment longer. When Kieran questioned it, Samara dismissed it and volunteered her and Kieran to set up the sleeping bags. Samara didn't need the help for such a simple task; she wanted to talk to Kieran.
The young girl's eyes tracked the older woman; examining as she placed hers and Kieran's sleeping bags together but kept Kieran in the middle with Ellie's. The smell of Chef Boyardee filled the air as Joel cooked two cans. Despite Kieran's distaste for taking all their food from home, it helped.
"She isn't your friend, Kieran," Samara signed, giving Kieran a stern expression. "This isn't a game, it's a mission."
"How am I supposed to not talk to them for, what? Weeks? Months?" Kieran argued back, finding Samara's rules to be stupid. House rules, settling rules, rules, rules, rules. All of it was stupid. It made her confined into a box that Samara needed her to be in to ensure she would be safe. She could easily protect herself; she had done everything under the sun and moon and covered in blood that had proved that. Yet still Samara doubted her.
Kieran attempted to walk away but Samara forced her to watch her hands. "I'm not expecting you to do that, but I am expecting you to watch what you say and do. If we get close, then what happens when we get to the Fireflies?"
Samara could tell Kieran was still not getting it. "Friends and allies are two different things. We need allies, not friends."
Kieran stared at her, trying not to express her thoughts. She did well with a stone-cold face. Ellie seemed to be nice. Besides threatening each other in the beginning, she was just another kid trying to survive like Kieran. She made her laugh, smile, and feel good; almost forgetting what was happening around them. Kieran guessed that was the dangerous part. Joel was a different story. She wasn't sure how to go about this predicament. All she could do was trust Samara was right.
"Okay."
"It is nice to hear you laugh again."
The young girl didn't know what to say. Instead, she walked away to eat in silence.
As the tiny group settled down to sleep, Samara noticed Kieran pulling away from Ellie.
Ellie attempted to share her book with Kieran, but Samara's words still haunt her. She turned away from the girl in her sleeping bag, though Ellie's eyes still linger on her back. The distant gaze of Samara's eyes gave her context that Joel and Ellie were speaking. Ellie, not knowing how to deal with silence, cracked jokes that only made the silence grow. That's when she asked the question that circled her head: would someone attack them? From that moment, Samara was once again reminded that they were just children.
She had taught Kieran to seize her fear and utilize it to her benefit. Fear kept people alive, kept them on their toes and aware of their surroundings. Certain fears she grew out of like the dark and bad men, some fear lingered around like a ghost. Infected and small spaces; things she couldn't control scared her, how else would be apprehend her fears if she couldn't control them? Ellie was experiencing it all for the first time. Being told of the dangers was one thing, but being surrounded by it was another.
An unspoken decision was agreed upon by the adults to stand guard. Though, Joel had been up for hours without asking for a switch.
Samara observed his posterior as he concentrated on the woods. How tense he was seemed to be a consequence of the life he lived. Even in the QZ, a place meant to keep them safe, he feared his surroundings.
Some part of her felt bad for him; he never got to achieve the peace Bill and Frank had, or even what she and Kieran had. He was still stuck in a loop.
"Hey," Samara called out, low enough for neither girl to awaken. "I'll watch, get some sleep."
Joel being Joel, he shook his head.
"You're gonna need sleep. Stop being stubborn," Samara continued, placing her hand on the barrel of his rifle to lower it. His eyes met hers without hatred for the first time since she saw him at the State Building. They were no longer fighting each other for their own safety and lack of purpose.
"I brought coffee," he told, guiding the rifle from her hand and focusing on the trees.
She couldn't help but chuckle. His obsession continued no matter what. A bitter feeling similar to the way he preferred his coffee, swelled up inside of her, grabbing ahold of her organs with a twist. She had promised herself days ago she would not let old feelings resurface. Months spent pacing and sobbing over dreams of him would not come back after learning to live without him just because he stared at her with curiosity, or the proximity of their bodies in the night.
"What?" he asked, perplexed by her and the things he would never understand again.
"You haven't changed," is what she wanted to say to him with a smile. Then she remembered who they were and what she did. They weren't friends, they were definitely not lovers. They weren't anything to each other anymore. There was no connection besides a legal agreement that ended the day the government fell. She made sure of that. She shook her head, grabbed her semi-automatic rifle and stood beside him.
Instead, she said, "I need to know I can trust you."
He scoffed, glancing at her then scoffed again. Samara narrowed her eyes at him. "It always comes back to what you need."
"This mission isn't 'bout me, or you. It's 'bout keeping that girl alive," she recalled harshly. It was the only way she knew how without the walls she formed around her heart and the large patch inside that once housed her life before to succumb to his presence and falter like Rome. "Once we find Tommy, you're gone. Until then, we have to agree that all that shit in the past means nothing to keep her alive."
All that shit in the past meant everything. That was their children, their love that formed over a drunken night and strengthened over resisting the urge to become a slave to the bottle. Her heart ached as the words left her lips. They were the last things she wanted to come from her lips, right next to having his lips against hers just once more.
Whether he got better at hiding his pain or truly stopped caring about her, Joel made no expression.
"We put everything behind us until this is over," he restated, looking away from her. Thank God.
Samara nodded despite him looking away. "And Kieran," she started, gaining his attention. "She's smart and capable. She works well when you trust her and work with her. She's good with a gun and will find a way to get her hands on one to prove it to you."
Joel furrowed his eyebrows.
"Don't hold what I did against her. If anything happens to me, you take her—
"Woah—"
"—you take her," Samara cut him off, forcing him to listen to her terms; it wasn't just because she needed to hear it but because she needed to know her death wasn't for nothing, "bring her to Tommy or something, you just...do not let Marlene get a hold of her, okay?" She stared at him hard, pleading to him for the first time in years.
"Okay."
Their silence filled the air. Tension had floated into the atmosphere, leaving room to breath without hold it a little longer for security.
Ten years were a long time. Enough time to contemplate and wonder of what it would have been like to have stayed or took him with. Enough time to let the nightmares fester. Enough time to know that in the moment of silence in the night, Samara had missed Joel more than she wanted to believe.
Nights spent cradling Kieran's
adolescent body as the guilt settling atop of the woman in the dead of night. No one to save her, no one to protect her, no one to love her endlessly. It was her choice to leave. No amount of guilt could wipe away her slate clean. Not a single apology would remedy the shattered pieces of their love.
Joel broke the silence with his sharp tongue. "Driving still make you sick?"
"I guess so." She never had a reason to drive before, yet the moment she got behind the wheel something bubbled inside of her. She tried her best to conceal it. For the girls, it worked. But Joel knew her better than she wanted him to. "It'll be fine though."
"Sure it will."
"Where in Wyoming did you say your brother was?" Ellie inquired as she examined the map.
Kieran perked up behind Ellie, peering over her shoulder. If it was for the photo Eugene had left behind when he and Tommy first went on their mission, she would have forgotten Tommy's face. Stuck as a bookmark, it was still a good reminder of the man. Though he shared similar features with Joel, Tommy was more pleasant to look at; more fun and more interesting. Tommy was more like a person, while Joel was a brick wall.
"Last contact came through a radio tower close to Cody," Joel answered.
Kieran had been a few years younger and less inclined to eavesdrop before. All she remembered was that Uncle Tommy was leaving and wouldn't be able to visit like he used to; Samara made sure that was all she remembered. His friend Eugene was funny, had a weirdly long beard, and was good at distracting her. He told her of his daughter, around her age, and much like Kieran, stuck with only a mother to take care of her.
She had always asked what Samara's last conversation with Tommy was about.
Reaching over Ellie's shoulder, Kieran pointed at the label "Cody."
"Ah, man. That is deep up there."
"It'll start snowing when we reach it, right?" Kieran looked to Samara, rather than Joel but he answered before Samara could.
"Most likely. We'll pass places we can loot for layers."
"And if he's not there?" Ellie asked, being the only one without ties to the man in the north.
"Then odds are he'll be near a settlement, probably close to another city out there." One thing that Samara could possibly—very small possibly—admire about Joel was his determination. Tommy was his family, the last one who could stand to be in the same vicinity as him. "Ain't too many of 'em in Wyoming."
"Would the North be a better place to settle down?" Kieran began as her mind ran through ideas. Joel's eyes flickered to her as she leaned her chin on the headrest. "Most plants die in the winter and the snow would cover any fungi."
"You'd just have to worry about people," Joel added, focusing on the road. "Wouldn't be too bad of an idea, though."
For some reason, a faint smile appeared on Kieran's face. It happened the same way when Bill would compliment her ideas or theories.
"What's his name?" Ellie asked after she read some of the towns in Wyoming.
"Whose name?"
"Your brother."
"Tommy," both Kieran and Joel answered. His eyes met hers once more, to which she forced her eyes away from him and onto the map. Samara was right. She was too comfortable, her guard laid out like a dog on a hot summer day. They were not friends.
"Younger or older?"
"Younger." His voice became lower, more difficult for Kieran to hear with how she was positioned.
"Why isn't he with you?"
"Long story."
"Is it longer than 25 hours? 'Cause I think that's what we got."
If Kieran believed she was getting too comfortable then she believed Ellie had become making this mission a home. Questions upon questions about things they weren't supposed to understand.
Kieran was surprised when Joel began explaining. Less surprised when Samara shifted uncomfortably next to her.
"Tommy's what we used to call a "joiner." Dreams of becomin' a hero. So he enlisted in the Army right outta high school. A few months later they ship him off to Desert Storm. It's what they called that war. It doesn't matter. Point is, bein' in the Army didn't make him feel much like a hero. Cut to twelve years later, outbreak happens. He convinces us...to join a group makin' their way up to Boston, which I did mostly to keep an eye on him, keep him alive.
"It's where we met Tess. And that whole crew, we, uh...Well, for what it was, it worked."
"Barely," Samara let out, catching Joel's lingering eyes in the mirror.
"And then Tommy meets Marlene. She talks him into joinin' the Fireflies. Same Mistake he made when he was 18. Wants to save the world. Pipe dream. Him, Fireflies, all of 'em...delusional. 'Course, last I heard, he quit the Fireflies, too. So now he's on his own out there, and... I gotta go get him."
"If you don't think there's hope for the world, why bother going on?" Ellie asked after taking in Tommy's story from his brother's eyes. "I mean, you gotta try, right?"
"He barely did," is what Samara wanted to say. She wanted to tell Ellie how much of a lifeless corpse he became with bitterness spitting out with each word. All these emotions flooded back to her the longer she neared him.
Her knee began to bounce as her pointer finger and middle finger desired a cigarette to press between her lips, sending a burning sensation down her throat and lungs. All to be reminded of her actions.
"You haven't seen the world, so you don't know," Joel told. "You keep goin' for family."
He wasn't wrong. That's the only way they survived the journey from Texas. They had each other and that's all they needed–or so she wanted to believe. That belief kept them together for longer than Samara thought it would.
"I'm not family," Ellie stated.
"No... you're cargo. And I made a promise to Tess. She was like family."
At some point, Kieran leaned back. Her brown eyes burned holes into Samara as Joel spoke. If she wanted to, she would have chewed out the man. Yet, she sat still and watched.
His words didn't hurt, not a sting or a pinch. His words were his truth. She did leave him; it was expected of the corpse to find something to fight for again. Just like she did.
"Then what happened between you two? You were family, right?" Ellie asked without hesitation. Joel narrowed his eyes at Ellie, and Samara kept a steady gaze. "Could you tell it, Samara?"
Silence filled the truck with a tension so thick, one could choke on it. Samara craved a cigarette and Kieran wanted to escape the remaining drive.
Samara met Joel's eyes in the mirror. She could find the man she once loved if she dug deep and prayed. But there was no way she would do that anymore.
"Found something to live for and I couldn't stay in the QZ if I wanted to protect it. So I left and never looked back." Her eyes were on Kieran now. "Nothing more."
"But you stayed close to the QZ?"
"Tommy was able to get away from the Fireflies 'cause he had no ties. Marlene could find fifty men like him in a day."
Ellie stared at Samara for a moment before turning to the window.
"What if you don't find him?" Ellie asked Joel, wanting to know what would happen to him once they separate.
"I will."
"How do you know?"
"I'm persistent."
Samara rolled her eyes at his comment before waving at Kieran to lay down. Her fingers ran through the white patch.
She remembered when it began to appear, nearly the same time where Joel's persistence grew worse than Marlene's. Before she dared to turn to Bill and Frank for help, Samara took care of the five-year-old in what remained of a motel complex. Joel busted open each and every door until he found them. It was the first time she had seen him beg and the first time she had never seen anything like Kieran's streak before.
In that moment, Samara chose what she deemed most important to her. She saw a chance of something new with the child; something Joel would only interfere with. Something he would one day ruin.
Now that she thought of it, it no longer mattered. They would have always ended up in the same place again. He was persistent after all.