Chapter Text
Our shock-white minds caught on reels
where a child's body breaks the heart
and the mother can't know
if she counts as a mother.
-Katie Ford
When Joel first holds Sarah she is crying and bloody. Her eyes seem to stare directly into Joel’s heart as she thrashes in his arms. All Joel can think about in that moment is that she’s way too fucking small and way too precious. The most sickening combination of love, devotion and absolute fear overtakes him. Still he cradles her with the utmost care because he knows that being partly responsible for her creation is the best thing he will ever do. He cries along with her.
Sarah’s mother cries too, not out of joy like he does but out of fear.
“I can’t do this Joel.” She says after refusing to hold her.
Somewhere in the background of his mind he hears his father trying to reason with him about keeping her. Think of all the things you’ll have to give up he had said You are only eighteen it will fuck up your life. But in the fluorescent lights of the hospital room Joel knew that he would give up everything and fuck up the entire world if it meant having his daughter.
“You don't have to” He assures her, he can’t comprehend how someone could not instantly melt at this little miracle. But he imagines that she is as scared as he is right now. “I’ll do it.” he says nonetheless.
Twenty four hours later he takes Sarah home alone. She slept soundly in her car seat and Joel spent the entire ride glancing through the rearview mirror as if she would disappear.
Fourteen years later Sarah does disappear, the same way she arrived crying and bloody, and as Joel holds her he realizes that she is still way too small and way too fucking precious.
Joel’s heart and soul dies with her that night, he tries to get the rest of his body to follow.
He fails
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Five years after Sarah is born Tess becomes a mother. It happens miles away, Joel and Tess are strangers still, neither have any idea how cruelly their fates will twist to bring them together.
The day Tess becomes a mother is probably the most painful of her life. Everything that could go wrong does, the baby is a month too early, her blood pressure is too low for an epidural and her asshole husband is stuck in traffic. The pain is so intense Tess thinks it might kill her, when she lets out a final push all she hears is a small cry before passing out. Fuck this she thinks.
But when she finally wakes up again she is handed a small blue bundle. A boy she thinks deliriously I don't know shit about boys. He’s tiny but strong and that makes all this shit worth it
“What's his name?” The nurse asks.
Tess smiles that answer clear in her mind, “Luka, his name is Luka Servopoulos.”
It's not the name her husband wanted, in fact he wanted their child to have his last name. But Tess figures miss the birth, miss the name.
Quietly she promises Luka that he will have the life she never could, that he would live long, happy and loved. She settles then with her little angel in her arms and discovers that motherhood is the most agonizing form of love.
This becomes particularly true the following years when her little Luka falls ill. So many visits to so many doctors all for them to reach the same diagnosis, a death sentence. The last months of his life pass Tess in a blur. Hospital rooms, medication, hair falling out in clumps until nothing remained. My little lion Tess would call him because he was so strong and full of life with a mane of curly blonde hair. But by the time he died he was already more corpse than boy, shivering barely able to move.
You’ll go to Neverland She had promised him because she can’t explain to an eight year old what death is. Will I be able to fly?, she had assured him that yes of course he would fly.
I’ll miss you mommy but I’ll be okay and those are the last words her little angel says before the sickening sound of the flatline reaches her ear. It hits her then that the last thing she did to her son was lie.
Tess vows that day to never be a mother again. Divorces her husband soon after when he suggests they try for another baby. No, her motherhood died along with Luka, she won’t be a mother again. Eventually that will be a lie too.
Two years later the world goes to shit.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Joel tells Tess about his failure 6 years after they meet. He tells her about Sarah, his baby girl who was ripped away from him.
He tells her because as much as he tries to bury Sarah she is in every breath that he takes. He tells Tess because if he doesn't share her memory he will go insane.
Tess never tells him about Luka. She locked up memories and motherhood in his casket and left it to rot. Joel is at his core a father without a daughter. Tess on the other hand is a woman that went mad a long time ago.
I understand I understand I understand she wants to scream I lost my baby too
But instead she stays silent and holds Joel as he sobs.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Joel's heart slams back into him twenty years later.
She’s a feral little thing holding a knife and a fire in her eyes that he hasn’t seen since the spot off the I-35 in Austin.
Joel agrees to take her for Tommy, he needs that battery. The moment he agrees he decides that this will be purely professional, nothing but cargo he assures Tess. He will not get attached to this girl.
That plan quickly fails, the way Joel usually does.
All it takes is the flash of a soldier's light and his instincts kick in. He doesn't know what happens all he knows is that in that moment he needs to protect his daughter, whoever that may be.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Motherhood is like a bike Tess finds, no matter how hard she tires she can't forget its movements.
It’s ridiculous how quickly she gets attached to Ellie. They are heading towards the capitol, when Ellie tells her the story of how she got infected all by herself all she thinks about is how brave Ellie must be.
A little lion Tess thinks vaguely but instead says “You’ve got some balls on you, sister.” Impersonal but appreciative. It seems to have a good effect on Ellie though as she ducks her face to hide her grin.
She’s just cargo. But Ellies mesmerized face as she admires the world around her makes Tess ache.
They are on their way to Bill and Franks after the fiasco of the capital, continuing on Tess’s insistence on the cure.
There is a dirt stain on Ellie’s cheek, Tess’s arm burns holding back the urge to wipe it. Memories of a sweaty kid coming home from a long day of play filthy like this, hovering over her. She wonders then if Ellie has ever had anyone to wipe the dirt off her face. The answer will only break her resolve even more.
Cargo, Cargo, Cargo she chants like a prayer because it’s the only thing that could keep her heart safe.