This chapter commits the cardinal sin of lifting dialogue from the game BUT it's one of the few big scenes that needs it.

The Obligatory Piggyback Fic

Finding a fresh Firefly corpse this close to the Capitol building was a blow. Shit happened, nobody knew that better than she did, but the Fireflies who ran between cities were usually experienced enough that it took something pretty serious to pick them off.

"What if we get there and they're all dead?" Ellie voiced Tess' own traitorous thoughts.

"They won't be." She shot back, like determination was enough to influence reality.

"But… how do you know?" Jesus kid, shut up! She glanced over at Harry who had managed to boost himself up over a barricaded fence leading out. If he wasn't half-mute and half fucked-up thanks to her shitty parenting, would he be this pushy and annoying?

Recognising that most of her impatient anger was rooted in the wound radiating pain from her shoulder, she bit back something more vitriolic in favour of "I just do."

The three of them clambered over the fence after Harry and landed with a strong sense of relief on what used to be Capitol Avenue.

TOPF

"There it is." Joel spoke up, buoyed by the end finally being in sight. "Home stretch, Tess."

The quintet walked forward, not letting their eagerness to be done interfere with the practises that kept them alive. They scanned constantly for infected, through near and high windows as well as inside or behind abandoned cars. The sun was angled low and warm, bathing the Capitol Building in light - and glinting off the pool of fetid water that had gathered at its foot. A dip in the road and a busted or blocked storm drain provided maybe a thousand square feet of algae-filled habitat for virus, mosquitoes and snakes. Joy.

"Um… just so it's out there? I can't swim." Ellie contributed as they approached. Automatically, he cast around for a solution.

"Well, it looks like it's shallow on the right side." Tess beat him to it. "Follow me." The woman waded fearlessly into the water, making Joel chuckle a little. He wasn't all that keen to barge into a stinking cesspit full of things wanting to bite him, but Tess? She'd just kill 'em all for tryin'.

He waded in after her, keeping to the lighter patches of water, feeling first hand how cluttered and treacherously slippery the footing was underneath. It wasn't ideal. If the girl fell and panicked - well, a person could drown in two inches of water, never mind a few feet.

"Oh, hey, good idea!" Ellie piped up suddenly. He glanced over to see Harry practically jogging alongside the fence at the right, up and out of the water, feet firm on the hand-width lip of cement the iron bars had been set into - using the bars themselves to keep his balance. Ellie, her shoes barely wet, hurried to follow him.

"Careful." He advised reflexively, wading closer to keep an eye on her. A bar could break, its mooring eroded, and drop her headfirst into water that could have anyfuckin'thing invisibly waiting to split her head open or stab into her.

"I got it." Ellie assured him with the confidence of youth, despite getting stuck at the first pillar she came to. She stretched around it, fingers straining, but her arm wasn't quite long enough to get a grip. She squeaked as Harry unexpectedly grabbed her hand, but used it to pull herself around. The pattern continued for the rest of the trip, the two teens staying safely dry and quietly smug as their elders continued to wade through chest-high muck to meet them at the foot of the building.

"What's with the giant swans?" Ellie asked, as she and Harry jumped down onto the steps.

"They're from the Public Garden." Tess explained as she squelchily joined them. "People used to go for rides on the lake in spring. After everything fell apart, basic maintenance stopped on things like storm drains and sewerage systems. All it takes are a few blockages in the wrong place and parts of Boston are almost semi-permanently under at least some amount of water. The swan boats are a good way to move people and items over still or shallow water at speed, without getting shit wet. They're a good sign, I've seen the Fireflies use 'em before."

Joel wasn't too sure. One boat was angled away from the building, like it had been waiting for a shipment that never came. The front left corner had been compromised and was underwater. Moss grew thickly along it. The other boat wasn't much better, the back-end half under-water like it had been driven too fast (desperately) towards the building and hit the underwater stairs hard enough to beach itself.

The fact that it was still like that, not prepped to leave, said nuthin' good.

TOPF

"No." Tess breathed, stepping through the doors and seeing what part of her had already known.

"No, no no no no!" She ran over to the body. Maybe they'd just been chased out? Maybe there was a fall-back point? She yanked at the corpse's pockets, turned them inside out, ripped his shirt open to see if anything was taped inside.

"What are you doing, Tess?" Joel's voice, deep and slightly critical broke through her desperate focus. This wasn't her, this panic wasn't her, but she'd never been fucking bitten before! All this time, being almost caught then almost killed, fighting for her life and the life of some fucking immune girl only to get bitten, holding onto the burning hope that at least it would all be for something.

Only to find nothing but more death, an empty building and nowhere to go. She felt hysteria curl tiny claws into the edges of her mind, fought them, tried to keep herself focused. For all she knew it might not be hysteria but the fucking fungus.

"Maybe they ah, maybe they had a map or something to tell us where they were going." She said, despite having already obviously checked the man thoroughly. She checked him again, just in case.

"How far are we gonna take this?" His tone, so weary and annoyed, like what they'd been doing had only ever been a crazy whim of hers that he'd gone along with like a appeasing spouse. A pipe dream. A waste of time.

"As far as it needs to go!" She shouted back, shooting to her feet to square off with him. Fuck him, fuck him, the jaded broken asshole. Just because he'd spent the last twenty years waiting to die didn't mean nothing else mattered.

Joel just stared at her, eyes flicking up and down like he was trying to work out where this desperate woman who'd used to be Tess had come from.

"Where was this lab of theirs?" She demanded, rounding on Ellie.

Ellie jumped. Behind her, Harry was staring out the window with a slight frown.

"S-she never said." The girl stammered apologetically, worry in every line of her body. "She only mentioned that it was someplace out west."

"What are we doin' here?" Joel demanded her attention again as she frantically tried to remember what fortified cites had been abandoned. It was likely the Fireflies had holed up in one - but there were a lot and more that never got reported and the whole damned country was 'west'.

"This is not us."

Her head snapped up, eyes narrowing to rattlesnake slits.

"What do you know about us?" She demanded. She and Joel had fell in together, two people who worked well and thought fast and occasionally fucked, but they were partners of convenience at best. 'Us' had been her and Mark and Harry, then just her and Harry even when she'd hated the kid. Did he think they were just like him? Broken by their past into something jagged and bitter? Ruthless and without compassion? She'd twisted Harry up, sure, but she'd still seen him give away food to kids and he'd even rescued a three-legged cat once from some bored men twice his age.

And what did he know about her? About why she kept living? About why she'd wanted this to work out even before she got bit, regardless of the guns and despite the mess the Fireflies had made of Harry?

"What do you know about me." She challenged him. What would he remember when she died? Would he even give a shit? Or move on to whoever else he found that would put up with him?

"I know that you are smarter than this." The man gestured contemptuously at the corpse on the ground. At the ex-idealistic freedom fighter slash terrorist. At the person who'd pursued their dream of a better tomorrow to his death. Like he'd been afraid Tommy would do, when his younger brother had started his quest for redemption through the Firefly cause.

Smarter? Or more cowardly? If Joel had it his way, everyone would be like him. Shut-in, shut-down and waiting for the world to finish burning.

"Smarter? No. We're shitty people, Joel." She refused to die without rubbing his face in the fact. They stole. They murdered. They sold drugs and guns and people to whoever paid. They weren't 'just' smugglers. Joel turned away from her, hard eyes and set face giving no sign if he was pissed off or just rejecting her words. "It's been that way for a long time!"

She'd have never got so dirty if Mark had still been alive. He'd always been her better half.

Joel… Joel hadn't made her do anything she hadn't wanted to. But he'd never had a line he wouldn't cross… and her lines had eroded.

"No, we are survivors!" He shouted. Good. Something had pierced his thick skin.

"This is our chance-!"

"It is over, Tess!"

A pause. A heartbeat of shock. They'd never fought like this before. Not ever.

"We tried." Joel came as close to begging as he ever got. He wanted to keep her, that much was obvious. But he didn't want to go a step further. If she did… he wouldn't. "Now let's just… go home."

She shook her head. It was a different kind of fear, to be on the precipice of breaking such a long partnership - her own death non-withstanding. To do it by choice…

"I'm not." She said simply. "I'm not going anywhere." Emotion caught in her throat. She felt sick. It had only been an hour but she felt like she could feel the fungus growing inside her brain, inside her body. If he just left… she'd turn into one of them and spend maybe years wandering around, mindless but suffering, until she finally got shot or the fungus consumed enough of her body to kill her.

She had to tell him. She needed him to do for her what she'd once done for Mark - because Harry wouldn't. Harry would stand and let her infested body kill him before he'd raise a finger to her.

"This is my last stop."

She didn't need to say anything more. Just looked at him. Resigned - even apologetic. It was no life, living alone. And she was leaving him to it.

"What?" He asked, before stilling. "No."

She shrugged. "Our luck had to run out, sooner or later." She aimed for flippant, but a tremor crept into her voice. Joel knew. She flicked a glance at him and was somewhat gratified to see true shock and budding grief in his expression. He did care about her, at least a little.

"Holy shit." Ellie whispered and she glanced over. Behind the girl, Harry was staring, wide-eyed. She winced. His agony had stripped him bare and was painful to witness.

"She's infected." Ellie continued. Only Tess caught the slight flinch in Harry's hand, one she knew from experience meant he'd barely aborted the urge to grab his gun and shoot. Normally it happened when some jackoff insulted her. This time, he'd almost shot Ellie just for speaking something he didn't want to be true.

"Oops, right?" She pulled back her shirt to show Joel, watched the man stagger back like he'd been punched. She didn't need to see it again to know it was puffy and oozing, skin already blistering with pus as her body fought and failed against the invasion. She stalked over to Ellie who scrambled back but slammed into Harry's unmoving form. She snatched up her arm and pulled her sleeve back, showing Joel - because this wasn't a crazy pipe dream and this wasn't a mistake. This was real, which meant a cure might be real too.

"This is three weeks old." She hammered at him. "I was bitten an hour ago. This is not like what happened with Harry, this is fucking real."

"So? It ain't like we can do anythin' about it, 'cept take her back to Marlene."

"No. No, the Firefly crew outside Boston - Tommy used to run with them. He'll know where to go."

She could see him shutting down at mention of his brother, runnin' away from the responsibility of another life.

"No, no this was your crusade, one Harry's already paid for. I am not-"

"Yes you are! Please! Look, there's enough here-" She gestured between them, scrambling for any leverage she could use "-that you have to feel some sort of obligation to me. Please. Get her. To Tommy's."

He glared at her. At Ellie.

"Shit."

Her heart leapt. She'd die today, but at least it wouldn't be for nothing.

Then she realised he was staring out the window and the distant sound of working engines caught her ears. Fireflies didn't use 'em 'cept on main highways - this was army.

"Shit." She echoed him. She spun, pulling her gun in one smooth motion.

"I'll hold them off, Harry, go with Joel and Ellie."

Harry shook his head, jaw tight. Tess glared at him. The cars were getting closer, slowly on account of the flood.

"Harry, I am ordering you-"

"NO!" The shout caught them all by surprise. Harry panted for a second, his mask fractured, struggling to find his voice after years of disuse. When he spoke again, it was with the deeper voice of a man. Some time during his silence, he'd lost the high sweet voice that had once giggled as she pretended to not be able to find him for a bath.

"No, I-. No. Not. Not this time. No. I'm not leaving." The kid took several steps closer, rummaging in his pocket. He fished something out, pressed it desperately into her hand. She glanced down, ran her thumb over it. Some piece of crap thing from the museum, or maybe picked up earlier. The kid was always bringing home 'lucky' objects and either wearin' them or hiding them somewhere in her bag.

She looked up and stared searchingly into his tormented, defiant eyes. She glanced at Joel and nodded slowly.

"Okay. Okay, fine. I suppose I don't have the right to say otherwise."

Harry's shoulders slumped in relief before the teen made a credible effort to pull his usual mask back together. Tess blinked back something that were absolutely not tears as the kid who had been her son in all but name turned to find a spot from which to die defending her.

Startled betrayal flashed across his face, as Joel's meaty arm wrapped around his neck. She snapped out a hand to catch his, which had been on an automatic path to bury a knife in his attacker, dropping the trinket he'd given her in the process. She kept hold, watching as comprehension and then despair filled the eyes watching her.

"I'm sorry." She said simply. "I've never been the mom you deserved. And you've always been a better son than I deserved. I've done the wrong thing by you so many times - but this ain't gonna be one of 'em."

Harry's eyes were glazing now in oxygen deprivation. He still fought, his free hand - no weapon in reach - scrabbling back to grasp at the man who just tilted his head out of range. Through it all, his gaze stayed locked on hers.

She holstered her gun and placed her now-free hand along his face, cupping his thin cheek.

"Protect Ellie. Listen to Joel." She gave his final orders, voice thick in her throat. Without them, the odds were just too good that he'd put a bullet in his own head, rather than live without the last thing he'd anchored himself to. She only hoped he'd remember them, as his body finally slackened entirely and fell unconscious. Joel held on for several more seconds, making sure he wasn't faking, before lifting him up into a fireman's carry. The soldiers were right outside by now, doors slamming shut and booted feet rushing up the stairs. She pulled her gun and threw herself behind the nearest pillar.

There was no time to say anything more.

Joel snagged Ellie by her arm and ran, charging through the doors at the back and up the stairs, aiming to get clear as soon as possible. With any luck, the soldiers would think Tess was just by herself. As he and Ellie moved, slowed by the burden hanging limply over his shoulders, he heard her shout and shoot, drawing the fight out as much as she could, to give them time to get away. The pillars were thick, she could maybe-

Everything went silent.

He swallowed, hard, and kept going. Hopefully, when Harry woke up, he wouldn't take his loss out on either of them.

It'd be a crying shame to have to send him after his mom, even if that was what the kid wanted.

TOPF

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean for this."

"Shut up. Keep your head down. Run."

"We shouldn't have just left her-"

"Shut. Up."

"…"

"…"

"…Harry's starting to move."

"…Good. He can clear us a path. Stay close."

TOPF

After this, MORE time skipping! Also, more magic.