Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jackson meant a lot of things for Morgan. But first and foremost, it meant safety. 

For the first time in ages, she was sleeping in a bed —a real bed, not a sleeping bag or a rotting mattress. And she was sleeping through the whole night, warm, relaxed, without a knife under her pillow, without waking up every hour or so. 

Jackson also meant community, something she had struggled to adjust at first. Everyone in Jackson was trustworthy, nobody was there to harm anyone, and that was an odd sensation that took a while to get used to. 

Some people, usually the youngest ones or the most elderly, managed to adjust quickly to being part of a community. But for the 25-55 age bracket, it took some time to remember how to trust people and make friends again. 

Jackson also meant food on the daily, and gaining weight. Now that there was fat in her body, Morgan got her period back. And the curves that formed in her figure made her realize she was, in fact, a full grown woman. 

And that’s how things started to fall in place slowly in Jackson: as people nourished themselves back to proper health with food, sleep and relaxation, more things occurred. People’s hormones came back to normal levels, and even though it was still hard for some to make friends, regularized testosterone and estrogen levels were enough to get the ball of nature rolling. 

Soon enough, people began to form relationships of all kinds, and the first Jackson-born babies bloomed. 

“It’s a boy” Morgan said to Maria as she caught the baby in her arms. He was crying loudly and proudly, as if he already knew where had just been born, and who his parents were. 

She wiped the baby just enough to get the blood and gooey slime out of him, and then settled him in Maria’s naked chest, with Tommy leaning closer, kissing her sweaty forehead. 

There wasn’t much time to admire the beautiful scene in front of Morgan’s eyes— Maria still had to birth the placenta and there was a lot of cleaning to do. So, she stepped aside for a moment, and helped the doctor (the only one in Jackson) and the few other girls who had volunteered as midwives to continue working. 

Morgan had volunteered as a thank you to Tommy and Maria, after everything they’ve done for her. Besides, several of the animals in the barn had already given birth, so she already had her fair share of experience with assisting births. Tommy had reassured her it wouldn’t be any different than when Chestnut, the mare, gave birth— although Maria didn’t really appreciate the comparison. 

As she worked, Morgan couldn’t help but double glance at the new family, looking at the tears in their eyes and smiles on their faces, hearing soft whispers of love and encouragement. That was a big difference with the barn animals: they didn’t whisper “hi, little buddy” to their babies as tears glistened on their eyes. 

“Hey, earth to Morgan?“ It was Dina who shook her back to reality. “We need more towels.” 

“Towels, right. Be right back.” She replied and left the room, trying to focus on her task. But she felt drunk as she walked down the stairs and out of the house. 

Morgan made her way through the snowy streets towards the inventory, to fetch more towels and supplies. But her mind was still in Tommy and Maria’s room, her thoughts focused on the baby, that newborn being held and hugged by the two people who made him. 

She grabbed everything quickly, and tried to rush back to Tommy’s place when she saw a large man by the porch. Joel. 

Morgan hadn’t talked much with him, but everyone in town knew Tommy’s brother. A year ago, as Jackson expected his arrival, Tommy had told everyone that Joel was a white knight in shiny armor, a real life superhero: the best shooter, rider and survivor he’d ever seen. But the reality was pretty disappointing.

Joel was old, a good ten years older than his brother, and rough like worn leather. He wasn’t a knight, nor a prince or a superhero. And although he was handsome, it wasn’t a conventional beauty. He was handsome in the way a grizzly bear or a puma is handsome: it was a beauty that had equal amounts of danger in it. A beauty meant to lure a prey into a trap. 

But right there, standing on the porch, he resembled a frightened deer more than a threat, his chocolate eyes wide in worry as he laid his eyes on Morgan. 

“Is everything okay?” He asked as she approached the house. His voice was firm, but cautious, as if holding himself to hear the worst. 

“Everything’s great!” She said, smiling. “A boy, seven pounds eight ounces, screamed a lot as he came out”, Morgan continued, chuckling softly. But, as her lips moved upwards to smile, she realized there were frozen tears on her cheeks, tears that had been falling down her eyes without her even noticing. 

That must have been why he looked so scared: a nurse running to the house carrying towels and crying mustn’t have been a nice sight to see when your nephew’s being born.

Morgan sniffed a tear, and wiped her cheeks dry. “Come in, I’ll let Tommy know you’re here” she informed him, and walked up the porch. Joel opened the door for her, the warmth of the house welcoming them in, along with a faint smell of birth —amniotic fluid and blood— coming from upstairs. 

But Morgan didn’t have to tell him, as Tommy walked down the stairs at that moment. And, once again, she got caught staring at another intimate moment as the brothers hugged without a word. 

Tommy was a big man, but Joel was even larger, with a smaller waist that made his shoulders look more broad, and a slightly taller frame. They hugged tightly, quietly. Words weren’t needed, both of them knew that. Morgan couldn’t help but notice Joel’s big, calloused hands clenching on Tommy’s clothes. Tommy’s head was hiding in his brother’s shoulder, but Joel’s was up, his gaze fixed on something else: the picture frames sitting on the windowsill. 

One of the pictures showed Kevin, Maria’s son. She had told Morgan her story once —how she lost him— a few months after Morgan’s arrival to Jackson, when she had finally got out of the hospital.  

“And her?” Morgan had asked, her fingers running through the frame holding the portrait of a young girl.

“That was Sarah, Tommy’s niece.” She replied, shortly. 

And it didn’t click at the moment. But now it did. For the people in Jackson, Ellie was Joel’s daughter. Barely no one knew he had another one as well. 

Morgan swallowed, and walked upstairs before Joel could realize they were both looking at the same thing in the room. 

“About damn time” Dina growled as she yanked the towels from Morgan’s hands to clean. 

“Language, Dina.” Maria said, clearly tired, as she nursed her baby with the colostrum. “You’ve been hanging out too much with Ellie, that is clear.”

And, as Dina tried to poorly mask her blushed cheeks, the name of Ellie reminded Morgan why she had come upstairs in the first place. 

“Joel’s downstairs” she informed Maria. 

“Tell him we need a minute, and then he can come up.” She replied. 

“Is Ellie here too?” Dina asked, a faint red glow still on her cheeks. 

“Eh, no, it’s just him. I think she’s patrolling.” 

And despite having birthed a baby literal minutes ago, Maria couldn’t help but command the situation. “Go tell Jesse to call her over, to end the patrol and come back to meet her cousin.” She said to Morgan. “And tell her that’s an order.” 

The girl nodded and, once again, made her way downstairs, just to bump into Joel and Tommy, deep in a whispered talk. 

“Scared the shit out of me when I saw her face—“ is all she caught from the conversation, which ended abruptly as she made her way down, making their heads turn. 

Tommy smiled, tired but happy, but what really caught her attention were Joel’s eyes on her, now looking back like they always do —not like a deer, but rather a puma.  

“Maria said to call Ellie over” Morgan explained. 

“She’s patrolling” Joel replied, with a tone that assumed she was dumb enough to not know that. 

Morgan shook her head a little. That is why she avoided interacting with Joel if she could: he talked to her like she was stupid. Like anything she ever said annoyed him to the verge of madness. 

He was a man of short words, yeah, but he talked with the typical southerner politeness to most people, politeness that wasn’t the norm in Morgan’s case, and she had no clue why. 

“Yeah, but it’s an order” she replied back, trying to mimic his tone, to give him a spoon of his own medicine. 

Tommy chuckled at that. “Do what she says, then, don’t make mamma bear angry.” he replied as he patted his brother’s shoulder. 

But then Dina came down, taking her apron off. 

“I can go call her” she said, and Joel’s harsh look softened. 

“Let’s go, Dina” he gruffly replied, making his way out with the girl. 

Morgan sighed, and Tommy made his way up once more. But, before he climbed the stairs, he stood next to Morgan, a hand on her shoulder. 

“Don’t cry, you did amazing up there.”

And with that, he left her alone in the living room, next to the framed photos of two kids who should’ve also been called over to meet their new cousin and brother. 

—— 

Valentine’s Day, turns out, was a great day to go and get wasted at The Tipsy Bison. The bar was full with couples, which meant no one was going to bother Morgan by trying to flirt with her. But it was a sad sight, being the only single girl tonight, sipping a cranberry vodka, sitting on a bar stool near the jukebox. 

But it seemed like she wasn’t the only one with the same idea, as Joel entered the bar and walked past her. He sat a couple stools away, and ordered a beer. He’s usually got Ellie trailing behind, like a baby duck following mom, or Tommy. But tonight, he was alone. 

Morgan hadn’t seen him since his nephew was born, almost two weeks ago. By the time he had come back with Ellie and Dina, she had already left Tommy’s house. Morgan had rushed out of there as the same strange, uncalled tears threatened to stream down her face once more. And she was full blown sobbing by the time she got to her home, a place much smaller, unscented, colder, lonelier. 

“Hey”, she greeted Joel politely. 

He nodded back, and drank his beer. 

“How’s Maria and the baby?” Morgan found herself asking, and regretting it the moment she spoke. Just like her, Joel was probably there to get shit-face wasted in peace and quiet. And, out of every single person who lived in Jackson, Morgan guessed she probably was on the bottom of the list of people he wanted to engage with right now. 

But she hadn’t seen Maria or Tommy since the birth, and the cranberry vodka was making her jaw loosen up. And besides, it’s polite small talk, he can’t be that much of an asshole to not reply back. Right?

“They’re good.”

An awkward silence was about to set when she asked another question. 

“What did they name him?”

“Benjamin.”

“Benjamin” Morgan repeated, softly, to herself. And something in her tone must’ve caught his attention, because he finally turned to look at her, instead of side-eyeing her. 

“Benjamin Miller, that’s cute—“ she said, sipping her drink again before continuing. “Congratulations, then.”

“Thanks.”

And the conversation died right there, as both went back to their drinks. He wasn’t mean this time— just distant. Morgan couldn’t judge that, really. 

Couples came and went, a few danced, all of them were drinking. There were a couple of teens who were definitely not old enough to be there, but they were sipping Shirley Temples and not bothering, so they were not kicked out yet. The old jukebox —fixed by Samuel, the electrician—  only had a small repertoire of songs, but it was very good music. Sting’s “Shape Of My Heart” played softly, and Morgan mumbled the lyrics, her gaze lost in her empty drink. 

“Hey— ‘nother round here, I invite” she heard Joel say, and when she turned, she was surprised to see his beer pint already empty. It couldn’t have been more than 2 minutes since he walked in, so he must’ve chugged that in record time. 

“Thanks” Morgan said to him, and then again to the bartender when he brought another cranberry vodka for her and another pint of beer for Joel. She raised her glass and looked at him, still sitting a couple of chairs away. “To Benjamin Miller.”

“Damn right” he said, and both drank. 

This time, though, it was Morgan who chugged her drink before he could. 

“You’re gonna get a bad hangover” Joel murmured, his eyes on her lips as she placed her glass down.

“Doesn’t matter. I’m celebrating.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah— I’m happy for Maria and Tommy.” Morgan said, but there was a glow in her eyes that gave it away, and it sparked a question in Joel’s mind. 

“You were crying, the other day” he said, but she couldn't hear him properly with the music. He rolled his eyes at her confused expression and moved to sit next to Morgan. “I said you were crying the day Benji was born. Why’s that?” 

“S’got emotional, that’s all. Tommy and Maria wanted this for so long. And they deserve it more than anyone.” 

He nodded, and took a swig of his pint. “How long have you known ‘em?” 

“Ever since I got here, so…” Morgan started to count in her head— how many years has it been? But then, a thought crossed her mind as she was counting: she was chatting with Joel Miller, and he was the one asking questions, instead of judging her answers. 

“So, a while” he replied when Morgan didn’t say anything back, snapping her out of her head. 

“Yeah, years are a bit blurry, but a while is a good time measure.” 

He nodded shortly, and looked up and down at Morgan. She wasn’t wearing anything out of the ordinary, just a loose blue polo sweater and a pair of jeans that used to dance around her waist when she got them and now were a bit too tight on her thighs.

“How old are ya?” 

Again, another question she had to think about for a moment. Her years in captivity made her lose track of many things, and she had stopped celebrating her birthday since then. 

“Twenty-something?”

He raised an eyebrow. “And what’s something?” He asked with a bit of that tone he usually talked to her peeking through, although it was watered down by the booze. 

“I think I’m twenty-eight, but I could be wrong.” 

“How come you don’t know how old you are?” he asked, once again, as if he were saying ‘are you stupid?’, but there was less judgment this time and more… curiosity, perhaps? 

“There’s a couple of fuzzy years in my head, lost track of time for a while before ending up here.”

He nodded again, and took another swig. He knew that, when people say those kinds of things, it means don’t ask, so he didn’t. 

“How old are you?”

“Fifty-one.”

Morgan raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

He mimicked her expression, ready to bounce back with a defensive remark when she replied. “Thought you were at least ten years younger.” 

“Why?”

Morgan shrugged, and finished her second drink of the night. “You’re very strong, s’all. I remember you carried the Christmas tree all by yourself last December.” 

He rolled his eyes, and a very faint smirk crossed his lips before he hid them in his pint, finishing it up too. “Being strong’s got nothing to do with age. I’m still as strong as ever, my body just hurts more afterwards, that’s all.” 

Morgan nodded, looking at him, but she diverted her gaze when he looked at her, and stared at the empty drink. 

“Another one?” he asked. 

“Maybe I shouldn’t—“ 

“Come on, s’on my tab. Well, Tommy’s tab.” Joel smirked when he clarified. 

“Okay, then.” 

And, just like with the years, Morgan ended up losing track of the drinks she had that night. 

The only topic of conversation they both had, at first, was Tommy. So, as the alcohol flowed, so did the anecdotes Joel had missed on, the ones Morgan could tell in full detail, submerged in the role of a cranberry-vodka-infused narrator. 

“And then I heard a boom, and when I turned around he was head to toe covered in flour.” She giggled, and Joel contained a chuckle, holding his forehead with a hand. 

“What an idiot.” 

“Maria was pissing herself, I swear. And I know he only did it to amuse her, but still. She hosed him down in the barn, didn’t let him get in the house like that.” 

Her giggles died down with a sigh, and Joel finished his… sixth pint of the night, maybe? He had no clue, and neither had her. 

But he wasn’t drunk, he was sure of it. That was until Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away” started playing in the jukebox and he smiled. Yeah, he was drunk. 

“I haven’t heard this song in ages.”

 “It’s from a movie, right?” Morgan asked. 

“Top Gun.”

She nodded, and finished her drink now. Again, no clue about the count. 

“My daughter loved that movie.” It slipped before he could stop it, his mind betrayed by the alcohol. 

There weren’t many ways to make that comment any less awkward: if Morgan had said “Oh, really? Ellie likes Top Gun?” it would’ve made it too obvious he didn’t mean her. But then again, Joel didn’t know Morgan knew what he had meant by that. 

So, to try not to make it even more awkward, Morgan used the only possible outcome her drunk, dumb brain could come up with— over sharing herself as well.

“S’a good one. My mom loved Tom Cruise, it made my dad jealous all the time. They died a while ago.” 

Joel nodded, but didn't know what to say. A part of him, a very small fraction of his brain that wasn’t  affected by the poison running through his blood, was telling him to back off and cut the conversation. Get up and stumble back home now. Don’t open the “dead relatives” door. 

But most of his brain was drunk, and could only focus on Morgan’s long shiny curly brown hair, in the way her eyes reflected the lights in the bar, in the sweet ring of her voice. 

“Infected?” 

Morgan shook her head. “Raiders.” 

“What happened?” 

“The Portland ZQ fell down. It’s cold and humid up there, so the fungi spreads faster. A man infected got through security, and it just took a few hours before it spread everywhere.”

His jaw clenched. She continued. 

“My parents and I fled in a car, but we had never been out of a ZQ before. We didn’t know how to make it out in the wild. That night we settled a camp and lit a fire.” 

And that’s all it took for Joel to piece the story together. There was only one question remaining. 

“How did you survive?” 

‘I didn’t. I’ve been a walking corpse since then’ is what Morgan wanted to say. But the alcohol, and Joel’s full attention on her, stopped her from saying that. 

Morgan didn’t like Joel, and she had no clue why he was behaving so nicely, or how she even ended up drinking with him in the first place. But, if stirring the pot of trauma is what it took to keep those chocolate eyes on her, then she was going to stir it. 

“Do you know what exchangers are?” 

Joel’s warm blood felt cold all of the sudden. 

There’s all kinds of people on the road. A few try to keep things still civilized, but most have resorted to violence, like raiders. It’s understandable, considering the context.  But there were a few exceptions, however, that turned towards practices far more crueler.  

Joel had heard stories before about exchangers, but he really didn’t believe them, as he had never come across one. But Morgan had. 

“I know what they are.” 

“Well, these raiders were exchangers, and I was what they exchanged.” 

He shook his head, trying to make sense of the sentence. He knew what she meant, he just didn't want to believe it. 

“How did you end up here? How did you escape the exchangers?” 

“I didn’t. They abandoned me when I was too weak to be raped anymore.”

Morgan said nonchalantly, but it hit Joel with full force on the face. She sighed, and looked away. 

Stirring the shit pot for a man’s attention wasn’t worth it, not even for Joel Miller’s attention, especially when his eyes go from dark and mysterious and sexy to… sad. 

“Wait—“

“Night, Joel.” 

Morgan said as she stood up, the booze coming down fast, but it was adrenaline and the burning tears threatening to burst what carried her in a straight line home. 

Chapter Text

For the next couple of days, the snow didn't give up, despite the fact that February was slowly reaching its end. It had been the longest winter Jackson had faced since the outbreak. 

Joel and Ellie didn't mind the snow, though. Made it easier to spot and follow animal trails in the woods. 

Tommy had asked Joel if he could hunt down a rabbit, one of the only animals they were still unable to raise as cattle on the farm. It was Maria’s favorite, and whatever mamma bear wanted she got. So, Joel obeyed, and he got Ellie to follow along. 

Shit, he could’ve told her they were going out to hunt rocks and she still would’ve followed, anything but school was good. 

They walked slowly through the trees, trying to spot rabbit trails on the snow. 

“So, the farm girl, the midwife.” Joel cleared his throat. “What do you know about her?”

“About who?”

Joel rolled his eyes. “Dina’s friend.”

“Oh! Yeah—“ Ellie said with a smile. Nowadays her world revolved around Dina, hence why she understood Joel was talking about Morgan with that reference. 

“Not much.” She continued. “I don’t think they’re friends friends, but they’ve known each other for years now. She’s cool.”

“That’s all your insight? She’s “cool”?” Joel asked, frustration boiling in a low temperature. He had gathered himself enough to ask openly about Morgan and all he got was a shrug and a nonchalantly ‘cool’? 

“Doesn’t talk much, but in a cool way, not like you. You don’t talk, but in a grumpy way.” Ellie explained.

“A-ha, smartass.”

They continued their hunt, a blanket of white powder glistening under the sun beneath them. 

“Why you ask?”

Joel sighed. Why did he ask? That was a great question. He had no idea. Well, he was trying to convince himself he was just curious: he thought he knew anything and everything about living in this world, and then Morgan came along like a myth becoming true in front of his eyes. He just wanted to be well informed about exchangers. 

And another part of him, a smaller, quiet part of him, just wanted to be well informed about her. 

“She’s a bit weird.”

“She’s been through hell.” Ellie said with a nod. “Dina told me, but she told me not to tell.”

Joel stopped and looked down at Ellie. He had met her a couple years ago, and since then she had bloomed into womanhood in her own way. He knew she was having a thing with Dina, a physical thing. But he wasn’t sure she understood what ‘hell’ was, as she was barely getting to know paradise. 

“Exchangers.” He muttered.

Now it was Ellie who looked up at him, an eyebrow raised. “How do you know?”

“She told me, but she didn’t give me details.”

“Well, Dina didn’t give details either, but I can only imagine what she’s been through.”

Joel shook his head. “Don’t think you do, kiddo.”

———

That night, there was a large pot of rabbit stew with carrots and potatoes at the Miller’s for dinner. The food was warm, the company was fun, and the smiles and gazes all fell on Maria’s chest, where the cuddly Benji snuggled up his momma. 

It had taken a while for Joel to adjust to this new normality: his brother married with a child, inviting him over to have dinner. None of Tommy’s plans had ever ended in a nice tone— he was a magnet for chaos, after all. But Jackson suited him, Maria suited him, fatherhood suited him. And the once reckless Tommy was now a man with bags under his eyes and the widest smile Joel had ever seen on him. 

But jealousy was eating him alive. He knew it made no sense to be so jealous of Tommy, but right now, he had everything Joel never did— not even before the outbreak. 

And, as he had tried to drown the mixed feelings on his chest, he had found his mind drifting back to Morgan, and the exchangers. He needed to know more, to piece it together. Thinking of her and her pain helped to lessen his. 

It was Joel’s distant gaze, far removed from the scene in the living room with Benji, Ellie and Tommy, that caught Maria’s attention. 

“Why do I have a feeling you’re here for something else besides visiting your nephew, Joel?” 

He couldn’t help the corner of his lips rise in a shameful smile as he washed the dishes. “Because you’re perceptive, and I’m… running out of people to ask.” 

He didn’t bullshit his way around Maria. That’s why she was Tommy’s wife, after all: there was no reason to lie to her, and especially there was no way to get away with it. 

Ellie and him tend to hang out with them, but they’ve been in their place for hours now, and all because Joel hadn’t had a moment to ask about Morgan yet. But he sighed. That moment was now. 

“About?” Maria asked.

“Morgan.” Her name rolled out of his mouth with a nice flavor. 

Maria crossed her arms, leaning on the counter. “What about her?”

“We talked the other day, at The Tipsy Bison. She told me she had been kidnapped by exchangers before coming here.”

“She was.” Maria confirmed, the look in her eyes firm. It didn’t sit right with her that a man, especially if it was Joel Miller, was asking about your past. 

“Can you tell me—?”

“It’s not my place, Joel.” She interrupted before he could finish the question. 

Joel put the plate and the sponge down, his hands holding to the sink. “I just… is it true?” He turned his head to face Maria. “What exchangers do— is what they did to her?”

Silence. They both knew it’s true. Both knew what he was asking was… pointless. And the look in Maria’s eyes, the very small shiver that rushed through her spine as she remembered the day Tommy came back from patrol carrying Morgan in his arms, said it all. 

It had been the last snowy day of that year, with a weather very similar to today’s —sunny, but extremely cold. During a patrol, Tommy bumped into Morgan, and brought her back to Jackson. Maria thought he was carrying a corpse at first, until she saw her chest slowly raising up and down, fighting. 

She remembered her ribs peeking through her back, the unnatural blue tone of her fingers, the raw skin on her thighs. She remembered how Tommy whispered orders to dig a grave, just in case she wasn't gonna make it, as they hurried her to the small makeshift hospital. 

“How is she in one piece?” Joel asked. 

“With love, community and especially…” Maria took a step closer to him “without asking questions.” 

And that, clearly, was a threat. 

“I’m only asking because she told me about it in the first place.” Joel found himself excusing. 

“And you couldn’t get another word out of her mouth after she confessed it, right?” 

Joel only realized their conversation wasn’t private anymore when Tommy showed up in the kitchen, looking at them confused. But Maria was angry, and talking loudly, and didn't stop. 

“Joel, you better than anyone here knows about loss, and how healing looks different for everyone. She heals by forgetting. Let her forget.”

“That's not how it’s supposed to be.” He snapped back. And he meant it. 

After years of pushing it down, trying to hide and forget, the only thing that healed him after losing Sarah was becoming a father again, taking care of another human, no matter how scary loving was. And Maria knew exactly how he felt, because she’s been through the same damn path. 

“Don’t you think you’re being hypocritical right now, Joel?” 

He raised an eyebrow. 

“What’s going on?” Ellie came in, despite Tommy’s warnings to stay in the living room. She was carrying Benji in her arms, and it made Joel’s heart twitch for a second when he looked at the two kids, two replacements. 

“Your father—“

“You’re over-reacting.” Joel cut Maria. And she let out an unamused snort. 

“Joel“ it was Tommy who stepped in this time, making both Joel and Maria turn their heads. “I really think you should leave her alone.” 

“I didn’t do anything. She told me the other day—“ 

“And that’s all you need to know.” Maria interrupted him now. “Trust me.” 

Tommy sighed. “This isn’t anything against you, we just want to protect her. If you want to know what happened to her, you’ll have to hear it from her own words in her own terms.“ 

“No, not even that.” Maria shook her head, and stepped closer to her brother-in-law. “I mean it, leave her alone, Joel.” 

“Is this about—?” Ellie started to speak, but one look of Joel's eyes was enough to cut her short. However, the damage was done. 

Maria was fuming at this point. “Joel, it took us years to help her come back to life. I don’t want her to crumble because you go around talking behind her back. I don’t have the time or the energy to…”

Maria sighed, and looked down for a second. Her voice was more calm when she spoke again.

“Don’t pity her.” 

She didn’t ask if he felt pity, she stated it as a truth, because that was what everyone did once they knew. 

Joel huffed.

“Ellie, go get your coat.” 

They said their goodbyes and left Tommy’s house to get to their place, a place much smaller, unscented, colder, lonelier. 

A question lingered in Joel’s mind. A harsh question, a hypocritical question. 

Who wouldn’t pity her?

——

Morgan walked through the half melted snow, mixed in with mud, frowning. It was probably the 4th or 5th time she had dropped by Tommy and Maria’s this week. The other day, she brought them a basket of fresh eggs. The day after, she came back to give Maria a working breast pump someone had found in a patrol mission for supplies. The day after that, she helped clean the house and do some baby laundry. 

But helping her friends didn’t bother Morgan— the uncontrollable soft sobs in the night is what was wearing her out. 

Crying herself to sleep wasn’t out of the ordinary for Morgan. It was the only habit she couldn’t shake off from her time captive. But it was draining. And when you cry so much so often, there’s a moment when you dry up. But Morgan hadn’t come to that moment yet, and it was getting annoying, more so when she realized the nights she cried were the days she had visited Maria and Benji. 

It takes a village to raise a baby, is how the saying goes, so it wasn’t uncommon to see people come and go from the Miller’s. Today, standing on the porch, was Joel. 

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

Morgan bit her cheek when she heard Joel’s dry tone, but decided not to read much into it. She moved her hand to open the door when Joel spoke again.

“Stop that. Tommy said to wait.” 

There it was again: that condescending tone. He was stone cold sober right now, of course he wasn’t going to talk to her nicely. But, then again, it’s nothing out of the ordinary. That Valentine’s Day at the bar was the exception to the rule. And their awkward, drunk, inexplicable interaction that night just probably made his rude manners and indifference worse. 

Morgan moved her hand down to her side. Joel was carrying a toolbox, and she had a small first aid kit, and both gazes settled on what was carrying the other. 

“Maria needed some help, one of her stitches got loose” Morgan told him. 

Joel’s explanation was far shorter. “Radio transmitter‘s broken.”  

She huffed something like an acknowledgement when Tommy opened up. He looked tired, there was spit on his shoulder, and Benji was fuzzing in his arms. Morgan and Joel made their way in, invaded by the warmth of the fireplace and the smell of newborn that seems to have attached to the wall panels. 

“You good to go?” Joel asked his brother. 

“Yeah, just— we need the small pliers, em—“ 

You rolled your eyes, smiling, and put the first aid kit down to extend her arms. “Here, give him.” 

Tommy handed her the crying newborn. “Be right back.” He said before disappearing upstairs to pick the pliers, change his shirt, wake Maria up… 

Joel had forgotten how chaotic the first year of a baby is, and it amused him a bit to see Tommy running around like a headless chicken. But Morgan’s whispered tone snapped him out of his head. 

“Shhhh. Hi little buddy, how’s it going? Why are you crying so much, huh?” She talked to Benji, as she sat down on the sofa, and his fuzzing calmed down for a moment when she let him suck on her thumb. 

Joel stared at them for a second, thoughts overlapping. 

‘They abandoned me when I was too weak to be raped anymore’

Her words echoed in his mind, and the sight in front of him made him suddenly very nervous. It was the sadness lingering in the corners of her mouth, the lack of shine in her eyes as she looked down at the baby, that made him snap a question in place. 

Did Morgan have a baby at some point? 

Guessing that exchangers most likely didn’t provide condoms with their service, the math suggests that, at one point, she could’ve been pregnant. 

He moved his gaze away, and his eyes now landed on the framed photo of Sarah. He moved his eyes one more time, but there were baby clothes folded on top of the coffee table, baby bottles in the sink, and more old photos of Tommy and Joel hanging on the walls. 

He needed to get out of that mad house before he bursted. 

“Tell Tommy I wait outside.” He huffed at Morgan, unable to look in her direction, as he walked out back to the porch. 

Maria had made it clear the other day: leave the girl alone, and don’t ask her about her past. She had even pointed out his own hypocrisy and fuck, she was right, as usual. He would’ve ripped the head of anyone who’d asked about Sarah so lightly. And he imagined a rape victim wouldn’t like to be asked if they ever got pregnant out of their abuse. 

But now, he just couldn’t get it out of his mind. 

Morgan was a couple of years younger than Sarah when the outbreak began (if she really was 28 as she had assumed, because Sarah should’ve been 31 by now) but he couldn’t remember when the Portland ZQ fell. How old was Morgan when the exchangers took her? Was she a kid? Was she Sarah's age? Or Ellie’s? 

But the other thing that was bothering him at that moment as he stepped back out, leaving the warmth of Tommy’s house to breathe the snowy air, was the overwhelming tranquility. Baby clothes, framed photos, his nephew, and her. It made him feel dizzy how natural it all looked. It made him feel strange how much his heart ached for something so unspecial.

Joel didn’t even let Morgan say anything as he stormed off the house, so she just swallowed saliva and focused again on Benji. 

Joel’s reaction just made her confirm her previous assumption: he didn’t like her before, but he liked her even less now, to the point of not even wanting to share a space with her, even if his nephew was there. 

Morgan’s eyes explored the shapes of Benji’s face as he slowly left the newborn stage and got bigger and larger each day. There were so many things from Maria: the lovely color of his skin, the small little curls, his long lashes, the shape of his ears. But the whole face had the Miller stamp of production. 

That’s when the manufacturer came down the stairs, now changed into some working gear. “Where’s Joel?” Tommy asked.

“He said he would wait outside.” 

If Tommy had any questions as to why, he didn’t share them. But he looked at Morgan and Benji, now fully calm in her arms, and smiled. “What kind of baby whisper magic do you have?” 

She giggled softly. “Patted him a bit, I think he had a stomachache.” 

“María’s upstairs, are you sure she’ll be okay?” 

“Yes Tommy, it’s just a loose stitch. I’ll fix it faster than I made him fall asleep.”

Tommy smiled.

“Atta girl, see you both later, then.” he patted her shoulder, and left the house to meet Joel. Morgan didn’t even look back to watch him open the door, just in case Joel caught her staring.

She walked up the stairs and knocked softly on Maria’s door before coming in. Surprisingly, Maria didn’t have as many bags under her eyes as Tommy did-- it was clear he was trying to let her rest as much as she could. 

But despite that, Maria looked very uncharacteristically like her: she was wearing her pajamas, and her hair was frizzy and tied in a messy bun. But she smiled wider than ever when she saw her child in Morgan’s arms.

“Hey you.” Morgan greeted her, and settled the baby in her arms. Then, she kneeled down between Maria’s legs, and got to work.

“What did you do to pop this stitch, huh? The doctor had told you you couldn't do any heavy lifting.”

“Tommy and I tried to have some intimacy-- wasn't sexy at all, neither of us came and all it did was make me tear again and wake Benji.” she explained nonchalantly as Morgan prepared the thread.

“Okay, that's more than what I needed to know.”

That made Maria snort a laugh. She settled the baby on the bed and plopped herself up with her elbows to look down at Morgan, working between her thighs. “Girl, you’re sewing my coochie together, we’re far beyond the point of embarrassment here.”

Morgan giggled a little. She continued working in silence, fixing the stitch in a minute, and checking the other two. Maria had teared a bit while giving birth, nothing out of the ordinary, but it wasn’t an emergency that required the doc’s attention, and Dina was in school. So, Morgan offered to sew her back up. 

“Was Joel downstairs?” Maria broke the silence.

“Yeah.”

“Did he say anything to you?”

Morgan sighed. “Nope. In fact, he left the room as soon as we walked into the house, didn't even look at me.”

Maria nodded a short ‘good’, which made Morgan stick her head out, and judging by Maria’s nervous expression, she must’ve looked a bit puzzled. “I mean-- he had been asking about you, about exchangers. I told him to leave you alone, and not ask about your personal life.”

Oh. 

Morgan did everything in her power to not blush, so she turned her face away from Maria as she put all the tools back in the first aid kit. 

Why was Joel Miller asking about her? Maybe, most likely, because he had been weirded out by her on their first (and likely very last) interaction. After all, she had dropped a bomb like that and left without explanations. Maybe he was wondering if she had lied to him.

“It's okay” Morgan stuttered a bit. "I told him the other day about it. Just mentioned it, didn't explain much. Maybe that's why he asked…” She bit her cheek and turned to Maria. “Were you mean to him?”

She rolled her eyes, standing up to lift her underwear and sweatpants up. “What do you think?”

For some reason, that made Morgan mad. The way Maria rolled her eyes, the tone in her voice, as if scolding people who asked about her was the reasonable, only logical thing to do. But she quickly pushed that weird sensation away.

“It’s okay, you know? I don’t mind him knowing” Morgan sighed before she continued, as they made their way downstairs with the baby. “--because I have questions for him as well. Questions that I wouldn't dare ask him.”

Maria raised an eyebrow. “Like?”

“Like Sarah.”

Something changed in Maria’s eyes as Morgan said Sarah’s name, although she couldn’t pinpoint what. She sat down on her favorite sofa, cuddled her baby closer, and latched him, while Morgan sat on the other couch.

“Can… can you tell me, about her?” Morgan asked.

“It’s not my place to say” Maria replied, her eyes focused on Benji. But after a moment, she continued. “But I’ll tell you what Tommy told me.”

And then, Maria narrated the night of the outbreak in Arlington, Texas. Running away, the military, the fire, the frighten, the blood. She told Morgan how Joel had carried Sarah’s small body for hours, refusing to let go. How Joel and Tommy buried her in a shallow, unmarked grave outside Austin.

It was a sad story, but it didn’t surprise Morgan. It sounded like Joel, it tracked. 

“What about Sarah’s mom?” She asked.

Maria shook her head. “Never had one. Joel and his girlfriend were way too young when they had her. She had to drop out of college when she got pregnant, and had a pretty severe case of baby blues after. So, two months before Sarah’s first birthday, she just took off in the night. That was years before the outbreak.”

“So, he was a single dad.” Morgan stated, a bit shocked. She had always pictured pre-outbreak Joel as a married man, the ones who have a sunburn on their finger because they never take their wedding ring off. 

“Yes.”

“And… Did he ever date again?” 

“Not much, just hookups, according to Tommy. Back when he lived in the Boston ZQ, there was a woman named Tess. But they seemed more like friends with benefits from what I’ve heard, neither of them were emotionally available for anything else, especially Joel.” 

Maria looked out through the window, and Morgan’s eyes closely followed her gaze, paying attention to how it continually dropped down to the framed photos of Kevin and Sarah, and then back up to the view.

“Sarah was Joel’s only love in his life, Tommy says. Ellie seems like the second closest thing that comes to it, but it’s a very different love. Joel… he needs Ellie to live, while he lived for Sarah, and that’s not the same.”

Something got caught in Morgan’s throat, and she swallowed. Maria continued.

“He learned to love Ellie, but that’s not unconditional love like he had for Sarah. He didn’t love her the second he met her. I cannot judge him for that… I love Benji, but he’s not Kevin. I always knew he wouldn't be a replacement, never meant it to be that way, but…” Maria’s voice broke for a single second, but she cleared her throat. “I don't know, you wouldn't get it.”

“You underestimate me a lot, Maria.” Morgan replied, her own voice broken too. It made Maria’s head turn around, bringing her back to reality, and she smiled sadly when she saw Morgan’s kind eyes.

“You’ve grown a lot, haven’t you?” she said, dropping her gaze down to her baby in her arms, but Morgan knew she was talking about her. 

“I know I overreacted when Joel asked about you, especially if you had opened up to him before. I just want you to be safe, Morgan. I know people in Jackson are trustworthy, but you never know who’s a wolf in a sheep’s skin, and stories like yours… I mean, I have no guarantee--” 

She interrupted herself before she said what she was thinking, but Morgan knew what it was.

“Maria, nobody will ever rape me again. Let alone Joel Miller.”

“I never said either of those things” she caught herself, even if it was exactly what she had been thinking. But those were thoughts she couldn’t even tell Tommy: even if Joel was such a great father and uncle, he was no longer a good man, and let alone the man Tommy grew up with. He wasn’t Sarah’s dad anymore. He was Ellie’s dad, and Ellie’s dad was a broken, old, grumpy man who had killed and tortured people, and Tommy didn’t seem to understand there was something profoundly dead in his brother, something that had died long ago, along with Sarah. 

“Joel… he’s very particular, and closed off, but he’s a very good man.” she admitted out loud. “He’s not my cup of tea, truth be told, but I understand him in many ways. But that is also why I think you should put your attention on other people.”

‘Someone less shattered than you’ she thought, but again didn’t say. There was no need to. 

Morgan shook her head “I'm not interested in Joel, and he doesn't like me much anyway. So, don’t worry.”

Chapter Text

Joel did an amazing job avoiding Morgan for the rest of the week, but truth be told, she also did a good job avoiding him as well, hence why Joel’s efforts were easier to accomplish. 

But Saturday night was where he messed it up. 

Ellie had Dina staying over in her garage, playing music a little bit too loud for his headache to tolerate, and he knew he couldn't really go interrupt them: he had learned the hard way that Ellie played her music obnoxiously loud when she was trying to mask up noises --either coughs from smoking pot, or moans. And he wasn’t in the mood to figure out which one it was this time. So, he decided they could be left unattended for a bit as he went out for a drink or two… or six.

And he was on his third glass of scotch on the rocks when he spotted Morgan. She was sitting in the same stool as before, but today she was drinking something less girly and clearly far stronger. She had the same jeans she always wore, and a green plaid shirt that fitted her loosely, with a white crop top underneath.

It was completely the opposite of the scene he had witnessed last time: Morgan didn’t look maternal, but rather younger than what she was. But there was a sadness lingering on her face, enhanced by the booze, that didn’t change no matter the outfit or the setting. 

“Toy Soldiers” by Martika played softly from the jukebox, but since The Tipsy Bison was less crowded than usual, it could be heard perfectly. It was a lovely spring night, snow almost completely gone, and many Jackson folks decided it was a perfect night for anything else but getting drunk in a bar. 

When Morgan’s eyes found Joel’s in the half empty bar, she wondered if she should leave. But he surprised her by standing up from his booth and making his way to her. 

“Hey”

“Hi”

“What’s the occasion today?” He nodded at her Long Island Iced Tea. 

“That I made it through the week” she said, raising the glass. He copied her. 

“Cheers to that.”

Glasses clinked as they toasted, and there was another long silence while they both drank. 

Considering Joel was whiskey drunk and had started the conversation first, Morgan decided it was a good time to ask. 

“I heard you and Maria got in a fight?”

She noticed how Joel blushed a bit, looking down, moving his glass to make the half melted ice cubes slide around. “Yeah, she’s… I wasn’t very kind to her, she’s only a month postpartum as well, and I was kind of an asshole.”

He didn’t say what the fight was about. He hoped she didn’t know, nor asked.

“It’s all good now. It was just a disagreement.”

Morgan nodded, and finished her Long Island. Without a word, Joel waved to the bartender to get her another one. 

“How’s Ellie? She’s with Dina right now, right?”

“Yeah, they’re in my garage now, going through a stash of CDs she found in a supply patrol. I had to get out of there before my head exploded."

She giggled at that, and Joel continued. “You’re close with Dina.”

She nodded in response, and thanked the bartender as he took her empty drink and got her another one. “She was already in Jackson when I got here, she really liked spending time in the barn with me when she was younger, that’s how we got to know each other.”

Joel decided to ignore the million questions he had about you, and instead went for the other million questions he had as a father about his daughter’s new girlfriend. 

“What does she say about Ellie?”

“She’s happy. They like each other a lot. Dina dated a couple of guys before, but none of them were as nice or attentive as Ellie is.”

Joel was satisfied with the answer. “It makes me feel more relieved, you know?”

“What does?”

“Just… that Ellie adapted so well to Jackson, and she found Dina. Same thing for Tommy. Never in a million years I would’ve imagined he would run this place and have a family. He’s thriving.”

He chugged his whiskey when he finished his sentence, which made Morgan raise an eyebrow. “And you?”

“Me?” Joel asked.

“Did you adapt and thrive?” 

Joel couldn't help but smirk a bit at the question. If he didn’t know any better, he would’ve assumed Morgan was flirting. But she was not even thirty and he was fifty-one. She had a whole life ahead, and he was old enough to be a grandfather.

“Adapt? I mean, to some aspects. Coming to the bar to have a drink, that I adapted quickly.”

Morgan chuckled, and sipped her drink. “Socializing?”

“That, not so much. Guess why I'm not thriving.”

“You know, you’re nicer to me with a few drinks in.” She immediately regretted it the moment she said that, but she was too drunk to care. And to Morgan’s surprise, Joel didn’t seem pissed off, he just looked down, a nervous smile on his face.

“Yeah, I’m sorry about the other day, and in general. I am aware I’m less of a grouch when I’m drunk.”

“It’s okay” Morgan said. "I guess I’m different too when I’m drunk. More…”

“Open.” he finished her sentence for her, and she nodded. Joel called the bartender to get him another drink. Morgan had no clue how many drinks he had had so far, but judging by the bartender’s look when he walked away, probably too many. 

Joel thanked the man as he handed him a new glass, and took a swig before looking again at Morgan. “How did you know I had a fight with Maria?”

“She told me about it.”

“Oh.” Joel bit his cheek, avoiding her eyes. “Listen, I’m—”

“It’s okay.” Morgan replied, maybe a bit too quick. “I told her it’s okay.”

But Joel didn’t seem to buy it. “I— when I asked about you, I didn’t— it’s not in a creepy way. It’s just…” he sighed, taking a moment to form the words he wanted to say. “I was out on the road for a long time, saw pretty much anything you can think of. Anything but exchangers. Always thought they were a myth.”

Morgan nodded, and bit her cheek, thoughtful. She couldn’t judge him, but now she felt bad she also had questions for him that were answered by Maria, when he didn’t get the same treatment. And his reasoning to know more about exchangers seemed genuine. She couldn’t understand why Maria had thought Joel was asking out of a morbid pleasure. 

“Well, what do you want to know?” she found herself asking, her voice little and thick on her throat.

“I shouldn’t ask.” Joel quickly caught himself.

“Why not?”

“Maria and Tommy said not to. And I get it. I don’t want to hurt you, I mean it.” 

Once again, Morgan was invaded by a strange, uncalled anger towards her friends. Why are they protecting her so much? She’s not their child, and she’s not in need anymore. It’s been years since Morgan has been living alone, attending the barn, working harder than ever. She wasn’t that poor girl on the verge of death anymore. 

But it wasn’t the protectiveness they had over her what bothered Morgan. At that moment, as she looked into Joel’s eyes, and explored his features (his broad shoulders, his perfect nose, the long lashes, the small freckles on his cheeks, his strong jawline, and the thick curls in his head with a few grey hairs picking through) Morgan realized what was bothering her was the fact that Tommy and Maria were hiding her from him. 

“Come.” she said, standing from her stool and nodding to one of the empty booths. He followed behind, and sat across from her, his hands wrapped around his drink. There was a large window on their right, with a perfect view of the night scene: an empty road, a few houses with their lights still on, and the moon peaking through the mountain range. 

Joel moved around his seat a bit, trying to shake off his nerves. Morgan looked at him, and took a swig of her drink, preparing herself for the questionnaire. 

“How did they trade?” 

“That depends on who they bumped into. If they came across a group with women in them, they didn’t trade, just avoided them or attacked. If there were only males, they would offer to trade.”

That made sense to Joel. He had Tess by his side for years, and then Ellie. Maybe that was why he was never approached with this kind of offer before.

“Did anyone ever say no to the offer?”

“No.”

He was expecting a yes, but Morgan replied too quickly, without hesitation at all. It was enough to make his back shiver-- not a single man had refused to abuse her when given the opportunity. He couldn't wrap his head around it, because he would’ve never said yes, right? 

“And… what were you worth?”

“That also depended on who they were trading with, and what supplies they were short on. Some days, I was worth a pick up truck, others just a can of spam.” 

“Did you have other tasks or chores, besides what you did?” 

“Not really, but that was due to logistics.” 

When Joel raised an eyebrow, confused, Morgan continued her explanation. “They starved me thin enough so I wouldn’t get my period, and therefore couldn’t get pregnant. But that also made me too weak to do anything else.”

That answered the question he was too scared to ask —if she ever got pregnant— but never in a million years he would’ve imagined that was the answer. Sadly enough, it made sense. 

While out on the road with Ellie, she had never said anything to him about her period, most likely because a diet of 20-year-old canned food and walking 20k steps a day wasn’t sustainable for a skinny girl to maintain it. But Joel never starved Ellie on purpose so she wouldn’t menstruate.

It was as repulsive as the rape itself, because it meant these people actively knew how to use women’s body for what they needed. It also meant they probably arrived at that solution by act and error. How many other girls did they kidnap, starve and rape before Morgan? 

“Did they travel, or were fixed in a place?” He continued the interrogation. 

“We traveled, but we used to stay near ZQ’s for periods of time.”

“Hasn’t any of them ever helped you? The men who—“

“Who paid to rape me?” Morgan cut him off. “No. As much as I’m aware, I don’t think many knew I was held against my will. And if they did, they didn’t care, then.”

“Didn’t you talk to them?”

“Wasn’t allowed to, and many didn’t want to chat with me anyway. There was always one person watching in secret, to put me in place if needed.”

Joel’s jaw clenched. These men weren’t winging it: they knew how to make a girl lose her period, how to exploit her as much as they could, and how long make it last before they would dispose of them. He had even more questions now, but they were all stupid ones: if she’d had the chance to escape, she would've done it. But he remembered their first meeting, on Valentine’s Day, when…

“You said you didn’t escape, they released you—”

“They threw me away.” Morgan corrected him. Her tone had been monotone and strictly serious through the interrogation, but that made her weaken a little bit. The fact that she was abandoned by these men-- not even her freedom had been her choice.

“Why?”

“I was too thin. They tried to make me gain some weight but I was too sick to eat by that point. Couldn’t hold anything down. It’s not sexy to fuck a skeleton, you know?”

He didn’t know. She continued.

“We were on our way to the Denver ZQ when they disposed of me. Just one morning, without a warning, they took the handcuffs off and pushed me from the moving truck to the floor. Didn’t even waste a bullet to spare me from a long death freezing in the snow. Tommy found me, took me here, and with Maria they nursed me to health.”

It wasn’t the memories of her years captive, or the day she was freed, what made Morgan’s eyes dampen --most of it was blurry in her mind, anyway. It was the memories of after: when she woke up in Jackson’s hospital, when she had her first hot meal, when Tommy sang her to sleep, and Maria brushed her hair. When they showed her the barn, and rode a horse for the first time.

“I owe them my life. That’s why she was mad at you— they did everything they could to help me survive. They don’t want to spoil years of hard work. But…” 

But.

Then again, that irrational, ardent anger rose within her. The feeling she couldn’t shake off, no matter how much she tried. She didn’t (couldn’t) look Joel in the eyes as she continued to talk.

“I just… I’m in a crystal box now. I’ll be forever grateful for landing in Jackson, because it made me remember there’s a real world with kind humans out there, like your brother. But… I also can’t help but feel like I’m a pet in a zoo. I’m an animal who was rescued and nourished to health and now must live in a cage to be preserved forever. That ain’t life either.” 

Morgan huffed, and took a long swig of her drink. “I… I guess I’m jealous.” she said, without rodeos. She couldn’t really mask it: it was jealousy. 

“Of who?” Joel asked softly. 

“Of Tommy and Maria.”

“Why?” he asked. He was pretty sure of why, but he needed confirmation.

“Because they have each other, and Benji. They’re not animals in a zoo, they’re actual humans. I want that too.”

“You want to move on” Joel found himself replying “because healing is just one step of the process.” 

Morgan nodded, and Joel felt… relief. Because he had finally articulated what he had been feeling since he got to Jackson and couldn't put into words. 

“You get it.” she said. 

“I do. I guess— well, can’t say I’m jealous of Tommy, I do have a daughter already, and thank God I don’t have to change her diapers…” he said with a small smugly smile, which made Morgan chuckle softly “But I’ve been lonely, and seeing Tommy and Maria made me feel—”

Made him feel what?  

“You want a partner.” Morgan didn’t ask, she stated, but Joel shook his head.

“I’ve never been lucky with partners, and I’m too old to be a ‘boyfriend’.” Joel said as he took a swig of his whiskey. 

Morgan remembered how Maria had told him Sarah’s mom had abandoned them just ten months after she had been born. She remembered she mentioned a woman named Tess as well, but that had been all. 

“And you? Have you ever dated since you got here?” Joel asked.

“No. And I don’t want a partner either, I feel like I have too many quirks and annoying little habits to live with someone. But… I’d like to have a child. Be a mom.”

Now that took Joel by surprise. “Really?”

“Maria had once told me the best revenge I can get from my enemies is to show them I’m better than ever, that they didn’t break me down. If I can successfully raise a human to become a good person, that’ll be enough to make a difference in this world, to subtract from some of the evil.” Morgan looked out the window, towards the barn, and then to Tommy’s place, where Benji must already be asleep. Her eyes went back to her drink.

“And.. I guess having a baby would also prove I haven’t been traumatized of sex for eternity.”

“But have you had sex since you came here?” Joel asked. 

“No. You?”

“No.” He admitted.  

“How long has it been?”

He didn’t like to say it out loud, but for some reason, he did. “Years.”

“So, we’re two losers who don’t get laid.” Morgan said as she rose her glass to her lips. 

And then, the same thought crossed both their minds. 

—

His house was dark when they got in. There was an almost burnt out log sitting in the fireplace, and he knelt down to light it up again as Morgan took her coat off. 

It didn’t look like Tommy’s place: there were no photos, no baby clothes, no flowers in vases. It didn’t smell like newborn. And instead of baby cries, the only sounds were the soft echo of Nirvana’s “Something in The Way” coming from the garage, and the fridge motor. 

Morgan followed him upstairs, where there were just two rooms, Ellie’s old room —before she moved to the garage— and his. The bed was unmade, and the silver light of the moon peaked through the curtains. Morgan sat on the edge, the mattress slowly sinking in, and let her nostril get filled with the scent of the room, with Joel’s scent. 

That was the first main difference, she counted in her head. It smelled like a home, not like the woods or a moldy mattress, or the back of a filthy truck. The comfortable mattress, with clean sheets and pillows, was the second one. She was trying to count how many things were going to be different, to try and keep her anxiety a-bay, to try and learn the difference between sex and abuse. 

“You want the lights on?” He asked, and she shook her head. It would be too vulnerable that way. 

Joel sat by Morgan’s side, eyeing her up and down. 

“How do you start?” She asked.

“With a kiss.” 

“Haven’t been kissed before” she confessed in almost a whisper, and he blinked, taken by surprise. But then that surprise faded to anger, and then to pure and utter sadness. 

He took a moment to look at Morgan after her confession, to admire her face half lit by the moonlight. The soft eyes, the round cheeks, the shiny long hair, the half parted lips. Lips never kissed before. Lips that, for years, haven’t tasted food, and were used just for other’s pleasures. Never hers. 

There were a lot of things she should do first before jumping in bed with him. And even though she was willingly in his bedroom, he didn’t feel any good about this. 

And, despite having agreed as well, he had to admit he was also nervous about this. It’s been a hot minute since he’d shared a bed with a girl, and the years don’t come alone. 

A couple weeks ago, he had told Morgan age didn’t make him any less stronger, it just made his whole body hurt more. But that had been a lie, of course. As much as he hated to admit it, he was not as strong as he used to be. He had gained weight, his body had more scars, his hands were calloused. And he was aware his overall performance most probably had lowered a little.

Being drunk didn’t help either, and the fact that she was so gorgeous… he didn’t want his first time after years to end in 3 minutes, for the sake of both Morgan and him, especially him.

But a kiss… a kiss he could do. 

“Come here, then.” 

She leaned a bit closer to him, his perfect face lit by the same moonshine. Damn it, she thought, he’s handsome; to the point it made her heart hurt in her chest, to the point of paralysing her, like a rabbit who just spotted a fox staring into their direction. 

“I think it’ll be better to take things slow, for both of us” He whispered to Morgan. “That’s why we’re going to just kiss tonight, is that all right?” 

“Just kiss?” 

“I think it’s a better idea. But, only if ya want.” 

She bit her cheek, looking around the room, letting her hands touch the soft fabric of the sheets. 

“We don’t have to kiss here, in the bedroom.” Joel said as he looked at her doubtful eyes. 

“It’s okay, we’re already here, so…” But Morgan couldn't finish her sentence. “Joel, this is stupid.“ 

They were both sobering up, that was clear. But Morgan knew it was fear that was making her talk. 

Sex? She can do sex. She knew how sex goes, what goes where, what happens. Even if she had never asked for it, she’s had plenty of it before. But a kiss? That wasn’t what they had agreed. 

So kissing, she thought, is the 3rd difference, then. But it was enough to make her doubt what she was doing altogether, and not even the gaze of Joel’s eyes on her made it worth continuing. Because, just like on Valentine's Day in the bar, those eyes were now looking at her with a sad expression that made her feel like that animal in a cage. 

What would happen if she slept with him and woke up in his bed the next morning, once the booze was gone from their systems? 

Morgan couldn't do this. 

She stood up, and Joel stood up too, giving her space, trying to not be threatening, in any way. But it’s like watching a bear being afraid of a bunny. 

“I’m sorry—“ 

“Hey, it’s okay. I swear. Let me walk ya home, please.” 

She agreed, but there were no more words exchanged as he walked her to her place, just a few houses away.  And he didn’t talk as she opened the door, turned to him, and murmured a short goodbye before getting in. 

When the door clicked shut, Joel finally understood why Maria had threatened him to leave her alone. 

-----

Morgan woke up early that morning, like she usually did. As the sun rose in the air, she headed to the farm to quickly get things running: she let the horses stretch, took the cats out, and checked on Lady, the cow, who had recently gotten pregnant. She also picked fresh eggs, but didn’t even bother to take them to the market. And, after a quick swipe, she was gone, back to her bed to cry. 

That afternoon, she went back to set all the animals inside, and made sure they had food and water. And she left again, quickly, holding tears.

She didn’t leave the house for anything else but that. And she knew it wasn’t good to hide like this, but she didn’t have any energy to face the world. She felt as if Joel’s attempt to kiss her had drained her soul out, taking it with him. She tried to not think about Joel, or what she had almost done that night with him. 

A part of her was glad they had backed off. She knew she would’ve regretted it if she had slept with Joel, but why did she feel like this when she hadn’t done it, then?

The next day, she didn’t leave her place either, she just stepped out at sunrise to check on the farm, feed the animals and pick up fresh eggs. But none of that took more than an hour. 

She didn’t hear from Joel. Nor from Maria, Tommy or even Dina. But, just as was getting ready to go check on the barn before sunset, she heard a knock on the door. 

“Ellie?” Morgan asked, confused, as she opened the door.

“Hey. Could I talk with you for a moment?” she asked, serious. 

“Sure, em, give me a minute.” Morgan said before closing the door and rushing to the bathroom to brush her teeth and fix her hair. Then, she opened the door, and let the girl in.

“How long's it been since you left your house?” Ellie asked, looking around the empty mugs with teabags sitting on them, the unfolded laundry spread on the couch, the dried up flowers. “Anyway, I’m here because… I don’t know what else to do.”

Morgan bit her cheek “What happened? Is this about Dina?”

She was confused as to why Ellie Williams was in her place-- it had to be related to Dina, right? Why else would she be here?

But Ellie shook her head. “It’s about Joel— he’s gone.” 

Chapter Text

“What?”

Morgan had to keep her cool together, for the sake of Ellie, but she really couldn't help herself when she heard that. 

“He went out on a solo patrol yesterday, hasn’t come back yet. Tommy already sent a patrol to search for him and he’s organizing an even larger one. But…” Ellie explained, and then looked around the small house “...he’s not here, isn’t he?”

“What?” 

Morgan took a deep breath, and shook her head. “No, why would he be here?”

Ellie’s face shifted a little, it was clear she had come by expecting Joel to be here, for whatever reason Morgan couldn’t understand. She saw her eyes water a little, her lip trembling just a bit as she talked. “He told me you and him had drinks the night before his patrol. Don’t know, you and I are the last people who saw him--”

“Oh, Ellie.” Morgan hugged her, before Ellie could fall apart.  

“Did something happen? Did you scare him?” she asked, her face hidden on Morgan’s neck. She had gotten a good four inches tall since she arrived at Jackson, and stood almost taller than Morgan. But despite the height difference, Morgan felt like she was hugging something much smaller and fragile than her. 

“No, Ellie, I--” Morgan couldn’t finish her sentence, because she had no idea if Joel missing had anything to do with their last drunk encounter. And scare him? Morgan doubted Joel Miller was afraid of anything, let alone a girl like her. But she couldn't say that to Ellie, so she rubbed her back. “He’s going to come back, okay? There must be an explanation.”

An explanation that Morgan couldn’t even start to puzzle together herself. 

“Have you eaten?” she asked Ellie, moving apart just enough to look at her, but she avoided her gaze and shook her head. Ellie had become a full on teenager once she moved to Jackson with Joel: a tattoo on her arm, smoking pot, a girlfriend… and yet, she had never looked so young and defenseless to Morgan. 

“Let me make you something, all right? And go take a warm shower while I cook, it’ll make you feel better.”

And while Ellie showered, Morgan walked around her small place, getting her shit together: picking up empty mugs, clean and dirty clothes, paper tissues. She cooked enough food for Ellie and her, because truth be told, she hadn’t eaten anything either since she last saw Joel, probably the same as Ellie. Cooking and cleaning her depression hole made Morgan feel less anxious, and kept her head cool and away from spiraling down in questions. Besides, she had Ellie right there, and she couldn't crumble apart when she had come to ask for her help. 

Ellie showed up in the kitchen a moment later, wearing one of Morgan’s shirts and pants, with her short hair slightly dampening her shoulders. She sat down on the small kitchen table, and Morgan served her a plate of rice, eggs and tomato. 

“What did your father say, the morning of the patrol?” Morgan asked a moment later, waiting for Ellie to eat some food first. 

“He told me he had been at The Tipsy Bison having a drink with you the night before, and that was all. He had bumped into you and you chatted for a bit, said he was sorry he had been asking about you behind your back to Maria.”

Morgan nodded, getting the information in. “Did he look any weird that morning?”

“No, just his grouchy old him. Told me to keep the volume of the music down next time, but we didn’t talk much, I had Dina over and he just woke me up to tell me he was leaving. So, we had a cup of coffee and he left.”

Morgan didn’t know what else to ask. 

“You like the food?”

“S’good, thanks, ma’am.” Ellie replied, and Morgan nodded. She liked being called ma’am, it’s what Joel called almost every woman in town, besides Maria, Ellie, and her, for some reason. 

“What did you do last night? What did you eat?” She asked Ellie. 

“Nothin’. I was too upset, and I don’t know how to cook anything but canned ravioli.” 

That didn’t sit right with Morgan. “Didn’t Tommy and Maria invite you over?” 

Ellie shook her head, and looked up from her plate to her. “Tommy was organizing and conducting the search patrol all night, and Maria had to attend Tommy’s businesses as he did that, and all with Benji running a fever. They’re busy.”

“Still, they should’ve taken care of you, sent someone over to watch you.” Morgan replied, a bit too harshly maybe. She could understand they had a lot on their plate, but it was odd for Tommy and Maria to not have checked on Ellie. 

“I’m old enough to take care of myself.” Ellie replied, as if it were obvious. She sounded just like Joel, and it made Morgan’s heart twist. 

“That’s not a question about age, it’s about… you not being alone.” Morgan sighed. “I’m sorry I didn’t come to you earlier, I wasn’t doing fine.” She knew it was a lame excuse, but truth be told, if she had known Joel was gone, she would’ve got her shit together a bit faster. 

“You okay?” Ellie asked, now actively looking for Morgan’s gaze as she avoided her.

“Yeah, I just have my days, that’s all.” 

That wasn’t technically a lie, but Morgan had no clue what was happening with her and Joel, and his daughter wasn’t the right person to dump all that on.

Ellie moved in her seat, biting her cheek. She seemed nervous. “Dina… Dina told me about the day you came to Jackson. About the exchangers. Joel wanted to learn more about them… don’t you think there’s a chance he went out to look for them? Or he got intercepted by them?”

“No. There can’t be.”

“How do you know?” Ellie asked back, and that’s when Morgan realized she had spoken out loud. 

Morgan shook her head, trying to keep her cool, trying to remind herself she was the adult right now, taking care of a girl whose dad was missing. “They know to stay away from us.”

And then, finally, they looked into each other’s eyes. Morgan could tell she was inspecting her, that she had a question. But, unlike her dad, she didn’t walk on eggshells. She just asked.

“What did they do to you?”

Morgan appreciated the straight question. It deserved a straight answer. But only because it was her. 

“They killed my family, kidnapped me, raped me, and let others rape me as well. That’s why they’re named ‘exchangers’, they survive by trading your body to be abused in exchange for guns, food, clothes, anything they could need. You’re just a payment method for them to survive.” Morgan explained, with a clear tone. She was teaching Ellie a lesson, telling her stuff she would’ve loved to hear when she was her age, although Morgan was aware she had been a much more sheltered, protected kid than Ellie ever was. “But there are none here, they know they can’t come close to Jackson. Joel didn’t go out to find them, nor did he bump into them.”

“Then why is he gone?”

Morgan sighed. She had no clue. 

-----

Morgan told Ellie she could stay over, so she didn’t have to be alone in the garage. She just offered it because she realized Ellie had barely slept last night: in her young, pale face, the bags under her eyes were easily noticeable, even for just one sleepless night. 

So, alongside Ellie, Morgan headed to the barn. Together, they fed the animals. She taught Ellie how to brush the horses, to make sure the locks were closed, and how to call all the cats to come inside. She even told her about Lady’s baby, and handed her the stethoscope so she could hear inside the cow’s stomach. 

But after they were done, Morgan didn’t run away to hide in her house and cry in peace, even if she had wanted to. Instead, she laid down, resting on the barn’s wall, watching the sun set, and the pretty colors swirling in the clouds. 

She wondered if Joel was watching the sky too right now, hopefully on his horse, making his way back to Jackson with a proper explanation. Best case scenario, he got hurt or lost his horse and that’s why he hadn’t come back. But sadly, the bad case scenarios were many, many more. 

“A man tried to rape me once.” 

Ellie’s words shook her to reality, pretty hard. She turned to look at her as Ellie hugged her knees, looking at the sunset. 

“We were on the road with Joel, and he got hurt pretty badly, and I had to do something to help him. And that’s when two men found me, took me to a place similar to Jackson, but it wasn’t like this. They… it was a cult, almost. One of the leaders tried to rape me. I killed him with an axe, just as Joel came to find me.”

“Ellie—” Morgan’s voice was dry as she spoke, but Ellie interrupted her.

“I know it’s not the same, but I’m trying to just tell you I understand. Almost every girl in Jackson has had a story like that.” Ellie replied, turning to face her. 

Morgan felt weird all of the sudden. She didn’t know she needed to hear Ellie’s words, but they clearly impacted her enough to change her mood. Morgan knew that, even before the outbreak, the world was a harsh place for women-- and with social structure crumbling down, it just meant men just got away with rape more often now. 

And even though it was a sad fact that every girl in this town, at one point or another, had to face a situation like theirs, it made Morgan feel a little bit better to know her experience could be understood by others. It made her feel less of an animal in a zoo. It made her realize every person in Jackson was an animal in a zoo, in a way.

And it made her feel closer, in a strange way, to Ellie. She probably felt the same heart palpitations Morgan had when that man lured over her to try to touch her. The only difference between the two of them was… Joel. 

Ellie managed to defend herself, but even if she hadn't done it, Joel would’ve shown up to save her. The knight in shiny armor Tommy so often talked about. Morgan’s knight in shiny armor, her own father, laid dead by her side as she was abused, as she begged to be murdered too. 

“I-- I know. Thank you, Ellie…” Morgan said, biting her cheek, playing with the hem of her sleeve. “I really hope your dad is back soon.”

“He ain’t my dad, biologically.” Ellie said. 

“I know”

Ellie turned to look at Morgan, an eyebrow raised. “You do?”

Morgan nodded. “And I know about Sarah, but just snippets. Don’t know much about her, just that she died on outbreak day.”

Ellie bit her cheek, and talked as she played with the grass, ripping it off the ground. “Joel told me a little bit about her, but he can never speak too much of the subject. I don’t think it’s something you can move on from. It’s the only reason I don’t bring myself to call him dad, he wouldn’t like that. I want to respect him, and his daughter.”

“You are his daughter too, Ellie, even if you don’t call each other as such. He's the only person who I see him smile at, even baby Benji comes second to you.”

Ellie chuckled a little bit at that, and seemed to hesitate a moment, but at last, she didn’t say what she was thinking. 

——

For the sake of making sure Ellie was comfortable, Morgan turned her night over into a full blown sleepover, to take her head off of the reason why she was even sleeping in Morgan’s house in the first place. 

They slept together on the floor, using Morgan’s mattress and the couch cushions to make an extra large bed. With the blankets, they made a fortress, and put old Christmas lights inside to make it cozier. 

And Morgan shared with Ellie one of her deepest secrets: her candy stash. Since she was one of the first people awake in Jackson in the mornings, that meant she was alone and unsupervised most times, which meant she had full access to the kitchen without people working. That was how she had built the stash slowly throughout time, with quick trips in the early hours of the dawn to grab a candy or two. 

And there they laid, in the dim warm lights, overdosed on sugar, wrapped in blankets perfect enough to warm them on the spring night. 

“How do you kiss a girl?” Morgan asked, her gaze focused on one small light that wasn’t turned on like the others. 

Ellie shrugged. “Just the same as a boy, I guess.” 

Morgan raised an eyebrow at Ellie, knowing very well Ellie had no clue what it was like to kiss a guy. The young girl rolled her eyes, and continued her explanation. “It’s like you’re licking an ice cream and the ice cream is licking you back.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. It’s like eating something that’s moving, but you don’t use the teeth, just the lips and the tongue.”

Morgan was a bit weirded out by the explanation. “I see.”

“Why you ask?”

She shrugged. “I was just curious, that’s all”

“About kissing?” Ellie raised an eyebrow. 

“Kissing girls.” Morgan corrected. In fact, she had been wondering about kissing in general, and more specifically about kissing Joel, but of course she wasn’t going to tell that to Ellie. 

She had tried to take her mind off of it, but it made her feel anxious. If she had kissed Joel that night, or even slept with him, would’ve she prevented this from happening?  

“You like girls.” Ellie asked, although it was more of a statement. 

“No.”

“You like men.” Again, another statement, this one a bit more judgmental. 

Morgan sighed. “I guess.” 

“And do you like Joel?”

“Yeah, he’s—“ Morgan cut herself off when she turned around and saw Ellie’s devilish smirk. “Oh, come on, Ellie. I don’t like him that way.”

“Why not?”

“It’s nothing ‘bout him, it’s me.”

Ellie rolled her eyes. “That’s the oldest excuse in the book.”

“Besides, I’m too young for him.” Morgan continued, ignoring her obvious comment. 

Ellie put her arms behind her head, and bit her cheek. “Mhm, that’s true, tho.”

For a moment, Morgan thought about saying “Why you ask? You want a stepmom?” but she shook her head off, not even sure why she had thought of that joke to begin with. So, instead, she opted for another question.

“So, what ice cream flavor is Dina?”

——

Jackson was very quiet during the night. Crickets and frogs were the only sounds heard during the dark hours of the morning. That’s why the sound of people and horses was heard extremely loudly in the peace and quiet, even if they were distant. 

Morgan crawled her way out of the sleepover tent, and wrapped herself on her coat before going out to the porch to look. And she spotted those broad shoulders and cowboy demeanor before Joel’s face was visible through the moonlight. 

Morgan sprinted back to her house. “Ellie? Ellie. Your dad— Joel’s back.” She shook the teenager awake. “Come on!”

Both rushed in their pajamas to the gates, and watched as Joel climbed down his horse, alongside Tommy and a few other men and women. He didn’t look hurt, nor angry. If anything, he looked happy. 

But then Morgan realized the smile on Joel’s face was due to Ellie’s mad expression as she trotted towards him, charging up. 

“Joel! You fucking stupid bastard, you damned idiot—“ she started off, and then jumped right into his arms to embrace him. 

Joel chuckled and buried his nose on Ellie’s hair, untied and a bit tangled from sleeping. “I missed ya too, babygirl. I’m sorry.”

“What happened?” Morgan asked Tommy, as he hopped off his horse. 

“Chestnut ran away from him, left him alone in the woods without the compass and the radio transmitter.” He explained briefly. 

“And you say you can go on solo patrols. I’m fifty one and even I got lost in a solo patrol, Ellie.” Joel said, grabbing Ellie by her shoulders, looking down on her. 

“Don’t turn this into a lecture.” She rolled her eyes, but her relief was too much to outbalance her teenage comebacks. “I missed you.” She buried herself, once again, into her dad’s arms. 

A shiver went through Morgan’s spine as she watched how, without even looking at her, Joel made his way home. 

——-

A couple of days later, Morgan gathered strength enough to knock on Joel’s door. 

“Hi, em—“ she swallowed, nervous, as Joel eyed her up and down. Despite being late at night, close to midnight, he was still in his work clothes: an old, washed pair of blue jeans, his belt, and a plaid green shirt. “This is Ellie’s. She left it at my house.” Morgan said as she handed him Ellie’s clothes, washed and folded. 

“Thanks.” He replied, and then surprised Morgan. “Do you want to come in?” 

Morgan pressed her lips, and nodded. She walked into Joel’s place, now less shocked by his familiar scent striking her nostrils. Despite the weather getting warmer and warmer each day, Joel still had the fireplace going. 

“Are we alone?” She asked, looking around, as Joel closed the door with a clicking sound. 

“Yeah, why?” 

Morgan took a deep breath and turned around to face Joel. 

“Joel, don’t lie to me, please. What happened out there?”

“I never li—“

“Almost three days you were gone.” She interrupted him. “Ellie came to my house on the verge of tears, she thinks you went out to hunt down the exchangers.”

“What?” Joel clenched his jaw, his hands tightening on the clothes he was still holding. “What did you tell Ellie?”

“I didn’t— just—“ Morgan found herself stuttering. 

“She’s a kid, Morgan.”

I was a kid too is all Morgan thought, but she swallowed it, and let her anger reply instead. “Yeah, but she ain’t a virgin innocent, she’s sleeping with Dina, you know?”

“Don’t fucking remind me” Joel huffed, turning away from Morgan, pacing around the room. “Yeah, of course I know. Is anyone else in Jackson getting laid but me?”

“Joel—“ a lump formed on Morgan’s throat, a question. “Did you go out to have sex?”

“No, no, no, no. Please…” Joel seemed panicked by Morgan’s question, and raised his hand to touch her shoulder, but dropped it before he could take a step closer. “I just needed time alone.”

Morgan crossed her arms, shaking her head. “You scared the shit out of everybody, Joel, you can’t do that again.”

“You’re not the only animal in a cage here, you know?”

Joel’s snap took Morgan by surprise, making her flinch a little. He clenched his jaw again, and started to pace around the room again. 

“Tommy and Maria are suffocating me, I don’t know how to handle Ellie anymore, and every time I go to Tommy’s I see that god-fucking-damned photo of Sarah—“ he stopped after he said her name, as if he was knocked out of his breath. But then, he sighed, and spoke more calmly. “I just needed to be alone.”

“God, we didn’t even fuck and look at how we turned out.“ Morgan’s words made Joel look up at her. “I was hiding in my house for days, and you literally disappear—“

“You didn’t leave your house?” He asked, interrupting her. 

She shook her head, and Joel crossed his arms. “That ain't healthy.” He judged, and it made Morgan’s skin boil. 

“You’re in no position to talk about healthy coping mechanisms right now, Miller.”

“We didn’t do anything wrong, Morgan.” He raised his voice. 

“Then why are we losing our minds?” She replied, firmly, but it wasn’t a rhetorical question. She genuinely wanted to know what was going on between them.

But judging by Joel’s eyes, he had no clue either. 

“Why did ya back off the other night?” he asked after a moment, softly. 

But Morgan clenched her jaw. “I don't have to give you explanations.”

“I'm not demanding explanations, I just want to know what’s going on with you.” He said in a low tone that was, somehow, more threatening than when he screamed.

Morgan took a step back, feeling cold all of the sudden. “Joel…” she sighed. “Drop it, okay? I’m not a good candidate to have a one night stand, I’ll never be.”

“I don't--” Joel bit his tongue, his veins now marked on his throat. “I only agreed to sleep with you because you want a baby, all right? It just kills two birds with one stone if ya do it with me. We don't want a relationship, we don't want strings attached.” Joel numbered with his hands, and then pointed his finger at her. “You just need a sperm donor and I just need to prove myself I'm still a man. We can help each other out. So, you want a baby or not?” 

Joel’s outburst shook Morgan back to reality. Of course, how could’ve she been so stupid? Joel didn’t like her. He tolerated her enough when he was drunk, but he never liked her, and he never will. He just needed a body to fuck, to prove himself he was still a man, in his very own words. The only difference with her rapists was he was asking her permission to do so. 

But, she couldn't be mad. She needed to use his body too for her own goal. She was aware she was too particular and broken to get a boyfriend and have a baby in the traditional way. And he was aware he was never a good person at keeping relationships. That’s why she needed to use him as much as he needed to use her, and that need didn’t interfere with their feelings for each other whatsoever. 

And it made her feel awful, but it was also too hypocritical to be mad about it. So, even though her stomach turned in her body, she took a deep breath, and replied. 

“Yes.”

“Then let’s make one” is what Joel had wanted to say, but instead, he just took a step closer to Morgan, and kissed her. 

Chapter Text

Differences, count the differences, Morgan repeated on her head as she kissed Joel. A bedroom, a mattress with clean sheets, kisses on the mouth, lots of kisses on the mouth…

Joel’s lips were chapped, but far from being unpleasant, it helped ground Morgan. He had a slight taste of coffee on them, and they felt incredible as they wrapped her bottom lip. 

Ellie’s description of a kiss wasn’t accurate at all. Morgan didn’t feel like she was licking a living ice cream, but rather merging herself with Joel. It felt like hugging using another part of her body, although they were really hugging as they kissed. His hands had attached to her waist the moment he took a step closer and merged his lips with hers, softly at first, and then more hungrily. And hers, instinctively, went up to grab him by the neck, running her fingers on his thick curls.

That was the fourth difference: touching. Caressing, exploring, feeling. Back with the exchangers, Morgan’s body had never been held the way Joel was holding her now, and she had never touched a man the way she was doing it now. 

A good reason why she had been able to tolerate everything she had endured for so long was the fact that she could dissociate from the scene very quickly. When they don’t caress you softly, nor kiss you, it is easy to distance your mind from the moment. When you’re just a hole, it’s easy to forget you’re a human in reality.

But Joel’s skin was so warm she could feel it though the thin fabric of her shirt, his hair was silky between her knuckles, and his lips… it all helped Morgan keep her head on earth, reminding her she had a body of her own.

She had no clue how but, suddenly, they were in Joel’s bedroom, and he was pressing her against the soft mattress. With a soft movement of his knees, he made Morgan’s legs open, so he could kneel right in between them as they continued kissing. Joel’s right hand moved slowly from her waist up her torso, cupping her breast. 

“Can I…?” he asked, and Morgan nodded. She plopped herself on her elbows and took her shirt off, revealing her naked torso, no bra on. Joel’s hand went right back to cup her left breast. And right there and then, Morgan found the fifth difference: instead of slapping her boob hard enough to bruise it, or pinching her nipple until she cried, Joel kissed it tenderly.

And if kissing her lips had been an incredible sensation, kissing her body was even more so. Joel’s mouth was latched on her nipple, sending electricity all over Morgan’s body, down to her core. She laid down as he continued sucking on her left boob, and Morgan kept running her hands through his salt and pepper hair. 

He moved to the right boob then, but kept this thumb on her left nipple, making soft circular movements around it. Morgan was a mess of soft whimpers and moans, sounds walking on the edge between pleasure, surprise and shock.

“How are you doing?” he asked as he moved his lips for her breast just enough to breathe. 

“Don’t stop.” 

That was all Joel wanted to hear.

He spent a good moment touring her body with his tongue, planting soft kisses and nibbles on her breasts, her neck, her collarbones, her belly. But Morgan’s breathing felt heavy on her chest when she watched Joel undress himself, first the shirt, then the belt, next the shoes, and lastly the jeans, pulling down his boxers as well. 

She watched how his cock slapped out of his pants right into his pelvis, hard. It was a decent length, neither the smallest nor the largest cock Morgan has ever seen, but it definitely was thicker than most. It was slightly curved to the side, and he wasn’t circumcised. 

Almost instinctively, Morgan pulled her pants and underwear down, and Joel helped her take them off her legs before leaning on top of her again, his right hand pumping himself. 

“We can stop.” he told her, looking into her eyes, but his gaze betrayed his words. 

“I’m ready.”

Joel spat on his hand, pumping himself a little more, and then moved to accommodate himself right between her thighs. The tip of his penis softly brushed through her folds, and Morgan pressed her lips together, realizing how wet she was.

One last look into her eyes, asking her permission. Joel held his breath until she nodded. 

When he slid in, all the memories came back at once, overlapping one atop another like a broken video tape record. Morgan automatically stopped breathing, a lump on her throat cutting her breath short. 

“Hey, hey— breathe” she heard a man say. Joel. It’s Joel, you’re with Joel. 

In and out, she breathed, mechanically and clunky, as she tried to calm herself down. 

You’re with Joel, in his bed, in his house. Your place is a couple houses away, Ellie is in the garage. You’re in Jackson. 

But the pain, the sensation on her legs, threatened to take her back to those haunted woods, to the darkest corners of her mind. 

“Look at me, Morgan” Joel spoke again, turning her head to force her to make eye contact with him. He took her hand and guided it to his chest, resting it right in the middle. “Match my breathing.” 

She closed her eyes, and focused on the rise and fall of her hand on his chest, finally feeling air coming through her body.

And when she opened her eyes and looked at him, her brain finally started to snap back to place, making her realise the throbbing sensation, the cock inside her cunt, was his. No one else’s. She chose this voluntarily, both her and him wanted this. 

“Move.” She said, her voice low.

“You sure?” Joel asked, but Morgan knew by his tone he wasn't saying “you sure you don't want to stop?” but rather “are you sure we can keep going?”. And that gave her some confidence.

“Slow.”

He nodded, and started to fall in rhythm, slowly, as he leaned forward and hid his face on Morgan’s neck, his hips rocking back and forth as he fucked her. She was overwhelmed again, his large frame on top of her making her panic once more. But she held his face in her hand, forcing Joel to look at her, while her other hand was still pressed on his chest. Their noses slightly touched with every thrust, and their breaths mixed in together. 

“Remind me why— why are we doing this” she commanded him, feeling her chest rise in panic. 

“Because we’re two losers who can’t fall in love and have sex like normal people” He replied, and let out a groan. 

He had to break eye contact, or else he would've cum right there, so he moved to press his lips on her temple, a little above her ear. “Because you’re a gorgeous girl who deserves a good fuck.”

At that, to Morgan's surprise, she moaned. And he noticed it was the first sound that didn't resemble pain and fear since he slipped into her. 

“Yeah? You liked being called gorgeous, baby?”

Another moan, almost involuntarily, came out of her mouth, and the sensation of pain in her sex lessened. Joel continued. 

“You’re the prettiest girl in Jackson. We’re doing this because the most gorgeous girl in the whole world deserves to feel good. God, you’re so tight.”

That’s not true, she thought. Can’t be true. She was raped out of her tightness years ago in the outskirts of Portland. She had been used over and over and over, there’s no way she was tight anymore. But she didn’t care— his words were sinking her into the mattress and into pleasure. 

“I’m fucking that sweet, beautiful, little cunt of yours because you said you wanted a baby.”

“Fuck—” Morgan moaned.

“You want me to make ya a baby?” Joel’s warm breath whispered in her ear.

“Yes, Joel.”

He smirked, slowly picking up the speed of his thrusts with every sweet word he whispered in her ear. “You’re going to be the prettiest mamma in this town, prettier than the rest. Our baby will be perfect, mamma.”

Her body shrugged, cunt throbbing, as she opened her legs wider, giving him more room to sink in deeper. Joel growled again as he felt his full length inside.

“Yeah, that’s it, mamma, let daddy fuck a baby into you.”

“Daddy” she repeated in a drowned moan, her voice high pitched. And, for a second, a memory of Sarah crossed Joel’s mind, as Morgan’s tone almost mimicked hers. He hadn’t heard her voice in so long he thought he had forgotten what it sounded like. But, like electricity, Morgan struck him with a memory. 

It confused him, the fact that he thought of his daughter right in the middle of the act, while he was having sex for the first time in god-knows-how-long. But it didn’t scare him. It was the first thought he had about her in years that didn’t shatter him to pieces on the spot. 

“Daddy” he repeated. He hadn’t been called that in almost twenty years, and it made him feel normal, it got him in the zone. Because the man who used to have sex with pretty 20-something girls he met in bars on a Friday night wasn’t the old Joel, it was the young Joel, and it was the same one who Sarah called daddy whenever she wanted a gift, or whenever he would come home with ice cream. 

The man who had sex wasn’t Ellie’s grumpy old man or Benji’s uncle, or even Tess’ boyfriend. It was Sarah’s dad. 

And tonight, he felt like that man again. 

By that point, Joel had picked a fast rhythm without even noticing, making his balls slap on Morgan’s cunt loudly every time he moved into her. 

“Holy shit—“ another moan cut Morgan’s words, this time more desperately. “Move up.”

He obeyed her, looking at her with a raised eyebrow, and stopping his thrust, a bit afraid he had crossed a line. But when she dropped her hand to rub her clit, he smirked, and continued to fuck her, watching his cock slide in and out of her as he held her hips upwards. 

“That’s it, mamma. Touch yourself.”

“I— I wanna pee.” she cried with a moan.

“You wanna cum” he corrected. And he was right, Morgan was on the verge of an orgasm. Probably the first one she voluntarily had in her whole life, and not forced by the circumstances. 

“Be a good girl, and cum for daddy. Right on my cock, mamma.” Joel growled, his voice charged with lust. His eyes were unable to focus on everything he wanted to look at: his cock coming in and out of her pussy, her hand on her clit, her boobs bouncing with each thrust, or her lovely face as she reached her peak. 

But then, Morgan shivered, and her cunt clenched tightly around his length as she came without a warning. Joel knew he couldn't hold it any longer.

He lifted her legs up, placing her ankles on his shoulders, making her sit in a perfect 90 degree angle as he fucked her harder, and harder and harder. One of his hands was holding her calf, while the other was pressed on her abdomen, feeling himself get in and out of her, trying to hold himself from the almost involuntary act of pulling out to cum outside. 

And after a moment, with a low growl, Joel came. 

Morgan felt like she was in a cloud for a moment, but her high came down crashing fast when Joel slipped out of her and she felt cum dripping down her insides. She immediately tried to stand up, but he stopped her. 

“Rest, I’ll get ya cleaned.” 

She leaned back, and began to count, once again, the differences. 

A bedroom, a mattress with clean sheets, kisses on the mouth, kisses on the body, caresses and touching, asking, stopping, breathing…

And now… this. 

Joel came back from the bathroom, now wearing a pair of sweatpants and holding a towel. He softly used it to clean Morgan, running it down her thighs and in between her sex. Then, he threw it to the floor, and laid down by her side, pulling the sheets up to cover them, and moving his arms behind his head.

She pulled the sheets higher to cover her chest, and mimicked Joel’s pose, now both staring at the ceiling. “Wow” she said after a moment.

“Are you okay?” he asked softly. 

“I’m… wow.” 

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Joel smirked. And after another moment of silence, Morgan spoke again.

“So… that’s sex.” 

“That’s sex, yeah.” 

“Did I do good?” Morgan asked, making him turn around to face her.

“It’s not about being good or not, it's about enjoying. Did you like it?”

She nodded after a moment, licking her lips, and he smiled satisfied, and turned his head back again to the roof.

“You know we’ll have to do it more than once, to make sure you get pregnant, right?” 

“Really?” 

“Takes a few rounds, usually, unless you’re a very lucky bastard.” 

He had been a lucky bastard himself, more than 30 years ago, when he got his girlfriend pregnant with Sarah, but that had been an accident at the moment, and he doubted his swimmers had the same strength now as they did back then, when he had less years and stress on his body. 

He had only been through one pregnancy scare after Sarah was born, and that had been years after the outbreak, when Tess didn’t get her period once. But that had turned out to be a false alarm, as Tess was going through a very early menopause caused by stress and diet, according to a doctor in the ZQ. 

And knowing Tess couldn't get pregnant anymore demolished any kind of conversation about the topic to begin with, although he knew he wouldn't have ever agreed to a baby in the first place. If it happened, and Tess would've wanted to keep it, he would've taken responsibility, of course. But trying to get Tess pregnant? That was never his plan.

But thinking about that made Joel realize this was the first time, in his whole life, that he was actively trying to conceive a kid. 

Morgan bit her cheek. “Let’s do it again, then.” 

“Now?” Joel asked, smiling, and when Morgan nodded innocently, he laughed. He hadn't laughed like that in a good minute, it almost sounded strange, the sound of his laughter. “Doesn’t work like that, mamma. Men have refractory periods. I physically can not get it hard again for like… Shit, probably ‘till tomorrow.” 

“Oh” Morgan pouted. 

“Yeah, years don’t come alone, baby, but don’t worry” Joel kissed Morgan’s head, almost paternally. “I’ll get ya your baby soon.”

——

Morgan was still half asleep, lingering between dreams and consciousness, when she realized she wasn’t in her bed. 

Her heart jumped on her chest, and she stood up, but then remembered what had happened the night before. 

For the first time in her whole life, she had sex, voluntarily. And with Joel Miller, of all people. 

As her heart slowed down on her chest, Morgan took a moment to inhale the perfume of his sheets again, and ran her hands through the fabric. She was wearing one of Joel’s shirts he had lent her, as well as a pair of old shorts that fitted her perfectly loose. 

But then another heart attack came when she realized sunshine was peaking through the curtains. She turned to the nightstand and found Joel’s wrist watch, the one he always wore despite having the glass smashed. It was almost…

“Eleven AM?! Shit, shit, shit!” 

Morgan rushed to take Joel’s clothes off and put hers on, and then sprinted down the stairs to find him coming out of the kitchen, holding a cup of coffee. 

“Whoa, hey—“

“Why didn’t you wake me up?” Morgan huffed, moving to the door and sitting down next to it to put her shoes on. “It’s almost noon, the barn—“ 

“Morgan, it’s not even seven AM.”

“Huh?” 

She looked up, and saw him still wearing the same sweatpants as yesterday, but this time with a shirt on. His face was a little bit puffed, as he had clearly woken up a moment ago, and his hair was messy, in a way that made him look younger, fresher. 

“I was about to wake you up.” 

“What time is it, exactly?” 

Joel turned around, coffee in hand, to check the hour on the small digital clock in the oven. “Six forty six.”

“That’s still late.” Morgan shook her head, and stood up. “I need to go.” 

She put her coat on, and opened the door. He had been right, the sun was barely coming out, a stripe of black night sky still hanging in the sky as it slowly faded in the horizon to bring in a new day. The only reason she got confused was because Joel’s window faced east, and his watch had the wrong hour on it. 

She turned to look at him as her hand clenched tightly on the door handle. 

Something in his eyes lingered on her, something she couldn’t quite pin point. But his comfy clothes, his untamed hair, his raspy morning voice, made Morgan feel more heart palpitations. She was probably the only person who saw him like this —in pajamas and morning hair— in probably a good while. 

And that’s when she realized she had no clue at all of how sex was really like, because she was supposed to say something now, right? 

“I, em…” she cleared her throat, but Joel shook his head. 

“I’ll see ya around, now go.” He told her, and sipped his coffee. “Before Ellie sees you.” 

Morgan obeyed, and with a firm goodbye nod, she left the Miller’s. 

They definitely had to talk later. 

Chapter Text

“Hey.” Joel’s soft voice took Morgan by surprise as he walked into the barn. 

After sprinting out of his house that morning, she spent the most of her day at the barn, attending many different things and cleaning the place as much as she could. It helped her calm the strange nerves nagging at the back of her neck the whole day. 

She had been wondering if she regretted what happened the night before or not, but when she looked into Joel’s eyes as the golden hour lit up his face, she breathed deeply, and the question didn’t seem that important anymore. 

He looked around the barn, hands in the pockets of his worn jeans. He had also spent the whole day working: along with three boys, his apprentices, they were working on a new mezzanine to add to the mess hall —the one where parties were held— for storage.

“Listen. Did anyone see you leave? This morning.” He asked shortly, his eyes following her as she continued her work, swiping the floors one last time.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Good, good.” He nodded, and kept watching her indifference.

“Em, Morgan…” he called her attention again, his voice loud enough to make her finally look up at him again. He hesitated for a second when Morgan’s eyes landed on him, but he gathered himself quickly. “I think it’ll be better if we keep this business between us. You get me?”

Morgan bit her cheek. Once again, her stomach turned. The fact that Joel liked her little enough to keep their fling a secret made her feel odd. But she knew it was stupid to feel this way. 

“I do.”

“It’s easier when people don’t—” He continued, but she interrupted him.

“I get it, and I agree, especially if we’re going to continue seeing each other.”

Joel raised an eyebrow, a bit surprised, a bit hopeful. After seeing her almost run away from his place that morning, Joel didn’t have much faith they would meet again. “Are we?”

“Well, you said it takes a few tries.” Morgan replied nonchalantly, and Joel nodded, looking down, pressing his lips shut. Of course these encounters had an expiration date, and that was the day she finally got pregnant. 

Morgan started to put everything back in place. All the animals were already inside, either eating or already half asleep. She called Garfield, the big orange cat, to walk inside, and then closed the main gate. “Why don’t you want people to know, tho?” She asked him, curiously, her hands busy, her eyes away from his. 

“I just don’t want people in my business. I don’t want them to double glance at you just because they know you and I…” 

Fuck is the word that Joel left lingering in the air. 

“I get it.” 

“Besides, I’m too old to be with you, that alone will raise eyebrows.” Joel continued, and took a step closer to Morgan as she put the broomsticks and horse brushes away. 

He didn’t lie when he said he didn’t want people side-eyeing them, especially because of their age gap, but the main concern Joel had was Maria. She had threatened him to leave Morgan alone, and he did literally the opposite. He didn’t shatter her like Maria was so worried about, but he had come close when Morgan started panicking and running out of breath the second he had penetrated her. Joel didn’t want to find out what Maria would do if she knew they slept together. 

Besides, he didn’t have the strength to explain this very strange situation of feelings, lust and trauma to anyone, not even to himself. Keeping it secret meant he could leave this tangled mess of emotions unattended on the back of his mind, like abandoned Christmas lights in a box in the attic. 

But he knew he was playing with fire. He had managed to calm Morgan last night, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to have another full blown panic attack the next time. But this was her choice too, he had to remember. She chose to expose herself to sex again. 

Joel cleared his throat, and asked. “Why don’t you want them to know?”

“Same thing, don’t want people to look at me too much.” Morgan replied, but that didn’t make much sense to Joel. If her goal was trying to get pregnant, she was going to get a lot of attention when she got all big and swollen. 

His eyes lingered on her, as he imagined what their baby would look like, and how she would look like with a big belly, full of his own seed. But Morgan’s words snapped Joel out of the mental image in his mind. 

“That’s why these are my coworkers, you know? They don’t speak English, so they can’t gossip about me…” she giggled, her hands pointing out to the every-day growing barn and its residents. She walked along the stable, until she reached Clover, one of her favorite horses, and leaned on her fence to pet her. “María and Tommy say I should socialize more with humans, and I do, it’s just… I guess I’m selective.”

Joel huffed in agreement, and also gave some pets to the horse. “Well, Tommy’s always been the social butterfly.” Joel’s hand almost touched Morgan’s as they both ran their fingers through the horse’s soft fur, and he dropped it immediately. “I’ll let you work.”

“Oh, I was just finishing.” Morgan found herself saying. She didn’t want him to leave. “Do you want a tour?”

Joel smirked a bit. “Sure.”

Morgan couldn’t help but smile back a little. “Well, then, follow me.” 

They walked the long hallway of the stable, petting every single horse as Morgan said their names. Then, they got in the main hall, with the sheeps to the left, and the few pigs they’ve got to the right. 

“That's the chicken coop over there” she pointed out to the back of the barn. “Now that the days are getting warmer I might have to take it out back to the field, but for now they stay inside. And over here…” 

Morgan smiled as they made their way to see the cow. “This is Lady, and as you already know, she’s pregnant.”

“Hey pretty mamma.” Joel smiled, petting the cow, who leaned closer to his hand.

Lady’s stable was hidden at the end of the barn, right around a corner. Morgan had recently cleaned the place, and right on top of it was a mezzanine.  

“What’s that up there?” Joel asked, nodding up. 

“Oh, just storage.” Morgan shrugged, and easily climbed up. Joel didn’t struggle much to follow her —he was taller than her, and the mezzanine wasn’t too far up— but it took him a couple of tries to get on it as well. 

The place was dark, with no windows or lights. The only source of light came from the barn below, with stripes of light peaking through the rifts between the wooden boards. There were some sacks with straw and a few abandoned rusty tools, but not much more. 

“It’s quite a good hideout.” Joel pointed, looking around, but then his eyes landed on Morgan. 

And there she saw it, those same lustful eyes that made her heart jump on her chest. That hungry gaze on her, which she had learned to read by now. 

“Come over” he commanded with a whisper, and that was all it took for Morgan to fall into his arms, and kiss him. Joel took her in his arms, spinning her around to press her against one of the walls of the mezzanine. 

Morgan felt a weird sensation as they made out. On one hand, anxiety and panic brewed in her chest with each moment that passed and she felt Joel getting harder and harder in his jeans: having sex in here didn’t make her feel comfortable, or safe. It reminded her about her time with the exchangers. 

But, on the other hand, she just couldn’t stop. 

The smell of Joel’s sweat and shampoo overpowered her senses, and the warmth of his lips melted any kind of shiver running down her spine whenever anxiety tried to overcome her. 

“Joel? Can you, em…” she asked between kisses, making him tilt his head a bit. She sighed. “Can you suck my tits again?”

He smiled softly at her, touched by Morgan’s tenderness. “Sure thing, did ya like that?” He asked as he slowly took her shirt off. She nodded. Once again, she had no bra on. 

“A lot.”

“Me too, mamma.” Joel said, and moved to cup Morgan’s breast to suck on her nipples again. This time, Morgan’s moans were louder, less shy than their first encounter the night before, and it fueled Joel’s fire even more. 

“And you know” he said, in between kisses and hickeys. “I also really like going down on a girl.”

“Oh, I’ve never…” Morgan said, shyly, as Joel looked up. 

“You…?” Joel picked up on what she meant, even if she hadn’t finished the sentence. She had never been eaten out before. And, of course, it made sense if he thought about it for a moment. None of those men who paid to have sex probably cared about making her feel good, or making her cum. 

But he wasn’t going to let this fact ruin the heated, spontaneous moment. In fact, it made Joel more horny. “Oh, mamma, you're gonna love it.” 

He moved away from her breasts, kneeling in front of her to kiss her flat stomach, slowly unbuttoning her jeans. 

“Can I?” He asked, looking up at her. She nodded. Her heart was pounding on her chest, but she soon noticed it wasn’t really fear anymore, it was adrenaline. 

Joel pulled her jeans down to her ankles exposing her underwear, which had a small stain from her own wetness. Joel patted Morgan’s thighs a little, and she opened her legs a bit wider. 

Morgan’s breath got caught on her chest when Joel kissed her core, right on top of her underwear. He kissed her sex through the piece of fabric, letting his tongue roam all the crevices and folds of her cunt. 

And when Morgan felt she couldn’t hold it any longer, he pulled her underwear down, and licked her bare folds. 

“Holy—“ Morgan gasped. The direct contact was even more intense and it made her shiver. Joel laughed a bit, happy to see her come undone, happy to know that, this time, there were no sounds of fear or frighten coming from her lips, but just pleasure. 

She tasted incredible, Joel thought. Sweet, with a little bit of bitterness. He couldn’t get enough of her and her moans, and the way her soft fingers ran through his hair as he ate her out.  

Joel removed his tongue after a moment, and slowly fingered Morgan with two fingers, which made her arch her back, her knuckles white as she held to the wall with all her strength.

Once he found a steady rhythm with his fingers, his tongue moved back again to suck on her clitoris.

“Joel—” she tried to call his attention, but he kept his tongue tied with her core. “I’m gonna—“

Joel didn't let her finish her sentence as he stood up, his fingers hooked inside her, and crashed his lips on hers, so she could taste herself on him. 

And then, with a loud moan drowned in his mouth, Morgan came all over Joel’s fingers. He kept fingering her through her orgasm, his mouth catching any sound she tried to make. 

Morgan’s hands went down to unbuckle Joel’s pants instinctively as they kissed. Joel couldn’t have been happier as he smirked. “Ah, I see, you want my—?” 

His phrase, though, was suddenly interrupted by sounds in the barn, human sounds. 

“Morgan?” A male voice called. She opened her eyes wide, and Joel sighed. “Morgan, you here?” 

He removed his fingers from her, taking a step back as Morgan rushed to clothe herself again. Then, she jumped off the mezzanine, not even looking at Joel. 

“Hey, Tom” Joel heard Morgan say, her breathing still uneven. 

“You alright?” 

“Yeah, I was, em, I just was with Lady, checking her up.” 

Joel couldn’t see Tom's expression to Morgan’s lie, he only heard his answer. 

“Okay? Well, Dina got back from patrol, Flapjack’s hurt.” 

“Oh, shit. Let’s go, then. What happened?” 

Joel didn’t hear what had happened to Dina’s horse as Morgan and Tom walked out of the barn, leaving him alone in the mezzanine, his cock hard in his pants, and his mouth overpowered by the sweetness of Morgan’s cunt. 

He took a big breath, and rushed home to jerk off his blue balls before anyone else could catch him red handed. 

——

By the time Morgan was done with Flapjack, it was almost midnight. 

Dina and her patrol partner had been ambushed by a hoard of clickers, and when they ran away, Flapjack scraped a wire fence, making an irregular cut on his side. She had to sew him together, which took a lot of time and help. 

Dina had also been touched by the wire, cutting her calf. But, unlike her horse, she didn’t complain as she got stitches too. 

Once Flapjack’s wound was properly cleaned and stitched, Morgan took him to the stable, and marched to her home, very tired, and confused. 

Now that she had finished her work for the day, Morgan had time to think about how she had almost been caught in the barn with Joel, and about what he had been doing to her moments before Tom walked in. 

“Morgan!” Dina’s voice took Morgan out of her thoughts, making her look up. She was sitting with Ellie on Joel’s porch. She had her freshly stitched leg sitting on Ellie’s lap, while Joel was leaning on the door frame, the three of them looking at her. 

Morgan sighed, tired, but walked to the porch. 

“How’s Flapjack?” Dina asked. 

“Good, but sewing up a horse without anesthesia isn’t an activity I recommend.” She said, crossing her arms and leaning on the railway of the porch. “He’ll be okay, he just needs to rest. And so should you both, it’s midnight and you both have school tomorrow.” 

Ellie rolled her eyes, but before she could say anything back, Joel interrupted with a firm tone. 

“Come on, bedtime.” 

Morgan nodded goodbye as both girls, hand in hand, made their way to Ellie’s garage. Morgan bit her cheek, a bit uncomfortable to be left alone with Joel after almost being caught. 

“Listen—“ 

“Listen.” 

Both spoke at the same time, and stopped at the same time. It made Morgan chuckle a little through her exhaustion. 

“We can’t do that again, in the barn.” She said. 

“I was going to say the same.” Joel agreed. “I… I’m sorry I got carried away.” 

Morgan shook her head. “Don’t apologize. It was amazing.” 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“You…” Joel cleared his throat, and continued. “You can come over, at night. Usually by this time of the night Ellie’s already asleep. Nobody should see you come in.” 

Morgan nodded, her eyes looking at the barn. “And I can leave in the morning, to open the barn, before people wake up.” 

“Sounds good.”

“Sounds like a plan.” 

Morgan stepped off the porch, into the dark. “I guess… I’ll see you tomorrow night, then?” 

Joel gave her a short nod. “Tomorrow night.”

Chapter Text

March and early April were spent between Joel’s sheets and Morgan’s whimpers, hidden in whispers and quick glances when nobody looked. 

Morgan got used to sex much quicker than she thought. She was less anxious with each encounter, as she explored her own body through Joel’s touch, tongue, cock, and words. For the first time, she felt like she owned the body she lived in, that body that she had worked so hard to nourish back to health. 

On the other hand, Joel’s mood improved a lot because of their encounters, to the point that he had to start actively reminding himself to keep a poker face and not walk around smiling so much. 

He realized he was calling too much attention during moments like this, when Ellie walked into the house to get ready for school or patrol, and she would look at him like he was a mad man as he sang in the kitchen, washing two mugs in the sink. 

“What are your plans this weekend, kiddo?” He asked as she scratched her eyes, and poured herself her own mug of coffee. 

“I have a trip. Tommy wants to set up a new town post, in Afton.”

“Afton? That’s one full day away. Are you sure you want to go?” Joel asked, playing dumb. He already knew Ellie had been recruited for the trip, because Tommy had originally asked him, and he offered Ellie to take his place. 

Why did he do that?

He tried to lie to himself, and buy the excuse he gave to his own brother: Ellie was growing and getting smarter and better at this. That trip could  be a great opportunity for her to take a new step forward in her job. Besides, as much as Ellie liked the security and safeness of Jackson, she yearned for the wild unknown fun of the outside. She already knew by heart the town posts in South Park, Teton, Moose, Wilson and Moran, and they were in need of going south to keep an eye on the Fireflies on Salt Lake City. 

But there was another much simpler reason: with Ellie gone for almost a week, he could have Morgan over as much as he wanted without sneaking her around. 

Ellie nodded at Joel’s question. “Dina is coming.”

“Figured.” Joel rolled his eyes, smiling. Suggesting Dina to go as well was part of Joel’s plan too. He knew that Ellie would’ve gone anywhere Dina went. 

“You look happy.”

“So?” He shrugged. 

“So?” Ellie mimicked him. “You grinch, what’s up with you?”

“What’s up with me is that I’m happy for you, Sherlock Holmes. You’re gonna do good on that trip, as long as you listen to Tommy.”

“I listen.” Ellie crossed her arms. 

That was a lie. Ellie struggled with following orders, although she had started to learn how to keep her head down and bite her tongue more, all for the sake of going on missions like this more often. Of course, then she would ramble to Joel nonstop about it, wearing his ears thin. 

“I know, that’s why Tommy is trusting you to join ‘em. But seriously, Ellie, you gotta be on your best behavior.” 

Ellie rolled her eyes, but didn’t fight him. She knew he had a point, and the fact that she was assigned on this mission proved it. 

Her eyes darted to the two coffee mugs sitting by the sink, drying. “You had two mugs of coffee already?”

“I— yeah.” Joel lied. One was Morgan’s, who had already left an hour ago. 

“That’s a lot for one dude.”

Joel rolled his eyes at Ellie’s remarks. “When you get older you’ll understand me.”

——

When Friday rolled around and Ellie left for her mission, Joel finally had the whole place for himself. However, he hadn’t taken into consideration Tommy would be gone too, which meant…

“I can’t stay over. Maria asked me to sleep with her and Benji while Tommy’s gone.”

“Ah.” Joel sighed, leaning into the wooden fence, trying to play it cool. Morgan picked on his disappointment very quickly, but she didn’t say anything as she finished milking Lady. Almost two full buckets of raw milk she had collected that morning, and as her pregnancy went on, there was more and more milk. 

She tried to pick it up, but Joel stopped her, almost pushing her out of the way to pick the two buckets himself, as if they didn’t weigh anything. 

“Where to?” 

“Kitchen.” 

Joel marched out of the barn, making his way to the big communal kitchen. 

“I could—“ Morgan cleared her throat as she finally matched Joel’s rhythm and walked beside him. “I could still visit you in the afternoons, after I come to the barn for the closing shift.” 

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.” Joel replied, a bit rougher than he intended. Did he want to spend more time with her? Sure. That’s why he had sent Ellie away to Afton. But his mood was very sour all of the sudden. 

With Morgan’s early schedule, they were seeing each other almost every night. She would show after midnight, sleep with him, and leave early to wake the barn up before anyone in Jackson could wake up as well. But truth be told, he just wanted one full day when he didn’t have to watch her come and leave under the dark of the night. One full day where he could keep her in his bed, naked, so he could finally have time to count all the moles on her back, run his hand on every curve of her body, and let his sheets soak in her scent completely. 

“I want to, Joel.” 

“Well, then, whatever you say.” He answered Morgan. 

They reached the kitchen, where the staff cheered as they saw the full raw buckets of milk, ready to be pasteurized. It was a lot of work, but it also meant a lot more food for, hopefully, more people soon to be born. 

——

Spring nights with Maria and Benji were peaceful, warm, cozy. After the closing shift on the barn, Morgan would have dinner with Maria on the porch, switching the baby around from her arms to Maria’s, and vice versa. Then, after the baby was put to bed, they would crack open a beer or two, and play cards, paint their nails, or just chat before their eyelids weighed too heavy to be awake any longer. 

Tonight was the fifth night Morgan spent with Maria, meaning it was the fifth night she was sleeping with someone else but Joel since they started hooking up weeks ago. 

And she was going insane. 

She missed the perfume of his sheets, the odor of coffee when she woke up, the warmth of his body in the chilly March nights. She missed making out with him. She missed waking up with him, even if they never exchanged many words. 

After almost being caught in the barn, they had established they would only sleep in his place, falling into a comfortable routine that Maria and Benji had disrupted. 

But Morgan also enjoyed spending the nights with her friend, and especially with Benji. Whenever he would fuzz in the middle of the night, Morgan was the one who woke up, to let Maria rest. She would prepare him a bottle of warm breast milk and sit down with him on his rocking chair, on the porch. 

As she nursed the baby, every night, her eyes inspected his face, his features slowly more delimited and stronger than before. Her baby —if she did get pregnant— was going to be Benji’s cousin. Would they look alike? 

On nights where it was too chilly to sit outside with Benji, Morgan would sit on Maria’s favourite sofa, overlooking their big window on the living room, with the photos of Kevin and Sarah sitting on the windowsill. Covered by the dark and quiet of the night, Morgan inspected Sarah’s face, trying to puzzle it with Joel’s. 

Would her baby look like Sarah? Would they have Joel’s eyes, those same ones that looked at her through the sepia image of Sarah? 

Could Joel handle having another kid with those same haunting eyes? 

Morgan also wondered if her baby would look like her mother or father, although their features had slowly erased from her memory over time, so she wouldn’t really know for sure. The only memory of them lived on her face, which she avoided looking at too much anyway. Maybe this kid she was so desperate to have would haunt her with the eyes of her dead loved ones, instead of Joel’s.

Either way, they still had a long way to know that. She wasn’t even pregnant yet, and she was already spiraling. 

After Benji was done eating and was sound asleep in her arms, Morgan decided she needed to see Joel. Smell him for a moment, let herself be wreathed in the scent of whiskey, burnt wood and pine needles that excluded his skin, the only drug that knocked her to sleep. 

Slowly, she settled the baby down in his crib, and walked out of Maria’s place to visit Joel. She knew the door was unlocked, but she knocked on it anyway as she walked in. “Joel?”

The house was dark, a bit chilly. It was so quiet she could only listen to the crickets outside, and her own steps on the old wooden floors. 

“Jo—“ she jumped when, from the top of the stairs, Joel’s large shadow looked down at her, a gun in hand. He lowered it immediately, though, the second he saw Morgan’s face. 

“Scared the shit out of me, girl.” He sighed, tucking the gun away on the back of his waistband.

“Sorry, I—“ Morgan hesitated. “I needed to see you. I need to be quick before Maria wakes up and notices I’m gone.” 

Joel smirked, and nodded to his bedroom. Before she could realize what she was doing, Morgan had walked up the stairs, and taken her shirt off. 

He pressed her against the doorframe, and kissed her until her lips went numb. Tonight, he tasted so heavily of whiskey Morgan thought she would get drunk just by kissing him. 

But before she could do that, his lips moved to latch on her nipples, cupping her breasts. 

“Joel… I want to go down on you.” Morgan moaned, making him look up.

“Morg—“

“Please.” 

It wasn’t a suggestion, Joel knew right away. Morgan was begging him. She needed something stronger to remember him on the nights she couldn’t sleep by his side. She needed to taste him, taste the nectar he had been spilling in her womb every night. 

“You don't have to repay me anything back, you know?” Joel sounded nervous, like a kid who couldn’t believe his luck. 

“I know, I just want to do it.”

“You can stop whenever you want, okay?” He told her, as he took the gun out of his waistband to set it on the drawer, and slipped his pants off. 

“Just be soft.” 

Joel smiled softly at her. “Always, mamma.”

Morgan bit her cheek. “Lay down, then.” 

Joel didn’t question it, he just took his clothes off and laid down on the bed. Morgan took all her clothes off as well, and laid by his side, her shoulders in line with his hips, and took his hard cock on her hand. 

Joel closed his eyes as he felt her soft, sweet lips wrap around his tip, licking it like a lollipop. Morgan kept one hand on his base, going up and down slowly as she licked the head, gradually moving deeper. 

Joel had never had a blowjob like this— although, to be fair, it had been years since he had one, as Tess wasn’t really a fan of them. He felt his muscles relax and bland up like soft butter as Morgan took him deeper and deeper into her mouth. 

His hand reached for her hair, softly caressing her curls, as he purred like a cat. He plopped himself on his elbows to get a better view, although the pleasure was too much for him to even try to sit straight. Right across the from, on the full length mirror sitting on the wall opposite his bed, Joel had a perfect view of Morgan’s perfect lips as he fucked her mouth. 

Their gazes met for a second in the mirror, and he had to lay down again before he came right into her mouth. 

Morgan felt his cock twitch inside her mouth every time she would take him all the way in, and then pull out. She did that a couple times until Joel cried with a moan. “S-stop that— you’re gonna make me cum.”

She giggled a little, and turned her head around to make eye contact with him again, her hand still wrapped around his cock, going up and down. 

“Wanna ride me?” He asked again, trying not to push his luck. But Morgan smirked, and moved to sit on top of him. 

Her sloppy and slurpy blowjob had left his cock ready to go in, but she spat on it one last time, making Joel twitch just by looking at the scene. Then, she slid in with a whimper. 

He held her by the hips, containing his breath. He wasn’t going to last much longer, he knew. 

Morgan leaned forward, adjusting her hips and resting her chest on Joel’s. Her lips found his, and they made out slowly as she started to move her hips in the same rhythm of their kiss. It had been years since he had tasted himself through a girl's mouth, and it made him whimper in pleasure. 

Joel’s hands slowly made his way from her hips to her ass, grabbing both cheeks to lift them up, and give him better access to fully slip in. 

As they kissed harder and hungrier, their hips went faster and faster. Morgan broke the kiss to hide her face on his neck, and Joel took it as an opportunity to look up again. And once again, through the mirror, he got a perfect view, this time of Morgan’s ass and cunt as she slid in and out on him. 

And that was all it took. 

With one last deep thrust and a drowned moan, Joel finished. 

None of them moved, however, as their moans and breathings calmed down. As the silence settled in, Morgan realized they had been extremely loud, both of them. 

Morgan popped her hips up to slide out of Joel’s cock as it slowly started to come down from his high, but he wrapped an arm around her waist, a soft plea to not move from his chest. 

They stayed this way for a moment: Morgan laying on top of him, her head cuddled on the gap between his neck and shoulder. He held her by her waist with one hand, while the other ran softly through her curls, massaging her scalp. Their breathings synchronized after a moment.  

“Where… where did you learn to blow like that?” Joel wanted to slap himself the moment he said that. He knew where: with the fucking exchangers. But if Morgan was offended, she didn’t show it.

“Over the years I learned this pose was the easiest to go down on a guy: it lets me suck it all the way in without choking, and gives me room to move and pull out before they cum. They also can't smack my face like this. Some tried to pull my hair, but most just laid there and didn’t touch me.” She said to his ear, softly. 

She explained it so nonchalantly it made Joel feel like a piece of shit. He knew he had her consent, her approval. He knew she liked it, he knew he wasn't rough or mean or straight up evil like those guys. But in the end, none of that made him feel any less guilty when she shared things like that with him, when he noticed all those sex positions and tricks he enjoyed so much were learned by Morgan through years of abuse. 

Joel sighed “Why did you do it? I told you didn't need to—“

“I wanted to, okay? I wanted to taste you.” She said, and then moved her arms to plop herself up, looking down at him. Her hair fell on her right side of her face like a curtain, while the left side was lit by the moonlight coming through the window. “And I would’ve had a panic attack if I had tried any other way to blow you.” 

She sighed, but her breathing got caught on her chest when Joel moved his hand to tuck some of her hair on the back of her ear. He didn’t have his watch on, the broken one he always wore. It was sitting on the bedside table, the hour forever stuck almost at eleven o’clock. 

She bit her cheek, and leaned to peck his lips, but Joel’s hand on her head didn’t let her move away, deepening the kiss. 

Joel and Morgan had kissed a lot since their first kiss months ago, but this time, Morgan knew, there was something different about it. But it wasn’t the bitter taste lingering on her tongue from Joel’s precum, not their salty sweat softly falling off their foreheads. 

But whatever it was, it made Morgan shiver. 

“I should go” she said, flustered, when Joel let go of her lips. 

As quickly as she had come, Morgan left, and Joel watched her from his porch as she made her way back to Maria and Tommy’s house.

When she laid by Maria’s side, Morgan took one big breath of Joel’s scent still lingering on her nostrils, ran her tongue through her mouth, and immediately fell asleep. 

——

Morgan dreamt of a wooden house overlooking the rocky landscape, and green summer forests. But she was awakened by something wet, thick and warm touching her legs that threw her straight into reality. 

“Oh, shit.” She said as she lifted the sheets up, and saw a half dried, half fresh deep crimson stain of period blood in the middle of the bed. 

Maria turned to her, eyelids half open. “Maria, I’m sorr—“ she began to say, but her words got caught in her mouth when she noticed the period blood wasn’t hers, but Maria’s. 

The woman stood up, stretching herself with a growl. “This is the third set of bedsheets I have ruined. Postpartum periods suck.”

Maria dragged herself to the bathroom to change out of her stained pajamas, leaving Morgan alone with the fresh, deep blood stain staring back at her. The blood was mockingly intense, and powerful. It almost screamed at her, as if to say “dumb girl, how did you not notice it before?”. 

Morgan had skipped her period. 

Chapter Text

Ellie, Tommy, Dina and the rest of the group returned from their trip a few days later, and routine went back to normal for everybody: Ellie sleeping in her garage, some night alone, some nights with Dina; Tommy and Maria sleeping at their place, cuddling their baby; and Joel and Morgan sleeping together as well, once Jackson was already dark and quiet. 

Morgan waited, and waited, and waited. She woke up every morning in Joel’s bed, expecting to see a dot of blood between her thighs. Every time she felt something in her underwear, she rushed to the bathroom, but it was just vaginal discharge. She should’ve had her period by now, she knew, but there weren’t any other symptoms that indicated she was pregnant. 

Except one night, she fell asleep on her couch at six PM, exhausted, and slept through the entire night, almost missing the morning shift if it hadn’t been for a loud bang on her door that woke her up. 

“Joel?” She said his name as she opened the door, blinded by the spring sunrise, still dazed by her dreamless 12-hour nap.

“You— I just came to check. You didn’t say you weren’t coming last night.” 

Morgan saw his eyes were red and that, underneath his light coat, he was wearing the sweatpants and shirt he always wore for bed. He had been awake all night waiting for her. 

“I— I’m sorry. I fell asleep.” 

“Yeah, I can tell, you weren’t at the barn either, I checked there first.” He said, crossing his arms and looking up and down at her. 

“Shit, what time is—?”

“Seven thirty” 

“Fuck!” Morgan rushed to get ready, leaving the door wide open. Joel made his way in, taking a look around her house. It was small, and very chaotic, filled to the rim with stuff: books piled on the windowsill, half-painted canvases leaning on the walls, a closet filled with too many clothes for a girl Joel had only ever seen wear jeans, mugs with abandoned tea bags sitting around...

But he mostly looked at her, at her messy hair and long legs, as she sprinted to get ready, brushing her teeth and putting on her jeans at the same time. 

“It’s okay if you’re late one day, you know? Lady won’t fire you.” He joked, hands in his pockets. 

“It’s the eggs what worries me” she explained, taking her toothbrush out of her mouth, and then speaking more clearly when she rinsed her mouth in the little bathroom, keeping the door open so Joel could hear. “The kitchen staff can’t start cooking until I bring today's batch.” 

Once she was ready (which didn’t take more than five minutes) Joel walked with her out of her home. 

“You sure you’re all right?” He asked once more, almost rhetorically. He eyed her up and down again, although a bit more discreetly, as they were outside. 

Morgan nodded. “Just tired, s’all. Thanks for waking me up.” 

Then, she spun around herself, checking none of the neighbors were up. She bit her cheek to contain a smirk, and leaned forward on her tip toes, and pecked Joel’s lips. 

“I promise I’ll make it up to you tonight.” She said, before sprinting off to the barn. 

—— 

Morgan finally showed up with the egg batch a little over 8:30 AM, when most folks had already started their mornings, and the kitchen was in full motion. The kitchen staff had managed to prepare breakfast without the eggs —they cooked oatmeal, bacon, and served toast with cream cheese. So, no, the world didn’t end, just like Joel had said. But still, she felt awful for being so late. 

When she walked into the kitchen, Morgan was hit by all the different odors at once: the grease from the bacon, mixed in with the perfume of the dish soap, mixed in with the strong coffee brewing on the counter. It made Morgan’s stomach churn, but when she smelled Lady’s milk softly boiling in a large pot, she had to physically get out of the kitchen before she puked. 

She took a big breath of fresh air, although it didn’t help her: it was a rather warm morning, air heavy and buzzing with moisture, as a few clouds peaked through the mountain range. She felt suffocated. 

“Morgan?” 

She heard her name being called, with a concerned tone. For a second, she thought it was Joel, but it had been Tommy. He looked at her with concern, as she was bending over her own stomach. 

“Hey.” 

“Hey— whoa, come here, what is it?” He said, catching her in his arms, trying to help her stand up a bit more straight. 

“I feel a little dizzy, s’all.” 

“You are as white as a ghost.” He said, his eyes looking closely at her pale face. “Come on, let me take ya with the doc.” 

She would’ve loved to brush it off and tell Tommy not to worry, but her nausea didn’t lift away and it overpowered any other kind of feeling or want she had. So, reluctantly, she let Tommy take her to see the doctor. 

—— 

The doctor’s small office downtown was cool and odorless, an oasis for Morgan’s stomach as she laid down on the stretcher. And even though the nausea had calmed down, Morgan still felt off: right on her chest now sat a big ball of anxiety that was even more dizzying than the nausea, if that was even possible. 

But the doctor, being a good professional, picked on Morgan’s uncomfortable face as she side-eye Tommy, who didn’t leave her side. 

“Just give me a moment to check her, Tommy.” He told him. Morgan sighed when the door clicked shut, and she was left with the doctor alone. 

“I…“ she started off, but didn’t even know what to say. 

Was she pregnant? Most probably so. She was absurdly tired, her stomach was delicately sensitive to any kind of smell, and she hadn't had her period.  She couldn’t push this any longer, she had to check if she was. But this wasn’t the way she pictured she'd find out, on a random Thursday morning that had already started off with the wrong foot. 

“Morgan, when was the last time you had your period?” He asked, calm. When Morgan didn’t reply, he continued. “I am a professional, unless it’s something that puts your life in direct risk, I won’t tell Tommy about anything we discuss here.” 

She sighed. “March, I believe. The first week of March.” 

The doctor stood up to look over at his calendar. “It’s May 20th, Morgan.”

“I know.”

“Have you been sexually active?”

“I have.”

“Then we need to—“

“I know.”

The doctor lifted an eyebrow, but he didn’t say anything else as he got the ultrasound machine ready. It wasn’t the best machine ever, but it worked pretty good, and it was the only thing they had available to check pregnancies. 

Joel had told her it took a few tries to get pregnant, but Morgan had imagined this was a matter of five, six, maybe even seven months. Not three. She had supposed she was going to know when she finally got pregnant, feel it within her with a sixth sense. She had also very stupidly thought the person waiting on the other side of the door when she got the news was going to be Joel, not his brother. 

None of what she had imagined happened. The only dream of hers that came true at that moment was the little dot in her womb, shown in the ultrasound. 

——

By the time Morgan walked out of the doctor’s office, it was noon, and the clouds had covered the sky completely. 

After confirming the pregnancy, Morgan and the doctor sat down for a while, as he continued to check the fetus and her. And then, after reassuring him she was going to keep this baby, he began to explain to her what she had to do from now on, and scheduled the next appointment. He never asked about the father, which Morgan appreciated deeply, even though Joel was the only thing she could think of as the doctor talked. 

I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant with Joel’s baby. I’m having a baby.

She wanted to run straight to him, but she knew he was at work, or probably having lunch with Ellie. Instead, Morgan found herself walking to Maria’s place, almost involuntarily. 

“Hey, you.” Maria said, smiling, as she opened the door. 

“You look better.” Tommy followed, although he didn’t sound very convinced. Morgan wasn’t pale anymore, but she had a worried look in her eyes that threw them off. “You spent almost all morning there, are you—?” 

“Can I come in?” She interrupted him, and he nodded, letting her step inside. The air was charged with tension and static. Due to the thick curtain of clouds outside, the house seemed rather dark without any sunlight coming through the windows. 

Morgan walked in, her back to Tommy and Maria, her hands clenching tightly on a piece of paper. Then, she spotted baby Benji on his bassinet, and their eyes locked for a moment. 

“I’m pregnant.” Morgan said, without hesitations, without rodeos, as she kept her eyes on the baby, the cousin of her own baby. When she didn’t hear anything back, she slowly turned around, breaking eye contact with Benji, and handed Tommy and Maria the ultrasound image, avoiding their gazes. 

It was the longest moment of Morgan’s life as Tommy and Maria looked at the image on the paper, deadly quiet.  

“I’ll kill him.” Is all Tommy said.

“What—?“ Morgan tried to talk, but he shook his head, and looked up at her. 

“I don't care who it was, just tell me and he’ll never step foot in Jackson again. I’ll actually kill him if that's what you want, just say the name of the bastard who did this to you.” 

Morgan’s confusion lifted up when she saw Maria’s watery eyes and her shocked expression. But Morgan pieced it together quickly. 

They thought she had been raped. 

And Morgan knew she could’ve explained she wasn’t. She could’ve explained she had wanted this, that she had actively been trying to get pregnant for the last couple of months. But irrational anger overtook her. 

She really had expected anything, literally any other reaction, except the reaction she got out of Tommy and Maria. And it made her heart ache with fire.

“Is that really the first thought that crossed your mind? That I had been abused, again? That I would let a man do what they did to me again? That I wouldn’t want this? For your information, both of you, I’m a grown woman, I’m perfectly healthy and in age to be a mother. So that’s why I'm pregnant, because I wanted to.” 

“You… you dating someone?” Maria asked. 

Morgan shook her head, arms crossed. “No, I’m not dating.”

“Then how—?”

“It doesn't matter how” Morgan interrupted Maria, rudely, which made Tommy clench his jaw. 

“Morgan, are you out of your—?”

“It’s my life, okay, Tommy? All you need to know is that it was consensual.” Morgan said firmly, and Tommy sighed, exasperated. 

“That’s all we need to know? Seriously? We’re missing a whole chapter here! How are you even pregnant?” 

“Morgan, who’s the father?” Maria asked, with a tone much more calm and rational than Tommy’s, trying to assert the situation. “Is he married?”

Morgan huffed, taking a step back. “That’s all you care about? If he’s married? Look—“ she stopped herself and took a deep breath. “There isn’t a father, all right? I’m doing this by myself.”

And that wasn’t technically a lie: Joel and Morgan had agreed their encounters would only serve the purpose of conceiving. He wasn’t going to be involved in this any further than that, he just helped her out make her wish come true.

“You have no idea what you're talking about, Morgan.” Tommy said to her, his angry tone and condescending voice mimicking his brother’s for a second. It made Morgan shiver, and she took a step back. “Babies are a huge responsibility, and you won't be able to do it all by yourself.”

But Maria put a hand on his husband’s shoulder, trying to calm him down, trying to talk Morgan into sense. “Morgan, you're not thinking straight, honey. You don't have to keep this baby if you don't want to, you know?”

“Why wouldn’t I want to, huh?” she asked, hurt, because she really couldn’t understand what they were saying. Are they the only people in Jackson allowed to have a family? Allowed to move on? 

“Morgan, think this through. We have the resources for--”

“For what?” Once again, Morgan interrupted Maria rudely. Her husband replied.

“For an abortion.” 

Morgan couldn't help but laugh at Tommy’s words. If only he knew he was suggesting to abort his own brother’s child, his son’s cousin. But she couldn't tell him that. She couldn’t tell them it was Joel’s, not when they had agreed to keep it secret.

“Fuck off, both of you” she spat, and rushed out of the house, leaving the ultrasound paper behind. Morgan heard her name being called over, but she couldn't point out if it was Tommy or Maria who was calling. In any case, she didn't stop running, sprinting over to the barn, the only quiet place in Jackson. 

Chapter Text

“She’s just… she’s mature for her age, way wiser than most. I don’t understand—“ Tommy rambled, stopping his own sentence with a sigh and a swig of his drink. Joel, Tommy, Eugene and Jesse were hanging out at the mess hall. Thursday nights they played poker with a few other patrol members, but tonight it was just them. 

Since Eugene and Jesse knew Morgan since her arrival, and Joel was his brother, Tommy decided to tell them what Morgan had told him and Maria earlier in the day, mainly out of concern. 

“She said she wasn’t abused, right? Then it’s all cool, Tommy.” Eugene tried to console him.  

“I still don’t buy it.” Tommy replied, looking over at the abandoned poker cards laying on the table, and the crumbled ultrasound paper on top of them. It’s not like they had played much before the conversation started: Tommy had a worrisome look in his eyes that was distracting from everything else. A worrisome look that, Joel knew, was the concern only a father could feel for his daughter. 

Joel felt like shit. 

He had disobeyed María’s direct orders of leaving Morgan alone, but he had never really considered the consequences on anyone else but her. And that was stupid of his part, almost childish, and definitely selfish. Because now his own brother felt like he had failed Morgan, and didn't protect her well enough.

But Joel was mad at her too, because why the hell didn’t she tell him she was finally pregnant? Why did she run straight to Tommy and Maria instead of him, the loser who was helping her get pregnant in the first place? That morning, when he had to go and wake her up, she’d told him she would make it up to him: was the pregnancy announcement what she had planned in mind?

When Tommy pulled out the ultrasound from his pocket, Joel forgot how to breathe for a moment. If Morgan had been the one to tell him, he would’ve probably cried a little and kissed her hard enough to bruise her lips. But he had to contain any kind of emotion he had in front of Eugene, Jesse and Tommy, hence why that stupid, irrational happiness he felt turned to resentment and, mostly, confusion. 

But none of that mattered now. Now, Joel had to try to reassure his brother that Morgan hadn’t been abused, even if it was the only possible explanation Tommy could think of. Has Joel lied to his brother before? Yes. It never sat right with him, but if it had to be done, he’d do it. So, until he could talk to Morgan, he’d have to lie about this too. 

“Tommy.” Joel spoke for the first time since he saw the ultrasound, making his brother look up. “Has she ever lied to you before?”

“No.” 

Joel knew that wasn’t true, because he had asked a trick question. Morgan was lying, and he was involved in it. “Why should she start now, then?” he continued. 

Tommy shook his head. “If she wasn’t abused, then, why can’t she tell me who she slept with?”

“Maybe she doesn't know the guy properly, maybe it was just a one night stand.” Jesse said.

“Doesn’t sound like Morgan.”

“Jesse might have a point.” Joel quickly backed up, trying to make his brother buy the lie. 

The four of them sat there, thinking. “Has she ever left Jackson on patrol?” Eugene broke the silence a moment later. 

“She went out on a patrol once, she had to cover Dina, I believe.” Joel found himself lying very fast. That had never happened, of course: Morgan had never left Jackson, but it was a believable lie. After all, Dina had been hurt, along with her horse, and was out of patrol rotation for a couple of weeks. It wasn’t crazy to believe Dina had asked her friend to cover one of her short perimeter patrols.

“How long ago was that?” Tommy asked. He knew all the patrol groups and their schedules, but he couldn’t remember if Morgan had ever covered Dina.

“A month ago, perhaps?” Joel winged it, based on the short information written on the ultrasound report. She was five-ish, almost six weeks pregnant, meaning it happened somewhere between the end of March and April.

“Then, there you go.” Eugene said, picking up his glass to drink. “She fucked someone outside the wall, came back pregnant.”

“Doesn’t sit right with me.” Tommy repeated once more. Joel couldn’t blame him. 

“She told you she wasn’t abused.” Eugene repeated. 

“Maybe she doesn’t know she was.” Tommy said, and Joel rolled his eyes.

“Give her some credit, Tommy.” He found himself saying. “You and Maria shelter her way too much. She ain’t a kid.” Joel had to take a big sip off his drink afterwards, to hide his face. 

Tommy pressed his lips shut, but didn’t reply. Maybe his brother was right. “Another mouth to feed.”

“Isn’t that what we want, Tommy? Feed people and make this place a real town?” Jesse asked, a bit innocently.

“Besides, your son will need a friend to play with.” Joel murmured, immediately regretting it the moment he saw his brother raise an eyebrow. 

“Yeah, right. But I don’t want to raise another baby, Joel, that’s the problem. If she realizes what she did when it’s too late to be undone, what do you think is gonna happen? Where do you think she’s going to drop that baby, huh?” 

“She’s not a child, Tommy.” Joel repeated, a bit exasperated with keeping this conversation full of lies. 

“I really can’t picture her like nothing else but that. You didn’t see her, the state in how those men abandoned her.” Tommy said, his gaze lost in the memory. Joel could tell both Eugene and Jesse were remembering that day too. “When I found her, I thought she was a corpse at first, not even infected look the way she looked.”

Joel understood every word his brother said, and he would’ve loved to shake his shoulders and tell him the truth, tell him the baby he was so worried about was his, that the bastard he hated so much right now was him. That he had never raped her, and instead cuddled her to sleep every goddamned night. But he couldn’t. Instead, he sighed, and put a hand on Tommy’s shoulder. “And you and Maria did an amazing job saving her life. Now, let her live it.”

“All of this would’ve been easier if she could just tell us who did it. Takes two to tango, right?” Was Tommy’s reply after a moment. He was still unconvinced, and extremely disappointed.

Joel really hated himself.  

——

A thunderstorm was brewing when Morgan made her way through the dimly lit streets of Jackson from her place to Joel’s, the clock a few minutes before striking midnight. After a cloudy and very hot day, the night promised to finally start storming at any minute now, as the wind blew through the trees and the mountain range was wreathed by thunder. 

She spotted Joel sitting on the porch, alone, guitar in hand. He was playing a few chords, but the wind blew the sound away from Morgan’s ears, so she wasn’t able to hear the sweet weeping until she reached the porch. She didn’t recognise the melody, they were just loose chords, played softly. 

When she got close enough, he stopped his playing, and set the instrument down. Morgan had a lump on her throat. 

“So, when we’re you going to tell me?” 

Joel’s tone, that condescending voice she hadn’t heard in a good minute, let Morgan know they were back to square one. He already knew she was pregnant, and he was mad, but he didn’t need to scream at her to show it. He just needed to talk to her like a father scolding his daughter— with his low, calm tone, that was far more intimidating than any screaming. 

Morgan sighed. 

“I’m sorry, I— Maria and Tommy…“ Morgan hesitated, not even knowing where to begin. Her day wasn’t going at all how she had intended it, and if seeing disappointment in Tommy and Maria’s eyes was hard, hearing it in Joel’s voice was harder. 

“I know. I just talked to him.” He said, unable to look at her. Through the mountain range, Morgan saw thunder. “He’s very concerned.”

“I know. He thinks—“

“I know.”

Morgan sighed, the wind blowing strands of her long hair around her frame. “I didn’t tell him it was you.” She confessed in a low tone. 

Joel knew she hadn’t. After all, he had to sit there with his brother and lie to his face. “Why not?”

“Because, Joel, we agreed we would keep it a secret.” She sighed again, and bit her cheek. She didn’t like where this was going. 

“The sex, not the baby.” 

Morgan rolled her eyes, fed up with his old ways being back. “And how do you make a baby, Joel?” She asked, in a mockery tone filled with battery acid sarcasm, a sarcasm meant to hurt, not make him laugh. 

Joel didn’t reply. Morgan saw his jaw clench, and the movement of his eyes as he did his best to not look at her. She continued. 

“Maria would rip your head off if she finds out. And I don’t think Tommy would take it nicely either if he knew what his brother—“

“Okay, okay.” He interrupted her before she could finish the sentence, raising his hand, clearly fed up. He finally dared to look at her, but not in the eye. His gaze went straight to Morgan’s flat stomach. The place where, right now, his child was slowly growing. Morgan shivered.  

“When are you due?”

A thunder was seen, and then heard, more clearly now. The wind picked up speed, moving directions. That’s when Joel’s reek of cheap alcohol struck Morgan’s nose, and she saw his eyes red. He was wasted. He didn’t go out for a drink or two, he probably swigged an entire bottle of 15-year-old whiskey after his poker night. It made her stomach turn, but she tried to blame it on the pregnancy. 

“Mid January.” Morgan informed him, and tucked some of her hair behind her ear, but the wind was getting stronger. “Has Tommy told anyone else?”

“Just Eugene, Jesse and I.”

“Okay.” She nodded, looking at her feet, fighting the nausea, the tears, the heart palpitations. 

She would’ve loved for this to go different, but that was silly: if she had wanted a hug and a kiss, if she had wanted people congratulating her, then she should’ve done this the right way, with a boyfriend or a husband and without hiding anything. And if she had wanted any kind of affection, she shouldn’t have picked Joel Miller as her baby daddy. 

“Morgan… you know what this means, right?” He asked, cautious but authoritatively. 

“We won’t sleep together anymore.” Morgan said out loud for the first time, letting the fact finally sink in. “I’m already pregnant, so there’s no need to.” 

“Besides that.” Joel said, making Morgan look up. Their gazes locked, but neither were able to hold it for more than a moment. Joel cleared his throat. “If you’re really so keen on keeping this a secret, then… we really should not be seen together, to not raise any suspicions." 

Morgan shook her head, pissed off. He had finally unscrewed the cork of the bottle with that comment. Another thunder was heard closer.  

“S’not like we were ever seen together in the first place, right? I come here when the town's asleep, and leave before anyone else wakes up. And the only time we are ever seen together is when we go get shit faced at The Tipsy Bison, which is clear you already did tonight. And since I’m pregnant, that activity is out of the question. So, besides the sex, then, nothing else really changes, Joel.” 

Except that wasn’t true. She was having a baby, his baby. Everything changed. But none of them could bring themselves to face it. 

Morgan saw Joel swallow saliva, his eyes away from hers. “Right.” He replied dryly.

She turned around, ready to storm off, when Joel spoke again, louder, making her stop on her tracks. 

“Morgan, you need to take care of yourself now. You’re carrying a life in there. That means sleeping more, and eating better. You’ll need to be more careful around the barn. And no more of that secret candy stash of yours.” 

That made Morgan turn around, eyes wide open. Joel nodded. “Ellie told me, yeah. And also, your house’s a mess.”

“I’ll clean.” She replied, but Joel shook his head. 

“You’ll need to be re-assigned a new place. You need a room for that baby, and you’ll have to be more organised in the new house. You have no idea how much of a mess babies are.” 

But he knew, of course. He was the only one in Jackson who knew things, wasn’t he? Morgan felt her skin hot and dry when a few loose drops fell down on her, sizzling on her skin. 

He stood up from his chair, sighing, and popped his hands on his hips. “Your life is about to change a lot.” He informed her, and finally, one last thunder broke down the sky in half, and rain started to pour, quickly picking up strength. 

“Go home now, and dry your hair before you sleep.” He told her, but before he could spin around and walk inside his house, Morgan’s broken voice made him look up. 

“Thank you.” 

Even if this wasn’t how she had wanted this to go, Morgan tried to be polite. After all, she got what she wanted, didn’t she? She was going to have a baby. Joel’s. And her parents had raised her to say thank you and sorry and please. 

“Don’t thank me.” He sighed, like a disappointed father who was regretting having carved into his daughter’s whim. “I told ya I was gonna get you your baby, didn’t I?”

And with that, he picked his guitar, and walked into his home, leaving Morgan standing in the rain. 

Chapter Text

The nice spring weather didn’t last much longer before the heat started to be corrosive. May led to June, and the fields and trees turned from bright colors to vivant shades of green. Summer was arriving. 

Morgan would’ve loved to keep her belly, each day larger, a secret for a little longer. But her tank tops and skinny jeans didn’t do her any justice trying to cover it, and the weather wasn’t cooperating. 

Nobody commented anything about her body at first, or the slight noticeable change that, clearly, was getting larger and larger. And despite Tommy having told Eugene and Jesse about it, the news didn’t spread much farther at first. 

But then, one random Tuesday morning of June, someone spotted Morgan leaving the little doctor’s office downtown. A whisper here, another there. And then, on Thursday, someone else commented Morgan hadn’t been in Tommy and Maria’s place since last month, nor had she been to The Tipsy Bison in a hot minute. It didn’t take too long before people puzzled two and two together: Maria, Tommy and Morgan were in non-speaking terms, and she had a slight bump that didn’t wear off with the days. 

But if anyone had even dared to imagine Morgan had slept with Tommy, that rumor died before it could gain speed. Nobody doubted Tommy, and even if they did, they needed to have balls enough to face Maria. 

By the first days of July, though, the storm had already started to brew. And without Morgan’s figure sitting on her regular stool on the bar, The Tipsy Bison became a bubbly cauldron of gossip, questions and enigmas. 

That’s when fingers started to be pointed, with no avail. There was no one to be pointed at. 

The smaller the town, the larger the gossip, they say. And with the first obvious theories quickly discarded, Jackson began to create wilder stories about why sweet little Morgan was pregnant without a man. Some women side glanced at their husbands, others at their sons. But many looked out the wall. 

That’s how, for some reason Joel couldn’t even begin to understand, many in Jackson started to believe Morgan had sex with a man outside the wall, a wandering solo traveler who sought the warmth of a woman for one night. The same stupid lie he had tried to feed his brother into. 

But, of course, that didn’t make sense— Morgan had never been out of Jackson since her arrival. Nobody cared about that detail. 

The second strongest theory running around was that Morgan was the lover of a married man. Who? Didn’t matter. Once that baby was born they would start to narrow down their options to see if that theory was true or not. 

The third theory was thrown on the table too lightly, masked as concerned when it was clearly a judgment: many believed she had been sexually abused, just like Tommy and Maria worried about, and for whatever reason decided to keep it. 

That theory was only whispered in low tones, with frown eyebrows, by people who had already met Morgan when she was back to being a person. Those who knew her from the beginning, those who had seen her grand entrance to Jackson as a breathing skeleton in Tommy’s arms, didn’t comment on it. 

Morgan’s stomach seemed to grow more and more as rumous spread around, as if the baby was fed with stupid stories. Although, truth be told, Morgan was feeding her baby stories: every night, she read out loud to herself, projecting her voice down to her stomach. She was currently reading The Fellowship Of The Ring, lent by Dina. 

She also had followed Joel’s advice, although the doctor had also told her the same thing: a more balanced diet, a nap during the hottest hours of the early afternoon, and less pushing and carrying stuff around the farm. 

Morgan didn’t quit her opening and closing shifts at the barn, though, as those early mornings as the sun rose and set on the horizon had turned to be her favorite moment of the day. It wasn’t too cold nor too hot yet, the colors of the sky swirled around in shades of orange, purple and pink, and sounds seemed to stop for a moment to contemplate the sun sinking up and down the mountain range. It was quiet and beautiful, and the world felt like it belonged to her and her baby. 

But it also was bittersweet. Morgan ran her hands through her belly as she walked to the barn, every morning, stealing glances to Joel’s house, wondering which exact sunrise was the day she had walked out of that place carrying a piece of him within her. Carrying what was now growing within her, what soon it’ll be her child. 

Joel had kept his word. Ever since that rainy night, he hadn't spoken to Morgan again. But, of course, that didn’t seem odd to anyone: after all, the secret glances, whispered words and stolen caresses had only been that, secrets. 

But that didn’t mean Joel and Morgan didn’t see each other. After all, Morgan was Dina’s friend, and Dina was Ellie’s girlfriend. In consequence, Morgan found herself one evening on July 31st sitting on that very porch where she had been dumped over two months ago. 

Ellie’s birthday was a simple gathering: a couple of friends, good food, a guitar and some drinks. Under Joel’s supervision, a few beers came and went too, and Ellie was awful at pretending she hadn’t drank before in her life. 

Morgan sat directly across from the only grown ups of the birthday party —Joel, Maria and Tommy— and spent the night laughing and giggling with Dina and the other girls. Was it awkward? Definitely so, but she wasn’t going to back off, she had been personally invited by Ellie. Besides, this was the first social event she had in a good minute, and the way all the eyes, without helping it, landed on her stomach with lovely expressions made her feel warm. 

Tommy and Maria went home early, right after Ellie blew the candles, mumbling something about the baby’s sleep schedule. Morgan’s gaze followed almost-six-month-old Benji as he was carried away, biting her cheek. He was the only thing she missed the most. 

Then, Joel stood up, and walked inside without a word. Ellie’s friends, one by one, started to stumble home as well. Morgan should’ve followed, but she was tired, her chair was very comfortable —Joel himself had brought out the best chair he had for her to sit outside— and a rush of somewhat cool breeze was rushing right through the porch, cooling her down a bit. 

Ellie brought out her guitar (Joel’s, really), and played a few tunes. But Morgan could tell the glances between her and her girlfriend were silent conversations that were eager to move to the garage. 

So, when Joel stepped back outside, with his shirt slightly dampened after washing the dishes, the girls stood up. 

“We’re going to the garage.” Ellie explained. 

“Ah.” 

She handed him the guitar, and Dina murmured a small “Bye, Morgan.” as they walked out of the porch, and into the dark. 

Morgan couldn’t help but swear under her breath. 

But she wasn’t going to let this moment alone with Joel be awkward. After all, it wasn’t like they had met alone, they just happened to end up alone. No rules broken. 

“Can you sing to me?” Morgan asked Joel, her eyes distant, as he picked his guitar and sat where Ellie had been sitting a moment ago. 

“Mhm, maybe. Why should I?”

Morgan turned to look at him, a sassy expression in her eyes that clearly said ‘because I’m carrying your baby, perhaps?’ that made Joel chuckle.

“Well, in that case, what do you want, mamma?”

Mamma. 

She hadn’t heard that word ever since the last time she had slept with Joel. Nobody was calling her mamma, nor any other name besides hers. At least, to her face. 

Morgan closed her eyes, trying to think, when Sting’s “Shape of My Heart” popped in her head. It was one of her favourite songs, and she remembered someone had played it on the jukebox months ago, on Valentine’s Day. 

“Do you know any Sting?” 

Joel smirked, adjusting the chords of the guitar. 

“Of course. Any suggestions?” 

“Surprise me.” 

And surprise her he did, as he started playing “Shape of My Heart”, just as if he had read her mind. Morgan had to keep her eyes away from him as he sang and played, and focused on the fireflies lights going on and off in the field, and the hot, soft wind rushing through the green trees. 

He deals the cards as a meditation
And those he plays never suspect
He doesn't play for the money he wins
He don't play for respect

His voice was raspy and charged, like a thunder, and it matched the color of the night: a deep black spattered with stars. Morgan closed her eyes, and let the sound move across her body, a hand dropping instinctively to her belly. 

And then, Joel kept playing the song without singing, just letting the chords of his guitar do all the magic, trying to hear how Morgan mumbled the rest of the lyrics, her voice never high enough to be considered a proper singing. Once she was done, Joel put the guitar down, and Morgan kept her eyes closed, her hand clenched tightly on the fabric of her shirt, right above her bellybutton. 

“What was Sting's name?” she asked, opening her eyes at last. 

“Um, Gordon?”

“Ugh, don't like that.” When Morgan noticed Joel’s raised eyebrow, she rolled her eyes. “We need baby names, Joel.”

Wrong choice of words, Morgan realized right away. But Joel didn’t seem pissed off, at least not too much. “Thought that was your job.”

Morgan sighed, her hand still moving around her stomach, drawing patterns. “It is, but you can have some input, although I'll make the final decision.” 

“Mhm.” Is all Joel said. 

“Any thoughts in mind?”

Joel shrugged. “Anything you like is good.”

“Mhm, alright then” Morgan smirked. She decided to poke the bear a little, really testing Joel’s mood. “If it’s a boy, he’ll have all the names of Nsync.”

“So, Justin…”

“Justin, Chris, Joe, Lance and Chris. Again.”

Joel’s face betrayed him as he smirked. “And it’s a girl you’re going for the Spice Girls?” He asked sarcastically.

“A-ha. Posh, Scary, Sporty, Baby and Ginger.” Morgan smiled, but then bit her cheek. “Huh, now that I think about it, Ginger is actually a cute na—“

“No.”

There you go, Morgan thought. 

“Okay then, Miller. I wanna hear some names.”

Joel huffed. “I already did what I had to do.”

“Come on.” Morgan pouted, but the bear had already been awakened. 

“We agreed this was your baby.” 

The emphasis on the ‘your’ made Morgan mad. Yeah, the baby was hers fully, but he had given it to her in that very bed that, she knew, sat unmade upstairs. 

“It is. I just want to chat with you, you moron.” She huffed, rolling her eyes, and crossing her arms as she looked away. 

An awkward silence settled on the porch, but Joel broke it with a sincere whisper. 

“Don’t name it like anyone from a boy band or girl band, and we’ll be good.”

“Not even if that boy band is The Beatles?” She teased, kind of joking but not really so. 

“You’re gonna name your baby Ringo? Seriously?” Joel’s unbelievable surprise made Morgan laugh out loud, loudly. She had no clue if he had tried to be funny or not, but either way, she laughed until she had to hold her stomach with both hands. 

“It’s been a minute since I’ve heard ya laugh” Joel said once their chuckles died down and quiet had returned to the porch. 

“Mhm, I guess so.”

“Are you alright?”

Morgan wanted to be mad at him for the stupid question. No, of course she wasn’t. She hadn’t spoken to Maria or Tommy since the day they found out she was pregnant, she hadn’t held little Benji in her arms ever since. She was fat, sweaty and uncomfortable. She woke up every day puking her guts out. Her clothes had started to fit too tight. But most importantly, without Joel’s scent surrounding her, she hadn’t had a good night's sleep in months. 

“This is… harder than I thought.” She admitted, avoiding his eyes.  

“What is? The weight gain, the morning sickness, the stretch marks? The—“

“Missing you.” She cut him before he could continue. Yeah, all of that was hard, but right now she could only think of his body on hers, and that lonely bed upstairs. “Got used to sleeping in ya bed, s’all.” Her voice was small, shy, ashamed of her confession. 

But Joel loved to please Morgan, and give into any whim she had. Even if he promised himself not to do it again.  

“Come on, then.” He huffed as he stood up, and walked to the house. When he saw Morgan was still sitting on her chair, unmoved, looking at him with a puzzled look, he laid a hand on the door frame, and turned to her. Their gazes locked, and Morgan’s heart skipped a bit when she saw his eyes… 

They had an undeniable layer of sadness in them, but that was sadness that had attached to him long ago, growing like mold over time. Instead, Morgan looked further, and saw the shimmer of lust and lingering. His eyes were softly beginning for her, even if he was acting all tough. 

“Come, before I change my mind.”

She stood up, and followed him. 

Morgan inhaled deeply when she smelled the familiar scent of Joel’s house, and was already high by the time she laid in his bed, and sniffed the sheets.  

Wrapped in the security of his dark bedroom, Joel felt overwhelmed: he wasn’t sure how he wanted to start. He missed every inch of her body, including those new inches around her stomach he hadn’t had the pleasure to touch yet. 

And then again, as if they had read their minds once more, Morgan stood up from Joel’s bed, walked to him, and grabbed his hand, settling it on top of her stomach. His hand was big enough to cover her not-so-small-but-still-small baby bump, and it radiated a kind of heat she hadn’t felt in any other hand that touched her belly. 

“Do you want a boy or a girl?” He asked in a whisper so low Morgan hesitated for a second, wondering if she had just imagined it. 

“Don’t know. I don’t really care, as long as it’s healthy.”

Joel kept his eyes on Morgan’s stomach, but she took a step closer to him. And when he looked up, almost like magnets, their lips met in a kiss, a kiss charged with longing. 

Morgan had a way to lose herself in Joel’s kisses that made her unaware of what happened around her. That’s why she only realized they were laying in bed when Joel’s hands rubbed her core through her wet underwear.

“I really like when you wear skirts.” He mumbled in between kisses. 

“S’the only thing that fits me.” She mumbled back, making him laugh. The vibration of his laugh echoed in Morgan’s throat as they continued kissing. 

His hand felt incredible, the friction with the soft, wet cotton fabric on her folds and clitoris made Morgan shiver in a way she had never managed to do so with her own fingers. She had tried to mimic Joel’s touch herself, alone in her bed, but she had never gotten too far before she started crying. 

But right now, her whimpers were out of pleasure. 

While he played with her sex through her underwear, Morgan moved her hand to unbuckle Joel’s jeans, and took his cock out. She pumped him, feeling all her length on her hand, letting his warmth fuel her. 

They laid there for a moment, masturbating each other as they kissed. Morgan twitched under Joel’s touch, and she felt the palpitations of his cock with every movement.  

With his fingers, Joel moved the thin fabric of her underwear to the side, just enough so he could slide two fingers in her. Morgan was so wet they got in without any struggle. She flinched, and moaned louder when Joel started to move them, curled up. His palm rubbed her core as his fingers moved inside her, and even though it felt incredible, she was starved for more. 

“I need—“ her words drowned in her throat. 

“What? Say it.” Joel commanded.

“You. I need you in me.” 

Joel smirked, and moved his hand away to pull Morgan's underwear, although he kept her skirt on. He kneeled between her legs, and pulled her shirt up. 

“You’ve got a bra on?” He asked, surprised. He had never seen her wear a bra before. 

“My boobs hurt too much to not to.” She explained. 

God, he had missed out on so much already, Joel thought. Her body wasn’t the same anymore, and he hadn’t been witness to those transformations, the little indicators that signaled life was growing. But he felt bad for Morgan, knowing she was in pain and uncomfortable. 

“Don’t worry mamma, I’ll make you feel good.” He told her, and after a quick peck on her lips, Joel went down on her. 

If Joel’s hands had been overwhelming, his tongue and lips on her cunt were even more so. She shivered when she felt the contact, but stopped him after a moment. 

“S-stop.” 

He looked up, confused. 

“I need your cock.” She begged again, and Joel smirked. He obeyed without a question, standing up to stripe himself down, before sitting on the bed again. 

“Turn around. I don’t want to sit on your stomach.” 

She nodded, and settled herself on all fours, her face looking at the headboard. In a normal situation she wasn’t sure she would’ve liked this pose —she had been raped way too many times in this exact position. But her sex was radiating fire at this point, dripping hot water down her thighs. And he had a point too, she needed to look out for her bump. 

She heard Joel spat on himself, and after a second, he slipped in, the whole length. She cried out a moan, and buried her face in the pillow. Joel kept his hands on Morgan’s ass, spreading it apart as he fucked her in his own rhythm, his fingers clenched tightly on the fabric of her skirt.

He tried to contain himself, wanting the moment to last for a while, but it was going to be hard. The only pleasure he’d had in the recent months had been his own hand, and it didn’t come close to Morgan’s hand when she jerked him off, and let alone to the soft, warm, velvety walls of her cunt. 

“Come on, mamma, I wanna hear ya.” Joel begged, and Morgan moved her head to the side, letting her moans and whimpers be free. 

“God damn.” She cried out as he went faster. She wanted to touch herself, to reach her climax faster, but she felt like play-doh as she tried to move her hand down to her core. But Joel’s cock, and the friction of the hot air of the room were enough to make her cum. 

And when Morgan’s cunt clenched tightly around his cock, Joel couldn’t help himself either. And with a surprised moan, he came too. 

It was the first time both had cum together at the exact same time, and it was an electrifying sensation. 

He slid out of her, and laid down by her side, breathing heavily. Morgan turned around and also laid on her back, eyes closed. She fell asleep right there, before she could even be aware of it, as Joel’s warmth, scent, softness, darkness and nectar overpowered every single one of her senses.

The next morning, none of them said a word as she dressed, nor when she walked out, just like she always used to, from his house towards the barn. 

Morgan had never been so confused in her life. Why did they have sex last night? She was already pregnant, and they had agreed they wouldn’t be seen together to raise any suspicions. 

But what ached Morgan more was the fact that she didn’t have a single person to ask them what this meant. 

Chapter Text

Joel and Morgan didn’t see each other again since Ellie’s birthday. But even if they had wanted to, they simply couldn’t: with the cold completely gone for months now, and the heat sinking into the ground, many infected that had been buried in the snow and deep into the mud, resurged. That meant double patrol shifts to keep things at bay. 

And, with the new outpost in Afton, Joel was busier than ever: he was sent down there often, to help fix and prepare the patrol guard house to make it habitable. Since the journey was long, patrol trips to Afton needed a place to sleep over, that meant a sealed house, a working kitchen, and bed and other provisions, all of which Joel was in charge of. 

But what Joel hated the most about the trips to Afton was, funny enough, Ellie’s rambles. 

Joel and Ellie had volunteered to do most of the hard work in Afton since it reminded them of their time on the road. Well, at least of the good times on the road. Horse riding, shooting, a little detour here and there to explore, and camping together. The moment they stepped out of the walls of Jackson, Ellie turned from the moody teenager that was insufferable back to the girl Joel met years ago in the Boston ZQ. 

But she wasn’t a girl anymore, Joel had to remind himself.

Instead of cracking her joke book, or playing car games with him, Ellie talked. Nonstop. About everything. Mostly Dina, but everything, really. And one of her favorite topics of conversation was Morgan, although she had been Jackson’s number one gossip for a while now.

Even if she wasn't very popular amongst the adults of Jackson, Morgan had become quite the IT girl between the younger crowd. Since she couldn't really hang out with Maria or Tommy or the others, Morgan had spent more time with Dina and the younger folks of the town, who looked up to her as an older sister who didn’t strive away from saying things the way they were.

What they admired was the lack of care about the circulating rumors, the brutal words whispered behind her back. They also admired that she didn’t hide her bump, nor that she didn't stop wearing low waist pants, even if they weren’t fitting anymore. 

“Seriously, Dina insists Morgan left town, when I tell her it’s impossible. I would've known if she had left. Jesse believes she must've sneaked out, through a secret gate or a broken fence.” Ellie rambled as they rode their horses through the green woods.

“Mhm”

“She never tells us about the father, no matter how much Dina pokes at her. We believe it’s because he’s probably too ugly, or too old to be with her.” Ellie continued, finally catching her dad’s attention.

“Huh?” is all he said, when he would’ve loved to say ‘who are ya calling ugly and old, you punk?’

Ellie shrugged. “I mean, if she's keeping it so secretive, he mustn't be someone she is proud of bragging she got knocked up.” Those words hit Joel lower than he had thought they would. But Ellie kept talking. “S’not like she fucked Bret Pitt.”

“It’s Brad Pitt, smartass, and you're talking nonsense.” he huffed.

Ellie’s eyes lit up. “Why? You know something I don't?"

“No.” he lied.

“Come on, now, spill it.”

Joel rolled his eyes. “I’m just saying you shouldn't judge her and her decisions.”

“I don’t, I just judge the man she picked…” Ellie hesitated for a second. “Dina says it’s not possible, but many also rumor she was rap—”

Joel stopped his horse, and spoke firmly. “That's not true.”

“I know, I know. She wouldn't have let something like that happen to her again.” Ellie caught herself.

“Again?” Joel repeated, confused for a second. 

“The abuse, I mean.” Ellie clarified, and Joel realized he had been holding his breath. For a second, he thought she meant Morgan had already been pregnant before, but he knew that wasn’t true. He remembered the night she told him about the exchangers, back when the snow was still melting, and how she had explained she was too skinny to menstruate properly. 

“Those days you went missing, I spent the night with her” Ellie said, her voice low.

“I know, you told me about her candy stash”

“Yeah, well, she told me what the exchangers did to her too, in a bit more detail… I don't know, she looks… too happy about being pregnant. I don't believe she was forced to do anything she didn’t want to.” Ellie explained.

It made Joel uncomfortable to see Ellie wasn’t as stupid as the rest of Jackson, because it meant she was closer to piecing two and two together. “Because she wasn't, now quit it.” he replied gruffly, and with a click of his tongue, his horse started to move again. 

Ellie followed him in silence, as she thought. But Ellie, being Ellie, didn’t let the conversation die. “I asked her, that night, if she liked girls.”

That sparked Joel’s interest again. “And?”

“She said she didn’t, but I seriously can't understand her.” Ellie replied, innocently. It made Joel smirk a bit.

“Because you're a lesbian.”

“No, I don't mean that, I mean— if I had even been…” Ellie tried to articulate her words, but she was clearly struggling. Both stopped their horses again, and Ellie managed to speak again. “If a man ever did to me what they did to her… I wouldn’t ever want to be near one again. And she has been through that, and then chose to have sex with a man again, because that's how she got pregnant.”

Joel couldn’t judge Ellie and her reasoning. The whole thing was confusing, because what Morgan had been through was a hard pill to swallow. He also couldn’t comprehend entirely how Morgan was still strong, living, and willing to move on after everything. But he admired that of her.

“Ellie, the heart wants what the heart wants. Something can hurt us and you can still want it and love it.”

“Why?”

Joel sighed, and looked around the green forest, trying to think of how to explain this to a sixteen-year-old. “If Dina ever hurt you, in any way, would you not still love her?”

“I— love is a strong word. I don’t know if I love Dina” Ellie stuttered, a bit flushed.

Joel rolled his eyes “If I hurt you, then, wouldn't you still love me?”

Ellie was clearly even more confused now. “I guess it depends.” she said, quietly. 

“I would never do anything to hurt you intentionally, but it can happen. The people we love can make us feel pain, and sadness. Morgan has every right to want to move on with her life and have sex with a man if that's what she wants, even if men have hurt her with sex before.” he explained, and Ellie nodded. 

They continued their journey, as golden rays of sunshine came down on them through the thick forest foliage. 

“Joel?”

“Mhm?”

“Why are Tommy and Maria mad at Morgan?”

Joel sighed, exhausted. “I'm done with the Morgan topic.”

“Come on.”

He rolled his eyes, knowing that the sooner he addressed the Morgan issue, the faster Ellie would be done with it. “They're mad because of the same reason everyone talks about her: she never said who's the father.”

“Wow, so he must really be ugly.” Ellie said, and Joel bit his tongue. “Why didn't she tell them, tho?”

He turned around to face her, his horse stopping a bit abruptly. “Do I look like a Morgan encyclopedia to you?”

“Gosh” Ellie murmured under her breath as they continued riding, now in a more tense silence which, of course, didn’t last long.

“Joel?”

“If it’s another Morg—”

“S’not about her.” Ellie quickly caught herself.

“What, then?”

Joel had imagined Ellie would’ve asked literally anything else but what she did ask him. 

“Wouldn't you want to have a kid someday?”

“I have you.” he said condescendingly. 

“I mean a baby.”

“And what are you, a dog?”

“Come on, dude, you know what I mean” Ellie huffed. And he nodded, because yeah, of course he knew what she meant, and this question was another fucking Morgan question, even if Ellie didn’t know it.

“Ellie, I'm too old to be changing diapers, and you alone give me enough to stress about as it is”

“Ha”

“Besides—“

“You'll need to be with a woman, yeah, little detail.” Ellie cut him off, sarcastically.

Joel couldn’t really understand where Ellie’s question was coming from. “You want a sibling or something all of the sudden?” he asked, teasingly. 

“Could be cool, yeah. To be a big sister, I mean.” Ellie shrugged.

“You’ve got your cousin.” Joel replied, in reference to Benji, who Ellie had been babysitting a couple nights a week. Maybe that’s where this question was coming from. Right?

“S’not the same.”

Joel huffed, but he knew that, if he showed he was pissed off, Ellie was going to figure it out. “Well, Ellie, go look around, if you find a cute looking rock, that can be your new sibling” he said sarcastically.

“Ha-ha” Ellie said dryly, and Joel continued teasing her as she clicked her tongue and made her horse walk past him.

“Or a stick, or a snail.” he said to her as she marched off, and his shoulders slumped after a moment.

------

Joel wasn't sure if his conversation with Ellie had been a blessing from her part, disguised as a simple comment, but it didn't let him sleep comfortably for the next couple of days.

Ellie wanted a sibling. 

And the worst part was, she already was about to have one, but he couldn't tell her.

Joel knew it was time to untangle the Christmas lights sitting in a box in the attic: his feelings for Morgan, and the baby. He had to figure out if he cared or not about her, if he cared or not about that baby, if he was really just a sperm donor, a friend helping out another friend, or a stupid asshole who wanted to have sex without dating and took advantage of a confused, lonely girl who wanted a baby without a partner.

He had already hurt Tommy and Maria, indirectly, by disobeying their direct commands, sleeping with Morgan and getting her pregnant. He had hurt Morgan by ignoring her altogether after getting her pregnant, and he hurt himself along the way when he slept with her on Ellie’s birthday. And now, he was hurting his daughter too.

Ellie’s simple question made Joel remember how, back when she was a little girl, Sarah had asked over and over and over again for a sibling. All her friends at school had siblings, even kids with divorced parents or just one parent at home, like her, so her six-year-old brain couldn't wrap her head around Joel’s endless explanations as to why it was literally impossible for her to have one.

It had hurt him a lot to say no to Sarah, because he tried to give her anything she asked for. After all, she was a perfect kid: great grades, kind, sweet, intelligent, compassionate, well mannered. And even if she hadn't been such a good kid, Joel would’ve still spoiled her with anything she asked, because she was his daughter.

But a sibling was one of the few requests he had ever said no to, and now he had to also say no to Ellie as well.

Joel’s heart felt heavy on his chest. Why couldn’t he give Ellie what she wanted? Why did he have to fail her, just as he failed Sarah, when this time it was possible to get her what she wanted? Shit, what she wanted already existed.

When Joel and Ellie returned to Jackson after their trip, Joel headed straight to the barn, to find Morgan. To tell her what? He didn’t know yet, but he had to talk to her, or at least kiss her if she’d let him. Smell her perfume, touch her stomach, try to see if her sweet scent could actually help him come to a conclusion to this mess they both got into. And if it didn’t, at least it was going to soothe his pain for a bit. 

Sunset was almost over as Joel marched towards the barn, with the night sky getting darker by the minute. But Joel knew Morgan had to still be in there, as the lights were still on, the main door was half closed, and Garfield was sitting outside in a loaf shape, his eyes glowing as he looked at Joel. 

When he got close enough to the barn, Joel stopped on his tracks. Inside, he heard Morgan’s sweet giggles, but also another man’s voice. 

“Well, it’s true!”

Joel realized that was Tom, one of the barn’s boys, the same guy that had almost caught them having sex months ago. 

Tom had arrived in Jackson around six months after he did, accompanied by his younger sisters. He was a good looking boy, with short hair, hazel eyes and strong biceps. But Joel didn’t know much else about him, other than he worked with Morgan. 

“You think?” Morgan asked. 

“Totally, Morgan”

“Well, if you guess so.”

Joel leaned on the barn wall, and listened. He knew this was wrong, but he was deciding on a good moment to burst in, as well as think of a lie to tell to Tom so he would leave them alone. 

“Listen, there’s something I wanna ask.” Tom said.

“What is it?”

Joel heard the young guy sigh. “I’m not gonna ask about the father, I know you’re tired of that topic, and I truly don’t care who it is. Whoever that dude is, must be a douchebag anyway for leaving you alone”

“Tom, I—“ Morgan tried to talk, but he interrupted her. 

“What I want to say is I can be here. By your side.”

“Huh?”

Huh? 

Joel blinked, and shook his head. That boy wasn’t…?

“You and I can raise this baby, if you need help, which you’ll do.” Tom continued, and Joel’s breath got caught in his chest. He couldn’t see Morgan or Tom’s faces. He just heard the boy as he kept talking. “If we get together, we’ll be assigned a big house for both of us, I’ll get paternity leave, and you’ll be able to stop working right now, and maybe even be a stay at home mom.”

“I— Tom, where did you get that?” Morgan stuttered with a gasp. She sounded surprised.

“These are my parents' wedding bands. I’ve kept them since they died.” 

Joel couldn’t hear this any longer. He walked away, fast, clenching his fists. 

He was an idiot. What was he expecting? That Morgan would wait around for him to make up his mind? And did he really believe he was the only one who saw how gorgeous she was? How perfect she was? Shit, Tom probably wasn’t the only guy in Jackson who had the same idea, Joel knew.

But what bothered him wasn’t the fact that Tom was proposing to Morgan. He just walked away because he was afraid of her answer. Terrified, actually. 

If Morgan was smart, which she was, then she would say yes to Tom. Marry a handsome guy her age, say the baby was his, and move on. That fixed every little problem she had: she would have a man to claim to be the father of her baby, and with that, Tommy and Maria would talk to her again, and the whole town would stop the rumors for once and for all. 

It made sense. It made a lot more sense than… what? Than being a single mom? Than never speaking to Tommy and Maria again? Than telling the truth and disappointing people even more? 

As Joel walked away from the barn, inside of it, Morgan’s breath got caught on her throat, looking down at the wedding rings in front of her. And the same thoughts Joel was thinking were also running through her head: marrying Tom solved everything. 

Except there was one problem. 

“Tom— I can’t do this.” Morgan said. 

Tom stood up from his knee, and closed his hand shut, pressing the wedding rings on his palm. “Come on Morgan, don’t be so stubborn, a baby needs a father. You already made a mistake by sinning, but it can be fixed, God is willing to—”

“Sorry?” She interrupted, raising an eyebrow. “Tom, you don’t know me, at all. I don’t care about sinning, or getting married, especially to someone I don’t love. And my baby doesn’t need a father, he has one.”

Tom huffed. “And where is he, huh? If he knocks you up and leaves you stranded he ain’t a father, Morgan.” 

She sighed loudly, and he took a step closer, too close for her liking, but she was frozen in place. He tucked a piece of Morgan's hair behind her ear. “Come on, pretty thing, haven’t you heard the things they say about you?”

“I have.” She replied, dryly.

“And don’t you want them to stop?” He continued, his hand now dropping to her chin to make her look up, his finger slowly tracing her jawline. 

“I don’t care about rumors because they’re all wrong, I know how it happened, and with who.” She said as she took another step back, but she bumped into a wall. 

“Look, I don’t—“ Tom huffed, frustrated, and leaned even closer to her, resting his hand on the barn wall, right next to her head. “Is the baby going to be black, asian, white, latino?”

“What?” Morgan really couldn’t believe his question. “The baby is going to look like me.”

“Well, then, we can say it’s mine. We just tell people we had a small breakup and—“ Tom started speaking, but she interrupted him. 

“Tom, I’m not marrying you, and I’m not going to lie.” 

“You’re making a mistake, you know? You’re not Lady, the cow. You’re not a barn animal. You’re a girl, so you need to marry a man to have a baby. Any man, really, if you can’t marry the father of your child.” He said, and it made Morgan even more angrier than she was. 

“There’s—“ she choked on her own words, and took a deep breath to calm down, her hand immediately dropping to her belly. “Tom, step back.”

Tom pressed his lips shut, looking down. He didn’t move, nor say anything, for a moment too long to make Morgan doubt if she had made a mistake. 

“Can’t you at least tell me who it is? The bastard who knocked you up” He murmured, his voice calm but not moving away from her. His eyes were locked on her belly. 

“It’s none of your fucking business.” 

He finally looked up at her, their noses almost touching. “What does he have that I don’t?”

Everything, Morgan thought immediately. 

“Tom... I just like him, there isn’t much else to that. The heart wants what the heart wants.” She said, sincerely, with a whisper. 

“Then I’m sorry your heart wants a loser who won’t stand up for you, who won’t accept his sin and marry you, like you deserve. I would’ve done it.” Tom spat his venomous words at her. “I really am sorry you’re only a slut when you could’ve been so much more.”

And with that, he finally stepped away from Morgan’s personal space, and stormed out of the barn. 

On autopilot, Morgan finished closing the barn for the day. And once she got to her home, she crumbled, tears suffocating her as she curled up on herself.

Chapter Text

Summer came to an end rather abruptly, as Morgan entered her 2nd trimester. She finally felt a little bit better physically, now that she stopped being so nauseous in the mornings. But clothes definitely didn’t fit her anymore. 

With her bump growing larger and larger, rumors seemed to have settled down a little bit: she was clearly, without a doubt, pregnant, and yet no baby daddy showed up. That’s why whispering went from fun gossip to sad comments.

Morgan kept working the opening shift of the barn, but Tom had told her to take things easy, and offered to take her closing shift for her, and give her the money. She wanted to say no, but Tom didn’t give her a choice. She wasn’t sure if it was a kind gesture of someone wanting to help, or just a way for him to stop seeing her so often. Tom hadn’t been able to look Morgan in the eyes since the night he proposed to her, anyway, so it wasn’t like she could’ve asked him.  

So, with her afternoons more free, Morgan began working on the greenhouse, to gather a little bit more money, and keep her hands and mind busy. It was one of the few activities she could safely do. What was a tomato plant going to do, bite her?

And, just as Joel had said, Morgan was officially reassigned a new place on September 1st. It was a small house, located on the edge of a small forest. It was similar to her regular place, but perfect enough for two people, as the main difference consisted of having a second floor with two small bedrooms. 

Morgan had to bite her tongue when she realized it was exactly the same floor plan as Joel’s place. But, then again, she wasn’t in any position to make demands or ask for another accommodation. 

Working on the nursery was another project that distracted Morgan a lot from her troubled mind, and it helped her connect with the fact that she was, indeed, going to have a baby in her arms in a few months. It helped her remember she was enduring all this shit —the loneliness, the sadness, being left out and excluded and judged— for this baby. 

With the help of Dina and Ellie, who turned out to be an incredible artist, Morgan painted a mural for the nursery: a forest-like scene, with flowers of all kinds, and birds and insects. 

Ellie was sitting on top of a ladder, finishing up the last touches on a bird. Dina was carefully outlining a butterfly, and Morgan was knelt over a flower, painting a little ladybug, when a voice she hadn’t in a minute spoke. 

“Looks good.” 

Morgan stood up, a bit slowly, now that her belly weighed more, and looked at Maria and Tommy. 

Now that Benji was older, both were fully back to their jobs and responsibilities, and looked more like themselves again, without baby spit on their clothes and bags under their eyes. And one of those responsibilities was checking on the home re-assignments and arrangements. So, as Jesse and the other boys helped move the furniture in from her old house to the new one, Tommy and Maria walked into Morgan’s new place to look for her. 

“Thanks. Ellie did most of it.” Morgan said, clearing her throat, a bit uncomfortable. 

“You like the house?” Tommy asked as he set down a box in the only piece of furniture Morgan had so far in the nursery: a chest of drawers, also intervened with artwork. 

“It’s perfect.”

Tommy nodded. “Good. There aren't many options to relocate you, since you are going to be a single mother, we weren't sure how much room you’d need.”

Morgan pressed her lips, nodding uncomfortably. With one quick stare from Maria, Ellie climbed off the ladder. 

“We ran out of green paint. Got some in my house. Dina, you coming?” 

And before Morgan could say anything, Dina and Ellie left her alone with Tommy and Maria. So, she took a big breath, expecting anything but what she heard them say. 

“Morgan, we’re here to say sorry.” Maria spoke, and Morgan looked up at her. “That day you caught us by surprise, and… we didn’t even try to listen to you. We were worried sick about you, and your mental health, but you've proved ourselves wrong.” 

Morgan didn’t say anything, so Maria moved to stand next to Tommy, and opened the box. Morgan immediately spotted bright colors.

“These are some of Benji’s old clothes you could use. It’s mostly onesies, but there’s some dresses too, maybe you can actually use them if you have a girl.” She explained. 

Morgan took a step closer, and peaked in the box, taking out a little yellow dress sitting at the top of the pile of clothes. 

“Thank you.” She said, her throat dry. 

“And Morgan, quit the greenhouse job.” Tommy said, making her head now turn to him.

“But the—“

“We can talk money later, that doesn’t matter now. What matters now is that you rest. Besides, Joyce told me you killed two strawberry plants already. You clearly are better at keeping animals alive.” He said, with a somewhat melancholic smile on his face. He took her hand, still holding on to the little dress, and continued talking. “Morgan, it takes a town to raise a kid. Even if this wasn’t how we had imagined things would go, we just realised we can’t let you do this alone.”

And when Morgan spoke, her voice broke in a million pieces. “I missed you so much” she said, immediately hugging Tommy, burying her face in his chest. He wrapped his arms around her, and she felt Maria hug her as well. 

Morgan turned her face away from Tommy’s chest, and Maria wiped some of the tears, but it was like stopping rain with your hands.  

“I'm sorry. I shouldn’t have said the things I said, or speak to you in that tone” Morgan said in soft sobs, still clenching on Tommy. 

“You were only a month pregnant.” Maria brushed off, her hand resting on Morgan’s hair. “My first trimester I was flipping people off for nothing.”

Morgan sniffed a tear, and swallowed saliva. “Still, doesn't justify it.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, okay? We’re the grown ups here. Well, you too, but we are older, we should’ve listened to you.” Maria continued. 

“Are we cool?” Tommy asked, his chin resting on top of Morgan’s head. 

“We are cool, yeah.” Morgan said back. 

“Then why are you still crying?” 

Morgan hesitated for a second. For a very brief, split second, she considered telling them the truth, telling them the father was Joel. But that wouldn’t have been a good idea at all. It took them months for them to forgive her, she wasn’t going to screw this up. 

Besides, she knew she wasn’t going to be able to pronounce his name. Just thinking about him made her throat itchy and burning hot. 

So Morgan just buried her face deeper in Tommy’s chest, trying to fool herself into believing those arms hugging her back were his brother’s. 

——

“Hey”

Ellie smiled at Joel as she walked into his craft room, lit by an orange glow of the afternoon that made faint specks of sawdust spark as they floated in the air. 

She turned to the side, and began roaming around the jam packed drawers. 

“Whatcha looking for?” Joel asked her, his eyes following her from his seat on the desk, right under a large window overlooking the sunset. 

Joel had been spending quite a lot of time inside his craft room, carving wood and killing time. Ellie knew it wasn’t something uncommon for him, but considering these were the last sunny and warm days of the year, she thought it was odd for him to be indoors so much.

“Do we have more paint?” she asked as she roamed around the drawers.

“You took it all.”

Ellie sighed “Shit.”

“What are you working on?” Joel asked again, and she walked to stand next to his desk, hands on the waistband of her paint-stained jeans.

“I’m painting a mural for Morgan’s new place, for the baby’s nursery.”

“She moved?” Joel asked, with a tone of voice Ellie had never heard from him. She could’ve sworn that was the sound of a heart shattering. 

“Yeah, got the new place down by the woods.”

“I see” Joel murmured, darting his attention again to his work in progress, but his hands didn’t move to keep working. 

Ellie cleared her throat, tilting her head to try and get his attention back. “Are you alright?”

“Mhm?”

“You look off.” 

“S’nothing…” Joel murmured again, avoiding Ellie’s gaze. “Did Morgan say she needed anything?” he asked a second later, with a little stutter as he said Morgan’s name.

“Um, no, I think. The mural’s almost done, and Jesse and Tommy helped move her stuff in.” 

Now that made him look up. “Tom?”

Ellie shook her head. “No. Tommy, your brother?” she said in a tone of sarcasm mixed with a bit of concern. “I saw her talking with him and Maria, I think they finally are all good now. Maria dropped some of Benji’s old clothes for her.”

“Oh.” Joel nodded, and, once more, his eyes dropped down. 

Ellie bit her cheek, and stood still for a moment, contemplating her father: Joel’s dark brown hair looked lighter as the last rays of sunshine shined down on him. But she could have sworn he had more grey hairs now than he did a couple months ago. 

“What are you doing?” she asked him, hoping to cheer him up with another subject.

“Just, em, working.” he replied, not even sure. There were several wooden bars, perfectly carved, piled on the desk. And, in front of him, Joel had another wooden bar, this one flat and thicker, with holes the same diameter as the other bars to fit in. He was carving a floral pattern on it, like the roots of an ivy, spreading and turning and curling on themselves across the wood. 

“It’s very pretty,” Ellie said. “What is it, exactly?”

Joel shrugged, brushing away her compliment. “Nothing, really, just practising some designs, s’all.” he lied.

“Look, Morgan invited us over for dinner, as a house warming party kind of thing, but I can—” Ellie started, but her father interrupted.

“Go, then.”

Ellie shook her head softly. “I’d rather stay, have dinner with you.” She said, and she meant it. She knew the last couple of months she had grown more distant from Joel: she had Dina, and a lot of new friends, and school, and a part time job with the patrols and babysitting. Her plate couldn’t have been fuller than ever. And she wondered if maybe that was the reason Joel looked the way he looked now: old, and uncharacteristically lonely for a lonely man. 

“Don’t worry about me, I was gonna go to the bar anyway, you go have fun.” Joel said, finally looking up, a half smile on his face that didn’t fool anyone. “Besides, I thought you liked Morgan, why don’t you want to stay over?”

“Turns out I like you more, even when you’re all grumpy.” She smirked, her sarcasm hiding her true concern. She wished he was grumpy or angry or anything else but… this.

Joel shook his head, smiling a little bit more genuinely now. He went back to working, his hands softly working on the little details of the ivy leaves. “Go be with her, once she has the baby she’ll be too busy to hang around with ya.” 

Somehow, Ellie doubted that was the reason Joel was sending her over to be with Morgan.

——

Morgan tossed and turned in her new bed— a house-warming gift from Tommy and Maria for her. It was a queen mattress, big enough so she could cuddle with her baby once it was born. But tonight, it felt gigantic and empty, and cold. 

She hated the new house. It faced the south east, so the lighting was awful, and it made her head hurt as she tried to read. The wooden floors were lovely, but they creaked a lot as you walked on them. And, since it was brand new, it was big and inhabited and empty. It made Morgan feel unsafe to be in a space so unalive, detached from any kind of story or past.

The only thing she loved, she had to admit, was the fact that now she had a porch. 

So, Morgan wrapped herself on her blanket and dragged herself down the stairs, to sit outside and enjoy one of the last chilly but bearable nights of the year before the real cold came over again. 

Morgan felt funny as she thought of it: when she had started planning on getting pregnant, it was still frozen solid and chilly outside. And now, months later, the cold was coming over once more, and she was nowhere near the same person she used to be last winter, both physically, mentally and emotionally. 

But before that thought could let her get even sadder than she already was, Morgan opened the door, and saw a gift on the doorstep. 

Sitting in the middle of the porch, there was a baby crib, the only piece of furniture she had been missing from her new house and still hadn’t been able to get. It was a pretty decent size crib, meant to be used until the baby grew into a toddler, or until it could climb out of it, whatever happened first. 

It was made of pine wood, lacquered in a dark stain varnish. All over the headboard and the footboard there were ivy plants carved into the wood, filled with little details. 

Morgan reached closer, letting her hands run through the soft wood. It wasn’t cold like the other porch furniture; in fact, it was warm, as if it had been just left outside a moment ago. There wasn’t a note, not a ribbon, or anything that gave away who left this on her door, except for a signature, carved on the bottom of one of the legs. 

‘J.M.’

Morgan sighed, and moved the crib inside the house. And then, without a second thought, she dropped her blanket to put on a jacket instead, and marched down to Joel’s.

“Wha—?” Joel’s annoyed huff got caught on his throat when he opened up his door and saw Morgan. 

None of them moved for a second, looking into each other's eyes. And then, as her heart jumped on her chest, Morgan jumped into Joel’s arms, and crashed her lips with him. 

The way he kissed her… Joel had never been so starved, almost violently hungry for her. On Ellie’s birthday, months ago, their kisses were passionate, and had been eager and charged with a sweet nostalgia. These kisses were the opposite: they were as intense as they were desperate and vicious. 

He caught her by the waist, and slammed the door shut, pushing her against it, his lips almost bruising her as they made out. 

“Gosh— Joel, be careful.” she said, panting, in between kisses. 

“Sorry, you are bigger now.” He replied dryly, his pants clearly in charge of him, instead of his brain.

“Yeah, well, you fucked a baby into me, that’s why.” she told him, a sarcastic smirk on her face as Joel started to walk, pulling her along with him, their lips never parting away as they undressed each other. 

“Yeah, now watch me make them twins” he muttered as he sat on the couch, making Morgan sit on his lap, straddling him with her legs. 

She giggled in between kisses, both almost undressed now. 

“How— how you wanna do this?” He asked, a bit out of breath.

“Laid down, I think.” 

Joel smirked, and moved to lay on his right side, pulling Morgan with him to be the little spoon, making sure her belly was supported. Morgan felt Joel’s hard cock on her ass, and immediately rubbed herself on it, just to tease him. 

He pulled his boxers and her underwear down, his lips never leaving Morgan’s neck, collarbone, jawline and ear as he kissed and nibbled on her sweet skin.  

But Morgan gasped when she realised they were about to fuck in his living room. “Ellie—“

Joel cut her off. “She’s with Dina. A horde of infected could storm in and she wouldn't know.”

They continued their desperate kisses as he lifted her leg up to adjust the angle. He sat up for a moment just to spit on him and pump his cock for a moment, but then he laid down again, pressing his chest on Morgan’s back. 

He slapped her cunt with his cock softly, playing with her folds using his tip, but then he finally slid into her. 

Joel had never been so ruthless with her as he slammed his cock into her. She was on the verge of being too pregnant to actually enjoy sex, but lust and loneliness overpowered her tonight. Feeling Joel pressing on her, fast and steady, and smelling his aroma —whiskey and sawdust, and the familiar scent of his home— were driving her over the edge. 

They didn’t kiss or talk. He just wanted to hear her sweet whimpers and moans as he fucked her, so Joel kept his lips on her neck, kissing and sucking and nibbling it until he left a hickey. 

As he thrusted into her, Joel moved his hand to rub her core, making her twitch. 

“God—“ Morgan gasped, reaching her peak. Joel moved again, trying to find an angle to thrust in her deeper. She felt so tight around him that he wasn’t sure he’d never be able to pull out. But, as last, Joel shivered and came. 

He laid down, panting, sliding out of her and spooning her once more. 

Her hands found his as they made their way to her belly, and both held each other, resting their palms on Morgan’s stomach. 

“I— I actually came here to talk.” Morgan spoke after a moment, once silence and darkness took over the room once more, once they both came back to reality. 

Joel plopped himself on his right elbow to look down at Morgan, still spooning her, still holding her belly. “Huh, you have a strange way of talking.”

She turned a little bit, to look at him better. “Thank you, for the crib.”

“Give it a good use.” Joel replied, his expression hardening as he looked at her moon lit face.

“I will, don’t worry.”

They looked at each other for a moment, and when Morgan thought Joel was going to lean in to kiss her, he just cleared his throat and spoke again. 

“You need to go.”

She stared at him for a moment, trying to understand if he was joking, or if he meant ‘go upstairs’ or something like that. But no, of course not. He was kicking her out. 

Without a word, without a second glance, Morgan dressed herself again, and left Joel’s place, drunk in sex and high in sadness, and somehow even more confused than before. 

Chapter Text

Fall surrounded Jackson in no time, painting Morgan and Joel’s world in shades of red, orange and yellow. Days grew shorter once more, and sunsets got paler and paler as days went by. It had snowed a couple of times, but still not with the intensity the north was known for. 

But as the days became colder and darker, Morgan grew more restless. She was very uncomfortable as her baby grew bigger and bigger. And, even though now she had all the help and support of Tommy and Maria, she was still uneasy. 

In fact, having Maria and Tommy around again made things harder for Morgan. 

Both had asked for her forgiveness, but that didn’t mean they stopped asking about the father, they just tried a different approach than yelling. 

“I just don’t get why you won’t tell me who did this” Maria pouted, nodding at Morgan’s belly as she sipped her drink. 

Jackson’s annual Halloween Ball party was in full swing in the mess hall. Kids were on the patio, playing, while adults were inside dancing and drinking in their homemade costumes. 

The Halloween Ball was a tradition that started the year Morgan came to Jackson. She had been finally released from the hospital, still weak but good enough to walk, and had nothing to do besides work in the barn for a couple of hours. So, with the help of Dina, they both organized the very first party. Dina was in charge of the kids' entertainment, organizing treasure hunts, capture the flag, and more and more complicated games as years went on. Morgan, on the other hand, organized the party for the grown ups. 

As the years went on and more people joined Jackson, the Halloween Ball went from being a simple get-together as the kids played and ate sugar, to a full on party for the whole community, and one of the most exciting events of the year. And, of course, the organization went from Morgan’s simple hands to a full committee of people. 

This year, due to her very shitty situation and overall mood, Morgan had decided to step back from the event organization, and she hadn’t even planned on attending the party. She didn’t want to see Tommy and Maria on one corner of the room, Joel and Ellie on the other, and Tom and his sisters lurking around, everybody staring but nobody talking to her. 

Besides, Morgan felt awfully uncomfortable, and even though she loved her pregnant belly, she wasn’t in the mood to dress up as a cow, or a gumball machine, or a planet, or any stupid round-shaped costume. 

But, now that Maria and her were back on good terms, Morgan found herself in the party, sober, sitting on a stool clearly not made for a pregnant woman, watching everyone dance. 

Because she had been dragged to the party at the very last minute, she dressed up in the only costume available that fitted her: a blue princess gown, very pretty but very uncharacteristic for her. The dress had so much tulle and layers of fabric that it hid her stomach quite well, but she felt extremely out of her element. She much rather preferred when people looked at her for being pregnant than for looking pretty. 

Morgan would’ve been pissed off at the whole situation (being dragged to a party in a fucking princess dress) if it wasn’t for the fact that she had missed talking to Maria so much. 

“I did this, okay? It’s my body, I did it” Morgan replied, sipping her 3rd Shirley Temple of the night.  

“Mo, this town is a gossip mill, I just want to know” Maria purred, her lips lingering on her straw. She was dressed as Catwoman, with a full black outfit and black kitty ears, while Tommy was dressed as Batman (which again, consisted of a full black outfit, a cape, and a handmade mask). 

The matching outfits had just been an excuse to dress up Benji for his first Halloween. The 9-month-old baby was dressed in a homemade Robin costume, and he was crawling around the patio with the younger kids, under his father’s supervision. 

Morgan sighed. “I know everyone’s talking, but it’s my life, not theirs. And nothing would change if you knew, it’s not like you can stop gossip. It’s a small place and we are all bored”

“Well, you were bored, that’s clear.” Maria giggled, clearly drunk. “This place has turned into a soap opera, and you are the star of the season.”

Morgan couldn’t help but chuckle. “Don’t worry, just a few months and I’ll pop this baby out and people will move on to the next big gossip.”

“Girl, unless someone else gets pregnant, it’s still going to be about you” her friend informed her. 

“Hey, Lady is pregnant, why can’t people focus on her?”

“Yeah, the cow, how could I forget?” Maria rolled her eyes, sarcastically, and finished her drink. 

Morgan sighed, looking at the drink in Maria’s hand, wishing she could have a sip of alcohol to make this night, or the rest of the months she had left pregnant, more bearable. “The kids drop by the barn after school to look at the pregnant cow while their moms look at the other pregnant cow.” She complained. 

“Oh, come on now, I for one think you are a much prettier mommy-to-be than Lady.” Maria cheered her up. “Just saying, she ain’t got your curves.”

Morgan rolled her eyes. “The curves of a sphere, you mean? Because I might be heavier than the cow.”

“Come on Morgan, you don’t look like a sphere, you look like a woman with child.” Maria said, standing up from her stool a bit wobbly. She moved to Morgan’s shoulder to whisper in her ear and make her head turn around. “Besides, I’ve seen the way someone’s eyes follow you around.” She whispered. “I know for a fact he thinks you look good with the extra weight.”

“Who?” Morgan asked, half amused, half worried. Was it Tom?

“You know who. Grumpy, brooding, can’t take his eyes off of you.” Maria continued, and that’s when Morgan’s eyes landed on Joel’s across the room. He was sitting on the other bar, right across the dance floor, staring at her without a single ounce of shame or remorse. 

“I told him months ago to leave you alone and I bet he regrets listening to me, because you got snatched away and knocked up by someone else.” Maria continued, but Morgan could only half listen. 

Morgan and Joel hadn’t talked since the last time they slept together, of course. And that was going to become a stupid habit of theirs if they kept going this way. She regretted leaving his place when he told her to, even though she knew she couldn’t really sit down and talk to him about her feelings right after what she had done. 

Tommy had invited Morgan to come to his place for dinner on Joel’s birthday, but she had kindly refused. That day, she spent it on her porch, contemplating the woods lingering near her house, thinking of him, of Ellie, of Sarah, and her baby. Trying to understand what had happened, why he kicked her out, and why she had obeyed so submissively.

Joel’s eyes pierced Morgan from across the room, and he gave her a quick nod, smirking a little, as he took a sip of his drink. 

Morgan wasn’t sure what Joel's costume was supposed to be: he just had black pants, a black shirt half opened a little enough to let his chest be seen, and a black cowboy had. He made a mask to cover his eyes with a loose piece of black fabric, tied behind his head. Morgan wasn’t sure if it was the dim lightning of the party, or the black fabric surrounding Joel’s eyes, but they seemed to glow as he looked at her.  

“Yeah, right” Morgan muttered, shaking her head, trying to focus back on Maria as Joel stood up. 

“Come on, I just want to know who’s the bastard Joel is dying to punch in the face so bad.” She begged her, smirking. Apparently, Maria found it extremely amusing that her brother-in-law clearly had a crush on Morgan and wasn’t hiding it whatsoever. “You care about this guy?”

“Joel?” She asked. 

“You baby daddy” Maria clarified.

But Morgan stuttered, clearly confused. “I— Joel’s not— what?”

Maria raised an eyebrow at her, confused too, but then Coldplay’s “In My Place” began to play. Couples gathered around the dance floor. Morgan saw Joel standing up, chug the rest of his drink, and make his way to her, but before she could panic, Tommy showed up. 

“May I have this dance, Catwoman?” He smirked at his wife, Robin in his arms. 

“Since when do you like Coldplay?” Joel teased as he approached them, leaning on the bar next to Morgan, too close for her own taste. 

“I like Coldplay” Maria said. 

“And I like her” Tommy smiled. 

Joel rolled his eyes, and raised his arms to hold Benji. Then, Tommy and Maria walked to the dance floor, hand in hand, whispering to each other. 

Morgan sighed, and turned her eyes to Joel. They were so close Morgan could feel his warmth, see perfectly his chest hair through the open shirt, and admire those glowing eyes closer. He was looking at his nephew, smiling. He took the cowboy hat off, and settled it on top of the baby’s head. Benji giggled when the hat immediately covered his whole head. 

She giggled a little, but she couldn’t help but look around to see if anyone else was staring at them. She bit her cheek. “What are you dressed as?”

“El Zorro” he replied, looking back at her with that lascivious gaze filled with lust. 

“You don’t have the cape with the Z, nor a sword.” 

“I’m really not a man of arts and crafts.” Joel raised his eyebrow a little, defiantly. “What are you dressed as? The ocean?” 

In a normal situation —where she would’ve been drunk up to her ass— she would’ve laughed, and they would’ve teased each other’s costumes, flirting a little. And, as the night went on, they would have probably gone to his house, had sex and then talked about their childhoods tangled in the sheets, of how he watched El Zorro on early Saturday mornings, and how she had every single princess dress you could think of. 

But none of that was possible, and that comment hit a nerve. 

She took a step to walk away, but he held her hand, stopping her. 

“Come on, I was joking. You look gorgeous, mamma.” Joel smiled. The word mamma was enough to make her shiver. Joel looked at the baby in his arm. “Isn’t she pretty, Benji?”

Morgan rolled her eyes, and removed her hand from his, feeling the ghost of his grip on her palm. “It was the only thing that fitted me.” 

“Well, you look lovely, Cinderella.”

Morgan looked at him, up and down, and crossed her arms. “What are you doing?” She asked, standing up straight, with a serious but tired tone.

“Looking over my nephe—“ 

“Seriously, Joel. You know what I mean.” She huffed, interrupting him. “Maria thinks you have a crush on me or something.” 

Joel didn’t reply, he just looked at her through his thin mask. His eyes went up and down and up again her body, as if to say ‘well, don’t I?’

“S’my problem if I do” he said. 

“You—” Morgan’s words got caught in her throat, choking on anger. Why was he being so bipolar? One minute he mocks her, the next one he compliments her. Makes a crib for his baby, then kicks the mother of his child out of his house. Tells her to not see each other again, to keep the secret, and now is straight up flirting with her in front of everybody.

Joel took the cowboy hat from Benji’s hands, and put it back on, as the song ended. Tommy and Maria walked back to them, and he handed the baby to her. With a quick nod, he said goodbye to his brother and sister-in-law, ignoring Morgan altogether as he walked away. 

“Morgan, did we interrupt something?” Maria asked Morgan, half teasing, half concerned about ruining a moment. Morgan’s breath got caught on her throat, but she quickly recomposed herself when she realized she was acting crazy nervous and it wasn’t just Maria and Tommy who was staring at her. 

“I— no, no you didn’t.” Morgan stuttered, standing up. “Excuse me.” Morgan murmured to Maria and Tommy, who watched confused as Morgan walked out of the party, following Joel. 

Morgan was so angry she could swear her skin was irradiating steam as she stepped out into the cold night. Joel was walking a few steps ahead of her, and he had removed his cowboy hat and mask, dropping them to the ground. 

Huffing, she followed him, trying to keep up with his pace, and picking up the hat and the mask. A soft snow was slowly falling down, covering everything in a white powder that shimmered like glitter in the Jack-o-lantern lights. 

“Joel.” She called him, but he didn’t reply, nor stop. “JOEL!” 

When Morgan screamed his name, he finally stopped on his tracks, and turned around. “What?”

Morgan would’ve loved to scream at him, ask him what the hell was his fucking problem, why was he eying her like that in front of the whole town. Why were they even ignoring each other for months, and why they had fucked the other night, again. Why had he kicked her out afterwards. Why had they even started having sex in the first place when they were clearly too different, like water and oil. 

Morgan would’ve loved to ask Joel what the hell were the feelings she felt every time she caught a glimpse of him. She would’ve loved to ask so many questions, but she just stared at those glowing, haunting, scary eyes, and then stormed off. 

She kept walking, marching past him, but he grabbed her by her arm, making her spin around. “No. Talk.” He commanded. 

“What’s the matter with you?” She asked, gasping a little. 

“What’s the matter with me? Are you really asking that?”

“We agreed—“ she began, but he interrupted her, raising his voice. 

“Yeah, we agreed to hide, to pretend, to act like nothing changed. But I’m done with that” he spat, and Morgan shook her head. 

“Joel, you’re drunk.”

“So what?” He asked, not letting go of her arm, not lowering his voice. “You and I were drunk almost every night we spent together.”

“Shut up! They’re gonna hear—“

“I’m tired of hiding, Morgan, of keeping my goddamned mouth shut when others look at you.” He interrupted once more. His grip on her arm loosened up a little, and she took a step back. 

“You’re jealous?” She asked, trying to piece together what Joel was dying to tell her. 

“Damn right I am. Of all those assholes that look at you like candy. Or your fucking fiancé”

“What?” Morgan asked, her mouth opened. 

“Come on now, don’t you think I didn’t know about you and that Tom kid? That you moved in with him and you’re marrying that idiot?” Joel said, clenching his fists. 

“I can’t believe this.” Morgan said, taking another step back. “You spied on me.”

Something in her expression must’ve made Joel snap a thought in place, as his smirk faded a little. “I didn’t spy, I just… overheard your conversation with him that night in the barn.”

“Huh” Morgan crossed her arms. “Well, then, you did a pretty shitty job, because you would know he called me a slut, and a sinner, because I said no to marrying him.”

Joel looked down, processing the information. Joel had assumed she said yes to his proposal, since she had moved to a new house and was back again on good terms with Tommy and Maria. But that hadn’t been the case, he knew now. 

Morgan, on the other hand, also made some connections of her own. 

“So this is what this is about, that stupid Tom, that’s why you kicked me out the other night.” She snorted, as steam came out of her mouth and a soft snow fell on her long hair, and the drape of her dress. “What is it, Joel? You feel threatened by a boy half your age? You want to claim you are the male alpha of Jackson? You want to claim you got me pregnant and not him?”

Every question Morgan asked made Joel more and more pissed off. At her, for confusing him; at Tom, for being such a piece of shit; at himself, for being just as bad as he was; at the stupid entanglement they had gotten into.

“This isn’t about him, it’s about what’s mine!” He snapped at her. 

“What’s yours?” Morgan repeated. She was shivering at this point, although she felt like she was on fire underneath the stupid dress. “Seriously, Joel? You sound like a fucking exchanger right now.”

Joel opened his eyes wide, realizing he had crossed a like in the way Morgan’s voice broke. 

“For your fucking information, I’m not yours, I am mine.” She said, doing her best to keep her voice firm. 

“You’re right. You ain’t mine.” He repeated, his voice calmer now. “But I am yours.”

Morgan’s heart stopped on her chest as she looked at Joel, at his glowing eyes, his breathing in the cold night, his hair slicked back, his chest rising and falling under the thin black unbuttoned shirt. 

“Have been since that day you smiled at me, when Benji was born.” He continued talking. “You ain’t mine, you’re free to be with anyone, and do whatever you want, but you need to remember that I am yours, and that kid—“ he pointed at her stomach “that baby is as much yours as it’s mine.” 

“I— I never said it wasn’t.” Morgan stuttered, and sighed. She looked around the empty street, but there was nowhere to sit, so she just crossed her arms. She didn’t even realize she was crying until he took a step closer, and cupped her cheeks, whipping her tears away. It was the softest, kindest gesture she had received from him in a while, and it just made her cry even more. 

“Please don’t cry” he begged, softly, resting his forehead on hers. He kept one hand on her cheek, and immediately dropped the other to rub her belly as he pecked her lips softly. 

It was so gentle and sweet, nothing like their last encounter. 

“Joel— what did we do? We had agreed this was no strings attached.” she asked, sniffing a tear.

He sighed. “It is.”

“No, it’s not, because—“ she took a deep breath, trying to think of her words before talking. “Don’t bullshit me, Joel.” She said, closing her eyes, letting his warmth soothe the cold snow falling on her dress. “If this was really no strings attached then you wouldn’t say that, or look at me like that in front of everybody, and I wouldn’t be crying. If this really was about the baby then we wouldn’t have fucked, twice, when we had agreed we wouldn’t do it anymore.” 

Morgan hated having this conversation, but it was long overdue, and it had to be done before they could hurt themselves even more. She opened her eyes, and looked at him. “You said you didn’t do the boyfriend thing.”

“And I don’t.”

“Then what is this? What do you want from me, Joel?”

He didn’t hesitate. “I want to love you”

They both stared at each other, Joel’s words sinking heavily in the dark, cold night. Morgan knew she would burst into sobs if she tried to speak. And even if she could, she wasn’t even sure what to say back.

Months ago, long before she was pregnant, she had stumbled with him from The Tipsy Bison to his place, where he told her they would make out. And that had frightened her, because it was unknown territory. 

Sex wasn’t unknown territory, but she had no way of predicting what would happen with a kiss, and that had made her feel naked, vulnerable, wounded, and abusively exposed, something she had promised herself wouldn’t happen again.

But this… this was the real unknown, Morgan knew. 

And it scared her beyond her imagination, because Joel’s words were a mirror showing back how, despite her efforts, she was never going to be normal again. She was never going to love a man, and have a family like the one she grew up with. That was all taken away from her. And trying to get it back was stupid. Especially with Joel. Especially this way.

Maybe there was a reason she was kept like an animal in a cage, like a rescued wildlife living in a zoo. Maybe Maria and Tommy had a point when they yelled at her for doing this, and she was just realizing it now, when it was too fucking late.

Faced with the unknown, Morgan’s only solution was to run from it. Just like she had done back in February, when Joel wanted to kiss her, and just like now, when he wanted to love her, and be loved back. 

So, instead of replying, Morgan just turned around and walked away, still clenching tight on Joel’s mask and hat, still crying softly. If she hadn’t had a stupid long dress on and a six and a half month pregnancy, she would’ve run. 

Joel didn’t follow her. Snow, fear and memories from the past left him unable to move, cursed to watch her walk away from his life. 

Chapter Text

November was the longest month of Morgan’s life. 

Officially on her 3rd trimester, and with the cold completely settled in Jackson, Morgan found herself working even more than ever, despite the fact she was getting rounder by the minute. 

Everyone seemed to need something from her, all of the sudden. She didn’t mind it, as keeping her head and hands busy meant she didn’t have time to think about Joel. But she was exhausted, and all she would’ve loved to do was sit down and rub her belly, and talk to her kid, enjoy the last moments of being pregnant.

The midday sun was shining softly in the half cloudy sky, and Morgan was ready to eat lunch when someone knocked on her door, hard. 

“Morgan?” She heard a male voice calling her. Tom. She wasn’t in the mood to talk to him, but at last, she opened the door. 

He didn’t seem too eager to talk to her, but his annoyed expression was laced with concern too. “It’s Lady, she’s in labor.” 

“Fucking shit” she huffed. “Give me five and I’ll be there.” 

She didn’t wait to hear his answer, she just slammed the door, and leaned on it. 

She would’ve loved to crumble down and cry, but she couldn’t give herself that luxury. Instead, she took a big breath, resting her hand on her belly, and stood up to get ready. 

——

Lady’s birth took hours. Her baby was stuck, and the barn boys didn’t handle her with any ounce of care as they tried to stir the baby inside her birth canal. The whole scene made her mad, as well as deeply worried. Her own stomach hurt as if she was the one giving birth instead of the cow. And the fact that the news rolled around Jackson and almost every neighbour was gathered outside the barn to take a peek wasn’t any help either. 

Morgan took a step back, sweating. Her whole body and working clothes were covered in blood, amniotic fluid and a brown stain she hadn’t even bothered to smell to know it was the cow’s poop. 

She popped her hands on her hips, contemplating the situation. At this rate, they were going to lose both Lady and her baby, and they couldn’t afford that. 

But Morgan was too overwhelmed to think straight: she felt hot and sweaty; Tom was standing there, really not help in the situation besides bothering her with his side eye stares; her stomach hurt and the barn was fucking full of people. 

She looked up, huffing, to the crowd in front of her, watching as if this was a movie and not a really shitty work day that could cost Jackson its only milk cow. But before she could get ready to flip everybody off, her eyes landed on Joel’s. 

He was standing almost at the entrance of the barn, next to Ellie and Dina. They hadn’t seen each other since Halloween, when he had drunkenly confessed his feelings for her, and she had no better idea than to run away. 

Their eyes locked, and Joel read her like an open book. 

“Everybody out, now!” He said loudly, turning people’s heads. “If you’re not a vet, out of the barn, come on.” 

The crowd quickly dispersed, leaving the barn. She nodded, firm and shortly, to Joel, as a silent thank you. But Morgan turned her head away before she could see him reply or nod back, as another sharp pain hit her stomach. She took a big breath, and looked at Lady, clapping her hands. 

“Come on, let’s get this calf out!”  

Joel stared at Morgan for another moment as she got to work again, and then walked out, his hands in his pockets, following Ellie and Dina and they walked amongst the crowd. 

“Joel” Tommy called him, reaching out to him as he also pushed his way through the crowd of people walking away from the barn. “Glad I found ya. Got a problem.” 

“What is it?”

“Jesse broke his leg, he was supposed to leave now for the last patrol of the year to South Park.” Tommy explained. 

“Shit” Ellie muttered. 

“Where is he?” Dina asked. 

“Doc’s” Tommy replied, nodding to the doctor’s office downtown. Both girls sprinted off, and Tommy sighed before turning to look at Joel again. “We were going to call it off, but Eugene informed us about suspicious activity on his last run, we can’t really afford to not go.”

Joel sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Can’t someone else go?”

“Look, Ellie is doing amazing, but she—“

Joel interrupted him. “Anyone else, then.”

“They’re busy, Joel” His brother replied, crossing his arms. 

“I am too” he said, copying his brother. 

“Really? With what?” Tommy’s question wasn’t out of malice, but it was unusual for Joel to put up excuses. 

Joel stuttered, his head involuntarily turning back to look at the barn for a moment, and then back to him. “I was, em, I was gonna go look for a Christmas tree for the mess hall.” He lied. 

Truth was, he was on edge. 

Morgan had a month and a half to go before she had the baby, but as the days went on he grew more uneasy and restless. He was running very short on temper and patience, and his southern politeness was almost gone. 

He tried to blame it on the fact that the birth was so close, of course, and not to the elephant in the room: Halloween night. 

He only showed up to the damn party because he had found out she was going to be there. Joel wanted to see her dance with her fiancé, giggle with her friends, let strangers congratulate her as they rubbed her stomach. He wanted to hurt himself, stab the knife deeper into his heart, and watch her slip away for good, with his kid, to kill any feeling he had left for her so they wouldn’t haunt him anymore. 

But she had shown up, alone, in that blue dress that made her look like a princess from one of the storybooks he read Sarah as a kid, those princesses his daughter had asked him why couldn’t he just marry one so they could move to her castle. 

And she didn’t dance with anyone, she just sat there, biting the straw of her drink, laughing with Maria. Looking perfect. Giving him hope that maybe he didn’t lose her forever. 

So, of course, he had to go and fuck it up for good this time. Tell her he loved her, and wanted the same thing in return. Would’ve been easier to ask for anything else.

Tommy’s sarcasm snapped him out of his memory. “Yeah, you’re going to fetch a pine tree on November 30th, so by the time it’s Christmas it’s all sad and clunky?” Tommy sighed, clearly stressed. “Look, you’d do me a big favour and save us a lot of trouble if you could do this.”

Joel huffed. “Whatever, sure.” He said, and his brother thanked him. Joel just shook his head. “When do I have to leave?”

“Now.”

“Now?” Joel repeated.

Tommy popped his hands on his hips. “Before the sun sets, so you can make it before it gets too dark, although you’ll have to stay the night in South Park and come back once the sun’s out tomorrow.” 

“Shit, Tommy.” Joel protested, doing his best to not flip him off. “Why can’t you go?” 

“I have a lot of shit to attend, and Maria and Benj—“ Tommy’s words were interrupted by happy cheers coming from the barn. Joel immediately walked in, followed by Tommy and the few people who had stayed behind to watch.  

On her arms, knelt on the floor, Morgan held Lady’s baby, a beautiful cow with light brown fur, matching the spots on her mother’s fur. 

“It’s a boy!” She said, a wide smile on her face. A few toddlers tried to take a look, climbing up the wooden fence. Joel watched as Morgan, clearly tired and in pain but extremely happy, showed the newborn calf to the little kids, and then moved it to lay by its mother's side.

Her giggles and soft panting echoed in Joel’s ears, like a ghost of the past Morgan, who used to sneak into his room every night to sleep with him. A Morgan he could no longer have again.

“I’ll go.” He muttered to Tommy, and walked away. 

——

Ellie watched her father as she leaned on the door frame, arms crossed. Joel walked around his small room, packing a small backpack to get ready for his patrol trip. 

“When will you come back?”

“Tomorrow.”

He was distant, brisk. He had been this way for almost a month now, not his usual grumpy, but a real grumpiness that sometimes worried Ellie. 

She followed him down the stairs and out of the house, walking alone in the snow covered streets. Sunset was about to fall. Their neighbourhood was quiet: many people were still in the barn, taking a look at the newborn cow. Others were working in the mess hall, cleaning up the Halloween and Thanksgiving decorations to clear the way for Christmas. Dina and the rest of Ellie’s friends were hanging out with Jesse. Her friend might have broken his leg, but Ellie knew her dad had something else broken, something more fragile; his heart, his spirit, his ego. She didn’t know exactly, but something in him had cracked. 

They walked past Morgan’s old home, just a few houses past theirs. Joel stopped for a moment, involuntarily, to look at the house, now empty and cold and dark. 

“You thinking about the baby cow?” Ellie asked, in a tone unsure if it was meant to be teasing or not.

“Just thinking”Joel replied, finally taking his eyes away from the house, and kept walking.

Ellie bit her cheek as she followed him. “You seem to do a lot of that lately. Your brain is going to overheat.” When he didn’t reply to her comment, she walked a bit closer, now by his side. “You sure you’re thinking about the little calf and not the woman who delivered him?”

And, despite Joel’s mood, he couldn’t help but smirk, a bit ashamed. “Smartass.”

Seeing him smile, even if for a brief second, made Ellie smile too. “I see right through you, old man.” she said, and kept teasing him. “You look like a nerd who’s in love with the popular cheerleader who got knocked up by her quarterback boyf—”

“It’s mine.” 

Joel’s words interrupted her thoughts, and made both of them stop on their footsteps.

“Huh?”

He slowly turned to her, his backpack hanging from one of his shoulders. “The baby is mine.”

And, just like dominoes, all the pieces fell into place. Ellie blinked, and looked at Joel, who was almost unable to look her in the eyes. “Wait— What?”

He sighed, adjusting his backpack, and finally looking up at her. “You heard me.”

“You serious?”

“Dead serious.”

Ellie tried to piece it together, think it through. She had so many questions that only one managed to get out of her mouth. “But… how?”

“You really need me to explain the birds and the bees to ya?” Joel gruffed sarcastically, clearly pissed off. 

“No, I mean— how?”

“With sex, Ellie, what do you mean ‘how’?”

Ellie shook her head, and crossed her arms, running out of patience too. “Yeah, okay, I got that part, but I find it hard to believe you knocked her off after a one night stand and then abandoned her altogether.”

“Because I didn’t.” he replied, almost stepping on her words. “She wanted a baby and I agreed to sleep with her, but that was that. Once she was pregnant we went back to our lives.”

Ellie seriously could not believe what she was hearing. “Joel—” she cleared her throat. “The whole town is talking about her, and the father.”

He looked down, ashamed that a sixteen-year-old had to put him in his place. “I know.”

“And you’re gonna let them say all that bullshit?”

Joel huffed. “What do you want me to do? Start a town meeting to tell everyone I’m the father?”

“No, but you could act at least like you care about her and that baby.”

“I do. I—” Joel choked on his words, and held his temple with his hands, breathing in deeply to calm down. He was terribly angry at himself. “I told her I care and she stormed off, didn’t even look at me.” Then, he pulled out courage to look at Ellie. “I fucking said I loved her, on Halloween, and she couldn’t even look at me in the eye.”

Ellie snorted at that. She would’ve mocked him if it wasn’t for the fact that he looked like he was run over by a train. She would’ve mocked him if it wasn’t for the fact that they were talking about Morgan, and her baby. Their baby. “Tommy and Maria are going to kill you.”

Joel frowned. “You think?” he said, and then began walking again.

“Maria told you to stay away.” Ellie continued, following behind.

“I know.”

“And you got her pregnant?!”

Joel raised his arms. “Say another obvious thing, please, Ellie.” 

Joel’s knife-sharp sarcasm didn’t fool Ellie. “You want me to say something obvious? What’s obvious is that you’re an asshole.”

He stopped on his tracks once again, and turned to look at Ellie. “What did you call me?” he asked, in a low tone. A younger Ellie would’ve flinched at that, knowing that calm voice only meant she had stepped over the line. But she knew what he had done was wrong, that he had stepped the line in the first place.

“An asshole.” Ellie repeated. “Because if you’re going to break the rules you might as well go all the way.” She took a step closer, raising her voice. “Why did you let her deal with all this shit alone, Joel? Shit, she could’ve moved in with us months ago!”

“Watch your tone.” he warned.

“No, Joel, for once I get to be the adult here, because you’re acting like a kid!” she said, pointing at him. “Instead of being a grumpy, snarky piece of shit, just put your fucking pants on and—”

Ellie’s words got caught on her throat when, in just a second, Joel stepped closer to her, almost face to face. She didn’t flinch, she knew Joel was never going to hurt her like that. Or at least, she assumed. She wasn’t really sure, because she had also assumed Joel would’ve never done what he did to Morgan. 

She stared into his eyes, and that was enough to break him apart. 

“Grow a pair, Joel, for Morgan.” she muttered, and stepped away, storming off as Joel choked on anger and tears. When she turned around, a couple steps away, he was already gone. 

Chapter Text

As Joel stormed off out of Jackson, so did Ellie, only she walked towards the only direction Joel would’ve loved to follow: Morgan.  

“He’s an idiot” Ellie said as she marched into the now empty barn. Morgan had stayed behind to clean and check on the mamma cow and her baby. Besides, she still felt uncomfortable. Her baby didn’t stop kicking, as if it was too excited about Lady’s birth and was throwing a tantrum to be born as well.  

“What happened?” Morgan asked, looking up from her spot next to Lady and her son, Gentleman. 

“What didn’t happen, more like.” Ellie said as she paced around the barn, with her face red and her fist clenched. “Joel's being Joel, he’s being a dickhead to everybody and refusing to even talk about it. And you know what’s the best part?” She stopped walking and pointed at Morgan. “He’s mad at you.”

Morgan raised an eyebrow. “Huh?”

Ellie nodded, and returned back to her pacing. “Yeah. He finally got balls enough to tell you what he feels and you didn’t throw your arms around him saying ‘I love you too’. You ran away. And now he’s hurt, and when he’s hurt, he turns into a giant grumpy snappy insufferable asshole.”

She finished her sentence kicking a pile of straw, fuming. Morgan stood up, a little bit slowly due to her stomach, and approached her. 

“Ellie, I’m so sorry.” She said, and she meant every word of it. What they had done was starting to branch out to others: first, Tommy and Maria, and now Ellie.  

“I’m not blaming you, he’s a grown ass man, he should be able to deal with his god damned feelings.” Ellie said, crossing her arms. “Plus, you’ve got a bigger problem. A problem he put inside of you, literally.” She nodded to Morgan’s stomach just as a needle of pain stabbed her through. 

Morgan clenched a little, but she took a big breath. “So, he told you.”

“Yeah, he did. Although I had my suspects, truth be told.” Ellie replied, a bit more calm now in her tone, as she kept looking at Morgan, seeing her for the first time in a new light. “I saw the way he looks at you, when you’re not watching. And he sleeps with his boots on every night in case you go into labor.”

Morgan chuckled, a little amazed at that, and she sat down on the floor, leaning against a wall. “I still have six weeks to go. God, he’s going crazy.” She said, holding her temples with her hands. 

“Oh, he’s way past crazy.” Ellie said as she sat down next to her with far more grace than Morgan did. After all, she wasn’t pregnant. “He loves you, Morgan, and he’s terrified you don’t want him around you or the baby.”

Ellie’s words echoed in Morgan’s mind. She tried to piece it together, understand what was the breaking point. When did he start loving her? Or maybe, the real question she should’ve asked was: when did he start to go insane over her love? 

Morgan knew when: when he overheard her talking to Tom. But why was he there in the first place? Was he spying on her? That didn’t really check with Joel, though. 

At last, she took a big breath, and dropped her hands to her belly. “Did he send you here to talk?”

“Hell no. He’d rather chew glass than admit he needs backup.” Ellie said, making Morgan chuckle a little, helping her stop the tear buildup. “But he told me about you and him, and even if he hadn’t, it’s so obvious at this point that he’s been slowly going crazy for you. Honestly, if he doesn’t start therapy soon then I will.” 

“You… you’re not mad at me?” Morgan asked, her voice a bit shaky. 

Ellie looked at her, raising an eyebrow. “Mad? At you?” She asked with a chuckle, as if Morgan’s words seemed amusing. Ellie sat on her knees, and wrapped an arm across Morgan’s shoulders. “Morgan, you’re giving me a little brother or sister, one I get to teach how to curse, ride horses or steal Joel’s hat when he’s being extra grumpy.” 

Morgan smiled, her eyes a bit misty, but suddenly feeling so much relief. This was the first time, in her whole pregnancy, that someone’s reaction to the news was happiness. And that made Morgan feel a sweet and sour taste on her tongue, because it made her realize how lonely she’s been this whole time. 

Ellie continued talking. “And you make him better, you know? When he’s with you he smiles like he can’t help it. He’s been ignoring it for a while now but it’s like he finally woke up. So no, I’m not mad at you, I’m mad at him.”

Morgan swallowed saliva “But he’s got every right to be mad about me, because what I did was stupid in the first place. I never meant to play with his feelings.”

“He’s got every right to feel mad, yeah, but so do you. And you have a right to be mad at him when he acts like a wounded puppy every time he sees you talking with someone who isn’t him.” 

Ellie’s reassurance made sense to Morgan, although she couldn’t bring herself to feel it. “Still, I shouldn't have walked away like that, I was a bitch the other night.”

“Yeah, well, you’re hormonal” Ellie said, nonchalantly. 

Morgan rolled her eyes, smirking. “Thanks.” 

“But seriously, you’re carrying his baby, you get a free pass.”

“I’m carrying his baby.” Morgan repeated, saying out loud those words for the first time. It didn’t make her feel sad. Quite the opposite, being able to just say it made her feel a burning sensation of joy and adrenaline. 

Ellie smiled, looking down at her belly. “One day you looked like you skipped lunch and the next day, bang! But you look good. You seem like you’d make a good pillow.”

Morgan turned her head to look at Ellie, and then took her hand, guiding it to her belly. “Here.”

At first, there was nothing. And then… a kick. 

Morgan chuckled as she saw Ellie’s expression when she felt the kick, how her smile dropped to an O shape and her eyes widened in surprise. The baby kicked a little more, and Ellie’s hand moved across her belly to try and spot her little brother’s or sister’s feet. 

“Damn, they’re active”

“I know, they’re playing soccer in here.” Morgan said, taking a deep breath. She was amazed by Ellie’s reaction and enthusiasm, but the baby was really moving a lot, and she needed a couple of deep breaths to try to ease the pain. 

“They’re gonna be a little troublemaker like their dad.” Ellie said. 

“Like their sister” Morgan corrected. 

That made Ellie’s lip quiver a little as she looked up at Morgan, her hand never leaving her stomach. “If this baby’s like me, then he or she is lucky to have a mom like you.”

Ellie’s words stabbed Morgan like a million knives. The girls hugged, and Morgan tried her best to ground herself, clenching on Ellie’s clothes, focusing on her aroma —Joel’s laundry detergent, of course— and trying to breathe through her baby’s kicks. 

Morgan had been sad for so long, and she had ached so much for happiness, that sitting in this limbo between the two of them was confusing. But human life, the life she fought so badly to have, the one she envied Tommy and Maria had, was a balance in the center, she knew now. Life wasn’t ever full of utter happiness or full utter sadness: she had to learn to live in this gray area, where she was hugging Ellie while softly crying about Joel. 

“Where is he now?” Morgan asked after a moment, slowly breaking the hug apart to wipe a tear. 

“Tommy sent him on a patrol, to South Park. He left just now, he’s probably out there scaring bunnies and trying to look like a tough guy.”

And then again, Morgan chuckled. Her eyes thinned a little as she giggled, making some of the water sitting on her waterline fall in perfect tears. “You’re hilarious.”

“It’s a gift.” Ellie shrugged, but then she took Morgan’s hand. “But in all seriousness, Joel’s going to be on edge until the baby is born. He’s worried, and when Joel worries he turns into a guard dog.”

Morgan sighed, wiping her tears and slowly standing up. She felt her baby drop, and hang lower in her stomach, pulling her down. She began to walk, slowly, to help loosen up all the tension she was feeling. Ellie followed right beside her.  

“I just wish I could’ve handled things differently. And not let him push me, I—“ she stuttered for a moment, feeling the snowy cold air hit her. They continued walking. “I always end up doing what others want. This baby is the first time I did what I wanted, and look at what happened.” 

Morgan shook her head, now rambling out loud. “I never meant to hurt his feelings. I always thought he just wanted sex, that we were using each other for our own personal goals, it's just that… He says he loves me, but doesn't want to be my boyfriend even when he’s the father of my child. He says I can do whatever I want with my life but he’s jealous of anyone who shows they like me. He says we shouldn't be seen together or have sex again and then we can't keep our hands off of each other when we end up alone. What does he want?” She huffed. “Because I’m starting to get confused.” 

Both girls kept walking, softly, through the icy night.  

“He’s confusing you because he is confused too.” Ellie said after a moment, biting her cheek as she thought it through. “I think he's afraid. Of loving new people again. He has a tendency to lose loved ones, sooner or later.” 

“I made a mistake.” Morgan said after Ellie’s words sink in. 

“With the baby?”

“No, my baby will never be a mistake. Just… the way I chose to do this was wrong.” She reflected, out loud. But Ellie disagreed. 

“Morgan, Joel would've never done this any other way, you know? I don't see him like the type to ask you out, date you for a couple of years, and then pop the question, marry you and finally actually start trying for a baby.” 

Morgan blinked, thinking Ellie’s words through. She was right, she assumed. But still, even if Joel wasn’t a traditional kind of guy —just as she wasn’t a traditional kind of girl— that doesn’t mean the other option they went for was correct either. 

But Ellie continued talking. “Tommy told me a little bit about Sarah and her mom, back when we went out to Afton for the first time.” 

Morgan turned her eyes to Ellie, holding her breath. 

“He was 20 when he had Sarah, he couldn't even legally drink and he was a father. He didn't plan it, or think it through, of course, but he always knew what he had to do.” Ellie shrugged. “It's kind of what happened with me and him, I don't think he ever thought about having another daughter and now, here we are.” 

Morgan bit her cheek, her heart rushing on her chest. Ellie finished talking, then, as they reached Morgan’s porch. “He seems to rush into these kinds of things, having kids, I mean. Like it’s something he can not even doubt about.”

Morgan nodded, thinking. “What should I do?” 

Ellie crossed her arms. “Be honest, do you love him or not?”

Once again, the world love, romantic love, in fact; unknown territory. 

Morgan knew a lot of things about Joel: how he likes his coffee —no cream, two sugar if it was the morning, no sugar at night. How he snores in his sleep but immediately stops if she pushes him a little. How he always sleeps on his left side, because he can’t hear from his right ear. 

She knew his body temperature after months of sleeping skin to skin, cuddled in bed. She knew in what direction his hair would be every morning after waking up. She knew how much he hated mayonnaise, his shoe size, the exact shade of chocolate of his eyes. 

She knew how his arms felt around her, how easy he managed to calm her down when she spiraled away. She knew how delicately he treated her, but not in the same way others did: he didn’t touch her or talk to her like she was a porcelain doll with a fracture. He was delicate with her because she was the strongest person he had ever met, and she deserved kindness and softness after all those rough, scary, inhumane years. 

“How do I know? How can you tell if you love someone?” Morgan asked. 

“I'm not exactly sure either, but… it's something that happens, I think. Like breathing. You don't think it through, you do it and that's it.” Ellie said, biting her cheek. 

Morgan sighed, smiling a little. “When did you get so wise?”

“I'm not wise, you and him are becoming more stupid each day.” Ellie replied, rolling her eyes, and Morgan couldn’t do anything but chuckle in agreement. Ellie bit her cheek once more, looking at Morgan with love and concern. “It's okay, Morgan, you get to live your life and make mistakes, you know? Just… don’t wait too long to fix things with Joel. He’s bad at breathing when he’s sad.”

And with that, Ellie walked away. Morgan stood on her porch, watching her, as another sharp pain built up on her stomach. 

——

“Joel? Copy” 

Joel blinked as he heard his name being called on the walkie-talkie. The post guard house in South Park was dark and cold, and he had barely slept. 

He picked the intercom “Ellie?”

“Jo— Morgan’s— copy”

“Ellie, I can’t hear ya, copy.”

After a moment of silence, Ellie’s voice was heard again, clear as crystal. 

“Morgan’s in labor.”

Chapter Text

By the time Morgan realized she wasn’t having Braxton Hicks contractions but actual real contractions, it was almost four in the morning, and everyone was asleep. 

After the longest day of her life, came the longest night of her life. Her water broke while she was helping Lady, hence why nobody noticed, not even herself. She was sweaty, overwhelmed and extremely stressed, so she didn’t think it through when she took her clothes off to shower and she saw she was covered in fluids of all kinds. 

But, as night went on and she was unable to sleep, she began to count. The contractions were loose and too far apart at first, but they slowly fell into rhythm, picking up strength and speed. Problem was, it was December 1st, and her due date was January 20th. It was too soon. But it was happening. 

The sun was rising through the frozen mountain range, and Morgan had the doctor, as well as Tommy, Maria, Dina and Ellie, over at her place. The girls lit up candles, turned the fireplace on, and helped Morgan undress so she could be more comfortable. But, as the morning followed, more neighbors tried to take a peak into her place, just as they had done the night before at the barn, and she grew more and more restless.

“You're almost ten centimeters dilated.” the doctor informed, as he looked up from between her thighs. Morgan huffed, pissed off. She didn’t want to ruin the new mattress she got, so she was sitting on a one-seat sofa, the oldest piece of furniture in her living room, that she didn’t mind staining forever with blood and amniotic fluid. The doctor had tried to make her wear a disposable hospital garment, but she was so hot and bothered and mad that she refused to change into anything, and instead laid in the couch completely naked, using an old blanket to cover her just about enough to not flash anyone. 

“Morgan, you have to—” Maria, holding her hand, began to say, but Morgan cut her off.

“No, I can't.”

“Yes you can, honey.”

Morgan shook her head, making eye contact with Ellie. “Not yet.” The teen had told Morgan a couple hours ago that Joel was on his way. But South Park wasn’t that far away, where the hell was he?

“Morgan, you can't delay this any longer, if your body needs to push, you have to.” the doctor said, and Morgan clenched her jaw.

“I can't.”

“The baby can get hurt if we make it wait too long.”

Morgan hesitated, those words scaring her beyond what she already was. But before she could make a decision, she heard a gruff voice outside. 

She didn’t care about Maria’s raised eyebrow, or Tommy’s surprise, or Ellie’s excitement. She didn’t care if they saw her smile when he walked into the door. She didn’t care that she was mad at him for being an idiot for months. Morgan only cared about getting her baby out, and for that, she knew she needed him. 

“Joel?” she called.

He was soaking wet, as snowflakes started to melt into his clothes. He was agitated, but he had never looked more handsome than ever to Morgan. Not handsome like a puma or a bear, handsome like a human. 

When he spotted her, he rushed to her side, without a second word, and knelt down, taking her hand. Morgan adjusted herself into the seat, and nodded to the doctor. 

“Okay, take a deep breath and when the contraction hits, push as you blow.” he instructed. Maria and the rest took a few steps back, to give them space, but Joel didn’t move an inch, he just held Morgan’s hand even tighter. Morgan closed her eyes, and did as she was told, but it was much harder than she had thought. 

“Morgan, I need you to do better than that” the doctor said as she huffed, leaning her head back after that failed push.

“Fuck” she muttered, and Joel snorted a little smile, making her turn her head to him.

“You can swear dirtier than that, you know?” he smirked, his hand almost white from how tight they were holding each other.

She smiled back. “Fuck you, Miller.” She let the mixed anger and happiness she felt to see him there fuel the next push. “Fucking hell! God fucking damn it” she said, panting, once the second contraction was over.

“Good, we need another push, but that was much better.”

Morgan braced herself to push again, and turned to look at Joel once more. “You’re soaking wet” 

He smirked once more, and leaned into her ear. “That’s my line, you know?”

That got a giggle out of Morgan, which helped her push harder. Her laughter turned into a groan of pain and exhaustion as the contraction ended.

“It’s crowning, we need a very good push now.” The doctor said.

She nodded, pressing her lips and closing her eyes, mentally preparing herself. When she opened them up, she saw Joel was shivering as much as she was. "You're shaking.”

Now he was the one nervously giggling. “Stop focusing on me, take a deep breath and push.”

As they giggled, Morgan pushed harder than before, leaving her panting once again. “Heads out” the doctor informed. 

Once he heard those words, Joel leaned in closer to her ear, brushing some of her hair out of her face, never letting her hand go. “One more, just one more big push and you'll be done, mamma.” he reassured her. 

Morgan turned her head to hide on his neck, and took a deep breath of his aroma, her own personal drug, the smell that calmed her down beyond any other thing in the world. She pushed, and then something slipped out of her. 

It was the longest second of Morgan’s life, and the loudest silence she had ever heard before. The world stopped spinning around for a second. But then, a loud cry filled the room, and everything started to move again.

“It’s a boy” the doctor said, and moved the baby from his arms to Morgan’s.

Morgan had never felt something so warm as her son felt laying on her naked chest. The moment they touched, skin to skin, she felt her lungs breathe in fresh air, her heart swell with sweet blood, her soul light up. 

“Hi kiddo” it was a male voice that snapped her out of her trance. She turned her head, and saw Joel looking at the baby. Even he seemed clearer now to Morgan, with his eyes misted with tears, and a smile she had never seen on his face before. “Welcome home.”

It took her a moment to come back to reality, to remember she was in her living room surrounded by her friends, naked and bleeding, and everyone looking at how Joel leaned in to kiss her lips softly. But none of that mattered much. Nothing mattered now, except the new life on her chest.

“Welcome home” she repeated his words, and kissed her baby’s head very gently. 

People started to move around her, she heard other voices in the room. Someone covered her and the baby with another blanket, someone else moved her hair away from her face, and whipped the sweat off her forehead. She never darted her eyes away from the baby. 

He was the smallest, tiniest thing she had seen. He was so little she even wondered why she struggled so much with pushing him out. His soft skin glowed with the warm orange light from the fireplace. And, to her surprise, he didn’t have dark hair, but rather a dark blond-ish head of curls, tangled and dampened with blood. Five little fingers, two ears, a perfect little nose, and two eyes that struggled to blink and open up for the first time. 

“Morgan, if you’re ready, we can take out the afterbirth.” The doctor said. “It’s just one quick push.”

Morgan did as she was told, and pushed the placenta, her sight never leaving her baby. She felt more towels and blankets, and someone cleaning her and moving her legs, finally closing them and letting them rest on the coffee table. The only time Morgan moved her gaze away from her baby was to look up, and she always found Joel looking down, just a whisper away. 

“You did it, Morgan. I’m so proud of you.” 

He kissed her temple, and when he leaned forward, Morgan peaked through the corner of her eye and saw Ellie, sitting in the staircase, holding the bars so tightly her knuckles were white. 

“Ellie” she called her, smiling softly. “Come meet your brother.”

Slowly, as if she were in a dream, Ellie walked towards them, and knelt down beside Joel, who wrapped his arm around her shoulders. Morgan saw Ellie looking at the baby, and how her eyes watered up.

“Why are you crying, babygirl?” Joel asked Ellie in a whisper, with his eyes just as damped as hers.

Ellie sniffed a tear, and cuddled close to Joel. “I love you, Joel.” she said, her eyes fixed on the baby. 

He leaned in, and kissed her head while he rubbed his hand, reassuringly, up and down her arm. He rested his head on top of hers, and both watched the little baby. “I love you too, kiddo.”

Ellie cried, because she was happy to have a brother. 

Morgan cried, because she finally had her baby in her arms. 

And Joel cried, because… because that baby was too small. And he knew what that meant.