Archive of Our Own

Despite what Wifies said, despite what she thinks, Spidey is not stupid.

The first day, on the boat, the sheer relief of being alive is so overwhelming that Spidey doesn't give much thought to anything. Her and Jonathan are too focused on rowing as far away from Paradise City as possible, rowing less towards the mainland and moreso away from the nuclear bomb. They're still close enough that when the blast goes off, the waves swell and rock the boat to the point that she's afraid they'll capsize. It doesn't go that far, but both of them are drenched in saltwater, and she hears it before she sees it, a booming noise and the low rumble of decades-old concrete and steel finally giving way and the white light of the bomb swallows the sky and everything around them.

And then it settles. The boat returns to its gentle rocking in the waves, and Jonathan has his arms wrapped around her, and the only thing that matters is that she is safe safe safe-

She feels him bury his face in her hair and take a shuddering breath. They're both soaked to the bone in ocean water, but considering before that they'd been covered in viscera and grime, this might honestly be an upgrade. There's a faint smell in the air, something slightly sweet beneath the sea salt that reminds her of 4C, distantly. Spidey tucks herself into Jonathan's arms, and they hold each other, gently swaying in the sea.

They row their way to the shore, once Spidey doesn't feel like she's going to fall out of her skin and Jonathan's heartbeat no longer feels like a caged bird trying to beat its way out of his chest. They eat Wifies' bread, something that Jonathan doesn't tell her how he got and something she doesn't ask. Spidey rows for a bit while Jonathan dozes off, old man needs his rest, but then when it's the middle of the night she hands it off to him, and tries to sleep after he insists.

She's uncomfortable, and cold, and wet, but she's alive. That's more than she thought she would be earlier that day. She uses her backpack as a pillow and traces the grooves in the bottom of the boat until she falls asleep.

Spidey does not remember her dream, that first night. She is too tired to, too relieved. All she knows is that she's awoken by the boat gently bumping against the shore, jostling her out of her underwhelming rest. It's just before sunrise, the only hint of it a distant orange along the east. They exit the boat quietly, drag it to the shore, and Spidey blinks groggily into the horizon.

"I have no clue where we are." Jonathan says.

"Me neither." Spidey says. "I slept through most of the bus ride."

"We should get shelter." He says, emptying the boat of their items. "Don't know where a zombie might be around the corner."

"Jonathan." Spidey says. "We're not in Paradise City anymore. We aren't going to get jumped by a horde."

"Do you want to be out in the open?" He asks, sarcastically.

Spidey has slept under the stars countless times in her life. Everyone had, when the weather was too nice to sleep in their trailers and wagons, when nobody wanted to bother with a tent.

In Paradise City, sleeping in the open was a death wish.

"You're right, Jonathan. Let's find somewhere to wait until day."

Somewhere turns out to be a shack half a mile up the shore. Spidey's traveled enough to know that buildings by the beach rarely have fireplaces, but there is a lantern that Jonathan lights and sets between them.

"It's weird, being out of Paradise City." Spidey says, after sitting in sleepy silence for a while. "I wasn't even there for that long. But somehow I never thought it would end."

"I know." Jonathan says. "Where do you want to go now?"

"I dunno." Spidey says. Dad had always been the one to decide where they were going. She was just excited to see the sights, find new flowers to save in her collection.

"Where were you before?" Jonathan asks.

"I'm... I'm not sure. I could find my way back from the bus station. But I don't know where the station is either." Spidey admits. She digs the toe of her boots into the clumped sand, avoiding his gaze.

"Well then. We find the bus station." He says.

"I don't even know if there's anything left there. At my old camp." She says.

"Right." He says. "But you want to check, don't you?"

She does.

"C'mon. It's daylight enough." He says, standing up and snuffing the lantern. Spidey follows him.

It's strange, seeing Jonathan without the backdrop of the city. The beach town they make their way through is mostly crumbled and rotted wood, one of the first places to go when people stop living there, more plant than building. After that, they're in a sparse forest, just in view of the main road but not close enough to be in the open.

"I missed hearing birds." Spidey says.

"Never heard much of them in Paradise City." Jonathan says. "Maybe they could tell there was something wrong with the place."

"They sound pretty, don't they?" Spidey says, listening to the forest rustle and birds chirp.

"...Yeah. It's nice."

They find a broken down car on the side of the road. It's long-since been looted, but there's a faded beach towel lining the trunk that Jonathan takes.

"You ever been in a car? They still have ones that work?" He asks.

"Yeah, but only really rich people use them regularly. I've been in one a couple of times. Usually more people ride buses or walk. And some people have horses! But only if they live really far out from a city."

"There's still cities?" He asks.

"We just came from one." She says.

"Cities that aren't... horrific." He says.

"Well I guess it depends on your definition of horrific!" Spidey always thought it seemed stifling when she was a kid, living in the same place forever and ever and never being able to go anywhere else. Or at the very least, boring. "A couple of big cities are still around, just with less people in them. We always used them as landmarks instead of actually living there, though."

"You and your dad." Jonathan says. She feels that familiar pang of loss through her chest again, the one where she actually has to think about Dad instead of him distantly being somewhere-that-wasn't-here. When she has to remember he's probably dead.

"Yeah." She says, quietly. "But! It wasn't only us, all the time. We traveled with other people. We were nomads, and he made a lot of friends that we could travel with."

"That sounds nice." He says.

"It was." She says. "I'm glad I can travel with you, Jonathan. I'm glad we're both alive, a-and safe." Her voice catches on the last part. She knows what she had to do to keep him safe. She knows Wifies probably didn't let him go easily.

"...Me too." He says, softly.

It's unsettling, walking without looking over her shoulder, without constantly having somewhere to be, someone to look for, something to find. Spidey doesn't know how she did it before, was able to walk somewhere calmly and trust her dad's planning and spend the entire day just traveling without having to balance a dozen urgent tasks with even more dangerous things lying around every corner. She misses her first few weeks in Paradise City, actually, when she had hope and flowers and 4C. That's a weird thought. She misses her dad.

They stop midway through the day, eat even more of their food. They need to find someone to trade for rations, or hunt, or something. They don't have anything valuable on them to trade. Spidey stopped being young enough to look cute and trade a flower for a piece of bread at least a decade ago. And Jonathan may be a secret softie, but he still looked scary. And also they both look tired and gross, but she forgives both of them because they had both just been through a really bad time.

But that's a problem for tomorrow Spidey and Jonathan. Maybe he has something valuable in his backpack! Maybe it would all be okay.

As the sun is setting, Spidey feels scared. She never was before. Never had to look over her shoulders every other minute. During the warm months she would skip ahead of everyone else and chase fireflies. It's still warm enough out that she can see them twinkling in the bushes. She sticks besides Jonathan, a half-step behind.

They find a building on the side of the road that probably wasn't a house because it's only one room. Whatever it was, the walls were stone and the roof was only half-caved in.

"I'll take first watch." Jonathan says, as Spidey clears the floor enough for them to lay out their bedrolls.

"There aren't any zombies out here." Spidey says. At Jonathan's tense expression, she adds "Not any people either."

"I've survived fifty years like this." He says. "Hasn't failed me yet."

"Fine, whatever you say." She says, not even trying to hide the smile in her voice. Some of the people she and her dad had traveled with kept a watch system at nights. She doesn't recall having thought about it too hard, it was just something paranoid adults did when she was younger and the price of getting a hot meal when she was old enough to be given a shift. It made sense when Jonathan did it, in Paradise City. It was a dangerous place. But they weren't there anymore.

It is reassuring, though, for her to fall asleep and see Jonathan sitting on his sleeping bag, just a few feet away from her, ready to keep her safe.

"4C! 4CCCCCCCCC!" She calls, cupping her hands around her mouth as she shouts. Her yells echo through the city. Silly 4C, always running off. Oh, she didn't see Jonathan either. He was probably a few steps behind her, he was old so he was gonna be a little slow.

Where could 4C be? Oh, maybe the beach! Or, um, hmmmmmm, maybe she should go up a tall building so she can see everywhere. No, she should check the beach first. 4C loves the beach! And ice cream!

She runs to the beach, excited to see him. She misses him. Which is silly, she just saw him recently, he just wandered off, like always. Between forgetful 4C and grumpy Jonathan, she really feels like the person keeping them together.

"4C!" She shouts, coming past the last of the buildings onto the sidewalk next to the beach. He's nowhere to be seen. Maybe he's further along the shore!

She runs along the beach, slowed by the sand. The wind whips the hair in her eyes, and the sky is gray and cloudy.

"4C? Where are you 4C?" Spidey looks around, but she can't see him anywhere.

And then there's a sharp pain in the back of her shoulder, and she's collapsing to her knees. When she looks up, through the blurry tears, she gasps.

4C is dead on the beach. There's a spray of blood on the sand, slowly being washed away by the water. The tide is coming in. Wifies stands over 4C, katana in hand.

"You- 4C." She can barely speak. Wifies tilts his head.

"Me? I never even touched him." He says.

"I hate you." She says.

"I don't have a gun." He holds up the katana, as if to say this is my only weapon. "That was all you."

"N-no, he, 4C-" She sobs. Wifies is standing over her now.

"Tch. Weak. Can't even admit when it's your fault." He says. Her shoulder burns. The tide is pooling around her. Thin watery ribbons of infected blood trail through the seafoam. She cries so hard, she thinks she might throw up.

"Spidey. Spidey." Jonathan's hushed voice shakes her out of the nightmare. Haha! She's shaking. She's been doing that too much lately.

"Jonathan." She gasps, sitting up and scrubbing her eyes with the back of her hand. "Sorry. Sorry. It's just a nightmare. I'm okay."

"You're okay." He says. It sounds different than when she says it. "Spidey, breathe."

"Jonathan." She hiccups. He shifts his bedroll closer, and pulls her into a hug.

"You're alright, Spidey. We're safe now. Wifies is gone. He can't hurt us." He says. She doesn't respond. Her shoulders still shake with silent sobs, where Wifies stabbed her the first time twinging in pain.

"S-sorry. Is it time for my watch?" She says through her tears.

"...You know, you were right. There's nothing out here. No need for you to take a shift. You can go back to sleep."

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay. You're alright, kiddo. Nobody is going to hurt you."

There's only so many times he can reassure her with the same words over and over again. At some point, all Jonathan does is hold her. She's always been touchy. Dad never shied away from affection, freely given every day of her life. It doesn't seem like it comes naturally to Jonathan. He was living alone in Paradise City for so long, it makes sense to Spidey that he's a bit stiff and unsure with his movements. He's trying anyways, letting her rest her head on his chest as she cries away her fear.

He falls asleep, at some point. He'd already been up for so long, it was the middle of the night, he was tired, it's okay. His arms still rest around her, loosely. He's breathing slowly, out of his mouth.

There's that familiar smell again. She's reminded of one of the nights where her and 4C were curled up into each other's sides, and her stomach drops.

Because: Spidey's not stupid. She recognizes the sweet scent of decay on his breath, recognizes it the same from her and 4C huddling together in the abandoned buildings. Recognizes it from the scent of Paradise City in general, underneath the smell of wet vegetation and concrete and old blood, something deeper and more sinister, the sweet-rancid smell of rot and sickness.

No. She isn't going to believe it. She can't believe it. Everything they went through, everything that happened to them, this happy ending they fought tooth and nail for, the happy ending that she clawed out of decisions that would haunt her for the rest of her life (her finger on the trigger, a lever left unflipped) would be torn out from under her just like that.

And for what? What could she have ever done to deserve this?

No. She had done plenty to deserve this.

What had Jonathan done to deserve this?

It's her fault, she knows. They hadn't come across a single zombie since leaving Paradise City. This was the same infection that he took from her. It had to be. But when she was infected, she only had an hour. It had been a couple of days, and he was nowhere near as weak as she had been. Maybe he transferred it to Wifies. Maybe it worked!

Maybe this was just a lingering side effect. She wasn't infected anymore, and her limbs were still weaker, she was out of breath easier than before.

It had to be. Just something sticking around, because both of them were cured and both of them were going to live and find a home far away to live in and everything would be fine and good and she would be happy. He would be happy. They would be safe.

Spidey is not stupid. What she is, is scared.

She presses closer into his side, and does her best to keep her panicked breathing quiet.

In their next few days of traveling, she puts it out of her mind. Or tries to. It's hard to put something out of your mind when it's all you can think about, Spidey decides. When she startles every time he coughs, or is a bit sluggish.

But he's not acting like 4C. He's not even acting like she was. So it's all fine? It's all fine. Spidey tells herself it's fine. He's fine. They're both fine. Just side effects from the machine and everything else they've been through, the same way her arm aches sometimes and she can't run as fast as she used to be able to.

She notices it, is the point. She just tells herself it's nothing. Because it is nothing! It's nothing.

They, well, Jonathan really, decides that they'll go until they find a settlement, and then ask them for directions. Spidey decides she'll ask for directions from everyone they come across, even if they're just a fellow traveler. Doesn't Jonathan know that travelers usually know where landmarks are?

"Hey!" A man waves them down from further along the road, and Spidey and Jonathan have to jog to reach him. It's a group of people, all around Spidey's age. Maybe a bit older. "We weren't expecting to see anyone so out of the way. You guys lost?"

"No, ah..." Jonathan falters, and Spidey realizes he's an old man who's only social interaction in the past few years has probably all taken place within the last month.

"Could you point us in the direction to the bus stop for Paradise City?" She asks. The group looks between each other.

"No clue, man. Paradise City is the island where the outbreak started, right? What are you going there for?"

"Not Paradise City. No, no, no. Just the bus stop!" Spidey explains. They don't quite look like they believe her.

"Well, buses don't really run through here all that much. We aren't close enough to any major cities. Aside from Paradise, I guess, but buses don't go through there all that often do they?"

"Every month at most." Another group member pipes up. "My sister was going to go there but missed her ticket's date and the next nearest one was a month away so she ended up getting a ticket to some place in Canada that was still standing instead."

Good for that guy's sister. She'd be dead, otherwise. If not because of the zombies, the bomb would have done it. That's a horrible thing to think. Stop that.

"What about the nearest settlement, then?" Jonathan finally speaks up.

"Uhhhhh..... I'm pretty sure Lazarus is a couple days southwest from here? I know there's The Scarlets a few days north. Depends where you're heading." Another member of the group says. There's muttering in agreement.

"Lazarus... That's Jawhn's place, isn't it?" Spidey turns to Jonathan.

"I think so. Sounds familiar." He says.

"Could you tell is where Lazarus is?" She asks. The guy at the front of the group shrugs.

"Southwest's all I know. If you keep following this road, turn left at the logging field and you'll find them eventually."

"They aren't welcoming to outsiders, though." Another member adds.

"We know Jawhn, he's their leader. Can we go, Jonathan? Maybe they'll know where the bus stop is. If Jawhn is there, I'm sure he'll help!" Spidey says. Jawhn was coughing the last time she saw him. But if Jonathan is fine, Jawhn probably is too.

"Well, it couldn't hurt." Jonathan says.

"Want to set up camp for the night with us?" One of the women in the middle of the group asks.

"Uhm." Jonathan stares, and it's almost funny how he was able to run through a city of zombies looking for her but freezes up at the first human interaction he's faced with.

"If it's okay with you guys, we'd love to!" Spidey asks. "Are you sure it's okay?" The guy at the front shrugs.

"Hannah's our leader. If she offered, it's fine."

Spidey's able to go through Jonathan's backpacks and trade with members of the group. Jonathan doesn't mind, not when she brings back dried fruit and crackers and spare clothes in exchange for some copper that was really just weighing them down. Another member of the group has her help stoke a fire, and they eat real meat for dinner, rabbits they had caught in traps.

"It's been forever since I had meat." Jonathan says, poking at the still too-hot rabbit on his plate. Spidey burned her mouth on it earlier, and was now not-sulking. "Not much hunting in the city."

"You old enough to remember before?" Hannah asks.

"Ah, a little bit. Rabbit wasn't all that common of a food, you know? It was mostly beef, pork, and chicken."

"Beef and pork, how fancy." Hannah says.

"Just normal, back then. Don't even think we were particularly well-off." He says.

"I've never know anything else." Spidey says.

"Neither have any of us." says Hannah.

That night, as the two of them sleep in one of the spare tents offered by Hannah, Spidey can't help but think back to that conversation the two of them had in the house, waiting for Wifies. What was life like, so different, so long ago? It sounded easy. It sounded nice, even if he barely remembers it.

Spidey wonders if its wrong to long for a time she never existed in. If it wasn't as good as she thinks it is. But if there was ever a time were the infection didn't exist, where she could have been happy and free, she thinks she would do anything to be there.

Lazarus isn't that far away, although it takes them three days. Spidey knows they're both slow and weak, after the infection passed through them like a game of relay. But the infection is gone now, it's dead with Wifies, and whatever side effects they have to deal with it she'll take ten times over if it means her and Jonathan are safe.

She sees the walls over the tops of the trees, pointed trunks of stripped wood together in an imposing wall, and runs ahead. She's always done this when traveling with Dad and whoever else they had with them, run ahead with an adult (and then alone once she was an adult) to check if they'd be receptive to people passing through. A single person was less scary than everyone rolling their caravans and trailers up to the gates of a settlement, after all, and if they were hostile it was much quicker to dart away.

So, without thinking, she skips ahead of Jonathan and goes up to the gates, keeping her distance from being too close. There's a way to do this, that she's learned over the years, to avoid being shot. The words are muscle memory at this point.

"Hello-o!" She calls out, so they know she's not sneaky. "I don't come with intent to harm! I'm a traveler! I'm coming through with my Dad and-" and her script catches in her throat, because she's not with her dad because her dad is dead. She's with Jonathan who occupies the same place in her brain as Dad, who she's called dad a couple of times when panic clouded her thinking, but that's a complicated tangle of emotions and she's still in front of the gate of a settlement.

"-and it's just two people." She says, instead of the dozen she was used to having with her at any given moment. "We know Jawhn, it's Spidey and Jonathan!" She says, instead of saying Spidey-daughter-of-Benjamin, because it's not her Dad's name doing the carrying of her group's reputation, it's all her.

A woman with stark blue eyes and a scarf wrapped around the lower half of her face appears behind the gate, and pokes a gun through the bars. Spidey puts her hands up and takes a step back.

"You know Jawhn?" The woman asks, eyes narrowed in suspicion. Another man steps up behind her, and whispers something. She whispers back, without moving the gun down.

"Spidey! Why would you run ahead- fuck!" Johnathan breaks past the treeline and rushes to Spidey's side, flinching when he sees the gun and angling himself in front of her.

"Lazarus doesn't welcome visitors." The man behind the gate says.

"Oh, we were just passing through, and we thought, we met Jawhn in Paradise City and he said-" Spidey is cut off by the woman holding the gun.

"You were in Paradise City with Jawhn?" She asks.

"Yes! He was very nice, and he gave us a boat to help us escape and we thought- he invited me back here with him and I had to say no but I thought we could come by and say hi and maybe get some directions please?" Spidey says, all in one breath. The woman's expression doesn't falter.

"You said your names were Spidey and Jonathan?" She asks.

"Yes! Just Spidey and Jonathan. I would like it very much if you could point your gun somewhere else. Please." Spidey says.

"They match with the descriptions he gave us." The man says.

"I can say other people who were in Paradise City with us if you have a list!" Spidey says. "Um, 4C, I dunno if Jawhn would have known him, um, Grayleigh, Jophiel, Zora, this would be easier if you could just get him over to confirm it's us-"

The woman lowers the gun.

"Spidey and Jonathan?" She confirms, and Spidey nods so fast she makes herself dizzy. The gate slowly opens.

"You're lucky Jawhn told us to let you in." She says. "I'm Rusty."

"I'm Spidey! And that's Jonathan. Is Jawhn busy?" She asks. Rusty's face screws up and a complicated expression passes over it.

"Jawhn's dead." Her voice wavers.

What.

"What?" Spidey says, voice small. Rusty's expression tightens.

"He was infected. He came back with... with supplies. We gave him one last good night. And in his sleep, I took his gun and... He went happily. If you were on good terms with him, and it matters to you. He was at home, with friends."

Jonathan takes Spidey's hand into his own, and squeezes it. She knows they're both thinking of 4C. She can picture his brains spattered across the beach in perfect detail, the way the water around them stained red. She can hear his voice in her ear, musical and joyous.

"We're sorry for your loss." Jonathan says.

"Yeah." Spidey blinks away tears blurring her vision.

"Did you want to see the grave?" Rusty asks.

It's tucked away in a back corner, made of stone and tramped earth. There's four flowers potted in front of it, and a sign with dozens of names scrawled tightly together.

"We didn't bury him. We burn the infected, and those who die uninfected... we have better uses for the bodies. But this is where we memorialize the dead." Rusty says. "I'll give you two a moment. Meet me by the firepit once you're done."

Spidey moves closer, kneeling in front of the grave. She can read the names now. She doesn't recognize most of them, but she does recognize five.

Cyn. Jophiel. Woogie. Zora. Jawhn.

"I never knew Cyn." Spidey says. "We probably talked, but the first few days in Paradise are... there were so many people."

"I'm sure their death was unnecessary." Jonathan says.

"Aren't all of these deaths?" Spidey counters. "Jophiel was nice. She helped me around before I met you."

"The priest." Jonathan murmurs. "I could... I know a few prayers. I don't know which denomination she belonged to."

"I think she'd appreciate the thought." Spidey says.

"Right." Johnathan says, and then quietly mutters something that sounds Latin to Spidey. She recognizes amen. She thinks it was a prayer.

"Woogie scared me." Spidey admits. "I don't know if that's bad to say now that he's dead."

"Being dead doesn't make you a good person." Jonathan says.

"Zora was nice." Spidey says. Jonathan says nothing, to that. Spidey remembers Zora saying she was in the city for a while before Spidey's bus arrived. Maybe he'd seen her before.

"Thank you for the boat, Jawhn." Spidey says. "You got us out of there. You saved us. We'd be dead without your boat."

"...Thank you, Jawhn." Jonathan echoes. Spidey kneels in silence for a moment longer before taking a deep breath in. Jonathan helps her to her feet, and they make their way back to Rusty.

Rusty says that if they're leaving in a day regardless, she wouldn't bother putting them to work, but Spidey doesn't want to impose. That's not how her father raised her. So, bemused, Rusty waves her off to the kitchens and sends Jonathan to help restock the infirmary.

While she helps an older woman chop potatoes, Spidey remembers what she was meant to do when she and Jonathan reached civilization.

"Do you think you could help me with directions?" She asks the woman. "Or tell me someone who does? We're trying to find a bus stop." She keeps it vague, because she's not sure how these people will react to hearing about the Paradise City bus stop, if that city was what killed their leader.

"None of us are travelers much. And we don't take in people in general, so we don't have many who are. But there's one that's come around since they were young, couple years back, that's trustworthy enough to be allowed to stay sometimes. You're in luck, I think they're still here, I could see if they know the way to your bus stop." The woman asks.

"Yes please!" Spidey says. The woman gives her a smile and tilts her head into the main room.

"EY! IS THE GRAVES KID STILL AROUND? TELL 'EM TO COME HERE!" She shouts, before returning to chopping potatoes.

Minutes later, a boy a few years younger than Spidey pokes his head in. She waves him in, and points over to Spidey's table in the corner.

"Sean, this girl needs some directions. Thought you could help."

"I can try." He says, pulling out the chair across from her. "Where are you headed?"

"Um, the bus stop to Paradise City." She says in a low voice. His eyebrows raise.

"That's... wow. Okay. I thought whoever you would have bought the ticket from would have given you instructions. Luckily, I know where it is."

"You can help?" She asks.

"Sure. Follow me."

He leads her outside, and then up the side of a hill, where they could shimmy up to a walking platform along the wall. Pointing into the distance, he speaks.

"Over there, see that main road? You have to follow it southeast. Go three exits down, and then follow that road until you're in the closest town. The town is abandoned last I've been though, but the bus stop is the building with the chain link fence, and a bus comes by sometimes on the route to Paradise City." He gets a wistful look in his eyes. "I've always wanted to go there."

"Don't." Spidey says, before she can stop herself. The boy looks at her oddly.

"Why are you going, then?"

"I've been there already. It's-" She cuts herself off. Why was she warning him? Even if he wanted to, Paradise City was gone. "It's not that great."

"...If you say so. Did you want me to write those instructions down, or...?"

"No, it's okay, I've got it!" She tries to force enthusiasm back into her voice. "Thank you."

"No problem. Glad to be useful for someone at least."

Lazarus is good. An actual bedroom, hot water, a filling meal. But Spidey doesn't want to push her luck. Once they proved that they were who they said they were, Rusty and the rest of Lazarus warmed up to her and Jonathan. Spidey was able to share her few memories of Jawhn, and how his boat saved her and Jonathan's lives. But she can't shake the feeling of Rusty pointing a gun at her, of how it brought her back to Wifies deep underground in the lower facility. Of watching Jonathan bleed on the floor as she was dragged into the Atropos Machine.

That night, in their guest room in one of the sprawling underground areas of Lazarus, Spidey lays back in bed. She can hear Jonathan asleep, breathing slowly. Is his breathing normal? Is it rattling, do his lungs sound full of phlegm and contamination?

She thinks about her and 4C, the two of them sleeping practically on top of each other, nestled together and arms wrapped around each other. They'd wake up in a tangle of limbs every morning, because the few times they weren't asleep in a puppy pile he'd wander off without waking her up with his movement. His breathing didn't sound sick, until it did. Until he was already half-gone, and she had to put him down.

She remembers Rusty saying she did the same thing to Jawhn.

Even if Rusty offered them a spot in Lazarus, she's not sure if she would take it.

So, the next morning, after breakfast, Spidey and Jonathan make their way out of Lazarus.

"You're welcome to visit Lazarus any time in the future. Just tell the gate guards you know me. I'm the leader now, my approval carries enough weight to get the gate open." Rusty says. Spidey keeps in mind the stress on the word visit, and how Rusty did not offer them a single supply to take.

"So. The bus stop." Jonathan says, once the walls of Lazarus have vanished behind them.

"One of the people at Lazarus gave me directions." Spidey says. "We need to find the highway."

"Let's go, then." Jonathan says, and course-corrects towards the road.

Most of the cars on the highway are empty of anything useful. Jonathan barely bothers glancing through the windows of the few that are on the side of the road. It's not backed up like the roads were in Paradise City.

"Back in Paradise City there were all these cars. I don't even think I've seen that many people at once." Spidey says.

"Yeah. Not everyone was on the road at the same time usually. But everyone wanted to get out of the city." Jonathan say.

"I hope most of them were able to." Spidey says. "Were you there?"

"Yeah." He says. "It was... I don't remember much of my childhood. But I remember that. I don't know if I could ever forget."

"Sorry." She says.

"What for? You weren't there."

"How old were you?"

"Eight." He says. "Young enough I don't really... remember anything before. Not much, anyways."

"What do you remember?"

"I remember I didn't like school. I thought it was boring. Every morning, while I was eating breakfast, we had a TV I could watch from the kitchen. If I woke up early enough I could catch an entire episode of Power Rangers before I had to leave for school. It was a kids show. About superheros, or something like that? I don't actually remember anything other than that I liked it. My Father tried to get me to watch British shows, because I was born there, but he wasn't very successful in that. I liked Doctor Who, that was British. But it wasn't necessarily a kids show."

"Doctor Who?"

"It was a show about a time travelling doctor."

"Like Dr. Saps. But without the time travel." Spidey says.

"Er. No, I don't think he was a medical doctor like Dr. Saparata was." Jonathan says.

"There's other kinds of doctors?" Spidey asks.

"Guess so." Jonathan shrugs. "I wasn't old enough to know many things. I know stuff about what life was like before, but that was all from... talking to people, I suppose. Do you remember Squiddo?"

"The old lady with the gas mask? Yeah." Spidey nods. She was nice. The cookies she had given Spidey were good, if a little chewy.

"Yeah. She would have been around your age during the fall. I don't think she remembered me in the end, she ah, seemed to have some memory issues. Not like 4C. She was just really old. But we both frequented Paradise City and crossed each other's paths a few times. We spoke a bit when I was younger. She would know more about what it was like before. She was an adult. She had a job, and was married, I think? Or engaged at the very least. She didn't talk about her partner much, I got the sense he died in the fall so I didn't ask. I used to be curious, though. Not about her specifically, just, adults who lived before the fall in general."

"It always felt really far away." Spidey says. Jonathan hums in agreement. "Before I met you, I only met a couple people who were alive before the fall. Some people we traveled with had parents or grandparents who were alive back then that they brought along with them. I dunno if any of them were adults when it happened, though."

"It is strange." Jonathan says. "Both of my parents lived a life so... incomprehensibly different than I've ever experienced. They were able to just pack up their lives with an infant and move to a country across an ocean. People could just do that back then. I couldn't get to England now if I wanted to."

"Not by plane." Spidey says. "I mean, some people have planes. They're still, like, a thing. But boats are more popular. Do you want to go to England?"

"Ah, no, not really. I suppose I was born there? Never felt particularly attached to it, though." Jonathan shrugs.

"I don't know where I was born. I don't think it was a city, but that's just a guess." Spidey says.

"Why's that?" Jonathan asks. Spidey tugs on the strap of her backpack and glances towards the sky.

"Women don't usually die in childbirth in cities? Um, it's less common, anyways. Because they usually have doctors and hospitals and medication. And that's how my mom died. I mean, I never actually knew her, but that's what Dad told me and I believe him. It's not like- he says they were traveling with someone who knew what they were doing at the time. But. They could only do so much without a hospital so. Yeah."

"I'm sorry." Jonathan says.

"No, it's fine. It's not a big deal." She always feels weird talking about her mom, because she's probably meant to feel sad about her? But she doesn't, not in any real way, not like she does about Dad. She doesn't even know what she looked like. Spidey feels sad in an abstract way, like how she felt about all the empty cars and apartments in Paradise City, but it's not the same lung-squeezing ache like she feels about Dad, or 4C.

"I, ah. My parents died in the fall." Jonathan says. "We were in the church where my Father worked. Mother sent me underneath, and they... bought me time to escape. I hid for most of the initial fallout."

"I would have been scared." Spidey says.

"I was scared." Jonathan says. "I don't think I ever felt as scared as I did that day, not until... not until Wifies had you as a hostage."

"Oh." Spidey says.

"I'm sure you were frightened as well. You were the one with the knife to your throat." Jonathan says. "But I was... I had to dodge everyone to get down to you, and then when Wifies took you to the machine and I was shot... I would have taken your place. I should have been the one in the machine." He says.

"I should have shot him." Spidey says.

"I should have shot him earlier." Jonathan says. "I was too much of a coward to." He breathes out, slowly. "But we made it out alive. That's what really matters, right?"

"Right." Spidey echoes.

They make it to the town with the bus stop by nightfall, already dark and slightly misty. It's going to rain soon, Spidey thinks. She can smell it. Her shoulder aches.

Whatever the town was called before the fall, it's long been forgotten. All the signs have been corroded with time and those that survived were spray-painted over to say Paradise Stop. The buildings are concrete and brick and gutted of anything useful. It's normal for a place with so much foot traffic and minimal permanent population. Spidey wonders what suburbs were like when they were alive, as the two of them make their way through the identical rows of abandoned homes into the town center. She can't help but think even if there were people there, the uniform houses would be eerie.

The bus station is not in great shape, but it's remarkably maintained compared to the rest of the downtown. In the distance, Spidey can see the glittering sea and what remains of the collapsed bridge into Paradise City sticking out of the water in concrete columns, hours away from the bus stop on a winding route along the coast. What remains of the island is just a dark smudge on the horizon. She'd like to keep it that way.

The bus stop itself is behind a chain-link fence. There's dozens of papers and fliers pinned to the stop. Missing posters. Advertisements. She remembers studying them while waiting for her bus, worrying the ticket between her hands and shifting on the uncomfortable metal bench.

One of them looks new.

NOTHING HONORABLE WAITS FOR YOU ON THIS ROUTE

TURN BACK THRILL SEEKERS AND TRUTH CHASERS
IF YOU SEEK PARADISE FOR A CURE,
IF YOU ARE BITTEN AND SURVIVING,
WAIT HERE FOR STELLA

Stella. Spidey recognizes that name. She's pretty sure.

"Wasn't Stella part of the Hostel group?" She asks Jonathan.

"Yeah. Searching for the cure. Load of good it did them." Jonathan scoffs. It turns into a cough. 4C's ghost giggles in her ear.

"I know how to get back to my camp from here." Spidey says, turning away from the stop. She commits the flier to memory, just to be safe.

They stop in one of the empty suburban houses, that night. Spidey remembers their time in that house on the outskirts of Paradise City, waiting for Wifies to finish his endless goose chase. The stove doesn't work, and the fireplace has no fuel. They eat dry fruit and crackers, and Spidey holds this moment into her memory like it's going to escape. She has no reason to be doing that. Her and Jonathan have the rest of their lives in front of them, after all.

Jonathan coughs when setting up their sleeping arrangements for the night. He's disturbing a lot of dust in an abandoned home, is all.

"You okay?" He asks, once they're both laying down. "You've been quiet."

"You promise you won't leave?" She asks. Spidey can't see his expression in the dark. She can't tell by his voice what he's thinking. Jonathan was never a great liar, but she's never been great at spotting lies.

"I promise." He says. She wishes it was reassuring as it used to be.

"What was your father like?" He asks, the next morning. Spidey's leading them down a hiking trail she vaguely recalls from her walk to the bus stop. It shouldn't feel like such a long time ago. It really wasn't that long ago.

"He was good. He reminds me of you, Jonathan. You remind me of him." She corrects herself. She's not sure why it's an important distinction.

"You're older than him." She adds with a grin.

"Hey." Jonathan says, with an exhale that could be laughter.

"You two are similar, though. You're both cautious. And responsible. We weren't in a group like Jawhn, but we traveled a lot, and Dad made a lot of friends. He was always saying, people disliking you was dangerous, so it was always important to be nice."

"How big was your group?" He asks.

"It changed a lot. People came and went, you know, not everyone wanted a nomadic lifestyle, maybe they just wanted company while they went from one city to the next. When I was really little, we had about forty people. That was when we had the most. We had way less than that usually, though. Most of my life we had maybe a dozen or two people travelling with us." It was never quiet.

"That's a lot of people. Makes sense you are they way you are." He says.

"What's that supposed to mean?!" She laughs.

"Just, you know." He gestures at her. "You seem like you grew up with a community, is all. People who grow up alone usually end up... like me. You're very trusting."

"Yeah. Yeah... Look how well that served me." She says. Maybe a bit too bitterly, because Jonathan slows.

"I didn't mean..." He says.

"I know. But if I wasn't so gullible, Wifies wouldn't have... maybe I would have been able to tell that he was…" She trails off.

"Spidey, I... I've been around for a while. I know what people like him are like. They... they take, and take, and will do anything to get what they want. If Wifies couldn't use you by lying to you, he would have just attacked you. By the time I got there, he already had. I'm sure once he thought he couldn't get any more out of you by being nice, he stopped pretending. It's just what people like him are like. If you weren't so... so kind, he would have found a different way to use you to get what he wanted. You didn't do anything wrong."

"Maybe." She says, quietly. Spidey still hasn't told him about M.O.O.N, or the lever, or her choice. Would he still say she did nothing wrong if he knew? "Sorry. I'm slowing us down."

"We aren't on a ticking clock anymore." Jonathan says.

"I guess not." She says. Jonathan weakly smiles at her, and they keep walking.

"Stop that." Wifies says.

"Sorry. Sorry." She sniffles, trying to stop crying. She wipes her face with her sleeves.

"You're slowing us down."

"I'm hurt. I'm hungry."

"Enough with the excuses. I already fed you. I wouldn't have to keep hurting you if you would just keep moving." He says, shoving her forward by her shoulder, the same one he stabbed. She cries out in pain, staggering to a stop as she leans against a wall. The crying she briefly got under control returns full-force.

"What did I just say?" He says. "God, you're pathetic. Stop whimpering like a dog, and get up."

She sucks in breaths through her teeth, and clenches her fist in her skirt. Her face is wet with tears and snot. Her arm hurts, but if she stops bracing herself against the wall with it, she's not sure if she could stay upright. She's trembling like a kicked animal.

"So needy. You just keep complaining." Wifies says, pushing her into a sitting position and handing her a slice of bread and two painkillers from his bag. She takes them slowly, unsure. When Wifies doesn't move to take them back, she slowly nibbles the bread, to make it last longer. He watches her the whole time, expression blank, black shark-eyes trained on her every movement. After, she dry swallows the pills. He didn't give her water.

"Say thank you." He says.

"Thank you." She whispers.

"Good. Keep going." He drags her upright, and nudges her along. She staggers forward, unsteady on her feet, and then wakes with a whimper.

It takes a moment for her to reorient herself, to remember where she was. She touches her cheeks, and her fingers come back wet. She's crying again, but when isn't she these days?

At least this time she hadn't woken up Jonathan. He's still snoring softly under the backdrop of the storm outside, out like a rock. She doesn't want to wake him up, she always feels guilty when she wakes him up with her nightmares, but.

But some part of her wants to. She never had many nightmares as a child, but when she did, she always woke up her dad and he would tell her everything was okay and kiss her on the forehead and tuck her into bed. Whenever Jonathan woke up because of her nightmares, he'd hold her and promise her they were safe. Spidey wanted to be held and reassured. She wanted her dad. She wants Jonathan.

It's in these dark hours, where everything seems a bit more dangerous, that the guilt she does her best to ignore claws its way up from her chest, dark and festering.

It's mostly her fault.

The walk from her camp to the bus stop took her a day. She left with the sunrise and arrived the next morning, with a short nap in the middle. It was why she was tired enough to sleep through most of the bus ride. But they had walked all day yesterday, and would probably walk all day tomorrow. Spidey knows she's slow. Her nightmare did perfectly well to remind her of the fact, to remind her that her being slow was the only reason that any of that happened to her. Maybe Jonathan was right, that Wifies would have found another way to manipulate her. But Spidey knows she's gullible, and trusting, if she was just more cautious, more like Jonathan, she might have thought twice about bringing him back to Paradise City. She would have walked away, alone, and M.O.O.N wouldn't have the data and Wifies would not have found the bomb and Paradise would still be standing and Jonathan would be there, living in the burnt-out husk of his family's church.

And really, it was her fault that Jonathan burnt down his church, his connection to his parents, if she never came to Paradise City in the first place, searching for a useless cure, he would be fine and living the his life the way he had been for fifty years before, and he would not have had to take the infection she was stupid enough to get given to her because she was just such an easy target. He wouldn't be dealing with the side effects still.

He wouldn't be infected still-

She shuts down that train of thought before it can go anywhere, pressing her fist to her mouth before a sob can tear its way from her throat. She digs her teeth into the meat of her hand, pressing her other hand to her chest as her frame wracks with sobs.

Jonathan's asleep, right there. Wake him up, Spidey. He's right there. He'd hug you, do his best to soothe you even if he's cautious.

Wake him up from the little, uncomfortable rest he gets. Wake him up in the middle of the night because you're twenty two years old and can't fall back asleep from a nightmare without Daddy comforting you.

Spidey takes in a deep, shuddering breath, and lays back down. Buries her face in her pillow, and hopes it does enough to muffle her sobs as she cries herself back to sleep.

The morning is clear in the way it can only be after it rains. Spidey wakes up with a dry mouth and tear tracks along her face. She sneaks away before Jonathan can comment on her appearance and washes up. She's not sure who she's pretending for.

Jonathan notices how somber she is, though. He tries coaxing conversation from her a few times, and she tries, she really does, but her cheer falls flat, smiles forced enough even Jonathan can see through her.

He doesn't pry, even though he can tell he wants to. She sees him open his mouth, as if to ask a question, then stops. He asked her if she was alright, at breakfast, and she gave one single too-bright "mhm!". He clearly didn't believe her, but dropped it anyways. Spidey's not sure if she's thankful for that, or not. She knows it wouldn't take much for her to crack open, it reminds her of the time she was a little kid and she poked a spider's nest with a stick, causing thousands of baby spiders to skitter out in a cloud of black spindly limbs, something vile bursting from the slightest touch.

She was like this, for a few days after 4C. She wonders if he thinks it's that again. She wonders if he thinks she's anxious about returning to her caravan. It might be both of those. Maybe she feels bad about multiple things at once. Maybe she's messed up enough that she has enough things to feel bad about, it could fill a book.

Even though he tries, neither of them can really keep a conversation going. Spidey's too distracted. Jonathan has to stop to catch his breath often. They both have to stop often.

"Hey." Jonathan says, on one such time where they stopped to rest. "I'm here for you, okay? I know what it's like."

"Thank you, Jonathan, but I'm okay." Spidey says. She can't even force her voice to uptick at the end. But Jonathan doesn't push, just rests his hand on her shoulder, ruffles her hair, and stands up to keep moving.

They reach the campsite when the sun is low in the sky. It's not sunset yet.

It looks mostly like how it was when she left it. All the other trailers and carriages and caravans are gone, most of them had left when Dad came back from hunting sick. It's just how it was done out here. He had an adult child to care for him, nobody else in the group was obligated to do anything. Spidey thought it was cruel. Even if she couldn't do anything for someone, she wouldn't want to run away. At least that's what she tells herself.

It's just her and Dad's carriage, standing next to a pile of firewood. The firewood is useless and damp, and the clothes left hanging outside are gone.

"Well." Spidey says. She doesn't finish her sentence. She steps forward.

There's snuffling from inside the caravan, and it's rocking slightly. Spidey knows when something is suspicious. The scent of decay draws closer with every step forward. But she can't stop herself. It's like poking a bruise.

"SPIDEY, WAIT-" Jonathan shouts, and pulls her back just in time for a zombie to burst forward.

She barely gets a chance to see her dad's face, decomposed and rotted like every other zombie in Paradise City, before the gunshot rings out.

A flock of birds burst from the trees. Dad slumps to the ground. And Spidey falls to her knees, and wails.

It's not fair, because she knew this was coming. She knew, Dad was infected before 4C and if 4C was dead then surely he would be too, and all she can picture is her Dad wasting away, wandering the campsite in a delirium, growing weaker and confused and alone, at least 4C had her and Jonathan in his final moments, Dad had nobody and he turned and he was in so much pain-

She doesn't even register Jonathan throwing his gun to the side behind her, too focused on the pure grief coursing through her body.

Spidey can't bring herself to look at him. He smells like the infected, and it brings her back to Paradise City in such a horrific jolt that the smell of infection and blood and corpses is enough to turn her stomach, and she leans over in the grass, coughing up what little she ate that morning, and thin, burning bile. She doesn't have a word for the fear-grief-terror-misery-guilt coursing through her veins, clawing its way out of her lungs and crushing her heart in a vice.

Jonathan's dropped to his knees next to her, holding her close and saying placating words and making soft sounds, like she's a frightened animal in need of soothing. He's running his fingers through her hair, she cut it after 4C died in a fit of impulsiveness and he cleaned it up for her, without so much as a disapproving look. Dad would always braid her hair. It's not the same.

She glimpses his body out of the corner of her eyes; and the tears don't blur it enough because just like 4C, dead on the beach, just like Jonathan, bleeding out in front of her while she bangs on the door of the Atropos machine, it's a picture that will never, ever leave her head, for as long as she lives. Jonathan turns her head, slightly, away from the body in front of her. She buries her face in the crook of his neck, and cries, and cries.

She's gone from wailing sobs to sniffles when Jonathan tries to move. Instinctively, she tightens her hold on him, and lets out a terrified "No!", as if him moving slightly is him leaving her again. He stills, and she suddenly feels incredibly stupid.

"Sorry, sorry-" She forces her grip to relax, but doesn't pull away. He pets the back of her head again.

"Shh. You're alright, kiddo. I'm here." He says. Spidey's eyes sting with tears. Jonathan's got his arms wrapped around her, a steady presence that grounds her, even while she's a leaf shaking in the wind.

The next time he tries to move, she lets him, tries to stand up with him. Her legs are too weak, because she nearly wobbles back onto the ground. Jonathan steadies her, walks her over to sit down inside her wagon.

It's dizzying, seeing Jonathan in her childhood home. Two worlds that she never thought would cross. He pins back the tarp covering the sides to air out the space, because the stench of rot is thick enough in the air, it's like the inside of Ish's house all over again. Jonathan stares, lost, at the tightly, packed storage.

"What are you looking for?" Spidey speaks for the first time in a while, her voice hoarse with tears.

"A shovel." He says simply. Spidey sniffles, and on wobbly baby-fawn legs walks over and pries up the floorboard for the under-storage. She moves aside an axe and a gun she was never supposed to touch, and hands over an old shovel. The spade is crusted with dirt, and whatever branding was on the handle has been worn off with the years.

"Do you want to..." Jonathan trails off.

"I don't think I can stand for very long." She admits. "I'll watch."

And that she does, as Jonathan walks around the clearing, poking at the dirt with the shovel until he finds a spot. He starts digging, and she feels bad, making him do all the work, but she'd feel worse leaving her Dad to rot without a burial. 4C got that much.

4C's grave was atomized in an explosion that's partially her fault. 4C's dead because she gave him a birthday cake and a bullet to the back of the skull.

She looks away from Jonathan digging, back to her childhood home. She unsteadily walks, disturbing the dust with every footstep.

There's a book by her father's bedside. Spidey immediately recognizes it. She sits down, and carefully opens it.

It's not a real book, not really. It's sheets of paper that were useful for something at some point, old lists or plans or what could be salvaged from an actual book that was damaged beyond good use, pressed between two squares of thin scrap wood and the spine bound with string. Pressed in each page is a flower, her flowers. Ever since she could walk, toddling along her father, she would pick flowers and carry them with her, stuffed in her pockets and presented like treasures to everyone she came across.

And in this book, years of flowers she's given to her dad are pressed and preserved. She flips each page with a fragile reverence. She used to constantly have flowers on her. She would stop nearly every time she saw one. She came to Paradise City with her pockets full of blue orchids and poppies. Spidey doesn't think she's touched a single flower since she's been in that city, just another thing that Paradise stole from her.

"Spidey." Jonathan calls her name, and her gaze snaps up from where she was staring at the most recently filled page blankly. She folds the book closed, and follows him, tucking it under her arm.

He's done as good as a job that he could have with grave-digging. Dad rests in a shallow grave, with a decently-sized stone dragged to the head of the hole acting as a makeshift gravestone.

"I don't know if you want to see him like this." Jonathan says. "But I know that... I buried my own parents, and the last time I saw them was like this."

She stares into the shallow grave, at what remains of the thing that once was her father. He's cast orange in the sunset.

"Hold this." She says, and hands Jonathan the book of pressed flowers. Spidey walks to the edge of the clearing, bends over, and starts picking flowers.

It's not a great selection, this time of year. It's mostly small wildflowers she never learned the name of and woodsorrel. She picks them anyways, careful with the stems and to not pull them up by the roots.

When her arms are full of flowers, picked across the perimeter of the clearing, she returns to the gravesite. She lowers herself down next to Dad, and arranges the flowers over his face. She does her best to avert her eyes from the decay, from the gunshot wound, while she covers the worst of it.

She stands back up, and Jonathan passes the book over to her. He picks up the shovel, and starts filling in the grave.

The sun sets deeper into the sky, and by the time Jonathan is done, there are stars out at the highest point above them.

"Goodbye, Dad." She whispers. She turns to hug Jonathan, and he wraps his arms around her without hesitation.

"You're okay." He murmurs. "I'm sorry."

"I knew he was dead. I don't know why I'm acting like this." She says.

"Knowing is different than seeing."

"It's my fault." Spidey whispers. "I'm a bad daughter."

"What? You didn't get him infected." Jonathan says.

"But I left him! He gave me the ticket to Paradise City, a-and he died out here, alone, and afraid, a-and-"

"He gave you the ticket. He didn't want you to see him turn."

"4C died and- and I killed him, but at least he had you and me at the end. Dad didn't have anyone, he was all alone, a-and..."

"He wouldn't have wanted you to see him like that. He didn't want you to have to watch him become a zombie, and he didn't want you to have to put him down."

"I don't know if I would have been able to. I don't even know how I managed 4C- whenever I see him in my dreams, he's always dead. It's always that moment."

"...I should have been the one to pull the trigger." Jonathan says.

"You said you would have if I couldn't do it." Spidey says. "I... I guess I could do it. I could kill my best friend."

"You should have never had to. I should have taken responsibility."

"I told you I could do it. And I did. I killed 4C, and I kept taking stupid risks and everything went wrong because of me, a-and you got-" She cuts herself off, because she almost said it. And she can't say it, because once she says it, it's real.

"Spidey-"

"You can't leave me." Spidey says, icy terror flooding her. "Jonathan, you have to promise you won't ever leave me."

"I'm not leaving you." Jonathan says. "I promised you, when we left the city. I'm never leaving you again."

"I already lost one dad to the infection, I can't lose another." She says, barely registering his words.

"Spidey." Jonathan says. He's trying to use his soft voice, the one he uses when she's being pitiful, but he can't hide the way he tensed beneath her. "Spidey, I transferred my infection to Wifies."

"But what if it didn't work? I-I'm not blind Jonathan! You're coughing, and you get out of breath easily when we walk, and your breath smells like the infection. You're going to get worse, and I'm going to have to watch you die and it's going to be my fault. Just like 4C. Just like dad."

"Spidey, nothing you could have done would have prevented either of their deaths." He says.

"But I'm the reason you got infected! If you hadn't taken it from me, you'd be fine!" She says.

"But you would be dead. That's not going to happen." Jonathan says, firmly. "Spidey, I transferred my infection to Wifies. He's dead. I would do anything to keep you safe, I don't regret taking the infection from you, but I'm fine. You have nothing to worry about."

"I know you're lying to me!" Spidey exclaims. "A-and, I know you're just trying to spare my feelings, but I know it's my fault, okay, so you don't need to keep pretending! It's my fault I got infected, so it's my fault you got infected, and it's my fault for even leading Wifies to the bomb in the first place because I was stupid enough to let him manipulate me."

"You aren't stupid." Jonathan says. "And nothing you said sounds like your fault. I told you, Wifies would have done anything to get what he wanted. It's not your fault you are trusting. Wifies got infected because he was a moron who charged at a zombie. He transferred it to you because he wanted me to suffer, and I took it from you because I love you, okay? I'll do anything to keep you alive, and I mean it."

"You lasted 50 years! And then within weeks of meeting me, you got infected. It's because of me- If you didn't take my infection, if you didn't meet me in the first place, if I never went to Paradie City, you would still be fine and at your church and the city would be standing because I wouldn't have led Wifies to the bomb!" The words tumble from her mouth in a waterfall of guilt.

"If you weren't there, he would have found someone else to take him. But let's just say he didn't, and he left. Maybe it would be the same as it was before. My church would still be standing and I'd go through the motions I'd been going through for years. But, Spidey, I don't want that. I may have been surviving, but I wasn't living. I only started living when I met you." Jonathan says.

"But I've messed everything up." Spidey says. "Jonathan, I didn't erase the data."

"What?" For the first time, he sounds legitimately thrown.

"The M.O.O.N data. I went down there, and Wifies somehow- he somehow guessed I'd be- and he- he said if I erased the data, it would seal the doors under the church, and you'd be trapped down there and you would die and I would never see you again-" She hiccups through the tears. "And I know I messed it up just like I did with everything else but I couldn't do it, I couldn't kill you to save everyone else, I'm stupid and selfish and-" Jonathan pulls away from the hug, tilting her head up to meet his face. He cups her cheek, wiping away her tears with his thumb. He looks so concerned, at least his left half of his face does, his right eye permanently clouded over.

"Spidey, I... Nobody should ever have to make that decision. Wifies was cruel. He knows nobody could ever make a choice like that. I would have done the exact same thing, if it meant you had even a chance to live, I would have let them keep their data in a heartbeat. If that makes you selfish, I'm just as selfish as you." He takes in a deep breath.

"Spidey, I don't know if I'm infected. I passed it onto Wifies. He was infected. I... I have the symptoms. But it's been over a week, and I'm fine. The Atropos Machine leaves side effects. Ish mentioned that in a recording. That's all this is. I hope that's all this is." He corrects himself. "I suppose I can't know for sure. I'll avoid biting you in the meantime." He jokes. It doesn't land. Spidey continues to sniffle.

"There was a poster, at the bus stop. About Stella, and a cure. I- I don't know if the Doctor ever found a cure, but if she knows where he is, maybe he could... I know you said there isn't a cure, and I know you don't like the Hostel, but maybe..." Spidey says.

"We can go back to the bus stop. But it might not be them. Stella's not an uncommon name. Even if it is the Hostel, they might not have a cure. I've never believed there was a cure." Jonathan says.

"A-and if there isn't, then we'll go up to the mountains. The infected can't live too well up there. We can travel a little bit, and then we can find a house and live there, and we'll be happy, okay? I trust you. If you say you're fine, then... then we're fine."

"We're fine." He repeats, and pulls her back into a hug. Exhaustion hits her like a bullet, a day of walking and crying catching up with her in a moment. Muffled into Jonathan's shirt, Spidey says,

"I don't want you to die."

"I don't want to die either, kiddo. I don't think I will, at least not soon. Maybe the transfer will cause more issues later on. Maybe I'll get worse. But I promise you, if I ever seem like I'm going to turn, I won't make you put me down like you did with 4C. I will do everything I can to stay alive for you, and I will do anything I can to make sure you're alive." He says softly.

"I love you, Jonathan." Spidey says it just like she did with 4C. There's no gun in her hands this time. Jonathan's arms tighten around her.

"I love you too." He says.

Spidey wakes up early, the next morning, in her childhood bed. She slowly tiptoes outside into the cool morning air, and stares at the sky. It's the shade of blue before the sun rises where everything is faintly illuminated by an unseen light, and everything is perfectly still. Jonathan is snoring softly behind her. She watches the sky be painted with pink and gold, and hopes that if she hopes hard enough, the future will be kind to them.