Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

She’s walking through the field when a wave of exhaustion wipes her straight off her feet.

The grain around her rustles in a taunt as she falls to her knees, a dry sob racking her body. She’s so fucking tired, and empty, and she’s ruined everything. If Joel were here, he would be so, so goddamn ashamed of what she’s become, and now she’s lost Dina, lost her little potato, and it was all for fucking nothing-

She screams into her hands, the sensation of missing fingers just another taunt of everything she’s fucked up.

She stays crouched in the field for what feels like an eternity, screaming and moaning and pounding her fists into the ground, each hit weaker than the last as the exhaustion grips her, coming in thick, overwhelming waves. When her eyes begin to droop, she doesn’t fight it, doesn’t move to go back to the house, doesn’t stand up- even as she feels rain start to fall on the back of her neck.

“Just let the exposure kill me” is her last thought before she slips into the abyss of dreams, curling into her side on the ground.

When Ellie opens her eyes, she is sitting on a porch, the soft sound of guitar beside her and a familiar smell of earth mixed with coffee bringing quick tears to her eyes. She turns her head and intakes softly.

“Joel?”

It’s barely a whisper, a question, her voice cracking as the tears stream freely. Warm eyes look back at her, and the strumming stops.

“Hey there, kiddo.”

It takes a second for Ellie to wrap her arms around him, to which Joel responds with a soft grunt and small chuckle before returning the warm hug. The sensation is fully overwhelming, and Ellie feels like a toddler again as she burrows into warm flannel.

“Yeah, I missed you too.”

Ellie stays there for several seconds, before she feels him shift, stepping back. She quickly wipes her cheeks and hiccups, taking in his very normal, not busted-to-shit face.

“Joel, I-”

“I know. It’s all okay now. You’re gonna be okay.”

“No- I- I’m sorry, I couldn’t-” Ellie’s voice breaks and she looks anywhere but his face, rocking back on her heels as she tries desperately to hold back a sob.

She feels two hands placed on either shoulder, but she can’t look up.

“I’m sorry Joel, I- I couldn’t kill her, I didn’t avenge you, I- I’m so fucking sorry and-”

She’s pulled back into a hug before she can say another word, and she feels a hand stroke through her hair gently as she shakes.

“Shh. It’s okay. I know, baby girl. It’s okay.”

“But- Abby-”

“Ellie.”

She shuts her mouth and curls her hands into his shirt, holding her breath to keep from crying out in pain.

They stand there for a few seconds, Joel holding her tight and rocking the two of them gently, all the while carding his fingers through her hair and humming softly. After a few seconds, she’s able to focus in on her breathing, counting slowly to keep from sobbing or hiccuping.

Eventually she feels herself being gently pushed into a chair, and she gains the courage to look back at his face. He crouches down to meet her eyes, offering that damn smile. She quickly looks away as the image of the distorted, beaten, bloody, dead look springs to her mind.

“Please, you gotta look at me, kiddo.”

She shakes her head, but feels a calloused hand take hers and squeeze.

“Ellie, baby, it’s okay.”

“It’s not-”

“It is.”

She laughs bitterly, pulling her hand up to wipe her eyes vigorously.
“What did you learn?”

Ellie looks up at this, the tears making her vision blurry. Confusion overwhelms guilt in her mind.

“...what?”

“What did you learn, kiddo?”

She wipes her face again, shaking her head.

“Joel, I don’t understand-”

She’s silenced as Joel reaches up, resting his palm on her cheek and leaning in to kiss her forehead.

“You remember what I said?”

Ellie blinks, trying to expel the tears from her eyes. “What.. you said?”

“I told you once, that if by some miracle, god gave me a second chance, I would save you again?”

She can remember that conversation. It haunted her dreams. The last conversation she’d had with him before-

“I-”

“Would you?”

She shakes her head.

“Would you do it all again?”

“I-no.” She surprises herself with the swiftness of her reply, and with the weakness of her voice. She can’t bring herself to look at him.

She hears a soft rustle, and the hand on her shoulder lifts. She looks up, chasing the contact, to see Joel smiling at her.

“Good.”

“...good?”

“Yeah.” He spreads his arms, invitation for a hug. Ellie hesitates for a second, wiping her eyes with her sleeve before she stands and hugs him, much looser than before.

“I’m proud of you, Ellie.”

When she wakes up, she’s crying far too much to take note of the soft bed underneath her or the makeshift garage apartment around her, curling into the empty space and letting her sobs fill the ache in her soul.

Chapter Text

Everything is fucking sore, especially her eyes. The skin feels tight and stretched and swollen and it burns slightly as she tries to open them. There is a collection of small crusties gathered on her eyelids, and she has to lift her hand to try and brush them away.

It’s the sensation of five fingers rather than three brushing her eyes that shoves her from dazed to fully awake and shooting upwards.

Blinking rapidly, Ellie’s eyes begin to focus and adjust. It’s dark, but not dark enough not to see the outlines of posters on the wall and the faint street light streaming through the door’s window. She hasn’t been here in years, but she recognizes it instantly. It’s her Jackson apartment, the one in the garage behind Joel's house.

But, this makes no sense- she’d come back here, after Seattle, to collect her things for the move to the farm. She’d taken down all of these posters, packed away all of her music, and even taken the small lamp on the desk with her. She remembers standing in that doorway, taking in the blank canvas of her old life and feeling completely numb.

Her eyes focus further and she switches on the lamp beside her bed, freezing as a gleam of silver and polished wood catches her eye. She pushes herself off the bed and grabs the switchblade she always used to keep on the bed stand, gripping it tight and staring down in bewilderment. She’d lost this knife, in the water after the fight with Abby. She’d spent several minutes on her hands and knees in the water, dragging her remaining fingers through the sand and sobbing, desperately trying to find it. Desperately trying to push down the horrible lurching in her stomach, the sounds of Abby’s motorboat fading into the fog.

Dropping the knife with a gasp, Ellie tries to control the panicked breathing pushing through her lungs in rapid succession. She starts to get a bit dizzy and falls back onto the floor, pressing her back to the mattress as images of Abby desperately thrashing in the water invade her vision. She can taste the salt and the iron, she can see the fear, she can hear the desperate yells that came with every attack, the two of them pushing and grabbing and clawing eachother in the water. Her entire body shakes and she tries to fight back the invasive flashes of sharp pain with every remembered blow, the burning of salt splashed into open wounds.

“Ellie!”

She covers her ears to block out the sounds of screams that begin echo in her ears, voices yelling her name, pleading, begging, everyone she’s abandoned, everyone she watched die, unable to save them- Riley, Tess, Sam, Henry, Jesse, Tommy, Dina, Joel, Joel, Joel-

“Ellie! Calm down, jesus fucking-”

Abby is grabbing her, and suddenly she’s the one being forced under the water, and she can’t breathe around the salt water flooding her mouth, and every time her eyes close she just sees his bloody, broken face- Joel, oh god, please get up, Joel-

“ELLIE!”

A sharp pain in her cheek pushes away the images and she gasps, eyes opening to stinging, wet cheeks and aching fingernails and the same very familiar, but deeply wrong room- and a face distorted in worry, crouched in front of her and gripping her shoulders like an iron mace.

Her mind clears enough for a name to ring in her ears.

“...Jesse?” Ellie chokes out.

The face breaks in relief, an edge of irritation flashing through dark eyes.

“Yeah, Ellie, dammit. You gotta fucking shut up, you’ll wake half the town with that screaming.”

She shakes her head. “..Town?” What? No, this isn’t real, she was in the field, she never wanted to go back to Jackson, and Abby shot Jesse, Jesse was dead-

“Okay, you gotta calm down right the fuck now- you’re freaking me out.”

She dares to open her eyes, but it can’t be right- his face had been shattered from the bullet through his skull, this couldn’t be-

“You aren’t real. This isn’t real. You’re dead.”

She hears a snort. “Uh, okay, sure I am.”

She feels herself being pulled off the floor and placed on the bed and the stinging in her fingers comes back in full force as Jesse picks up her hand.

“Jesus christ, El, were you trying to dig your way through hardwood? You need to go see one of the medics.”

She looks down and sees what Not-Jesse means. Her fingernails are destroyed, the tips of her fingers raw and bleeding where they’d been pulled back. Silvers of wood remain in a few of the wounds, and she hisses in pain as Not-Jesse plucks one out.

“So what, did you have a….nightmare or something? You good?”

Ellie stares back at him. He looks real. He feels real. His face isn’t bloodied or even scratched. That stupid ass mullet looks ratty as ever, and the bed bellow her feels so solid, and the pain in her fucking fingers is too pressing- if this was a dream- it didn’t feel like a dream-

“What day is it?”

Jesse raises an eyebrow. “Does anyone keep track of days anymore?”

Her eyes narrow slightly and he sighs. “It’s winter-y. I dunno. I just got back from seeing Joel and Tommy’s patrol off when I heard screams-”

Ellie jumps to her feet and grabs Jesse. “Joel? He’s alive??”

Jesse stares at her like she’s just told him she’s in love with a clicker.

“Okay, seriously, are you on something? Bad grass?”

Ellie’s head is spinning and she lets Jesse go, shoving past him to get to her jacket, scrambling to put it on and sloppily pulling on the closest sneakers she can find, grabbing her bag and practically running for the door. She’s stopped by a hand catching her arm.

“Woah, Ellie, you gotta tell me what’s going on.”

She’s shaking slightly as she looks back at him, and something in her eyes makes his hand drop. She stares at him, her best friend, who she watched die, and in a few seconds, she’s got him wrapped in a hug. She ignores the grunt as she squeezes, just letting herself hope for a moment as she takes in how solid he is, how real.

“K, it’s official. You’re freaking me out.”

She laughs wetly and pulls back.

“It’s so good to see you.” She says hoarsely, before turning, pulling open the door and running.

“Dude- I just saw you like, four hours ago!” Comes the yell behind her, followed by some muttering.

She laughs again, letting the tears fall as the cold wind hits her face. It doesn’t feel like a dream. And if it isn’t a dream-

She has a second chance.

Chapter Text

Ellie is not prepared for the wave of emotion when she sees Shimmer, but she is plenty prepared for the barrage of questions she has to answer to take her out of the stable.

“But- you have a patrol in a few hours, so why do you need to go now?”

Ellie shakes her head and takes the saddle herself, slinging it over Shimmer’s back with practiced ease and bending down to buckle it.

“I have something I need to speak to Joel about.” She lies, ignoring the sputtering from behind her as she grabs ammo and triple checks that her shotgun is fully loaded. Felix is a nice guy, really, but sometimes- well, if she wasn’t feeling particularly nostalgic at the moment, she might just punch his lights out.

“But- Ellie, listen to me, Maria is gonna kick my ass-”

Ellie rounds on the lead stable hand in a second, leveling him with a glare.

“Felix, you will let me out, and you will not tell anyone, and I won’t tell Maria about you and Kyle fucking off to smoke during your rotations.”

The man freezes and swallows slowly, blue eyes darting off to where Kyle sits, half asleep at the check in.

Ellie snorts and pulls herself up, clicking her tongue and spurring Shimmer into a trot.

“Wait- just- make sure you’re back before your patrol!”

She rolls her eyes and waves over her shoulder. “Yeah, yeah.” She doubts that she’ll be back by then, but honestly, priorities. What Felix doesn’t know won’t kill him. She hears Felix breaking into a jog behind her as she and Shimmer speed up.

“Wh- where are you even off to in such a hurry?”

Ellie ignores the question, instead jabbing Shimmer into a run, leaping over the stable gate with practiced ease.

She can’t waste another second.

Tommy had told Ellie, after it had all happened, that they’d rescued Abby in town- apparently a huge swarm of infected had been spotted in that area, and they arrived just in time to pull her ass from the fire.

She has to fight the anger that boils in her stomach at recalling this detail. They’d saved that bitch, only for her to turn around and kill-

“No, Ellie. Counter productive. Focus,” She mutters under her breath. She steers Shimmer through a stream, scanning the woods for any tracks or sign of a blonde braid.

In the back of her mind, she’s still trying to form a plan- which probably should’ve been her first prerogative, but then again, she is working against time here. Also, if she’s being honest, she fucking hates plans. In her experience, Ellie couldn’t name a single time that things had gone “according to plan”, so what even is the point?

But then again, again, last time she had charged in guns blazing and…Well, she’s avoiding letting that happen again, at any fucking cost.

“Okay, plan. Plan plan plan. Hm. Okay, step one, find Abby. Step two….uh…...figure out step three when you find Abby,” She makes a sharp turn, cursing and shaking her head. “God, no, that’s a dumbass plan. Stupid. No. Step one, find Abby. Step two, follow her and kill all of her stupid friends.”

This plan sounds better, but then she remembers the horrible feeling that had after killing the pregnant girl, and just in general how awfully the “kill all her friends” option had gone last time around, and she again shakes her head.

“No. Fuck. Why am I so bad at this?? Okay- Step two, uh-”

She’s cut off in her train of thought as a cry rings out through the trees, followed by several shrieking responses. Runners. She’s not even near town yet- good, maybe she still has a chance at catching Abby before she runs into Joel and Tommy.

Ellie immediately yanks Shimmer’s reins in the direction of the sound, drawing her shotgun as she veers off the path at high speed. She has to get there before Tommy and Joel, she has to find Abby first.

They break through the trees in a manner of minutes, and it takes Ellie a few seconds to process what she’s seeing. But before she can get a proper lay of the land, she’s being dragged off her saddle and into the snow by a runner.

She only has seconds to react as she tumbles onto the ground, her shotgun flying out of her grip. The runner is on top of her immediately, teeth snapping as she holds it off her with her forearm, using her free hand to grab desperately around her for her lost gun. The thing shrieks in her face, spittle flying into her eyes, flailing in an attempt to push forward.

Ellie’s free hand retreats from it’s search for the shotgun and instead twists behind her, yanking free a knife from her bag. She swings, hard, and with a sickening crunch the blade stabs into the runner’s skull, causing it to scream in pain. She yanks it out and stabs a few more times for extra measure, before she throws the now limb corpse off her.

As she tries to push herself up as quickly as possible, she sees the clicker too late, scrambling backwards in a half raised position. She doesn’t have time to pull back and stab this one, and her gun-

A single shot rings through the air, and the clicker collapses onto her. She shoves it off quickly, rearing back to fight, only to see the large portion of it’s fungally infected face gone. At the sound of a gun being cocked, she swings her head around to find herself staring into eyes that had haunted her nightmares for the past year.

“They just keep fucking coming- we need to get out of here.”

Ellie just sits there, staring, ignoring the slow seeping of melting snow and warm blood soaking her clothes and the approaching shrieks in the distance.

The last time she’d seen Abby, the woman was a shadow of her former self. She’d atrophied away into a skeleton, her hair had been chopped short, and her face had been gaunt, grey, and covered in bruises. That Abby had been pitiful and weak and even with all the hate she held, Ellie couldn’t justify killing the ghost she had become.

But this- this was the Abby she had been after. This is the Abby that wouldn’t think twice about bashing in Joel’s skull with a fucking golf club. This was the Abby that she had dreamed of killing, the Abby she’d tracked eight hundred and sixty fucking miles just to be beaten and humiliated and watch another friend die.

And yet-

“You- saved me.” Ellie whispers, her voice cracked and her throat burning with barely controlled rage.

Abby grins. Ellie almost wants to vomit at the look directed at her, and she is reminded of every time she wished Abby torture and death and every horrible thing. She hates her so much that she has to force herself to look away.

“Yeah, thank me as we get out of here, strawberry shortcake. Think you can calm down your ride?”

Ellie twists her head away, trying to see past the red that tints her vision to focus on the sound of her distraught horse, bucking and neighing behind her.

She needs to focus. If she dies here, if she kills her here, everything would have been for nothing. Joel would die again, whether it was today or tomorrow or another day, no matter if it was Abby or Nora or the pregnant one- If she'd learned anything, it's that trying to end this fucking cycle with violence just got more people hurt.

She has to shove away the guilt that starts to rise as Jesse's expression from hours earlier appears in her mind. She has a job to do.

Ellie pushes herself to her feet and puts out her hands, grabbing Shimmer’s reigns and forcing the animal to calm down, ignoring the sound of shots behind her as she takes care of the first of the mob flooding into the snowy clearing.

“Any day now!” Comes a yell, and Ellie pulls herself into the saddle and turns to look.

Abby’s back is to her. It would be so easy to just leave her here for the infected pulling themselves from ice and snow. To seal the deal, she could use her knife and stab her now. It’d be effortless.

But instead, she reaches out her hand.

“Grab on!”

Abby turns and takes her arm. The touch feels like being struck by lightning, but Ellie fights the urge to react and pulls her up behind her on Shimmer, taking off through the trees.

The spots where Abby grabs hold on her side burn, and it takes every ounce of her willpower not to shove the other woman off the back of her fucking horse. She hears gunshots behind her as Abby twists to pick off the followers, one arm twisting around Ellie’s middle for balance.

“So, you gotta name?” Abby half-yells over her shoulder as she reloads.

Ellie grits her teeth and steers Shimmer around a tree and over a rock.

“Where are we going? We’re too far from my camp.” Ellie yells back. That’s a lie, she remembers full well where they’re headed- but if she followed that route without Abby telling her, it would no doubt raise the woman’s red flags.

It takes a moment and two more shots, before Abby responds.

“I’m with a small group, we’re holed up halfway up the mountain in a cabin. We’ve secured a perimeter- head there.” Another round is fired. “And my name is Abby.”

Ellie snorts and clicks her tongue at Shimmer to go faster.

“I didn’t ask.”

Chapter Text

They’ve accumulated quite the following by the time they’ve made it up the hill, Abby cursing behind her as she runs out of shells, restoring instead to using Ellie’s gun to smack any infected that get too close. Ellie hates to admit it, but it’s clear why the woman has survived for so long- she’s a force of nature, even on the back of a fucking horse, riding uphill at as fast as Shimmer goes.

Even so, it’s a relief when the gates come into view.

“There! Up ahead!” Abby calls, smacking the but of the gun into the face of a runner that tries to grab Ellie’s leg.

Ellie leans forward, willing Shimmer to go faster as the people she begins to pick out ahead call to each other and open the gate just enough for the horse to get in.

Suddenly, she feels the grip on her sides yank backwards, and for a split second she thinks Abby is trying to throw her from the saddle. She twists around to punch her square in the fucking face, only to see a clicker pulling Abby off Shimmer’s back.

It’s as if everything turns to slow motion as Abby falls backwards, mouth opening into a cry as the clicker wraps its blistered, spore covered arms around her shoulders, teeth making quick progress towards her throat.

Ellie doesn’t even think. She pushes her arm between Abby’s exposed neck and the clicker, pulling the other woman forward even as she feels rotted teeth dig their way into scar tissue, right where her old bite had been burned off. She can see Abby’s eyes go wide as she pulls her closer and cries out in pain, letting go of the reins and using her other hand to give the clicker’s face a shove backwards, the iron grip of it’s jaw stripping skin away with it as it goes.

When time resumes it’s normal function, the gate is slamming closed behind them and Ellie is falling out of the saddle, her shoulder colliding on the ground first as she cradles her torn arm with a cry of pain.

“Oh shit-” She hears a male voice curse, and the click of a safety being released. She tries to push herself off the ground with a groan, but her arm gives way under her. It’s almost enough to make her laugh between her gritted teeth. She made it all this fucking way, to be killed over a bite that won’t even turn her.

She hears solid boots collide with the ground before a shadow falls over her. She tries again to prop herself up, this time moving slowly. She lifts her gaze to find Abby standing between her and a man she only vaguely recognizes. He must not be one of the ones she killed.

“Manny, don’t-”

“I’m sorry Mija, you saw her get bit.”

Abby glances back and Ellie meets her eyes in defiance. Abby’s expression is unreadable and she turns back.

“I know. I’ll handle it.”

A silent conversation seems to pass between the two of them, before Manny, as he’s apparently named, sighs and lowers his gun.

Ellie hears an anxious voice- female, this time- pipe up from the other side of the horse.

“What happened??”

The voice sounds familiar, and Ellie cranes her neck to look past Shimmer.

The person she sees makes her blood run cold. It’s the pregnant girl, but now she isn’t showing as clearly. Next to her stands the blonde who’d been with her- Owen, she thinks his name is. It takes all her effort to not let her horror show as she looks down again, focusing on assessing the damage to her arm instead.

“I was out...hunting, and I ran into a herd. She- pulled me out of it.” Abby replies, looking back at Ellie. Ellie recognizes a bit of pity in that look, and the ferocity that rises in her chest gives her the strength to push herself onto her feet, still clutching her bloodied arm.

“Oh, cry me a river, Abby. As if you care.” She snaps. The rest of the group shifts at the ferocity of her snarl, though Abby, to her credit, doesn’t look too shaken by her outburst. Instead, she just looks vaguely conflicted.

“Why did you save me? Why would you sacrifice yourself for someone you don’t even know?” Abby asks, her voice steady and low.

Ellie pauses, Abby’s group’s gaze burning holes in her back. Her feet are cold- why the fuck did she wear sneakers when she knew it was going to snow today? It’s the smallest thing, but it’s enough to fry her mind and keep her from moving, from punching Abby and yelling something like “I saved you so I could kill you myself” or “because you saved me and I don’t want to owe you anything” or “you killed my dad you bitch”. If Ellie hadn’t gotten literal cold feet through some stupid oversight, she would rush just like she always did, act by her heart not her mind-

But as she looks at the group around her and actually stops to think, she realizes she has a few options.

She could lie to them, pull the dramatic self sacrifice card, and ask Abby to leave Joel, as her last earthly wish or some bullshit. But that would be banking far too much on these people’s honor or respect, and Ellie isn’t about to fucking let herself be shot over a bite of all things. Besides, knowing how she’d felt, chasing Abby, that wouldn’t work. It’s too weak of a reason.

She could try and fight her way out- but that is an even stupider option. There is no way that she could take out more than two of them before she was killed, not with an injured arm, not when they’re all staring at her and Abby tossed her only gun into a group of now burning clickers. Because fucking Abby.

Or- the stupidest fucking option. Honestly. What, is she going to tell these complete strangers a secret she hadn’t even told Cat or Jesse, a secret she wouldn’t have told Dina if it hadn’t been for her gas mask breaking. God, that’s such a stupid fucking idea.

Ellie’s eyes do one last sweep before landing again on Abby. The woman is staring at her wound with something that would maybe resemble guilt if she didn’t have clearly forced blank grimace fixed into place.

“Ah, fuck it. It can’t turn out worse than last time.” she mutters under her breath, before stepping forward, forcing Abby into strong, uncomfortable eye contact.

“My name,” She says, forcibly holding her gaze, even as Abby’s expression flickers with bewilderment, “is Ellie Miller.”

For a moment, there is silence, and Ellie watches as Abby’s eyes widen with recognition before igniting in rage.

Then, all hell breaks loose.

Chapter Text

Ellie comes to with a bad headache and a throbbing in her arm, and it takes a couple of panic fueled seconds for her to remember anything beyond collapsing in the field outside the farmhouse- and when she finally opens her eyes, the first thing she notices is the fact that her arm has been bandaged neatly with the whitest fucking bandages she’s ever seen.

This is rapidly followed by the second realization that she is tied to her seat, and the third realization that Abby is sitting in front of her on a flipped chair, her stupidly muscular arms crossed over the back and her chin resting behind them, her eyes almost glowing in the dim light of the cabin room they’re sitting in.

Ellie only then notices the gauze that has been haphazardly shoved up her nose, and it all comes flooding back.

“You fucking punched me.” She growls, wincing as the expression sends a zing through her nose.

“Do you know who we are?”

Ellie meets Abby’s eyes and she is reminded strikingly of Seattle- that thunderous expression tinged with bitter sorrow as Abby spat to never let her see Ellie again. After Ellie had rained hell on her, killing her friends mercilessly, like Abby had done Joel-

But that was what she was here to stop. That cycle that the two of them had continued, that Ellie had broken when she’d let her leave with the boy- it didn’t even have to start.

Ellie takes a deep breath, trying to stamp down the immediate anger that rises, egging her to challenge Abby.

“You’re ex-fireflies.” She responds evenly, “And you’re here to kill my dad.”

It feels strange, to refer to Joel as her father, but she knows that it rings true from the instant recoil that Abby’s face takes on as she says it. She can tell she’s thrown off the other girl by the way she opens her mouth to snap back, but has to pause to find the right words.

Ellie jumps at the opportunity to keep talking.

“You, specifically, are Abigail Anderson. Your dad was the brain doctor that they were going to have operate on me. You’re here because you want revenge.”

Abby is up in an instant, and from the corner of her eye, Ellie sees a flash of movement, and suddenly the blonde man is there, holding Abby back with an arm stretched across her shoulders. Ellie looks around, wondering how she’d missed him before and looking for others, but finds that the room is empty besides the three of them.
“Abby-” He starts, but the woman shoves him off her, standing in place and glaring down at Ellie, her hands flexing and tightening into fists repetitively. Ellie can see the bruise forming across her knuckles where she had punched her earlier.

“Joel Miller,” She snarls, voice dangerously quiet, “is a monster, and a murderer.”

Ellie doesn’t flinch away, holding her gaze.

“What he did was wrong. He should have let them kill me.”

Abby physically takes a step back. Ellie bites back some satisfaction at the fact that this is clearly not what she was expecting- but she continues before Abby can ground herself for a reply.

“My life could have mattered, I could have helped save thousands of people, but Joel didn’t let that happen.”

Her words are almost exactly what she’d screamed at Joel before, at the hospital, and it only serves to recall the hollow, betrayed sadness she had felt in that moment and had kept with her since. He’d fucking lied to her, he’d ruined her one chance- humanity’s one fucking chance-

She can feel silent tears slipping down her cheeks. She almost forgets Abby and Owen, as those never resolved feelings resurface, and she shakes her head and lets out an empty laugh.

“He was undeniably selfish, and I won’t claim that he isn’t a murderer, but I know that he only did what he did to save me. And as much as I want to-” Her voice cracks. “- Hate him, for that, I can’t, because I love him and he is still my fucking dad, no matter what he did, even if I can never forgive him.”

There is silence for several minutes and the only sound Ellie can register is her own, ragged breathing as she tries to calm down. She doesn’t dare look up. Not until-

“He slaughtered them.”

The tremble in her voice forces Ellie to look up, to see Abby’s face has gone red. She seems to be holding back either tears or a scream. Her entire body is shaking.

Ellie wants to look away. She hates seeing Abby like this. It makes her too human, too vulnerable- it’s fucking worse than the way she’d looked on that god forsaken beach- but some stupid nagging voice in her knows that if she looks away now, Abby won’t ever listen to what she has to say.

Ellie sucks breath between her teeth, trying to think of anything she can say. What would she have listened to, when Abby killed Joel? Would anything have stopped her? ‘No,’ She thinks. Dina wasn’t enough. JJ wasn't enough. But- she hadn’t killed Abby. Why did she stop?

“Have you ever had someone you had to take care of, Abby? Someone who you’d do anything to save- like, say, kill an army of strangers just following orders?” She pauses. “Or someone who you’d do anything to avenge?”

Ellie is surprised by the calm in her tone. She’s never been this level headed about anything, but considering everything on the line, maybe it’s time she was, for once.

Abby doesn’t respond, her fists closing and opening, closing and opening- her eyes not leaving Ellie’s for a second. Ellie slowly shakes her head, not breaking eye contact.

“You know what it’s like to lose someone like that, I know you do. You wouldn’t have tracked us down if you didn’t feel that way about your dad. Which is why I know that this is fucking stupid, that you’ll never listen, but-”

Her voice starts to peak slightly in tone, her words nearing hysterical, and in response she sees Abby’s hands clench and unclench even faster. She takes a deep breath that turns into a sob, and Abby’s eyes dart away for a second, towards Owen, before locking back in on Ellie.

In her mind, all Ellie can hear is the crack of the final blow and her own screams. All she can picture is his broken face, all she can wonder is if he’d known she was there, if he’d been comforted by her presence or if it’d just made him even more scared.

Her voice is barely above a whisper when she’s able to summon it.

“Please, I’m begging you, don’t do that to me.”

The tears blind her as she says it, but from the way the blurry blob that is Abby freezes, she can tell that she heard her.

The first movement in the room is the blonde man, who has started to walk forward again to place a hand on Abby’s shoulder.

“Abs, can I talk to you for a second?” He says, and Ellie doesn’t care because all she can focus on right now is Abby, and dammit she wish her eyes weren’t blurry so she could see her face, so she could have any sign that she’d convinced the girl not to go through with this, any sign that she’d done what she’d came here to do-

But before she can blink all the tears free, Abby is turning stiffly and walking out of the room, Owen behind her, only looking back at her once before shutting the door and leaving Ellie in the dim room.

As soon as the door shuts, Ellie is crying again. She half thinks that her eyes are going to dry out with all the waterworks lately, but then again, it’s been a very stressful- well, a very stressful single day, preceded by an stressful year, preceded by an stressful fucking life. If anyone has the right to cry her goddamned eyes out, it’s her.

She should have just fucking tracked down Joel and convinced him to run with her- he was stubborn and an asshole but at least she would have had a fucking chance, and at least she could have seen him one last time, safe and happy-

But it’s too late now.

She’s failed.

The door creaks a bit as it opens, and Ellie tries to blink her eyes clear as she looks up. If she could just wipe her damn face-

“I just wanted to check on...your bandages.”

Ellie recognizes the voice immediately and has to fight the urge to recoil.

“You.” She says, her head helpfully bringing up memories of this woman’s warm, sticky blood flowing over her knife and onto her hand, and the realization that had felt like a blow to the stomach as she’d frantically ripped open her vest.

If the woman hears her as she slowly walks forward, she doesn’t show it.

“Y’know, when Marlene told Doc that she’d found someone who was actually immune, he was so excited. But I... didn’t believe it. “I’m calling bullshit until I see it with my own eyes,” Is what I think I said.” The woman laughs bitterly. “And yet here you are.”

Ellie remembers how scared she’d looked when she’d busted into the aquarium. She must have been a fearsom sight- covered in blood from the fucking dog, shaking with rage, dissapointment- she’d thought maybe that the woman was just a coward, but as soon as she’d realized-

“I don’t know why I agreed to come on this mission. Watching Abby torture that monster- as much as I hate him, I know that Doc wouldn’t have wanted this.”

The woman is close enough now that Ellie’s eyes can focus. Her short brown hair is pushed back and slightly greasy in the dim light, and as she runs a hand through it, Ellie can see why. Her hair hadn’t looked that way in the aquarium- she must have been less nervous or unsure then. She’d maybe even been happy. And seconds later, she was writhing in a pool of her own blood on the floor.

“Stay away from me.” Ellie croaks, as the woman steps forward. She sees her stop in her tracks. The woman pauses for several seconds before she continues.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry that it turned out this way. None of us had wanted to kill you, especially Marlene. But, he was sure it was the only way. Not that... any of it matters now.”

Ellie doesn’t respond, keeping here eyes down as they sting with a whole fresh batch of fucking tears. The woman turns to leave, but a flash of panic spurs Ellie into action. She can’t get her killed again, not when she’s pregnant like Dina was, or is, or whatever, and the more she hears the less any of them seem to deserve to die-

“Joel is going to come for me. If- if I’m missing too long, he’ll come for me, please- and he’s going to kill you- you have to let me go, you have to let me stop him-”

The woman cuts her off abruptly.

“We know. Abby- she’s planning on it. After the blizzard ends, he’ll come for you, and Abby is going to be waiting. We all will.”

There is something akin to regret in her voice, but she doesn’t turn back to look as she pauses in the doorframe.

“I’m sorry, Ellie.”

The door closes once again and Ellie is left sobbing in the cold and the dark.

Chapter Text

Abby can almost hear her dad’s chuckle as she paces back and forth, eyes staring out the cabin’s window into the storm.

He would probably say something like- “Common, Abs, you’re gonna wear a track in the carpet,” or make some stupid pun about winter, or snow, or-

“Abby. Were you listening?”

She turns her head sharply, eyes narrowing as she sees Owen’s tired expression.

“I’m not going to just- let him go, after everything he did to- to all of us??”

Owen’s expression doesn’t change. “Sure.”

“And- how fucking dare she, come here, and ask me to what- to just let bigons be fuckin bigons? No, that man murdered my fucking father.”

Owen shifts, crossing his arms. “Okay.”

“She wouldn’t have even saved me if she wasn’t fucking immune, so it was just some sort of trick or bullshit to get me to trust her-”

“Abby.”

“-and you know this is a ruse, they sent her to fuck with me- how did she even know that I- we would be out there? Something about this doesn’t sit right with me-”

A hand falls on her shoulder and Abby immediately shoves it off, rounding on her friend as he puts his hands up in a half surrender.

“Can you just listen to me, for a sec?”

She glares at him, setting her jaw. Owen sighs before opening his mouth.

“Look, we all came because we had a bone to pick with that asshole. We all lost people to him. We all lost our family in the Fireflies, thanks to him. But everyone here-”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying-”

Owen cuts her off with an exasperated look. Her mouth snaps shut.

“Everyone here, is mostly here because of you.”

Abby pauses in her pacing to look at her friend. He cracks a grin.

“Not what you were expecting me to say, right?”

She doesn’t respond, instead focusing on pressing the bruise on her knuckles. It shouldn’t be too bad, hopefully. She had only punched Ellie- that girl, once.

“I’ve watched you tear yourself up over this for fucking years. It’s why we ended up breaking up, why you were always the lead of the fucking squad- your anger, over Joel, has been the only thing fueling you since Salt Lake.”

Abby shakes her head slowly, turning her back to him and looking out the window again. She traces every movement out in the blizzard. He has to show up. She has to be ready.

“What I’m trying to say, in my own special, convoluted, bullshit way, is- Abby, we’re here for you. We’re your friends, and the only reason we came all this fucking way is because we want to see you get some peace.”

“Killing Joel will bring me peace.”

“Will it?”

Abby turns sharply, feeling the anger pulse through her chest like a red-hot iron.

“Yes. It fucking has to.”

Owen sighs, and says something under his breath. Abby only catches a few words, but it feeds the fire in her soul- she’s on him in a second, grabbing him by the front of his shirt.

“What did you just fucking say to me??” She snarls, shoving him back into the wall.

Owen’s eyes don’t leave hers.

“He wouldn’t have wanted this, you know that.” He repeats slowly, softly.

Abby rears back, pulling up her hand to punch his fucking lights out. “Don’t you dare fucking say that to me. Don’t you EVER, fucking SAY THAT TO ME-”

She’s being pulled back before she can swing at him, her arms being twisted behind her back.

“Abby- hey, hey, calm down-”

She rips her arms free and turns, only to see that she and Owen are no longer alone in the living room.

Mel, Manny, Nora, Jordan- they’re all staring at her, Nora with pity, Manny with just tired exasperation- Mel is giving her a look of barely contained disgust, and Abby feels her stomach churn.

“The fuck are you all looking at.” She snaps, but it isn’t as harsh as she wanted it to come out. There is a tremble in her voice, and Manny exchanges a look with Jordan. He begins to step forward, but Abby shoves her way past them, pushing towards the basement.

She makes sure that no one has followed her before she drops to the ground, silent, angry tears burning tracks down her face.

She hunches over on the dusty ground, and she screams into her hands.

Chapter Text

As soon as Joel dismounts, he can tell something is up.

Maria is standing a few feet away with her arms crossed, a half-grimace half-scowl twisting her face. He notices a very sheepish young man hovering in the corner, anxiously working his hands(What was his damn name again- Freddie? Frank? No, it was something weird, he’s sure it started with an F though).

“Joel.”

Her tone sets off every warning bell. It’s too gentle- Maria is never soft with him, never cautious or kind. He immediately starts listing through every thing that could have gone deeply wrong- but the town isn’t on fire near as he can tell, Tommy is still next to him (besides, if anything happened to Tommy, Maria would definitely blame him and his “influence” first), which leaves-

“Where’s Ellie? Is she okay? Did something happen??”

Maria’s frown deepens and she looks past his shoulder towards Tommy. Joel hears his brother step forward.

“Maria?”

She seems to think it over for a few seconds, in which Joel considers how upset Tommy would be if he started another fight with his wife- before she sighs and rubs her face. “Okay. Fuck it. Ellie’s missing.”

Immediately, Joel swings around, grabbing his horses reigns from a very startled teenager and pushing himself up into the saddle.

“Joel, hold on-”

He ignores her and immediately pulls free his gun from his pack, jabbing his free hand towards the boy cowering in the corner.

“You. Where’d she go?”

The boy’s already pale face whitens in terror. “I-”

“Joel, goddammit, would you listen to me for ten fucking seconds-”

He turns in his saddle to face her, grinding his teeth to keep from straight out yelling.

“Maria-”

“It’s the middle of a complete white-out blizzard, Joel, what are you planning to do? Stumble around blindly until you either freeze to death or run into a pack??”

Joel grunts in affirmative, reloading with a deft, practiced movement.

He hears a smack of a hand against fabric followed by a soft exclamation, before his brother reluctantly pipes up.

“Joel, Ellie’s a smart, capeable girl, I’m sure she found shelter for the night. We can always find her after this storm blows through-”

Joel glares at his brother.

“I’m not leaving her out there, Tommy. You were with me when we saw that herd.”

“Herd? What herd?” Maria interjects, glancing between the brothers.

“We saw a large group heading through old town,” Tommy replies, eyes not leaving Joel. “Joel, you’re not gonna be able to find her. Even you ain't that good at tracking.”

“She could still come back?”

The three turn to see the source of the weak protest, who cowers slightly at their collective, forceful glare.

“What’s your name again? Flameo?” Joel asks dryly.

“Felix, sir.” Comes the quiet, hesitant reply.

“Okay Felix- shut your damn mouth for me, please.”

“Yes, sir.”

Joel nods and bends to get a handle on the reins, but they’re being snatched from his grip before he can react. He growls as Maria pulls them away, eyes flaming.

“You will not take one of my horses with you on your stupid quest to die of hypothermia. But-”

Joel is dismounting cleanly before she finishes.

“Fine, I’ll walk if I fuckin have to-”

“BUT.”

Her raised voice stops him, and he turns back to meet her eyes defiantly.

“Joel, if you just wait one goddamn day, I’ll give you everyone I can spare to go out and search for her.”

Joel hesitates for a second, which Maria takes advantage of to keep running her damn mouth.

“You know as well as I do that you won’t be able to find her in this storm, and besides- what good would it do Ellie if you die out there? You aren’t exactly in your prime.”

Joel’s hackles rise in protest. “Woah woah woah, don’t you-”

Maria scoffs. “You know I’m right.”

“Look who’s talkin, you crusty old hag-”

“Hey!” Tommy interjects half heartedly, rubbing his temples.

Maria’s scowl deepens even further, and the childish part of Joel that always comes out around her reels with satisfaction.

“Careful, Maria, wouldn’t want your face to get stuck that way.”

Tommy physically steps between them. “Okay, that’s enough. What is with you two?”

Maria sidesteps her husband, crossing her arms and ignoring him.

“So? Am I going to have to ask James to get started on your headstone, or what?” She snaps.

Joel sighs and looks away, towards the opening of the stable. He can barely see at all through the sheet of white visible past the closing doors. The fear of Ellie being stuck out there, all alone, grips his stomach, but as much as he’s loathe to admit it, they’re right. He wouldn’t be able to find her, not in this weather. Fuck.

He better not regret this.

He turns and starts walking towards the exit. “As soon as this storm ends- I don’t care if it’s three in the goddamn morning, I’m leaving.” He says lowly as he passes Maria, stopping right next to her. “And I swear to god, if anything happens to her-”

“Then that’s on me.” She finishes. There’s a hint of sympathy in the base of her tone, and he can tell as she meets his eyes that it’s sincere. “I’ll have a crew stay up tonight.”

Satisfied, Joel continues walking and swings open the door, squinting a bit as snow immediately pushes into his face.

“Thank you, Joel.” He hears her call. He doesn’t respond, just steps out into the storm, shielding his eyes.

He doesn’t pray much anymore, but nonetheless, he sends out a silent, desperate plea to the universe.

‘Please, god, Jesus, whoever- keep her safe for me.’

Chapter Text

It’s dark outside before anyone comes to check up on her, by which time every limb feels like static and she’s tired herself out too much to care or attempt to move. It occurs to her as soon as the woman leaves that she should try to escape, like any logical person in her position would. The cables binding her wrists and feet and chest are thick, but not too thick for a determined enough person to chew through or something. She’s always been limber, she could probably bend forward if she tried. Or, she could always break the chair- there wasn’t wood left from the old world that wasn’t rotted to shit, and from the smell of it, her current seat is no exception.

But she’s tired. So she doesn’t.

Eventually, the door opens with the same awful creak as before, but Elllie doesn’t try looking up, keeping her eyes closed to soothe the burning dryness.

“Wakey wakey, freak.”

Ellie recognizes the voice. Owen.

“I’m not asleep.” She replies shortly, not bothering to open her eyes. Her voice is low and cracked.

From the creaking, she can tell that the man shifts his weight.

“Great. I’d hate to have to carry you. Or drag you.”

At this, she lifts her head and opens one eye, barely.

“Where are you taking me?”

Owen is holding a bundle of thick wires- looking down, she figures they’re probably the same kind currently tying her to the chair.

“Nowhere fancy, just to the basement.”

Ellie sighs and lowers her head back down, closing her eyes. Her neck is sore from the stretch forward, but it doesn’t matter. She doesn’t care.

“Can’t you just kill me up here? Get it over with.”

She doesn’t receive a response- not that she was expecting to, but more unusually, she doesn’t hear any movement forward. She waits a few seconds, but when she still feels no tug and senses no movement, she rasps a dry laugh.

“What, scared I’ll bite if you get too close?” She mocks with the sarcasm she can still muster.

“Well I wasn’t before, but now I am.” Owen replies, and Ellie glances uphards to see him grinning. She drops her head again, the ache in her chest returning at the small show of humanity. She killed him before, so maybe with her gone, he’ll get to live.

The bitter part of her mind remarks on the irony of their situation.

“Y’know, after that speech about saving Joel, I really didn’t expect you to give up this easily.”

Ellie turns her head away. “You aren’t going to listen. None of you will.” She replies, bitterly. “What’s the point?”

She hears creaking as he walks around her and starts cutting at the cords.

“Wow, so that’s all the effort you’re gonna give?”

She lets slip a dark chuckle. “I dunno, Owen, maybe it’s just the blood loss making me tired.”

The sounds behind her stop and she hears a low intake of breath.

“How do you-”

“Know your name? Oh, you haven’t heard? Cordyceps make you psychic.” Ellie cuts him off dryly.

Owen pauses before he starts to laugh softly. “That so?”

Ellie grits her teeth, a flash of impatience shooting through the muddled, depressed apathy of her mind.

“This banter is fun and all, but can you just kill me already? I don’t want to be around for what happens next.”

The cord around her chest loosens, and Ellie notices for the first time how much it was restricting her breathing. She takes an involuntary gulp of air.

“I’m not gonna kill you, Ellie. None of us are.” As he says this, he circles the chair and bends down in front of her.

Ellie freezes. That doesn’t make sense.

“That doesn’t make sense,” Her words echo her thoughts and Owen looks up at her.

His face is bloodied and his eyes dead for a second, but she blinks and he’s normal, clear blue eyes looking up at her.

“Why would we kill you? We’re just here for him.”

“But-”

Owen cuts her weak protest off before she can finish. She blinks and he's bloodied and white as a sheet again, his hands clutching his chest, taking sharp, shallow, gurgling breaths.

“You’re just a girl. Not a threat.”

The fog in her mind suddenly and abruptly clears, and a cold, unwell feeling settles in her chest. She raises her head, and blinks desperately, and the dying Owen is slowly replaced by a normal, healthy man.

His eyes are full of intent, and she gets the distinct impression that he doesn’t believe what he just said.

“They’re gonna come for me,” She says, quietly, hoping he understands, hoping he listens better than the woman had.

There is a moment that passes between them in which Ellie worries that he’s going to laugh and dismiss her, before his eyes seem to focus on hers. They sit there, staring at each other, silent meaning passing back and forth, before Owen begins leaning forward subtly, his knife stalling on where it was cutting free her foot. Ellie’s heart begins to thud insistently in her chest, breaking from it’s melancholy in desperate hope.

He glances at the door before he begins to speak, voice barely audible. “The mountain is crawling with infected. If I give you a gun, do you think you can make it?”

Ellie’s heart leaps into her throat before she musters a response, shaking her head.

“I don’t think I can run.” She murmurs.

He draws back his knife and sighs silently. “Fuck.”

“You guys didn’t kill my horse, right?”

His eyes light up. “That could work. We’re keeping her in the driveway. But...” He trails off.

“But?”

“We have two of our guys on watch. Besides, no way that A- that she doesn’t see you.”

Ellie’s mind races.

“Owen, I can convince the people from Jackson to back off, but that won’t mean shit if you all come after him.”

He sighs. “I know. I can try to talk her down again.”

Ellie looks at him. He looks exhausted, and it reminds her too much of how he’d looked before she had interrupted the argument at the aquarium. Hell, he’d looked tired right up until the moment she’d-

“No. No- let her come. But you need to get out of here.”

Owen withdraws slightly, staring at her with a perplexed and a bit irritated look.

“Listen, you’re nice and all, but Abby is my friend, and I’m not-”

Ellie shoves forward in the chair.

“No, you listen. You take your girlfriend and you run. You find a better life for her, and you think about that baby.”

Owen’s jaw physically drops, which would be funny to Ellie if the stakes weren’t so high.

“How the fuck -”

She ignores him, continuing forward. “Revenge isn’t worth this. It isn’t worth losing them. If you have to pick between following Abby to her fucking grave and your fucking family? Pick your family.”

For a moment, she’s sitting in a field, singing softly. JJ is giggling and grabbing grass in his meaty little fists, and Dina is smiling up at her from her side next to them both, like Ellie personally hung the stars in the sky.

But then she’s back, in a filthy room, staring into wide blue eyes.

“Pick your family.” She repeats, a bit hoarser this time.

Owen is still for several seconds. Then he looks down, adjusting his grip on the knife. He cuts the last of the cords on her wrist, before standing up. He walks over to the door and peaks through the crack before turning back to her, face somber.

They stare at each other for a second before he gives her a sharp, curt nod.

“Let’s go.”

Chapter Text

The snow clears at about four the next morning, and Joel is out the door as soon as he can see the building across the street from his window. He packs a bag hours in advance- several guns, six extra boxes of ammunition, a machete, and a whole first aid kit with a shit ton of bandages to spare.

There’s a moment around midnight when he cries. He dozes off for just a second- it’s stupid, and it feels like his useless old body is purposefully betraying him- but when he dreams, he dreams of Sarah.

These kinds of dreams had become rarer, in Jackson, though he still thinks of Sarah often. This dream in specific is one he’s re-lived a million times; their neighbor, breaking through the glass as Sarah screamed. The burning town, the chaos of scared and sick people, the car crash, and…

Joel learned that night that when you lose a child, you lose a part of yourself that can never be returned. As he held Sarah, her tiny body convulsing and letting out breathless cries of pain as scarlet stained his hands and jeans, he could feel his entire soul being ripped to shreds. His heart died with her, and her young face twisted in that frozen, lifeless expression of raw terror had haunted every waking moment since.

Until he met Ellie, that is.

It had taken a while for Joel to accept Ellie’s presence in his life, and even more for him to acknowledge the effect she had on him. Every time she smiled or laughed or said something uniquely dumb, and he would start to feel a little more whole, he reflexively despised himself for it. How dare he be fucking happy? She wasn’t Sarah, she wasn’t his daughter, and the fact that Ellie made living bearable felt like some core betrayal to his past. He was scared as hell that by caring for Ellie, he was forgetting Sarah.

Looking back, Joel knows that was a dumb ass way to view it. Ellie and Sarah weren’t the same, and it wasn’t as if only one of them could have a place in his damaged heart. Ellie isn’t really his daughter, at least not in the way Sarah was, but she became every bit as much his family nonetheless.

When he almost lost Ellie, all he could think about was Sarah. Images of hugging her tiny, limp body to his chest pushed him forward as he tore his way through that hospital. They stopped him from caring as the nurses and doctors begged him to stop, stopped him from thinking about the greater fucking good when Marlene tried to reason with him. All he could see in any of their faces was a soldier, following awful fucking orders that would take his baby away.

He knew, deep down, that it wasn’t the same, not really, but he couldn’t bear to lose another child.

As he heads down the street to the stables, he hears the crunch of snow behind him as others join his silent walk. He turns his head back to see a group of seven following him, Tommy and Maria at the head. Maria catches his eye and gives him a short nod. He looks forward again, mapping out the area they have to search in his mind.

By the time they set foot into the structure, he has a plan formulating in the back of his mind. He immediately makes his way over to the table with a map of the area surrounding Jackson, adjusting his pack as the group fills in the space around him silently. Before they can all fully settle, Joel starts talking.

“Maria, you said that she was headed northwest?” He asks, circling the area as he speaks.

“Yes. It appeared that she was roughly tracing the path after you and Tommy.”

He nods and looks up, for the first time examining the group Maria has assembled. He recognizes all of them- that’s just always how it is in small towns, even after the end of the world-Tommy, of course, Matthew and his wife Christen, both experienced fighters, David from down the street, that one boy Jesse, and-

“No. You ain’t comin.” Joel says shortly, glaring Dina in the eye.

The girl starts and gets a stupid look like she’s smelled rotting flesh, glancing at Maria before meeting his eyes in defiance.

“Yes I am.”

“No.”

Maria sighs. “Joel, listen, she volunteered-”

“I don’t care if she volunteered, I’m not gonna take the person who was supposed to be accountable for Ellie’s whereabouts this morning-”

“Oh, come on Joel, I’m not hovering over her at all hours, unlike someone-”

“Now you shut your goddamn-”

Tommy steps up to the table and slams his palms down. “Stop it, both of you. We’re all worried about Ellie, no need to point fingers now, yeah?”

Joel stops and takes a deep breath, leaning over the map. He examines it before pointing to the northwest side of the unclaimed city.

“Alright- we’re gonna split into groups of two to cover more area. Jesse and David, you’ll take the north portion of upper town,” He circles the area on the map, “Christen and Matt, you’ll take the west side,” He gestures to another area, “And Tommy and I-”

“Hold on a second Joel,” Maria cuts in, stepping forward. He looks up.

“I’m coming.”

Joel’s eyebrows raise. He can’t remember the last time Maria left the town. “Okay, well-”

“And if you don’t mind terribly, I’d like to stay with my dumbass husband, and make sure he’s safe.” She finishes.

Joel glances to Tommy, who shrugs. Useless. He lets out a long sigh.

“Fine. Maria and Tommy, take the west woods. I’ll handle the north.”

“With Dina.” Maria adds, nodding to the group definitively.

Joel immediately snaps his head up, as does the teen across him.

“Wait, hold on-” Dina starts, only to be silenced as Maria loudly continues.

“If anyone finds her, take her immediately back to Jackson- we’ll all shoot to be back by sunrise. Do not stay out longer, we will figure it out if we don’t find her in the first sweep.” Maria glances to Joel, and narrows her eyes. “I mean it.”

Joel huffs in response. Maria steps back and claps her hands.

“Alright people, let’s go.” She calls, and the pairs disperse.

Joel and Dina are the last ones to move, both glaring at the other. Finally, she speaks up.

“Got a problem, old man??”

Joel grits his teeth and turns, walking in brisk strides to his horse- who is thankfully already saddled and ready to go. Something to thank that kid(Fred? Finch? Ferret? Whatever) for later.

“I’m not waiting for you.” He snaps over his shoulder as he mounts.

True to his word, as soon as he is in the saddle and his bag is secure on his back, he takes off into the early morning darkness.

Chapter Text

The ride to the woods is silent until Dina’s horse steps into a drift and suddenly sinks about 3 feet, startling both horses and ending with the kid’s quick drop off horseback and into the snowdrift.

“Shit!”

Joel pulls his reins to halt Bubbles(Ellie had thought the name was hilarious- “Cause she is blonde? Like those strippers in those old movies?”- and unfortunately it stuck(not because he liked it, at all)) and sighs, glaring up at the snowflakes gently floating from the sky.

Carefully, he dismounts and makes his way over, humming soft shushing noises to calm Dina’s horse and helping him to get his hooves out of the drift and onto solid ground. He ignores the indignant sputtering of the girl behind him.

“Hey, little help, grandpa?”

Joel takes a slow breath to reign in the slow simmering of his temper.

“You’ll be lucky to make it to half my age, Adler.”

He hears a snort as the girl manages to dig her way out of the drift. “Y’know, the more time I spend with you and your southern charms, the more I understand why Ellie can’t stand being around you anymore.”

Joel stops in his walk back to Bubbles, and he feels his eye twitch.

“I kindly suggest you do not push that topic of conversation.” He says slowly, through his teeth. It comes out in a low, barely audible growl.

He can hear her stiffen behind him. He knows he can be intimidating. It’s a skill he’s had to soften in order to fit in around Jackson’s cushy lifestyle. Ellie used to tease him about scaring the locals, and while he never really felt that bad, he grew to be a little guilty.

But if this little punk was scared? Good.

He resumes his walk and hoists himself onto his horse’s back, setting off without another word.

The silence settles over them again as they reach the edge of the city, this time much heavier. Joel keeps his head on a swivel, looking for tracks, clues, anything- he has to keep himself from huffing in frustration at the snow. Snow was great for tracking, as long as more snow didn’t cover up the goddamned tracks-

“I heard you two had a fight.”

Joel doesn’t respond, setting his jaw. He can feel Dina staring at him.

“It was about me, wasn’t it?” The girl adds, clearly proding for some sort of reaction.

Again, Joel doesn’t respond. Maybe after a bit, the chatterbox would realize that he really was not in the mood for her invasive damn questions-

“Oh my fucking god, of corse it was. Y’know, I am so SICK of people like you and Seth-”

Joel yanks his reins and cuts Dina off with Bubbles, forcibly meeting her gaze.

“Finish that fuckin sentance, I dare you.”

Dina’s eyes widen a bit, and her horse backs up.

“I-”

“I’ve been around long enough that I do not care if Ellie likes men, or women, or neither, or both,” He growls, leaning forward. “So don’t you dare think you know a damn thing about me.”

Dina looks a bit surprised, but that doesn’t keep her from replying. Unfortunately.

“Oh yeah? And I assume you hate me so much for no reason?”

“Honestly, I prefered Cat.” He mutters, not fully intending to say it out loud.

Dina looks at him, bewildered. “What?? So you just don’t like me because you liked Cat???”

“At least Cat knew how to shut up.” He replies dryly.

“Okay, that is such bullshit, Joel.” She shoots back, face furrowed.

He rubs his temples and looks upwards again, wishing he had told Maria to fuck off while he still had the chance. “You really want to know why I dislike you, Dina?” He snaps.

“Of course I do-”

“I don’t like you, Dina, because you’re immature, and you have such a reputation for breaking hearts and bouncing around as it suits you that even an old man like me has heard about it,” He replies shortly. “If you think I’m gonna sit around and smile while you play with my baby’s heart for shits and giggles, you’re even dumber than I assumed.”

This stuns Dina into silence, and he can’t help the satisfaction as he turns back to the trail.

Unfortunately the silence, again, doesn’t last long.

“I’m not-”

“You are. She is your fun little experiment until you go back to Jesse. Again.”

Dina huffs in frustration. “I’m not going to get back with-”

“Sure you aren’t.”

Dina breaks into a galop to get herself next to him, leaning over her saddle to jab a finger in his face. He smacks it away and glares back.

“I’m not- messing with Ellie, I just- whatever! I don’t need to explain myself to you, and I still don’t believe that you two had a fight over something as stupid as her kissing me and not Cat!”

Joel doesn’t respond for a moment. Dina seems to be expecting answers from him, but he doesn’t really care.

“Technically, you kissed her.” Joel says. He can’t help it.

Dina opens her mouth to snap back, but something crosses her face and she stops. She looks away and down, her brow furrowing. Joel gives into the urge to look over.

She looks about ready to cry, which is not what he was expecting at all. Her horse slows as she releases the reigns.

Joel considers leaving her there for a moment, before he sighs and slows himself. Damn the parental instinct to hell.

“What’s wrong, Adler?” He recites in monotone, barely keeping himself from rolling his eyes.

Dina looks away and up, biting her lip. She is quiet for a whole two seconds(a record, really) before she opens her mouth again.

“This is my fault. I- she must have been freaked out, I don’t know why I did that- she ran because of me. She is missing because- because I kissed her.”

Joel sits there for a second and considers it. It’s possible, of course. Even while fighting with him, Ellie had seemed a little distressed over the kiss. But Ellie was rational- she would have told someone if she’d gone off to sulk.

Well, not really. She’d run off on him before, in enough emotional distress.

“Yeah, I can see that.” He responds.

Dina’s head shoots up, and she gives him a look that reads as something like “why the fuck would you say that, you dick.” She’s crying now.

Joel sighs and practically hears Tommy’s reprimand- “be more gentle about it, Joel”- he spends a second rethinking his sentence.

“It’s probably….your fault.” He says slowly, and judging from the fact that Dina starts to cry more...okay, attempt #3.

He sighs and looks up at where the trees arch towards the sky. “Okay, listen. It’s just as likely she ran off because of me.”

He hears Dina’s quiet sniffing decrease a bit next to him. He rubs his eyes and shakes his head.

“She was probably looking for me, either to yell more or… somethin. We ain’t exactly been on... good, uh, terms. Recently.”

He looks back, and Dina is looking at him with an unreliable but watery expression. He sighs and turns to the mountain ahead.

“This area is a big one. I think it’s better if we split up to search. I’ll head up the hill towards the houses and you drag the lower woods for any signs of her.” He digs into his bag and pulls out two whistles, tossing one to Dina.

“Blow this if you need help or you find her. I’ll do the same.” He explains shortly before starting forward, not bothering to stick around for a reply.

He can feel her eyes on his back as he urges Bubbles up the mountain.

Chapter Text

Abby has to push her way through piled, sheet covered furniture to get to the third floor. It’s an unpleasant ascent- the stairs are rotted and broken, and the wood sags terrifyingly with every step. She is convinced in the back of her mind that every movement is going to be the one that cracks through the floor of the attic, but the louder, angry part of her mind can’t be bothered to care.

There is a balcony at the front of the attic, and she has to climb through a window to get to it. She procures a shard of glass embedded in her palm for the effort, and it’s so fucking cold, even if the snow has begun to thin to a more peaceful pace. Logically, she should be shivering and cursing. She should be giving up on her crazy ideas to go inside and get the multitool they use for splinters and glass. Maybe grab a blanket and bundle herself away from the world. She could go apologise to Owen for yelling, pack up the group and head home.

Instead, she swipes the snow off the plastic lawn chair, ignoring how the snow turns pink, and sitting with her stare locked into the woods beyond the cabin’s gate.

When she was very little, Abby remembers living in the Chicago Quarantine Zone.

With everything she knows now, from the Fireflies and now the WLF, she can infer it was likely an awful experience for her parents, and yet in spite of that, she remembers being...happy.

The apartment they lived in had a room that was painted to look like a rainforest. She would spend all day in that room, gazing up at the painted trees and dreaming of a world that wasn’t grey and stinky and always wet. She remembers that her mother would tell her stories of her own childhood, before the world went to shit- and though she can’t remember the stories or even the sound of her mother’s voice, Abby remembers this feeling of warmth and safety whenever the woman was with her.

The Fireflies had tried to smuggle them out of the city, before the riots, but they had been caught by some loyalist soldier. He had managed to get off five shots before her father tackled him.

When Abby tries to remember what her mother looked like, all she can see is her shattered, bloodied face. Two teeth were missing, and you could only see this because the bullets had opened a gaping hole in her cheek as they exited from where they hit at the base of her neck. There was an occasional spot of pink or white clumps that looked like eggshells, each clinging in bits to the splatter, giving it a stomach wrenching type of texture. Inside the skull some yellowy, clear, viscous fluid was slouphing downwards from a ruptured eye that looked a bit to young Abby like a very thick deflated balloon.

Abby could see all this in vivid detail, because her mother had shielded her when the firing started, and had collapsed on top of her when she was hit. Her split skull laid across her tiny chest, spilling blood and grey matter onto Abby’s favorite grey hoodie with pink flowers on the cuffs.

It didn’t even occur to her to think about the man who had killed her mother until the first time she was taught to use a gun.

The kickback had startled her, and suddenly she found herself wondering if that soldier had been surprised the first time he’d fired a gun. She shoved the thought away. It made her sick to think of him as human. But, the next day, she had clipped the fleshy inside of her thumb while attempting to cock the gun, and as she bled and was reprimanded by the Firefly instructor, all she could think about was if he had ever done the same thing.

She wondered if he’d thought about it like she now did before firing on them, adjusting his grip so that the fragile little flap of skin didn't get injured.

When Abby’s father was killed, she never really got to see his split, bloodied face. She didn’t feel the sudden jolt and collapse as he died. She didn’t feel the sensation of his hot blood soaking into her clothes. Owen had held her back. She hadn't gotten a good look at anything but the glimpses of blood she could see past his shoulder.

Somehow, that was even worse.

Activity below snaps Abby’s gaze to attention, and she leans over the balcony and adjusts her grip on her rifle, her entire body tensing until she sees the top of a blonde head.

Manny, Nora, and Owen are deep in conversation, Nora and Manny’s backs turned towards the house. She can't hear the topic from here, but the suspicious, paranoid part of her wonders if they are talking about her. They must think she’s unhinged, after the fiasco earlier.

She is reminded once again that she really should apologise. She shouldn’t have exploded like that, Owen didn’t deserve it. Her friends were here for her. They had lost people too. All of them had lost everything that day.

But also, she knows now that she should have never told them where she was going. Before, she couldn’t care less if they wanted to come- but now, everything is fucked and apparently Mel is fucking pregnant-

She closes her eyes and forces her breathing to even. In her mind, her father beside her, and she can almost feel the slow sensation of him rubbing circles onto her back.

“Breathe,” She whispers to herself, but the soft exclamation sounds to her ears like her father’s voice. In, one, two, three. Out, one two three.

Abby slowly opens her eyes again, and below her, she sees Owen throw his head back in a laugh. She sighs and grabs her rifle, slinging it over her shoulder and silently making up her mind to go speak with them.

Just as she turns to leave, a flash of light catches her eye. She turns and squints towards the source, only to see movement on the side of the house, out of view of the group below her. Her grip tightens and her heart leaps to her throat, and she pushes towards the balcony, squinting down. After a few seconds, she identifies the source of the flash as the metal of a machete in a pack, catching the glare of the floodlights they had set up around camp.

And holding that pack, she sees a horse, and a girl.

She doesn’t think, just takes off running down the rotted stairs.

Chapter Text

Ellie can feel her heart going a million miles a minute as she slowly leads Shimmer around the rubble of the destroyed side gate, keeping as far down as she can and avoiding any spot the light reaches. She hears the distant sound of Owen laughing and feels an unexpected spike of gratitude for the man.

She can’t imagine the courage it takes to betray your friends for some girl you barely know, but it gives her hope that maybe, somehow, they can all make it out of this alive.

Now, all she has to do is make it back to Jackson and warn Joel. Maybe she could return to the house with a larger group- just enough people to scare the other group off, and maybe, just maybe that would be enough to keep her from coming back-

Shimmer huffs nervously, probably in response to her own unease, and Ellie immediately pats her face and hushes her softly, still ducking as they exit through the trees surrounding the house.

Only after a few minutes does she feel that they are far enough away to be out of sight, at which point she pulls Shimmer to a soft stop to mount. For the first time, she notices that her hands are shaking as she grabs the sides of the saddle, and she has to lean against Shimmer as she suddenly feels faint.

For a second, the shaking is so bad that Ellie thinks she may have been poisoned, and it isn’t until she startles herself with a quiet sob that she realizes that she is crying.

Just being in that house had felt like a bad dream.

She stands there, gripping the saddle and pressing her face into the crook of her elbow, on the edge of collapsing into a snow drift below her as her knees shake dangerously. To her own credit, she barely cries- her eyes scream in protest and Ellie gets the distinct impression that she is severely dehydrated.

It isn’t until she can feel the melted snow soaking into her sneakers that she forces herself to stand without assistance from Shimmer.

The horse gives her what she assumes is a concerned look, nudging her side with her muzzle. Ellie pats her face, forcing herself to take slow, weak breaths.

“Ellie!”

Ellie starts at the sudden sound on the mountain, and swings to grab her gun, thinking she’s been followed somehow- and only then does she realize that A, she doesn’t have her gun, and B, that voice-

“Joel?” She says, her own voice coming out hoarse and cracked. She takes a stumbling, shaky step forward, dropping the reins and almost tripping through the snow.

“Ellie, you out here??”

“Joel!” She cries out, but it comes out barely louder than a whisper as her vocal cords scream in protest.

She pushes forward, the shake in her knees coming back with a vengeance that makes her fall forward.

She feels her wrist scream as she catches herself, but she doesn't care. She scrambles forward, her hands digging tracks through the snow as she struggles to regain her stance.

“Joel!!” She tries to scream, but again her voice is barely audible. She forces herself up despite the pain her knees fire in protest, wading desperately between the trees.

Under the several feet of snow, she feels her foot catch a root, and she begins to tumble downhill, the snow quickly soaking through her hoodie.

She scrambles to catch herself to slow her descent, but her movements feel lethargic and slow despite her best efforts, and she continues to fall until she feels her back suddenly collide with a tree.

She lets out a cry of pain at the impact, and feels hot tears once again begin to streak down her face.

“Ellie!!”

The voice sounds so close, and Ellie forces herself onto her knees, despite the ache that every movement draws. She looks up, desperately searching through the clearing ahead of her, and finds her eyes drawn to sudden movement.

She sees brown amongst white, and tears swell even more in her eyes and she desperately pushes forward, scrambling to stand.

“Ellie! Oh god, Ellie-”

She looks up and sees Joel quickly dismounting and rushing towards her across the snow, his expression taught with worry and relief.

“Joel-”

She takes a shaking step forward, eager to run and hug him and get him out of here-

A flash of black out of the corner of her eye stutters her step.

“Joel look out!!” She cries out as soon as the movement registers, panic swelling her throat.

His eyes widen and he only has time to turn before he’s tackled to the ground by a hulking figure.

Ellie can feel adrenaline kick into her entire body, and she feels herself running through the snow towards the struggling mass of limbs.

“No- no!!”

She is about 15 feet away as she sees Joel attempt to throw the figure off of him, landing a punch to the other and grabbing forward, pulling off a hat and leaving a long blonde braid to spool out.

Abby’s face is contorted with pure rage as she grabs Joel by the neck and slams him down into the snow, and the sound of impact abruptly freezes Ellie in place.

His split open face, laying just feet away, the sound of one final sickening thud as Abby drove the golf club through his skull with one swing, spraying blood and brain as she drew back the club and dropped it to the ground. Abby’s cold expression as she looked back, a face that would haunt all of Ellie’s dreams for fucking months-

Ellie grabs her stinging wrist, hard, to bring her back to reality, stumbling forward and forcing her blurred, pained vision to focus as she sees Abby lift Joel up by the collar to punch him square in the nose, her fist seemingly pulling blood with it as it arcs back, before she reaches back into her jacket and pulls out a gun, cocking and pointing it forward in one fluid motion.

Ellie can’t hear the scream she lets out from the sound of her own pounding heartbeat in her ears, but Abby must, because she stops from where she sits on Joel’s chest, her back to Ellie and her gun pointed directly between Joel’s eyes.

Ellie can see that Abby is breathing hard from the rapid rise and fall of her back, and she desperately takes a step forward before Abby starts to say something that sounds muffled and far away until she strains her ears to listen.

“-ake one more step and I’ll kill you too.”

Abby’s growl is low and thick, and Ellie has to force herself to stop.

“Please, please, Abby-” Ellie begs desperately, feeling the shaking start again with absolute vengeance.

“He’s a MURDERER!” Abby yells over Ellie, and Ellie can see that the other woman has begun to shake with barely contained rage. The volume of the outburst makes Ellie flinch, and everything in her screams to run forward. Maybe she can tackle Abby before she makes the shot. Maybe Abby will shoot her instead of Joel, and Joel can have the strength to fight her off as she’s distracted.

But the fifteen feet is just too far. Ellie knows that. Abby knows that. All of this just to fail again because she was just too fucking far-

“And you aren’t, Abby??”

The words come out before she processes them. She sees Abby tense, and the barest trace of hope passes her mind.

She desperately clings to it.

“We’ve all done fucking terrible things. Some of them we’ve done for no good reason, or for a group, or a cause, or for- for someone we care about??” Ellie continues, hearing the desperation seep through her words.

She wishes she could see Abby’s face, but instead she fixes her gaze to Abby’s back, and the unsteady rise and fall of her shoulders.

“None of that makes it fucking okay .” Abby snarls. There is an unsteadiness to her voice, and Ellie suddenly realizes that Abby must be crying. The hope in her chest grows as a single thought pushes forward in her mind.

She hadn’t cried last time.

“I know.” She says softly, her voice breaking. “I- I’ve been struggling with that too. But Abby, please, please listen to me-”

Abby flinches and Ellie sees her raise the gun and she takes another step forward, panic shooting through her-

“You have to choose to end this cycle of revenge yourself, or you’ll lose everything and everyone until you wake up one day and wish you’d stopped it sooner.”

Ellie barely processes what she’s said until after it’s passed her lips. Tears collect at the corners of her vision, and she takes another step, eyes fixed and pleading on Abby’s back.

She sees Abby’s entire body shaking, and for a second she is terrified that nothing is going to change this time.

“Please, just stop this now.” Ellie says, the words quiet and broken.

There is silence in the clearing and every sensation in Ellie’s body feels distant as she watches Abby, trying to cry as silently as she can. It’s as if the forest around them is holding its breath, and Abby’s shaking stills.

Ellie is about to open her mouth when Abby moves abruptly, causing a lurch in Ellie’s stomach. She takes a panicked step forward as her mind races to think of some way to stop her- any way-

But instead of Abby firing, she lowers her arms and stands, stepping back quickly and pulling herself into a stiff, lifeless position. The gun hangs in a vice grip at her side, and Ellie hesitantly takes a few steps forward.

When Abby doesn’t react, she rushes to where Joel lays on the ground. She sees blood and for a heart stopping moment convinces herself that he’s dead, before he raises a hand to his bleeding nose and wipes, glaring up at Abby before spitting blood into the snow.

Her new fear becomes keeping Joel from leaping at the still woman, and she slides over on her knees to a stop next to him, wrapping him in a tight hug and subtly holding him back as he attempts to push her off to lunge at Abby.

She feels the woman’s gaze burning into her back as she leans back and quickly assess the damage to Joel’s face.

There is a bruise under his eye that is slowly swelling, and his nose is clearly broken. It reminds her all too much of before- but this Joel is alive , and she chooses instead to focus on the slow heartbeat she can feel as she hugs him. She lets out a sob of relief, for a second forgetting the presence just behind her.

“Go.” Comes the cracked voice.

Ellie looks back, and sees that Abby’s gaze is locked hatefully onto Joel. She’s crying, the tears making a slow path through blood from an open head wound and busted lip. Her expression is contorted, and it unnerves Ellie how well she knows this look.

It’s like staring at a phantom of herself.

Ellie can barely move as Abby’s gaze slowly meets hers, and the woman barely moves as her lips part and she takes a hard, shaking breath.

“Just take him.”

Ellie stares at her for a few more seconds, the words echoing in her ears, their familiarity freezing her in place. It’s only when Abby breaks the gaze that she is brought back to the cold and the wet, the snow melting it’s way into her jeans and her back and wrist aching below her.

She slowly turns to Joel and helps him to stand. He winces at the movement and clutches his side, and Ellie quickly grabs his arm and slings it over her shoulder to support him.

He limps and she guides him back to where he left his horse, and she looks back to where Abby stands as he starts to hoist himself up into the saddle.

She watches as the other woman collapses to the ground, her entire body convulsing unnervingly. The sound of crying hits her ears in a moment, and she is frozen in place, mesmerized as she watches Abby rock forward and scream into her hands, the raw and horrible sound tearing into her chest.

“Ellie.” Joel says softly, and she feels his hand on her shoulder. She is spurred into action, turning and quickly climbing behind Joel onto the horse, careful not to wrap too tightly around his hurt side.

Her eyes remain locked on the crying figure as they begin to move, and stay on her until the shape fades into the trees.

The sobs and broken screams ring in her ears until they make it back to Jackson.

Chapter Text

Ellie doesn’t remember falling asleep, which makes waking up in the Jackson Medical House completely jarring.

For a heart stopping moment, she is thrown into her last memory of this place- coming to with a splitting headache and Tommy at her bedside, a large bruise swelling under his eye. The world felt muffled and far away as Tommy had struggled to calmly tell her that Joel was gone, yet all she could hear was the roaring of blood in her ears and the echoing sound of that last final crack-

She doesn’t realize she’s crying until a rough hand cups the side of her face and strokes through her hair, a thumb whipping across her cheek. Her vision comes to focus slightly, despite being blurred by tears, and she makes out a soft light illuminating brown hair and kind, warm eyes.

“Shhh, It’s okay baby girl, you’re safe.”

Ellie takes a gasping breath, blinking furiously and flexing her hands. There is a soft fabric in her grip, and she slowly comes to realize that she is sitting by a bed, the smell of sterile alcohol and a wood stoked fire meeting her sharp intake of breath.

She looks up, blurred vision coming to focus to see him smiling at her with mild concern.

“Joel-” She manages, her voice cracking over the name.

Joel smiles with a slight bit of strain, the white bandage stretched across his nose folding over slightly at the movement.

“Hey, kiddo.”

Ellie pushes herself out of her seat and pulls him into a tight hug. Her hands grip into the soft fabric of his flannel, and her senses are overwhelmed with the smell of coffee and earth and Joel-

“Ah- yeah, easy on the ribs, Ellie-” She hears the soft protest and immediately pushes back, not releasing her vice grip on his shirt.

“Are- are you okay??” She asks frantically, her eyes darting downwards to see his lower torso bandaged and braced. Joel chuckles, but winces at the movement, setting his warm palm on her forearm, right over the bandage covering her tattooed arm.

“I’ve been worse, really- just a few broken ribs. I’ll live.” He jokes lightly, before he ducks his head to force Ellie to meet his eyes.

“It’s nothing worth crying over, now.”

Ellie giggles through her tears, hiccuping. “I- I just missed you so much, Joel, I…” She breaks off and sobs, her shoulders sagging, and this time Joel pulls her into a less aggressive hug.

“You saw me just the other day, kiddo.” He rumbles softly, and Ellie laughs, burrowing her face into his shirt.

“Shut up, asshole.”

She feels the rumbling laugh in his chest and feels him wince.

They sit there for several minutes in silence, just wrapped in the tight hug. Ellie clings to him for dear life, half convinced that he’ll disappear if she lets go for even a second, and, to his credit, Joel lets her, gently combing his fingers through her hair as if she were still 14 and frail to the world. Ellie feels more safe then she’s felt for years, and she finds herself almost drifting off before Joel starts to say something.

“Are you gonna tell me what all of that was about?” He asks.

There is hesitation in his voice, and Ellie can tell that he is tiptoeing around the subject.

“It’s….a bit of a long story.” Ellie replies.

“I’ve got nothing but time.”

Ellie sighs and slowly pulls herself out of the hug, immediately missing the warmth and the comfort. She learns back into the chair and begins to absentmindedly rub the palm of her hand, right below where she had lost two fingers in a different time.

“Joel, I…”

She pauses, and for the first time the absurdity of her story truly occurs to her. She wants to tell him everything, but-

Her train of thought is abruptly cut off as she examines the bandage on her forearm. It’s fresh, meaning that it’s been replaced. She immediately lurches upward, looking around wildly. She’d been bitten, someone had seen her bite-

“Woah, easy there. It’s okay. Tommy fixed up your wounds.” Joel says, glancing down meaningfully at her arm. Ellie hugs it to her chest and feels her heart racing.

“How did your arm get hurt? I thought you were...more careful.” Joel asks steadily, glancing around the room. They appear to be the only ones here, but Ellie still feels the remnants of her fear of discovery pounding in her ears.

“That is...also... a really, really complicated story…”

Joel sighs and leans back against the headboard, rubbing his face.

“Ellie, I’m just trying to understand what happened, here.”

“I know, I just-”

“Let’s start with a simple question, then. Who the hell was that woman?”

Ellie lets out a rush of breath and focuses on the side of Joel’s bed, slowly formulating her sentence.

“She...her name is Abby.”

Joel huffs. “Gonna need a little more detail, kiddo.”

Ellie rubs her palm, closing her eyes and hanging her head for a moment. She takes a deep breath, counting as it rushes out and slowly sitting back, not quite meeting Joel’s eyes.

“Do you...remember the doctor with the Fireflies?” Ellie asks quietly, focusing on a point of Joel’s shit instead of meeting his eyes.

A tense, uncomfortable silence rests over them and Joel goes very still. She watches as he looks away and sets her jaw, fighting down the unexpected bitterness at this topic. For Joel, this wound is still fresh, but for her-

It feels a bit like reopening a scab with a rusty knife.

“Is this….Ellie, do you really want to do this now.”

Ellie shifts and looks towards the window of the room.

“If you want to talk about this, we can, but….well, I’m sorry, but I stand by what I said, and I would do it again-”

Ellie stands and makes her way over to the window, needing to put just a bit of physical distance between them before she continues.

“Dr.Anderson had a daughter.” She says, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice.

She can practically hear Joel’s mind racing behind her.

“As they were doing the tests, I- I was really nervous, y’know? There were a lot of machines I’d never seen before, and like, a lot of nurses and people just there, and- and they told me you couldn’t be there, because you were resting, so, I-” She cuts herself off. The memories feel so distant, now, and she hadn't made herself think about them for a long time. She hadn’t wanted to admit Abby’s humanity.

She has to stop and take a deep breath before she forces herself to keep talking.

“Dr. Anderson was funny, and he was friendly, and he did his best to make me feel comfortable. He- he told me this story, right? About his daughter. He said she was around my age. Told me that she was a Firefly too-”

“Ellie-”

Ellie quickly turns and cuts him off. “I’m not telling you this to make you feel guilty, Joel. I get it. I’ve...come to terms with it.”

“You weren’t “to terms with it” two days ago.” He says gently. His voice breaks a little as he says it, and Ellie ventures a look at him. He has that same, sad, empty look he had on that porch. That last conversation they had, what felt like a lifetime ago-

She takes a deep breath and lets out a trembling, quiet laugh.

“It’s been a really, really long two days.”

Joel shifts, wincing as his ribs move. The two of them sit in uncomfortable silence and Ellie wishes that the two of them could pretend none of this had happened. It takes about a minute for one of them to speak up.

“This- uh, Abby. Was….was she?”

“Yes.”

Joel intakes a deep breath and Ellie wraps her arms around herself in a parody of a hug, leaning back against the windowsill.

“Yeah.” Joel says, picking at his fingernail and sniffing, avoiding Ellie’s gaze.

Ellie pushes off the windowsill and slowly approaches the bed, resting her hands on the end of it. At the movement, Joel looks up. She rubs her nose and opens her mouth before shutting it again. Her thoughts are turbulent in her head, and she has a million things she wants to say, but can’t find the right fucking vocabulary. After a few seconds, she lands on a single train of thought.

“Joel I was really, really scared today.” She starts, pausing as he looks up to make eye contact with her. She presses her palms into the wood and closes her eyes.

In, one, two three.

“I thought I was going to lose you. And I thought that…..the last conversation I would-” She cuts herself off as tears spring to her eyes and she quickly sniffs, rubbing her face and composing herself before she continues.

“I thought that the last conversation I would ever have with you, would be one where I was bitter and sad and so, so angry.”

She shakes her head. “We never really say this, but I want you to hear it from me, so, um….” She pauses again to collect herself before forcing herself to meet his eyes.

“Joel, I never knew my parents, but you’ve- I consider you my dad.”

His carefully constructed expression breaks and she sees his eyes instantly grow wide and watery. Her own vision goes blurry and squeezes her eyes shut. She’s now gripping the side of the bed so hard that her knuckles have gone white.

“I love you Joel. I- I couldn’t take it if you were gone. I just couldn’t.”

She doesn’t even hear him move, but before she knows it, she’s being pulled into another tight hug. She breaks to the warmth, and her shoulders begin to shake as she sobs into the embrace.

“Ellie, I couldn’t be more proud to call you my kid.” Joel murmurs, his own voice heavy and hoarse.

Ellie cries harder, feeling so, so small. For the first time since she somehow came back, she lets herself fully feel the grief of everything she had lost. She cries for the home with Dina and JJ she sacrificed, for the ability to play a guitar Abby had ripped from her with just two fingers and a desperate struggle to survive, for Jesse, who she’d led to his death, and more then anything, she cries for Joel. She had been so focused on hate that she had never really grieved him, and even in the end, when she’d let Abby drive away into that fog- she hadn’t really let go.

But now, in this second chance, in this new world, in his arms, Ellie cries and feels the sinking weight that had dragged her so far into the sea of her hatred finally release her. For the first time in literal years, Ellie is free.

“You…” Joel’s voice instantly cracks over the word. He clears his throat and wipes his face to subtly brush away any sign of tears.

Ellie hesitantly draws back from her hunched position against his chest, wiping her own face with her sleeve and waiting for him to finish. After a second, he tries again.

“You..uh...do know that I’m gonna die at some point, right?”

It takes a moment for his words to sink in, and Ellie blinks before she begins to laugh, rubbing her eyes furiously.

“Fuck you.” She says definitively through tears and laughter, the pressure on her chest lifting.

Joel grins sheepishly. “Hey, don’t shoot the messenger.”

“Yeah, well you aren’t allowed to die anytime soon. So help me god, you will die of natural fuckin causes, old man.” Ellie shoots back, punching him lightly on the shoulder, carefully missing all his injuries.

Joel smiles and nods slowly, tilting his head. Ellie smiles back, wiping her eyes once again.

“Yeah, I think I can do that.”

Ellie nods to herself, looking at her hands before she finally meets his eyes.

“No more dying for a while, okay?” She asks finally, quietly. There is a weight behind her words that seems to confuse Joel, but regardless, he leans in and gently kisses her forehead, before leaning back to meet her eyes.

“Not for while, kiddo.”

Chapter Text

She can still see the fire in the distance when they make it to the aquarium.

There’s a silence among those in the boat, only broken by Lev’s occasional sniff as he burrows himself into her side and the creak of the oars as Owen pushes them down into the water. The tension is thick and heavy, and she can feel it like a weight on her chest every time any of them shift or look back at the island from which they came.

Every once in a while, she notices Manny lock his jaw and glance at Lev’s face, eyes fixating on the long scars on his cheeks.

She feels herself hug the boy tighter and gives Manny a warning glance as they finally reach the entrance of Owen’s makeshift doc, and the man is quick to climb out of the boat and pull them into a steady position.

“Oh thank god, you’re alright-”

Abby looks up as Mel pushes forward, grabbing onto Owen as he steps off the boat and pulling him into a tight hug. They both seem unaffected by the rain pelting onto their backs, Mel pulling the man into a kiss before she breaks away, her eyes landing on Abby and Lev, who is still huddled against her side.

“Where’s……” The question dies in her throat as Lev sobs and Abby meets her eyes, slowly shaking her head.

“...Oh.”

The tense silence returns and for a few moments, no one moves, the sound of the pouring rain and the rhythmic pounding of waves against concrete filling the air.

Nora is the first one to break the silence as she helps Abby off the boat, Abby coaxing Lev forward.

“We should get out of the rain. Figure….figure out what to do next.” She adds the last part quietly, glancing at Abby. She hears Manny scoff and watches as he storms away, shoving the door open as he walks.

They all follow, and Abby finds herself having to coax Lev through the first couple of stumbled steps before the trembling boy seems to remember his footing. As soon as they are inside, Abby makes way for a nearby blanket, draping it around the kid’s shoulders.

He doesn’t stop shaking, but she expected as much. She doubts he even feels the cold.

“So, what’s the plan now?” Nora asks once they’ve all piled into the room, making a valiant effort not to stare as Abby helps Lev slide down the wall onto the floor.

There is a snort somewhere to her right, and a snide voice chimes in.

“Why don’t you ask our fearless leader?”

Abby feels her grip tighten on the blanket, and she whips around, standing up and japping her hand into Manny’s chest.

“You know what, Manuel, no one begged you to be here.”

“Yeah? Well when I agreed to help this little group, no one bothered to mention that your pet Scars were going to fucking shoot Isaac, pendeja-”

Owen manages to grab her before she can throw a punch, and Nora is between them in an instant.

“Woah, okay, you both need to calm down. You’re friends, remember?”

Manny laughs bitterly and pushes against the hand Nora has placed on his chest, pointing at Abby.

“That was before she screwed us all out of our safe, comfortable home.”

Owen lets go of Abby, satisfied that she is no longer going to lunge, and steps in front of her.

“Well she didn’t screw me. I was a deadman even before she defected-”

“Yeah, well no accounting for your stupid ass life choices, Owen.”

“Guys-”

“That’s funny, because I distinctly remember you telling me that I did the right thing, just one damn day ago-”

“Yeah, that was before you and Abby’s midlife bleeding heart crisis had a fucking body count-”

“GUYS!”

The room rapidly quiets, and every pair of eyes turns to Mel, who smooths her hands over her jacket and exhales slowly, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“It doesn’t matter how we got into this mess. I couldn’t care less, and you shouldn’t either. What matters is that we need to get out of this city, and I would prefer if we had a plan as to where the hell we were going to go.” She says, pointedly looking from Abby to Manny.

“What about the Fireflies?” The words are so soft that Abby barely hears them, but as they register, she turns to see Lev, his red, puffy eyes focused on Owen. She hears a sigh behind her, but she doesn’t look away from the boy. He seems to purposefully avoid her gaze, and as she watches, he determinedly wipes his face and straightens from where he’s sat against the wall.

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

Abby glaces over before returning her attention to Lev. “You don’t know? A day ago you were absolutely sure-”

“Yeah, well, a day ago I thought that I was running off alone. Now I have a very pregnant girlfriend with me-”

“Hey, I’m only seven months pregnant, asshole-” Mel cuts in, shooting Owen a glare that Abby is glad isn't aimed at her.

“Sure, only seven months! You really sure you want to make a two month journey to a place that we have no idea is going to be safe, Mel?”

Mel laughs, an edge of hysteria in her voice. “Ideally, I would’ve liked to stay here, but it seems that is no longer an option.”

“Okay, so if not California, where else could we go?” Nora says calmly, placing a hand on Mel’s shoulder.

The group once again falls silent, and Abby rubs her face. Lev shifts, meeting her eyes for the first time since they’ve entered the aquarium. She can see tears once again collecting in his gaze, and she tries to force a reassuring smile, but she is sure it looks more like a pained grimace.

Lev, to his effort, doesn’t look away again, and Abby finds herself wondering when she’d started to care so much for this random fuckin Seraphite kid. How much she’d cared about both of them- when she’d watched Isaac die, she felt a fraction of the pain she’d felt when Yara was shot, and she’d known the two of them for two days-

As if he could somehow sense the shift in her train of thought, Lev’s tears begin to make silent paths down his cheeks. She feels the open wound of the day’s grief throb in her heart, but she can’t bring herself to look away.

She doesn’t expect the devastation in his eyes to strike her as so familiar, and a thought suddenly and sharply forces its way into the front of her mind.

“Jackson.” She whispers, and the word alone stills the adults in the room. She can feel them all staring at her back, but she keeps her eyes locked onto Lev’s.

“What did you say?” Manny asks quietly.

Abby feels a laugh start to bubble in her throat, and she shakes her head slowly.

“I must’ve misheard you Abs, I’m pretty sure you just said Jackson.” Owen says carefully, and Abby laughs out loud in reply, gripping her forehead and closing her eyes.

“Have you lost your mind?? They’ll kill us on sight.”

Abby sighs finally, dropping her hand and turning her head to look at Manny. “Maybe they will. But something tells me that they wouldn’t have let us leave if they were really gonna kill us.”

“They didn’t let us leave-” Manny starts.

“You really think that? You saw that town. They had horses. They could have caught up to us in what, half a day, at most?” Owen shoots back, and Abby feels a bolt of petty satisfaction when she hears the consideration in his voice.

Nora pauses, shifting. “I….hate to say this, but a town of that size will probably have the medical supplies we need for Mel.” She adds hesitantly.

“....I thought you said you could handle the birth.” Owen says hesitantly.

“It would certainly be better if I could “handle” it in a clean environment with some pain killers on hand. And that’s assuming absolutely nothing goes wrong.”

“Having a clean environment comes second to ensuring that we aren’t heading to our public goddamn executions-”

Mel raises her hand, and Manny falls silent. The group looks at her, and Abby watches her push back her hair, inhaling deeply through her nose, her expression resigned and tired.

“Seeing as I am the pregnant one here, I feel like I should have the final say, right?”

No one speaks up in argument, and Mel nods to herself and looks down, mindlessly smoothing down her jacket again and saying something under her breath.

“Can anyone think of any other WLF confirmed settlements that we know for sure aren’t filled with murderers, slavers, or cannibals?” She asks, and the silence once again stretches out.

After giving everyone a moment to consider, she shakes her head.

“I thought not. So, as I see it, we have three options: we can go towards Owen’s mystery signal in Santa Barbara,” She pauses and looks around, before continuing. “Which I think is a pretty unanimous no.”

The other four adults glance between each other, avoiding eye contact and nodding. Manny readjusts his stance.

“Option two is picking a direction and running. No goal, no endpoint, and wherever we end up in two months, Nora and I do our best to deliver this baby, if we’ve lived that long, and we hope that we aren’t going to get ripped apart by runners drawn by the sound of a baby or killed by the local scavengers.”

Owen steps forward and places a hand on the small of her back, and she glances at him, shooting him a small nod of reassurance before continuing.

“Or, we go to Jackson. We made it in a month last time, but with me slowing us down it’ll be more like a month and a half. We beg them to forgive us, and hope that girl-”

“Ellie.” Abby interjects.

Mel sighs. “And hope that Ellie won’t turn the whole town against us for fun.”

“What happened with Ellie?”

Lev’s voice once again draws the attention of the group, and Abby turns to find him slowly making his way to his feet, the blanket neatly folded next to where he was sitting. He avoids eye contact, but he inclines his head towards Abby, tone a mixture of hesitance and curiosity.

It takes Abby a second to answer.

“....nothing, actually.” Abby says, and for some reason the truth in the words surprises her.

Lev looks around.

“Then it sounds like they would have no reason to be mad at you, right?”

None of the others respond, but Abby can feel the air of the room shift as they all come to similar realizations.

“We didn’t actually kill any of their people.” Manny says slowly, saying all their thoughts out loud.

Abby looks up and finds Mel looking at her.

“Are you okay with this?” Mel asks softly, concern dotting the slight lilt of her tone.

Abby rubs her neck and forces herself to form a response.

“I suggested it, didn’t I?” There is uncertainty in her voice, and the heat of the group’s eyes begins to feel almost oppressive on her skin. She hates the sense of them all doubting her, all waiting for her to explode or something. She fights back her discomfort and forces a blank expression.

“Mel’s safety is the most important thing right now.” She says, her voice even quieter than before.

Owen nods, still looking towards Mel, and Nora lets out a quiet sound of agreement. Abby looks towards Manny, and her friend sighs before uncrossing his arms and stepping forward. Abby feels herself tense for a brief second, before he glances over.

“Unfortunately, this seems to be our best option. But I would like it on the record that I think this is an astronomically stupid idea.”

“Noted.” Abby retorts dryly.

“And I would also like you to apologise for making me leave my warm, dry, clean bed for what most certainly is my untimely and unfortunate death.” Manny adds, and Abby scoffs.

“Fuck no.”

“Abby.” Mel says, and she feels her burning glare on her cheek.

“Wh- why do I have to be the one to apologise here??”

“Just apologise, like the mature adult that you claim to be.”

“Maybe he should be the one apologising for getting us enlisted as wolves five years ago!” Abby shoots back, crossing her arms.

A quiet voice to her left makes Abby look down to find Lev staring up at her. “Abby, just say you’re sorry.”

His eyes are red and puffy, and his upper lip is wet with snot, but she finds the smallest, hesitant smile on those lips that causes her to pause. After a few seconds of irritated eye contact, Abby finally groans and turns to Manny.

“I’m. Sorry.”

Manny looks shell shocked for a few moments before a shit eating grin breaks his face.

“Wow, we would have adopted a sca-”

Mel jabs him in the side with her elbow.

“I mean, we would have adopted a seraphite years ago if we knew it would make you go soft, Abs.”

Abby scowls. “Fuck off.”

Manny feigns hurt, clutching his chest. “Ouch, I think I need another apology to mend our friendship-”

Abby flips him off, only breaking her scowl as she hears Lev laugh softly, sniffing wetly. She sees Mel glance between them out of the corner of her eye, before the woman nods and steps into the middle of the group.

“Then if no one disagrees-”

“Then it’s off to Jackson. Again.” Owen finishes with a sigh.

Abby nods, straightening and turning her back to the group.

“Grab what you can,” She says over her shoulder, before pausing to look back.

“We leave in an hour.”

END OF PART ONE