Disclaimer: I don't own AMC's Fear the Walking Dead. Everything belongs to whoever owns them, my wishful thinking aside.
Authors Note #1: Spoilers up to 1x04: "Not Fade Away." This particular fic is meant to show Travis' thoughts about what is happened, years in the future. Detailing how he processes everything that happened to his family/extended family after 1x04 and how he and the survivors of his ground are living in this future au.
Warnings: Contains: adult language, angst, drama, PTSD, trauma, depression. Basically the twd world chews up Travis and spits him out again on the other side and nothing is good or happy or kind about it.
Thoughts devolved (it's that final hour so stand with me and I will be strong)
He'd always secretly admired that audacity of the tree that clung to the edge of the bank. Defying nature for the sake of a future as it speared its roots deep and held on like screaming. Snarling itself into the cracks between the rocks before digging greedily into the soil, growing thick and strong.
Flipping the odds.
Being the exception.
Surviving.
These days he tried to live that metaphor. He tried to own it and let it define him. Allowing it to sink so deep that sometimes his skin fused together and stuck firm like sap to his sides in his dreams. Even now, years later, he could still taste the char of burning oak and fractured ozone across his tongue as the city burned.
Survival despite all odds.
He figured there were probably worse things to emulate.
He knew better than most that there were different modes of survival.
Not just different ways to survive, but different ways you had to survive.
How you allowed yourself to do it was up to you.
The sins you committed were on you to measure.
What would you do?
What wouldn't you?
It was up to you to draw that particular line in the sand.
To decide how you were going to live with it.
To make the tough calls and try to come out clean on the other side.
And god, how he'd tried not to.
There was a saying about best laid plans.
Something about the Gods laughing at them.
He couldn't remember the exact phrase.
He'd known it once.
Then again, he did a lot of forgetting these days.
He had to.
They all did.
The Oxford Dictionary defined survival - sur·viv·al, noun – as the state or fact of continuing to live or exist, typically in spite of an accident, ordeal, or difficult circumstances.
These days - maybe a full on year since everything fell apart - survival meant something different. Like an after-edition to the main copy, they - by the grace of living through those first terrible days - had added another descriptor under the main line.
It meant something different now that he understood the cost. The feeling of blood drying between his fingers and the hollow concave of his belly as he chewed on the inside of his own gums just to work up the spit to swallow. Now that he knew that everything was different and that there was no going back. No going back to the way things used to be.
The meaning behind the word had changed.
Just like they'd all changed.
He'd never realized how fragile words were.
Not until the structures that had revered them crumbled away.
Perhaps the next generation of people would create new ones.
Adapting the old to service the new or maybe even scrapping them completely.
There was a precedent for it, of course, historically speaking.
…If there ever was another generation.
These days it was more about who you were surviving for - why.
It wasn't just surviving to live anymore.
It had to be something more, mean something more.
Because god knows just living wasn't enough anymore.
At first he thought he had it all figured out. He thought that surviving was about making decisions you were sure you could live with after everything was said and done. Back when he'd believed there was going to be an after. An after for him. For them. For the city. The country. The world. For all of them.
Only, he'd been wrong.
And now there was blood on his hands he could never scrub off.
Those lives were on him.
Some of them had names, others didn't, but they all weighed him down.
Sometimes in his sleep, their ghosts tried to drown him.
Sometimes when he was awake, he wanted to let them.
Surviving used to be finding a way to make it without having to do something you'd have nightmares about later. Things like his hand resting on Maddy's arm, gently prying that hammer out of her palm as Susan growled, straining through the fence – milky eyes dull and unintelligent as he held on to the uncertainty of what was happening around them like permission to be indecisive.
Surviving now was picking up the gun that'd been leaning on the tire of one of the army vehicles and blowing a hole through the chest of the uniform trying to take a bite out of his son's arm. It was getting a flash of sightless eyes and flesh between its teeth as he ignored the stuttered orders of a young private, confused and yelling at him to put the gun down. Almost blinded by the glint of pinned on merits across his bloody breast as the Sargent turned and Chris tried to pull away. Living representations of a lifetime of achievement and sacrifice which he ended for the second time with a deafening blast and the whine of dying frequencies humming in his ears.
Surviving used to be feeling the unfamiliar burn of anger rise up in the back of his throat as walked into the dining room and saw Daniel showing Chris how to reload the shotgun. It used to be yelling for Madison to put down the gun as Peter stumbled towards him, arms outstretched.
Surviving now was handing Chris and Alicia his guns to clean at the end of the day. It was going through someone's gun safe and knowing like breathing what ammo to take and what to leave behind. It was putting a gun into his son's hand and letting Daniel teach them both how to fire it.
Surviving used to be standing on the grass, watching the military play at taking back the city. It used to be playing nice and taking up his unasked for role as neighbourhood mediator. It used to be telling Doug what he already knew and making sure Lieutenant Moyers didn't do something to cause rioting on the streets. It was about riding that line for as long as it took for things to get better. About trying to fine the peaceful solution – for all of them.
Surviving now was ramming his truck through the barricade and the fences, tires screeching. It was Liza with blood flecked thick across her face and Nick clutching Madison in the back. Gauzy hazmat gown fluttering weakly as bullets ping-pinged down the frame and Alicia hiccupped through a scream. It was ignoring everyone when they begged him to stop as Griselda staggered through the smoke and launched herself at the Lieutenant with a growl. It was hearing the man's screams strangle themselves into liquidy gurgles as they fell to the ground in a writhing pile of trickling red and military greens. And saying nothing when horrified silence swallowed all their tongues.
The thing about surviving now was that no matter how you justified it, you had to make living another day worth it. Worth the cost. Worth the blood and the tears and the uncertainty. Worth the days you were too on edge to sleep or went without because they'd run out of food days ago and even the kids weren't talking anymore.
Otherwise, what was the point?
Or, at least that was what he kept telling himself.
A/N: Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think. – This story is now complete.