Chapter Text
Something’s wrong.
She’s trapped behind this stupid fucking gate with Callus, watching Joel limp across the square. And something’s wrong.
“Joel! Are you okay?” she demands, hands gripping the metal bars so tight her knuckles turn white. “What happened?”
With a sigh, he gestures to the building behind him, wincing when he pushes the generator toward the plug. “More infected.”
That’s not it. That’s not what’s wrong. They encounter infected all the time — okay, not all the time, but enough — so she knows how Joel reacts. “Here, come open the gate! What happened to your leg?”
Joel doesn’t speak, just gets the generator running and tells her to come on through. Her stomach drops at his silence. Why isn’t he answering? He always says he’s fine, even when it’s not true. Where are the platitudes she’s gotten so used to?
“Wait,” he instructs when she goes to mount. “Just… bring ‘im over here.”
The generator sputters and hums, the sound as sickly as she feels. His entire demeanor sends alarms blaring and chills down her spine. She’s never seen this deep, almost weary, resignation in him. It reminds her of…
Heart pounding in her chest, she leads the horse over to Joel, plopping down next to him without securing Callus. “You’re scaring me.”
“I got bit.”
The words don’t compute. “By what?”
Joel blanches, his mouth working soundlessly for a moment before his expression—and voice — cracks. “Ellie.”
No. No, no, no, no, no, no. No.
No.
Time stops. Existence narrows to Joel and the cold horror consuming her. “Where?” It comes out small, barely even a breath escaping her constricted throat.
His eyes bore into hers as he raises his pant leg. In an instant, she’s kneeling in front of Joel with one hand on his ankle and the other wrapped around the back of his calf. A grotesque oval of punctures mar his shin, blood trickling down to stain his sock. It looks like her arm, like Riley’s hand, like Sam’s leg in those first few minutes after… after.
“No.”
She twists away to gag once, twice, covering her mouth to stifle the sobs threatening to erupt. “We need to get to the science building.” Her voice cracks; she doesn’t give a fuck. “Now.”
Joel shakes his head. “Ellie—”
“No, listen to me,” she insists, grabbing one of his hands with both of hers. “They… I think they can make it quick. The cure. And… and it’s on your leg, so we have a little time—”
“Ellie.”
“We have… Joel, we have to move. Now.” She jumps to her feet and grabs Callus, leading him to Joel. “Now, Joel.”
Joel’s expression doesn’t change as he hauls himself up with a grunt, eyes tightening in pain. Once he mounts, he offers his hand and helps her up, just as he has every time they’ve had to get on Callus. She’s always surprised by how warm his hand is, how the roughness is a comfort, not an irritant, against her own skin.
The campus sprawls before them as they canter forward. There’s no time to investigate the tents and vehicles decorating the path to the Fireflies.
The path to hope for Joel.
Twelve to twenty-four hours. That’s how long FEDRA claims it takes to full infection when the bite is below the knee. But in reality, it’s faster. Less than eight hours after the bite, Sam turned. Riley started twitching after twenty minutes; two hours later, she put a bullet in her best friend’s brain.
They round the corner toward the science building, its glass facade looming ahead. They only go a few feet before Joel swears under his breath as he turns Callus around. “What are—”
“Quiet,” he hisses, directing the horse to a narrow alley between buildings. As he dismounts, he unholsters the rifle and motions for her to join him. “Raiders. Don’t think they saw us.”
“Don’t have time for this shit,” she mutters angrily before looking at Joel. It took her forever to learn his facial expressions because a lot of them are similar. But right now, she can’t put a name to the emotions etched into his forehead, the creases around his eyes, the thinned lips. “Are you sure they aren’t Fireflies? Maybe—”
“They ain’t Fireflies.”
“We can take them. It—”
“We don’t know how many of them there are, let alone how well-armed they are. We have to leave.”
“But—”
“Kiddo…” Hands land on her shoulders, keeping her in place as Joel leans in; they’re eye-to-eye. “If the Fireflies were here, raiders wouldn’t get this far.” His eyebrows quiver just the slightest amount as he whispers, “I’m so sorry.”
Sorry for what, she wants to ask. Sorry the Fireflies aren’t here? Sorry he changed his mind and relieved Tommy of the burden that is Ellie Williams? Sorry he got bit?
Sorry he’s another person who leaves? Who dies?
Her sinuses start to burn, the sensation radiating into her molars and up through her scalp. “We can wait,” she begs, choking on the last word. At some point, she gripped Joel’s forearms; her fingers hurt from how tightly they hold on. “In… in another building. We can hide with Callus and when they’re gone, we can—”
“Ellie.” He squeezes her shoulders, then runs his hands down her arms. “The Fireflies ain’t here, and we ain’t safe. We need to leave before they spot us.”
Something breaks inside her chest. Not the dull, constant ache of loss she’s come to accept. No, this is sharper; more violent. Like her ribs are splintering from the inside out.
“We’re not leaving,” she says, low and dangerous. “Not without trying.”
His eyes flicker with an impossible array of emotions — resignation, reassurance, deadly sharp vigilance — before he tugs her closer, his voice barely audible. “Listen to me. I need you to understand something. Those men? They see us, they’ll kill us both. And I…”
The word catches, his throat bobbing as he swallows hard. “I can’t let you die tryin’ to save someone who can’t be saved.”
“But you don’t know that!” The words tear from her without consideration for the volume. “You don’t know the Fireflies aren’t in another building, or—”
“I know it’s been months since anyone kept watch around here. And you know it too.” Joel’s grip tightens, his gaze piercing through her. “I need to keep you safe for as long as I can.”
“Maybe—”
“Please.”
The raw emotion in his voice silences her. Joel rarely says please. The word sounds foreign coming from him, like he’s speaking to her in another language. She stares at him, superimposing blackened veins and mottled skin, imagining the garbled words and muscle spasms that will overtake him. All inevitable, like death, like loss. Like everything else in this fucked-up universe.
“Okay.” She hates herself for giving in, for accepting what’s happening when she should fight it with everything she has. But Joel’s shoulders sag with relief, and she thinks she made the right choice.
He chafes her arms a few times before he turns to scan the perimeter, nodding at whatever he sees. “Up,” he directs, gesturing at Callus. “You stay here—”
“What? No!”
“You stay here while I make sure there ain’t an ambush waitin’ for us. I’ll be right back.” As soon as she’s in the saddle, Joel slips away into the shadows.
One terrifying thought consumes her: she will never see Joel again. The raiders are waiting for him. They’re going to kill him and leave his body on the ground, beaten and bloody. She won’t know until it’s been too long, until he’s too dead, until she’s too late, so she disobeys his orders and slides off Callus to peek around the corner.
Crunching from outside makes her jump; the resulting fumble for her gun ends when it clatters to the ground, the sound echoing through the enclosed space. Perfect. The one thing Joel didn’t want was for her to die at this fucking university. Now, she’s about to.
A figure turns the corner before she can get back on the horse, scooping up the pistol within seconds. “Just me, kiddo. Coast’s clear.”
Joel. Joel, who’s here in front of her again. Who, in a few hours, won’t be Joel any longer.
Who, in a few hours, won’t be.
He shouldn’t be pushing the horse like this, but he needs to get Ellie as far north as possible. The FEDRA poster runs through his mind: coughing, slurred speech, muscle spasms, mood changes. He ain’t coughing or spasming. The few words they exchange aren’t slurred. Mood changes…
Well, who wouldn’t have mood changes when they’re facing oblivion?
Instead of analyzing what they need to do — and what he’s going to say — he sinks all his focus into the arms wrapped around his waist, the press of Ellie’s slight weight against his back. Each jolt of the horse sends white-hot pain shooting from his leg through his entire body. He grits his teeth against it, refusing to let Ellie hear even a hint of discomfort.
Every few minutes, the girl tightens her hold and asks if anything’s wrong, if he’s feeling different, if his hands are twitching. The first question wavers through tears that drive a stake through his heart; he shifts the reins to one hand and wraps his fingers around hers. Each time, he says no with a reassuring squeeze. Each time, she leans a little heavier against him.
They’re a good enough distance away when he guides Callus to a patch of grass, patting the small hand white-knuckling his jacket zipper. “He needs to rest a spell.” The truth is, he needs the break just as much as the horse. The throbbing in his leg has become nearly unbearable.
He has Ellie do everything without instruction or assistance. She knows what to do and how to do it, but he’s always been there to lend a hand and give unsolicited — often unwanted — advice.
That won’t be the case tomorrow. And he needs Ellie to have every advantage.
She goes through the motions, silently loosening the saddle, checking Callus’s hooves, giving him water. It fractures something deep in his chest; she loves talking to the horse, especially when she’s taking care of him. He will never hear her soft rambling as she checks for swelling or raw spots again. When they stopped earlier, before they reached the university, she recounted one of her comics to him, giggling when he caught her holding it up to Callus’s eye.
When she finishes the care routine and stands there, lost, he pats the ground beside him. “C’mere.”
She kneels by his ankles, reaching for the cuff of his jeans with shaking hands. A choked whimper escapes before she chokes out, “I think it’s worse.”
Part of him wants to snap that of course it’s worse; another part wants to tell her everything will be okay, even when they both know that’s a blatant lie. The wound is scabbing over, inflamed skin highlighting the grotesque tendrils and blisters snaking their way up his body. The infection is spreading faster than he expected, angry red and black lines now extending halfway up his calf. It throbs no matter how he moves, the pain intensified by an hour on horseback. If he thinks about it too much, he can feel the cordyceps creeping through his veins.
His delayed response results in Ellie scrambling to touch his head, her breaths coming in short, shallow pants.
“Just my shitty conversational skills,” he murmurs, holding her gaze as she touches his face. “Take a breath.”
Her fingers are ice cold against his skin, her eyes wide and frantic as they search his. “You’re not warm,” she says, voice wavering. “That’s good, right?”
“You’re freezin’, girl,” he says as he gently removes them from his face and chafes them between his. Yet another failing; he should have gotten her gloves.
“I’m fine.”
Stubborn girl. “Grab one of my flannels; sleeves should be long enough—”
“I said I’m fine.” There’s an edge to her voice now, one he recognizes as fear. She pulls her hands away and sits back on her heels, staring at the wound on his leg as if she could will it away. “Are we staying here?”
He lets out a deep sigh, running a hand over his face as he scrutinizes her with a mix of concern, guilt, and determination. “No. We need the daylight to get as far as we can.”
Her bottom lip is red and swollen from how she’s been anxiously gnawing on it. “Do you feel any different?” she whispers.
She doesn’t look convinced by his soft no, her eyes darting between his face and the wound. “You’d tell me, right? If you started feeling it?” she presses, searching for any sign of change.
“I would. I will.” He’ll tell her when the tremor starts, when his mind begins to slip. He’ll tell her when there’s no more time for goodbyes, when she needs to go on alone. He’ll tell her because she deserves that final warning, that last chance to get away from him before the final image she has of him is one of a monster. He owes her that much. He owes her so, so much more.
A single nod, then she rises to ready Callus for the next leg of their journey. He watches her, memorizing the determined set of her jaw, the way she idly tucks stray hairs behind her ear when she’s concentrating.
“You ride in front this time.” Before she can question why, he mounts and gestures for her to follow. “Be easier for you to tell if my hands…” He winces as he swings his injured leg over the horse, biting back a hiss.
It’s an excuse, one he hopes she doesn’t see through. They have so little time left together; he wants to hold her close for as long as possible. To give her the comfort he withheld out of cowardice these past few months. To burn the essence of her slight form into his being, just like he did with Sarah.
Another girl he’ll never get enough time with.
She hops up without a word, body tense as she finds her seat. When he grabs the reins and urges the horse forward, she sags; when he wraps his other arm around her waist, she leans back and covers his hand with both of hers. Quiet settles between them, hooves on a road and Ellie’s increasingly unsteady breath their only soundtrack.
Miles pass before her shoulders start to shake with consistency, so he dips forward until his mouth is level with her ear. “Still with you, kiddo. Try breathin’ with me.”
That makes her sob harder, her whole body trembling against his chest.
It’s earlier than he’d like, but continuing when Ellie’s reached her limit… he can’t bear to cause her more distress. “Easy, now. We’re stoppin’ real soon.”
She nods, curling forward until he slides his hand to her chest and gently urges her to recline against him. When they left Boston, he had no intention of growing attached to this little girl. Then he saw her fear of being abandoned in Lincoln, her softer and sillier sides, her innate trust in him as they picked their way through a fallen quarantine zone, her grief at Henry and Sam’s deaths, her insatiable curiosity.
If he’s being honest with himself — and for the first time, he is — Ellie became his world less than a week after they met.
And he’s so goddamn grateful.
Joel is the only thing keeping her upright. Literally. They ride on, but despite his bulk at her back and his hand resting on her chest, it’s impossible to stop crying. He keeps whispering in her ear, telling her he’s there, he’s with her, and to match his breathing. She tries — she tries — but the longer they travel, the harder it gets. Just as her vision takes on a dark haze, he tugs her jacket zipper down enough to rest his palm over her t-shirt, fingers firmly rubbing her collarbone. The warmth seeps into her lungs, her heart. By the time they stop, her inhales aren’t shaking and her exhales aren’t accompanied by whimpers.
It’s not much, but it’s better.
Joel has her clear the derelict house on her own while he tends to Callus. Usually, they search buildings together, silent until each room and closet has been inspected. As she goes room to room, pistol at the ready, she tries to figure out why their responsibilities are different now.
Thankfully, there’s no sign of life on the main floors, and the basement is similarly devoid of humans and infected alike. It’s filled with storage bins and sports equipment. Her flashlight lands on several plastic toboggans stacked like a dust-colored rainbow.
There isn’t much snow, which means the plastic will rub and wear against the ground. She’ll need to tie them together so they last the entire trip. If there are skis or something, she can cobble it all together so there’s less chance of the contraption falling apart. She searches through more boxes, finding rope and duct tape perfect for fashioning a harness to attach the sleds to Callus. It will be the easiest way to get Joel back to Jackson; she sure as fuck isn’t leaving him here.
The thought of Joel’s body, wrapped in sheets and blankets, being dragged behind a horse buckles her knees and her stomach rebels even though there’s nothing to bring up. There isn’t time to fall apart; he’ll worry if she dawdles much longer and, well… he has enough to worry about. So she pushes the horror and the sorrow and the terror away, takes a deep breath, and trudges back to Joel. He’s in the garage with Callus, the contents of his pack spread across an old workbench.
“What are you doing?”
He flinches, head whipping around as if he wasn’t expecting her. “Takin’ inventory. House clear?”
When she nods, he holds out the precious spool of wire, the one they use to set snares. “Try settin’ four tonight,” he instructs in a too-gentle, too-concerned tone. “There’s, uh… you’ll have more than enough for the trip…”
She snatches it without a word and turns on her heel before tears streak down her face again. “You’re in charge of the fire too,” he calls.
Oh, fuck, he’s making her set everything up because this is what she’ll do from now on: travel on her own. Survive on her own.
Be on her own.
Her hands shake as she sets the snares. She’s done this dozens of times, but today her fingers are clumsy and uncooperative. The fourth snare takes three tries before she gets it right because she keeps glancing back, expecting to find Joel watching her. He isn’t. What if he didn’t tell her that the cordyceps was taking hold? What if he somehow willed himself not to turn in her presence and now that she’s not there, he surrenders to the inevitable?
She’s seen it before — how quickly the infection can take over. Riley went from normal to feverish to twitching to gone in too short a time. So far, Joel is showing remarkable resistance, but what if that changes? What if he’s already bowing to the pull of the fungus, the slow collapse of his self?
The mental image sends her flying back to the house at full speed, food and fire forgotten. She bursts into the garage and crashes into Joel, whose arms close around her before either of them can fall.
She doesn’t cry, but it’s a near thing.
“You need to come with me,” she rasps, pressing her forehead to his breastbone. “Just… please.”
His heartbeat thrums through his chest, steady and human, as he rubs her back. She tries to memorize the sound, the essence, the importance of it; it’s the only thing tethering her to reality.
“Alright,” he says, his voice a low rumble. “Show me what you’re doin’.”
They walk together to where she’s set the snares, his gait slower than normal. She pretends not to notice how he favors his leg, how his breathing catches when he steps wrong. He keeps a hand on her shoulder the whole way, only letting go when he bends to examine her traps.
“These look great, kiddo,” he says once they’ve reached the last one. “Let’s get the wood together and head back; we need to go over some stuff.”
Right. Like how he’s about to die and leave her forever, like how she’s facing days and days with nothing but Callus and Joel’s fucking corpse for company.
Joel guides her to the ground when the retching starts.
By the time she stops puking and the fire is stable enough to leave untended, she feels like she’s going to explode with nervous energy. Joel leads her into the garage and gestures to two chairs he set up side-by-side at a folding table. The map is spread open, illuminated by a flashlight with a metal flask sitting beside it.
“Alright,” he says quietly, guiding her to a chair. As soon as he sits, she moves as close to him as possible, her leg bumping against his. “I know this is hard, but I need you to focus right now. Can you do that?”
Since she’s determined to soak in every last second in Joel’s presence, she can. She will. She nods.
Patting her knee, he taps a spot marked with a waxy purple circle. He must have found a crayon somewhere. “This is where we are,” he says, more focused on her than the paper. “And this is the path you’ll take.” He traces a winding line through Colorado and up into Wyoming. “Same route we took comin’ down; only reason you deviate from it is if there’s no other option, understand?”
If she opens her mouth, she’ll start crying again, so she nods, running a shaking finger along the same route.
He directs her finger back to their current position. “You make the same stops, you take the same rest days, you camp in the same spots. Now, remember what I taught you ‘bout clearin’ an area. I’m thinkin’ you won’t find no surprises, but…” His pointer touches hers, guiding it up to a horizontal line. “I marked where slept, but it’s all an approximation. We shouldn’t be more than an hour or two from where we stopped last night, so when you leave, you ain’t gotta get movin’ first thing.”
“‘Kay.”
“Reckon, uh… well, reckon tomorrow’ll be a rest day.” She barely slept for days before she went to Marlene for help; there will be no rest for a while. “Day after, you take Callus up to that first campsite — we don’t know where those raiders came from, so you need to get further away. It’ll be a short day, but that’s alright. Next day, you gotta be on your way. Weather’s gonna turn soon and I don’t want you caught out in a blizzard.”
“No Snow-Ellies,” she chokes. “Got it.”
He opens his mouth, then closes it as he shakes his head. “Let’s check those snares, get some food cookin’. I’ll be mighty surprised if you didn’t get at least one rabbit.”
“How much further is it?” Confusion clouds his expression until she points to the blood stain on his jeans.
A pause, then, “Go see if the fire needs tendin’ while I check.”
She stands with reluctance, every instinct screaming not to leave him alone. His dismissal is like abandonment, like he’s pushing her away already to prepare for the inevitable separation. But also… she understands. He doesn’t want her to see how bad it’s getting.
“I won’t be long,” she says resolutely. “Don’t… don’t go anywhere, ‘kay?”
Joel’s eyes soften with understanding as he nods. “I’ll be right here.”
For now. The phrase echoes in her mind as she walks away. For now.
Ellie is trying so hard to keep it together. It’s evident in her trembling hands, her strained voice, her red eyes, her hypervigilance.
Any of those tells would be enough to soften his usual rapport with her, to try to alleviate her distress while maintaining the careful distance they’ve cultivated over these past few months. The most telling sign, however, is how quiet — how serious — she is.
She’s cycled through shock, fear, denial, desperation, panic, sorrow. Not anger, though. Anger is Ellie’s go-to reaction when anything frightening or upsetting occurs.
He’s waiting for the inevitable explosion.
They eat in bleak silence, Ellie’s arm pressed against his the entire time. Despite his running commentary, separating and arranging his belongings so Ellie can carry them is similarly grim.
“When you’re ridin’ you wear your pack,” he instructs when she asks why they don’t put her bag in his. “If somethin’ happens and you have to make a run for it without Callus, you’ll have the real important stuff. Y’don’t need to be weighed down by the rest of it.”
He gets a short, silent nod in response.
“Now, uh…” No matter how he phrases this, it’s going to upset Ellie. “I want you to give this to Tommy,” he murmurs, sliding an envelope from under the map. “My watch…” His throat hurts with the force of his swallow. “I need to be wearin’ it, but after… if you could take it off—”
“Can I keep it?” She reaches out, shaking fingers ghosting over the glass. “Please.”
The plea almost undoes him.
“‘Course you can,” he murmurs, sandwiching her hand between his left wrist and right palm. “Just - let Tommy know you have it? He won’t take it from you or nothin’, but, uh… he should — I mean, he’ll wanna know—”
“I’ll tell him.” She digs her pointer under the watch band, fingertip pressed to his pulse point.
Her touch anchors him to the present, a reminder that for now, he’s still here; they’re still together. It’s fitting that the last gift Sarah gave him will be the last gift he gives Ellie. Gratitude fills him for a moment at the thought of his daughter and this girl who’s become like a daughter connected by time.
“How ‘bout we find a spot to settle down?” he asks when they’ve finished. “Somewhere that don’t smell like horse shit.”
“You smell like horse shit.” The retort is half-hearted at best, but he’ll take it over her quiet despair.
“Smell better’n you,” he teases, elbowing her as they head for the interior.
The resulting shove sends him stumbling into the wall, but it garners a small grin; he’ll take it. “Yeah, ‘cause I’m not a decaying fossil. Old people reek—”
Ellie inhales sharply, a weak smile vanishing as she snaps her eyes shut. “Sorry, sorry, that’s not—”
“Teenagers reek,” he interrupts, tugging on her ponytail. “All those raging hormones, terrible hygiene…”
“Dude,” she glares. “The closest thing we have to a shower is the fucking rain. It’s not my fault.”
“Last time it rained, you bitched all day,” he reminds her as he gestures for her to test the worn couch. “And let me tell you, you didn’t smell like no rose after.” She throws herself on it, coughing when a cloud of dust rises around her. When she doesn’t end up wedged between the cushions and the floor, he joins her.
She sits near enough that their thighs touch. They’re often in close proximity — hell, they just spent days on a horse with Ellie chatting away or sleeping against his back — but they don’t normally sit so near.
Then again, nothing about this is normal.
He shifts until their legs are in full contact, shoe bumping against shoe.
Silence settles between them again, heavy and thick with words unspoken. He notices her constant vigilance, the way her eyes dart to his face, his hands, his neck, his leg — looking for symptoms that will mark the beginning of the end.
Unable to bear the apprehension hanging between them, Joel demands, “Just spit it out.”
Ellie swallows hard, leaning forward to balance her elbows on her knees, head hanging low. “Um. Are…”
He focuses all his attention on her, ducking so he can see her face, even if she won’t — or can’t — look at him. A single tear traces its way down her cheek.
“Are you going to shoot yourself or did you want me to do it?”
His heart skips a beat, although his expression remains unchanged. Don’t you never put a gun to your head again, Tommy had growled when he woke up. Fuck’s sake, Joel. I can’t lose you too.
“I’ll do it,” he says through the lump in his throat. “And you won’t be there when I do.”
She jerks upright, eyes wide with horror. “No fucking way.” The words burst from her with no room for challenge. “I’m not leaving you. I’m not—” Her voice cracks. “I’m not letting you die alone.”
“Ellie—”
“No. We’re not arguing about this, Joel.” She stands abruptly, pacing the length of the room. “I’ve been with people who were infected right to the end. I’m not fucking leaving you.”
It’s almost a relief that the anger she’s been expecting has finally made an appearance. “I told you. I fucking told you, everyone dies or leaves me. And you wanted to leave me once, but then you gave me a choice and I chose you. But now I don’t have a choice so you don’t get to take this away from me. You don’t.” She growls, deep in her throat, suddenly pivoting to punch the wall, her fist going right through the drywall. “You don’t.”
When she withdraws her hand, crimson blossoms across her knuckles, trickling down her fingers. There’s fire in her eyes, the spark of defiance he’s come to know, to respect, and it brings him relief. Her fear back at the university was borne of shock; this… this is raw determination.
He watches her for a moment, cataloging the way her chest heaves with each breath, the trembling of her bloodied hand. The anger is better than the quiet, even if it’s directed at him. Even if it cuts him to the bone.
“Ellie,” he says softly, standing. “C’mere.”
She shakes her head, backing away. “My best friend got bit the same time as me. Riley.”
Christ.
“Hers was on her hand, by her thumb. And she told me—” Her words tumble out faster now, as if she’s afraid the courage to speak them will vanish. “She told me she didn’t want to give up any of our time together, even if it was just two minutes. So we decided to wait it out. To lose our minds together.”
Red smears across her cheek when she wipes away a tear. He stays still, afraid any movement will shatter this fragile, raw moment.
“I put a pistol to her forehead and shot her two hours later. Then I dragged her to the arcade and made her comfortable. And then I sat with her body for three days. Did you know infected bodies don’t decay the same as regular ones?”
He didn’t; he never stayed with a dead infected long enough to find out.
“And it was bullshit. It was bullshit. She was trying to say goodbye ‘cause the Fireflies were sending her to a different city, and I asked her not to go and she agreed. She said she’d stay with me, but she didn’t. She couldn’t. So I stayed with her ’til the end. Longer.”
Tears run down her cheeks unchecked, dripping from her chin as she digs her fingernails into bloodied knuckles. “I’m the one who stays, Joel. I’m always the one who stays. So I’m staying with you until the end and longer ‘cause that’s what I do, who I am. The one who gets left behind.” She sniffs, wiping her face with her shoulder. “I’m just… meant to be abandoned. Alone.”
His chest tightens painfully at the depth of her loss, at the crushing realization that he’d accused her of not knowing grief. He stares at her — this fierce, broken little girl — and sees himself reflected in her anguish. The same stubborn refusal to yield, the same raw wounds that never have the chance to scab over before something reopens them, tearing even deeper.
“C’mere,” he says again, softer now. She crosses to him, her steps slow and her bloodied hand cradled against her chest. When she’s close enough, he gently takes her wrist, examining the split knuckles. White plaster sticks to the open cuts like a paste and it’s already swelling, but nothing seems broken. He doesn’t comment on the injury, just guides her back to the couch and sits with her.
“You ain’t meant to be abandoned. Or alone.”
She stares at the floor, shoulders hunched as she avoids his gaze. “Sure seems like it.”
The silence between them is as raw and exposed as Ellie’s hand. He weighs his words, praying he can get this right.
“I didn’t want to leave you with Tommy,” he says finally. “I wanted — want — to keep you safe. And I knew he’d be able to do that for me. For you.”
Ellie says nothing, just keeps staring at her bloody knuckles. He sighs, reaching into his pack for a rag and his canteen. When he takes her hand to clean it, she doesn’t resist.
“Y’wanna know what scares me most ‘bout this?” he asks, voice barely above a whisper as he dabs at the cuts.
She nods, still not meeting his eyes.
“It ain’t the dyin’ part.” He wets the rag again, careful not to press too hard on the swollen flesh. “It’s what comes after. What happens to you when I’m gone.”
Ellie’s head snaps up, her eyes locking with his. There’s anger and confusion written across her features, mixed with grief — emotions he knows all too well. “I can take care of myself.”
“I know you can,” he says, wrapping the cloth around her knuckles. “That ain’t what I mean.”
“Then what?”
He ties the rag off but doesn’t release his hold; it’s easier to stare at their joined hands while he confesses. “After Sarah died, I didn’t think I could go on. Didn’t want to. Tried not to.” Small fingers tighten around larger ones. “Took me twenty years to find somethin’ to make… to, uh… that makes survivin’ worth it.”
“The cure?”
You, he wants to say. You make life worth living.
Instead, he gives a slight headshake, thumb sliding back and forth over Ellie’s palm until he gathers the courage to meet her eye. “Weren’t never ‘bout a cure.”
Her breath catches, confusion mingling with something that looks almost like hope. “Then what?”
The right words won’t come, so he takes her other hand, entwining their fingers. “Honey, if I could be with you ’til the end and longer… I would.”
She blinks rapidly, eyes widening as she processes his words. For a moment, the vulnerable, lonely child who underpins all of Ellie’s sass and bravado shines through so strongly that his chest hurts. When she looks away, it’s with a sharp, shaking exhale.
He pulls her closer, his hand supporting the back of her head as her shoulders tremble. “You’ve already lost so much. I’m… sorry… that I’m addin’ to it.”
“I have no idea what loss is, remember?”
How could he forget? How can he beg forgiveness? Silence looms heavy between them until he manages, “I was wrong. I was… angry.”
“Yeah, I got that,” she says voice thick with sarcasm. “Kinda hard to miss.”
He sighs, squeezing the taut muscles of Ellie’s neck as he contemplates his response. “It’s easier to be angry an’ lash out than it is to be honest. I, uh… That’s…” The right phrases desert him again, leaving him floundering to express himself. “I don’t want you to be angry like I was. It’s… it’ll eat away at you ’til you ain’t nothin’ like yourself no more.”
“There’s no one else to be honest with.”
If he thought his heart was broken before, it pales in comparison to the way his chest is shattering, exploding into dust and pain. “Ellie,” he breathes. “You’ll find ‘em. And in the meantime, you’ve still got me.”
She looks away, tears tracking down her face without a sound. His own eyes burn but he won’t surrender to the urge; he can’t burden her any further. Everything in him wants to bundle her into his arms, hold her close until everything is alright.
It’s not possible. There isn’t much comfort he can give, no matter how hard he tries. He wracks his brain, searching for something — anything — to do.
“How far is it now?” she asks before he comes up with meaningful words.
With a deep sigh, he lifts his shirt, allowing cold, trembling fingers to trace the lines branching above the waist of his pants. “But you don’t feel different?”
“I don’t feel different,” he confirms, holding the hem up until she pulls back, her bottom lip so firmly between her teeth that it’s white. “Saw you got a couple new books.” When she sniffs, he leans forward to catch her eye. “Would, uh… I could read one of ‘em. To you, I mean. If… if you want.”
She hesitates, wiping her face with her sleeve before reaching for her backpack to pull out a thin, worn paperback — The Giver.
“Haven’t thought ‘bout this one in a while,” he muses, settling into the musty cushions. He studies her profile, hunched and uncertain, and gives in to the impulse. “C’mere, kiddo.” When she doesn’t move, he wraps his arm around her back, encouraging her to come closer. “Gotta see the words if you wanna learn to read.”
That earns a huff, but she settles against his side, head tipped to rest against his. “You wanna learn to read.”
“Whaddya think I’m doin’?”
She nudges him, sagging into him more with every passing second. “Start already.”
So, he cracks the book.
It was almost December, and Jonas was beginning to be frightened. No. Wrong word, Jonas thought. Frightened meant that deep, sickening feeling of something terrible about to happen.