Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I.

The sun hasn’t even touched the horizon when Joel sticks his big head into her room.

Normally, the obnoxious hinges would wake Ellie up with their immediate squealing. But with the lack of light coming through her blatantly open window, she continues to snooze in her mini drool pile.

“Kiddo, it’s time to get up.” His voice rolls into the room as a quick warning for Ellie to cover her head before he flips the overhead light on.

There is that normal gruffness to Joel’s tone, but like everything else about him, that too has smoothed out over time. That being said, the lack of bite just has Ellie rolling in her bed, groaning in sleepy outrage.

“But it’s sooo early.” The words get stuck in her pillow as she smothers her cheeks into the fluff.

Good thing Joel is leaning into her room with his left side.

“That’s the point, dumbass. We’re out in 20 so move it.” He cracks his knuckles against the door frame with enough force to shake the room.

Which gets Ellie sitting up, hair poking in all directions like the fur raised on the back of a scared cat, as her heart races to her throat.

“Dick move, man!” She yells as he closes her door with a chuckle, not bothering to look back at the middle finger she is giving him.

Ellie isn’t impressed and doesn’t try to pretend she is.

“We’re really doing this? Right now?” She says with a lick of teenage fury in her tone.

The sun is now up, just barely. The mountain tops still somehow have ice on the tips and reflect golden against the summer sun, casting the town in a soft glow. Ellie thinks it is pretty enough, would be prettier though if it wasn’t fuck o’clock in the morning.

“Fish bite better in the morning, what can I say?” Joel has that shit-eating grin on his stupid face as Ellie drapes her backpack on Shimmer, clicking it secure.

“And I know one thing that bites harder.” Ellie mumbles under her breath as she knocks her forehead on the leather saddle in hopes of jolting further awake.

She tried coffee out a couple of months ago after eyeing Joel’s mug one too many times. Taste alone was a hard pass, and of course, that awful smell didn’t help, but the jitters after?

Thank whatever higher power you want that she wasn’t carrying a gun on her, every noise had her almost jumping out of her prickling skin. Had half the mind to think the Infection did something useful for once, like finally take over.

“Quit your moanin’ and get on the damn horse.” Joel mutters as he passes her, not without flicking the back of her head first.

Ellie bites back her bitching as Joel climbs onto Callus 2.0 (they call him 2.0 most of the time, easier to say than his full government name and also the fact that Ellie still isn’t over what happened to the first Callus, sue her) with what she assumes are fishing poles. Military school wasn’t really one for extracurriculars if you could imagine that.

Her eyes stay attached to them as she follows Joel out of the stables. A part of her expected some crude ass things, made of wood and shitty thread tied at the top in a bow. She doesn’t know why she is so surprised to see that they are fishing poles from Before: plastic, clean, working.

She turns back toward the guards and waves as Joel and her leave the gates. They wave back, one with his cowboy hat in hand which makes her giggle. Now that she is finally on the outside again, a thrill spikes through her and dismisses any anxiety she consciously had or not.

“Been a while, huh?” She says as they trot side by side, their pace slow and steady for once.

“For you, yeah.” Joel points out as he pushes his hair back to which Ellie rolls her eyes.

“Let me give you a haircut, dude. This is ridiculous.” “No way I’m lettin’ you near me with scissors.”

It’s a bummer they are on horseback right now, this would be the perfect time for the Puppy Eyes. Joel is a fucking sucker for puppy eyes. What an absolute loser.

“You’re so mean to me,” Ellie pouts in a cute tone that has Joel fake gagging. “Won’t let me cut your hair, won’t let me go on patrol.”

He coughs out a laugh, “Jackson’s rules, not mine. You’ll be 16 soon enough.”

Don’t remind me, Ellie thinks as she blows out a raspberry. She just turned 15! She has the best shot of anyone under the age of 18 in town! She took down a fucking deer all by herself at 14, it’s really everyone else’s loss if she is being honest.

Anyway… the ride to the pond (lake? She heard someone say pake once and thought it was the dumbest shit to be uttered by mankind) is relatively short.

There is a part of her that is thankful that it was short, she hasn’t been on real horseback in a while. You can only count trotting horses around the inside borders as ‘experience’ for so long before everyone gets a nasty type of antsy.

When she hops down from Shimmer, she hisses at the way her lower back stings.

“Senior citizen, who?” Joel’s smart mouth cannot not make a comment even when he is groaning just the same as he dismounts from 2.0.

“Whatever.” Ellie snorts as she wraps Shimmer’s reins to a neighboring tree.

The pond, lake, pake shoreline is about 50 yards from them. The tree cover is helpful to hide their horses. Summer has the trees full and lush, casting shadows and safety as the treeline disappears to show the gravelly shore.

Ellie pulls her flannel off, tying it around her waist before throwing her backpack on. Her ponytail aimlessly flutters behind her as they walk towards the shore, the breeze coming off the water feeling refreshing rather than cold and dry.

It’s not often she is able to let the battered skin on her arm breathe so she will take any chance she gets.

Joel leads them to a little cove area then drops his stuff. Ellie does the same, not caring for a second about the small mud piles left by the minuscule tide that pulls and pushes day in, day out.

“This should work just fine.” Joel says mostly to himself, but Ellie nods in agreement anyway.

Before he can shove one of the poles into her hands, Ellie grabs it herself and promptly tips over.

“Woah, holy shit, this is heavier than I thought it would be. Why the fuck is it so tall!” She wobbles, just barely getting her balance as she threatens to knock into Joel’s chest.

Who is more than ready to catch her, not like she is one to notice.

“Goddamn, you’re loud,” Joel hushes with no heat in his voice as he kneels down to open up his pack. “This is supposed to be a quiet activity, relaxin’ even.”

Ellie tenses her shoulders as she looks around. No one is around, shocker. No animals now that the sun is crawling up the sky and no Infected for miles either if patrol went ‘fine’ yesterday like Joel said it did.

She kneels down next to him, pole forgotten to her side as she curls her knees into her chest, intently watching what Joel is looking for. And just as she is getting comfortable—

“Are those fucking worms?” “Ellie!” “Sorry...”

They stand side by side as their bobbers bounce against the light waves.

Even though Joel said this was supposed to be ‘quiet time’ and she shouldn’t ‘talk too much’ or ‘scream bloody murder’ when a worm inches up her arm, he did bring the boombox.

The thing is beat up, covered in scratches and the paint of the buttons is basically completely wiped off. The speaker to the far right is broken so the music is muddled, but it’s better than nothing.

Especially better when Ellie is in charge of what they are listening to.

“Another one bites the dust.” She sings softly, tapping her foot to the beat as she bobs her head in unison.

Joel stands still, reeling his line in when it starts to try to make a pass over Ellie’s. They have already had to untangle them twice and with the twitching furrow in Joel’s eyebrow, it doesn’t look like he wants to do it again.

She watches it drag through the water before landing at their feet, fishless.

“You actually suck at this,” Ellie tried to hide the surprise in her voice, as Joel’s line was thrown back out. “Can I try now?”

“Never said I was good at it, and no. I don’t want a hook in my head.” Joel huffs as he rolls his shoulders back.

“Come on, duuude. One shot, you dragged me outta bed to watch you suck ass and I didn’t even complain that much.” Ellie nudges him with her shoulder, wiggling her eyebrows with a scrunched-up nose.

“That fricken mouth on you,” Joel mumbles in a drawn-out sigh. “Fine.”

Ellie is reeling in her line just as he finishes. Her arms are a little sore from holding it up, but the knowledge that she is about to cast the shit out of this line has her on her tiptoes.

When the hook with the wiggling worm is at her hip, she turns to Joel who has already set his own pole up with two rocks to hold it still.

“Okay, first thing you need to do is hold the handle with both hands— just like that, yeah. Then you’re gonna swing it kinda like a baseball bat.” Joel hovers, but doesn’t bring his arms completely around her from behind as he ghosts over her motions.

Ellie nods as she sinks into her knees, ready to get her worm into the center of the pond, lake, pake.

Joel backs away, probably too far, but like he said, no one wants a hook to the head, “Press this button down, and when you are about halfway through your swing, let it go.”

“The pole?” Ellie asks as she starts her swing, shoulders high as she powers up.

“What? No, the button— oh shit.”

One second, the pole is in her hand. The next, it’s sinking several feet in front of them as the crystal blue water violently ripples at the crash zone.

“My bad, I got it!” Ellie yells, running into the water without any care for her dirty shoes or muddy-cuffed jeans.

“Jesus fucking Christ.” She hears Joel say but pays no mind as she waddles through the water.

And you’d think with all the commotion, the fish would be miles away at this point. A girl in the water, an old man at the shore pacing around, and 80s music blaring into the world.

But right as Ellie grabs the pole, she notices something weird happen.

The other line’s bobber is down.

“Joel! I think you got something!” Ellie wildly points at the disappearing line.

She watches Joel scrambling to his pole that is being pulled loose from the rocks. He grabs it at the last second and Ellie can hear the squeal of the line as the fish tries to get away.

“Come on, get it, get it!” She cheers as he pulls back on the line, reeling it in with quick fingers.

She runs with heavy limbs, trying to get out of the water at the same time as the fish. Ellie can’t help from laughing as she sees Joel light up like he struck gold.

Throwing her pole down onto the shore, Ellie stumbles into him when he finally gets that damn fish out of the water. It isn’t large by any means, but it flops around in the air with such force that she has to duck away from it so it doesn’t hit her in the face.

When she peers back up at Joel, he is already looking down at her.

“Fuck yeah!” Her fist in the air before raising it to him.

And she swears the high-five echoes to Jackson and back.

Ellie is the one who throws the fish back in (but not without a shitty pun first:

“Hey Joel, it’s oh-fish-ial, he’s cod.” “4/10, that was weak and you know it.”)

She watches it plop against the water then swim away until it’s out of their sight, not daring to look back at the psychopaths who caught it.

Wiping her slimy palms against her more than damp jeans, Ellie turns around on her heels. Joel is already sitting down, back resting against his pack in the shade with two sandwiches in hand. He throws one at her right as she crosses her legs to sit next to him.

The boombox is still going, playing that one song from that stupid movie about making singing and dancing illegal. FEDRA was objectively the worst, but at least they didn’t do that.

Something-loose…

Everybody cut, everybody cut— “Footloose.” She says with peanut butter tacked on the roof of her mouth.

Joel just snorts with a small shake of his head.

The sun is beating down on them now, to the point where Ellie considers putting her flannel back on so she doesn’t get another nasty sunburn that had Joel pouring some weird green shit on her back for a week.

Ellie kicks the toes of her shoes together as they sit in silence. It’s nice, even if it gets disrupted by Joel asking her why she has ‘his’ flannel and when did she find the time to ‘steal it’.

It’s almost perfect until that heavy feeling starts settling in the center of her chest again when—

“Can we skip this song.” Ellie asks suddenly, hands starting to become sweaty as the seconds fly by.

“Oh, sure. I thought you liked 80s.” Joel responds, but does what he is told without a fight.

The silence between the next song starting feels like a blessing. She didn’t realize how tense she got until her knees lowered back to the gravel and her shoulders weren't right next to her ears.

“I mean, 80s means danger, right?” Why the fuck did I say that, Ellie’s mind keeps ringing alarm bells as the song somehow continues to play in her head, rolling over and over and over.

“It did…” Joel starts slowly in a confused sort of way, the way that shows that he is ready to listen even if he has no clue where it is going to go.

The it doesn’t anymore, goes unsaid.

She finishes her sandwich and leans over to put her trash in Joel’s pack. He rolls his eyes and Ellie just smiles at him with her lips in a tight line which has him mirroring it back at her with almost double the amount of unsureness.

This is so stupid, it’s been months since—

“I had fun, this was fun.” Ellie says as she pushes herself off the ground, leaving Joel to look up at her as she positions herself to shade his face from the sun.

“Good, I’m glad,” He responds almost tentatively. “Glad you liked the sandwich too.”

Well, as tentative as Joel can be.

Holding a hand out, Ellie groans with Joel as she pulls his lazy ass up. By the time they make it back to 2.0 and Shimmer, Ellie is already pushing Joel away with a laugh on her lips.

She continues to push away every other thought that can ruin any good day and make any bad day worse. When those thoughts quiet down after Joel helps her onto the saddle, she knows that today is luckily the former.

And as much as Ellie hates to admit it, even if it’s just to herself, it’s been a while since she’s had a truly good day.

It takes less than a second for Ellie to figure out where she is.

The dank smell of moss and rubber hit her hard as she stares out straight forward into a sea of black and orange. She swallows the knot in her throat as her knees begin to shake.

Doesn’t blink as her vision darkens around the corners, eyes drying out as the image of a deflated clown mask distorts in front of her. Completely covering up the Infected body rotting only inches away from her feet.

Her back is chilled by the glass she rests against, seeping through her shirt and into her spine. And yet, her whole right side is blistering, so warm that it almost hurts. Almost.

Take on me.

She closes her eyes, refusing to flinch as the warmth shudders and moans. Her forearm begins to throb to the beat of her quickening heart.

Take me on.

Her lips still tingle, her cheeks hurt as the muscles bend against the phantom smile she held on. As if it stayed there forever, as if it was supposed to stay there forever.

As if they ever had time.

I’ll be gone.

The orange light flickers as the generator groans through the empty store, reflecting off the surrounding broken glass that is littered at their feet which causes Ellie’s eyes to flutter open. Her fingers itch as she tries to inch them along, holding her breath as they caress a leather loop.

In a day.

And through all the warmth, she finds what she is looking for: something cold, something metal, something heavy.

Or two.

A gunshot rings out before she can even shoot it, but the gun is in her hands. The smoke came from the barrel like a spirit. Ellie kicks off the glass as her lungs inflate, throwing the gun to the side as she scrabbles away from the warmest thing she’s ever known.

If she didn’t know any better, she would just think Riley was asleep just like she is.

Ellie wakes up on her side at the edge of her bed, hands curled to her chest holding one of her many blankets.

Everything is so quiet as she blinks through the darkness, eyes straining to trace along her shadow that is cast on the wall due to the hanging street lights shining into her bedroom. Her mouth is dry from sleeping with it open and she has half the mind to thank Joel for shoving a glass of water in her hand right as she headed off to bed.

But the louder half of her brain continues to run, wondering if her mouth was actually open because she was yelling in her sleep again. With the lack of Joel in her face, she doubts it.

Ellie puts her closest hand to her heart, trying to will it to slow down. It works well enough as the minutes tick by if the clock on her bedside table is right. It’s in times like these she wishes it would just slow down more, until she couldn’t feel it beating under her fingertips at all.

When she finally feels like she isn’t ready to bolt to hell knows where, Ellie forces herself to sit up. She lets her blankets and sheets pool around her waist so her sweat-covered skin can breathe in the humid air.

The glass of water is cold against the clamminess of her palm, but she almost drops it when the scars on her arm tighten.

She doesn’t drop it, though.

Instead, she takes a sip and thinks I’m fine, everything is fine. Runs a hand through her tangled hair and I’m fine. Remembers Riley’s red-rimmed eyes, the purple-tinted veins popping out of her temples, and I’m fine.

There are small blessings though. At least this dream knocked out her hearing this time. No guts visible or pooling, no taste of vomit in the hallows of her mouth. Riley had a face: brown eyes, button nose, and full lips. No lettuce head or mushroom ears.

Once she is laying back down, covered with only her nose, eyes, and forehead visible to the world, Ellie pulls her hands out to glance at them.

They are translucently pale in the moonlight as she turns them over and over again to stare at the palms and the backs of them until she is sure that they are clean.

“I’m fine.” She whispers just loud enough to hear her own voice.

Of course they’re clean, even if she can still feel the stickiness of the blood under her nails.

II.

If Ellie knew she was going to get into shit, she would’ve tried to wait until Joel was on patrol. As much as Maria sucks as a stand-in, at least they have a mutual understanding to not ask each other too many questions since Joel and her’s return.

She taps her fingers on the handles of the chair as she looks out the window, a wave of deja vu hitting her when she realizes that it is raining.

Her nails are longer than usual so they click against the wood. Ellie notes to ask Joel to ask Tommy to steal some nail clippers the next time he goes over for Poker Sunday’s.

The shuffling of feet from outside the makeshift office is what ultimately pulls her attention away from the window. Ellie sinks in the seat, spine rolling against the hardback of the chair when a familiar low rumble comes in from under the door.

She can see Joel’s profile, gray and muddy through the frosted glass as he looks down at who she assumes is her teacher. Or worse, Jeremy’s mother, sister, grandma, whatever—

When the door opens, she focuses her gaze back on the window that is covered in water droplets. Doesn’t dare to turn to her left when she hears the chair next to her pull against the rug.

“Ellie…” Joel starts with a sigh and Ellie flexes her hands until a hiss leaves her mouth.

In the corner of her eye, she sees that he was indeed talking to her teacher. Miss Leslie is not half bad. Sure, she focuses on old English way too much for being in the fucking apocalypse, but she also lets Ellie have five minutes to herself whenever she gets… overwhelmed.

Ellie’s eyes flicker down to her freshly scraped-up knuckles; clearly, that didn’t work out too hot this time around.

Or the time before that.

“What was it this time?” Miss Leslie asks honestly, the bits of patience in her voice grates on Ellie’s ears.

She rolls her eyes, finally turning to face her audience. Joel’s lips are white with how tight he has them pulled. Miss Leslie has her hands together on top of her desk as she tries to make eye contact with Ellie.

Instead, Ellie looks past her teacher and focuses on the cross hanging on the wall just above her head.

“He called me soulless so I broke his jaw.” “Who called you what?”

Miss Leslie’s attention turns to Joel quickly, “And that will be dealt with Mr. Miller after we deal with this. Ellie, you’re better than this.”

Are you? Echoes in the hollow of her empty brain, and it sounds nothing like her own voice.

“I know it’s been a struggle to adapt these first couple of weeks into the school year and we’re all rooting for you, but you got to learn how to use your words rather than…” Her teacher’s eyes trail down to her hands.

Ellie puts them in her sweatshirt pocket and doesn’t care about the stains she is never going to be able to wash out.

“I am trying,” I don’t think you are, little lamb. “It’s just hard, okay?” Ellie murmurs as she tears her eyes away from the cross.

As if the pity in Miss Leslie’s eyes is any better of a view.

Ellie doesn’t choose to go far away when they start talking about a suspension. The last time they were here (aka last week) she only ripped up that one girl’s—stupid fucking Cat—drawing of her because what kind of sneaky shit is that.

Somehow they eat lunch together more days than not now, doodling more than snacking.

She guesses it is fair for them to not want her to come back after forcing a dude to spit up a couple of teeth.

“—Well if you don’t want to stay to talk to Mrs. Hartford, you are free to go with your… Ellie, Mr. Miller.” Miss Leslie’s voice rocks into Ellie’s brain like stormy waters.

I’ve changed my mind, Ellie stands up with almost enough force to tip over the chair.

Joel looks up at her before shooting out of his own seat as she beelines for the door. Throwing it open and walking out is the easiest part.

You do need a Father.

And I’m going to teach you.

Ellie pushes Joel’s arm off her shoulder the second it lands on her once they are out of the school building. She doesn’t say anything, just puts enough space between them so she can focus on being herself inside her own body.

Joel keeps the distance as if he can read her mind which makes her even more upset for some reason.

Because He is wrong. She doesn’t need a father, doesn’t need a guardian like dumbass Jeremy does because all he can do is cry and wail like a baby. Doesn’t need someone fighting her battles. She has been doing just fucking fine on her own. Always has, always will.

The clouds spit on them as they walk. The rain is only heavy enough for it to be annoying and frizz up Ellie’s hair, but not to discolor her gray sweatshirt.

When they walk past the lodge, she wonders if she is going to be put on dish duty until she’s 50 and gray herself.

But they just keep walking, Ellie a little behind Joel now as the weight of her actions actually has time to settle. She didn’t really mean to break the dude’s face; it’s hard to remember how soft everyone is here in Jackson compared to them.

Most of these kids haven’t stepped out of the gates, most of them never want to either. While Ellie is about to start climbing the walls to go on patrol, everyone else is having nightmares about what lingers out there.

And Ellie knows exactly what is.

“Hey, kiddo? You with me?”

“Yep!” Nope, Ellie blinks rapidly as she looks around.

They are in front of the house already and the rain is mere sprinkles now.

Joel swallows down her lie like a champ. He is leaning against the porch stairs as he rubs a hand down his beard. His curls lick up behind his neck and if Ellie wasn’t in a load of shit, she would make fun of him for it.

“I’m sorry,” She apologizes truthfully, grabbing her elbow to anchor onto something. “It was stupid, I do know better.”

Joel just shakes his head and suddenly Ellie feels worse.

I’m not violent, I swear, “I’ll do dish duty again, no complaints this time. I deserve it—” “Ellie.”

She looks up at him and tilts her head when she sees him struggle to keep a smile from forming.

“Good job stickin’ up for yourself.” And his grin only grows when he says those words.

“I thought you were gonna yell at me, fuck head!” Ellie laughs as she punches him in the chest with her non-scrappy hand.

This brings a similar laugh out of the old man, “I can’t let everyone in town know that I prefer my girl to hold her own against their kids.”

My girl, Ellie’s soulless heart weeps as her head stays numbingly (more like shockingly) silent.

“Now get your ass inside, we ain’t going to face the Hartford family head-on tonight at dinner so let’s figure out what we can make for ourselves, ‘k?” Joel pushes her shoulder toward the stairs.

“Pie night!” “Don’t test your luck yet.”

It’s over half an apple pie where the idea is born.

“You remember us talkin’ ‘bout football?” Joel brings up suddenly, plate in hand as he leans back on the side of the couch.

Neither of them bring up their cross-country ‘adventure’. Not the small good or the enormous bad. Red flag territory, don’t go past start.

So if Joel is poking at it…

Ellie kicks her feet up and plops them in his lap, “Yeah, what about it?”

He raises his plate higher than necessary in retaliation, too bad for him ‘cause she could care less. But Joel does settle with a roll of his eyes as he rests the plate against her shins.

“Tommy found a football last time he went out, and with baby Felix, there ain’t any reason for him to be using it yet so…” Joel draws out as he raises a knowing eyebrow up to her.

Ellie feels the black cloud over her head disappear like a flash of lightning.

“Can we play, you want to play, right? That’s what you're asking.” She tastes the spark in her words.

“If you promise that you won’t beat up any other kid for the rest of the year, then yes.” Joel says with a mouth full of pie crust.

“Uh deal, easy deal,” Ellie points her fork at the old man with a sneaky grin. “Gonna beat your ass instead.”

She doesn’t question why Joel laughs at that statement of all ones, doesn’t get the time to even think about it as he starts attacking her feet like the gremlin he is.

Ellie hates him, she swears.

“Omaha!” Ellie yells as she backs up with the football in hand, feet moving side to side as she looks for an opening.

Joel stands about 10 yards away, clapping his hands with that stupid smile on his face. He holds his palms out and Ellie turns to look to her right as she throws left.

The ball spirals through the air with practiced ease and lands in Joel’s waiting hands.

“You know it’s a lil unfair how good you are at that.” Ellie jumps when Tommy’s voice enters into their backyard.

He is leaning against the broken gate with a smile scarily similar to Joel’s. Shouldn’t be too shocking, and yet it is every time. She looks at Joel who raises an eyebrow at her.

With a whiny groan, she turns back around to glare at Tommy and waves him over, “Throw it around, Old Man #2.”

He shakes his head, and Ellie is nothing but insistent even if she doesn’t want him here.

She claps at Joel who throws it back at her, a little wobbly but good enough. The second the football lands in her hands, she is throwing it directly at Tommy’s face. Good thing he doesn’t have thinning hair at the temples because he catches it as if he knew it was coming to him all along.

“Five minutes.” Tommy says, pointing at her with the ball before throwing it right over her head and back at Joel as he rounds the mangled fence.

And just like that, it turns into a game of monkey in the middle, Ellie screeches as she tries to tackle them into the mud.

Five minutes turns into a half-hour into Maria barreling down their throats to pinch her husband's ear in demand of a nap without a baby to worry about.

Which turns into Tommy and Maria swinging together, talking to themselves on the back porch as Joel and Ellie toss it around until the dinner bell rings.

She’s running down the stairs the second she hears the clinking of keys from outside her window.

Fuck Romeo and Juliet, her feet stumble down the steps half tired from her useless homework and all the other tired coming from—

The first thing Joel gets coming back from helping Mr. and Mrs. Choi with their broken front door is a face full of Ellie excitement as she slides across the floors in her socks.

“Drills? I wanna practice my release more.” Ellie rattles off as she grabs her Converse from the door, toeing them on with the grace of a newborn calf.

“Hello to you too. I don’t know, kid. It’s dark already and I’m dead tired.” Joel’s voice bleeds out exhaustion which pulls her attention.

When she looks outside, she is shocked to see that the sun is already down; worse off, it is dark dark outside. Ellie squints at the closest clock and sees that it is only half past 7.

“Oh,” She says dumbly as her world feels like it is about to freeze over a couple of months too early. “Didn’t… didn’t realize, yeah. No, sorry.”

The table isn’t too far so she just pulls up a seat, shoes half on with the laces undone when Joel starts to undo the laces of his own boots. She smiles at him when he asks her if she went to the lodge for dinner to which she nods perhaps too quickly.

He grabs two candy bars from the top shelf (bastard) and throws one in front of her. Ellie picks it up and immediately goes to town on it.

She watches him lean against the countertop as he takes a bite from his. Slowing her roll the second the sugar lands in her stomach like a lead bomb, Ellie sets the bar down when she gets halfway done with it.

“10 minutes.” Joel crumples his wrapper before trying to throw it in the trash can.

He misses.

“You sure?” Ellie asks as she stares at the fallen wrapper.

Joel strolls up to it lazily then kneels down to pick it up. And for once, she doesn’t have the heart to make fun of him and his bad knees.

“Yeah, c’mon,” He tilts his head to the back door and Ellie mirrors it the best she can. “Finish that first though.”

She looks at the candy bar then back up at him, “Half it with me?”

Luckily, Joel’s never been good at saying no to her.

Ellie is whispering along to Tom Hanks’s Jim Lovell just as he says “Houston, we have a problem” when Joel barges into the house.

Her immediate reaction to seeing Joel look like a chicken with its head cut off is to pull the gun out from under the coffee table and roll behind a wall. The only thing that actually stops her from doing that is that the remote is missing.

And she really doesn’t want to miss this part in Apollo 13, it’s her favorite… even if she just watched this last week. And the week before that.

So instead, she picks up another handful of popcorn and tries to size up whoever is following him from underneath her blankets.

“Are we about to die?” She asks as her attention is pulled back to the static-filled TV that is trying its hardest to not explode.

“What? No,” Joel heaves out as he tries to get out of his boots while standing. “I’m about to use that so pause it. I don’t wanna fuck up the tape.”

Ellie squawks at him, “You? Use the TV? Where did grandpa Joel go and where did you hide the body?”

“Ha ha ha, very funny.” Joel finally frees himself from his dreaded boot and closes the front door with a flying elbow.

She does what she is told, untangling herself from her blankets to find that stupid remote— oop, right under her ass that whole time.

Just as she is pausing the tape, her face is met with Joel’s work jacket as he haphazardly throws it to the couch. And misses entirely.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Ellie scrunches her nose up and pulls the jacket off.

Joel is in front of the TV, pushing all the buttons to take out the Apollo 13 tape like it is about to set the house on fire. She watches him shove in a different tape and toss her’s to the side.

“Be careful with that!” “You’re fine, scoot over.”

Ellie curls up to the side of the couch and watches Joel throw himself down next to her, kicking his feet up as he grabs the remote off her lap.

“You’re gonna love this.” He smiles at her with his teeth and Ellie puts it in her memory bank of all the other times he has.

She is pretty sure she can count this event on one hand.

The TV spurts before jumping to a… ugly ass purple screen? Worse than that jacket Maria got her, this shit is basically neon in comparison to eggplant.

Not like that really matters.

—It’s the Heels and the Horns in a hoedown from Old El Paso next on CBS—

Ellie feels her heart in her throat, and this time it isn’t because of fear.

“You… you found a game?” She beams at Joel who nods down at her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and shaking them like they won the lottery (she thinks she used that right).

“I can’t believe it either, ‘94 Sun Bowl.” He says as he begins to fast forward past the ads, but Ellie knocks the remote out of his hand when the camera shows the crowd.

That’s… there’s… so many people. Hundreds, no wait, thousands.

“Joel, this is…” She begins, but can’t really find the words. “The field is so fucking green.”

This is what Before actually looked like, Ellie thinks in utter and complete awe when it hits her that she is actually going to see what a blitz defense looks like, the intensity of an interception being caught, a fucking field goal kick.

“It’s fake grass, shit was basically carpet.” Joel says in wonder, like he’s never seen the Before either.

After 20 years, it might as well be brand new to the both of them, “Fake grass? Carpet? What the hell?”

“You have no idea.” He mumbles as the camera pans to each team lining up to kick off.

Ellie swears neither of them breathes as the kicker boots the football into the air.

She doesn’t know what she is running from. All she knows is that it is faster than her.

It’s weird being back in the Boston QZ, even if the back alleys are riddled with Jackson haystacks instead of smoking dumpster fires. The rain washes away the piss-filled corners as Ellie runs like she never will again.

Her hair is plastered against her forehead, she doesn’t know where her hair tie went or why her hair is down in the first place. It is curling up behind her neck, but she doesn’t focus on the heaviness of it. Not yet.

Breathing becomes increasingly harder as her open mouth catches the water falling from the rusted roofs. It burns her throat like gasoline and tastes like acid.

But the footfalls behind her keep getting louder as she turns corner after corner after corner. Until her shoes suddenly become boots and the scene changes from rain to snow.

“Oh Ellie, I know you’re hiding again.” Fuck, fuck, fuck fuck fuck— her mind continues full steam ahead even though she is frozen still.

She closes her eyes, clenching her fists together as she tries to ground herself, “This is just a dream, He’s dead. I’m fine.”

When her eyes peek open, she expects a burning building around her. Expects the smell of flame-licked wood and the falling pieces of singed papers. But instead, she is in what she assumes to be a church.

And He stands in front of her dressed in white, except for the blood-crusted cross that is attached to His belt buckle.

“Not this time.” He smiles at her with that evil glint in the center of His eye.

Ellie backs up with weak knees, but her spine hits a pew before she can even get another foot between them.

“Oh little lamb, don’t look so afraid.” He coos like you would at a fussy child… okay now, she is panicking.

She is panicking because He keeps getting closer, and the walls are caving in and now there are crude stick figure drawings of Him surrounded by children with pigtails and ribbons in their hair. And Ellie can’t move, can’t breathe as her mouth is filled with the taste of meat.

He raises His hand to her face when He gets close enough to tower over her. Ellie can’t even speak, can’t curse Him and His flock, or the world, or god himself. All she can do is meld her back to the pew and turn away when His pointer finger tilts her chin up so she is looking up to Him.

The sun casts a red halo around His head as the fingers on His other hand plays with her zipper.

“Now treat your Father— Baby!”

Waking up with her wrists together never feels good, but seeing Joel’s eyes desperately staring into her’s means that safety was a bigger priority than comfort.

Ellie jolts up, causing Joel to fall to her side quickly to give her enough room to breathe. Her heart keeps beating like a drum as she tries to take a staggering breath in. It isn’t hard to tell that she had been screaming again with the way her throat aches.

“I-I’m good.” She says while gathering her hair from behind her neck to pull it off to the side.

“Do… do you want me to braid it again, or—” “Joel, I’m fine… really.”

His elbows are resting on the edge of her bed, hands together like he is in prayer and it makes Ellie feel sick. Joel’s chin lays on top of his fists, lips just brushing his fingers as he looks up at her.

“You know you can tell me anything, right?” He asks earnestly, brown eyes glimmering in the light of her bedside lamp.

Do you even give a shit about me or not?

She doesn’t know if she fell asleep with it on or if he found the time to flip it on himself. As if that even matters right now.

“Yeah.” Ellie whispers so her words don’t shake.

Of course I do.

And she doesn’t cry when Joel tucks a piece of hair behind her ear, doesn’t cry when he reluctantly turns the lamp off, doesn’t cry when he turns back to look at her before leaving her room, door open just a sliver. Just in case.

You’re right, you’re not my daughter.

Only when he is gone and everything is so fucking quiet again does Ellie lay back down, sheets off her body as a heavy curl of shame erupts in her stomach.

And I sure as hell ain’t your dad.

Only then does she press the base of her palms against her eyes and sobs.

III.

“Do I have to go?” Ellie moans as she sits on the kitchen counter, kicking her bare feet into the cabinets.

Joel hums like he is actually considering telling her of course she doesn’t. But she knows better, especially when the flier is already posted on their half-working fridge.

“Uh yeah, you gotta go. It’s like, a comin’ of age thing.” He smirks as he takes a sip of his shit-bean juice.

Ellie sticks her tongue out at him before taking a sip of her perfectly sweet orange juice.

The leaves outside rustle in the soft breeze. They are starting to turn all kinds of colors that has Ellie thankful that she gets to witness it again. Sure, the oranges, reds, and yellows remind her of every fall to grace Boston.

At least here she doesn’t have to worry about slipping on her ass after stepping on the slippery, leaf-covered sidewalks. No sidewalks, no slips.

“Coming of age, my ass. I’ll show you coming of age.” She mutters, plopping down from the counter when the clock hits 7:55.

“Yeah yeah yeah, you’ll thank me later, fighter.” Joel manages to pull at her ponytail as she fails to duck away from him.

Grabbing her backpack, she flips him off after she pulls her Converse on. When she is out the door and not in sight of any of the windows from the house, Ellie stops for a moment to look up at the sky.

“Riley, how the fuck am I gonna do this?” Ellie murmurs, letting out a heavy, drawn-out sigh and continuing to walk to her slow death by Tennessee Williams.

She knows that if she really didn’t want to go, Joel wouldn’t force her. Ellie knows that and considers taking advantage of his weak side as the days to the dance flutter away.

But she also knows that Joel is getting a weird kind of excited over it. One that almost makes him lighter on his toes as he asks vague, but pointed questions about what she was thinking about wearing.

“They are doin’ this flea market thing this weekend for clothes to wear if you wanna go.” He says over the TV one day, watching that tape of The Game once again.

Ellie looks up from her homework that is sprawled out in front of her. Normally, she would be working on it in her room, but her desk lost a foot in the middle of the night and absolutely scared the shit out of her and Joel when the thing collapsed out of the blue.

Why the fuck does a kid in the apocalypse even have homework? She thinks that is the more important question, Miss Leslie should be happy she turns in anything at all like this pterodactyl she’s doodling in the top left corner of her Algebra homework.

“Oh, cool.” She forces herself to say as she grips her pencil until it feels like her knife.

Her lack of enthusiasm grabs Joel’s attention immediately, like he has third eye of this kind of stuff. Stuff being insecurity.

“What’s up, kiddo?” The Game paused and now she has nowhere to run or hide.

Fuck me, she thinks as the pencil rolls out of her hand and onto the table. Fuck me.

“Did… can I ask you a question?” Ellie asks, trying to push away the fear of being shut down.

And from what it looks like, Joel’s face shows that he is trying to stay open too, “Go for it.”

“Did Sarah go? To Homecoming?”

Even though Sarah is a more welcomed topic than she was months previously, Ellie can always tell that her name stabs something dead in Joel’s heart.

“No, she didn’t,” He starts with a tilt of his head like he had just remembered something. “Outbreak Day happened a couple weeks before she could go.”

Of fucking course it did.

Ellie waits to see if Joel is ready to bolt, sometimes she’ll ask a question that will touch a soft spot that gets him sitting on the back porch until it’s dark. But right now it seems like he is doing fine.

Even if his fingertips are digging into the cushion next to him.

“You remember what she was gonna wear?” Ellie follows up with, a tinge of weakness in her words.

But at least this question makes Joel smile.

“God, what an event that was,” He sighs out, tipping his head back to rest on the back of the couch. “It took two trips into the city to find the ‘perfect’ dress. It was purple, like light purple. Reached her knees, had these tiny ass straps.”

Ellie tries to imagine herself in something like that and immediately wonders if she looks green. She feels green in the face, not from envy, but from… she doesn’t know.

There is only one photo of Sarah around and to Ellie’s knowledge, it still lives in Joel’s bedside table. She’s seen it once when she went searching for her knife after he took it for the night (she was wielding it like an idiot in response to a nightmare where a cleaver was available).

Sarah looks like the kind of girl who could handle purple frills.

“Got these butterfly clips to put in her hair, don’t even get me started on those heels.” Joel rubs the back of his hand against his cheek.

“Heels?” “Oh, yeah. They were shoes like… ah, I don’t know how to describe it. Made girls taller.” “Oh… gotcha.”

They sit there in silence, not looking at each other, but not ignoring either.

At some point, The Game is put back on and Ellie is staring down at her homework like it is the closest thing to ever come to killing her. The idea of wearing something sparkly though is a close second.

They go to the flea market.

And Ellie tries, she really does. There is a dressing room set up in a spare house across from all the stalls and Joel doesn’t even bother to tell her to show him the dresses she puts on. He just sits there and waits.

None of them feel right. She’s never not worn pants (other than that hospital gown, but that barely counts) and it feels wrong to be so… open.

So when she walks out with all the dresses draped over her arm in defeat, shaking her head at Joel as she tries to swallow down whatever emotion this is bubbling up in her, he smiles softly.

Joel hangs them up as she waits, far away while looking at a line of ants traveling in front of her.

She gets knocked out of her own head when a group of guys walk past her, shoving each other as they walk into a stall at the very end with pants and jackets and not dresses—

That’s when she sees it.

“Hey, El. Don’t worry about it, you don’t have to force anythin’ you don’t want—” “Joel, can we go in there?”

Her finger doesn’t shake as she points to the stall, directly at what she can’t tear her eyes from. Joel’s eyes travel in confusion before settling on the storefront. His face relaxes in realization.

What that is, Ellie doesn’t know nor cares to ask.

“Yeah, let’s check it out.” Joel says, jogging after her as she all but sprints at the go-ahead.

T-minus 1 week to the dance is when Ellie finally decides to come clean.

“I don’t know how to dance.”

She was supposed to be in bed by now. It’s not like she has a bedtime, but Ellie knows herself to be the worst when she doesn’t get eight hours of sleep so to save everyone else from that horror, she really tries her hardest to not stay up too late.

Maturity at its finest, huh.

But she couldn’t stop tossing and turning. It’s not like she has a date (fucking imagine that), but Cat is going to be there and she is objectively one of the prettiest girls in Jackson. If Dina has said anything about her having a ‘crush’, don’t listen to her trash mouth.

Ellie just really doesn’t want to relive the dread that went through her the first—last—time she danced with Riley.

Joel’s eyes pop up from behind his book. He is laying down on the couch, his sleep shirt already on and a pair of readers threaten to slip off his nose. He dogears the page he is reading and puts the book on his chest, cover up.

The Beginning: Sputnik 1 to the Present

“Well, I doubt dancin’ was a priority to teach in military school.” He points out as he sits up, throwing his legs off the couch and patting the now-open space next to him.

Ellie rings her fingers into her shirt as she walks over and sits down. She doesn’t stop herself from leaning into Joel’s side when the breeze from outside makes its way through a cracked-open window.

“Like a really, really shitty school,” She mumbles softly. “I just… I don’t want to look like an idiot.” Like the wrong type of people.

Joel nods along, bringing his arm around her shoulder to lean her into his side more. She goes without a fight, but keeps her hands on her shirt.

“I wasn’t the best dancer in Austin, but I had moves… a long time ago.” Joel jokes, but there is some uncertainty behind his words.

Ellie turns her head to rest her chin on his shoulder.

“You? Know how to dance?” And if she wasn’t having a crisis right now, there would be a massive, evil plan to embarrass him somehow with this new piece of information.

“I’m aware of what dancin’ entails, yeah,” He laughs out as he grabs the top of her head to shake it. “You want some pointers?”

“Duh! I’m desperate here, man.” Ellie exclaims, pushing off him as she jumps onto her feet.

“You, me, tomorrow night. Sunset.” She spreads her arms apart to paint an invisible picture as if they are planning out a war battle rather than a dance lesson.

But Joel just nods, not willing to get in the way of his girl and her wide imagination.

Not yet.

Turns out Ellie has two left feet, which works out ‘cause Joel has two right ones.

“Oh shit, sorry!” She wails in frustration when she steps on Joel’s foot again.

At least he has his boots on now, the fifth foot stomp was enough to almost take both of them out.

“You’re really bad at this, kid.” He laughs as Ellie throws her arms in the air, beyond defeated and stupidly annoyed at the fact that she can shoot people point blank, but not keep a steady four count.

“It’s over, there is no hope.” She whines, crossing the kitchen with angry steps before slamming her fist over the boombox for it to pause the music.

The lack of ABBA leaves them surrounded by only the sounds of Ellie’s huffing and puffing.

“And we got three more days to figure it out— hey, look at me.”

Ellie places her hands on the counter, facing away from Joel, not really understanding why she is so upset. It’s just dancing, it isn’t the end of the world. That already happened.

But it feels like another failure, another thing she can’t do. Another thing she wanted to do, but it didn’t matter. Because they already tried.

Suddenly, she isn’t so sure if this is about dancing anymore.

A bump to her hip is what pulls her back into the kitchen, fingers aching with how tight she is holding on to the busted tile.

“Ready to try again?” Joel leans down so he can make eye contact with her.

When she gets far away, it’s the best bet they have to get her to hear anything. Ellie swallows and then jerkily nods her head. If she has any chance to fix this then it has to be now, before it’s too late.

“Hit it.” Joel tilts his head to the boombox and that’s what gets a resemblance of a grin to return to her face.

The bells ring out when Ellie takes Joel’s hand.

No more carefree laughter. Silence ever after.

“Okay remember, two steps then one back. Relax and follow my lead, ‘k?” He emphasizes.

“Yeah, I got it, old man.” Ellie places her hands on his shoulders, almost on her tiptoes to be able to because of his stupid shoes.

His hands ghost over her waist as he counts out the beat, “One and, two and, three and, four and— remember to hesitate on the step back.”

They do circles in the kitchen and Ellie starts to relax, lets her shoulders down, and doesn’t breathe like she is running away from Infected clawing at her back.

Knowing me, knowing you ah-ha.

“There you go,” Joel murmurs as he pulls back to spin her around, which Ellie successfully does for the first time that night. “You got it, atta girl.”

There is nothing we can do. Knowing me, knowing you ah-ha.

“Again! Again, one more time.” Ellie laughs as she falls onto Joel’s chest when he pulls her back.

We just have to face it this time, we’re through.

So he spins her around and around until she gets dizzy enough to where she can’t see straight, and Ellie wonders if this is what take-off felt like.

Breaking up is never easy I know, but I have to go—

“Knowing me, knowing you. It’s the best I can do!” She sings, throwing her head back when she hears the low register of Joel’s voice vibrate around them.

It’s been a while since she left the house with her hair purposefully down.

Ellie pats down the waves of her hair, part a little wacky down the middle but that is just how it falls since Maria started cutting it.

The white dress shirt is tight around her neck and she wonders how anyone used to wear stuff like this for more than a couple of hours at a time. The cuffs hang over her fingertips as she messes with her hair more.

“El, you’re gonna be late!”

“I’m comin’ I’m comin’.” She yells out of the upstairs bathroom.

Taking a deep breath in, Ellie nods at herself as her eyes travel down her figure in the mirror. Her cheeks are fuller yet hold some shadows, the bags under her eyes are prominent but nothing like they were a year ago.

She almost feels human.

Her pants are still a little long even after Mrs. Choi tailored them to repay for the front door fix; Ellie picks them up so she doesn’t trip down the stairs. When she finally makes it down without breaking a leg, she sees Joel standing in the middle of the house, pacing as he does.

Ellie coughs in her empty hand, and tries not to giggle when Joel’s head whips around.

And no, her eyes don’t immediately dart to the box in his hand.

“I, uh,” Ellie starts, rubbing the back of her neck. “Can you help with the bow tie?”

“Of course.” Joel grins, but even that can’t hide the tightness in his voice.

He puts down the box in his hands on top of the dinner table, right next to where her matching pinstripe jacket is hanging from the chair she usually sits at. Ellie hands the bow tie to him when he gets close enough to flip up her collar.

It’s a black little thing, just good enough to make it look like she tried. Joel is surprisingly quick at it for someone who looks like he has never worn dress shoes before, let alone a normal tie.

“You’re good at this, cowboy.” Ellie says as her chin stays tilted up.

He presses the collar back down in no time and backs away, not without patting her shoulders first.

“Thanks, smartass,” Joel counters as he leans over to grab her jacket. “Turn around, let me help ya.”

She does what she is told, the jacket is a bit big, but nothing too obnoxious. Some would even say it was on purpose. When she turns around, she gives Joel jazz hands when he gets that sappy look on his face.

“You clean up well, kiddo.” He says while tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear like it’s his nervous habit.

Ellie just mirrors his rough version of a smile, “So… what’s in the box?”

“Oh!” Joel backs up, hands out in front of him in a wait here, motion. “Well, usually guys would get these flower thingies for their date. You got no date, which is fine by the way Sarah didn’t either, so I just… it’s not flowers, but—”

“Just hand it over. I’m runnin’ late remember.” She parrots back at him, swiping the box out of his hands.

When she opens it, Ellie swears her heart stutters.

“You… you got me a watch…?” She looks up at him and then back down.

It’s small, has a black leather band that is as thin as her pinky finger. The shape of the face is a rectangle, navy blue and silver.

Joel just nods.

Ellie picks it up from the box and hands it over to Joel while she flips over her wrist to put it on. Unlike everything else she is wearing, it fits perfectly.

“Well… I guess I’ll get my shoes on and we can head out.” Ellie says quickly as she passes Joel for her Converse (none of the dress shoes fit her, figures).

“Oh, uh. You want me to come with?” Joel turns around to follow as she toes them on.

“Do you not want to…?” Ellie responds in the same confused tone.

Joel shrugs his shoulders, “Usually the… adults didn’t, just stayed up until y’all got home.”

“Oh.” Ellie spits out, standing by the front door with her fingers clasped awkwardly in front of her.

“But if you want me to—” “No, no. It’s cool, I can just find Cat and Dina… it’s chill.”

“Okay.”

Neither of them moves.

Ellie shifts her weight to her other leg when her breathing gets shallow on her right side. Damn ribs.

“I guess I’ll go then…” She points behind her at the door.

“And I’ll be right here.” Joel gestures vaguely to the couch.

Turning on her heels, Ellie manages to get to the door before pausing. Her hand is on the handle and she hasn’t heard Joel move yet. She can’t leave like this, not without—

She thinks she takes him by surprise when her head hits his chest. Ellie wraps her arms around Joel’s waist, giving him a hug with her eyes squeezed shut.

“Thanks, Joel.” She whispers, pulling away as quickly as she got there.

Before he can even respond, she is out the door.

If she gets back and sees Joel passed out on the couch with his book over his eyes, no one has to know.

And no one has to know that he wakes up with a blanket over his lap that he most certainly didn’t have on him earlier.

This time when she appears in a church, there are flowers.

The doors are open and she is standing just outside the entrance, but her feet refuse to move forward. There are people sitting in the pews, heads not down in prayer but conversing with each other.

The first person Ellie recognizes is Henry.

He has his arm around Sam. They are sitting in the front row, talking to someone Ellie can’t see the face of but knows exactly who it is.

Sarah, who is leaning against two men Ellie has never seen before but feels like she is supposed to at least know who they are.

Wait, is that dude one of the guys from the paintings at the house outside of Baltimore?

Ellie tenses when everyone turns around to look at her. She looks down at her clothes and notices that she is in her suit again. And there is a basket of petals, yellow little things, hanging from her loose grip.

The basket almost flies out of her hands when someone abruptly pulls her away from the entrance.

“You good, kid?” She swears her eyes are about to pop out of her head when Tess stares right back at her.

“Yeah…” She says dumbly, eyes running down Tess’s figure that has no sign of dooming Infection.

Instead of blood and puss on her neck, Tess has a simple necklace on to pair with her very long and very white dress. Is that sparkly shit on her eyelids what makeup looks like?

“Get out there then.” Tess pushes her back to the entrance, but the frown Ellie got used to in those hours of knowing her is replaced with a toothy smile.

Ellie forces herself to turn her head away from Tess, she doesn’t know if it is out of fear of her turning into a Runner at any second or what.

But when she is finally able to look down the aisle, Ellie finds something even more astounding at the end of it.

Joel.

Except he isn’t her Joel. His hair isn’t so gray, skin is not so damaged by the sun, shoulders aren’t so tense. He looks alive in a way that Ellie hasn’t seen anyone look a day in her fucking life.

He’s in dress shoes, tousers, and a jacket.

His bow tie matches Ellie’s.

He looks happy as he steps down from the steps he is on to nudge Sarah. He looks happy when he waves at Tommy and Maria, and Felix who is dressed in a shirt with a printed tuxedo on it.

And Joel looks happy especially when he looks straight past her.

Ellie blinks and suddenly the doors are closed in front of her. She panics, looking left then right where she finds a window reflecting every color under the sun. Her feet take her to it and she places her fingers on the ledge so she can peek in.

Tess has her fingers gripping Joel’s elbows, creasing his jacket but he doesn’t look like he cares. Doesn’t look like he notices at all. He places his hand on her cheek and leans in to kiss her softly. Ellie watches as everyone cheers, but no sound escapes the church.

The last thing she notices is the wicker basket that was once in her hands, overflowing with petals, now sits on Sarah’s lap; rotting.

When Ellie wakes, the sun is already up and shining into her room, trying to trick her into believing it is warm out even though it hasn’t been for the last few days.

Her hands lay on top of her stomach, underneath all of her blankets, like she was placed in a casket.

And even though she can feel some type of dampness on her cheeks, Ellie can’t help but smile. All in all, there are worse ways to start off the day.

IV.

Ellie makes it seven months before it starts to really rear its ugly head again.

She doesn’t know if it was the first bite of rabbit in her mouth or the frost collecting in the smallest corners of the windows that have her racing into the lodge bathroom.

Lucky for her that her stomach is relatively empty, the meat didn’t even manage to touch the back of her throat as she spits it out in the toilet. But she is left dry heaving as her body tries to pump out phantoms.

“Oh, kiddo.”

She leans her cheek against the porcelain just to have something cold touch her feverish face. She knows it’s gross and she’ll probably regret it later, but right now she could really give two fucks.

A hand pushes back some of the fallen pieces of hair that cups her face then trails to her back, right between her shoulder blades. Ellie’s eyes flutter closed as she sinks into the feeling.

“This sucks.” She mutters into the crease of her elbow.

Joel hums in agreement as he rubs his thumb along the collar of her long sleeve.

“When is it gonna stop?” Ellie asks and it feels like a moment of weakness.

As if Joel hasn’t cared for her questions, whether they be big or small. Sure, he got annoyed sometimes at the stupid ones, or the ones that didn’t really matter other than to fill the time trekking across the country with someone who had never been outside cement walls.

But not once has he ever made her feel like he didn’t care about the important ones, even when he tried to.

He stays quiet behind her, and Ellie wonders if he is thinking about lying to her.

Wouldn’t be a first, she thinks almost deliriously as the pounding increases from behind her eyes.

No lie comes as his silence turns into a calming hum that leaves his chest. Somewhere in Ellie’s fucked up heart she wishes he didn’t grow a moral code now of all times.

She thinks—knows—that she would’ve stopped shivering minutes ago with a simple you’ll be just fine.

School has become a morning-only affair.

Lunch has gotten a little too… difficult to manage. The energy to make it through that without feeling like all the eyes in the universe are on her drains Ellie like a siphon.

So her schedule goes like this: get up tired, get ready tired, stare at the fridge tired, watch Joel watch her tired, go to class tired, go to lunch tired, leave 30 minutes early tired, go to the house and pass out on the couch until Joel wakes her up to try again tired.

If someone has talked to Miss Leslie, she wouldn’t be surprised. The first few days of skipping got her a talking to, but at some point Ellie started receiving her homework before the lunch break with more pitiful looks.

Everyone is respectful enough. Dina asked once (“You were in a frenzy when you first got here, eating like a heathen. Where’d that go?”) and Ellie didn’t pause for a second to chew her ass out which got her the cold shoulder from her and her new shiny boyfriend, Jesse.

Cat just kept her distance which… hurt, but whatever. Ellie knows it’s self-preservation.

It’s just that sometimes she feels like she never left that cage at all.

Maria has been coming by more recently which has her even more on edge.

Apples to sprouts have begun to litter their counters at times when Ellie isn’t home and Joel is most definitely signing in to the watchtower. Ellie doesn’t know if she has a key, or if Maria just breaks in through a window.

That is a funny thought, imagining Maria with baby Felix on her back crawling through the space between the top cabinet and sink.

I’m losing it, Ellie unlocks the front door with trembling fingers.

The hair tie on her wrist is loose when she pulls it off to tie her hair up in something akin to a bun. Maybe the next time Maria goes into their crawl spaces she will bring a pair of scissors.

By the time Ellie is stripped of all her layers, she is exhausted. The banana in her hand is the only thing keeping her tethered to reality as she takes a tentative bite.

It settles hard in her weak stomach and if she had any extra energy at all, she would use it to probably punch a hole in the wall.

It’s not even meat, her mind wails like a red-faced child. Why is this so hard?

The TV is off in front of her, she hasn’t had enough to eat over the past week to pay attention to anything except her own reflection.

She knows it is herself because of the fruit in her hand. But that is the only thing she is able to recognize.

The hollows under her cheekbones are back, the sinking of her eyes to the back of her head and the breakage of hair by the temples that throb and throb and throb.

Ellie puts the banana peel on the coffee table when she finishes then tucks herself into the couch. Her comforter from her bedroom has migrated down the stairs with all of her blankets.

One of Joel’s sweatshirts exists on the recliner they got from one of their neighbors ‘out of the goodness of their heart’.

But she knows one of the fishing poles went missing around the same time.

Before Ellie can even consider getting up to put the sweatshirt on, she passes out the second her head hits her pillow.

They stop going to the lodge for meals when Ellie starts throwing up blood.

It’s embarrassing the way Joel has to carry her out with all of town staring at their backs. But Ellie can’t stop the tears from running down her cheeks as her stomach convulses over and over again; angry, mean, violent, violent, violent.

It feels like it has never not been this way; it feels like it will never end.

“Why are you here?” Ellie mumbles out from under her blankets one night.

Joel is sitting at her feet, allowing them to lay over his lap as he flips through a tech book for a new project Tommy and he have started. Ellie is sure that he has told her plenty of times what they are trying to accomplish, but she can barely remember her own name at this point.

“Got taken off patrol for a bit.” Joel responds as he grabs her big toe and pulls it teasingly, his fingers hot against her clammy skin.

“Oh,” Ellie whispers. “That’s a bummer.”

“Nah.” Joel says quickly, but not out of panic or anything.

Says it like it is as easy as breathing, “Rather spend time with you anyway.”

“Ha. Old, old man.” Ellie pouts in an unusually high tone that grates on Joel every time she does it as she struggles to get out of her cocoon.

This time though, it goes without notice.

She doesn’t even manage to get both arms free by the time Joel has her cup of broth in hand. But also doesn’t stop him from helping her tip the rim to her mouth as she takes a small sip.

It’s still warm.

Which is both good and bad, it opens her chest from the mental lock that is across it. But it also reminds her of the splatters of His everything against her face. Suddenly she is hit with the memory (hallucination? Did this really happen?) of picking out brain matter that got stuck in her front teeth.

Real or not, the old popcorn bucket by her head gets used not even 10 seconds later.

It takes a bit to get her settled again after that. When she finally does, the room is spinning with the force of her blinding headache.

She keeps her eyes closed just so she doesn’t have to see Joel’s worry all over his face. What has he got to worry about? Shouldn’t he be worried about his own shit?

“Hey,” Ellie slurs out as sleep starts to grab her again. “Have you seen any immune people out on patrol? I sure haven’t, weird huh.”

Be worried about that.

“Go to sleep, El.” Is all she hears before everything turns black once again.

“It wasn’t even this bad when I first found her after… or maybe I didn’t notice, but I just…”

Ellie wakes up to murmuring. It’s dark and she wonders how long she had nodded off. She doesn’t move other than kicking her feet out to rest on the warm spot left on the couch. Even though she has socks on now.

“I don’t know what to do, Tommy. She’s fucking wiltin’ away.”

Joel’s voice is muffled by the walls and closed windows, but Ellie focuses her eyes enough to see the shadows of him and his brother standing outside in front of the street lights.

But even now with the little awareness she has, Ellie can start hearing the dread seep and spread in Joel’s tone.

“You know your girl, she’s a fighter at heart. She’ll get through this.” Tommy sounds so sure, Ellie wishes she could believe in herself as much as he did.

Fighter at heart? To think she was gonna save the world, ha.

“I should’ve talked to her more, to find out what happened in… and now, she is askin’ shit about immune folks and I don’t know what to do.” Me either, Joel, Ellie thinks as another stupid, tired, frustrated tear rolls down her cheek.

She’s so fucking tired of crying.

“Maria has an idea of a plan, we’ll talk about it later, ‘k? Get rest, she… she needs you, even if things go south.” The noise of a clap on the arm echoes in the night.

Ellie rubs her face into the closest blanket when she hears the front door open. She forces her eyes to close when the footfalls of Joel’s unsteady feet reach the living room. He doesn’t turn on the lamp like she expects him to.

But he does move her feet instead of going up the stairs. Sits down on the now cold spot of the couch and places his warm hands on her icy shins.

“I got you.” Joel murmurs as he squeezes her leg like she is going to float away.

And she believes him, even if her final thought is what is the point of being alive if she isn’t even going to try.

Seeing Maria’s face first thing in the morning is new.

Ellie blinks groggily, eyebrows furrowed in confusion as she pulls a weak hand out to rub at her crusty eyelids. As much as she would like to go guns blazing, this is all she’s got right now.

“Morning, Ellie.” Maria says with a bright smile and it lacks that fake ass tone she first used when they met.

“‘Orin’.” Ellie manages as she turns to lie face up, remembering that she’s in the fucking living room, when Maria starts sipping on something that smells like grass.

Everything hurts.

“How are you feeling?” Maria questions, standing up to move from the recliner to the couch.

Ellie can’t stop herself from curling away from the attention. The last person she wants to face while feeling like Grade A Shit is the person who (has apologized to both of them) attacked Joel dick first, metaphorically.

First impressions die hard.

She moves her feet into her torso as Maria sits down where Joel has been spending his days bothering her—

“Where’s Joel.” She asks in hopes that it sounds like a demand when a more sinister feeling falls over her.

Her eyes start trailing over the walls as she forces herself to sit up. Her back spazzes at the force of her subtly thrashing, but she doesn’t stop until the blankets are off and she has a clear opening to the front door.

All bones and no shoes, no problem. Done worse.

“Don’t worry, he just went fishing with Tommy before the pake freezes over.” Maria places a hand on Ellie’s knee which has her jerking away at the contact.

Pfft, pake.

“I would’ve gone.” She mumbles to herself and no one believes that for a second so good thing her audience are just the ghosts inside the walls and a mother.

So good thing a baby starts crying before Ellie can, now that would’ve been a scene.

Ellie watches Maria get up again and round the corner. It only takes seconds for her to come back around with Felix in one arm and a small bed in another.

“I didn’t want him to wake you up,” Maria says with a shrug as she puts the bed down on the recliner, rocking Felix’s wails out of him. “You seemed… tired.”

“Screamin’ does that to most.” Ellie avoids the half-ass observation that is most likely a gateway to invasive questioning as she settles her back against the armrest.

She can’t remember the last time she has sat up for so long, and Maria drops it.

“Can I hold him?” Ellie asks Maria once Felix’s cries finally become sniffles. “I can do it.”

Do it be not drop Felix on his head, she knows how small she looks right now and how she shakes just sitting doing nothing. But she is sitting up, there are way too many blankets on top of her and if anything, Felix would have a soft landing.

Maria responds by laying sleepy Felix in Ellie’s arms.

It’s been a while since she has seen the stinker, he is bigger than he was as a newborn. Ellie wasn’t allowed to hold him for the first couple of months, no one directly said that but she never asked. For the longest time, she just thought that they didn’t want an orphan touching their kid.

Even she knew deep down that wasn’t the truth.

And now he’s going to be turning a year old soon, right when the snow melts.

That’ll be a good day, Ellie thinks to herself as she coos at his yawning. For the both of us.

Maria offers to pull her hair back when Felix starts pulling on it. Fucking finally Ellie finds her moment to ask if she can cut it instead. Maria looks resistant, but Ellie just smiles up at her when Felix wraps his palm around her finger, holding on for dear life.

And like most adults that manage to see through Ellie in a way where she is still there, Maria can’t say no.

Joel comes back to see Ellie’s head resting on Maria’s shoulder, fast asleep.

Felix is still in her sleeping arms as both of them hold each other. He places the half dozen fish he has strung up into the sink as Tommy sits down in the recliner, baby bed forgotten on the floor.

Maria figures out how to get Felix from Ellie without waking her up, but it comes with a price. A frown to be exact when Felix’s weight is off of her chest.

So Joel takes Maria’s spot, thanks her with a nod but doesn’t tell them to go. Instead, he leans Ellie’s head to rest on his chest as he wraps an arm around her.

He places his fingers in her hair and realizes how short and thin it is when the hair tie pulls out with ease. It’s the shortest her hair has ever been he thinks, just tickling past her ears now.

When he brushes his thumb over her forehead, the frown releases. Not into a smile, but something less heavy; more content. And really, that is all Joel could ever ask for.

“You cook? Like more than from cans or stealin’ pie from the neighbors?” Ellie asks in honest curiosity.

Joel rolls his eyes, mouthing her words in a mocking tone.

“What? It’s a serious question, you dick!” “Oh, so you’re questionin’ my skills now, but not when I was feedin’ you fuckin’ bird on the road.”

Ellie sits there and digests the statement, he has a good point. Even if he is being an asshole about it.

“Carry on.” She responds as she shuffles into the kitchen.

She has a blanket wrapped over her shoulders that are already covered in Joel’s sweatshirt. Her toes are warm in her socks and slippers that Maria found in the back of her closet. The sweatpants are long, but comfortable even with the peeling fleece lining.

Feels like she is in a constant hug, something she never thought she needed nor really wanted until it was around.

Ellie watches with falcon eyes as Joel oils up the skillet. The fish to the side is dressed with the head still attached. You’d think looking into the eyes of a dead animal would make her feel queasy, but it does the opposite.

It feels like she is able to breathe, head above water at last.

“Gonna sear it up with some of those herbs Maria brought over, can you cut up a lemon actually too?” Joel asks, turning his head to look down at the girl pressed to his side.

“I don’t know, can I?” Ellie hates how genuine everything sounds coming out of her mouth these days.

Where did Her teeth go?

“Yeah,” Joel starts, nodding to himself. “I think you can.”

The blanket falls to the floor like a cape, Ellie doesn’t want to waste time putting it away on a chair or something. Just in case Joel changes his mind.

She pulls out one of the drawers and grabs the smallest knife. It is a little unsteady in her hand, but it feels familiar. Joel slides over a cutting board when Ellie grabs the last lemon on the counter.

It is only one cut so Ellie puts her whole weight into it, the lemon slices in half with ease just as Joel plops the fish into the hot pan.

And no, she does not jump when it sizzles, thank you very much.

“Throw ‘em in.” Joel points to the lemon as he shakes the pan to get the oil evenly around the edges.

Ellie tosses them and giggles as they pop at the touch of heat. It only takes a handful of minutes for the kitchen to smell like cooked fish and Ellie watches Joel remember the days when people did anything in their power to not cook fish inside.

Oh, what he would do for a grill.

“Smells… fishy.” Ellie points out helpfully as he takes it off the heat.

“Clever, now get some plates and forks, will ya?”

The moment of truth is when they sit down and Ellie is faced with real, solid food for the first time in weeks.

Joel just digs into his like he doesn’t care (she can read right through him too), and Ellie watches him take a bite from the stomach to the tail. She looks back down at her’s and stares into the one visible eye.

The fork separates the meat from the skin with ease. Joel warned her about the tiny translucent bones so she fishes (ha, funny) them out before bringing a small bite to her mouth. She doesn’t waste any time and shoves it in.

But she does sit there and wait for her body to reject it. To tell her all hope is lost and that they should start digging a grave now, or at least figure out more smoothies for her to drink until spring.

Because it is just winter.

Not forever, right?

Yet the rejection never comes as she keeps her focus on the eye below her. She chews and tastes fish instead of iron. It is salty, and sour with the lemon.

And very much Not Human.

So she takes another bite and pretends she doesn’t see Joel relax in his chair like he was ready to run for the bucket by the couch.

Ellie cleans her plate, fork scraps and all, for the first time in a long time and all she can feel is relief.

World: 0; Ellie: 1, fucking take that.

She doesn’t have dreams repeat too often.

Honestly, the amount of dreams she has is few. Sure, science has told everyone that they dream every night, it’s just that some of them last seconds, and some stay with you even after you wake up.

If Ellie could go back to the darkness that just lingered in the back of her head after way too many FEDRA drills, she would. It’s getting tiring carrying these vivid ones around during the day like nothing is wrong.

Anyway, when she appears in a burning building, she almost has to roll her eyes at the dramatics because really? Is this all she could think up?

“Burning building, burning building.” She sings to herself as she strolls around the familiar layout.

All the tables are gone, no railings for anyone to hide behind. It’s quiet except for the sound of crackling wood as it turns from an earthy brown color to utterly black. It’s almost like she was in a big fireplace, just like the one blocked off in the living room.

She turns to look behind her, to see the barricaded door and hear the inevitable rattling keys off a belt loop. This is a fight she knows well, conscience or not.

But all she sees is… nothing.

Okay, that’s different.

Ellie turns back around and it’s as if she is in a hallway. She isn’t, she still is in Silver Lake and all its fiery glory, but now it’s like she has tunnel vision with no flashlight.

The flames climb higher with each step she takes until they are all around her, with nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. So she keeps walking forward.

And yet, there is no fear in her body. Ellie isn’t afraid as she keeps going for who knows how long. Doesn’t even flinch when she sees a table at what she assumes to be the end.

It’s ever so slightly off-centered, just enough to give Ellie a view of what lingers behind it.

She stops.

And stares.

Then howls.

It would’ve been enough to see herself chop up Him from this point of view. It would’ve knocked her on the ass to watch the cleaver go into His head over and over again. It is always enough.

But watching herself crouching in a cage, dressed in something flowy and white, like a feral fucking animal is one thing.

Watching herself, holding a black hand out of the bars with His equally black heart beating in it is another.

Herself, teeth spikey and red, screeching as she rips into the heart until it is no more than pulp is the last thing.

Especially when Ellie (not her, not her, not Her) is only able to stop wailing when her mouth opens like a faucet and starts dripping blood all over her hands.

She begs for the fear to take over, for her to start running and never look back. For her to be so overcome with it that she somehow passes out in the dream and wakes up somewhere new. Anywhere: in the woods, in The Hole, under Him if she has to.

Anywhere, but here.

The fear never comes.

Not even when she wakes up.

Okay, World: 1; Ellie: 1.

V.

Ellie has been preparing herself for the first real snow of the season.

Now whether she has really been aware of that or not is a different question.

Even though she hates gloves with a burning passion, she knows exactly where all of her pairs are and which ones need to be layered because of the thinning lining in the palms.

She has been ‘collecting’ beanies from abandoned trucks from around the playground, even if she hates those more. Has dozens of long sleeve shirts from her closet and Joel’s because he doesn’t close his bedroom door often enough.

Her new boots came from a trade. It was hard to part from the book, but Ellie told herself that she could only read about Sputnik 1 so many times before it got old.

Joel finished it last week anyway.

She tore out all her favorite photos from it before handing it off to stupid fucking Jeremy who set down his sister’s last season boots and then scrammed.

But she was ready. It would snow and everything would be fine. She wouldn’t be cold, especially now that fish has become such a constant in her diet.

Ellie wasn’t going to starve, not with the stockpile of canned peaches and pears she has hidden under her dresser.

Wasn’t going to wake up on a cement floor after falling off a bloody mattress in a basement again. Wasn’t going to be fed to the unaware, but equally as starved.

It was going to snow just like it did in Boston, just like all the times Riley and her would sneak out to eat the top layer before it got all gross with mud and shit.

And everything… everything was going to be fine.

“—are you even listenin’? Ellie?”

She doesn’t even turn around, “Oh, sorry. What’s up?”

He must have been yelling if he made it all the way to her room. She didn’t even hear her bedroom door open. Good thing they are in picture-perfect, nothing-ever-goes-wrong-here Jackson or she could’ve had her head chopped off without even realizing it.

“I… well…” Joel begins to mumble, low enough to where the words disappear from the air, but this time Ellie knows it isn’t because she has gone far away again.

Only then does she look at him.

It’s a little ridiculous to have this fully dressed man standing in the middle of her room, especially when she is in her pajama pants and baseball tee, surrounded by comic books and trading cards.

At least the pink and orange wallpaper is gone, replaced with a very tasteful green (sage to be exact) Ellie thinks. Man, now that would’ve been a sight.

“It’s snowing.” Ellie smiles, trying at least as her eyes struggle to pay attention to Joel, itching to gaze back on the white, white, white.

“Yeah, it is,” Joel says responds with a heavy swallow. “Can I sit down next to ya?”

Ellie doesn’t say anything, just scoots over enough for him to not get his gross boots over the rug they had to wash Infected guts out of months ago. She pulls her knees up to her chest and rests her chin on top of them as her breath gets caught in the window, fogging it up.

She can almost hear all of the questions swarming out and around Joel’s big head: have you been sleeping? Has it been restful? Why don’t you wake me up anymore? Why don’t we talk more?

Where do you go when you look far away? Is it peaceful? Are you safe there?

Are you okay?

“I was thinkin’ maybe we play hooky today.” Is what he settles on, the coward.

A fun coward though, “Wait, really?”

Ellie glances back at Joel with enough force to give her whiplash (and she does feel it in her neck). But the smile she is giving now is a real one, the one where she shows her teeth even if them being all crooked makes her feel icky sometimes.

“Oh… you don’t like it, we don’t have to.” Joel sighs out with that shit-eating grin on his face that Ellie just has to shove him, it’s been a while since she has seen that look.

“Shut up, man. What are we doing? Where we going? Details!” She exclaims, jumping from her frozen spot by the window to go to her closet.

Ellie throws her clothes on top of her bed as she tries to find the perfect outfit she made for this day, this moment, to go out into the snow and not think she was going to die the second it touched her.

“Surprise or no?” Joel asks himself as he rubs his beard which is fuller now, Ellie wonders when that happened.

“Come on, one hint.” Ellie begs, stomping her feet like a child.

Joel shrugs, scrunching his nose up in that one way he does when he thinks he has the upper hand on her.

“Glove day.”

And yes, she still hates gloves, but suddenly they don’t seem half bad.

They stare down the hill together.

“Man, fuck everyone in class today.” Ellie barely mumbles out with a smirk on her face.

Not like anyone can see it with how covered she is. Never in her life has she worn a cotton mask to keep her lips warm, but Joel threw one at her on the way out saying she’d need it.

And if he is wearing a beanie out, that means he is probably right.

“Had to talk Joe a couple doors down to take my shift,” Joel nudges her shoulder with his elbow. “Worth it?”

“So worth it.” Ellie whispers, not caring if he can hear her or not.

The snow is still coming down, but not as hard as it was in the early hours of the morning. She can still see 2.0 and Shimmer at the bottom of the hill and could probably hear them snorting if she really focused.

She’s too electric to pay attention to anything other than Joel talking about the (read: his) perfected sledding strategy.

“So back when I was a kid, we used to spray oil onto the bottoms so they’d go faster. Which I don’t recommend.” He says, flipping the metal half-orb thingy they will be using to slide down.

“In your pack?” “Hell yeah.”

Her giggles get lost in the flurries as Joel pulls his backpack off to show the cooking oil spray that they have been using for the fish. He tosses it to her and Ellie almost drops it due to her gloves alone.

“We just need a small coating, quick spray, got it?” Joel raises his eyebrow at her when she gets the cap off and shoves it in her pocket so it doesn’t get lost.

“Yeah yeah yeah, I got it. You’re lame, I’m not.” Ellie says as she starts to spray the everloving fuck out of the sled.

Can’t change anything now.

So Joel being the gentleman that he is, lets her go first. Which isn’t scary at all. Nope.

“See that snow pile down to the right? Try to avoid that ‘cause we got no clue what that’s about, ‘k?” Joel says into her ear as she balances her butt on the sled.

His hands are on her shoulders so she doesn’t almost slip off again before actually going down the hill. Stupid oil.

“Okay, so one last time. Lean left and right to change direction, sit straight up to slow down, lean forward to go fast.” Ellie parrots his earlier instructions when her heart starts to beat against her ribcage like a bird.

“Exactly, kiddo. Ready?” Joel isn’t one to ever sound excited, but if he was, Ellie imagines it would sound something like this.

Fuck no, Ellie thinks as she grabs the sides of the sled until her knuckles tingle.

“Yeah, but like this is safe, right?” Ellie gazes up at the last second, right as Joel’s hands start to let her go.

He grabs back with an even steadier grip, “Of course, I got you all the way.”

Right.

“Let’s do this.” Ellie hunkers down, closes her eyes, and lets him let her go.

She hits the snow pile.

And Ellie blames the falling snow entirely because that shit is hard to see through when you are moving basically at the speed of light. She could hear Joel yelling for her to move to the fucking left, but it was too late.

By the time she opens her eyes, the sled is already stuck in the snow base, shooting her forward. Good thing she learned about inertia last week, now she has a living example of it.

The fresh snow is soft to the touch, yet heavier than soaked clothes.

She has to fight her way back to the surface, digging with her useless hands until the light of day graces her vision once again. Her face is cold, the mask has fallen off so now her teeth are chattering.

When her head finally pops free, Joel is already there.

“Holy shit, Ellie.” He stresses her name in that tone that says so much yet nothing at all.

“That. Was.” Ellie starts slowly, wiggling herself out. “Awesome!”

Joel falls back on his ass in utter relief when she laughs, fist-pumping the air.

They don’t skip out on their relative roles in Jackson after that, but they do continue to sled whenever time frees up.

Ellie has mastered the jump after the third go-around. Now she is trying to learn how to do that thing Joel called snowboarding even though he yells at her any time she stands.

She doesn’t miss the nervous looks he gets whenever she falls, never has never will. But someone has to keep him young.

It’s been a good system, kind of like how football was. Have a bad day? Sled. Have a bad night? Sled. Have a traumatizing memory unearth itself during dinner? Sled.

And it works well, to the point where it isn’t just Joel she is going out with. Some other parents have been hosting rounds over the nights to take a handful of them out after every successful patrol.

It took some effort to talk him into letting her go even if he was going too. Let alone the one time he had a shift at the gates.

Puppy Eyes worked yet again in her favor.

Everything was… shockingly bearable, more than she thought it would be. Then a blizzard came in and really, it’s her own fault letting herself to be lulled into a false sense of security.

You’d think she would know better by now.

“Hey, get back safe.” Joel claps Tommy on the shoulder once the three of them make it from the stables to the house.

“Not old like you yet, big brother.” Tommy yells out with that trademark Miller Attitude as he throws his coat hood back on, and disappears into the wall of white as Joel curses at him.

Ellie snorts, shaking the snow off her when she steps into the house. She tosses her boots into the corner so they can melt in peace before throwing her beanie off, hitting Joel in the back of the head.

The street lights are on even though it is midday due to the heavy snowfall. It is a little weird since that morning, only a handful of hours ago, there was barely any cloud cover.

And she knows she shouldn’t do this because it won’t lead anywhere pretty, but she can’t help but think about what she would’ve done if this happened when Joel was bleeding out like a motherfucker.

They had that house and basement, but what if the roof fell in on them? She doubts anything in that town passed protocol Before, let alone 20 fucking years into the end of the world.

They had zero food (zip, nada), so she wouldn’t have had any energy to dig them out, or make a hole big enough to push Joel’s semi-dead ass out.

Then the perfect thought to spiral is this kicker: would she… would they have been forced to eat each other?

Yikes.

“I got a fire goin’, kiddo. Sit next to it and warm up.” Joel fades her out of her thoughts when he places his cold hand on the back of her neck.

She knows he was just trying to tease her so the flinch she has is half of what it used to be. At least she doesn’t have a knife on her to threaten his side like that one time he accidentally snuck up on her on their way to Salt Lake City.

But he’s Joel (the third eye!!!) so he notices the flinch all the same. He immediately pulls his hand away and holds it to his chest. Ellie leaves the room so she doesn’t have to look him in the eye.

She does what she was told and sits next to the fire. If she stares off into space far enough, she can’t hear the crackling of the wood and she would like to keep it that way for as long as possible.

Seeing as the snow is starting to touch the edges of the windows already, Ellie has a feeling they are going to be here for a while.

So she catalogs what is in her backpack. There are some snacks in it from her not-hoard. Her two least favorite comics for kindling, a pair of socks and underwear, another pair of gloves, some mints, a bottle of water, and her knife.

Joel has her pistol in his room, but she should be able to pick that up when he flips over in his sleep. Then they will be ready to run from those fucking bastards and Him—

“Here.”

And just like that Ellie remembers that she’s in Wyoming, a whole year into the future that is actually the present, when Joel hands her a mug of cider.

“Thanks.” She murmurs, setting it down next to her knees.

She has to get out of her snow jacket or she is going to melt before spring even has a chance to come. Once she is rid of her heaviest layers, her hands are encompassing the hot mug again.

Ellie stares at Joel’s steaming mug of something that is probably half of whatever she has and half whiskey that he left on the coffee table before going fuck knows where.

She wonders if he is ever going to come back.

And of course he does.

She sips from her mug as his feet hit the ground from the bottom step of the stairs. He sounds heavier like he did with his limp, and Ellie wonders if she needs to check his stitches again.

Get a grip, she shrieks at her own inconsistencies. It’s almost been a year! 12 months, 365 days! You’re 15 now! You aren’t a child!

(But her mind also begs to ask: where did the time go? Why did it not bring me anything back?

Where’s my peace, my quiet? Is this punishment, to be miserable until the end of time as everyone dies around me?

When is it going to finally fucking stop? Will it ever?)

Joel strolls in like he is lighter than air. Ellie guesses he is because he is carrying his guitar case. It didn’t take a long time for her to figure out he is happiest with the instrument in hand.

If only she could get him to sing louder than a fucking whisper.

“I thought no time like the present, huh,” Joel gestures to the window while holding out the case toward her. “Time to get your play on, girl.”

“Me?” Ellie scoffs. You’re not afraid I am going to bash your head open with it?

Not like you know any better.

“Nah, I was talkin’ to the demon in the fire. Get over here, you lil shit.” Joel rolls his eyes, patting the couch cushion next to him.

She groans, flopping onto the couch dramatically. Her mug clicks against the table a little too hard, but neither of them says anything about it. Joel places the guitar in her lap once it is out of the case.

“Can I…?” He begins when his hands float over her arms.

Ellie nods briefly. He positions her left hand first, setting up a chord she assumes before flinging her right arm over the bottom.

“So what’s the song of the hour?” She asks when Joel pulls away to double-check the pegs.

Pushing her hair out of the way, Joel grins almost to himself like the mastermind that he is.

“This is a C chord,” He points to her fingers. “Then… follow me, this is gonna turn into a D. Just like that, perfect.”

C D, Ellie burns them into her memory. C D then G Em. Whatever that means.

C D G Em
C D G, and severely note the difference here: D7

“With you, my brown-eyed girl.”

Ellie’s eyes almost pop out of her head when Joel actually sings. His voice is a little shaky, like he is stretching out a tendon that hasn’t been used in years, but still strong like a memory you can’t let go.

“Van Morrison, right?” She asks when he doesn’t continue, trying to fill the space so his voice doesn’t echo back.

Joel looks at her like she has grown two heads, and what about it? Just because Ellie’s favorite genre is 80s doesn’t mean she doesn’t know anything else.

“Yeah… Van Morrison.” Joel responds with a twitchy kind of nod as he shuts the blinds on himself, closing himself off completely.

Ellie’s seen this before. Seen it a billion times actually when Joel played Mr. Macho Man in front of everyone they crossed paths. Everyone, but her until—

Swear to me that everything you said about the Fireflies is true.

“I’m dead tired, so I think I’m just gonna take a nap.” Ellie stands up quickly, forgetting the guitar is still on her lap.

It doesn’t take a tumble with how fast both of them grab for it. She feels bad only for a second then she remembers that look on his face.

“Uh, I’ll let you know when I got dinner ready then. I’ll be here.” Joel says it more like a reminder than a reference to his location.

Of course, he is going to be here, just like she is going to be here. Forever. Well, not forever forever.

Just long enough, “I know.”

“Hey, um,” Joel spits out as she turns away, she stops with a hum. “We can’t leave the guitar out of its case when we go outside with it, ‘k?”

“What—” “Pigeons love a-coo-stic guitar.”

Ellie smiles to herself, shaking her head as a wet-laugh gets stuck in her chest, “2/10, we don’t even get pigeons here, old man.”

It’s rare for Ellie to physically feel anything in her dreams, but right now she is freezing her ass off.

Which makes sense because she is basically wearing nothing. She has that flimsy hospital gown on that does the bare minimum: no socks or shoes.

Her toes wiggle against the tile floors. They are dirty, once white but now covered in grime and cracked to hell. Ellie shakes her hands out as they start to become clammy. So now she is afraid?

Could’ve used this earlier.

When she looks up, she has to cover her eyes from the overhead lights. They are bright for how much they are flickering, casting a green hue over the walls of the hallway she is in.

Clipboards and blood is scattered all over the doors, which is a disturbing look when it is all over the carefully painted cartoon zoo animals. The only door that is open and clean is the one behind her, the one with the giraffe.

“Ouch, what the hell?” She hisses when she takes a step forward, immediately stepping on glass that wasn’t there in the first place.

“Fuck!” She screams when she hears a gunshot.

Glass-covered floors or not, Ellie runs in the direction of the gunshot. She twists and turns her way through the building until the tile becomes a dirt road. Green hospital walls turn into a clear night sky: no clouds, no moon, no snow.

Dirt road to grass then into a ditch.

She has no clue where she is. She’s never been here before.

But Joel has, her brain warns.

“Joel… oh fuck, fuck fuck fuck.” The twigs snap under her feet, but she doesn’t stop especially when the smell of gunpowder becomes stronger.

“Oh, baby girl, don’t do this to me. Don’t go.”

She’s never heard Joel wail, and from what it looks like, the younger version of Tommy that is standing next to her hasn’t either. It is a hard thing to hear, guttural, yet hollow, and she wonders if this is what she sounded like when Joel first found her after Him— David.

All types of shattered.

There’s a hole where Sarah’s stomach is supposed to be. Ellie can’t see the gaping injury though because Joel keeps rocking her, chest to chest as he brushes her hair away from her quickly paling face. His own face is thinner here, hair less gray.

But as quick as the scene came, it changes. Just slightly.

The next time Ellie looks down at her hands, they aren’t there. It startles her enough to look at Tommy and see if he is seeing the same thing too, like she was there at all. But now Tommy has longer hair and his signature mustache.

One blink later, Ellie is in Joel’s arms.

She doesn’t have a hole in her stomach, but in the corner of her vision, she catches just a glimpse of her reflection in Tommy’s eye.

Her skull is completely gone, brain missing too.

There is no time to ask questions, only enough time to realize that she isn’t breathing.

And Joel somehow isn’t either.

But his hand still moves to tilt Ellie’s face towards him so he can look her in the eye just as he presses his pistol to his temple, “I swear.”

For the second time in Ellie’s short life, she is covered in another man’s brains.

Ellie wakes up right before she can yell his name out into her bedroom.

Her heart is racing as she sits up, pushing her hair back so she can make sure her head is actually on instead of laying in some field in the middle of buttfuck Texas.

And it is, she doesn’t know why the fuck it wouldn’t be, but all of her is here.

So is all of Joel, right?

There isn’t any rhyme or reason for her getting out of bed like it is about to catch fire. And it’s stupid, the haste she is making all for her sweatpants get stuck in her twisted sheets, causing her to trip and smack her forehead on the floor.

It’s impressive the thud doesn’t have Joel racing up the stairs two at a time. That only worries Ellie more.

As much as she would love to lay there and wallow, she has to get up. She has to make sure Joel’s okay.

Just as she is about to turn over to get on her knees, she hears something through the floor.

G C G D

“So hard to find my way, now that I’m all on my own.”

Somehow through the floorboards, Joel’s singing comes through cleaner than she would’ve thought. Maybe it’s because her ear is directly on the ground, not even the rug under her to muffle it.

It’s dumb, she should probably get up and take a look at her head. She can’t imagine another concussion, but Ellie thinks she can only take a handful of more hits to the head after getting shot off Callus before her brain turns into mush.

But she just continues to lay there useless.

“I thought it just the other day, my how you have grown,” And Ellie swears she doesn’t imagine the crack in his voice. “Cast my memory back there, Lord. Sometimes I’m overcome thinkin’ about it.”

Sarah was lucky to have Joel Before. He probably sang her to sleep every night when the goodness of his heart was easier to grasp.

Didn’t have to pick her up from school early for acting out. Didn’t have to wonder if she made it through the night without screaming, wailing, crying, crying, crying— herself awake. Didn’t have to force-feed her like the runt of a litter.

Joel wouldn’t have lied to her. His actual Brown-Eyed Girl.

Be careful who you put your faith in. The only people who can betray us are the ones we trust.

“Do you remember when we used to sing...” Ellie mumbles along as the echoes of his strumming continue like tomorrow will never come.

And yet, it always does.

Chapter Text

+ I.

There was a plan.

Ellie was going to wait until her 16th birthday. Would let them throw a party in the lodge where she got a mini-cake in whatever flavor available with whatever icing already prepared. Would wait to see Patrol Ready! in swirly writing and blow out her candles like it was the best day of her life.

Then she would start going to the stables more often, just to check up on Shimmer and clean her coat, shovel her shit, feed her oats and sugar cubes and apples. Take her out for more in-border trots then some outside ones with a rifle on her back and Joel not too far behind.

Her out was going to be a gift, some type of in-season fruit because for some reason Wyoming was covered in beds, trees, and whatever else fruit comes from. Maria has been teaching her about them because school is still Aristotle, Pre-Calc, Dickinson, the Civil War, Hemingway, and all that shit.

(The idea that any of these kids, looking at you Jeremy, are going to leave these walls one day is a death wish waiting to happen if you asked her).

She’d tell the stable hands she was grabbing a quick pickup of enter-fruit-here as a surprise so they couldn’t tell anyone where she was and try her hardest to not look suspicious with her massive pack for a trip that would last maybe a few hours.

The point is: she was going to stay in Jackson, not cause any more trouble than what she already had, and wait until she was under the radar and not be something for everyone to stare at.

Until she was just as nothing-goes-wrong-here as the place she laid her head to sleep every night.

There would be a letter left on Joel’s pillow, or the fridge, or the kitchen counter, to tell him not to follow her. It’s a long shot that he wouldn’t so she would have to leave when he was busy fixing something else on the other side of town.

She couldn’t risk leaving when he was on patrol because just her luck he would know just by the change in the fucking wind.

It just seemed easier that way, to find the truth by herself at ground zero. Salt Lake City isn’t that far by horseback, it would probably take a couple of days. If everything went smoothly that is.

Odds were… low on that, but not zero.

Maybe she would run into Marlene and some Fireflies, one’s that weren’t killed by the swarm of raiders, and talk some sense into them; that the cure is still out there even if they tried and failed again and again. Ellie was so used to failure, basically her middle name, but they couldn’t give up. What else was there to do, but try?

It’s not like the world has really moved on, Jackson was a hoax. A dream-scape.

And there had to be something to stop these nightmares. Maybe if she was awake this time when they took her in rather than flashbanging them semi-unconscious, they would have a chance. She would have a chance to at least wash off her sins or whatever you want to call them.

No more external blood, no more violence. Just a normal, average-girl heart left. A heart that liked sparkles and butterflies, definitely not boys, but maybe a girl that made her feel the way Riley did most of the time.

Ellie wasn’t going to keep living like this, she couldn’t. She refused to be what’s left of humanity without giving it her all.

All this being said, she thought she’d last longer. Maybe make it past 16, maybe past 17, maybe all the way to being a couple of inches taller and actually living somewhere not under Joel’s roof.

Who knows, maybe she would’ve made it long enough that it didn’t matter anymore, that this perfect, little life was good enough even if the dread, the guilt, the shame, the regret continued to knock at her window every night.

By then, maybe she could just turn over, and sleep them away.

But when has Ellie ever got what she wanted though?

So, time heals all wounds, I guess.

“This can’t be happening.” Ellie mumbles to herself, the back door swinging open as she pushes her way out of the house.

Her ears are ringing, everything is ringing. She isn’t so sure she is breathing anymore as she sprints down the stairs until her feet touch the snow-covered ground.

Her soles sting as she runs on top of the ice patches. It takes a couple of moments for her to notice that she forgot to put shoes on, but when it finally hits her, a hiss leaves her mouth as her feet begin to burn.

The back door slams closed as the wind begins to pick up, whipping around her as it howls in the early night. Ellie jumps at the noise, but refuses to turn around as she stands still in the backyard.

She taps her pointer finger to her thumb as she begins to shake in realization.

“Ellie!” Joel’s voice bellows into the dark.

The street lights from out front don’t reach back here, casting everything in a heavy shadow. Ellie is sure that if she put her own hands in front of her face, she wouldn’t be able to see them.

She curls her fingers into a fist instead, “Joel, go the fuck away.”

If her voice carries, she wouldn’t know because Joel is barreling out of the house like a drunken sailor. He isn’t, hasn’t had a drop the whole night, and Ellie wishes he had because then she could push all of this off as a sick and twisted joke.

How did they even get here? They were talking about Christmas, Ellie’s never celebrated it for real before and Joel wanted to get a tree, and put colorful bulbs and a string of lights around it.

Talking about gifts. A desk, an electric blanket, a life-sized stuffed giraffe, the truth.

They were sitting, then standing, then yelling.

“C’mon, El— there ya are, let’s go back inside. You don’t got shoes on for Christ’s sake.” She can hear Joel talking quietly like you would at a cornered animal that is ready to pounce, as he approaches her from behind.

Which ends as well as you can expect it.

“Don’t fucking touch me!” Ellie yells, voice cracking when the heat of Joel’s palm grazes her shoulder.

She doesn’t even have a fucking jacket on.

The view Joel gets can’t be a pretty one. Ellie has never been a cute crier. Dina loves to remind her of that fact whenever they watch dog movies in town, and that is just her forcing down sniffles.

But she can feel the snot dribble down to her upper lip, the rawness of her eyes, and how much they sting when she blinks.

It’s enough to get him to back away as she turns to face him.

“Please, kiddo.” Maybe what makes her so angry is that he isn’t asking for immediate forgiveness.

I regret it every day… I should have never… I wish I could go back and change… If only things were different…

None of that because he actually believes he did right by her. That he’s right.

And I stopped them.

“You lied to me!” Ellie stumbles back, shaking her head wildly as another sob forms in the back of her throat. “You swore, and you fucking lied to me.”

Even in the low light, Joel’s eyes glimmer. It hurts to look at him when they glow like this, they are so big. And she wonders if the Puppy Eye trick she had up her sleeve was original at all or if she has been sprouting roots from the base of him since being body slammed into the wall back in Boston.

“And I’d lie again, to give you that time where you didn’t need to know. You deserve to be,”—alive—“A kid and only that for once.” Joel speaks with conviction that aches in the gums.

So Ellie pushes back by taking a step forward, “And who says I’m happy being a kid? Do I look like a happy, normal fucking kid to you?”

She can’t feel her toes and by the looks of it, she isn’t doing so hot if Joel’s face is anything go off. He keeps looking above and around her, cataloging the way she stands, if she is hurt, if she is there at all like whenever he would wake up in a panic when they were on the road.

Ellie can’t really tell if that is by looks alone, or if her words have finally hit a spot that makes him just as sore as Sarah does on any good day.

“You deserved a chance to find—” “I was going to save the world, and you fucking took that away!”

Her words echo in the yard, hitting off the trees and the scrap metal of the shed thing that leans against their fence. She can feel everything in her chest start to bubble up, all of it.

I’m capable of more than claws, fists, teeth, blood, violence. I can hold the world in my hands and cherish it. I can protect the people I love and want to learn to love. I’m strong enough, I’m big enough.

“You thought you deserved peace,” One step forward. “You thought you deserved a second chance,” Another step forward. “And you took everything from me!”

I was gonna be the savior because I’m different, I’m special. Everyone knows that, everyone told me that, except for you—

Ellie pushes Joel, hands flat on his chest, and screams, “David would’ve never treated me like a fucking child!”

She feels so small when she all but collapses against Joel’s chest. His footing is steady as he holds them up, but he doesn’t touch her, doesn’t go in for a hug, doesn’t push her hair from her face.

Doesn’t cup her cheeks with his hands, peering into her eyes and say oh, baby girl, everything is gonna be just fine.

Nothing is ever going to be okay again. There’s no coming back from this.

Why did I say that?

“Ellie…” He says her name like a question, like all those questions he has kept under the surface because he is a shit liar, and she knew it.

Ellie is a coward; she’s the coward.

But he also says her name as if it’s his last plea, the last thing he will ever ask of her.

Stay, “I’ll go back.”

She pulls herself away from Joel, wrapping her arms around her torso after wiping her face clear. The shivers that rack her body are more than from the cold, but that doesn’t matter.

“But we’re over.” Ellie spits out through her chattering teeth, sizing him up like the first day she met him (it feels like centuries ago; it feels like yesterday), and tries not to pay attention to the hair tie around his wrist.

When the fuck did that get there?

She checks him on the shoulder when she stalks past him. The tears won’t stop and at this point, Ellie doesn’t even realize they are still falling as her feet grace the wooden floorboards of the outdoor stairs.

The back door opens up as easily as it did before. Ellie all but throws herself inside and grabs her blankets from the couch. Takes the Apollo 13 tape from the coffee table, the books stacked by Joel’s new workbench, and her fresh Chuck Taylors from the front door.

Ellie stumbles into her bedroom with a wail stifled by the palm of her hand, as if she could push it back into her chest and eat it whole.

Everything hurts so bad like an open wound; hot and sensitive to the touch.

She knows now and nothing feels right like it was supposed to. And he knows now, Joel knows—why did I say that, why did I fucking say that—and that feels even worse.

With the weight of the world pressing down on her, the room closing in and the heaviness of reality clicking around her ankles like iron shackles, Ellie does the one thing she originally planned to do.

And flees.

By the time Joel makes it back inside the house, the sun is starting to show its ugly face.

He manages to land in the chair closest to the front door when his eyes find a neatly folded piece of paper. With shaky fingers, he unfolds it in hopes to find something he shouldn’t wish for.

Or maybe he was just wishing for Ellie’s chicken scratch.

“Hey, El. You good?”

She blinks and notices that Tommy is about 20 paces ahead of her. One of his eyebrows is twitched up as he looks back at her with better-hidden worry than Joel ever had. But worry nevertheless.

Ellie shifts her bow on her shoulder again, “Oh yeah. Sorry.”

“No worries, just don’t want ya to get lost.” He drawls out like a joke, but she knows better.

His brother would have his head next to everyone else’s if anything happened to her. No avoiding that clearly.

The ice crunches under their boots as they continue on the path. The cliffside is bare, the trees rustle loudly as the branches twist and scrape against each other. The lack of leaves causes them to rumble louder in the wind than they usually do in spring.

She makes her way to Tommy’s side again, trying to focus on their current task of hunting for something to bring back to town for people to bid on for the holidays in a raffle.

The only raffle that she remembers participating in was for an extra five minutes in the showers.

“I think I see a deer from here.” Tommy puts an arm out to stop her, voice dropping along with his knees.

The swallow gets stuck in her cheeks as she takes a step back from his forearm. Just over the next switchback, she sees the fawn herself. For a second she believes it is looking straight back at her.

“You want to take the shot?” Tommy asks with wide eyes, and Ellie just stiffly nods, not being able to find the words.

Now that she is thinking about it, she can’t remember if she ever told Joel about the deer she shot on the outskirts of Satan’s version of a resort. She had to, right? Ellie knows she has the talk too much gene, especially when she can brag about something.

But maybe she hadn’t. Salt Lake City, to and from, is foggier these days as she tries to calculate every step that went ever slightly off course. There is a lot of material to go through.

Somehow, she always starts from that old people-couple’s fence line rather than the Jackson stables.

Ellie pulls an arrow from her bag and then lines up her shot. Her point finger rests recklessly on top of the nock as she brings the string to her cheek. She holds the shot even though the fawn stopped moving seconds ago.

Taking in a deep breath, Ellie lets the arrow fly. It cuts through the air like a bullet would, but with a whistle attached to it. And hits the fawn just above the armpit.

“Holy shit, kid. He wasn’t kiddin’ ‘bout your accuracy.” Tommy mumbles from behind his binoculars that magically appeared.

Ellie is going to get herself killed one day if she keeps this far away shit up.

The fawn runs off with a limp so they take their time following it. There isn’t anyone out here to dodge, no one who will take their kill, no one who would dare to. Still, Ellie feels like she is going to get sick with every step she takes, thinking it will be her last.

And Tommy is shockingly a talker. Who would’ve thought.

“So… I hear you’re hangin’ out with Felix at night, you sleepin’ alright?” He asks as they trek off the forest path.

Ellie just shrugs, not sure what she is really answering.

“‘K, uh. Maria said that you’ve been likin’ it. That true?” The blood trail starts to get heavier, droplets turning into pools congealing in the melty ice.

And at least Maria knows when to back the fuck off, “Yep.”

“Neat…” Tommy trails off as the hoof prints get unsteadier. “Well, uh, Joel—”

“Did I sign up for an interrogation or a fucking hunting trip, man.” Ellie snaps when the fawn comes into view, lying dead on its right side.

“Fair enough.” Tommy mutters, kneeling down to check for the lack of a pulse.

Ellie stands over the head and looks at anything but the visible eye. The arrow is covered in the blood that was racing down it, but Ellie grabs it anyway. She pulls it and ignores the slick noise it makes when it pops out.

“He wanted me to tell ya that he is clearin’ out that garage behind the house, if you want it.” Tommy sighs out in relief, like he had something important to get off his chest.

Ellie rolls her eyes. Stupid, dramatic Miller Attitude.

“I’ll grab Shimmer and Clove,” She turns around with a grunt, happy that a bow is a billion times lighter than a rifle. “Don’t let anyone take the stupid fawn.”

“Alright— wait, who would take the deer? Hey, Ellie? Ellie!”

Ellie’s Christmas gift to town is out of the goodness of Miller family’s heart.

The conversation went something like this:

So yeah, great.

“Don’t people have to be certified for this kinda shit?” Ellie asks Maria who is actively flipping over haystacks like they are paperweights.

Ellie always knew that there was a bunch of empty space behind the stables, but never really took the time to scope it out. She likes to snoop around as much as the next person, but honestly, she just assumed that’s where all the horse shit went if they were good on fertilizer.

Not a make-shift archery range.

“Does it look like Jackson follows the rules all the time?” Maria tilts her head and Ellie kind of wants to say uh yeah, why else would I be here but decides against it.

She doesn’t want to chance her telling Tommy to cook her fish next, that man burns everything he touches.

Ellie follows Maria, dragging her feet through the wood chips as she tacks on the flimsy target paper, “So if anyone gets shot, it’s your fault right?”

“Ellie, I am going to be here the whole time,” Maria sighs when the last target is in place. “Maybe you should’ve said no to taking that shot with Tommy.”

Moving into the garage is starting to look really good right now.

For someone who was so sure that Joel would rip her limb for limb a year ago, it’s like getting whiplash every time Maria acts like she is actually trying to drive Ellie back to him.

It’s a crisp day, not a breeze in the chilly air. She doesn’t know what they would have done if there was. The last thing anyone wants is an arrow to the head—

“Okay, bows are strung. Cones placed, you remember our little lesson?” Maria asks, not looking behind to see if Ellie is organizing the arrows.

Of course, Ellie isn’t doing what she needs to do. Instead, she is sitting on the weak plastic table they flipped up, kicking her feet hard enough for her heels to click the underside.

“Split groups by age, give kids the lighter pull weight, teenagers can struggle with the 20 pound ones. Uh, don’t shoot anyone.” Ellie lists off, voice weakening as the sound of people approaching enters the atmosphere.

Hushed conversations surrounded by laughter.

It reminds Ellie of the playground. Dina has managed to talk her into joining the snowball fights with the younger kids which is like way too fun. She didn’t understand why she was so resistant at first.

Then when she had this kid pinned down with a snowball to the face, and he let out that kind of laugh that shakes your whole body, she was like oh yeah.

You sound like Sam.

“And remember to tell them that they are doing well.” Maria sings with that fake-ass smile, ugh.

Ellie thought they were past that, “What if they aren’t though?”

Maria opens her mouth and Ellie can almost see the words on her tongue for her to drop the attitude. But she shuts it when she realizes that for once, Ellie is asking her a genuine question.

“It’s crucial to tell kids that they are doing well, it builds confidence. Whether they are actually doing well at whatever they are trying to accomplish or not is… subjective.” Maria responds calmly as she waves at the incoming crowd.

“That’s lying, you know?” Ellie sharply points out as she stares at Maria who has a more truthful smile pulling at her cheeks.

“I know— welcome! Yes, you can sit on the bleachers! We’ll begin shortly.”

Ellie stays seated on the table as Maria directs everyone with open arms, her feet now still.

There’s no way Maria knows, right? Right?

She only breaks eye contact with the back of Maria’s head when she notices the last few stragglers… ah fuck.

“Oh Ms. Ellie Archery! Kick ass!” Dina yells, hands cupped around her mouth, as Jesse waves like a lunatic from behind her.

“This is gonna kill me.” She mumbles to herself, wishing she had a wall to bang her head against.

Guess the table will just have to do.

“Shhh, I got you.” Ellie whispers, bouncing Felix against her hip.

She has no clue what time it is other than it is late. More like really early morning, early enough that her words slur as she tries to blink herself awake.

As if she was sleeping.

Felix continues to cry, but it’s quieter than the first screech he let out.

The first time Ellie heard his bubbly cry from the nursery, it caused her heart to lodge in her throat. She immediately got off the couch and dashed into his room just to see the little guy fussing.

Only seconds later did Maria reach the room.

“Sorry that he woke you, he’s been getting better at this. I swear.” Maria laughed, but that normal lightness in her voice was covered by utter exhaustion.

And though it isn’t the point, Ellie never wants to hear an adult swearing anything ever again.

Still she got Felix in her arms, and placed his head to her heart. Ellie stood at the door, refusing to take another step forward as she watched Maria rock him back to sleep.

“You know, uh. I can help with him while I’m here, I don’t mind.” Ellie told Maria once he was settled back in his crib.

Maria blinked at her, “You’re a guest, Ellie.” You don’t owe us anything.

Ellie wiggled like a worm on a hook, but stood her ground.

“Even though you aren’t actually in charge ‘cause communism and all doesn’t mean Jackson can run without you so. Let me help, I don’t… I’m not…” She trails off, not really sure how to tell Maria that she isn’t sleeping anyway so it doesn’t matter if she is ‘woken up’.

It didn’t take a lot of convincing to get a sleep-deprived mother to fold.

“Stop giving me and your mama a heart attack, stinker,” Ellie coos as Felix pulls at her loose hair. “Your dad is passed the fuck out so don’t worry about him.”

His eyes are wide open as he lets out a large yawn, making Ellie giggle in the lamplight as she leads him to one of his walls. They are covered in shapes and numbers, easier to do it with paint than try to find a rotten game or book.

“This is a circle, see? No corners, all smooth, just like your cheeks.” She points at the circle and then grabs his pudgy hand to trance it with his tiny fingers.

The clearest thinking Ellie can manage is during these moments when all her focus is on Felix and his big eyes and small brain. He looks at everything with such wonder, like how Ellie will twirl his curly hair with her fingers and pull it down just for it to coil up again.

Or like how he slaps her bite mark before running his fingers against the bumps.

Felix only does this at night, mostly because her mark is covered during the day because she can’t trust Tommy or Maria to listen to how she got it if their immediate thought is oh shit my kid’s in danger.

Not like she could blame them, he always will be in some way.

But at night, when everyone else is asleep and Ellie has the chance to wear a t-shirt, it’s almost as if he gets tunnel vision on the pattern of raised skin.

She sits down in the rocking chair in the corner by the window when he starts to squirm in her grip to find the best spot to mess with the bite mark. His fingers pinch and prod, but nothing like how others have.

He’s just curious and Ellie can’t blame a baby for that. She’s too curious for her own good too.

“You want me to sing to ya?” Ellie asks as he starts to settle, one hand still on her forearm as she cradles him. “Don’t make fun of me, okay? I wasn’t made for this.”

This being singing, but also this being here in this house, in this town, on this planet.

And if she lets herself get far enough with it, this being human, acquaintance, friend, companion, cousin, kiddo, lil shit—

“I’m taking a ride with my best friend.” Her voice was definitely not made for singing.

But if she does it quietly, the vibration in her chest is just good enough to get those eyes to close, “I hope he never lets me down again.”

Her eyes glance up from Felix’s face to look out the window. It isn’t hard to see the house from here, she is only down the street and barely at that.

From here, she can see that the porch lights are still on.

“He knows where he is taking me,” Ellie continues even when her vision starts to get blurry against her better judgment. “Taking me where I want to be.”

But Felix is so close to falling back to sleep, “I’m taking a ride with my best friend.”

She tucks one of his curls behind his small, tiny ear and lets out a shaky breath when his eyes finally close.

When she looks back up, the house is dark.

Ellie forgets about Christmas if you could believe it.

Tommy is too busy with chopping down other people’s trees to get one for the house. And Maria is too swamped with town festivities to tie lights onto the porch railing.

Ellie isn’t too bummed out about it, not like she had any expectations. Plus side growing up on your own for the majority of your life she likes to believe. But it is a little rough walking past all the homes with these wreath things on their front doors.

So maybe she didn’t forget about it.

Most people aren’t at the lodge for dinner that night, but Ellie went with Maria who wanted to make sure everyone who didn’t celebrate Christmas were taken care of. Ellie saw Dina there with her family and waved awkwardly from a distance as she shadowed Maria who carried a sleepy Felix on her back.

At some point, Ellie started back to the house when something caught fire in the kitchen. The smoke was… a little too much.

Tommy and a few others without plans are out on patrol so when she gets back, she isn’t shocked to see all the lights are still off.

It feels weird entering a house that isn’t yours, but she doesn’t know where else she would go. She looks over her shoulder and the house down the street is dark too.

Ellie shuts the front door with the back of her heel before toeing off her boots. Her motions echo in the empty house and everything feels hollow even when she finally manages to turn a lamp on.

But once the light touches the hallway, she notices something.

A box.

She peers at the closed door, eyebrows furrowed, then back at the box. Ellie walks towards it tentatively, poking it with her finger when she gets close enough. It isn’t all that big, but better safe than sorry.

There is thin, brown paper over it and a mangled bow faces her. Ellie picks it up to look at the top and there is a sheep.

She thinks it’s a sheep at least, a very poorly drawn one surrounded by stars and… on the moon.

Sitting down on the runner, Ellie crosses her legs and plops the box in her lap. She flips it over and pulls at the tape holding it together. It’s clear and tacky instead of the hard-ass, silver duct tape they used for their shoes.

Carefully, she pulls the paper away from the box to see the faded Converse logo. Ellie just got some though, they are up in her room and waiting for the day the snow finally melts away.

She opens the lid and finds— “Oh.”

Three wooden figures lined up in a row, surrounded by hay so they don’t bump into each other. The surfaces are glossy with oil and reflect in the light.

Ellie picks up the first one, a spaceship. More like a rocket, but she grins when she sees Spaceship written on the bottom in smudged pencil. There is one window, etched bolts, and two engines.

The giraffe and T-Rex are a little more detailed and she wonders if the spaceship was more of a warm-up. She’s never seen him whittle anything other than the end of a stick as a last resort weapon.

The giraffe has a multitude of spots, knobby knees, and a tongue hanging out of its mouth. The T-Rex has its little arms out like it is running in one of those old cartoons like Scooby Doo. It even has scales.

Ellie can hold them all in her hands at the same time, but just barely. They roll around softly, clicking against each other in a tune that reminds her of the bells the carolers use.

She brings them to her chest and stares down the hallway, back to the door, and tries to forget that this is the first gift she has got from someone who wasn’t Riley. Or her mother if you want to count her knife, Ellie will just to be nice.

A gift, Ellie thinks with a snort. The irony of it all is that you made me a gift.

That was my idea.

Because if there is one thing Ellie has learned about old English (and there is a lot at this point) is that nothing is original, not even the things you wish were.

“We are only what we know,” Miss Leslie said in her closing remarks before winter break started. “And all we know is love… and if you don’t know, then it’s probably Shakespeare or the Bible’s fault.”

Ellie knows a lot of Shakespeare and she could blame the Bible for a lot of her sleepless nights now whether or not it is really at fault.

Who knew this loving shit would be so painful.

It’s weird to wake up in a dream.

Ellie stretches out with a yawn, eyes still closed. Her back is killing her as she twists side to side to pop her spine. The chair handles help to get the right angle. She takes in a deep breath and opens her eyes as she scratches at her stomach.

“Shiiit.” She murmurs when she realizes where she is.

It isn’t often that she dreams about Sam’s death.

His body is curled forward, staring out the window. His feet are still instead of the normal kicking he did. Ellie can see the particles drift off him, not exactly spores and more likely dusty.

But she knows better than to get close.

So instead of touching his shoulder in hopes of getting a just-kidding-I’m-not-Infected reaction, Ellie grabs the rag on the nightstand and wraps her hand in it again. She’ll have to pour some alcohol on the cut from her mediocre health kit later.

She side-steps out of the room, hugging the wall so Sam’s attention isn’t brought away from the light. Just as her hand touches the door handle, his head whips around as if he heard her.

And he looks… fine?

Terrified, but fine.

The orange paint around his eyes cracks as his eyebrows inch up to his forehead. Ellie stands there, confused, when his feet kick up onto the bed. He throws himself against the headboard which crashes against the weak wall with a loud crack.

Ellie doesn’t move, but her eyes do trail down to the bite mark on his ankle. Her blood is still there, a giant red smear across his dark skin, but the bite is gone; healed.

Sam folds over to grab his writing pad and pulls it to his chest like an anchor. His hands shake as he writes faster than Ellie has ever seen him, even when they were trading puns back and forth from Livingston’s book.

When he flips it for Ellie to read, it’s almost as if she knew how the rest of the dream would go.

It happens fast, which is a blessing.

All it takes for Joel and Henry to break down the door is the click that leaves Ellie’s mouth. She looks down at her hands and they are ugly with moldy growths. Her head feels heavy when she gets thrown by the force of the door opening against her shoulder.

Sam screams as Ellie tries to roll away. She watches Henry sprint to his brother’s side, pulling his head to his chest as he points his gun at her.

I’m still here, I’m still here! She wants to yell, but when her lips part again, that dreaded clicking happens again.

She leans back on her hands when her attention is drawn back to Joel. He is kneeling down at her level and looking at her with that sad glint in his eye that he always has.

But he puts his pistol on the carpet and smiles at her.

“I know.” Joel says, but he doesn’t say it.

Ellie could hear it, and she can feel it, but it comes out like that fucking click. And when Ellie glances at her hands, she sees the thread of vines twist around her fingertips. When she tries to pull away out of fear, Joel stumbles forward.

She doesn't know what happens first: Joel’s head hitting the floor at her feet or the bullet from Henry’s gun shooting her between the eyes.

All she knows is that she is awake now.

And on the floor.

“Fuck.” Ellie whispers, wincing as the back of her head throbs when she sits up.

Her legs are trapped in her blanket still, but the pillow made it unscathed as it sits on the couch safe. The sun is barely touching the horizon as Ellie gets her feet under her.

She sits back on the couch and leans back until her head rests against the cushion instead of the hard ground. Blinking a couple of times, Elle realizes as bad of a dream as that was, her heart is beating at a normal rate already.

Which is a nice change.

When her head doesn’t feel like it’s pounding like those plastic-bucket drum sets, Ellie pulls it away from the couch and stares at the fireplace mantel where Kevin and Sarah lay.

There are a lot of things she could be doing right now. She could start some coffee for Maria and Tommy. She could grab Felix before he starts fussing around. She could get dressed and walk around town until her legs gave out.

She could have done all of these things every morning for the last handful of weeks. But instead, she sits here uselessly and stares at two dead kids’ names and wonders if they would have put her name next to theirs if Joel was too late to the operating table.

If they would mourn her like they mourn them. If she is even worth mourning.

Ellie groans, stretching her legs out in frustration. Why does every morning have to start like this?

This time though, her socked-foot touches something on the way up into the stretch. It doesn’t hurt, but startles her enough to look down.

The Converse box.

She blinks at it before letting her eyes fall closed, fingers curled tight enough that she feels her nails pierce into the skin of her palm.

Fuck you for fishing even though you suck at it, fuck you for whittling a gift, fuck you for wearing a hair tie on your wrist for no fucking reason, and fuck you for dancing, and ABBA, and football.

And I’d still follow you anywhere you go—

Ellie’s eyes open, but they aren’t burning like she thought they would. Her lips aren’t pursed together, her forehead isn’t wrinkled, her knees aren’t pinned against her chest.

And her hands that were once fists lay right next to her thighs, open.

“Uh, the pipin’ is still a lil funky so if you notice anythin’ strange with the water, just grab me.”

Ellie watches Joel from the center of the garage. He has to lean down when he passes the support beams, but from the looks of it, he has got used to hitting his forehead if the bandaid has anything to say.

“This is a different mattress than the one from upstairs so if you don’t like it, we can trade it out for the one in the house.” Joel sits down on the bed, bouncing a little when his ass hits it.

The duvet reminds her of the forest.

She walks over to the desk. It’s smooth like the figures, darker in color and she wonders what kind of wood he used to make this one.

Pulling out the chair, Ellie swings her legs and rests her elbows against the backrest.

Joel stays quiet as she looks around. There is a standing lamp in every corner and lights hung up like the ones in town. A beanbag chair lays limply by the front door, a cardboard box right next to it with an AC unit that he said he will put in one of the windows once summer hits.

The kitchenette is useless. Ellie sucks at cooking, and yet she has one. One with a table just off center in it, and instead of a cleaver under the feet of it, there is a pile of posters for her to sort through to decorate with.

She even has a TV.

“Is it cool if I have friends over?” Ellie asks when she finally looks at Joel.

His hair is somehow grayer than it was before, “Sure, ain’t a school night. No drinkin’ or anythin’ funny.”

Ellie huffs out a laugh and shakes her head. Third fucking eye, how do they do that?

“Whatever, old man.” She hopes he hears it more as a thank you because she sure can.

Joel grins, patting his knees, before standing up. He groans as he does and Ellie didn’t realize she missed it until she heard it again.

“I’ll let you get settled in, just… holler if you need anythin’.” He waves a hand around, Ellie nods as she gets up herself.

They walk to the door together, a couple of feet between them. Joel opens it and stands in the doorway for a second. Ellie just waits.

She doesn’t know why because the door is closed only seconds after that, leaving her in her new… home.

“Well, guess it’s just you and me.” Ellie says to herself as she slams her palm to start the boombox without an idea in her mind of what the fuck is about to play.

Hello, I’m Johnny Cash— I hear the train a-comin’.

Ellie rolls her eyes, but doesn’t bother to find another CD. She has been meaning to listen to this one since hearing The Game crowd sing Ring of Fire altogether like it was a fucking musical.

No time like the present, she thinks when she sits down at the table. Let’s see if any of these posters are any good.

They were supposed to start watching Fight Club like 30 minutes ago, but Dina won’t shut up.

“I cannot believe this place is yours, no fucking fair!” She says for the billionth time, sprawled out on the beanbag chair.

Jesse sits on Ellie’s desk chair, she watches him try not to smile when Dina talks. They are on a ‘break’ right now, whatever that means.

Cat is sitting right next to Ellie, she can almost feel the heat of her thigh against her own. It has her hands a little shaky. It’s stupid, it’s exciting.

She’s terrified.

But it’s mostly stupid, especially when Dina glares at the space between them. Or lack thereof, but Ellie scoots an inch or six away after it. It’s not like Dina cares about, you know, that Ellie likes girls.

Dina is just weird… like let’s take a break weird.

“I’m just happy I have a desk again.” Ellie nods to it as she re-dos her ponytail again.

She is still liking it short, but sometimes she wishes all of her hair could go into a ponytail so it wouldn’t stick to the back of her neck. Being a nervous sweat-er sucks.

“Doing homework in the kitchen was a pain in the ass whenever Joel was around.” “Hey, why do you call your dad by his first name?”

Ellie freezes for a second when Jesse’s voice rings out in the garage.

“‘Cause he isn’t her dad, you dipshit.” Cat hisses, throwing a handful of popcorn at him.

“Hey! How was I supposed to know? Everyone calls him her dad around town— oh fuck off!” Jesse throws his hands up in defeat when Dina starts throwing popcorn at him too.

Ellie watches it all fall to the ground, covering her rug in crumbs and butter and bones and brains—

“Joel isn’t my… dad,” Ellie says suddenly, quieting the whole room as she basically has to spit out the word. “He just… he was supposed to bring me to my parents but they… they were killed by raiders so.”

She’ll tell them the truth one day, maybe.

Jesse and Dina trade looks and Ellie can feel the weight of Cat’s hand on her bare knee in her throat. But she knows that Cat doesn’t know better so if she focuses hard enough it feels nice.

“Sorry about your parents, El.” “It’s whatever, happens right?”

“It’s still cool that he did this all for you, he didn’t have to.” Dina shrugs as she gestures to all of the lights and the posters Ellie managed to hang up before they all came over.

Ellie shrugs back because of course she knows that he didn’t have to do any of this.

He didn’t have to rip that ugly ass wallpaper down and paint the walls their first week back in Jackson when they were both dead tired and worn through, but he did.

Didn’t have to repurpose the window seat with new padding and less scratchy fabric. Didn’t have to build her floor-to-ceiling shelves for her micro-collection of comics, movies, CDs, and all that.

Most definitely didn’t have to say the hell to that, and do it all over again in a garage that wasn’t even made to be lived in. And yet, Joel did it and Ellie knows deep down he didn’t do it just because he is capable of it.

Of course he did it, he wanted to.

It makes everything feel so much worse because why the fuck should he be so nice when all Ellie does is make his and everyone else’s lives harder.

Mom died so I put you in FEDRA school so I didn’t have to deal with you harder. Going across the country for nothing harder. No hopes, no dreams, no aspirations harder.

Maybe she would’ve deserved all of this if she actually accomplished the one point of her stupid life.

Maybe she would’ve deserved this if she just stayed pretty and pliant in that cage, “Yeah, but that doesn’t make him my dad—”

They all freeze when a knock echoes through the garage. Dina flings out of the beanbag chair and scrambles to get the Mason jar of moonshine off the table and throws the couple of joints Jesse brought at his head.

She gets off the bed with a roll of her eyes, Joel said he wouldn’t come in unannounced unless it took more than ‘the average time to open a door’.

Ellie cracks the door open and looks at Joel expectedly.

“Brought more popcorn.” He coughs in his fist, shaking a thing of dusty Jiffy Pop in his other hand.

“Cool,” Ellie leans against the doorframe as she kicks the door open. “No drinkin’ or anythin’ funny.”

She mocks his drawl which gets a shove to her shoulder with a mumble of shit head under his breath. Dina waves at him with her feet together and shoulders high in the air like an idiot while Jesse and Cat stay relaxed.

At least Jesse gives him a two-finger salute, Cat barely even looks at Joel which shouldn’t rub Ellie the wrong way. She ignores Joel too, but Ellie ignores him because he slaughtered a whole hospital.

Not because she’s a dick.

“Night.” Joel says and Ellie waits for another shove, or a hand in her hair, or a pull on her ponytail to steal another one of her hair ties.

Instead of any of those things, Joel turns around and starts to walk back to the house. Ellie swallows and thinks for a moment. Only one.

“Hey? You good?” She asks, leaning out the door so it can be mostly closed, privacy and all.

Joel peers back, chin just barely over his shoulder, “Yep, all good.”

He walks up the back porch steps and goes straight into the house, even though his guitar is sitting up against his rickety chair.

Ellie sighs.

She throws the popcorn at Jesse because she wasn’t able to throw shit at him early. It gets a squawk out of him as he tries to dodge it, but ends up falling out of the chair instead. Dina and Cat laugh as he rolls around.

Once Ellie curls up in the corner of her bed, she fishes for the remote and turns on the movie before someone can ask another stupid question like why do you wear long sleeves year-round?

It’s her fault for even thinking that question into existence.

Dina and Jesse left right as the movie credits started rolling and Ellie is pointedly Not Thinking about what they are doing after practically sitting on top of each other for the whole film.

Does not want to think they are doing what she is doing right now.

Cat’s fingers dance along the inside of Ellie’s sweatshirt as her lips pull away from Ellie’s, leaving the lingering taste of homemade peppermint chapstick.

It’s almost an animalistic reaction, how she pulls Cat’s hand away the second she starts to trail across the scarring. Fear pumping in her heart as if all the blood in her had been drained out.

“You don’t have to worry, I got them too.” Cat whispers, breath hot against Ellie’s face and smells like an actual fucking skunk.

What… Ellie’s brain is so slow to understand when all it was able to process was weight on me, weight on me, weight on me, run, run, run.

The moonshine, shockingly enough, is not helping in the slightest. Awesome.

She finally gets to the point Cat was trying to make when she pulls up her own sleeve and shows Ellie sets of thin, white lines littering across her forearm.

Ah.

“I wanna cover them up with a tattoo one day, I don’t do it anymore and I can’t stand to look at them. Maybe I can tattoo yours too.” Cat murmurs into her ear as her lips trail sneakily down her neck.

Ellie grabs her by the shoulders with enough strength to feel her pulse in her knuckles, “Uh… yeah, maybe.”

“Too much?” Cat asks with a certain level of snark in her voice that leaves Ellie feeling achy, but she nods anyway even if the look Cat gives her makes her feel worse than worse.

“I should probably get home anyway.” Cat sighs out, crawling off Ellie’s bed and looking back expectedly, one hand still on her comforter.

Ellie just blinks, “Oh okay, yeah.”

“Are you gonna walk me back?” She asks, crossing her arms over her chest and Ellie is so fucking confused by the mood change.

Did she do something wrong? What does she want?

“Do you want me to?” “Ugh, no.”

Did Riley ever look at her like this?

They stare at each other for a minute and when Cat finally realizes that Ellie isn’t going to leave her bed, she sighs out again but longer and louder this time.

“I’m taking a flannel, ‘k? It’s still cold as shit out.” She demands rather than asking as she grabs one of the many flannels Ellie has in her closet.

“Not that one.” Ellie leads forward when Cat picks out the one in the very back.

Cat’s eyes squint like Ellie dares to ask for something as simple as that. Instead of arguing, she just puts it back and grabs the one in front of it. Ellie relaxes back in her bed, this time with her pillow in her lap.

“See ya later.” Cat mumbles as she pulls her long, black hair free from underneath the flannel.

“Night—” Is all Ellie gets out before her door is slammed.

It rattles for a moment then the garage is utterly silent. Ellie doesn’t know how good of an idea drinking the first night in a new place was, but she has dug her grave so now she has to lie in it.

So she peels her sweatshirt off and lays down in her bed (oh God, why is the room spinning) and appreciates for a second that she isn’t on a couch anymore. No more Maria snores, Tommy grunts, or Felix wails. Just true and utter silence again, so much peace that it is suffocating.

There is a part of her that wishes she could hear something as simple as the sound of footsteps, the occasional swear after stubbing a toe, or the constant humming in the room over.

Except there is no room over anymore.

Ellie presses her back against the wall and stares at the moonlight that catches just the edge of her bed. She places her arm in it and watches the bite mark gleam like the bullseye on a target.

Only after she turns on this CD where it’s just an old man singing about the tropics and pirate ships and whatever the fuck Margaritaville is does she start to fade off.

At least she has that, and the new inkling of a plan in the back of her head, to lull her to sleep.

She wishes this version of Brown-Eyed Girl had a little more guitar, but the metal drums are a nice touch though.

Ellie weighs the pros and cons of what she is about to do as she stares at the bathtub.

She has already triple-checked the lock. Normally she’d only check once, but being in the house has her more on edge.

Joel left for patrol an hour ago max. He won’t be back for the next couple. She has more than enough time to do what she needs to do, get rid of the evidence, and be fast asleep in her bed in the garage without a hiccup.

Ellie is stupid, but not an idiot.

She’s got a glass of Joel’s shitty whiskey to chug, even has a piece of leather to bite down on. Foolproof plan if you asked her.

The can of powder bleach balances harmlessly on the lip of the tub. The porcelain that Joel patched up shines in the overhead light, the cracks glistening in the sickly lighting that makes Ellie’s stomach turn over.

It’s cold against her skin so she pulls down her tank top once again when it starts to curl up against her sweatpants, exposing more than what is necessary.

All she needs is a clear visual of her forearm. It lays palm on the lip, only inches away from the bleach, and somehow shines brighter than the tub itself.

It’s strange; Ellie thought this would be easier to do.

Every day she has to wonder if someone is going to see the teeth marks and not ask any questions, just shoot her dead before a word can leave her mouth.

How the hell is she ever supposed to move on when this thing keeps her in the past by staring right back at her?

And yet, it’s the last thing tying Ellie to Riley. Her backpack was abandoned at Firefly headquarters alongside the hope for humanity, their photos from the booth, Volume Too, and Riley’s tags long forgotten and rotting in all the bloodshed.

Ellie could probably never forgive Joel on that fact alone.

The first bite mark is lighter than the one she got in the museum, closer to her wrist and pulls at her skin funny when she makes a fist. But it reminds her of her first kiss and the first girl she ever liked in a way that made her toes curl.

A tattoo would be cool, some of the older guards in FEDRA had them, but she didn’t really like the teardrop ones on the face all that much. Maybe something with leaves would patch it up just as well as the grout and caulk combo did.

She doesn’t think she can wait that long though.

So bleach it is.

“Okay, pour it on, place the wet rag on top and wait as long as you can,” Ellie mumbles to herself as she flips up the cap. “Flush it out, bandage it up, bing-bang-boom.”

Her knees start to ache with all the pressure she is putting on them so she can lean over the tub far enough. The can is heavy and if there was a cup available for her to pour it in before tipping it over herself, she’d do that.

But alas, the old cup she uses to gargle water after brushing her teeth is in her bathroom, in a completely different building.

The glass of whiskey has a purpose, so she is just shit out of luck and time then.

Ellie throws back the alcohol and shivers when it hits her empty stomach. She shakes out her head before taking a deep breath. Placing the leather bit between her teeth, she holds back the gag that rocks through her when her tongue accidentally grazes it.

She stares at the mark a little longer; Felix will miss it.

Good thing it’ll be replaced by something that won’t get her killed on sight.

Here goes nothing, she thinks as she packs the powder on and—

It’s an unfortunate series of events, really.

Ellie groans as the banging in her ears increases. By groaning, she realizes something is in her mouth which she spits out immediately because it tastes like literal ass.

She peels back one eye and flinches away at the immediate light. It makes the banging seem even louder, if that makes any sense at all.

Make it fucking stop, her mind moans.

Maybe not just in her mind though.

“Ellie? You hear me? Open the door, kiddo.”

“Fuck.” She mumbles, the word feels heavy on her tongue, but the banging has stopped.

Leaving only one sound to focus on: water.

Ellie is able to figure out what is going on quickly after that realization. She jolts up and has to slam her hand against her mouth to stop the wail from leaving her lips when her shoulder pulls strangely.

The hand that was once above her head, flops down into her lap as she scoots her ass back into the base of the tub. The skin is an angry type of red but almost covered in a white film that looks like bubbles, and throbs like a motherfucker.

That’s all she needs to see to know she has done a really bad thing.

“Joel.” She whispers as her eyes begin to water.

But he hears her anyway, “I’m right here, but I need ya to open the door.”

Ellie stares at it, watches the handle shake lightly as it twists and turns. Like it will magically open by the will of God alone.

“I don’t think I can.” Ellie manages to spit out as the tears continue to collect on her lash line.

She tries to blink them away, but all the blinking does is make them fall faster.

“Fuck,” Joel’s voice isn’t dark or tinged with anger and she wish it was because this kind of calmness is scary too. “Fuck, okay. You away from the door?”

Ellie nods, then remembers he can’t actually see her, “Yeah, against the tub.”

“‘K, I’m gonna kick it down. Just wait a sec.” “You don’t have a key or something?”

The silence is almost hilariously deafening.

“Uh, I didn’t think of that.” Joel mumbles lightly, like he is embarrassed which does get Ellie’s lips to turn up just a sliver.

From under the door, Ellie can see the shadow of Joel’s feet. He isn’t on his tiptoes, but she can tell his heel is hovering off the floor as he slaps around for something.

“Wow, can’t actually believe it’s here.” Joel’s feet touch back on the ground and Ellie has no time to say anything in response.

Because the key is jiggling in the handle, and the door is open before she can even think of an excuse.

Joel stands there for a moment in the doorway. He still has his boots on, jacket too. His hair is wispy in a chaotic way and Ellie swears she sees it go a lighter shade of gray when his eyes beeline to her arm.

He is at her feet not soon after.

“What the fuck were you thinking.” He hisses, looking at her with a certain type of horror as he shoves her arm under the still-running water.

Good thing they don’t have to pay for that.

What a loaded question, Ellie thinks as she follows his lead with no energy to fight. It reminds me of failure, it reminds me that I should hate you, it reminds me of Riley, and Tess, and Sam.

But also it reminds me of Henry who had to kill his brother, and you going across the country to find yours. It reminds me that no one would let me teach their kids archery if they knew. Maria and Tommy wouldn’t let me hold Felix anymore if they knew.

It reminds me that if I died, no one would hold me to their chest like you did for Sarah. No one would miss me even to put my name on a fucking chalkboard mantel.

“I didn’t want to look at it anymore.” She murmurs instead of saying something as stupidly childish as I’m nobody’s Brown-Eyed Girl and I would kill for that, basically have already.

And yet I’m still empty-handed.

“We could’ve figured something out, better wraps more sleeves, anything,” He stresses every word like they are his last. “‘Cause that’s what we do, we figured shit out together, right?”

“I don’t know, do we?” Ellie snaps back, trying to pull her arm from Joel so she can go lick her wounds alone until she is clean and shiny again.

He doesn’t budge for once.

“All I’m saying is that you seemed real comfortable figuring out how to fuck over humanity on your own.” She says matter-of-factly rather than with the heat that she holds in her chest.

But she does try to pull free again, doesn’t get much farther than elbowing the lip of the tub. Her funny bone tingles while she winces at the blunt contact.

“You really want to do this now?” Joel asks with a shake of his head.

“Why the fuck not, not like we are going anywhere soon.” Ellie looks down at her forearm, it’s still red but less bubbly.

No bite marks are to be found. She won, succeeded. The war is over. What’s done is done.

So why doesn’t she feel better?

“I don’t know what you want me to say, I wasn’t gonna let them carve you up for a half-hopeful cure.” Joel sighs as he thumbs just where her wrist meets her palm and the skin isn’t falling off her.

“If you knew, 100%, that it would work, you would’ve left me?”

He turns off the faucet and stands up. His jeans are a little muddy now with the water dripping down his forearms and onto his dust patches. Ellie brings her knees to her chest as he grabs the health kit from the sink after washing his hands.

Ellie notices the heavy tan line on the base of his left wrist; barren.

Joel tilts his head when he sees the glass and the little liquid remaining in it.

“You give yourself a fuckin’ chemical burn and you drink my whiskey, nice.” He huffs out, but he also has that ghost of a smile on his face.

“Don’t beat around the bush.” She says rather than play into Joel’s ability to push off emotions like water on an umbrella; she learned from the best don’t you think?

“No, I wouldn’t have,” He responds with a groan as he kneels back down on the tile. “Arm.”

“Why not?” Ellie asks, her own emotions starting to bleed out, but gives him her hand anyway.

He is gentle, but Joel always is. Sure, Ellie has seen him kill people point blank with more than bullets: knives, pipes, molotovs, and his own bare hands.

She knows about drugs and weapons, of course she does. Smugglers did one thing and one thing only: smuggle whatever they had to. She was cargo, she knows.

And she also knows about all the innocent people who fell at his hands because he lost, more like locked, the ability to feel in a ditch back in Texas and onward.

She knows that Joel was the most dangerous guy to run into in the QZ. Probably the most dangerous guy to run into out in the open country too. Here in Jackson? Yeah.

But Joel is soft under all that. It isn’t hard to see with the way he holds his guitar or the books he steals from Ellie’s shelf when he thinks he is being stealthy.

She’s seen him cry more times than she thinks most people ever see their… fathers cry. He hovers and waits and doesn’t pry when he should because he knows what lies under hurts. The last thing Joel has ever wanted to do is hurt her, even when he threatened to shoot her all the same if she so much twitched.

Because Joel wasn’t made for the apocalypse.

He was made for this; he was made to care. Even if he sucked at it from time to time.

“There ya go,” He thumbs over the bandage real quick once everything is in order. “We’ll have to keep an eye on it to see if it needs to breathe a bit, if it gets hot again, tell me.”

Ellie expects him to leave her in the bathroom.

Instead, he just sits right back down. Their elbows brush each other as they lean against the back of the tub. The whole room smells like bleach and it settles heavily in Ellie’s chest.

This is it, the final moment. The moment Joel admits that he was wrong just like she wanted, he regrets his decisions just like she wanted. That her death would’ve meant something and he wishes she was… she was…

“It’s simple really,” Joel starts off with. “I chose you.”

Ellie feels her eyes widen when she looks at Joel. His eyes are strictly set on the door, but she can see how shaky he is when his chest lurches with each breath he takes.

“On, ah, on Outbreak Day, I forced Tommy to drive past this family whose car broke down. Sarah was screamin’ for us to turn back, they had a couple kids but I just…” Joel’s lips press into a thin line.

“Tommy pointed out the kids, I said we had a kid of our own and to keep goin’.” He glances down at her, but looks away right when they make eye contact.

“Save who you can,” Joel’s voice sounds like an echo of Tess’s and Ellie isn’t so sure if it is the tile’s fault. “And I did. If God gave me a second chance, I would do it all over again too…”

“I’m okay right where I am, with what I got.” This time when Joel looks at her, he doesn’t look away.

Ellie bites the inside of her cheek before pulling the edge of her shirt to wipe her eyes. She nods a couple of times as it sets in.

We’re going home.

“I should’ve told you, and I’m sorry that I didn’t. But I’m not sorry for savin’ your life, kiddo.” He says, nudging her in the ribs.

Ellie lets out a wet laugh, rubbing at her face again with her not-crispy wrist. She leans her head to the side, just enough for her ear to rest on Joel’s flannel-covered arm.

And in Joel fashion, he waits for her to give him the go-ahead to wrap an arm around her shoulder. Ellie doesn’t even flinch when he does it.

“I missed this.” She whispers as she wiggles her arm under Joel’s so she can lock their elbows together.

“I’d miss it more if you weren’t being a dumbass.” Joel mutters but smushes his cheek on top of her head anyway.

She rolls her eyes, “I didn’t plan for it to hurt that bad. I thought your shitty booze would do something useful, not help me pass the fuck out.”

“Next time run your half-ass ‘plans’ by me first, ‘k?”

And this time when Ellie says okay, she really means it.

Floor time is established quickly after that.

The first couple of times Joel comes into the garage are still a little awkward. He asks questions about water, if it is hot enough for her showers. He asks about the mattress, if the dresser legs are wobbly, or if the desk has fallen to pieces yet as the last one did.

But one night, Ellie decides to sit next to him by the front door instead of staying in her bed with her comics or at her desk where Hamlet stays to die or at the table with piles of magazines to go through.

She plops down next to him and doesn’t pay attention to the questioning look he gives her. Just takes the extra bandages in his hands and throws them at the beanbag chair.

Finally, The Contractor asks something not construction based, “You figure out how to whistle yet?”

“Uh, no?” Ellie huffs out as she kicks her toes together, legs spread out in front of her.

“Well, you’re gonna be patrollin’ soon so you should probably learn sooner than later.” He points out as if she hasn’t tried already.

“Okay, big man. You gonna teach me, or what?” Ellie asks while ignoring His (not his; David, David, David) voice rattling on and on in the back of her head.

Joel smiles as he brings his fingers to his mouth, and sure enough, whistles loud enough to get the dog that lives a couple of houses down to start barking.

“Fuck you!” “You’re fine, now all you gotta do is…”

“Star Wars or Star Trek?”

“Never seen Star Wars, never heard of Star Track.”

“Trek. Big head about space and you haven’t even seen A New Hope?”

“Okay, personal attack. Which one do you like?”

“Neither. Sarah liked Star Trek ‘cause her mom was a big fan.”

“Which one do you think I’d like more?”

“Mmmm, hard to say. Star Wars is well… a war movie, but has a lot of action. Star Trek’s whole schtick was about exploring new worlds, if I got that right.”

“Guess you’ll have to go searchin’ for them on tape then so I can give my expertise.”

“Who says I haven’t…?”

“Joel.”

“Yeah?”

“Go get the fucking tapes! What are you waiting for? Go!”

“Wow. No please? No thank you? No—“

“Please, thank, go!”

“And here’s the one of 2.0 and Shimmer. The shading is shit, but the stable isn’t the best location to sketch in.”

“El, these are really good.”

“You think so? The ones in the back are better, I got a couple of Felix in there.”

“I just… you got a lot more patience than I do.”

“I have fun, my notebooks in the QZ got taken all the time ‘cause I’d doodled more than do my actual work so I’m a little rusty.”

“So walkin’ across the country wasn’t it?”

“Oh fuck off, I’ll take it back.”

“Nuh-uh. This is mine now, gonna frame some of these.”

“Joel, come on— give it back!”

“Sorry, can’t hear you from down there.”

“Don’t be a dick! I’m on my tiptoes, man. I didn’t ask to be five-foot nothing!”

“You said it, not me!”

“I’m gonna have to put my foot down on this. It’s not acceptable anymore.”

“Dude, you don’t have to be so serious about it. It’s just—“

“Not just anythin’! You can’t keep—“

“It’s not serious, really. I’ll even let you in on it now, okay? No more hiding.”

“You promise?”

“Your pinky finger, really? How old are we? Seven?”

“Do you promise or not?”

“Jesus fuck, okay. Yeah, fine. I promise to let you win once every five rounds of Boggle.”

“Three rounds.”

“Three? Do you want my friends to think I’m an idiot?”

“Your friends know about Board Game Wednesdays?”

“Uh… no…?”

“Still a shit liar, good to know.”

“Only learned from the best— hey, don’t mock me! You started it!”

“You remember telling me about going to the diner with Sarah on the weekends?”

“I wouldn’t call McDonald’s a diner, but yeah. What about it?”

“Well… we don’t have diners here or those Dunkin’s places back in Boston. Not like they worked, but whatever, not the point. I was wondering if you wanted to… I don’t know.”

“Try somethin’ similar?”

“Yeah.”

“I think we could figure somethin’ out. You got any ideas?”

“Breakfast in the house, Friday mornings?”

“I feel like we could work somethin’ out… wait, don’t you have vocab tests Friday mornings?”

“I have no clue what you are talking about, are you finally going senile?”

“Ha ha ha, good try.”

“But Joooel, you get to see this shining face though. Come ooon.”

“...five minutes late is all you get out of me.”

“Perfect!”

“And you’re cookin’!”

Ellie looks down at the plate.

There is some flour on the edge of it so she pulls down her sleeve to wipe it off. With a tilt of her head, she shrugs when the egg yolk breaks and runs all funny into the syrup.

This is what he gets for making me cook, she thinks as she places the plate at the head of the table alongside a mug of bean shit.

She rounds the table so her back is to the window. The sun is out and it feels warm even through the curtains. She wonders if today is finally going to be the day the snow starts to melt, or if another storm is going to blow in right as she thinks it is over.

Joel running down the stairs pulls her attention forward again.

“So what’s on the menu?” He asks with a grin.

“Ash and bark, sorry.” Ellie smirks as she shoves in the first mouth full.

And wow okay, not that bad, she doesn’t even gag at the taste; syrup is definitely the lifesaver here.

He stares down at his plate, fork and knife in hand. Ellie watches him blink a couple of times at her work of art, and starts to get nervous when he doesn’t move to take a bite.

“Pancakes too much for my first attempt?” She nudges his elbow and almost knocks it off the table with how weak his arm is.

“Nah,” Joel mumbles, that sad look is in his eyes but something accompanies it rather than it being just that dead gaze. “Just reminded me of somethin’.”

Ellie would call that improvement, “Good something?”

“Yeah… good somethin’, now tell me why my yolk is brown?” She doesn’t think she’ll ever get tired of hearing what the truth sounds like coming from Joel.

And if Ellie does, well. She better be dead then.

There’s a baby crying.

And that is the only thing she can focus on.

Ellie understands where she is, a hospital. She hates hospital dreams.

But this one doesn’t have any cartoon animals on the walls, no soft blues or greens or pinks littering the hallways. No moth-eaten blankets on moth-eaten couches.

Just her, a gun, and dead bodies hitting the floor. Sorry Marlene.

Ellie swears she hasn’t been more focused yet so out of it all at once. When she goes far away, she is basically unaware of anything and everything happening around her. All she knows is that she is safe because nothing can hurt her in the far away.

But here, she sees a man, a woman, something breathing, and she immediately shoots at them. If they drop their weapon, she shoots. If they back themselves in a corner, she shoots.

And if she runs out of ammo, she is kneeling down with her knife and killing them with her bare hands.

Everything seems to be running in slow motion, yet it is all so fast. She is going up and down stairwells all while her heart feels like it is about to pop out of her chest. Ellie is aware of healthy fear, she feels it every day (is that really healthy then?)

This isn’t that.

She kicks in a door, rifle pressed under her armpit as she puts another bullet in between a man’s eyes even though he wasn’t facing her. Ellie steps over the body and almost trips when the wailing gets louder.

Taking the butt of the rifle, Ellie bashes into every room she can. Most are empty, but the lights are working enough through all the flickering.

Small mobile tables, packaging for equipment (no machines to be seen), gloves, ointment, iodin, gowns, one awfully large slab of metal in the center.

“O.R.” Ellie whispers to herself.

It takes a hole in each door for her to find the right one, and of course it is at the end of the hallway. There is a little window for this one too and when she looks over her shoulder, Ellie sees that there has been a window for all of them this whole time.

It’s silent now.

She leans just enough to where her eyes can fall into the room, but not draw any unnecessary attention.

There are five people in the room: a doctor she assumes, two nurses, and two guards.

They are all surrounded over something. The metal table glows under the aggressive lighting. There are all these machines too with wires and tubes coming out of them, pumping some gross looking shit.

It only takes the doctor getting out of the way for Ellie to realize there are six people in the room.

“No,” She breathes out, not thinking as she backs away from the window. “No, no, no no no!”

Her shoulder takes a major hit as she busts her way into the room. Ellie doesn’t flinch though, doesn’t feel a thing as she shoots the guards first. The two nurses scream at the sound, but Ellie only has eyes for the doctor.

“Unhook him.” She says, cold and even.

And like an idiot, he grabs the scalpel, “I can’t let you take him, he is going to save the world.”

She looks back at Felix, small and unassuming. Asleep with a band of ink wrapping around his little head as his chest moves up and down.

“No, he’s not,” Ellie shoots the doctor and doesn’t even wait for the body to hit the ground when she starts talking again. “Wipe that off.”

The nurses scramble, but do as they are told. She directs them to cover his I.V. mark when it starts to bleed like there aren’t bigger issues at hand.

They hand Felix over to her, him wrapped in a yellow blanket. She slings the rifle over her shoulder as she holds him to her chest.

Oh, to think we almost lost you, Ellie thinks as she pushes a curl behind his ear.

Suddenly, Felix isn’t Felix any more. But Ellie is still Ellie.

And yet she is holding Herself. The Ellie in her arms is awake though, Her hand on her cheek, brushing at the apples in an achingly familiar way.

Other Ellie smiles up at her as a tear runs down into Her hair, “Oh, to think—”

She comes to with a deep breath.

The wind is howling something awful as Ellie sits up in her bed. Her heart is doing its normal racing, but her arms feel too light. Like she has forgotten something.

She turns over her forearms, looking at her palms and the backs of her hands like they will tell her what exactly happened. Ellie can’t remember.

She always remembers.

The comforter and all her blankets are still in order, so she wasn’t thrashing around like she sometimes does. Her throat wasn't burning so she wasn’t screaming out either.

But it wasn’t a good dream, she feels like she just ran a marathon and the sun isn’t even up yet.

Nothing feels right.

Ellie gets out of bed with a jump and goes over to her biggest window. Lo and behold, snowflakes are dancing down the skyline and reflect in the light of the lamp right next to her. It isn’t a heavy snow, but enough for the ground to be speckled white again.

It’s just enough for her to be tired of it.

She is almost as unaware as she was in her dream, but she doesn’t know that. Ellie grabs her jacket and throws it over the flannel she was wearing in bed. She doesn’t bother with pants, her shorts will be fine for the split moment she is outside.

But she does shuck on her boots before leaving the garage.

The back porch squeaks at the additional weight of her steps. Ellie doesn’t care, all she cares about is that the back door is unlocked and it shouldn’t be. She hasn’t been more thankful that it is.

She throws her jacket on the couch and leaves her boots right at the edge of the rug before going to the stairs. The house is quiet like it always is so her movements echo in the empty space like an omen.

Not like Joel would know, he is sleeping on his left side.

His back is to her as Ellie stares at him from the doorway. She doesn’t necessarily feel better after seeing him, waiting to see his chest move. But it is nice to know that the person closest to her is around.

She can go back to bed now. Everyone is okay, everything is fine. Time to move on.

And yet, she takes a step into the room.

Ellie clears the bed, dragging her fingers across the covers as she passes, and goes to his window. It’s larger than the one in her old bedroom, no cut out for a seat to be placed under it.

But big enough that her wingspan doesn’t even pass the edges.

She sits down at the center of it, back to the wall. Her legs stay out in front of her as she pulls the flannel around her tighter. The wood is cold against her calves, but it is a nice welcome to her mind that—

Felix, her mind almost sighs out in relief when the dream tips over just for a second into reality. It was about Felix.

Something is missing still.

Ellie looks at Joel, it’s a weird angle so she can only see the lumps of his knuckles on top of the sheet. And she has the half of mind to not grab his hand right now.

She can wait, morning isn’t too far away anyway.

Joel wakes up right as the sun starts to inch over the mountain tops.

His curtains aren’t pulled over the window, so the sunlight blasts its way into the room. The snow clouds are long gone.

The crown of Ellie’s head rests against the edge of the window. Her hair begins to feel slightly warm as the rays heats up the room while she stays in the shadow.

She thinks the sun in his face is what wakes him up, he hadn’t turned over once.

Ellie keeps her line of sight on the dresser on the other side of the room. Her hands are in her lap as the sheets start to rustle against the mattress. It’s only a matter of time when he sees her—

“Jesus fuck, kid. You scared me.”

She glances to her left and sees Joel looking right back at her. His feet are swung over the edge of the bed, pajama bottoms rolled up his calves and hair all over the place.

At least someone looks pretty and well-rested.

“Morning.” Ellie says, voice hoarse with disuse.

“Mornin’...” Joel parrots back, low and slow as confusion warps his features. “How long you’ve been here?”

She huffs, a small smile turning up, “A while, my ass is numb.”

He nods at the comment, hands spread out as he leans back on the bed. His feet are crossed over each other, rubbing together like cricket wings.

“You wanna come up here to talk?” He asks, patting the mattress, but Ellie shakes her head.

“Alright,” Joel groans as he stands, knees cracking as he stretches out for a moment before padding over to Ellie’s side. “Floor time it is.”

He basically slides down the wall, as well as he can with a massive window in the way. There is a good bit of space between them and Ellie is thankful for that.

She criss crosses her legs so she can lean forward. Placing her elbows on her kneecaps, Ellie puts her head in her hands as she feels that sinking feeling enter her bones.

So much time to prepare, and yet… and yet…

“What’s wrong, kiddo?” Joel’s voice is so soft that it hurts when it rubs against her prickling exterior.

Smoothing her out all the same though, “Do you remember the first night when… after you found me?”

The silence lasts for a beat or so, and Ellie can feel Joel weighing the question in his mind. She almost believes he is about to ask what day, what night, what the hell are you talking about, but instead—

“Yeah, I do.” It comes out as a sigh, sounds like relief.

Ellie wishes she could feel that; relief.

“I don’t.” She pulls her head from her safe haven which is her hands, the ones that protected her.

The ones covered in so much blood that she can almost feel it under the skin.

Joel’s eyes widen at her confession, “What do you mean?”

“I don’t… everything is really fuzzy. I don’t really remember anything after you found me, or the day after. Or the day after…” Ellie’s voice trails off.

“Will… can you tell me what you know?” She pleads quietly.

If she can make it out of this room with some pride intact, Ellie would like that very much.

“Oh— I, yeah. I can try at least,” Joel pushes his hair back only for it to pop right back. “Things are blurry for me too, where you want me to start?”

Ellie weighs her options, “Right before you got to me.”

“Okay.”

There are a lot of things he can say.

That he found her after torturing two men for her location and ignored their begging once their use was nullified. That he found her after sneaking into a building that was housing a very dead Callus and her backpack, cat keychain and all. That he found her after rounding the corner and seeing three headless bodies reflecting purple and blue webbing from his flashlight, hanging upside down to bleed out entirely.

But the truth is, he found her because of her screaming.

The snow was heavy, but not heavy enough to cover the plumes of smoke climbing up the sky. He had to drag his feet through the snow as his side pulsed under his fingertips. He couldn’t stop, he was so close.

Not close enough though.

The screaming was muffled, but raw. It cracked and convulsed and quieted, but it never stopped.

It threw him back to the day Sarah was born.

She came out quietly into the world, every parent’s worst nightmare. The nurses immediately took her away, covered in blood from wrist to elbow, causing a wave of dread to enter him just as the euphoria took hold. He was a father, which was fucking terrifying in itself, but that was his little girl.

And she wasn’t breathing.

He didn’t know what to do or where to go as the nurses and doctors crowded her, pushing on her little chest, digging their fingers down her throat to clear out her airway. Pounding on her back to get something, anything out.

Hearing Sarah finally cry was the best noise Joel had ever heard in his life.

Ellie’s wailing was quick to tie it.

It was the only reason he knew she was alive still, holding him up for every step forward because there was something forward. Ellie was there, somewhere, alive and screaming and Joel would die a million times to hear it if it meant she was still here.

So when it finally dwindled to nothing, Joel started panicking.

He couldn’t move any faster than he was. Every step he took was close to being his last, but the adrenaline pumping in his veins made it feel like he was walking on cloud nine.

It all drained out of him the second his eyes found Ellie borderline flailing out that back door.

Her steps were uncoordinated as she stumbled forward, a ring of keys in her fist like a weapon. Her hair whipped around in the wind, the ponytail barely holding anything at all.

But he had her backpack, he had her stupid pun book and her extra clothes and her useless flashlight. They were going to be okay.

What he didn’t expect was her to start screaming again right as he went to touch her shoulder.

“No! Get off of me!” This shrieking wasn’t so comforting anymore, it’s guttural and hiccuped like it was being punched out of her chest.

“Get off!” She cried as she tried to hit him as hard as she could to get him away, but her hands were so weak and red.

In the end, her knees unlocked, taking them both down.

Joel fell willingly, cupping her blood-splattered cheeks in his hands, “It’s me. It’s me.”

“Hey, look,” He said, as faint as the finger he used to push some hair behind her ear, making the scar through her eyebrow visible. “It’s me.”

Her eyes were wild, going back and forth as her brain finally cataloged who was in front of her. The realization didn’t look any more comforting though, her eyes flickered with something dark.

“It’s okay.” “He—”

Joel feels his heart sink as that single word fell from her lips.

He closed his eyes, letting her crowd in his space as she placed her forehead into the shoulder of his jacket, not knowing how long this would last.

He hated letting Sarah go to birthday parties without him, to houses of friends whose parents he had never met. He hated seeing Sarah snot-nosed over another sleepover she couldn’t go to. He hated hearing her bedroom door slam and he hated her hating him, hammering it into the floorboards so it would stick like a battered nail.

He hated it, but never enough to stop playing the bad guy because it meant she was safe.

That’s the only thing that ever mattered. That his spitfire, take-no-shit girls stayed that way.

But there Ellie was, a flame put out by licked fingers.

“It’s okay,” This isn’t okay. “It’s okay, baby girl.”

I’m sorry.

“I got you.” I’m sorry—he murmured into her hair—I’m sorry—rocking them side to side as she babbled into his neck—I’m sorry—fisting the collar of his jacket like she was ready to be ripped away from him again.

Like it’s the only thing she’s ever known.

I’m so sorry, “I got you.”

“You were quiet for the first couple days,” Joel goes on. “I cleaned you up the best I could, but you were… skittish. One night you were still in that sweatshirt and jeans, the next morning they were in the fire and you were talkin’ about how you hate that color brown anyway.”

Ellie snorts and cringes at the snottiness, “I remember that, ugly color for sure.”

They sit there in silence for a moment. The tension feels heavy, but Ellie thinks it’s just that on her end. While she continues to curl up into a ball, Joel’s body language is open like he is telling her he is ready.

But the words just won’t come out.

Good thing Joel has finally found them after all this time, “Who’s David?”

She stares at the floor, at the area right under his bed, hoping if she stares long enough Joel will take the question back, thinking she is far, far away.

There are a couple of boxes next to the wall where his headboard is. But there is one shoe box, right where his feet were dangling in front of.

Ellie wonders if that’s where his watch went.

“A couple times it was the only thing you would say in your sleep.” He swallows.

Ellie wishes she could say his name, but she knows she has only been capable of screaming it.

“He was the leader back in Colorado.” She starts with, easier to get that out now that she knows that Joel knows about the causal cannibalism going on in their hellhole.

“I ran into him after I shot and killed this deer,” Ellie lets some light fill her when Joel smiles, at least she knows now that he knows. “He wanted half for his people, I wanted medicine. Easy deal.”

The smile immediately falls after that.

“I know, it was stupid, but you were… you were dying and I didn’t know what to do. So I sat with him and waited for his buddy to grab the meds. He told me he was a teacher Before.” Ellie shoves her thumbnail into her mouth to hide her breathing.

Teacher to preacher, less clever now.

“The guy that stabbed you back at the college was one of theirs. They were pissed he was killed and… David spun this story about reason and shit, by the time I knew what he was doing it was too late. Next morning they’re hunting us for Goddamn sport.”

Ellie wipes her nose on the flannel and lets the scent wash over her. They are in Wyoming, safe and alive. Nothing will hurt her here, and if something tries then…

She’ll learn to be okay again. Probably.

“I shot off Callus when they killed him, knocked me out clean. When I woke up, I was… I was in this cage,” She tilts her head as she bites out the words. “He made me feel like a wild animal.”

In the corner of her eye, she notices Joel’s hands are squeezed into fists.

“Wild animals don’t need fathers, huh.” Ellie chuckles, but it hurts so much that it has her eyes shut so tight that she sees colors flashing behind her eyelids.

“I had to get out of there, I saw an… an ear on the ground and freaked the fuck out because they were eating people and they were gonna eat me so I waited, like you taught me while hunting. To wait for the prey to come to you and… well, I guess I forgot I could be prey too.”

For what it’s worth, this is just deer meat.

I swear.

Adults just absolutely fucking love that one. The giggle that exits her throat is involuntary and makes her feel insane. But this is insane right? She lived through this. This happened. This was real.

In-fucking-sane.

“He told me that he saw himself in me. Smart and loyal and… and violent. He told me I had a violent heart, and he wanted that. Joel, he wanted me.” Is the last thing that leaves her mouth before she starts sobbing.

Shame curls up in her stomach like bad milk. There isn’t going back now. Joel is going to see her as this vulnerable, useless thing for the rest of her life so what’s the fucking point of going on when the strongest person you know sees you like this?

Vulnerable, no good, rotten, monster— so she better take advantage of the comfort now because she’s never going to see it again.

She sways to her left until her head hits Joel’s arm. Ellie nuzzles into him as she cries, hiccupping as the weight feels like it is taking her by the neck. Joel is quick to pull her close, move her face into his chest as he wraps around her.

“I got you, I got you.” He whispers over and over again.

“My head hurt so bad and I was so scared, but I tried to get the keys by breaking his finger. I told him my name, and he used it against me.” She wails into his shirt, puddles of tears staining the fabric.

She wants her wide-ass deer eyes to stop fucking crying, to get a grip for once; she can’t.

Despite it all, Joel doesn’t let go, “You tried so hard, you did so good, kiddo.”

“I bit him when they slammed me onto a table to chop me up, it was enough time to get him worried about getting Infected. I killed his friend with this… this cleaver and got out, but…” “Good thinkin’.”

Her tears slow as she begins to shiver, “Not good enough.”

Never good enough.

“It gets… vague here, but I remember the fire. And I remember him taunting me. I think I got him with a knife, but all I can feel is him over me.”

The fighting is the part I like the most.

Joel’s thumb, which is rubbing circles on her arm just below her shoulder, stops.

“When he got to my zipper, I was able to get my hand on the cleaver and I just started swinging. I couldn’t stop, he barely looked like a person once I finally threw myself away.” She squeezes Joel into a hug, afraid he’ll pull away.

His thumb continues, “Oh, baby girl.”

Vile, nasty, doesn’t belong, will never belong, has the chance to belong and fucks it up over and over again, dirty little thing.

Baby girl, she never thought she would hear that again. Ellie bites the inside of her lip to stop her from wailing at the comment.

“I feel so gross. He’s everywhere, and he was right. I am violent, I am dangerous.” Her words wobble as she tries to keep it together, but she thinks the fists in his shirt are a dead give away.

“No, you aren’t. You’re just a girl,” He says into her hair as he kisses the crown of her head. “You did what you had to do, simple really. Remember? You chose you.”

I chose you.

“I just want me back.” Ellie settles on, it’s the only thought she has.

She’s never coming back from this. The past is just as heavy as a dead horse being dragged through the snow.

Will she ever go forward? Can she?

“Can I tell you somethin’?” The will to argue deflates when Joel says something like that.

His voice almost comes off like a choking sound whenever he gets emotional and it’s the thing that hurts the most to hear.

“Yeah.” Ellie says with a short nod, slumping over to give her knees a break from kneeling on the floor.

“Jimmy Buffett, he… that’s my favorite version of Brown-Eyed Girl, is by him.”

Ellie pulls her head off his chest with raised eyebrows, “Really? That’s what you needed to say, right now?”

Joel blinks down at her with an owlish look; fucking Puppy Eyes.

“You know when he released that?”

She almost wants to punch him in the throat, because of course she doesn’t, she’s never even heard of that pirate-wannabe until that dumb CD so why the fuck would he bring something up that is so stupid and so not…

Oh, you gotta be kidding me, “80s?” She mumbles out, settling her ear back on his chest.

His heartbeat is steadier than it was a year ago; Ellie feels him nod.

“Ellie, you aren’t any more violent or dangerous than everyone else living this day and age. You got a good heart, so good.” There is such belief in his voice that Ellie has to believe him.

What did Tommy say, a fighter at heart? Perhaps a poor choice of words…

She doesn’t believe them, not right now. But one day she could, if she really tried, now that she has all the time in the world to do so.

And for the first time, Ellie isn’t dreading the idea of tomorrow.

It wasn’t time that did it, maybe it was the hair ties.

“Can we get off the floor now, I really can’t feel my butt.”

“You can’t feel your butt? I can’t feel my whole lower half.”

“Am I supposed to feel bad that you’re old, not my fault.”

“Help me up, or I’m hidin’ the orange juice again.”

“Dude, do not take the things in life that make it worth living from me!”

“Help me up then, Jesus Christ— ugh, I can’t keep doing that.”

“You were the one who started floor time, don’t blame me.”

“Get out of here so I can get changed for breakfast, also stop stealing my shirts!”

“La la la, I can’t hear you over the sound of you making me waffles while I watch Holmes run it into the endzone again. Texas Fight, Texas Fight!”

“Lil fuckin’ shit.”

Ellie waves bye to Maria and Tommy until they round the corner and she can no longer see them or Felix with his little construction-paper hat waddling away from the back porch.

She is grinning up a storm as she walks back to her chair next to the rocking one Joel made a couple of weeks ago. He is strumming at his guitar as she sits down with a huff.

“Nice to know you’re still actin’ like you got a foot in the grave.” He mumbles around a toothpick in his teeth.

“And good to know you are takin’ on that rancher life.” Ellie snarks, pulling the toothpick out of his mouth.

She flips it around before putting it between her own teeth. And if he wants to complain about it, it is better than the joint he found between her fingers the last time Jesse and Dina were over.

Her and Cat are… taking a break, and ice cream isn’t necessarily an easy thing to find in the fucking apocalypse. She is still impressed that they even use resources on something like birthday cake.

But here in Jackson, they take a lot of pride of making it a whole rotation around the sun. Ellie sticks her finger into the icing on the leftover cake that sits idle on the table between them. She tries to avoid the Happy 1st Birthday, Fe—

His handprint took out the rest of his name.

Ellie wonders if she can talk someone into making her cake chocolate instead of boring ass vanilla, maybe her icing could even be green, as she somehow manages to lick off the frosting with the toothpick still in her mouth.

That pulls a sigh out of Joel. He has that fond look that makes her want to shove his face into the hole of the guitar. Everything about him that was once so hardened has smoothed out. He still has those wrinkles on his forehead from worrying too much, but they are less pinched.

He looks good… happy even with that graze on his right temple.

“Hey, let me at it.” She waves an insistent hand for him to pass over the instrument.

“Are you gonna drop it like last time?” “That was an accident, don’t be stingy now.”

Joel rolls his eyes and she thinks they are going to be stuck behind his head when he leans over with two hands and Ellie grabs it with one.

She settles down with it in her lap. Her fingers still struggle with some of the chords (and she blames the weight of her watch now that her arm doesn’t need to be bandaged anymore, little victories) but she is getting better.

There is a lot of time to avoid The Road, which is a fucked up read by the way, and at least half of it is going toward this.

The other half is spent behind the stables, those third graders really want to know how to hit a bullseye. Just don’t ask them.

She aimlessly strums an Am then a D chord, “I…think I get why you did it.”

Joel glances at her over his cup of coffee. He secretly-not-so-secretly traded one of his guns for a new bag; soft as hell.

“Yeah?” He asks, not with hope or dread in his voice.

“Yeah, like… I don’t think I’ll ever really forgive you for what you did ‘cause…” She thinks of Felix and what he’ll have to live through. “No trying means no chance.”

He nods shortly as he rests his cup against his chest.

“But I’m okay with where we landed.” Ellie looks up as she hits a shaky G.

Joel’s lips are pursed in that way that shows how glassy his eyes are. So she gives him the benefit of the doubt and looks away quick enough for him to wipe the inevitable tears away.

“Me too.” He says, clipped and tight like the loser he is.

Ellie pretends that the weight of the world is still on top of her just so she won’t float away. She focuses on the silhouettes of three figurines that line her garage window as she fiddles with the guitar again.

“Are you gonna play somethin’ or are we just gonna sit out here like idiots?” Joel places his cup on the side table so he can put his hands behind his head.

Ellie flips him off, “Fine, but don’t blame me when the birds never come back.”

“I’m pretty sure my rendition of Happy Birthday already sent them back south, get to it.”

Am D G C/B
Am D Am D

“We’re talking away. Well, I don’t know what I’m to say.” Her voice is a little shaky, she’s never tried to play this in front of anybody yet.

But Joel barely counts at this point.

“I’ll say it anyway. Today is another day to find you.” And somehow the old man figures out how to rock his chair to the beat.

As the days pass, malls become malls again, cabins become cabins, hospitals become hospitals, and churches become churches; nothing more, nothing less. Progress is slow, but slow progress is still progress even when she feels like she has taken a hundred steps back one day.

As long as she takes one step forward the next day, can she really ask for anything else, anything better?

Ellie’s fingers slip, but she doesn’t slow down, “Shying away. I’ll be coming for your love, okay—”

Maybe she’s softened up a bit too.

“Take on me.” Joel lightly sings along when the words get lost on her.

She turns her gaze away from the fingerboard and looks at Joel who is smiling like he has never frowned before.

Today is a good day, just like how she knew it would be, but no one knows if tomorrow will be too. It’s enough for now. Ellie hopes he will look like this forever. So she makes sure to backlog this moment as a reminder for the future day that he won’t.

Ellie luckily finds her groove back with him, “Take me on.”

The cicadas buzz, and the grass grows, and the lights stay on until they don’t.

And for a moment, Ellie believes she has everything she has ever wanted; this.