Hey everyone, sorry I took forever to update. Real life problems and stuff...
I know I'm skipping around a lot, but I'm doing it so I don't have to write the stuff you all already know. Like I said before, I want to focus on Naomi :)
"Relax old man, we're safe here." Henry said to Joel. The group had made it to Henry's so called hideout in a law firm office. Joel was looking around and making sure that is was secure. Despite the fact that the bandits were nearby, not even ten yards away.
"Right, right." He said, concluding that they can finally take a break in the office. He sat down in a comfortable chair and saw Sam, Ellie, Naomi and Fenrir looking around, gathering up anything they could find that was useful. Fenrir nuzzled Naomi's leg whenever he found something that might interest her. Joel would scowl every time he saw Michael within three feet of her.
Henry was observant as he watched Joel's random reactions. "Hey, what's your relation to the woman? Is she adopted?" He asked. A little conversation didn't hurt anyone.
"She's ah- she's one of my partners in this smuggling operation we run." Joel said, watching Henry's reaction.
"A smuggling operation huh? What exactly do y'all smuggle?"
"Anything, really. We smuggle just about anything from guns, food, medicine and resources to people who will pay us... It's tough times like these where you do whatever you have to if you want to survive..." He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
He frowned and nodded. "I agree with you. It's a shame the kids never get to be kids in times like these." He looked at Naomi. "Next thing you know, people like her will have more stories to tell than us older folk." He said before they both chuckled.
"So what brings you and Sam out here to Pittsburgh, Henry?"
He shook his head. "Sam and I were part of a group, and we needed supplies. Some idiot made the decision that we should search for supplies in this fucking city. We were separated when the bandits ambushed us with that fucking truck of theirs." He pulled out a map from his pack and showed it to Joel. "Not far from here is a radio tower where we were supposed to rendezvous in case anything went wrong. That's where Sam and I are going. You should come with us."
"I'll think about it." Joel said. "So after we get to the radio tower, then what? Do we go our separate ways?"
"If that's what you want. Me and my brother, we're going to find the Fireflies and join them."
"The Fireflies?" Joel scoffed. "Why would you want to join them?"
"Hey, it's better than the life me and Sam are living. Food and water, supplies, guns, and protection."
"I hate to break it to you, but the Fireflies aren't as all as they seem Henry."
"Well it sure beats being alone out in the wild where the infected and bandits are."
"Damn right..."
They were both silent for a while, watching the others talk in the other room. Ellie and Sam were playing with Fenrir while Michael was having a lovely conversation with Naomi.
"I um... I noticed that you said 'partners' when you were talking about you're smuggling operation... Are there more of you?"
"That's none of your damn business." Joel replied coldly.
"Alright, alright." Henry said, holding his hands up. "I'm sorry to pry, but I know old man, I know... I know what it's like to lose people that are close to you. That's why I'm very careful when I'm with my brother Sam out beyond the walls of a quarantine zone..." He sighed and hunched over in his chair, resting his elbows on his legs and looking down. "During the first few days when all this shit started. I was just as old as Naomi over there. Only instead of being a badass ninja woman, I was a slacker." He chuckled.
"Really?" That brought a smile to Joel's face.
"It's the truth. I would sit at home and play video games all day long." He laughed. "What did you do before the outbreak?"
"I... I was a construction worker with my younger brother, Tommy. We had just landed a good contract a day before the outbreak." Joel chuckled. "The guy who hired us was a complete asshole. I was surprised when Tommy hit him first before I did." He chuckled.
"I probably would have done the same, even if it meant risking a job like that." They both chuckled again. "None of that shit matters anymore of course when the first signs of infected people started in New York." He slouched back in his chair, sighing. "It was a wake up call for me, like most other people. Sam... He wasn't even born yet, thank god for that. It was about six years after the outbreak that Sam was born... But like I was saying, the outbreak was a wake up call. I was the strongest in my family and I had to protect my family." He looked at Joel. "And you know what's the worst part about the whole fucking thing? We survived it. Now you might be wondering why that's bad, well let me tell you... It wasn't the infected that got my parents..." He pointed towards the window that provided a good overlook of the bandits. "People like those fucking monsters killed my parents... Sam was just an infant at the time, but thank God that he doesn't remember a thing..." He sighed, rubbing his face with his hand. "Sorry, I didn't mean to rant..."
Joel shook his head. "No, you're fine..."
"So... Where were you when the outbreak started?" Henry asked.
Joel was a bit hesitant to talk about it. But after what Henry had told him, he might as well say a few things. "I uh... I lived in Texas my whole life before the outbreak started... I had a daughter and... hardly any money to my name." He chuckled. "Looking back, I wish paying the bill on time was the only issue that I had to deal with..."
Henry noticed that Joel said 'had' when mentioning his daughter. "Did you have a wife?"
Joel nodded. "Had a wife. We got divorced over something stupid... And I had to get my shit together when my daughter, Sarah, chose to stay with me rather than her mother..." He shook his head and looked down as he felt tears beginning to well up in his eyes. "But none of that matters anymore like you said... I... I lost my daughter in the first day of the outbreak... And it wasn't the infected that got to her either... It was the fucking military... I was running while carrying Sarah in my arms, there were at least five of those fucking Runners behind us and this soldier saves us. We felt safe, until the bastard pointed his gun at us... I was saved by Tommy, but..." He took a moment to swallow down his pain. "But... A stray bullet from that soldier's gun had hit Sarah... She was..." Joel couldn't finish his story as he covered his face with one hand, breaking down into quiet sobs.
Henry didn't say anything as he listened to Joel. He had an infuriated expression painted on his face. He shook his head before letting out a quiet "fucking monsters..."
"Do you have any family?" Naomi asked Michael, they were sitting across from each other on separate couches. Sam and Ellie were messing around with whatever form of entertainment they could find in the office room.
"Ah... no... Not anymore..." He sighed, crossing his arms. "What about you?"
"Same." She said with a rather neutral expression. She didn't say anymore after that.
"I had my parents and my five year old sister, Lucy, for the first few years of the outbreak. My dad died because of tuberculosis, my mother disappeared when she went into a forest to look for something that would be able to serve as food for us... my sister drowned in a subway tunnel. The..." He was holding back some sobs that wanted to escape. "The tunnel... it was built next to a river. Over time the foundation begins to weaken and... it just collapsed while we were traveling through it and the large amounts of water just overwhelmed us. I-... I lost sight of Lucy. I managed to get out of the water and kept calling out for her... I eventually found Lucy's body at the end of the tunnel, her skin was pale and she had this pained expression on her face... but she was already gone before I got there..." He shook his head and wiped away the few tears that escaped his eyes.
Fenrir was laying on Naomi's lap, whining quietly like he was crying as well. Naomi gently ran her hand along Fenrir's back as she wiped away some tears of her own, thinking about her mother. "I'm sorry about your parents and your sister..." She managed to say. It was then that she remembered what Bill had said about apologizing to someone who lost a close friend of family member.
He shook his head. "There was nothing I could have done. It was inevitable, the tunnel couldn't hold forever y'know?" After everything that happened he managed to chuckle. "Nature is a bitch isn't she? The outbreak was her doing, and now... my family wasn't even killed by bandits or the infected. It was all her fault really for being at the wrong place at the wrong time... it's times like those where you question whether God really exists or not." He sighed.
"You believe in God?" She asked.
"I want to... but after all that's happened, I doubt he exists... What kind of father lets his children suffer? That's what God is doing, letting the world fall apart and collapse into chaos while his children suffer. If that's the kind of God that exists then I refuse to even acknowledge he exists." He fumed in a rather calm manner. "Do you believe in God?" He asked.
"I... I do, but I don't believe in God as an all powerful being." She said, scratching Fenrir behind his ears. "My mother..." She stopped for a moment. "My mother... she told me that God is love. I know that doesn't make sense to be honest."
"It doesn't." He winked.
That made her smile slightly, knowing he still was the same Michael she met. "Well it didn't make any sense to me either but as time passed..." She had a distant look on her face as she reminisced. Fenrir nuzzled his head into her neck, bringing her back to the present as she rubbed his back and he went back to laying on her lap. "... as time passed I began to understand what she meant." She smiled as she looked down at Fenrir, rubbing his head with her hand.
"And what might that be?" He asked.
"She was talking about me..." She said rather quietly.
He arched his eyebrow. "You lost me."
She shook her head and looked at him with a slight smile, tears trailing down her cheeks. "I know you blame God for your suffering... I sometimes do as well... But you always have to look at the positive things about an outcome... I lost my mother when she gave her life to protect me from a group of infected... I still feel responsible for her death-"
"There was nothing you could have-"
She stopped him with a look. "I could have prevented her death easily, if I didn't run off like a little brat she would still be here with me... But... if she didn't I wouldn't be here right now. Because of her sacrifice, I was able to grow up and mature. And I would never have found this." She grabbed her sword and unsheathed it halfway before sheathing it again. "Do you know how my nickname came to be?"
"You killed a lot of bandits during an escort mission by yourself while you were with Joel and... Tess." He said, looking at her unchanged expression.
She shook her head slightly. "Killing the bandits was part of it, but what really formed the nickname was how much blood was still on my blade. It literally looked like a red sword."
He nodded in understanding. "I see..." He was about to ask another question when Henry interrupted them.
"Hey, it's almost time. Get ready." He said to them.