This is a story about David. I know his character was awful in the game, but he never had a back story. Even the wiki says there's nothing known about his past life, so I thought I would write about it, because I have a vision of who he used to be, and eventually became the person we see in the game.

This will be a bit of an au, I'm adding in an oc so that there's someone to interact with him for most of the story. Also, the reason this will be an au is because I'm changing one minor scene from the game, but I'm not spoiling that right now!

I'm going to try my best to write this in first person, I don't usually write that way, but for this time, I am. I feel like it fits a lot more ~

The Last of Us, Ellie, Joel, and David all belong to Naughty Dog; only my OC belongs to me.

Enjoy!

- Prologue -

It had been a few days. Ellie and Joel will probably leave tomorrow, I think, but I'm not sure.

These last few days have probably been the hardest of my life, the emptiness of what I had done always hovering over my head. No one knew why but me, though I had a feeling it would change soon.

I didn't really show much emotion to these two, I never have much away. But when Ellie walks up to me, the look on her face tells me that'll probably change tonight.

She sits across from me, and I do my best to offer her a smile. She's an interesting kid, one of the strongest I've ever seen. I feel bad for what she's gone through, almost like it was my fault for allowing it to happen, even if I wasn't there. I should've never left him that day.

"Hello Ellie." I greet with a smile, watching her carefully with my worn expression.

She doesn't return the smile, but rather pulls her legs up to her chest as she waves.

"Hey, Ellen. Can I ask you something? I mean it's personal, but we'll be leaving soon, me and Joel, and curiosity will always bite me in the ass if I don't ask." She spoke, watching me.

I try to avoid a sigh, though a deep breath escapes my lips anyways. I'm almost certain I know what this is about, but I'll let her confirm anyways.

"Sure, Ellie. I'm fine with questions." I respond, watching her calmly.

"Well, it's just... David." I knew it would be about him. "What's your story with him? I mean, he seemed pretty torn up, and so did you, the other day when... You know." Ellie spoke, almost looking like she regretting asking as it probably was a touchy topic with me.

Well, she wasn't wrong, but I figured it would be good to talk about it. I hadn't spoken about me and David to anyone really, never. A lot of people knew, but a lot of people didn't anymore since most of them were dead.

Maybe it would be good to talk about it?

"Alright Ellie, I'll tell you the truth about everything, so you'll understand." I spoke after a good pause, the silence indicating some consideration to her question.

"But it's a long one, and it obviously doesn't have a pretty ending, as you saw. But I'll tell you anyways."

I say back in my chair, remaining silent a moment to think. Ellie watched me with some sort of bright interest, as if she was really and truly interested in this story before it even had started.

Where did it all start again? I had to think to remember where it had started. It was so long ago, at least it felt that way. In all actuality, it was only around nine or ten years ago... I couldn't recall exactly.

"It all started back when the infection first began spreading severely to the states.

For me and him, it started somewhere in Michigan..."

I closed my eyes, allowing myself to go all the way back into those memories again. It was hard, looking passed the last ten years like that and ignoring the other memories to pinpoint this one exactly, but it also was easy to remember the better memories in the past.

An image of that day popped up in my head, and I smiled just a bit in remembrance of it.

"Oh yes, I remember it clearly now..."