I just thought of this while playing with friends – personally, I think that Nick has some of the best (although callous) comments in the game. This is a literary response to one of them.

He should be saying something right now – a joke, maybe, or something cynical. Sardonic comments were always his strong suit, always have been; aside from his propensity with a frying pan and cold aim, they've been the main contribution he's made to this little group while they've fought their way through the goddamn apocalypse. Someone has to offset Ellis's enthusiasm, and since Coach and Rochelle are either too kind or too fucking optimistic to do it, the job fell to him as soon as the quartet was formed.

Every situation has an upside and a downside, Nick knows, and he'll be the one to remind the other three of the negative side of things till the bitter end – even if that makes him the last pessimistic asshat on the goddamn planet. So why the hell can't he think of anything to say?

Maybe it's because he can't tear his eyes off of Rochelle, sprawled on the cold tile of the safe house floor like some oversize puppet with its strings cut, or maybe because the smell of burning Tank wafting in from outside is so fucking stick-in-your-throat-awful. Hell, it could be the fact that Ellis is crying – the hick is goddamn crying – as Coach shakes his head and charges those chest paddles a third, last time. They've already gone through their health packs trying to wrap up the agonizing splinters that used to be her bones, trying to med the split, bruising flesh; if this doesn't work, nothing else will, and fuck, it's not working.

They all know that she's dead, though this time even Nick isn't going to point out that it's about time one of them kicked the bucket – they've been too lucky for most of their rampaging and he should have seen this coming. He did see this coming, so why the fucking hell isn't he making some smart remark about it? He's got a dozen saved for just this occasion – he needs to fucking speak.

His mouth moves without him realizing it's actually moved; the words that he hears are his voice, but he barely registers it because damn it, Ro's gone, dead, done like dinner. He's stuck here with a loudmouth hick and a fat man in the middle of the end of the world – the one person his didn't mind talking to and travelling with isn't with them anymore. It figures. It fucking figures.

"Well, there goes repopulating the earth."