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Tess finally spots her, trudging through the snow with nothing but the clothes on her back.
She stands out in the snow, a blur of brown in the midst of the stark white, and Tess is so unbelievably glad to see her. For a moment, it distracts from the dull burning of the slowly-healing wound on her stomach - seeing her, knowing that she isn’t dead. She’s far away but Tess would recognise her anywhere.
(After taking a man’s kneecap off, killing him and then killing his friend, saying she’s glad to see her is a fucking understatement).
Sure, maybe caring this much will kill her one day. But seeing Ellie dragging her feet through the snow, her hair a mess and her winter coat missing, sets off an instinct in her - and whatever it is has her immediately rushing over, caution blown to the wind.
I missed you, her mind screams, running at a million miles an hour. I missed you, I’m so glad you’re alive, I’m sorry, baby, I’m so, so sorry-
She reaches out, puts a hand on Ellie’s shoulder to let her know she’s there, expecting her to be relieved. To be glad Tess is alive and that she doesn’t have to try and find her again, that they can just hurry up and leave this awful place-
What she’s not expecting is for Ellie to scream out no, to push her away and hit at her chest and arms with loose, frantic fists. She doesn’t expect Ellie to lurch backwards, so strongly that Tess nearly loses both her grip and her balance.
“Get off of me!” She shrieks, and Tess hasn’t ever heard her sound like that - not when they were being chased by infected, not even when she was bitten for the second time.
“It’s me,” Tess manages out, almost frozen with shock as Ellie continues to try and fight her.
“It’s me,” she says, again and again, running her thumbs over the hair falling by her ears, cupping her cheeks in her hands because this is her girl, her girl shaken beyond belief and nothing she’s doing is helping. This is Tess’ girl and she doesn’t recognise her.
“It’s me,” she says like a mantra, hoping it reaches through her ears where she can actually register, so she can perceive that Tess isn’t a threat, that she won’t hurt her. But, in a terrifying and horrifically familiar sort of way, Tess recognises the fear in her eyes. Something cornered and vulnerable and scared.
Sure, the outbreak changed a lot in the world. But even after cordyceps and all of the destruction and carnage that followed, some of the men still continued to be fucking men.
Ellie is fourteen years old. Ellie is fourteen years old and Tess recognizes that terror like a knife in her stomach; because Tess is taller and stronger than she is and Ellie doesn’t know that it’s her, just that she’s a person and therefore she’s a threat. The punches aimed at her chest are weak and uncoordinated but there’s something so frightened packed into each one that it breaks her heart; Ellie doesn’t even know what’s happening, just that she needs to fight, that somebody’s out to get her.
In an odd sort of way, the blood on the girl’s face brings comfort. Tess knows it isn’t hers, knows it from the years of bloodshed and injury the apocalypse has brought that the way it’s splattered across her skin hasn’t come from any of her own wounds - it’s come from somebody else’s. It settles relief into her bones knowing that whoever has rendered Ellie like this is at the very least injured. Hopefully dead.
“...Look. Look, It’s me,” Tess murmurs, hoping that the gentleness of her hands can bring reassurance, familiarity. Ellie screams in a way no fourteen-year-old should ever have to scream.
It’s a different type of fear. One Tess is all too familiar with.
She holds Ellie facing her, keeps her hands on her shoulders and comfortingly moves her thumbs, wondering if she can feel it through her jacket. It’s me, she tries to show without quick movements or loudness, without anything that could scare her even more. It’s me, and I’m not going to hurt you. Ever.
When she reaches up to softly tuck some of Ellie’s hair behind her ear, that’s when her panic starts to subside.
Despite the weeks of unforgiving snow almost freezing their fingers off every day, Tess touches her cheek with warmth, with tenderness. Her ponytail is falling loose and Tess moves some of the stray hairs out of her face, lightly grazing her skin as she does, and it’s then that the fear in Ellie’s eyes slowly bleeds out into recognition.
“Hey,” she says softly, brushing calloused thumbs over her cheeks, tinged pink from the cold. Blood - somebody else’s blood - smears onto her fingers, but she just holds her face in her palms like she’s the world, and nobody will ever hurt her again. “It’s okay.”
It’s not okay. It’s not okay, and both Tess and Ellie know that more than anyone.
“He-” Ellie chokes out her words, barely managing a syllable through her heavy gasps. Tess can only stand with her, can only hold her, and it’s unfair on an otherworldly level that she can’t go back in time and erase the events that led up to this.
She never should’ve been so careless as to let herself get injured. She never should’ve let Ellie take her, she should’ve struggled harder to get her somewhere safe and only her. She should’ve been with Ellie at all times, never should’ve let her try to find medicine, never should’ve let the girl out of her sight and allowed something like this to happen to her.
Fucking apocalypse, she thinks. Maybe time travel would’ve been invented by now if cordyceps didn’t fuck everything over.
“He- he tried to…”
She doesn’t finish, instead collapsing into Tess’ shoulder, her body trembling.
If Tess wasn’t preoccupied with comforting her, she’d be screaming bloody murder and charging straight back into that town with nothing but a gun and enough anger to raze the entire place to the ground.
She’s all too aware that Ellie’s shaking isn’t because of the cold. She runs one hand up and down her back and settles the other in her hair, cradling her close and resting her own head atop Ellie’s.
“It’s okay,” Tess says in a murmur, trying to soothe with words that she knows aren’t enough. “It’s okay, baby girl.”
As she breathes in her hair, simply happy to have her back, she’s struck by how small she is. Tess is easily at least a head taller than her, judging by how effortlessly she can rest her chin on the crown of her hair, and while Ellie is by no means weak- she’s still so young. Her hair is tangled and messy and smells of blood and burnt ash and she’s so, so young.
She’s hit with a sudden bout of hatred. Not for Ellie, of course, not for Ellie - but who would do this? Who would hurt somebody like this? Tess had refused to even give her a gun at first, thinking she was far too young for something so brutal - both her and Joel had been steadfast in not giving her a weapon and they’d only begrudgingly let her keep her pocket knife.
The memory of Ellie joking that she’d just throw her fucking sandwich at them flashes through Tess’ mind and the hot feeling of anger sinks right through her body again - Tess was so sure that she wouldn’t need a gun. She wouldn’t need to defend herself from infected because Tess was meant to protect her-
But Tess wasn’t there. And it wasn’t infected that had hurt Ellie.
The longer the apocalypse went on, the more Tess had been convinced that humans were all fucking garbage. Because when an entire community is in need, starving, vulnerable - why would somebody hurt Ellie?
Ellie, who’s fourteen years old. Ellie, who’s obsessed with that stupid joke book and is fascinated by the smallest things outside. Ellie, who can’t whistle and hates even the smell of coffee. Ellie, who’s about as tall as her shoulder.
I’ll kill him, she thinks with a vengeance that hasn’t been this bitter in years. I’ll kill him, I’ll kill him, I’ll kill him.
Ellie’s arms wrap around her, holding her back in turn and clinging onto any bit of comfort she can receive. Tess looks up to the sky as her hand strokes through her hair and asks, begs, pleads that she’ll be okay.
Tess had stopped believing in anything and everything after the outbreak started. After her husband. After her son. After Joel. After time proved, over and over again, that there was nothing for her and there never would be-
But if there was anything out there, it would be far too cruel to do something so evil to a girl so young. Tess doesn’t believe in anything and she’s completely dead-set on that now, as she holds Ellie in her arms and prays that she’ll be okay.
Pray to fucking who? Tess doesn’t know.
If something like this could happen to Ellie, there’s nobody out there. She’s all too sure of it.
Tess had held her little boy like this. After he’d had a nightmare or when he was up all night plagued by a fever or right after they caught news of the outbreak. Tess had held her little boy like this and, for years and years and years, there was an empty space between her arms, something that couldn’t be filled by anything but her son.
Sometimes back in the QZ, she’d clutch one of her pillows close to her chest at night and cry for him, for the absence of him. She’d look out of the window, the night cold and heartless outside, and curl around the fabric with shaking sobs - because she could never hold her baby like that again. Could never again take care of somebody so small without feeling like she was cheating him, replacing him.
Joel would always pretend not to notice. It was one of life’s only mercies.
But now, stood amidst the trees and the snow, it doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t make her sick to her stomach, the prospect of comforting another child. Because it’s Ellie, and she knows that - had her son lived to be here - he would have comforted her, too.
Maybe he would’ve hated that his mother was a smuggler. Maybe he would’ve resented that she’s killed people. But she hugs Ellie close to her and she fits perfectly in that empty void and she knows that taking care of her is right in all senses of the word.
Tess coaxes Ellie’s head to rest on her shoulder, tightening her arms around her still-trembling frame, and breathes. Ellie’s safe now. Ellie’s terrified and miserable but Tess has her and she’s never going to let anything like that happen ever again.
If whoever did this to Ellie isn’t already dead, she’ll kill him. She’ll kill him a thousand times over.
Is he gone? Is he dead? She wants to ask as she pulls back with reluctance. There isn’t a single bone in her body that wants to stop holding Ellie but they can’t stay here, not with a trail of bodies and blood left behind them. They can’t stay in this town and Tess has a sinking feeling that Ellie wants- needs to get out of here and never come back.
I’d kill him for you, she wants to say. I’d kill anyone who dared hurt you like that. I’d rip them to fucking pieces.
But Tess doesn’t say any of that.
Ellie doesn’t need any more violence, not after her whole life has been poisoned by it. Even though Tess is sure she’d appreciate it, knowing that somebody wanted to protect her - it’s not what she needs. Especially not now.
Tess softly kisses her temple where she stands, and offers comfort instead of cruelty.
Like it’s muscle memory, she finds herself taking her jacket off and wrapping it around Ellie without a thought. The cold bites at her arms but the thought isn’t even in her mind for more than a fraction of a second; she’s focused on Ellie, and Ellie alone. She’s focused on the still terrified girl in front of her, draping her coat over her shoulders like the material can protect her from the horrors of the world.
She looks her in the eyes, squeezing her shoulders with no real force.
Let’s go, she says without words. Let’s leave and never come back.
Ellie nods. Tess leads her away from the fire and the blood with an arm around her shoulder, keeping her upright and steady but more than anything, safe.