Never Letting Go: TLOU ~ Joel Miller

1. Nine Years

A/N: Sequel to my main fic 'Don't Let Go' if you would like further context to some of the things mentioned but can be read as a stand alone quite easily, I think.

This chapter does contain smut :)

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June 2038: Jackson

Large wooden beams and strings upon strings of twinkling fairy lights created the most homely of backdrops as their gentle golden glow warmed the already heated space just that little bit more. The humidity going ignored as groups danced and drank and chattered away. It once seemed a peculiar thing to Joel, that wholesome community gatherings such as these still took place on this god forbidden planet he called home... It was worlds apart from the dingy, drugged up dive bars that would get raided by FEDRA at least once a week that he had come to reside in during his time in the Boston QZ. He could almost taste the thick ghastly smog of chain smoked cigarettes as he reminisced... was reminiscing even the correct word for it? Those bleak, almost painful memories seemed like almost a life time ago now... Now that he was stood by an actual functioning bar in the mess hall, with his gorgeous wife of thirteen years on his arm, surrounded by friends and family alike, his eldest daughter across the room occupied with her own family and his youngest blending in somewhere within the crowd. Never in a million years would he have ever thought himself to be at the near centre of one of these parties when he arrived at Jackson's gates fifteen years ago...

He lost himself for a moment. His eyes simply soaking in his surroundings; the smiles, the laughter, the carefreeness. It all felt so...whole. He felt so whole. After so many years of residing himself to the fact that it all meant nothing, that his existence was nothing more than a mere unwanted anomaly- a mistake, it felt good to actually want to live again. In fact, he had found himself wanting to live for the past almost sixteen years... From the very day that bratty little fourteen year old girl, his eldest, came into his care and a little bit more each and every day after that pivotal moment. His desire to live each of his remaining moments to the fullest only intensifying since the events that took place in Seattle. It seemed almost insane that he was approaching the nine year anniversary of that gut wrenching night in which his youngest was taken... from the day he so almost lost his life. The fingers of his left hand subconsciously carding through the hair on his head, pads tracing over the permanently raised scar that lay hidden beneath.

He found his stupor broken as Ava shifted beside him, her head rolling into his shoulder as she gazed up at him. The same stunning caramel brown eyes that glistened beneath the twinkle of lights, albeit being framed by a few more fine lines and her crown now adorned with just a couple of stray greys- not that he would ever mention either to her. Even as she aged, it was graceful... still looking far younger than her forty six years and still just as beautiful as the evening he first set eyes on her some fourteen years ago...

His focus softened beneath hooded lids, absorbing the warm adoring smile across her lips. Her voice no more than a gush as she spoke, "Can you believe that we have a twelve year old?"

His own lips tugged into a curve, his mind carrying him back to the very moment he burst through the infirmary door after almost becoming lunch for a rather agitated bloater. The image of relief settling onto Ava's face as he approached her bedside to take her hand and help coach her through the last remaining stages of her labour. The feel of that perfect warm little weight being dropped into his arms for the first time and the sound of her tiny cries... "Feels like only yesterday we were both crammed on that single hospital bed, her in your arms n' us bickerin' over baby names..."

She chuckled at that, her smile still there but  turning vacant as her attention went out to the sea of people before them, fishing out for that not so little life that they both somehow managed to miraculously bring into the world, "It seems surreal..."