A/N: This story goes off my personal headcanon that the annihilation of Hope County following the Resist ending was a Bliss-induced hallucination. I really do not like either ending of what is all in all an amazing game. More chapters will be coming soon- I hope you enjoy!
Just so you know, this story is rated M for violence, language, and eventual sexual themes.
There was fire in the sky.
The ground itself was buckling.
He looked up to see the trees going up like matchsticks, all while feeling the heat of a million suns on his skin.
The entire time, all he could think was-
Seed was right. He was fuckin' right.
Then, there was an impact. He swam in and out of consciousness. There was the feeling of movement. More blackness.
When he finally awoke, he was looking into the face of a man who had lost much, but in end, had won.
Joseph Seed stared down at Deputy Morgan Rook with a look on his face that showed that even though his family was dead, his organization in ruins, he was happy. Happy because…
He was right.
"Rook!"
"Hey, Rook!"
"Deputy? Deputy, you hear me?"
"Morgan!"
There was a curious whimper from one of the onlookers, who promptly trotted over and joined the crowd attempting to rouse Deputy Morgan Rook. Boomer decided to contribute a few licks to the face of his master, which proved to be enough.
Morgan opened his eyes, staring at the throng of concerned faces staring down at him.
Sheriff Earl Whitehorse shook his head. "Goddamn, son, you alright? You had me worried there."
Morgan blinked rapidly.
"What- what happened?"
He met the eyes of the one person who had been covering his back these past few weeks. Someone he had grown to trust as they took on the forces of Eden's Gate during the fight to take back their home.
Jess Black.
The master huntress was silent and her face remained void of any emotion. For the most part. Morgan's green eyes met her own ocean blue eyes. They were filled with a genuine concern, the kind he had seen few times before. Each time he had seen her eyes like that, it was when he was down for the count and when Morgan felt he was not long for this world. Or when she and other resistance members found him stumbling through the woods after one of his "talks" with Faith or Jacob.
She wore her usual stoic frown, but she was concerned. Scared, maybe. Although Morgan knew there were few things in the world Jess Black feared. Was him dying one of them? That was quite the thought.
"Here, Dep," Nick Rye said as he and Whitehorse grabbed Morgan by the arms and helped him sit up.
"You were mumbling about Dutch and… nukes? Of all things to be worried about," Whitehorse said, somewhat bewildered at his deputy's drug induced ramblings.
"Yeah. Joseph hit you with the Bliss before the sheriff could make the arrest. You missed us taking that fucker down," Mary May Fairgrave added with a chuckle.
Morgan missed most of Mary's statement. His mind was still hazy, until he heard the name of Joseph Seed.
"Seed! Where is he?" he asked frantically as he pushed away from Nick and Whitehorse and got to his feet.
"Right over there," Whitehorse replied, jerking his head towards the shirtless form of the cult leader on his knees, who was being watched by Deputy Hudson, Pastor Jerome Jeffries, and Grace Armstrong.
Jess came over to Morgan and steadied the deputy, who was wobbling on his feet.
"You alright?" she asked, obviously trying to keep her cool. Her voice was wavering as she spoke, indictive of someone trying to keep it together. The last time her voice sounded like that, she was running towards Morgan after he was almost crushed by the burning hulk of a Chosen airplane.
"I'm fine," Morgan told her, although he was not sure himself. He put a hand on her shoulder, partially to steady himself and partially to give his friend and companion a reassuring squeeze.
The rest of the crew stood in front of the Father. He was looking at the ground, hands handcuffed behind his back, and was sobbing. The usually eerily calm and even toned prophet looked completely out of character as a combination of tears, blood and snot rolled down his face. He was alternating between mumbling and shouting to no one in particular. Or maybe he was trying to shout at God.
"It's not fair. It's just not fair…" Seed muttered between sobs. "I was chosen. God showed me the future. What was coming."
"He's just sad his prophesized Collapse turned out to be a load of shit," Grace said with a smirk.
Seed ranted on, ignoring his captors and in utter disbelief that he was indeed wrong.
"They died for nothing!" he went on, louder now. "My family. They sacrificed themselves. I sacrificed everything! It wasn't supposed to end like this!"
"Oh, shut the fuck up already!" Jess growled before delivering a swift kick to the ranting prophet's crotch. The man grunted in pain and doubled over, falling on his side and assuming a fetal position as he groaned on the ground.
"Is Dutch okay?" Morgan asked anyone who would reply. He was still having trouble figuring out what was real and what was a Bliss-induced nightmare.
Whitehorse took off the handheld radio at his hip. "Hey, Dutch, you there?"
The radio buzzed after a second or two. "I'm here, sheriff. You take that asshole down yet?"
"We got him, Dutch. Get your HAM working. I'll be there soon to let the feds know," Whitehorse spoke into his radio.
"You got it, Earl. Dutch out."
Whitehorse turned back to Morgan. "Dutch is fine, son."
Morgan let out a sigh of relief. The last of the Bliss was leaving his system and he was able to begin putting it all together.
"Oh, good. When Joseph hit me with the Bliss… I saw things. A bomb went off! A nuke! I saw it in the mountains. And- and we all drove to Dutch's bunker and the car crashed and-" Morgan began listing off what he had seen, coming out as disjointed as the whole experience was to him.
"Whoa! Slow down there!" Whitehorse started, putting up his hands to slow down his raving deputy. "What matters is what you saw wasn't real. We got him. It's over."
Morgan took his words and tried to comprehend them all one by one.
"Hey," Jess began, putting a hand on Morgan's shoulder, "the sheriff's right. It's done."
"For real?"
"Yeah. For real," Jess said.
She smiled at Morgan. There were few reasons she smiled. Whenever she did, it had to be for a damn good reason.
At that point, Morgan knew everything was okay. They had indeed won.
Joseph Seed turned out to be wrong after all.
On the main street of the tiny town of Fall's End, Morgan and his allies stood in front of the Spread Eagle, watching as a pair of FBI agents shoved a blank faced Joseph into the back of an armored SUV. The sun was setting and the red and blue lights of the FBI vehicles washed over the faces of the onlookers.
"Think we'll be called to be witnesses?" Mary asked her friends.
Hudson shrugged. "I'd rather not be. This trial is gonna be a fucking circus."
"Well, the feds are probably going to be focused on cleaning up this place first. I think Joseph won't be seeing a court room for a while," Whitehorse mused.
One of the FBI agents walked on over to Whitehorse, nodding quickly as the sheriff nodded back.
"Well, sheriff…"
"It's okay. We didn't need your help or anything," Hudson snapped at the FBI man.
Whitehorse held up a placating hand. "Thanks for taking Seed off our hands, Agent…?"
"Hanson," the FBI agent finished.
"Agent Hanson. I understand the National Guard will be helping with cleaning up the rest of the, uh, insurgent elements still in the county?"
Agent Hanson nodded. "Correct, sheriff. But I understand the people of this county have been holding their own."
Whitehorse nodded. "Indeed."
"Hell of a thing. Well, if you folks could keep doing more of 'holding your own,' that would be helpful. The government is pretty tied up at the moment with the Russia incident."
Morgan stepped forward. "Wait… I heard on the radio Moscow was nuked. Is that true?"
Hanson shook his head. "Nah. At first, we thought it was nuclear. But that was just rumors and bad intelligence. No, some terrorist faction snuck several large bombs into the city and detonated them. Massive damage. Not nuclear, though."
With this new revelation, Morgan nodded, looking off at the distance. It made sense. Most of it.
Bliss was a hell of a drug.
"Huh," Morgan managed.
Hanson gave a quick nod. "Alright, then. I'll leave you folks to it. Sheriff, I'll be in touch."
Whitehorse returned with a brief nod. Hanson turned and headed back to the lead SUV of the FBI convoy without a glance back at the locals. With their lights flashing, the four FBI vehicles peeled down Main Street, presumably on their way to Missoula International Airport, where Joseph would be flown to the nearest FBI field office in Salt Lake City.
The key players of the Hope County Resistance forces watched in silence as the man they had fought so hard against disappeared over the horizon, hopefully out of their lives forever. Despite what should have felt like a great victory, the survivors of the war against Eden's Gate felt almost… hollow. It was difficult to describe. None of them commented on it until Mary May turned back to her watering hole, waving her friends forward.
"Come on, folks, what are we all still doing out here? Let's celebrate! Enough of this doom and gloom shit. I've had enough of that for a lifetime!" she told them.
The group relaxed, breaking a tension that was silently hanging in the air. She was right. The war was over and the Seed family and their Project would be a distant memory. It was time to truly relax for the first time in a very long time.
"And there he is- the man of the hour! Hell, man of the fucking century!" Nick announced from his spot at the bar as Morgan walked in.
The numerous townsfolk and other Hope County residents packed into the humble bar broke out into cheers and applause, all focused on Morgan. He responded by looking to the ground and awkwardly smiling. Morgan was not used to being the center of attention.
He was practically assaulted by handshakes, claps on the back, high fives, and fist bumps. Several people spoke to him at once.
"Damn proud of you, rookie," Whitehorse said with a hint of sarcasm towards using the "rookie" moniker.
"You know, I've been lying this whole time. You're a hell of a shot, Rook," Grace told him as he moved past her.
Kim Rye came over, carrying baby Nicole Rye in a basket. She leaned over and kissed Morgan on the cheek.
"Thanks for everything, Morgan," she said. Kim looked down at her infant daughter.
"Say 'thank you' to your godfather, Nikki," she cooed at Nicole. The baby Rye giggled and held out a hand at Morgan. The deputy could not help but smile and let the young girl grip his index finger as she laughed in the way babies do when they are entertained.
"Eli was right about you. And he would've been proud," Tammy Barnes of the Whitetail Militia said to Morgan. He felt regret well up inside him at her comment.
His feelings were interrupted by Hurk Drubman Senior, who clapped Morgan on the shoulder and grabbed his right hand, which he vigorously shook.
"You're a true goddamn American, Deputy Rook," the gruff Senate hopeful told him. He appeared to be on the verge of tears of joy. Hurk Drubman Junior pushed past the others around him and wrapped Morgan in a crushing bear hug.
"Deputy! You are fucking awesome, man!" Hurk Junior chattered excitedly. "Man, I'm telling you. Blowing up Peggies with you was a once in a lifetime experience! Even more awesome than all the shit I did in the Rook Islands- you ever been there? It's named after you, man! Anyway, cooler than all the shit I did down there, cooler than all the shit I did in Kyrat, and I'm telling you, dude, I did some cool shit over there!"
Morgan excised himself from Hurk's bro-hug.
"Yeah, Hurk, it was, uh, memorable…"
Hurk went on. "Look, man, I'm getting a new tattoo right here on my chest. It's gonna be dedicated to you, alright? I'm already tat bros with Jack, Jason, and Ajay, but you're gonna be my new favorite, man, I'm telling you…"
Pastor Jeffries gently, but firmly, pushed the excited Hurk away. The pastor led Morgan to the bar, where he stood before the crowd. They seemed eager to see what he had to say.
"This man is a gift from God," Jefferies addressed his comrades, "he came in our time of need and struck down the wolves!"
Several cheers of agreement came in reply.
"It's been a rough few months, but we pulled through. I had faith we would. And I'm glad a man like Deputy Rook was there to lead the charge."
Morgan, who had been overwhelmed by the praise being heaped on him, stepped forward.
"It's nothing, Father. We all did our part. I did no more than anyone else. I just did what I had to do to push back against the people who wanted to take everything we loved away."
Jeffries smiled. "And he's a humble man too! Just as the Lord likes it."
There were several laughs, Morgan included.
"Give us a speech, brother!" Hurk shouted.
"Yeah, speech!"
"Speech! Speech! Speech!" several members of the crowd chanted.
Morgan smiled and shook his head. "Let me think of one and I'll give it to you later. Mary?"
The bartender grinned at him. "What can I do for you, deputy?"
"Get me an IPA, any kind, and get these people some food. I think we're all starving."
Mary slid Morgan an ice-cold beer while the crowd cheered as Casey and his cooks bought out the food.
Morgan twisted off the top of his beer and looked past the crowd. Jess was standing at the back, not wanting to be noticed, as usual. Her arms were folded across her chest and she wore her normal stoic expression. Morgan looked past the bustling crowd and met her eyes. She noticed Morgan was looking at her and she picked her head up. Jess gave one of her rare genuine smiles and Morgan felt his lips turn into a natural smile of his own.
He looked at her and felt something in the pit of his stomach jump. Morgan could not recall any woman who had ever had that effect on him. Was there any other woman in the world like her? Probably not. No, definitely not.
Something about locking eyes with Jess in that moment made the world seem slower. In this moment, he just wanted to look at her, the master huntress, the only person he had come to truly trust to keep him alive in the field.
God.
She was beautiful.
Maybe that was not the proper word to describe Jess. She was not simply "pretty" or "hot" or "beautiful" or any other basic term a man might use.
Morgan did not know what term to use. But he was content to just keep his eyes on her right now. But he did wish Jess and him could do more than just lock eyes across the room.
He took a swig of his beer and found Jess had disappeared. Probably to seek out a secluded corner. Morgan put his bottle down and went to find her. Remind himself of all the good in the world after witnessing so much of the horror humans could wreak on other humans.
The cult was nearly destroyed. But not eradicated. There would be more work for Morgan and Jess in the near future.
He actually looked forward to that.
