When a parent dies, a child feels it's true mortality. But when a child dies, it's immortality that a parent loses.

                   Everybody wants to believe they have a fighting chance at life. That they can handle the hurdles coming at them no matter how fierce or abominable—and if not for their own lives, for the ones that matter. To become a parent is to drown in the ocean so that your child may avoid your ill fate, to carry them up a mountain no matter how many boulders lie across your shoulders, to love someone more than you have ever loved yourself. But the new world isn't meant for the innocence of youth. For the chubby cheeks of children and laughter of adolescence— that all died the day the cordyceps fungus threw the world into a Mariana Trench of tragedy with no life boat to sustain one another.

                    That's what Isabella Miller believes, anyway. Before it all, she rejoiced at the sight of kids, adored and nurtured them like no other. Everybody knew she'd be a mother, a beautiful one. And one she was. Was.

                     But you never really stop being a parent. Not when a child dies, not when yours does, it's an instinct that will always dust off the rust and rumble it's old engine before cleansing itself from one's being. Even if Isabella believed herself to be a walking ghost of the woman she once was, the prospect of curing the disease that ruthlessly pulled her daughter off her boat of safety and held her in the dense abyss was one she could not pass up.

                      So she agreed, even if it meant bringing her...ex-ish-husband along for the ride.

THANDIE NEWTON is . . . .
ISABELLA "BELLE" MILLER

❝ you may as well have my heart, joel, it's already full of you... ❞

PEDRO PASCAL / JOEL MILLER
BELLA RAMSEY / ELLIE WILLIAMS
CASSIDY MCCLINCY / KATHERINE "TALIA" KLEIN
ANNA TORV / THERESA "TESS" SERVOPOULOS
MERLE DANDRIDGE / MARLENE
MARLENE LYNSKEY / KATHLEEN
EVERYBODY ELSE / THEIR CHARACTERS

━━━━━━━━ DISCLAIMERS !

AUTHORS NOTE P... no bc I was reading some Joel fics and was like...
why isn't anyone using the actress of Sarah's mom as a faceclaim?
so clearly I had to be the one to do it🙏 on another note, joel and
Belle are SO "Me and My Husband" by Mitski coded it's insane.
Spam the comments when I post the first chapter cause it's gonna be
a doozy, hope y'all enjoy! 🫶🫶

WARNINGS... this book contains strong language,
child death + death in general, sexual innuendos, mentions
of r*pe/attempted, murder, and more tlou stuff. there will be
trigger warnings at the beginning of the chapter, if needed!

CREDITS.... gifs are not mine, layout slightly ib @/terrorteen

DEDICATIONS. . . hazzawckd h3artthr0b @scavengerhouse