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Bill didn’t remember anything after the accident. He only heard a crash and hearing someone yell his name. Frank. He remembers it was Frank that yelled his name. He remembers the feeling of getting moved to a hospital bed and being wheeled in somewhere. He remembers a calm voice calling his name, probably a surgeon. After that he doesn’t remember anything after.
He dreams of another life. A life where the situation he has been preparing for came true. He sees scenes flash before his eyes. The military taking people away and him hiding in his underground bunker that he knows annoys Frank with the amount of time he spends in it.
He sees himself making traps, making sure that everything is in order so that he would be self sustainable. He sees himself cook steak and pairs with red wine. He watches himself watch a screen where an infected walks into one of his traps and gets shot. He laughs along this version of himself.
Time passes, he feels the loneliness of the person right in front of him. He sees it in everything that he does, masking it in duty and maintenance of keeping himself as safe as possible. He doesn’t let anyone in. He wonders where Frank is or if he is even still alive.
Then one day he sees him. He was eating steak, as usual, and while watching the screen he hears an alarm going off. He switches channels and sees that someone or something fell into one of his pits. Bill grabs a rifle and heads to that spot and finds a man in his mid 40s staring at him like he was caught in headlights. He remark to himself that the banter of this version of Frank and himself was cute in a way that is quite typical for the both of them. He allows to let Frank in to stay for a night and after he would continue his journey to Baltimore. Whatever that journey entails.
He doesn’t want Frank to leave, so he screams at himself to ask Frank to stay. And the moment Frank asks about the piano, he knew that something changed. He sees Frank’s poor attempts to play Linda Ronstadt, which was also quite typical to how Frank tried playing it. He notes that he should really teach Frank to play it.
Bill plays the piano and he doesn’t need to guess what happens after because he knows that this thing that came out of him letting Frank into his home will abide.
He sees moments where they fight about painting the house to let some “friends” in. He sees one of the happiest times of their lives, the world growing smaller in a moment where it’s just the two of them eating strawberries and laughing uncontrollably. He feels love emanating from himself, pouring out of every pore in his body. He sees the night that it almost went completely wrong. And their last moments where they promised to cherish each other on that day as a promise of their enduring love that has kept them together for all those years.
Finally he sees their last meal. He doesn’t feel afraid, he feels ready for what comes next. They drink their last wine and fall asleep in each other’s arms. As the world grows colder, he only feels warmer because of the love that survived in a world that he now worries for. He worries about Tess and Joel. He worries about their strawberry bush. And he worries if the drugs that he placed on the wine would be enough. But at that very last moment he doesn’t worry and only looks forward to after. And after that he was gone.
Bill slowly comes to and sees that he’s laying on a hospital bed and by his side, his husband of 10 years, sleeping comfortably next to him. He carefully wraps his arms around him, in an attempt to not wake him and just to make sure that this was all real. And that what he saw in that dream wasn’t reality. He fails doing so because for all the years that he knew Frank, he knew that Frank would always know when he is awake. And on queue he sees Frank wake up to meet his eyes. “Morning,” he tells him. Frank smiles that one million watt smile that he knows is only reserved for him only.
He knows that they’re gonna be okay. And that he knows he’s gonna love Frank for a long long time and by God he would make sure he does.