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When Joel’s eyes open, the first thing he thinks about is Ellie. Generally, that’s all he’s been thinking about lately. Ellie, Sarah, sometimes Tommy, sometimes Tess. The names of every person who’s flitted in and out of his life or stayed for any amount of time at all. Even some of the nameless ones make appearances, people he’d killed just for a meal or an extra box of bullets.
But, every day, the first thing he always thinks about is always Ellie.
And so, as his eyes open and the feeling drifts lazily back into his arms, he shoots upright, blurry eyes frantically searching for a blob that could be her. Ears searching for her voice. She could be telling one of her awful, horrible jokes, and Joel would still thank the heavens. Cause talking means she’s alive. Alive means they made it another day.
The bright overhead lights cause him to squint, popping dots of color across his vision. He blinks once, twice, distant voices beginning to focus. Joel recognizes one of them immediately.
Ellie.
“Oh, he’s up.” Joel turns his head and sees Ellie sitting on a chair next to him, her clothes gone and replaced by a clean hospital gown. Sitting next to her is Marlene, looking exhausted but jubilant at the same time.
“I’m glad you’re awake.” Marlene says softly. “Ellie was just telling me about everything you’ve been through.” Joel catches Ellie’s eye, and he can tell immediately that Ellie has omitted some of the details.
“Good.” Joel doesn’t know what else to say. Everything comes back in pieces. The rushing water, the bus, dragging Ellie out of the water and trying to perform CPR on her until those soldiers…
Joel’s hand snaps to where his gun should be before immediately realizing that it’s gone. Did it fall out in the water?
“Relax, Joel.” Ellie says calmly. “Those guys who grabbed us were fireflies.”
“Sorry about the force.” Marlene says, but there isn’t a lot of remorse in her voice. “They didn’t know who you were at first.”
“Why’re you in a hospital gown?” Joel says, wincing slightly at how hoarse his voice sounds.
“They’re getting her prepped for surgery.” Marlene says. “This is it, Joel. This is everything we’ve been working towards. It’s happening today.”
“Today?” Joel repeats, a small smile on his face.
“It would’ve happened sooner, but-” Marlene starts.
“But I said they were fucking delusional if they thought I was going to do anything before you woke up.” Ellie snorts. Joel feels a twinge of appreciation for her.
“Good choice, kid.” He laughs, groaning as he struggles to pull himself up to a sitting position all the way. He figures he’s on some kind of cot.
“Look, we don’t have very long, but…” Marlene glances at her wrist. “I guess I’ll leave you guys to it, then. I’ll come get Ellie when it’s time. Until then, you guys just talk.” She stands awkwardly, shuffling towards the door. She pauses, her mouth dropping open like there’s more she wants to say, before she shakes her head and leaves through the door.
A moment after she disappears, an armed guard steps through. He’s tall and extremely stoic, with a blank look on his face. Joel recognizes that he’d probably served in the military before the apocalypse. Tommy had the same air about him.
“So.” Ellie says. The nervousness she’d been hiding from Marlene begins to creep out.
“So.” Joel matches her tone, trying to ease his own nervousness. This is it. This is really, truly it.
“What is surgery like?” Ellie brings her knees up to her chest, pulling the hem of the gown down to her ankles.
“It’s only a little bit scary.” Joel says, trying to decide whether to tease her or respond genuinely. “They’ll stick you with a needle to give you some drugs that’ll make you fall asleep, you’ll fall asleep, and when you wake up, you won’t even know that anything has happened.” He smiles softly. “You’re tough. It’ll be a piece of cake for you.”
“Oooh, do you think they’ll actually have cake after?” Ellie looks eagerly towards Joel. “Cause, I thought you were supposed to eat cake at parties. And I think this is probably a good reason for a really big fucking party.” Joel laughs, hopping off the cot to come sit next to Ellie. He pulls her into his side, squeezing her tightly.
He tries to push his worries about the procedure down; these guys are professionals and obviously have access to good equipment. They’ve been preparing for this for months, so they know what they’re doing, and they won’t let anything bad happen to Ellie. Marlene won’t let anything bad happen to Ellie.
The two just sit there in silence before the guard at the door clears his throat uncomfortably.
“Uh, I’m sorry-” the guard starts, and both their heads snap towards him. Joel still has his arm protectively around Ellie, and her head still rests against his shoulder.
“Is that… is that really everything you want to say?” The guard looks a bit perplexed, like the two of them had been speaking a different language for the past ten minutes.
“What do you mean by that?” Joel asks, shifting to sit up straighter.
“I just mean, like… Shit, I don’t think I’m supposed to say anything, but they obviously didn’t tell you and-”
“Tell us what?” Ellie demands angrily, matching Joel’s posture.
“That this procedure is a one-way ticket.” The guard glances at the door. “Look, I might even be wrong, this whole thing is really not my jam, but I overheard the doctors talking about all this. They took some x-rays, I guess. They figured out she has some sort of different type’a cordyceps in her brain. So, they’re performing the surgery to get them out of her brain, I think. But that sort of thing…” Joel doesn’t hear the rest of what the guard says. He can tell that Ellie is hanging on to his every word, her heart rate increasing. But blood pounds through Joel’s ears and anything else that comes out of the guard's mouth is silenced.
“Do they even know if it’ll work?” Joel demands. The guard’s mouth flaps open and shut.
“I couldn’t tell you for sure,” the guard says. “But I think I heard someone say there’s a fifty-fifty chance. They’ve never done this before and obviously they can’t know until they look inside her head, but they told you it was a long shot from the beginning, right?” The guard laughs nervously.
“No, they did not.” Joel growls. He takes a moment to glance at Ellie. Her eyes have fallen to stare at the ground, her expression unreadable.
“Ellie?” Joel says softly, resting a hand on her shoulder. When she looks up at him, her eyes shine brightly with tears. Her mouth quivers, and Joel can practically see the memories of everything they’ve endured reflecting through her eyes. It’s like a movie, a constant looping reminder of everything they sacrificed to get here.
For a cure that only has a fifty-fifty chance of fucking working.
“This has to be a mistake, right?” She coughs, wiping furiously at her eyes. Suddenly, she feels really cold. “I mean, Marlene would’ve told me if I was going to die. She would’ve told me to say goodbye, let me come to terms with it.” Her eyes drift up to look at the guard, who looks completely helpless.
His expression carries everything she needs to know.
“Ellie?” Joel says softly. “No one is going to fault you if you don’t want to do it.”
“I-” her eyes brim with tears again, her chest rises and falls, trying to keep the sobs in. Pointless. Everything they’ve done is pointless.
“I don’t want to die, Joel.” Her voice cracks and Joel feels his entire being crumble with it. His heart comes back together, hardening around the idea of what he’s about to do.
He already lost one daughter; he is not going to lose another one.
“Go tell your friends that we’re-” Joel begins but is quickly silenced by the door opening. Marlene steps into the room, her eyes bouncing between the guard ducking his head in shame to Ellie’s barely contained tears.
She sighs.
“What happened in here?” There’s a false confidence in her voice, like she’s hoping to hear the guard just spoiled the end of Ellie’s favorite comic book instead of what she suspects actually happened.
“You’re gonna kill her?” Joel accuses, voice demanding. Marlene sighs again, shooting an angry look at the guard.
“I think you knew how this was going to end, Joel.” She speaks. “But I promise you, it won’t be in vain.”
“A fifty percent chance ain’t in vain?” Joel stands now, shielding Ellie from view.
“We’ve done a lot worse for lower chances.” Marlene steels her voice, taking a step forward. Joel sees her hand hover slowly towards her gun holster.
“She’s just a fucking kid.” Joel snaps.
“Of course I know that!” Marlene shouts. “Don’t you think that if there was any other way, I would be taking it? I don’t want her to die any more than you do, but this is our last fucking option, Joel. It’s time to decide what’s most important here.”
“You know what I’m gonna say to you.” Joel says.
“Ellie,” Marlene says desperately. Ellie’s head barely peeks around Joel’s torso.
“Think about it, Ellie.” There’s an edge of mania to Marlene’s voice. “Think of all the lives you’ll save. Of all the people you could’ve saved already.”
“That’s not fucking fair-” Joel starts.
“Your parents. Tess.” Marlene’s voice catches for a second before she continues, “Riley.”
“Don’t you say her fucking name.” Ellie immediately becomes animated, spitting venom with her words. “Don’t you dare say her fucking name, you lying bitch!” Ellie throws herself towards Marlene, but Joel stands firm in between them. She bounces powerlessly off his back.
“Ellie,” Marlene starts again. “You’re the closest thing I’ve ever had to a daughter. Don’t you think if there was any other way, I’d take it?”
“What are the odds?” Ellie asks abruptly. “What are the odds that this actually works?”
“It’s hard to tell without the surgery-” Marlene says frantically.
“An actual fucking number, please.” Ellie says coldly. Joel can’t help but feel minorly impressed.
“We’re estimating about a forty-two percent chance of success.” Marlene’s voice drops as she sighs.
“Forty-two percent?” Ellie laughs bitterly. “I got dragged through hell and back, watching my friends die, watching Joel almost die, fucking killing people for a forty-two percent chance of success?!”
“Again, that’s before the surgery-” Marlene says desperately.
“Fuck you and your surgery.” Ellie spits. Marlene’s features darken.
“What’s it gonna take, Ellie?” Marlene demands. “What’s it gonna take for you to realize how important this is? Cause right now, you’re being selfish.”
“Let us go.” Joel says. His eyes jump between the guard and Marlene, worried that either of them could pull out a gun at any moment.
“What’s it gonna take, Ellie?” Marlene ignores him and asks the question again, more crazed this time. “You want me to put a fucking gun to his head? Fine, I’ll put a fucking gun to his head.” In one quick movement, the handgun that had been at Marlene’s side points directly at his face, square between his eyes.
“Stop!” Ellie yells, trying to move past him to get to Marlene.
“Get down on your knees, Joel.” Marlene demands.
“Joel-” Ellie pleads. With a desperate sigh, Joel sinks to his knees, feeling the cold barrel of the gun against his head as he moves.
“You fucking-” Ellie takes the opportunity to lunge at Marlene, who moves the gun for a split second to knock Ellie over the temple with it. Ellie cries out as she falls to the ground, groaning.
“Wilson, Thomas!” Marlene barks. Two guards enter the room, taking in the sights.
“Get her to the surgery unit.” Marlene instructs.
“No!” Ellie and Joel cry in unison. Joel makes a move towards Ellie, but Marlene cocks the gun and Joel freezes in his tracks. The two guards grab Ellie by the arm as she twists and flails, trying to bite, claw, and kick her way to freedom.
“Get. Off. Me!” Ellie screams, throwing her entire strength into breaking free. One of the guards pulls something out of his pocket, and before Joel can warn Ellie, a needle is sinking into her neck.
A strange look crosses her face, her eyes move sluggishly towards Joel, blinking slower and slower.
“I’m sorry.” The words mumble off her lips before she goes slack, unconscious.
“Ellie!” Joel yells. “What was that? What did you just give her?!”
“It’s just a mild sedative.” Marlene says. She instructs the guard who’d been in the room with them from the beginning to train his assault rifle on Joel. Once he’s in place, she replaces her weapon in its holster, taking a step back.
“You know,” she says from the doorway. “You’re not the only one she’s important to.”
“Go to hell.” Joel says through gritted teeth. Marlene sighs.
“Baylor, if he tries anything, just shoot him, okay? It might even be best to tie him to something. I have to oversee the surgery.” And with that, she leaves the room.
The guard begins to instruct Joel how to move and where to put his hands. He keeps the gun trained on him at all times, searching his pockets for some zip ties. The moment there’s an opening, Joel jumps the guard, wrestles the gun from his hands and knocks him over the head with it. The guard slumps unconscious, the zip ties falling from his hands. Joel ties him to a pole that protrudes from the wall. He pulls the gun strap over his head and mentally prepares himself for what lies ahead.
It occurs to him, halfway down the hallway, that the guard had spent a little too long looking for the zip ties and had left his gun unguarded purposefully.
He navigates the hallways, listening intently for the guards doing their rounds. He sneaks in and out of offices, around corners, behind flashlight beams. He prides himself on not using the gun. All that’s in his head is Ellie.
Is it too late?
He turns down a hallway and immediately is met with the blinding flash of several flashlights pointing towards him at once. A loud ruckus happens at once, bullets spray wildly as Joel ducks back around the corner. He peeks every so often, shooting just a few bullets to take down the guards. Once the final one is down, he jumps over their bodies, replacing the clip in his gun, and takes the final set of stairs to get to the surgery wing of the hospital.
His footsteps become slow and purposeful as he hears voices echoing down the hallway. A light stands proudly at the end of it, pulling Joel closer and closer. As he approaches, he sees a window come into view. A curtain covers it, but he can see the silhouettes of the doctors and nurses as they work.
Please don’t be too late. Joel prays, thrusting the door open and staring down the screaming nurses.
“What are you doing here?” The doctor demands, taking in Joel.
Joel’s eyes fall to Ellie. She’s untouched, thank God, save for the IV in her arm.
“I’m here for her.” Joel says.
“I won’t let you take her!” The doctor cries, snatching a scalpel off a nearby table. “Don’t take a single step closer!”
With no other options, Joel raises the gun and fires into the doctor’s chest. The doctor goes down immediately, the scalpel falling from his hand with a clatter. The nurses scream, huddling in the corner as Joel swings the gun over his shoulder and undoes the machinery from Ellie. Her eyes are closed, under sedation, but she looks troubled, even in slumber.
Joel’s eyes fall on their backpacks. What they were doing in the surgery room, he has no fucking clue, but that means all the better for him. He grabs his handgun, checks the bullets, and then stands upright, lifting Ellie gingerly off the table and into his arms.
He holds her head tightly against his chest, just where his heart is, like how he used to carry Sarah to bed when she was little. He supports her, glaring down the nurses as he leaves the room, tightening his grip once he hears the thumping footsteps of guards coming down the hallway.
“I’ve got you, baby girl.” He whispers, taking a sharp corner. All he has to find is a way out. A way out. A way out. The words replay over and over in his head.
He knows it’s stupid, but he can’t help but whisper to Ellie as they walk, even though he knows she can’t hear him.
“It’s okay, we’re almost out.”
“They’re not going to hurt you anymore.”
“I’ve got you.”
“I’ve got you.”
“You’re safe.”
“I’ve got you.”
Maybe he’s trying to convince himself more than he wants to convince her, but either way, he’s promising something to both of them.
As he turns another corner, he sees his saving grace. A flashlight descends upon his back just as he tucks him and Ellie around the door of an elevator, resting heavily against the walls as bullets fly towards them. For a moment, he believes the guards might get into the elevator, but the doors close just as the guards get there. The elevator descends and Joel can finally, finally breath.
“We’re out, kiddo. We did it.” He laughs softly, cradling her closer and adjusting his hold on Ellie. He rests his cheek against her forehead, watching the numbers fall on the elevator until they’re in the parking garage.
He steps out the door and turns as soon as he sees movement.
“You can’t save her.” Marlene says darkly. “Even if you get her out of here, then what? How long before she’s torn to pieces by a pack of clickers? That is if she hasn’t been raped and murdered first.” Marlene slowly advances towards them, her handgun pointed firmly.
“That ain’t for you to decide.” Joel says, trying to weigh his options. He adjusts Ellie in his arms.
“Look, you can still do the right thing here.” Marlene says breathlessly. “She won’t feel anything.”
Joel looks down at the floor, then down to Ellie. At her sleeping, limp form. All the memories of the past few months hit him at once, threatening to drown him. The last twenty years play across his mind. Sarah. Tess. Henry and Sam. The list is endless. His list of lost, dead, forgotten, or infected is endless. For a moment, he considers what life could be like without the threat of death on every doorstep. Without the sound of a clicker echoing through the darkness every night. Without the worry of being mauled in his sleep.
But in that life, he still has to endure without all the people on his list.
And in that life, that list would include Ellie.
And so, he pulls the trigger on his handgun, hitting Marlene square in the stomach. She gasps, falling to the ground, hands flying to cover the blood leaking from the wound. Joel ignores her cries, walking to a truck that looks to be in almost pristine condition. He opens the back door and gently sets Ellie in. He checks to make sure that the keys are in the ignition.
“I’ll be right back, babygirl.” He says softly, lifting a piece of hair out of her face. He shuts the door, turning back to look at Marlene.
She lays in the middle of the circle of light cast by a lamp in the parking garage.
“Wait!” Marlene gasps as she sees him approach. She reaches a bloody hand out to him. “Let me go. Please .”
“You’d just come after her.” Joel says coldly before he pulls the trigger.
When Ellie’s eyes open, she sees a room she doesn’t recognize. She groans softly, rolling over. There’s a breeze on her legs and a hum around her that isn’t familiar. She shoots up, scrambling towards the wall nearest to her.
“Woah, woah, careful, Ellie.” Joel says, catching her eye in the rearview mirror. “You’re alright. The drugs are still wearing off.”
Drugs? Ellie looks around. She’s in a car. A car? How did she get here? Does that mean-
“What happened?” Ellie says, tucking her knees to her chest.
“They sedated you and took you up to perform the surgery anyways.” Joel growls. “I fought through and got to you just in time. Had a heck of a time getting you out of that damn hospital, but here we are.”
“I thought Marlene was going to shoot you.” Ellie’s voice is so small.
“Nah, she couldn’t have killed me if she wanted to.” Joel tries to keep his tone light.
“Is she…” Ellie can’t finish the question.
“Sorry, kiddo.” Joel’s voice drops. Ellie says nothing in response.
“I’m taking us back to Jackson.” Joel supplies. “Back home. We’ll be safe there. They've got food, people, clean clothes, and most importantly, safety. Doesn’t that sound nice, Ellie?” He checks the rearview mirror, watching her slump over to lay down in the backseat.
“Ellie?” He asks gently.
“It’s all my fault.” her words are muffled by the cushions of the car.
“No, darling, nothing is your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong.” Joel supplies.
“They could’ve saved us. I could’ve saved us. I could’ve fixed all this. Instead, I-” Ellie’s voice breaks, and he can hear the tears in her voice. With a screech, Joel pulls the car over on the side of the road and slams it into park.
He turns around the side of the driver’s seat.
“Now, you listen to me.” He says, his voice firm but not unkind. “Nothing that happened back there was your fault. Nothing that happened on the way to the lab was your fault. You’re a kid. You didn’t choose this. You didn’t deserve any of this. But you definitely don’t deserve to die for something we don’t even know would work. Hell, if any of us are selfish, it’s me.”
“You’re not selfish.” Ellie sniffles.
“Damn right I am. I choose to be selfish because I got almost nothing else in this world. I think I deserve to be a little goddamn selfish when I have something good come my way. I’ve spent every day of this goddamn apocalypse bitter and mad. I’ve fucked up my life and lives of others in so many ways. I shouldn’t have to sit idly by and watch the one good person in my life die for a cause that was never hers to solve in the first place.” He breathes heavily, eyes trained on her.
Ellie says nothing. She sits up, turns her eyes towards Joel, blinks away her tears, and then puts her arms around him. It takes a moment, but then he’s clutching her against him, practically squeezing the life out of her. One of his hands finds the back of her head and she sobs into his shoulder, her entire body shaking like a leaf.
After a while, her sobs slow down and he rubs calming circles on her back.
“You know this means that you’re stuck with me now.” Ellie mumbles into the fabric of his shirt.
“You’re damn right I am.” Joel says back.
“And you’ll have to listen to my awful jokes for the rest of my life.”
“I’m counting on it.”
“And you’ll have to keep teaching me how to shoot a gun.”
“Of course.”
“And you’ll have to explain everything about the old world to me.”
“Good.”
“And you’ll have to live with me for the rest of your life.”
“Babygirl, if you’re trying to talk me out of this, it’s not gonna work.” Joel laughs, which makes Ellie laugh, and suddenly, they’re both crying and laughing at the same time, still holding on to each other. It feels kind of like a big “fuck you” to the world; the man who was never supposed to have anything like this ever again with the girl who was raised to be a lamb for the slaughter.
Things weren’t fixed. They probably never would be. There would always be the what-ifs and the maybes, the uncertainty whether they did the right thing or not. Joel would find that every infected he looked at brought up an unwavering amount of guilt. Ellie would find that every click she heard caused her scarred bite to shoot pain up her arm. But at least they had each other. At least they were broken together. At least they were guilty together.
And although they were selfish, they did that together, too.