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Ellie didn’t stop. She didn’t stop to think about how impossible the task of moving him would be. She didn’t stop to think about what to do once she found shelter. And she certainly didn’t stop to think about what she would do if Joel didn’t make it. From the moment she started moving after he fell off the horse she didn’t stop, she couldn’t.
She was painfully aware of each minute that continued to slip past as she struggled to get Joel inside. He was still bleeding and shivering a terrifying amount and barely managed to keep himself upright even with her shouldering as much of his weight as she could. She didn’t stop pushing until he was close enough to collapse onto the mattress. Well, mostly. She heaved his legs onto it, one after the other, stirring up a cloud of dust.
Her mind was racing and so was she, the knowledge that each passing moment brought death one step closer was a constant thrum in the back of her mind. She pushed it away, it wasn’t happening, wasn’t even an option. She swept the room for supplies, working warmth back into her hands as she went. The effort of driving Joel to move had been enough to keep her core warm but not her extremities; her hands were numb with cold.
Stashed in a corner cabinet, she found a stack of dusty old towels. In the space of a breath she was back at Joel’s side, knees cracking against the floor in her haste. The first towel she refolded haphazardly and tucked beneath his head. A flick of her knife and a quick rip split another towel in two. She lifted his blood soaked shirt and pressed the towel down in a frantic wad to staunch the bleeding.
Joel gasped and his body went rigid beneath her hands. His hand clamped down like a vice on her arm and sent a tremor of fear through her.
She winced against the pain of his grip. “Ahh-fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.”
His grip twitched off her arm and onto her jacket, pulling against the pain. His body shook from the effort he put into containing it and still a low strangled moan of pain escaped him.
“Come on, you gotta help me. Come on,” she said, wiping at the blood and keeping the pressure up.
“Leave.”
His voice was thin and low and she wasn’t sure she heard him correctly so she chose to ignore it. He must have hit his head when he fell off the horse if he really thought she would just leave him here. The stubborn idiot probably thought he deserved it; self-righteous dick.
“Leave,” he repeated.
“Shut up, Joel.”
“Take the gun-”
“ Joel, shut the fuck up! ”
He grabbed her roughly by the collar and pulled her face close to his. She could see his lip shiver from the cold.
“Go - you go,” he said. “You go north. You go to Tommy.” And he gave her a little nod, as if that was the end of it.
She looked him straight in the eye with all the defiance she could muster and thought she might tell him precisely where his stupid suggestion should go. He still thought she was better off without him but he had given her a choice and she chose him. He didn’t get to back out now just because he got hurt, he didn’t get to use this as an excuse to abandon her.
“You go.” He repeated the order and pushed her away as hard as he could manage.
She landed hard on the concrete floor and the pang of hurt that echoed through her wasn’t entirely from the impact. Some part of her recognized that the amount of force he’d shoved her with was a good thing, actually. He wasn’t as close to dead as he seemed determined to think. But that didn’t make the rejection hurt any less.
She leveled her tired gaze with his, certain her expression was already wordlessly articulating her feelings: I’m not leaving you, you dick.
They didn’t have time to argue - he didn’t have time. So she pulled herself up off the floor and reached for his jacket. As she laid it back over him, tucking it in as best she could, she could feel his body shaking through the thick material.
She stood to leave and some aftershock of the impact rattled through her chest and stole her breath. He pushed her away - literally . She hadn’t expected that kind of rejection and it stirred up every single notion of doubt and fear within her. She did her best to stamp it down, but the thoughts came unbidden through her mind: He finally had an excuse to get rid of her, preferring to die alone than spend his final time together. He didn’t care what she wanted. He knew that she had no idea how to save him. He had already written himself off as a lost cause; a failure even in death.
She spun back, poised to lash out at him. How dare you? You said you cared about me. You said I should get a say and you can’t just take that back now. I’m not going to just leave you here to die, how could you ever even ask me to do that? How could you ever think that I actually would? There’s still time. Doesn’t that matter to you? Don’t you want that? Can’t you see that the only way you’ve ever failed me, is right now?
But none of it came out because he was looking at her with regret. He was looking at her like he would never see her again and it was his own damn fault. She could read him a little better now, since Jackson, and she knew - she knew - it was because he was afraid and he was trying to convince her that he wasn’t. He was afraid that he’d failed her for the last time, that if she stuck around it would only be to watch him die. As if forcing her to leave before it happened would make it any easier to bear.
It was a waste of time and energy to argue with him.
She waited a moment more for the resolve to settle between her shoulders. Hoping the silence carried her intent to him: I’m going to save you, you dick, whether you like it or not.
Ellie’s heavy footfalls climbed up the stairs. She was thinking back to a night that still haunted her dreams - thinking about options . But there was only one option then, really, and only one now. Two minutes or two days. She didn’t give up when the outcome was certain, she sure as hell wasn’t going to give up when there was still a chance.
She tore half the house apart looking for anything that might help. She didn’t even know what exactly she was looking for but she pulled open every drawer, every cupboard, every door she found, cleared every shelf. There must be something . When she found the needle and thread, she didn’t stop to consider whether it would work or not. Because it had to.
She thundered back down the stairs at a speed that risked tripping, threw the jacket aside and grabbed Joel’s hand. His eyes slowly, almost reluctantly, met hers. For the briefest moment she thought he might push her away again but something like relief twitched at the corner of his expression. She saw the trail of a tear down the side of his face and didn’t know whether it was mourning or relief. His fingers were so cold as hers laced between them and squeezed.
Their gazes were locked together like a physical tether. She told him, without a single word: I’m here. I’m not leaving. I won’t do it. Even if you push me away again, I’ll just come back. As many times as I have to. I’m staying with you, for as long as I have you. The squeeze of her hand pleaded: Let me do this. Let me help you. Let me not let you go without a fight. Because there’s still a chance here. So do this with me. Don’t just give up. Fight.
His cold, stiff, shaky fingers squeezed back. His own silent answer: Okay. You’re right. You win.
She could have grinned at that but she had a job to do. She squeezed his hand twice more. Reassuring him and shoring up her own resolve. She gave the smallest of nods: I can do this. Trust me, I can do this.
She set to work, lifting his shirt and pulling the thread through the needle. She didn’t stop to think, didn’t tell him to brace himself, didn’t notice the way he lifted a hand for her, hovering just out of reach. A beat after she pushed the needle through she felt his body shudder beneath her hands. Pain came off him in waves. He grabbed her arm with a vice grip that would have bruised had he not fisted it into the sleeve of her jacket instead.
His body went rigid with the effort of stifling his pain. Even with his face turned away, she could see how he was barely keeping it contained. She tried not to look, tried not to see what her work was doing to him with each pass of the needle, lest she lose her nerve. She just kept going.
Stitch after stitch she made progress across the wound, pulling a delicate balance through thread and skin to knit but not rip. Every single breath that Joel took was measured. Her gaze flitted between her uneven stitches and his clenched fist, shaking with pain. The fear was starting to creep up on her, what if this was the wrong thing to do? He hadn’t stopped her, that had to mean something.
Halfway through, a strangled noise finally escaped, as if he physically couldn’t contain it any longer. His body slipped into an extended shudder that forced her to pause and wait for it to pass. When it finally did, she heard him draw a long, shuddering breath.
“Joel?” Her voice was small compared to the sound that had escaped him.
She froze, the fear momentarily petrifying her. Because she didn’t know. She didn’t know if he could take the rest of it. His face was still turned away, eyes clamped shut. Pain lining every inch of his features. But he nudged her arm where he still gripped her jacket with white knuckles. Once. Then twice.
Keep going.
She jumped back into action, blocking out the whispers of doubt as best she could. Her focus closed in on the remaining stretch of wound left to close. Maneuvering the needle with more efficiency now. She couldn’t make it hurt any less but she could make it end a little bit sooner.
Three more stitches.
Another agonized noise escaped his lips.
“I know, I know, I know,” she said. “Almost there.”
Two more stitches.
Another cry crawled down her spine and turned her stomach.
“Almost there, almost there, last one, last one, last one,” she kept repeating, partially for his sake but also for her own. “Okay, done. It’s done. It’s done.”
She glanced over at him while her fingers deftly tied and cut the excess thread off. He was several shades paler than when she started and still clenched against the lingering pain.
“Joel?” she said.
She replaced the towel over the wound and pulled his shirt back down. The echo of pain was slow to leave his body, draining first from his grip on her coat and lingering longest in the creases of his brow. His eyes were still closed, breathing still shallow. Fear crawled up her ribcage, bleeding air from her lungs.
“Joel,” she said again.
Had it been a mistake? Had her reckless stitches caused more harm than good? That thought hadn’t even occurred to her before starting; that this might actually make things worse. It crashed down on her now. Something about the body only being able to take so much before it just shut down.
She grabbed the hand still on her jacket and squeezed. Willing him to give her anything, even the smallest sign that he was still there, that he was still fighting. But nothing came. He was breathing but otherwise unresponsive. His hand was so cold, too cold. And he was shivering. More blankets. The next step was more blankets. Because fuck if he was going to freeze to death after everything else that could have killed him. She pulled his jacket back over him, tucking his limp arm neatly underneath.
Ellie searched the basement but found nothing beyond a few more old rags. So she ran upstairs again, casting a look back as she climbed, that irrational fear crawling up again, whispering doubt into her ear that she would come back to find him gone. So she tore through the main level of the house again before climbing up another set of stairs to find the bedrooms. Two salvageable blankets in the corner of the last closet.
She slid unceremoniously to the floor beside Joel once more and pulled one blanket and then the other over him. Gently tucking each in around him up to his chin.
She used one of the discarded towels to wipe the sweat from his brow. As she gently dabbed, his eyes fluttered open, unfocused and glazed with pain. The sight coupled with the knowledge that she had no way to ease it, twisted her stomach. She found herself wishing, not for the first time, that she had actually paid a bit better attention during classes.
She sat back on her heels, falling still for the moment and really seeing Joel. Fear for his life had been thrumming in the background since she first saw the baseball bat protruding from his stomach. Panic had swelled when he fell from the horse, but moving, taking action had kept it at bay. Now she was still again, having done all she could think of for the moment. And she was sinking further and further into the reality of this situation. The fear filled her lungs; Joel was in bad fucking shape, and she couldn’t do anything but wait and see.
Her hand shot out before the thought had fully formed, resting on his chest. His heartbeat was steady beneath her palm, if a little quick. His chest rose and fell evenly. It was soothing to tangible feel the life within him. She knew he wasn’t as invincible as she had built him up to be in her mind but he had survived this long. If he was awake she might have cracked a joke about how he was too stubborn to die from a stupid little splinter. She tucked the idea away to pull out later, when he woke up.
She moved her hand to find his beneath the blankets and laced her fingers with his again. The silence echoed around her, a mocking taunt of her earlier pleas for him to be quiet. Fear locked her voice in her throat so she squeezed his hand gently, desperately hoping for any indication that he was still with her - that he hadn’t given up.
One breath. Two.
Hold on. Hold on for me.
His fingers twitched and her heartbeat quickened. She searched his face for a sliver of his eyes or twitch of his lips but found nothing. Just when the hope was beginning to seep from her chest, his fingers squeezed back. The small pressure remained long enough that it must have been intentional.
Still here, that squeeze said, still fighting.
She let loose a small sigh of relief and gave herself a few minutes to just sit. There were other things that she needed to do, for the horse, for herself, for their protection. But she couldn’t move, not yet.
For now, for this moment, she just held onto him like his life depended on it. Hoping that if she held on tight enough, he would too.