Chapter Text
Abby woke up with a jolt to cold, dry, unfamiliar air, panicking for a split second before realizing where she was. She gave herself a moment to simply breathe, taking stock of the aching in her calves from all that walking they did the day before and how ratty her braid must be after a restless sleep.
She sat up slowly, hanging her head as the cold began to creep in now that she was no longer completely inside her sleeping bag. The fire was doing little to help, naturally, but the fact that it was going meant someone had woken up to build it. As such, it wasn’t much of a surprise when she looked around and eventually spotted Owen leaning against one of the large windows Mel said would be a safety hazard.
She was careful as she stood up, stepping over Manny’s head gingerly and rubbing her arms for warmth before shaking her hand that had fallen asleep as she approached the window, clearing her throat as she got within a few feet of it.
“Hey.”
Owen only met her gaze, turning his head towards her casually before nodding, “Hi.”
Abby ignored the way his gaze lingered on her a little longer, folding her arms and staring out the window and huffing lightly at the snow falling down on the pine trees and swirling in the air, the only thing they’d caught sight of since they set foot in horrible, cold Wyoming.
“What were you dreaming about?” He turned back to face the window as he asked her, his voice softer either because it was clear she’d had a bad dream or because he didn’t want to wake the others. While maybe she could have once pinpointed which of the two it was, she now had no clue.
“...Was I talking?” Abby tried to match his tone, though her voice was still gravelly from sleep.
“You were doing your…” Owen turned back to face her, waving his hand around, “...teeth grinding thing.”
Abby scrunched up her eyes, holding back both a smile and a snort as she turned back to look at their sleeping friends, not wanting to wake them, though she was still slightly grinning. That grin soon slipped off her face, though, when she saw the light dusting of snow on his coat and began reaching out to brush it off.
“Where've you been?” Her heart couldn’t help but catch in her throat as he only silently looked down, standing up a little straighter with a frown on her face as he turned back to her with a grim look on his.
“Grab your gear. I wanna show you something.”
Abby frowned as he pushed off the wall and began slowly making his way towards the door of the lodge they’d settled in the night before. “What?”
“Trust me.”
Abby only breathed out a mix between a sigh and a huff, frowning as she watched him for a moment longer before heading back to her pack to throw on her jacket and hat, following him out to the garage and tugging her gloves on as he opened the door and turned back to wave her forward.
“Come on. This way.”
Abby paused for a moment as he took a few steps into the snow before he was breaking into a light jog with her on his tail and huffing lightly as she shook her head, “It’s cold.”
Owen said nothing, and they fell into an uneasy silence as they hiked through the snow. It couldn’t have been more than five minutes before they were approaching the edge of the cliff the lodge had been built on.
“Oh, what is that?” Abby groaned as the trees thinned out, leaving them with a clear view over the cliff’s edge.
“You’ll be fine.” Abby’s brows furrowed further when he spoke, clearly teasing her though his voice lacked the soft humor that would have once filled it.
“It’s too high.” She bit the inside of her cheek lightly as he continued walking along the rocky outcrop without stopping, leaving her with nothing to do but follow him and pray she didn’t accidentally look down.
“C’mon,” he called out to her one more time before disappearing around the side of the rockface.
Abby huffed before following him, her breath catching as some of the rocks beneath her feet crumbled and toppled down the cliff, her heart speeding up as she pressed back against the wall of rocks with wide eyes and a queasy feeling beginning to swirl in her stomach. Of course she had to jinx it.
“Hey!” Owen called out to her, steadying his hand on her shoulder, “Eyes on me.”
She couldn’t bring herself to face him, still stuck staring down at the layer of snow covering the ground of horrible, rocky, mountain-infested Wyoming.
“Abby! Stop looking down.” Finally meeting his gaze, she let him guide her to a wider part of the trail, shaking her head as her heart finally began to slow back down, though she still had that tight, anxious feeling in her chest.
“Owen,” she groaned as he began walking again, “do we have to go back this way?”
“...Consider it an opportunity to work on your fears.” Abby could hear a barely-there smile in his voice, her face immediately softening into a smile.
“How about I work my foot up your ass?” She snorted lightly, as the tightness in her chest finally began to fade.
“Abby,” he tutted in a way that she knew meant he was grinning, “stop flirting.”
She never got to see that grin, though, as he squeezed into a divot between two boulders, waiting for her to push through them behind him before climbing onto a higher rock outcrop, lending her a hand as she followed suit, and guiding her to another section where the trees thinned to reveal…
Fuck.
“...Is this it?” Abby’s voice was tight, not even registering how high up they were as she looked down at the collage of lights behind high walls that had to be Jackson.
“...We made it.” Owen only sighed, and she could tell from the hint of defeat in his voice that he felt the same way she did.
“Holy shit,” there were so many buildings, calling Jackson a ‘settlement’ did not do it justice, “it’s a fucking city.”
“Yeah.” His voice was somber as he looked away from the lights and towards her instead, watching the same look of dread dawn on her face that had clearly flit across his earlier.
Abby took a step back, breathing lightly as she blinked down at the sight before steeling her nerves and turning to him, “Have you told anyone else?”
“Wanted you to see it first.” He sighed as they both looked back at the fortress that was the ‘small settlement’ they’d come all the way to Wyoming to see before turning back to her and drawing a line across the horizon, “I saw an armed patrol go from town to an outpost over there-”
Abby’s gaze followed his finger to a clearing of buildings visible across the valley, only one of them lit up.
“-Few more outposts in between.” Owen sighed, his hands falling to his sides as he wiped them on his pants, “They have electricity, guns…”
He looked up from his hands to meet Abby’s gaze once more, his expression grim, “It’s a lot of people.”
Abby imperceptibly stiffened, recognizing the same push-back on her plan he’d been giving her since before they even left Seattle, glancing at him before looking back out over Jackson. “We can figure it out.”
“...Okay,” Owen sighed, relenting, “assuming he’s in there, how do we get to him?”
Abby grimaced as she was reminded it wasn’t even the bastard who’d killed her father they were looking for, but his brother who they’d have to go through all the trouble of cornering.
“We can corner one of the patrols and get confirmation and then…” Abby trailed off, her head flicking back and forth between Own, the way they’d come, and stupid, fortified, massive Jackson, “...I dunno, maybe find a way to lure him out.”
“Yeah, okay,” Owen’s voice sharpened slightly, breaking into a humorless laugh, “I’m sure they’ll be happy to offer that information up.”
“Well, then we make them.” Abby met his gaze firmly. They couldn’t just… turn back after coming all this way; it couldn’t have been for nothing.
“....Do you hear yourself?” Owen scoffed.
“Okay, what do you want to do?” Abby reigned her temper in, stopping herself from snarling as Owen was going to try to convince her to turn back again, her eyebrows jumping as he said nothing before furrowing once more, “What is going on with you?”
Owen sighed, looking past the cliff once more as he worried his lip between his teeth before turning back to her, “Mel’s pregnant.”
Abby’s eyes jumped wide open, unable to keep the disbelief off her face as she took her turn to look off into the distance, anywhere but at him, really. She quickly forced an agitated smile onto her face, though, before turning back to him.
“Oh…” her nose wrinkling up slightly as they made eye contact, “Okay.”
“...It’s not just that, though-” Owen began to speak before being sharply cut off.
“-Should I say congrats?” Abby didn’t know what to feel. She and Owen had broken up a long time ago, and yet here she was being angrier over the fact that he was using his pregnant girlfriend as an excuse than what he was actually using the excuse for.
“When everyone else sees this,” Owen gestured back at Jackson before letting his arm fall to his side, “they’re gonna want to turn back.”
“We can convince them. ...Right?” Abby looked between him and Jackson a few more times, slightly frantic now, before her smile dropped off her face when he said nothing, leaving her to turn back towards the edge of the cliff, “I fucking knew I couldn’t count on you.”
“Abby…” he trailed off as she folded her arms and turned her back to him, “I want what you want, …but not at any cost.”
Neither of them said anything for a moment, Abby staring down at Jackson while Owen stared at her instead before reaching out to grab her shoulder, “Hey-”
“Don’t!” She snapped sharply, pushing his hand away and glaring at him weakly before turning back towards the cliff so she didn’t have to look at the hurt on his face.
The tension was thick in the air, and she could feel him staring a hole into the side of her head, stuffing his weight from foot to foot unsurely before sighing and turning around. “I’ll see you back at the lodge.”
Abby huffed softly, rolling her eyes and shaking her head slightly in exasperation before turning to look over her shoulder at his figure disappearing behind the trees and into the snow. She stared a moment longer before turning back to Jackson, worrying her lip between her teeth and shifting from foot to foot just how Owen had been doing.
She hated this.
They had spent almost two months on the road to get here, and everyone else was going to back out the moment they saw that Jackson was more of a threat than they expected? They came here to interrogate the brother of her father’s murderer; it was never going to be a walk in the park.
Abby’s glare shifted back to the outpost Owen had pointed at and immediately sharpened.
“Fuck it.”
She was quick to hop off the outcrop and begin lightly jogging down the trail leading into the valley and towards the outpost.
“I don’t give a fuck…” she grumbled, rage beginning to simmer in her chest as she grit her teeth; if she was on her own, then she’d figure it out. She wasn’t just going to sit in that lodge until everyone who had followed her demanded they turn back. “I’ll do the whole thing on my own.”
She was going to find Tommy Miller, get him to tell her where his fuck-ass brother has been hiding, and finally serve that monster his long-awaited judgement. But then, a part of her wavered. What if Tommy didn’t know where Joel was? He had done nothing wrong other than be related to the guy; could she really drag him into this? What if that entire city rallied behind him? She definitely couldn’t win against all of them. Hell, she likely wouldn’t even make it out alive.
It didn’t happen often, but she once again found herself wondering why he did it in the first place. What grudge did a smuggler have against the fireflies? Why would he kill a doctor who wouldn’t have had anything to do with it? Part of her wondered if any of this was worth it. Her father certainly wouldn’t have approved, but he was dead. He couldn’t give her his opinion because he was murdered in cold blood; that was the whole damn point.
Time flew past as she descended the mountain, still arguing bitterly with herself under her breath. Eventually, her thoughts drifted back to Owen. The look on his face when she’d woken up, the way he hadn’t answered her when she asked him to help her convince the others, “...He got Mel pregnant.”
Her voice cracked slightly; why wasn’t she over him? Why was she more hurt by the fact that he’d clearly moved on when she couldn’t rather than the fact that he wouldn’t help her track down Tommy?
She was swiftly jolted out of her thoughts, though, as she turned around a corner to be face to face with a frozen corpse across the trail.
“Shit…”
She approached slowly, her handgun drawn until she was a foot or two away from it, nudging it tentatively with the toe of her boot. “...you alive?”
She moved on when it didn’t stir, turning another corner to be met with yet another cold body slumped over in the snow, and then a few more. Abby sighed, her shoulders squared tensely as she counted at least two dozen corpses strewn about the path, “...that’s a lot of them.”
She continued moving slowly and as quietly as she could through the snow, both hands on her gun as she looked for any indication of lingering danger. She grimaced as she saw the path continue into yet another crevice in the rocks, shifting sideways to slide through it as quickly as she could, slipping around a bend only to curse under her breath as she came face to face with yet another body.
She grit her teeth as she pushed it aside, grimacing at the horrible cracking noise it made as it broke off from the rocks and pushed out of the crevice and broke back into a jog. She went a little faster at the sight of more bodies before tumbling into the snow as her foot caught on a branch, though when it moved to grip her, she quickly realized she was in more trouble than she thought.
Abby yelled out sharply as the runner that had grabbed her ankle pawed its way out of the snow, flailing around trying to grab her as she backed into a tree before sending them both tumbling down the path and off a ledge, falling in two different directions. She only grit her teeth and scrambled up as fast as she could, the runner doing the same and quickly charging her only to be swiftly pummeled back into the snow, going limp as she sent its head cracking into the rock face they’d tumbled off of.
She quickly broke into a run, slowing to send a bullet into the head of another runner who had tumbled down after them before picking up speed as she heard the sound of a few more waking up around her. There weren’t many of them yet, but they were coming steadily enough that she knew there had to be more than she could handle.
She ended up taking out two more runners before the trail ended at a small house she slipped into via a broken window, moving as quietly as she could with her gun drawn through the garage and into what had to have been the kitchen, gritting her teeth as her side flared up with sharp pain from the fall.
“Now how do I get out of here…” she grumbled to herself, taking in the barricaded entryway and boarded-up windows, eventually spotting the sunken floor that seemed to open up to the house’s foundations. There was clearly one way out, and it was not one she liked as she dropped to her belly and crawled past the battered floorboards and eyed the wooden beams supporting what remained of them.
“This is a bad idea, Abby.” She huffed as she crawled past them, worming her way through the maze of foundations and rubble and pausing to reload her gun as she heard the gurgling shriek of another runner, shooting it right between the eyes as she caught sight of her exit point that it was coincidentally collapsed in.
She crawled faster before she finally made it out of the foundations and back into the snow, standing up as quickly as she could and breaking back into a run, not eager to stick around, especially now that she had a clearer view of that lookout and was descending into the town itself.
She wove in between and through houses as quietly as she could, taking out a handful of runners as she went, though it was quickly made obvious that the town had to be infested with them and she was not eager to have a horde on her hands. She barely knew where she was going, simply trying to head in the general direction of the lookout before spotting a trail of horse tracks, obviously from one of those patrols and clean enough that they had to be fresh.
She paused for a moment, pondering if she really wanted to track down this patrol in the middle of an infested town before steeling her nerves and trudging on. If she wasn’t going to do it, no one would, though she almost regretted it when she made it barely a few steps forward before another runner was stumbling across the road.
She ducked off to the side before it could see her, grimacing when she saw another with its back to her. She was quiet as she crept up to snap its neck, though it was for naught as she ran past and was quickly met with a pack of at least ten scrambling over an outcrop of rocks, breaking into a sprint with them hot on her tail.
“Shit… Shit!” she yelled as another pack floundered out from the trees, quickly converging on her as she slid down the steepening path.
They didn’t stop coming even as she made it back to the houses, groups of two or three turning into seven or eight coming from over cars and out of broken windows as she ran for her life with their thundering footsteps close behind her, eventually cornering herself in between a house and a chain-link fence, having no choice but to squeeze in between them and hope she’d be safe on the other side.
Naturally, because Abby hated Wyoming and Wyoming seemed to hate her just as much, more runners came charging through the snow across the fence, clawing at and shaking it while she slipped past as fast as she could until it was collapsing against the house, now crawling on all fours as arms reached down from above her.
Just when she’d made it out of that death trap and thought she was in the clear, a runner came tumbling down on top of her, wrestling with and grabbing at her with cold hands, almost close enough to take a bite before a gun sounded and it went limp for her to push off.
“Give me your hand!” She barely heard the man’s voice through the ringing in her ears, though she let him help her up, “We’re going to have to run!”
Abby quickly realized this had to be the patrol she’d been tailing as he and his companion fired at the runners still clawing at the fence, waving her backwards sharply. She nodded once before breaking into a run beside them, her heart pounding in her chest as she realized she had almost died. She took off on her own like an idiot, and were it not for these two men- two men she’d planned to interrogate until they told her the location of Tommy Miller- she’d have been mauled to death before the infection could even kick in.
Abby was jolted out of her thoughts as the man who’d saved her pushed her through a barely open door, leaving it open for his companion before she was helping him shove a heavy metal icebox against it.
“You okay?” he called out to her, his gun drawn as he checked for runners.
“Yeah,” Abby gasped, heaving lightly from the scare before they were guiding her along once more, talking about how they’d need to get a clean-up crew out here as soon as possible.
Abby wasn’t really listening, though, as she picked up a metal pipe and began bashing in the heads of the runners breaking through the barricaded windows, the men immediately stopping their talk to give her covering fire. She couldn’t help but feel a little safer, though, now that she wasn’t alone. She had no clue who these guys were, but they were clearly experienced, one of them maybe even more skilled in combat than she was.
They made their way through the town quickly and began working like a well-oiled machine. If she fell, the older man who’d saved her was helping her up while the other took out every stray runner with a single bullet to the head. When one of them was cornered by a cluster larger than they could handle, the other two quickly took care of them before moving on together as a pack of three.
Abby couldn’t help but shiver every time the older man spoke, reassuring her that he had her back after another runner nearly got her. Maybe she was hearing things, but he didn’t sound all that different from her father, though he did have a thick southern accent. He seemed to even be as old as her father would be, with his dark hair just beginning to grey.
“Where are we going!” She yelled out as she continued weaving between buildings, the older man bringing up the rear and firing into the clusters of infected behind them.
“This way, we should be able to make it to the lookout!” the younger man yelled, his short brown ponytail waving in the wind with a voice not dissimilar to the first with that thick southern accent, though it was less gruff and slightly higher.
They eventually made it into a larger building that was better boarded off, quickly darting inside and blockading the door as the younger man made his way towards her.
“Hey, I’m-” he began to introduce himself before being cut off by the crackle of the other man’s radio.
“This is the radio tower. Bad storm coming in, recalling all patrols back to Jackson. Find somewhere to hole up if you’re too far out.”
Both men cursed under their breath before the older waved her forward as he raised the radio to his mouth, “This is the Teton Village patrol, we’ll be sheltering in the outpost. The town’s infested with infected, and we ran into a tourist. When the storm calms down, we’ll need a clean-up crew.”
Abby bit her lip as they reported in, though a small part of her was thankful that meant she wouldn’t have to follow through with interrogating them after they had saved her ass.
“This way, this building should be closed off from outside, and there won’t be any infected in the lookout.” The man holding her shoulder murmured to her as his partner continued talking to whoever was on the other end of that radio.
Abby nodded, still slightly out of breath as they made their way to the lookout, though it was less hectic considering how they were able to make it in after encountering fewer infected than they could count with one hand.
The atmosphere immediately changed as she set foot in the significantly less destroyed building. It was clean and clearly well insulated, considering how, despite the fact that there didn’t seem to be a fire or heater anywhere, it was much less frigid.
“Barricade the door,” the older man yelled to the other before he turned to her, “are you bit?”
Abby shook her head as he asked about any other injuries, and she quickly realized she was lucky to likely only have a bruised rib from that initial fall.
“Girl, what are you doing out here all by yourself? You can’t be much older than my kid.” He grumbled, running his hands through his hair before turning to begin building a fire.
“My friends and I are just passing through; I got separated from them.” Abby winced as he cursed lightly.
“Shit… do you have any way to tell them you’re fine? They won’t be safe if they come down here looking for you.” The younger man echoed his partner’s sentiments, and Abby swiftly realized how much trouble Owen and the others could be in.
“Fuck, no… They don’t even have their own radio since we never planned to split up. They shouldn’t come looking for me before the blizzard lets up, though.” Abby groaned, silently praying that they weren’t stupid enough (like her) to do something like that.
“Where are y’all staying? We’ll get some extra backup and take you to them once the storm lets up and the infected are dealt with.” Abby couldn’t help but once more feel grateful to this man that reminded her so much of her father. This was a liability, and instead of chewing her out, he was willing to go out of his way to try and keep them all safe.
“We took shelter in the ski lodge at the top of the mountain.” Abby sighed, her breath finally slowing back down to a normal speed as the older man radioed back in.
“This is the Teton Village patrol, turns out that tourist has a group holed up in the Baldwin Place-” Abby tuned out his voice as her thoughts spiraled. They hadn’t even been here a day, and she had almost gotten herself killed. It was sobering, to say the least. And these people… they were so quick to help her; she didn’t know if she could bring herself to do what it would take to track down Tommy. Hell, if Tommy was like them, she didn’t know if she could even bring herself to get him to talk.
“-What do you mean Ellie’s already on her way here!?” The man’s voice cut through her spiraling as she instinctively noted the panic in it.
“Dina radioed in right after you didn’t respond to the second check-in; she and Ellie had split up to find you. She just made it back, and Ellie radioed in to say she was closer to Teton Village and was on her way.”
Abby didn’t know what to think as both men balked; whoever Ellie was, she was clearly important to them.
“That girl… Lord knows she’s just as stubborn as you.” The younger one groaned, pinching his brow as Abby realized that had to be the kid the other had talked about, the one who wasn’t much younger than her.
“...Your daughter?” Abby smiled sadly. If that was her, she’d also be charging through snow and runners if that was what she needed to do to reach her dad.
“Yeah… she’ll probably be here soon.” He was shaking his head, but she could tell it was affectionate. Her heart clenched as she thought about her dad again.
“Sorry, we didn’t give you our names, did we?” The younger man chimed in, smiling warmly in a way that screamed these two had to be family.
“Yeah, the radio cut you off. I’m Abby.” She laughed softly, put off by this easy camaraderie she was finding with these strangers.
“Nice to meet you, Abby. I’m Tommy, and this here’s-”
Abby’s heart stopped as she heard his name. If that was Tommy Miller, then her savior, the man who looked so much like him, had to be-
“-my older brother Joel.”