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Joel and Ellie made their way back into Jackson somewhere between midnight and dawn. The only indication of time they had were the stars that were slowly fading to make way for the morning sky. Both were exhausted, returning from the Fireflies’ hospital where Ellie underwent too many tests that were more painful than any kid should endure. Joel thought – no, he knew – he had the bravest girl on the whole goddamn planet.
The cordyceps were removed from Ellie’s cerebral spinal fluid numerous times to make vials of a cure. The pain his kid went through in that hospital was more than Joel would ever let her go through again in this lifetime and the next. Thankfully, those Fireflies were useful for something and were able to infinitely replicate the cure in vitro without needing to continuously take from Ellie.
Looking to his left, Joel saw his girl slouching on the horse she dubbed Callus the 2nd. Maybe exhausted wasn’t a good enough word to use for Ellie, but as they approached the large gates of the commune, Ellie slowly straightened out. Anticipation was growing in her stance, and Joel would bet that it was all over her shadow casted face.
A new life awaited this brilliant strong girl, and Joel got to be there for every minute she let him be. And by the way she clung to him in the hospital for comfort, and rarely let him out of her sight on their track here, he doubted he would miss much.
The only thing standing between their future in Jackson and both their pasts was a tape that Joel knew he had to play, even if he shouldn’t. See, during one of the countless procedures where Joel had to sit in a terribly uncomfortable chair while waiting for Ellie in their shared hospital room, Marlene approached him with a video tape.
It could only be played on a VCR which the hospital did not have, but Joel remembered Tommy having one in his living room. The tape was dated to a couple weeks or so before he met the young girl, it was titled “Ellie and Riley – Ellie Immunity” dated August 23rd, 2023.
Now Joel didn’t know who Riley was, they were a mystery that Ellie had only ever mumbled about on bad nights during the winter months, but he didn’t need to be a genius to know that whoever Riley was, left their mark on Ellie.
The young girl barely talked about her time before she met Marlene and then Joel and Tess. Ellie only looked to the future and told terribly stupid jokes that the older man would never admit to finding amusing. So, no, Joel didn’t know exactly what to expect, but he knew nothing good was on that tape, especially if the title meant what he thought it did.
It took a few weeks to settle into Jackson permanently. The house that was right across the street from Tommy and Maria was perfect for Joel and Ellie to relax in together. Joel had been patrolling for the past 2 weeks at the exact time Ellie was in school or at the barn on weekends. They had breakfast and supper with each other every morning and night, and weekly dinners across the street at his brother’s place.
At their fifth family supper (yes Joel called it that in his head, no he would not tell anyone) Joel decided that the video tape had been sitting at the bottom of his carrier bag for too long. He needed to know what his girl had gone through and just how that scar on her arm was formed. So when Maria and Ellie had went out into the woods behind the line of houses, Joel asked Tommy if he could play something on the TV. Joel thought that maybe Tommy shouldn’t be here to watch some of Ellie’s past, but the older brother knew he couldn’t do this without some support.
Sitting on the couch, remote in hand, Joel pressed play. The first thing Joel noticed, was that it was security camera footage. Not a personal home video type of recording, nor a scientific purpose video tape of evidence, but a security camera that captured the long corridor of a shopping mall. Shocked at the lit-up stores and golden carrousel in the middle of the mall, Joel almost missed two figures emerging from the bottom of the screen.
All Joel saw were their backs, but he could tell immediately that the one with the short ponytail and bulky backpack was his Ellie. The taller figure on the right wore a bandana and kept reaching out her hand to tap something behind her back. A gun, Joel’s mind supplied. Ellie was naively looking around her in wonder at all the stores and coloured lights. Joel wanted to yell at his kid for being so unaware of her surroundings, he wanted to jump into that mall and warn her the other girl had a gun.
He watched helplessly as the other girl – Riley, he really should start calling her Riley – blocked Ellie’s vision from the carrousel. Thankfully, Riley was gentle with Ellie and didn’t let her trip, she just walked her to right in front of the carrousel with a giddy smile on her face.
Ellie’s pure awe was such a beautiful thing that Joel felt honoured to have seen himself when she saw aurora borealis for the first time. Quickly, both girls wasted no time going in circles smiling and talking about God knows what. Unfortunately, there was no volume on the cameras, only video.
After the carrousel, the two girls went into the photobooth, and that’s when Joel’s worries came to the front of his mind. If this videotape was titled based on Ellie’s immunity, that means that there had to be an infected in the mall with them. Joel’s leg started bouncing as the camera followed the girls to a back room in the food court.
Tommy sat beside Joel, quiet and confused as to what he was looking at but knew all he could do was sit and wait for Joel to take the first step. Even without volume, the two men could tell when things got tense between the girls. Joel knew that look of stubbornness on Ellie’s face, he’d seen it enough times to recognize that the girl was hearing something she didn’t like. Although, he could only see the back of Riley’s the shaking of her head told him all he needed to. The brothers watched helplessly as Ellie stormed off in the direction of where they had entered.
The camera once again switched to adjust to Ellie’s knew location, she was walking down a cement hallway, but it wasn’t long until they saw her freeze and then sprint back toward the shops, toward Riley. Without volume, Joel had no idea what was going on. “No, Ellie. No, no, no. What are you doing girl?” Joel mumbled to himself, tense as a board. “C’mon now El-” before he could say anything more, a scream cut across the room.
Joel and Tommy turned and jumped up, guns out, ready to fight. But there was no one there, and then they heard panting breath and a girl’s voice speaking behind them. It was Ellie’s voice. Spinning back around, the only thing there was the TV, no Ellie. The voice was hers and it was coming from the TV, the previous yelling seemed to be from an electronic decoration. Ellie, however, was yelling Riley’s name, and for some god-awful reason what looked to be a Halloween shop had sound in its old security footage.
“I knew you’d come back for me,” Riley said with a small smile. Joel knew whatever the two girls had fought about before would not be resolved easily.
“Well I’m not the one leaving to join some terrorist group,” Ellie shot back. Oh. Okay, so their tension makes a lot more sense now, thought Joel. What was it that Ellie had said? Everyone I have loved has either died or left me. Riley must have been one of the people who left his precious girl.
God, how stupid could he have been back then to almost be on that list.
What was left of Riley’s smile had vanished after that remark. But within seconds she was starting their fourth adventure and putting on music and trying to cheer up Ellie with anything she could think of. His girl’s stubbornness was in full force, but even Joel’s little ball of rage and righteousness couldn’t have resisted the funky Halloween masks on the shelves.
“Fuck, this is so fucking cool man!” Ellie exclaimed, laughing in a way Joel hadn’t seen in too fucking long. She swiftly jumped up on the counter and started uncoordinatedly dancing while encouraging Riley to do the same. The breathless laughter was something Joel never wanted to stop hearing.
But he did, because soon enough Ellie was taking off her mask and practically begging Riley not to go. Not to leave her alone. And that settled that, Joel was never letting his baby girl out of his site ever again. She would never know loneliness again, not with him around.
All Riley gave her was a quiet “Okay,” before Ellie, with pure determination in her stance (and Joel could only assume her eyes were filled with it too) leaned up and kissed the taller girl.
“Dayum,” said Tommy, still beside him. It’s not like Joel would have even noticed if his younger brother had left. Joel had just sat there in stunned silence. He knew on some sort of level that Ellie may have preferred girls, he saw her tuck a magazine poster of Britney Spears in her pocket after raiding a passing gas station.
But still, he never thought of her having someone she cared about, probably loved, at such a young age. Sure, girls had crushes, but the devotion he could tell Ellie had for Riley was so similar to what he and Tess implicitly had.
But of course, why would Ellie get to enjoy something as beautiful as a first kiss (maybe, he didn’t know, but Joel hoped that his daughter girl wasn’t kissing too many girls at FEDRA) for long. Because soon enough, their heads turned to the entrance so fast, Joel barely had time to get on board with the fact that something was wrong. “No,” Joel said aloud, “no, no, no,” he repeatedly mumbled as he started hearing the haunted clicking noise.
What happened next was a blur of violence and shouting. Watching, with a tense ferocity, Joel could do nothing but sit on this lumpy couch and watch as his baby girl fought to live with everything in her. He watched in cold fury as Riley was knocked down and looked unconscious, and as Ellie had to fight tooth and nail for both of their survivals. It ended with Ellie and her damn knife lodged into the head of the infected.
Joel’s relief was so palpable that he forgot what this video was about for a moment. Which means either there was another infected coming their way or –
Fuck.
Riley was up now and crying silently while looking at Ellie, more specifically Ellie’s arm. With dread Ellie looked down at the raw skin and brand-new bite mark sentencing her to death or insanity. Sadness and denial came pouring out of her, but it was replaced with such fiery anger that Joel had never seen from Ellie before as she saw her best friend’s (girlfriend’s?) hand.
The glass counters the girls had once danced upon was smashed in minutes. All that anger and despair at a possible future neither girl would get to live came out of the tiny body. Screams filled with grief and outrage and utter despair made Joel’s heart freeze over for his baby girl. But it might have actually shattered as he listened to the two girls make their vow to become infected together.
“Hey what the fuck is this?!”
“Hey what the fuck is this?!”exclaimed Ellie. But it didn’t come from the TV, no it came from the real Ellie. The Ellie who was supposed to still be out with Maria, setting up the campfire outside. “Ellie…” Joel started to say as he got up and put up his hands up in a calming manner.
“No, what the fuck, Joel. Where did you get this? How did you get this?” Ellie cried. Tears were coming out of her, and she was starting to shake. Joel approached her quickly when he saw her distress. And that was definitely the wrong move, because as soon as she was in reaching distance, Ellie jerked back and shook her head repeatedly.
“How could you watch this without telling me?” Ellie asked, “Not even, a hey Ellie I have a video of the worst night of your life on tape, want to look at it and laugh at the fond memories?”
“Baby girl – ”
“No!” shouted Ellie, “Don’t call me that right now. Not after you watched this video as if it was goddamn entertainment!”
“That is not what this was,” Joel started, “Marlene gave it to me and said it had how you became immune on it. I – I just wanted to know what you went through so I could be prepared.”
“Prepared for what exactly?” rebutted Ellie with a tilt to her chin, defiantly looking up at Joel.
“I don’t know exactly, I just wanted to be prepared for when you talked to me about anything to do with your life before we met!” Joel exclaimed a bit too loudly. Another mistake made on Joel’s part, because that just enraged Ellie even more.
“You wanna know about my life before?!” yelled Ellie, “Why don’t you fucking ask me then? You were the one who told me to bottle up everything and not tell you shit!”
“Hey, now, that was before – ”
“Before what?! Before, when I was nothing but cargo? Before when I was a pest that felt so goddamn unwelcome and thought you would leave me without a moment’s notice?” ranted Ellie.
And she was not done at all, “You really want to know what happened so badly that night? I’ll save you the trouble of finishing the video. We swore that we would go crazy together. It was selfish and cowardly, but we didn’t give a shit. We thought we would be poetic and get fucked up together, because at least we knew that we would still somewhat be together. But we weren’t, she – she” Ellie let out a choked sob before managing to get more words out to tear apart Joel’s heart.
“She fucking changed, and I didn’t. I didn’t. And it was me and a nightmare version of Riley who was starting to lose it. We sat there together, just fucking waiting for anything to happen. We had 9 hours together before she started turning, I thought I was right behind her. And you know what Joel?” Joel honestly didn’t want to know what Ellie was going to say, but he would listen, he would listen to every word.
“I was glad. I was fucking ecstatic that I was going to turn into a fucking monster, because at least then I wouldn’t be alone. I would be crazy, but I would be with Riley and that’s all I wanted. All I needed in that moment,” And fuck there went Joel’s knees, buckling so hard he had to sit back down on the couch, with Ellie still there yelling and raving in front of the three adults.
“And yet I still wouldn’t change!” Ellie yelled loudly, making Joel flinch. “I wouldn’t change, and Riley started to attack me… so I shot her. I shot and killed my best friend because of my fucking immunity. Then I stayed with her. I stayed with her in that stupid fucking Halloween shop. I held on to her hands and body until it went cold. I held on to Riley so long, I felt her go stiff. I was there with her for 36 hours not moving, not doing anything except watching over her and ready to protect her from any more infected that were bound to come. Only they never did. It was those stupid fucking Fireflies that found us. Marlene took one look at my arm and decided that I was some fucking miracle.”
“I was supposed to be a miracle while my best friend was what? Collateral? It’s not fucking fair that she – ” that’s when Ellie lost her momentum and just collapsed to her knees in sobs. Joel moved as fast as his back would let him and scooped his girl into his arms and started murmuring reassurances in her ear. It helped little as Ellie trembled against him before going absolutely pliant, as if her strings had been cut.
Without thinking, Joel scooped his kid off the ground, and made for the front door. With a brief glance to Tommy, Joel spoke quietly enough so Ellie wouldn’t hear, “Burn the tape.”
Joel crossed the street with Ellie in his arms and made his way into their home, and then finally into his girl’s room before gently lying her down. The quick turn of the night must have hit Ellie hard because she was out like a light before her head hit the pillow.
Joel sat silently beside her and stroked her hair back. Leaning down, Joel kissed Ellie’s forehead and made his own vow. “You will never have to bottle up anything ever again, baby girl. You can tell me anything you want about your life. And if you’d like, I can – I can tell you about Sarah.”
Joel didn’t know what would happen the next morning when Ellie would wake up. But he knew that he would be there for every second of it. If she needed to scream again or fight somebody. Joel would be there to scream at and fight with. If somehow she wanted to share stories about Riley or her life at FEDRA, he would be the person to make them tea and cookies and then sit and listen to her. Joel would be anything and everything Ellie ever needed.