Spoilers: This takes place after the film, so naturally, beware of some major spoilers for the movie if you haven't seen it.

Disclaimer: I don't own Warm Bodies, I'm just borrowing the characters for a while. :)

A/N: I know Isaac Marion, whose books the Warm Bodies movie was based on, has written four books in the series, but I haven't read them, so this fic is based solely on the movie itself, inspired by the events in the film and the information we're given about Julie's mother. For instance, in the movie, John calls his wife "Diane" when they are toasting her memory, so that is the name I have used for her here. If anything in this differs greatly from the books, please just consider this an AU. :)

As always, I also thank my Lord Jesus Christ for his incredible mercy and grace and his many blessings. I would be utterly lost without him.

Might Have Been

"For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: 'It might have been!'" - From the poem, "Maud Muller," written by John Greenleaf Whittier, 1856.

Colonel John Grigio tried not to think about it. About what might have been.

He thought about his wife, of course. He did something to honor her birthday, the same way he had every year since they'd lost her. He wore his wedding ring. He kept one of her pictures on his desk where he could see it and another beside his bed…the bed that always seemed too cold without her in it. As soon as the airport was made serviceable again, he'd had his wife's pilot's license in his pocket while he oversaw the training of new pilots for long-distance scavenging runs.

But he tried not to let himself think about the what ifs.

What if he'd taken the threat more seriously when the reports of zombies first started appearing on the news? What if he'd realized what was happening to Diane sooner? What if he'd shot her in the chest instead of the head when her Corpse had attacked him? What if he'd slowed her Corpse down just enough to give himself time to get away?

Would she be with them now, one of the exhumed?

(The answer to that last question was the reason he'd all but called his own daughter a fool when she'd told him what was going on. It was the reason he'd relished the thought of shooting that boy's Corpse in the head, even as the boy stuttered and stammered and begged him to listen. It was the reason he'd refused to believe Julie's claims until the irrefutable evidence had been staring him in the face...because if there was hope for the dead, then there had been hope for Diane once, too.)

He pushed that question to the back of his mind whenever he could, and he threw himself into the rebuilding efforts when he couldn't.

But, lately, that question had grown more persistent. He found himself asking it every time he saw one of the exhumed on the street, or in the hospital…or sitting at his dinner table beside Julie.

The boy – R, as he insisted he wanted to be called – looked entirely human once more, the last of the blue, spidery veins and gray pallor having faded completely. Julie said his speech had mostly returned to normal as well, though John had to wonder if that was really true since the boy still seemed to stutter around him.

"You shot him, Dad," Julie had said when he told her that. "Can you honestly blame him for being a little nervous when he sees you?"

Maybe not, John supposed. And he could admit that he hadn't gone out of his way to be welcoming, either.

It wasn't personal. Not really.

The boy had been instrumental in curing so many others, risking his life – his existence? – to do so, and there was no doubt about what Julie felt for him. But John couldn't forget what the boy was. Had been.

None of it was the boy's fault, of course. He hadn't asked to become a Corpse.

He was a victim of the plague that had nearly destroyed humanity…a victim like Diane.

Yet, therein lay the problem because the boy was alive and well and eating at his dinner table, but Diane wasn't.

So, John tolerated the boy's company whenever Julie asked him to, like tonight, but he rarely said more to the boy than was absolutely necessary.

That made for a particularly tense atmosphere when Julie received a radio call during their meal. She'd gradually become a sort of consultant for those who were working to help the Corpses return to humanity, since her experience with R made her the closest thing to an expert that the city had. She was often asked for her input when the scavenging teams came across some of the remaining undead.

Her voice could still be heard in the other room as she spoke on the radio, and he suspected Julie's close proximity was the main reason that R had remained at the table with him now, though the boy fidgeted every so often, clearly uneasy.

Long minutes had passed that way, with the two of them seated across from one another in the dining room, and the only sounds were Julie's muffled conversation and the scraping of the silverware on their plates as they ate.

Julie wouldn't have liked that, he knew. For months now, she had been encouraging him to get to know the boy. Perhaps she had been encouraging the boy to do the same with him because R suddenly cleared his throat and sat up a little straighter. (The boy always seemed to be slouching. John wondered if that was a lingering side-effect of his time as a Corpse or if it was a habit that had carried over from his previous life.)

"I heard you're working on c-clearing another runway at the airport," R said.

John gave a perfunctory nod. "Yes. We have enough pilots now to need a second."

"That's good." The boy looked up at him quickly and then turned his gaze to his plate. "Julie said her mom liked to fly."

John stiffened, a muscle twitching along his jaw. He reached for the glass of water beside his own plate, sipping from it, his hand tightening around the rim before he set it carefully back down.

"Yes," he answered at last, "she did."

The boy met his gaze again, even more hesitant. "I wanted to say...I'm s-sorry. Julie told me about...what happened when her m-mom was bitten."

John stared back at the boy, unblinking.

The boy knew. Of course he did. John had said it to Julie himself, after all, when he'd had his gun pointed at the boy's head:

People get bit, then they get infected, then I shoot them in the head. That's what happened to your mother, and that's what's gonna happen to him.

Julie had probably told the boy the rest...told him how dismissive John had been about the bite at first. Every hospital in the county had been overwhelmed with an influx of hysterical people (at least, that was what he'd thought at the time) so they'd settled for treating Diane's bite at home. He had some basic first aid training from early in his military career, and they'd both hoped that would be enough.

Then Diane had started feeling sick.

She'd died a few hours later, but even in the middle of his stunned grief, John hadn't really believed what the media was saying until Diane's Corpse had opened her eyes and lunged at him, her teeth aimed for his throat.

"I did what I had to do," John said at last.

How many times had he told himself that since her death?

"I know you did," the boy answered.

John narrowed his eyes at him, surprised by his easy acceptance.

The boy wasn't looking at him now, though. He was frowning down at what remained of his dinner, his gaze unfocused. "The new hunger was s-strong," the boy added. "There was no fighting it. I never could. Not until Julie. It w-was the worst after I first woke up. Couldn't think. There was n-nothing but that hunger." He swallowed hard, glancing up nervously once again, but he pushed on. "I d-didn't…know your wife. B-but if she was like Julie, she didn't blame you. She wouldn't have wanted to hurt you."

Julie had told him that before, after they'd lost Perry's father and the rest of his construction detail. She'd told him that she could understand now why he'd done it...why he'd taken the shot. (John hadn't wanted her to understand, not really, not when the cost was so high.) But, he couldn't deny that it was different, somehow, hearing it from the boy...from someone who knew the hunger firsthand.

John said none of that out loud. Words had never been his strong suit, and he couldn't quite name the feelings the boy's quiet assurance had stirred. He simply looked, long and hard, at the boy who loved his daughter enough to literally bring back the dead, and as the silence stretched, R looked like he was starting to wonder what his chances would be if he tried to make a run for it.

John still hadn't said anything when Julie walked back into the room, and sensing the tension, she'd quickly found a way fill the silence, relaying what she knew about the small group of Corpses the scavenging team had found.

He wasn't surprised when Julie tugged R away from the table as soon as dinner was finished, the boy's hand clutched tightly in hers. She said that she wanted to go for a walk before the sun set.

John watched them go, his eyes still locked on the boy's lanky form.

The boy who'd been dead. The boy who was alive again.

The boy whose assurance meant more to him than he'd expected.

When the front door shut behind his daughter and her boyfriend, the sound echoing in the quiet, John pushed back his chair and got up from the table. He walked up the grand staircase, his gaze sweeping over the wooden paneling and stained glass accents that lined the walls of the house that had once belonged to an old, wealthy family before the world fell into ruin. He let his feet carry him down the hall and to the bedroom he'd claimed as his own. He walked around the bed, to the nightstand...to the picture he kept there in a silver frame. He picked it up, the metal cool against his palm, and traced his fingers over his wife's smiling face...over the blue eyes and blonde hair that Julie had inherited from her.

The what ifs still left a dull, persistent ache in his chest. Maybe they always would.

But by the time he set the picture back down gently, the ache had eased by the smallest margin.

A few days later, when the boy came over with Julie, John greeted him with a handshake and asked him how he was doing.

It was, after all, what Diane would have wanted.

Fin

A/N: Thank you so much for reading, and please let me know what you think!

Take care and God bless!

Ani-maniac494 :)