Standard Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I don't own "The Last of Us". Naughty Dog does, and each time I pick up my controller I must applaud their genius. Bravo.
o~O~o
She died on the night of the outbreak. Three hours in, actually *. Three hours of elapsed time in which the world seemed to actively deliver itself to Hell on a platter. God, what he wouldn't give to remember it as vividly as he does. What he wouldn't give.
But remember it he does. Remember it he cannot help. Even on his good days, when Tess is in a jocular mood or Bill comes through with a good shipment, he fears the dark and the night-terrors he knows will in good time come calling. The hill, the bridge, both silhouetted against the indifferent night sky by the blaring lights that spoke to him of the rampant panic raging around him. The snap of bullets cleaving the humid air in two, the shriek of his baby girl as she was wrenched from his arms, her cries of agony joining in chorus with his own, the sting of hot tears falling to mingle with the thick, sticky blood on his hands. Sarah. Baby girl … This is when he jolts awake, midway through the only constant thing in his life nowadays; the dream of the day he lost her. "DON'T DO THIS TO ME!"
His scream will reverberate off the walls, hollow and broken just like him. He will gasp and claw at his chest, at his scrabbling heart, trying to orient himself in this dark new reality. If she's there, Tess will tug sleepily on his arm and get him to lie back down, her hand rubbing slow, soft, soothing circles in his shoulder as he trembles and fights the urge to cry. In moments like these he becomes painfully aware of the gaping hole in his chest … the hole where she should be. It is cavernous, it is consuming. It tears him apart from the inside out. It hunts him as mercilessly as a Stalker, choosing the point at which he is most vulnerable to attack. In the dark, in the gloom, in the sticky pall of nothing, her face hovers before him. It smiles, it grins, it beguiles him with those achingly familiar grey eyes, and he reaches for it. For her. But she is too quick for him, always too quick … her fleeting essence dissipates as his fingers brush it and he is left reaching for nothing. Nothing.
It seems that with every passing day, he and the godforsaken concept of nothing become tighter than even he and Tess could ever be. And he loathes himself for it.
Not a day goes by where he doesn't pine for Sarah. Not a day goes by he doesn't miss her quirks or her terrible choice in music, her bubbly laugh or her independence. The watch she gifted him, fractured as his spirit, becomes a metaphoric focal point for the tear she left in his life. And yet, in spite of all this – the nightmares, the intrinsic loneliness, the omnipotent sense of purposelessness – there's rarely a day goes where he, bereaved Joel Miller, isn't grateful for something else entirely.
It may be a Clicker. It could be the soldiers patrolling the rooftops, shooting at any citizen acting in a disorderly or otherwise disruptive manner. Perhaps a bandit, or a hunter, whose delight in malice makes him at times physically sick to the stomach. Or maybe, maybe, just another faceless being that got in his way – smuggler, citizen, soldier, they're all the same to him. One way or another, each time he kills, something powerful and poignant is brought home to him.
In spite of everything, upon seeing his weathered hands stained with the blood of his self-imagined foes, he inwardly rejoices that Sarah is not there to see the monster her father has become. Against all odds, he is – in the most perverted, twisted, gut-wrenching way – glad she is dead. Because of that fateful night outside Austin, Joel does not need worry about how damaging an impact this screwed-up world might have had on his precious baby girl. The lethal bullet that cleaved Sarah's midsection in two salvaged her spirit in the most cleansing of ways; the most beautiful example of irony he has ever encountered. Because of that soldier, Sarah is immortalised as one of the many 'innocents' – never to be looked at aslant or have her memory spat upon, never to be hunted or forced to embrace the animalistic side lurking within every man, woman and child. Because of all that – Joel can still have his baby girl. His untarnished, beautiful, miraculously salvaged baby girl.
And for him, even on the darkest of days, it's enough to keep him going.
… Just.
o~O~o
A/N:
For my first tentative toe-dip into the world that is "The Last of Us", I sincerely believe this came out how I wanted it to. The bond between Joel and Sarah forms the underlying emotional current of the game, infringed upon and glorified only by the burgeoning father-daughter relationship between Joel and Ellie, and I felt the urge to write this. The notion came to me while I was watching Joel and Tess torture Robert. The game's commencement gives us a Joel who will in time develop into a survivor but who is, at heart, a paternal figure to one of the most enduring characters. Inasmuch, I concluded that, should Sarah have survived the soldier's attack, she and Joel would have been estranged somehow as I doubt she, such a pure character, would have condoned his manner of conduct. As I mentioned above, the rebirth of Sarah through death is one of the most beautiful examples of irony I've ever happened across, and subsequently I decided it deserved some homage.
I hope you enjoyed it. This is my first foray into the "The Last of Us" fandom, so constructive criticism would be much appreciated. I have a few little stories brewing in this old noggin' of mine that relate to this magnificent universe, so stay tuned folks – rest assured that *puts on Terminator voice* "I'LL BE BACK."
*Quick footnote; when Sarah passed, the hands of Joel's watch were nearly at 3am. That's the time my headcanon is going to adhere to as the official moment of her death. Poor baby girl :( Also, the picture's not mine. Just sayin'.