ONE DAY

She remembered the outbreak.

She remembered driving down the highway with Gloria and Jessie, rock music blasting out of the windows, beer spilling onto the dashboard, cigarettes flying out into the night. College kids high out of their minds, racing into the dark of the unknown, throwing it all away. They lived for the moment, for the heavy, swollen highs and the burning, aching lows. The drive was all there ever was, all there ever would be.

She remembered the gas stations and the bars. The flashing lights and the pounding music. The shy young men and the rowdy boys. The motel rooms with their stained carpets and their roaches. The arguments with her mother, the howling, the fury. The sunsets. The drugs. The sex. The blood.

She remembered the news reports. She remembered the evacuations, the phone calls that never went through, the crying, the shaking. She remembered Gloria wailing and shouting. She remembered the empty bottle of pills by her bedside. She remembered her never waking up.

She remembered the first time she saw them. Running wild, their eyes red and bright and ferocious. She remembered shooting a gun for the first time—and then the second, and then the third. She remembered the way it got easier, the way it soon became second nature. She remembered the bombings. The riots. The false hopes and the petty whining. The pleading. The lying. The screaming. The dying.

Tess remembered it all.

The mornings in Jackson were calm and mundane. She laid in bed for a long time each day, numbness eating away at her, restlessness feeding on her flesh. Movement. Action. It was hard to shake those things off after so long, impossible to not see danger behind every corner. "You'll come around," Maria had told her. "It'll just take time."

Time. Time was something she'd never had before, something she never thought she'd ever have. And yet here it was, more than she knew what to do with. Peaceful gray mornings. Coffee. Grits. The lulling burble of streams and the gentle sway of trees.

Her aim was shaky now, most notable when standing on the wall, rifle in hand, pistol on her hip. She was prone to bouts of crying in the evenings, with the sun dipping down below the trees, the stars twinkling in the violet, pink sky, the bright lights coming on, the moths and flies flittering around them. The tears were always so surprising, always so hot and fresh. They sprung like clockwork from some well deep inside, from some secret reservoir hidden away.

When she looked in the mirror, she saw a fuller face, but emptier eyes. Thicker arms, but weaker muscles. Cleaner skin and fewer scars. She would sit in the bathtub for hours, water soaking into her skin, nerves twining ever tighter.

Joel was happy now. She could see it so clearly in his face, in the way he laughed with Tommy, in the way he rode with Ellie, in the way he strummed his guitar and sang to them in the fading evenings. She felt it in the way he touched her back and caressed her arms, in the way he made love to her late in the night. The sex before had always been so reckless and primal, so devoid of any feeling but the physical. But there was a delicate touch in Joel's hands now, a gentle sweetness to the way he treated her body. It reminded her of the bashful, awkward fumblings she'd had with Robbie in the back of his father's car so many years before. The timid kisses and the hesitant touches. Only now there was a firmness, a respect she didn't know how to reciprocate or appreciate. Was it love?

"Ellie's getting better," he told her one morning, looking at her in that strange way, a smile on his lips. "Damn near took my ears off, but she's getting better. Next thing you know, she'll be singing us all to sleep."

She tried to smile, tried to share in his happiness. God only knew how badly she wanted to. But there was something still healing inside, something that just needed more time. He'd gotten his family back. His brother—his daughter. The way he touched his watch. The way he looked at that old photo on the wall. But what had she gotten back, but a life she thought was gone? Her mother was gone. Gloria and Jessie were gone. Robbie was gone. It was all gone. She'd made her peace with that, so why—why was it trying to come back?

She grew closer to Ellie. There was something broken in the girl, too, something slowly piecing itself back together. They talked a lot—about the way life was before, about the dating and the music, the video games and the movies, the boys and the drinking, the drugs and the carelessness. They talked about Henry and Sam. They talked about Riley. They even talked about the winter. But they never talked about the spring.

She loved the girl—not as much as Joel, not as freely as Joel, but she did. There were things she had awoken, feelings she had brought back. But she couldn't help but wonder, staring at Ellie in the hazy, hot afternoons or on the porches at dusk. She couldn't help but wonder about the things that had been and the things that would never be. The things that were broken and the things that were healing. The future that may have seen those fucking things gone forever—more than eradicated—just totally unable to come back, completely destroyed, completely erased. Those monsters that had killed her mother and then Sam and Henry and Gloria and Riley and Frank. They had killed everyone. They had damn near killed her.

And she always turned away angry and ashamed—angry that Joel had destroyed that chance, had killed it so mercilessly and relentlessly. And ashamed—ashamed—ashamed that had he not been there, had it just been her and Ellie—

There were those tears again. Hot and fresh.

It would take time. That's what Maria had said. Time. This is what she had wanted, wasn't it? To settle down, to let the world be what it was. But it was hard—harder than she had ever thought it would be. Ellie and Joel. Joel and Ellie. She didn't belong in that picture. She couldn't explain why or how, but she knew.

And yet the way Joel looked at her, the way he touched her. The way Ellie smiled at her, the way they talked, just girls talking the way they always did. Hadn't she earned that? Hadn't she fought just as hard, just as tooth-and-nail? She had survived—she had struggled with it, just like Joel. Just like Ellie. Just like all the others left behind. She had gone on, if for no other reason than to just go on some more. The drive had been all there ever was for her, all there ever would be—but maybe there was something else at the end of that highway, something waiting at the end of that string of motels and gas stations and humming lights.

It would take time, but one day her hands would stop shaking. One day the old confidence would find its way back again. One day the tears would stop. One day the numbness would fade, and the feeling would return. One day she would be able to fully return Joel's love and Ellie's friendship, like she had always wanted to do.

One day.

(The Last of Us and all related materials are the property of Naughty Dog and Sony Computer Entertainment. No profit is made from this work.)