Hello! When Uncharted 4 came out and Nolan North was all, this is definitely going to be the last adventure for Nate, I thought HE'S FOR SURE GONNA DIE. And then, you know, he had a kid instead. Which to me maybe feels the same? Anyway. This is how I think that would have gone.
Spoilers and character death abound, friends.
The Crane Wife xx
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Okay. Okay.
The fight with Rafe could have gone… better. Although, what's more piratey than a bona fide sword fight? In some ways, it was fitting, but mostly it was awful. Intense. Terrifying. The way Rafe looked at him. It was unadulterated hatred and yeah, Nate's made some enemies (the nature of treasure hunting), but none of that compares to this.
In the last 3 weeks, he's been tossed from a building. Thrown off of a cliff. Shot at. Beaten up. Betrayed. Yelled at. Divorced, possibly. On the plus side, he's yet to be poisoned by darts?
Frankly, he thinks, there's still time.
So he has a sword fight with Rafe. One that he's not even sure he got out of unscathed. But he wins (evidenced by: he's outside of the boat and Rafe is still in it). He sets off a cannon. Gets a beam off of his brother, via flooding. So they're off.
And now...
Nate's swimming away, toward the entrance of the cave. Sam's directly in front of him. And Nate's taking deep breaths. In and out. Because he can feel his eyes getting heavy and he's not sure why, but he can't stop to think about it because the ship is burning and about to explode and they have to get the hell out of here or they're going to explode right along with it.
"Come on, brother!" Sam screams. Nate hears it, but only faintly. The world is becoming a bit fuzzier- because it's so hot? Because of the fire? The salt in the water and the fumes in the air could explain his difficulty seeing, but that wouldn't account for his ears not functioning correctly.
He closes his eyes for a second. His head is foggy and there are spots on his lids.
Ah, shit.
"Nathan!" Sam yells again, far away. "Nathan, don't you dare pass out!"
Nate's eyes open and he lurches forward, a motion that he isn't aware that he's doing. "I'm okay!" he responds, more aware of the world now - at least, things feel a bit more centered. Sam's stopped swimming and is waiting for Nate to catch up, "I'm okay, go, go!" he yells, finding himself breathless, "Go, we've gotta get out of here!"
Sam throws a look at him, one that Nate just barely sees, but Nate is aware of all of the paternal worry that Sam's always carried where he's concerned. Go, he thinks, and he's almost relieved when Sam turns away from him and keeps swimming.
I can do this. Right arm, left arm. Breathe in. Right arm, left arm. Breathe out.
Nate's fighting to keep his eyes open, but he's moving, going forward. He can do this. He has to do this. Elena is waiting on the beach, waiting for them, and she'll be so fucking pissed if he doesn't make it out of this cave.
Elena.
His eyes are heavy again.
In his mind, Nate dies having sex with Elena. They're old. Maybe the oldest people on Earth. The shit they've seen, he sort of believes this could happen. Anyway, they're old and he dies, blissfully, with this woman who loves him. Who he loves more than anything. He knew the moment he met her he'd love her fiercely. Forever. He knew and barely hoped she see something in him worth loving back.
He's told her this before, about dying old while getting busy (his words) and she laughed. Smacked him. "You could be so lucky," she said, indignant as ever, but he knew she didn't mean it (he told her so). Anyway, she laughed at the image, and he kissed her, thinking that growing old with her was all he never knew he wanted in this life.
"Elena," he says aloud, though no one can hear it. A prayer maybe. A promise. A last bit of hope. Everything is so blurry now and it's so difficult to see. He can barely tell that they're almost at the mouth of the cave.
"You still with me, brother?" Sam calls to him, "We're almost there! Don't you stop swimming!"
"I'm with you," he says, but there's no way that Sam heard him.
"Nathan!"
"I'm with you," he whispers.
"NATHAN!"
"Yeah!" he yells back, although it's more of a cough.
/
The adrenaline is wearing off and mostly, now, Nate feels sleepy. There's a stinging feeling in his abdomen that he's only just noticing. Did he get hurt without realizing? He did just have an honest-to-god sword fight.
"Come on, Nathan!"
Maybe Sam knows something he doesn't and that's why he's so worried. Nate nearly laughs aloud at this: that's basically been the story of their entire life. Sam has always been one step ahead. Nate has just been trying to keep up.
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He only knows they've made it out of the cave because it's so bright. Almost blindingly so. Because it was so dark in the cave. His eyes are adjusting. Right? Everything still sounds strange, far away. The boat exploded and they weren't too far from it when that happened; he's not sure he would hear anything else, even under the best of circumstances.
What's worrying him presently is how sure he is that if he closes his eyes, he won't be able to open them again. He's tired. The sun is burning. His head is spinning.
Right. Tired. Who wouldn't be? Given everything, surely, he's earned a bit of exhaustion.
Right arm, left arm. Breathe in. Right arm, left arm. Breathe out.
The abdomen-stinging has now graduated to throbbing. Teetering on burning. For some reason (a distraction, maybe?), he pictures that scale of faces doctors use to gauge pain. Happy to crying.
Currently, his pain is at a grimace. Past halfway on the scale.
His eyes are a bit more adjusted now and he can make out Sam's frame being pulled out of the water. Dry land. They're almost there.
"Elena?" he says, but it's nothing more than a mumble.
"Nathan!" Sam cries, and he's shocked to see his brother diving back in.
No, no. I'm fine. Stay there.
Sam's at his side in a second and dragging Nate back to the shoreline. Ha - Shoreline.
Fuck them.
"I gotcha," his brother croons. His back is against Sam's chest now and he can feel his eyes rolling in his head. "Hold on, Nathan," Sam says again.
The last thing Nate notices, as he's being hoisted out of the water by his brother and - Elena? - is how red the water is, a curved line from the cave to… here.
"Nathan! Jesus Christ, hang on, brother."