❛ Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the
Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes. ❜

♱

DUST IN THE WIND

            𝕿here was a time before the ruin, before the world collapsed beneath its own hunger. Joanna de la Cruz remembers that time in fragments—fleeting, delicate things slipping through her fingers like sand.

            She remembers Texas summers, golden and endless, where the heat clung to her skin and cicadas hummed songs only the lonely could understand. She remembers love—the kind that was raw and all-consuming, the kind that built homes and burned them down in the same breath. She remembers Joel. The boy who grinned at her in the hallways of their high school, all charm and recklessness. A boy who held the whole world in his calloused hands but only ever wanted to hold her.

            She remembers the night everything changed.

            Two pink lines on a test. A ring slipped onto her finger before either of them understood what marriage truly meant. Her mother cried. Joel swore they'd make it work. And for a while, they did.

            Sarah was born in the heat of July—a wailing, perfect thing, small enough to fit against Joanna's chest but big enough to make every sacrifice feel like it mattered. The nights were sleepless, the bills piled high, and the dreams they once whispered to each other in the dark turned into quiet sighs of resignation.

            Joel put down his guitar. Picked up extra shifts. Came home smelling of sawdust and exhaustion.

            Joanna went to college. She pushed through textbooks and motherhood, through Joel's stubbornness and her own aching guilt. She loved him. She loved Sarah. But love was not enough to fix what had already begun to splinter. The years bled together—a series of tired smiles, arguments over money, and empty promises to "try harder." The walls of their home, once filled with Sarah's laughter, became quiet, cold.

            There was a shift—an inevitable one.

            Joel believed that home was a place, rooted in Texas soil. Joanna believed it was something she had yet to find. She wanted to breathe in the air of possibility, to stretch her wings and see the world beyond the horizon.

            So, she left.

            California offered her a second chance. A career in wildlife biology, a life built on something she had chosen for herself. She told herself it was for Sarah—for a better future, for stability, for the kind of mother she wanted to be. But deep down, Joanna knew the truth. She left because she didn't know who she was anymore—not in the shadow of marriage, not in the quiet ache of a home that no longer felt like hers.

            And Joel—he let her go.

            There were no screaming fights, no last-ditch efforts to fix what had already unraveled. Just a slow, quiet understanding. They were too young when they tried to make forever out of circumstance. Too different in what they wanted from the world. And Sarah—Sarah was the only thing they had ever truly done right.

            They made it work.

            Holidays in California. Summers in Texas. Late-night phone calls, whispered reassurances. They shared custody like people who still cared about each other in some distant, unreachable way. Joel stayed. Joanna left. And Sarah grew up in the space between them.

            Memory is a cruel thing. It isn't the past, only the ghost of it—whispering, taunting, showing her not just who she was, but who she could have been. In the years since the world ended, Joanna has learned to silence it. She has become something else—sharp-edged and untethered, a specter in her own right, moving with the wind, never staying long enough to leave footprints behind.

            To survive is not to live. And she gave up on living a long time ago.

            She should have died that night.

            The plane fell from the sky like a dying star, wailing against the darkness. She should have gone with it. But fate has a cruel sense of humor, leaving her alone in the wreckage, watching the people she fought to save wither away one by one. The world, in its final, merciless gasp, took everything from her.

            Everything.

            She had been on her way to Sarah. To Texas. To hold her baby girl, her little angel, her entire world. Instead, she arrived to nothing. A wasteland where love had turned to dust. If God still existed, He had long since turned His back.

            And so, she walks.

            Through the wastelands. Through the ghost towns. Through the hollowed-out remains of a world that forgot how to dream. She does not belong to any cause, does not kneel for any flag or rebellion. Joanna belongs only to the road, to the hunger in her belly, to the axe in her hand, and to the prayers she still whispers to a heaven that never answers.

            Survival is a lonely thing.

            She has nothing left to hold onto—no family, no love, no future. Only the sharp sting of memory and the cold burn of loss. The past lingers in the places she dares not go, in the voices she can no longer bear to hear.

            And so, she does not stay. The world has become a graveyard of broken promises and lost things, and Joanna knows better than to linger where ghosts walk.

            She is a shadow—worn thin, weary, but still moving. A spirit in the wind with no true purpose or cause. Her soul drifts through the ruins of a world that once knew life, now reduced to echoes—memories carved into the hollow spaces between buildings. She walks as if she can outrun herself, as if distance might cleanse her of the past, of the choices that haunt her, of the grief and regret that coil around her ribs like ivy. Her feet never stop. Always searching. Always leaving. She is the wanderer, the forsaken, the lost child of God. A dead woman walking, an exile from the divine.

            And maybe, somewhere out there, something still waits for her—something worth living for. But for now, Joanna keeps her silence close, presses it against the aching hollow in her chest. Her hands stay steady. She carries it all—her solitude, her survival, her fractured faith—alone. Because if she stops, if she lets herself rest, the past will catch up with her. And she cannot afford to look back.

            Then, one day within the wild terrain of the Northeast, the radio in her travel pack crackles to life.

            A name from another life. A request. A girl who needs passage.

            Joanna does not smuggle. She does not follow orders. She does not believe in anything but the ground beneath her feet and the blade in her hand. But something in Marlene's voice makes her pause. Something in the urgency tells her she was meant to hear this.

            Meant to follow.

            So, she does.

            She walks into the Boston QZ expecting nothing. Another rare job. Another trade. Another set of strangers she will leave behind.

            Instead, she finds Joel.

            The past does not stay buried. It waits, patient as the earth, until the moment it can rise again. And now, with a storm gathering on the horizon, Joanna must face what she has spent two decades outrunning.

            The man she loved.

            The daughter they lost.

            And the choice that will determine whether she keeps running—or finally finds her way home.

Starring

Zoe Saldana as . . . . Joanna De La Cruz

♱

( previously Joanna Miller )

50. Survivor's Guilt. Wildlife Biologist. Calloused
Hands, Gentle Touch. Nomad. Daughter of Grief.
Ex Wife. La Llorona. Bones Full of Regret. Wanderess.
Mourning Mother. Heavan's Forsaken. Sharp Mind,
Tired Soul. Dead Woman Walking. Devoted Catholic.
Fire turned to Ash turned to Dust. Ghost of the Past.

Featuring
Pedro Pascal as . . . . . . . Joel Miller
Gabriel Luna as . . . . Tommy Miller
Nico Parker as . . . . . . . Sarah Miller
Bella Ramsey as . . . . Ellie Williams
Merle Dandridge as . . . . . . . Marlene
Anna Torv as . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tess
The Last of Us Cast as . . Themselves
Others Mentioned as . . . . . Described
more to be added . . .

            ♱ DISCLAIMER: this is a work of fanfiction based on the last of us tv series on hbo and the video game by naughty dog. all characters, settings, and original concepts belong to their respective creators and production companies. this fanfiction is a non-commercial, transformative work created by a fan for entertainment purposes only.

            ♱ WARNINGS: mature themes, strong language, character deaths, death of children, violence, gore, sexual content, trauma, mental health issues, angst, drug/alcohol use, survivor's guilt, grief & loss, divorce, ptsd, religious themes, potential triggering content, and etc.

            ♱ DEDICATIONS: i wanted to give huge dedication to my faves, the sweetest and coolest people ever, hightxwers and riverwide !

            ♱ AUTHOR'S NOTE: hey everyone! wow, it's been way too long, but i'm finally back, and i've never been more inspired to write this story. i recently rewatched the last of us, and let me tell you—i fell in love with joel all over again. like, deep in the trenches. and of course, being the huge pedro pascal fan that i am (seriously, i've been obsessed since i was like 13), it only made my love for this world and these characters even stronger. i'm beyond excited to dive back into this fic and do my absolute best to do it justice. that being said, fair warning—this story is going to deal with a lot of heavy and potentially triggering topics. joanna is a deeply flawed and damaged character. she's not perfect, and at times, you might even dislike her. but honestly? that's what i love about her. she's messy. she has issues. and her relationship with joel? even more complicated. they were just kids who fell in love and got caught up in a life they never fully planned for. life is unexpected. things happened. they drifted apart. but the love between them? that never fully went away, even if there's a lot of pain, resentment, and unresolved feelings standing in the way. i'm absolutely rooting for them (truly my fictional parents), but it's going to take time for them to find their way back to each other. also, i always found it interesting that we never got to learn much about sarah's mother, so i decided to put my own spin on that and give her a story of her own. and just a small note—joanna is afro-latina! she's half puerto rican and half dominican, which will definitely play a role in her character and perspective. anyway, i'm so happy to be back, and i can't wait to take this journey with all of you. buckle up—it's going to be a lot, but i promise it'll be worth it.
much love,
𝖑𝖚𝖓𝖆