The Both Of Us | Zelink X The Last Of Us

Epilogue

Zelda's pov

I carry a basket of clean clothes out to the clothesline when Urbosa comes to pay me a visit. I set the basket down and get to work untangling the wet clothes to hang them out to dry.

"You should be resting little bird," she says, grabbing clothes from the basket to help me.

"I can't just sit around all day, not when you keep sending Link out on patrol."

She chuckles. "He's my best fighter, I can't not send him." Though she's not wrong, I don't like him being gone for so long when the baby can be born any day now

I stretch out my back after hanging one of his shirts. I for one, can't wait for the little one to come. He or she has been causing very uncomfortable back pain. I'm grateful for them though. I lost one I didn't know I was carrying shortly after arriving at Jackson. I lost too much blood, something I could only blame myself for. There was too much stress on my body for the baby to live. I don't think I'll ever accept it. It was my fault we lost the baby. We didn't turn back when Link said we should and that led to my near fatal action. But now we have a healthy one on the way, one conceived after the horrors of Seattle eased.

Urbosa helps me finish the laundry before she forces me to go back inside and put my feet up. I'll just read and wait for Link to come home.

Urbosa was too worried about tending to me when we first arrived to question what happened and she never asked after I was nursed back to health. It was for the best. It's something we don't talk about even in private. We keep his immunity and fatal ability secret. He does his best to hide his aggression and love for violence but those are demons that will always follow him. I came to the conclusion that the cordyceps are what makes him the way he is. It makes him stronger, more violent, and adds an unhinged aggression, traits he shares with infected only he can control himself. He's not a monster by choice, rather the in-between of a monster and a human. And we have to keep it secret. An infected that can control himself can arguably be more dangerous than an infected who can't, at least in the eyes of someone who doesn't know him.

I don't remember dozing off but I wake up to a light kiss on my forehead. I smile before I even open my eyes.

"Hey," I say. He's taking the rifle off his shoulder and leans it against the wall. "Did you run into any trouble today?"

"Just some wolves."

"That's good." I can't help but be worried every time he's on patrol even though I know he's perfectly capable of defending himself. It's the recklessness that scares me.

He kneels down in front of me, pushing up my shirt, lightly kissing my round belly. I run my fingers through his hair which he has been leaving down recently. It suits him.

I try to ignore the scar on my wrist. It's just another painful reminder, a mark of what happened. We both have scars on our bodies and hearts from that journey we went on three years ago. We thought we were going towards something better. And all we found was pain. But through it all, we learned to heal. We left it all behind and started over.

"I have a name for it," he whispers, kissing my belly again. "If it's a girl, I want to call her Aryll."

I smile softly. It sounds familiar even though I've never heard it before. "That's a pretty name. What made you think of it?"

He looks up at me with hopeful eyes. "It's my sister's name." The sister he doesn't talk about but misses with all his mended heart.

"I'm sure she would've loved that."