Woke up crying this morning...

THE LAST OF US SPOILERS

WARNING -

I said what I said...

THE LAST OF US SPOILERS

I don't know how long it's been since I woke up crying over something fictional, but the Last of Us has made me (Madison) its bitch.

I woke up this morning STILL thinking about Sam and Henry. Sam hid his bite from his brother, knowing what his brother had gone through to keep him safe. Ellie tried the transfusion, hoping and praying it'd work; she called her blood medicine, hoping and praying the antibodies in her blood would help him. Knowing very little about science or medicine, she did the only thing she could think of - give Sam the blood that had saved her.

Ellie meant to stay awake with Sam, but she physically couldn't. She went to talk to him, realizing she'd fallen asleep... And he was just staring at the sunlight so quietly, so peacefully. Then he turned... and Sam wasn't there anymore. That note he'd written her, something like "If I become a monster, will I still be in there?" OMG. I honestly hope not. I don't want to think of Sam, trapped in his own body like that child clicker we saw attack Ellie and Kathleen, screaming against his own body as it refuses to obey him, watching his own hands kill people and watching - screaming in his own mind - as his mouth bites down on people.

I'm sitting here, writing this and tears are streaming down my face once again.

Sam was only even bitten because Kathleen wanted so desperately to get revenge on the people who killed her brother - even KNOWING the why, KNOWING Sam was a child (she didn't care) and KNOWING her brother didn't want revenge taken - that she woke the clickers up and cost everyone.

Her entire crew, the entire city - gone. Kathleen asked ole boy something like "what did forgiveness ever get us?" and, today, it'd have gotten you all your lives. Chasing down Henry and Sam cost everyone everything. Sam was kicking those clickers away, that's how he got bitten on his ankle. He had to know the moment it happened. And that beautiful, hurting little boy kept it inside.

"Pointing that unloaded gun at you was the closest I've ever come to being violent." Only for Henry to ultimately shoot the boy he'd had given everything to protect. And ... Oh Henry... what can I even say? I'm still crying my eyes out behind a fictional pair of brothers I saw yesterday. He saw Sam going buck and something in him knew. His brain fought with itself to reconcile what he was seeing with the implications with his love for this little boy. He shot at Joel for approaching. Didn't even seem to realize what he was doing; he saw Joel going towards his brother with anger or fear and he just pulled the trigger.

After days of eating canned food, drawing on walls, putting his very body in between his brother and the dangers of the world... it didn't matter.

The way Pedro Pascal kinda growled/hissed at Henry for firing the gun his way was such incredible acting. They'd just decided to travel together, they hadn't even told the kids yet; "I'll tell Sam in the morning." And then, "What did I do? Sam?" praying against hope that his brother will respond to him. Henry killed the body of Sam, even as Sam was already gone. "What did I do?" He saved Ellie and Joel, at terrible cost to himself. And Ellie... oh this poor baby. She had such a terrible time in KC. Between maiming that boy who ended up crying for his mother, Joel having to finish that, to feeling she'd failed Sam... her "I'm sorry" UGH - WHY DO YOU HATE ME?!

Anywho, I'm off to cry some more now.